Time to Go (7 page)

He was sitting at his favorite bar drinking a beer. A man sat next to him, said “Beer is it? Another beer for this young man and a daiquiri for me,” and then said to Don “So what are your credentials or would you like me to first give mine?” and put his hand on Dan's knee and rubbed it. Don said “Excuse me, take your hand off, I don't swing that way,” but must have said it louder than he intended to, for the man saw some other drinkers staring at him, got up, though the drinks he'd ordered were just now set down, and headed for the door. “What am I to do with your drinks, you goddamn fag?” the bartender said, but the man was outside. “You attract the wrong types,” the bartender said to Don. “Gain some weight.”

It was around 4 p.m., a school day, he went with about eight of his friends and one of them yelled from the street “Herminia, Herminia, it's Jack,” and when she opened the window on the third floor, he said “Can we come upstairs?” “Too many of you,” she said. “Not so many,” Jack said, “and we all pay.” “Okay, come up.” They went up the smelly stairs, all sat in the living room with her brother, she said, while her mother and daughter stayed in the bathroom. “You have to pee,” Herminia said to the boys, “go outside someplace.” Jack went into her room first. There was cat feces in the middle of the room and her brother took out a knife and threw it at it but always missed, maybe intentionally, though the blade always stuck in the floor. Jack came out, said to the rest of them “Have your two bucks ready and do what she says, not what you want.” One boy said he was too far back in line and went downstairs. Don was fifth or sixth. He gave her the money, she put it in a cigar box, took off her bathrobe, told him to get undressed quick, got on the bed, spit into her hand and wiped it between her legs and said “Now please, mister, fast.” It was his first time. After he was done he said he was leaking, did she have a tissue or something, and she threw him a soiled dishrag. He zippered up without using it. “Again, nice, but alone or with no more than two next time,” she said to him just before he left the room, “and five dollars, five, this time only special favor for Jack.” He waited with the others till the next two were done and then they all went downstairs. “How was it?” Jack asked him outside and he said “Awful, but I'm glad I did it already,” and for a month after that thought he had a venereal disease.

A friend knew of a prostitute on 85th Street. They went right to her door, she said through it “Come back in fifteen minutes,” they came back and she said “Who goes first?” “Only he wants it tonight,” his friend said when he saw she was pregnant and Don said to him “I do very much—I don't care.” He went to bed with her, she charged five dollars, and after it was over she asked for a two dollar tip “because I did a little extra for you and, stomach and all, you can't say it was bad.” He was already dressed, she was putting on her clothes, and he reached over to the dresser to put two dollars on it but grabbed his five off it and ran for the door. She yelled “Stop, that's mine now,” and grabbed his shirt and pulled his hair. He turned around, pulled her hands off him and pushed her in the chest and she fell to the floor. “Oh Jesus,” she said, holding her stomach, and sucked in some air, blew it out, opened her eyes on him again and started to get up and he ran out the door. “Help, a man robbed me,” she yelled into the hallway and two men came out of the door next to hers and chased him down the three flights of stairs, one waving a bottle it seemed. His friend was waiting on the stoop. “Get going,” Don said, running past him and they ran down the block, looked back, didn't see anyone chasing them and got a cab. His friend said “What happened? The time I went to her she was nothing but sweet,” “She wanted another five after and I just didn't think that was fair,” “Next time give it to her or you'll get us both killed. I'm crossing her off my list, even for six months from now,” and he took out his address book and crossed out her name and number.

He didn't shave the week after his father died. His mother said on the third day of their mourning period “You look dirty—stop grieving so hard. Shave for me,” He said “I can't seem to raise the razor to my face,” and she said “Go to a barber,” “I can get hepatitis from one and besides, for some reason I don't think it's right to go to a barber right now or even to go outside,” “I'll shave you, or one of your brothers,” and he said “Right now I'm feeling a little disturbed so I'd trust someone else's hand even less than my own, even with an electric razor in it. It might give me a shock or explode. But don't worry. I'm not planning to grow a beard and as long as I don't slash my clothes and throw things, everyone should be able to respect me for the time being.”

