Found in the Street Read online

  Tell him now, Jack thought, as if it would break his heart? “Cancer? Of the what?”

  She closed the door. “Stomach. Well, he thinks so. His doctor in Philadelphia—”

  “Isn’t it more likely an ulcer?”

  Natalia gave one of her short laughs. “You’d think, with his nerves. And he’s got some bleeding.—He mentioned it a couple of months ago. Pains. The doctor in Philadelphia wanted him to see a specialist here, so he did, this afternoon. Louis rode up with me.

  “Oh.—Well, he can’t know anything today, can he? Already?”

  “Mommy!” On the other side of the door, Amelia wanted attention.

  “He said they did some kind of scraping today. Sounds awful.” Natalia winced, as if she were enduring it. She looked Jack suddenly in the eyes. “He’s awfully brave about it.”

  That was something, Jack supposed. “I can understand that you want to talk with him.—Shall I pick up something for dinner while I’m out? Or we go out?”

  “Let’s have something here.”

  A couple of minutes later, Jack was down on the street, walking east toward Bleecker, turning right when he came to it, not left as he usually did. The stores he usually went to lay to the left. It was only just past 5, and it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t get back until 7. The brisk walking felt so good, he began to trot. In no time he was at Washington Square, where he slowed to an ordinary pace. Kids on bikes rolled up the gray cement hill, and down. It was a miniature hill, in proportion to what Manhattan could afford by way of juvenile recreation, Jack supposed, hardly four feet high and thirty feet in diameter, but the small fry loved it.

  Depression dogged him now like a dark figure that he couldn’t shake, that ran as fast as he. It was one of those moments, those periods of hours sometimes, when he felt that he and Natalia weren’t really together and didn’t belong together, and that the slightest jolt could sever them forever. The idea shattered Jack, because he felt that Natalia was the only woman he would ever be in love with, ever love. He could imagine being a little in love with some other girl or woman, even marrying her—though that was not a happy thought—knowing that she would be second best, nothing to compare with Natalia.

  Or was he simply torturing himself? Weren’t most marriages made up of anxiety as well as contentment? Was he different, or like all the rest, young or middle-aged, fat or skinny, rich or poor?

  Ah, rich. His family wasn’t as rich as Natalia’s and the Hamiltons, that was for sure, but his father was a pretty close second. Only Natalia’s mother might measure every last half million to make a comparison, and Natalia didn’t give much of a damn. But Jack was sure she wouldn’t have married, or maybe even let herself get pregnant by someone who was broke. That was true, much as she loved artists, and a lot of good artists were broke at the start of their careers, maybe at the end too. At any rate, Jack’s family background, his schools, his social circle had matched Natalia’s well enough. And then, no sooner had Jack finished Princeton, his majors having been English and Fine Arts, than he had made his third or fourth Grand Tour, this time on his own, and had ended up in a Yugoslav jail with two crummy pals for having been caught with heroin. There Jack had languished and scratched lice for four months, while his uncle Roger, a warmer soul than Jack’s father Charles, had pulled every string he had in Washington to secure Jack’s release. Jack’s two chums had not been so lucky. They had also been sentenced to three years, and for all Jack knew, had served it. That was a dim and fuzzy past, even the faces of the other two fellows had become a blur of unshavenness, of silly or cocky smiles. He had met them somewhere in Austria, though they were Americans. Easy money they had said, carrying the stuff, and they would be paid at both destinations, more at the American end, of course, once they got to Canada, then America.

  The awful thing, Jack realized as he walked downtown on Mercer Street now, bringing all shame down upon himself, was that he had begun sniffing and injecting too with his Austria-met pals. It had all been fun, hitchhiking, scanning maps, sleeping in the woods sometimes. Could have been healthy, Jack realized. Instead, he had behaved like a spoilt child, in a quiet way going wild, being uncivilized just when he had, he remembered, fancied that he was being more civilized, more real than ever before. His father had not let him forget that misadventure. And Jack had a scar like a dent about an inch long on the left side of his forehead up near the hairline, not from a blow struck by the Yugoslav police, but from bumping into a doorjamb on his first day in prison. His head hadn’t been clear that day. Lest you forget, Jack often thought when he noticed the scar in a mirror. He meant, lest you forget you were once behaving like an asshole, there is the scar to remind you, and to remind you not to let it happen again. In a way, Jack’s prison stint of four months had continued in his parents’ house, his mother being cheerful and inclined to forgive, but his father ruled the roost. Jack had been subjected to a couple of lectures from his father, in private, and a promised twenty thousand dollars to start him off in New York as a freelance journalist or artist, or until he found a job in those two fields, had somehow been forgotten. Jack’s brother Christopher’s stock had risen, Jack felt, just because his father had set all his hopes on Christopher then. Christopher, three years younger than Jack, had fallen into line and joined his father’s company after Harvard.

  And then just before he had flown the nest or the coop to try his luck in New York, Jack had met Natalia at a party that Jack’s mother had insisted that he go to, a black-tie affair, something to do with a charity. This had been at someone’s house near Trenton. Jack’s family had had a summer house near Trenton then, and Jack had come east with them. Out of the blue, out of the dulness, out of the shame that still haunted Jack, there had been Natalia, making a funny remark to him in her low, seductive voice as they stood with champagne glasses in some big room before the buffet supper began. Jack believed that he had fallen in love at first sight. There was such a thing, he was sure, and he had fallen in love at once with her voice. He had lost her for half an hour, found her again, and asked for her telephone number. I’ve got a car, he had wanted to say. I’ve got a car, Natalia had said. Let’s clear out. Words that stuck in his memory.

  How was it that he had said all the right things that night? He didn’t recollect that he had been especially brilliant. They had laughed a lot, and on his part it had been due to repressed excitement. He had met the girl of his life. And wonderfully, as they said in the old songs, she had liked him. But he knew why, he was enough of a breakaway for her, and yet not too much. It might have been just an affair, but she had become pregnant. And Jack knew now, if he hadn’t been sure then, that Natalia would have had an abortion if she hadn’t wanted the child and by him. Her family had put up no opposition, because after all Jack came from the right stuff, a decent family with some money in the background, even if he hadn’t yet found a career, and maybe he’d come to his senses and drop his art work and join one of his father’s companies that made herbicides and pharmaceuticals.

  Jack went into a coffee shop. He didn’t know or care where he was, but he thought he was on the upper part of Greene Street. He ordered a coffee, white.

  And now there was Louis in a crise. Cancer. Maybe. He’s awfully brave about it, Natalia had said with a rare but fitting earnestness, Jack thought, considering that cancer was an earnest subject.

  Now there was a bit of slumming for you! Natalia’s best friend, her soulmate, from the Philadelphia equivalent of the old Lower East Side. Wannfeld wasn’t quite his name, but the result of a slight change from some other name, Jack seemed to remember that Louis was half-Jewish. Louis didn’t even read a lot of books, not the kind Natalia read anyway. Yet he was persona quite grata at Lily’s, Natalia’s mother’s, house, even if he turned up with his boyfriend Bob Campbell. Was that because Louis had never presented a marital danger when Natalia had been twenty or so? Or because Lily—No, Lily didn’t have to put on the tolerance or the broad-minded act. She wasn’t that snobbish. Loui
s was quiet, almost self-effacing, and his manner was graceful, Jack had to admit, gentlemanly. The most formal company didn’t daunt Louis, and he never lost his cool.

  Jack drained his cup and pushed it back, annoyed with himself for going over the same old ground. What harm was Louis doing to him? None, except that he took an unconscionable amount of Natalia’s time. But wasn’t that all to the good? It left Jack with more time to work, and maybe it kept Natalia from being bored with him. He had been here before, too.

  He paid, and left. Time to head back, time to keep an eye out for something interesting to bring home for dinner, maybe something Chinese, if he could find a take-away place. Amelia was always happy with pizza, but her parents could get tired of it. Jack ran into the unexpected, a Greek take-away, bought some oily boxes and bags, and walked on westward, feeling more cheerful. There was his work ahead, and the pleasant possibility of a contract for Joel and himself for Half-Understood Dreams, if his drawings could clinch it. A couple of publishers were interested, but wanted to see the illustrations to go with it. When Jack looked back on his total output, he felt he could have done better if he’d tried harder, as the prep school notes put it sometimes. His father, after the Yugoslav episode, had never set up the trust he had promised on Jack’s finishing university, and Jack had not brought the subject up. The modest income from the trust would have given him enough to live on in New York and to study a few hours a week at the Art Students League, as well as to try his hand at journalism and drawing. Uncle Roger, by contrast, had gambled on him and staked him in New York with a few solid thousands, which Uncle Roger said was a gift. His father didn’t approve of Jack’s chosen profession or professions, but had approved of Jack’s marriage. Predictable. In the last couple of years, Jack had spent more time on his art work than on journalism, which had been the occasional travel piece or kitchen gadget stuff or interior decorating reportage. Drawing was more fun, and more satisfying. Jack remembered with a warm pang of gratitude, that Uncle Roger had put up the money too for classes at the Art Students League, when Amelia had been a baby.

