Chapter Eight

THE HAPPY HOUR CRUMBS had all departed, and now only Charlie and the shucker remained. His dark face was fretted with flesh beads. People called him Cactus. While Neil was downstairs, counting his drawer, Cactus manned the main bar, his arms crossed in front of his chest while his only customer was a kid playing with his Walkman.

“Do you see that red light?” Charlie asked Cactus.

“Yeah, I see it.”

“I think it’s coming from the employees’ locker room.”

“When one of the girls grabs a smoke, they prop open the fire door and up comes the light.”

“What’s it like down there?”

“Lockers. An ashtray.”

“Has to be more to it than just that.”

“Not really.”

There is more to it, thought Charlie, and wished to be on the inside of the Sansom Street Oyster House, downstairs, bathing with Paula in the red light. While Charlie daydreamed about the ambrosial contents of her locker, a rogue Crumb came in, asking for Neil.

“I don’t like to bother Neil when he’s downstairs after his shift,” said Cactus.

“I have some news he’ll want to hear,” said the Crumb, who’d begun making a little pyramid with oyster crackers, using horseradish as cement.

“Neil’s not going to like the statues you’re making on the bar,” said Cactus.

“When I tell him the news, we’ll be all good.”

This Crumb wore a summery beige suit that fit him better up top than in the trousers that were snug with leg meat.

“You know Neil?” the Crumb asked Charlie.

“Just met him.”

“I’ve known him since 1975, when we both had beards. We also had these leather desk chairs, most comfortable chairs you could ever want. Went shopping for them at Robinson’s Leather. Us and our macho beards went to Robinson’s straight from here. Got two of the very same chairs for our rec rooms. Loved those freaking chairs. We were tight, me and Neil, but then, according to him, I became a Crumb.”

“You seem more advanced than the last Crumb who was here,” said Charlie.

“Thanks, kid.”

“What did I tell you about making those things on my bar?” Neil appeared, wearing his tan Members Only jacket. Like the last Crumb had observed, it was disconcerting seeing him this way. He looked even smaller, constricted by all the zipped zippers.

“I got some news for you, Neil.”

Neil slammed his disproportionately large fist on the zinc bar, toppling the Crumb’s work. “Why am I up here talking to you after my shift?” asked Neil.

“Neil,” said the Crumb, “Angie and I, we figured things out. I’m moving back in. We’re a family again.”

Neil looked deeply into the Crumb’s eyes. The whites were clear. He’d been burned before by Crumbs and their declarations of reform. Crumbs couldn’t really change. All they could do was cram the crumby parts of themselves into a lockbox. Then we pray they lose the key. But here was this Crumb, all suited up and smiling, despite the demolition of his stupid cracker house. The suit wasn’t half-bad, either; it might not even have been part of a two-for-one. His legs still looked like overstuffed sausages, though, which was why in his pre-Crumb life he was called Sausage Sam. But it was too much to ask—a diet on top of all this. The diet could come later, thought Neil. Next week.

“Okay,” he said and went behind the bar to open one of the hard-to-reach corner refrigerated units, into which he had to crawl. There was frost on his Members Only lapels when he surfaced holding a glass bottle of Evian water. Charlie was familiar with bottled water; his parents had begun bringing home cases from France in the early eighties, but always plastic and always Vittel. Glass Evian was a rarer bird. A few of the modern Italian places on Third Avenue served it, but didn’t always have it in stock, and when they did, they charged as much as a bottle of cheap wine. Charlie had always assumed it was a New York infatuation, something Haircuts ordered to convince girls they were pure. Still, here was Neil, in Philly, handling the bottle with two hands, using his bifocals to read the pink and white label’s French words.

“Yessir,” said the Crumb. “This beautiful bottle is what I came for.”

“You’re back with Angie?” asked Neil.

“Yessir. Back for good.”

“You should lose some weight,” said Neil.

“I’m already on it.”

“And don’t cheat again.”

“Never.”

