Turning Idolater (29 page)

“That I promise you.” He kissed Philip, and then
helped him on with the backpack. “Do you have everything. Keys?
Change? Lunch money? Metrocard?” He poked about the backpack. He
pulled out something soft and furry. Ahab. “You take him to
work?”

“He’s good luck,” Philip said. He was embarrassed.
How many people took a teddy bear to work? Still, the little yellow
slickered bear was a great comfort to him. Perhaps it replaced
the book
that he once toted in the same backpack. Perhaps it
replaced the heart he had won and lost.

“You miss him still,” Dennis said. His voice was
warm and friendly — no trace of jealousy. “You know, there’s no
reason that you can’t see him again. I’ve no claim on you.”

“I know, but I’m not sure whether it would be
wise.”

“Like it’s wiser to carry around an old pooh bear in
your purse for those sulky hours?”

Philip swiped Ahab out of Dennis’ hands. “You don’t
understand.”

“I do, love. I really do. I’ve had a broken heart
before — more than once.”

Philip’s stomach churned. He was unaccustomed to
talk with Dennis. Fuck? Yes. Conversation? Just enough to get from
the door to the bed. He knew very little about Dennis. He knew the
basics — his last name, that he was from Saint Meinrad, Indiana,
and his father was a printer. Dennis hated to talk about printing
and publishing; the press being a marble headed bore to him since
his diaper days. Beyond that, Philip knew little. He never hung
around Dennis’ friends. He knew a few by name — Terry, Klaus, Gus,
but besides seeing them on the street or hearing them referenced,
Dennis was a roommate of necessity and a passion by design.
Suddenly, Philip’s chest hitched. A rush of memories overtook him.
They rushed in from nowhere, from some hidden cupboard where the
cream never soured.

Dennis braced him. “I didn’t mean anything by it,
love. It takes time.”

“Sorry,” Philip said, cutting off a running tear
before it sullied his lips. “I guess I still miss those times. They
were good times, you know.”

“Of course they were. And you should make a point to
see him. I mean, you didn’t split up in a rage. It was mutual.”

Philip wondered about that. He hadn’t given Thomas
much choice, did he? How mutual was that? Still, Tee seemed to
understand, although he had changed. He had retreated to his
writing — into a cloud of his own making.

“He taught me plenty,” Philip said. “He was good to
me. But it wasn’t real. It was a fiction, like his novels. Every
novel needs to end, and who’s to say that the author ends it and
not someone like me.”

Dennis patted Philip’s arm, and then Ahab’s head.
“It’s a cute bear. I had a bear too.”

“When you were a baby, I bet.”

“No. Not so long ago. We’re not that much different,
you and I.” He kissed Ahab’s head again. “The world shapes us as we
are, my friend. The paths we walk gives us blisters and the
blisters, scars. I have my share. Maybe tonight we’ll compare
notes.”

“I’d like that,” Philip said.

“But now, by the grace of your noble employer, your
job hangs in the balance.”

Philip smiled, dimly. He reached the threshold, the
door still open. He glanced back at Dennis. “Thanks.”

“They’re going to can your ass.”

Philip departed. As the door of 8D closed, he had a
sudden chill. Somehow he sensed that Dennis would not be there
tonight to compare notes. Something cold was on the fricative.
Philip could do nothing but look to his own blisters on the hot,
cobbled path.

Philip had developed a keen eye and a careful hand —
almost a surgeon’s hand when it came to his book gutting tasks.
Nevertheless, he donned a pair of optical magnifiers, his pupils
trained to the small break between stitching and binding. He knew
that if he pried the blade too close to the signatures, the threads
would tear and the pages would come lose. He had done that a few
times already, fortunately on valueless practice tomes that Dean
Cardoza used to train the uninitiated. However, this volume was no
clam to shuck — a third edition
Candide
, narrow gauged
between two fluted boards and barely a signature between them. In
fact, the binding was in good condition, but Uncle Dean had taken
the order to bleach a stain somewhere between Cunegunde’s
adventures in Paris and Candide’s survival of the Lisbon
earthquake. The guts, when removed, would be stacked in the work
pile and not the waiting bin.