  When Natalia opened the door to his knock, Jack felt suddenly happy and very lucky. The apartment looked lovely. What had Natalia done to it in his absence? The white table was set. Amelia was sprawled on the floor in front of the TV, which was on not too loudly. In the kitchen Natalia raved over his purchases as if he were a hunter returned with something rare and difficult to bag.

  “Your cheeks’re all pink,” she remarked as she sampled a black olive.

  He put his arms around her, held her tight with his eyes shut, and breathed in her fragrance. Louis would never hold her like this, nor would he want to. Why did he doubt, Jack wondered, doubt Natalia, sometimes the wonder of his own daughter, the reality of everything? Maybe it was normal to doubt, even healthy, even wise? When would he ever come to any conclusion about that?

  Natalia was saying that she’d get the supper on the table, and of course there was time for him to take a shower. And tonight they’d fall asleep in the same bed, Jack thought, and for an uncountable number of nights to come.

  5

  At a little past 4 in the morning, Ralph Linderman went into the office of the garage where he worked, and without thinking pulled open a table drawer where lay two guns, one in a holster and on a belt. Ralph did not carry a gun on duty, but he was to know where the gun or guns were when he arrived, and when he left.

  “Takin’ off, hey Ralph?” said Joey Fischer, a lanky young man in mechanic’s coverall who happened to be in the office just then.

  “What else? What’s new?” Ralph said as if he didn’t expect an answer. He glanced at his wristwatch, then wrote the time and signed his name in a ledger on the desk. “No sign—”

  An ambulance screamed by just then beyond the little glass-walled office on West Forty-eighth Street. A passing pedestrian turned to gawk after the ambulance, and collided with another man walking in the opposite direction. Then a car’s bright lights swept Joey’s young face and the office as a big car entered the garage.

  “No sign of Conlan I was about to say,” Ralph went on. Conlan, the next security guard on duty, was supposed to take over at 4.

  “Ah, he’ll turn up in a minute,” said Joey, and went out of the office into the semi-darkness of the garage to take care of the car that had come in, show the fellow where to park.

  Now if somebody wanted to do a heist on Midtown-Parking, any time before Conlan came on, now was the time, Ralph thought. Conlan to Ralph was an example of what not to be, as a security guard. The old guy must be sixty-four if he was a day, and he’d really let himself go, dragging around and looking as if it would take him five minutes to draw a gun if he had to, and always ten or fifteen minutes late. The least a man could do, Ralph thought, was haul himself out of bed or wherever in good time, extra time, to make it to a job he was being paid for. Now, for instance, while Joey Fischer was dealing with this new customer who might be a crook himself, the office was unlocked and theoretically unmanned, except that he himself stood here, and a gun was within reach. You never knew who was passing by on the sidewalk just ten feet away outside, day or night, you never knew. Drug addicts needed their fix, needed dough, at any hour of the day or night. Ralph eyed the passersby critically, not really expecting any trouble, but intending to wait until Conlan got here. Joey returned with one end of the card he had given to the man who had just come in, and stuck it on a board.

  “Still here?” Joey said, turning, lighting a cigarette.

  “Not for long,” said Ralph, having just seen Frank Conlan crossing the street from the uptown direction. “Here he comes. G’night, Joey.” Ralph managed a rare smile. Joey Fischer was a decent young fellow, honest and hard-working, recently married too. “Morning, Mr Conlan.”

  “Hell-o-o,” said Conlan breezily. “Little late, I know. I had a bitch of a wait for my bus this morning. How you, Joey?”

  “Oh, just perky,” said Joey with a smile at Ralph.