“Then here you go.” Neil handed the Crumb the bottle. “Don’t fuck it up.”

“I won’t, Neil. We’re in love again. This time for good. We’ll have an Eve—wait, how do you say it?”

“Evian, Crumb.”

“Eve-yawn toast to you tonight.”

“How many more bottles of fancy water you got down there?” Cactus asked Neil. The Crumb had left while the leaving was good, before Neil spied dirt under his fingernails, or an untied shoelace, and wrenched away the prize.

“Got three more. Probably last me till 1999. If any more Crumbs want me, tell them to fuck off. I’m going to my chess lesson.” Neil bused the Crumb’s oyster cracker mess with his bare hands, placed it in Cactus’s bare hands, and left through the kitchen. Charlie could hear Spanish voices saluting him, banging pots and pans in tribute. He hoped it was a daily ritual, and wished to become an expert about Neil, about oysters, and about the most charming waitress in all of Pennsylvania.

“What do you have to do to get an Evian?” Charlie asked Cactus.

“Be a good man. And if you’re waiting for Paula, she takes the back way out.”

“Who takes the back way out, Cactus? How you be? You seem just the same as the other day, which is a good thing, my man. We should buy you a drink in honor of your wonderful consistency.”

Paula’s boyfriend had climbed into the bar from the picture window that Cactus always left open at the end of his shift so that the place wouldn’t be overwhelmed by fish smell. A fish house shouldn’t smell like fish. It was rule number one, according to Cactus. If he had a second rule, it would be to flag drunk Irishmen, but Tommy and his brogue were too formidable. In addition to dating Paula, he helmed the Four Seasons Hotel bar, and because of that he outranked every server in the city but the mayor’s butler.

“What are you having, Tommy?” asked Cactus.

“Quick Chivas before the wife comes up.” He wore a black T-shirt, like Charlie’s, but it didn’t hang on his shoulders. Tommy’s chest filled it. And he wore jeans, like Charlie did, but his were wildly torn and cinched with a rope belt. No navy-blue blazer, and no penny loafers, but sockless slipper shoes. The kind that Jee-Jee used to wear at the shore in New Jersey after seeing Sinatra wear them at a beach club in Nevada.

“So, who takes the back way out?” Tommy asked Cactus. “You were talking to the gent over there before I entered through the window like the mannerless Irishman I am.”

“We were just talking about one of the Crumb’s girlfriends,” Cactus lied.

“Ah, those blasted Crumbs,” Tommy said and turned to Charlie. “You been keeping the Crumb watch, gent? Buy the gent a pop on me, Cactus. He’s been keeping watch and should be rewarded. Cheers, gent, cheers. Say, you wouldn’t happen to be the well-to-do gent who’s been chatting up the wife all day and filling her pretty head with thoughts of art pictures and trips to Europe? The wife called me asking for adventures in the old country.”

“I didn’t know she was married,” said Charlie, standing now, stirring his drink, head bent, trying to appear dangerously contemplative.

“If you’re feeling threatened at a bar, look like you’re about to snap,” John had recommended. “No one likes a snapper. It freaks out even the toughest guys.”

“It’s a playful figure of speech,” said Tommy. “My father called my mother his girlfriend, you see?”

“I see,” Charlie said, taking out his Boodo Khan so he could feel the weight of metal and hear the red Stop button click under the gentle pressure of his fingernail.

“So, what do you think?” Tommy asked Charlie.

“It’s the best Walkman, really simple and solid.”

“Not about the gizmo, gent, about my wife.”

“Paula?” His voice cracked.

Tommy shook his head and ran his hand through his tight red curls. “You sound like wind chimes, gent. I hate the sound of wind chimes.”

“I don’t like wind chimes, either,” said Charlie, loud and clear. “And your wife, she’s, well, beautiful.”

“Now you’re talking like the rich boy you are.”

“I’m really not all that wealthy,” said Charlie. “My grandmother stole a bunch of paintings from the Nazis.”

