Mr. Apology Read online

“You never pay back your loans,” she said. “You still owe me three hundred bucks from before, Billy. I don’t have it. And even if I did, you wouldn’t get your hands on a cent of it. I’m not going to see you do this to yourself, Billy.”

  Fuck her.

  Fuck this bitch.

  She don’t understand my needs.

  She don’t understand them.

  “When did you last sleep, Billy? When did you last lay your head down on a pillow and close your eyes and just sleep?” She put one hand up to the back of his neck and began to stroke his hair quietly. “Sleep, baby brother. That’s what you need. Trust your big sister. Trust me, Billy. Sleep.”

  He moved away from her. He saw what she was trying to do. She was trying to hypnotize him. He could see right through that. Don’t touch me again, he thought. Don’t lay your lousy hands on me. He went towards the window, opening the lids of various canisters as he moved. FLOUR. SUGAR. TEA. COFFEE. Nothing. Unless she’d hidden her bread under the surface of the flour or stuffed it down beneath the granules of sugar. “I’ll get the money back to you. I swear I will.”

  “Jesus, you need money this bad, Billy, why don’t you go out and rob somebody, huh? Pick any rich-looking old guy walking along some dark street and rob him—why don’t you think about that?”

  He closed his eyes. He was shivering. The insides of his head felt like Jell-O that hadn’t set. He heard her feet scuff across the floor and realized he couldn’t take it if she so much as touched him again; he couldn’t stand to feel her hands on his flesh or hair, couldn’t take the hot feel of her breath against his face.

  “You know what I think, Billy? Huh?”

  “I don’t give a fuck what you think!”

  “I’m gonna tell you, little brother. You’re so far gone you need some kinda treatment. A shrink. A doc. You need professional help, man. You’re gonna kill yourself if you go on like this, Billy. I wish you’d listen to me.”

  “Look, I only want some bread, cash, that’s all I want. Give me what you got and I’ll get the hell outta here.”

  She was shaking her head. She was standing real close to him and shaking her head. “Nada,” she said. “You won’t get anything here.”

  It didn’t take long. It took maybe a minute, hardly longer.

  It didn’t take much strength either.

  He was surprised how little effort he had to give.

  He dug the tips of his fingers into her neck and he pressed, watching the way her mouth hung open and the panicky look came into her eyes, feeling her feet slap painlessly against his shins. He just dug and pressed, gripping her neck between the thumbs and fingers, making hooks of the hands, forcing the points of the thumbs hard and tight against the larynx, listening to the weird gurgling noise she kept making the more he pressed. It felt like the skin would break, that his fingertips would just pierce the soft flesh and blood would come through the broken openings of veins, but that didn’t happen. And then she was down on her knees and he was shaking her head back and forward, forward and back, feeling all the life just run out of her, seeing the light fizzle in her eyes, seeing it change from panic and fear to some cold indifference, a matter-of-fact expression, seeing the corners of her mouth twist downwards and her tongue come out from between her teeth. Then she seemed to sigh and her head was loose between his hands, her neck twisted in a strange way to one side, her eyes popping a little. He slackened his grip, held her face against his thigh a moment, then pushed her away from him.

  He stepped backwards into the table.

  Jesus Christ!

  What have you done, Billy?

  She lay propped against the wall. Her legs were spread wide apart. He stared at her for a time, conscious of a slight smell in the kitchen. What was it? The stove. Yeah. A pan of oil was sitting on the stove and the burner was on LOW. She’d never eat her lunch now.

  He moved towards her, stood over her, looked down at her spread legs, thighs visible where the slip had slid upwards.

  Camilla.

  A loan, I needed a loan, I asked you, I gave you a chance!

  He shut his eyes a second.

  Then he opened them, looked at her.

  The wide-spread legs.

  That was it. That was what it was. He remembered it all now.

