Читать книгу Manhattan Voyagers - Thomas Boone's Quealy - Страница 8
Eddie
ОглавлениеThe elderly man walked out to the end of Pier 11 and the wind off the water slapped his body hard. He had a craggy, square-jawed face with stubble cheeks, rings circling watery hazel eyes, and short-cropped silvery hair parted down the middle. Like so many other men in the Financial District, he wore a dark suit, white shirt and stripped tie even though work-casual was more the normal attire today for office workers. Despite being thin with zero body fat, he still managed to project a teddy-bearish charm when he smiled, the kind that caused women to swoon when he was in his salad days.
Upon closer inspection, however, there was something elusively odd about his attire -- the tie was much too thin, an obvious relic from the 1960s; and the lapels on his jacket were way too wide and last in style during the 1970s. And his unusual choice of footwear set off alarm bells; the iridescent high-top purple sneakers were designed for inner-city gang-bangers, not Wall Street types. All in all, he looked to be an educated man of means who was now down-at-the-heels.
The Cormorant flew from the piling to the guardrail near him.
He stroked its long neck. “Have you been up to your old tricks and scaring the tourists again?”
The bird noticed a bagel with a shmir sticking out of his jacket pocket and pecked at the cellophane wrapper with its beak.
“I’m saving that for my lunch; besides cream cheese will give you hives.”
Another helicopter roared overhead as it came in for a landing, the whirling blades kicking up a wet spray off the river that left tiny droplets on his face.
He glared up at it and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Crash and burn you noise-polluting iron bastards!”
The bird flapped its wings in approval.
His words were mostly drowned out by the noise from the plane’s engine yet two mature women, who had been admiring a passing sloop, gaped at him.
Seeing their alarmed reaction, he tipped a finger to the brim of an invisible hat on his head and bowed from the waist with a well-practiced flourish. “Please forgive the outburst, dear ladies, I’m always a bit testy in the morning until I’ve had my first cup of coffee.”
Realizing that he wasn’t a raving maniac after all and meant them no harm, they giggled flirtatiously before resuming their sightseeing.
He sighed at the Cormorant. “It’s a great pity you’re not a songbird; you could serenade the tourists while I’d pass around a hat for some spending money.”
The bird made a choking sound.
As if in sympathy, the man hastily pulled out a Kleenex and coughed. It was a hollow-chested, loose cough; blood mixing with the phlegm. He grimaced at the scarlet color and flung the tissue into a nearby trash basket.
The bird beeped twice and flew back to the piling.
“Yes, what you say is true, my dark feathered friend, I don’t deny it. I’ve always been a bed-hopping, womanizer, ever since college.”
A loudspeaker erupted, announcing the arrival of a ferry from Atlantic Highlands at Slip C.
“I was quite the heartthrob in my day; a cad, to be brutally honest.”
The bird was standing on one foot now, resting the other under a wing.
“I’d have a wife to grow old with if I hadn’t tomcatted about,” he said wistfully, “maybe even kids and a few grandchildren to comfort me in my declining years.”
Passengers disembarked from the ferry while the out-going group waited patiently to board.
“But my wife would probably be dead by now anyway, almost all my contemporaries are. So, in the end, I guess it doesn’t matter.”
Switching legs, the bird continued to listen as it gazed out at the harbor.
He inhaled the sea air. “Rivers are magical; don’t you agree?”
The Cormorant appeared to nod.
“The Hudson River may be wider, however, the East River has always been my favorite, ever since I moved here to Gotham. It has a certain New Yorkness about it and I like the way the water changes color as the day progresses. In the early morning, it’s a crisp blue, a misty green in the afternoon, and a steely gray as the Sun goes down.”
A barfing sound rose up from the bird’s long neck.
“Yes, I am aware that the East River isn’t really a river at all; it’s an estuary, a tributary of the sea where salt water rushes in and meets fresh water. But everyone calls it a river so I was merely following convention.”
Another ferry departed the pier and sped towards Hoboken in New Jersey.
“I wish I could swim in it the way the Lenape Indians did 10,000 years ago when they first set up their wigwams along this shoreline. They called it Mannahatta then – ‘Island of Many Hills’.”
The drone of whirling rotary blades could be heard as another line of helicopters approached in the distance.
“Did you know that by 1860, New York City was the oyster-trading capital of the world?”
The bird tracked the incoming choppers with chary eyes.
“It’s hard to believe but it’s true. This harbor was also flush with trout, sturgeon, herring, crabs, scallops, mussels and even lobsters.”