Tommy seemed to be listening less to Charlie and more to the toothpick he was twisting into a deep molar.

“My wife said you were rich. Don’t get me wrong, the rich are my favorites. When I see a customer handle his fat money clip, it does my heart good. If only the rich were more committed to drinking. Two pops and they’re off. I want to tell them to stay a while! Tell Tommy about the deal you got on the Rolex, and one for the missus to boot. Tell Tommy about the new condo in Vail. Stay a while, you pinot grigio superhero.”

Charlie wanted to tell him about his mother, her collection of flasks hiding in her closet and her wineglasses full of tepid vodka, not pinot grigio. He wanted to tell him about rich people and their drinking. The morning Charlie spied his mother pouring vodka into a glass of cold milk. Funny how all of her flasks were monogrammed and yet she tried to hide them. All alcoholics not so secretly wish to get caught.

“I know rich people who pour vodka into their morning milk,” Charlie told Tommy.

“Milky vodka? What a pisser.” Tommy had the natty haircut of a Haircut, but this was no banker; both his elbows were on the bar, as if he were about to arm wrestle two people at once. Monica Miller said she could never date a redhead, that their freckles made them look dirty. His eyes were dark blue—an angry, piercing blue that belied his friendly little grin. He and Paula have a blue-eyed club, thought Charlie. But as the Very-Brown-Eyed Counselor had pointed out, it takes a brown-eyed person to truly appreciate a blue-eyed person. There were lines around Tommy’s eyes from squinting, from the sarcastic grinning that must precede his freckled fist getting launched into the Philly night.

“You rich folks experimenting with the liquor cabinet. Leave it to the barman and tip them right. Another Chivas, Cactus.”

“My parents are rich,” said Charlie. “Not me.”

“We know how that works. They’ll get you the dough one way or another, then one day when you’re older you’ll look around the room and think you earned it yourself. There’s my girl!”

Paula ascended the stairs in white chinos. No sooner could Charlie glean the beltless pants than Tommy’s mitts were around her waist.

“Your girl doesn’t like her man drinking before our date,” said Paula, allowing Tommy to turn her this way and that by her belt loops.

“Couldn’t help it, with this one down here talking about milk punch.” Charlie raised his glass, a salute. Something a Crumb might do.

“I hope he didn’t ruin your time,” Paula said to Charlie.

“I’m fine,” said Charlie, and mindlessly pressed Play. “These Dreams” blared from the huge headphones.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” said Tommy. “That gizmo will make you deaf, gent. Say, Paula, what you say we have a quick pop for old time’s sake, then go somewhere to visit with that travel book of yours? Cactus, can you manage two shots of the lady’s choosing?”

“I thought we were going to a real dinner and then to the P&P?”

“It was a great plan, and one I’d love to see through to the end, but maybe next week instead. My cousin got into a mess, and this time, I fear—”

Paula sat a few stools away from Tommy and his excuses, closer to Charlie, her palm bent to support her chin, which was angled to view the usually unnoticeable corner of the barroom where they kept the baby seats. It struck Charlie as beautiful, her long neck turned to the side to see the worn plastic booster seats.

“I tell you what,” said Tommy, “I’ll set you up at the P&P tonight. Put you and your little Asiatic friend’s drinks on my tab. It’s the least I can do.”

“It’s a start,” she said stoically, her long light-brown lashes blinking over the baby seats. The way she sat, Charlie could stare with impunity at how those lashes progressed to the light caramel of her eyebrows and then the light and dark honeys of her hairline. She wore her curls long. Like a sixth-grade school play about King Arthur and Guinevere. A time when curls meant virtue.

“You still owe me one, you jerk,” she said to Tommy.

John believed that when people said you owe me one it meant oral sex. Maybe in the world of Haircuts, but not in the world of girls who could stare into the soul of a plastic baby seat.

“That I do,” said Tommy. “Let’s steal an hour at your place and we’ll read from the travel tome.”

