God, I'm so stupid. Why couldn't I keep my big mouth shut? I stood there, in the workshop dungeon of the Tenement Museum, wondering if I should follow her, though I still could not figure out why this odd Jewish girl, with her frizzy mop, her long nose, her porous skin, her crooked teeth, should stir up such powerful feelings in me. It's not like I'm one of those kinky types who're into feet or teeth, or getting tied up or pooped on. I promise you, I've got no perversions. When it comes to sex, I'm completely conformist, old-school, run-of-the-mill, bourgeois. Still, there's no denying it--she turned me on. So who knows? I might be perverted without knowing it; I might be into ugly Jewish girls. Besides, it looked like she liked me: she looked deep into my eyes. Of course she liked me; she loved me. So why didn't I pursue her? I still could. If I hurried, I could still find her, outside the building or further down the street. Go, Louis! Run! Go, you moron! Do it! Love is on the line, your future, your life, everything. Your job here is done, Louis. Zel doesn't need you. She's off to Europe to work in the teeth-forgery business. You're not going with her; you're not joining her ludicrous scheme. You've helped her enough. Now it's time to help yourself. Follow your instincts, Louis. Follow the weird-looking Jewess, hunt her down! She likes you, don't you see? This could be the new Betsy, Betsy, yes, without the French, without the freckles, without the enormous boobs flopping down to the ground.
But then my phone beeped. My sister texted me: "Urgent. Come see me chez moi."
Putting down Joe's gun--stupid move--I set out to go. But then Jim entered, the guy who'd tricked me by giving me the key to this dungeon. He noticed Joe on the floor, the mess of broken things, the gun on the stool. He told me not to move. I told him to shut up, he's not the boss of me. He told me he'd get the cops if I tried to get out. I told him to get the cops, it didn't bother me. I went to the door, pushing him gently to one side, but the jerk wouldn't let me out. He stood there, blocking the exit. Now, I'm the mellowest fellow in the world. I don't believe in violence. But this jerk refused to budge. So I punched him, first in the belly with my right, then in the mouth with my left. He fell to the ground, thoroughly knocked out, I thought, but then he seized me by the legs. He held on to them so fiercely I fell right on top of him. We wrestled. We rolled together from one end of the room to the other, clinching, locking, holding, throwing, sometimes punching or even biting. We bumped into Joe two or three times in our rumble, but he didn't stir. I thought he'd kicked the bucket. In the end I kicked Jim in the groin. This move put him out of commission.
I took off: out the door, up the steep gloomy steps, out of the building. I didn't see the Jewish girl; I didn't even look for her; I sped up Eldridge Street to my sister's house on 9th. But then, looking behind me, I spotted Jim pursuing me--Jim plus five or six goons, including Bill, including the bushy weirdo who knocked me out in Brooklyn when I first fell in love with the Jewish girl, including (you won't believe this) someone I knew well, in the nineties, but completely lost touch with: Queer Jon, the Ph.D. student who worked in Hershey's with me, in D.C., the obnoxious homophobe typique guy who liked to show off his French. I could not believe it. I knew he'd moved to New York City--but since when did the mob hire phony highbrows like this guy? Luckily, though overweight, I know how to run, so the second I noticed the goons I bolted like lightning. I turned right on Rivington Street, to divert them from my sister's house. I sprinted down Rivington, with those fiends still behind me, but they were too slow to get me. Only Jon, God blight him, knew how to run--on top of which, on the corner of Essex Street, I slipped on something, then tripped on something (lemon rinds, the curb). I fell, hurt my wrist, cursed my luck. Jon overtook me. But then he tripped too (the curb). The other goons were getting closer. I picked myself up. I continued to run, but so did Jon. The creep could run. Luckily, for me, while we crossed Clinton Street, with Jon but three or four feet behind me, two kids on scooters collided with him, knocking him out cold. One of Jon's violet shoes flew off, shot up to the sky, rising, rising, rising, rising in slow motion, then shot down, plummeting, plummeting, till it hit me in the eye. Ouch! I'd been blinded! It took me some time to recover. When I did, I noticed he'd been killed, or so it looked like: Jon lying lifeless in the middle of the street, blood, teeth, guts everywhere. The kids were so shocked, they fled the scene on foot. I felt I should do something, help him, even though he'd been trying to kill me. But the other goons were closing in. They didn't even stop to help him. So much for friendship.
