A Manhattan Ghost Story Page 22

  “What? The casket?”

  “Sure. It’s heavier than shit, you know. I was a pallbearer once—”

  “We’ll slide it out.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Chickenshit!”

  “Yeah, I am, Sam.”

  “You’ll grow up to be an insurance salesman or something.”

  “No, Sam. A photographer.”

  “Well, then, open your eyes.” He started on the second screw.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I remember going to a seance when I was twenty-one or twenty-two and sure that I was pretty good at all those things that required a special kind of “sensitivity” (I wrote poetry, got it on with a succession of older women—who were supposed to enjoy young, sensitive men—did a lot of walking at night on dark, country roads, wept, longed for insanity; looking back on all of it now, I think that I must have been pretty much of a bore), and at this seance there were several very attractive teen-age girls, two middle-aged women—one a poet with three names, the other the wife of a well-known Bangor businessman—and my brother, Ike, who has since gone off to Yakima, Washington, where he works as a logger.

  The poet with three names—names I cannot for the life of me remember, so we shall call her Pat—had set up the seance. She was in her early forties, a tad chunky, with short, black hair, moist lips, and an almost perfect nose. She spoke well, with the barest trace of a Boston accent. She must have cultivated it, because she told me that she’d been born and raised in Brooklyn. She was, I would much later come to realize, the quintessential “older woman,” at least for me—not quite “appealing,” but interesting, intelligent, sensitive, of course, and completely unattainable. Which is precisely why I’d accepted her invitation to the seance.

  We seated ourselves at a big, round, wooden table. Introductions were made; I knew most of the people there, except for one of the teen-age girls, whose name was Loretta, and who, I was told, “writes poetry, too,” and was just then beginning to acquire the kind of earnest, intense sensitivity that I had acquired several years before and which had become my trademark.

  At my request, the lights were dimmed, and candles brought in on three silver candle holders. We joined hands. Pat was to my right, and the sensitive teen-ager, Loretta, to my left. It was an arrangement I very much appreciated, and on which I planned to capitalize completely.

  I said, “We must all be very, very quiet now,” exactly as if I knew what I was doing. I felt Loretta’s hand tighten. She was fifteen, maybe sixteen, no older, and pretty. Her hand was soft, very warm. Pat’s hand was stiff and cool.

  I went on, “I feel the presence of several destructive spirits.” A pause. “We have no place here for you,” I continued. Loretta’s hand tightened further. Pat said, “Perhaps this isn’t something we should be fooling around with, Abner.” I smiled a small, secretive smile. She looked very concerned. I liked that. I was enjoying myself. What great entertainment the dead were.

  Night on East 84th Street. 8:30. Someone who didn’t care much if I knew he was there was walking a couple of yards behind me.

  I glanced back. He was shorter than I am by at least half a foot, and thin, and very nervous. And he was carrying a good-sized blade, which he was holding point-down. “I have a gun,” I said.

  “Yeah? And I got herpes!” he said, chuckling.

  I quickened my pace, glanced back again, very briefly; I saw that he had quickened his pace, too. “Gimme a break!” I said, and was surprised at how annoyed I sounded, as if he were no more than a Jehovah’s Witness trying to give me religion, or an Amway salesman, or someone passing out invitations to a massage parlor. “Because I really do not have the time to mess with you!” I went on.

  He said nothing; I picked up my pace so I was moving at close to a run.

  We were near the corner of East 85th Street and Third Avenue, and there were a few other people around—across East 85th Street, a hooker was strolling; near her were a couple of young white guys wearing baseball caps, jeans, and plaid jackets.

  The man just behind me said, “You come to an alley, you just go in, okay?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  Half a block away there was a bar called Smitty’s. If I’d had a choice, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it, but I ran for it now, fully expecting that because I was quite a bit taller and probably a lot healthier than the man behind me, I’d quickly outdistance him.

  I was right. I got to Smitty’s several seconds ahead of him and pushed my way through a crowd of six or seven people just outside the door, and then I was inside.

