Frog (79 page)

Says to his mother and brother “Well, I'm going now to get the deli and stuff and take care of the house before all the people come, so I'll see you.” His mother says “Do you have enough money?” and he says “You gave me more than enough, but if I need more, I have some of my own.” “No, I don't want you paying for anything,” and reaches for her pocketbook. His brother says “He has enough—he told you—and if he doesn't, you'll give it to him later,” and to Howard “No tongue or fatty pastrami or meat like that. Just simple stuff, trimmed well, and get more than you think we need, because more people might be coming than we think. Also, we could use it while we're sitting at Mom's the next few days.” “By ‘simple,' what do you mean?” and his brother says “Turkey, roast beef, lox, the best bologna, but nothing where the guests have to start picking off pieces because of the gristle and fat.” “OK, but I don't want to be feeding and cleaning up after people the next few days. Making sandwiches, getting them drinks, people thinking it's a restaurant we're running, as Dad used to say,” and his brother says “That's what you have to do when you sit. Not make things for them—they do that for you and serve you it and clean up after. But a lot come a long way and some around lunchtime and they're hungry, naturally, also from sitting there for so long, so there should be food and pastries and coffee for them to help themselves. So get another can of coffee while you're at it, and pastries too—little ones, big ones, but nothing with icing or that fluffy cream on it or goo in it. Coffeecakes and babkas—that's what I mean you should get. Two or three of them, but simple ones, with mostly walnuts and raisins in them,” and hands Howard two twenties. “I told you, I have my own money and what Mom gave me,” and his brother says ‘Take it, I earn more than enough to play the sport, and I don't want you holding back on what you buy.” He kisses his mother, brother, sister-in-law, says “I'm going to pay my respects a last minute,” his brother and sister-in-law nod, his mother seems to be off somewhere else, sitting erect, head arched back, eyes open but on nothing it seems, remembering, probably, maybe in a daze. Goes into the next room, sits on the front bench opposite the box, shuts his eyes, bows his head, folds his hands in his lap, hears the sound sonebody mentioned before and wanted to know what it could be: “There a pipe around that's leaking?” Dripping, from the ice his father must be on, probably into a metal pan, from the sound of it, on the floor under the platform the box is on. Holes through the platform so the water can drip through? How
do
they do it? Something the rabbi insisted on if he was going to conduct the service? No modern refrigeration, which would be against his religious tenets? So why'd they get an Orthodox rabbi if his father hasn't been Orthodox for forty years and they'd have to put up with this dripping? Going to be like this during the funeral? Then realizes; when the funeral home official—the salesman, really—showed them the caskets and then in his office asked lots of questions, like if they wanted their father embalmed, or rather “Of course you'll probably want your father embalmed,” his brother and he said what for? He's going into the ground tomorrow, around twenty-six hours after he died, so why do all that to the body and pay a couple-hundred more for it too? So probably on ice to preserve him for the funeral, which the embalming fluid probably would do, and where he won't smell. Maybe that's it, maybe not. Says “So I'll see you in the morning,” closes his eyes again, lets whatever it is come in—nothing does; it's all blank or flashing dots—and stands, moves his hand above the casket, then below the platform close to the curtain; doesn't feel any colder. Thinks of lifting the curtain to see what kind of pan and the water, but maybe he's got it all wrong; maybe it's blood dripping, maybe something worse, and goes. Outside the home he thinks why didn't he do what he was going to when he went into that room: hasn't seen his father since in the hospital this morning, so open the casket to see the job they did on him and maybe for his last look. Forgot, that's all, nothing deeper; got caught up in other things. Gets at the deli soda, seltzer, beer, coffee, milk, bread, sugar substitute, pound of this, two pounds of that, slice it thin, slice it thick, slice it regular, trim it a little more please, his brother says no fat, only the best, whatever's the best, sure, salami too, nobody asked but he's sure people will eat it and kosher salami's supposed to be the finest, but only half a pound, same with the bologna, Isaac Gellis, any good brand like that, ham he knows they don't have or nothing like it, right? sour and new pickles, lots of them, sour tomatoes, some of those pepper