From Time to Time (5 page)

"Si, we are talking seriously. And it's very late. This is not the time for that. But it was.

CHAPTER 2

The YOUNG WOMAN looked up from her computer keyboard, smiling pleasantly, and gestured the next patient into the doctor's office. He appeared to be in his late thirties, was bald, with red- blond hair at the back and sides, and-crossing the small room purposefully, very nearly belligerently-looked to be just under average height. Heavy shoulders, though, and thick through the chest.

Waiting at his desk, the doctor said pleasantly, "Sit down, please, nodding at a small couch that faced his desk. "Be with you in a sec. Just looking over your sheet. The doctor looked thirty-five, wore a faded green tennis shirt, and his hair was yellow brown and thick. But not air-blown, the patient decided, approving. No goddamn alligator on the shirt either.

He sat down to wait, his back barely touching the cushion behind him, sitting almost bolt upright, not accepting the offered softness and comfort. His hands lay unmoving on his thighs, and he kept his pink-skinned face placid as he looked around. More like a living room than an office, he thought: overlapping miniature rugs; the entire wall behind the desk bookshelves; a wide window ledge at the side scattered with publications; framed photographs of sailboats; wooden shutters darkening the room, secluding it from the world. lie didn't like it. Then he made him self sit back, and forced his shoulders to release their tension. Hostility at the self-imposed necessity of being here was unproductive.

The man at the desk tilted head and paper simultaneously to read along a margin. "My secretary has noted that you prefer not to give your name.

"Well, we'll see. Tell me something first. Are you a regular doctor?

"I'm not an M.D. I have a doctorate in psychology.

"I've always understood that what a man tells a doctor is confidential. That apply to you?

Absolutely.

He considered that, nodded thoughtfully, then unexpectedly smiled, so warmly and genuinely that the man at the desk felt an immediate response, a surge of wanting to help; but aware, too, that the patient was taking charge. "We can add my name later if need be, the patient said. "The thing is, I'm an officer in the Army.

"I thought so.

"Oh? he said in a prove-it tone.

"Well, I don't want to come off as Sherlock Holmes, but there are no cuffs on your pants. A solid-color knit tie. White shirt. And you haven't unbuttoned your coat. There's a neatness about you that says Army to me. If your suit were khaki instead of blue, I'd salute.

"Well, you're pretty good. A brother officer claims my pajamas have epaulets. I like the Army. Only reason I'm out of uniform is the work I'm doing these days. And the only reason I'm here instead of an army shrink-sorry.

"That's okay. I say it too.

"I don't want it in my jacket, my army file, that I consulted a, uh-

"Psychologist: I'm not a psychiatrist. And this won't be in any record but mine. So come on now. You have to tell me, you have to make a start.

"I know. All right. About ten days ago I was working. I'm a historian, an infantry major assigned just now to the Center of Military His tory. I'm a specialist in World War One. These days I work at the main branch of the New York Public Library at Fortysecond and Fifth, and one day something happened.

"I had a stack of books in front of me. Taking notes. I was copying out names, German names and military titles. Going slow, printing carefully, getting the Kraut spelling absolutely right. And out of the blue I felt a sudden -he hesitated- well, rage. And I mean rage; absolutely unexplainable. It just took me over. Instantly. Like somebody had walked up and slapped me across the mouth. And I said-this was out loud, you understand; me sitting there at one of those long tables they have, heads all over the place turning to look at me. I said, Damn you. Oh, God damn you!' And I was kind of struggling, fighting to push the chair back and get to my feet.

"Then I more or less came to. Just standing there, everybody staring; I must have been loud. Well, I walked out of there pretty fast, and stood out on the Fifth Avenue steps for a while, cooling off. Thing is, I don't know why I said that. I just do not know. After a while I made myself go back, staring everyone down, and resume my work. He stopped, waiting.

"Go on.

"Well, not the next day. There was the weekend, and then it must have been Monday I was back at work. In the main reading room again. I'm there when they open, every weekday and Saturday. And I stay till they throw me out. But this time, thank God, I'd taken a break. I was out on the steps having coffee. There's guys out front with carts selling coffee and stuff.

"I know.

