The Game Player (29 page)

“Brian, it isn't a question of defeat and victory. Those terms don't apply to literature and—”

I stopped because he had stood up, the check in his hand, and when I looked up, almost scared of him, I saw his face tense and controlled, right next to mine. I watched his lips speak: they moved rapidly and cruelly. “Howard, you're not a person who has to tell himself that. You're a winner. Shut up and enjoy it.”

I did, at least to the extent of walking quietly to the game, except when Brian asked what people drank and I tried to dissuade him from bothering to buy two six-packs of Heinekens. He was a big hit at the game, not only because of the beers, but because he cheerfully took the teasing about his clothing and tan, and during the last two hours of play, while he was winning thirty dollars (a big sum for our game) he patiently explained his bluffs and strategies and helped some of the players decide what to substitute or whether to stay in. I had worried that Fran, a bright and witty woman who was a stickler for feminist conventions, and occasionally ravaged bourgeois men for looking cross-eyed at her irrepressible breasts, would be infuriated by him. But he treated her casually, even-handedly, and fearlessly, not rising to the bait when she, upon finding out that he had never played with a woman before, asked if that bothered him. I thought, Oh, God, don't say she makes it a prettier occasion, but somehow be funny. “It'll bother me if you keep calling me when I bluff,” he said, and they promptly had a normal discussion when she asked if she was calling too much. They were amazed by his rapid analysis of what each player was attempting and his ability to recount the exact holdings of players in hands that were several hours old. He clinched their admiration when, holding his thirty dollars in winnings, he went up to Jeff, who handles subscriptions for us, and asked, “How much is a year's subscription?”

“Twelve dollars.”

“Okay,” he said, counting out twenty-four and putting them in Jeff's hand. “I want one for my parents and one for me. It'll do my father some good,” he said with a smile at me. “Do you have paper? I'll give you the addresses.” He even tried to give the remaining six dollars to the host for the two sandwiches he ate but they stopped him and people at the game often nostalgically recall his generosity, citing it as proof that all goyish gallantry isn't dead.

But he was an aberration nevertheless and I was glad that he didn't live in New York and present me with the constant problem of fitting him in. His only comment besides a polite one that they were very friendly, showed his contempt for them: “It's the only game I've ever played in,” he said, “in which people apologize for winning a hand. It must be much less exhausting, at least verbally, to lose.”

We promised to write, but apart from a card he sent that summer while he was traveling cross-country, and another visit the following Christmas, we had no contact. Of course, in that one dinner he had influenced me more than anyone else. I began my history of the American Communist Party a week after his lecture in the restaurant, cutting my workdays at the magazine to two a week, as I found my research an endless task, each discovery compounding into several new areas to investigate.

It was a stingingly cold February night in 1977, at four in the morning, just a half-hour after I had given up attempting to finish a chapter, that Karen woke me, repeating the words, “It's Brian on the phone. He says he has to talk right now.” She finally got through to my tired brain and I grabbed the phone receiver from her as if it were a life preserver. “Hello.” My hoarse voice sounded like a slowed down, scratchy record.

“Howard, damn it! Damn it, what's your address? I can't remember.”

I was too disoriented to worry about his tone: it was an effort to remember our address. “Ninety-eight West Twelfth. Second floor. Two-B.”

“That's it, twelve, uh! And I could hardly remember your phone. I'm coming over.”

“Now?” I sounded like an upright character in a movie. But my question went unanswered. I didn't hear the click of the phone and I spoke to the silence a few times before the dial tone told me he had rung off.

I sat up in bed for a moment, clenching my teeth to fight off the queasy fatigue, and Karen's voice from under the blanket asked, “What was that about?”

I threw off the blankets and stared at my legs. I was playing over the varied tones in his voice. It had quavered when he told me he had had trouble recalling my phone number, as if he were about to cry, but it had sounded furious only a second later when he announced he was coming over. Karen repeated her question. “I don't know. But it must be something heavy. He's coming over.”

“Oh, no,” she groaned.

