Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

Suddenly the hallway didn’t look familiar. I’d taken a wrong turn, perhaps two, but there was a door. It had no knob, a swinging door. I shoved it wide. Something registered. Just as quickly, it was gone, wiped out, retrogressively unseen. I was back in the hall again, the door was shut. I was about to continue lunging on to the next door, the next turn, when I realized I’d fallen into my old ways, protecting myself, letting myself believe there were things one mustn’t see. I’d been through that, I’d seen, transcended. I could see anything now, see it squarely, name it with exactitude and indifference. I shoved the door again. It opened on a brilliant kitchen, a long counter with a tall, steel coffee urn. I’d seen that. The black servant stood on the counter beside the urn. That, too. Pissing into the urn. Yes, yes; that, too. He wore sunglasses as if to shield his eyes against the glare of his yam. “That’s offensive,” I said, naming it. He shook his last drops into the urn, hopped off the counter, zipped up, and began putting cups and saucers on a tray. When he finished he turned to me and said, “We’re born offensive, brother.” He stepped toward me, hand extended, palm up. “Give me some skin, brother.” The flat, gleaming opacity of his sunglasses seemed menacing, but I lunged to meet him and drew my palm down his. We locked thumbs, pressed forearms and elbows together. He was all right, but boiling in me now was a phrase for Mildred: “Don’t drink the coffee.” I returned to the drawing room with it, and in the weariness of this crowd, I felt it dissolve into the quiet voice of a Britisher, like head boy at a school for supersadists, fashioning managerial scum for the colonies: “Mildred, get your coat.” Terribly mild, yet the pitch of majestic will. She and Stanger were locked, pretzeled together, still necking, his hand was plunged beneath her dress, but she wiggled hard, slapped knees together, sprang up. Suddenly my wife! He sprang up behind her. There were people everywhere, some standing behind their couch, others sprawled at their feet, and yet only I could invade their privacy, only I had the power of invasion attributed ordinarily to voyeurs and God. The power against which society makes laws, or out of which it claims to draw them. Now there was stir all about the room. My power had spread, initiating small spasms, like a wind seen in the motion of trees. And Nell appeared, the hostess again, cooing good-nights and so-good-yous. She smiled at me in a frowning, quizzical, sad, not miserable way. I read her lips: “Coffee?” Thus encouraging me to stay a bit after the others. I smiled regrets and waved lyrical goodbye. From the depths, dimly, mechanically, came “Eeee.” Some of the guests who seemed to hear it tried to look worried.

We left the apartment with Dr. and Mrs. Swoon. Stanger walked us out to the elevator. Dr. Swoon was in his clothes again. Mrs. Swoon, it turned out, was the lady with the bulging eyes and violent neck. Swoon’s face was splotched with pimiento color and torn. Somewhere behind it he seemed to have withdrawn into a severe dignity. Mrs. Swoon chattered as if it had been she who’d done the fighting and could find no way of containing its momentum. “You should have gone for the eyes, Jack. Your plan was no good. It never is when you don’t listen to people. I mean, you use diagnosticians, don’t you, before you operate?” She turned to me. “Two of them. Jack has two young doctors who see the patient and tell Jack what to do. Awfully clever, but their hands are made of shit, you know what I mean? Jack operates. Of course, without them, he couldn’t tell the difference between an asshole and an elbow. I mean, he’d have to consult the nurses to find out which was which. But once he knows, look out, look out, that’s Jack Swoon, king of fingers. Never uses a knife on nose jobs. Do you, Jack?” He shook his head no. “Does them with fingers and the heels of his palms. This is the heel. See, this part. Gets it smack up against the nares and grinds. Makes nice little ski jumps every time. ‘I make the whole world Gentile,’ says Jack. Personally, I think it leaves the holes too big, but that’s what folks want.” Stanger chuckled and raised a voice to obscure hers, and also the screaming, which followed us out to the elevator. “Didn’t somehow find a chance to talk to you, Phillip, and get to know you. But I haven’t forgotten our interview.” His thumb ground the elevator button as if it were an eyeball. “We’ll get together soon. You must promise me that.” Sufficient, I thought. Enough said. He had dark, penetrating eyes and a feeble mouth. His expression was overbred, full of difficulties, as if something in his chemical history wasn’t finished. An animal, perhaps, still to shoot. His handshake was tentative, trying to close on a good-humored assurance. Mine was a quick, updown fuck — you. “I promise. Good night. Thanks.” He nodded to Mildred and they said good night as the elevator door opened. Then he shook hands with the Swoons. We stepped into the elevator. As the door slid shut he turned away. The door stuck, by the grace of deus ex machina, just for an instant, to show Stanger with the right buttock in his fist, pulled away from its brother. An abstracted, habitual gesture, expressing long familiarity with pressures of his body. He released slow, thoughtful gas, a final good night to his guests in the elevator. The door shut. Mrs. Swoon stared at it. Dr. Swoon’s fiery face ripped into a great smile. I glanced at Mildred. She pinched her nose. Even thus, beautiful. The door opened, we said good night to the Swoons. She took my arm. We walked wildly, bumping hips. “I was bored, bored, bored,” she cried. “Do you hear me? Bored. The screaming was worth it, maybe, but I was bored. I hope you’re happy about the job. You’d have gotten it even if we stayed home. Probably a better salary, too. Did you know a man was almost beaten to death and another had a stroke while looking at a picture? I wish I’d seen that picture. Must have been very dirty, don’t you think?”

“He named a figure?”

“You imagine I asked?”

“Of course you asked.”

“Eleven and a half to start.”

“Bullshit. How much?”

“He said his daughter, Naomi, wants to be an actress. He calls her Nimi. Maybe it was Ninny screaming, rehearsing some part.”

“How much? Don’t prattle.”

“He said she has a neurological problem. Theater is so good for her. ‘So good for Nimi,’ he said. He meant she’s a crazy loony, right?”

“Who cares? How much?”

“The wife is very good-looking, but sort of a dopey slut, wouldn’t you say? Wouldn’t you say that, Phillip? He’s a weakling. I’m sure you’ll like the job, Phillip. You know what he told me?”

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me he hates the sound of eating, even the sound he makes. So he has these big dinner parties, see? Are you limping, Phillip?”

“Yeah.”

“And he’s got a scheme for buying property on the moon. Because of the blacks, not to make money. He’s in lumber and publishing. He doesn’t need money. There’s a family place in Connecticut, to which we’ve been invited, and another one in California. But the moon, man, is where it’s really at. ‘Nowhere else to go,’ he said. ‘What do you think NASA is all about? Space agency? No, sir. Surreal estate agency’ No blacks on the moon, Phillip. He thinks New York is finished. Phones don’t work. Blacks everywhere. But he hires black servants. What do you think that means, Phillip? He wants to keep an eye on them? Please stop that limping and walk more quickly.”

“What the hell does he mean by eleven and a half? I’m no typist.”

“Stop crying. I can’t stand the sight of you crying.”