Box Nine (23 page)

She's dressed in her oldest black jeans, a teal cotton turtleneck over a light-thermal undershirt, black Reeboks, and a secondhand leather bomber jacket that she bought off a Cambodian with an eye patch at the refugee flea market one Sunday morning. The market was set up weekly out at the old train lot on Ironhouse Ave. It wasn't until she got the jacket home that she found a small 3 x 5-inch drugstore notebook in the breast pocket. The notebook contained only three pages, all the others had been torn out. The pages were filled with foreign writing, Oriental-like, and from the way it was set on the page she guessed that it might be poetry. She debated for three weeks whether or not she should return it to the merchant. Her biggest argument against its return was her reasoning that he was just a salesman, just a broker, that he'd gotten it elsewhere and the notebook didn't belong to him any more than her. She never discussed what to do with anyone. Not Zarelli, not even Ike. After a month, she went back one Sunday morning to the flea market and managed to locate the booth where she'd gotten the jacket. But the Cambodian with the eye patch was gone. In his place was a Nicaraguan selling old eight-track tapes. She purchased
Vic Damone's Greatest Hits
for a quarter and gave it to Zarelli at work the next day. Zarelli shrugged and said, “He's not Tony B, but he's okay.”

She wishes she'd brought the notebook with her to the cellar. Most likely, Woo could translate it for her. Then she changes her mind and is pleased she didn't think to bring it. Whatever her imagination has made those obscure symbols into would be wiped out the second Woo opened his mouth and changed them into English.

Woo's eyes begin to flutter a bit, tiny mutant birds, and then they go into a series of full blinks. He stares up out of his army-green sleeping bag and Lenore thinks he looks like he's been swallowed up to the neck by a sentient vegetable that's invaded the planet.

“How long was I out?” he asks.

“Just a couple of hours,” Lenore says. “Sleep well?”

“Strange dreams,” he says through a yawn, and pulls his arms free from the bag to stretch.

“Join the club,” Lenore mumbles.

“What time is it?”

“Little before seven. Want some coffee?”

He nods, shimmies out of the bag, and climbs to his feet. “Yes, please.”

Lenore unscrews the thermos cap and pours a cupful. “It'll have to be black,” she says.

“I normally drink it black,” he says, taking the cup, sipping, and burning his lips.

“It's steaming,” Lenore says too late. “Sometimes these thermoses work too well, you know?”

Woo nods and dabs at his singed lips with his fingers. He's dressed in a pair of old pleated chinos with slightly flared legs, a too-thin brown leather belt, a cotton baseball shirt with blue three-quarter-length arms and a picture of Ezra Pound silk-screened on the front, a fraying navy cardigan, and low-cut white sneakers void of a brand name anywhere on them. Lenore thinks he's an illustration for a men's magazine on “how
not
to dress for a date.”

“For breakfast,” she says, unrolling the top of a paper bag on the table, “we've got a choice of cream-filled chocolate cupcakes, mini sugar donuts”—she rummages—“chips, licorice, graham crackers …”

“Excuse me for saying so,” Woo says with a guilty smile on his face. He blows on his cup of coffee and continues, “But it surprises me that you eat these things. I mean, you've got such a stunning figure—”

She cuts him off. “It's all metabolism. Don't listen to any of the experts on this. Trust me. It's metabolism. I've got a digestive system that won't quit. I burn up food like you read about. It runs overtime. Just really aggressive.”

She pulls out a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips, tears it open, puts one in her mouth, and offers the bag toward Woo. He reaches in, takes a chip, bites into it, and, after a beat, makes an awful frowning and squinty face.

“So sour,” he says, his tongue caked with small pieces of chips. “And this early in the morning.”

“I thought you people loved sour-tasting food.”

Woo makes an exaggerated, gulping swallow and says, “Where did you hear this?”

“Just one of those things you hear.”

Woo makes small, pecking sips at the cup of coffee.

“That book you brought with you,” Lenore says, “that Aztec tongue book? What is that? That's not a textbook, is it?”