  Out on the street a trio of fags brushed past him. They left a smell of perfume in their trail. Blowdried hair and thick makeup and clothes you just knew would glow in the dark, for God’s sake. He walked to the corner. He was dizzy. He put a hand inside the pocket of his jeans and felt the wad of bills. Why didn’t they make him feel as good as they should have done? What was this dizziness, this quick pain in his gut? She’d kept her bread in the most obvious of places, the easiest place in the whole goddamn world to find. Inside her purse. Jesus! Easy as that. Inside her fucking purse. He wanted to laugh about that but the stomach pain seized him again and he doubled over, groaning a little. He had to lean against the window of a store. A sex shop. A black dude stepped out, carrying a brown bag under one arm. Billy watched him pass, then found himself looking through the glass. Lubricants. Amyl nitrate sold in little bottles under weird names. Porn movies. Books and magazines. You could go inside and buy vibrators that emitted milk. You could get whips and masks and plastic dolls you blew up with a bicycle pump, then fucked.

  You killed her, Billy.

  His mouth was filled with sticky saliva. There were spots in front of his eyes.

  He moved along the sidewalk again, pausing at a DON’T WALK sign. Somebody had stuck a poster below the sign. It caught his eye and he read a few lines of it before the light flashed WALK. He tore it down and crumpled it inside his pocket and then crossed the street. Maybe he’d read the rest of it later, maybe not.

  ATTENTION

  CRIMINALS

  BLUE COLLAR, WHITE COLLAR

  YOU HAVE WRONGED PEOPLE. IT IS TO THE PEOPLE YOU MUST APOLOGIZE. NOT TO THE STATE. NOT TO GOD. GET YOUR MISDEEDS OFF YOUR CHEST!

  CALL MR. APOLOGY

  He wiped his eyes. It was just another cuckoo, another fucker fallen out of his tree in a city where the sidewalks were already splattered with all kinds of broken eggshells.

  4.

  When Madeleine left the Bryant Berger Gallery for lunch she went along 57th Street to Fifth Avenue, where she turned north, hurrying through the midday crowds. A great restless river of people; they moved almost as if they were joined together by invisible threads. She was already late, which meant that Jamey would be sitting in the restaurant and becoming more and more fretful with each minute that passed. Impatient girl—there was always a deadline in her life, always some impossible schedule. When Madeleine reached the restaurant she paused outside a moment, wondering about the handbill in her purse, wondering if her idea was right or wrong. It couldn’t hurt Harry, she thought. It could only help him. She went inside the delicatessen and saw Jamey sitting on the far side of the large room. The smell of pickles, dill, smoked sausages, cheeses—a whole rush of scents came in on her at once. She threaded her way through the tables and sat down facing Jamey, who stubbed out her cigarette and smiled and reached out to touch the back of Madeleine’s hand.

  “What they say is true,” Jamey said. “Love enhances, makes the eyes bright and the skin clear. I always thought that was an old wives’ tale.”

  Madeleine laughed. She gazed at her friend for a moment. The short dark hair, wide cheekbones, an unusual kind of prettiness. “You look good yourself, Jamey.”

  “I can’t complain,” Jamey said. “Shit, of course I can. I smoke too much and I cough a lot and Walt has an ulcer, which means we’re suffering through this stupid bland diet together. I give him moral support through the mountains of tapioca and poached eggs.” Jamey opened her purse. It was black and white checks and matched the material of her jacket, the kind of jacket with padded shoulders you sometimes saw in old Joan Crawford movies. Jamey went to great lengths for her clothes, rummaging through thrift stores and garage sales and Salvation Army outlets
. Madeleine tried to remember what Walt looked like, couldn’t bring his face to mind; she only knew he worked on the same magazine as Jamey and that they’d been living together for about ten months. She watched her friend slip a cigarette out of her purse and light it. The handbill, she thought. When would she find the chance to bring up the subject of Apology?

  “Otherwise, life goes on,” Jamey said. “I just wrote a piece on this former linebacker for the Jets who’s turned to writing poetry. I wouldn’t bother to read it. Besides, his poetry sucks. But I want to know about you, Maddy. I’ve never seen you look quite this—God damn it—vibrant.”

  Madeleine glanced at the menu. Corned beef on rye, pickles, cole slaw … vibrant, she thought. Maybe she was. Maybe she did look different these days. It must show on her face, in her eyes, everywhere.

