Widow's Dozen. Marek Waldorf
of their ranks once, back before she’d given the world and him Max.
At present he came to a shelter from the streets, a corporate lunch-hour park slotted between the high sides and backed by a fountain, and he dropped into a wire-latticed chair with droopy armrests. Russell wiped his face with a damp sleeve. A young man sat down next to him, and of course it wasn’t long before he started to stare.
Muzak turned softly from both sides of the building. I was alive then, thought Russell, I knew that song before it became this booming elevator and side-of-the-building business.
Clouds encroached upon the narrow wedge where the sky was, thirty-six stories above them. The kid was talking into a strange outdoor phone. “Sure, sure. I used to breathe through my mouth, too, you know. Want to know how I stopped? Yeah, well, I’ll tell you anyway.” He paused to listen. “Yeah. I don’t care. Somebody showed me. Then they bribed me to follow their example. Whatever your objective, whatever the lesson, bribery is always the right tool.” He paused to listen. “Of course it worked. Just what are you saying?” He paused to listen. “No. Look, you deviant. I was yanking your chain.” His eyes had a foxy edge and his cadences, if not exactly self-aware, lacked that so-go-ahead-listen indifference most urban loudmouths opted for. His carefully groomed stubble spoke more to his conceit than the suit did. The suit was expensive enough to appear anonymous. While he talked, he started paying more and more attention to Russell.
“I gotta go,” he said, more than once, but the person on the line wasn’t accepting that. It could have been anybody. Finally he clicked off and turned to Russell. “Do yourself a favor,” the young man said.
“What did you just say?”
“I asked whether you could do us both a favor.”
“Look. I’m not looking for unnecessary conversation.”
“Okay,” the young man permitted himself a twinkle of amusement, “but you certainly are dressed for it.”
Russell Richards was perspiring heavily into his red suit padded out for the cold. Beads of sweat ran through his white hair and down through his combed-out beard and down his neck.
“Look,” he said.
* * *
“What a coincidence!” the young man interrupted. “My name’s Fenwick.” He stuck out his hand and left it there for a while. Longer than most people would have bothered.
“Look. Whatever you want, I’m not interested.”
“You’re too uncomfortable for company, hey—cool. I just wanted to catch my breath. No rush, right?” He buttoned up his phone, which was still making noise—talking to him—and dropped it into a breast pocket. Then Fenwick leaned in with the air of one providing a confidence. “But ever since you stepped away from your responsibilities, my group’s had to come to the rescue. Vital Vision Sectors. That’s us! That’s all I meant by what a coincidence! No harm done. So you can see why I’d be so excited, I mean beyond the normal reasons. Father motherfucking Christmas! All we’re doing is filling in, of course. Just for the time being. Nobody’s trying to replace you. What choice did we have? We felt it’s our civic duty.” He made it sound like doody. “You’ve walked the streets, but have you seen how it’s really done? Earned the trust of the people? Did you make Christmas fun?
“Hell yeah you did! That’s why I sit here in awe of you. I take one look and I see beyond those rags, to the glass of milk and the cookie, and I think, fuck. How the fuck did he—sorry, no offense, Father—do that? Inspire the level of trust so that you, a perfect stranger, could shoot down Johnny Nine-to-Five’s chimney, into the family room, and leave these secret gifts—gifts, the word seems so strange, looking at you—from a total stranger from who knows where, underneath a tree, and then, while on your way out, back up the chimney, you take a little time out. What for? Why to fill up on milk and cookies. Milk and cookies! If we tried that shit—but we did. I mean we tried! And it was the cops when it wasn’t multiple man ones. So, first of all, the first thing I wanted to do was to pass over some respect. Respect is due. And so forth. So. So—here we are.”
It wasn’t the speed of the spiel or the quality of insinuation that had Russell stupefied but the fight melted out of him. It was hard to say what it was exactly. His spirit, issuing as flopsweat, trickled to and ran down his trouser legs. Fenwick looked at the ground, overjoyed, and said, “to just think. Think—a puddle! The water in one of these city puddles holds dirt from how many shoes? How many do you think? Hundreds? Or thousands—?! Can you imagine the human petri dish that just one puddle represents? Did you ever want to get down on your knees, in the middle of the street, in front of one of these puddles, and look—and I mean really look—into it. But I suppose you step over your puddles, Old Nick.”
“I do,” said Russell, growing more and more miserable, “I mean I have. Millions of times.”
“So what kind of rare coincidence is this? I mean I’ve got time on my hands as well. Why not unburden yourself. How did you decide to go around imitating a saint? No offense. I don’t mean you’re an imitation. Your belt is really something. What do you say? Haven’t you ever wanted to spill your guts to a sympathetic stranger?”
Never, Russell was about to say, but all of a sudden, he found himself starting to confess—how he thought his sister had no business having a child so close to forty. “. . . and on her own, like that. I told her so. So what? Why would that make me love Max any less?”
“Of course. Why should it?”
“That she would think that.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Oh, don’t clam up. I’m sorry I said that. We had a moment of trust there, didn’t we? But I pushed. Tell me if I’m being too pushy but, hey, I’ve got a fantastic idea! How about my gift to you is you don’t have to guess any longer. No more guesswork, no more uncertainty about was it her or you who was crazy or just plain wrong. Right? How about it? This is what I have to offer. Right now, right here, but totally at your own pace. Certainty. On a completely free trial basis. No strings, no cost.”
“Just go away. In return for what?”
“Like I said, it’s free. Where’s your Christmas spirit, Nick?” While keeping up his confident chatter Fenwick was fiddling with the brass clasps on his valise. He unsnapped one but the other seemed to be stuck.
“I don’t know,” said Russell.
“So fine. What? What don’t you know? I swear they make everything these days to break. Let’s see, yep—China again. If it doesn’t fall apart in a year or less, somebody’s head is gonna be on the chopping block. Doesn’t matter how much you’re willing to spend. It’s not about the money. Goddammit! Almost had it there. No, it’s the powers-that-be not wanting us to form material attachments. When did everything get so zen? What don’t you know? Ah. Got it.” He opened the case by inches. He was suddenly cagey, trying to reach in and rummage around with his fingers. This, of course, had the effect of making Russell want to see more of what was inside.
He started to open up. “I mean,” Russell said, “I loved the boy every bit as much as she did. I could have been a father to him, at least more than an uncle. He idolized me when he was three. Couldn’t get enough. And Nancy was the one who was jealous. Of her own brother! We could have raised him together. We did. For the first five years we were a team. What—” Russell stopped when he witnessed the extent of the confusion in Fenwick’s briefcase. Papers, index cards, badly gnawed-on pencils, gnawed-at apple cores and wreaths of dried-out flowers—he didn’t know what kind, but they’d turned a crusty orange. A grade-school primer. A sticker that said MEAN PEOPLE SUCK. Banana bunches of keys. Old, gunked-up coins. Some had got stuck together. An eclectic mix of DVDs, some pirated versions of recent releases, some Criterion quality, some he’d never heard of, and some, judging by their titles, pornos. The Wizard of Odd was one. The cover had a jockey-sized Svengali knee-deep in the genius of his trade. A tornado tore out of the Arts