Slaves of New York (21 page)

Then the creature let out a yowl. It must have been some kind of a cat—well, if it was a cat sent from Satan, then probably it would disappear under fluorescent lights. So I turned on the switch, with my eyes still covered.

Then I looked. It was a cat, a malevolent animal weighing at least twenty-five pounds, with a tough, stumpy muzzle and ears built low and small like a fighter. It was standing on the edge of the toilet seat. What it was doing there was hard to fathom: perhaps drinking from the joyous pot, perhaps ready to take a dive into the sewers. I took a step forward and the damn thing hissed at me—a cat that was part-snake, with a set of fangs inside its mouth that were quite unnecessary. "I have no desire to tangle with you," I said.

Meanwhile, I was growing very nervous unto myself. I had never seen such a malicious animal. Maybe it had rabies. It examined me as if I were some kind of intruder. It balanced on three legs, while it raised the fourth, clawed and vicious, in my direction. "Indeed, I suspect you are from the Other World," I told it. "But whether that Other World is sacred or profane I wish you would clue me in." For the cat has always been a sign of the devil, at the same time an animal worshiped by the ancient Egyptians.

But the cat did not respond. While talking to it, I backed out of the bathroom and sat down on the broken chair in the kitchen, before I remembered it was broken. I got tangled up in the cane seating and sprang to my feet, thinking maybe there were two cats now and I had sat on the second.

And then had to defibrillate my sweater threads from the chair caning.

How had the damned animal gotten into my place? Possibly through the broken window in the bathroom, above the fire escape. This was
my
territory it had invaded, bringing with it no doubt fleas and disease, perhaps even bubonic plague. Was I to be put out of my place even before my eviction notice was up by this vituperative alley cat?

I decided to ignore the problem. It occurred to me I might read for a little while, huddled under the blankets. The place was freezing cold: murder was in my thoughts, for I had murderous intentions toward the landlord, Vardig, who never bothered to heat the building and did such a poor job at repairing broken windows that a stinking cat could slink in. This was the reason I hadn't paid my rent in so many months, but because of this the old goat Vardig had managed to present me with an eviction notification.

Well, I have always had that skill of being able to escape my immediate surroundings by diving into a book; but tonight the book I was reading didn't hold my full interest. Which was odd, because I was normally totally absorbed by any book about insects. I was in the middle of a chapter about how wood ants feed their grubs. In return for food the grubs exude a glandular fluid. This stuff is pleasurable beyond belief to the workers who feed them. It was all part of a mutual exchange system. Why couldn't I accomplish the same thing with Ginger, the art dealer who handled my painting sales? Wherein Ginger, the grub, would get food, and I, the worker, would get pleasure. But all that seemed to be happening in our relationship was that I was working and she was getting the pleasure of handling my paintings.

While I was thinking about this Sherman came knocking at the door, carrying a bottle of Stolichnaya. "Listen," I said. "I've been reading this book."

Sherman leaned his crutches against the wall and cleared a space on the couch to sit down. "Oh, my underarms," he said, rubbing his pits.

"These grubs exude a fluid so important to the workers that the grubs are beyond measure in value to them."

"What grubs?"

"Ants," I said. "If there's a battle, or if the colony is attacked, the baby grubs are the first thing to be saved. This ensures the future of the colony."

"I can't walk anymore, my arms are so sore. How about getting us a couple of glasses for the vodka?"

I went over to the sink and tried to find a couple of coffee cups that weren't broken. "At first I was thinking how the worker ants are like the artists, and the art dealers are like the grubs. But on second thought, artists are the highest symbols of man's civilization, right?"

"Oh, sure," Sherman said bitterly.

"So they should be the first to be saved, for example, in the case of a nuclear disaster. But that's not how it would happen. In this country the first ones to be saved would be the politicians and the corporate executives, and lastly the lunatics who have been building shelters."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sherman said, opening the bottle and pouring the vodka into the two cups.