The engine noise grew much louder.
“I don’t remember if I mentioned this to you before but I’m a Knickerbocker, I’ve got old Dutch settler blood in me. An ancestor of mine, a jewel cutter by trade, sailed over here from Antwerp in 1631 when this burg was still called New Amsterdam.”
The Cormorant snorted belligerently.
“Don’t get upset; I agree, your ancestors were definitely here first.”
A stream of water shot out of the bird’s beak.
“Going for a dip to cool off; are we?”
The bird dove off the piling into the water, surfacing a few seconds later under the pier.
“You’re such a showboat!”
Again the bird dove under the surface and was gone from view for almost a full minute, eventually bobbing up twenty-five yards away.”
He hollered at the Cormorant. “Catch me a fish for dinner!”
A female security guard wearing an orange polyester vest with red stripes suddenly appeared by his side. She held a sweating can of soda in her meaty hand and was big-boned, ebony black, with thick lips, well on her way to becoming obese in a few years. “Howzit going, sugar?”
“Fine, Letitia, I’m just talking to the Cormorant.”
She swept the water with her sad, almond eyes. “Where’s it at?”
“He’ll pop up again in a sec, you’ll see.”
For several minutes the two of them waited, to no avail, for a beak to pierce the river’s glassy surface.
Letitia rested her beefy elbows on the railing. “Are you feeling ok?”
“The Cormorant was out there, Letitia, he’s just playing games.”
“How do you know the bird is a he and not a she?”
“Because he told me he was a he.”
“The bird talks to you?”
“Uh-huh, in a manner of speaking.”
“I wouldn’t go blabbing about that to other people, Eddie, if I was you. They’ll think you’re a nut case.”
He shrugged. “St. Francis of Assisi used to talk to all sorts of animals in the 13th. Century.”
“You ain’t no freaking saint, Eddie Felton, so mum’s the word.”
“Got it.”
“Are you still having blackouts?”
“Nah.”
“Coughing up blood?”
“I’m fine, Letitia, that was probably a virus of some kind.”
She sighed. “It’s good you don’t tell lies for a living, sugar, cause you’d be flat broke in no time.”
“I couldn’t be any broker than I already am.”
“What meds are you taking?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I dropped all the confetti-colored pills; they gave me diarrhea and a ringing in my ears. Now I’m just on Jack Daniels & Coke.”
“Johnnie Walker was my medicine of choice.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I really loved doing a long line of shots, Eddie, getting totally wasted in the shortest time possible. Then I felt happy and carefree again.”
“Yeah, Jack and Johnnie are tried-and-true pick-me-ups, Letitia, the only problem is the crushing hangover that hits you the next morning.”
She gave him a hard look. “You ain’t gonna find salvation in a bottle.”
“Who’s looking for salvation?”
“It’s time to be getting off the sauce, Eddie, you’re drinking yourself to death.”
“I’m considering dialing down a notch to vodka & Red Bull. RB is an energy drink and has B6 and B12 vitamins in it.”
She drank the last of the soda, crushed the aluminum can with her strong fingers, and lobbed it into a trash basket. “Why don’t you just drink Drano and get it over with?”
He grimaced. “Oy vey!”
“You’re fooling nobody but yourself, Eddie, you got to get your skinny ass into a 12-step program, A-sap.”
“It’s the best I can do right now, Letitia.”
“I hear you, sugar, I’ve been there myself.”
“The Red Bull also has caffeine in it that doctors say is beneficial for the heart.”
She seemed puzzled. “When I was a kid the doctors said caffeine was bad for you.”
“Yeah, I was told the same thing, however, the doctors changed their minds; now they say it’s good for you.”
“Those same doctors told me margarine was good for me and I needed to stop using butter on my pancakes.”
“Now they say margarine’s bad for you because it’s only one molecule away chemically from plastic, Letitia, so you need to start using butter again.”
“It’s all so confusing, Eddie, I wish those doctors would make up their damn minds.”
“I agree.”
“It seems like we’ve got to unlearn a lot of the stuff we learned growing up.”
“Yeah, Letitia, nothing is true for very long these days.”
She turned her back on the water and faced the Downtown skyline. “So where are you sleeping at night?”
“Here and there.”
“Does here and there have an address?”
“I’m catching my forty winks at the skyscraper they put up on Ann Street a few months ago.”
“The 70-story monstrosity that twists like a pretzel?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“How are you getting past Security?”
“I waltz in with the cleaning crew at 11:00 P.M. wearing a uniform I ‘borrowed’ from one of the company’s trucks.”
