30 Pieces of a Novel (49 page)

He once thought he saw his father on the subway when they were both coming home from work. He wanted to shout, “Dad, Dad!” but there was a earful of people between them, so he made his way to him. It was a man about the same age, height, and build of his father, wearing the same kind of fedora he wore and in the same way, brim pulled down over most of his forehead, and reading the same large afternoon newspaper his father read when he rode the subway home, and folded to one-quarter its width and held straight up about six inches from his face, but in a sport jacket and open-neck shirt, clothes his father never wore to work: even when he went in only to do paperwork it was always in a suit and tie which, no matter how hot the street and subway were, didn't come off or get loosened till he got home. They worked near each other in the Garment District for a couple of years when Gould was in high school, his father selling linings to women's coat-and-suit houses, he pushing a handcart through the streets for a blouse company and then one that made belts for cheap dresses and then another that only made skirt crinolines and, when they went out of style, other lingerie. Sometimes when he got off work late he'd go to his father's office, usually wait around awhile doing his homework, and then go home with him. When they got near the subway turnstiles his father, coins already in his hand, would scoot in front of him and pay both their fares. They'd stand or sit together during the ride, Gould sometimes reading the newspaper article his father was on but not as fast, so he usually missed some of it when his father turned the paper over or continued it on another page. If there was only one seat available, his father would urge him to sit—“You've had a long day at school and work and you never get enough sleep, and you still got your homework to finish and dinner to eat and then to help your mother clean up after”—but he always made his father take it: “It's good exercise for me, standing…. I like looking around at other people from this position, and you can read your paper better from a seat,” and so on, for he could see his father was tired—he was overweight by now, way out of shape and always seemed beat when he came home—and really wanted to sit. “I'll hold your books on my lap then.” They'd leave the station and walk home, but again it wasn't seeing his father from any big distance, walking up or down a block or from anyplace that way outside. That, he's almost positive, only happened the one time he mentioned.

There he is, the hat, the suit, the tie—when it got cold, a long topcoat and muffler—carrying his case of swatches, everything buttoned and always an undershirt, no matter how hot. (His underpants—he occasionally went in and out of the bathroom or around the apartment in them—the Jockey kind, and they always seemed loose, one of his balls hanging out.) Downtown, walking on the street together. “Can I carry it for you?” “Nah, you got your books, and just think where I'd be if you lost it. This case is the most valuable thing I own. Without it I'm dead, and getting another one up with all the orders and names I got in it would be next to impossible. You ought to get one like it—I'll buy you one—but for books, so you can hold them by a handle instead of a strap and they don't get wet or slip out and you can also put your lunch in.” “Nobody carries books like that. I'd be laughed at.” “Well, they used to and still should. But you want to go with the fashion, suffer for it.” Men's and boys' garment center, about twenty blocks from the women's one. Meets his father a couple of times a year there to buy pants or a sport jacket or winter coat wholesale from the manufacturers. “Half off, what better deal than that? And if the style's out of date or just didn't go over this year and they want to get rid of it to make room, you might get it at one quarter list.” When Gould started making good money in his late teens, he paid for his own clothes; when he was younger or only had a small part-time job, his father did or they split it. They'd meet soon as Gould could get downtown from school. “I'd almost ask you to skip your last classes but I know that's bad and you're also not doing too well in some of them, your mother said.” Corner of 23rd Street and Eighth Avenue, by the downtown subway entrance. Raining or snowing, then under the corner hamburger joint awning there. “Want a papaya juice and hot dog before we start off? On me?” “No, thanks.” “The juice is supposed to be healthy for your stomach and the hot dog's kosher. I've had them. They're not bad.” “No, thanks.” “You want, get a hamburger. It's probably better for you.” “Really, Dad.” “Then let's get moving. I can see you're in a hurry, and I still got a long day ahead of me too.” Often—he in fact can't remember a time this didn't happen: “Look, long as we're in the building”—in the building next door, walking past the building, on the same street, in the neighborhood, down here—“mind if I go to this jacket”—vest, suit, coat, evening wear—“manufacturer to see if I can peddle some of my linings?” “You always do this when we meet for clothes, even after you say you know I have my own job to get to.” “Well, I've always got a living to make and don't want to waste any advantages, so why