Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

Dawn hadn’t shown between the slats in the blinds. Her breathing sissed in my ear. I wanted to sleep more, but needed a cigarette. I thought of the cold avenue, the lonely subway ride. Where could I buy a newspaper, a cup of coffee? This was crazy, dangerous, a waste of time. The maid might arrive, her parents might wake. I had to get started. My hand pushed along the rug to find my shirt, touched a brass lion’s paw, then a lamp cord.

A naked heel bumped wood.

She woke, her nails in my neck. “Phillip, did you hear?” I whispered, “Quiet.” My eyes rolled like Milton’s. Furniture loomed, whirled. “Dear God,” I prayed, “save my ass.” The steps ceased. Neither of us breathed. The clock ticked. She trembled. I pressed my cheek against her mouth to keep her from talking. We heard pajamas rustle, phlegmy breathing, fingernails scratching hair. A voice, “Veronica, don’t you think it’s time you sent Phillip home?”

A murmur of assent started in her throat, swept to my cheek, fell back drowned like a child in a well. Mr. Cohen had spoken. He stood ten inches from our legs. Maybe less. It was impossible to tell. His fingernails grated through hair. His voice hung in the dark with the quintessential question. Mr. Cohen, scratching his crotch, stood now as never in the light. Considerable. No tool of his wife, whose energy in business kept him eating, sleeping, overlooking the park. Pinochle change in his pocket four nights a week. But were they his words? Or was he the oracle of Mrs. Cohen, lying sleepless, irritated, waiting for him to get me out? I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move. If he had come on his own he would leave without an answer. His eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark. He couldn’t see. We lay at his feet like worms. He scratched, made smacking noises with his mouth.

The question of authority is always with us. Who is responsible for the triggers pulled, buttons pressed, the gas, the fire? Doubt banged my brain. My heart lay in the fist of intellect, which squeezed out feeling like piss out of kidneys. Mrs. Cohen’s voice demolished doubt, feeling, intellect. It ripped from the bedroom.

“For God’s sake, Morris, don’t be banal. Tell the schmuck to go home and keep his own parents awake all night, if he has any.”

Veronica’s tears slipped down my cheeks. Mr. Cohen sighed, shuffled, made a strong voice. “Veronica, tell Phillip …” His foot came down on my ass. He drove me into his daughter. I drove her into his rug.

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

He walked like an antelope, lifting hoof from knee, but stepped down hard. Sensitive to the danger of movement, yet finally impulsive, flinging his pot at the earth in order to cross it. His foot brought me his weight and character, a hundred fifty-five pounds of stomping shlemiel, in a mode of apprehension so primal we must share it with bugs. Let armies stomp me to insensate pulp — I’ll yell “Cohen” when he arrives.

Veronica squealed, had a contraction, fluttered, gagged a shriek, squeezed, and up like a frog out of the hand of a child I stood spread-legged, bolt naked, great with eyes. Mr. Cohen’s face was eyes in my eyes. A secret sharer. We faced each other like men accidentally met in hell. He retreated flapping, moaning, “I will not believe it one bit.”

Veronica said, “Daddy?”

“Who else, you no good bum?”

The rug raced. I smacked against blinds, glass broke, and I whirled. Veronica said, “Phillip,” and I went off in streaks, a sparrow in the room, here, there, early American, baroque, and rococo. Veronica wailed, “Phillip.” Mr. Cohen screamed, “I’ll kill him.” I stopped at the door, seized the knob. Mrs. Cohen yelled from the bedroom, “Morris, did something break? Answer me.”

“I’ll kill that bastid.”

“Morris, if something broke you’ll rot for a month.”

“Mother, stop it,” said Veronica. “Phillip, come back.”

The door slammed. I was outside, naked as a wolf.

I needed poise. Without poise the street was impossible. Blood shot to my brain, thought blossomed. I’d walk on my hands. Beards were fashionable. I kicked up my feet, kicked the elevator button, faced the door, and waited. I bent one elbow like a knee. The posture of a clothes model, easy, poised. Blood coiled down to my brain, weeds burgeoned. I had made a bad impression. There was no other way to see it. But all right. We needed a new beginning. Everyone does. Yet how few of us know when it arrives. Mr. Cohen had never spoken to me before; this was a breakthrough. There had been a false element in our relationship. It was wiped out. I wouldn’t kid myself with the idea that he had nothing to say. I’d had enough of his silent treatment. It was worth being naked to see how mercilessly I could think. I had his number. Mrs. Cohen’s, too. I was learning every second. I was a city boy. No innocent shitkicker from Jersey. I was the A train, the Fifth Avenue bus. I could be a cop. My name was Phillip, my style New York City. I poked the elevator button with my toe. It rang in the lobby, waking Ludwig. He’d come for me, rotten with sleep. Not the first time. He always took me down, walked me through the lobby, and let me out on the avenue. Wires began tugging him up the shaft. I moved back, conscious of my genitals hanging upside down. Absurd consideration; we were both men one way or another. There were social distinctions enforced by his uniform, but they would vanish at the sight of me. “The unaccommodated thing itself.” “Off ye lendings!” The greatest play is about a naked man. A picture of Lear came to me, naked, racing through the wheat. I could be cool. I thought of Ludwig’s uniform, hat, whipcord collar. It signified his authority. Perhaps he would be annoyed, in his authority, by the sight of me naked. Few people woke him at such hours. Worse, I never tipped him. Could I have been so indifferent month after month? In a crisis you discover everything. Then it’s too late. Know yourself, indeed. You need a crisis every day. I refused to think about it. I sent my mind after objects. It returned with the chairs, settee, table, and chandelier. Where were my clothes? I sent it along the rug. It found buttons, eagles stamped in brass. I recognized them as the buttons on Ludwig’s coat. Eagles, beaks like knives, shrieking for tips. Fuck’m, I thought. Who’s Ludwig? A big coat, a whistle, white gloves, and a General MacArthur hat. I could understand him completely. He couldn’t begin to understand me. A naked man is mysterious. But aside from that, what did he know? I dated Veronica Cohen and went home late. Did he know I was out of work? That I lived in a slum downtown? Of course not.

Possibly under his hat was a filthy mind. He imagined Veronica and I might be having sexual intercourse. He resented it. Not that he hoped for the privilege himself, in his coat and soldier hat, but he had a proprietary interest in the building and its residents. I came from another world. The other world against which Ludwig defended the residents. Wasn’t I like a burglar sneaking out late, making him my accomplice? I undermined his authority, his dedication. He despised me. It was obvious. But no one thinks such thoughts. It made me laugh to think them. My genitals jumped. The elevator door slid open. He didn’t say a word. I padded inside like a seal. The door slid shut. Instantly, I was ashamed of myself, thinking as I had about him. I had no right. A better man than I. His profile was an etching by Dürer. Good peasant stock. How had he fallen to such work? Existence precedes essence. At the controls, silent, enduring, he gave me strength for the street. Perhaps the sun would be up, birds in the air. The door slid open. Ludwig walked ahead of me through the lobby. He needed new heels. The door of the lobby was half a ton of glass, encased in iron vines and leaves. Not too much for Ludwig. He turned, looked down into my eyes. I watched his lips move.