  Ralph nodded a good-bye to Joey and left. He glanced at the sky which showed no promise of dawn, but would by the time he got down to Sheridan Square on the bus. He loved the very early mornings like this, walking God who was always so glad to see him after eight hours or so, breathing in the air that was a lot less polluted at 5 a.m. than it would be at 9 a.m., for instance. Be grateful for small things, Ralph thought.

  He had got off the Seventh Avenue bus at Sheridan Square and taken a few steps into Christopher Street, when a yelp of drunken voices rent the air. Ralph saw them, three or four fellows and a couple of girls on the other side of Christopher, heading eastward, staggering, laughing, shoving one another. They’d been up all night, of course, in one of those sordid dens in Christopher Street, probably. Glancing at the group when they were just opposite him, Ralph recognized Elsie, and he felt a shock, a bolt of pain, as if she were his own daughter, or his precious ward at any rate.

  “Ah-h—hah-ha!” That was her laugh as she collapsed backward, sank into the arms of a tall fellow behind her.

  “Hey, Billy-o, where these girls live?” shouted a rowdy masculine voice.

  More laughter. Babble.

  Ralph had stopped dead. Appalled. He stared at the disappearing group as if he could annihilate them with his eyes—all except Elsie, of course. If only he had the guts to run after her! But he’d be mauled by the fellows. They’d shove him against a building and knock him out as soon as look at him. No, that wasn’t the way. Careful counseling was the way to do it, not overdoing it, of course, but—Ralph felt suddenly helpless, hopeless. A swift sadness filled him, stilling almost his heart.

  Ridiculous! He forced himself to walk on. He barely knew Elsie. He knew she thought he was silly, old-fashioned, maybe cracked. He had to put up with that, that was all. He might save Elsie yet, keep her from going down the drain, getting hooked on drugs, getting into casual prostitution by way of picking up extra money. She was worth trying to save, he told himself. Think about it. Think about the next m
ove.

  Well, God was waiting for him. And there was a hint of daylight in the sky now. And on Grove Street lived that nice young man who had been so happy to get his wallet back! That incident made Ralph feel happy every time he recalled it. He’d told Elsie about it, by way of illustrating what human beings could do for one another, if they wanted to live in a decent world. Elsie had looked at him open-mouthed for a few seconds. But finally, she had nodded, he remembered, as she wiped the counter in front of him. She was working at a place down on Seventh Avenue now, a snack bar. At twenty, what could she know about life, especially since she’d come just a few months ago from some tiny town in upstate New York? What was happening to her tonight? Where would she spend the night or what was left of it? Horrid to think about, horrid!

  Ralph was now climbing the last of his four flights, and he already heard God’s eager little yips, gasps of expectation as he pranced behind the door. Ralph had trained him, warned him firmly not to bark at the sound of his footsteps, whatever the hour.

  “Hello, boy, hello, Goddy!” Ralph whispered, petting the leaping dog, but trying to calm him too. Ralph got the dog’s leash from a hook.

  Then they were down on the street, God peeing instantly against the side of a house. Ralph heard the clunk of a beer barrel hitting the sidewalk, out of sight around the corner. On 7th Avenue the swish and hum of traffic was already starting. After a snack, Ralph thought, he’d have a shower and go to bed with the Times—yesterday’s which he hadn’t finished—and have a snooze for as long as he liked, maybe till 1 p.m., and then he’d walk down to the Leroy Street Public Library and change his books.

  Ralph turned west into Morton Street, walking at God’s pace, which was invariably slow because of his sniffing at everything. Ralph often took this route in the mornings, turning right into Bedford Street, crossing Commerce with its quiet and pretty housefronts, going on to Grove and turning right again at Bleecker. On Bedford was old P.S. 3, with heavy wire over its lower windows for protection against vandalism and flying objects, while a stone slab above the lower windows bore the statement in bold letters: CHILDHOOD SHOWS THE MAN. A truer word was never said, or chiseled, Ralph thought, and he liked to see it. A garbage can clattered somewhere. The streetlights had shut off. Ralph liked to look also at the few lighted windows in the private dwellings along Bedford, looking yellowish behind thin curtains, and wonder why people might be up so early—jobs, sickness, insomnia? A jogger was up and out already, running toward Ralph on the other side of Bedford, wearing a blue track suit with a white stripe down the pants, sneakers. On closer look, Ralph saw that the runner was Sutherland, John Sutherland, whose wallet he had returned.