Randall Randall

RANDALL HALPERN RANDALL

189 Wayland Avenue, Apt. 51

Providence, Rhode Island

8:10 a.m., Sunday, November 23, 1980

Miss Holly Diehl

Apt. 41

189 Wayland Avenue

Providence, RI

Dear Holly:

I am distressed that it has come to this. I had hoped that there would be no reason for me to compose this letter, but it seems the matter at hand will not straighten itself out, considering this morning’s condition in the driveway rear of this building.

Please permit me to state MY SIDE of the matter in question!!!

My dear wife, a good woman who knits constantly and who makes baby booties for people she doesn’t even know, has enjoyed over 20 years of extremely peaceful and harmonious relations with the tenants in this building, and I certainly have tried my best to preserve such a condition in spite of some recent goings-on, such as door slamming by tenants on the fourth and sixth floors, etc.

We have attempted to quietly and without disturbing anyone else, on any floor, take care of the rubbish and/or garbage from our apartment … to the large green Dumpster, as detailed in our lease and yours … daily (not just weekends as you seem to have deduced per Claudia!). However, I usually do it … and a major reason is that Claudia suffered a fracture to her kneecap (patella) some time back when she fell on some ice outside the convenience store and had to wear a brace for weeks. And of course I have thrombophlebitis, as did our late president Mr. Nixon, two years ago throughout my left leg and must watch myself when descending the 87 steps down to the first floor and out the rear door of this building!!!

I contacted Mr. Harry Bottoms following your “to whom it may concern” note (which I still have in my possession) and asked him WHO was probably the nicest and most quiet and agreeable tenant in the building—aside from him and Lucy. He said without pause that it is YOU!!! That is WHY I could not understand HOW any such fine person would block the rear door to prevent passage to the big green Dumpster…… aside from the probability that the fire department could NEVER get in in case of a fire in the building!!! I remember vividly when those yellow lines were painted, and I NEVER saw any car in that area right up close blocking the door until your car was there!!!

You KNOW that once I stopped into your fine apartment and was received most cordially, and enjoyed speaking with you about your plants and collection of small dinner bells, etc. I could NOT somehow believe that it was YOUR car (never thought it was for one minute) that was blocking us from the Dumpster.

I was planning to seek you out for a discussion of the matter, but the condition, and it was a condition and not a situation as my wife insists, was so serious this morning that I had to state MY side of the case to Mr. Pluckett!!! I HOPE that this will be the end of it—and that my poor wife won’t have to cart our waste out and around, so publicly, around three (3) sides of the building to reach the Dumpster!!! Mr. Bottoms was just up here again—Claudia spoke with him at length only to discover that you and others have accused me of overreacting. Please do not speak about me further and I shall do the same for you.

Sincerely,

     R.H.R

P.S.—I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks, I am NOT a “troublemaker” and want a peaceful home just as you no doubt do. I DO try to be alert, however, because there have been several burglaries in the 27 years Claudia has been here and the 16 years that I have been here. And of course the Osco drugstore was broken into again last week.

Randall folded the letter and sealed it in an envelope. He waved it in the air in front of his wife’s face as if to say, “This should take care of it.”

“It’s not such a big deal, Randall,” Claudia said.

“What if I were breaking the rule?” Randall asked. “What if it was me? You think it would just be let go? No, it wouldn’t.” He sat down at the kitchen table and scratched at a chip in the Formica. “No, it wouldn’t and I’ll tell you why. It’s because she’s a young woman and Pluckett’s a dirty old man.”

Claudia slapped a skillet onto a burner of the gas stove. She laughed.

“Shut up.”

“I bet old Pluckett is down there right now having a little party with Miss Diehl.” She melted butter in the pan while she opened the refrigerator.

“I only want one egg this morning,” Randall said.

“Bacon or sausage?”

“Sausage.”

“We’re out of sausage,” Claudia said.

“Then why did you ask me?”

She put the bacon on the counter next to the carton of eggs. “I wanted to give you a choice.”

“But I didn’t have a choice.”

“You chose, didn’t you? You just made the wrong choice.” She cracked an egg into the hot skillet. It sizzled.

“Well, I don’t want bacon,” Randall said.

“Then I won’t make you any.”

He looked at her in her lavender robe and cream-colored slippers. She was dressed in street clothes, but still she wore that robe over them and those slippers. He hated the way the heels of her feet looked, hard and callused, white, porous.

“Do you want toast?”