should I make another trip and the carfare for it when I'm already here? Make sense? Does to me. I swear I'll be quick.” Then: “Why you coming around the front for?” the receptionist (buyer, owner, partner, owner's son or son-in-law) says at the showroom entrance to the place. “This is for buyers, not sellers. You want to sell something, go round to service and give your name.” They have to wait there ten to fifteen minutes. It's dark, grimy, with a big floor-to-ceiling cage around the whole back area that you have to be buzzed into to see someone in the workplace. “Victor Bookbinder, this is my son. I'd like to speak to Izzy Rosen or some other fabrics buyer that might be around,” and gives his card. When the buyer or owner or owner's son or son-in-law finally comes it's usually: “You have an appointment, Bookbinder? I thought maybe my mind's going blotto and I forgot something. So why should I see you? I got work to do.” “I know and I'm sorry but I thought—I was taking my son around here for pants—that as long as I was in the neighborhood—” “Hey, c'mon, what're you handing me? You're always in the neighborhood, right? That's what you sales slobs do. You sell your rags and are always in the neighborhood for it so you come jerking me for orders when you know I'm at my most busy. You've no appointment and I've work up to my kishkes, so it's no.” “I just thought—” “Hey, what'd I say, am I talking to myself? You want I should tell Hank here not to let you through anymore? Hank,” he yells, “this Victor sales guy doesn't pass no more, got it?—only kidding.” And to his father, “Just stop thinking so much, it's not doing anything for your
sachel
or your wallet. You want to make a sale and be smart and not so fake dumb, then do what I say because that's who I buy from. I don't care how classy your rags are or the buy for the money or what any other manufacturer does, I don't see no salesman ‘less an appointment. Okay, now get out of here, your time's up,” and turns around and goes inside. Sometimes the buyer, or whoever, will come out to the cage with “Victor, my friend, how you doing, I got no time for you now, so another day, okay? but call.” Or: “This your little kid? Not so little anymore—he's a real
starker
, a real one. You play football, kid?—you look it. Good-looking, too. Going to be a
shtupper
if there ever was one. I bet the girls already fall for him, do I got it pegged right? He looking for a job?—You looking for a job, kid?—I can fix it for you. We can use a reliable cart hoofer. Ours are all goof-offs or don't show up when they promise, leaving us stranded. Bullshit artists, that's what they are; every last one of them should be canned, and they will when we get ones better.” “Actually—” his father says. “Vic, if you're pitching, I got no seconds to spare, none, sonny. Ring me up first, and I'll see you if I can. And Junior, I'm serious what I said, so if you're looking, come in and see me any day at five. You're half the hustler your dad is, you got a job.” Couple of times Gould said, “Why do you take that from these men?” and his father said, “Take what, what men, what do you mean, the talk they give me, like that guy?” “And sending you around to the service entrance when they're already speaking to you at the front. Also, though, if you know they don't want us there near the showroom, why do you go? It's embarrassing to me,” and his father said, “With each buyer it's different. Some don't mind my going there, and I do it because I've a better chance of catching them sitting and schmoozing than by calling them out from the back. And as for how they talk to me and so on, you got to put up with it if you want to make a sale. They can go to anybody for their fabrics—my company's aren't so much superior than another's—and especially if the other salesman shmeers them. In the end we pull in more a year than they do—they're just salaried, their under-the-table stuff is their commissions but nothing like mine—which is why they treat us like so much crap. But it's all playing around, no real harm meant—they know; it's the way the Garment Center operates.” One time one of the buyers said, after his father had called him out to the back, “Listen, fat man, I didn't ask to see you today, I got a big headache, so blow,” and Gould said, “Don't you talk to him like that!” and the man said, “What'd you say, punk? You want to get your fucking ass slung down the elevator shaft?” and his father said to Gould, “Hey, who asked you? Go downstairs … no, we're both going. Thanks”—to the man—“see you again,” and when they got outside—Gould had wanted to say something about it in the freight elevator, but his father said, “Later; it's for nobody's ears”—his father said, “You're lucky I didn't clip you in your stupid head right up there. You want to kill a sale for me with that
momzer
forever? Next time you want me to drag you around for clothes when I should be doing my regular business, keep your trap shut.” But none of those times was seeing his father on the street, alone, from a distance, walking, what he said. Also where his father didn't see Gould, just in his own world, caught without knowing it. He's come up the subway exit, and his father was always waiting there or under the awning about ten feet away. “Hi, Dad.” “Hello. Like a quick bite?” “No.” “Then let's get going.”

