Henry of Atlantic City (12 page)

Mr. Earl opened the door and got in. “What’s the matter, Henry?” He took some things out of his pockets and put them in the glove compartment. “Listen, Henry. I need to ask you a favor. That money you paid me? You know, for the ride? Well, I owed somebody and now I’m broke again. Could you lend me a little more? I’m in a tight spot.” Henry felt in his pocket and took out a hundred-dollar bill and gave it to Mr. Earl and said that was all he had.

“Listen, forget it, kid,” Mr. Earl said. “I don’t want to take all you have.”

Henry said it was okay.

“Tell you what,” Mr. Earl said. “I’ll take fifty.”

Henry looked out the window at the sign flashing
E-G-Y-P-T. EGYPT. E-G-Y-P-T. EGYPT
. Mr. Earl waited for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you come inside with me. I’ll introduce you to Pearl.”

Henry asked who Pearl was.

“An old friend,” Mr. Earl said. “Come on in and find out for yourself.” They walked across the dark parking lot and then Henry remembered that Egypt was where Mohammed Ali was from and that Helena had said he was going to take her there. Suddenly he was very glad and ran to catch up with Mr. Earl. When they entered, Henry’s heart pounded and his ears rang. It was dark inside like a
cave and very smoky—not like a place where books were hidden but like a place where they were forgotten.

“Meet my friend Henry,” Mr. Earl said.

“Hello, Henry,” Pearl said. She put an arm on his shoulder and drew him against her. “Cute little thing,” she said to Mr. Earl. “Where’d he come from?” Her voice was raspy and she was pretty in a grown-up kind of way. She was wearing a halter top like the kind Helena wore at the health club in Philadelphia that made her bosoms plump out, and she had a small tattoo of a butterfly on the back of one shoulder.

Mr. Earl took out the money Henry had given him. “How about some change?”

Pearl went behind the bar and came back with two fifty-dollar bills and gave them to Mr. Earl. Mr. Earl put one in his pocket and gave the other one back to Henry and winked. “Thanks for the loan, pal.”

Pearl gave Henry a Coke to drink. There was a TV set up above the bar that nobody was watching and a jukebox that played loud music. There was a pool table that nobody was playing at and there were booths with red lightbulbs in them where nobody was sitting. Egypt was nearly empty.

Mr. Earl put his arm around Pearl’s waist and kissed her on the mouth.

Pearl pushed him away. “What breeze blew you in here?” she asked.

Mr. Earl shrugged his shoulders. “Just felt like seeing you.” Mr. Earl drank some more and became serious. So
did Pearl. They talked about someone they knew who had died. “I’m feeling older and lonelier than ever,” she said. “All I need now is to get sick.”

“That’s enough of that,” Mr. Earl said and went to the cigarette machine. While he was gone Pearl looked at Henry and smiled and kept looking at him but didn’t say anything. Then when Mr. Earl came back she began to cry. Mr. Earl put an arm around her shoulder. “Jesus, kid. What did you say to her?”

Henry said nothing.

Pearl put her head on Mr. Earl’s shoulder. “I’m glad you came,” she said. Just then a door burst open and a woman came rushing into the room. She was barefoot and had on only underwear and her hair was all wild. Pearl stood up and the woman ran into her arms and began to cry.

“He tried to hurt me,” the woman said.

Mr. Earl jumped up. “Who did? Where is he?”

“Shush. You stay out of this,” Pearl said and patted the woman’s head. But Mr. Earl ran out of the room. Then he came crashing back through the door holding a man in a headlock. The man was kicking and shouting and Mr. Earl kept saying, “Shut up!” and smashing his knee into the man’s face. The man was bleeding and his arms were flailing. Mr. Earl dragged him to where the woman and Pearl were sitting. “This him?”

The woman nodded and ran back through the door and slammed it behind her.

“Just get him the hell out of here!” Pearl said.

The man groaned and Mr. Earl dragged him outside.

“Everything’s just fine, everybody. Let’s just forget it,” Pearl shouted. Then she took Henry by the hand. “Come with me, sweetheart,” she said. They went down a long corridor and up some stairs into an apartment. She turned on the TV set. “I’ll be back up a little later,” she said. “Make yourself at home.”