“Is there any bread?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yes, I want toast.”

Claudia flipped one of the eggs. “I broke your yolk,” she told him. She lit a cigarette and put the lighter back down on the sill above the sink.

“I want to put plastic runners down over the carpet in the front room,” Claudia said.

“Plastic runners?”

“To protect the carpet from wear.”

Randall laughed. “Wear? Oh, yeah, from all the visitors we get.”

Claudia fell silent as she slid the eggs onto the plates. She pulled the bread from the toaster and put breakfast in front of Randall. She sat with him at the table.

Randall buttered his toast. “This neighborhood is going to hell.”

Claudia tore her toast and dipped a corner of it into the yolk of her egg.

“Gangs and drugs,” Randall said. “Punks.” He watched Claudia eat for a while. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong. I don’t have anybody to talk to. That’s what’s wrong.”

“Here we go again,” Randall sighed it out. “I’m talking to you right now.”

Claudia continued to eat.

Randall put his fork down. “Listen, I’m going out to get my medicine. Is there any money in the house?”

Claudia looked up at him. “In my purse.”

“What?”

“There’s some money in my purse,” she repeated.

Randall went into the front room and grabbed Claudia’s pocketbook from the buffet. He brought it back to the doorway of the kitchen and found the money in it. “Do you need anything while I’m out?”

“No.”

“I’m not going out again, so tell me now if you need anything.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Okay, but I asked. You can’t tell me I didn’t ask.”

Randall walked out, pulling the door closed behind him. He went down one flight of stairs and stood at number 41. He slipped the note under the door of Holly Diehl’s apartment. At that moment the door opened and there was Holly Diehl, a small woman with short blond hair and she was looking at Randall.

“Just delivering a note to you,” Randall said.

Holly Diehl bent and picked it up, looked at the envelope.

Randall realized that he had not put her name on it.

“How do you know it’s for me?” she asked.

“It’s for you,” he said and he turned away and started walking toward the stairs.

“Is this from you?” Holly Diehl asked.

But Randall was gone. He walked down the stairs and out onto Wayland Avenue. The cold wind blew open his jacket and he pulled it closed, zipped it as he walked. He looked in through the window of the Oriental rug store where none of the salesmen spoke English, at least pretended not to speak English. Randall had gone in when the shop first opened, but when he figured out how much they were trying to tell him a rug sold for he got mad. He turned his gaze away when one of the mustached salesmen waved to him.

A blast of heat pushed through Randall when he entered the Osco drugstore and made him too hot. He unzipped his jacket and let out a breath.

“Morning, Mr. Randall,” the young clerk, Susie, said. She was setting up a display of blank videotapes.

“Hi, Susie,” Randall said. He liked her, liked to look at the way her makeup curved up at the corners of her eyes. He had always thought that Claudia would look good like that, but had never said anything, knew she would take it the wrong way. Claudia could try something, he thought, more makeup or wear her hair differently. She didn’t even try. All she ever did was complain about her knee. Susie always smiled at him, so he knew he was still an attractive man.

At the back of the store, the druggist, a fat man named Willy, was in his booth. Randall hated looking up at the an. He didn’t like Willy, was sure that the man was cheating him somehow, maybe putting less medicine in each capsule.

“How’s the pressure?” Willy asked.

“Under control,” Randall said. “How’s yours?”

“Oh, I don’t have a problem. I watch my diet and walk to work.”

Randall nodded as Willy turned away to collect his medicine. “Sure you do, you fat bastard,” he said under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Willy said.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, I thought you said something.” Willy reached through the window and handed down the vial of pills in a small white bag. “There you go.”

“Thanks.”

“You ought to get some exercise,” Willy said. “Gotta stay in shape just to run from the thugs in this neighborhood nowadays.”

“You can’t outrun them bastards,” Randall chuckled.

“Don’t need to. Not now.”

Randall nodded and walked away down the aisle of foot-care items. He remembered once when he had athlete’s foot and how good that spray had felt. It was funny he had thought then, and thought now, that his feet didn’t usually feel good, bad, or otherwise. It was something when that spray had felt good. He met Susie at the checkout.

“Is that it?” Susie asked.

“That’s it.” Randall looked at her eyes. “I like your eyes,” he said. “The way you paint them.” He had never mentioned them to her before. “How’s school?”

“Stopped going.”

“Oh. Are you still going out with that guy? That cook guy?” Randall remembered his white clothes from when he would pick up Susie from the drugstore.