“Not exactly, no,” Woo says. “It's a very obscure novel from the early 1900s, I believe. Written by an Argentine who chose to remain anonymous. It's been out of print for years. I picked this edition up, used, last year, and never got to reading it. It's really a mystery novel, of a sort.”

“My brother loves mysteries. Reads them all the time. Nonstop. Like peanuts, one after another. I can take them or leave them.”

“I have a colleague, a woman in the literature department, she says that the mystery, or, no, I guess, the detective story, that's it, the detective story, is the most fitting mode for expressing our contemporary situation. What did she call it? Very clever woman. Something about—post-God, post-humanist, post-holocaust, post-literate, numbing void. Something like this—”

“Actually, I was a criminology major.”

“Of course.”

“And that was a hell of a long time ago.”

“Another symptom of our times. We live longer than any humans to walk the planet, yet we start thinking we're elderly soon after adolescence.”

“I don't think I'm elderly. Believe me, I know where I stand. I've got a good grip on my age. I'm better at thirty, both mentally and physically, than any rookie the department took on this year. I guarantee that.”

“I don't doubt you, Lenore.”

“But the fact is, I work at it. I mean, there's an awful lot of effort.”

“Self-evident.”

“I think, you make the effort, your body responds. And the things you can't change, they'll follow along. You see one grey hair in my head? Go ahead, look close. Not a one. Now, it's not like I use any coloring or anything, but my brother, Ike, okay, same exact age, we're twins, okay, you should see all the grey ones he's sprouting. Another five years and forget it. That'll be the whole head. Now, same age, same genes, for Christ sake, and look at the difference.”

“Perhaps it's stress. Is your brother in a very stressful environment?”

“More stressful than narcotics? Jees, Freddy, c'mon.”

“You have a point.”

“You know where Ike works? You'll love this. Directly above our heads. I'm not kidding you. He's a letter carrier. Mailman. Right her at Sapir Street.”

“Such a coincidence.”

“Maybe. I don't really believe in coincidence.”

“You know, Lenore, for some reason I didn't think you would. What is it you go for? Fate? The karmic wheel?”

“The thing I hate most with you is I really can't get a bearing on when you're making fun of me.”

“I can't recall one instance since we've met when I made fun of you. The mistake you make, Lenore, is to overcomplicate things. You can take me at face value. I'm a very simple man.”

“I've heard that said half a dozen times before and it's never been true.”

“Think about it, Lenore. You see in front of you a man who's spent nine-tenths of his adult life inside enormous libraries. In terms of theories of language, well, perhaps, maybe, possibly I'm a bit involved. But, I swear to you, in terms of just day-to-day routine, these common dynamics of meeting and speaking with people—Waitress, I'd like a cup of coffee; Bill, good to see you; Ms. Dixon, how's the new baby?—I'm so ill at ease, I'm constantly second-guessing myself, overpreparing for every minute encounter.”

“God, that's terrible.”

“I don't sleep well.”

“Oh, c'mon. You were deep into dreamtime the past two hours.”

“Well, pardon me, but, again, that just shows how comfortable I am in your presence.”

“Now, that's something I don't hear very often.”

“You're out to confuse me, Lenore. One compliment will bring me an insult and an obscenity, the next you let pass.”

“You just don't get it. We're a little out of sync here. I don't think you always pick up on sarcasm or irony or, I don't know.”

“Yes, this is true. I know what you're saying. There's sort of an urban hipness—self-deprecation, detached absurdism, mock horror set next to a bored complacency.”

“Whatever. Now you're the one thinking too much. I had this nun in grammar school used to try to teach us French. She'd always say, ‘Let the words wash over you.' I always took that as—don't think so much, get the flavor, get the rhythm. You think too much, you miss the forest for the trees.”

“You speak French?”

“No way.”

“Too bad. I always enjoy a little practice.”

“Practice?”

“I speak six languages. I'm working toward eight.”

“Ambitious guy. You've impressed me.”

