A Matter of Love in da Bronx (28 page)

Neither one thought of it as Nature's fretwork: purposeful, captivating, ruthless.

A CLOSEBY, SPHACELATE-SMELLING neighborhood bar became

their glebe when they left the restaurant. Inside, looking the part of an Inca high priestess on post beside the cash register was a tall, thin woman totally in black wearing her hair in the style of a dirty-grey mop on a long face with a pencil-thin nose and drawn eyebrows tending antiquy-type, thick-waisted customers--five on stools, four at tables. A black tube of a cigarette barely glowed every now and then like a light emitting diode as if to indicate she was registering all that was going on. Sam reached for Mary's arm protectively as they entered, then he stepped in front of her as he took in the place. Ugh. How disappointing it was so far from some little class. They'd have to leave this dismal dilapidation and consider other predacious precipitations. But, the evangelist bartender was quick to proselytize flagging Sam's iris's by raising her eyebrows and tossing her head toward the door to the rear over which a grungy sign sanctified the portal as Family Dining Room. He turned to Mary. Stay, she barely nodded. The woman also nodded approvingly as they went toward the door.

The room gave Sam the feeling of mysterious and mystical doings, just as it did more mundane aspects such as life as a speakeasy, or fancy dining room, declining to a less fancy eatery strictly for the purpose of qualifying the place for a liquor license, finally past its heydey as a pizza palace serving pitchers of beer, and its tables replaced with banquettes with bas-chic wall lamps which gave the room dim bowls of light which made one want to speak in whispers. They alone were in the room.

--Know what you want?

--After all your delicious gnocchi! Nothing to eat, she said hoarsely, you?

He shook his head. --A drink, we should try the specialty of the house. She tossed her head, and began fishing for cigarette and lighter.

The woman materialized moments later casually balancing a tray with one hand. She looked hard first into Sam's eyes then Mary's. She put down a napkin before each of them, and on that a cocktail glass filled to the brim. She reached across between them to snap off the wall light and then put a long, white taper on the table and lit it.

--Why that's very nice. Thank you.

--Yessssss, Mary acknowledged. Class.

The woman pushed her bottom lip upwards, her eyes reflecting the hot tip of her cigarette, and endorsed the appreciation with a short, emphatic nod. Neither one noted her leaving.

Mary lit her own cigarette, took a deep drag, and let the smoke swell out of her as her body relaxed. --There's one thing I must ask you...

Sam only nodded. His eyes were closed, a potpourri of thoughts racing across his mind's screen. In the main, Mary was the theme although conceit the source. Just what the hell did she think of him getting coldcocked by that fucking madman? How long was he lying on the floor? And why when he got up didn't he deck the asshole? How in the hell did the world ever get so upside down she would get to see his handiwork on his chest, and did anyone else? Just how does he handle this situation with Mary? That is, how do you make sure you don't screw up? Or am I making more of it than really exists? Maybe we should've gone someplace else, what a rat's hole; and how did she know what we wanted to drink? Just hope it's strong, I can use a good belt--first time I ever said that. Wonder what Mary thinks of me now? What happens to me as a cook? God! Does my jaw hurt, and my head really aches! Glad I don't have to earn a living as a boxer! Fucking meoooowwwww! --Yes, Mary, you can ask anything you want, anything; if I know you'll have the answer, though I can't imagine...

--Sam, will you marry me?

I was just going to bring up that verysame subject myself. I can't tell you exactly how the transmission works, but the woman knew our thoughts before we did, it seems. This happens to be an excellent Sidecar. It is the specialty of the house. People came from all over to have them, even to ride here from downtown, then to go back down for dinner. It was a crowd of swells, you know how they like to flaunt their good luck, or evil ways, with an excuse, any excuse, from charity balls to the perfect Sidecar. And this one is delicious. I know. Name somebody, anybody, they all came here. And now we're here. I don't mean to interrupt your train of thought, but do you know what she let me know? As if I had it in mind! You really want to know? She indicated that there is a room available to us upstairs where we can really be alone. I can freezeframe your brain if I started reeling off the names of the movie stars that spent some interesting moments in that room, and any number in any combination. Not only that, the woman said if all of them were added together into one huge orgasm, it not only would do for something the size of the Chrysler Building, but blow it apart brick by brick, too. Wow! Wouldn't it be nice to contribute to that? --Yes.