"Miserable coffee. But something to do. I give myself a ten- minute break, by the clock, in the middle of the morning, and another in midafternoon. And the quickest lunch I can manage. And I drink the lousy coffee because I don't smoke. I did, but I quit. It's been-

"Come on now.

"Okay. It happened again. A terrible anger. Sudden. Out of nowhere. A rush of it. I could feel my face go red, my collar choking me. Raw emotion with nothing to explain it. And I said, You son of a bitch. Oh, you bastard. You did it, you did it!' There was a woman standing next to me-those steps get crowded-and I just trotted down the stairs, tossed my cup at a trash basket, coffee and all, and got the hell out of there. I couldn't help but look back, and you know he smiled- she was still there, not even watching me. I was just another New York crazy far's she was concerned. But I was still wild. Walking along, going fast, headed north but going nowhere I knew of. And if I could have grabbed him by the throat, I'da never let go.

"Grabbed who! Quick!

The patient shook his head. "I don't know. Just don't know. But the feeling did not go away; for a while it got worse. Finally it eased off, but I didn't go back. Not that day. Quit early and went home, first time in years. I keep a little apartment in the East Village; I'm up here a lot; the Army pays for it. My real place is in Washington. And that's about it. I don't know what the hell is going on. Do you?~~

Not yet.

"I see. I gather you think I'll be corning back.

"For a time maybe. The doctor picked up the patient-information sheet from his desk. "Maybe we should get this finished up. You married?

"Ever been?

"Okay. He made a check mark. "And you're how old: thirty- seven, thirty-eight?

"Thirty-nine, and if you're really asking how come I'm nearly forty and never been married, it's simple: I haven't time. I like women; quite a lot. Sexually, and just for themselves. Women are nicer than men, they're better people; I have women who are friends, and women usually stay my friends. I've had a lot to do with them, and expect to continue, and I hope that takes care of that. But what I like most-better than women, men, cats or dogs --is work. Life is work, and work is life, that's my opinion. It's why we're alive; procreation is just to keep the thing going. I have fun, I have pleasure apart from work. I go to movies, have a drink, see friends, men and women; I do what everyone does. But that's only recreation. What I really do is work. Sixteen hours a day often, and for day after day when I know I should. Twent hours if need be. There's no way I could be married.

"Well. You haven't asked me this, and it's not why you're here. But there are other years to come, you know. other kinds of years.

"I know it. And I'll be old and lonely, all that. But these are the years that matter. And this is how I'm going to spend them. Nothing is more important: I've got things to do, and they're going to be done. I'm a ruthless son of a bitch, Doe, and I'm not kidding. Ruthless with myself, too.

"Yes. Okay. He stood, so did his patient, and-skilled at ending his sessions-the doctor led the way to his office door, the other man following, opened it, then waited for the almost inevitable last question or, occasionally, the final withheld-until-now revelation.

This time it was a question. "You have any clue at all on this?

"No. And you don't want guesses.

"Okay, Doctor. I call you Doctor, by the way?

"My name is Paul. Call me Paul.

"Okay, and my name is Prien, Ruben Prien. Call me Rube.

"Okay, Rube. Make an appointment with my secretary as you leave. I'll see you soon.

But he was wrong. Rube Prien never came back.

CHAPTER 3

HE'D BEEN ON HIS WAY to keep the appointment four days later, a Friday, walking north on lower Fifth Avenue toward the doctor's office on Sixty-second Street. As often as possible, moving about the city, Rube Prien walked, a chance for exercise. This morning he wore a sharply pressed olive-green gabardine suit, a white shirt, maroon knit tie, tan cap. The day was sunny and cool, and he noted, pleased, that after nineteen uptown blocks, usually overtaking other pedestrians, he was not perspiring. He believed that meant he was in condition.

Shoulders, elbows, and legs moving easily, the rhythm of it a pleasure, the air pressing his face, he felt his mind at rest, very nearly not thinking at all. But some twenty blocks later, crossing Fifty-ninth Street-glancing appreciatively over at the Plaza Hotel --to walk along now beside Central Park, he felt a little nudge of. . . apprehension? Unease? Something. It grew and then very suddenly it had him again. He felt it in his stomach, felt it building very fast, and he glanced around, afraid he was about to \~ell, curse, go out of control. On past Sixty-second Street, not even glancing east toward the building in which he had an appointment; turning to walk across the Park at Seventy-second; sweating now, hurrying, angry, seared, eves bright with curiosity - Further west, then north again, block after block.

