He did his best to twist and squirm. “You nut, you fuckin’ crazy nut!”

“Watch it, or I’ll cut more than just your pants.”

“Come on,” he whined, “that ain’t funny! My good pants! How am I supposed to get home?”

I was cutting easily up the back of the leg now. “Who said anything about going home? Some people have a dog, some have a pet cat. My cat’s dead—so I got me a pet Vito.”

I carried on a conversation with myself as I sliced up his pants legs: “Oh, you have a pet Vito? They’re rare, aren’t they?”

“Rare? You can’t hardly get them no more!”

“Where’d you get your Vito—at the Vito store?”

“No, by God, I found mine right under the bed.”

“Under the bed?”

“Yes, Vitos are a lot like cats that way. They adopt you, you don’t adopt them!”

“What about housebreaking?”

I laughed at myself. “Oh, yeah, they housebreak. I’m training mine to go in the kitchen sink)’’

I’d cut up one leg to the seat, now I began on the other.

“Oh, boy, did the ballbreaker ever have you wrong! You’re whacked out of your zook! Jesus, my good pants!”

“No problem for a man of your means, just waltz up to Rockefeller Center and take some money out of either one of your big bank accounts.”

In mimicry of my rambling, he executed a rapid-fire series of: “Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah—” ending up with a loud Bronx cheer.

Soon I’d cut up both legs and had only to join the two cuts at the seat of the pants in order to pull them off. As I sliced toward the center. I noticed his shorts, a fancy paisley pattern of the jockey type. “Hey, what nifty shorts, very jazzy, very natty.”

A snotty reply. “Those ain’t shorts—I got my ass tattooed.” He exhaled a long sigh. “Jesus, my good pants. Mean, boy, you really are mean!”

“Mean? You rob me twice, throw away two hundred and twelve pages of a novel, without even thinking, you come back to rob me again—and I’m mean!”

“Yeah, mean as cat’s meat. I may be all that and more, but at least I ain’t mean like you!”

“I’d say your frame of reference is somewhat removed from life as we know it on this planet.”

“Get the big Pants Cutter—no shit!”

“No shit! Voila, now you see ’em, now you don’t!” I yanked his pants off.

“Jesus!”

I cut down the back of his jockey shorts. “Another snip or two and you’re free as a bird.”

“Hey!”

“Steady as she goes, we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty.” The shorts were cut in two. I snatched them off with a flourish. Except for his socks and shirt, which I’d pulled up during the cutting, he was bare.

“This is the capper, runnin’ into you. Boy, you really cop the fruitcake for cuckoo!”

He had a rugged build, sturdy legs and small firm but rounded buttocks. They stood up a bit. I thought of Pete, who had said: “I’m an ass man for men and thighs and tits for women. Conversely, I don’t like tits on men and I don’t much care for women’s asses. Give me a good solid ass!”

Vito glanced behind him, then up at me. “How do you like the act so far? Nice smile, no teeth, huh?” As I started to walk away from him, he said, “Hey, you like fruit? Take a bite of my ass, It’s a peach!”

The music had stopped; I went to turn the records over. “Shut up and piss!”

“I told you, I don’t have to.”

“Fake it.”

“You’re very vivid. You’re a very vivid person.” He sighed. “Okay, what next—nutsy?”

I walked back to the kitchen to get my glass. What an odd word for him to use: vivid. Looking at him, the way his shirt was hiked up, his nudity, ankles tied, wrists bound behind him, it all made him look so completely vulnerable, I felt a moment of compassion for him.

As if he could read this, he said, “I know It’s dumb to ask, but— could I have a cigarette?”

He could have been trussed up awaiting the guillotine or the firing squad. The simplicity of the request got to me. Also, his resignation, he did seem resigned to his predicament. “Sure, why not?”

“I could?”

“Sure, what the hell, It’s New Year’s.” I walked to the small pile of things I’d taken from his pockets, got a cigarette, lighted it, then went to him and put it in his mouth. He dragged deeply, I took the cigarette out, he exhaled and said, “Thanks, take one.”

“I gave it up.” He laughed, coughing up the last bit of smoke. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Kills me,” he said. “He beats people up, knocks them the fuck out, ties them up, cuts their clothes off them—but he doesn’t smoke. Oh, no, nothin’ like that.”

I smiled at the way he put it.

“Another,” he said. I put the cigarette back in his mouth. He took another drag, exhaled, then fell into a fit of coughing.

“You ought to get a room,” I told him, as he hacked away.

I didn’t even hear the door open, only heard my name. “Jim ... ?”

We both turned, just in time to see Kate’s head peek in the door. If she was surprised, too surprised to speak at first, so was I. I had certainly not expected to see her.

She’d stepped into the room now and was focusing on the strange tableau we must have presented, to the background music of the Mozart String Quintets: the prone figure of Vito, tied down, bare-assed as a babe, yet cynically wise of face, me standing attendance, inserting the cigarette for him to puff, then taking it away as he exhaled. For what seemed ages the only sound in the room was the music.

The expression on her face was priceless. Her eyes mirrored her speechlessness. Yes, for once Kate was speechless.

I glanced down at Vito. His eyes flicked from Kate to me. There was a twinkle, an immediate spark between us.

Kate took another tentative step into the room. For several more seconds no one spoke. Her expression, the complete dumbfoundedness of it, sent my spirits skyrocketing. There was an impulse to laugh, but I didn’t want to shatter the cool everyday casualness of mood we’d somehow been caught in.

“Come on in,” I said. She stayed where she was. “What a surprise!”

“Surprise ... ?” she echoed. Her eyes were all pupil. “Jim, what’s the—what—”

“I had no idea you’d be dropping by.” I stuck the cigarette back in Vito’s mouth. “Did you, Vito?”

When I removed it, he spoke on the exhale in an entirely offhand manner: “Uh-uh, no, she didn’t say nothin’ to me.”

“Come on in, make yourself at home.” Kate took a few steps farther into the room. “Where’s your date?” I asked. Kate did not reply; she could only stare at Vito. “I thought you were off for parties and skiing and things?” Pause. “Kate?”

Her eyes blinked, then flicked to me. “We, ah—were, I mean, we are, but—”

“Where is he?”

“Down in the car.” She cleared her throat. “But when I called up I got—I mean, I could hear yelling and I got worried.”

“Oh, yeah, that...”

“Oh, yeah, that?” she snapped. She was getting her tongue back. “Jim, what is this? You said—a burglar?”

I glanced down at Vito; he surprised me by winking up at me. I looked back to Kate, I could tell by her expression she’d seen the wink. “Well, more a burglar-friend, burglar-buddy.” I took a breath. “—Pal,” I added.

I’d had trouble finishing the sentence. Vito giggled. I grinned, too. This did nothing to clear things up for Kate.

“But naked ... ?”

“Oh, that,” I said. “Well, ah—”

I don’t know what I would have said if Vito hadn’t cut in with: “That’s where the buddy part comes in!”

“Yes,” I was quick to confirm, then get on with it. “Say, why don’t you ask your friend up for a glass of champagne? No hard feelings.”

Vito’s tone was slyly wise and full of innuendo. “Yeah, ask him up. Maybe we can, you know—all have a little party?.”

Kate retreated a small step. “No, I don’t think—”

“Ah, come on,” Vito urged, “It’s New Year’s Eve.” Then the capper: “Is he—humpy?”

“What?” Kate asked.

I walked toward the large front windows. “I’ll call down, what’s his name?”

“No, Jim—don’t. He wouldn’t—no, please, don’t!”

“Okay, whatever you say.” The similarity between Vito and Kate struck me. “Hey, you two have the same eyes, you know that?”

She did not react to this; instead a large grin spread over her face. “Jim ... ?”

“Yes?” I did not permit my grin to show.

“Did you—well, you know, stage this? Did you?”

“Stage it?” I asked.

“Yes.” She took several steps toward me. “Come on, what’s going on? I don’t get it.”

Vito cut in, asking the question in all seriousness. “What—you didn’t know he swung both ways?”

Kate’s eyes flashed. “I wasn’t talking to you!”

He was not intimidated. “But I’m talkin’ to you!”

I laughed. Kate’s eyes snapped at me; clearly said: Stop it!

Vito continued. “Or did you think you was the only one gettin’ in on those great—Hugglebunnyburgers?” Oh, the expression on her face when he dropped that phrase! She immediately looked at me, mouth open. I had the idea she was about to speak, but Vito went on: “We call ours Bang-arama-thons, but what’s the diff? Bang-arama-thons—Hugglebunnyburgers, six of one, half dozen of the other. What you lose on the peanuts, you make up on the bananas, right?”

This small aria from Vito had completely thrown her. She looked at me again. “Ah ...” was the sound she uttered. I gave her a helpless little shrug, as if to say: “Well, listen ...” I could see words and anger forming up. “Jim, what’s the explanation for—”

But Vito was still on. “Thought you had him half figured out, didn’t you?”

“I’m not talking to you!” she once again advised him.

“But I’m talkin’ to you, Miss Freight Train. You’re so curious about the scene here, I’ll lay it out for you.”

His attack gave every promise that he would. I could tell by her expression that although she had marked him rotten, she was not beyond receiving information from the enemy. That is, as long as I remained mute. As for me, I could hardly wait to hear his explanation.

“You think he’s square, huh? Let me stuff your ears. We been makin’ it since last August twenty-second, off and on.” (I tried to hide my amazement; where did he get that date?) Vito picked up on her look of pure incredulity. “Oh, not steady like you. But we racked up some vivid one-nighters. Beautiful, really, I mean he really knows how to toss the old salad. So tonight—”

We heard a knock on the door, which Kate had left cracked open an inch or so. We all looked in that direction.

“Kate? Jesus, what a building, no lights in the hall, no one else—” With that he was inside the door. “This building’s really weird.”

I thought: Wait until you get a look at the kitchen, buddy.

Kate pulled herself together instantly. “Oh, Fred, I was just about to come down. Ah—Jim, this is Fred Gable. Fred—Jim.”

I’d stepped away from Vito, by now, and was between him and this Fred. “Hi, good to meet you.” I walked to him and we shook hands. “Same here,” he said.

Fred Gable was my height, good-looking, around thirty-five, wearing a smart overcoat, a dark suit, wide far-out tie, hair longish, styled. Total appearance: with it. But I had a feeling he was with it because that was the current mode, not because it came natural to him. Actually, he looked like a sixties ad-agency man dressed up for the seventies.

He had been concentrating upon me as fully as I had upon him and had not yet spotted Vito. I stepped to the side and stretched an arm out toward the kitchen. “And—I’d like you to meet Vito, Vito Antenucci.” As the sight of Vito registered solidly upon Fred, I added, “Excuse him, he can’t shake hands right now.”

Fred did not utter a word, only looked for a long moment at Vito, then quickly to Kate; I suppose for a comment of some sort. When it was obvious he would get none from her, he returned his attention to Vito. Vito regarded Fred for a long appraising moment, then turned to Kate. “Hum-pee!” He pulled a quick switch and addressed Fred in a regular-guy tone: “Hi, Fred, how’s it hanging— loose?”

Words did not come easily to anyone, except Vito. There was a lengthy silence, beyond which it would have been uncomfortable to stretch. Suddenly I thought of the cat. “Kate, why didn’t you tell me about Bobby Seale?”

She addressed me out of habit, “Oh, darling—I was going to, but I couldn’t, not leaving the note and—I felt so bad. Didn’t I, Fred?” (Fred’s eyes were still aimed at Vito) “And with New Year’s and all, I figured you’d find out soon enough. I’m so sorry! I know I didn’t like him, but—I’m sorry, Jim.”

Silence again. I was the host, so I broke it. “What about a New Year’s drink. Fred?”

Kate cut in immediately. “Oh, we’d better be running.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s late, I just wanted to stop by and—”

“Oh, come on,” Vito said. “Stick around—we’ll plug an onion!”

I laughed. Even Kate emitted a small nervous laugh before saying, “Well—”

“You think that’s funny?” Fred asked her.

“What—that?” she asked, indicating Vito.

“No—’stick around, we’ll plug an onion’?” Before she could reply, he gestured toward Vito and spoke with a feigned casualness that told me he was going to play the Vito question extremely cool. “But while we’re at it—what is that?

“Well—” was all Kate could summon.

I cut in; I know it was cheap but I received a brief mental flash of that square handsome face with the long hair laboring horizontally over Kate and I was instantly jealous. “Oh, I thought I introduced you. Vito Antenucci, Fred—ah—Garble.”

“Gable,” he corrected.

To my surprise, Kate, who was not a giggler, giggled again. Now Fred shot her a look. The look had its effect, forcing her into another “Well—”

“All you do is sigh and say, ’Well—’ “

“Really?” she asked. She shrugged, then added: “Well—” A hand flew up to her chest. “Oh, Christ, I did it again!” I could see her self-annoyance at that. “So—It’s New Year’s, so I guess I can sigh and say ’well’ if I want to.”

I had no idea where we were going from here on in. Fred glanced around at each of us in turn. He settled on me. With a smile, he said, “Okay, let’s level. What’s the bit? I’ve got a sense of humor, too.”

