Chapter Eleven

“I’M HUNGOVER,” CHARLIE TOLD John. Francis had gotten dressed for his breakfast shift at six, and Charlie hadn’t been able to fall back asleep. He’d been awake for five hours in bed, his heart racing to clean his blood.

“Okay, here’s what you do: go to the Wawa and buy a carton of orange juice. Drink it all in one sitting, then ask around about a health club. Buy a one-day membership and take a sixty-minute steam, followed by a cold shower.”

“Then what?”

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘Then what?’ Then you breathe air, live your Penn life, date the waitress on weekends, whatever. Listen, I should go. Shannon Chang just called me into her office. You ever meet Shannon?”

“When would I have met her?”

“Hottest Asian chick on Wall Street. Older than me, outearns me. Amazing, six-figure Shannon Chang.”

Stupid Haircut affectations about liking exotic women, thought Charlie.

“Do you like Asian girls? I forget,” asked John.

“I like only one girl,” said Charlie.

“What about Monica whatshername?”

“Monica Miller? I never loved her.”

Outside the campus was ninety-one degrees at eleven in the morning. Kids in the courtyard shouting inanities. Nine floors up, everything sounded like a taunt. No wonder the windows are bolted shut. There was a campus Wawa on Feldman’s friendly cartoon map of Penn, but killing this professional hangover wasn’t something Charlie wanted to do in front of amateurs. Reborn thanks to John’s advice, he jumped out of bed, splashed his face with water, added shoes, and got into the first taxi he saw, having avoided saying a single word to any fellow student.

“I think I’m gonna hit the Wawa,” said Charlie to the taxi driver.

“Which one?” asked the driver.

“The one away from here.”

“Fifteenth and Chestnut.”

“Perfect. How are you doing today? Me, I’m a little hungover.”

“I hear you, boss. Join the club.”

There had been anecdotes, not only from John but from others as well, that Philly was a hungover town. A family friend had spoken about the gray and green faces that populated Philadelphia mornings. Jee-Jee worried it would deter Charlie from attending Penn, but it had the opposite effect. Waking up numb and stung felt more like a romance between him and the world than a disconnect between him and his body.

But those were high school hangovers. This was a Philly hangover, and the Wawa was air-conditioned. Weapons-grade; the employees wore hoodies.

Charlie bought and consumed a tall carton of orange juice while watching the early lunch crowd order their sandwiches. The Wawa customers, particularly the businessmen, sweated even in the winter of that store. To a man, they carried handkerchiefs to wipe it away, then more would drip from their foreheads and temples, and out would come the hanky. The heat of their lunch orders—cheesesteaks, only cheesesteaks—hastened more sweat. Charlie wondered who had to wash and iron the handkerchiefs. He felt bad for some feminine form waiting by the window for nightfall and the arrival of the unctuous square of fabric.

“Excuse me,” he said to one of the businessmen. “Do you know a good gym around here?”

“Do I look like I know a good gym?” The man was obese with a childlike face, his handkerchief dotted with light-blue baby seals. “I’m just giving you a poke in the ribs, kid. Gyms. Okay, gyms, let’s see. If you want boxing and stuff like that you have to go South Street, but I don’t know where exactly. And if you want the fancy stuff, the pools and shit, your best bet is the Bellevue on Broad. Hell, I’m a member there, Christmas gift from the wife, and I’ve been, what? Two times? Nice try, Denise!”

Philly, thought Charlie on his way to Broad Street, where more businessmen huddled around lunch carts, tapping their feet in time to the spatula’s chatter. I hate being a snob. Paula’s not a snob. So what if these guys are fat and curse a lot and sweat gravy? I bet they’re happy. Men destroyed by the night before. They have all day to mount a comeback. What a life, of course they’re happy. Plus, they own beautiful handkerchiefs with baby seals on them, and they appreciate the rhythm of the cheesesteak man. Screw it: I’ll be happy, too, and find jazz in the spatula.

And Charlie was happy, for many moments, until he remembered Tommy, who was out there somewhere, perhaps hiding behind a cheesesteak cart. God only knew how his morning was going.

Maybe he’d be in the steam room. Yes, that’s where he’d be. Contrite. Shaking Charlie’s hand. “No hard feelings, gent. She’s all yours. Stop by my bar, one of these days, and I’ll buy you a pop.”

In the light of day, the hungover class were nothing if not peaceful. After all, the streets ran dark with grease, not blood.