“It’s that easy?”
He nodded. “The guards are paid minimum wage; they’re not the sharpest tools in the shed. I never get asked for my I.D.”
Her face soured. “Here we are living in New York, the number-one target of terrorist groups, and Eddie Felton can walk willy-nilly into a major building near Ground Zero, without even being challenged. What does that tell you?”
“That we’re not as secure as Hizzoner the Mayor says we are.”
“Bingo!”
He shrugged. “Politicians tell lies; so what else is new?”
“You’re a naughty boy, Eddie, but you’ve got chutzpah.”
“If you act as though you belong in a place, Letitia, you’ll be accepted. It’s all in the way you carry yourself.”
“What happens once you’re past Security and in the building?”
“I locate an executive office with a comfy couch and a private bathroom. Then I sleep until 6:00 A.M., tidy up carefully after myself so nobody’s the wiser, and leave with the cleaning crew at the end of their shift.”
“The guards don’t check you on the way out either?”
He shook his head. “Security systems are designed to keep intruders out, Letitia, not in.”
“How many years you been an office squatter, Eddie?”
“Almost six.”
Her eyes glowed with visions of dollar signs. “I could buy me a new Caddy with all the rent I’d have saved if I squatted like you did.”
“It’s not an easy existence, Letitia.”
“Did you ever get caught?”
“I’ve had a few close calls but I’ve never been arrested.”
”The newspapers would love to know about you. I bet they’d run your story on their front pages. You’d be invited onto the TV talk-shows.”
“Yeah, maybe, but after my fifteen minutes of fame was over I wouldn’t have nowhere to sleep at night.”
“Do you got any family left?”
His jaw tightened. “Nah, I’m the last of the noble line of Feltons.”
“Noble?”
“We were Connecticut Yankees, Letitia, big fish in a small New England pond.”
“Hmm.”
“All the Felton men went to Yale dating back to my great-great-great grandfather.”
“That makes you an Ivy League squatter, Eddie, probably the only one in the entire country.”
“You could be right.”
“Yale, my word; ain’t you the smarty-pants?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“My cousin, Dzhane, is a smarty-pants too.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, sir, he was the son of a sharecropper in Alabama and got accepted to Auburn University. His SAT scores totaled 1315 even though he only got as far as ninth grade in school when he quit to work full-time on the farm.”
“Very impressive, Letitia.”
“But he never went to Auburn. He didn’t have any money, and he wasn’t a football or basketball player, so they wouldn’t give him a scholarship.”
“That’s a shame.”
“But Dzhane kept the acceptance letter the university sent him. Seven years later he showed it to his boss at the toy factory he got hired to work on the assembly line at. Like you, Eddie, the guy was impressed too.”
“I don’t wonder.”
“A few months later, a slot opened up and my cousin got promoted to foreman. Today Dzhane is the plant supervisor.”
“I’m glad.”
“Now me, Letitia Jones, I wasn’t no smarty-pants so I went to the school of hard-knocks out in Brownsville. I barely graduated.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down erratically. “I was almost expelled from Yale in my senior year.”
“Why?”
“I had a few too many drinks at a fraternity party and took a joy ride in a campus vehicle. I ended up crashing into the Dean of Arts and Sciences’ house, into his porch to be precise.”
“Yikes!”
“Unfortunately, the Dean and his wife were having cocktails on the porch at the time.”
“Double yikes!”
“And their daughter was in the rear seat, drunk as a skunk … and naked as the day she was born.”
“Oh, Lordy, that was a doozy of a mess you got yourself into!”
He dropped his head. “I was always a disappointment to my family, Letitia, I’d be a shoe-in for the lifetime-achievement-award for fuck-ups.”
“You can’t un-do the past, sugar, what’s done is done.”
“I know.”
“My father was strict Orthodox and always wore a Yarmulke; he wanted a ‘Steady Eddie’ for his only son and he ended up with me instead.”
“My daddy ached for three sons and he ended up with three daughters; if that wasn’t enough of a disappointment, two of us got knocked up as teenagers.”
“I’ve got many regrets, Letitia.”
She patted his arm. “I’m sure you had the best of intentions.”
“My father used to say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
“I’m a Bible-thumping, Holy-Roller, Gospel-singing, Pentecostal, Born–Again, Southern Christian Baptist, God-fearing sinner. We know all about damnation and the eternally burning fires of Hell.”
“That’s a lot of things to be, Letitia.”
“What are you?”
