Peter Abrahams - Lights Out

“Eas’ or wes’ fourteen?”

Eddie didn’t know. They tried west, but found no 719. There was a 719 East Fourteenth. The driver dropped Eddie outside it at ten to five, by the clock hanging in the window of Kwik ’n Brite Dry Cleaners next door. It was impossible to see into 719 itself. The windows had been painted red to eye level. The neon sign said: “Adult Books, Mags, Videos, Peeps.” A secondary, hand-lettered sign added: “Male-Female, Female-Female, Male-Male, More.”

Eddie went inside. There were two men in the store. One wore a ponytail and a Harvard sweat shirt. He stood behind the counter, inhaling nasal spray. The other wore a stone face and a suit. He browsed in the all-amateur section of the video department. Neither looked at Eddie.

He left the store, crossed the street, waited with his back to a florist’s shop. The rain had softened to a light drizzle. It glistened on the flowers in their bins outside: tulips, roses, others Eddie couldn’t name. He smelled their smells and kept his eyes on “Adult Books, Mags, Videos, Peeps.”

The browser came out, a plastic shopping bag in his hand. A woman in a black sombrero walked quickly past. A young man, not much older than the bookstore boy, went by the door of 719, turned, passed the other way, glanced around, saw Eddie, checked his watch as though he were on a schedule, and slinked inside the store. Then came a woman with a leashed mongrel that pissed against the wall of the store, a bare-chested man on roller blades, and an unleashed mongrel that sniffed the wall and raised its leg in the already pissed-on place.

At 5:04, by the clock in the Kwik ’n Brite window, a taxi stopped in front of 719 and a man got out. He wore a trench coat and a hat, the kind of hat men wore in old movies-a fedora maybe, Eddie didn’t know much about the names of hats. He had fat cheeks reddened by the sun, curly graying hair, a trim gray beard: a potential department-store Santa. Eddie couldn’t name him at first. That was partly because of the coat and hat, mostly because the man was so far out of context. But Eddie knew him, all right. How could he forget a man who had taken a gram of muscle from his forearm with a big square-ended instrument for some drug company, who had labeled him an inadequate personality, who had predicted that Eddie would be back in prison soon? It was Floyd K. Messer, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Treatment.

The taxi drove off. Messer stood on the sidewalk. He glanced around, his gaze passing over Eddie, not ten yards away, with no sign of recognition. Eddie ducked into the florist’s, watched Messer through the window.

Messer looked behind at 719, saw the sign, and moved in front of Kwik ’n Brite. He checked his watch. Cars went by. Messer eyed every one.

“Can I help you?”

Eddie turned and saw a little Asian girl-Korean, he supposed: hadn’t he read somewhere about the coming of Korean shopkeepers? — gazing up at him. He remembered the olive-skinned girl in the dancing shoes at the bus station down south; and the water snakes: “O happy living things.”

“I’m just looking,” Eddie said.

“We’ve got some nice iris.” She brandished purple petals at him. “Special-five dollars a dozen.” An old woman watched from behind the cash register.

“I’ll take a dozen,” said Eddie.

The girl withdrew. Eddie looked out the window. Messer was pacing now. The Kwik ’n Brite clock read 5:11. The woman with the leashed mongrel came by, going the other way. The dog sniffed the still-damp stain on the wall, pissed again. The girl returned with a bouquet.

“How about these?”

“Fine.”

She left, busied herself with wrapping paper. The door of 719 opened and the young man came out, red-faced, with a plastic shopping bag. The unleashed mongrel appeared, sniffed, pissed. Messer checked his watch. The Kwik ’n Brite clock read 5:20. Messer kept pacing.

Rain fell harder. The old Korean woman went outside, began bringing in the flowers. The girl left her wrapping to help. A passing car splashed Messer’s shoes. Messer said, “Shit.” Eddie couldn’t hear him, but he could read his lips.

At 5:29 the Korean girl said, “Here you go, mister,” and handed Eddie the bouquet wrapped in green paper. As he took it, Eddie saw an empty taxi come up the street. Messer saw it too. It was almost past him when his arm shot up. The taxi stopped. Messer got in. The taxi drove off. Eddie ran into the street. The old Korean woman ran after him.

“Fi dollar,” she cried. “Fi dollar.”

One door down from the Korean flower shop stood the Cafe Bucharest. The table in its front window commanded a good view of Kwik ’n Brite Dry Cleaners and 719: Adult Books, Mags, Videos, Peeps. Eddie sat at the window table, checking out the posters on the walls of the Cafe Bucharest-rugged mountains, green valleys, crumbling castles, Bela Lugosi as Dracula-and drinking a steaming cup of espresso. His first espresso; Eddie didn’t like it much. He kept his eye on 719 and resisted the urge to buy cigarettes.

Night fell. The rain slanted down out of the darkness, shimmered through the yellow cones of street light, disappeared. Not a good night for the pornography business. In an hour, three customers-all of them male, all of them alone-entered 719. One came out with a plastic shopping bag, the others empty-handed.

Eddie ate a thick sandwich of roast beef on black bread, served with a strange orange pickle, and imagined he was getting the feeling of Bucharest. A cigarette, unfiltered, Turkish, would make it perfect. Brightly colored packs of them all with foreign names, were displayed beside the cash register. Eddie ordered another cup of espresso instead.

“Some strudel?”

“No, thanks.” Desiccated pastries posing under that name were served in the cafeteria shared by E and F-Blocks every Sunday night.

Eddie began to like espresso. He was taking his last sip when a truck, rusty and dented, bearing the words “Simon Poultry Farms” on the side, parked in front of 719. The store’s neon sign flashed off, glowing dully for a few moments, then fading to darkness. Eddie rose, laid some money on the table.

The ponytailed man in the Harvard sweatshirt came out, rolled down a steel door that covered the entire front of the store, locked it in place. Then he climbed into the truck on the passenger side and started arguing with the driver. Eddie left the Cafe Bucharest.

The truck pulled into traffic, headed down Fourteenth Street. Eddie followed, first walking on the sidewalk, then running on the road, as though connected to the truck by an unseen force. The truck picked up speed. It had an unroofed cargo space, surrounded by slatted wooden sections about five feet high. Running at full speed, Eddie caught up to it and leaped, grabbing the top of one of the wooden sections.

He hauled himself up. A slat cracked under his weight. Eddie got his feet on the edge of the steel platform and vaulted over. The slat snapped. He lost his balance and landed hard on stacks of wire cages, knocking some loose. Chickens began squawking all around him.

The truck swerved to the side of the road, skidded to a halt. Eddie crawled over the cages, dropped into a small space against the back of the cab. He lay down in it. A chicken pecked his hand through the wire.

Eddie heard one of the doors of the cab open. Then came a grunt of effort, followed by the sight of the ponytailed man leaning over the side, squinting into the back of the truck. If he had glanced straight down, he might have seen Eddie, but he did not.

Eddie heard the driver call, “Que pasa?”

“The fucking pollos,” replied the ponytailed man.

At that moment there was a tremendous burst of rain. “Fuck the fucking pollos , Julio,” yelled the driver.