Slaves of New York (19 page)

When the dinner was over, one of the artists picked up a plate of cake (a special kind of Venetian cake known as a "pick-me-up") and dumped it on the head of a less-famous artist. The less-famous artist didn't even blink, just called for the photographer to come over.

Stash got stuck talking to someone at the coat-check room and I went outside. Samantha rolled down the window of a limousine and leaned out. "Eleanor, come here," she said. "I want you to meet my brother-in-law, Mitch."

I squinted in the window: some guy with red hair and a beard was sitting next to Samantha; he had the wild eyes of a trotter at a fifth-rate racetrack, hopped up on who knew what. "Nice to meet you, Mitch," I said. He handed me a glass of champagne.

"Where are you going now, Eleanor?" Samantha said.

"Downtown."

"Come on, get in with us," she said. "We'll take you."

I thought for a second: I should wait for Stash, go home with him, walk the dog, and watch TV. I'd try to tell him about why all these people drove me crazy. How I was tired of everyone being wrapped up in themselves. But I knew all he would say was that I had had too much to drink. Or I could open the car door, jump in, and whizz off someplace. Even if I changed my mind, Stash would probably forgive me, eventually.

"Stash is still inside," I said. "I'm waiting for him. I don't want to keep you, I'll call you next week. 'Bye, Mitch." Samantha shrugged and the window rolled back up. I was left standing on the curb with a glass of champagne in my hand.

By the time we got home I was pretty depressed. While I brushed my teeth and cleaned my contact lenses, I thought about Samantha, in her rubber dress. Let's face it, she wasn't prettier than me, or more intelligent, and what did she do? Just one out of the millions who want to be rock stars. So how come she kept getting her picture taken and all the men were making a fuss over her and asking if they could snap her latex wear? Because (a) she had an important husband who ran a big gallery and (b) she probably hung out with these people every night, taking drugs—cocaine or whatever—whereas it was a rare thing for me just to smoke a joint. On the other hand, maybe she really had a better personality than me, and really was more attractive physically and psychically, and I was just deluding myself.

I realized that I really did want to be where I was—with Stash, in this hovel. I ran through all the parts of my life, trying to figure out which thing in particular wasn't working for me. I supposed I could get a nose job and take one of those courses that teaches chutzpa. (I had read the leaflet on it in the supermarket.) But would this make me a more spiritual person? I doubted it. It was hard for me to keep up with all the various aspects of reality. Finally I figured it out: I wanted a baby.

Obviously, based on this evening and others like it, I wasn't meant for any glamorous night life or fast lane, but I would be a good mother.

I pictured myself with a giant Buddha baby with a fat belly, a shock of blond hair, and a surprised expression. I would give it baths in a basin and wheel it around the block in a little go-cart, speaking to the other mothers. Stash could take it to openings strapped on his back. I had often seen men doing this in art galleries and nightclubs. Finally, when it grew up, it could tell me how wonderful I was. Stash and I would finally be bonded and we could have a joint checking account and I wouldn't have to be so worried about finances. These weren't such great reasons, but what counted was the unconscious level—the feeling that something was missing from my life, and I had finally guessed what it was.

I went out into the bedroom—anyway, the end of our apartment where the bed was. "Listen, Stash," I said. "I've been thinking. You're middle-aged, and I'm not so young, either. It would be a good time to have a baby. We've been kidding about it for a while, but let's be serious." Looking at him, I knew our baby would be cute, though if it inherited Stash's chest hairs and my head hairs it would practically be a gorilla. There wouldn't be one hairless inch.

"What are you, drunk?" Stash said. He was lying on the bed, watching a Frankenstein movie on TV, Andrew alongside him. "You can't bring a baby into this world. At least not in the city. Didn't you hear the news before?"

"I was brushing my teeth."