--Thank you.

--Anything else you'd like to know?

--No, that says it all.

--Almost. Would you marry me? Do you get the feeling like we've moved to another era? I don't know how one is able to discern that because everything else is exactly the same because people stay exactly the same. There may be an individual, an incident, a cause that stirs a tidal feeling around the world, but it's so rare. Too bad. It usually brings out the verymost best in humans who otherwise are the shitfests of the world. We are supremely saintly when we're secure; when nothing we have is threatened; when we have resigned the greed out of our lives by accepting that we have the most we're ever going to have; or that the end is upon us so what the fuck does it matter unless we're made to be rattlesnake mean. It's like...well, don't you get the feeling we're in a world without airplanes, television, penicillin, indoor plumbing, atomic bombs, Big Macs. What's left? Who's left? Only the really relevant people: artists, poets, and lovers. Creating the cesspool of this world: sitcoms, politicians, lawyers, hangmen, critics, child molesters, the religious, and the bigots. It's the same world of the self-indulgent versus the envious. The gourmand versus the timid. The grab-em-by-the-balls versus the not fair, the down on the luck, the gimme a chance crybaby.

--Yes, I would.

--Thank you.

--Do you understand? We must do this right now? Will we ever have another moment so perfect? Are you aware of what it would take for the constellations to line up exactly as they are tonight?

--How did I know you were going to say that?

--How did she know we wanted the specialty of the house?

--That's easy. The specialty of the house goes to special people.

--Do you know she wants something of you?

--Oh?

--I don't know what, but something you have, she wants. She will ask you for it before we leave here tonight. Are you psychic?

--How did I know you were going to ask me that?

They laughed heartily. Intimately. Like two grade school kids sharing a funny, dirty thing.

--Do you know what the obscene phone caller said when a little girl answered the phone? Yes, ka-ka, pee-pee, doo-doo!

And they laughed some more. Ecstatic that it relieved the tension built up in the earlier moments, at the restaurant, when others invaded their space.

--Sam, I believe the art of living is to recognize a moment as a salient signal when to fill one's sails and go a different tack. Whatever else it might be, it is fuller. It is different. Above all else, it is to be seized not pondered. Not held in abeyance, Lord! Not ignored. God help us! Not to be remembered in reflective miseries. How do I know this? Because I've lived ineptly. Because I've lived as a coward. Because I've lived to find indistinguishable quantity and quality of life. I always knew a clear note. I always could pick it out of a cacophonous dirge. I know now I'd rather hear that one clear note, for one clear moment, than to have worlds of surdimutistic stridulation. I don't care to know any of the convulsionary, devious paths that led us two to this booth, but we're here. And now. And real. If we don't commit ourselves to this moment, it will be lost not just once to you, not just once to me, but the millions of times we have before us to think about what better we should've done. Do you sense an irrationality in what I say?

--No.

--Am I a cadge?

--No.

--You tell me what I'm doing.

--You have raised caducity to a high art.

--Because from caul to cadaver the cadence is three--to be born, to grow up, to procreate your own, to grow old, to die...

--That's five.

--...Hatch, match, dispatch--minister's meat. Is this all? Is this the world?

--Blasphemy! Do we not suffer the trials and tribulations of this world so we may better earn our entrance to the kingdom of heaven? That we are made to endure our shitty world with the promise of a Paradise waiting? Is that not the offertory of the catechismic coffers? If not that, perhaps we're creatures from outer space. I wouldn't care to consider that. Rather, I'd like to think we've been dusted with the same speck of life with every other flora and fauna of the universe. It's only as precious as our wisdom makes it, as tenacious as our libido will allow, as corrupt as our ego demands. Thankful am I to one thing...

They looked into each other's eyes, discovering softness unknown ever before, seeing slow rising clouds miles and miles away filling the space of years upon years of despair with the hope of an eternity of ecstasy. They touched glasses. --To destiny.

--Kiss me, Sam.

There is nothing to think about. Respond. Unhesitatingly, he rose out of his seat, moved the candle further to one side and stretched out, as would a bird to sip a drop of nectar from a blossom. Her lips were soft, and cool, and sweet. Her taste rushing through him overflowing from one sense to another until he was forced to gasp and collapse to his seat, a victim of cataplexies.

Oh! How he does do things for me! How his lips on mine make me feel he has swallowed me whole, so electrified am I to his charge. How did I know it would be so? I knew. Simply, I knew; as I knew he would respond. It was the moment for it to happen. How now I can understand the inconceivable before where worlds have been gained or lost in no more than a kiss, if it be a kiss such as this. I feel the overfloodings of our worlds, the unleashings of trapped winds and the release of stormclouded sunshine. So this is what it's like. Should there be consideration it be a pity there was none before? Or, is it our boon it was held for this moment?

She brought drinks. She left.

--Does that mean we're engaged?

--Categorically!

--You say that so romantically. Only one thing left...

--...the room upstairs? If he wasn't looking at her, he would've thought she was smiling by the inflection; instead, she was dead serious.

--I was thinking a wedding...

--Yes, I know; but I meant what I said about grabbing a moment with both hands.

--I want to say this so it's not misunderstood a really impossible task.

--I hope he didn't hurt you too badly. I'm going home.

--You didn't hear me out. I didn't finish...

--A rejection is a rejection, coated with rationalization, reason or ragout. You don't hurt my feelings; simply I'm disappointed.

--You think the room upstairs is the way to go?

--You offer nothing better. We've known each other for twenty-five years; would another twenty-five make a difference?

--We don't have to leave a mess behind! And we would if we went to the airport and flew away!

--I resent that! Deeply and very much. I'm possessive of what we've found, and I want it. One more thing, I'm being selfish, and I love it.

--Perhaps you may have to teach me.

--Oh! No! You're no innocent babe! You're selfish, but in a different way. You're nobly selfish where you would perform an unselfish deed--like plant a tree which is done really for someone else's enjoyment--because it makes you feel so good about yourself for doing it. Me, I'm the selfish one that would cut down a tree to gain a view.

--You and I, we're not talking about trees. We don't compare them to people. We know the difference, the value of which we speak. We're talking about mothers, and fathers, and relatives, and friends. Are you telling me you can take the years of training in church, and the years in your halter and harness at home, and discard them like autumn leaves?

--Sam! I don't know. For God's sakes! I don't know! I'm waiting for you to say `yes' or for you to say `no.' At that moment, I'll have to confront a real choice. Until then, the airport is not a reality--your rejection is!

How strange an engulfment. To have been poised on the tips of my toes, balanced, on the keen edge of the plank waiting to test these exact waters. Instead I find myself surrounded by an atmosphere of spidery webs spun from the past suspending my wildest desires as if in a lowing-born byre's deepest, darkest corner. My father, to my mother, to my dead brother, to Sol: Checkmate! Why couldn't she just ask me to kiss her again! --My catenation is not my family; rather gossamer named Sol.

--...your boss?

--I owe him.

--You owe yourself first. May as well be Sol, as Sal, or Silly. Things may work out, Sam, but I say if we don't make them work tonight, they never will. Even this room tells you that, better than the casuistry you're using. Even unions made by destiny are diseverable.

--How do you know that?

--I know those as well as I know before you count to three the woman will bring in two more drinks. Sam stared down at the woman's hands as glasses, full for empty, were exchanged. How's that for pressure?

--Impressive.

--Not half as much as this: let me think a moment on how best to say this... Yes. If it's going to be Sam and Mary, then fuck the rest of the world. If not, then I've got to meet the home curfew, and give me another kiss goodbye.

--I want the kiss, not the goodbye.

--How full the kiss, how empty the goodbye. Do you know that woman has been waiting for you to come here?

--I didn't notice...