*

Jee-Jee was a steam room aficionado and would freeze the New York Times prior to his epic stays in the Harmonie Club’s tiled spritz palace. An hour later, the paper would be a mushy ball, and Jee-Jee would emerge grinning ear to ear, slapping fellow members on the back. The Bellevue’s facility was much smaller than the Harmonie Club’s expansive if not endless steam room; Charlie could never count all the senators. In here, however, there was just one man in front of him, ooh-ing and ahh-ing about the heat. He wore no towel to protect Charlie from the sight of his seventy-something body.

“When I was your age,” said the naked old man, “I’d put shaving cream on before the steam. Those shaves were like butter.”

“I bet,” said Charlie.

“But these days, I’m closer to my last shave than my first.”

Charlie wanted to shave, even though he had little hair on his face. Just enough that the Afta would sting. John called it shaving’s orgasm.

“I might actually lather up,” said Charlie to the man.

“Well, hell, I might join you.”

They walked together out of the steam room to the sinks. The man was tall, taller than Charlie even when hunched over, with a bulging middle and long, stringy testicles that swayed as he moved. Walking with him from the sinks back into the steam room was like walking with a prehistoric creature, but a friendly one who was proud of his species.

“What are you going to do with your close shave?” the man asked Charlie.

“I’m going to show it to the girl I love,” said Charlie.

“Ah, that’s the best. Now all you need is a box of candies, and she’ll be yours.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. Candy and a close shave. I don’t care who she is or what year it is, girls like soft skin and a big box of chocolates.”

It would be a bold move, thought Charlie, but this was a wise dinosaur.

“I think I might take you up on that advice,” said Charlie.

“Try Marone’s on Seventeenth. They have good candy and all these stuffed animals in the window. Maybe I’ll see you next year and you’ll tell me how it went.”

“Maybe sooner,” said Charlie. “I’d join this club just for the steam room.”

“I have a flight out of Dodge tonight. Florida until May. My wife passed away, and there isn’t much for me here in the city.”

“Sorry about your wife.”

“We had a great run.”

“I hope you have lots of close shaves in Florida,” said Charlie.

“My close-shave days are over, and yours have just begun. That’s how it goes. Then one day you’ll be the old man in the steam room.”

*

Marone Chocolates was run by a man in a sweater-shirt that clung to his soft torso, much like the Crumbs from last night. Philly was big on man blouses. Jee-Jee wore them, but could pull it off due to his stoutness, his chest remembering the chores of his French youth. The chocolatier wore many bracelets that clanked against the candy case, and he exhaled, bothered. Each and every time, he had to reach into the case with his gloved hand.

“Like I said before, the premade boxes are just the same.”

“My friend Angelina always insisted that her candy come right from the case,” said Charlie.

“Well, if Angelina says so.”

While Charlie watched the man pluck sweets, he held on to the neck of a lifelike baby giraffe. A corner of the store was dedicated to stuffed animals, and it was the perfect place to be while the effects of the steam bath finally settled over his muscles, and the vitamin C from the orange juice slaked his blood.

“What’s it like to have a mustache?” Charlie asked the chocolatier.

“What’s it like not to have one?”

Charlie generally got along with gay men. Angelina had a very good gay friend who would come over to watch Fantasy Island and gossip about Ricardo Montalban’s gayness. He was the first person any of them had known who’d come down with AIDS. Regardless, young Charlie had let him hug hello and goodbye.

“I like your bracelets,” said Charlie.

“They just seem to get in the way,” said the chocolatier, fussing over an unwieldy bonbon and its place in a compartment.

“They should make larger spaces for the bigger chocolates,” said Charlie.

“Well, they don’t, and I just have to figure it out for my little ol’ self.”

When it came time to pay, the chocolatier noticed that Charlie had dented the giraffe’s neck.

“Look what you did,” said the chocolatier. “No one wants a giraffe with a broken neck. Now you’re going to have to pony up.”

“I suppose I could give her the giraffe, too. Probably get my ass kicked by Neil for bringing in a stuffed animal.”

“Now you listen to me,” said the chocolatier. “If someone gets in your face because you’re carrying this beautiful toy, you don’t think twice, you go for the balls. Grab them and squeeze them like you’re wringing out a wet towel, and don’t let go until he’s down.” The chocolatier composed himself and finished the box by airdropping two mint thins that slipped perfectly into their assigned slots. “There,” he said. “The forty-eight-piece assortment.”

“It’s amazing,” said Charlie.

“Now, I like to tell people, so they don’t get all crazy, that the plush animals are $129.”

“But I thought you said I had to buy it no matter what?”

“Yes, but you should still know the price.”

“Okay, thanks. God, I hope today doesn’t suck. Sorry just thinking out loud.”