“I didn't mean. I was simply …”

“Take it easy, Freddy. I'm serious. I'm pretty serious. That's an achievement. I'm not running you down here. Ease up.”

“Both my parents were fluent in a variety of languages. I was somewhat destined for my field.”

“Are you saying there was a lot of pressure? You were pushed—”

“Not at all. I had an extremely happy childhood. A very happy family life.”

“I feel that way too. I look back and just can't remember any bad times, which is ridiculous. All I can see is my parents in their living room chairs and Ike and me on the floor. All of us staring at Ed Sullivan or something.”

“I'm saying that due to both genetic and environmental influences, I was predisposed to language.”

“Yeah, well, that has its advantages. A lot of people flounder around looking for something to do. Most people fall into something.”

“But I get the impression this is not the case with Lenore. You knew what you wanted, yes?”

“Not from birth, but yeah, I knew pretty much what I wanted. Let's say I knew exactly what I didn't want.”

“Tell me.”

Lenore pauses, looks up toward the lines of piping near the ceiling, then says, “This will be strange to you, a word guy like you, but sometimes, a lot of times, I hate putting words to feelings you've known for a long time, feelings you've known forever. It's always so inexact. It's worse than that.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I didn't want to be controlled. I didn't want to be dominated. I didn't want to be restricted, directed. I didn't want to be dominated. Forget it.”

“No, that's good. That has to be close.”

“That's like ten miles from home. And then some.”

“It's a starting point.”

“It's like pretending you have a starting point.”

“Not meaning to be rude, Lenore, but this is my specialty.”

“Then you give me the word.”

“It's
your
feeling.”

“Bingo.”

“I just can't help but wonder, though—”

“Think about what you're about to say here. Ask yourself, Would a normal person take what I'm about to say as insulting?'”

“You're saying censor myself, think before I speak.”

“I just feel something bad coming.”

“I was simply going to ask if you'd ever considered the fact that many would call police work the most restrictive job of all. The policeman becomes a tightrope walker and all. Dominated by her ostracism from the masses. Controlled by ever-increasing rules and regulations.”

“That's good, Freddy. That's what I would want you to believe.”

“This is not the case.”

“Not for me. It's a state of mind. It involves the imagination. If you're stupid, forget it. You're exactly right. Take Zarelli. A genuinely stupid man, okay? He's a walking definition of constipation. He's an absolutely controlled man. He's totally dominated from all directions. Family, job, the general population, Lenore. But Zarelli's an idiot. He's the cause of his own condition.”

“You're saying you can outwit your condition?”

“I think I manage.”

“It's an idea with promise. Imagination as the key to freedom.”

“Okay, let's not take it too far. You'll deplete the whole thing. I'm just wondering, at the dinner table growing up, you're sitting there with the folks, you ask someone to pass the rice, right? What do you say? What language do you use?”

“Usually, English. English would be the norm.”

“Boring.”

“I'm not saying this is hard-and-fast. This was the norm. You might hear French. You might hear Spanish.”

“Keep going.”

“German, Russian, possibly Yiddish, and, of course, Cantonese.”

“Get out of here. What's with this Yiddish?”

“My father studied the Kabbalah. Taught himself. A hobby.”

“Get out. Say something in Yiddish.”

“Voorshtlekh mit gehbahkehnch beblekh.”

“Translate.”

“Franks and beans.”

“Great. You'll never starve.”

Woo takes a deck of cards from his coat pocket and Lenore is about to say, “I don't play pinochle,” when she sees a skeleton figure pictured on the box and realizes it's a tarot deck.

“Wouldn't have picked you for a guy who'd have much use for occult crap,” she says.

“Strictly for amusement purposes,” Woo says, again with the put-on smile that makes him look like an annoyed maître d' in Chinatown. She watches his hands and is surprised by his skill and comfort with the cards. She wouldn't have expected it. If she'd been giving Zarelli a rundown on Woo she'd have mentioned an awkwardness, a clumsiness that's clearly not the case.

“Have you ever used a tarot deck?” he asks.