“No. He thought he was hot stuff because he was going to Johnson and Wales.”

“Oh.”

“I’m trying to get a job as a cosmetician,” Susie said.

“You’ll be good at it. You always look really pretty.” He paused, watching her nails on the register keys. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that.”

“No, I don’t. Thank you, Mr. Randall. That will be twelve forty-seven.”

He handed her a ten and a five. “This stuff just keeps going up.”

“Everything does,” Susie said. She counted his change out to him. “Want your receipt?”

“I guess.”

“Bye now.”

Randall waved and walked away, the blast of heat at the doorway bothering him once more as he exited.

Randall paused at the entrance to his building, looked up its side to his window. He decided to walk around back and check on the situation with the driveway and the Dumpster. He rounded the corner and saw the car before he was there. He couldn’t believe it. After all his complaining and his last letter, here was Holly Diehl’s car, big as life, in the very same spot, blocking the Dumpster. He saw exhaust coming out of the tailpipe and realized that the car was running. Holly Diehl must have just run inside for something. He walked to the driver’s side and peered through the window at the purse on the seat. Dumb girl, Randall thought.

Mr. McRae came out of the back door with a bag of garbage and had to squeeze by the blue Honda.

“Can you believe this?” Randall said.

McRae looked at the car. “Pretty tight.”

“I’ve begged her not to park here. It’s a fire zone, you know.”

McRae nodded and tossed his bag into the container. “I guess it’s not a good idea, all right.” He was back at the door now. “Nice car, though.” He was gone.

Randall looked at the car, then at the closed door. He thought about taking Holly Diehl’s purse, to teach her a lesson, then it occurred to him that he should just take her car. He could get into her car and park it around the block. She’d get the point then.

There was no one on the street at that moment and Randall opened the car door. His heart was racing. He looked around again, then fell in behind the wheel, keeping his eye on the door of the building. He stepped on the clutch, put the car into reverse, and released the brake. He backed out slowly, still watching for Holly Diehl. He drove forward away from Wayland Avenue and toward the stop sign at the corner, but he didn’t stop, he rolled through it, turning right and noticing behind him a Providence city police car. The cop turned on his blue light.

Randall was sitting in Holly Diehl’s car, her open pocketbook beside him. He had taken the car without her permission. He had stolen it. His foot pressed more firmly on the accelerator. The policeman honked his horn. Randall looked at him in the mirror, saw the cop see him looking. He floored it. The car lurched forward and Randall sped away toward the university. The cop turned with him and switched on his siren. Randall felt a pressure in his chest. He careened through a series of alleys and side streets and lost the police car when it slid into a white Plymouth. He saw a cop talking on his radio as he rolled out of sight.

Randall was terrified. He was a criminal on the run. Holly Diehl had no doubt called the police by now to report her car stolen. It occurred to Randall that the policeman could have gotten hurt in the crash. What if that had happened? He would be to blame. He saw the man on the radio, but what if he was calling for an ambulance? What if he had sustained internal injuries or had a bad heart? He could be dying. Randall Halpern Randall could be a murderer. He looked at the little white bag on the seat beside him. He needed one of the pills now. He tried to breathe calmly and deeply, tried to slow his body down. What he needed to do was stop the car and get out, run, hide, and sneak back to his apartment. No one knew that he was the car thief. McRae had seen him by the car though. He needed to get to a phone and call Claudia, tell her to tell anyone who asked for him that he was in the bathroom or something like that. He began to slow to a stop when another siren blast pushed his foot to the floor. The tires of the blue Honda squealed as he narrowly missed hitting a woman with a sheepdog. A light snow began to fall. The cop was right behind him, talking on his radio as he drove. Randall found himself on busy Thayer Street, college students everywhere, cars everywhere, people pointing.

There were two police cars behind him now, lights flashing, sirens blowing. Randall imagined he heard his name over a loudspeaker. He made a sharp right and headed down the bus-only tunnel toward downtown. The police were caught off guard by this maneuver and slammed into each other at the mouth of the tunnel.

To Randall’s surprise there were no police at the bottom of the tunnel. He screeched to a halt and got out of the car, ran along Main Street for a half block, then up through someone’s yard, through a couple of yards and up the hill until he was on the campus. In fact, he was suddenly back on Thayer Street, just a block from the accident involving the two police cars. People were standing around, watching, telling each other what they had seen. But no one was looking at Randall even though he was panting and his clothes were grass- and dirt-stained from his scurry up the hill. He walked away from the commotion, looking up at the snow, which was falling harder now. The white flakes made him think of his white bag and he remembered that he had left his medicine sitting on the seat of Holly Diehl’s car.