“How old are you?” the chocolatier asked.

“Eighteen.”

“Then the world is your oyster.”

Charlie wanted to tell the chocolatier about the Oyster House and his unwitting pun, but the man was elsewhere.

“When I was your age, I was at Parris Island,” he said.

“Paris?” asked Charlie.

“No, not Paris. Boot camp. Go for his fucking balls.”

*

Neil had allowed the Crumbs in for lunch. They were usually forbidden until happy hour, but the gossip about Paula and Tommy had spread like wildfire, which meant heavy-drinking Crumbs, and devotional tips in honor of youth and heartbreak.

“My friend’s been with Tommy all morning,” said a Crumb. “They’ve been hitting every bar in town. Fucking Tommy. God bless.”

“It’s a sad day, Crumb. Breakups bring me down,” said Neil, fixing Charlie a vodka and tonic. “People should stick together.”

“Thanks again for last night,” said Charlie.

“I don’t remember last night,” said Neil.

“The bottle? That guy?”

“Like I said, I don’t remember. Only thing I remember are what you Crumbs drink.”

“I’m not a Crumb.”

“Not yet.”

It was another half hour before Paula came in from the dining room. She was working the back bar. It was an easier gig. One of the other waitresses had switched with her, given the circumstances.

“I need a corkscrew,” she said to Neil.

Charlie watched her forearms work the tool. They were beautiful. Little muscles born of summer jobs: ice cream scooper, lawn mower, babysitter. Thank you, New Hope, Pennsylvania, thought Charlie, thank you for her tendons.

“Hi,” said Charlie. “Remember me?”

“Yep,” she said, the P un-popped.

“I have something for you.”

“I’m fine, thanks. I just want to get through this day.”

“Chocolates, and a giraffe.”

She stopped what she was doing to take in the giraffe. It was different from the usual offerings. She’d received her share of candy boxes, usually from boys who’d fallen in love. Unrequited. She never had the heart to open those boxes; she’d give them to her mother, who piled the empties next to the fireplace. The column almost reached the mantel. Paula hated it when her mother would brag to a friend, “What a heartbreaker. Will you look at all the Russell Stovers.”

“I like giraffes,” said Paula. “They’re the tallest living ground animal.”

“And this is a forty-eight-piece assortment from Marone’s.”

“They’re preyed on by lions. You probably shouldn’t be here.”

“Why?”

“Tommy’s under the impression that you told me about him and that woman.”

“I did.”

“I told him it was feminine intuition, which is partially true, but he didn’t believe me. He wants to kill you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

Here he is, buzzed again, thought Paula. She returned to opening the bottle of wine.

“Suit yourself.”

“You suit me,” said Charlie.

She stopped with the bottle, the corkscrew stuck mid-handstand, and closed her eyes.

“Please, Charlie, I just want this day to be over. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.” Her eyes remained shut until two tears raced down her cheeks. Paper streamers. They were too fast for Charlie to dab them with a bar nap.

A Crumb tumbled into the barroom, spilling popcorn. “Tommy’s coming. Tommy’s coming and he’s ripped.”

Cactus placed his shucker’s knife on the cutting board. “We don’t need this shit, Neil.”

The Crumbs had been chattering about a fight, a once-in-a-lifetime ass-whupping. They had located an area, out in the back alley, where it would go down. Crumbs loved fights, especially when they were over a girl. Especially ones over Paula Katherine Henderson, the best-looking girl ever to work at the Sansom Street Oyster House. Sure, it wasn’t saying much, but she had that wild long curly hair, and white teeth always glistening from an imperceptible layer of spit. Features that made Crumbs lusty. Watching men fight over her was a cause for hope; perhaps there would be a double knockout and she’d allow room in her heart for a Crumb.

“He’ll kill that boy,” Cactus said to Neil.

“These things are never as one-sided as you think they’ll be, Cactus.”

Paula had seen Tommy drunk dozens of times, really drunk, unable to walk, other than in a circle around himself, winding himself down for a final collapse. While he’d never laid a hand on her, she’d watched him pick a man up by his throat and toss him across a back alley into a row of steel garbage cans. That was in the beginning, when Tommy’s feats of chivalrous rage widened her blue eyes. The man he’d bowled into the trash had been fresh with her. Tommy told the man that an apology would spare him harm. Instead, he called Paula a whore, then into the air he flew.