He got his draft notice and went to the army center for the physical. He passed all the physical tests, though he tried his best not to, and then intentionally answered the psychological test wrong in several places and was sent in to see the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said “You checked here you have nightmares, then crossed it off and checked you don't—which is it, and if you do have them, how bad are they?” “I do have them, but didn't want to give you any excuse for keeping me out the army, but it's okay, because they come and go, nothing serious, and one of these days, not that I'm claiming I know when, I know they'll all be gone and I'll sleep completely peacefully again,” “Do you have many male friends?” and he said “Some, but not for very long any more, and certainly not as many as when I was younger—three, four years ago, but okay, people change, I do, you do, we all have to, right? We go through certain things, not that what I went through was so bad—in fact it wasn't when you compare yourself to the rest of the world. It's just that my friends got to be different than me, in interests and things, so they didn't understand me anymore or didn't try to and I just didn't like what they were doing with their lives and told them so, that's all. I speak my mind, sometimes without anyone asking and when I know what I say might hurt, but so do a lot of people, so is that so bad?” “What about women—do you go out with them much?” and he said “Very much, or at least I want to, and I used to go out much more too—in high school and when I was a dancer. But it's either they're not attracted to me as they used to be or I just don't find that many to my liking in many ways—intellectually, spiritually, and that they're always pampering themselves so much, which I used to appreciate when I was in the ballet, more really for professional reasons, but now find it a little too self-centered and stupid. I do have one good woman friend though, but just to talk to,” “What do you talk about with her?” and he said “Things we don't like—our problems, but not mental ones. Just what we think about various people and daily life. And she in a way is like me, which is probably why we get along so well and can speak so freely to one another. She also had plenty of girl friends and went out a lot with men and now she doesn't and for many of the same reasons as me. Anyway, it's easier to talk to her than to anyone else, including, right now, my family,” “But you get along with your family—you checked a yes for that here,” and he said “Oh yes, we're a very close bunch and always have been, just at the moment everyone's gone off some place and my sister, who's really too immature for me to speak to deeply, well we don't get along that well.” “Why do you want to be in the army?” and he said “Because of everything I talked about so far—why else? To make new friends and maybe to get away from college and home for a while and because if I'm not let in—not that you saw me volunteering, you know—my brothers will think something's wrong with me, since the two oldest served honorably and my father was in World War Two, though he only ran a pharmacy at an Arizona base.” “How would you describe your relationship with your father other than what you checked off on the test?” and he said “Close, or somewhat, though he was much older than most fathers of boys my age when I was growing up, which might explain some things, But I really didn't know how close I was to him till after he died. Don't misunderstand me. What I mean is I didn't know how much I loved and missed him till after he died, Before that, like I suppose most boys and young men to their fathers, you just take the relationship and his presence for granted and never think he's going to die.” “What would you say if I told you that I think for the present time you and the army are incompatible?” and he said “No we're not. If you think we are, then you're dead wrong and you should send me to someone else here to examine me—anyone you want, I don't care—because I'm just nervous now in front of you, that's the way I always get with tests and then when I try to explain why I didn't do well on them.” “No, perhaps in a year from now the army will send you another draft notice; but for now you'll have to be temporarily deferred,” and he said “My family's not going to like it, I don't like it, and I insist you let me see another psychiatrist, because I don't see how anyone person by himself can make such an important and maybe career threatening decision on someone else.” His brothers all said he was wrong to pretend he was disturbed and he said “I just didn't want to clean out any stove grease with my bare hands, which I hear some country sergeant always makes the city boy do, or train with live bullets over my head or even hold a loaded gun,” and they said he could have avoided the training and sadistic sergeant and guns by using the same intelligence and cunning he used to get out of the army and he said “Maybe, but at the time it seemed the only solution and now it's too late. Maybe I'll be called up in a year as the doctor said,” but he never was.

Two men tried to rob him on the street. He went crazy, screamed “You can't do this to me or anyone else in this neighborhood,” and started to swing wildly and one went down and stayed down after his knife flew into the street and he ran after the second one, caught him and picked him up and threw him through a store window and then punched and kicked him till the man said “Please, I give up, get a rag for my neck,” and held them both on the ground till the police came. The newspapers wrote about it the next day. “Male dancer beats up toughs,” the headline of one article said.

“I have to stop teaching,” he told his wife. “I know we need the money and health insurance but I can't take another week of it no matter how good the kids might be some days.” She said “Just stick in there, you're only going through a bad period in your work, and in ten years you can retire at half pay and still be young enough to do what the hell you want for the rest of your life and with never a complaint about it from me.” “Maybe I can take up painting now,” he said, “or classical piano playing. Creativeness runs in my family, or did.”

His dead brother has showed up in his dreams about once a month for the last five years. Usually he was guiding or lecturing him. “You're not loving enough to your wife…You don't pay enough attention to your daughters…Be more tolerant of mom, she's getting old…Go back to choreography if you can't think of anything else—you never really gave yourself a chance.” “How is it where you are?” he asked the last time and his brother said “Don't get nervous about it—it's fine for everyone, but do what you can to take the normal time and beyond to get here.”

One image keeps on coming back to him. He could be anywhere, on a subway, lying in a bed, in his classroom or listening to music, and it just drops into his head. It's of his mother drying him off and powdering him after he was through taking his own bath.

His older daughter gave him a tie for his last two birthdays and the last Christmas. His wife had a big laugh over the last one. “Don't you know what it means?” she said and he said “I don't believe in that stuff or not that much. She just knows I always stain or wrinkle my ties but thinks I look handsome in them.”

He got an anonymous typewritten note from a student. “You are my favorite teacher ever and I'll tell you why. Some teachers study to teach, you were born into it so didn't have to study. A born into it teacher is both smart, patient and kind and something else no one can define. Thank you. Signed: a student (female, but that's not important) but a lifelong friend.”

Today's his birthday and his watch stopped on the morning hour his mother said he was born. He wound it up but it didn't start again.

That was when he thought about the hour and day he was born. He took it to a watchmaker who said it would cost more to repair than if he bought the watch new. “The parts now are worth more than the whole. Buy the new nonwindup kind—quartz, the only thing today. Those watches will eventually put me out of business, but they'll save you a lot of trouble.” “No, I'm an old fogy on things like that—sell me a good windup watch.” The watchmaker said “You have a birthday coming up?” and he said no. “You have a wife though, right?” and he said “Divorced.” “Children?” and he said “Two daughters.” “Old enough to buy a watch?” and he said “The oldest might be, if I wanted a cheap watch, but the youngest is only five.” “A girl friend then?” and he said “None and none in sight.” “I was only suggesting all these because no man should buy his own watch.” “I don't believe that. Just give me a round one that'll work even better than the last and which has numerals and has to be wound once a day.”

Georgia and I are getting our son dressed to go to the dentist when the doorbell rings. Jimmy wants to wear shorts and Georgia's insisting he wear slacks and I'm saying as I go to the door that I don't care what he wears so long as she gets him out of here and I can continue practicing for my recital tonight.

It's our landlady, Mrs. Longmore, who says “Quickly, hurry, turn on your radios, turn up the TVs, war's been declared, the whole country's going to ruins.”