"This forty-nine-year-old widow was walking down the street and all of a sudden a forty-ton crane toppled over and hit her. She was pinned under it for more than six hours, partially crushed, just like that. That's why you can't have children in New York." Stash looked as if he was ready to kill me. It was hard for him to believe that a person could be so stupid. I knew I irritated Stash in the same way that my brother used to irritate me when I was kid. Roland's foot tapping used to send me into a rage, I would start to scream at

him when he wasn't even aware of what he was doing. Now I knew what it was like to be the source of irritation, without being irritated in return: I looked at Stash with the same puzzled, hurt expression that my brother had when I lashed out at him for no good reason.

"I'm taking the dog out," I said. "Come on, Andrew." Andrew shot up and plunged up and down at my feet. Every time he went out he acted as if he had been locked up in a kennel for a year. His whip tail slashed my legs. Unfortunately, this was the only time he ever paid any attention to me, even though I had been with him since he was only a year and a half old. He was Stash's dog. I had worked hard to make him love me. He was wearing a collar I had designed just for him— plastic dinosaurs, turtles, and square, varicolored rhinestones which I had attached to the leather with little grommets. I had done all kinds of things for Andrew. I decorated him, sometimes with baseball caps, sometimes with slogan sweatshirts I cut down from Woolworth's boys' department, and once I painted additional spots on him with food coloring. Well, Andrew wasn't the brightest of dogs, but he did have a sense of humor and a certain dappled elegance.

It was late at night, and I didn't bother to put him on the leash. He sniffed the stunted trees and the metal signposts with the utmost of delicacy, as if he were rooting for truffles. A fishy wind blew off the Hudson. Stash was probably feeling guilty and would be nice to me. Probably I had made the right choice. If I had gone off with Samantha and taken drugs I would have shifted into higher gear, but how long could I keep that up?

"Get over here, Andrew," I said. I wanted to go upstairs. "Hurry up." Of course he wouldn't move. He was deaf when he wanted to be. I gritted my teeth, annoyed. He went on calmly rooting as if I wasn't even there. The rotten animal obeyed Stash, but not me.

Finally he followed. The elevator was broken and we had to walk up seven flights. I'm not in such great shape. Believe me, I'd like to be one of those women with all the muscles, but

frankly I don't like the idea of doing all that work. Once I took an aerobics class—I thought it would give me more energy— but every day I had to come home after class and sleep for a couple of hours.

When we made it back to the apartment Stash was standing near the window with a funny look on his face. "You wouldn't believe what just happened," he said.

"What?" I said.

"A transvestite and a john came over to the bushes under the window. Well, I don't want transvestites and tricks in our courtyard. So I went to the sink and took the spaghetti pot and dumped the water in it onto them. A direct hit!"

I started to laugh, involuntarily, but I stopped. "Stash," I said.

"Well, I didn't know that there were things in the pot," Stash said. "I really was mad and I just dumped the whole soapy contents out and I didn't realize there were some spoons and a bowl in it."

"My Russel Wright dish!" I said. "Stash, how could you do such a thing?"

"What do you mean?" he said. "You were out there with Andrew. Something could have happened to you. I wanted them to get the idea they can't come around here."

"What happened when the water hit them?" I said.

"They just walked away, shaking their heads."

"You could have killed someone," I said. I felt very badly for the transvestite: she was just trying to get along in the world and had ended up covered with soapy, greasy water, spaghetti water, and would probably be freezing cold for the rest of the night.

"The bowl hit the trees, it didn't hit her," Stash said.

"It's not your job to throw water on people," I said. "You should either have yelled something to get them away, or called the guard."

