Damnation of Adam Blessing (2 page)

About Mr. Auerbach — whoever he was, and if he ever had been — Adam knew nothing. Mrs. Auerbach mentioned no relatives, except to say she had lived a lovely life and it was done with some years ago; that now she and Adam were both orphans.

He walked across and sat down at the card table with Mrs. Auerbach, waving away her offer of the rum bottle. It was now twenty minutes past five. Adam’s date was with an airline reservations telephone clerk he had met in his personality class.

“Mrs. Auerbach, I have to go soon. Really.”

She was paging through the familiar autograph book, her favorite.

“This is the great poet Goethe’s son’s autograph book, Adam.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know that by now.”

“Yes, ma’am, you know, don’t you? It’s yours, but you think I should put it back in the safe. You don’t believe it’s yours, no?” She cackled and drank more rum. “My apartment was mine. Thirty years, Adam, yah? I believed it was mine, but no! The City’s it was — all these years. Did the City pay the rent once? No, but the City’s it is!”

“I’m sorry about that Mrs. Auerbach, I really am.” “But you’re a hurry. Rush and rush, Adam, is that you? Like the City, rush and rush to get me out.” “I have a date, Mrs. Auerbach.”

“Yes, but wait, Adam.” She placed her hand on Adam’s wrist. “The law is, this is yours. Take it.” She put the worn autograph book in his hands. “It was Goethe’s son’s book, Adam. Oh, money it could bring you, and not a little. But more, Adam. Sentiment. Roots. Let it be your
Stammbuch,
Adam. Roots, I can’t give you, but this is the next best thing. Yah, Adam?”

“Thank you,” said Adam. “I’ll put it back in the safe.”

She slapped her hand down on the book in his hand. “Nein! This time, take it with you! It is yours, Adam!”

Adam said, “Yes, and thank you again. I’ll keep it here in the safe.”

“Nein!”

Adam held the book in his hand, uncertain of his next step. In all his years of receiving this “gift” from Mrs. Auerbach, she had never stopped him from putting it back in the safe; neither of them, Adam always thought, had ever taken her gesture with any seriousness. The book was worth thousands; it was one of The Mart’s most valuable pieces of stock.

“ ‘Hand to the patron the book, and hand it to friend and companion,’ “ Mrs. Auerbach recited. “I hope you will over and over read that, Adam. In Goethe’s own handwriting.”

Adam said, “This book is worth — ”

“Money! Is that all you care for? Put it in your pocket and shut up your squealing and squeaking! I need some peace! You are like a collector with your money all the time! Put it in your pocket!”

Adam did as he was told.

“Go on, rush!” she said. “Shoo!”

“I could — help you home, Mrs. Auerbach.”

Momentarily she regarded him coolly, letting his presumption hang in the silence. Adam had thought of walking her the few blocks to her apartment, then slipping back with the valuable book and locking it safely in The Mart. It was no good. “Since when did I need help home, Herr Blessing?”

He knew she was very angry.

“The law about ‘The Lucy Baker Album stands!’ “ she announced, with a bang of the rum bottle on the table top for punctuation. “To that man who comes here for it, it is not for sale.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And there is filing piled up on your desk too!” “I realize that, Mrs. Auerbach.”

“Do you have correspondence on the Poe manuscript?” “Yes, Mrs. Auerbach. I have it started.” “Go on! Next thing you’ll want this overtime employees want, yah?” “No,” Adam said.

He kept the palm of his hand on his pocket where the album was. He knew he would keep it there all night, and that he would sleep with it under his pillow; not draw a free breath until it was back in The Mart on Monday. He could not even return it tomorrow, though he had a key. At 6:00
P.M
. on Saturdays, Mrs. Auerbach’s burglar alarm was wired to the keyhole, and centralized with the Palmer Protective Association. It was clocked that way until eight Monday morning.

“What are you waiting for, ah?” She sat erect now, with her plump legs crossed, the one dangling over the other, swinging — exposing her garter, her silk stockings, and her bright yellow ankle socks. As always, Adam could see his face in the shine on her shoes. He dismissed a crazy, sudden impulse to bend down and plant a kiss on that wild mop of orange hair.

As he turned, after saying good night, he heard her voice behind him snap: “Get in on time Monday morning, Herr Blessing!”

Outside, he climbed the winding stairs to Fifty-seventh Street. He sneaked a look at her, the naked electric light bulb dangling on a cord directly above her head, the bottle of rum tipped to her mouth, and her feet tapping energetically to what Adam guessed was probably another waltz.

“You
are
Adam Blessing, aren’t you?” the voice inquired. “Adam Blessing from Auburn, New York?”

