Old Neighborhood (18 page)

“Hi, old friend,” I said. I walked to her and put my arms around her. She patted my arm neutrally and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“You look extraordinary, Steve. Being away from me must agree with you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“What is
that?
”

“My dog.”

“You got yourself a dog?” Beverly said.

Amy leaned down to pet him.

“What’s his name, Daddy?”

“Ramón. He’s a bilingual dog.”

“He’s very homely,” Sarah said.

“He’s pure mutt. I bought him from a super. A super’s dog. You can’t get any more authentic than that.”

“You mean you actually went out and bought this creature?” Beverly said.

“It was a cash deal. With an option on an undisclosed cat to be named at a later date.”

“Really, now.”

“Come on in. I have some things to tell you.”

We all sat down in the living room. I had their attention. The dog seemed to have served as a visual aid.

“This summer I went through a very bad time. A personal crisis, you might call it.”

“Steve?”

“I’m okay now. But at the time, nothing seemed right to me. Not our marriage, Bev—as we all knew. Not my work. Nothing.”

“Oh, Steve—”

“It was like I was lost. Then I remembered my old neighborhood. And I went back there. And I got myself together.”

“Where?” Sarah said.

“In the Bronx.”

“The Bronx?”

“First, I just—hung around. Then I began to get into shape. Then I went so far as to get a job there. I couldn’t have two jobs, so I resigned from the agency.”

“What?” Beverly said.

“Tolchin was not all that unhappy, I must say.”

“You resigned?” Sarah said.

“When I was a kid I had this image—I was going to be an advertising man. I was going to be sophisticated and well dressed and very un-Bronx. And when I got there, it was just a meaningless game of being clever.”

Beverly was shaking her head, the girls were staring at me.

“You might as well get it all. I’m working in a candy store.”

“Daddy!” Amy said. “That’s not funny.”

“Yes, Daddy, it’s a very bad joke,” Sarah said.

Beverly knew that I was not joking.

“A candy store, Steve?”

“What are you saying, Daddy? I’m supposed to go to college!”

“You can still go to college. You can go to as many colleges as you want. I put the money away for you.”

“I don’t believe it,” Amy said. “It’s so embarrassing.”

“The people there are very decent. They’ve treated me kindly. I’m not embarrassed to be with them.”

“Daddy, how can you be so smart and do something so incredibly dumb?” Sarah said.

“None of this is very easy to tell you about. What I’d like is for you to come there and see what I’m involved in—”

“No, thank you,” Sarah said.

“I’m not going to any Bronx,” Amy added.

“Steve!”

“I made a change in my life. People change, Bev.
You
did.”

“But to do this—”

She sat, shaking her head, frowning. They were all avoiding my eyes. I insisted that they should at least give me the courtesy of going through the neighborhood with me to see why the place was so important to me. Beverly consented to come, the girls declined. The best I extracted from them was that they would take care of the dog while I was out of the house. Beverly went off to unpack, no one was interested in dinner. I seemed to have ruined their appetites.

Later in the evening I walked the dog, and when I returned, Beverly was already in bed, her eyes closed. “Bevvy—”

“I was almost sleeping.”

I tried to put my arms around her, she edged away. I kissed her on the neck, she was unresponsive.

“If ever I was not in the mood,” she said.

I ran my fingers over her body.

“No, Steve—”

I became fevered, kissing her, touching her. Two months away from her. She began to respond, slowly, it was a conflicted emotion, she would alternately shake her head, no, then embrace me, but she became moist and I entered her, and as I did I was clenching my teeth, I was competing with whoever else she had known—before the summer, during the summer, competing with her recollections of me. I would show her I was feeling strong, that I was physically able, if nothing else. She summoned a physicality of her own that I could not recall, and when we had come, we lay still, impatient to begin again. I lasted longer the next time, until we finally stopped, drained, wet from perspiration and each other. She spoke the only words that had passed between us from the time I had begun to kiss her.

“Goddamn you!” she said.