What else about his father? Plenty else. Plenty of times at home, plenty of times his father saying, “You been on the phone too long, what could be so important to say? Get off.” Or “What is it, you got stock in Bell? Hang up.” Standing in front of the opened refrigerator and looking inside for something he knows is there or usually there, or maybe just to see what there is to make a sandwich with or snack on, and his father saying, “Shut the icebox door; it costs a fortune to get it cold again when you keep it open that long.” Or, more often, “What are you trying to do, spoil all the food inside?” Or “What is it, you got stock in Con Ed? Close the damn thing.” Or when he'd stop in front of the TV set while his father was watching a program, not realizing he was blocking his view, and his father saying, “What's your father, a glazier?” He never really understood that line but assumed it meant… well, what? That if his father was
a
glazier, Gould was somehow made out of glass? In other words, though a stretch: something to do with the seed his father sired him with? No, a glazier cuts and sets glass, doesn't make it—that's a glassmaker, but maybe that's what his father meant to say but got the two mixed up. No, he knew the difference and would have said, “What's your father, a glassmaker?” Doesn't sound as good, but his father wasn't the type who'd use one word for another because it sounded better, especially when he knew it'd make what he said less clear, or that's how Gould saw him. Then what? That Gould, being the hypothetical son of a glazier, had somehow been placed in front of his father as a pane of glass, perhaps even set there by his father? Not even close. There was the expression, though, when he was a kid and maybe when his father was one too—there was much more of that kind of continuation or overlapping then than today—“I know you're a pain but you're not made of glass.” But that has almost nothing to do with what his father said. This is one time—oh, there were many—when he'd love to have a brother who'd had the same things said to him, or even if he didn't but, just because they had the same father, could help Gould figure out some of their father's more puzzling expressions, and he'd call now and ask him the one about the glazier. He should have asked his father what he meant by it rather than pretend every time that he understood. What did he say or do when his father said it?—and he said it plenty of times, plenty. He probably just shook his head or said no and laughed, since it was supposed to be a funny remark, and did what his father wanted him to: moved aside. Or have asked him years later exactly what it meant—“exactly” because he wouldn't have wanted to admit, for his sake and his father's, that he'd never understood it—but by that time his father had long stopped saying it, and Gould hasn't thought of it since till now. Asking him for a dime sometimes for a comic book, and his father—but what's all this got to do with seeing his father alone on the street from a distance, walking to or away from him, and so on? Nothing, maybe, but so what? It's just a way to see his father as he was then—and his father saying, “If I had a dime I'd build a fence around it.” That was his father's favorite. He said it to Gould about fifty times. Maybe a hundred. Sure, a hundred: ten or more times a year when Gould was between five and thirteen, he'll say. And he didn't ask just for dimes or comic books. Then he got his weekly allowance, which started as a nickel and grew to fifty cents—Saturdays, before his father left for work, if Gould was up, or early afternoon when he returned home: “Can I have my allowance please?” and his father would say maybe one time out of four, “If I had a quarter—” and so on. His father coming into the restaurant Gould worked at five nights a week when he was in college—now here he thinks he did see him from a distance once or twice, or at least that's what's in his mind: his father walking down the long wide aisle from the front door to the dining room—Schrafft's, on 82nd Street and Broadway—waving to him as he passed the bakery counter on his right and the soda fountain on his left, bakery closed for the day and, if it was past nine—that would be late for his father after work, which was when he dropped by—fountain closed too. Maybe even seeing him come out of the revolving door, since his father came to see him a few times the year and a half Gould worked there, suit, hat, and tie on, hat quickly in his hand right after he stepped out of the door, newspapers, sample case, and after sitting at one of his deuces—he usually asked the manager or one of the other waiters which tables were his son's, since their stations changed nightly—and saying, after Gould said hi and maybe even kissed his cheek, “I just wanted to see you at work. It gives me a special kick. I should probably order something too, no? I don't want to be taking up your table for nothing—they might toss me out on my ear. What looks good? And I promise not to ask for a discount,” and he says, “You want ice cream? Some people call it the best in the city. So's the coffee, I hear, though I've never tasted it. Dark and rich like you like it.” “I like it light with two spoons of sugar,” and he says, “I mean before you put in those things. I'll bring a little pitcher of milk,” and his father says, “Cream is better, if you got it, though don't go to any trouble on my account.” “I can get you the cream. And freshest there is—from the back of the refrigerator, which we're not supposed to take out till we use up the older cream in front. Or their English muffins—they're special, made by their own bakery in Queens. Or a sandwich, though you can still get dinner if you want.” “No dinner, I want to get home soon. Just a scoop of pistachio, or should I have the coffee too? I don't want to make the check too small; that wouldn't look good. But tell the guy inside I'm your dad and to give me a hefty scoop. He'll do it for you.” His father chatting with him if Gould wasn't too busy and reading the paper or watching him when Gould was serving other customers. Then, after he got the check—“I feel funny about giving you this,” Gould would say, “but okay, I got to”—tipping him generously, while with other waiters his father was always pretty cheap. Never above ten percent no matter how small the check—“Ten percent's good enough if you get it from everyone. What's with this fifteen all of a sudden? Who's the guy who decided that?”—and using any excuse to tip even less: waiter forgetting to bring something, dirty silver or sticky plate or lipstick on a cup or food coming cold: “Look, I don't care how menial or lousy-paying the job is, if you're hired to do it, you do it well, and giving him a regular tip is like a reward for bad service. He's lucky he wasn't stiffed.” But for Gould: each time maybe the biggest tip, as far as the percentage of the check, he ever gave; sometimes as much as the check, which was the best tip Gould ever got for such a small order in all his years as a waiter. And a few hours later, when Gould got home: “So how'd it go tonight?” and Gould saying, “It went okay,” and his father saying, “No, I meant in tips,” and Gould saying, “Probably because of yours, better than I expected.”