William Gass - Eyes - Novellas and Stories

Doorman duty does pay some interest, face-to-face as you are with the street (seat to seat in our nomenclature) and brushed by the people passing, hurrying home after another warm day, with their anxieties safely snapped in their purses. Once in a while a funny thing will happen as it happened to Natty Know-it-all. Which is as follows: a little white truck double-parks in front of the shop and a guy runs to the rear of it. The truck, I mean. Then, before Natty can prepare himself, this hasty kid plops a large tub of chrysanthemums in Nat’s lap. Well, I didn’t mean a comical happening. Apologies if I mislead you. I meant strange. I meant odd. I meant mysterious. It was early fall, we all remember, at the very edge of evening, and the flowers were already half-lit, a pale pink, I think it was, the color of an embarrassed cheek, but, when fisted into a bunch by a determined hand, might be as perky as could be. Nat can’t make a ring-a-ding thing about the delivery, since his back is to us and mostly out of sight in the doorway recess. Lordy, he would have said if he could have. Lordy, this is quite a different kind of ass than I am used to making room for, he would have said, I’m sure, given a reason to say, or a way to say it.

So he sat there as the few lights along the street began to glow. The flowerpot was damp and cooling. He says it felt nice on a warm night. But the mums were playing their part in a puzzle. Which was as follows: Sam and Mart should have gone home through the front door. Neither of them participated in the poker game. That was Walter’s show. And when Sam and Mart left work they always ran their hands, in a kind of friendly gesture, over the curving blue back of whichever one of us was on watch. As far as I knew, the green metal door to the alley was never used. I mean the door opposite the john in the poker room. Which I refer to as the green metal door to the alley. So I say: how? how did they go in or out without spotting the pot, or the pot spotting them, for gosh sake?

In this way Natty passed his time that night. The moment the plant was delivered, the truck sped away. Some unknown person had parked before the shop, under the traditional red-and-white-striped spiral that had long ago stopped its dizzy spinning, a man, a young man maybe, had got out, was he the driver? did he take the pot from the rear of the truck or just come around the rear with it in his arms to deposit the — possibly a present? — yes, a gift. The street emptied. The bouquet (can we say?) sat in Know-it-all’s lap. Shadows ran together like ingredients in a drink. The flowers were waiting, maybe, to have their blossoms shorn. Know-it-all didn’t know it all, after all. The plant was uncommunicative. A place at the poker table must have remained empty because no one came to put Natty next to Perse. Hours passed. Darkness erased definition. That’s how long the night was — as long as the letters m and n spell “me and my mind’s memory.”

On wagerless nights Walter would leave last, checking the lights and other equipment, locking the door with a brass key; and just before he began his hike home, he’d pause before the window to give it scrutiny while inside we waited for his image to be eaten by others. On poker nights the front door would be busy until eleven before Walt locked up from inside. The game would then begin. Walt’s pick of folding chairs for back-room service was pretty random, though I was chosen often enough to learn the game. I thought I became rather good at it. Never play to win a particular pot, never become enamored of your pairs, because odds do not apply to particulars. Every deal is as unique as any other. Just keep track of the way the bidding breaks. Then follow the odds like a private eye. Fold when history tells you. Over the long haul you’ll be a winner more often than not.

One of our regulars (for a time) was an undercover cop. He would slink into the shop at the end of the day, seat himself on Prince, and hide behind a magazine— The Boxer’s Monthly , I believe — biting his cigar with yellow teeth. After a discreet interval, he’d stuff its dead stub in his mouth and slip away to the game. There, Walt would let him win one or two deals. It was a reasonable payoff. Some guys grumbled about it but Walt knew what he was doing. A little insurance, he said, against arrest. That’s all. And a lot easier to give away than a free shave.

While dealing, Walt would sometimes hum mumble a tune — his “Auntie’s in the Pantry” song. It really riled the other players. Mostly because they couldn’t hear all the lines clearly and found themselves straining to understand something they didn’t want to be bothered with. This is how his jingle went, as I made it out. His knees tended to knock.

What say you, mate,

as you accumulate

a stack from the dealer of the action?

Ante up, man, ante up .

Rattle your fist to simulate

the greed of the clattering cup.

Roll the craps, dude, shake and roll .

I’m twenty-one and lots of fun.

You can find me on the stroll,

wagging my hips, rouging my lips.

Ante up, mate, ante up .

I know how to flip an ace,

quietly fold or make a face.

Whatcha say, guy, whatcha got?

Threes are wild and I’m with child,

hid like a card in a lousy hand,

not at all as we had planned.

Ante up, man, ante up .

The fact that Know-it-all was doing an all-nighter weighed heavily upon me the way fat men, waiting their turn at the clippers, deepened the thin crease of my back. Dawn was arriving piecemeal, like a gift awkwardly wrapped, when the chrysanthemums — it must have been they — exploded, blowing away the glass front of the shop and hurling Natty out into the street, bent and spent, in a skid to the sidewalk opposite. Shards of glass rattled across the bare seats of those of us inside the shop, and slivers scratched our backs when we were blown against one another. Deadly Reckoning suffered a slightly bowed leg; Barry Buttock was seriously scarred; Overly Neighborly sailed out of his place in our row to strike Millie’s table so forcibly its wheels would never revolve again; both Perce and Commander Prince Paul were pelted by chrysanthemum leaves and pieces of dirt; while I, Mr. Middle, rocked against Perce and Prince Paul, shoving them so intently their eight legs screeched in protest.

Leaves, petals, and pottery flew hither and yon, plaster dust settled on the barbers’ chairs so abundantly you could write on them — and later, Mart would, with his finger, be inspired to reach eloquence. All of a sudden the place filled with police.

Who was this bomb intended for? we Chairs as a group or just Know-it-all, who could be an enormous nuisance sometimes, but still…? perhaps the glassware? — jars and mirrors? — bottles or cloths? — of course not…only a few brilliantine bottles went pop; no, and it was not likely aimed at razors either, none of whom were injured, or any one or more of the heating irons, or the big chairs on which Walter wrote his boast, “I survived, bless God!” We first thought it had to be one or more of the human beings, but when the bomb went off all of them had gone home — we assumed — and were safe in bed. This crowd couldn’t have played poker all night; the games were over — usually — about two. When counting casualties, they were without a scratch. Maybe the bomb didn’t go off when it was intended to — but later than intended. Maybe someone — it would be Walt — was expected to see it sitting there in Know-it-all’s lap and bring it in to be admired. Maybe it was meant for a late customer. By a sore loser. I was told that gambling parlors such as Walt ran were illegal, but the cop was fixed, and the sums wagered at the table, as far as I could assess them, were not as much as the true professionals played for, though pitifully more than any of these players could afford.