I continued my flight down Rivington, till I hit Pitt Street, by the big housing project. I jumped into the bushes, crouched there for some time, then went behind one of the buildings, where I spotted four huge recycling bins. I opened one of the bins, climbed inside, shut the lid over me. Luckily I'd chosen the newsprint bin, so no bottles would be dumped on me. I only hoped the goons wouldn't think to look in here. I decided I'd lie low for thirty minutes or so, then check to see if they were still there.
I turns out, when you're lying low, with five or six hired goons out to kill you, thirty minutes is forever. I consulted my phone every so often, but the time seemed to be stuck: 5:32 P.M. So I decided to check my electronic correspondence, which, come to think of it, I'd completely neglected since I got to New York. I knew plenty of people would be pissed off--supervisors, coworkers, business connections, those kinds of people--but with my sister gone, in peril, possibly murdered, with those mobsters pursuing me, shooting me, binding me, drugging me, sending me down the wrong course, to Jeff's house in Queens, to some underground show, to the Film Forum, uptown, downtown, Brooklyn, the Jewelry District, Teeth Rooms, gloomy Chinese coffee shops, etc., I'd been too busy to think of my job. I didn't even know how long I'd been in this town. One week? Two? So, I checked my correspondence. I'd been gone, it turned out, for precisely one week. People were indeed pissed: why didn't I come to the meeting? why didn't I sign the Miller memo? why didn't I send the expenditure report? why didn't I reply to his queries? why did I keep ignoring her requests? why wouldn't I pick up the fucking phone? In the end I got this grim missive from Rob, my boss:
Louis,
I hope you're well, wherever the hell you might be. It grieves me to tell you this, since you're one of our best employees, but we've pretty much given up on you here. You've let me down, Louis. You're fired. You've got two weeks, i.e., until the fourteenth of next month, to move out of your office. Everything left behind by the fifteenth will become the property of SkyWorks, Ltd.
Sincerely,
Roberto Herschfeld
This did not surprise me. It didn't bother me either, to tell you the truth. I shrugged my shoulders, there in the recycling bin, which is how I respond every time I get fired. I shrug my shoulders, thinking, Hum, there will be work somewhere else. I don't know why, since there were more pressing things to tend to, but I felt I should reply right then. So I did:
No worries. Keep my stuff.
Best,
Louis
Then, gingerly, I opened the lid of the bin. I looked to my right, to my left. The goons were nowhere to be seen, so I climbed out of there, then crept to the edge of the building. I looked in every direction. No goons, just three little kids riding their bikes in circles. So I quietly proceeded to Pitt Street. Still no sign of the goons. They'd given up, I thought, though I couldn't be sure, so I got the hell out of there. I sped uptown. I crossed Houston, 1st Street, 2nd Street, etc., turned west, then north, rushing to my sister's house on 9th Street.
I buzzed 3D. No response. I tried her phone. No response. I texted her. Still no response. I didn't know where to turn. I lingered for some time, thinking the worst: Joe's goons were there, grilling my sister, torturing my sister, killing my sister. Suddenly I felt something on my behind, two sticky Post-It notes, it turned out, which I'd obviously picked up during my thirty-minute stopover in the recycling bin: one of them seemed to be in Greek; the other, though in English, I could not comprehend: "More whim moor nymph mire hymn mere yum." Nonsense, I thought, stuffing the note in my pocket, nonsense verse. I buzzed 3D one more time. Then I buzzed other units, 3F, 3E, 3C, 3B, for someone else to let me in. Luckily, two old women stepped out of the building with their little rodent-looking dog. The dog sniffed, yelped. One of them smiled, observing, "It's been so cold this whole week, George, don't you find?" I concurred, but promised it would be sunny this weekend.
I entered the building. I stormed up to the third floor. I knocked on my sister's door. Still no reply. But this time she'd left it unlocked. I turned the knob, I pushed the door, it opened. I went inside. "Zel?" I cried. No reply. The lights were out. I spent some time looking for the switch. I found it, switched on the light.
Didi, lying on the couch, mumbled something in her sleep. Something concerning milk. I looked for her mother in the bedroom, in the john, in the kitchen, but did not find her. In the kitchen I found this note:
LouiS,
CouLDN'T LiNGeR. 6PM FLiGHT. DiDi'S HeRe. WouLD You MiND KeePiNG 2 eYeS oN HeR (You'LL NeeD THeM BoTH) WHiLE i'M GoNe? SHe'S FRiSKy BuT SHe'S VeRY SWeeT, You'LL See. DoN'T FeeD HeR CiTRuS FRuiT, CoCoNuT oR CHiCKeN LiVeR. SHe'S HyPeRSeNSiTiVe.