For some slow seconds everything stopped, the way a slow-motion camera will grind to a halt on the pole-vaulter in mid-air, show him grimacing and dangling there, suspended in time.

Musak provided a harmonica rendition of “Tangerine.”

At the table across from Adam in the Roosevelt Grill, the waiter was wiping up a spilled Manhattan.

Dorothy Schackleford, Adam’s date, was holding out a souvenir for Adam, an ashtray she had stolen from Alfredo’s in Rome.

The voice came like a sudden clap of black thunder on an ordinary and fair day … Adam had always known it would happen this way, when he least expected it; so that the shock was still curling through his body as he rose and faced Billy Bollin…. Time began again.

“Yes, it’s Adam,” reaching for Billy’s outstretched hand. “Hello, Billy.”

“Adam! Addie! My God, Addie!” Billy pounded him on the back.

“How are you, Billy?”

“I can’t believe my eyes, Addie! God, Addie Blessing! Old Fatty Addie! Look at you!” he said, holding Adam back, “Why, you’re as thin as — ” hesitating, searching for a simile.

“As you are,” said Adam.

“Yes!”

“Yes.”

“Well, my God, Addie Blessing!”

Billy had not changed. He still stood taller than Adam, and there was the same tanned handsomeness about him, which offset his shock of bright red hair. His jade-colored eyes sparkled with the same arrogant confidence, and he wore the same sort of rich and casual clothes — a black and white shepherd’s check jacket, coal-colored slacks, crisp white shirt, and a blue twill silk tie. He had dressed that way even as a young boy. Adam took it all in, right down to the gold cuff links with the simple soft-printed
B
embellishing their faces.

He introduced Billy to Dorothy Schackleford. He could tell by the crooked grin on his know-everything face that Billy had sized her up immediately. She was pretty but she was plain, and plainly impressed already by Billy Bollin. Her brown hair was fuzzy from a home permanent she had over-timed. There was a slight scorch mark on one of her white cotton gloves, resting atop her shiny black patent leather bag. Billy will patronize her, Adam thought, and Billy did.

“Oh,” said Billy, “an ashtray from Alfredo’s, ah? You’ve been to Rome!”

“Where I work we can go for practically nothing,” said Dorothy. “I’m a clerk for Pan-Trans-America. I got this ashtray from Alfredo’s for Adam, because he’s given me some swell ones! The Sherry-Netherland, the Stork Club, the Twenty-One — all over, haven’t you Adam? Where else, Adam?”

Adam blushed with embarrassment. “I don’t remember.”

“The El Morocco, that’s another one! Gosh, I don’t even know all the places. Adam’s good at it, aren’t you, Adam? I thought I’d die of fright while I was getting this into my bag, but I thought to myself: I’ve got to get one from Europe for Adam. Adam’s never been, have you, Adam?”

Her round, red-cheeked face was glowing, and her nose was shining as well. Adam noticed for the first time that her lipstick was too purple, that she had shaped her lips into a vulgar cupid’s bow.

Adam shook his head in reply to her remark, aware of the satisfaction the scene must be giving Billy. Here was Fatty Addie, thin now but not much different; grownup now, but still tagging at the heels of the rich — collecting ashtrays from the restaurants of the rich, sneaking around and pocketing evidence that he had been to them. Adam imagined Billy entertaining some of his friends with the story of this moment — imagined him beginning:

“When I knew Addie, he was a fat kid from the county Home; in a way you might say Addie and I grew up together … only, of course, I wasn’t an orphan. My old man is Marshall Case Bollin; the good Lord knows whose Addie’s is, or was — pause for a snide chuckle — “or if he had one!”

“Adam,” Billy was saying now, “grew up with me. Didn’t you, Addie?”

“You might say,” Adam answered, “that we grew up together.”

Billy regaled Dorothy Schackleford by telling her what a fat little boy Adam had been, how he was always eating or bawling or trailing after Billy’s father. Dorothy giggled appreciatively, lighted one cigarette from the other before Adam could offer a light, and looked up admiringly at Billy in the manner of the female positive she had made a hit.

“But I’ve nearly forgotten my date!” said Billy suddenly.

Dorothy Schackleford was visibly disappointed at this announcement. Adam felt a wave of wild relief … until Billy added, “I’ll go get her. She’s in the back. We’ll all have a round together!”

He pranced toward the rear of the room. Adam intended to announce to Dorothy that they would not go through with Billy’s plan, but as he felt for his wallet to pay their bill, his hand brushed against the valuable
Stammbuch
given him an hour ago by Mrs. Auerbach. A crazy impulse captured him. He slid his wallet back in place and leaned forward, speaking in a low voice to Dorothy Schackleford.

“I am part owner of The Mart,” he said quite clearly.