  It was not what I would have hoped for.

  “Get the fuck outa here!” one of the patrons said. He was a very large black man with a round, smooth face and big, expressive eyes: “You get the fuck outa here, now!” Several of the other patrons—a mix of male and female—chorused him.

  I coughed. The air was gray with what I supposed was cigarette smoke, and it bothered me. I pleaded, “There’s a man following me. A man with a knife!”

  The big man laughed. “He ain’t followin’ you no more, honky!”

  And I heard, just behind me: “You is really a dumb ass, ain’tchoo?”

  I nodded, felt my knees begin to quiver, said, “Yes, I am.”

  “Whatchoo doin’ down here anyway?”

  “Looking for someone,” I answered, “looking for a woman.” And there was general, easy laughter in the room.

  The man behind me said, “Yeah, well, ain’t we all,” paused, went on, “See that phone over there?”

  I looked to my left, my right; I saw a phone booth against the wall to the left of the bar; the bartender was looking at me, something close to disgust on his face. “I see the phone,” I said.

  “Good. You go on over there, put your dime in, and phone the cops. Go ahead.”

  “No. I don’t think I want to do that.”

  “But I want you to do it,” said the man behind me, and I felt the point of his knife against my lower spine.

  I said, “Could you tell me why?”

  “Cuz I’m fair,” he answered.

  I walked the length of the bar, felt several dozen pairs of eyes on me, heard laughter, heard someone—the bartender, I think—cursing under his breath. Several people pushed half-heartedly at me, taking me by surprise—I tilted away from them, nearly fell, which elicited quick laughter. I stopped in front of the phone booth, looked at the bartender, who was looking at me, and said, “You’re going to allow this?”

  He looked down at the bar, swiped at it with a white cloth, and shook his head in disbelief. I stepped into the phone booth, searched my pockets, and came up with several quarters, a few pennies, but no dimes. I looked at the man with the knife. It was the first time I’d been able to see his face well. He was in his early twenties, perhaps his late teens, with a broad, flat nose, full lips, and high cheekbones. He wore his hair very short, and his Adam’s apple bobbed when he talked. I asked him if he had a dime.

  “I ain’t got no dime,” he said, and he sounded confused. He looked around, at the bartender, at the big man, at the other people near the bar, “Hey, any you gotta dime?”

  The big man shook his head. “I ain’t got no dime,” he said, shrugged, went on, “We ain’t none of us got no dimes at all!” And he grinned. “But you can use a quarter—the phone company’ll let you use a quarter, and if you ask, they’ll send you the difference in the mail.” Another grin; his teeth were large, white, shiny. “Why don’tchoo use a quarter?”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Okay,” and took the receiver off the hook, held it to my ear, put a quarter in. Nothing. I looked at the man with the knife, nodded at the phone. “I don’t think it works.”

  He said, “It don’t work?” Another grin. “I thought it worked.” His grin faded. He shrugged. “Guess you can’t call the police, then. Guess you gonna have to come outa there—come on outa there.”

  I stepped out of the phone boot
h; he backed away from me. His knife was pointing at the floor. He held it up, near his face, so the blade was between his eyes, pointing up: “Hey, man, you wanta see somethin’?”

  I took my wallet out. “No.” I offered him the wallet. My hand was quivering. He looked at the wallet as if confused, “I don’t want your fuckin’ money; I don’t want to buy nothin’; I ain’t in need of buyin’ nothin’. Hey—” He looked around, at the bartender, at the big man. “Hey, any you in needa buyin’ somethin’?” The bartender shook his head; the big man shook his head; all of them—about twenty of them—shook their heads: “No,” they said, nearly in unison, “we ain’t in need a buyin’ nothin’.”

  I noticed that nobody at the bar had a drink, that all the bottles on display were empty.

  The man with the knife looked back; he grinned, said again—the knife still pointing upward, midway between his eyes—”You wanta see something?” and he pushed the knife hard into his forehead so it was buried to the hilt, and then twisted it, still grinning, right, left, and pulled it out. It was clean. He said, “Never could do that before; can do it now—neat, huh?”

