All Gone (13 page)

“I'm not jumping down anyone's throat—especially not yours. I happen to like your throat. I once even loved your throat. I'd never try and hurt you—and I didn't intend to insult your husband. I'm not quite sure I ever did, but let's drop it.”

“Why don't we.”

There was a long silence before he said “Miriam. Miriam, you still there?”

“Yes. And I really have to go now, Arnie. The baby—”

“You have a baby? When I spoke to Gladys—”

“It's not mine—just the child of a friend in the building. I'll have one though. We're working on it.”

“I'm sure you will. And then it's been good speaking to you, Miriam.”

“A little rough at times, but I'm glad we can still say it was nice after all.”

“Don't be silly. And also—it might sound asinine to suggest we meet for lunch one time this week, but I'll be around that length of time. And it's originally what I called for.”

“It's probably not a very good idea right now, so maybe another time.”

“A quick coffee then. Just for a half-hour or so, and if not at a shop then perhaps I can even come up to your place. It'd be interesting seeing you again, and then these scenes of ancient college boyfriends popping over after so many years have almost become proverbial in books and movies by now. You know, where the husband just stands aside while these two sort of conspire in their talk about those dreamy goofy college days. And then the husband having a fat laugh about it with his wife when the silly old beau goes.”

“I don't think it's a good idea, really. I've never been much for conspiracies. Call up again when I'm less hassled by work and getting a new apartment furnished and I'm sure we can spend some time together. I love talking over old times with good friends.”

“So do I.”

Then she was gone. He said goodbye, but she didn't hear him: her receiver had already been recradled. He bought a newspaper and walked the fifteen blocks to Penn Station, since he had more than an hour to kill. About ten minutes before his train was scheduled to leave for Philadelphia and his parents and kid sister waiting for him on the platform, all eager to see him after his two years away and planning a big family party tonight to celebrate his return before he went overseas again, he rushed out of the club car and phoned Miriam.

“Hello? Hello? Hello?” she said, and after her fifth hello he hung up.

He called back a short time later and the woman who answered told him in a stiff telephone operator's voice that the party he was dialing was no longer a working number. The next time he phoned it was a thick rolling Bavarian voice that answered, saying “Isolde's Fine German Pastry shop, dis is Isolde speaking, vould you like to place an order?” He said “No, maybe some other time, thanks,” and hung up. She always had a sharp ear for dialect. It almost always used to break him up.

 