things with the long stems, couple of gefilte fishes, or fish for the plural, how do you say it? with plenty of carrot slices on them but not too much juice, it's going to be eaten in an hour, cole slaw, potato salad, whitefish, nova, gravlax, whatever that is, he was told by his brother to get it, some of that spread there—chopped liver; of course—he thinks that's it; maybe some roast turkey. Asks them to deliver but please make it quick, lots of hungry people will be flocking soon to his folks' apartment from the funeral home and the food should be there when they come, and the counterman says “Oh, someone in the family? My condolences, all around, and don't worry, our boy will be there before you, I bet, if you don't get a cab and take it home right after you step out of here,” and he says “Don't make it that fast; nobody will be there to receive it,” leaves, snaps his fingers outside, goes back and says “And could you throw in some of that nice deli mustard you prepare—enough for thirty people?” and stops off at a liquor store for several liquors, then at a bakery. At the apartment he opens the dining room table, puts a tablecloth on it—his mother told him which cloth—lots of paper napkins, no time to fold them into triangles, silver, plastic cups and paper plates—she told him where to find them—opens the liquor bottles and sets them on a side table with a pitcher of water and a few swizzle sticks, fills the ice bucket with ice, gets the cakes on dinner plates and puts them on the table with a bread knife between them, makes himself a drink, drinks it, makes another, pulls out two breakfront drawers of old photos his mother's kept there since they moved from Brooklyn thirty-five years ago, buzzer from the building's vestibule, forgot to get the coffee ready, buzzes the ringer in, deliveryman and lets him carry everything into the kitchen though his mother told him for what could be bugs at the store to have him leave the delivery at the door, gets the electric percolator going, slices the fish, pickles, tomatoes, puts everything on platters and into bowls, cleans a bag of radishes and garnishes the food platters with them, brings the platters and bowls to the dining room table, looks for serving forks and spoons. Arranges the table till it looks right to him. His idea, from right to left: tableware first, main food next, salads and accessories after, pastries last. Turns the kitchen radio on and is glad to get sad music: churchlike, possibly Bach, a cantata, maybe the Easter one or the Passion, for it's familiar and Easter's only days away. Makes himself a drink, sees there's one in the dining room he didn't touch and drinks it down, bourbon instead of scotch, starts on the new one. Soda and seltzer on the side table. Salt, pepper, mustard in a bowl on the main table. On the kitchen counter by the percolator: milk, sugar, sugar substitute in a dish, glass of teaspoons with the handles up, all the cups and saucers and mugs in the house. Phone rings. Doesn't want to answer it. It'll be somebody with his condolences but then it could be his brother about his mom. His mother's cousin from Florida. Her condolences. He was the most wonderful good-natured man. Brought people together who never would have been. Almost matched her up with someone after her husband died but she decided taking care of one sick man for years and then burying him was enough. Just like his mother did but for twice as long as she and with his sister and dad, but she's a saint. Which son is he, the oldest or youngest? Last time she saw him, but he wouldn't remember her, was at a seder his parents gave more than twenty-five years ago. Funeral at Riverside? She won't be able to come up for it, she never travels a mile from her home these days, but tell Mother she called. Beer he'll leave in the refrigerator but how will people know it's there? They'll just have to snoop around or ask. He leave anything out? Phone rings. His father's nephew. He couldn't make it tonight but he'll be there tomorrow. He knows it'll be in the paper but sometimes they don't get it right so what time's the funeral? And because he's not sure about these etiquette things, he's expected to get there to pay his respects a half-hour before? So, what can he say? Uncle Cy's the last one on the Tetch side from that age group and the oldest. Next it'll be their generation. What's he talking about, since they've already lost a few; both of them their sisters and his middle brother, right? Tomorrow, then, and love to Aunt Pauline. Toothpicks, for some of these people, and a few more ashtrays. But why encourage them? and last thing he wants after everyone goes and there's still a mess is to empty and clean ashtrays. Gets the garbage can from under the sink. Phone rings. Though it's only half filled, wants an empty can to start with. Takes it out to dump and then relines