The Essential Ellison Part 107

"I'm fine. I'm fine but I'm wet and I'm cranky. Let's go somewhere and have a nice cup of Earl Grey."

There had been a look on Billy Kinetta's face as he stood with lowered eyes, staring at the grave he had come to visit. The emergency had removed that look. Now it returned.

" No, thanks. If you' re okay, I' ve got to do some things."

The old man felt himself all over, meticulously, as he replied, " I' m only superficially bruised. Now if I were an old woman, instead of a s.p.u.n.ky old man, same age though, I' d have lost considerable of the calcium in my bones, and those two would have done me some mischief. Did you know that women lose a considerable part of their calcium when they reach my age? I read a report. " Then he paused, and said shyly, " Come on, why don' t you and I sit and chew the fat over a nice cup of tea?"

Billy shook his head with bemus.e.m.e.nt, smiling despite himself. " You' re something else, Dad. I don' t even know you."

" I like that."

" What: that I don' t know you?"

" No, that you called me 'Dad' and not 'Pop. ' I hate 'Pop. ' Always makes me think the wise-apple wants to snap off my cap with a bottle opener. Now Dad has a ring of respect to it. I like that right down to the ground. Yes, I believe we should find someplace warm and quiet to sit and get to know each other. After all, you saved my life. And you know what that means in the Orient."

Billy was smiling continuously now. " In the first place, I doubt very much I saved your life. Your wallet, maybe. And in the second place, I don' t even know your name; what would we have to talk about?"

"Gaspar," hesaid,extendinghishand."That'safirstname.Gaspar.Knowwhat.i.tmeans?"

Billy shook his head.

" See, already we have something to talk about."

So Billy, still smiling, began walking Gaspar out of the cemetery. " Where do you live? I' ll take you home."

They were on the street, approaching Billy Kinetta's 1979 Cutla.s.s. "Where I live is too far for now. I' m beginning to feel a bit peaky. I' d like to lie down for a minute. We can just go on over to your place, if that doesn' t bother you. For a few minutes. A cup of tea. Is that all right?"

He was standing beside the Cutla.s.s, looking at Billy with an old man's expectant smile, waiting for him to unlock the door and hold it for him till he' d placed his still-calcium-rich but nonetheless old bones in the pa.s.senger seat. Billy stared at him, trying to figure out what was at risk if he unlocked that door. Then he snorted a tiny laugh, unlocked the door, held it for Gaspar as he seated himself, slammed it and went around to unlock the other side and get in. Gaspar reached across and thumbed up the door lock k.n.o.b. And they drove off together in the rain.

Through all of this the timepiece made no sound, no sound at all.

Like Gaspar, Billy Kinetta was alone in the world.

His three-room apartment was the vacuum in which he existed. It was furnished, but if one stepped out into the hallway and, for all the money in all the numbered accounts in all the banks in Switzerland, one was asked to describe those furnis.h.i.+ngs, one would come away no richer than before. The apartment was charisma poor. It was a place to come when all other possibilities had been expended. Nothing green, nothing alive, existed in those boxes. No eyes looked back from the walls. Neither warmth nor chi" , marked those s.p.a.ces. It was a place to wait.

Gaspar leaned his closed shooting stick, now a walking stick with handles, against the bookcase. He studied the t.i.tles of the paperbacks stacked haphazardly on the shelves.

From the kitchenette came the sound of water running into a metal pan. Then tin on cast iron. Then the hiss of gas and the flaring of a match as it was struck; and the pop of the gas being lit.

"Many years ago," Gaspar said, taking out a copy of Moravia's The Adolescents and thumbing it as he spoke, " I had a library of books, oh, thousands of books- never could bear to toss one out, not even the bad ones- and when folks would come to the house to visit they' d look around at all the nooks and crannies stuffed with books; and if they were the sort of folks who don' t snuggle with books, they' d always ask the same dumb question. " He waited a moment for a response and when none was forthcoming (the sound of china cups on sink tile), he said, " Guess what the question was."

From the kitchen, without much interest: " No idea."

" They' d always ask it with the kind of voice people use in the presence of large sculptures in museums. They' d ask me, 'Have you read all these books?' " He waited again, but Billy Kinetta was not playing the game. " Well, young fella, after a while the same dumb question gets asked a million times, you get sorta snappish about it. And it came to annoy me more than a little bit. Till I finally figured out the right answer.