Vito to the rescue: “You ain’t racked up any weepers so far. ’Cept for your name!”

“Oh, Fred, can’t you take a joke!” (Hah—Kate was not about to confess to not knowing!)

This whole confrontation was tilting so, I simply went with an impulse. Walking to the dartboard on the wall next to the bookcase, I picked off two darts. “Didn’t Kate tell you about our games? Now—no fair throwing them straight at him! You have to lob them up in the air.". Holding out the darts, I walked to Fred. “Try a few?”

“Yeah,” Vito said, “hit my ass and win a Cadillac!”

Fred snorted, waved me away, and turned to Kate. “Kate, how’s about it? Would you mind letting me in on the gag?”

“Oh, Fred, don’t be such a stick. It’s just—New Year’s Eve, for heaven’s sake.”

“You keep saying that. I know It’s New Year’s Eve. If you say it one more time—” Fred’s cool was blown. “Oh, hell, I mean I understand freaky, but"—this to Kate—“I’m asking you one last time. You know him, what’s the—”

Kate finally leveled in full exasperation: “Frankly, I haven’t a clue. I don’t know! Let’s get out of here!”

Now it was Fred who laughed. “That’s the first time I ever heard you admit you didn’t know anything.”

I laughed with him; he’d caught on to her fast.

Fred regarded me. “Sweet and awfully dear, you said.” He turned to Kate. “If this is your idea of sweet and dear, we’re in for one helluva weekend. Come on.” He walked quickly to the door. “Good luck, gentlemen—whatever it is you do.”

He stepped out into the hall.

Kate’s eyes narrowed as she hissed at me. “What are you up to? You make me look like a stupid—”

“Kate, come on!” His voice from the stairs.

As she walked toward the door, she threw a parting shot at Vito. “I hope he scores a bull’s-eye!”

Vito shot back: “So do I, Angel-tits!”

A final gasp of annoyance from her and she was gone. Vito and I broke up. Easy laughter at first, but soon we were howling. His laugh, as usual, converted to a fit of coughing. When he was able to control himself, he said, “Blew her mind! We blew her stack! We didn’t do nothin’ to clear Old Fred’s up either.”

I staggered over to him. “Bang-arama-thon!” I roared, slapping him on the rump. This set us off again. I was surprised and delighted with his performance. “I never saw her so—She’s always so Holy Rock-of-Gibraltar-sure-of-herself! August twenty-second! Where’d you snatch that from? And ’Stick around—we’ll plug an onion’? “

“August twenty-second, my birthday, the last day of Leo. See, I used to be a chronic liar.” (That killed me, spoken like: I used to be a rug salesman.) “And I learned, if you hit people right off with the specifics of the issue, they swallow it. See, when I said August twenty-second, I’ll bet right away she’s thinking: Jesus, he’s got the date and everything. And probably she was trying to think back to August—did I see him a lot in August, every night, or what?” He laughed. “I snatch ’em from the air, you get good at it. ’Stick around—we’ll plug an onion’—that’s from an old friend of mine, Jitters. Old Jitters ate it.”

“Ate it?”

“Yeah, died, he died.”

Now this is where Vito made his mistake.

He took a deep breath, sighed, and said, rather ordered: “Come on, get these straps off me, this position is a bitch!” When I only looked at him, he said: “Come on!”

“Pardon?”

“Come on, let me the fuck up!” Bad timing, he was jumping the gun.

“How’s that?”

“I get to get up now!”

Very bad, he was telling me, not asking. “No comprendo,” I said.

“What! Come on, you gotta, now you gotta!”

“No, I don’t gotta.”

“Yeah—you do! Sure, you do. After what I—”

“Not on your life!”

“But why—Jesus!”

“Why—for the main reason, I’m starting to have one helluva time!”

“Yeah? Good for you—you turd!”

“Watch it, Vito! You think just because we put one over on the ballbreaker, that settles the score? Let me tell you something—”

“First, I’ll tell you something! You’re an A-Number-One Prick! Yeah, an’ without the catsup!”

“Listen, you ignorant little wop bastard, I worked for ten months on those pages, ten months of grinding goddamn hard brain-bending work. And you come along and throw it out with the trash?. You think a little joke like you pulled makes up for that?”

Now the unattractive whine crept into his voice. “Jeez, but—you wrote it once, you could write it again, couldn’t you?”

“It’s harder to remember what you wrote than writing it down originally. I’ve already spent that first creative—Oh, shit, you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. Anyhow, I can’t just sit here all day on a velvet cushion writing it all over, then have the servants fix dinner. I have to look for work.”

“What about this aunt of yours? One she was blah-blahing about, this—Claire?”

“What about her? What are you all of a sudden—a social caseworker?”

“I’m just tryin’ to help.”

I had to laugh. “Help!”

“Yeah, what’s so funny?” he asked.

“You! Jesus, I’ve had enough help from you. That’s why I’ve got you tied up. I don’t want any more help from you.”

“Okay, now let me tell you something. You keep this up and I’ll get you for it—if It’s the last thing I do.”

“don’t threaten me,” I told him.

“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! This friend of mine, Jitters, one used to say, ’Stick around, we’ll plug an onion.’ Jitters was a Jew and you know what else he used to say? Ga-noog is ganoog! You know what ga-noog means? It means enough. Like enough is enough! Comes a time when you’ve had your kicks with me and then, baby, ga-noog is ga-noog! You stash that away in your attic—and remember it!”

His nerve in threatening me did not sit well. “No threats from you—crum! A crum doesn’t make threats!”

“That’s another thing. You can call me a lot of things—but crum isn’t one of them! Another thing you oughta know—”

“Tell me, O Oracle! Lay it on me, Vito-baby!”

“You mortify a person and a person doesn’t forget that. You can do a lot of things to a person, but when you mortify him, he doesn’t forget! And just remember, you gotta let me up sometime and then—watch out, Jimmy-baby! ’Cause I’ll fix your ass good! You broken-down excuse for a flop actor!”

I slapped him hard. “don’t threaten me—you crum!”

“Ga-noog, you bastard!” He screamed until his neck muscles bulged. “You bastard—goddamnit—ga-noog!”

I felt angry and bullyish and dirty and—in seconds—tired and deeply depressed again.

What I wanted to feel was—reckless.

What I did not want to do was bungle my catch.

The elation I’d felt when Kate was there, only minutes before, had vanished. Most frustrating of all was the admission that I had not the slightest practical idea what to do with this Vito Antenucci.

Even the notion of Carmine now appeared a slight conceit. There would be no relief in turning him over to the police; this had never once occurred to me as the end solution. Obviously I could not kill him, nor could I picture myself engaging in serious torture.

Unless—and for a moment I wished this—he had not thrown out my pages, but rather had deposited them in some specific place and would not, for whatever reason, divulge it. Then I could set to work with imagination and relish to pry the information from him. But this was a daydream, having no basis in fact.

I could not simply let him go; the very thought carried a disturbing undertone. I was, I had to admit, uneasy, about the possibility of retaliation. He had come up, so far, with more than his share of surprises. I did not really know what to make of this character.

What a fizzle this could be, more than a fizzle, a failure. The word gave me the shivers. I was sinking; my spirits were sagging.

Energy was what I needed.

I walked to the bathroom and opened the cabinet. Kate was disposed, at times, to taking Dexamyl for a pickup on long photographic assignments. There on the top shelf was the vial, half filled with the small fat green vaguely heart-shaped Dexamyl. I usually avoided anything stronger than aspirin, but Kate had once prevailed upon me to take a Dexi to calm my nerves for a musical audition that had got me particularly rattled. It had produced the desired effects: I felt well liked, talented, all in all filled with general euphoria.

Euphoria was called for now. I quickly filled a glass of water and gulped one down.

When I walked out of the bathroom, Vito Antenucci said, in a low, barely audible voice: “Could I have a glass of water, please?”

The seriousness of the request, the simplicity, and the addition of “please” got to me.

“Sure.” I walked to the sink, ran a glass of water, stepped in front of him, and tilted it to his mouth.

He kept his eyes full on me all the while he sipped. To my considerable annoyance I found myself glancing away from him. “Thanks,” he said when he’d finished.

“More?” I looked at him; his gaze was still fastened on me.

“No.” He blinked his eyes, then spoke in the same understated seriousness of tone he’d used when asking for water. “So—what next?”

I walked away from him, feeling impotent and embarrassed and still dog-tired and aware it would take a good half hour for the pill to work. I felt vulnerable in his presence without energy, also without an answer to his question. I grabbed my overcoat and gloves, snatched up my muffler and a pair of galoshes, and left the apartment, locking the door behind me. He did not make a sound. I’d been so anxious to get away from the coolness of his look that I sat down on the top step of the landing to slip on my galoshes.

A while later I sat on a concrete stub, part of a dilapidated wharf at the edge of the Hudson River. Electric bulbs across in Jersey flashed 11:04.

The snow still fell, thick heavy flakes straight down. I watched as they plopped into the shiny vinyl black of the river and became part of it. Despite the heavy snowfall, the complete windlessness of the night prevented the air from being unbearably cold.

Even so, a triple shiver crawled up my back and arms. I could feel the flesh wrinkle. An entire squad of men walked over my grave. After the spasm I sat gazing numbly out over the river.

Now, I had my first quiet moments over the passing of Bobby Seale. Bobby, why didn’t you tell me you were sick before it was too late? Bobby Seale, I will miss the holy hell out of you!

His death, on top of the rest, was an extremely bad joke.

Were there creatures hatched upon this planet and soundly stamped Born Losers! Unreturnable, nonrescindable.

Was I one of them?

Can the pure will to succeed, can this be used to pole out of the quagmire?

How much of what we are or become depends upon talent, luck, appearance, type, environment, fate, timing, inheritance, intelligence—native or acquired?—or is a lot of it just plain push-and-shove?

Or is it, could it possibly be all predestined? Could we be merely hapless chessmen jerking convulsively through our moves from square to square, helpless to avoid this pitfall, that snare or—yes, sometimes Coming Up Roses, called achievement and happiness. Well, relative happiness.

I sat on the concrete stump, collecting snow atop my dome, benumbed and befucked by my colossal overpowering lack of knowledge. Of philosophy, a philosophy of life, of why we’re here. Jesus, thirty-eight (Yes, Kate.) And I really had no idea how it all worked, what it was all about.

Did anyone? Yes, I was certain some did. But who? Only the elite?

don’t ask where the names came from. Kenneth Galbraith? Lionel Trilling? Shirley Chisholm? Laurence Olivier? Margaret Mead?

Achievement, they certainly had managed that. But were even they relatively happy or were they, deep down underneath it all, as I seemed to be, relatively miserable?

They? They were celebrities. Were there ordinary mortals, more or less simple folk, who felt their own sense of achievement, no matter how small, and relative happiness?

Pete Williams. He was relatively the happiest, freest human I’d encountered. Still, a most complex creature. Candid, the most candid person I’d known, but with the happy faculty of leveling with his fellow men without being hurtful. Took joy, inhaled joy from every possible moment of the waking day. And reminded himself of the happiness to be extracted, savored it, and reminded those around him. Played the bad times as lightly as possible, skimmed them, unless there was something to be done about them.

Yes, Pete Williams was certainly relatively happy and he was productive, on his way up.

But look what happened to him, a heart attack at thirty-seven, sitting in a tacky theater on Forty-second Street watching a double feature!

For my added depression, I played a few companion scenes to go with his death. My mother, her liver squirting poison through her system, down to 107 pounds, until all that was left was an enormous pair of eyes that seemed to say: Oh, God, I think this is it, while the tiny skeletal fingers still reached for whatever she could lay her hands on: vodka, gin, wine, whatever she could coax anyone to sneak in to her. Then, toward the end, when I’d paid a surprise visit and found scotch in her ginger ale and had started to take it away, she said—and she never swore, never got really drunk, just saturated ladylike—she said: “Oh, Christ, Jimmy—isn’t it late for that?” Then, speaking of herself in the third person, she added: “Look at her, let her have it!” And I did, of course.

I played her death, then her funeral, went back to Pete’s funeral, and ticked off several other episodes, now working my way into scenes of personal mortification.

Vignette: Reading for a cigarette commercial, the year before they were banned, at Young & Rubicam. Standing in front of twelve men and three women, ceremoniously seated at an oblong conference table. The expressions on their faces indicated they might have been given the Middle East problem to solve, instead of the selection of one man to smoke a cigarette.

The director, a young smartass, started off by posing this question, “Are you a professional actor?”

“Yes.” When what I wanted to say was: No, I just wandered in off the street, saw the crowd in the waiting room (there were at least fifty actors jammed into it and strung out along every possible corridor) and thought maybe I could peddle some dirty postcards. OF COURSE I’m a professional actor, how did you think my name got on your list?

Next question: “Ever done anything?”

No, I’m a professional actor who hasn’t done anything. Instead, another bland “Yes.”

“Like what?” he asked, now shuffling lists about on the table in front of him. Obviously this character thought actors were the dreck of the earth. “Like what?” he repeated, now glancing up at me.

Like bury my foot up to the heel in your ass! But I dutifully rattled off a list of credits.

