“No, it never was clean. It was already closed, that whole gallery, I mean. I just took a chance. Oh, what the hell,” he added snappishly.
She suddenly laughed. For a moment Ira thought she was laughing at his discomfiture. But no. talking as always before she finished laughing, her words tumbled off pointless mirth.
“That projectionist looking down, will I ever forget him?”
“Did you see him?”
“Did I see him? In his sagging undershirt. If he didn’t look funny. But you know, Ira, it really is funny. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“What?”
“I had a boyfriend who was studying to be a projectionist. I thought of him. If he was looking down.”
“Oh.” How cheerless was spoiled lust. Her lips moved like larva — oh, Jesus, just get to the subway through the crowd.
“When I was fourteen, he worked in a projection booth. And Ira, you were fourteen, and you worked in a projection booth, too.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“When I was fourteen, he wanted to marry me.” Her dumb correspondences.
“Yeah?” He could feel his face crimp with fretfulness. If he had even gotten a piece of tail out of all this. Christ, nothing. “Fourteen? Who was fourteen? I mean, was he fourteen?” He felt as idiotic as she was — just as irascible as he had felt when he waited for her to come out of the business school. Mopey lout, he deserved what he got. “What’re you talking about?”
“I said I was fourteen. He wasn’t fourteen. He was already twenty-one. But he wanted to marry me. He hounded me. Gerald: Let’s go out and have an ice cream sundae. Let’s go to a dance. Nearly every evening he came to the house. But he wasn’t my type.”
“No?”
“He was short and fat, and already a little bald. Mama liked him, and Pap said it would be all right. Next year I’ll be going on eighteen.”
“Yeah?”
“But I kept telling Gerald, That’s all. I don’t wanna see you no more. I don’t care if Mama likes you—”
“Was that it?”
“Of course. I’m the one who has to marry him. And did Mama cry at the next wedding: two pillowcases. She was going to have an old-maid daughter on her hands. Can you imagine, at fourteen, no less.”
“No.”
“Who is your type, Ira? Is that lady your type?”
“I don’t know who my type is.”
“Mine is the married-man type. The tall, blond type. They’re not Jewish, but they’re married anyway, so it doesn’t matter. You I can tell, but if Mama ever knew.” Stella giggled.
Engulfed — enthronged (the word coined itself) — amid the home-going crowd, the air of holiday about them, swarming out of Klein’s on 14th and meshing with those from the smaller stores, he and Stella turned west toward the subway kiosk across Broadway. The first chill encroached on the last wedges of sunlight in the park, first chill seeping through the growing shadows. It had begun to empty the benches in the park, gave briskness to the stride of those crossing, and even seemed to increase the agitation of arguing groups, those pitted against each other, with shaking fist and stabbing finger. As undaunted as ever, Washington on his bronze steed on concrete pedestal contemplated turmoil and incessant noise. It made Ira wonder how much difference he himself made, how much, how little, even if he bellowed at the top of his lungs. It would be like going aboard an ocean liner, infinitesimally, imperceptibly lowering her hull in the water — like the time he delivered steamer baskets as a boy, like the time he accompanied Edith — Edith, yes, she must be waiting, wondering. Well, what excuse? In the eddy flowing around Orange Drink Nedick’s at the corner of University, in the aura of grilled hot dogs, he eased pants at the crotch. And the horror of it all. He was worse than even Joe, the bum, in Fort Tryon Park, who had pulled on his petzel while Ira, all of eight, recoiled in fear. He was worse than Pop, too, smashing Mom a glancing whack and little Ira, too. How the sins, the shande, had come full circle, and all of this in the eddy by the Nedick’s stand at University and 8th, a hundred blocks from Harlem, but one thing was sure, though: maybe one guy couldn’t add a perceptible increment to tumult, but a lot together could. That bunch — those two bunches — shouting at each other certainly added distinct stridor. What the hell were they all about?
“You know something funny?” Stella asked.
“No, what?”
“We made a big circle — from my school over there, through the theater, and back again.”
“Oh, yeah.” His wry voice ended by inhaling a squelched sigh. “What d’ye do? Take the shuttle?”
“I have to.” She led the way across the sidewalk to the kiosk. “I have to, but you don’t. You can go on the Lexington.”
“I know, but I’d better make my call first.”
“You can make it downstairs.”
“You mean the phone booths in the subway?”
“There’s three, four. Those big wooden ones — when you go from the IRT to the BMT.”
“I’m not sure,” he hedged. “Okay. Let’s go,” he said hastily. “Jesus, I’m late. Later than you’re going to be.” They both flowed down the steps with the cataract of commuters heading home. “Show me the booths, will you?”
“Around the platform. This way. I’ll wait for you.”
“You don’t have to.” His voice sharpened.
“We both gotta ride to 42nd. A minute more.”
“Holy Jesus!”
“Why? You’re not gonna tell her what happened?”
“Oh, no! Get in here. It’s too goddamn noisy. Or do you wanna stay out?” She was already in the way of the folding door, giggled as he dropped the nickel into the aperture.
“You know,” she whispered as he waited for the operator, “I wanted to meet her, but I didn’t wanna meet her. You know what I mean?”
“Sh!”
“Number please.” Oh, Christ, in the interval, preparing for apology. In the phone booth — that she had recommended. Oh, man, oh, man, the jibes of those boys still echoing. He felt as though he were losing his mind — heard the stimulated ring of the phone, hoped Edith wasn’t home. Whee-ooh, he whistled, windily audible, while Stella watched him. In a minute there is time, said Eliot. And Larry this afternoon. No, Jesus, she wasn’t home. Oh, Jesus, the teetering. He wedged his briefcase on the shelf in the angle of phone box and wall—
“You know, I forgot my steno book up there,” Stella whispered, waited a second. “She’s not home?”
“I don’t know. A coupla more rings.”
“The operator’ll tell you.”
Jesus, he was crazy enough he was ready to tell Edith it was all right. He was going to marry the little cunt. He couldn’t say “cunt.” No, she wasn’t pregnant; he was just crazy: Mishugeh auf toit, Mom would say. There she was pressed against him. Go ahead, give her a feel. Go home with her. He could just see himself escorting Stella through 112th Street, her native heath, and Mamie coming out of the neighboring apartment house, and simply transported with delight at the vision of Stella on Ira’s arm, and Ira suddenly a prospective khusin for her daughter. And then he could have all the latest she had learned right here in a phone booth. A slave. If that wasn’t crazy, if he wasn’t crazy. Two poles, he ought to have two poles. Yeah. His insufferable, imperious need, and hazy, imperious bidding of the future. If only it were one or the other, not jeering at himself as he jauntily advanced to greet his putative, rapturous mother-in-law. Oh, you’re off your pulley. So what? All right, Mamie, start furnishing that empty apartment. He reached down for the neighborhood of Stella’s muff, to her simper—
“Hello. Sorry, I was—”