it. Newspapers; maybe now that his father's dead, plastic trash bags. Collects all the photos he can find of a certain time of his father. Phone rings, yells for it to go to hell, doesn't want to speak to anyone, no one, has enough things to do and is just plain drained and not in a talking mood, picks up the receiver, hand over the mouthpiece, presses the disconnect buttons and leaves the receiver off the cradle. Drinks, pours another, but doesn't want to get sloshed, his mother might need him and there might be all that cleaning up, so puts it to the side. Beeping from the phone, drinks while it's doing it, and then it stops. Leans about fifty photos of his father against the wall above the dining room mantel, tapes several to the wall above it. Graduation photo from high school he's been told, though looks five years too old for it. Bar mitzvah photo: hat for an old man and too big, tefillin, prayer shawl, mantilla, poncho, whatever it's called, face radiantly self-confident and mature while he in his official bar mitzvah photo looked like a shy kid. Rowing a boat. Swinging a bat. Feeding a duck. Throwing an apple down from a tree. Reading a newspaper on his favorite park bench. On their honeymoon cruise to Bermuda, back of it says. Sitting on bar stools at Sloppy Joe's in Cuba, sign on the interior awning says. Glasses raised, he raises his, here's to ya, pal, phone rings. When he put the receiver back on? What else he do he doesn't know about? Should go to the john so he doesn't have to when there's a line for it. Goes, makes sure to zip up. Phone rings, ah shit. Deliveryman came and left twenty-something minutes ago so should be back by now: delivered, gave him a tip, that was it. Standing on a diving board ready to dive in, one-piece swimsuit but looking good and fit. Dad and she or just him alone and lots of other people, relatives at family functions, friends or associates at professional or fraternal affairs, half with their heads twisted around or chairs turned. Between Alex and him during a summer camp visit, hairy gray chest, big belly, skinny legs, galvanizing smile, his dead brother looking so ungovernable, though his father's got them both around the neck in a good grip, with his wild curly hair and cocky face and dark suntan and budding build. Standing, if that's him, with his arms on the shoulders of two buddies, with his basic training unit. His mother and brother and sister-in-law come in, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. Door never shuts. Outside buzzer and cigar smoke never stop. Opens a window but someone says too cold so he closes it. Phone always ringing or being dialed. They've been detained longer than they thought so go ahead with dinner. What's doing with gold in Hong Kong and Tokyo? What's he think about Nixon's newest antics? someone asks him. Hasn't read the paper or listened to the radio in days, what'd he say? Food being picked at or wolfed down and wonders if he should start cleaning up now or just bring in the kitchen trash can if nobody's put something terrible in it or a couple of opened shopping bags and let everyone help themselves. His brother signals him with a finger, corners him. What's with these photos? Thanks for the great job getting the food and setting up the table, but he go out of his mind? People haven't said anything because they're too embarrassed to. Sorry, thought it'd be nice, seeing him as he was, not sick as he's been for years, and maybe his typical misdirected spontaneity and too much to drink. But this one he particularly likes: in his office bending over a patient, his dark hair, starched white smock, and look how rugged he looks and glittering his dental equipment is, and the photo seems professionally lit and taken, as if for a magazine. Was it? Brother shrugs, sort of doubts it, but it with the others if he can has to go. And look at this one of them in Paris, at the Café de la Paix of all places, which took them twenty years to get to once they'd planned it, and where he had what she called his first ministroke. Maybe that one should go right away because of its associations for her, and stuffs it into his back pocket. But he's tired and it's been a big one and last night at the hospital when he barely got a wink sitting by Dad's bed, so he's afraid he'll have to call it a day. Please do whatever he pleases with the photos himself. Kisses his brother, says good night to his mother; she doesn't seem to recognize him, then calls him Alex, corrects herself and calls him Gerald, then says of course it's her youngest child Howard—she means her youngest son; Vera was her youngest child—but then she's always been awful with names, and he leans over to hug her and she kisses his forehead. He'll be in the boys' room all night in case she needs him, he says, and good-nights to everyone he passes on his way to his old bed.

