She looked a few inches taller than him in street boots into which she’d tucked her tight jeans. Her tanned shoulders were broader than his, a blue and silver tattoo on the back of one, and she had a chipped front tooth. Her hair was dyed strawberry blonde, inky black at the roots and clipped short except for one long braided strand.
Hawk just stood there like he was stuck in human traffic, streets honking around him in the crisp March afternoon sun. She was straddling a big-handled Schwinn and looking at him from a few feet away, in the arc of customers around him, with an amused frown. Finally Hawk winked at her and went back to spieling and dealing, carrying on three conversations and his vendor patter at the same time, creating a frenzy around him. He stripped buttons off a foam core board propped against his sausage cart and placed them in hands, saying “what else?” while exchanging them for cash. The smaller bills went in his change apron, the tens, twenties, and traveler’s checks in his jeans.
“Folks,” he yelled. “I got the lowest prices and the best selection on your political buttons—get your LICK BUSH buttons and bumper stickers here, BUSH IS A WIMP. BUSH DOES THE JOB OF THREE MEN: CURLY, LARRY, AND MOE. Buttons and T-shirts here. SAM NUNN’S THE ONE; KITTY FOR FIRST LADY.”
“How much are the Kitty buttons?” a woman asked, and Hawk made a peace sign, relieved her of two dollars, and shouted, “Official buttons express from Michael Dukakis’s headquarters just flown in from Cape Cod with the lobster and the shrimp.”
Hawk dropped to one knee to repin bald spots on his board, buttons pricking his red fingers when he reached into his daypack for stock. Finally, there was a lull, and space between customers. He looked up and the woman was still there, crow’s-feet around her steel blue eyes. Then she was taking off a jean jacket and weaving the bicycle toward him.
Hawk ran his hand through his bushy black hair, which kinked out in all directions like a fright wig, pressed down on his bent cabbage ear, and exchanged a bumper sticker for cash. When he turned in her direction again she was in front of him.
“Bum a cig?” she asked, nodding at the Marlboros on his paperback Columbia Encyclopedia on the napkin shelf over the condiments.
Hawk shook her one and snap-lit it with his lucky Zippo while she eyed his button board and the cart, which was covered with decals—Charles Bronson, Bruce Lee, Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing up, Kwai Chang Kane positioned under her and looking up, along with an assortment of bumper stickers: GLENN HAS THE RIGHT STUFF; RUN JESSE RUN; BOB DOLE PINEAPPLE; and PUT AMERICA BACK TO WORK WITH DUKAKIS.
“Hey,” Hawk said, “Something for the lady?”
“No,” she said, and snorted. “I just walked over to say hello.”
“Button or bumper sticker or sausage?” Hawk said.
“Sausage.”
“Works?” Hawk asked, and when she nodded he slathered on mustard and ketchup and sauerkraut, handed her the sausage, and said “’Scuse me,” then turned to sell a bumper sticker and two square Kitty Dukakis buttons and said “love your outfit, ladies” to the tourists.
Hawk had on his favorite T-shirt, light blue with a picture on it of Lee Marvin staring bulldog over a bottle of Cuervo from under a creased leather hat, looking like he’s been waiting for a showdown for two days. Hawk had the shirt made from a poster over his toilet.
“What’s that from?” she asked, pointing her sausage toward his chest.
“I don’t know, but a customer said he thinks it’s from Paint Your Wagon.”
“Bullshit it is. Paint Your Wagon is a Western musical. They’re in this mining camp and Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood live with the same woman in a log cabin. Marvin sings a few numbers. Clint too. Only time either of them sings in a film.”
“Sounds like maybe you’ve been to film school?” Hawk said, handing her a couple of napkins. “Good film?”
“If your idea of a good film is Lee Marvin singing,” she said.
“Another sausage?” Hawk asked. “On the house with a complimentary Coca-Cola?”
“I gotta work,” she said, wiped ketchup from her lips, and wheeled her bike around.
“Hey,” Hawk said. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“What?”
“What’s your name?”
“Carla.”
“What line of work you in, Carla?”
“The neon-sign-making line.”
“Bright lights for the big city.”
“Right.”
“You got a boyfriend?”
“Several. You done asking questions?”
“Almost.”
Hawk looked down Forty-ninth. On the corner of Fifth Avenue a mass of people waited for the light to turn green.
“You got a business card or something, Carla?”
“Do you?”
Hawk wiped his hands on his change apron, then turned to Carla and smiled.
“If you feel like catching a film sometime,” he said, “just drop by my office.”