On it went, the rudeness piling up in burning layers until I’d passed the point at which I should have called a screeching halt. Finally he said, “Okay, I guess you’re an actor, all right.” (Hey, Maw, I passed the quiz!) “Now this is what we’re looking for. Oh, do you swim?”

“Yes.”

“Good, let’s see how good.” He glanced at the others round the table and grinned as if it were a joke. Most of them grinned back. “Now, you dive in and take a swim around. It’s a good brisk morning swim, invigorating, really great. You climb out of the pool, just kinda leap out of it, shake off the water, light up a cigarette—there’s a pack and matches on the sofa there—our new Okay brand. Take a good long drag, look at the cigarette, cock your head and say, ’Okay! What a way to start the day!’ Simple as that.” He glanced around the group once more, smacked his hand down on the table, and said, “Dive in, go to it!”

“Dive in?” I asked.

“Dive right in!” He saw the expression on my face. “What’s the matter—you know how to pantomime, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Go to it then!”

He leaned forward in anticipation of this great aquatic event, as did most of the others.

Feeling completely landlocked, beached, in fact, I glanced around the room. Oh, well, play the game. I walked to the leather sofa, slipped off my loafers, and stepped up on it.

“Oh, please—not on the sofa!” One of the women, a scrawny little sparrow type with feather bangs, stood up, one hand to her tiny breasts.

“Sorry.” I got off. It would have been nice to have had a little make-believe leverage at the very least. Instead, standing on the thick carpet in my stocking feet, pants, shirt, tie, and jacket, I dived in, swam the length of the conference table, halfway back again, pantomimed out, and shook off the water. I was about to pick up the pack of cigarettes when the director said, “You didn’t seem to be enjoying the swim.”

No, I didn’t, you see I was trying to avoid a little speck of shit floating in the pool—you!

But, oh no, Y & R make their share of commercials and word gets around. I gagged back my pride, choked on it and uttered a stupid, “Oh?”

“No, try to give us the feeling you’re really digging it. Enthusiasm, that’s what we’re looking for. Try it again.”

So, this thirty-six-year-old—at that time—man dived in again, made some feeble attempts at Ah’ing and Oh’ing and other happy water sounds, plastered a frozen grin upon his face, leapt out of the nonexistent pool, picked up the cigarettes and—his hand was shaking in rage, shaking so much he could barely connect the flame to the tip of the cigarette. The sight of my trembling fingers threw me completely, so much that I forgot what the line was. “Sorry, what was the line?”

The director’s face stretched to a smirk. “Do you always shake like that?” Mr. Sensitivity, he.

“No,” I said, attempting a last-minute save, “only when provoked.” Oh, how lame!

Crimson-faced, not looking at anything except my loafers, I picked them up and left the room as quickly as I could.

Sitting on the concrete stub, as I began to indulge in yet another dark-brown vignette, this one played out at my local unemployment office—Yes, thir, Christ, I got a million of ’em!—it occurred to me I was doing everything in my power to sabotage the Dexamyl.

I stood, reached up, and touched the fingers of my hand to the top of my head. A good inch or so of spongy snow had settled there. I shook it off, shaking myself out of the unemployment office at the same time.

No, this was not on course toward the mood I’d hoped for. I glanced across the river: seventeen minutes to twelve.

Seventeen minutes to New Year’s. I stamped my feet hard to rid them of the caked snow. This triggered a flow of energy. Stepping off from the wharf, I could feel those tiny shakes just beginning to percolate in my stomach.

A figure, one of the habitual cruisers self-assigned to that area, stepped out from the side of a parked truck. “Hey, buddy, how about going for a beer?”

“Got to get home for New Year’s!” My voice came out loud and cheery and sounded as if I meant it. I did. I had company and I had to get home for New Year’s. I headed east under the West Side Highway. As I walked I ran through a brief dossier of negative-positives: I was not crippled, I had my health, my hair, my virility, I was not destitute, I might not be a brilliant actor, but I was a good one, I did have a book to write, a book I knew I could write, so I was thirty-eight, not exactly a geriatrics case.

My feet went out from under me for a second. I skidded, slipped and regained my balance without falling. I heard myself laugh.

I thought of Kate and laughed even more. Knowing her curiosity, I was certain she would not be able to shake the scene she’d witnessed out of her mind. It would be driving her around in maddening circles. It would color her entire New Year’s and undoubtedly stain a few days after.

I thought of Pete again. Pete, who would often begin a phone conversation with: “Had any adventures?”

I was certainly slam-bang in the middle of an adventure, that was a nonvariable, that was for damned sure. I had actually caught and overpowered the rotten little punk burglar who’d robbed me twice and was attempting to make it an even three. Pete would have been proud of me.

It wasn’t until I reached my block that an uneasy thought occurred to me: What if he’d somehow got loose? My heartbeat quickened. Why the hell had I left him there alone? Alone? Could I have gotten a burglar-sitter? I laughed again, but hurried toward my building.

My fears increased as I put the key in the downstairs lock. I ran up the stairs, unlocked the front door, and stepped into the room. I was short of breath.

He was there, as he’d been before. He read the reason for my breathlessness and laughed. I closed the door without locking it. The sight of him bucked me up.

Now only nine minutes to midnight. I swung into action, first moving the TV set onto a hassock directly in front of him, then dragging up an easy chair for myself and placing it next to the sink unit, so we would both have a view. I got out the paper hats and horns I’d bought for Claire. “Might as well do it up right, don’t you think?”

No reply. I picked out a purple-and-silver pointed hat and was about to put it on him when I noticed a few smattering remains of the jello. I got the bath towel I’d used before, dampened it, and cleaned off his forehead and hair as best I could. He did not look at me or even indicate his feelings at being tidied up. I put the hat on him, slipping the elastic strap under his chin. He did nothing to help and because of his prone position, the hat ended up pointing straight ahead of him. I slipped it back, so it stood up perpendicular. “There, that’s a bit jauntier.” I stepped away from a measured look at him. “Hmn, still you don’t look all that—there’s a touch missing. Would you like your horn now?” Silence. “No? All right, we have— ah, not even five minutes to go. Can you stand the suspense?”

I turned the TV set on, switching channels until I found a live broadcast from the Taft Hotel. The cameras cut from the girl band singer, bouncing her way through “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things,” to the mostly middle-aged couples who jostled each other about on the dance floor. I opened another bottle of champagne, poured myself a glass, then got a small saucer and filled it, placing it on the sink in front of his chin.

“For New Year’s you might as well have your own saucer of champagne. That way you won’t have to depend upon me—in case I get carried away with the festivities.” He only stared at it. “There you go, lap it up, there’s more where that came from.” He turned his head to the side, away from me. “I hope you’re not going to sulk! Are you going to sulk?”

I snatched up the belt I’d taken from around his waist and smacked him on the ass, not especially hard, but enough to produce a smart sound. He winced in surprise only, but did not cry out. His silence infuriated me. I raised the belt again. But I was shocked enough by what I’d done so that I dropped it. “Go ahead and sulk then!”

I put on my paper hat, picked up my champagne, and sipped it. Vito was motionless. “Playing dead dog?” I asked. No reply. I picked up a horn and tooted it in his ear. This caught him by surprise. His body jerked and he stifled a small cry. “Oh, there’s life in the old crum yet!”

I sat down, took another long drink, and sighed: “Jesus, I can’t wait to see what they have lined up for me in the new year!”

The singer ended her number to a messy smatter of applause and the bandleader, a cross between Vincent Lopez and Lawrence Welk, told us what a great time they were all having “at the Taft Hotel right here in the heart of midtown Manhattan.” He wagged his baton and the band launched into “I Want to Be Happy.” I glanced at Vito; he was having none of it. The cameras panned over the dancing couples, most of whom looked about as happy as if they were to be gassed at the stroke of twelve.

I sipped my champagne. After a while Vito turned to watch the screen. I pushed the saucer of champagne closer to him. He did not respond. We both watched in silence.

There was an abrupt cutaway from the dance floor to a semi-hysterical anchor man standing on top of a mobile truck at the north end of Times Square. “We’ve switched away from the Taft Hotel and here we are in Times Square, thronged, even with the heavy snow, absolutely jam-packed with curb-to-curb people. And in less than one minute"—as he continued the cameras swept over Times Square, which was, just as he’d declared, “absolutely jam-packed with curb-to-curb people.”

The sound stepped up several decibels. The roar of the crowd increased, pierced now and then by individual horns, whistles, ratchets and other noisemakers, then suddenly burst into a mass blast of a scream as the cameras zoomed in to the top of the Allied Chemical Building. “And there goes the ball of light and the countdown begins: ten, nine, eight, seven ...”

The skin prickled up my back and down my arms because I’m a sucker and because we’ve been emotionally trained to regard this as a moment of great import.

“Four, three, two AND ONE—HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

As all hell broke loose in Times Square, I picked up my horn and aimed it at Vito’s ear. He was aware of my move but did not budge. To my surprise I found I hadn’t the heart to blow it. The cameras cut back and forth to catch individual scenes: a sailor with a bottle in each hand, his outstretched arms encircling three girls, a father hoisting a small boy up on his shoulders, an elderly couple locked in embrace.

I glanced outside the window at the snow falling so quietly. The hysteria on television was so far removed from us, there in my loft. It did not seem to be taking place on the same planet. We could have been looking down on it from a space station.

Vito suddenly turned his head to the side, facing away from the set and me.

The picture cut back to the dance floor where the couples now dragged their way through “Auld Lang Syne.” Vito’s shoulders appeared to be moving slightly. When “Auld Lang Syne” ended to generous applause, the band struck up a polka. Vito’s shoulders now shook noticeably. I could hear no sound coming from him, but to make sure I leaned forward and switched off the set.

A cry from Vito, part anger, part something else: “Keep it on!”

I switched the set back on. He did his best to control himself, gagging and choking back what wanted out. But soon the game was up and he lay there sobbing convulsively.

I watched him closely, taking the whole sight of him in. There was something, the combination of his socks, his bare legs and behind, his wrists tied behind him, and then the pointed purple and silver hat on top of his head, that was the very essence of, to be perfectly honest—hurt little boy.

For the few moments I allowed myself to look, the sight of him, turned away from me, was incredibly moving. There was an impulse to reach over and touch him. Children crying, that’s expected; a woman’s tears are bad enough; but the sound of a man’s sobs travels directly from my ear to my stomach.

I hated myself for this reaction, named it “sucker.” Shook it off. He had no right to make me feel—I had no right to react in such a disgustingly maudlin way.

I stopped looking at him, picked up my champagne, sipped it, then put it down. I had no taste for it. I switched to a more tolerable emotion—annoyance—and turned the television off.

“Jesus, have a heart!”

I stood up. “For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter!”

“What’s the matter?” After a short fit of coughing, he cleared his throat. “What’s the matter? Nothin’, nothin’, I got a hangnail! What’s the matter?” He kept his head turned away from me. He coughed again, gagged a bit, then spoke: “Shit, can’t even blow my own—”

“Wait.” I quickly tore off some paper toweling, went to him and held it up while he blew his nose.

“Thanks.”

I got fresh toweling and wiped off his damp face; I also took off his paper hat.

He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it shakily. “What’s the matter! I planned on spending New Year’s Eve like this. Didn’t you know? Christ, I made my reservations in fucking October! Just to be sure I wouldn’t miss it.” He sniffed, clearing his nose. “What’s the matter! My whole fucking life’s the matter!”

I picked up my glass and tilted it up to his mouth. “Here ...”

He sipped from it, swallowed, sipped again. “Thanks,” he said, “you’re a real prince.” I smiled and offered him another drink, which he took. When he finished, he said, “I was even lookin’ forward to tonight. I even had a booking.”

“A booking?”

“Yeah, a booking!” he repeated, with a touch of defiance, despite his red eyes and blotchy face.

“What kind of a booking?”

“Little thing I do.” A slight shrug of his shoulders. “Like a little show.”

“A show?” I asked, not without surprise.

“Yeah—what?—you think you’re the only actor? I do shows, a show now and then. I get fifty, seventy-five bucks. Tonight I was gettin’ seventy-five, and once I even got three hundred.” He tended to dispense amazing facts with the challenging chin-jutting bravado of a child: You went to the movies Saturday? I went to TWO movies Saturday and ONE Sunday!

He thought for a moment. “Tonight—tonight I’d have knocked down seventy-five, plus probably a twenty-five tip.”

“What do you do?”

“Oh, a little routine—with a few jokes, one-liners.”

“What kind of routine?”

“Oh, just—nothin’ special.” My questioning look brought forth a bark of laughter. “That’s a hot one. Here I am, tied-down, bare-assed, and I’m pussyfootin’ the issue.” He laughed again. “Shit— who cares? Like a strip, kind of—but I don’t take it all off. Oh, no, nothin’ like that. ’Cept once when I was really bombed. Just down to the shorts, that’s why the fancy ones. I got a breakaway leather outfit, It’s stashed uptown. So I had this gig up on the West Side, a bunch of fruits and some assorted dykes.”

I could not believe my ears.

He went on, more mulling the figures over to himself. “Yeah, seventy-five I’d have made, plus probably another twenty-five tip. Yeah, I’d have come out of it with Big Bill, a hundred.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” (I don’t know where that came from.)