“I’m a professional cynic and a confirmed skeptic; I don’t believe in anything.”
She frowned. “Tell me, Eddie, what were your dreams for yourself when you were young?”
He gazed out at the river. “I … I always lived in the here and now, Letitia, I never thought too far into the future.”
“You must’ve wanted to be something when you grew up.”
“Hmm.”
“A fireman, a jet pilot, a basketball player; what?”
He rotated the gold signet ring on his pinky. “I can’t remember wanting to be anything … and PRESTO! … that’s how it turned out.”
She sighed softly.
“What did you want to be, Letitia?”
“You’ll laugh if I tell you.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“You will, Eddie, but I’ll tell you anyway.” Her face brightened and he heard longing in her voice. “I wanted to be a prima ballerina since I was four years old, I wanted to dance Swan Lake.”
“As in that movie with Natalie Portman?”
She nodded. “I saw Black Swan ten times.”
He placed his hand tenderly on hers. “That was a very big dream.”
She lowered her eyes. “Can you imagine me, a fat slob in tights, pirouetting on the stage at Lincoln Center?”
“I’d pay to see it.”
She pushed him away roughly. “You’re a damn fool!”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“It’s time you started going to temple, Eddie, it could turn your life around.”
“I am what I am.”
“And you need to get off the street.”
“I’m not going into a shelter; if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No. You can sleep in my apartment out in Bed-Stuy, Eddie, I got an extra bed and I wouldn’t charge you nothing.”
“Thanks, Letitia, it’s kind of you, but no thanks.”
“You’d be doing me a favor. I’ve been without a man so long my neighbors are beginning to think I’m a lesbian. Having you stay with me would be a boost for my reputation.”
He glanced about to make certain he was out of earshot of other people on the pier and whispered. “I might be gay myself.”
She began to laugh so hard into her fingers that the fat rolls on her midriff quivered and a tear rolled down her dark cheek.
“I’m serious, Letitia, it worries me. The other day I caught myself staring at young guys.”
“You were just daydreaming about being young again, Eddie, that’s all that was. I’ve done the same when I see slim, sexy gals. They remind me of what I used to look like 135 pounds ago.”
“I dunno.”
“Honey pie, you’re 76 years old; if you was gay, you’d sure as hell know it by now.”
“I … I suppose.”
“There’s no supposing about it.”
“I’m also having strange feelings I never had before.”
“That’s just old age creeping into your brittle bones.”
“I’ve been old a long time, Letitia, and this is different.”
“Don’t worry, sugar, my daddy had the same feelings. You’re a normal, horny man who enjoys sex with women.”
“I sure hope so.”
“You need to go to bed with a black woman like me. I promise you, the sex will be so great it’ll curl the hair on your neck and give you a whole new outlook on the world. Then you’d know for sure you ain’t gay.”
“You’d probably give me a stroke.”
She gently nudged his arm with her elbow. “Yeah, sugar, but you’d die with a Colgate smile on your face, I guaranty it.”
He reddened. “No offense, Letitia, but I like my women like I like my fish; white and flaky.”
She shrugged. “It’s your loss.”
“Thanks, anyway, that’s the best proposition I’ve had this decade.”
She sniffed the air with her widely flared nostrils. “Are you wearing a new cologne, Eddie?”
“No, I never wear cologne, I can’t afford it.”
She sniffed him. “You smell very fresh today.”
He shuffled his sneakers. “This morning I ran out of shaving cream. So I improvised, I used my mint toothpaste to shave with instead. You’re smelling the mint. That was resourceful of me; wouldn’t you say?”
“It’s pathetic, if you ask me!”
“Gee, I thought you’d be impressed.”
Her mood grew more serious. “Tell me, Eddie, I’m watching the TV about all those debt problems they got in Europe. You worked on Wall Street for a load of years; should I be worried?”
“I don’t claim to be an expert, Letitia, but, yes, in my opinion, you should be worried.”
“What happens if Europe goes bankrupt?”
“Then the United States could go bankrupt too.”
She chewed it over in her mind. “What happens if this country goes bankrupt?”
“Then Mars will go bankrupt.”
“Mars?”
“I mean, Letitia, the whole world will go bankrupt; there’ll be a worldwide depression the same as we experienced in the 1930’s, possibly worse.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah, I’d say that sums up the situation nicely.”
“I’ve got $23,000 saved, Eddie, it’s all I got in the world. I don’t trust those banks. Should I take my cash out and stuff it under my mattress?”
“No.”
“I keep hearing those TV guys talk about what the smart money is doing.”
