It didn’t matter if people snuck into the building, the theater manager told Frederick One night as On the Waterfront’s final credits rolled. The place was losing money anyway, like all the rest of the neighborhood. Charlie’s Drugstore had closed after twenty-five years; the junior high couldn’t replace its busted windows. The city council simply ignored this part of town. That’s why Mark Jarvis, who loved the south side, had volunteered to provide, free of charge, a series of playful sculptures for the Griffith Park Renovation Project, an attempt by local residents to rejuvenate the neighborhood. He lived nearby in an old auto-repair garage that doubled as his studio. Its walls were covered with nailed-up 2×4s, sheets of rusty metal — fodder for his sculptures — and maps of Paraguay, where he hoped to visit his favorite former lover someday.
He’d found this apartment for Frederick when the marriage with Ruth gave way. In return, Frederick agreed to write a catalog piece for Mark’s upcoming show at the Contemporary Arts Museum.
Yellow fog — mosquito spray released by big white city trucks — hung now in the park’s thick trees, settled on the backs of Mark’s glorious stone butterflies, his bow-tied lizards. Follies, Mark had called them, “useless and fanciful,” defining his own work for Frederick’s preface. “Someday,” he’d added, when Frederick pressed for details, “I want to make something so perfect, so light and airy, it can’t be sullied by language.” Frederick planned a breakfast picnic over there tomorrow morning, to inspect the sculptures in more detail.
He poured himself another drink — only half a glass this time. The phone rang. “There’s no reason,” the caller, a young woman by the sound of her, said. “No reason at all.”
“Excuse me — ”
“I swear, if I don’t get some help, my wrists’ll be ribbons. You hear me? I’ve got the knife right here. I’m not kidding around — ”
“Excuse me. I’m sorry,” Frederick said. “But you’ve got the wrong number.”
“What?”
The Scotch soured his mouth. He swallowed awkwardly. “This isn’t the hotline.”
She shouted, “Is this MU8-7385?”
“Eight four,” Frederick said softly.
“Oh. Well, then. Sorry. Thank you.”
“Sure,” Frederick said. “Good luck.” He didn’t mean it the way it sounded.
Often at night, on his walks back home from the corner superette, Frederick stopped in Griffith Park, near the medical center, and watched the rain of roses, lilies, daisies drift to the ground from the hospital’s narrow ninth floor.
He’d learned of this odd display one afternoon in the park from a doctor, who’d told him, “The schizophrenics are on nine.” The man had been taking a break, a quick smoke in the sculpture garden. Frederick was strolling, worrying about his family, his upcoming move. Surrounded by exquisite winged tigers, mermaids, griffins, the men passed a few minutes talking.
“Schizophrenia,” Frederick said. The word, stilted and ugly, unsettled him. “It’s probably more common than we think, right? I mean, I can’t even go shopping without developing a split personality.” He laughed nervously. “Do I want the frozen carrots today or the frozen corn? I can never make up my mind.”
“Schizophrenia’s a breakdown between emotions, thoughts, and actions,” said the doctor, a young man with a slightly pinched resemblance to Buddy Holly. He politely agreed that warring impulses fueled the disease, but insisted it was far more complicated than split personality. “It’s frequently accompanied by hallucinations and delusions.” He ground his cigarette on the concrete head of a waist-high beast. Willow limbs trembled above the park’s stiff grass.
Frederick felt ashamed of his feeble joke. He didn’t say anything.
The doctor stretched his arms. “Well, I hate to miss this sunshine, but I’ve got to get back now and check on Sal,” he said.
“Who?” Frederick said.
“Hm?”
“Sal?”
“Oh, sorry. Patient of mine. Interesting case.” The doctor wiped his glasses on the light-green tail of his medical smock. “I’m not really supposed to talk about this.” But he went on, laughing, when Frederick nodded his interest. “Sal’s a former salesman — Bibles or something, religious icons. Charismatic, quite forceful. He’s certain he’s an angel.”
Frederick smiled, wondering now if the doctor was joking with him.
“The others in the ward have followed Sal’s lead. They get bouquets, you know, from their families. Each night they toss petals through the bars of their open windows. Somehow, Sal’s convinced them they’re sowing blessings on the earth.” He was serious, Frederick saw. The doctor sighed, a weary mixture of frustration and amusement. “I’m not quite sure what to do with them all. Well. Can’t put it off. Heaven’s waiting.” He moved in the direction of the hospital. “See you later.”
“Nice chatting with you,” Frederick said.
Most evenings since, he’d found a bench among the sculptures, a seat near the elves. He clutched his grocery sacks bulging with heat ‘n’ serve snacks and waited for a blessing.
Tonight the rain came at dusk: pink, violet, purple blossoms swaying on the breeze, the thin mosquito mist, nesting, finally, in the park’s managed thickets. Frederick squinted up at the ninth-floor windows, glimpsed, now and then, pale, slender hands. He recalled the fleeting, bemused figures flying through the paintings of Chagall.
“Stell-a!” Marlon screamed from down the street. Faint laughter and applause from the theater audience.
Dizzy from staring — seraphim-struck — Frederick ambled back to his apartment. He unpacked his food. True to the vow he’d made himself, he hadn’t bought more booze, though the Dewar’s was nearly gone. He switched on his radio. Saber-rattling over Cuba. He turned it off, blotted the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Ungodly heat swarmed the apartment. Even Hoffmann, usually alert for critters scrabbling across the kitchen floor, had sunk in front of the lone portable fan by the bed.
A mighty, mighty thirst. No, Frederick thought. When you finish this bottle, that’s it. Save it till the end of the week.
He picked up Perry Mason. The phone rang. He groaned. Pills? Gas? Gun? Lord, he couldn’t face another human extinction. Not tonight.
Besides, he thought, smiling now, rousing himself from his chair, Mark will offer me something to drink.
Sure enough, Mark was deep into a bottle of bourbon. His garage, thick with blazing light, pale, swirling bugs, was a sweat lodge. He was hammering on some kind of claw foot in a vise on his workbench when Frederick walked in, calling, “Knock-knock.”
“Hey, man! What’s up?”
“World War Three.”
“Tell me about it. Grab a glass from the shelf over there. Let me introduce you to an owlamander.” He held up a pudgy piece of steel, fashioned to evoke part bird, part reptile. “This’ll go in the museum show.”
Frederick appraised his friend’s progress. An aviary, a menagerie, all shaped from the city’s detritus: belt buckles (fishes’ open mouths), garden spades (the long snouts of dogs), rusted forks (feathered plumes). The cars Mark repaired to pay his bills were parked outside: crumpled Chevies, sun-blistered Fords.
Frederick poured himself some whiskey; calm now, he watched his friend putter. Mark was short, shaped like a pear. With gentle pressure from his fingers, with screws and nails and fire, he populated his little corner of the planet with a witty, whimsical brood. Sometimes, one of them bit. “Godfrey Daniel!” he cried now, swaddling his left thumb in the crotch of his shorts. He’d nicked himself with the hammer.
Frederick offered him the bottle. “Doctor’s orders,” he said. “Need some ice? A cold cloth?”