The Evening News Page 6

  She was so excited that evening that when we returned to her dormitory she turned to me and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse. She smiled and asked me if I didn’t feel a little overdressed. I told her I felt fine. Marsha removed her blouse, then dropped the straps of her bra down over her shoulders and asked if I could give her a backrub. I told her I didn’t think it was her back she wanted rubbed. She giggled and unhooked her bra.

  “No, Thaddeus. Not my back.”

  I was standing in her closet. Marsha approached, rotating her hips, her thumbs hooked in the belt loops of her jeans. I got a sudden headache. My stomach knotted. I started to wheeze and sneeze. Marsha toyed with the tongue on her zipper, flicking it first up, then a notch at a time down. I could smell mothballs. My eyes were watering. Calmly Marsha stepped from her jeans.

  “It’s getting late,” I said.

  “But, Thaddeus. The night’s just started.”

  “Really,” I said, “I have to go.” My reader, as you can figure, it was the evening’s soup that sickened me; my tongue felt thick in my mouth and my vision was all in a blur. Still Marsha stalked me, chasing me out of the closet and into the front room. I felt like a rat in a trap. I scurried back to the bedroom, attempting to hide beneath the bed; then I ran into the tiny kitchen where I leaned back against the refrigerator and feigned passing out. Marsha opened the cupboard in search of a glass for water. Terrified, I bolted past her and out the door of the dorm apartment, making at last my escape.

  I’m out of breath. Yes, I see there are more questions. Just call out.

  “Mr. Cooper, er, Thaddeus, could you tell us what is your favorite part of the story?” asks a feathered woman holding a bow and arrow.

  Yes, miss. I smile. Your question.

  Aren’t I the charmer?

  “Thaddeus, do you have any peculiar writing habits?” asks an elderly woman with pencils sticking out from her hair.

  I’m very glad you asked me that question, ma’am. I have to admit that like most writers I like a clean and comfortable work area, preferably a bedroom with a window in a dormitory, and that I like to write under the constant expectation that at any given moment the door will fly open and Marsha will leap into my arms, proud and happy of this, the story that will save me.

  The old woman with the tattered coat and matching shopping bags?

  “I’m your mother.”

  Hello, Ma.

  “This is a dirty story.”

  No it isn’t, Ma.

  “Thaddeus, don’t tell me. I know dirt when I see it.”

  Hey, not in front of all these people, Ma.

  “You raise a kid in a decent home and feed his face three times a day and look at what he does for you: he writes pornography.”

  As my father—your husband—always used to say, “If you ain’t got a quarter or a token there, grandma, you and your purse can get off at the next stop.”

  And presently I too am approaching my stop. As I sit here, waiting for Marsha, staring out this dormitory window. The sky is gray and clouded. I want sun. Do you hear me up there?

  Sun?

  I could write The sun is shining and you would think it was. But the sun isn’t shining. And my writing it wouldn’t make it so. I think I’m beginning to understand that.

  It will rain. I hate the rain. If it weren’t for the rain—

  Oh well.

  Has my life been saved? How about it, Marsha?

  She doesn’t seem to be able to come to the phone right now, my dear reader, so we’ll just have to wait until next time to find out. Let me say, however, that it’s been real. Remember, you knew me when.

  We’ll close with more words from my father.

  “Put the corks back in your bottles, cowboys, this is the end of the line.”

  You take care now.

  Sincerely,

  Thaddeus Alexander Cooper III

  I have been waiting here for four hours now. For a while I thumbed through a copy of Cosmopolitan, reading an interesting article about how to prepare cucumber bisque. Then for a while I lay down. I sat up. I turned the light off and on, oh, I’d say fifty or so times. The switch was stunning. Then I paced the room. There are six big steps the long way and four-and-a-half big steps the short way. This does not count the bedroom.

  Counting the bedroom, there are six more steps. There are two desks. Two chairs. Two beds. Two desk lamps. Two dressers. A pair of bulletin boards. I feel like I’m inside Noah’s ark.

  Yet there is only one window. This fact depresses me. If there were two windows, perhaps the second would offer me a different view. I am speaking figuratively. There are two windows, one in the front room and one here in the bedroom. But their vistas are identical.

