Sol Stein - Other people

"Don't that make the gism tighten your balls, man?" Koslak said to the super. "Great tits."

I am watching them both.

The super is watching me as if he's appreciating a statue. If the circumstances were different, it might be a compliment.

"We ain't got all day," said Koslak. "Take it all off. I want to see the beaver."

I let the blouse slip off my arms.

"All of it," he yelled.

I don't want him to touch me.

"Hurry up. If you don't want to go into the bedroom, lie back on the couch and spread it."

He sees how frightened I am. He's feeding on my fear.

"Just a minute," I said, and I went for the kitchen, with Koslak following right behind me fast, saying, "What's up? Where you going?" but he didn't do anything to stop me till he saw me reach up to the magnetic knife rack above the sink and then it was too late. For a split second I almost took the meat cleaver. I'd cut chicken into parts with it, whacked fish heads off, but using it against a human being? It was self-defense, wasn't it? The knife I took was the bread knife.

I thrust it at him foolishly. He was too far away.

"Wait a minute," he said. What frightened me was the twisted pleasure of his smile. He likes the possibility of violence.

"Don't come near me," I said, holding the knife out in front of me, point toward him. I wished I knew how to use it. I knew I was doing it wrong.

When I moved forward, he moved back. He was looking to grab my arm.

I had walked him back into the living room. The super saw the knife. "Hey, Harry," he said, "this isn't my scene."

"It's your scene now," Koslak said. He had that commanding shake in his voice. "Get behind her," he said. "She can't take on two of us."

I was backing toward the front door when I thought I heard voices outside. I screamed with full lungs. The super really looked frightened, but Koslak lunged for my arm. I tried to strike at him with the knife, but he grabbed my wrist and twisted so hard I felt the pain shoot up to my shoulder. I dropped the knife. Instantly he stooped and picked it up.

The doorbell rang. "Open up," a voice said. "Police officers."

Koslak was standing there with the knife when the super stepped behind me and unlocked the door. The two policemen had guns in their hands.

Koch sat scrunched up in the passenger seat, obviously alarmed at how fast I was tooling up the West Side Highway. I wonder what kind of teen-ager this psychiatrist had been.

This got me thinking about Papa Thomassian, who sometimes thought he was a psychiatrist to his horses. He'd mother them and father them, a taskmaster, trainer, and in the case of that crazy stallion that should have been shot. Papa behaved like a head doctor trying to reason and cajole a berserk animal. I was fourteen when the stallion responded to Papa's ministrations by kicking him unconscious.

I remember Mama screaming out of control as if I could hear it right now.

I did what I had to do. I hauled the limp sack of old man into the back of the antique car. Every kid my age in Oswego knew how to drive, but I didn't even have a learner's permit. I drove the distance to the hospital in Binghamton, Mama crying her widow's wail, sure this was the end. I had to tell her that if she didn't shut up, I'd crack up the car and we'd all die.

I got the old man into emergency — the intern said it was in the nick of time — and the cop who wrote up the report said to me, "How'd you get here, kid?" and I said, "I drove," and that was that because if you won, it didn't matter how you won.

Which didn't get me a driver's license before I was sixteen. We had to take the bus to Binghamton to visit the old man. The wheezing had turned to breathing. Then he was sitting up in bed.

"Mama," he said, "give me a dollar."

"You can't spend no money in the hospital, what for you need a dollar?"

The patriarch's authority had come back to his eyes. She gave him the dollar.

Then he turned to me and said, "Georgie, you save my life the doctor says. Here."

I shook my head. I didn't want the dollar.

"You see how he turns away from my dollar. Mama? The only reason he saved my life was because he don't want to take care of you."

Gratitude, I learned, is like love. Don't try for it. If you get it, it won't last.

"What did you say?" asked Dr. Koch.

"I was thinking gratitude is like love. It never lasts."

"Not true," said Koch the curer.

We knew we were at the right building because people had clustered around the empty police car, its light whirling. "Follow me," I yelled to Koch, and went up the stairs two at a time.

The apartment door was open. Inside, an unbelievable scene, the cops, Francine, and two guys, all of them trying to talk or shout. Francine had some kind of wrap around herself. Her hair was wild. I kept my eyes averted from her. I identified myself to the police as her lawyer, by which time Koch had come up the stairs, puffing, and I said he was Miss Widmer's doctor, that there'd been a call asking for help, and, yes, I was the one who had called the police.

The older, heavyset cop said, "This guy," pointing at the man I assumed to be Koslak, "is threatening false arrest."

"You're damn right," Koslak's strident pitch cut at me.

Francine allowed herself to be engulfed by Koch's arm. Permissible for a doctor, not for a lawyer.

"He says nothing happened."

"That's true," said the man with one arm. "Nothing did."

"You let him in," Francine screamed. "He's the man who raped me.

"Nobody raped anybody while I was here," said the super.

"Last week! Last week!" said Francine.

"Who called the cops tonight?" said the cop.

I repeated that I had. "I was in Dr. Koch's office. He got a message from his service that Miss Widmer needed help."

"Let me tell you something, mister," said Koslak, "she don't need no help. She offered to put on a show."

I looked at Francine.

"This girl was naked from the waist up when I come in," said the cop. He turned to Francine. "You live here alone?"

Francine nodded.

"Did you invite these men in?"

"The super said he had to turn the water in the kitchen off because there was a leak down below."

"That's right," said the super.

"Then what happened?" asked the cop.

"He let the other man in, I told you," said Francine.

"She offered to put on this show," said the super. "She wanted twenty bucks, and I asked Mr. Koslak in so we could split it ten and ten."

"That's a lie." Francine was appealing to me to take charge.

"Officer," I said, "what did you see when you entered?"

The younger cop answered. "I was in first. This fellow—" he pointed at Koslak— "was holding a knife, the other fellow was just standing there, the girl was—"

"Why was he holding a knife?"

"It wasn't my knife," said Koslak. "It was her knife. I had to take it away from her."

The cop said, "She admitted it was her knife."

"She pulled the knife," said Koslak, "when we said we'd pay after the show. She wanted the cash in advance."

"They were threatening to rape me!"

"Hold everything!" I said. "Officer, my client is employed as an executive in the United Nations, comes from a socially prominent Westchester family, earns a good living. Why would she be interested in exhibiting herself for a few dollars?"

"I don't know," said the older cop. "Hey, honey," he said to Francine, "why would you?"

Koch was trying to calm her.

"I wouldn't!" she yelled. "I was screaming before the police came in."

"Was she in fact screaming?" I asked.

"She was," said the cop.

"Because I took her damn knife away from her," said Koslak. "Listen, anybody going to make charges around here, it's me. I'm a respectable married man. I got a pregnant wife and two kids upstairs. I only came in because she was going to put on a show, right?"