They roll into Grand Central about 1:00 A.M., hungry. “Guess the Oyster Bar is closed.”
“Maybe the apartment is safe by now,” Tallis offers, not believing it herself, “come on back, we’ll find something.”
What they find, actually, is a good reason to leave again. Soon as they step out of the elevator they can hear Elvis-movie music. “Uh-oh,” Tallis looking for her keys. Before she can find them, the door is flung open and a less-than-towering presence starts in with the emotions. Behind him on a screen Shelley Fabares is dancing around holding a sign announcing I’M EVIL.
“What’s this?” Maxine knows what it is, she chased him across half Manhattan not so long ago.
“This is Chazz, who isn’t even supposed to know about this place.”
“Love will find a way,” Chazz replies, jive-assingly.
“You’re here because we broke the spy camera.”
“You kiddin, I hate them things, darlin, if I’d known, I would’ve broke it myself.”
“Go back, Chazz, tell your pimp it’s no sale.”
“Please just give me a minute, Sugar, I confess at first it was all strictly business, but—”
“Don’t call me ‘Sugar’.”
“Nutrasweet! I’m pleading here.”
Ah, the big, or actually midsize, lug. Tallis stalks on headshaking into the kitchen.
“Chazz, hi,” Maxine waving as if from a distance, “nice to meet you finally, read your rap sheet, fascinating stuff, tell me, how’d a Title 18 Hall of Famer end up in the fiber business?”
“All ’at old misbehavior, ma’am? try and rise above it ’stead of judgin me, maybe you’ll notice a pattern?”
“Let’s see, strong background in sales.”
Nodding amiably, “You try and hit ’em when they’re too disoriented to think. Last year when the tech bubble popped? Darklinear started hirin big time. Made a man feel like some kind of a draft pick.”
“At the same time, Chazz,” Tallis, switched briefly to her Doormat setting, fetching beers, dips, snacks in bags, “my ex-husband-to-be wasn’t paying your employer that much just to keep little me busy.”
“He really is just buyin fiber’s all it is, totally a fatpipe person, payin top dollar, tryin to nail down as many miles of cable as he can get, outside plant, premises, first it was just in the Northeast, now it’s anywhere out in the U.S.—”
“Tidy consultation fees,” Maxine imagines.
“There you go. And it’s legal too, maybe even more than some of the stuff…” pausing to downshift.
“Oh, go ahead, Chazz, you were never shy about the contempt you felt for me, Gabe, the business we’re in.”
“Real and make-believe’s all I ever meant, my artificial sweetener, I’m just a logistics- and infrastructure-type fella. Fiber’s real, you pull it through conduit, you hang it, you bury it and splice it. It weighs somethin. Your husband’s rich, maybe even smart, but he’s like all you people, livin in this dream, up in the clouds, floatin in the bubble, think ’at’s real, think again. It’s only gonna be there long as the power’s on. What happens when the grid goes dark? Generator fuel runs out and they shoot down the satellites, bomb the operation centers, and you’re all back down on planet Earth again. All that jabberin about nothin, all ’at shit music, all ’em links, down, down and gone.”
Maxine has a moment’s image of Misha and Grisha, surfers from some strange Atlantic coast, waiting with their boards far out on the winter ocean, in the dark, waiting for the wave no one else besides Chazz and maybe a couple others will see coming.
Chazz reaches again for the jalapeño chips, and Tallis snatches the bag away. “No more for you. Just good night already, and go tell Gabe whatever you’re going to tell him.”
“Can’t, ’cause I quit working for him. Ain’t about to be the clown in his rodeo no more.”
“Sounds good, Chazz. You’re here on your own, then, all because of me, how sweet is that?”
“Because of you, and because of what it was doing to me. Guy was beginnin to feel like a drain on my spirits.”
“Funny, that’s what my mother always said about him.”
“I know you and your mama have been on the outs, but you should really find some way to fix ’at, Tallis.”
“Excuse me, it’s two A.M. here, daytime TV doesn’t start for a while yet.”
“Your mama is the most important person in your life. The only one who can get the potatoes mashed exactly the way you need ’em to be. Only one who understood when you started hangin with people she couldn’t stand. Lied about your age down to the multiplex so’s you could go watch ’em teen slasher movies together. She’ll be gone soon enough, appreciate her while you can.”
And he’s out the door. Maxine and Tallis stand looking at each other. The King croons on. “I was going to advise ‘Dump him,’” Maxine pensive, “while shaking you back and forth… but now I think I’ll just settle for the shaking part.”
HORST IS NODDED OUT on the couch in front of The Anton Chekhov Story, starring Edward Norton, with Peter Sarsgaard as Stanislavski. Maxine tries to tiptoe on into the kitchen, but Horst, not being domestic, tuned to motel rhythms even in his sleep, flounders awake. “Maxi, what the heck.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to—”
“Where’ve you been all night?”
Not yet having slid far enough into delusion to answer this literally, “I was hanging out with Tallis, she and the schmuck just parted ways, she’s got a new place, she was happy to have some company.”
“Right. And she hasn’t had a telephone put in yet. So what about your mobile? Oh—the battery ran down, I bet.”
“Horst, what’s the matter?”
“Who is it, Maxi, I’d rather hear now than later.”
Aahhh! Maybe last night the vircator in the trunk of the ZiL came on by accident? and she got zapped around by some secondary lobe from it, which hasn’t worn off yet? Because she finds herself now declaring, with every reason to believe it’s true, “There is nobody but you, Horst. Emotionally challenged fuckin ox. Never will be.”
One tiny unblocked Horstical receptor is able to pick up this message for what it is, so he doesn’t lapse totally into Midwest Ricky Ricardo after all, only grabs his head in that familiar free-throw way and begins to unfocus the complaining a little. “Well, I called hospitals. I called cops, TV news stations, bail-bond companies, then I started in on your Rolodex. What are you doing with Uncle Dizzy’s home number?”
“We check in from time to time, he thinks I’m his parole officer.”
“A-and what about that Italian guy you go to karaoke joints with?”
“One time, Horst, one group booking, nothing I’m about to repeat anytime soon.”
“Hah! Not ‘soon,’ but sometime, right? I’ll be sitting at home, overeating to compensate, you’ll be out on that happy scene, red dress, ‘Can’t Smile Without You,’ showcase duets, gym instructors from the other side of some bridge or tunnel—”
Maxine takes off her coat and scarf and decides to stay a couple of minutes. “Horst. Baby. We’ll go down to K-Town some night and do that, OK? I’ll find a red dress someplace. Can you sing harmony?”
“Huh?” Puzzled, as if everybody knows. “Sure. Since I was a kid. They wouldn’t let me in the church till I learned.” Prompt to Maxine—add one more item to list of things you don’t know about this guy…
They may have dozed off on the couch for a second. Suddenly it’s daybreak. The Newspaper of Record splats on the floor outside the back door. The Newfoundland puppy up on 12 starts in with the separation-anxiety blues. The boys commence their daily excursions in and out of the fridge. Catching sight of their parents on the couch, they start in with some hip-hop version of the Peaches & Herb oldie “Reunited and It Feels So Good,” Ziggy declaiming the lovey-dovey lyrics in the angriest black voice he can locate at this hour, while Otis does the beatboxing.