“Hah, you’d have let me go, huh? In a pig’s ass. Yeah, an’ I believe in sex after death, too!”

I faced him. “If you stood to make a hundred dollars, what were you doing robbing me again?”

“Listen, I said I did a show now and then. I didn’t say I was any big Broadway star. I work parties, I get ’em by reference, maybe one or two a month. Maybe not. Big deal. BFD.”

I still could not get over this latest bit of information. “Doing a strip tease?”

“Listen, It’s no minty strip. I mean It’s done with humor, but I play it tough. Men dig it. Yeah, it gets ’em hot. Women, too. Why shouldn’t women see a guy strip? Let ’em have their lib. Gals are always taking it off for the guys, why shouldn’t a guy show a little skin for them? Women like it.”

What sort of creature did I have tied up here? My spirits were light and heady again. The pill was working. I felt high, the kind of high you get from finding a ten-dollar bill on the floor of a cab. I looked at him for a long time. “What’s the story with you anyhow?”

He blinked his eyes; the fun disappeared entirely. “Hmnn ... you want to know the story? Last week I walked into this paper store on the corner near where I used to live. I was all spaced out, comin’ down from a bad trip. The old lady runs the place, white hair, granny glasses, false teeth that kill her, the whole bit, got to be seventy, seventy-five, looks like George Washington in drag, sweet old thing. She takes me in from across the candy counter, looks at me for a good long zap, then says, ’Well, that’s the way it goes, huh, baby—shit and more shit!’” He flicked his eyes up at me, using them as exclamation points.

“And ... ?”

“That’s it, that’s what she wrote, beginning, middle and end.”

“That bad, huh? If you could have one wish on New Year’s—I mean outside of getting untied—what would it be?”

“You mean right now?”

“Yes.”

He looked me directly in the eye and without hesitation said: “Makin’ it with you.”

Amazed, I could only ask, “What?”

He spit out, the toughness of his speech completely contradicting the meaning of his words: “You heard me—makin’ it with you!”

“You’re kidding! Why?”

“Why not? You’re here, an’ I sure in the fuck am! That’s for openers. But mainly ’cause when I’m depressed, makin’ it takes my mind off why I’m depressed. You want more reasons, I’ll give ’em to you.” He ducked his head back as much as he could; it was a gesture of appraisal. “You’re humpy in a offbeat sort of way.”

I laughed. “I’m offbeat? You’re calling me offbeat?”

“Yeah, you’re—you got this—something very—ah—vulnerable. That’s the word. Something nice and vulnerable, like they just took the bandages off.”

This was too much, this was upside down and backward. After the way I’d felt about him only seconds before, now he was labeling me—vulnerable! “Jesus, if you don’t take the—”

“I ain’t finished yet,” he said. “Also, I overheard your references for—ah, Hugglebunnyburgers. Oh, that’s a pisser!” He hooted a bit over that. “I turn out good ones, too, so between us, I figure we’d ring the bell, have a hit on our hands.” He jerked his head in the direction of the bed. “So, come on, whyn’t you let me up and we’ll, you know, toss the old salad.”

I looked at him and shook my head. “I can’t get over you being— well, queer.”

No annoyance in his reply. He merely sloughed it off. “Queer— shit! Queer, not queer. Who’s countin’? Who cares, that’s old-fashioned, that went out with saddle shoes. Oh, that’s right, I forget, you’re thirty-eight, you belong to that in-between generation, the lost one, yeah, you come in right at the ass end of it, didn’t you? Queer, I told you, everybody swings, the right moment, the right place, the right circumstances. Christ, don’t give me that ’Oh-my-shocked-ass-you’re-queer’ shit. Are you queer?”

“No.”

“Hmn ... too bad, you don’t know what you’re missing.” Then: “You never fooled around, I mean with a guy? Truth now—or your dick will fall off.”

I was still too stunned to make sense. “Well...” I began.

Vito laughed, making up the dialogue for me. “Well, yeah, in high school, there was this one guy, but we was only kids and all we did was whack off.” He laughed again. “Then once when I was drunk this guy blew me, but I was so bombed I didn’t even know what was happening. Hmn ... hmn ... I know the rest, I heard it before. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah"—he punctuated the series with a Bronx cheer—“youse guys kill me.”

“And youse kill me,” I told him.

“Why do you make fun of me?” he asked, seriously.

“Why do you say ’youse’?”

“I know, I know better. I don’t know why. Main reason—habit which I never got out of.” I could tell by the wise look spreading over his face that he was returning to topic A. “Hmn ... you ever been married?”

“No.”

“And thirty-eight! Hmn? Well, I have. Married at seventeen, got a daughter nine, so don’t give me that queer bit. Save that for people ain’t been around the block twice.”

“A daughter nine?”

“Yeah, Melody Antenucci.” He shook his head. “Ain’t that a pisser to hang on a kid? Not my idea, my wife’s. Queer! My friend Ben said queer is a word like tall. Everybody’s a little tall, even midgets, It’s how tall. He used to say if you could peek at any man or woman in their privacy of their bathroom alone, gettin’ ready to go to bed or gettin’ up in the morning—he used to say, then you’d see some queer little things goin’ on. Little private weirdo iggies would banjo your eyes.”

“Who’s this Ben?”

“My lover, he bought the farm. He’s with the Kennedy boys now.” (From the way he tossed off the last, I got the idea he was displaying his worldliness.)” Only good thing ever happened and then—” He was quiet for a moment; suddenly in a burst of energy he said: “He was a writer, Benjamin Bergmann?”

If anything he’d said astonished me, this was the capper. “Benjamin—he was your lover?

His back was up. “Yeah, what’s so funny about that? Oh, because he was married to that French actress? He was married twice, had three kids—how could he be queer, huh? Jesus, you really are from the old country, aren’t you?” He was quiet once more; I said nothing because I hadn’t the slightest idea what to make of him. “But Ben— he really had a peek at the blueprints. He seen the elephant and heard the hooty owl.” He looked up at me. “And—you know what else?”

“What?”

“He really dug me.” He nodded his head in assent with his own declaration. “Jesus, he was something else. He—talk about vivid.”

The phone rang.

“Probably that cunty aunt of yours.” His hoarse bark. “Fuckin’ point killer!”

The sound of her voice made me grin. “Hello, Claire.” I glanced at Vito, who crossed his eyes. Claire, still suspicious of my absence, could hear the smile in my voice and lost no time asking if Kate was there. I reiterated that we had broken up. Was I alone? Yes. Was I really all alone on New Year’s Eve?. Yes.

There was a good bit of clucking over this, how it wasn’t New Year’s Eve without “my only real family.” She was leaving the next afternoon for a two-week vacation in Tobago; she extended an invitation, which I declined.

“Jimmy, with the play falling through, it would do you good to get away.”

It would do me good to get away, but not with Claire. “I’d like to, Claire, but I just can’t.”

“Why not, dear?”

“I’ve lost my job, I have to start looking for a place to live, and I—”

“Just for two weeks, then we’ll come back and get everything straightened out. I’ll go apartment-hunting with you.”

“I can’t, Claire. I have to stay here and figure out what to do.”

“About another apartment? Well, that’s not so—”

“No, about my life!”

“Now, Jimmy, I know you’ve had some disappointments, but you know you can always count on me. Matter of fact I had a little check, just a little New Year’s present, all ready for you. I’ll put it in the mail—”

“No, please don’t, Claire, I’m all right.”

“Just a little New Year’s present from me to you.”

I wished her a good vacation in Tobago and said I’d see her when she got back in two weeks.

I was muddled by the ambiguity of my feelings. I didn’t want to accept money from her, still I knew she would put the check in the mail, and I couldn’t help wondering how much it would be for. I felt, if not outright dirty, at least a bit—dusty.

“What’s Tobago?” Vito asked.

“An island.”

“Never heard of it. So—you don’t want to go, I’ll go. She like to get shtupped? I’ll even shtupp her.”

“Mmn, I could see the two of you together. As for the—what, shtupping?—I think It’s closed for the season.”

“Yeah, you never can tell. don’t ever try to put a lid on an old volcano. Just when you do, she’ll blow! Hey, could you ease me up here? This ain’t exactly the position of your dreams, you know.”

I walked over to him. “Where’s it uncomfortable?”

“You kiddin’? All over.”

The telephone rang again.

“Way she keeps callin’, I think she wants to get into your knickers.”

It was not Claire; it was Kate. “Happy New Year,” she said.

“Happy New Year.” I could hear party sounds in the background.

“So, how’s everything going?”

“Fine,” I said. “And with you?”

“Fine.”

We had put in too much time together to play it straight; there was a long silence before we both burst into laughter.

“Oh, Jim—really—you’re—I mean—that was—Fred was—what was all that?” This said on the waves of her laughter, thus keeping it light and mirthful, hoping to make it almost a mutual joke. And thereby sneak the answer out of me.

But I knew her so well, knew that underneath the laughter her gears were absolutely jammed.

“Kate, I—really can’t go into it now. It’s, well—” although I still laughed, I pulled my voice down to a whisper—“there are a couple of other people here now and I—”

“Other?” she asked. No laughter now.

“Yes, and ah—I can’t—look, we’ll talk.”

I hung up.

“Ohh,” Vito said, “you’re a pisser, oh, you are a pisser, Jimmy Zoole!” Then: “What a name for an actor—Zoole!”

The phone rang again. I picked it up. Now her voice was sharp and clear. “Jim, now you listen to me—”

I whispered into the phone. “Kate, I can’t talk now...” I broke the connection and left the receiver off the hook.

“Oh, God,” I told Vito, “curiosity has been nibbling away at her. Nibbling—It’s been gnawing at her.” Her call had boosted me up to the next level.

“Serves her right,” Vito said. “Hey, you said you’d ease me up here.”

“I’m not going to let you up, though.”

“Who asked you? I got no place to go,” he said, as I set about loosening the backstraps slightly. “I already missed my booking. I don’t even have a steady mattress now.”

“Where have you been sleeping?”

“Anyplace, around.”

“But you had twenty-seven dollars in your pocket.”

“I just got it, guy—about a half hour before I dropped in on you.”

“How?” I asked.

“Snatched a purse.”

“You mean, just from a woman walking down the—”

He snapped his head around to me. “No, a dog, a little French poodle was trottin’ down Christopher Street with this purse and I—”

“Ah-ah, no lip!” I warned. I’d loosened the backstraps so he could move slightly to the left or right and at least flex his back and raise his shoulders.

“That’s better, thanks.”

I stepped away from him. “So you snatched a purse from a helpless woman?”

“Sure a woman. Okay, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. But let me tell you something, I don’t go in for purse-snatching. This was special, New Year’s Eve, and I’ll tell you something else. I never snatched a purse yet from anyone didn’t look like they could afford it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means what it says. I pick someone that I know their cookie jar is full. Like this one, sure she was tiny and she was old, but she had on a good fur coat, mink, weighed more than she did, one of those that dip down in back and skin the ground. And that wild blue hair that she didn’t whip up over any kitchen sink and expensive suede bad-feet shoes. Twenty-seventy bucks wouldn’t mean dick to her.” I only looked at him. “Honest, Jimmy.”

He was seriously trying to convince me that he had ethics of a sort. “Still,” I said, “a little old woman.”

“Listen, I bet it made her whole New Year’s. She probably didn’t have diddily-squat to do, now she’s got something to quack about, probably the biggest New Year’s she’d had in about a century. She got an interview with the cops, they probably gave her coffee, the works. Feisty, too. I had to give it to her. Yelled out ’Stop thief!’—the whole bit. Christ, she was bow-legged, you could ride a bike between ’em. I looked back just as I turned the corner and she was rackin’ at me at a fast waddle.” He giggled. “Looked like she was on a teeter-totter.”

Although I didn’t approve, I found myself getting a kick out of his account. I realized I was having—if not the best of times—most certainly an unusual one.

“Hey,” Vito said, “couldn’t you untie just my hands? You still got my feet tied and my legs and back—my shoulders are broke, this position is a bitch!”

“No funny stuff?”

“Truth.” (Troot.) As I loosened the knot that held his wrists together behind his back, he said: “Hey, then let’s have a smoke, get a little high—huh?”

I believe it was Kate’s phone call that allowed me to say, “Why not?”

He swung his head around, his face lighted up. “You mean it?”

“Sure.”

“Nifty! Hey, I can’t wait to see you high. Some people just holler out to get high. I bet you make a great head.”

“I don’t think it works with me.”

“Bat shit! But I warn you, if you get high, you’ll let me up.”

“I’ll bet I don’t.”

“Betcha. If I win, you got to make it with me.”

“And if I win?” I asked.

“I gotta make it with you!”

“You’re a card, all right.” The knot was untied; I released his hands. “There.”

“Whew!” He drew his arms from around his back to the sides, then to the front, flexing his fingers. “Ohh, boy. Hey, you really gonna smoke?”

“Sure, I said I would, didn’t I?”

A slight moment of trepidation over two items. I knew if I smoked I would lose at least part of my control. After all, that was the whole point of smoking. The other, there was an enormous difference now that his hands were untied and he was able to use his arms. He stretched his arms way out from his sides, then flexed his fingers again. There was great freedom in the gesture. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted him to be that free.