She visits her husband in prison. It's a long train ride up or seemed that way but now looking back she sees it couldn't have been more than an hour and a half, maybe two. The trains were very old, the windows were still open in the hot weather then; the passenger cars were more like very long subway cars going above ground, but between stations not as fast. All that, plus stopping at every stop, probably had something to do with making the trip seem longer. Also that she had to take the subway to Times Square and then the Forty-second Street shuttle to Grand Central to get the train. If it had had a shiny highspeed look to it she might have remembered it as going faster. It also could have been her mood. She never felt good going, always felt worse returning, so she was never able to sleep or read on the train, not even a newspaper. He was awful then: cranky, angry, bitter, inconsiderate, unfeeling. Tough as it was for him to be there, it wasn't so easy for her either. But he never said things to her like “How you holding up? It must be rough, not just this back-and-forth trip, but taking care of the kids and being so short of cash and going along on your own day-to-day. I'm miserable without you too and for what I've done to you, but please don't let that add to your upset; I'll get through it okay.” She left the children in the care of someone. All of them except the youngest go to the same elementary school three blocks from their home, so it shouldn't be too tough on the woman. She's allowed to see him once a month for up to two hours, and every week if she wants, except the one she comes up for the long visit, for ten minutes. Documentary trips they call those. Sign this, that's it, out. She's never gone for just those ten minutes. Wants no part of them; so cold. If there's business between them she saves it for the long visit when they can also talk about other things. The business stuff can be brutal and it's also a long trip and so many preparations and expensive for just ten minutes. They're not allowed to touch. Signs say it everywhere, unless the couple is given written permission by the chief guard. “They might give it if I'm a perfect boy for a year,” her husband once said. “But fingers through the hole only, so expect no kiss.” Glass is between them where they sit. A screened hole the size of a silver dollar in it to talk through and a hole the size of his fist at the bottom of it to eventually touch fingertips she hopes and to put things through for him to sign if she has to. When that happens a guard unlocks the hole on her side, another guard stands beside her husband, and the paper and pen, having been inspected by the chief guard in the anteroom before she comes into this meeting room, are put through by the guards. Then the hole's locked, and after he signs, hole's unlocked and the pen and paper's passed through to her guard who reads it to see her husband didn't write anything he wasn't supposed to, like, she supposes, “Put a hand grenade in a cake to help me escape,” or even “I love you dearly and want to screw you madly,” and given to her. Today she wants him to sign a change-of-name form for the kids. “Where does that leave me?” he says. She says “What do you mean?” “It means no one will ever know me through my kids.” “It doesn't have to mean that. It could mean we just wanted to make their lives simpler by Anglicizing their names. But all right, I warned you not to do it, you kept doing it. I warned you some more, you kept doing it some more and a whole slew of other stupid things which thank God—don't worry, nobody can hear me—you were never caught at. I warned and warned you even more—” “Stop harping on me. Don't be a bitch. You know I don't like bitches. I never did and you're acting like a total worthless foulmouthed nagging bitch of all time. It makes you look ugly when by all rights you could be pretty.” “Insults won't change my mind or the conversation's direction.” “Sticks and stones, go on and tear me to pieces and chew up my bones, think I care? think I'd dare? blah-blah-blah, you rotten bag. Just lay off.” “Stop being a jackass and trying to avoid this. Please sign. That's all I ask. Please, please sign.” “Why?” “We've gone over it.” “Why?” “It's best for the kids.” “How?” “You're like a broken record.” “How?” “Because they're being hounded, as I've already told you, hounded by their schoolmates and other people because their father's in prison and lost his dental license and was involved in a smelly citywide scandal and newspaper stories and photos of you and the whole world and his brother knows of it and other things. Because you're famous in the most terrible low way. And through you, guess.” “So it'll be better by the time I come out.” “The news stories. Think, why don't you. Just don't sit there pigheaded, unconcerned for anyone but you. People will never forget, or not for thirty years. The
Mirror's
centerfold photo of you on the courthouse steps, for one thing.” “What was so wrong with it? I was dressed well, looked good, big smile, wasn't in cuffs.” “The lousy change, nickels and dimes, falling through your pants pocket and rolling down the steps and you chasing after it like a snorting hog.” “What's the snorting? What's with these pigs?” “Panting. You were out of shape. But for the money, is what I mean. The same kind of man running after petty change where he could break his neck or get a stroke would try to save a few dollars in fines by bribing a building inspector. Whatever it is, that's why they took it and used it and it was ugly.” “I told you to sew those holes.” “That's hardly my point. Besides, you cram so much change and keys in them, your pockets are always going to have holes.” “I need the change for the bus and subway. And newspapers.” “Since when do you buy your own newspaper?” “I buy it.” “Maybe for Sundays. The rest you take out of garbage cans.” “Sometimes if it's a clean one and just laying there on top, but obviously clean and looking almost unread, why not? Why waste? So many people waste. I was brought up poor and taught not to.” “Sometimes some of the ones you brought