He found a phone booth on a corner in front of a gas station. He closed the door, fumbled through the change in his pocket, dropped in a quarter and called Claudia.

“Where are you?” Claudia asked.

“Shut up and listen,” he barked.

“Don’t you tell me to shut up,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Has anyone asked for me?”

“Randall? What’s going on?”

“Has anyone asked for me?” he repeated.

“No, no one has asked for you. Why?” He could hear her sitting down on the recliner. “Where are you?”

“If anyone calls or comes by, just tell them I’m in the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

“Don’t yell at me,” Claudia said.

“I’m sorry. Do it, please?” Randall hung up the phone, knowing that she wouldn’t do it. An ambulance rolled by him, lights flashing. The cop was hurt. He knew it. He couldn’t count on Claudia. He was suddenly very cold. The snow was beginning to stick to the grass and bushes.

Randall pushed through the wind to the gas-station office. He pieced together forty cents and dropped the coins into the vending machine. He collected his bag of cheese curls from the tray and pulled it open, began to eat as he watched the weather. The man behind the desk, a big greasy man was staring at Randall. Randall left, shoving the remains of his snack into the pocket of his jacket.

Randall counted his money. He had nearly seven dollars, not enough for anything, certainly not enough for a life on the lam. If only that cop hadn’t died in that collision. He was sure the matter could be straightened out if not for that. The cold air was beginning to make his lungs ache when he entered a branch of his bank that he had never visited. There was no line and he went directly to a teller, a youngish woman with big glasses and a gold crown that showed in the back of her mouth when she said, “May I help you?”

“I’d like to withdraw some money,” Randall said. He felt his pocket and realized he didn’t have his checkbook. “But I’m afraid I don’t have my checkbook.”

“What’s your account number then?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know.”

She looked at him over the rim of her glasses.

“My name is Randall, Randall Randall,” he said.

“Randall Randall,” she repeated. “Would you mind waiting here for a second?”

“I just want my money,” Randall said.

“I’ll be right back.” The woman fell away from her stool and walked briskly across the floor to another woman and together they regarded Randall.

Randall looked around. The bank was empty of customers. The guard was by the door looking at him. He looked up and saw the video camera looking at him. Randall began to whistle. He turned, continuing to whistle as he moved toward the door.

“Sir,” the young teller called to him, but Randall was gone. He ran down the street and around the corner, stopping finally, hands on knees, panting.

Randall went back to Thayer Street and boarded a bus. There were a couple of kids in the back and a blind man up front next to the driver. They rolled toward the tunnel and Randall saw the faces of the policemen. Their cars were connected to purple tow trucks with Buzz painted on the doors. The bus passed by and went through the tunnel. Randall looked at his watch and thought about that armed-forces ad that said soldiers did more before eight than most people did all day. It was nine-thirty.

Randall wandered into a McDonald’s to get warm. He bought a cup of coffee and sat in the middle of the restaurant, away from the windows. His mind was racing, but could find nowhere to go. He wouldn’t be able to sit here forever. Too long and the workers would get suspicious. Besides, the little, yellow, plastic chairs hurt his butt.

A man in a tattered coat had been sitting in a booth when Randall arrived. He wasn’t eating or drinking, just sitting. A kid in a McDonald’s hat came and asked him to leave.

“It’s cold out there,” the man said.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re going to have to leave.”

“It’s cold out there.”

The kid looked back into the kitchen and caught the eye of another man. He said something to someone Randall couldn’t see and came out to the scene.

“He won’t go,” the kid said.

“Sir, we’re trying to run a business here,” the new man said. He was tall, lanky, and not too old himself. He wore a brass tag that said MANAGER.

“And I’m trying to stay the fuck alive.”

“Listen,” the manager was getting tough. “You gotta get out of here right now.”

“Or what?” The man in the tattered clothes looked the manager up and down. “Or what? You candy-ass, made-up little prick-faced boy scout.”

The manager got mad. “Listen, asshole, the police are coming, already been called.”

“The police are coming,” the man repeated. “Is that because you can’t handle the situation?” The man pulled himself up and out of the booth.

The manager and the kid fell back a step.

“Boo,” the man said.

The manager got mad and started for the man in the tattered clothes, but the kid stopped him.

