Evan Hunter - Streets of Gold

“Have you called a doctor?”

“No,” she said. “Can you get here right away, please?”

“Well, what...?”

“Please, man,” she said.

“Where are you? Canal Street?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said. “Tell him I’m on the way.”

I put the receiver back on the cradle, and went into the bedroom for my coat.

“Who was that?” my mother said.

“Biff’s sick. I have to go down to Canal Street.”

“Does he know you’re blind, your nigger friend?”

“He knows it, Mom.”

“So why is he dragging you out of the house on Christmas Day?”

“Che successe?” my grandfather asked.

“Biff is sick,” I said.

“ Where did you say you’re going?” Aunt Bianca asked.

“ Canal Street,” my mother said.

“I’ll take a taxi, don’t worry about me.”

“I’ll go with you,” my father said.

“I can get there okay, Pop.”

“Let him go, Jimmy,” my mother said. “The hell with him and his nigger friends.”

“I got the cab right downstairs,” Matt said. “You want me to drive you down?”

“Thanks, Uncle Matt, I’ll be all right.”

“Iggie,” my grandfather said.

“Yes, Grandpa?”

“Stat’ attento,” he said. “Be careful.”

“I will, Grandpa.”

I went downstairs, and stood on the corner outside the pasticceria , waiting for a cab heading downtown, raising my cane whenever any kind of vehicle approached. I must have been standing in the cold for perhaps ten minutes, regretting having turned down my Uncle Matt’s offer, when suddenly an automobile pulled to the curb.

“Where are you going?” a girl’s voice asked.

“Canal Street,” I said.

“You’ll never get a taxi, this is Christmas,” she said. “You want to share mine?”

“Thank you,” I said.

I heard the door opening. I felt for it, edged my way around it, and using it as a guide and a support, climbed into the taxi. I was reaching over to pull the door shut behind me, when the girl said, “Can you manage?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Okay,” she said.

I closed the door, slamming it to prove I was entirely capable of performing such a simple action.

“Don’t break the window, huh, Mac?” the cabby said.

“Sorry,” I said.

“So what is it now? Houston, then Canal?”

“Yes,” the girl said.

The driver put the cab into gear and pulled away from the curb. The girl and I sat side by side in silence.

“This is very kind of you,” I said at last, in apology for having slammed the door.

“Listen,” she said, “don’t I know what it’s like trying to get a cab?” Her voice was pure Bronx Jewish. I suddenly thought of Rebecca, the girl with the green eyes. We rode the rest of the way downtown without saying another word to each other. On Houston Street, the girl directed the driver to the building she wanted, and then offered to pay him what was on the meter. I told her that wasn’t necessary, I’d take care of it when I got to Canal Street. She then offered to pay at least half, but I refused that as well. Sighing, she got out of the cab, said, “Happy Chanukah,” and slammed the door behind her,

“ Everybody’s tryin’ to bust my windows today,” the cabby said, and threw the taxi into gear again, and squealed it away from the curb. He was silent for several moments, and then suddenly and angrily said, “Why’n’t you let her pay?”

“What for?” I said. “I’d still be standing on that corner if it hadn’t been for her.”

“For her ? For me , you mean. By rights, I ain’t supposed to pick up no passenger when I already got a passenger in the cab. That’s ridin’ double, an’ that ain’t allowed. By rights, when I let her out on Houston, I shoulda collected what was on the clock and then thrown the flag again. That’s by rights.”

“What difference does it make?” I said.

“I work percentage, Mac. Every time I throw the flag, I get a percentage of the first drop, too. What do you think I ony get a percentage of ony the rest, is that what you think? By rights, I’m gettin’ gypped out of part of the fare.”

“I’ll make it up on the tip,” I said.

“Sure,” the cabby said. “Everybody’ll make it up on the tip.”

“I can’t read the meter, anyway,” I said, “so just charge me whatever the fuck you want, and shut up, will you?”

“Nice,” he said. “Nice for a blind person.”

“Just drive the fuckin’ taxi,” I said.

“Very nice,” he said. “Oh, beautiful.”

When we got to Canal Street, I paid him what he said was on the meter, and then added a dollar to it. “Can you make it upstairs?” he asked.

“I can make it.”

“I’ll help you upstairs, if you like.”

“I don’t need any help, thanks.”

“Fuck you too,” he said, and drove off.

There was usually an old black man running the cage elevator in Biff’s building. But this was Christmas, and after I’d been ringing the bell for several minutes, I realized he probably had the day off. I felt around in the hallway for a door leading to the steps, found a metal fire door, eased it open, and cautiously began climbing. The iron stairwell stank of urine and booze. I had been coming to this building for more than a year now, but I had always been taken up to the third floor in the elevator run by the old black man, who smelled of whiskey a bit, true, but never of tiger piss. Biff had described him to me as a punch-drunk old club fighter who always wore a brown leather jacket and a woolen watch cap. In all the time I’d been taking lessons from Biff, the old man had never said a word to me. I’d get into the elevator, he’d carry me to the third floor, and then pull open the gate and wait for me to get out. The stench began to dissipate as I climbed higher. I figured the ground-floor landing was a haven for bums who wandered over from the Bowery. I kept climbing, tapping the metal steps. I had counted the steps from the ground floor to the first-floor landing, and knew there were thirty-six of them between floors. When I reached the third floor, I opened another fire door, and then located the elevator door so that I could direct myself from there to Biff’s loft. There was a bell set into the metal doorjamb there. I knew exactly where it was. I reached for it, and heard the bell ringing inside the loft. Footsteps approached the door.

“Who is it?” a voice said. It was the voice I’d heard on the telephone.

“Iggie,” I said.

I heard the night chain being removed, and then the lock being turned. The door opened.

“You’re blind,” she said at once.

“Yes.”

“He didn’t tell me. Whut the fuck help you gonna be, man?”

“Where is he?”

She closed and locked the door behind me. I knew my way around the loft by heart; it was as familiar to me as my own home in the Bronx. The grand piano, which Biff had bought in better times and never parted with, sat against the Canal Street wall, huge windows above it opening to the street. There was a battered easy chair near the piano, and a mattress on the floor in the middle of the loft. Biff was lying on that mattress. All I could hear was his tortured breathing.

“Biff?” I said.

He did not answer. I reached out to touch him. He was drenched with perspiration. The sheets under him were wet.

“Biff?” I said again. I turned to the girl. “Is he unconscious? What’s the matter with him?” I was beginning to panic. I could not see him, and he was trembling under my hand, and I did not know what was wrong with him. “Why didn’t you call a doctor?”