“No. Tonight’s over for us.” Alone, she’d read the introduction to the book, written by Arthur Frommer himself, a gray-haired man who believed that 1984 would be the best year yet to visit Europe. But Paula wanted to ask him about 1988. She’d written him a letter and received a response from someone else in the Frommer family who advised her that the 1988 guidebook was already out and fifty-three pages longer than the 1987 guidebook.

“You’re never lovelier than when I piss you off,” said Tommy. “Your cheeks get wonderfully warm. The gadgety gent down there can’t keep his eyes off you. Cheers, gent.”

Paula knew Charlie had been gawking but didn’t care. There were few men she trusted with staring. Tommy used his hands rather than his eyes. But he was thirty-two—an age, Paula’s mother had warned, when men are done looking and only care about doing. Tommy liked to get to the bottom of things. Money, drinks, sex. Those were Tommy’s things, and he was good at all of them. He worked out for two hours before every bar shift. A pro. A lion. Tommy and his big forearms that she loved to latch on to, late in the night. Those forearms would lead her home and no danger would befall her. I’m yours because you know what to do. Now lead me out of the Philly night.

“You may kiss me goodbye,” she said to Tommy.

Charlie turned his head but wasn’t spared the singular moist click. They knew how to kiss one another; their sound made that perfectly clear. Monica Miller and I produce too many clicks, like the sound the Boodo Khan makes when a tape gets stuck.

Tommy patted Charlie’s shoulder on his way out. “I’ll take the front door this time, gent. Although the window suits a savage such as me.”

“Say, Paula?” asked Cactus. “Do me a favor and bring my shucker blades into the kitchen.”

The knives were soaking in water that had been sitting all day. A mosquito swam on the surface.

“Time to make the donuts,” she said to Charlie.

“Donuts?”

“You know the commercial?”

Everyone knew the commercial.

“No,” he lied.

“It’s a pretty famous Dunkin Donuts commercial. About work,” she said.

“Do you think it’s for work or against it?” asked Charlie.

“Neither really. Just about how it’s necessary to be devoted even if it’s something small like donuts.”

“I will never take small things for granted again,” said Charlie. “To think, until today I’d confused the black mussel shells of my young summers with oysters.”

“Everyone I know, everyone I’m really close to, they work really hard, and take pride in what they do. Even when it’s oysters.” She looked down at the mosquito, who was lugging its wet wings up the side of the bin.

“You’re great at what you do,” said Charlie. “I mean, your shift ended, you were dressed for your date, and yet you’re still here, dealing with the knives.”

“I’d do anything for Cactus. He and Neil work harder than anyone, including Tommy.”

“Where does Tommy work?”

“Four Seasons.”

“Apparently that’s the best hotel. My brother John went there for a wedding.”

“Too clean for me. I like more rustic places. Like the P&P club.”

“What’s that like?”

“Dark. A little strange. You can get lost in there, in a good way.” She undid her ponytail, bent her head, and let the jungle of dirty-blonde hair fall over her face. She rolled her head until the curls were clear, revealing the turquoise eyes of a panther. “Sometimes I’ll bring a flashlight and just read in there. Have a couple of drinks. Hide.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“You’re different.”

“Different?”

“The only different girl I’ve ever met.”

“You should get out more.”

“No, I mean you’re . . . I don’t know. Untouched.”

She searched his face for sarcasm. The whites of his eyes were honest. Those long lashes.

“Hey, why don’t you stop by the P&P later?”

“P&P?”

“It’s called the Pen & Pencil. Lots of restaurant people go there after work and some journalists. Here, I’ll write down the address. You should go.”

“Really?” He stood too quickly, and she took a step back.

“Yeah, why not. I’ll put your name on the list. Charlie, right?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Huh? Who?”

Shit, thought Charlie.

The mosquito was languishing on the side, its wings too heavy for flight. Paula tilted the bin so it would be engulfed in water, then watched it float motionless over the sunken knives.

“I don’t want to be at this restaurant forever,” she said.