I called Chris to tell him I would not be at work, we had been breaking in a college student, a young woman, as a part-time worker, and she would fill in for me. Beverly went to her office for a few hours and in the afternoon we were ready to leave. She was wearing gray slacks, a blouse and a jacket, collar up in the fashion, I was in a sport shirt, light sweater, dungarees and sneakers—my street clothes. We drove into the city talking about the girls and some of Beverly’s plans for the year at the Institute. When we reached the neighborhood I had an urge to get out and pick up litter so that it would all look cleaner to her.

“I remember some of this from when your mother died,” she said.

“I was surprised anything was still here.”

I drove past the college to Harris Field and then around the reservoir, joggers were out, the area was green with summer.

“It’s not a bad place,” I said, selling.

I parked on Jerome Avenue and led Beverly into St. James Park. A teenager came running in our direction, Beverly stopped walking and froze in fear. Without breaking stride, the teenager slapped skin with me, said, “Stevie, baby,” and kept running. He was one of the regulars in the candy store.

“You’re known, I see. Thank God.”

“It’s my neighborhood.”

I led her toward the basketball courts, the teenagers were there in one of their wild, scrambling games.

“I’m going to play.”

Their game ended, we shot baskets for a few minutes, then I joined in the next game. I dominated the game.

“Incredible,” she said, when I walked off the court.

“The point is, I’ve gotten myself in shape.” I smiled and added, “And I think I played very well.”

We went to Poe Park, a block away.

“This is a cultural stop,” I said. “Edgar Allan Poe wrote there.”

“When he wasn’t playing basketball.”

“They used to have dances here. Maybe he did the fox-trot.”

I looked for Sam, I expected him to be there, and I saw him sitting at his favorite bench, reading a newspaper.

“I want you to meet a friend—” and I guided Beverly over to him.

“Sam—”

“Stevie!”

“Sam Goodstein, Beverly Robbins. This is my wife, Sam.”

He jumped to his feet and shook Beverly’s hand.

“I’m so happy to meet you,” he said.

Out of nervousness, Sam was trying to make clothing adjustments to neaten his appearance.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Goodstein.”

“Call me Sam. I’m Sam. You know how long I know this fella?”

“How long?”

“Long,” he said, looking at me. “Long.”

“Sam and I meet, we play cards, we talk about sports.”

“He has a good mind, your husband.”

“Yes, he does.”

“It’s hard to stump him. Best career batting average—Williams, Musial or DiMaggio?” Sam said, wanting to show off his protégé.

“Williams. Three forty-four.”

“See?” Sam said, pleased.

“Bet you didn’t know I knew that.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“So beautiful a girl, Stevie. You’re the most beautiful girl in the Bronx today.”

“Thank you, Sam,” she said.

“I’m showing Beverly the neighborhood. You’re a stop on the cultural tour.”

“Am I? You know what I used to do for a living?” he asked Beverly.

“No.”

“I was a bookmaker, a bookie. But trustworthy.”

“I’m sure.”

“There’s not many of us around anymore. Poe gets a cottage. Maybe for me they’ll erect a phone booth.”

“See you, Sam,” I said.

“I’m glad to have met you,” he said to Beverly.

“Goodbye, Sam.”

I brought Beverly to Shannon’s Bar, where we ordered Tabs at the end of the bar. The place was beginning to get busy with people stopping for beers on the way home from work. None of the ballplayers were there, a couple of people I knew from the bar made detours to say hello so they could get a close look at Beverly. I pointed out a photo of the Shannon’s Bar softball team, taped to the bar mirror.

“Recognize anyone?”

She examined the photo.

“You’re on their team?”

“Isn’t that something?”

“Yes. It is.” She looked into my eyes, studying me. “Let’s see this famous candy store.”

Chris was at the rear when we arrived, working on his receipts.

“Chris, I’d like you to meet my wife. Chris Anton. Beverly Robbins.”

“Your wife?” He came forward, staring at Beverly baldly, looking at her clothes.

“I didn’t know Steve had such a wife.”

“He’s very tricky,” Beverly said.

“This man—you have no idea how he saved me. I was going to be devoured by the Big Mac. He fixed this up, the candies, the specialties. Nobody knows the candy-store business like your husband.”

“Is that so?”

