Chains Around the Grass (9 page)

“You mean it!? We don’t have the money…”

“Money, what’s money?” he said gaily. “By next year, who knows? Someone might forget a bundle in the back seat.”

He would just have to work a little harder, that’s all.

The warmth of her soft lips lingered on his as he sped through the deserted streets into the dark daybreak. He peered at the rows of silent houses rising slowly out of the shadows, turning lavender, then silver in the coming light. He thought of the families that would soon be getting up together, gathering around the kitchen table. Like Robert Young, the fathers would joke with their kids, making sure they brushed their teeth and drank their milk, patting them on the behind and tousling their hair.

With a sudden ache, he thought of Louis waking, standing in his crib, his baby cheeks already hardening into something less fragile and full. Only on Sundays did he ever see his baby son awake. He considered that. Never, except for Sundays, and even then, not every Sunday. They grew up before you had a chance. With Jesse and Sara it had been the same. How was it possible? He had always planned to be just like Robert Young, the wise father in his favorite TV show, Father Knows Best. Successful and friendly and always there.

“Nu, so what? So what do you want? The life of Riley?” He berated himself mockingly, mimicking his brother-in-law Morris’s strident, nasal whine. “Why don’t you get a good, steady job? Why don’t you work for somebody forever for nothing? It’s not good enough for you?”

“Naw, Morris. It’s not good enough for me,” he whispered to his grinning re?ection. He slid his palms with pleasure around the steering wheel, feeling his control of the powerful machine. Shouldn’t make fun of Morris. He wasn’t a bad guy. Maybe one day he’d be generous to Ruth’s brother. Take him out from under his blessed union, his foreman Weinstein, so he could pee without permission.

He chuckled, imagining prying Morris loose from his union bene?ts, his pension, his little chair in front of the printing press…

When he got to Brooklyn, he stepped on the gas. Brooklyn. It was too full of old buildings, old people and bitter memories. His parents had been dead for so many years, but their fights still went on in his head. And in his nostrils, the odor of billowing dust from rose-patterned pillows beaten on hot fire escapes continued to mingle forever with the melting tar of tenement rooftops.

He glanced at the bums who leaned against the old buildings, blending in with the cast-off tires and armchairs and heaps of paper. Creeps in torn rags looking as if the Depression had never ended. He had no sympathy for them. None. The greatness of America was that if you really wanted to, if you worked your can off, you could not only get out of Brooklyn, but get Brooklyn out of you. Money was the best detergent. With enough, even memories could be sanitized, all the ugliness and pain scrubbed out, leaving behind just the pleasant, greeting card glow of benign nostalgia. If he had a credo, that was it.

Whatever you wanted to say, even the projects were better than Brooklyn; those ugly tenements defaced by graffiti, those filthy, dangerous staircases. He didn’t agree with Ruth, who preferred the personality of those old brownstones to the project’s repetitious (heartless, she called it) landscape of ugly bricks piled up like a fortress against anything personal, anything human, Ruth complained. It was like a prison.

He didn’t feel that way. But he understood. Being part of it, having your rent subsidized, was demeaning, and the system wanted you to feel trapped, as if you’d lost your right to choices, however trivial. The housing inspectors could walk right into your apartment to see if you had roaches that needed killing, or walls that needed painting. He tried to imagine the thousands of cans of paint piled up in warehouses somewhere, all the same institutional shade of white, just waiting to be trucked out and shoved into people’s lives.

He didn’t think there was anything really wrong with that. It was as it should be. After all, a grown man who can’t make enough money loses his right to demand or to decide. He thought of Reuben in his big house, his idle wife in a party dress on a Sunday afternoon; of Sara rolling on the fragrant lawn of her uncle’s big backyard.

Something inside him—something solid and motionless and as firm as the earth—suddenly shifted. I don’t know anymore, he realized. All those things that had been so clear, suddenly weren’t. The idea that they’d have to struggle for a while, and that that was OK. That he’d be fine…just fine…

He wasn’t. He was so tired: of getting up early, of battling the traffic…and the cops: Everytime you made a move, they whipped out the little book: no left turns, no right turns, no U-turns, no parking, no standing. There’d been six hundred and ninety eight cabs called off the road just the other day. Faulty meters, they said. And then all those rumors… Quill from the transit workers wanted to ban all auto traffic in Manhattan, all parking in Manhattan and Queens. They didn’t let a man live… But it wasn’t just that. That, he could take.