Growing up in New Hope, there had been a few fights over her, but they’d been inconclusive scraps: shirts over heads and bloody noses. More often than not, Paula would end up drinking beer with both fighters, slightly offended by their burgeoning friendship. Charlie and Tommy wouldn’t end up friends, she thought, and then believed there was a chance, and dreaded the thought of them leaving her alone at the Oyster House for reconciliatory drinks elsewhere.

“If Tommy comes in, I’ll do my best to calm him down,” Paula said to Charlie. “But if I were you, I’d go back to school.”

He knew that if he left, she would never take him seriously.

“I’m staying,” said Charlie. “I’m not going to leave you alone with that guy.”

He’d never been punched in the face, and actually wanted to get it over with. No harm in losing a fight to an older guy, a famous Irish bartender who used the gym for more than a steam.

Paula ran her finger down the giraffe’s neck where it was dented. “Okay. Thanks for staying.”

She wondered how his lip would look fattened. They were already nicely plump. He’d probably never been in a fight. No scars, nothing. Mom would say not to go with a boy who’d never been in a scrap. Mom would call him soft. She thought again about the fat lip, about tending to it with her first aid kit, while he read to her from the 1984 Frommer’s. Something her boyfriend never seemed to get around to.

When Tommy entered, it was with little fanfare. Trailed by a single Crumb, he walked slowly, smirking. His movements were stiff and mechanized, as if every fiber of muscle was working on the same virtually impossible project: to not seem drunk.

“What’s hot, Neil?” he asked, full brogue.

“Nothing much, Tom,” said Neil, who’d had his share of poundings at the hands of plastered Irishmen. It was in their DNA. Like how a Rottweiler won’t unclench its jaw until it—or its prey—is dead. If he tried to break up the fight, Tommy would send him crashing to the floor. Too old for another broken bone, thought Neil.

“I think I’m going to take my break,” he said.

“You’re going?” asked Charlie.

“Good luck, kid.”

The warmth of the steam room left him. He’d been secretly counting on Neil, should Tommy not be satisfied with only a knockout.

“There’s the gent,” said Tommy. “The gent and my girl. The girl and my gent. Gossipy gent, am I right?”

“Stop it, Tommy,” said Paula. “He has nothing to do with this. He’s eighteen, just leave him alone.”

“When I was his age, I spent hundred-hour weeks cleaning the shitters in Germantown. Go with my Clorox from one bar to the next. Makes a man understand other men. Makes a man hate other men. Ah, you brought her chocolates, like a good gossipy fag gent?” Tommy grabbed the satiny box and flung it across the room.

“Holy shit, those are Marone’s,” said a Crumb, thinking better of crawling after the still-racing pieces and into a war zone.

“Would a fag gent do this?” asked Charlie. He fumbled in his duffel bag, found the New Order yarmulke, and put it on his head.

“What the fuck is that thing?”

Charlie was standing, smiling, Paula’s hands now on his shoulders. Jee-Jee always said try to make the other guy laugh—the best way to end a fight before it ever starts. But Tommy didn’t see the humor.

“Are you mocking me?” he asked.

“No, I just thought it was funny.”

Tommy snatched the giraffe, tore open its neck with his teeth, and spat out its white filling. Now they were nose to nose, Tommy’s nostrils heavy with snot. Charlie felt Paula’s hands slip away from his back. It had an effect like being pushed into a ring. Ideally, the blow would come right now, he thought. But Tommy needed to work himself into a lather. The heavy breathing, the fist-making, the proximity of his face to Charlie’s. This was as close to fighting as two people could get without actually fighting.

“Have a seat and a drink, Tommy,” said Cactus.

A hot, freckled hand collared Charlie’s neck, just above the Adam’s apple. Then a knee to the gut and down he went, into the sawdust, where Tommy straddled him and began slapping his face with one hand, the other tight around the throat.

“You’re a woman, is what you are,” yelled Tommy. “A gossipy bitch. I’ll slap you like one.”

“Enough,” said Paula, trying to pull Tommy away by his shirt, then by his hair. But he had indeed become a Rottweiler, tone deaf to mercy.

This is real. Breathing no longer works.

This is what it’s like not to breathe. You try but can’t. Then try harder but can’t even more. Then you stop trying. There was sawdust in Charlie’s eyes and nose, his cheeks a fiery pink. Cactus, Paula, and a Crumb rode Tommy’s back, trying to wrench the beast away. Through the sawdust, Charlie could make out a chocolate truffle dusted brown. What a beautiful thing, he thought, and remembered the chocolatier. Charlie thanked the man for his patience and said goodbye. He was about to say goodbye to his mother, his family, and Paula, when he saw the rip near Tommy’s crotch and the light-blue boxer shorts. He went for that splash of blue.