The baby comes out and doctor says “Got it, it's a girl,” and starts to hold it up but says “But you knew that, right?” and nose is suctioned again, eyes cleaned, umbilical cord's cut and quickly does some other things and hands it to the nurse who rushes to the warmer, pats the baby dry, says “Heartbeat's normal, color's a healthy pink,” weighs and measures it and wraps it up and brings it to them and says “So who gets her, Daddy first?” because his arms are out and he says “She's still a bit dizzy and weak, I'll hold it OK,” and takes it in his arms, shows it to Denise, who's being sewed up while waiting for her placenta to pass, and breaks into such deep sobs that the nurse takes the baby from him and puts it on Denise's stomach. Breaks into sobs during his wedding ceremony. Rabbi smiles, says “Let's hold it a few seconds, people,” looks at his watch because he has to officiate at a funeral in an hour, he told them before the ceremony, and it's a half-hour cab ride from here. Sobs when he hears a certain Bach cantata on the radio and the woman says “It's a beautiful piece and a very lovely interpretation, I know,” and he says “It's not that. I should have turned the radio off when the announcer said what number it was, for I know what it does to me and I didn't want to screw up such a nice dinner.” “It's done, so maybe if you want to eat, you should say,” and he says “It reminds me of my brother. A few months after that ship he was on got lost and probably split up and sunk, I bought a record of this same cantata. Not for it but for the much more exalting one on the other side whose number I've since forgot—thirty-three, I think. I played it, after I played the one I bought the record for a few times, and right at that sad part just before my brother popped into my head and I started sobbing more for him than I had since he was lost. To top it off, for about ten years after that, whenever I wanted a good cry, I'd put that cantata on. Though first I'd have a couple of vodkas or half bottle of wine, and would douse the lights—it was always at night—or just keep a low-watt one on and sit in a chair with another vodka or the rest of the wine and often with some poetry books to turn to two or three of what I knew were particularly sad poems, and my brother would automatically appear about five minutes into it and I'd sob uncontrollably. It rarely failed and would probably work for me today if I had the record and there weren't too many scratches on it and the sound wasn't too inferior to what we have on records today.” Sobs the first time he sees a certain Russian film. Went to the theater alone, it was about a year after his brother was lost, good reviews, a friend whose opinion he respected had told him it was a terrific film, interesting and moving and cinematographically near perfect, the second or third contemporary Russian film to hit the States since the new Soviet-American cultural exchange, sat in back, film was touching in places and light and a little trivial and dull in others and as far as he could tell very well acted and made. But the ending. Young soldier returning to the war front, never coming back, babushka'd mother seeing him off minutes after he got there, as he'd spent his entire leave getting home—powerful music, serious voiceover with a few words Howard could make out because of similar ones in German and English, closing shot of him on the bed of the truck that had taken him the last few miles to his village and will drive him back to the train, but before that shouting “There, there,” and pounding the truck's cab and directing the driver down a country road, jumping out, kissing his mother—she was working in the fields with other women—soon the driver shouting “Come on, soldier, we don't have time, you'll miss the only train,” and they hug and kiss and paw some more and the driver honks and he climbs aboard, his mother and he waving to each other as the truck gets smaller and smaller as it drives to the main road. He sat sobbing when the Russian word for “The End” appeared and then the music stopped and screen went dark and houselights came on. It was an art movie theater so almost everyone had seen it from the beginning and was now leaving when someone coming up the aisle said “Tetch?” Newsman he knew from Washington. Introduced his wife, said “This guy and I covered Congress at the same time, used to interview Kennedy together right in the Senate cloakroom sometimes, since we each had a 50-kilo station in Boston and my outfit one in Wooster—Remember, Jack tapping his pen on your mike when he talked, then on his teeth while he was thinking till you had to tell him to stop? Clink-clink, he was killing the tape—This guy was a maniac reporter, all over the place. Three to four interviews going at once sometimes—his outfit just edited and aired them separately—and who once boxed me out of a once-in-a-lifetime interview