  I touched each at least one hundred times. I thought that by doing this I might change something. Six big steps, touch; six big steps, turn; six big steps, the same view. The only thing that changed was me. I got very tired. I sat down then and inspected the walls.

  They seem made of cardboard. The exception is a small area above the bedroom window, which seems made of something else. It is brown. It’s also circular, very much like a cloud, but unlike a cloud it doesn’t remind me of anything except perhaps a water stain, or perhaps a cloud. I’m sitting directly beneath it right now.

  On the front room walls are three pictures. The first has a young child running naked through a forest, looking as if someone or something is chasing it. In the treetops it reads TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

  So was yesterday. I cannot tell if the child is a girl or a boy.

  The second is a print of a very uncomfortable-looking blue old man who is strumming an equally uncomfortable-looking blue guitar. A larger canvas might have made the two more comfortable. I didn’t like this picture.

  The third finds W. C. Fields squinting at a fistful of playing cards. Once I saw the movie this picture came from, and, as I remember, Fields was cheating. I cannot remember if he was caught.

  Marsha has an interesting arrangement of books on her bookshelves. She separates fiction from nonfiction, as do most libraries, but Marsha does so artistically, with élan, with empty wine bottles and rocks and little clay pots filled with paper flowers. She also alphabetizes the books by authors, but then she places the books on her shelves according to height, with the tallest coming first. Fiction begins with Don Quixote. It is followed by The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Tristram Shandy, Finnegans Wake, and then the dictionary. Nonfiction begins with The Divided Self and ends with I’m O.K., You’re O.K. I did not agree. The shelves looked so smug and pleased with themselves that for a good half hour I found myself compelled to rearrange them, hiding a few books beneath the couch and chairs and in the kitchen and bathroom, and dropping several of the rocks out the window onto the roofs of parked cars.

  Then I indulged myself with one of my favorite and most profitable pastimes, sofa exploration. As I child I practiced this regularly in the restaurant, though there we had booths. The object of this activity is to make your hand as flat an instrument as is possible and then to insert it carefully into the crevices beneath the cushions, pulling out and keeping whatever items you may find. I found the following:

  Two packs of matches. Both were from my mother’s restaurant, Sarah Cooper’s Kitchen. Their flaps read Homestyle Cuisine, A Neighborhood Place, Bring the Whole Family, Grandpa and Grandma Too, You’ll Love Us.

  Eighteen bobby pins. Thirteen were brown (Marsha’s) and five were a kind of soupy yellow (Jo’s). I did not like touching them.

  Two pencils. The first was a newly sharpened yellow Number 2, from the university, NORTHWESTERN, with an abused eraser and a rather chewed back end. As I pulled it from the sofa I felt like I was stumbling onto something private; I imagined Marsha sitting there on the couch scratching out a story with it, or at least trying to, thinking, chewing the pencil’s end, then erasing. I suppose, since the pencil is fairly long and the point is still sharp, that she didn’t get very far with
her initial conception. I put it back, along with the eighteen bobby pins.

  The other pencil brought back a flood of unpleasant childhood memories, for either Marsha or Jo went to the same doctor I did. It is a very bright and colorful pencil, saying—allow me a moment to look—FROM YOUR DENTIST, FOR BEING A GOOD PATIENT.

  And it has a great many balloons on it, and four clown faces. I’m using it right now. I’d type, but my fingers are exhausted.

  In addition:

  Thirty-eight cents. I’ve appropriated it as partial reparation for the gross inconvenience of waiting. Of the coins, by far the most unusual is a 1943 LIBERTY In God We Indeed Do Trust dime. It’s a Lady-with-the-wings-coming-out-from-the-sides-of-her-head dime, and it frightened me because the tails side is—believe me now—blank. Are you listening?

  When I first pulled it out, I thought it was a slug. Then I felt the ridges on its side, and upon flipping it over was most amazed to see the Lady. My question to you is this: how did the blank side become blank?