home had spit on them and, once, dog doody.” “I didn't see. The subway station was poorly lit or something. But one out of a hundred. So what?” “Let's drop the subject and concentrate on the other one.” “What other one?” “Three people have already sent that photo to me through the mail. All anonymously. What did you do to make so many enemies? Anyway, it's an example of how many people know about it regarding the children.” “I didn't make enemies. If I made a lot more money than most other dentists, maybe that's why. Jealousy, and this is how they get even with me, but behind my back. Or there are thousands of crazy people in the city who do nothing all day but read the papers. And when they see a man down, someone they've never even laid eyes on but through the papers think they know, they get their kicks pushing him further. But believe me, people will forget. In a year, two at the most. I'll be old news, or their minds just don't remember that far. The few who don't forget, the hell with them. I'll tell all those nut jobs and sickies that I did it standing on one foot.” “What do you mean?” “That it was easy—this is—and in some ways, even good for me. I've met lots of decent people here. Gentlemen. Men of means. Big successes in all kinds of fields. Future clients, some of them. They have me working in the prison clinic.” “I know.” “So, for one thing, I'm able to stay in touch with the latest dental gadgets and machines. It's very well-equipped. But best yet, I see twenty patients a day, all men from the prison. No thieves or killers but tax evaders, embezzlers, extortionists, but not strong-armed ones, plus some draft dodgers. Those I don't especially like, for what they're doing, but that's their business. And the conscientious ones who won't go into the army for their own more personal reasons. Moral, religious, none of which I go along with or else don't understand, but at least they're better types. And they all got teeth. Most, I just look in their mouths, pick around a little and take an X-ray or two to satisfy them, since they usually have nothing wrong with them a quick prison release wouldn't cure or else need major bridgework, some of them complete upper and lower plates, which the prison's not going to put out for. They let me extract and fill and even do root canal on as many teeth as I want, since they don't want their inmates walking around in pain and maybe kicking someone over it. But they feel the more expensive work, which means sending it out to a dental lab, the prisoner should pay for himself on the outside. All of which is to the good, since when a lot of these men get out they'll come to me.” “How? You won't have a license to practice when you get out.” “I'll get it in a year, maybe two.” “You might get it in ten years if you're lucky. That's what I've been told.” “By who?” “The license people and Democratic club leaders you sent me to speak to for you.” “Don't worry, I'll get it much sooner. But till I do I'll get different kind of work and do very well in it. I did in dentistry—started with borrowed money and no more skills than the next dentist—I can do well in other things. And by working at it long and hard and mixing in the right places a lot. I bought a house for us from it, didn't I? A building. Five stories of it and you decorated it to your heart's content.” “Fine. One where it cost more to keep up than the rents we get plus all the problems that go along with it.” “What problems? Be like me. Tenant complains, tell him to move out if he doesn't like it. And we also got our apartment from it. Two floors. And my office, so those were supposed to make up the difference. And it was an investment if the neighborhood ever turned good. Not only that, we had other things. A full-time maid. One left, another came the next day. And a car whenever we needed one. And summer vacations for all of us but especially all summer for you and the kids. So stop complaining. I can do all that again no matter what I go into. And maybe a little dentistry—the hell with them—you know,” and he makes jabbing motions with his thumb over his shoulder, indicating he'll do it on the side or behind their backs. “Till everything comes through.” “That's exactly what you shouldn't do. They'll find out—one of your good friends who's an enemy will squeal—and you'll land right back here getting acquainted with all the latest dental instruments.” “Anyway, no job is that complicated unless it's a real profession like dentistry and medicine and law. But I'm sure I won't have to do anything else for very long. The people you spoke to were being extra-cautious. You're my wife. How do they know you weren't also working for the state, in return for helping to reduce my sentence or getting my license back, by letting them say, ‘Well now, you want him to get his license back sooner than ten years, you'll have to pay for it.' They're no dopes. I never should have sent you to them, but thanks for trying. Because of course they built up the time to you till I get my license back and pretended to be saints. But when I see them I'll talk to them like a boy from the boys. And on a park bench—no one in fifty feet of us or where the air can be bugged—and not in a restaurant or room. I know what to do.” “What? Bribing them?” “Shut your mouth. That one they heard. Say something quick and silly as if you were joking.” “They didn't hear. And like how,” she whispers, “by bribing them?” “Shut up with that word. I'm serious. Smile. Make believe you're laughing, the whole thing a joke.” She smiles, throws her head back, closes her eyes, opens her mouth wide and goes “huh-huh-huh” through it. “Okay,” her face serious again, “what'll you do? The same stupid thing?” “That time was a mistake. I did it to the wrong inspector.” “He was a city investigator, not a building inspector.” “I thought different. He was an impersonator, that's what he was—a lowlife mocky bastard in it for a promotion or raise. Or maybe he does both—inspects, investigates—when there's cause for alarm or just that things are getting too hot in the department that other inspectors are taking graft. So