with Nixon when he was veep and who no one thought gave single radio interviews. But he catches him flying through the halls and shoves the mike into Nixon's mouth and starts asking questions, and when I see it and try to set up to join in, he says ‘Stubbs, this is mine, back off.' Nixon's just laughing but wouldn't give me one after his was over. But I got him back with an excluso with Hoffa on some hearings and one with Lyndon on Ike taking too many naps and golfing days that for a while had that town upside down. But the real killer was when he gets one with Khrushchev, if even only for two minutes and in translation, by breaking ranks with the rest of us cordoned-off reporters and running with his tape recorder and gear up the Lincoln Memorial steps. ‘Who is this imp?' we all later hear Nikita say through his translator on radio that day. Nothing much of substance—he's sure he'll enjoy his brief stay. But just to have got the first interview with English in it three hours after he steps off the plane? And then quickies with Mrs. K. and his son-in-law from
Pravda
or
Izvestia
and his wife—I wish they'd shot this guy. And you really could have been shot by either of the secret services for running up on them—you knew that, didn't you?” “I knew but didn't think. My boss was hot on my getting beats and I guess I liked the little notoreity that went with it. But listen, Mickey, and excuse me,” to his wife, “but I found the film so moving I still really can't speak. I'm going to sit another minute.” “Sure, the movie?—I can understand,” and said they'd wait for him in the lobby for coffee if he was only going to be a few minutes, and he got up in a minute when the movie started but they weren't there. Takes the woman he's engaged to to the film a few months later. Doesn't say what it did to him, just that it was a movie he remembers liking very much, thinks she'll enjoy it and he wouldn't mind seeing it again. At the end he's sobbing so hard his shirt's wet from where the tears dropped and she says “What are you crying like that for? It was sad but not that sad and it certainly wasn't that convincing or great a film. Fact is, it was kind of schmalzty, if I can use that ugly word, and which hasn't almost applied to any movie I've seen in years till this. I'm sorry, I don't mean to belittle honest and open emotion, and I think it's wonderful the way you let it flow so freely, but that overgrown boy and girl with those half-witted innocent expressions and twinklings of what we know will never be consummated love? And the mother—holy Horace, get me a double vodka straight.” “It just affected me, what can I tell you—maybe the music most of all.” “Leave it to the Russians: mother patriotism with no faults.” Calls his mother up every year on his sister's birthday, never says why he's calling, just “Hello, how are vou, what've you been doing?” and she always says “Fine, I guess; you know me: not doing much. Today's Vera's birthday, but you probably knew that,” and he says “I was thinking of it today too,” and she usually says “What age would she have been?” and he gives the age and she usually says “It's hard to believe she would have been that old—she was twenty-six but so small and such a child,” and by then he's feeling like crying and she usually starts in too till she tells him she can't speak anymore and she'll call him back later tonight if she can remember by the time it's not too late, or tomorrow, does he mind? and he says no, not at all and puts the receiver down and sobs where he's sitting till he can't anymore. Sobs when he comes over to her apartment and says he might have the same thing Vera had, or at least the doctors think so. First tells her to sit, they drink coffee, she says “Like me to toast you a bagel?—I just took them out of the freezer,” and he says no, she says “What's on your mind, you look so worried,” he says he has some bad news, she says “You and Dora breaking up again?” and he says “No, everything's fine between us, or as good as it's going to get, which ain't hot and not the way I want it but that's OK, we still have something and lots of good moments and I love her little girl and maybe it'll get better, anyway she's been wonderful about this,” and she says “What?” and he says “I think—the doctors think—I've seen two surgeons already about it, one of them Dora's father-in-law—she still has a nice relationship with him even if she's divorcing Lewis—anyway—she insisted I go to him when she saw the lump on my leg that wouldn't go away—they think I could have the same thing Vera did, a neurofibroma, though in all probability—at least it's as good a chance—it's a synovial cyst—” “A Baker's cyst?” she says. “Yes, and they're going to operate—he is—as soon as—not Dora's father-in-law but the other surgeon—he sent me to him, a neurosurgeon specializing in limbs—Dr. Michaels isn't; he's strictly brains—but as soon as