Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

What’s with that man I said. I limped to a chair and took the shoe off my bad foot. The other man was blankets up to a face the color of chicken fat. His eyes were sticking out like swords.

Jack said the man was recovering from pneumonia. I didn’t say anything.

If you ask me that man finished recovering I said. I put my shoe on Jack’s bed.

Jack said what’s the matter with your foot?

Nothing I said.

The man heard us. He said virus.

My foot was sweating.

Jack said virus is different from plain pneumonia.

I rubbed my foot. Poo I said. Open a window.

Jack said don’t do anything. It’s not important.

I said how much are they paying you to stay here? Stinks is not important?

I hopped to the window in one shoe and asked the virus I’m opening the window.

His eyes didn’t move. They looked like a sign: BE QUIET. BE QUIET. Two killers, shining, pushing. He said virus.

I asked him again I’m opening this window so it will stop stinking.

He said virus.

A little snow came in. You couldn’t notice. Like feathers. Nothing. It melted on the radiator. The virus didn’t complain. Only a maniac would complain. The virus looked at the ceiling as if a movie was playing there. I looked too. I knew there was no movie on the ceiling but I looked. I was right. Jack was happier with the window open. Why not? He was a man with a friend. He began a speech why he was in the hospital.

He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep. This. That. He fell down at work. In his stomach a pain. So his union sent him to the hospital.

Talk talk talk. I knew plenty.

I said I’m glad you want to talk.

He said is it wrong to talk?

I said tell me if what you have is serious and forgive me for laughing. A friend can laugh.

He said you think it’s not serious?

I said to you serious is to the world ridiculous. Sure an enemy wouldn’t laugh. He doesn’t care so he can care. You have no sense of proportion. I rubbed my foot.

The other man said virus.

Jack said nobody told him not to talk.

I said maybe you would like to sing.

He began to sing. Ya-ya-ya.

The man said virus.

Me too. Ya — ya — ya.

All of a sudden the virus pushes his blankets on the floor and gets out of bed. His gown was pinched in his behind. His legs were bones, his face green. Like a tomato. I thought he was a tomato not a virus. He walked out of the room.

We stopped singing.

I said he went to the toilet.

Jack said a toilet is behind the door over there. He didn’t go to the toilet.

I said how do you know? Maybe he doesn’t like that toilet.

Jack said he didn’t go to the toilet.

I said he’ll be back in a minute. He went to another toilet because he didn’t want us to hear him make a tinkle.

Jack said he didn’t go to any toilet.

I said all right. Then he recovered. Why should he pay another penny? He recovered. Stop the clock. A motel is cheaper. I noticed I had a headache.

Jack gave me a face like Genghis Khan. A rock with eye slits. I could see the tomato was my fault. I could see it in the rock.

I said I know how it is Jack. You come in with trouble and they put you with a virus. Look at my foot. Is that sweat Jack? It’s sweat believe me. Jack’s wife hated him.A small skinny from night school. Hair and pimples.

She used to read to him from Goethe. He couldn’t understand a word so they got married. When Jack had a hard-on she would vomit. He called her The Stomach. He used to say I’m going home now to The Stomach. I knew plenty. I said what do you say about my foot?

He said he phoned me so I would walk on my rotten foot. Then he grabbed my shoe and went to the window. A guy like him makes life meaningless.

Jack I said it was a shoe. You should throw Goethe out the window. Maybe you’re in the Mongolian mood to throw my other shoe out the window? I slapped it on his bed.

He threw it out the window.

How about this lamp I said.

Out the window.

These blankets you want to keep?

Out the window.

I said this is too big don’t even look at it.

For a Chinese Jew the mattress was no trouble.

A nurse came in when I was pulling Jack’s bed toward the window. She started hitting and scratching me. Jack knocked her down with a punch. I jumped on her face. Jack put his tongue in her wallet, then me, then we pushed the bed out the window.

We were singing ya-ya-ya when nurses and doctors from all over the hospital came in. Why not? How often do schmucks see a friendship?

I walked home without a shoe. Not one shoe. I begged myself to take a taxi. It’s cold. It’s snowing. Take a taxi. But I refused. No taxi. For proof I yelled taxi taxi. It stopped. Drive into a wall I said.

The driver looked at me. I made a Jack face. He picked up a wrench. I could see he was a maniac. I was standing without shoes and a maniac was coming with a wrench. He could hit me in the foot. When he pushed open the door another taxi knocked it off.

It figures I yelled. But he was hitting the other driver with the wrench. In the snow I ran away. You’ll get pneumonia I said.

I said I hope it’s a virus.

Then I saw a phone booth and called Jack’s wife.

She said hello.

I recognized her voice because it was so little and quiet. That’s how she talked. Like a one-year-old.

I said hello Jack’s wife?

She said yeah Jack’s wife.

I said Jack is dead.

She said what who?

I said you’re no good believe me. East Side hospital.

She was screaming with her little voice what who?

I didn’t say anything. I said I’m hanging up. You think my foot isn’t killing me? What do you care?

She screamed wait wait.

I said Jack’s wife?

She screamed yeah yeah Jack’s wife.

I said Jack’s wife from Goethe?

She screamed yeah Jack’s wife.

I said listen. Let another person talk sometimes.

She stopped screaming.

Are you listening I said.

She whispered yes yes.

Gloonk I hung up.

That night Genghis Khan and The Stomach were together. I didn’t say anything. I went home and put my foot in the toilet bowl and flushed the water. Who needs a hospital? Or a small skinny from Budapest? Not for me.A friend calls and I said hello Jack. I also have a toilet bowl. It sucks my foot and soon it feels better. At night I knock over the garbage bag under the sink so in the dark I listen to them eat. The rats are happy. I’m happy. I yell sleep. It comes like a taxicab.

T. T. MANDELLlocked his office door, then read letters from experts advising the press against publishing his book, The Enduring Southey. One letter was insulting, another expressed hatred. All agreed The Enduring Southey —“an examination of the life and writing of Robert Southey”—should not be published. Every letter was exceedingly personal and impeccably anonymous. Mandell, an assistant professor of rhetoric and communication art at Bronx Community State Extension, had hoped to win a permanent position at the college. But no published book, no job. In effect, the experts said T. T. Mandell should be fired. But in every negative lives a positive. Mandell could read the letters; Mandell could revise The Enduring Southey . Where he’d previously said “yes” or “no,” he now said “perhaps yes,” “perhaps no.” Miss Nugent, the department secretary, retyped the manuscript, then mailed it to another press. It was rejected.

T. T Mandell locked his office door, then read the letters. All different, yet one conclusion: The Enduring Southey must not be published. Again there were insults: “To publish this book would represent an attack on the mind.” Mandell wasn’t troubled by insults. His life had been shaped by them. Two criticisms, however, were troubling: