ONE

IT IS too late, of course. They are expecting me by seven o’clock and it is nearly six now. So I will go. Each time I vow that I will not return, that I will telephone, that I will write a long letter explaining why these dinners cannot go on. But what excuse is adequate, after all. I am, they insist, the most important man in their lives. Well. It is probably true.

Downstairs, the men are returning from the synagogue and I wait in the hallway, watching them go by. It is Friday night and the snow which was white this morning is already filthy. I watched them this morning also, before I left for school. There were not as many then. Huddled inside their coats, they marched against the snow to the morning services, their prayer bags wedged under their arms. Every morning the same ones go by. Now and then a new man appears to pray for somebody who has just died. Every person who dies, you see, is entitled to be prayed for every day for one year. It is something, I suppose. So each morning for a year the newcomers mumble their guilt in the lower regions of the synagogue, guilty not so much for the ones dead, I would suspect, but guilty before the others, the regular worshipers. I can see the expressions on their faces, the ways they find to intimidate the newcomers: only now you come to God?

My older brothers, all six of them, they looked at me that way also. It is nothing. I did my one year’s worth and that is enough, I can assure you. They loved God’s laws, but it is Harry Meyers who has shoveled earth onto their six pine boxes. Not one brother lived past sixty-nine, not one died before sixty. As for me, they always said I was different and I will tell you something: in this instance I will try not to disappoint them.

A black odor, of beans and garlic, comes at me through the warm air. Overhead the chattering in Spanish rises and I hear furniture scraping, screams, objects hitting walls. Nydia and Carlos, my young lovers. Last year, when she was in junior high school, she would sneak by me on the staircase, her schoolbooks under her arm, unable to get enough of her young man. Now she is not allowed to be a regular student in the New York City schools. Not because she has a child, but because she married its father. There are rules and regulations in this world, you see. A door opens and I hear Nydia’s voice move through the building. “Help me somebody! He kill my baby. Somebody—somebody! Police! Somebody got to do something—!” There is more crashing above me, a door slams, I hear running in the corridor behind me. Quickly I lift my keys from my pocket and fumble at my mailbox. She grabs my arm. “My husband, he gone to kill the baby,” she says. “He loco, Mister Meyers. He flip. He pick up the baby by the legs and say he gone to throw him against the wall.”

I try to smile. “What can I do?” I ask.

“You got to do something!” she says, and presses her nails into my coatsleeve. Her young Spanish face is beautiful in the shadows.

“I am an old man,” I say, and shrug. I jingle my keys and the mailbox opens. There is a note inside and I recognize the writing at once. Nydia’s eyes are wide. She hears the steps in the hallway behind us and runs into the street, no longer crying for help, but fleeing now, looking behind to see if her husband is close.

As Carlos opens the door I take the note from the mailbox. “You leave your hands off my wife, man,” he says, and jabs a finger at me. “You call the police, I cut you up good.”

“I am an old man,” I say again, but he is gone before I finish, into the night, racing between cars. He wears no shirt.

I look at the note. The handwriting is the same, as is the message: my gizzard will be slit, I have had intercourse with my mother, a brother’s fate will be avenged. Soon.

The note comes on an appropriate evening, I think. I close the mailbox and put the piece of paper into my pocket with the keys. Perhaps I will show it to Danny.

Outside it is quiet. The last of the worshipers goes by, an old man, limping, hunched over, supported by another. They move slowly, arm in arm, like husband and wife. One of them will be coming by alone before long. Every morning while I wait here, pressed against the brass mailboxes, they pass me, and I have never in these twelve years seen them talk to one another. Five doors east is the West Side Institutional Synagogue, where, every morning except Saturday, the men bind themselves with long black leather straps. The straps flow from inch-square black boxes, the words of God inside, on parchment. One box is on the forehead, one on the left arm, facing the heart. Seven times the straps wind around the forearm. It reminds a man that he should pray with both his heart and his mind. Brains and hearts, you see. Well. Soon the straps and boxes will be directed to new brains and new hearts, but I will not stay until that time. One day past sixty-nine is all I ask for. When they can replace all the parts, I will be in the ground. No plastic heart, no frozen brain for Harry Meyers. In me nothing is replaceable, I can assure you.

I button my overcoat and step outside. It is colder than I thought and I raise my collar so that it touches my throat. Across the street, next to the abandoned brownstones, the back of a small truck bulges with furniture. A Puerto Rican man unties ropes with his frozen fingers while his children huddle on the sidewalk, clutching their toys. I do not count them. I hear Spanish music coming from a radio and I see one of his daughters swing her hips gently from side to side. Her legs are bare. Two friends of the family struggle up the front steps, balancing a large green couch.

I pass the Park West Hospital. At the corner, the stained glass windows of the Riverside Funeral Chapel are as dark as the stone red bricks. There are no funerals on Saturday, so there will be no crowds to push through during the next twenty-four hours. I glance back at my new neighbors. The mother is rocking a baby in her arms, but its crying does not stop. Even in New York City there are not many blocks which have their own hospital, place of worship, and funeral chapel. West 76th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues is not an inconvenient street to live on.

I turn left on Amsterdam Avenue and head toward 72nd Street. Negro women, their dark legs barricaded by shopping bags, wait in the entrance to Harvey’s Pawnshop for the number 7 bus to return them to Harlem. The old Irish bars along the avenue are half-filled now. Across Broadway, beyond the steep rear wall of the Beacon Theater, I can see the white turrets of the Ansonia Hotel. It rises in the winter air like a concrete sand castle. White iron rails guard its aged baroque windows. Neon lights advertise the Ansonia Hot Baths, the Pels Art School.

At 73rd Street the benches which surround Verdi Square are deserted. It is too cold even for the homosexuals. In the middle of the street huge orange and yellow signs circle a manhole. Workers in silver helmets lean over the opening, cables slipping through their hands. Steam rises from under the city and I do not envy the workmen. I cross 72nd Street. Around the subway kiosk the deaf old news deliverers, bundles of papers on their shoulders, signal frantically to one another with gloved fingers. I buy tokens and descend. My glasses steam from the warmth and I undo the top buttons of my overcoat. The platform is crowded. I edge toward the front, between young men and women holding hands, and I wait. The chipped green pillars are etched with invitations, telephone numbers, political messages.

I am tired. The heavy air of the subway comforts me and all the way into Brooklyn I sleep. I wake at Franklin Avenue. A few stations more, at Church Avenue, I get out. I make my stop at the Fanny Farmer Candy Shop on the corner and then walk the block and a half to the old wood-frame house on Martense Street. The huge oak trees leave giant shadows across the snow. Everything is still.

Inside, Mrs. Santini accepts the box of candy. Her daughter walks by, a radio pressed to her ear.

“Hi, Mister Meyers,” she says, chewing gum. Her hair is in plastic curlers.

“Hello, Mary,” I say. “How are you?”

She cracks her chewing gum, and I watch a smear of pink disappear at the corner of her mouth.

“Let me take your coat,” Mrs. Santini says. “You must be cold. Hey Danny!” she screams, away from me. “Mister Meyers is here—come on, huh? I gotta get back into the kitchen.” She shakes her head. “That guy thinks I can do a million things at once, you know?” she says to me. “It’s not enough I been fixing dinner and I cleaned today cause you were coming. He expects me—”

Danny comes toward me, down the stairs, tucking in his undershirt. He is happy to see me and he shakes my hand with both of his. “How’ve you been? Boy, you’re looking really good, Mister Meyers. Ain’t he looking good, Jeannie?” he asks his wife. “I mean, every time we see you, ya seem to get younger lookin’—” He pokes me in the side with his elbow. “Getting something on the side, I bet, huh?”

“Jesus, Danny, cut it out—” his wife says. “Mister Meyers is an educated man—”

He waves at her and puts an arm around my shoulder, guiding me into the living room. “The truth, Mister Meyers—you got a little something workin’ for ya on the side? When I was in the Army, we had this old Jewish guy in my outfit—reminds me of you a little bit—he was a supply sergeant. Anyway, he was always telling me about getting nooky. Nooky—he loved that word. ‘You been getting any nooky lately, Sam?’ I always used to say to him.” He wobbles his huge head from side to side. “What a guy he was!” He pats me on the back. “How ‘bout a drink, huh, Mister Meyers? A little something to warm you up. Cold as a witch’s tit outside, ain’t it?”

Mary gets up from the floor, where she has been reading a magazine about movie stars. She sneers at her father.

“You heard worse, you heard worse!” Danny says as she goes by. “You and your friends—you think I’m stupid, I don’t know what goes on? And where you goin’ with your hair up in that crap?”

“I got a date with Joey—”

“And who says you can go? We got a guest tonight, you know. It ain’t every day we get to have Mister Meyers here. You gotta remember what he done for us—”

“Joey got his car fixed up new and I promised. I’m staying for supper, what more do you want?”

“Yeah?” He considers. “Okay, then.”

Mary turns the volume of her radio up and sways from the room. “And don’t twitch your behind at me—” her father yells. “Remember we got company—”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, snapping her fingers to the beat.

“She’s something, huh?” Danny says when his daughter is gone. “They sure grow up quick. I mean, remember when you used to come over here and she would be asleep before you even got here?” He shakes his head. “I wish she’d work more in school, though. I was thinking maybe if you get a chance you could have a talk with her sometime. She never does schoolwork unless I stand right over her.” He wrinkles his brow. “You see, it’s this way, Mister Meyers: I don’t like the idea of seein’ my daughter wind up clerking in Woolworth’s or somethin’ like that, you know what I mean? I figure if somebody like you talks to her, maybe she’ll straighten out and get to college. You being a teacher and all. Otherwise one of these bums from around here’ll be knocking her up and she’ll never get nothing from life.”

“I will talk to her if you wish,” I say. “Though I don’t think she’ll care much for a teacher’s advice.”

“Yeah, yeah—maybe you’re right. I suppose I gotta be the one to do it.” He has been making drinks for us, and he hands me a glass. The outside is wet. “I would of done a better job with a boy. I mean, if she’d had an older brother, he could of helped too…” He makes a fist and shakes it. “Little Gil was some smart kid. He was only five and he was writing his name and adding and things. I ever tell you that?”

I nod. It is coming again. So soon this time. I drink and feel in my pocket for the note. Danny sits down next to me, leaning his body against my shoulder. “Listen,” he says, whispering. “That bastard Jackson will be gettin’ out of the pen in less than a year, did you know that—?”

“No,” I say.

“Sure,” he says. “I been keepin’ track of him through this guy in my union who knows somebody who got an in with the warden. He’s been a real good boy up there—and that suits me fine.” He laughs to himself. “Don’t tell the wife, but I got some goodies upstairs, hid, and me and some of the guys I work with at the plant, we’re gonna get that bastard good.” He rubs his hands. “Gonna do to him just what he did to little Gil. We’ll work him over good before we finish him off.” He has his body twisted now so that his face is in front of mine, our noses almost touching. I see his teeth, broken and stained. “And I’ll tell you something else—off the record—I been speaking to guys and they say that even if I get caught, given the facts—you know, going back through the whole thing, with pictures of little Gil and all the stories from the papers—they’ll probably give me a light manslaughter rap and suspend the sentence.” He takes his face away and smiles, benignly. “I’ll tell you, though—I’d even do a year or two for a chance to do all I’m gonna do to that black bastard.” He punches the cushion of the couch several times, drinks from his glass, then throws his head back, eyes closed. “Dear Christ, it turns my stomach just to think of it all, Mister Meyers—“I wonder if it is time to show him the note. “That’s all I been livin’ for these last few years—to get even with that guy. Make him pay.” He reaches to the side of the couch and I know what is coming. The scrapbook: Our Boy in Gothic lettering on the cover.

He hesitates. “Ah, you don’t wanna see this again, do you? It just brings back a lot of bad memories, I’ll bet.”

I cannot, of course, refuse him. “No,” I say. “It is important for me to—” I can find no words.

He pats me on the shoulder, as if he is my father. “Later,” he says. “Maybe after dinner—cause I’m sure Jeannie wants to hear the story again, the way you tell it—about finding Gil in the park and Jackson hiding there and all. And you’ve had a hard week with those little bastards at school, I’ll bet, huh?”

I do not respond. “Sure,” he says, putting the scrapbook down on an end table. “We’ll save it for later, so you only have to tell it once. Hey Jeannie—!” he yells toward the kitchen. “Where the hell’s the grub? Mister Meyers didn’t come here just to shoot the breeze—he wants some of that good wop cooking—” She yells back, telling him to watch his language. He laughs. “That Gil—he was really something—I ever tell you how he used to imitate me? All the guys used to get a kick out of it when they’d come over and I’d bring him out at night and give him a little wine. ‘How’s your old man?’ they’d ask. ‘He’s a dirty wop,’ Gil would say.” He rubs the back of his wrist across his eyes. “Yeah, he was something—”

I take a chocolate-covered cherry from the box which Mrs. Santini has put on the coffee table before us. The cream is very sweet. Mary’s magazines lie in front of me. I Needed A Man Now But My Husband Was In The Army. It is a real problem, I think, and one should not take it lightly. “You wanna go wash up—? I better give the wife a goose in the kitchen, or we’ll be waiting here all night,” he says, rising above me.

I thank him and walk up the stairs. I hear them shout at one another, then laugh. Pictures of baby Gil adorn all the walls. In the upstairs hallway, above an electric heater, Danny stands with his arm around his wartime companions, their silver airplane behind them. Danny’s face is very soft and young. His life was before him then. I enter the bathroom.

“Hey—how many times do I have to tell you to knock—?” Mary turns to me. “Oh, it’s only you,” she says, and leans back toward the mirror, applying black paint to her eyes. She wears purple slacks and a pink brassiere which, I see when she turns and smiles at me, has a blue silk ribbon where the two cups meet. I do not see her radio.

“I’m sorry. Excuse me—” I say, and start to leave.

“You don’t gotta go,” she says. “I’ll be done in a minute. I can finish my hair in the bedroom. What a lousy house—only one bathroom in the whole place.”

Inside my jacket, at the armpits, I feel perspiration. I glance toward her again and I see that, though she has her pale back to me, her eyes watch from the mirror. She works with a brush on her lips and sprinkles powder down her front. All the while, though, her eyes fix on me and I do not move. Her breasts are full and just before I turn my head away she shakes them gently into place.

“I’m done now,” she says. “Sorry I yelled—I thought you were my old man. That guy’s always spying on me.” She picks up a plastic bag which contains her make-up and curlers, and comes toward me. I step to the side, but she stops in front of me. “Honest—I wanted to stay for you to eat with us. My old man’s not such a bully when you’re around.” I would like to smile, but I know I falter. The skin around my mouth is slack. She looks back to see if she has left anything on the sink and her breasts graze my chest. I smell baby powder. “I like you, Mister Meyers,” she says, and smiles. “I mean, I wish you’d come around when my folks aren’t here sometime, so we can—you know—talk—”

I mumble something about her father’s wish concerning her schoolwork, but the words are all wrong. She is pleased, I know, by my uneasiness. “I mean it,” she says. “You’re okay. Not like these high school kids or my old man’s friends.” She is gone at once. My shirt is sticking to my back and when I go to the sink and reach for the faucet, I almost knock over the drinking glass. The sound alarms me. Music begins again, down the hall. I relieve myself, fumbling like a child at the opening to my trousers, embarrassed at what I discover.

At the dinner table, despite Danny’s urging, I leave my jacket on. Mary hardly looks my way and when she does there is nothing in her face to acknowledge what has taken place.

“Blessed Jesus, we thank you for the food we are about to eat and for all the blessings you have bestowed upon us. We ask your blessings upon this house, upon little Gil who resides with thee, and upon Mister Meyers who does so much good for us, Amen.” Danny looks up. He has said it in a single breath. “Hey, pass the wine around, Jeannie—don’t hog it all—give some to Mister Meyers first.” He looks at me and winks. “Hope you don’t mind my putting in a little word for you with our guy up there. It can’t hurt, can it—even if—”

“Cut it, Danny,” his wife says.

“Cut what? Mister Meyers don’t mind—pass the meatballs—I mean, if you can’t be frank with a friend, what’s the use?”

“Yeah, yeah—” Jean says. “My husband’s a big philosopher.”

“At least I use my brain for more than warming seats—” He reaches over and takes the salt shaker from in front of Mary.

“The meatballs are very good,” I say, and it is the truth.

“Better not fill up—that’s just the start—” Mrs. Santini says. She smiles at me. “I got your favorites for the main dish—chicken cacciatore with some gnocchi on the side.”

Danny beams. “The only time I get to eat good is when you come,” he says. “Chef Boyardee the rest of the time—”

“Hey,” she says. “That’s not—”

More swiftly than I can follow he is up and behind her chair, hugging her around the neck, squeezing her tightly. “Can’t you take a joke? I’ll tell you the truth, Mister Meyers, she’s one hell of a good cook. I can’t complain about the food around here—”

“Stop it, will you?” Mary says to her parents. “Stop—!”

“Look who’s buttin’ in—” Danny responds. “Since when ain’t I allowed to do what I want with my own wife, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mary says, but she looks down at her plate, picking at a meatball with her fork. Danny releases his wife and returns to his seat.

“I bet you’re lookin’ forward to the end of this year,” he says to me. “Be rid of them animals for good, huh?”

“I suppose,” I say.

“I gotta hand it to you—I said the same thing to Jeannie before you got here—you got real dedication to your work, Mister Meyers, staying in that school with all that’s happening. Didn’t I say so, Jeannie?”

She nods. The doorbell rings, and Mary leaves. “You want any more, Danny?” Mrs. Santini asks. “Otherwise I’ll get the main dish—”

“Real good tonight, Jeannie. You outdone yourself.” There is talking in the foyer. Mrs. Santini takes my plate. “You got any plans yet?”

“Plans?”

“For when you retire—I mean, do you know what you’re gonna do with yourself?”

“No,” I say. “No plans. I will rest, I suppose. That is all. I am entitled.”

“You bet your sweet life you are,” Danny says. “I figured maybe you were gonna travel—go to Europe or Israel or one of them places. You’ll be getting a pretty good pension from the city, I’ll bet—”

“Tell Ma I’m sorry but I gotta go right now—” Mary says, her head in the doorway. “Nice seeing you again, Mister Meyers.” Her head is covered with a red and black kerchief. Brown curls frame her face. She does not even glance at me. A boy stands behind her, in the shadows, shifting his feet.

“Ain’t you even gonna bring your guy in, to introduce him to Mister Meyers?” Danny asks.

“We don’t have time. Sorry,” she says, and is gone.

“Get back here, you—” But the door is already closed. An instant later we hear the roar of an automobile engine, the screech of tires.

“Hot pants,” Danny says. “She’s probably—ah, what’s the difference—” He pops an olive into his mouth and leans toward me. “You get yourself on one of them cruises, Mister Meyers—take my advice. Do you a world of good to get out of this filthy city—I’d move myself if I didn’t have all my savings tied up in this house—and my seniority at the plant. We got some of the coons living a block away now—and the rest’ll be followin’ them here pretty soon. You can count on it.” He sniffs. “But you get on one of them cruises, nice and clean, with plenty of sun and good eats, movies all the time—that’s the life!” He leans back. “Meet yourself some rich widow—from what I hear, those cruises are crawlin’ with women lookin’ for guys like you.” He takes the pit from his mouth and places it carefully on the side of his plate. “You ain’t over the hill by a long shot, from your looks. Hell, this guy Sam I was tellin’ you about, he was getting on in years too, but it didn’t stop him. When there were women around he went to town like a Jew in a junkyard—” He shakes his head from side to side. “I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t mind going too—we could have a good time, you and me.”

I begin to laugh, but my laughter turns quickly to coughing and Danny is beside me, a glass of water at my lips. “You okay?” he asks. The room darkens. I drink. “Hey—I didn’t mean nothing. That’s just—”

I pat his arm, indicating that it is all right. I clear my throat. “That is a new one for me,” I say. “A Jew in a junkyard—”

Danny sees that I am not offended and he is relieved. I am pleased that I make him happy. “You okay?” he asks again. He does care about me, you see, and that is no small thing.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes.”

He returns to his seat and begins laughing with me. “Not a bad idea, huh—gettin’ on one of them cruises—you meet one of these rich old babes, you can sit pretty the rest of your life—”

Mrs. Santini brings in the main course and we eat. I drink wine now and then, and despite the talk which runs continuously from Danny’s mouth, I find that I am comfortable here, at home. When I say anything, they pay attention, and that is something also. Now and then I see them glance toward the scrapbook, lying closed on the table, and I sense their eagerness. I wait. We finish the meal and I have still not begun. When I leave the table, though, I pick up the book and look at it.

No sound comes from them. There is no reason to tease. They are entitled also. I leaf through the pages, seeing the pictures of myself, in the Daily News, the Post, the Journal-American. They are all here. Harry Meyers, a citizen who did his duty. Harry Meyers, a teacher and a hero. Harry Meyers, at home with the bereaved family. Harry Meyers revisits the scene of the crime. Harry Meyers confronts Jackson.

I close the book and lay it on the couch, beside me. I should not be this way, but I need time also. They move and I sense their disappointment. Mrs. Santini begins clearing the dining table. I think of my room on the fourth floor of West 76th Street. I will return soon. It has been a long week. Ruben Fontanez of class 9-15 has been playing his devil’s games. Next week, though, I will catch my wild-eyed monkey. It is a promise. I lean back, tired, relaxed, strangely at peace, and briefly, before I know it, I am a boy again and I have come home from synagogue, trailing behind my brothers, hoping my father will commend me for the strength of my singing. I had put my heart into my prayers that night, I remember. My father is leaning back against the old yellow doily, crocheted by my grandmother, and pinned to the couch to catch the oils from his hair. The meal is over, the neighbors have left, my brothers surround the dinner table chanting prayers and songs, and, in another room, my father wheezes against the corner of the couch, as small, it seems to me, as I am. There are crumbs on his beard and though his eyes are closed, his head sways slightly from side to side, and his lips move. Lai lai—ditty ditty dum dum, ditty ditty dum dum. But he does not hum to the tunes which come from my brothers. My father seems very happy. The room is brown, like an old photograph of itself. The lights on the gas range flame blue and low. I climb next to my father and try to hum the song he is humming. He ruffles my hair with his hand. I am warm. His eyes open. At first he does not seem to recognize me. I cannot understand why he does not continue to hum. “Go—sing with your brothers. Leave me.” He is gruff. I hum his melody for him but he twists my ear, forcing me from his couch. “Go. Leave me.” My skullcap falls to the floor and I pick it up quickly and kiss it. I smell my father’s feet. I crawl a few feet away, then stand up and walk around the house, trying to remember my father’s melody, to seize it, but it is already too late. I open my eyes. I wonder how long it is since this scene has moved before me. Danny is speaking, and has been, I realize, for some time.

“… I mean, the way I figure it, a man just ain’t made to settle with one woman for more than, say, ten years at a time, don’t you think? That’s why—”

“All right,” I say, beginning. “All right. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. Sarah had been dead for a year and a half, but I would still walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens every Sunday, winter or summer, the way we had done all those years.” Danny leans forward, intent, his eyes steady. Mrs. Santini tiptoes from the kitchen and sits across from me, wiping her hands on her apron, biting her lip. This is what they have been waiting for, and who am I to deny them their due. For, you see, I have done more, far more for them than merely save their son’s life. I have not saved his life. That is more important. “My wife and I, as you know, lived on Eastern Parkway in those days, in a beautiful apartment house across from the Brooklyn Museum.” My voice is full. A man can do no more for his fellow man than this, I think. I am the man who did not do what no man could do. It is difficult, then, not to join my life to theirs. “And so I repeated our walks every Sunday, revisiting all the trails and gardens we had never, I can assure you, taken for granted. As for myself, I loved the pools of goldfish most, in front of the hothouse. Sarah loved the Japanese Gardens.” I wet my lips. “It was just before Christmas that Sunday and I had not come to the Gardens until late in the afternoon. It had snowed heavily and I wore galoshes. The gate to the Japanese Gardens was locked, but I knew a side trail—I believe I pointed it out to you when we went there one time—that let me in. It was a hazy day, bitter cold, and the snow had a hard crust of crystals, like a skin of ice, covering it. The trees and plants were more clear—separate—than usual that day. It is difficult to forget the sight.” I pause, but they do not stir. Well. I will finish. “I walked beyond the large boathouse and around the pond, past the rock gardens. The fountain in the Meditation Gardens was frozen over. I continued up the hill on the far side of the pond, heading in the direction of the cherry tree mall. I cannot recall what I was thinking about. The snow was solid and once or twice I almost slipped down the icy trails. I remember the sound my galoshes made as they crashed through the surface of the snow to where it was soft underneath.

“And then I saw the sparrows.” I open the scrapbook to the page which contains the map. It is time for that also, I suppose. I point with my finger to the spot marked by an X. “The newspapers never did have it correctly. I suppose they had their reasons. It was here—not where the X is—but here, near the grove of elms, that I halted.” I raise my arm and they follow the direction of my index finger. “You could still see the corner of the pond from the hill, frozen, and, in the distance, the roofs of the hothouses were visible. The spot was off the regular path, behind a rolling hill. But you have been there, of course. You know.” I close the scrapbook, soundlessly, and I smile. I can hear the remainder of the story, already told, but this does not diminish the very real thrill I feel again, the quickening. I am warm. I will tell you something: it is not their needs only which I indulge. “May I have some water, please?” I ask.

“What—?” Mrs. Santini asks.

“My mouth is dry—”

“Christ, move your ass, woman—” Danny says, but he does not move, or look in her direction. He remains rigid, his eyes fixed in my direction.

“Assume that the coffee table is a low hedge of bushes,” I say, standing up. “And your breakfront over there the outside edge of the elm grove—the door to the foyer a vague path that cut through the trees.” I pause to sip some water. “The sparrows were nibbling at the snow, there beyond the hedge, pecking at it, but there were no bread crumbs, only some vague pink spots which seemed curious to me. I thought at first that some of the more hardy Japanese plants were thriving—perhaps some exotic flower, the kind Sarah loved—perhaps it was defying the winter. So I moved forward, scattering the sparrows, and I saw that the pink marks were stains. I did not, I remember, even think of blood at the time. I looked up to see if something had been dripping. Then there—behind the nearest tree—I saw something else.” I back up, to the couch, and I continue to stare at the spot on the rug behind the coffee table. Their eyes are on it also, as if, if they looked long enough, something would materialize.

“His foot,” Danny whispers. “His little foot—”

I nod, and bit by bit, question by question, he joins me in the recreation of that day. It would be too cruel to make him listen only. I do not deny him his right to relive what happened. We rediscover, then, the day, and we do so, not as you might think, by dwelling on things gory, but with tenderness and love. There are few men who have loved their sons as Danny has. We find his child together, the child the entire city had been searching for in its headlines for six days. We open the scrapbook and read again:

FIND MISSING BROOKLYN BOY SLAIN IN PARK
VICTIM, 5, IS MURDERED, BEYOND RECOGNITION
Teacher Captures Murderer

Other accounts are more vivid. They detail the pieces of the crime. They inform us that Gil was sandy-haired, blue-eyed, and nude, his underclothes frozen nearby. Laboratory tests do not disclose whether he had been attacked sexually. According to the conductor of the preliminary autopsy, Kings County Physician, I. V. Freilicher, the death itself was caused by a five-inch blade, probably an ice pick or a marlin spike.

When we have finished, and have laid little Gil to rest among flowers and editorials, tears and inquiries, it is my turn again. “I heard a crunching over there,” I say, pointing toward the foyer. “I do not think I quite believed what I saw, you know. And as even the pictures in the paper show, there was something peaceful, something quite beautiful about the snow-white scene.” I pause. Their heads nod in agreement. My senses are dull, but I stand up again. “The crunching seemed to wake me, and I rose and looked in the direction of the sound. Something moved. Something dark. I was frightened, I will tell you that. The snow was shadowless and the darkening day obscured shapes and forms. But I saw the points of light come from his eyes.” I sigh. It is over. I can see the end. “After that it is all a blur. The results we know, but how I did it—?” I shrug.

“No,” Danny says, as he always does. “No. You—”

I put up my hand. “You would like to think I knew what I was doing then, but I cannot really say that I did. In my fear I must have picked up a rock. He—Jackson—he must have been as frightened as I was, for I do not remember that he tried to run away. He simply stood there as I approached, black and frozen, the idiot pair of blue earmuffs squeezing his face. That is all I remember. Then there were more red spots. Some incredible fury in me as I must have struck him down, and a strange, helpless look on his face as he succumbed—as if he were as puzzled at finding himself there as I was.” I have moved to the entrance of the foyer and I find myself with a fist raised above my head. I move back into the living room and sit down. I drink water quickly.

“Then you ran to get the police, right?” Danny asks. He stands. He knows that I am exhausted. He helps me.

“I suppose,” I say. “I really do not remember.”

“And when you got back with the cop from Eastern Parkway, that dumb jig was lying there near little Gil.”

“I still held the rock in my hand,” I say. “And Jackson was awake, huddled in his flimsy raincoat.”

“It took guts, Mister Meyers,” he says. “They had to put fifteen stitches in that coon’s skull. You really put it to him.” He nods his head vigorously. “If not for you that guy’d probably still be on the loose, doing his sick stuff. You saved a lot of parents a lot of grief, Mister Meyers.” He picks up the scrapbook and he and his wife read through it. They hold hands and he pats her gently on the shoulder and kisses her on the cheek. Mrs. Santini cries and Danny tells her not to be ashamed. She is a woman. It is natural. Even he cries sometimes when he remembers.

Then Danny stands again and curses the judge and the N.A.A.C.P. and the government. For they were too merciful with Jackson. If he had not been black, Danny claims, he would have died in the electric chair. But clever lawyers worked on the jury’s guilt—all those details about Jackson’s boyhood, all those psychiatrists and social workers making excuses for him, all the tales about Jackson having kept Gil in his room for three days trying to revive him. Danny has been to that room, and he is obsessed with its filth, its location. The way to take care of Bedford-Stuyvesant, he says, is with bombs. Who knows, he asks, what Jackson was doing with Gil for those three days. Who knows, dear Christ, who knows, he asks. Jackson had been following Gil for weeks, Danny claims. He is positive. There was premeditation. It was not an act done out of some temporary rage, some insane fear. He shows me pictures in the scrapbook—those from the National Enquirer. Could such results come from the act of an enraged man? There is evident calculation in the deed. He is certain of it. And he will not rest on this earth until Jackson pays in full. I will tell you something: I believe him.

I take the note from my pocket and glance at it. I am to pay in full also, it seems. It is late, though, and I am too tired to begin anything new. I put the note back.

“As an educated man, let me ask you something, Mister Meyers.” He is intent. I think of the subway ride home. “What do you think—?”

“About what?”

“About what he did to Gil during those three days.” His voice is low, tense. “I mean, what do you think he was really doing in that room?”

My mind reels at the thought. If only I would divulge the best of my own fantasies, I could bring him endless joy, I know. But it is too late. If I live until sixty-nine we will need things to talk about during the remaining years. “Who knows, Danny,” I say. “Who knows. Only Jackson and Gil.”

“Yeah,” he says, and pounds his fist. “Yeah.”

Then I tell him how late it is, how tired I am, how much I enjoyed the dinner. Mrs. Santini thanks me for the candy. Danny offers to drive me home, but I decline. The subway is quicker, I tell him, and the roads will be treacherous. He curses his daughter who rides the icy highways. Mrs. Santini helps me with my overcoat. At the subway station, we wait downstairs, beside the change booth. When the train comes Danny shakes my hand in both of his and thanks me again. He puts a token in the slot for me. It is a Lexington Avenue Express and I stay awake until Nevins Street, where I change for the Seventh Avenue Line. Then I sleep.

At 42nd Street I stir. The train is as crowded as if it were noon. I smell liquor and cigarettes. The floor of the car is wet and brown, filthy from the slush on people’s feet. As the train lurches forward, a young Negro, a black kerchief tied tightly around his skull, an earring in his ear, almost falls into my lap. He apologizes through glazed eyes, gold teeth. A transit policeman pushes through the crowd, pausing to look at each girl. One of them responds with her eyes and he rests his hand on the handle of his gun. I feel dizzy. At 72nd Street I rise. A young man and his girl are halfway up the steps, kissing, and we must all step around them. Upstairs there are more policemen, crowded around a drunken man, laughing at his obscenities. Verdi Square is deserted. I cross Amsterdam Avenue and pass the Telephone Company office, the Trini Restaurant, the Dori Donut Shop, where all the homosexuals have gathered. A policeman lingers in front, twirling his nightstick. At the curb, behind the green newsstand, a silver-haired man in a red convertible chatters in the cold, bargaining with a young man. A figure slouches from view. I hasten after it and grab the arm of a familiar black overcoat.

Morris looks at me, his nose dripping. “So—it’s a crime, Harry?” he asks. “It’s a crime for an old man to get lonesome? Leave me alone. Go to your mansion.”

“Morris,” I say. “Why—?”

“You?” he asks. “You’re not around young boys all day?” His eyes sparkle from the cold.

“Go home, Morris. Go home. Before you do something foolish.”

“I just came for a walk—the nurse let me out.” He smiles. “It’s a special privilege. Forgive what I said. I just look, Harry. Believe me—”

“Of course,” I say. “Go home.”

“I’ll see you in the park tomorrow?” he asks. “We’ll talk? You’ll consider?”

“All right, all right,” I say. “In the park. Only go home now.”

Morris gives me his blessing: I should be well and buy the bed next to his. I walk home, looking at my galoshes, avoiding stares. In my room, I undress quickly. I drink more water, I wash, I relieve myself in the hallway bathroom. I lie down. The room is black. I try not to think of the evening that has just passed. I count backwards from one hundred but it does not help and I must turn onto my stomach. It is too late to fight. Tomorrow night I will go to sleep earlier and try harder. Perhaps I will fall asleep on my back then.

It is not for comfort’s sake that I work at this, you see. Here I am practical, I can assure you. Harry Meyers has been to enough hospital rooms, he has seen enough oxygen tents to know: when the heart attack comes, the man who can rest on his back has a distinct advantage.

On my stomach, I taste the sauce from the meatballs. It was Saturday night, I realize, not Friday. That is why all the neighbors had gathered in our apartment. I wonder why I confused it with Friday night. Friday night was for our family only. That is why my father could rest. I sniffed the spices from the silver havdallah box. I remember that also, my brothers, believe me, so do not look at me that way. I roll to my side and place the pillow half under my head, half under my chest. My nose drips slightly. I stretch my toes and listen to the sound of the radiator. I wonder if Mary is home yet. I remember her smile and I imagine her in the car with her young man. The windows are steamed. Such thoughts relax me. I sleep.