one true-blue one in there. But they all take, so they wouldn't use an inspector to investigate.” “You did it to all the inspectors. Fire, water, boiler, sewage—whatever they were, that was your philosophy in owning a building. Even if I'd seen to every inch of the building and complied to the last decimal to every city rule and law, matter of course you handed out fives and tens to them.” “To keep them happy. They expect it. They don't get it they feel unhappy and can write out ten violations at a single inspection, some that'll cost hundreds to correct. Or my office. I got water and electricity and intricate machine equipment I depend on and I don't want them closing me down even for a day. Every landlord knows that and every professional man who owns and works in his own building.” “It's a bad way to run a brownstone, and dishonest.” “But it's the practical way, or was. Did we ever get a violation before? Why do you think why? They're all on the take or were till the investigation, and probably now are again. There's a lull, then it's hot; it never stops. Cities are run on it, the mayor on down. What happened then was they were using me. They wanted to get a professional man bribing an investigator impersonating an inspector so they could say ‘See, even doctors and dentists give bribes, so how bad is it that our building inspectors take them? Dentists earn five times as much as our inspectors and get from the public ten times the respect, but the briber is as serious a criminal as the bribee,' or whatever they call them the bribed guy who takes. And that's why they trapped me and that doctor in Staten Island and the C.P.A. who owns a much bigger building—an apartment one, twelve stories—in the Bronx. I met them both, since they're both here for around the same-length terms as mine. Nice family men and they shouldn't be in prison. For what good does it? You want to make them pay, have them work in city clinics or helping the poor with their taxes for twenty hours a week for the next few years. Ten hours, but where it adds up to about what they'd put in nonsleeping time here.” “Please sign the name change.” “I can't. I know you think it's best for them, that it's going to help their future. But today's big graft and news story will be tomorrow's trash, or something—yesterday's news. Last year's. Last two. That's what I wanted to say. No one will even have heard of the case or remembered my name from it by then. ‘Doc who? Nah, what graft story's in the paper today?' And I'll be out and practicing again with an even bigger clientele. And if I'm not? If they're so stupid to deprive my family of a good livelihood and the country of a lot more income taxes because of some dumb bribe I gave a dumb building inspector or investigator or actor, then I'll do something else. The Garment Center. I'll sell dresses or sweaters or materials. One fine gentleman in here on some illegal—immigration or something—offense owns a large suit-and-cloak house on Thirty-fifth Street and says he'll take me in as a salesman the minute I get out. If he's still in here, he'll tell his partner to put me on. Not road-selling but the showroom. He thinks I'm sharp and palsy-walsy, so just the right type, besides knowing my way around and eager for money. And it'll give the house a little extra class, having a doctor working for them. They all wanted to be doctors or dentists or their parents wanted them to. Most of the men here bullshit, so you can't really count on them. But I know lots of people in the Garment Center, and also one of the ones from here might come through. And in it for a couple of years, working very hard, I'll eventually learn enough to start my own business. I can do all that, why not? And then we'll be rolling again. But to have my kids walking around with the name Teller when I'm Tetch? How am I to explain it?” “You don't have to.” “No, I do. ‘Meet my son Gerald Teller'? ‘Was your wife married before and the boy kept his real father's name?' ‘No, I'm his real father. Same blood and nose.' ‘Then why the different names?' ‘Because all the kids want to be bank tellers when they grow up and my wife thought it'd give them a head start.'” “That's just stupid,” she says. “Why, you got a better explanation? Okay. ‘Because I was in prison for being too honest and my wife thought to really jab the knife in me to get even she'd change the kids' name so no one would know they were mine.' Because you don't think that's what people will ask? Over and over they will. For what father has a different name than his kids?” “People we know are always shortening or Anglicizing their names. But if you don't like that one, I was thinking of another. Tibbert. It sounded good.” “It sounds awful. It has no meaning. It sounds like a bird or frog or some little barnyard animal singing by a brook or up a tree. ‘Tib-bert! Tib-bert!' Anyway, something silly sitting on a lily pad in a pond. Look, don't give me that paper. You do, don't give me the pen, because I won't take both at the same time. I won't be pressured. Just because I'm here, I haven't become a jellyfish.” “I'll tell you what you've become.” “Sure, and you're my wife. But what about Tibbs as a name? We'll start shortening the Anglicized. Or Tubbs? Or Terbert? We can change Howard's name to Herbert and he'll be Herbert Terbert. Or forget the T. Who says in a name change it has to start with the same letter as Tetch? Sherbet. Gerald, Alex, Howard and Vera Sherbet. The Sherbet kids. They can go on stage. Tell jokes, take off their clothes, do little two-steps. I don't know why, but it sounds all right. Or the Shining Sherbets. Up on the high wire. You can change your name to Sherbet too and go back on the stage or up there in the air with them. You still got the face and figure for it. Or just divorce me if you want.” “Oh please.” “I'm not kidding. You want it, you got it.” “What are you talking about? Though don't think for a few moments I haven't thought of it.” “So think of it some more, think of it plenty. What the hell do I care anymore? You're so ashamed of me—” “It's not that—” “You're ashamed!” “Well I told