  Is this dime one of those rare mistakes? If so, how many millions is it worth? Or is this counterfeit, the forgers having only enough time to imprint the one side? Or did somebody simply fuck it up? Excuse me, Sisters. Though I suspect that nobody is listening anyway. Hello, hello.

  My question: is this true or is this false? I’ll have to ask Marsha when she gets here. She’ll know. Yes, Marsha will know. Though she might doubt that I wrote this. She just might say: “Thaddeus, just where did this come from?”

  “Whatdya mean, where did this come from?” I’ll say. “It’s mine.”

  “All of this, Thaddeus? All of this is yours?”

  “Sure.” I feel very small. “Who do you think all this belongs to?”

  “Thaddeus. Come in here for a moment.” She is calling. I feel even smaller. “Thaddeus? Do you hear me? Thaddeus?”

  “It’s mine,” I say again.

  “Where’s the fire, Sarah?” my father says.

  “Look. Here in your son’s closet. And here in his dresser drawer.”

  “Holy Moses, now there’s something.”

  “It can’t be all his. Ask him where he got it.”

  “Where’d you get this, Thaddeus?”

  “Tha-dde-us?”

  “Look here, Sarah. In his jacket pockets too.”

  “Where’d he go to? Thaddeus?”

  “And look here in his Sunday shoes.”

  “Tha-dde-us?”

  “Oh, gracious me, looky here. Tokens. So that’s why I’ve been short.”

  “Thaddeus!”

  “And dimes even here in the cuffs of his pants.”

  “Now where’d he go to?”

  His cuffs were full too, I remember. I remember him coming home sitting in his big red chair next to the radio, and smiling and shining. His chest was shining, his number was 17381, and the stripes down the sides of his pants shone too, like they’d been polished, like the seat of his pants. He was a thin man, and he always had a smile and a rub on the head for his big boy. His cuffs, she would kneel before him and turn them out as he sipped his cup of coffee, and sipped, blew, his face red and his mustache laughing. She’d turn out his cuffs and he’d say looky at all those tonight, oh my, circles of paper, from his transfer punch. I would gather them, fill my two hands, save them in my dresser drawer, the bottom one, with all my coins, and in my closet a handful of each every day. I wanted to be like him. And at night sometimes I’d get behind him in his big red chair, the radio talking or singing, sometimes she sewing or writing on paper, or clucking her tongue at the table writing out bills, with paper, my fists full of paper, sneaking behind him, he sleeping, his head nodding, down on his newspaper, his tired glasses fallen to the end of his nose.

  Confetti, I’d cry. Wheeeee.

  He’d jump, laugh his big laugh, pick up his big boy and kiss me.

  Transfer confetti, wheeeee, a sip of his coffee, some horseyback.

  “Thaddeus!”

  “Thaddeus, your mother’s calling you, Thaddeus.”

  “You take care of this. He’s your duty this time.”

  “But, Sarah—”

  “He respects you. Now where’d he go?”

  “He probably doesn’t even know that what he’s been doing is—”

  “Doesn’t know?”

  “He’s a little fella, Sarah, he—”

  “He has to be punished. He has to learn. Thaddeus!”

  “Thaddeus!”

  “Thaddeus, this is so good I can’t believe you wrote it.”

  “All by myself, Marsha.”

  “How long did it take you?”

  “Oh, only a couple of hours—”

  A couple of beers, no more, dead, the cans even warm now, must take a look, I’ll be back

  in a second, and you didn’t even notice I had gone. The kitchen is one-and-a-half small steps the short way, and three big steps the long, assuming I could walk through the refrigerator, which I did, looking in the back by the coils where Stuart, ha ha ha, had hidden a bottle; so make yourself comfortable, my dear reader, we’re in for a good one this evening.

  (Though I never told you about the rain.)

  But let’s not spoil it now.

  “Sisters, are you still with us?”

  Well, wake them up then.

  “Could you lead us in a prayer? His sun has set behind His clouds.”

  Please bow your head.

  “All rise.”

  And I agree, though I must tell you I found Stuart’s bottle around the time I began telling you about the dime, remember, and none of you noticed, not even my pencil, and Stuart’s excellent fifth is now halved, which makes it a tenth, and Sisters, that was indeed a most beautiful prayer.