LoVe,
YouR SiSTeR ZeL
The child mumbled something else in her sleep, then put her thumb in her mouth. I took one more tour of my sister's home, to see if there were no other surprises in store for me. I went into the bedroom. It smelled distinctly of wild berry oil, which did not remind me of Zel, who smelled sometimes of thyme or fennel, sometimes of nuts, sometimes of mint, sometimes of bubble gum, sometimes of pine or coffee or Vicks or roses or hemp, but never of berries. There were some toys on the bed, the dresser, the floor, new toys like Follow Me Fred, like Toy Story figures, nothing like the toys she used to like. I wondered if she'd ever slept in this bed, which looked oddly new, untouched or dented. I returned to the living room. I observed the sleeping child. Zel used to sleep with her thumb in her mouth too. I wondered if I should let her sleep or if I should--
But then, on the shelf by the window, I spotted something I recognized. Isn't this, I thought, getting up, picking up the object, the very ostrich I broke when I first got to town, when I went to see the Jew? No, of course not. But seriously, they were twins, twin reddish brownish ostriches. I smiled. Very pretty little figurine. I don't know why, but this ostrich stirred up some very powerful feelings in me. I wept. I wept bitterly, I wept long. This ostrich got me thinking of Betsy, I'm not sure why. It's not like she liked ostriches or ever spoke of ostriches or owned figurines like this one. Possibly the ostrich's expression, so intense yet so composed, so stoic, reminded me of Betsy, who could be very stoic sometimes, resigned to suffering, her own, the world's. This is why she moved to the Third World to help the needy. Yes, Betsy, I remember one time, the first time I kissed you, how it felt when my fingers crept down there, through the bush, crept inside you. It felt so good I shut my eyes, but I could see, very distinctly, the countryside, those high rocky cliffs with cypress trees on one side, the fluffy clouds like white wool in the sky, the children flying kites, strings stretching from the cliff to the clouds. I could see this vision distinctly now too, in Zel's living room, holding this little ostrich. Without even shutting my eyes I could see it, like the first time we kissed, the time I first went down there, through the bush to the well to the cliff to the wooly clouds.
Well, not surprisingly, since I kept sobbing, though softly, while I studied this ostrich which reminded me of those old wonderful things, it slipped from my fingers, fell on the windowsill, then bounced to the floor, where it broke into millions of pieces.
Didi woke up from the noise. She looked up. She noticed me.
"Hi," I whispered. I don't know why. She'd been sleeping, so I thought: be quiet.
She whispered too: "Uncle Louis?"
"Yes," I whispered. "It's me."
She stretched her little limbs. Then, closing her eyes, she curled up once more, sticking her thumb in her mouth. I went over to the couch, hunkered down by her side, kissed her on the temple.
"Uncle Louis?" she whispered.
"Yes, Didi?" I whispered, wondering why we were still whispering.
She whispered, "Will you tell me the story my mommy tells me when she tells me to get up in the morning?"
"The story?" I whispered. "I don't think I know it. How does it go?"
"There's this robber," she whispered, "who needs to get out of prison to see his mommy before she flies to Peru but the cops won't let him out so she sends him this big muffin with scissors inside it with words printed on it telling him to meet her in her hut in the forest so he uses the scissors to cut through the prison fence but then the cops shoot him but they miss so he doesn't die but then they send their hounds to hunt him down but the hounds lose his scent when he crosses the river but then the cops get on their police bikes to find the robber but they don't find him so they return to prison where the chief of police whips them with his whip for being such lousy cops while the robber goes into the forest to meet his mommy in her hut but she isn't there so he goes looking for her in town but she isn't home so he hides in her house so the cops won't find him but there's no food in the house so he goes down to the convenience store to buy some Twinkies but while he's gone his mother returns but doesn't know her son the robber just went out to get Twinkies so she goes to the forest to meet him in the hut where she told him to meet her but he isn't there so she flies to Peru."
"Oh," I whispered. I figured I should pick it up from there.
"The end," she whispered.
"But doesn't the robber go to Peru to look for his mom?"
"No," she replied. "He goes to prison."
THE END