It was Sara sitting by the window looking out into the street, afraid to go outside by herself anymore. It was Jesse in that school, his nose bloodied. A spasm of pain contracted his stomach, flushing hot acid through his bowels. What could he do about any of that? And there was no question he had to do something, that it was, after all, his responsibility.

As he crossed the bridge into Manhattan, the heaviness seemed to lift from his soul, the weariness replaced by a sudden energy. Manhattan. As always, it flowed through him like a drug. The store windows filled with expensive leather bags, tweed coats and hats; the thick steaks decorated with sprigs of parsley bathed in the fluorescent glow of fancy restaurants; even the way New Yorkers walked, throwing themselves recklessly headlong into the new day.

It was a city of treasure-hunters and gamblers, he thought, the pulsing excitement of their quest almost palpable, a vibration of their collective strivings and hopes. He had thrown in his lot with them, come what may, his fingers as long and clever as the next guy’s reaching for the brass ring.

Impulsively, he made a sudden turn, heading toward Wall Street. There they were, all those men who had grabbed the ring before him; the alrightniks, pouring onto the sidewalks and up the elevator banks of office towers. The men who owned these streets and guarded them, keeping out the riff-raff. He felt no resentment, only admiration. There was so much wealth there, you could almost touch it, he thought, marveling, almost taste it—sour and nutty—like some liqueur. He saw it in the way men stopped on corners to read the paper, kneeling over shoeshine boys like princes. He saw it in the cut of their clothing, the starched collars of their shirts. But mostly, he saw it in the smooth whiteness of their clean fingers.

These guys had figured it out, he thought admiringly. Money needed to work for you, not you for money. He knew that. Heck, everybody knew that, except maybe Morris. Only shmucks slaved for a little paycheck, or dragged out icy bottles at two in the morning (or drove cabs). What was the secret? How did you find room for your feet on these crowded streets?

It was then Dave noticed him. Small, neat-looking. Too short, really, to belong to Wall Street, where all the men were tall, young college boys, six-footers (or so Dave imagined. They were the only ones he saw). That’s why he looked again. This guy was even shorter than himself, but with a certain firm brace to his shoulders that made his chest reach out importantly. He pulled gleaming white cuffs out of his expensive black wool coat, flashing the gold of cuffinks. About the same age, too. A little guy, on Wall Street. A man who smiled at himself in the mirror in the morning, washing his face with expensive soap and drying it on monogrammed towels. Prosperous. A man who had what he needed, and could be generous to the ones he loved, Dave mused. He was so absorbed in speculation that it took him a while to realize that the guy was standing on the pavement looking right at him; waving him down.

There was something arrogant about the way he raised his bent knuckle, a gesture so supercilious and overconfident it could have felt like an insult had Dave been looking for insults. He wasn’t. He was only too happy to stop, open up the cab door and let him in.

He wanted to go to the airport, but first to stop at his hotel. Dave was thrilled. The airport was a real fare. “If I make real good time, you think you could give me a good tip on the market?” Dave joked, his eyes serious. He watched with fascination as the guy took out a silver cigarette case, opened it, and leisurely tapped down the tobacco before answering.

“How much do you want to invest, friend?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” he shrugged sheepishly, then caught the little, mocking smile that sprang to the guy’s lips. He inhaled deeply. “Mind if I ask you something, Mister?”

“Not at all.”

“I don’t suppose you know how much a cab is worth today, with the medallion, I mean, do you?”

He shrugged. “Couldn’t actually say for sure… Two thousand?”

Dave leaned back, avenged. “Guess again. Twelve thousand bucks.”

“You don’t say?” he said calmly.

“That’s right, mister. Took me seven years to earn that kind of money. And I’m still paying off loans. Mind if I ask you something else, Mister?”

“Not at all.”