  “Jesus,” I breathed.

  “Hurts a little, hurts just a little; little twinge, still tied in they tell me, still tied in, can’t help the hurt, still tied in, but it’s kind of a talent, you know, kind of a wild talent, putting the knife in, pulling it out, still hurts, still hurts, a little twinge, not bad, I like it,” and he did it once again, his grin broader now, an almost sexual grin, and I watched, open-mouthed, and the bartender watched, and the big man watched; all of them watched. And when he was done, there was applause in the room, a few cheers, and the big man got off his stool, came over and announced that the thing the man with the knife had done was “kid’s stuff,” that he was going to do something “even better, wait and see,” and he took the knife from the young man (who scowled), pulled his own shirt up, and made a very deep incision in his belly, a square incision six inches wide, reached in and withdrew several feet of gut, which he held up for all to see. “How about that!” he said proudly, “How about that!” And a woman came over. She was in her twenties, with long, well-coiffed hair, and a hard, much-used look about her: “Gimme that!” she said, and the big man stuffed his intestines back, handed her the knife, tucked his shirt in. She grinned, gouged an eyeball out, popped it into her mouth—

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” I breathed.

  But they weren’t listening to me. The woman got louder applause than the big man, a few more cheers, so she did the same thing with the other eyeball. And I heard, above the cheers and the applause:

  ?Aaaaabnnnneeerrr?!”

  I stopped breathing for a moment, and looked frantically around the room. There were several women there, ten at least, most of them Phyllis’ age or close to it, and because of the haze and the darkness there, and the background noise, I had trouble locating the source of the voice.

  But I did locate it. After a few moments.

  She was on the opposite side of the room, in a doorway, under a sign that read LADIES/GENTS. She was naked, and her face was obscured by darkness and smoke; she had her arms extended. I started for her. She stepped back. I yelled, “Phyllis, please, wait—” and ran toward her. She stepped back again. And was gone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I met a man on East 82nd Street who was gay and wanted me to spend the night with him. His name was Jerry Swan, Dr. Jerry Swan—pediatrician—and he said that he maintained a loft apartment in a former electrical parts warehouse near Second Avenue. I offered him fifty dollars to let me spend the night in the apartment, sans sex, and he accepted, certain, I think, that he’d be able to swing me around and have some fun.

  I was feeling very bad. I was beginning to doubt where I was exactly, literally in what world I was, and I trusted no one. Which meant that I trusted everyone, of course. Or had no choice but to trust everyone. Even Dr. Jerry Swan, gay pediatrician.

  We were going to walk to his apartment. He explained, on the way, that he carried a gun. “You come here without a gun, you’re a goddamned fool!” he said. I conceded, very willingly, that I was a fool. “What are you doing down here, anyway?” he went on.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I answered.

  “Oh? Who?”

  “A woman.”

  “Too bad.” He grinned. “Maybe I know her. Maybe I can help.”

  “No. I don’t think so. She’s a black woman. Her name’s Phyllis.”

  He shook his head. “No. Don’t think I know any black women named Phyllis. Sorry. Kind of an odd name for a black woman, though, don’t you think?”

  “It’s her name,” I said.

  “And she lives around here?”

  “I’ve seen her around here. I saw her at Smitty’s.”

  He chortled. “Hah, you go to that place and you’re a goddamned fool. Why’d you go in there?”

  “I was being chased by a man with a knife,” I answered.

  He nodded sagely. He was blonde, though his hair was thinning dramatically, lean, and he walked gracefully, not at all effeminately; his stride betrayed a certain power. “Yes, sir,” he said, “we do get lots of people chasing other people with knives. Unfortunate, but true. Why was he chasing you?”

  I thought a moment. “Out of habit, I think.”

  “And you say he chased you into Smitty’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bad place, Smitty’s.”

  “Yes, I found out.”

  “You go in there, you’re a goddamned fool.”