Jesus, that hurts, feels like my shoulders was busted.” He looked at me and spoke in retroactive anger. “Goddamn it, why’d you have to tie ’em back like that? I’m all stiff. How’d you like to be tied down with your hands behind you?”

“Wait a minute, I untie you and now I have to take a lot of lip.” He smiled. “Yeah, I didn’t say thanks, did I?” He laughed, stretching his arms out in front of him and flexing his fingers again. “Great, I can play the violin again. Ahh—!” He cracked his knuckles. “Ohh, I’ve been dying to do that. It was drivin’ me buggy not to be able to crack ’em.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, I’d have cracked them for you.” “Yeah, I bet.” He crossed his eyes, gave his knuckles a good resounding crack, and said, “Okay, gimme that little plastic bag with the goodies.”

I brought him the bag, which he opened, then sniffed. “Wait’ll you get a load of Senegalese Thunderfuck! Hey, you never been high, for real? Come on, truth!” I shook my head. “Jesus, you’re retarded)” He began rolling the joints.

His attitude niggled me slightly, but I let it pass. “Tell me about your wife.”

“Ex, she’s remarried. Marcy. Oh, God, did I love her. You heard about Romeo and Juliet, well, that was us. In a scroungy East Harlem sorta way. We met on a fire escape on East 112th Street. I was sixteen, she was fifteen. Bammo, it was love! If I didn’t see her for a day I wouldn’t eat. I thought she hung the moon.

“And she loved me. Tender, talk about tender. I felt so tender about her I’d just bust out crying. First time we did it, on top of the roof where she lived, one hot summer night under about a quadrillion stars—she was a virgin, so it took a long time to—you know, because I didn’t want to hurt her and I ain’t exactly built like a midget—but when I did, you know, work it in, I just—all I could do was cry. I just lay there on top of her and cried, then all during the main bout I was crying and even for the finale I cried. I just loved her so much.

“After that we made"—he broke off, laughing on the straight line of a high Hee—“Hugglebunnyburgers! Hey, were you kiddin’ with that? That’s a corker!”

“I hope so,” I told him.

“Yeah, you gotta. Anyway we made Hugglebunnyburgers—like they was going out of style. On the roof, in the basement, on the fire escape, down by the East River, over by the Department of Sanitation, the balcony Loew’s Eighty-sixth Street—and you know where else? In the tulip beds right in the middle of Park Avenue!”

“Right in that center place?”

He finished rolling one joint, held it up for inspection, and began on another. “Yeah, we went there to swipe some flowers for her mother’s birthday and we seen a cop car cruising along so we ducked down in ’em and—one thing led to another. What a wild scene, traffic whizzing by, those huge buildings all lighted up sticking up on both sides and us in a clinch, snuggled down in the goddam tulips!”

He shrugged off the happy memory of that episode; the corners of his mouth turned down. “But, you see, when she got pregnant with Melody—after her old man and brother beat the holy crap outta me"—he opened his mouth and thumped the upper left teeth with his index finger—“those three teeth here. A bridge. The Frank and Timothy Ryan Memorial Bridge, I call it. When I got over that, my old man hadda get into the act. He beat me up, almost as bad.” Vito shrugged, passed it off with: “Saturday night, nothin’ else to do. Followin’ Friday her old man beat up my old man, that Sunday afternoon my brother, Sal, beat up her brother, Tim.

“So, bein’ everyone loved everyone else—we got married! Catholics, the old-country Wop and Mick kind, Christ, if a gorilla banged their daughter and they could catch him—zap, get ’em to the church on time. ’But, Daddy, I don’t want to marry no gorilla!’ ’Shut up and put on your veil, you fucked a gorilla, you’re gonna marry a gorilla!’

“So—we got married, set up in a little cold-water flat of our own, Cockroach Heaven, East 109th Street. Me, happy as a piss clam at high tide, workin’ as a busboy in a deli afternoons and nights, other odd jobs during the day. The baby comes and right like that, the Big Freeze. Marcy’s blood turns to ice water. She and the baby in the bedroom, I’m out on a daybed in the living room. Suddenly she’s goin’ to church every five minutes and not only that, suddenly she’s got lockjaw of the legs. Makes me beg for it. Now she’d only let me sleep with her—like, as a reward. If I painted the kitchen or signed up for night school. And when she did let me, she’d lay there like she was puttin’ on a brave show for the dentist.”

Vito held the second joint up for inspection. “One more and we’re all set. The baby, Melody, got all the affection. I could understand, in a way, but understandin’ up in the attic"—Vito tapped his forehead—“don’t help clear the rocks outta the heart. Listen, sixteen and seventeen, that’s what we were by then, married’s a bummer anyhow you look at it. I tell you, Jimmy—”

Again I experienced a strange sensation hearing my name spoken with such familiarity.

“Truth now. The reason I first started pulling little heists was to get extra bread so’s I could come up with presents for her and the baby, so maybe she’d let me spend the night in my own bed, for Chrissake. Finally, one night she done something very mean in a personal way. My birthday and she was letting me sleep with her. Jesus, when I think how I kept on beggin’! Anyhow, while we was makin’ it, I was makin’ it, it was strictly a one-man operation, she suddenly slips a magazine out from under her pillow—I never forget, it had Elvis Presley on the cover—and starts leafin’ through it. You believe! I’m makin’ love to Elvis Presley—” He barked his sore-throat laugh. “Elvis Presley! And I wasn’t even swingin’ at the time! I slapped her, first time I ever laid a hand—truth, Jimmy. Another first that night, first time I ever felt I could hate her. A good feelin’, least that way I could empty the rocks outta my heart. Christ, I had a whole gravel pit workin’ for me. A few months more and I split, I hadda.”

“What about Melody, you miss her?”

“Dumb question number one. What a little—like a little porcelain doll she is. She—” He broke off abruptly. “Okay, we had the eulogy, don’t wanna get heavy. Okay?” He held up the third cigarette. “Come on, light up for New Year’s. First one gets high wins Jane Fonda’s jockey shorts!”

Vito handed me the cigarette. As I struck a match and lighted up, he said, “Now take in air with it, suck it down, way down, and hold it down!”

“I know how to do it, it just doesn’t work.” I took a deep drag. The second the smoke touched bottom I coughed it up—violently. I could hardly have made a worse showing.

He held out his hand. “Here, watch. Christ, you smoke like that little old bowlegged lady on Christopher Street.”

“But you, you know how to smoke pot, snatch purses, rob apartments, screw and get screwed probably, but give you ten thousand in a checking account and you wouldn’t even know how to get it out—dumb-ass! What are some of your other worldly accomplishments, what else do you know how to do, O Wise One?”

Vito looked at me for a count of five before speaking in a quiet, flat voice. “Get even with you. Show you mean for mean. Sometime—you’ll see.”

I awarded him points. “Touche, I didn’t mean to get—heavy.” My outburst had surprised me.

Back to his conversational tone: “That’s the purpose of the smoking lesson. We’re gonna get light, light, light—up and over. O-Wise-One will now continue with the course. Pot Smoking One. In spite of the snotty pupil.” He took a deep drag, held it down, and spoke in a strangulated ventriloquist’s voice without expelling a trace of smoke: “You take it way in, suck it down, and hold it down with all you got, the stomach muscles, hold it, hold it, just like you was holdin’ back a fart in an elevator.”

“You’re a regular poet,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he said, expelling a small mushroom cloud of smoke and handing me the cigarette. “I told Ben I was gonna pen my memoirs. Call it Tough Shit! The Story of My Life So Far.” He sounded a semi-moronic teenager’s laugh. “There, go ahead. Make Daddy proud of you.”

I inhaled deeply, held it down with all my might. It stayed several seconds before tickling my stomach into releasing it.

“Look, you gotta—”

“Shut up!” I snapped. “The first time you performed fellatio did you do it well? Or do you even know what that means?”

“Yes, I do. And, yes, I did. Want to see how—come here!”

I shook my head at him, took another drag, held it down, down, down. It wanted to come up but I contracted my stomach, forcing the muscles in and down. When I felt I could no longer hold without coughing, I exhaled slowly.

“Good,” Vito said. “You’re gonna get a gold star and if you’re extra good, you’re gonna get to stay after school and do naughties with the teacher.”

My laughter expelled the smoke. “Jesus, you have a one-track mind.” I coughed up the rest. “You’re a great help.”

“Yeah, Ben said if I could channel my sex drive to something else—like real estate, I’d be another Levittown or whatever his name was.” He took the joint from me and inhaled deeply. I envied the way he could talk and hold the smoke down inside at the same time. “An’ I just might, one of these days, if I can ever stop scramblin’.”

“Scrambling?”

“Yeah, scramblin’ for food, for a pad, scramblin’ to get high, for a warm body, for some new threads. Scramblin’ for someone to hook up with mainly. I always like to be hooked up with someone. If I could ever quit scramblin’ for about ten minutes then I’d have time to figure out what to do with my fucked-up self.” He finally expelled the smoke and handed me the cigarette.

“You get high a lot?” I asked.

“Often as I can.”

“Why?” I took another deep drag; my stomach was warmed up; it accepted the smoke now without kicking back.

“For the main reason"—I don’t know why I got such a kick out of that phrase but I did—“I like it. Another main issue—I forget. I forget my old lady and my old man, pissers the both of them. I get high to forget how stupid I been, to forget Marcy and Melody— oow, what a name to hang on a kid! To forget a lot of things I done, to forget Ben. Uh-uh, but him I can’t forget.”

“Oww—ohh!” A wave of dizziness rippled across my forehead, then wrapped itself around my head. I grabbed hold of the sink unit to steady myself. “Whew—hey!” I blinked my eyes and focused. Vito was laughing. I felt as if I’d been standing on my head and had been swung abruptly to my feet; only my stomach had not quite caught up with the move. I had an impulse to laugh, also, but

I didn’t. This was an all-time first. I was getting high. But with whom, friend or foe?

Another wave hit. I held on to the sink. Vito was still laughing. I looked into his eyes, but I couldn’t read them. Was he laughing with, at, or because of me, or because of what would happen? And while I was there, what would happen when I was thoroughly stoned?

A scary moment of uncertainty grabbed me. I was entering unknown territory—no, I was in it, I’d already stuck one foot in, a wobbly foot. If I could have taken it back out, I would have. But there was no taking it back, the stuff was already in my system.

I was standing very close to him, so close I could feel his body warmth, or else I imagined I could. It seemed like a good idea to move away. I let go of the sink and sidled over to the small kitchen table and held on to it.

I just got a—like a tremor. Oh, yes, I feel it. But—so soon?” Vito was delighted. “Sure, so soon. Didn’t I tell you? Senegalese

Thunderfuck don’t stall around, it gets the goodies straight to the

customer, no middle man. You okay?”

“Yes, I think.” I felt warm inside and a good twenty pounds

lighter.

“Here, take another puff to cinch it.” I did, took a deep one,

held it down, until the warm feeling increased to a mild burn. Then

I exhaled. “Yeah, you done good.” Vito dragged deep, again speaking

with the smoke inside him. “don’t need much—three, four good

drags and you’re on your way.”

“Ummm,” was all I felt like saying. “Ummm ...”

Vito exhaled and laughed. “Here, let me see your eyes.” I faced

him. “Naw, come here, up close, I ain’t gonna bite you!” I stepped

over to him and leaned down. He cackled. “Hee ... you’re on your

way! Yeah, your eyes look like Crazy Cat.”

I had a feeling I must look like the reflection from a funhouse mirror. The ripples must be showing. I glanced at Vito; not a ripple in sight. “don’t you feel it?” I asked.

“Sure, but I’m used to it.”

“But you look the same.”

“So do you, ’cept for your eyes!”

“Ido?Idon’tfeelthesame.”

“You better not, this stuff is expensive.”

I felt a medium-sized quake. “Whew—I know what I have to do!” It was urgent that I sit. “I have to sit down.” I flopped into the armchair I’d dragged over in front of the TV set. Feeling a larger quake, I grabbed hold of the arms.

“That’s only the first big blast, the rocket stage. Then you go into a nice easy orbit. It evens off.”

“I hope.” I quickly stood up. “There was—something—I was going to do something.”

Vito laughed. “You was gonna sit down!”

I slapped my forehead. “That’s right. Oh—oh, I already was sitting! Oh, Jesus, I’m losing my mind. Maybe—maybe you should have started me off on something not so, you know, a little lessel—” I giggled and sat down again. “A little lesser—”

“don’t sweat it, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I feel fine.” And I did. Never finer. “Oh, do I feel fine! Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck.” The phrase titillated me. “Is that an expression—’Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck’?”

“Search me, it is now.”

“Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck. Yeah, I think it is. But then—why would a Fiddler’s Fuck be any finer than, say, a Plumber’s Fuck or a Truck Driver’s? Fine as a Plumber’s Fuck? No, It’s flat, doesn’t have that certain—zip. Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck is—perky!” I was off and running. “Okay, the curtain goes up on the first scene and the Grande Dame of the manor is serving tea in the sun room to Pastor Goodheart. Bam, in through the French door bounces the comely daughter of the house. Ah—Melody? Yes, Melody!”