Not Paris. Parris Island.

At first there was just thigh meat until he scraped his way into the fly, feeling for two soft mounds. And when he found them, he squeezed them. Like he was wringing a wet towel. He squeezed and squeezed and didn’t stop even when it was Charlie who now straddled Tommy. He didn’t stop for Tommy’s soprano shrieking, nor when he felt his hands wet with blood. Or was it urine? Now Charlie was the Rottweiler. He couldn’t care less about bodily fluids.

It took three Crumbs to remove him. They sat him in a barstool, where he watched Tommy squirm on the floor. It looked like the embarrassing breakdancing intensive Charlie’s eighth-grade class was made to take, twenty-nine white kids rolling around on gym mats. Paula knelt by Tommy, unwilling to touch his hair, as she ordinarily might.

“Gent got the better of me,” said Tommy through a crazy grimace. “Smart gent to aim for the onions.”

“Well, you should ice them,” said Paula.

“I was just defending myself,” said Charlie. “I couldn’t breathe, and he wouldn’t stop.” He hoped the ring around his neck might elicit her sympathy.

“I told you to go. Now look at him. Look at both of you.”

“I was defending us,” said Charlie, proud of the sawdust stuck to his face, and grateful for the cold vodka shots getting bought for him by the Crumbs. I’m the new Tommy, he thought.

“I would have died for us, Paula.”

“Fucking men,” said Paula.

Men.

Neil returned and examined both Tommy and Charlie with medical curiosity. He took stock of the scene and tried to kick the sawdust back into place.

“Okay, you’re banned for life, O’Leary,” he told Tommy. “The kitchen boys’ll take you out the back. The kid’s banned for six months. Would’ve been a year, but I hear you went for the snappers. Got to like a man who goes for the snappers. And as for Paula, sorry, honey, but I have to can you. It’s the owner’s rules. He hates the Romeo and Juliet bullshit in his bar, and he happened to be in the back having scrod when the shit hit the fan. Fucking scrod. He could have anything off the menu, including lobster.”

“I’m fired?”

“You’re meant for better things than sawdust and seaweed.”

“Like what?”

Neil raised his eyebrows at Charlie. “You should help her box up her locker.”

“I should? I mean, of course I will.”

Paula watched two busboys drag Tommy by his feet back into the kitchen. He looked euphoric, laughing at the ceiling, or maybe crying. Regardless, Paula knew he wouldn’t miss work tonight. He’d ice himself and un-wreck himself.

“His last name’s O’Leary?” asked Charlie, proud that he’d felled a man named Tommy O’Leary.

“I need to find a job,” said Paula, smoothing over Tommy’s sawdust tracks.

“I’ll help you look,” said Charlie. “In the meantime, I have some money.”

“You should go wash your face.”

“Am I bleeding?” He hoped to God he was. He hoped as well that amid all the slapping he’d actually been punched.

“There’s a first aid kit downstairs.”

Paula had expected her tenure at the Oyster House to end with a champagne toast and a hundred shouts of “Bon voyage!” Engagement party, college graduation, something—just not this. She led the way down the stairs, toward the red light, for the last time. One of the girls must be smoking a cigarette, she thought. I’ll smoke one, too. How many times can a girl press reset on her life?

“I like the sticker on your locker,” said Charlie.

“My Little Pony,” said Paula.

“I love it.”

“It was there when I got here. And will be here for the next girl, and the one after that. Maybe the next ten girls. Neil says that new waitresses last about two years, tops. So that’s twenty years.”

“We could come and visit it in twenty years,” said Charlie, using his hands to beckon the red light of the open fire door into his heart.

An older waitress had been smoking. Gray hair, granny glasses. She hugged Paula, gave her a cigarette, and headed back upstairs. “My dogs are barking, Paul,” she said during her ascent. “Need new sneakers, had these since well before you started.”

“She called you Paul,” said Charlie.

“Just something the older girls do. It’s a Philly thing.” Paula lipped the cigarette by the fire door but didn’t light it. “So many daydreams out here during break. Guess I’m a sucker for alleyways.”

Charlie watched her squat like a catcher, bounce on her haunches, then spring up.

“Dammit,” she yelled.

“Sorry you have to say goodbye to this place,” said Charlie.

“Just thought some good things were finally happening.”

“Maybe Neil will change his mind. Maybe—”

“Nah, I’ll never see My Little Pony again for as long as I live.” She put the cigarette behind her ear, shouldered her pocketbook, and ascended.

“Vamos,” she said.

So unsentimental, marveled Charlie, tasting his own blood. We’re a tough couple.