“You go to sleep.” I kissed her paternally and got out of the bed to hustle into my pants, the cold waking me with chills. My subconscious must have been more aware of the crisis than I, since I found myself making coffee as if I would not be returning to bed for some time. I had just finished when the intercom buzzed. I rushed to answer it because Brian was leaning against the button, the harsh electronic hum going without a break. I opened the door and heard him taking the steps two or three at a time, breathing hard. He bounded into view and walked over to the door, almost doubled over from trying to catch his breath. “What did you do?” I asked, putting a hand on his back to guide him in. “Run all the way here?”

“I had to park, oh! miles, miles away.”

“God, your jacket is freezing!” He was dressed only in slacks, a shirt, and a corduroy jacket that felt like ice.

“I don't feel it,” he said, but he was shivering like a greyhound, his discomfort transformed into a kind of heightened alertness.

“They don't send up much heat in the middle of the night. I don't know how I'm—come in to the kitchen and I'll give you hot coffee.” I gently pushed him in that direction while checking the living room radiator to see if it was switched on and whether heat was coming out. It was on low and I turned it up, luckily hitting on one of their heating periods. I waved to Brian, who was watching me forlornly, “Here, sit in this chair next to the heat. I'll get you coffee.”

He obediently walked to the radiator, standing with his back to it, his hands behind him, his head down, and his eyes closed. I hurriedly poured us coffee, spilling quite a bit by adding too much milk and stirring the sugar too violently. But at last I got it to him and he drank half in one gulp. “What's the matter?” I asked.

“I like your apartment, did I ever tell you that? Well, I was only here once, there was no reason to.” He finished his coffee with a second gulp.

“You want more?”

“Okay.” His voice was resigned, contrite. He gave me the cup. “It's a home, you know? Not like our old place. It just had furniture that it should have, but this—” I didn't hear the sentence's finish because I was pouring the coffee. “How come you're not married?” he asked when I re-entered and gave him the cup.

“We will when we have a kid. What's the matter? Or,” I said with a laugh, “is this just a visit?”

“Okay,” he said, after taking a sip and putting the cup down. His voice became resonant, and he paced while speaking, as if delivering a newscast. “Yesterday afternoon at four o'clock my father, while playing tennis on Randall's Island, died of a heart attack. He was DOA. Somebody there, maybe an opponent, tried to massage his heart, but it was a massive seizure they say and nothing could be done.”

There was a private moment in my brain in which I knew that if I hesitated in answering, I would become speechless, so I said the obvious, “I'm sorry.”

Brian was half turned away from me, not shivering or nervous, just looking with great concentration at one of the walls. “I was gonna call you a hundred times today.”

“You should have called me immediately,” I said quickly. “It must have been horrible. You were in Boston?”

“Yeah,” he said in a faint voice. “I was taking a shower when my mother called. I had soap on me. I nearly didn't answer it.”

If he didn't, I knew he must be thinking, it wouldn't have happened. Somehow his missing the call would revive his father. Even I had to remind myself that reality is permanent, that Mrs. Stoppard would have called back, and Brian's father would still be dead. His death had no meaning for me, apart from concern for Brian. I had met Mr. Stoppard only four or five times at any length, and the last time I had seen him was almost three years before. But he was an intensely healthy man, with his son's nervous intelligence juxtaposed by relaxed periods of introspection; they were thoroughbreds: shy and skittish unless racing, when their speed and power could mesh perfectly. Mr. Stoppard had died at fifty-five and, just as I had transferred his health and power to Brian, I transferred this tragedy as well: I thought their intense withholding of emotion had to end in an implosion of the heart. I watched him, silent and his head inclined forward as if awaiting benediction, thinking he was marked—doomed by his perfection.

The phone rang, a startling sound not only because of the solemn moment, but because of the hour. I rushed to get it, worrying about Karen's sleep. “Is this Howard?” asked Mrs. Stoppard.

I knew her voice despite its unnaturally high tone. “Yes, Mrs. Stoppard. It's me. Brian's here, he told me the news. I'm terribly sorry.”

“Is he all right? He rushed out of here without saying where—I'm worried. But if he's with you, I'm sure he's fine.”