“Gotcha,” Philip said, as he pried the vintage wine
from its chalice, and what a chalice it was — light tanned leather
with tooled Arabesques and gold inlay images of El Dorado and
shipwrecks, just the cover to inspire the reader to plunge into
Voltaire’s sinister heart. Philip held the binding in his right
hand, and then carefully slipped it into a protective cover, his
latex gloved hands yielding to the conservator’s custom. He snapped
the innards onto the worktable. Another plastic cover swallowed
them. Philip tagged it,
number 3465,
and split the label
between the two bags.

“Bagged and tagged,” he said.

Philip had lost his sense of time in this endeavor.
A good thing. He scant remembered his conversation with Dennis and
his relapse into longing for Tee. His stomach rolled. He had
skipped breakfast, other than the rooftop coffee. A pastrami on rye
at the Globe Deli felt right about now — that, and a perusal of the
Globe Adult Book Store in the upper quarters of that establishment.
He laid aside his goggles. He wondered where Uncle Dean was today.
He hadn’t seen the old gent, and missed him. Perhaps it was his
sonorous voice and his predilection to quote the masters, just like
Thomas did. Besides, the time neared for Philip to progress beyond
book gutting. Already Cardoza assigned him to read two references
on bleach and bleaching methods, not that they were any help.
Hands-on was the ticket for conservation.

Philip sauntered to the door and peeked down the
hallway. The office door was closed, but the shuffle of papers and
the rattle of the keyboard could be heard. Mrs. Blair was working
today. Philip liked her, although she said little. She would just
stare over her glasses at him and smile. That was enough to hook
him, her smile being as kindly as his own mother’s. She was usually
too occupied to engage anyone in conversation — only when the phone
rang with an order or a confirmation. Even her collection calls
were sweet and gentle. Philip thought he would empty his pockets to
such gentle prodding, a nice change from the brigade of scum bucket
collectors that trawled receivables with threats in one hand and
your children’s well-being in the other. Yes, Mrs. Blair
represented Cardoza’s Book Store, and that meant applying grace
from a different era — one that recognized people and their
pocketbooks as transference of fortune and misfortune.

Philip lumbered across the hall and down the creaky
stairs into the back reading room. He liked to relax here, the
musty book aroma firing his mind to a new accord. The place was, as
it stood now, usually vacant, the only distractions being the
occasional bell announcing a customer coming through the front door
and Pons greeting them with the day’s list of the genres. As Philip
glided through the room, fully intent on a sandwich and porn, his
eye caught an unusual sight. The glass door of the bookcase of the
rarest first editions, which was generally shut as tight as an
oyster, was opened for anyone to swipe a fortune. In fact, the key
was still in the lock. Philip squinted, and then scanned the room.
Perhaps someone
was
here, lost now in the stacks.

“Mr. Cardoza?” he said, thinking that only the boss
would use the key. No answer. Therefore, Philip pushed the door
closed and began to lock the case when he spied the
others
—
the companions to his
book
. He glanced about the room again,
but nothing stirred, not even Pons. Philip reached for the first
book. He had missed his own, now entombed in a safe deposit box at
Chase. He gripped this one’s wonderful cover and thought that he
probably should have donned latex, but no matter. He slithered to
the high back plush chair and opened the volume. He thought to skim
his favorite parts, but settled on a random page. He raised the
book to his nose and inhaled. Although he knew the aroma was old
book, he imagined the sea. Only this work could fire his mind to
tidal thoughts. He perched the work on his lap. All thoughts of
pastrami and porn were dashed against the gunwales. His finger went
to a line as if the book was a Ouija board and his index, a
divining rod. He read:

“
The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced;
Starbuck was directed to see to it; but as no cask of sufficient
lightness could be found, and as in the feverish eagerness of what
seemed the approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were
impatient of any toil but what was directly connected with its
final end, whatever that might prove to be; therefore, they were
going to leave the ship’s stern unprovided with a buoy, when by
certain strange signs and innuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint
concerning his coffin.”

“How is that case opened?” came a familiar
voice.

Philip jumped, slamming the book shut.

“I didn’t open it Uncle . . . Mr. Cardoza. It was
open. I swear it.”

“Damn that Pons.” Cardoza pouted, still he shook his
head as if, despite the incident of an unlocked case, Philip should
have known better than to tamper with the contents. “I think he’s
getting too much glue up his nose. Give that here, Philip.”