"Well, what I'm saying is, this would be the equivalent of the worker ants struggling to save their own hides, without remorse or thought for the future."

"Do ants have hides?" Sherman said. "Jesus, Marley, what smells in here? Do you have a cat or something?" He took a swallow of his vodka, and limped over to his crutches. "Where's the light in your bathroom?" he said.

"Wait, don't go in there!" I said. But it was already too late: I heard the proud war chortle of the cat, and a yowl out of Sherman; I rushed into the bathroom to find the cat had leapt off the back of the toilet and had thrown itself at Sherman's neck.

"What the hell hit me?" Sherman said. I grabbed him from

behind and pulled him out of the bathroom; his crutches fell to

. the floor. The cat had managed to sink its claws into the side

of Sherman's neck, pointillistic dots of blood were now appearing. "There's some kind of demon in there!" he said.

"I tried to tell you," I said. We stood at the doorway of the bathroom, I switched on the hall light. The cat was now standing on the edge of the bathtub. That animal was a fighter, heavy in the testicles, torn up in the ears and a big scab across its nose, which made me wary. He gave Sherman and me a superior gangster glance, proud and condescending. Resembling as he did Baby Face Nelson, full of gism and loathing.

"Let's go finish our drinks," I said.

"Wait a minute," Sherman said. "My crutches are in there, I can't go anywhere without them."

"Well, I'm not going in there to get them," I said. I slung Sherman's arm around my neck and helped him back to the couch. Meanwhile we guzzled two cups of vodka in rapid succession, attempting to recover from the shock.

"Is that your cat, Marley?" Sherman said. "It's insane."

"No, it isn't my cat," I said. "I don't know how the fuck it got in here." Then a thought occurred to me: I went and opened the door to the hallway. Then I went back to the bathroom. "Here, kitty," I said. "The door's open now." I avoided its eyes while I bent over, trying to reach Sherman's crutches without going into the room. The animal turned around and sprayed some distasteful fluid right at me. It had good aim, and got me all over my arm and chest. Then it let out another war cry. "Keep the crutches," I said. I went into the living room.

"God, Marley, this place is freezing," Sherman said, pulling an old shawl over himself that was covering a hole in the couch.

"Have some more vodka," I said. "This place has been freezing cold for months, that's why I stopped paying the rent. And now that son of a bitch is evicting me."

"Well, did you try talking to him?" Sherman said.

"I tried," I said. "But when I call him he has this goddamn answering machine and never returns my calls."

"Where does he live?" Sherman said.

"Downstairs."

"Go see him!" Sherman said. "Go see him and tell him you're dying in here, and there's a monster in the bathroom, and you're going to sue the pants off him!"

This was something that had not previously occurred to me. Swallowing another glass of vodka, I stood up and went out to tell that rotten bastard just what I thought of him.

Old Vardig lived down in the basement. I knocked on his door and had to wait five minutes or so. I could hear his crabbed shuffle as he grumbled to the door. "Who is it?" he said.

"Emergency!" I said. "Emergency! I'm from the ASPCA, open the door at once!"

This trick seemed to work; old Vardig opened the door and I slipped in. Jesus, his apartment was even worse, if such a thing was possible, than my own. It was furnished with a variety of old cast-out furniture, broken chairs, and a sort of rotten desk with one leg held up by books. No windows, and old scabbed walls, cracked from the water pipes, which were covered in a fine, furry mildew.

"What do you want, Mr. Mantello?" old Vardig said. He had the accent and persona of many nationalities—a big handlebar mustache encrusted with food, but whether this was an Armenian, Greek, Spanish, or Jewish mustache I couldn't say. The room had a rank smell; I saw he was in the middle of heating up some kind of food on a gas burner. And there, lying on the chair, was a big, sleeping cat—it might have been the brother or son to the monster that had taken over my bathroom upstairs. Old Vardig looked at me with soulful eyes. "I was just heating up a little soup for dinner," he said. "Care to join me?"