“Hmm.”
“Who exactly is the smart money, Eddie, and what is it they’re doing with their own money?”
“You’re talking about sophisticated investors such as Carl Icahn, Wilbur Ross, and Bill Ackman.”
“I heard of Icahn; my aunt used to work for TWA until it went out of business and she lost her stewardess job.”
“They are a step or two ahead of the curve in calculating the direction of the stock market.”
“So where are these rich guys putting their cash to work?”
“It’s hard to find out. There are analysts known as whale-watchers who spend all their time trying to figure out the answer to that very question.”
“That’s a funny kind of name.”
“In Las Vegas the high-rollers are called whales, Letitia, and on Wall Street the large investors are also called whales.”
“Gotcha.”
“Anyway, these rich guys are very secretive and it’s not easy to discover what they’re up to. They are required to file quarterly reports with the SEC on their holdings, however, by the time this info becomes public, it is stale and could be misleading.”
“So you can’t actually find out what the smart money is doing?”
“No, you can’t, Letitia, not unless you work there.”
“Then what should I do, Eddie, where should the dumb money like me be investing today?”
“I’d put it in gold if I were you.”
“Why gold?”
“Because Governments can print dollars but they can’t print gold.”
“Hmm.”
“If the U.S. Government prints so much money that our paper currency becomes worthless, Letitia, at least you’ll have a precious metal which will hold its value no matter what happens.”
“Come hell or high water?”
“Yeah.”
She straightened up and threw back her broad shoulders. “Eddie, I’m gonna take your advice and do just that, I’m going into gold.”
“Fine, Letitia, I’ll show you how.”
“Do I got to buy gold bars?”
“No, you’ll buy an ETF backed by gold bullion stored in a vault in London.”
“That’s fine with me since I wouldn’t have nowhere safe to store the bars in my crummy neighborhood.”
“Not a problem.”
“But London is so far away and it’s in another country.”
“If the shit hits the fan here, Letitia, it might be best to have your assets in another country so the U.S. Government can’t confiscate them.”
“Washington would just grab my savings without my permission?”
“It might if the situation gets really desperate.”
“Ok, Eddie, I don’t like what you’re saying, but I hear what you’re saying.”
“It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Let’s get back to your sleeping situation. I’ll give you a second chance, come stay with me out in Bed-Stuy and stop squatting. You’re too old and sickly to be on-the-bum in New York City.”
“The brothers out there would shoot my honky ass full of holes.”
She smiled, displaying a set of white teeth worthy of a dental commercial on TV. “You’re right, they probably would.”
“I rest my case.”
“Then you need to come with me to an AA meeting, Eddie.”
He took one long, final look out at the harbor. “I can’t, Letitia, I’ve got to meet a guy at the Bull & Bear tonight.”
“Are you cooking up another one of those harebrained deals of yours?”
“A fella has to make a living any way he can.”
“Say hello to Ruthie for me, Eddie, I ain’t seen her since I stopped drinking.”
“I will.”
“She helped me get on the road to sobriety.”
“How did she do that?”
“One time at the bar I got totally wasted and passed out. I had the most horrible dream that I was dying and falling into darkness. It was Ruthie who took my hand in the dream and brought me back into the light. From then on, I always went to her for advice; she helped me to finally quit.”
“Ruthie is a smart lady.”
“My friends told me I could still go to the Bull & Bear as long as I stuck to ginger ale. But Ruthie put the kibosh on that, she kayoed it from the get-go.”
“I see.”
“Ruthie said I wasn’t the kind of recovering alcoholic who could hang in bars because I’d be a falling-down, shit-faced drunk again if I did.”
“I’d have given you the same advice, Letitia.”
She delved deep into him with her eyes. “You mean, Eddie, as one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic?”
“I’m a highly functional heavy drinker, Letitia, I can control myself in the vicinity of alcohol. That’s the critical difference between you and me.”
“You’re in denial, sugar, you’re a boozehound, the same as me.”
A loudspeaker erupted, announcing the arrival of a boat from Jersey City at Slip A.
“No more of your piss-poor excuses, Eddie, come with me to an AA meeting tonight.”
He shook his head. “I’m beyond the point of no return.”
“My sponsor says it’s never too late to get yourself straightened out.”
“I gotta go.”
“Tomorrow night then, Eddie, come to an AA meeting with me tomorrow night.”
He edged away. “We’ll see, Letitia, we’ll see.”
She watched him skedaddle on grasshopper legs down the long pier and then took out her cell phone.
*