this Dr. Vinskint gets a bed for me in the hospital he's associated with, which is Memorial, I'm afraid, Vera's old place,” and that's when he starts sobbing, not for himself he later tells her and believes, but for Vera, “the poor kid, because what she went through, nobody should. Me, I'll be all right, and I've lived past forty so, you know, I've at least had a shot at things. Though Vinskint did say—and don't get worried; chances of it are slight—that if it's what he hopes and generally thinks it isn't and it's really spread and is malignant, which it was with Vera but in most people it's benign, he might have to take off the leg below the knee, which is where the cyst or fibroma is, behind it, though not then and there. He'd want me to wake up and think about it a while but I'd have to make my decision soon.” Vinskint wakes him during the operation and says “The biopsy report was just wired down from that window up there—you can't see it—and the pathologist said it's the cyst, which is what I thought and hoped it was, but we had to make sure, and I'm taking the rest of it out as long as I've got you opened up. You should feel very fortunate and relieved, Mr. Tetch, which I'm sure you are,” and he says “Thank you, I do, I am,” and they put him out. After, people say—a doctor cousin especially who berates him for not coming to him for a third opinion—“I could have told you over the phone what it was by your description of it and it could have been drained with a needle in any doctor's office for two hundred bucks”—that he should complain to the hospital and its medical board and some even say he should sue the doctors for malpractice—the one who first diagnosed it and referred him and the one who operated on him—but he doesn't like to sue and hates getting involved with lawyers and it's Dora's father-in-law and Gretchen's grandpapa and he doesn't want to hurt their relationship with the man and his own with them. Is dropped by a number of women over a period of about three years after Dora. Some in a week or two, some in a few months, and it hurts a little sometimes but no stronger reaction than that. But with the one months before he meets his future wife—the last woman he slept with regularly before her—he sobs when she tells him it isn't working out between them anymore and she's calling it quits. She asked him to meet her at a bar near her job after she gets off from work and he starts sobbing in one of the front booths. She looks around, seems alarmed, tells him to stop, please, this is a place she comes to almost every day for lunch or a beer and it's a good place to read and draw—the lighting and they don't bother her after they clear away her plate or glass—and now they might think she's afraid to think what, and what's all his blubbering for anyway? They never were that close. It was an affair of convenience—affair's even too weighty a word for what they had. He was coming from someone, she from someone else, they both had been given the ole heave-ho so felt good meeting up with someone nice so soon and someone who didn't give them each a hard time and want to spend all his hours with her or she with him, like the last one with her did before he kicked her out, and they had some fun, were companions, helpmates, bedmates, had similar interests—of course still do—and were even helpful in other ways like when she took care of his mail for two weeks when he was away and he helping her move into her new apartment and also helping her paint it with her—but now she feels it's gone about as far as it could or should, that it's sort of reached a point where it has to develop or just stop—he's still sobbing—and since it never can go any further—they both know that—and please stop crying, stop it, people are looking, it's too damn embarrassing and uncalled-for and unfair, because he couldn't have felt anything more for her up till now than a slight attachment, and look at their ages, he's almost twice hers and should want someone closer to his own, at the most ten years younger, just as she does with a man but the opposite way around, so please, cut the blubbering or will he at least just spit what it is out? and he says he was thinking he'd like to marry her and have a baby, so maybe that's why he's so sad and disappointed—says this when he knows it's out of desperation and a lie and he wouldn't know what to say or do if she said yes or give her time to think about it—but she says what? he crazy? Where's that come from? This some sick stupid joke on his part? It's a lie, she knows it, blubbering didn't work so now he's offering-suggesting—bullshitting to her about marriage and kiddies just to get her back for a week, maybe even just to fuck tonight, and let's face it, before he drops her dead flat because he'd be so frightened and perplexed if she ever said yes. For how can he think marriage and babies? How can he?