  Jamey said, “Sometimes you get this tiny secretive look on your face, Maddy, which absolutely infuriates me. I remember you used to get that same look back at good old Duke when you’d scored perfect on some test and you didn’t want to tell anybody. Well, you’ve got the same damn look now. I’m waiting. Sitting on the edge of my seat even. Tell me all about this wonderful man you mentioned on the telephone. Don’t keep me hanging like this.”

  “You mean Harry?”

  “Don’t play nonchalant with me and don’t give me that wide-eyed look. I’ve known you too long for that.”

  “He’s an artist.”

  “What kind of artist?”

  “Different things.” Madeleine paused, glancing across the restaurant. A waitress was hovering nearby; she had the vaguely hooded look of an old vulture. “He paints. He does some sculpture in different materials.”

  “Would I have seen any of his work?”

  Madeleine hesitated. “He isn’t well-known yet, Jamey. But he’s going to be. It’s only a matter of time. I’m sure he’ll be famous one day. He’s got a lot of ability, a lot of talent.”

  “What are you, Maddy? His private pompon girl? His personal chamber of commerce?”

  Madeleine laughed. “I believe in him, that’s all.”

  “All this sounds perilously close to the real thing,” Jamey said. Her face vanished momentarily behind a cloud of smoke.

  “I think it is,” Madeleine said. “It depends on how you define the real thing, though.”

  “Since you sound like the expert, suppose you tell me.”

  “He’s kind. He’s considerate. He enjoys me the way I am. We get along really well together. I keep surprising myself with my own impatience to see him. To be with him.”

  “You make him sound like a narcotic, Maddy.”

  Madeleine watched the waitress approach. A narcotic, she thought. Maybe it was something like that, but it was a different and better kind of high than any she’d ever had with a drug. The waitress stopped at the table. Madeleine ordered a green salad and Jamey, who gave the menu only a cursory glance, asked for pineapple and cottage cheese.

  “He shares his work with me. He makes me happy. I think I make him happy in return.” Madeleine paused. A whole new life, she thought. Harry has given me a whole new life, one filled with color and texture and meaning. “Would you understand it if I told you he lets me breathe? Would that make sense to you?”

  “I think so,” Jamey said. “In other words, this isn’t what you’d call a possessive, claustrophobic relationship. The kind that chokes. The kind that strangles.”

  “Right,” Madeleine said.

  Jamey was silent a moment. “I can’t get over how happy you look. You shine. You shine in this disgusting way.”

  Madeleine smiled. She suddenly felt like she was the keeper of some arcane secret, a thing too profound to utter. There was a warmth inside, a glow, the kind of feeling which, only a few months ago, she might have scorned. It happens, she thought. It really happens.

  “How did you meet this wonderful man?”

  “He came into the gallery where I work,” Madeleine said. “He just started talking to me. I don’t remember what it was—maybe it was something to do with the pictures on display. I don’t recall. Then he went away and I figured, well, that’s that. He was nice, I guess, but I don’t suppose I thought any more about him.” She paused a moment. She could remember the day, the hot weather of the last relics of summer, even the clothes Harry had been wearing—faded brown cord pants, a navy blue shirt, sneakers—but she couldn’t recall anything of their first conversation.

  “Then he came back,” Jamey said.

  “The next day. He asked me out. We went to an Indian restaurant. Then I went home with him.” She remembered that, the curious nervy sense of sexual tension, the anticipation, a sudden wild desire that had quite astonished her. It was as if in a single moment Harry had made her entirely forget the faces and the names and the performances of any other lovers she might have had in the past. All four of them, she thought.

  “Just like that,” Jamey said. She was glancing at her watch now. Why is she always in such a hurry? Madeleine wondered. Always running, jacket flying behind her, purse strung out from her shoulder like a wake she left in her passage.

  “It took me by surprise, Jamey. I wasn’t really expecting anything. I wasn’t looking for something hot and heavy. I wasn’t exactly gasping to jump into bed with somebody. But I knew, just as soon as I saw him in the restaurant, I knew we’d become lovers. I don’t quite know how to phrase this. I had this overwhelming desire. It was like a sharp needle inside me. I don’t know if I’m making sense—”

  “You were horny,” Jamey said. “You had the hots for him.”