  Where to now? More questions? Yes, just speak up. And, hey, somebody in here open a window. Hasn’t it gotten suddenly stuffy?

  “Thaddeus, we’ve noticed somewhat of a shift here from the story you began about your relationship with Marsha toward—”

  Turn on a light. Better.

  “—a rather nostalgic stance and preoccupation with your dead—”

  As my father always used to say, “From the rear, buddy, step lively now, unless you’re a veteran of a foreign war all exits from the rear.” By this he meant that if you haven’t gone the distance yourself and can’t show the scars to prove it, you really shouldn’t defecate out your vocal cords. Got it?

  The pompous ass. He notices that I’ve turned down a side-street, and he’s worried I haven’t a map. I know where I go. Unlike Stuart, who, incidentally, no longer has claim to this fine bottle, seeing how Jo moved out in such a hurry and a huff.

  “Too much of Thaddeus around here Marsha take my word oh me oh my you could do so much better and he isn’t even a student he has no future he’s just an overblown braggart who sweeps the floors in his mother’s restaurant and is constantly mooching.”

  The jealous bitch. Wanting my virtue. Hey, down there. Hanging Johnny, my amazing one-eyed wonder worm. No, wait.

  “Sisters, would you kindly turn away?”

  All clear, and, my, you’re badly wrinkled. What’s the matter, son, are you catching cold?

  “Hey, somebody. Shut that goddamn window.”

  Is that any better? Say now, turkey neck, you look blue. Let’s bring you over here to the light. Have a closer look.

  Say aaaah.

  You’re in the pink.

  Let’s have a look at you now.

  A bit grimy, wouldn’t you say? Hasn’t your mother ever told you that you should wash behind your ears? What’s that?

  You say you’ve no reason to?

  Turn around here, mate, and take a gander at that bed. You know who sleeps there? Sure you do. You’ve met her a few times, but only shook her hand; you two have never really been properly introduced.

  Oh, she’s a fine girl. She sleeps there on those pillows. See?

  What’s this? Do you really need to stand up?

  Wait. Whoa. Whoa. Nooooo.

&n
bsp; Now I’ll have to wash your mouth with soap.

  How do you feel now? Cleaner?

  “Sisters, you might come back to us if you’d care to.”

  The sinner has been justly punished. I’ve washed my hands of the entire sticky affair. The toilet paper was blue. Wait—

  All lights in the front room work properly, and I’ll bet you didn’t notice again I had gone. Stuart had to leave us, unfortunately; he was in quite a rush and was looking rather down in the mouth. He splattered once, twice, thrice in the bowl. All we need now is a healthy shit and that would be all the systems working nicely. Mechanic?

  “Yes, Mr. Cooper?”

  “Air brakes in order?”

  “Yes, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Tank full? Lights? Wipers?”

  “They’re all working, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Hand me my transfer punch then.”

  “I can’t, Mr. Cooper. You see, it fell in the soup.”

  Five nights a week and if it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for you, eat it, goddamn it to hell, eat it. His brother’s idea. Soup will be a growing item, Sarah, your soup is sooo good. After he died, air brakes not in order, wipers and lights not working properly, tank too too full.

  Raining that night. Slick. Hot. Summer.

  Ring ring ring.

  Playing with my transfer punch that night, punching shirt boards, making believe I was driving the old Number 22.

  CLARK STREET—HOWARD

  “All aboard.”

  “Thaddeus.”

  At nine then the pants in the family. But empty cuffs. And him around the house then all the time, his brother, Uncle Karl, Uncle Karl, son of a bitch dirty wet-palmed asshole Uncle Karl.

  “Five thousand for you, Sarah, here, as a gift, take it, as a gift.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t, Karl.”

  Don’t touch it.

  “As a loan then, Sarah.”

  “As a loan, thank you, Karl.”

  Called payment due. …

  I need a drink. Or something to eat. Cold lima beans in the fridge. Uggh. Poisoned. Stuart. Still half left. And four cans of that six-pack, discovered in the meat bin. Oh, my reader, please read between my lines.