“Uck!” from Vito.

“In a smashing tennis outfit, all out of breath. And the Mater says, ’Ah, Melody, what a surprise! How are you, darling?’ ’Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck, Mother dear, and you?’ ’Ditto, Angel-Bumps, you know Pastor Goodheart’—and so forth, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah!” I ended with the Bronx cheer, courtesy of Vito, who got a proper kick out of it.

“But,” I went on, “if Melody had said, ’Fine as a Plumber’s Fuck’—it would louse up the whole scene, stop it cold. The Lady of the Manor would have to say, ’Darling, not in front of Pastor Goodheart!’ It would change the entire opening of the play, make it too heavy, too—blech! ’Fine as a Plumber’s Fuck!’ “ I turned to Vito. “All wrong, don’t you think?”

“Oh, boy, are you gonna be a great head!”

“Yeah, how can you tell?”

“How can I tell! Three, four puffs and you’re off and runnin’—all by your own. I didn’t have to do diddily-squat.”

“Well, someone has to keep the ball going.” Suddenly Vito looked ridiculous lying there, chin in his pillow, ass to the ceiling. “don’t just lie there—say something! Oh ...” I stood up and stretched out my arms. “I feel like I could fly!”

“If flying’s your point, go to it. Take off.”

“No, wait...” I held my arms straight out and lifted up on my toes. “Levitate, It’s more a feeling that if I breathed just right—I could levitate.” Suddenly I was lost. “What were we talking about?”

Vito grinned. “Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck.”

“Oh, yeah. Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck. Sure.” I was relieved to remember. I was just as quickly unsettled when the sentence, familiar though it seemed, remained hanging in limbo, without connection to past, present, or future. “How did we get onto that?”

“Search me.”

“Vito, I feel like a silly ass.”

“So, groove on it. Better than feelin’ like a dead-ass.”

“Yes, I know, but I’m acting like a silly ass.” I could not help giggling. “I know it, but I can’t help it. Okay, I’m gonna settle down.” It now seemed imperative to latch on to a nonfrivolous subject. “Ah—Ben! Yes, tell me about Ben.”

“Ben, okay—”

“Fine as a Fiddler’s Fuck, huh? Why is ’fuck’ such an unattractive word for such a nifty pastime?”

“I don’t know,” Vito said, “but whoever invented it sure knew what they were doing. Ben said the two best inventions in the world was fucking and peppermint-stick ice cream.”

In the light of sanity that combination is not all that devastating, but to me, right then, it was hysterically funny.

There is usually felt a connection between mind and body; this connection had been broken now and my mind was floating free and clear, soaring balloonlike. If there was a link to my body, it was only the slightest silken thread that held us together. It was a lovely sensation, with only one minor drawback: I kept losing my point, if point I had. When I stopped laughing, I was lost again. “What were we talking about? I thought I had a point. Or you had a point. Somebody had one, didn’t they?” Before he could answer I stood up. “Jesus, I wish Pete was here.”

“Pete?” Vito asked.

“Yes, a friend of mine.” I looked at Vito, felt a sudden rush of wanting to tell him everything: Pete, my mother, Claire, Kate, my career even. Dump it all out, the way a drunk sitting at a bar spills the works to a stranger, little news flashes he would never drop on his wife or even his best friend.

As I stood there thinking this over, Vito spoke: “Go ahead, say it.”

“Say what?” I quickly asked, wondering if he’d read my mind.

“Whatever you were gonna say, you were off on some kind of trip by yourself. That ain’t fair, say it.”

I wouldn’t tell him everything, but I would—talk. “Well, okay—” But my point kept changing: now this came out: “I have a feeling of—wanting to confront my enemies. No, of wanting to confront the enemy part of my friends.”

“Like how?”

“Like, saying to Claire, ’Look, Claire, keep your money, don’t keep promising to leave it to me. Take it with you. I still dig the good part of you—but don’t bombard me with the Jews, the Blacks, the Rotten Young People, how the country and everything else is going to hell. Keep the gloomy stuff to yourself, I can’t listen any more.’

“Then—well, Kate. ’Look, old girl, thanks for the good times, of which there were many, but you really ought to cool the mouth on you, swallow an opinion now and then, simmer down. Or you’ll never find a husband who’ll put up with you. Oh, yes, and—once you told me I ought to come on in the real world more like I do when I’m screwing, stronger, more sure of myself. Well, you—you ought to act more like you do when you’re screwing. Warmer, more giving, softer.’” I turned to Vito. “Damnit, why didn’t I ever tell her that!”

He only grinned; he was getting a kick out of my ramblings; I didn’t mind in the least. The performer in me liked it, which led to:

“Then I’d like to do a musical audition right now. Right now! They usually scare hell out of me. I shake so much—Vito, I could strap cymbals to the insides of my knees and accompany myself. But now, right now, I’d like to plant my two feet center stage and belt out a few.” I laughed. “I would.”

“Go ahead, be my guest.”

But the focus kept shifting. “No, the hell with acting! See, what I’d like to do is get away, away someplace, just hole up and write my book. Write it and have it there for all time. Performances, they evaporate, you can’t find ’em, but a book, there it is, you can hold it. It sticks around.”

I turned to face Vito squarely. “Jesus, you bastard!” He flinched. I laughed. “You took the book, threw it away, and didn’t even have the decency to read it! Threw it away and I don’t even get a goddamn opinion!” I laughed louder and cupped my hands, raising them to my mouth and imitating a bullhorn. “Now, hear this, will the bastard who swiped my novel please have the guts to read it!”

When I calmed down, Vito said, in a low voice: “Hey, come here...”

“I was just kidding.”

“That don’t matter, come here.”

I walked over and stood in front of him. “Lord God Almighty, if it makes you feel this good, they really ought to legalize it. I’m gonna address the joint houses of Congress! Hey, I made a pun— joint houses, get it?”

No smile from Vito. “Yeah, well"—he reached out and took one of my hands, clasping it firmly with both of his—“I want to tell youse something—”

I laughed; he squeezed my hand harder. “No, for serious. See, what with Ben and all, I know something about writers and writin’. What it means. Truth, Jimmy, if I’d have known what those pages was I never would have heaved them out, never. I was so strung out when I ripped you off that time, I didn’t even know what I was doin’. I don’t even remember throwing the pages out or where. All I remember was, I needed money to buy stuff, anything I could hock or—I never would have, in my right mind.” His and Kate’s green eyes looked up at me. “You believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Honest, especially now that I met you.” He looked down at my hand. “I really dig you, guy.” He lowered his head, pressing his cheek against my hand.

The combination, rather contradiction, of the warmth of his cheek (and this gesture) and the strength in his hands as he held mine unnerved me. I tried to pull away. He quickly lifted his head, at the same time increasing his grip on my hand. When he saw the look on my face, he was immediately annoyed. “Hey, not so fast,” he snapped, back to his old toughness. He grabbed me by the wrist. Then he laughed. “Hah, Jesus, that’s a good one, here I am tied down and I got you scared. Haven’t I? What are you scared of—me saying I dig you, or touching you?”

“Yes.”

“Which—or both?” He tightened his grip.

“Yes.”

“Or maybe how you might feel if I really tried something... ?” He squeezed my wrist until it hurt. “Huh ... ?”

Oddly enough it made me laugh as I said, “Yeah, maybe that, too.”

He let go of me. “Touche yourself. don’t worry—or maybe you think I’m so far beneath you, this crum here ain’t fit to touch you, or even say things. Is that it?”

“No, and you know it.” I knew from the way his tone had turned so quickly defensive, he’d said that, or words equivalent, a hundred times before.

“So—what’s the big deal? The touch of someone who digs you should—you should dig it.”

While I was mulling that one over, he asked. “Quick, a penny— what are you thinking?”

I was thinking: We had a moment there.

Come on, a penny for what’s up in the attic?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “I was trying to think what we were talking about before ... ah—”

“Before what?”

I laughed. “I don’t even know that.”

“Couple times you asked me to tell you about Ben, but then you kept on with the blah-blah-blah yourself.”

“Yes, you were going to tell me about Ben.” I remembered my interest in this, because I could not, in my wildest imaginings, picture Vito Antenucci and Benjamin Bergmann saying hello, let alone having—whatever they had.

“You want another joint first?”

“No, you’d have to scrape me off the ceiling. You have one, if you want.”

“Hey, could you just loosen the strap around my back, just a little, so I could—you’re breakin’ my back!”

“Sure.” As I stepped close to him I thought: not only that, I’m going to let you up. This whole Gulliver thing is ridiculous.

But I stopped in my tracks. If the major of smoking pot is a loosening, a freeing action, its minor is now and then a flash of paranoia. It occurred to me this was perhaps exactly what he was trying to get me to do, in his own underhanded way. In that case it became a point of honor to maintain control. “You’re not trying to con me, are you?”

“No, guy, my back!”

“don’t try anything, we’re getting along great, don’t louse it up.” I loosened the straps a bit, at least he could raise his shoulders slightly higher now. “If you try any tricks, I’ll—”

“Yeah, what would you do?” Vito asked, cracking his knuckles.

“I don’t know, sell you to the gypsies.”

“Big deal, you’d have to pay them.”

“You don’t think much of yourself, do you?” I asked.

“What—you’d run me for president?”

“Vice president, maybe.” That caused a wince. “Oh, that’s not funny.” I’d finished loosening the strap; I’d also checked to see that it was still secure. “There, that better?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Vito adjusted his position. “See, that’s what Ben was gonna do, teach me how to like myself. He said you really had to like yourself before you could clue in to the rest of the crowd. Main reason, you’re always sold on old Number One the most, so if you don’t like what’s going on inside yourself, not much chance you’re gonna dig what’s goin’ on with the whole gang. Right?”

“Right.”

“See, I started hustlin’ after I left Marcy. Didn’t plan on it, just fell into it.”

“How do you just fall into hustling?”

“Easy.” He shrugged and gave his knuckles a few warm-up cracks. “I was delivering groceries for this pissy little market on Second Avenue in the Fifties. The kind where they do you a favor to sell you a tomato for a buck. Paid me next to nothin’ but the tips was good. One day I drop off a carton of stuff to this townhouse on Forty-ninth Street. I notice banjo eyes on the guy that lives there, then just as I’m goin’ out the door, he drops the line: ’How’d you like to make fifty dollars?’ Yes, I say, I don’t even ask how. Christ, fifty bucks was as much as my week’s salary. He tells me to drop back after work.

“Six o’clock, back I go. He showed me. Fifty bucks and I didn’t even have to do nothin’; just lie there while this rich, good-looking educated guy took care of me. But what’s more—was gettin’ such a kick out of it! Now, Jimmy, I gotta tell you, I got a kick out of that, that he was gettin’ such a kick. Ends up I walk out of there, plus the fifty, with some shirts, a bottle of vodka, plus he fed me dinner and talked to me, was really interested in me.

“Right away I figured I’d stumbled into my life’s work. Truth! I really think that’s right when I went the other way. I mean I didn’t go exclusive that way, I always been double-gaited, but—you know, started makin’ it with men. Especially after Marcy. Suddenly someone wants it so bad from me they pay me, they even load me down with affection. Wow, I got a bonus! I figure I’m onto a winner.

“So, I seen this guy several times, then he asked me to bartend at a big bash he threw and I met this other guy, Bobby, who really took the big fall for me. He and his partner were in wallpaper and pretty soon I signed on as their houseboy and after a while I even did the cooking. Hey, did youse know I’m a good cook?”

“No, was that on your resume?”

“No shit, I am. I’m a gourmet cook. They sent me to the French Gourmet Cooking School. I already cooked good wop food.”

A connection was made. “Cook, you cook?

“Yeah, what’s so funny?”

“Sure, did you take a little bundle of fresh dill one of the times you robbed me?”

His mouth dropped open. “Yeah, oh yeah, that’s right, a nice little bunch of fresh dill all wrapped up in white paper.” There was pride in his voice. “Yeah, that was me. Yeah, that’s right. So I cooked for Bobby and Lyman, his partner, and bunked with Bobby. I hadda good deal, but—see, this is where dumb comes in! I got greedy. I never had any money and when I got a little, I went zonkers. Should of seen the clothes I bought. They paid me three hundred a month and I didn’t have no expenses, three hundred clear off the top. But I never saved a penny. Also, get me out at a bar or a restaurant and Mr. Big had to pick up the check. Oh, yeah, Legs Diamond is back in town. So, when Melody’s birthday come around I wanted to make a big splash, show up with every kind of present there was, really hot shot, ace it up in front of Marcy. Instead of asking Bobby for extra, which he would of give me, I forged one of their checks for two hundred and fifty dollars. Dum-dum!

” ’Course I got caught about the check and got my ass kicked out—blew that deal. Bobby would of kept me, but his partner put the nix. Couldn’t blame him.

“So, I followed old Mr. Sun down to Miami and changed my luck, hooked up with a rich woman, not old, not young, about forty-three, just shoveled the dirt on her husband.”

Vito coughed up a hoarse laugh, ending in a high “Hee...” I was getting to recognize this as a sign he was about to share a good one with me.