Henry lay down on the sofa and tried to remember everything he knew but he couldn’t remember anything. On the wall above the TV was a broken cuckoo clock. The door was open and the bird was showing but the hands of the clock didn’t move. He wanted to get up and look around but he was scared and didn’t want to get lost. His angel told him that damnation was a wordless, thoughtless frenzy of animal living.

When morning came Henry was still scared. He was lying in a big, soft bed in a room filled with wild animals, but then he saw that they were all stuffed. There were lots of birds that weren’t singing and a fox that wasn’t hunting and squirrels that weren’t climbing and a deer that wasn’t running and even butterflies that weren’t flying because they were pinned to the wall. There were long blue drapes over the windows made to look like a waterfall and the wallpaper was a gigantic photograph of a deep forest in the summertime. He lay in bed as the waterfall became lighter and lighter until it was almost transparent. Then the silence of
the forest became oppressive and when he clapped his hands to fill the void and the wide-eyed animals remained frozen in their places he remembered that he was in Egypt.

Henry put on his shoes and opened the door. He tiptoed down a short hallway and opened the door at the end.

“Who’s that?” Mr. Earl said and sat up straight. Then he said, “Shit,” and rubbed his eyes.

“What’s going on?” Pearl was lying next to him.

“Never
ever
sneak up on me like that, kid.”

Henry said he wanted to go to Philadelphia.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.” He lay back down and pulled the covers up. “Go back to bed.”

Pearl told Henry to wait in the hallway while she got dressed. Then she took him into the kitchen. “I’m going to cook you up a breakfast you’ll never forget,” she said. “How did you like sleeping in the Garden of Eden?”

Henry said the animals all looked dead.

“Well, we sure couldn’t have
live
ones in there.” Pearl lit a cigarette and smoked it while she made breakfast. “Say, how’d you like to come with me to my favorite place in the whole world? Can you guess where my favorite place is?”

Henry said he didn’t know.

“The zoo! They have
live
animals there.” Then she started to sing, “If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages da da da da de da de de de. Ah, shit. I always forget the words.” She kept cooking and began to glow and shine and no longer looked cast into the mud like a tired
woman who smelled smoky and sour like old men smell. The smell of food filled the kitchen and Mr. Earl came into the room.

“Smells good,” he said. “And
wow
, do I have a headache!” He looked even bigger without his shirt on and he scratched himself and yawned and thanked Henry for waking him up like that. Then he grabbed Pearl and began to kiss her.

Pearl dropped her cigarette on the floor. “Let go,” she said and bent down to pick it up. “I’m taking Henry to the zoo.”

Henry asked Mr. Earl if he had killed the man last night.

Pearl gave Mr. Earl an angry look. “You just forget about what you saw last night, Henry. You’re too young to understand.”

“That’s right,” Mr. Earl said.

Pearl cracked some eggs into a bowl. “Now, go get cleaned up,” she told Mr. Earl.

For breakfast they had pancakes and maple syrup and ham and Mr. Earl had three fried eggs on top of his pancakes.

When they were finished eating Henry said he didn’t want to go to the zoo; he wanted to go to Philadelphia.

Pearl and Mr. Earl looked at each other. Then Mr. Earl said, “There’s been a slight change of plan, kid. Pearl’s taking you to Philadelphia.”

“The Philadelphia Zoo,” Pearl said.

Henry said he didn’t want to go to the zoo; he wanted to go to Sy’s sister’s store.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Pearl wants to take you to the zoo first,” Mr. Earl said.

Henry felt in his pocket and realized his money was gone. He ran into the Garden of Eden and tore the sheets off the bed and looked underneath it but didn’t find anything. Then he went back into the kitchen and told Mr. Earl to give it back.

Mr. Earl was pouring whiskey into his coffee. “Give what back?”

Henry said his money.

“You accusing me of taking your money?”

Henry said yes.

“You can blame anyone you want, kid. But it ain’t going to get you your money back.” Mr. Earl sipped his coffee and smacked his lips together. Then he poured more whiskey into it. “Happens to me all the time. I’ve even got a system for dealing with it.”

Henry asked what the system was.

“It’s complicated,” Mr. Earl said.

Henry said you stole my money!

“Are you calling me a thief?”

Henry said yes.

“Well,” Mr. Earl said, “you’ll have to prove it. Innocent until proven guilty. That’s the law of the land, kid.” Then
he took a big gulp of coffee and went,
AHHHH
. “You shouldn’t go pointing fingers at people unless you’re sure about what you’re saying.”

