Arthur Nersesian - The Fuck-Up

Glenn

The alarm clock had been set for seven; so she was up four hours ago. I went downstairs and fixed myself some breakfast. While eating, I kept thinking about Helmsley. I went downstairs and saw the Mercedes, loaded up to the ceiling with his books.

Without removing the books, I took the car out and drove back to Helmsley’s neighborhood. I drove along streets that we had walked together just a week before. Finally I stopped in front of his house. There, next to a line of garbage cans, I saw all the remaining books loosely piled. They trumpeted: Helmsley is dead. I drove some more. When I passed the bar where I first met Angela, I parked the car, entered, and ordered a beer. It was a perpetually shaded room with old men just killing time. A placard over the bar read, Italian American Legion Post #118, Veterans of Foreign Wars. Carefully I looked around; there was no sign of her.

Eventually I got up the nerve to ask the old bartender, “Hey, you know anything about that guy that jumped off the bridge the other day?”

“Why?” he barked back. “You a snoop reporter?”

“I served with him in the 107th back in ’Nam,” I replied Americanly, and then raising my beer mug toward the flag, I drank it down.

“You served with that guy?”

“Sure, he saved me when I got hit at the Diphthong Delta.” And then taking the liberty, I kicked my leg up to a bar stool, rolled up the hem of my pant leg and showed him where Angela bit me the other day.

“The wound looks fresh,” he commented.

“Some wounds heal faster than others.”

“I can’t believe that guy served.”

“Hey pal, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in combat, but you change afterwards.”

“I know,” he muttered pride fully, and without a request he gave me another draft.

“Look, that poor guy was here fighting with his girl that night.”

“Did you know the girl?” I asked.

“Oh sure, she’s a local girl.”

“Angela? Was she with him when you saw him last?”

“No, he raced in here alone. It was about two nights ago. It was about midnight. He got loaded pretty quickly and just sat quietly for a while. He looked pretty roughed up.”

“What do you mean roughed up?”

“Someone had beat up on him. You know, he had blood coming out of his nose and mouth. I had to clean up a whole pile of bloody napkins later.”

“Then what?”

“Bar closed, he left, and that’s all she wrote. I guess he went right to the bridge.”

When Helmsley was sitting here, drinking his heart out, I was with Glenn, just a half mile away. If he went directly to the bridge, he would have had to walk right by the house, within twenty feet of where I was lavishing in splendors. If I had just looked out the window, I might’ve seen him walk by, a drunken and despondent shadow; I might’ve saved him.

“Have you seen Angela since then?” He shook his head no, walked to the other side of the bar, and there he poured a drink for someone.

“Do you have any idea where she might be?” I asked when the bartender passed by again. “I just want to talk with her.”

“Sorry,” he said. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He knew he was treading the line; a snitch is the lowest form of life everywhere.

“Listen,” I said finally. “When I got hit, I went down. My leg was a shred, the VC were hopping around us, finishing us off. That guy carried me out of there. Do you understand? Now I just want to find out what happened, and I’m gonna find Angela anyway.”

“Try the OTB around 1:30,” he said. “But listen, I didn’t tell you dirt, all right?”

“Not a word,” I replied and threw him a salute. Then I drove around the corner, put a quarter in the meter. I leaned up against the car across the street from the local betting place and waited. After fifteen minutes or so, I saw her enter with a group of guys. She was wearing a large cowboy hat and a wide-framed pair of dark sunglasses. Through the store-front glass, I watched her clown around awhile with the guys until they took out their racing papers, and chatted: “Devilrun’s got bandages and is running on bute…. Yeah, but Breakingwind runs well on slop… Hippityhopity always comes from behind…” Soon everybody started placing bets. They all watched the horses run on the monitors then either ripped up their tickets or collected. Slowly the group she came in with mingled with others, and I casually entered the place and leaned up alongside of her. She was busily jotting notes on her racing form.

When there was no one around, I quickly grabbed her arm and muttered, “If you don’t mind, I want to talk with you.”

“Who the fuck are you?” She broke loose hollering. Out of nowhere a fat guy with a neck the size of my waist had me in a painful headlock.

“You want I should knock his teeth down his throat?” he asked Angela. I felt like a taxidermed head mounted above a fireplace, and as she slowly realized who I was, I impossibly tried to prepare myself for a great deal of suffering.

“What the fuck do you want?” she asked. “You’re the little shit that broke my nose.”

“And you killed my only friend,” I hoarsely replied in the vice.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You and your brothers.”

“You want I should snap his neck?” the pizzeria owner asked.

“Let him go,” she issued a reprieve. The guy let me drop and walked away.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Who killed Helmsley?” I asked.

“He killed himself, the stupid shit.” Then she lifted up her sunglasses and showed me a shining black eye. “Look what the little shit did to me.”

“What happened?”

“We got into a fight and I decided that he was a fun fuck but it was all over. He wasn’t a man. He was a pretty boy and I told him so, and I told him that it was all over.”

“And then you beat him up to amuse yourself further.”

“He was playing with me! Using me!”

“And you got even, didn’t you?”

“I got hold of an ashtray and knocked the shit out of him till he dragged himself the fuck out…then I heard on the TV that he did himself in.”

“Wonderful.”

“Listen,” Angela said, “I just want you to know that I let you talk like this because I respect you. I was drunk and you straightened me out. But I also want you to know that I ain’t scared of you.”

“Does it make any difference to you,” I asked Angela, “that a person killed himself because he loved you?”

“Look, one night I was horny so I went to a bar and picked up a guy for a quick fuck, capisce? I never adopted him.”

“But couldn’t you…”

“Look pal,” she interrupted, “you’re talkin’ to someone who was dropped more than a yo-yo, and got more final disconnection notices than anyone else alive.” With that she returned to her racing forms and then the betting window. Guilt only affects the larger upright animals. I returned to the car and watched her for a moment from behind the dash. She watched the monitor and then went to a cash window.

I started the ignition and drove down Court, but I had nowhere to go. I didn’t care to return to Glenn’s home, so I just drove around. Driving in New York was like a big game of bumper cars, people were cutting people off, stopping fast, accelerating just as fast. Until the day before, I had never driven in the city, and I didn’t even have a valid license. I was tired and remembered that my new abode, Sergei’s place, was now mine. I parked near the local F train stop and locked all the windows and doors. I realized that the value of all those books in the car exceeded fifty thousand dollars and possibly a hundred thousand dollars. The Mercedes already had its radio missing, but this was obscured by the boxes of books. Locating a piece of paper, I wrote: “RADIO ALREADY STOLEN, NOTHING OF VALUE IN CAR.” I framed the note in the window track. Locking the door, I went to the subway and paid for a token.