Sol Stein - Other people

We lingered in the silence that followed. Finally, she said, "I meant my own woman."

"There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Saying 'your own man' doesn't make you homosexual. The terms of our language are male. That is the only significance of your remark."

"You mean I'm not suddenly turning queer."

"Not suddenly."

"Now what the hell do you mean by that?"

"You spoke of yourself once or twice as having a crazy side. Tell me about that."

Experience has taught me to expect a long silence before she answers.

"Ever since I was a kid, every once in a while I just let all my crazy thoughts and words hang out, like I was letting some other nature out of me, some…"

"Uncontrolled?"

"My mother and father never let any crazy side of them show."

"Concealment?"

"Yes. To be decorous. Proper. Unexcitable. It's the essence of Waspdom."

"You were saying before that excitement was part of vocation."

"Yes," she said. "My vocation is not to be a Wasp. Like needling people, shocking the bourgeoisie, fucking blacks, you know."

"Or Turks?"

"What do you mean?"

"I meant Armenians."

"But they were enemies."

"Of whom?"

"Of each other."

"And?"

"My parents. They don't want to know people who are emotional, who dance wildly, who kill, who…"

"Say it."

"Who rape. They think the ethnics, all of them, are raping our world."

"Whose world?"

"My parents' fucking world!"

"Not yours?"

"I want out of that world. Look, Dr. Koch, there was a world of people before my mother and father and me, before any Wasps. It's a temporary stage. Their time is up."

"You fled from your parents into Cambridge, you befriended all sorts of types, talents, eccentrics, lunatics."

"Weirdos."

"You want to be like them?"

"I want to be like myself. Only…"

"Yes?"

"I want to be obsessed like George."

"Vocation. Yes. Well, I think that's all for today."

"Jesus, it's like coitus interruptus, right when I'm getting somewhere, you stop."

"Yes."

"It's part of the technique, right?"

She was sitting up, looking at me. I nodded.

"There aren't a lot of Wasps in your profession, are there?"

"Some," I said.

"Not many, I'll bet. Too embarrassing."

"Is your car parked nearby?"

"Just a couple of blocks away."

"I need some exercise after sitting all day. I will walk downstairs with you."

She looked at me, a slight smile subverting her countenance for the first time that day.

"Our antlers aren't locked any more?" she said.

I shook my head.

In the street she said, "It's like coming out of a movie into real life." She turned left. I went with her.

"Were there Spanish-speaking people in the area when you moved here?"

"It was a very long time ago. Maybe a few. I never noticed. Now it is the lingua franca ."

" Lingua hispanica ," she said, laughing.

"Yes."

So soon the tables turn. Before me, I think, came generations of refugees whose children wanted only to look and act and feel more like the ruling Wasps than their parents. Now the Francines are slithering out of the Wasp compound, finding their way out into the world, looking for the other inhabitants of the planet. She is becoming a European. She has been raped by a Slovak. We are two refugees in this West Side mini-ghetto of mine that shrinks every day like a grape drying. All around we hear the language of Torquemada. Look at those three young toughs eyeing us, sucking machismo from cigarettes, laughing. I feel the fibrillating panic: the bars on the cages are being lifted, the animals are being let loose, the holocaust is coming again.

"Are you all right. Dr. Koch?"

"Fine, fine." Dear God, I have lived in this neighborhood for twenty-six years, with Marta and after Marta, will I have to move, become a refugee once more?

As she reaches her car, she says, "It's a very colorful neighborhood you live in."

"Yes. Full of life." And death.

She shakes my hand. "Thank you for accompanying me."

" De nada ," I say in the language of the enemy, as she gets in and I close the door. She ignites the engine, backs up turning the wheel, then pulls away from the curb with a roar, my Francine, waving with one hand. I walk to the corner newsstand, and amidst the Spanish magazines, I find the evening paper, and walk warily back across no man's land to where, I suppose, I live.

Making love to Francine isn't a commitment! I don't want to get on an emotional roller coaster, or get trapped in those phone calls, hanging on to each other like spider spit. I need to get this over with by getting the case closed my way quick.

The excuse for a lot of her phone calls to me was what was happening at the Grand Jury. I phoned Lefkowitz to volunteer some help to whoever was presenting the case, and all I could get was his secretary saying he had left a message that if I wanted any information I had to call Mr. Cunham directly. So I called Gary and all I could get was his secretary saying her beloved Mr. Cunham could not speak to me at the present time. Of course the runaround was deliberate. I kept checking the Daily News , which is a more reliable place than the Times to get the first flash of a rape indictment, especially white on white. Could Cunham be stalling? Was he testing to see if I would do what I said I would? Was he setting a trap for me?

I searched the grand jurors list for a familiar name. Luckily, Muscreve was still sitting. God how a man can waste his life between playing Republican potsy and public service. He remembered me.

"Mr. Muscreve," I said, "I'd heard that the Widmer rape case might be coming before the jury along about now, but I haven't seen anything in the papers."

"Well, Mr. Thomassy, we sent down the true bill on that only today."

I tried to keep my voice light. "No wonder I haven't seen it in the papers."

"You won't," he said. "The D.A. ordered it sealed."

"What the hell for?"

"I don't recall anybody went into detail about that. You know how it is on the Grand Jury. The D.A. wants something, no reason not to cooperate. He's serving the people."

"Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Muscreve."

"Any time, Mr. Thomassy. My friends and I have a lot of respect for you in this county."

I didn't lose much time wondering when I'd get a call for a return favor. I called Francine.

"News," I said.

"The indictment?"

"Yep."

"When?"

"Yesterday. Sealed. That means it won't appear in the papers."

"Is that good?"

"It'll save your father some sleep. I don't know what Cunham's up to. Anyway, I expect your friend Koslak's been picked up."

Shit if I was going to get up this early just because some boob pushed our doorbell by mistake. I could feel Mary getting out of bed. Then she's shaking me saying it's the police, and I look past her and there is this cop standing in the doorway of the bedroom. I shook my head to wake up faster. "Don't tell me, I left my car by a fire hydrant," I said.

"I wouldn't know," said the cop. No smile. He had a piece of paper in his hand.

"What's the problem?" I said, and got my feet on the floor. "My station get hit?"

"You're under arrest," says this cop, and looks at Mary.

"What for?" she says.

"Nothing," I said. "I didn't do anything."

"Get your clothes on, Mr. Koslak," said the cop.

"What'd he do?" Mary says.

"You going to watch me getting dressed?" I says to the cop.

"I'll turn around," he says, standing in the doorway.

I'm getting into my clothes, and Mary is at the cop, badgering him. The cop says, "I've got to take him down to the station and get him booked."