“Hi.” I tried to sound at ease. “I hope this isn’t a bad time to call.”
“Who is this please?”
“I’m the guy you took to the hospital the other day, after the hold-up.”
“The would-be poet.”
“How did you know?”
“How did I know what?”
“That I got a poem published. You didn’t see it in print, did you?”
“No,” she replied. “I mean, I don’t know. I only remember your mentioning Hart Crane. Where did you get a poem published?”
“In the Harrington Quarterly, the upcoming issue.”
“Congratulations, best of luck with…” A clicking sound interrupted. “Oh excuse me, I’ve got call waiting.”
She clicked her phone and talked to some other party for a while, giving me time to locate a target. I decided that I would ask her for lunch the next day.
“I’m sorry for keeping you,” she finally said, “but I’ve got a long distance call on the other line, and I’m going to be a while, so I’ve got to go.”
“One request. Can we go for lunch tomorrow?”
“Look, I’m about ten years your senior.”
“Maybe, but you’re a lot younger than your age and I’m a lot older than mine.”
“Ten years is ten years.”
“All it really means is that you’ll have more to say than me.”
She giggled and told me to give her a call in the mid-afternoon, and that ended the conversation. I toured around the theater a bit and returned to the little office. I tried watching TV again but soon lost reception again. Eventually I buzzed the projectionist booth and announced I was coming up. When I arrived, she swung open the door and asked what I wanted.
“Just checking to make sure everything’s okay.”
“Well I would have notified you otherwise, wouldn’t I?” she replied.
“Sorry for bothering you,” I said and turned to leave.
“Hold on there. There is one thing.” She led me into a back room. “Look at this.” She pointed out a large rusty pot filled with stagnant water.
“Why don’t you dump it?” I replied, not knowing what else she might have wanted.
“Because the roof’s leaking, stupid.”
“Okay I’ll make a report of it.” And again I turned to go.
“Hey stupid, how are you going to make a report on something you haven’t seen?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you think you should check the roof? It might just be a leaky pipe or something.”
“It’s not necessary,” I said. I didn’t want to go up to the roof.
“Check the roof!” she insisted. Then she led me to a steel ladder that was bolted into the wall. I climbed up the ladder that led into darkness. In the darkness I realized that a metal hatchcover was tied down with thick hemp ropes. I undid the ropes, shoved up the hatch, and continued up to the roof. Outside it was dark and drizzling. I walked around the roof awhile. It was dirty and littered. I accidentally kicked through a rusty tar can. At the very rear of the roof I noticed a rattly old fire escape. But it was too dark to see any cracks in the tar so I climbed back down the ladder and reknotted the ropes.
“Yep,” I told the projectionist, “there’s definitely a leak.”
“Well, get on the ball and fix it or expect a grievance from the union.”
I hurried downstairs, away from the projectionist and out of her testy domain. It was a flash lesson in the value of warm secure boredom. When I went by the box office, the lady told me that I had two calls: one from Miguel checking to see that all was well, one from Marty. He left a number. When I dialed it, an older male with an accent answered. I introduced myself.
“This is Sergei,” he only gave his given name. “So you are the young man whom Marty recommended.”
“Yes.”
“Well, when can we meet?”
“Whenever you like.”
“Tomorrow at noon then.”
“Perfect.”
“Do you know Caramba?”
“On Broadway.”
“Very good, brunch. It will be my treat.”
“Wonderful.”
“Oh,” he suddenly exclaimed. “I’m looking at my appointment book and I realize that I have a conflict. Damn, damn. And that would have been perfect, too. Let’s see…” I could hear him flipping through small pages. “Damn, I’m overbooked. Meet me at Caramba for a quick meal, and if we haven’t resolved things you’ll just have to accompany me on my next appointment.”
“I don’t mind,” I replied, as if I’d been asked.
“Wonderful,” he replied, and that was that; I still didn’t know this “celebrity director.” No sooner did I put down the phone than I realized the upcoming problems. I had no money, no clothes, and nowhere to spend the night. I had already borrowed what little petty cash could be spared for dinner, and I had already borrowed against my first paycheck from Miguel.
If worse came to worst, I could spend the night in the theater, on the office floor, and scrub my clothes clean in the sink so that I could look half-presentable tomorrow. But I was looking more and more raggedy. The right sleeve of my jacket and the left bottom leg of my pants were cut off.
Paradoxically all I could do to fight off the anxiety was flip through Miguel’s Village Voice, a paradox because the Voice usually gave me anxieties. First, there were the cartoons, Feiffer’s and Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies. Arthur Bell had just died and Musto had not yet put the edge to his column. With Newfield, Hamill, and Hentoff it had a solid crew of writers, but they usually left me feeling politically incorrect. Then there were the film reviews; this week both Sarris and Edelstein found something subtle to attack in blatantly bad films. And then the Literary Supplement and eventually you wound up in the classifieds. The personals were fun, but apartments were foremost in mind. If Sergei’s apartment fell through, the only chance I would have of staying within a half-hour radius of the Village was a roommate situation. I quickly skimmed the prices, but even the shares were above my impoverished means. I did notice two relatively low rentals. But upon reading the specifications, I saw I didn’t fit in. The first one read: “SWM 40 successful architect seeks SF age 20 to 32 to share bedroom of luxury West Village Condo, rent $210/month. Send photo to P.O. Box 878…” The other went: “Companionship and good times, WM willing to share one bedroom upper West side low rent in exchange for light duties, candlelight breakfast for two.” Getting an apartment in the city was serious business.
With the buzz of the intercom, I was informed by the box office lady that the last show had begun. It was time to calculate the final balance. In the box office she counted out the money in the till. It came to five hundred and twenty-four dollars. It was a good night.
Touching the stack of cash sent a jolt through me. Over the past two years, I had learned the fullest value of money. The American Dream for me wasn’t leisure, just day-to-day survival. Soon I was told the film was over. I cosigned the cashier report, turned on the inside lights, turned off the front marquee lights, locked the turnstile, and said good night to the box office lady.
I took the cash into the office, locked the door and recounted it. It was then that I noticed the tremor in my hands. There was something very philosophical about money. I filled out a deposit slip, bound the whole thing together with a rubber band, and stuffed it into a night deposit bag. I was about to zip and lock the bag, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I opened the bag and took out the money. It was tightly stacked and banded—it felt like a truncheon. I held it in my hand for a moment, just weighing the heaviness of it, the power. I unbanded the bills and put them in my pocket. It wasn’t close enough to me. I put the money between my shirt and my chest. But then a sound or something awoke me. The money wasn’t mine, it was a piece of costume. I took the money out of my shirt, rebanded it, and with the deposit slip zippered it back into the night deposit bag.