“Okay,” she said, “I’m Brigitte Bardot.”

“Listen to me, Dorothy, I’m serious. When he gets back I’m going to tell him I’m part owner of The Autograph Mart. It’s practically true!”

“Adam, it isn’t true. That old biddy pays you slave wages as it is!”

“Dorothy, won’t you do me a favor?”

“I don’t mind going along with a gag, Adam. I just don’t want you to think it’s ‘practically true.’ ”

Adam said, “Listen, right here in my pocket,” patting his suit jacket for emphasis, “I have an album she gave me which is worth close to $50,000. She gave it to me tonight.”

“Goethe’s son’s album?” she said sarcastically … Adam had not remembered having spoken before about Mrs. Auerbach’s drunken offers of the album, forgotten by her, or simply reneged in her sober moments — Adam was never sure which.

“All right,” he said, “but tonight she forced me to take it!”

“You’ll put it back in stock Monday.”

“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.” He sounded unconvincing even to himself.

“You’ll put it back in stock, and that’s as close as you’ll ever come to that much money from her!”

“I’m her beneficiary, Dorothy.”

“Like I said, Adam, I’m Brigitte Bardot!”

Adam glanced toward the back of the room nervously. Then in a more urgent tone he said, “I’m asking you to do me this favor. It’s important to me!”

“All right, Adam! And you don’t live at the Y either, I suppose. You live at the Waldorf Towers!”

“That’s right,” said Adam, “I don’t live at the Y.”

“My gosh, you’re dead serious, aren’t you?”

“Dead serious,” said Adam.

Dorothy looked at him with a puzzled expression on her plain countenance. Adam wished he had never noticed the purple lipstick or the cupid’s bow. He knew he was seeing her through Billy’s eyes; seeing everything through Billy’s eyes now, the way he used to. Dorothy Schackleford shrugged and stood up. “Before this circus begins,” she said, “I’m going to use the sand box.”

Whenever she said that, she put her arms up close to her shoulders, curling her fingers into her palms, imitating, Adam supposed, a cat on its hind legs. To frost the absurdity, she gave a mew, and whined: “Would Adam order pussy-cat another drinky-poo?”

Adam was just glad Billy was not witness to that moment.

Adam sat alone then, resigned to imminent embarrassment of some kind. For himself, he could carry it off, act the part — even produce the
Stammbuch.
Billy would believe him when he saw the
Stammbuch;
Billy knew what was and what was not worth money. Adam wished he was alone, wished he had had this dreaded encounter with Billy Bollin when he was by himself. With any other girl, Adam could have pretended he had given her the ashtrays from Those Restaurants because he
knew
it would impress her, and because he knew it was one way to get her into bed. His receiving the ashtray from Alfredo’s could even have been crossed off as an act of going along with her naïveté, for the same reason … Except that Dorothy Schackleford was not the kind of girl one imagined a man panting after. She would embarrass him, that was all there was to it; she was the flaw in his pose. Adam remembered a time when he had embarrassed Dorothy Schackleford, before a gathering of
her
friends. He had gotten very drunk and he had criticized the presence of an imitation fireplace in one of her girlfriends’ apartments; he had crowned the occasion by throwing up in the bathroom of the apartment. Dorothy Schackleford had told him she had never been so embarrassed in all her life. It had been their first date. She was really ashamed of him and angry. She had said she had not minded his getting sick so much as she had minded his attack on the fireplace. The fireplace, she had raged at him, had cost her girlfriend a good deal of money, and the fact that Adam could not appreciate a fine piece of furniture made her embarrassed. Her girlfriend would think Adam had been brought up in a barn, she said. He might just as well have criticized the Metropolitan Museum for hanging an El Greco, as far as Dorothy Schackleford was concerned.

Embarrassment was an unpredictable enemy. It could react on individual conceits as personal and diversified as one’s taste in underwear. Maybe, if Billy got to the table before Dorothy returned, Adam could give the impression she was just a girl who did typing for him occasionally, a spare-time job of hers, to earn a little extra money. Even as he thought it, he felt low, a feeling familiar to him from years back when Billy Bollin would make him react this same way. Yet he knew there was no way out; around Billy he was this sort of shabby person. In that way, Adam Blessing had not changed at all, and he had known it the instant he had heard Billy’s voice call out his name.

Adam wondered what it was that would embarrass a Billy Bollin: perhaps that his fly had been open all through a Philharmonic concert; perhaps that he — but the next possibility remained unborn.

“Here we are, Addie!”

Certainly the almost-forgotten date would not embarrass Billy.

Adam stared at her as he stood up.

Billy said, “This is Charity Cadwallader.”

Was that how it all began?