Henry ran back into the Garden of Eden and closed the door and cried.

Pearl came to get him. “What’s wrong?”

Henry told her Mr. Earl had stolen his money and wouldn’t give it back. Pearl was all dressed up. She looked like a picture in a magazine, and tall because she was wearing boots and her hair was piled up underneath a big floppy hat. “Don’t worry, Henry. I’ll straighten it out.” She took Henry into the kitchen. “Give Henry his money back,” she told Mr. Earl. “I want to get going.”

Mr. Earl sipped from his coffee cup. The jagged purple stain under his eye looked dark—almost black. “I don’t have Henry’s money.”

Henry began to cry. Pearl took his hand. “Don’t cry,” she said and stroked Henry’s hair softly like he imagined a mother would. He stopped crying. Then she stood up. “Now, let’s get going!”

Outside the sunlight was blinding. Henry shielded his eyes in the crook of his arm.

“It’s a perfect day,” Pearl said. She opened the door to a pure white Cadillac Eldorado and told Henry to climb in. Inside everything smelled like perfume and the seats were red and soft.

Henry had to kneel on the seat and look out the back window because he couldn’t see out the front window sitting
down. Egypt looked different in the daytime. It looked like an old warehouse on a street filled with old warehouses and empty lots. Henry asked Pearl where they were.

“No-man’s land,” she said. They drove without talking and pretty soon signs began to appear on the road that said
Philadelphia
and Henry was glad. He knelt on the seat and looked out the back window and watched everything disappear behind them in straight lines.

The zoo was a crowd of names and cages and all Pearl did was pull Henry along by the hand and point. She bought a giant balloon on a string and a bag of peanuts and kept saying how much fun it was. She gave the balloon to Henry but he let it go.

“Why’d you do that?”

They stood and watched the balloon go up and up until it was a tiny speck in the sky. “Are you satisfied?” Pearl asked.

Henry said the image must rise again through the image.

She took him to see
Panthera leo
and
Panthera tigris
because Pearl said she loved cats. “Go ahead,” she told him. “Stand up on the rail if you want. Help you see better.”

Henry said he could see everything just fine.

“But all you’re seeing is the sign!”

Henry said that was all he needed.

“But the animal is in the cage, dummy! That’s just a sign.” Then she pulled him away and they continued through the zoo. They went inside a big building where
Varanus komodoensis
lived with what remained of its whole suborder of
Suaria
of the class
Reptilia
. There were other suborders too.
Serpentes, Chelonia
, and a few of the genus
Crocodylus
, where Pearl stopped and looked for a long time. “I don’t know what scares me more,” she said. “Being eaten by a crocodile or squeezed to death by a snake. I guess being eaten by a crocodile scares me less because the idea of being swallowed whole is too terrible to even imagine. If I had my way there wouldn’t be any snakes in the whole world.”

Henry said there are many animals in the world in human form.

Pearl pulled some pins out of her hair and put them in again and adjusted her hat. Then she ate some peanuts and stared at Henry. Her eyes were fixed but her jaw moved and her silence hovered over him. Henry turned toward the glass case and read:
Crocodiles are not related to any other group of reptiles and derive from an evolutionary line of dinosaurs that did not become extinct. Crocodiles and their relatives resemble mammals in having a four-chambered heart. All other
reptiles
have a two-chambered one. This increased pulmonary efficiency gives the crocodile a great advantage as a predator
.

When he looked up Pearl was walking toward the door. She threw the bag of peanuts into a garbage can and brushed the bits of shell from the front of her coat. As she
walked her whole body swayed and so did the floppy brim of her hat. Henry ran after her but when he caught up she turned and shook her finger at him. “If you keep following me, I’ll go tell a guard. They know how to deal with runaways,” she said.

Henry watched her as she walked through the door of the Reptile House and out into the sunlight. He began to cry. He tried to stop but couldn’t. His stomach shook and he felt hungry even though he didn’t want to eat anything. He stood there in the entrance to the Reptile House and the tears just kept coming. Then snot began to run from his nose and got smeared across his face. He forgot about the degradation of the flesh. He forgot about the angel in his ear. He forgot that he was a saint. Every passage of every gospel and book he’d ever read was useless to him. He even forgot about Father Crowley and Dr. Alt and the O’Briens—even though they were probably looking for him. He looked out into the sunlit zoo and had no idea where he was.