She looked at the signs hanging in the window.

“You wrote the copy?” she said to me.

“The copy and the concept,” I answered dryly.

“Would you like something, please, Mrs.?”

“Sure, let me make you a malted or an egg cream,” I said.

“An egg cream?”

“My California angel, it’s not made with an egg.”

I stepped behind the counter.

“Chocolate syrup, milk, seltzer. My secret is—I put the milk in first, then the seltzer—” I did my off-the-spoon routine. “Then the syrup.” I stirred it up, producing a chocolate drink with a white foam head.

“Wonderful,” she said, tasting it.

“Technically you’re supposed to drink it straight down, but we’ll give you an amnesty.”

“I appreciate that.”

Two teenagers came in while I was standing there and ordered vanilla egg creams, which I prepared as Beverly watched, with an amused expression on her face.

As we were walking back to the car, she said:

“I’ll grant you one thing—it’s sort of brave of you, in a way. People drop out of careers, but not to do
this.
”

“I’m happy here, Bev.”

“So I see. But aren’t you going to get bored making egg creams?”

“I also read a lot. I didn’t think you wanted to observe me reading.”

“You were right.”

She was quiet, thoughtful on the drive back to Long Island, and when we stopped for dinner in a restaurant she stayed in this mood. At home, Beverly went to the room she used as an office, saying she had paper work to do, and I read in the bedroom. I went to sleep after eleven, Beverly had not yet come to bed. I awoke at two in the morning, and saw that she was not lying next to me. I went into the living room and found her there. She was on the couch, pensive, sitting in the dark. I sat down next to her.

“I think I understand what you’ve been doing,” she said.

“Do you, Bev?”

“Yes. If you were that upset I can see where you might do something like you did.”

“I just couldn’t go on in advertising, Bev. I came to the end.”

“I see that, I guess. But you didn’t choose the classiest job I ever heard of. Our marriage has not been wonderful. This job was not going to save our marriage.”

“I thought I’d start by saving myself.”

“And I’ve been worrying about
myself
,” she said. “I’m afraid I didn’t think about you very much this summer, Steve.”

“You didn’t?”

“I was happy to be away. I had time of my own. I could think about what I wanted to do next.”

“Which is?”

“Steve, I want to be the best I can—just like you wanted to be. Is that wrong?”

“No.”

“Well, I was thinking I could do more, I could set up a franchise, sell the program to other cities.”

“I suppose you could—”

“And I could get into adult education, build up a night program—”

“Yes, I’m sure you’d be able to—”

“Except we hardly see each other now. And am I willing to give up all that, just for our marriage? And I don’t think I am.”

“That’s blunt enough.”

“And now I come back and see where you are—God! You’re trying to simplify things for yourself, and I haven’t gotten
enough
for myself.”

We sat in the dark and then I said what could not be denied any longer.

“We’re just in different places, Bev. It can’t work.”

I put my arm around her, she moved close to me and we stayed like that a long time, trying to comfort each other. The sadness in the room was overwhelming.

I don’t know what else we might have done. I had pursued my ambitions and she had pursued hers, and we had lost each other along the way. We told the children, but they already knew. I tried to keep busy in the days that followed. It was never out of my mind for very long. If I was thinking of something else, it was as though a voice would call out to me, taunting, “Hey, Steve, did you forget? You and Bevvy are finished.” I don’t know. She was so pretty I could cry.

Soon after I came full circle in this. I moved into an apartment in my old neighborhood. I moved there because I was getting a divorce and would no longer be living in the house, and because I did not want to be in the suburbs with its shopping malls, and because I did not give a damn anymore about being an executive and being in advertising. I was trading it in, as with baseball cards, “I’ll give you a Mel Ott for a Bob Feller. …” I was trading in my dreams of the fifties for a new beginning.

“‘A
NTIMACASSAR.’ THAT’S A WILD
word, isn’t it, Sam? Do you know what it comes from?”

“From somebody’s aunt?”

“Anti—against. Macassar—which used to be a hair oil people used on their heads. Anti-macassar.”

“I never saw a fella so interested in
tchotchkas.
”