Philip raised the book to his employer, however,
from the back pages something stirred — a piece of paper. It
slipped its bonds, floating toward the carpet like a feather.
Philip watched it, but he also saw Dean Cardoza watch it. It was a
clipping — a newspaper clipping. On it, a familiar face. Jemmy.
Philip swooped to retrieve it. Suddenly, he had in his grasp a full
report on Jemmy — Jemmy Cardoza, Uncle Dean’s nephew. Dean winced
sadly, removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose —
strange signs and innuendoes that hinted a hint concerning this,
which might as well have been his coffin.

“Jemmy Cardoza?” Philip read from the article.
“Christ. He was your son?”

“No,” Dean said. “My brother’s child. My nephew.” He
was shaken. Tears seared across his fingers from his face as he
tried to replace his spectacles. He set the book aside, and then
sat across from Philip.

“I’m sorry,” Philip said. “I didn’t mean to meddle .
. . but, Jemmy was . . . well, he worked with me at
manluv
and . . . I didn’t know him well, but I was upset when . . .”

“Jemmy was a troubled soul. I tried to get him help.
He loved to do that Internet thing, and that was fine for all it’s
worth, but he was hooked.”

Philip knew Jemmy had a drug problem. Philip had
stayed clear of such temptations — nothing beyond a joint, but he
remembered Jemmy coming to work once so blitzed he couldn’t do his
gig. He recalled the shouting match with
the Porn Nazi.
It
was the only time Philip fled from the place, at Sprakie’s
insistence. Suddenly, Sprakie’s words came back, words concerning
Dean Cardoza, this man who hung around
manluv
and met Jemmy
on the corner of 10
^th
Avenue. It made sense now.

While Uncle Dean recovered, Philip perused the
article. Jemmy had been found behind
The Bike Stop
, a club
rougher than
The Bantam
. He had overdosed on Crystal Meth.
Does one overdose on Meth?
Philip wasn’t sure, but he
thought it would take a heap of junk to put anyone out in an
alleyway. The police thought the same thing and declared the death
suspicious, considering there were rope burns on Jemmy’s wrists and
a bullet trace on the lapel of his leather jacket. Somebody missed,
but given Jemmy’s state, they only needed to push it along with
alcohol and a few pills. That would have split him open.

“He loved you, you know,” Dean said.

Philip rounded on the man. “What are you saying? I
hardly knew your nephew. I mean, we said
hello
and the usual
banter, but nothing beyond that. We didn’t even share a sex
session. How could he love me?”

“He did,” Dean said. “He wasn’t a shy boy. He’d go
with anyone who’d pay. That’s my fault. His father disowned him,
and I . . . well, I cut him off. I figured tough love would work,
but he always came to me with those sad eyes and his sweet talk.
I’d feed him and make sure he had clothing, sometimes a place to
stay, but I was afraid to bankroll him. He’d sniff it, gurgle it or
shoot it up. When you came to
manluv
, he actually considered
getting help. He fell for you at first sight. I
do
believe
it was real, but he knew who he was and which lane he drove in. He
was afraid you wouldn’t give him the time of day. So his love for
you festered. Everything with that boy . . . festered.” Dean broke
down again.

“I don’t believe this,” Philip said. “If Jemmy had
the hots for me, I would think that Sprakie would have told me. He
knows these things instinctively.”

“I think your Queenie friend wouldn’t have
approved.”

Philip recalled the party and Uncle Dean’s reaction
to Sprakie.

“You don’t know Sprakie very well then, do you?”

“Enough to know that he had a thing for Jemmy.”

“Sprakie and Jemmy?”

“It wasn’t serious. Jemmy found Sprakie as annoying
as everyone else did, but the sex must have been good. Why else
would your mercenary friend hang out with a waif like my
nephew?”

“Wait a minute,” Philip said. “If Jemmy’s your
nephew, he’s Florian’s cousin.”

“Flo is my sister’s boy by her second husband, but
Jemmy was so much younger, they hardly had contact, although Flo
was not happy that I still persisted with occasional financial aid.
I think Flo was afraid I would get it into my head to leave the
business to Jemmy and, to be truthful, I toyed with the idea. In
fact, I have a confession to make.”