Being Invisible (6 page)

Babe was now listening intently.

“So they’d see that, and we’d get thrown out as degenerates, see, and never had to pay.”

Babe asked, “Are you serious?”

“So after we done that a few times, my friend Petey says, ‘Hey, how about letting me hold the sausage for a change while
you
suck it?’” Zirko grinned extravagantly: he seemed to have more teeth than a normal man. “So I asked him, ‘What sausage?’”

After an instant, Babe squealed with laughter, and when she could breathe again, said, “Oh, Siv. I took you seriously. How can I ever tell?”

Zirko was the kind who would not laugh at his own jokes. He shrugged, then squinted at his ham and fruit and began to eat.

Siv
?, His name was Siv? As if “Zirko” wasn’t enough. Irrespective of his name, he was a hyena. Couldn’t Babe see that?

The waiter showed up with a bottle of wine, displayed it, label up, to Zirko. “Hit me,” Zirko said. Tommy extracted the cork, handed it over, and Zirko elaborately smelled the discolored end, then scratched it with a thumbnail. “Vino,” he said to Babe and rolled his eyes. “If I was ever starving again I’d take wine before food.”

When Tommy poured a sample, it was no surprise to Wagner that Zirko sucked and slurped and sniffed and closed his eyes and worked his tongue behind his closed lips and finally, eyelids lowered again, made a majestic nod.

Wagner could endure no more of this. Why should he? He was invisible.

He waited till Tommy had filled Babe’s glass and brought the bottle to Zirko’s; then, stepping to the waiter’s side, using two hands he forced Tommy to pour wine into the lap of the pretentious little thug.

For a few moments nothing else happened. A stream of red fluid was falling into Zirko’s lap. Tommy was struggling but not too vigorously, for he knew not what he was struggling against. As to Babe, she was serenely tasting the contents of her own glass.

Then Zirko began to shout obscenities. But still he made no move to elude the falling stream. Wagner now used both hands to maintain the bottle in the offending position and while he might not have been stronger than Tommy in a fair match, he was for the first time experiencing a noteworthy concomitant of invisibility: greater physical strength, or perhaps merely the illusion thereof. At any rate the waiter was unable to alter the situation, or the attitude, of the bottle.

Babe had now begun to observe all of this—well, scarcely “all,” for she couldn’t see the man who pulled the strings!—but thus far had remained noncommittal. Not that much could be done except by Zirko himself, who could simply have moved away from the table. No one was stopping him. But some kind of vanity kept him in place: he intended to triumph over this inexplicable adversary. So, though shouting vile language, he stayed. Moreover, he stared into his wine-soaked lap and not even at Tommy.

The waiter was sniveling piteously. “I don’t know—I can’t seem—oh God, I’m
sawry.
Oh Christ. Oh shit.”

Wagner released him only after the last drop had fallen. Tommy’s response to freedom was to drop the empty bottle and sprint through the kitchen doors.

Still Zirko stayed in place. At last he raised his eyes from his lap to say, through his teeth, “I’m going to carry this off, you’ll see. I don’t want anybody to think they got ahead of Zirko. I know I do crazy things, but they’re always
my
idea. If I’m a clown, then I’m my
own
kinda clown. Not some fuckin’ waiter’s.”

Wagner had not had time to note the reaction of the many other diners to Zirko’s cries. He was interested only in Babe.

Who said, “I can’t think he did it on purpose, Siv. It must have been a nervous fit of some kind. He didn’t look well. Here, can you use my napkin?”

“I’ll fucking sue ’em,” Zirko said, rubbing his nose, ignoring the extended napkin. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Suddenly Wagner’s satisfaction turned flat. Not until now did it occur to him that Babe’s dinner would be ruined. True, she might be said to deserve it for going out with such a man, but Wagner found it difficult to bear her ill will. His basic approach to the matter of Babe was that she was confused. Her specialties were things of the spirit. What she lacked was good judgment when it came to humanity. While they were together Wagner had been able to help her in that regard. But now look at whom she was dating.

“Gee,” Babe said regretfully, “I was really looking forward to the meal.”

Though Zirko had only lately been shouting at the top of his voice, he leaned discreetly towards her and spoke in a malign murmur. “Fuck what
you
want.
I
been humiliated.”

Her sympathetic expression vanished. “Do you have to speak like that to me? I’m not your enemy.”