" And you know what that answer was? Go ahead, take a guess."

Billy appeared in the kitchenette doorway. " I suppose you told them you' d read a lot of them but not all of them."

Gaspar waved the guess away with a flapping hand. " Now what good would that have done? They wouldn' t know they' d asked a dumb question, but I didn' t want to insult them, either. So when they' d ask if I' d read all those books, I' d say, 'h.e.l.l, no. Who wants a library full of books you' ve already read?'"

Billy laughed despite himself. He scratched at his hair with idle pleasure, and shook his head at the old man's verve. "Gaspar, you are a wild old man.You retired?"

The old man walked carefully to the most comfortable chair in the room, an overstuffed Thirties-style lounger that had been reupholstered many times before Billy Kinetta had purchased it at the American Cancer Society Thrift Shop. He sank into it with a sigh. " No sir, I am not by any means retired. Still very active."

" Doing what, if I' m not prying?"

" Doing ombudsman."

" You mean, like a consumer advocate? Like Ralph Nader?"" Exactly. I watch out for things. I listen, I pay some attention; and if I do it right, sometimes I can even make a little difference. Yes, like Mr. Nader. A very fine man."

" And you were at the cemetery to see a relative?"

Gaspar's face settled into an expression of loss. "My dear old girl. My wife, Minna. She's been gone, well, it was twenty years in January." He sat silently staring inward for a while, then: " She was everything to me. The nice part was that I knew how important we were to each other; we discussed, well, just everything. I miss that the most, telling her what's going on.

" I go to see her every other day.

" I used to go every day. But. It. Hurt. Too much."

They had tea. Gaspar sipped and said it was very nice, but had Billy ever tried Earl Grey? Billy said he didn' t know what that was, and Gaspar said he would bring him a tin, that it was splendid. And they chatted. Finally, Gaspar asked, " And who were you visiting?"

Billy pressed his lips together. " Just a friend. " And would say no more. Then he sighed and said, " Well, listen, I have to go to work."

" Oh? What do you do?"

The answer came slowly. As if Billy Kinetta wanted to be able to say that he was in computers, or owned his own business, or held a position of import. " I' m night manager at a 7-Eleven."

" I' ll bet you meet some fascinating people coming in late for milk or one of those slus.h.i.+es," Gaspar said gently. He seemed to understand.

Billy smiled. He took the kindness as it was intended. " Yeah, the cream of high society. That is, when they' re not threatening to shoot me through the head if I don' t open the safe."

"Let me ask you a favor, " Gaspar said. "I'd like a little sanctuary, if you think it's all right. Just a little rest. I could lie down on the sofa for a bit. Would that be all right? You trust me to stay here while you' re gone, young fella?"

Billy hesitated only a moment. The very old man seemed okay, not a crazy, certainly not a thief. And what was there to steal? Some tea that wasn' t even Earl Grey?

" Sure. That' ll be okay. But I won' t be coming back till two A. M. So just close the door behind you when you go; it' ll lock automatically."

They shook hands, Billy shrugged into his still-wet trenchcoat, and he went to the door. He paused to look back at Gaspar sitting in the lengthening shadows as evening came on. " It was nice getting to know you, Gaspar."

" You can make that a mutual pleasure, Billy. You' re a nice young fella."

And Billy went to work, alone as always.

When he came home at two, prepared to open a can of Hormel chili, he found the table set for dinner, with the scent of an elegant beef stew enriching the apartment. There were new potatoes and stir-fried carrots and zucchini that had been lightly battered to delicate crispness. And cupcakes. White cake with chocolate frosting. From a bakery.

And in that way, as gently as that, Gaspar insinuated himself into Billy Kinetta's apartment and his life.

As they sat with tea and cupcakes, Billy said, " You don' t have anyplace to go, do you?"

The old man smiled and made one of those deprecating movements of the head. " Well, I' m not the sort of fella who can bear to be homeless, but at the moment I' m what vaudevillians used to call 'at liberty.'"

"If you want to stay on a time, that would be okay," Billy said. "It's not very roomy here, but we seem to get on all right."

"That's strongly kind of you, Billy. Yes, I'd like to be your roommate for a while. Won't be too long, though. My doctor tells me I' m not long for this world. " He paused, looked into the teacup, and said softly, " I have to confess...I' m a little frightened. To go. Having someone to talk to would be a great comfort."

