Later he thinks of his ex-wife. That scumbag, that wretch, she would, and goes into his daughter’s room, sits on the floor and leans his head on her bed and says “My darling, my dearest, I know you can’t hear me, I don’t know why I’m even talking like this, but please don’t leave me, not at least till you’re of age.” “Daddy, what’s wrong?” and he says “Oh, nothing, go back to sleep, dear. I only came in to see that you’re covered,” and pats her forehead and leaves.
He drinks a little, reads, takes off his clothes and starts exercising vigorously for the first time since he cut his head. The light’s on; he does the same ones he did that night. “So that’s why I didn’t see the chair I hit,” he says. “I close my eyes when I exercise.”
TURNING THE CORNER
He calls every place he can think of and not one of them has it. He goes downtown and complains. “You don’t have it. How come, what’s wrong, why you holding it up?” They say “What are you talking about?” He says “You say you don’t know? Maybe you really don’t know, maybe that’s why it’s being held up. If that’s the case, case closed. I mean, if that’s the case, well, case closed. Meaning, well, if that’s the situation, that you haven’t got it because you don’t know what I’m talking about, then I shouldn’t bother about it anymore, wouldn’t you say, or is that overstating the case?”
They slam the door on him. First they edge him out of the store. Then past the door into the street. Then they slam the door on him, lock it. He knows they locked it because he tries opening the door and the knob won’t turn all the way. The door’s made of glass, and he knocks on it. Raps, really, raps. The man and woman behind the door pull the shade down so he can’t see through the glass. Or for another reason, or a slew of them, like the shade down is a sign to him to go away, or so that they can’t see him. But a shade, he thinks. Very old-fashioned. He remembers shades like this when he was a boy. Candy stores had them. Closed for the day, down went the shade. You didn’t have to have a Closed sign on the door, for the shade down meant the store was closed for the day or just temporarily; for instance, if the owner went out for lunch. No, then the owner, or manager, or just the only person working there would usually put an Out to Lunch sign on the door or Be Back At 1:30 or something, or even a cardboard clock on the door with the hands pointed to 1:3o and Be Back At above the clock on the same sign. He knocks some more, raps, but by now has already given up. Rapped for effect. He’d have been surprised, very, if one of them had opened the door or even let the shade up.
He doesn’t know what to do now. He wants to get it but so far no one has it, and he doesn’t know if they even know what exactly it is he wants and, if they did know, whether they could ever get it. Maybe it isn’t around anymore, doesn’t exist anywhere. But he wants it very badly, that’s for sure. Maybe a completely different kind of store will have it or know where he can get it. He sees many different kinds of stores but selects one that’s completely different from the last one he tried. That one he found by just getting out of the subway station and going into the first store he saw. On the phone, same thing. He opened the phone directory’s business pages and chose at random a few stores to call. One was a bakery, another a dry cleaner’s, another a sporting goods store. Now he tries a walk-in dental office.
The receptionist, at least the person behind a counter right past the door, says “Can I help you?” He tells her what he wants. She says “You’ve come to the right place, all right. Please fill this out,” and hands him a questionnaire and pen. He says “I have? I must? Well, this has got to be my lucky day, I think.” He sits and starts filling out the questionnaire. What’s his name? He forgets. What’s his address? Doesn’t know if he has one. What city does he live in, what state, what’s his zip code, phone number, profession, age? He doesn’t know, he’s not quite sure, he’s trying to think what city this is, what state. But concentrate on the city. If it comes, maybe the rest of the information will, like the shade. Meaning: workday starts, up goes the shade, and there’s light. Something like that. So: Is this the city he was born in, grew up in, went to grade school in, college in, worked a number of years in, married in, had children in, now lives in? Was he ever married, did he ever have children, does he have a phone number? If he does, what could it be? He’s had lots of phone numbers. Good, that’s a start. 662-3218. 529-5396. 764-3152. 462-4830. He can remember about a dozen. But he doesn’t know what previous or present residence of his corresponds to what number, what city with what number, even what part of his life with what number. But those are some of the numbers he’s had. He could give more. 448-2623. 724-4706. 816-0029. Maybe he should call several of those and find out where he’s lived. Maybe even one of those numbers will be the number where he now lives, if he does live anyplace. Some were work numbers, he thinks, so he also might find out what he did and where. But he doesn’t remember the area code of any of them, or at least the right area code for even one of them. So all the numbers, if he reaches any, would be in this city, and the name of the city is still a blank. More questions: Social Security number, wife’s name, children’s names, is he married, divorced, single, or is his spouse deceased? He can’t answer any of the questions, except what sex he is and his Social Security number—099-63-5124—though he’s not sure if that’s his wife’s number, if he has or had one, one of his children’s, if he had any, or even for some reason his mother’s or father’s, or is he just making the number up? Worst of all, he thinks, is he still can’t remember his name. As a kid he does remember he had a cat named Pat. “Pat Pat,” his mother used to say and he’d pat Pat. “Pet Rex,” his father used to say and he’d pet Rex, but who and what was Rex? — he thinks the next-door dog. “Pet and pat this,” his wife or some other woman or girl used to say, and he’d pet and pat that, but what? He thinks now he had two wives and that they had the same first name, but one had an “e” at the end of it and the other didn’t.