I thought to myself, Don't let the fact that he is pretending to be a kindly old geezer, all alone in the world, fool you. This guy is a rat, collecting rent and not bothering to heat the place at all.

He was a wheeler-dealer and conniver who owned half the

buildings for miles, though he acted as if he were poverty-stricken, obliged to live in the basement and feed himself off cans of ravioli and peanut butter. But his arms were in good shape, burly, and sticking out from his gray slobbery undershirt.

Oh, I was in a rage: his basement hovel was toasty warm. He had a couple of kerosene heaters going, no wonder he was so deranged, he probably suffered from some kind of carbon monoxide poisoning. Still, I knew he was very timid in his soul, I was going to force him to listen to me. He bustled at the stove, pretending I had come down for nothing more than a chat. "So, how goes it with you?" he said.

"Listen, Vardig," I said, "I have a sick friend upstairs. I'm trying to paint. Damm it, I need the heat. You haven't heated this fucking dump all winter."

Vardig shook his head; his brown eyes appeared luminous and filled with sensitivity. "Marley, I'm glad you told me this. You know, this is the first complaint I've had, it's a good thing that someone told me. It's a shame you didn't tell me earlier, but just stopped paying your rent—you know I had to evict you, and I already have a new tenant lined up. You'll be out of here by Monday, I believe that's right. Well, there's only one thing to be done, so the new tenant doesn't suffer. I'll get some more oil, have my son take a look at the burner when he returns ..." And he showed me to the door, still jabbering.

I was speechless, I couldn't understand how I had just been bullied in such fashion. The man was a veritable magician, he had hypnotized me for the length of time it took to show me to the door. I banged on the door once or twice, but he didn't answer. Finally I went back upstairs.

"The man is insane," I said. "Is that cat still in the bathroom :

"Yeah," Sherman said. "I didn't see it come out, anyway. How am I going to get my goddamn crutches?"

"Listen, you'll stay here until the cat leaves," I said. "I'll fix us some supper."

For dinner I made up a large bowl of pancake batter, omit-

ting any kind of baking powder or soda because I liked my pancakes to be very thin, though for some reason they always came out soggy—like large, flat, lumpy maggots. But this didn't stop me from trying again. I cooked up the cakie-wakes on the burner in a bunch of margarine. There wasn't enough margarine to keep them from burning, so I added some Crisco.

While they were cooking I suggested to Sherman that I help him around the loft so I could show him the paintings I was working on. I took his arm and slung it around my shouders and dragged him to the back of the place. "I want you to get a good look at the big canvas," I said.

"What is it?" Sherman said.

"It's going to be a painting of Ulysses getting home after his twenty years of wandering," I said. "This part is where he's being greeted by his filthy old dog. Right now it's just a rough outline, but I plan to make the dog one of those beagles that should have been put to sleep long ago, overweight, with not much hair left anymore: not even able to get up on all four legs, only the front, and with a soft, pleading look in his rheumy eyes."

Sherman shrugged. I could tell he wasn't too impressed. "Don't you think that Ulysses shit has been painted enough times already?" he said.

"You don't understand," I said. "Ulysses is going to be this kind of wild-eyed guy with a beard, wearing a denim jacket and blue jeans—like Larry Rivers or Larry Poons. Late forties, the kind of artist you see hanging around a bar, hasn't made it and never will. Not exactly talentless, just gets enough attention from time to time to make him feel justified in leeching off a wife who has to support him and the kids—a minor member of a school."

"Which is how you think I'm going to turn out," Sherman said.

I ignored this. "Anyway, Ulysses gets home and his wife is living in a sort of Cape Cod beach house. Stuck between a hamburger joint and an ice-cream stand: he's back after

twenty years to see if his wife has got a couple of dollars she could maybe loan him ..."

Well, I was all excited just talking about it. But something in my words depressed Sherman. "You're not exactly in sync with the times, Marley," he said. "Maybe you know something I don't, but your work seems like a lot of stuff that was done in the late seventies."