The religion of the car—the diabolic hope, the purposeful pulsing of blood, the flight into coherence—allowed for some rationalizing an afterlife. A new theology was evolving, one that had a faith-in-death clause. It was evolved when I kicked a dead waterbug on the pavement. It was dried out, hollowed, emptied, like some kind of shell. Maybe, I thought, its body is a shell, maybe all bodies are shells. We hatch and die. Our spirit or something like that is the yolk: it lives the real life, the true life. It wasn’t comforting. The car would have been better.
“Spare any change?” I asked one guy who looked as if he could. He ignored me. I asked another guy, who walked by more quickly. And then another and another and another and so on.
“Get a fucking job, you bum,” an apelike man said to me.
“I’m… not well,” I replied meekly, unstably. But then some gear locked into place and I started yelling back, “I got nothing to lose. I could do anything I want to you, and the worst that you think you can do to me can only be better than what I’m going through now. I got nothing to lose, nothing…”
I walked some more, and I guess the light got dimmer, but it was still day; time wasn’t going anywhere. I felt very tired and I went into a doorway and dropped to my knees and instinctively looked out for cops and foot-stomping kids. I saw cars and legs and sniffing dogs. My eyes trailed up a street pole. It was Sackett Street. What difference did it make? It could have been Mahoegushmoegel Street, and so what? And I laughed at that.
After some time, I started thinking. It would have been so good to see the Mercedes there. It would have meant there is a God and he’s a good guy and he’ll give you a break from time to time. I wondered what had happened to the last of Helmsley’s books that were in the back seat of the car. If the car had been stolen, they probably would have been chucked; if the car had been impounded, they still probably would have been chucked. While I wandered around the neighborhood, I kept an eye out for them. But I saw no sign of them. The great sandcastle of literature that he had built for himself had completely vanished.
Before getting up to scrounge for food, I wondered if ever at any time anything—maybe a God or angels or some invisible force that watches everything—would know that I died, just know about it all. And then I thought. This has got to work itself out somehow. I wondered where I would be in a year. And then I realized that for the past couple of years, if asked where I would be in a year I’d probably have predicted that I’d find some meteoric, inexplicable success. For the first time, I realized that if I didn’t die, I would probably just survive, and the next year I would just be grateful to have a place and maybe a couple of bucks in some savings account and a small TV or something, and that’d do fine. God was time, I remember thinking. Time was everything. God was the pace of time. I remember thinking about this magical unit of time, a year, just a small clip of God’s pinky nail. I had faith in the duration. A year would come somehow and save me. At some point, I started repeating the phrase aloud, like a chant or a prayer. I remember that much, not because my prayers were answered, but because they got a response.
EIGHTEEN
“What the fuck are you mumbling?” A set of clothed knees were in front of me, glaring at me.
“Just a year,” I replied and looked up meekly, and I recognized the face. “Your name is Bonnie, isn’t it?”
“No, asshole; Angela, remember? What the fuck happened to you?”
“I got sick and…” I clucked my tongue and raised my eyebrows and asked for some money.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
Then I started crying because someone was actually asking me that, and I started begging her for some food or anything and said that I was in deep shit in a really bad way and needed help, and I knew that she didn’t like me and could laugh at me and walk away, but please don’t just leave me! I cried till I was exhausted. She just stood above me and looked down; her expression didn’t change.
“You’re right,” she finally spoke. “I don’t fucking like you at all. You’re scum.” And I thought she was going to spit at me, and she turned to go, and I swear I don’t understand it, but she turned to me and said, “Follow a half a block behind me, you capisce?” I nodded. “I don’t want anyone knowing you’re with me, capisce?” I nodded.
She started walking down the street slowly, passing the OTB and saying hi to a couple of old guys. I followed slowly behind. I wasn’t sure what the fuck it was going to lead to, but figured even if she was going to lock me in some room and beat the shit out of me, there was still some hope that maybe I could convince her to feed me, so I could feel the pain more acutely. There wasn’t any more hope in that doorway.
I followed at a good distance. In case anyone was watching from a parallax angle, I deliberately walked this way and that—no one could have second-guessed my destination. I kept a tight line of sight on her. She was the only fish on my only hook, and I couldn’t reel myself in until she was inside. Her door slammed shut halfway up the street, and I kept straggling this way and that, looking in garbages, keeping in character. Boy, was I hungry. In a moment I was in front of her house. I saw that the door was slightly ajar and I dashed in.
“Did you run right here?” she asked sharply as soon as I slammed the door behind me.
“I swear I didn’t. I was real careful, I swear it.”
“All right, come on then.” She led me into the bathroom, put some clothes on a hook, and put a black garbage bag on the cover of the toilet. Before she left, she pulled the shower curtain aside and gave me some calamine lotion for the scabs and cuts.
“That goes,” she said, pointing to my beard and handing me a razor. “Put your old clothes in the bag and seal it.”
I towelled off, sheared the beard with scissors I got from the medicine cabinet, and shaved. I eagerly put the clothes on. Although they were not new and hung loosely from me, they were soft, well ironed, and smelled delicious: they seemed edible. When I looked in a full length mirror, I had this strange recognition and inspected the clothing carefully until I realized that I was wearing Helmsley’s garments. I still had only my old shoes, and although I had these new clothes, I had no intention of throwing out my old clothes. There were still cold days ahead. At best this might be a comfort station, where I could get a meal, a shower, and a change of clothes. Then, perhaps, I might get some kind of job. At least I could sit in coffee shops without being thrown out immediately. I could shoplift without being an instant suspect.
“Hey, how did you get Helmsley’s clothes?” I asked upon leaving the bathroom.
“He left a bunch here…. You can have them.” She took the garbage bag and was about to take it out the door.
“Hey, I still need that stuff.”
“Not in my house.”
I remained silent as she threw the bag into a trash heap outside. Did she expect me to stay the night? Or perhaps just for dinner? If I asked her what exactly I could anticipate, I might make her nervous and panicky. I was in a very bad way and had little latitude. Like a fine tool or a dumb animal, she could be used and manipulated for one’s benefit—or misused and made into a danger to everyone around her. Helmsley, in all his braininess, couldn’t use this tool properly.
When she returned, she saw me standing in the middle of her living room floor, just standing there thinking.
“Well, sit down or something,” she said as she walked off into another room.I sat up against the wall and thought about how horrible the outside was. To be outside was terrifying to me; the security of being indoors was unbelievable. To have a place to come to of one’s own design seemed unfathomable. An idea occurred to me: if I committed a crime, I’d go to prison. A place is an extension and confirmation of the identity, I thought. If you’re neurotic or afraid or losing control, you might keep the place nunnery neat, with soups alphabetized in the cupboard or pillows on the couch arranged symmetrically. Strangely although I’ve always liked the idea of a clean place, I’ve always been a messy person. A place too clean and orderly makes me feel self-conscious. Angela’s furniture, knickknacks, and such seemed to be watching me. No, more than just watching me, they seemed to demand, by example, a code of behavior. I had to remain within the protocol of the order of the place.