“You’d better stop him,” the man said, headed for the door. “Don’t make me have to hurt the sorry-ass.”

The manager stopped pushing and said, “Get out of here, you boozed-up, pathetic, homeless motherfucker.”

The man in the tattered clothes stopped, holding the door open and looked back at the manager. His eyes were steady. “I ain’t pathetic.”

Randall watched the man walk past the window and out to the street. He got up himself and threw away his empty cup. He had to use the toilet, but he wanted to be gone when the police arrived.

Randall Randall was scared. He couldn’t go home and he had no one to whom he could turn. He thought about the people who liked him. Susie liked him. He liked her. Maybe she would help him. He wondered what she could do, being just a cashier at the Osco. She could go to his apartment and get the checkbook. He would call Claudia and tell her that Susie was coming by for it, but then Claudia would see Susie and get jealous, jealous of her youth, jealous of her makeup, and then she would get mad and not give it to her. For that matter, why couldn’t Claudia just bring the checkbook to him herself or even go to the bank and bring him the cash? Because she wouldn’t, that was why. She had always insinuated that he was only interested in her money and this would just prove it. And what would he say when she asked him when he was coming home? It was her fault that he was in this mess. He had no problem with the Dumpster, he was just worried about her knee, all her complaining.

Randall went back to his neighborhood and from a couple of blocks away he could see that things weren’t quite right. There were two cops standing on the sidewalk across the street from his building.

He found another pay phone, this one in the back of an arcade. This phone had a dial and it felt funny on his finger; he had to work to remember his number. It was difficult for him to hear over the bells and buzzers of the nearest pinball machine, but he knew that Claudia sounded funny when she answered.

“Oh, hello, Randall,” Claudia said. “Where are you, dear? You’re late. I’ve been so worried.”

Randall hung up. He looked over to find the leather-jacketed, late-teens pinballer staring at him. “What are you looking at?” Randall asked.

“Nothing,” the kid said, staring right him. “I’m looking at nothing.”

Randall got mad for a second, then became afraid. He left the arcade and decided the public library was a good place to hide and keep warm.

The very tall woman with the tower of books in her arms disappeared down the stairs, leaving Randall alone on the floor, he believed. He sat on a step stool in the middle of an aisle, a book full of pictures of India on his lap. He’d never wanted to go to India and these pictures of sand and elephants and cobra snakes and people with spotted foreheads weren’t causing him to want to go there now, but still he wished he were there.

He looked through many, many books about Asia, suffering through the occasional visitor to his section of the stacks. Out the window he could see the sky starting to darken, the snow still falling. The library would close soon and he figured it was best to get out without being asked, so he left.

It was nearly five and the Osco would be closing. He wanted to catch Susie as she was leaving work and ask her to help, though he wasn’t sure what he would be asking her to do. Perhaps she would allow him to sleep at her place. It was much colder now and the snow was piling up.

Randall was glad it was dark, feeling he could now move about more freely. His jacket was not nearly warm enough. If he had a credit card he could just take off, go to the bus station or the airport, but he didn’t have one. A life on the lam didn’t sound so bad, city to city, new people.

Susie was bundled up in her long, down parka, coming out of the front door of the drugstore. The coat was a dark pink and seemed to match her eye makeup. Randall was standing at the corner of the building, at the entrance to the alley, in the shadows.

“Susie,” he whispered to her, startling her. “Susie, it’s me, Randall Randall.”

She looked at him, clutching her bag. “Mr. Randall?” Susie did not come closer. “The police came in today asking questions about you.”

“I need your help, Susie.”

Susie looked up and down the street, took a step away. “Listen, I’ve got to go.”

“I didn’t do anything, Susie.”

The young woman walked away, looking over her shoulder at Randall. The snow swirled around her.

Randall went back into the alley and fell to sitting on the ground, leaning against the brick wall, between a green Dumpster like the one behind his building and some empty cardboard cartons. He heard the back door of the Osco open and he pushed and pulled himself to his feet, his legs stiff. He saw Willy, the druggist locking up.

“Willy,” Randall said.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me.”

Willy put the package he was holding into his other hand and reached into his pocket.

Randall moved closer. The flash hurt his eyes. He felt a dull push at his middle and he was confused. He was sitting on the ground, looking down at his lap. His ears were ringing. He moved his eyes back up to see Willy. The fat man showed fear. Randall saw something drop from the fat man’s hand. Randall rocked in the cold air, then lay back, looked up at the snow.