And Billy said, without preparation, " I was visiting the grave of a man who was in my rifle company in Vietnam. I go there sometimes. " But there was such pain in his words that Gaspar did not press him for details.

So the hours pa.s.sed, as they will with or without permission, and when Gaspar asked Billy if they could watch television, to catch an early newscast, and Billy tuned in the old set just in time to pick up dire reports of another aborted disarmament talk, and Billy shook his head and observed that it wasn' t only Gaspar who was frightened of something like death, Gaspar chuckled, patted Billy on the knee and said, with una.s.sailable a.s.surance, " Take my word for it, Billy...it isn' t going to happen. No nuclear holocaust. Trust me, when I tell you this: it' ll never happen. Never, never, not ever."

Billy smiled wanly. " And why not? What makes you so sure... got some special inside information?"

And Gaspar pulled out the magnificent timepiece, which Billy was seeing for the first time, and he said, "It's not goingto happen because it's onlyeleven o'clock."

Billy stared at the watch, which read 11 :00 precisely. He consulted his wrist.w.a.tch. " Hate to tell you this, but your watch has stopped. It's almost five-thirty."

Gaspar smiled his owncertain smile. "No,it's eleven."

And they made up the sofa for the very old man, who placed his pocket change and his fountain pen and the sumptuous turnip watch on the now-silent television set, and they went to sleep.

One day Billy went off while Gaspar was was.h.i.+ng the lunch dishes, and when he came back, he had a large paper bag from Toys " R" Us.

Gaspar came out of the kitchenette rubbing a plate with a souvenir dish towel from Niagara Falls, New York. He stared at Billy and the bag. "What's in the bag?" Billy inclined his head, and indicated the very old man should join him in the middle of the room. Then he sat down crosslegged on the floor, and dumped the contents of the bag. Gaspar stared with startlement, and sat down beside him.

So for two hours they played with tiny cars that turned into robots when the sections were unfolded.

Gaspar was excellent at figuring out all the permutations of the Transformers, Starriors and GoBots. He played well.

And they went for a walk. " I' ll treat you to a matinee, " Gaspar said. " But no films with Karen Black, Sandy Dennis or Meryl Streep. They' re always crying. Their noses are always red. I can' t stand that."

They started to cross the avenue. Stopped at the light was this year's Cadillac Brougham, vanity license plates, ten coats of acrylic lacquer and two coats of clear (with a little r.e.t.a.r.der in the final " color coat" for a slow dry) of a magenta hue so rich that it approximated the shade of light s.h.i.+ning through a decanter filled with Chateau LafiteRothschild 1945.

The man driving the Cadillac had no neck. His head sat thumped down hard on the shoulders. He stared straight ahead, took one last deep pull on the cigar, and threw it out the window. The still-smoking b.u.t.t landed directly in front of Gaspar as he pa.s.sed the car. The old man stopped, stared down at this coprolitic metaphor, and then stared at the driver. The eyes behind the wheel, the eyes of a macaque, did not waver from the stoplight's red circle. Just outside the window, someone was looking in, but the eyes of the rhesus were on the red circle.

A line of cars stopped behind the Brougham.

Gaspar continued to stare at the man in the Cadillac for a moment, and then, with creaking difficulty, he bent and picked up the smoldering b.u.t.t of stogie.

The old man walked the two steps to the car- as Billy watched in confusion- thrust his face forward till it was mere inches from the driver's profile, and said with extreme sweetness, "I think you dropped this in our living room."

And as the glazed simian eyes turned to stare directly into the pedestrian's face, nearly nose to nose, Gaspar casually flipped the b.u.t.t with its red glowing tip, into the back seat of the Cadillac, where it began to burn a hole in the fine Corinthian leather.

Three things happened simultaneously: The driver let out a howl, tried to see the b.u.t.t in his rearview mirror, could not get the angle, tried to look over his shoulder into the back seat but without a neck could not perform that feat of agility, put the car into neutral, opened his door and stormed into the street trying to grab Gaspar. " You f.u.c.kin' bastid, whaddaya think you' re doin' tuh my car you a.s.shole bastid, I' ll kill ya..."