Then he was walking through a shabby, run-down little industrial area, cars solidly parked on both sides of the narrow streets, wheels up over the curbs. The sidewalks along which he walked were scattered with paper and plastic wrappings, newspaper fragments, plastic cups, crushed cans, pull tabs, food containers, bottles, broken glass. Buzz Bannister, Neon Signs, read an unlighted neon window sign in a dirty-white stucco building, windows crowded with stacked cardboard boxes. Fiore Bros., Wholesale Novelties; a heavy padlock on the door, a broken shoe lying in the doorway. No one in sight, not a soul. On he walked, fast, going somewhere, knowing which way to turn at corners, getting there.

Then it ran out. And he stood on the walk helpless as a dog who's lost the scent. He walked on uncertainly. Stopped to glance around for something, anything familiar, not finding it. Walked on looking for a street sign.

The feeling roared back, and he swung around to about-face and retrace a block, turned west at the corner, and stopped. There it was. "That's it, he told himself, "that's the . . ." The what? It was a six-story red brick building, the sides blank and windowless except for an office at street level at the distant corner. But it looked right. Flat roof; he could see the conical top of the old-style wooden water tower up there. Yes. And along the building's sides just below the roofline in a band of weathered paint, BEEKEY BROTHERS, MOVING AND STORAGE, ~5~-88l1. Yes. In a painted panel, LOCAL AND LONG DISTANCE HAULING. STORAGE OUR SPECIALTY. AGENTS FOR ASSOCIATED VAN LINES. A green, gilt-lettered Beekey truck stood before a metal-slat truck door in the side of the building. This was it, whatever it was, and Rube Prien turned to walk beside the block-long building toward a door he could see in his mind.

It was there. At the end of the building. An ordinary, unmarked weathered gray door, the paint peeling here and there in narrow strips. He knocked, heard steps on a wooden floor, the door opened, and he saw what he knew he'd see: a young man in white coveralls, his name embroidered in red over a pocket. "Hi there; come on in. The man turned away as Rube stepped in. Lettered in an arc on the back of his coveralls: Beekev Brothers, Movers.

Rube glanced around, pulling the door closed behind him. lie knew this little room: the worn oak desk behind which-the name over his pocket was Dave-the young man sat down. Knew the wooden chair before it, at which Dave gestured, inviting Rube to take it. Knew the framed photographs on the walls: moving crews lined up beside their trucks; The Gang, some were labeled. Some of the trucks were old, with unroofed cabs, no windshields, steering wheels huge and perfectly upright. Dates lettered in white under the lined-up crews: 1935, 1938, 1912, 1919 .

"What can I do for you?

Rube turned, gripping the back of the empty chair, and said, "Do you know me? You recognize me?

"No, can't say I do. Voice polite.

"I've been here before, I know I have. But Dave shook his head. "Well . . ." Rube's mind supplied an answer. "I'm . . . winding up a small business. Got some stuff to store. If I could look around?

"Sure. Dave stood to walk to a gray-painted metal-sheathed door, pushed it open, and held it for Rube, who stepped through into a tiny, concrete-paved area lighted by a bare high-wattage ceiling bulb. Dave pushed a button beside closed elevator doors, they heard a starting clunk up in the shaft, then the steadily descending whir, and Rube held himself still and expressionless, everything here utterly familiar, to the very scratches on the green- enameled elevator doors. And yet-what was he about to see?

Up to the top floor; the doors slid apart, Rube stepped out, and stopped so abruptly Dave had to dance a sidestep around him. They stood at the head of an aisle wide as a narrow street and so long its sides contracted far ahead with distance. Caged ceiling bulbs lighted the area poorly, shadowing the wooden floor rutted by years of iron wheels. Both sides were lined-like houses on the two sides of a street-with side-by-side cubicles of wood-framed wire netting, their simple plank doors stencil-numbered and padlocked. Rube stepped forward, his shoulders bulled in angry frustration, head jerking from side to side, glancing into the nearest cubicles; at household furniture, chairs inverted on tabletops; at a space paved with shadeless lamps, another stacked chest-high with framed pictures; more furniture. Angrily be said, "What is this! God damn it, what is this!