Pete Hamill - Forever

They meet in a coffee shop on Twenty-third Street off Seventh Avenue and sit in a booth in the back, engulfed by orange plastic. The Greek owners and waiters all know Healey, and laugh with him as his voice booms around the place.

“They like me ’cause I speak Greek with them,” he says. “In the second year at my high school, the Jesuits offered me a choice: Greek or German. Along with four years of Latin. I took Greek instead of German because I hated the fucking NAZIS, little knowing that I’d end up working with them in the theater.”

But he’s happy about other things. The check from Legs Brookner actually cleared at the bank. The producer is off in the south of France, and they will meet again in two weeks.

“It’s a SCORE. Any Hollywood score is a good score. Just as long as they never make the MOVIE!”

The word “movie” makes heads turn in three booths jammed with unemployed dot-commers. For years, most young people told you they were working on movie scripts. Then they talked about start-ups. Now they are back to movie scripts.

“Don’t think about it!” Healey yells at the young people. “Movies are the worst work in the world. I mean, there’s a movie playing down the block that’s all about FARTS! Learn honest trades. Be carpenters. Repair plumbing. Take the FIREMAN’S test! Be HAPPY!”

The three booths break into applause. Healey gives Cormac a look that says: Am I nuts or are they?

The e-mail is waiting when Cormac gets home. From Delfina. Across the miles.Cormac, querido: I’m writing this in a cyber cafe. I’ve been upset since talking to you—upset with myself, not with you—and now I want to talk some truth. About me. And about us. I felt in your voice that you were jealous somehow, maybe about Mr. Reynoso. The truth is that my father was really dying, and is now dead. But the truth gets more complicated. When I went to see Mr. Reynoso to get some time off, he was very understanding. Not only did he give me the time I needed, he paid for the round-trip ticket to Santo Domingo. I wanted you to come but somehow I knew you couldn’t. I mean, you can’t even go to Brooklyn. So I went to the airport alone, in a car service from East Harlem. When I got there, who’s in first class? Mr. Reynoso. When I see him, I’m irritated. This was, like, too neat, too easy. He said he had some business in Santo Domingo, that this was a real coincidence, etc. I thought, Man, you’re so full of shit. But once we got there, he was a model citizen. A car was waiting, and after he got off at his hotel, he sent the car off to the hills with me in it, to go to my aunt Lourdes’s house. A day passed, then another, as I meet all my endless relatives and my father is lying there in the hospital. On the third night, I come to the hospital, and Mr. Reynoso is there. He’s checking up on the nurses, the doctors, the care, making sure money isn’t the problem. He was doing this very low-key, not playing a big shot. I was touched. When he asked me to go to dinner, I said yes. That was a mistake. You know how it goes. One thing led to another. I slept with him in his suite at the hotel, and cried all the way home in the limo. I cried over my own weakness. I cried for you. Or to say it more clearly, I cried for us. Until coming here, I had this idea in my head, you know, not spelled out, not anything I could say to you, but there—that we might be together for a long time. And yet that night I knew I couldn’t tell you the truth about what happened with Mr. Reynoso. You might never trust me again. You might think of me as a weak and trivial person. You might throw up your hands and take a walk. But I also knew something else. There are things about me you don’t know. Some of them are very important. I keep them hidden, because I don’t know how you would react to them. I’m not ashamed of them. I just don’t know if you—if anyone—could understand them. This trip has reminded me that the two of us just might not be a true fit. I don’t know, even now, sitting in this fucking cyber cafe at 10:30 on a Saturday night. I do want to be with you. Forever. When I get home, I’ll try to explain everything. All about who I really am. And maybe for once, you’ll tell me about yourself. Then we can decide. If it’s good-bye, I understand. With all my love, Delfina

Cormac prints out the letter, reads it again, full of a deep, aching sadness. He walks around the rooms, looking at the places where she has been with him, at tables, in bed, on the model’s stand, along the packed shelves of books, in the kitchen. He sees her peering into the refrigerator that first night, trying to read his character from juice and water and fruit. And then thinks: Jesus Christ, I love her.

He sits down and writes a reply to her e-mail address, hoping she’ll open it somehow and somewhere.Delfina, mi amor. Received your letter and want you more than ever. Let me know when you are coming back. Bring clothes and appetite, and we’ll talk for as long as we need. Much love, C

He speaks out loud in a voice full of amazement and sorrow.

“I love her,” he says. “I love her.”

Tuesday, and a sense of imminence in the air. The sky is gray and bleak. In the streets, there are a few lonesome joggers and dog walkers, engulfed in solitude. Cormac walks to the Battery and back, nodding at the firemen in their ancient house on Liberty Street, passing the old New York Post building on West Street where he worked his last shifts on night rewrite. It’s a condo now, filled with young businesspeople and students from NYU.

At the Battery, whitecaps rise on the surly harbor. A freighter plods toward the Atlantic. Seagulls move in widening arcs. The sky is a smear, vacant of horsemen. He hears the voice of Mary Morrigan: Something bad is coming.

He writes a will. He types a long detailed note to Delfina explaining which books and paintings are valuable. He gives her the name of his lawyer. He explains how to sell what she doesn’t want. The note becomes a letter of thirty-six pages. On Tuesday, he goes to the lawyer’s office near Foley Square, signs the will, and has the letter attached and sealed, as a kind of codicil.

While copies are being made, Cormac gazes out the window of the lawyer’s office. Down on the sidewalk, dressed in black, his arms folded across his chest, is Kongo. He doesn’t even try to open the window.

Delfina calls from the airport around eight o’clock on Wednesday night. She sounds drained.

“I want to come to your house,” she says. “But it’s been a long day. I’m tired and dirty and—”

“Tomorrow night is fine.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then come to my house tomorrow night,” she says. “I brought some things from the D.R.”

“Great.”

“And Cormac? Thanks for that e-mail. I know I’m a god-damned fool for telling you anything, but it made me feel better.”

He hears his voice lower. “It’s great to hear your voice.”

A pause. “Yours too.”

Twenty minutes later, there’s another call. Elizabeth Warren. Cool, but not cold. She tells him she’s in Ottawa at a three-day conference.

“But that’s not why I called,” she says, her voice rising into anger. “I called to tell you what you already know. You’re a god-damned thief.”

“Let me explain—”

“What can you explain? You’re a thief, Cormac. My husband comes home this weekend and I want that sword back on its hook!”

“I’ll bring it to Willie myself.”

“That’s no good.”

A wire of hysteria enters her voice.

“My husband owns that sword!”

He lowers his own voice, thinking: Don’t argue.

“Elizabeth, those spirals were cut into that blade by my own flesh and blood, back in Ireland,” Cormac says. “More than two hundred and fifty years ago. I’ve been looking for it a long time now….”