“Now this Barbara—was her name—this Barbara had a body wouldn’t end, slim, tiny waist, great boobies, beautiful thick hair, long rich-lady legs, an ass like two duck eggs in a napkin, but a face—ooeeww! If you saw her walkin’ down the street goin’ away from you—Ma-donn’!” He made the Italian finger-shaking gesture. “But, if you saw her comin’ at you—turn you to stone. A face that would back up a Chinese funeral procession! Oversexed, too, because her old man had been under the sad condition of a stroke for a couple years, so she wasn’t gettin’ much. That lasted five months, but I screwed up there, too. But that was her fault. For the main reason, she was embarrassed in public.

“Funny, the men, they was all proud as peacocks to have me around. The women, the three I hooked up with, they was embarrassed in public. The women was always planning a—ah, you know, like a ruse—is that right?”

“Yes.” (Youse and ruse!)

A pugnacious sliver in his voice: “See, I know a word or two! More than you’d think, I bet.” Then: “Yeah, you know, ruses as to why you was there. You were building shelves, or driving their car, or fixing the plumbing. The women were chintzier, too. No, that’s wrong, the women weren’t chintzy in that they didn’t spend it on you, they just never wanted you to have enough cash to get a block away on your own.”

Vito looked at me, then asked: “What are youse smiling about?”

I realized I’d been smiling all along at him. “Why do you say ’youse’ sometimes and sometimes you don’t?”

“How do I know? I know the difference. I know, if I stop to think, that ’youse’ ain’t right.” He laughed. “See, I know about ain’t, too. It’s just, you learn it when you’re a kid, it sticks with you. Habit. So—don’t tell me that’s what you were smiling about?”

“No.”

“So—what?”

“I’m getting a kick out of you,” I told him, in all honesty. “Also, I’m high, for the first time in my life and it feels good.”

“Good, I’m glad you feel good. You—like you had a bitch of a day, didn’t you?” He held up a finger. “See, I didn’t say ’youse.’ “

I laughed. “Yes.”

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“I don’t know, the whole thing seems funny now.” I suddenly let out a whoop. “Thank Christ in heaven!”

We both laughed for a good long while, not howling gales, just easy rolling laughter. I wasn’t even sure what we were laughing about, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

When we wound down, I asked: “Didn’t it mix you up, hooking up with both sexes? Wasn’t it confusing?”

“Naw, what’s the big deal? Why does it have to be one? You know what to do with each and you do it, if you want, or you don’t. Now me, I never hooked up with real fruity types, the ones with the wrists. Un-uh! You wanna go to bed with a man, go to bed with a man. Same with a woman. You want to make it with a woman, pick a real woman, a femme. That’s always been my motto. I couldn’t get it up with a real fruity type. The sexes both got their good points, but they aren’t interchangeable with the bodies, if you get my theme.”

“Which were the best sex?”

Vito blinked his eyes in serious contemplation. “Mmn, I gotta level, the men and the women were just about equally good. Anyone goes out of his way, puts out, to get sex, likes sex, that it means that much to them—they’re usually pretty good at it. They was all good sex, most of ’em. Good sex looks for good sex, they know where to find it. They sniff it out. ’Course some got their Ph.D. at the game and some don’t. I tell you, this Barbara I was tellin’ you about, for pure technique—oh, she was a roller coaster, give you a ride would take the starch out of you for a week. She was extra good ’cause she was makin’ up with her body for her face. Anyhow, that’s mostly the way it went, this one and that.”

He seemed to be finished talking; I was hoping he wasn’t because I was feeling dreamy and relaxed and he was better than any movie I’d seen since Gone with the Wind.

Then a bolt of energy struck him. “See, I would always screw it up. Mostly the lyin’ thing would get me in trouble. And funny, I didn’t lie about big things, mostly little things. Just to make the day, you know, a little lighter for me. But people don’t dig bein’ lied to.”

“Couldn’t you stop?”

“Couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t! I’d lied to save my skin from my old man, my old lady, my brothers and sisters, since I was a polliwog. I could not stop lying!

“Another thing, I think I already told you. I was a moron with a buck, when it came my way, zingo, right through the fingers. An easy touch, anyone asked me, if I had it, they had it. I don’t mean to brag, but I always been generous when I had it. But see, when I didn’t have it, I’d do dumb things to get it. Little thefts, deal in hash, pot, acid. I got caught once, they threw me in the slammer.”

“Slammer?”

“Yeah, the cooler, jail, seven months! Dumb—Christ, I get a diploma for dumb!” Then a sigh, and a knuckle crack. “But some good times I had, too. I lived in Paris, France, that was with Richard, for eight months. Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?”

“Wouldn’t you know that one!”

He crossed his eyes at me. “Also, see, another reason I was dumb. Listen, get this, I kept myself dumb. Once I started hustlin’ the bones, I was always with people a hundred times smarter than me. I mean, I ran around with people who were people, not trash like me. But—way I figured, I could never learn what they knew. Christ, it would take me a century to catch up, so I played it the other way. I played it like a tough little wop who also happened to swing. They’d get a kick out of my lingo. I’d go to a party at Fire Island or the Hamptons or Connecticut or Bucks County, I’d be the toughest, the scroungiest one there.”

He grinned, held up a finger, and said, “People dig that, they do. Lots of people can’t get it up with people on the same level as them. They can only make it with scroungies, trade. It excites them, they figure they don’t gotta compete with another brain. They’re just doin’ it with—like an animal. True, it turns them on. I knew it, so I played it that way. I’d be—oh, I’d be very unique. Vivid. I got attention. So I never tried to change anything, not even the way I talked. I had it workin’ for me, so I kept it. You make out for yourself by certain little iggies, you don’t throw ’em away.”

Vito slapped the butcher block with the palm of his hand and sounded one of his donkey-bray hee’s. “Jesus, I get wound up when I’m high, don’t I?”

“Go ahead, I feel like listening.”

“You do? Truth? If you wanta rap, I’ll take a breather.”

“No, you—go ahead. Goddamnit, I want to know about Ben.”

Vito looked at me and slipped on his wise face, which consisted of half-lowered lids over cat eyes and slightly pursed mouth. “Youse can’t imagine Ben and me lovers, can you?”

A short burst of laughter from Vito. “I tell this one better untied.” When I remained silent, he added, “You want to let me up so we can talk like adults?”

“No, Vito.” I gave him a large plastic grin. “See, I’m getting to dig you so much, I just don’t want to take the chance of losing you.”

“Mmnn ... you’re a pisser, Mr. Zoole! Okay. Summer before last, I’d just racked myself out of my latest deal. So, bein’ in between hookups, I took a job as waiter at this fancy restaurant run by two rich dykes in Southampton. Both very jazzy, zippy-looking, great dressers. You wouldn’t even know they was dykes until you caught ’em drunk at their house about three A.M. Then you’d think they was John Wayne and George C. Scott, which is actually what we called ’em. Oh, not to their faces, un-uh. Could they throw some vivid punches, used to womp the shit out of each other.

“One Saturday night late, about a quarter to eleven, party of about twelve, mixed, not gay, comes in, and Ben was one of them.”

“Did you know who he was?”

“No, I didn’t know my ass then. I didn’t even know who Norman Mailer was even. But I spotted Ben for a hump right off the bat. They all ordered dinner. Now this restaurant was very pissy, soak you eighteen-twenty bucks apiece to get outta there alive. Ben ordered poulet almond—almond chicken, right? I take the order to the kitchen, It’s so late the cook’s out of it. Get this, I’m all dolled up, black pants, red sash, white shirt, black tie and little red monkey jacket, so I come back to the table and give him the word. ’I’m sorry, eighty-six on the bird.’ ’What?’ he asked, he’s laughin’. ’The chicken is eighty-sixed,’ I tell him. Even though he’s a writer he never heard of it. Eighty-six the chicken means we’re out of it. Jesus, he laughed for about five minutes. The whole table laughed. They were all oiled anyhow. So I clowned up the rest of the meal for ’em.

“Like, this one lady ordered duck a l’orange. Happens the duck wasn’t so good this night. It was greasy, so I said, “Un-uh, I’d cool it with the quack-quack.’ ’Why?’ she asks. ’It’s wearing too much of that greasy kid stuff,’ I told her. And on like that. If I had a table of live ones, I’d usually sneak on a little show for ’em, then I could count on a good tip.

“This night I got a fifty-dollar tip! When they left I hadda hunch I’d see Ben again. Get this, just as John Wayne and me were closin’ up, about a quarter to two, Ben comes back for a nightcap, alone. So we blah-blah a little; I can tell he thinks I’m a boot in the ass. Kismetville, next day I’m shopping for George C. Scott in Southampton and I bump into him in the hardware store. Son of Kismet, two days later I see him on the beach, that’s when we really connected.”

Vito snapped his fingers. “Two weeks later I took off on the big bird with him for Malibu, California, to take care of him and his house while he started on a new book. He really dug me. Jesus, what a guy! Talk about vivid.”

Vito shook his head, paused for a long time, as if re-creating him. “Great-looking, really great-looking, dark-brown eyes, huge brown eyes would stab you right in the heart. And a man, all man, no matter what he did. He swung both ways since he was fourteen and no matter which way he swung, he swung hard. Forty-six when he died, but he looked no more than thirty-five—not even. He wasn’t all that famous, except for that one book.”

“Remember When We Were All Lovers?”

“Yeah,” Vito said, delighted that I knew of it. “Yeah—you read it?”

“Yes, it was a beautiful book.”

“I’m glad you read it. Hey, would you believe that’s the first book I ever read? Oh, I’d peeked inside a few but that’s the first whole book I ever read. How about that for dumb?”

“Have you read any others?”

An immediate hurt look. “Sure, what do you think? I read all of Ben’s, six altogether, four of ’em I didn’t understand—truth. That’s okay, Ben said nobody else understood ’em either. Then I read Catcher in the Rye, Midnight Cowboy—Ben made me a list to break me in so I wouldn’t get turned off reading—an old book, King’s Row. And Papillon. Hey, I even wrote a little poem once, when I was high, only a couple of lines but Ben dug it. Wanna hear?”

“Shoot.”

Vito cleared his throat, then allowed for a small dramatic pause before speaking:

“Oh, to go home, but where? never yet was there.”

“I like it, too,” I told him.

“Ben liked it, too. When I told him I was gonna write my book, Tough Shit! The Story of My Life So Far, I was kidding naturally. But he said if I had a brain in my head I really would, write it all down, all my experiences, just like I talk. I was gonna actually do it when we got to Mexico.”

“Mexico?”

“Yeah, see he finished his first draft of his book in Malibu, and he decided to get away from so many people he knew, so he could really wind it up. We was gonna live in Mexico for six months. On the beach, down in the Yucatan part.

“First I gotta tell you, we used to take walks along the beach almost every afternoon, the greatest walks. Then is when we’d rap serious, along about sunset. I told Ben all about my life and he understood what made my springs rust. The main part, he wanted to help me. He had this program all mapped out to dummy me up.

“The way he put it—so, okay, be a card, talk funny, have your own little bag of tricks, be the life of the party. Great at twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight. But then, he said, you’re gonna wake up one morning and—flash, you’re forty. Four-oh! Then you’ll find out that what you are is just a dumb stupid-ass schmuck that everyone’s tired of, and your line of chatter, and you don’t know your ass from your mouth, the buns have fallen, you can only get your pecker up when the moon’s full and suddenly people—oh, suddenly people aren’t any more knockin’ you down on the street and drag-gin’ you home for patticakes. And that’s the only reason they’d take you home because you’re a dumb schmuck that can’t talk about anything else, or do anything else.

“Oh, he laid that one on me more than once. At first he hurt me. I knew it was true, but hearing it straight on from someone you really dig—it spooked me. So he had this program of reading, listening to music—Mahler, I got turned on to Mahler something fierce. He can really draw the water outta me. Especially that Number Four. Anyhow, Ben said besides reading and all that, what I really had to start doing was—thinking. That I had to learn how to use my brain before it got petrified from dis-use. He used to tell me: ’Vito, if you could only learn how to use your brain half as well as you use your pecker, you got nothin’ to worry about.’ “

Vito reflected on the truth of this for a moment. “Jesus, the lying thing! Oh, how he hated that! And Ben could spot ’em before they was outta my mouth. One time he caught me red-handed, a little thing, tiny, but you’d have thought it was the end of the world.

“I knew he wanted to catch Five Easy Pieces, which he’d never seen. Me either. But he was having a good day at the machine. Rainy day, so I told him I’d take in another movie, ’cause we was planning to see it together. I zip off to Santa Monica but the only movie I really want to see is Five Easy Pieces. So I go. I dig it, I can easy see it twice, so just to keep everything smooth, when I get home I tell him I saw some other movie, I forget which, some dog.

“Zap—two nights later we go to this big dinner party up the beach in Malibu, and someone starts rapping about Five Easy Pieces. I chime right in blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah"— Vito punctuated with the raspberry sound—“about how the best part was when the guy cleared off the table in the diner with one swipe of his arm and, suddenly, I feel, I don’t see, ’cause he’s in back of me at the bar, but I feel these eyes burning a hole right through my head. I turn around. Like flamethrowers, they was.