“On Wall Street, how long does it take to earn twelve thousand dollars?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “And I bet you don’t have to get up at five, either, do you, Mister? I guess you eat breakfast with your kids every morning, then put on a nice, warm coat, go up to one of these offices where it’s clean, and someone hands you good hot coffee too. Then you make a few calls, home by five, six at the latest. Help the kids with their homework…” he mused, dreaming. “I wanna tell you something, Mister. Something I just figured out. I’m gonna sell this thing and get into a decent business. A business where I can eat breakfast with my kids.”

The guy leaned forward with new respect on his face, Dave saw, his satisfaction almost overcoming his shock at having said such a thing and having actually half-meant it. And that, really, was all Dave remembered clearly later on, when remembering exact details became so crucially important. That and the calm movement of the guy’s lips under his moustache. That long ride to the airport was not accurate, in the way of photographs or recordings. It was impressionistic, like a painting, whose color and shape stayed with Dave for a long time: the strong black curve of confidence in the remembered tone of voice, with no hint of ingratiating humor—exactly as Dave had always imagined rich people spoke; the conservative browns and grays of his language drawn across a large abstract canvas, brightened with just a bold hint of red in the success stories he shared so off handedly.

One story especially stayed with Dave: The shoe store owner who had sold his business, invested his money, then retired to Florida. And every month he got a check. For the rest of his life. Not a whole lot of money—four, five hundred a month. In a white envelope. Without worries, regular.

If the story had been about gold mines, millions, instant wealth, rags to riches, it would have washed over David Markowitz like a fairy tale. But that shoestore owner… Dave could just see him bending over rows of smelly feet, running back and forth to fetch and carry for tough-nosed old ladies who would drive him crazy and then walk out without buying a thing. And that check. Every month. Like a salary from God.

It was security.

And then, although Dave didn’t recall that part, they must have gotten to the airport. “Would’ve liked to talk to you more,” Dave remembered him saying, or something like that, when he handed over the fare and an impressive tip. Only the next part was etched clearly on his mind: How the man’s clean, manicured fingers had reached into the pocket of his silk-lined coat and taken out an embossed business card which he pressed into Dave’s work-callused palm, his smooth fingers recoiling slightly from the contact. “Vincent Hesse, Investment Advisor.”

Chapter seven

In Uncle Morris’s apartment the homemade wine exploded, showering the rug. Seeing it, Sara relaxed, less terrified of spilling the dark red wine on Aunt Harriet’s brilliant white tablecloth. She was surrounded by adults who pinched her cheek and looked her over with wary smiles. They seemed to know all about her, but she only vaguely remembered them. She felt sorry for her father who fidgeted uncomfortably with a black skullcap, laughing too loud, slapping too many backs. Only her mother seemed to be enjoying herself. The light of the candles melted away the fine lines that had lately begun to crack the smooth surface of her skin and she smiled and winked girlishly at her relatives.

Uncle Morris stood up, holding a silver goblet of wine towards heaven and all the voices suddenly softened, as everyone looked up expectantly. But the words he spoke Sara did not understand and the wine dribbled down his chin onto his white shirt. Everyone began to drink. Her cousins teased her about getting grape juice instead of wine.

“That’s enough wine, Jesse. You’ll get sick,” Ruth scolded as he poured himself another cup.

“I’ll be Bar Mitzvah soon. I’m a man,” he ignored her, filling his glass with determined eyes.

“Leave him, leave him,” came a chorus of voices, Dave’s the loudest.

“He’ll throw up, or get shikker,” Aunt Harriet prophesied. “At least mix it with a little water,” Ruth pleaded.

“The Rabbi said four cups, filled to the top, otherwise there’s no mitzvah,” Jesse replied calmly.

“That’s what you get for sending him for Bar Mitzvah lessons!” Dave bellowed. “Drink up kid. Get in all the mitzvahs you can!”

Uncle Morris looked at his brother-in-law disapprovingly. The whole subject of rabbis and mitzvahs, to his thinking, did not warrant this kind of levity. But then Dave was known as the shegetz of the family, so what could you expect? He sighed, deciding to let it pass. “Time to wash!” he announced.

Everyone poured water from a large copper cup over their hands into a washbasin. Morris dunked some parsley into bitterly salty water and passed it around the table. Sara, her stomach already rumbling in anticipation, bit into it eagerly. She spit it out, gasping, then looked down, shamefaced, as her cousins laughed.