Billy's hair stood on end as he saw what Gaspar was doing; he rushed back the short distance in the crosswalk to grab the old man; Gaspar would not be dragged away, stood smiling with unconcealed pleasure at the mad bull rampaging and screaming of the hysterical driver. Billy yanked as hard as he could and Gaspar began to move away, around the front of the Cadillac, toward the far curb. Still grinning with octogeneric charm.

The light changed.

These three things happened in the s.p.a.ce of five seconds, abetted by the impatient honking of the cars behind the Brougham; as the light turned green.

Screaming, dragging, honking, as the driver found he could not do three things at once: he could not go after Gaspar while the traffic was clanging at him; could not let go of the car door to crawl into the back seat from which now came the stench of charring leather that could not be rectified by an inexpensive Tijuana tuck-' n-roll; could not save his back seat and at the same time stave off the hostility of a dozen drivers cursing and honking. He trembled there, torn three ways, doing nothing.

Billy dragged Gaspar.

Out of the crosswalk. Out of the street. Onto the curb. Up the side street. Into the alley. Through a backyard. To the next street from the avenue.

Puffing with the exertion, Billy stopped at last, five houses up the street. Gaspar was still grinning, chuckling softly with unconcealed pleasure at his puckish ways. Billy turned on him with wild gesticulations and babble.

"You're nuts!"

" How about that?" the old man said, giving Billy an affectionate poke in the bicep.

"Nuts! Looney! That guy would've torn off your head!What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you, old man? Are you out of your boots?"

" I' m not crazy. I' m responsible."

" Responsible!?! Responsible, fer chrissakes? For what? For all the b.u.t.ts every yotz throws into the street?"

The old man nodded. " For b.u.t.ts, and trash, and pollution, and toxic waste dumping in the dead of night; for bushes, and cactus, and the baobab tree; for pippin apples and even lima beans, which I despise. You show me someone who' ll eat lima beans without being at gunpoint, I' ll show you a pervert!"

Billy was screaming. " What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

" I' m also responsible for dogs and cats and guppies and c.o.c.kroaches and the President of the United States and Jonas Salk and your mother and the entire chorus line at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Also their ch.o.r.eographer."

" Who do you think you are? Cod?"

" Don' t be sacrilegious. I' m too old to wash your mouth out with laundry soap. Of course I' m not Cod. I' m just an old man. But I' m responsible."

Gaspar started to walk away, toward the corner and the avenue and a resumption of their route. Billy stood where the old man's words had pinned him.

" Come on, young fella," Gaspar said, walking backward to speak to him, " we' ll miss the beginning of the movie. I hate that."

Billy had finished eating, and they were sitting in the dimness of the apartment, only the lamp in the corner lit. The old man had gone to the County Art Museum and had bought inexpensive prints- Max Ernst, Cerome, Richard Dadd, a subtle Feininger which he had mounted in Insta-Frames. They sat in silence for a time, relaxing; then murmuring trivialities in a pleasant undertone.

Finally, Gaspar said, " I' ve been thinking a lot about my dying. I like what Woody Allen said."

Billy slid to a more comfortable position in the lounger. " What was that?"

" He said: I don' t mind dying, I just don' t want to be there when it happens."

Billy snickered.

" I feel something like that, Billy. I' m not afraid to go, but I don' t want to leave Minna entirely. The times I spend with her, talking to her, well, it gives me the feeling we' re still in touch. When I go, that's the end of Minna. She'll be well and truly dead. We never had any children, almost everyone who knew us is gone, no relatives. And we never did anything important that anyone would put in a record book, so that's the end of us. For me, I don't mind; but I wish there was someone who knew about Minna...she was a remarkable person."

So Billy said, " Tell me. I' ll remember for you."

Memories in no particular order. Some as strong as ropes that could pull the ocean ash.o.r.e. Some that s.h.i.+mmered and swayed in the faintest breeze like spiderwebs. The entire person, all the little movements, that dimple that appeared when she was amused at something foolish he had said. Their youth together, their love, the procession of their days toward middle age. The small cheers and the pain of dreams never realized. So much about him, as he spoke of her. His voice soft and warm and filled with a longing so deep and true that he had to stop frequently because the words broke and would not come out till he had thought away some of the pa.s.sion. He thought of her and was glad. He had gathered her together, all her dowry of love and taking care of him, her clothes and the way she wore them, her favorite knickknacks, a few clever remarks: and he packed it all up and delivered it to a new repository.

The very old man gave Minna to Billy Kinetta for safekeeping.