“Would you like to speak to him?” She said yes, and I put him on the phone. He took it almost impatiently. His manner reminded me of the way he took the phone when a girl friend was not accepting his termination of a relationship: as if it were a call from a recalcitrant debtor, pleading for an extension.

I saw the light go on in our bedroom and I went in to tell Karen what had happened and then to reassure her that there was nothing she could do. She said she couldn't sleep and asked if I thought Brian would mind her presence. I didn't know, but I said she should come out if she wished. When I returned to the living room, Brian said his mother wished to speak to me. “Howard,” she said. “Brian has some tranquilizers our doctor gave him in his jacket pocket. Try to get him to take one. He needs to sleep.”

“I can drive him home and stay—”

“No, I'm all right. I have people here and I think Brian wants to be alone with you. You're a good friend.”

I was horribly embarrassed by that remark and I awkwardly got off the phone. I wanted them to scream or cry. Their calm was confusing: almost as if I was the one who needed comfort.

Brian had sat down in the chair next to the radiator and I sat on my haunches next to him. I looked into his eyes with their black, unrevealing concentration. “Your mom said that you have some sleeping pills and that the doctor said you should take one—”

“Only one, eh?” he said with a cackle. “I thought of suicide for the first time in my life tonight. I had no idea what was meant by thinking of it. Incredible barrier to cross. I won't do it but now I must live my whole life knowing it exists as an option. How incredible! Must everybody do that?” he asked, with real interest in a response.

“You're just upset. You don't want to feel the pain. But go ahead, don't—”

He glanced up at the sound of Karen opening the door and entering. “No, kid, you misunderstand,” he said to me while watching her curiously as if we were in a sidewalk cafe and she was a pedestrian. “Hello,” he called to her brightly. “I don't feel grief. And besides, there was only one tranquilizer. He wouldn't give me more than that. I threw it away because it makes me think of suicide.”

Karen looked at me as if I could cue her behavior. I silently returned her inquiry by making a sad face. “Hi, Brian,” she said.

“You shouldn't have gotten up,” he answered in the casual tone of a happy person.

“I'm not tired,” she said. “I'm sorry about your father.”

Brian cleared his throat and caught something in his lungs because he coughed suddenly, with a surprised look on his face, and bent over until the fit passed. I patted him on the back to help and he peeked out at me with a smile. “Thank you,” he said when he could talk.

Karen, still standing uncomfortably in the center of the room, asked, “Would you rather I leave you and Howard alone? Don't feel—”

“God! People really have been telling me, don't feel, or do feel, all day. I'd like to talk to Howard alone for a little while. But don't bother to go outside or anything drastic. Do you mind staying in the bedroom?”

I suggested Karen should take some coffee with her, and, while I watched her carefully close the bedroom door behind her, there was a moment in which I realized that I was glad so much fuss had been made about guaranteeing my presence for Brian. “I see papers on your desk,” he said. “Work on the book is going well?”

“Yes, it is. It's a lot of research, though.”

“That's good.” He stood up slowly, his hands touching his chest and back as if checking their reality. “I have to figure out what I'm going to do. I know that's the point of tonight, but I'm having trouble.”

“What do you mean? What your career is going to be?”

“Right,” he said, with a look of surprise at my ignorance. “The fuckhead's dead. I don't have to go through that crap anymore.”

I watched him carefully and saw no sign that he was insane. But his words terrified me. “You mean, going to law school?”

Brian laughed and looked at me with contempt. “Yeah, Howard, I hope this doesn't come as a big shock to you but I've spent six years of schooling with that in mind.”

“Brian, don't play games with me. Are you trying to tell me you never wanted to do that?”

“What!” He smiled and looked around the room at invisible persons to share with them his incredulity. “All these years you thought I did that out of love? You thought I wanted to be a lawyer? Come on, Howard, then why wouldn't I have been in a state of ecstasy all the time? Because if there's one thing I've accomplished it's my progress towards being a lawyer.” He laughed, but stopped when he saw my face. He looked sorry for me. “Is that why you're acting like this room is filled with eggshells?” When I frowned from confusion, he laughed again and did a superb mime of a person walking with intense caution. “You think I'm upset that Daddy died,” he said after the brief performance. “Incredible.”