  Madeleine smiled. Good old Jamey. She had this way of reducing things, getting back to basic chemistry, stripping things down. “Right. But it was something I’d never felt before. And I keep feeling it, Jamey. It keeps growing. It keeps on getting better.”

  “I should have ordered wine and toasted you,” Jamey said. “I’m delighted you’re happy. You need a bridesmaid real soon?”

  “A bridesmaid? We haven’t even gotten around to living together yet.”

  “You still keep that little apartment of yours?”

  “Sure—”

  “Why haven’t you moved in with him?”

  “It just hasn’t happened. We’ll both know when the time is right for that step. I think there’s this period where people need to adapt to each other, where they need to make adjustments before they plunge into a living situation like that. It’ll come. But not before we’re both really ready.” Madeleine leaned back in her chair a moment, closed her eyes, listened to the din of the restaurant around her. Everything she’d told Jamey was true, everything exactly as it had happened. She hadn’t been looking for anything, hadn’t been living in the unsettling anticipation of love’s landslide, hadn’t been watching the weather for omens of the heart. She had come to New York City from the stultifying safety of Roanoke, Virginia, found a job at the gallery, an apartment in the upper 80s, dated a couple of times in a desultory way—usually with men who’d come into the gallery or someone she’d met at one of those cocktail-drenched openings that were so prevalent in the fixed world of galleries and shows—nothing that was ever serious, ever threatening. It wasn’t such a bad life: She was well paid (a strange miracle, she sometimes thought, considering the amount of business the gallery didn’t do); the apartment was small but pleasant; her social life was under the kind of control she enjoyed. And then Harry … after Harry nothing could ever have been the same; she could never have gone back to a world without him. She even had a hard time remembering life before him, almost as if she were sifting the recollections of somebody unfamiliar. It was like she’d unconsciously erected safety barriers around her existence and Harry had come crashing through.

  She opened her eyes. The waitress placed food in front of her. She watched Jamey pick at her cottage cheese. A late-season fly, glossy as a bat, hovered over the piles of cheese and chunks of pale pineapple. Madeleine placed a fragment of limp lettuce inside her mouth.

  Jamey said,
“What does he feel about you? Has he told you he loves you?”

  “He hasn’t said it in so many words.…”

  “No?” Jamey raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

  Madeleine didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “I’m not sure he absolutely realizes it himself yet.”

  “Meaning what? He’s in love with you only he doesn’t know it?”

  “It’s all a matter of recognition, Jamey. He needs a little time to get used to the idea. Then he’ll tell me.”

  “You sound pretty sure.”

  “It’s a feeling.”

  “Women’s intuition.”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “I’d never laugh at you, Maddy.” Jamey gazed down at her food.

  Madeleine said, “He’s too accustomed to his loft. Living alone. The solitary projects. He just needs time to get really accustomed to the fact of what he feels. Then he’ll tell me.”

  Jamey was silent for a while, picking at her food. “I’ll have to take your word on that,” she said eventually. “If you can stand a change of subject, how’s the job?”

  “It’s just fine. I don’t know how the gallery survives, but it does.” The gallery, she thought. She remembered the idea that had come to her only that morning when she’d been talking with Berger. Maybe. Just maybe it would work. She’d talk to Harry about it later. She nibbled on some more lettuce, then was thinking about the Apology handbill in her purse. It was burning a hole in there. It was all a matter of the right approach now. A matter of getting Jamey’s interest. How could she do that? She opened the purse, then hesitated. There was a roundabout way of doing this—there was also a pretty straightforward manner. But which? Look what I found inside a phone booth today, Jamey. Isn’t that interesting? Wouldn’t that make a terrific story? A small deceit, a trifling mischief. But she’d never been very good at juggling such things.

  “What are you working on now, Jamey?” she asked.

  “I’m supposed to be finishing up a story about this old longshoreman who’s also a sculptor. He’s an interesting guy. Energetic as hell. He makes his work out of any old material he can find around the docks. I hope I have that kind of energy when I’m his age.” She looked at her watch. “Speaking of work, I don’t exactly have a lot of time. The story’s supposed to be ready this afternoon.”