"I did feel sort of demonically possessed when I did it," Stash admitted. "What do you want? I'm only a mindless Neanderthal." I could tell he would have liked to have undone

it as soon as the water was halfway down, but it was too late, as had been demonstrated in another age by Galileo, who threw some stuff off the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I suddenly wished I could go back to school and take physics again; I knew this time I would understand it. The notion of random particles, random events, didn't seem at all difficult to comprehend. The whole business was like understanding traffic patterns, with unplanned crackups and hit-and-run accidents. Somewhere I read that increasing the rate of collisions between positrons and electrons will result in interesting "events" that physicists can study. Quarks, quirks, leptons, protrons, valance electrons, tracers, kryptons, isotropes—who knew what powerful forces were at work? I saw how emotions caused objects to go whizzing about. If I had gotten into the limousine earlier that evening I'd be in the same mess, only in a different neighborhood; at least in this place I had love, a feeling that came at a person like a Dodgem car in an amusement park, where the sign says proceed at own risk.

For many years I have eaten the same thing on certain days of the week: Monday, Salisbury steak, mashed potato, roll, apple cup; Tuesday, sausage in tomato sauce, buttered corn, mixed fruit cup; Wednesday, island sandwich (ham, cheese with pineapple), salad with French dressing, crackers, Wonder bar; Thursday, sloppy joe bun-wich, vegetable sticks, onion rings, apricots; Friday, cheese pizza, buttered mixed vegetables, chocolate pudding with topping.

This completed the weekday menu.

For many years I had eaten the same thing on certain days of the week: Monday, Salisbury steak, mashed potato, roll, apple cup; Tuesday, sausage in tomato sauce, buttered corn, mixed fruit cup; Wednesday, island sandwich (bun, mixed fruit cup, meatballs), zucchini squash, nuts and bolts; Thursday, collard greens, Tater Tots, peas and carrots; Friday, corn niblets, fishwich and cheese on a seeded roll, chocolate pudding with topping.

This completed the weekday menu.

The food was dished out by the dietitian on a green plastic tray, and at the end of the line there were forks, knives, spoons of two different sizes, and napkins in a black-and-silver metal container. There were three tall canisters like sump pumps, and each day the solutions in these dispensers varied: ketch-

up, French dressing, mustard, and syrup were only a few of the different things available to put on the food.

I did not like to interrupt my enjoyment of the meal by speaking to anyone, so I sat alone in one corner of the dining hall. In any event, it was obvious to me that I was superior to the others—I do not mean this in any derogatory sense, only that I was better than they—and would not have had much to say to them, grim and noisy in their grease-covered coats.

Still, I could not help but be filled with happiness as I ate my meal. How tactful I felt toward everyone! How kind! And they to me, for they left me quite alone as I dined. The mashed potatoes so creamy, bland, and gently refreshing. How pale and thin was the metal fork, and how fine the roll, with a tender brown crust and white interior, as if a bird had died in my hand. The carrots like young girls smiled on my plate, the macaroni and cheese, pure, nearly inedible, swam down my throat like living goldfish, and the chocolate pudding, dense, sooty, tasting of powdery grit. Around me the forks and knives of the others clattered like the most glorious of harpsichords.

No seconds were allowed, but generally, if I waited until the very end of the lunch hour, I could go back and get another roll with a pat of margarine, or even, on occasion, another portion of dessert. This was only because the dietitian and the cashier knew me and did not mistrust me in any way. The cashier did not take money but different colored tickets: I myself always had the green tickets, daily I gave her two. The meals lasted two hours: from eleven forty-five to quarter of one every day.

After two and a half years I began to notice that my portions were dissimilar to the portions received by the others. At first, I assumed this was simply due to sleight of hand on the part of the dietitian: after all, I remembered how on several occasions I had gotten more than one and a half times the normal amount of batter-fried fish and cheese on a bun, because after all fish was by its very nature not a mathematically exact form. I had

not complained on those occasions when I received too much, but now, getting less, I began to feel offended.

After all, everything was weighed and cut into equal portions beforehand—the meat always weighed two and a half ounces, the mashed potatoes were dished out by ice-cream scoop, the pineapple tidbits were measured into tiny paper cups. Therefore, though the first few times I received smaller portions it might have been an accident, the deviation from the norm could not have been so frequent
without being done on purpose.