“Well, so long,” the man says.
“Offer to talk’s still open you know,” I say.
“What for? I don’t buy anyone drinks.”
“Now that you asked, I’m not sure. No place to go but home right now I suppose, not that a lot of people wouldn’t be happy with just that. But because I haven’t another pair of these”—putting them in their case—“I can’t really read and don’t feel”—putting the case into my coat pocket—“like going to bed yet and — oh shoot,” my fingers going through a soggy part of the napkin in my pocket, “I still have the pâté,” and I take out the napkin, lick my fingers where they touched it—“Excuse me a second”—don’t see a garbage can around, thinking of throwing it into the street, wrap the pâté up tight in the napkin and put it back into my pocket—“but maybe I will when I get home.”
“What was that in your hand?”
“Some pâté inside from a party.”
“That napkin? Give it here.”
I do. He throws it into the street. Pâté stays inside.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” I get it out of the street.
“What are you doing? This is Pig Avenue. Some of my closest associates are garbagemen and the ones who work this route all tell me that. Pig Avenue we’re standing on, and that at the corner going into it is Pig Street.”
“I don’t like contributing to the mess, what can I say?”
“Then give it back. I don’t mind contributing. Everyone else is a pig, why not us?”
“If I gave it back I’d still be—”
“Then put it in your pocket and squash it without knowing it and send your coat to the cleaners for ten bucks and still not get out the stain.”
“I’ll find a garbage can one of these nights.”
“Good for you. But bed? You were saying something before about bed? You’re still too young to climb into one alone, or young enough after you got old enough to go to bed alone. Get yourself a chickie for the night or what’s considered life. I’ve had them — plenty, too many, but you don’t have to believe that and presumably won’t. But five wives and a child from each of them, none of whom — wives or kids — want to see their boo-boozing me-thuselahing ex-husband and pop, if you’ll allow me such verbal abuse, for I’m obviously with a very cultured man. And now I’m too old to remember what I was saying to you, so I’m finding a cop and going back with him to retrieve my lawful bar seat and maybe create a trifle more excitement in that godawful boring place,” and starts downtown again. He stops at the corner, hand holding the hat to his head, waits for some cars to pass or light to change. Light changes and cars stop at the crosswalk but he goes down the sidestreet and once past the corner building is out of sight.
“Out of my way, you dumb humpky,” I hear him say. “I’ve had a tough enough night for one drunk and also don’t have a cent to my name.”
Derelict comes out of the sidestreet looking back at what I assume is the man. Sees me and limps over. Has shoes. “Say you—”
“No really, wish I could help, have a good night,” turning my back on him.
“Same to you and God bless you,” and I say to him “Same to you and God bless you too,” and go, uptown, thinking I had that last guy wrong all right and that I haven’t said God bless you to anyone for many years except occasionally when someone sneezed, when in front of me I’d say a couple of blocks away there’s this metal and glass crash: two cars, two trucks and a car or something like that, though I doubt a motorcycle or bike was in the crash because of the type of loud tire shrieks and all that shattered glass, and right after I hear it I throw my arms up to my eyes and spin around shoulder slightly raised so with my arms it also protects my face and see the panhandler looking as if oblivious to the noise stopping a woman who’s peering past me to where the sound of the crash was and maybe what she now sees: a car aflame, smoke or human torch in the street, turns to him as if she didn’t see anything unordinary and unlatches her shoulder bag. I turn around and don’t see or hear anything but what I’d think would be normal vehicular traffic for this weather, time and day, though one person is leaning out of a second-story window in the direction of the crash.
“What was that crash?” the woman says.
“Something smashed, dear?” he says. “The ears. They don’t hear from anywheres faraway.” His hand’s out. She puts in it a pamphlet from her shoulder bag and says “Do you mind if I speak frankly, sir?”
“Speak the way you please, dear. I’m a scandal, I’m a dungheap.”
“Not whatsoever. But in this small tract are the world’s wisest and most helpful words—”
“That’s so, dear?” turning it around and over several times, walking away reading it and saying while his finger jabs the air “Mat, flap, trap, frat, aspeduty three, crap tract four, roger, roger.” She sees me looking, I turn thinking “That’s so” for “That’s true” might be better I think, in a few seconds she’s behind me saying “Pardon me, sir, but may I interest you in a timely article on why we’re here eternally and what we’ve to expect?”
“Sure, if just for a minute, but you get around, right, so you’ve any idea why there are so many derelicts, panhandlers and crazies on the street tonight?”
“I believe it’s every day; they’ve let them all out. But if you’re concerned about them, you’ll be concerned about this.” She gives me a pamphlet. I look at it, say “I broke my glasses before so I’ll have to get to it later,” fold it to put away, she opens it in my hand and says “I neglected to mention,” and points to the price on the cover. “My eyes again,” and I give her a quarter, she already has out my dime change, I say “Really, I’m sure it’ll go to a good cause,” she says “We’re taught to get what we’re paid for too,” I say “Truth is I can probably use the dime for a call later on,” and put it into my pocket and she says “Good, already you’re rewarded and I am by your having been. But as an added reward to us both, promise you’ll read the cover article which continues on pages nine and twelve. It’s a warning, from God Almighty, and is perfectly written, no zigzaggy ideas, and ministers to all, rich or poor, sick or well. If there are any questions about it or life that trouble you, there’s a telephone hotline which you can use anytime of the day with your dime, or night”—she turns the pamphlet over and points to the number and address—“and this center to come to for a twice-daily meeting of our society and a free hot lunch.”
“That’s very generous, but it seems — what is this word, ‘Brooklyn’?—a little out of my way.”
“If you need a ride, we’ve the Bible bus. Door to door, no fare and always a seat and a very congenial group of passengers aboard and nothing required inside the center but decorum.”
“Thanks again. I’ll think about it, really. Goodnight.” I put the pamphlet into my coat pocket and pull out of the same pocket the notebook and from my pants my pen. It’s just, well, more accurate vernacular and suitable for that section of his poem: “That’s true that the universe or burst goes slow while we trump and rump along so fast, but aren’t we all or almost trying to make up or do for our own undivined lust time? Oh Hasenai, paltry maker of mephitic fishy poems when you would rather be or could like your dada or older breaders who trained you a rather rich unsolipsistic baker of fish-filled bisquits and pungent buns, crucify those last lines,” though I don’t know about the additional rhymed links or any of them in that linkage of lines. Not in the original for sure. Change it. Keep it. Rearrange it. “Thanks you very much,” the woman says to another man she stopped when he let the pamphlet she gave him fall out of his hand, and she picks it up, blows on it and goes. Just think about it then but jot it down now so you don’t forget and send Jun an aerogram asking if all these liberties with his work will be all right. But he’s already said in a recent Christmas card something like “Do your damndest bestest, Misty Dan, and then some and once more again my favoritest friend who isn’t a fabulist or Japanese, and then any way you sayest dost goes, even to the deez and doze. Hey, I play with your linguini also but not too well, so what about that Joe? And here convey big season’s greetings much too early I know, but Christmas has become a temporal event in Japan also and the post lines in the ensuing weeks are the one lines I want to avoid.”