“Ben says very quietly, ’Vito, come here, step outside on the deck a minute.’ I walk over and as we’re going out the door, he turns to the crowd, about fifteen people, and he says, ’I’m gonna beat the shit out of this chronic lying little bastard—in case anyone wants to watch.’ Without another peep he yanks me outside and knocks me off the deck for openers, then he jumps down on the sand and beats the crap outta me! Everyone standing on the deck with drinks watching—the fuckin’ floor show! When he gets through he says, ’Vito, every time I catch you lying I’m gonna give you a repeat performance. So—for your own sake, either stop it, take judo lessons, or pack up and ship out!’ “

“So, did you stop?”

“Almost. I mean he really beat on me. After that, I’d really stop and think before I’d open the mouth.”

Once more I glanced out of the window. Still the snow fell. I walked over to look down at the street. The snow had covered all tracks by now; not one footstep or tire mark to be seen. I turned to Vito. “How come I don’t feel silly any more? Where did the silliness go?”

“It passes, you get quiet, then you pick up on something, a word or a sentence or just a name strikes you and you’re off and runnin’. Then you get hungry, usually for sweets, then most people get horny, not knock-down, drag-out hot-nuts horny, just nice and cuddly horny.” Again the pursed mouth, the closest he got to camp. “Most people, that is. Then you get sleepy and that’s it, the works. Pot is really the kittens.”

My mouth was dry; I did have a yen. “Now that you mention it. I could go for some ice cream.”

“Yeah!” Vito shouted, “It’s working. Ice cream now, horny next.”

I laughed. “You want some? Ice cream, that is?”

“Do I want some! I told you I ain’t had nothin’ to eat. Christ, I’m so hungry I could eat the asshole out of a dead wolf!”

“Classy!”

“Yeah, Ben used to get a kick out of that, too.”

I went to the freezer, got out the ice cream, and found a jar of fudge sauce. While I fixed our sundaes, Vito discoursed on the theory of his sexual activities. “See, a lot of it was done just for company. I mean that for serious, no copout. Once I got used to being with people that were people, not animals, I dug it. Well, how was I gonna get decent, educated people to sit down and have a conversation with me? I wasn’t. I wasn’t gonna sit on any park bench in Central Park and shoot a little amiable shit with Teddy Kennedy or Norman Mailer or Shirley MacLaine. But if I went to bed with them—”

“You’ve been to bed with Teddy Kennedy and Norman Mailer and Shirley MacLaine?”

“Hah, hah, very funny! You know what I mean. I was just using them for examples. I tell you, though, Ben says he thought Norman Mailer would like to do it with a guy. Probably he would like to have it be rape, with a gun at his head, so he’d have to, but then he’d dig it. That’s why all that big deal machismo crap he gives out. Or else he’d want it to be some big deal judo-wrestling match, but he’d sneak in a little orgasm and call it sweat! Hah! Oh, yeah, I’ve known my share of those types. Anyhow—you see, you got me off the track with your wise-ass—what I meant was, if I went to bed with someone, then they had to talk with me. Before we did it, they sure had to, sometimes even during, and after, too.”

I handed Vito his fudge sundae. “Here—Happy New Year.”

“Thanks.” He looked down into the bowl. “Umn, I could digest this a lot better sittin’ up.”

“Try it in this position,” I told him. As I watched him dive into it and, as I dived into mine, I realized I could not keep him tied down much longer, I didn’t really want to. Still, maybe it was the pot that guided my feelings. Again, it was his surprises that triggered apprehension at the idea of setting him free. It would only figure he’d have one more up his sleeve once he was untied. I wondered if all his talk was merely spilled out to con me, to charm me. Had he given me the clue time and again by stressing his penchant for lying?

The most worrisome item on the list, however, was this: I was beginning to feel something very much akin to affection for this character, Vito Antenucci. I felt about him not unlike the way I’d felt toward Bobby Seale. Christ only knows they had points in common. From Vito’s description, his education and family background were about on a par with Bobby’s. Both were scroungy outlaws, both were suckers for affection—Vito was, I knew this—both lived by their wits, such as they were.

I regarded Vito with warmth; I didn’t like owning up to it, but I did.

Didn’t anything turn out the way it was supposed to? No, not a job, not Kate; nothing seemed, in the end, to make sense.

I could not even catch a burglar without botching it up.

There was not much talk while we devoured the ice cream. Only the sound of spoon in bowl. After we’d finished, I asked Vito: “Were you with Ben when he died?”

“With him, was I ever with him! Yeah... oh, yeah.” Vito remained silent and I thought that was all I would get from him. Finally he spoke. “Three weeks before we was leaving for Mexico. On a Tuesday. Ben worked all morning, played tennis in the afternoon, came home around four. We went for a long walk, then we took a swim, a good long swim. When we dried off and come back to the house there was this sunset takin’ place, like the end of the world. Knock your eyes out. We—ah, we decided to make it. A friend of mine had just got me a new box of poppers and I—”

“Poppers? What are poppers?”

His tone was incredulous. “Poppers, you don’t know what are poppers?”

“I guess I’ve heard the name, but I don’t really know what they are.”

“Poppers is amyl nitrite, little yellow capsules. People with heart trouble sniff ’em if they’re having a bummer with their pump. But—Jesus, you never heard of poppers for sex?. You break this little capsule, put it in a Benzidrex inhaler, and sniff it.”

“When?”

“When you’re makin’ it, off and on during, and then a major whiff right when you’re ready to put the icing on the cake.”

I had to smile. “What does it do?”

“Blows your mind, makes your sense of touch and feel and concentration on the doin’s at hand magnified about a hundred times. I talked to a doctor once, something about it rushes all this oxygen in. I don’t know, but it works. And when you finally blast off, makes it seem like It’s in Technicolor, wide-screen, stereophonic sound, and slow motion. Feels like It’s lasting about five solid minutes. Not just a little spurt, squirt—a real gusher.

“Anyhow, I’d got this new box and—Ben, now Ben liked them but not all the time, said it wasn’t good to depend on ’em to make the scene. Which he was right, it isn’t. Also, there was rumors too much sniffin’ could cause a blowout of a blood vessel up in the attic, too. When I took them out this afternoon, Ben said no, we didn’t need them. ’But Ben,’ I said, ’Jesus, look at the sunset.’ So he said okay—”

“I don’t get it.”

“It was always great with him, but some times it was all goin’ on up in Heaven and the sunset just made me want it to take place in Heaven this afternoon. So we—we used two, maybe three—and we shot up to the Moon and over to Mars and Venus and then we hit Heaven head on. Bammo! Oh, what a winner! Cigars all around.

“After, we were just laying there trying to refocus the eyes, and Ben, he joked, he was breathing so hard and he said, “Oi, Doctor, get a priest.’ And we laughed and then calmed down and just lay there. After a while I got up from the bed and I said, ’I’ll get a towel.’ ’Okay,’ Ben said, ’get the little yellow one.’ There was this little pale yellow towel we used to keep in a drawer near the bed, only the laundry had just come back fresh and it was in the cabinet in the John down the hall.

“I went into the bathroom and pee’d and washed up—and all that. Then I got the towel, the little yellow one, and walked back to the bedroom. The sun had took a complete powder by this time. It was pretty dark and Ben was lying there, quietly, on his back. I said his name, like from a few yards away. He didn’t answer. I figured let him sleep while I start dinner.

“So, into the kitchen, avocado vinaigrette, baked chicken breasts, got ’em all in the works. About seven, I fixed him a rum and diet cola and turned on the TV. He always watched the evening news.

“I went back to the bedroom and I said, ’Hey, Ben, come on, It’s wrist-slitting time.’ I called it that because Ben would always pass a remark how depressing the news was every night. When he didn’t answer, I jiggled him, you know, like put a hand on his leg, which was under the quilt, and gave him a little jiggle. When he still didn’t answer, I turned on the bedside lamp.

“He was in the same position but I noticed right away his—those brown eyes were wide open and his—one hand was reaching back, holding on to one of the brass bed rails in back of his head. I walked over close and I said his name, ’Ben.’ Once, twice, three times. His eyes didn’t blink, nothin’. I—then I touched him, put the back of my hand up by his neck, then his cheek. He was already very— cool. Hardly, it wasn’t hardly an hour and he was already—”

Vito stopped speaking. Neither one of us spoke for a very long time. Eventually, a tiny sigh, like a bubble, escaped Vito’s lips. He cleared his throat. “You know what I always wondered? Still, even to this day, I wonder if he called out, maybe when I was peeing or when the toilet was flushing and—and I didn’t hear him? Or did he even know it was happening? Or what? If he cried out, if it was hurting him—and I didn’t hear because I was peeing! Oh, wouldn’t that be the height of tacky?”

“Yes, I guess it would.”

Vito shook his head. “ ’I’ll get a towel.’ ’Okay, get the little yellow one.’” He turned to look at me. “Would you ever, if you ever thought about it, would you ever imagine those would be the last things two people would say to each other? Jesus! ’I’ll get the towel.’ ’Okay, get the little yellow one.’ “

Vito glanced down at his hands and gave his knuckles a workout. “Talk about your spins. Oh ... Oh-ho!”

“You took the blame?”

“Whether or not, the doctor—he was a friend of Ben’s, too— said, you know, forty-six, tennis, swimming, we’d always jog for part of our walk, then sex, poppers—who knows? But, oh, yeah, I took the blame, all the little fuck-ups in my life leading up to the one big King Kong.”

Vito abruptly shook his head, as if he were shaking off spider webs. “Hey, let’s light up another. Talk about heavy! Thud, thud. I didn’t mean to get so heavy. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Vito handed me the third joint. I lighted it, took a puff, and we smoked, passing it back and forth.

“Truth, Jimmy, the most ashamed I ever was of my whole self, ever, and I put in some tacky capers, was the couple of months after Ben died. The biggest mess you ever saw, that was me. I took to the sewers. I don’t even remember half the things I did. Which is good, I guess. But—drunk and pot and LSD and drunk again and crying—oh, the water pouring out. And then the hard stuff, and I knew if I stuck around California it was curtains, so I came back East. Also I had got in a little trouble out there. I could hear the slammer calling.

“But, you see, I was thumbs down on the world—account of Ben. Oh, I fuckin’ hated the world and every miserable bastard in it. Thumbs down on the whole gang. Comin’ East didn’t help. I just couldn’t climb out of the sewer. Mainly I think because I couldn’t be alone, couldn’t sleep alone for the dark thoughts. I been playin’ with a bunch of rats, ’cause rats is who you meet when you hang out in the sewer. I got kicked out of my last pad. I was semihooked up with this rat, a humpy rat, but a rat.”

Vito’s eyes flicked to me, he glanced down at the pillow in front of him, poked it with his finger. “So I was wondering"—his eyes returned to me—“could I spend the night?”

I focused closely on him, tied down, bare-assed, completely helpless, to see if he was for real. He was, his forehead was creased and his large blue-green eyes were wide open seriously waiting for an answer to his question.

All I could manage was “Could you—” before I spun off into convulsions of laughter. At first Vito was uncomprehending. His look of total confusion only hypoed my laughter. This, added to the dizzying effects of our latest smoke, had me so weakened I could only howl—attempts at speech were mere gargles—howl again and point to him.

Eventually, directed by my gestures, he glanced back over his shoulder at his bare, most untenable position. In a second it dawned upon him and he joined me. Soon the two of us were gibbering fools.

Tears dripped from Vito’s eyes. After a while, in his position, it was also uncomfortable to sustain such a prolonged bout of laughter without being able to move. I’d started out sitting in the easy chair. I was now half out of it, hands clutching my stomach, sliding to the floor, my heels scuffing the rug.

Vito waved me away, able only to gasp, “Cramps!” I laughed all the more. Now he was not only tied down, bare-bottomed, but he had the cramps. When I was able not only to put words together but to deliver them, I said: “Could you spend the night? You can’t even go to the bathroom!”

Vito managed to hold his breath while he gasped, “Guy, I meant to tell you, I did, in the sink, while you was gone!”

That was the capper, we were off again, howling with laughter, so much so that we heard nothing, no footsteps, not even the door being opened.

We were only aware we were no longer alone when we heard the sound of laughter, other than our own. I believe Vito and I heard it together, because we both turned toward the front door at the same time.

Carmine stood inside the front door. Two other men flanked him. Carmine was laughing—head thrown back, mouth open, showing the glint of gold fillings in his molars—and pointing at Vito. The other two grinned, but they were not laughing. I had forgotten about Carmine and his sudden appearance made me laugh all the more.

I glanced at Vito. He had, in these few seconds, almost stopped laughing entirely. The look in his eyes told me more than anything that he was not pleased at the arrival. I felt a moment’s annoyance at the abrupt change in his attitude.

All three were in costume; to my eyes, this added to the hilarity. Carmine, dressed as a South American gaucho, wore black boots, black gaucho pants, white shirt, bolero jacket, and the classic broad-brimmed black hat with leather strap beneath the chin. Carrying a black leather tote bag slung over his shoulder, he made a dashing Jose Greco-ish appearance with his one silver earring. The sight of him was not especially funny.