  I was getting a little nervous. We made a turn onto East 83rd Street, headed toward Second Avenue. “Tell me who you are,” I said.

  “I told you that,” he said.

  “And if I don’t believe you?”

  “Your beliefs are no concern of mine, my friend.” He nodded to indicate the end of the street. I looked. There was a large, windowless brick building there. “My place,” He said. “I’ve lived in it for quite some time now. Thirty years now.”

  “Thirty years?” I was incredulous. He didn’t look to be much past forty.

  “Thirty years. Maybe thirty-five. I don’t know; you lose track. You mark time; you lose track.”

  I stopped walking. He went on a few yards, stopped, looked back. “And you want to know what I don’t miss at all? I don’t miss those goddamned little kids pissing all over me.”

  “Good Christ!” I whispered.

  He turned, started walking again. “Don’t miss little kids pissing all over me one tiny bit,” he ranted, “one tiny bit, not one tiny bit, no; you coming there, you! You coming? You’re welcome; show you a good time; you’re welcome at my house—” Which was the last I saw of him because I turned and walked quickly away.

  I met an older man dressed in a brown turtleneck sweater and gray slacks on East 85th Street. He called himself Mr. Winchell and he was walking a small dog. He said the dog’s name was Peaches: “After my wife,” he said. “Her name was Peaches.”

  I told him that I was looking for a place to eat.

  He asked, “What kind of place?”

  “Any place,” I answered. We were walking together toward Second Avenue, Peaches trailing behind on a leash. “Anyplace at all,” I went on.

  “Do you like Chinese?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “German? French?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Irish, then? Stewed potatoes, corn bread?”

  “Anything.”

  “We’re very big on eating.” His voice was getting louder. “We’re so damned big on eating; we love to eat: we eat Chinese; we eat French; we eat Irish, English, too; we love to eat—Italian, Spanish, it’s all the same to us—right Peaches?” He yanked hard on the leash; Peaches whimpered. “We do surely love to eat; we’re very big on eating!” He was shouting now, and beginning to gesticulate wildly. It wasn’t doing Peaches any good; he was being yanked this way and that as if he amounted to nothing at all. The man ranted
on, “We eat Chinese; we eat French; we eat Japanese—it doesn’t matter to us!” Peaches was now all but flying through the air and squealing in pain at the same time. “Christ,” I said, “you’re hurting that animal!” But he didn’t hear me. I grabbed hold of his arm. It did no good. Wherever his arm went, I went—I was thrown, like Peaches, forward, back, forward again, up several inches, forward.

  So I let go of him.

  And watched him move off toward Second Avenue that way, yanking his little dog around and ranting about eating Chinese and eating Japanese and eating Irish.

  I think that I laughed at him.

  I heard “Aaaabnnneerrr!” I turned to my right, looked down a little alley there. I saw Phyllis at the end of the alley, her face obscured, as if she were wearing a kind of yellow veil—and I called to her, “Phyllis, wait for me, please!”

  But she didn’t.

  Not then.

  Serena Hitchcock buzzed me up, but would not let me into her apartment.

  “I’m not going to let you in, Abner,” she said. She had opened her door only a few inches; I could see that she was dressed in a blue robe, and I guessed that I had interrupted her in a bath, or in lovemaking. “I don’t even want to talk to you; you make me nervous.”

  “I know that, Serena. I’m sorry.”

  “And you don’t smell very good. Where have you been?”

  I sniffed; I smelled nothing. I supposed that if I did smell bad, I had gotten used to it. I grinned boyishly; I hoped it was charming. “I don’t know where I’ve been, Serena. I need to talk to someone. Anyone. And I thought of you.”

  “I’m flattered, Abner.” She clearly wasn’t. “But I am afraid that I have company.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

  “Yes. And so you’ll have to go away.”

  I shook my head. “I have no place to go, Serena.”

  She grimaced. A man’s face appeared above her; it was craggy, with a full, dark gray beard, and intelligent blue eyes. He smiled. “Hello,” he said. “Do you want something?”