Rodney Whitaker: The Main

Snow crosshatches through the headlights of trucks grinding past the deserted park of Carré Vallières, at the top of the rise that separates the lower Main from the Italian Main. LaPointe sits on a bench, alone in the barren triangle of sooty dirt and stunted trees he has always associated with his retirement. Huddled in his great shapeless coat, the dark and the snow insulating and protecting him, the Lieutenant weeps.

The scar tissue over his emotions has ruptured, and his grief is pouring out. He does not sob; the tears simply flow from his eyes, and his face is wet with them.

LaPointe is grieving. For his grandfather, for Lucille, for Moishe. But principally… for himself. For himself.

For himself he grieves that his grandfather left him without support and comfort. For himself he grieves that Lucille died and took his ability to love with her. For himself he grieves the loss of Moishe, his last friend. At last, he pities the poor old bastard that he is, with this bubble in his chest that is going to take him away from a life he never quite got around to living. He is sorry for the poor old bastard who never had the courage to grieve his losses, and to survive them.

He slumps in the soporific pleasure of it. It feels so good to let the pressure leak away, to surrender finally. He knows, of course, that his life and force are draining out with the grief. His strength has always come from his bitterness, his reserve, his indifference. When the weeping is finished, he will be empty… and old.

But it feels so good to let go. Just… to let it all go.

At first the snow melts as it touches the sidewalk outside Chez Pete’s Place, but as the slush builds up, it begins to insulate, and the large flakes remain longer before they decompose.

Inside, a dejected group of bommes sit around the center table, drinking their wine slowly so they won’t have to buy another bottle before the proprietor makes them go out into the weather. Dirtyshirt Red glowers with disgust at two men sitting at a back table. He sneers to the ragged man sitting beside him, drinking a double red from a beer mug.

“Wouldn’t ya know it? The only guy who’ll drink with that potlickin’ blowhard son of a bitch is a nut case!”

His mate glances over at the table and growls agreement with any slander against the Vet, that stuck-up shit-licker with his cozy kip off somewhere.

At the back table, a bottle of muscatel between them, sit the Vet and the Knife Grinder. They are together because they had enough money between them to buy the bottle. They have seen one another on the Main, of course, but they have never talked before.

“It’s beginning,” the Knife Grinder says, staring at the floor. “The snow. I warned everyone that it was coming, but no one would listen.”

“Can you believe it?” the Vet answers. “They just caved it in! These goddamned kids come when I wasn’t there, and they caved it in. Just for the hell of it.”

“People fall in the snow, you know,” the Knife Grinder responds. “They slip off roofs! Happens alla time, but nobody cares!”

The Vet nods. “They come and dragged off the roof. Then they caved in the sides. No reason. Just for the hell of it”

The Knife Grinder squints hard and tries to remember. “There was somebody… somebody important. And he told me there wouldn’t be any snow this year. But he was lying!”

“What can you do?” the Vet asks. “I’ll never find another one. They just… caved it in, you know? Just for fun.”

They are both staring at the same spot on the floor. A kind of sharing.

In close to buildings, where pedestrian feet have not ground it to slush, the snow has built up to a depth of three inches. The wind is still strong, and it blows flakes almost horizontally across the window of Le Shalom Restaurant and Coffee Shop. Inside, where damp coats steam and puddles of melt-water make the tiles dangerous, the Chinese waitress barks orders to the long-suffering Greek cook, and tells customers to hold their water; has she got more than two hands?

Two girls sit in a booth near the counter. They are giggling and excited because a romance is beginning. One girl pushes the other with her elbow and says, “Ask him.” The other presses her hand over her mouth and shakes her head, her eyes sparkling. “Not me. You ask him!” She dares a quick look at the two grinning Hungarian boys in the next booth. “Go on!” the first girl insists, stifling her giggle. “No, you ask him!”

The Chinese waitress has found time to grab a cigarette. She mutters to herself, “For Christ’s sake, somebody ask him!”

Four young women from the garment factory walk briskly down St. Laurent, laughing and kidding one another about boyfriends. One tries to catch a snowflake on her tongue; another starts a bawdy folk song about a lute player who will fix your spinet for you like it’s never been fixed before, if you have a fresh new écu to give him for the lesson. They link arms and walk four abreast with long energetic strides as they sing at the top of their voices. They overtake an old Chasidic Jew with peyiss, his shtreimel level on his head, his long black overcoat collecting snowflakes. Playfully, they split, two on each side, and link arms with the startled man who is pulled along at a pace alien to his dignified step. “Buy us a drink, father! What do you say?” one of them shouts, and the others laugh. The old man stops, and the girls continue on, linking up four abreast again, their butts tweaking merrily along. He shakes his head, confused but not displeased. Youth. Youth. He looks up to check the street sign, as he always does before turning down toward the house he has lived in for twenty-two years.

Snow slants against the darkened window of a fish shop in which there is a glass tank, its sides green with algae. A lone carp glides back and forth in narcotized despair.

The long wooden stoop of LaPointe’s apartment building is blanketed with six inches of untrodden snow. He holds the rail and half pulls himself up each step, tired, empty. Because his head is down, he sees first her feet, then her battered shopping bag.

“Hello,” she says.

He passes her without a word and opens the front door. She follows him into the vestibule, lit only by a fifteen-watt bulb. He leans against the banister and looks at her, his eyes hooded.

She shrugs, her lips compressed in a flat half grin. The expression says, Well, here I am. That’s the way it goes.

LaPointe rubs his whiskered cheek. What’s the use of this? He doesn’t need this. He is empty at last, and at peace. He wants to finish it off easily, cocooned in his routine, his chair by the window, his coffee, his Zola. It’s not as though she would stay. The first time she finds a handsome Greek boy to buy her ouzo and dance with her, she’ll be gone again. And probably she’ll come sniffing back when he gets tired of her. What is she after all? A stupid twit the age of his daughters, the age of his wife. And worst of all, he would have to tell her about this thing in his chest. It wouldn’t be fair to let her wake up some morning and reach over to touch him. And find him…

No, it’s better not to want anything, need anything. There’s no point in opening yourself up to hurt. It’s stupid. Stupid.

“How about a cup of coffee?” he asked.