“Of who?” someone said.
“The man who went through that window.”
“That what happened? I thought someone got mad at the landlord there and busted it out. The guy die?”
“From one story up ten feet to the ground? He more likely only got a sprained ankle and walked away.”
“That’s his brother all right,” the waiter said, coming over again, this time with no tray. “I’ve seen him around too. Mostly helping his brother up the stairs when his brother was dead drunk or high on drugs. I couldn’t tell which.”
“You should speak to the policeman there,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe what you said could be useful.”
“I got work to do and my own reasons for not talking to police.”
“What a neighborhood,” someone said to me.
“It has its moments.”
“Moments hell. You live around here?”
“Few blocks away.”
“How could you? There’s craziness all around every minute of the day. Pimps, whores, cars running you over, burglars, pickpockets, muggers, women getting raped, drunks, bums, people peddling dollar joints right under your nose, three card monte sharks right nearby cheating everyone blind with their shills. I’m from Chicago and we’re supposed to be bad, right? Riots, gangsters, politicians who fraud your votes and install their friends, but we’re not a quarter to what you guys are. You’ve a family to live with too?”
“No.”
“I was thinking if you had one and lived here, I’d really feel sorry for you. I don’t mean to be rude, but if I was told I had to on my life raise my little kids in this neighborhood, and we just have one, I’d kill them both.”
“Okay, show’s over, why not everyone go home?” an auxiliary policeman said.
“Because it’s a slow Tuesday night,” someone said. This made a few people laugh.
“Listen to them,” the man said to me. “People would never speak to a cop like that in Chicago. They’d be considerate, would listen to what he said, or be afraid of getting their head bashed in by one.”
“It’s only meaningless talk,” I said. “No harm to it.”
“That’s what you have to think perhaps, but you’re going to see one happy guy to leave this hole tomorrow,” and he moved on.
By now I could only recognize two people from the original crowd, and the landlady and auxiliary and regular police. In the window I could see the young man crying and the policeman with his arm around the boy’s shoulder.
“Is that the kid who jumped?” someone said. “He looks okay to me.”
“He’s standing at least,” someone else said. “That’s a lot more than you can say for a lot of people in this area.”
I wanted to say something to correct their information or interpretation of the situation and even of this neighborhood, but didn’t. It was already an hour since the man had jumped or whatever he’d done through that window. The waiter was going off-duty for the night. At least I assumed so because he had his street clothes on and was heading for the avenue, but maybe he was only on his break. The policeman got in a patrol car with the young man. The auxiliary police continued to guard the glass part of the sidewalk and the building stoop.
“What are they going to do, arrest the kid for breaking a window?” someone said, watching the patrol car drive away.
“If they do, don’t worry, tomorrow he’ll be out bright and early to break another window or somebody’s leg,” someone else said.
I started to walk out of the crowd.
“He wasn’t the one who jumped, was he?” someone said, meaning me.
“I think so. He’s got the blood all over his clothes, and did you see his face?”
“Not him,” a third person said. “He was standing on the sidewalk when the lady on the stoop there threw a TV set out of the window.”
“Was she throwing it at him?”
“Go ask him. All I know is she threw it out without first opening the window, and whether it’s the glass or TV that hit him is a good guess. Somebody did say a man grabbed the TV right after it landed and ran away with it.”
“When it was so smashed up?”
“Apparently it wasn’t.”
A few blocks away the troubadour from before had drawn a chalk circle with a diameter of maybe twenty feet on a sidewalk comer. A crowd was standing on the outside perimeter of the circle two and three deep. I stood and watched his act for a while. He rode the unicycle on the circle lines a few times, never once getting more than half an inch off the line either way. While he was riding he took a hat off a woman’s head and put it on a man’s head a few feet away. He tried to light someone’s cigarette while he was riding but couldn’t do it after three tries, and snatched the cigarette out of the man’s mouth on the fourth time around and threw it away. He did manage to take a watch off a woman’s wrist while he was riding, and gave it back to her his next time around when she didn’t even know it was gone. Then he put the bike on its side and did tricks with his hat, rolling it down his arms and catching it just before it touched the ground, balancing it on his nose, knee and toes and kicking it off his toes and landing it on his head. He next did a juggling act with scissors, hatchets and knives and then the same juggling act with a borrowed kerchief around his mouth, which broke most people up, and then with the kerchief tied around his eyes, which got the most applause. He gave the kerchief back to the woman, looked angry at her and took a gun out of his hat. Someone screamed and he swiveled around and aimed the gun at the screamer and pulled the trigger and out flew a parachute with a message attached to it at the ends of the strings which said “These days, generosity really counts.” Then he bowed and passed the hat around. He did quite well. Got lots of compliments also. One woman said to him she’d traveled throughout Europe and Eurasia and had never seen a performer with so many consummate skills. A man emptied his change purse into the hat and said “Bravo, Horatio, you are simply divine, the world’s best.” When the troubadour shoved the hat in front of me, I backed away and nearly fell off the curb. Someone grabbed my arm to stop me from falling. At that moment when this person was helping me to stand straight again, the crowd was laughing. When I turned around, the troubadour’s painted white face was right up against mine and he suddenly jumped back and shook his body and head as if I’d just frightened him. Then he continued to pass the hat around and I walked home.
Arrangements
She comes into my room. I hold her hand. She kisses my lips. We undress one another and go to bed. Later, she dresses and leaves. I sleep for a little while and dress and go outside. I see her talking to a man on the street. I say “Hey, how are you?”
“Excuse me,” she says, “but I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Harry. Harry Lipton.”
“Harry Lipton? No, the name’s not familiar either.”
“Harry Trusky then.”
“Trusky? No, try again.”
“Harry Bittom.”
“Bittom, Bittom. Now that’s much less better. I’m sorry.” She turns her back to me and resumes talking to the man. He looks at me over her shoulder.
“How do you do?” he says.
“Hello.” I put out my hand. We shake.
“Arnold Peters,” he says.
“Harry Fortundale.”
“Fortundale,” he says. “How’s it going today?”
“Fine. Couldn’t be better.” Her back is still turned to me. “Do you think you can introduce us?” I say to him.
“You mean you and the lady?”
“The lady and I, yes.”
“What was your name again?”
“Harry Levitt.”
“Harry Levitt, Gretchen Morley. Gretchen Morley, Harry Levitt.”