Sol Stein - Other people

Cunham laughed. "A great invention, George. What do we do in the meantime?"

"We indict by the usual procedures, which I'm glad you've agreed to do. If the Grand Jury is unresponsive, I guess Miss Widmer'll just have to wear the camera next time the assailant comes around — he's been twice — and record the action."

"Sounds like entrapment."

"Where there's a will, there's a way," said Thomassy. "Come, Miss Widmer, Mr. Cunham runs a busy office."

"I'm very glad to have met you. Miss Widmer. I trust we'll be seeing you again."

And again the bastard shook my hand, his fingers extended along my wrist. A bit less sophisticated and he'd have tickled my palm.

Outside on the street, I turned on Thomassy and said, "What that friend of yours wants is easy cases."

"Right."

"What he wants is the rape of a forty-year-old Roman Catholic lady who goes to church every day and who was examined by a Roman Catholic physician the day before who would testify that she had her hymen intact. It makes me furious. Don't try to pacify me. What I would have liked to do in there is pull a gun on your friend and make him open his fly and pull his thing out."

"Using force."

"You're damn right. The only way you can identify with someone who gets raped is to feel it happening to you."

"Not true. Look, do you want to win or do you want to prove something?"

"Both," I said, "both, damn it!"

"I've watched plenty of professional civil liberties lawyers at work, and I'll tell you something. They're so intent on proving something they sometimes forget their clients want to win. I'm not a politician and I'm not a preacher. You wanted Cunham to take your case to the Grand Jury and I think he's going to. What more do you want?"

"You," I said.

I had wanted to fire him. The moment I saw him, I knew I had been racked with jealousy because I loved him.

After a moment, I said, "We've got two cars in the parking lot. Why don't we leave mine there. Drive me up to your place. Please?"

"You going to be merciful to the fellow who disappointed you?"

"You disappointed yourself. George, I'm grateful for what you did with Cunham, but this hasn't got anything to do with that."

"All I did was supply Cunham with a piece of information that will eventually show up on your bill for two hundred dollars."

"Please don't rob me of my idealistic youth all at once," I said. "Moreover, I'm not as naive as you think. I just wish our… relationship didn't threaten you."

"I don't feel threatened."

"Then please."

"Please what?"

"Take me home with you. Let's try again."

"No."

"I don't care if you get it up or not. You will when you sort out the marbles in your head. Please."

"I've got a better idea. Can I pick you up Saturday morning? I want to take us on a trip."

"If a change in environment will make a difference, sure. Where to?"

"LaGuardia."

"I hate to fly."

"Driving to where we're going takes too long."

"Where?"

"Trust me."

"Can you trust me in turn, George?"

He paused a second too long. "Sure," he said.

"There's a letter in the mail, from me to you. When it arrives, tear it up without reading it. Think you can do that?"

Every day except God's day I am already up at five, working the horses. Every day my hands hurt from holding leather at the other end of which is a big-eye horse what don't want to do what I want him to do. This game I win every day. I stop with horses when five is on my watch again. My neck aches. My worse tiredness is in the bottoms of my feet. When I was young man, never tired, not morning, not night. Now sometimes tired in morning, bad. Anyway, five in evening is good time. I sit with my tea, staring into the fire, dreaming good parts my life long ago. I call this my "little sleep."

So this day I am having my little sleep I hear a car stop. My shotgun is on wall. The door is safely locked. I go to window, pull curtain, see George.

I unlock door, pull open, yell at him, "Who died?"

"Hello, Pop," he says. "There's no one left to die, just you and me."

"You drive five hours without telephone first? You crazy?"

"You don't answer the telephone."

"Why should I answer?" I say to him. "Who is there I want to talk to?"

"People will think you died."

"That's why you come? To pack up my things for yourself?"

George shakes his head. I let him in. "Have some tea," I say, "five hours is long drive."

"I rented the car at the airport," he says, "I didn't drive all the way to Oswego."

"Then what you want?"

George says, "I wanted to be sure you were all right."

"Why?" I say. "You think if I die I stink too much. Nobody here to smell."

Well, we talk lots of things, I tell him I got a man comes three times a week help with the horses, if I'm dead, the man knows where to look for George's telephone number on the first page of my little book that says Police, Fire, Vet, Undertaker, George.

George kids me, why don't I take a woman into the house since Marya died, I tell him I take care of myself, cook, clean house, little sex, everything. He tells me I am married to the horses. I yell at him who he married to, criminals? Judges? Floozies? Forty-four years a bachelor, everybody must think he's a you-know-what or a eunuch.

"You never bring me a woman to inspect so I know you are serious!"

That's when he tells me there's a woman in the car. "Why you not bring her in, stupid!" I yell at him. I go outside, pull open car door, say "Come in, come in."

Inside, I look at her better. She's a baby, compared to George.

I give her my hand. I give her my name. I ask her if she is a woman lawyer.

"No," she says.

I am surprised.

Well, we talk a lot that evening. I apologize for the franks and beans, it's all I got that's enough for three, they say never mind, we drink beer, it's almost like the old days when George was a boy. This girl smart. This girl has a lot of class. I ask her if she is an Armenian, knowing what the answer will be. I tell her it's okay anyway. After two hours I ask her to write down her telephone number. She looks at George. George says it's okay. I take my little book and after Police Fire Vet Undertaker I cross out George's number and write her number in. George laughs so hard I think he'll die. He understands I approve.

They have to drive back to airport. I don't kiss her cheek or anything, I haven't shaved. I pull George aside, tell him he's a lousy son but maybe I can have a nice daughter.

"Don't jump to conclusions," he tells me. "We hardly know each other."

"Liar," I say.

They get in the car. I wave. I say something. He doesn't hear me. He rolls the window down. I say again, "Tell her about the Armenians."

The next morning, 5:00 A.M., I go to my horses a new man.

I suggested that we might stay in a motel near Oswego and not head straight home.

"I don't like motels," said Thomassy.

"I don't think anyone likes motels. I thought, just on the spur of the moment, for the night, it might be fun."

He looked at me as if the word "fun" were repulsive to him.

On the flight back I asked him why we had gone to Oswego. To visit his father, he said. I meant why did we go to visit his father. Why do you think? he said. I said I didn't know. He said he didn't know either.

The flight took under fifty minutes. We got a clear view of the city as we came in to LaGuardia over the sound. In his car, I asked if he had planned to whip up a dinner for us. He hadn't. I volunteered to cook one with whatever I could find in his place.

"There isn't much."

"I'll try."

While he was slouched on the sofa, his legs sticking straight out, coddling Jack Daniels on ice, I asked, "What would you normally be doing on a Saturday evening?"