“Shit on you. I saw you smirkin’. You’re
still
doing it.”

That was due to a peculiarity of Babe’s upper lip. Wagner had always found it attractive, but until you caught on, it did look as if she were in a sardonic state of mind when she might not be. For example, she probably was not amused by what happened to her escort.

She certainly was not amused by his sudden verbal assault on her. She pushed her chair back and marched out of the restaurant.

Wagner followed her invisibly. Near the door to the street, a small man left the bar and, stepping into him, bounced off, almost falling down, recovering to tell the bartender the drinks were having a weird effect tonight.

Out on the pavement Wagner’s first intention was to shadow Babe until she caught a cab, but no taxis came along for a while, and he wanted her gone by the time Zirko left the restaurant. So he ran down to the end of the block, materialized, and came walking back.

“Babe,” he said before she saw him.

She was startled. “Oh, hi, Freddy.”

“If you’re looking for a taxi, you’ll never catch one here. Come on, we’ll walk to the corner.”

She hesitated.

“Come on.”

“You’re not going to—”

He lifted his hands. “I swear.” She was referring to his practice, during the earliest weeks of their separation, of using any pretext to discuss why she had left him. “Not a word.”

“Uh-huh.” She was walking more rapidly than she used to, but no doubt was still agitated by the incident with Zirko.

“So what brings you to this part of town?” Wagner asked. Seeing her familiar profile so near had an effect on him. Babe was just about his own height.

“Oh, business,” said she. “Do you really think there’ll be a cab at this corner?”

“Business at this time of the day?”

Babe frowned. “I might ask you the same.” With him she used her old voice, had abandoned the dulcet tones of the early part of her conversation with Zirko.

“I’m supposed to meet a date at Jimmy’s.”

She turned quickly. “Jimmy’s?”

“What a coincidence,” said he. “Didn’t you just come out of there?”

“All right, now that you mention it.”

“I’ll be going back to my date as soon as we find you a cab,” said Wagner.

They had reached the corner. Babe said, “Thanks, Freddy. You go back now. Don’t keep her waiting.” She put out her hand. “Listen, I couldn’t be more pleased. Is she anyone I know?”

Wagner could not suppose she was jealous, so he disparaged his fictional companion. “A co-worker. Someone from the office. Listen, Babe—”

“Don’t, Freddy, please.”

“I just wanted to ask how things are going for you.”

“They’re fine. They haven’t changed since your last call. Another thing that hasn’t changed is you are still using that name.”

She meant “Babe.” Her claim was that she had never liked the name, had put up with it for four years simply to be nice.

“I’m sorry,” Wagner pleaded. “I just can’t remember to think of you as Carla.”

“Oh, there’s one.” She was about to wave at the taxi when Wagner caught her arm.

“Fact is, I was at the bar when that altercation broke out at your table. What was that all about?”

She sighingly gave up on the cab. “God.” She sighed again. “You
would
see that. I honestly don’t know what happened.”

“Who was that guy you were with?” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like an interrogation.” He decided to lie again. “It’s just that he looked kinda familiar, somehow.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Since when have you been interested in art?”

“He’s a collector?”

“He’s a sculptor,” said Babe. “Siv Zirko. He’s very well known. He’s getting raves for his new show, which was sold out before it opened. We’ve got it. That’s what I mean by business, having dinner with him. I don’t have to explain it to you, but I’m doing it anyway. He wasn’t a date. Cleve could have eaten with him instead of me.”

“But he’s not Cleve’s type, I gather, or Cleve would not only have eaten with him: he would have eaten him.” Wagner realized his bitterness had got out of hand.

Babe glared at him under the streetlight, but said nothing: that was her way when she was really angry.

“I’m sorry,” said he. “It’s not my business. I shouldn’t have said that. Uh, Siv Zirko. What kind of sculpture does he do?”

“It’s good enough for museums all over this country and Europe, but you wouldn’t like it.” Ironically enough, Babe was now showing the same expression that Zirko had called a smirk: maybe he had been right, after all.

“I just wondered.”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

Which probably meant it was more piles of dog shit.

“What did he do to make you walk out? Get fresh?”

“I’m taking this cab, Fred. We were supposed to live separate lives, remember?” She shook his hand again, while waving at the taxi with the other. “Thanks for walking with me.” The vehicle pulled up to the curb. She opened the door and climbed in.