—tell her, tell her. He says nothing, just looks at the table, and she says sure one day she'll want a baby, but when she's ready, which she's not and won't be for years—five, six-she has her education to finish, her art to develop and think about, some other experiences including other men to go through—just as sure one day she'll want a young husband as her children's or child's father—but also when she's ready, which she of course right now isn't. And why a much younger husband than he when she is ready? She'll tell him. He unloaded that bomb about marriage and babies on her, she'll unload this on him. Because of the personal energy-level thing, for one reason. Between him and someone much younger. And because she wants someone with the same or close-to-it cultural attitudes or values and interests rather than differences and different frames of reference or frame of references or frames of references or whatever the hell he called them—what he liked to talk about a lot, she should say: culture, morals, values. And just someone to look at who's younger and less line-ier in the face and who's hairier in the head and less on the body and not so gray there and firmer, solider, more athletic, less serious, less done in by life, less seen-it-all in life, just less a lot, she'll say, plus more juvenile in humor and spirits even. So anyhow, don't tell her it's the marriage-baby thing why he said he blubbered, because it's not, they both know it, so come up with something better or nothing, for all she cares now, and he says, wiping his face, maybe it's because so many women—he thinks this is it, because he'd like to get at it himself—women young and older but none younger than she even when it first started, have dumped him in the last few years that it secretly took its toll and culminated in that dumb what she called blubbering before. But OK, no marriage, forget babies, though he does eventually want to have them before he gets too old and weak to pick them up and carry them—maybe that's the problem too. But just leave him here—she should go—and let him figure out what it really is if it isn't what he just said, and she says she does have to be someplace now but he promises no more scenes here?—remember, this is her place almost every weekday and it's already been embarrassing enough for her here today, and he nods and she says he'll pay? for she's had a pie and two beers and there's his coffee, and he says he has enough on him, and she says leave a dollar as a tip too—two, even—that should smooth things over with the bar, and he says will do but just go, and he leaves right after she does, no thinking about it, there's nothing to think about it anymore, he could see she's had it with him, she's probably got another guy and didn't want to say it, she already gave him crabs a couple months back from some guy she met when he was away for those two weeks, but she at least told him when she found out she had it and gave him enough of her prescription medicine to cure it, and she calls that night, says he all right? he says yes, thanks, she says good, well that's all she wanted to say, and he says thanks for calling, that was very considerate, but would she like to do something tonight? and she says after that scene today and what she said about him he still thinks she'd want to screw with him? and he says who mentioned screwing?—just to go out, a movie, he feels much better, whatever she'd like to do—a bar, even, or someplace for a bite—and she says didn't he hear her today? She doesn't want to see him again ever. She only called out of concern because he was in such terrible shape today but she can see even that was a wrong move, another reason why they're so incompatible—that's the word she was searching for all that time in the bar—they're incompatible, because he takes things—looks at things—so differently than her—he looks at them as if he's not twenty but sometimes thirty or forty years older than her and not because she acts much younger than she is either, and he says thank you, that's very nice, what he wanted to hear, she's a sweetheart, really, but if she has a few seconds more he'd like to say this—something he just came up with but had thought hard about since the bar and nothing insulting, so don't worry—but the reason why he felt so bad about himself today and did that sobbing was because he thinks after her he'll never get anybody, that she was the last one or possibility of one, that he has no job, no prospects of one, no money besides, and at his age, well he must have felt his whole life was hopeless and still does in a way, foolish and hopeless and on a terrific decline, and she says is he pulling one on her again? and he says when did he ever? and she says come on and he says absolutely, he's not pulling anything, and she says then no, it's not hopeless, it's never hopeless, what's hopeless is getting into the bag of thinking it is, but with him