Wagner considered making some desperate statement before the cab pulled away, but could think of none. He had conflicting emotions with regard to Babe. He thought he admired what could be called either her independence or her courage, but it was a kind of ritualistic admiration. He assumed he loved her to some degree, and he knew he hated her for leaving him.

Another thing he knew was that artists whose work sold as well as Zirko’s were rich as movie stars or big businessmen. There really ought to be money in invisibility, perhaps working as a magician. But how did one get started?

“You need an agent,” Pascal said at lunch next day. “You need eight-by-ten glossies. You need a personal manager. You need a publicist. Finally, I’m told you need a business manager, the complicated world of finance being what it is. Now, all these people cost money, but I am led to understand that they’ll bring in and/or save you more than they cost. Or so I’ve heard.”

Wagner had as if idly pretended he knew someone gifted at parlor sleight of hand who was wondering whether to go professional. It was one way to get some use out of Pascal, who kept
au courant
with show biz through the gossip columns and chatter programs. He had trailed Wagner to a luncheonette, where the latter had hoped to be alone.

“Why?” said Pascal. “Who is this person? Do I know them?”

“Friend of the family,” Wagner said, trying to masticate thoroughly the cold roast beef he had found to be a thin but resistant layer between the lettuce and the tomatoes. It was his first food of the day. Breakfast was always just black coffee. And when he had got home from the experience with Babe and Zirko, he had thrown up his dinner.

Denied access to the identity of the amateur magician, Pascal turned his notice on Wagner’s lunch.

“That going to hold you till dinnertime? You’ve been losing weight lately, haven’t you? How long’s it been since your last checkup? Might look into it.” He was shaking his head. “Wouldn’t hurt.” In between sections of his commentary he had managed himself to stow away a big plate of, wouldn’t you know, spaghetti, and he was impatient now with Wagner for taking so long to consume about half the sandwich: he wanted his dessert.

“Go ahead and get your pie or whatever,” said Wagner. “This is all I’m eating today.” He was sorry he hadn’t asked that the white bread be toasted; as it was, it acted like a sponge and exuded previously concealed mayonnaise when bitten into.

“Should get some meat on your bones. It’s that zany, action-packed lovelife of yours.”

If he mentions Babe by name, I really will hit him, Wagner swore, but whether or not that was likely Pascal failed to pursue the subject. Instead he spoke of the “widely known linkage between sudden weight loss and, well, do I have to say?”

“It has not been sudden,” said Wagner. “And I don’t have cancer. Fact is, despite what you think, I needed to lose a few pounds, because my clothes were getting too tight. Now as for this magician friend of mine—”

“He’s a close friend?” Pascal asked jealously. “I see. I thought you were speaking of just somebody who was a friend of someone else in the family.”

“What difference does that make? I was wondering where an agent could be found. The yellow pages?”

Pascal maneuvered a red strand of spaghetti around his plate with a fork. Presumably he had preserved it just for this function, to give him an activity while Wagner finished the main portion of his own lunch. He refused to order dessert until the time Wagner himself would have done so, had Wagner intended to order dessert, even though the latter had told Pascal he had no intention of so doing. Funny, whenever Babe had asked him why he considered Pascal such a creep, he could never think of this good an example. Even if he had, however, he suspected she would have said, Look, the man’s just trying to be friendly. What’s wrong with that? But did a divine law enjoin one from rejecting unwanted friendship?

Pascal raised one eyebrow. “You’ve really got to
know
somebody in the business. I just can’t see an unknown come waltzing in off the street and getting some top agent to represent him.”

“But what about not quite top but good enough? You have to start somewhere.”

Pascal made a tough-guy grin. “You haven’t a prayer unless he
is
top. Beware of these fakes who want a fee. The genuine article takes a percentage of the money he gets you, and nothing beyond.”

This supposedly inside dope was known to everybody. Wagner hadn’t really expected to learn anything from Pascal. He pushed the remains of his sandwich away from him: a vulgar but necessary gesture in this place if one wanted the counterman to appear. He then waited until Pascal had ordered, and been delivered, dessert—the man actually ate rice pudding at a lunch counter—and then, treacherously, got off the stool saying, “I’ve got some errands,” left a tip in change for the service, and departed from his astonished and discomfited colleague.