“You’re nuts, that’s why you have such dreams,” L.J. said, and Buddwing thought again of Edward Voegler, of Central Islip State Hospital, of the newspaper’s shrieking headline.
“Mmmm,” Red Vest said, “eat them all up. Mmmm,” and he licked his lips.
“You know who’s the sexiest girl on this block?” Beethoven asked idly.
“Who?” Buddwing said.
“Yeah, look at him, he wants to know,” Red Vest said. “I thought you were waiting for Doris.”
“I am.”
“So what do you want to know about some other chick for, huh?”
“Yeah, wait’ll we tell Doris,” Beethoven said. He grinned at Buddwing, enjoying the banter immensely.
“What, is he married to her?” L.J. asked. “Boy, you guys, you never...”
“It’s plain to see he’s bugged over the girl,” Red Vest said, shrugging.
“Are you bugged over her?” L.J. asked Buddwing.
“Well, I like her a lot,” he answered.
“Then I don’t think you ought to tell him about this other chick,” L.J. said to Beethoven.
“Okay, I won’t,” Beethoven said.
“No, go ahead, tell me,” Buddwing said.
“Naw, I don’t think I should.”
“I think Doris would get very angry if we went telling him about some other sexy chick, that’s what I think,” L.J. said.
“That’s what I think, too,” Beethoven said.
“Me, too,” Red Vest said.
“Me, too,” Buddwing said, and they all laughed.
“Louise,” Beethoven said suddenly. “Louise Ambrosini, that’s who the sexiest girl on the block is.”
“Louise Ambrosini!” Red Vest said, shocked.
“Yeah, that’s who.”
“She’s an old lady!”
“She’s a young mother. And don’t yell. There’s people here who know her, you realize that?” Beethoven lowered his voice. “You know what she does?”
“What does she do?”
“Oh, boy, wouldn’t you like to know what she does.”
“Yeah?” Red Vest said, leaning forward. “You mean it?”
Beethoven nodded his head and smiled in a superior manner.
“I don’t believe it,” Red Vest said. “She’s got a baby in a carriage!”
“She’s also got a husband in the navy,” Beethoven said, “that’s what else she’s got. In the navy. In Florida. That’s what.”
“What are you saying?”
“Me? Nothing,” Beethoven said innocently.
“You mean...”
“He means Old Louise is available,” Buddwing said.
“If he knows what I’m saying,” Beethoven said, “how come you guys don’t know what I’m saying?”
“It must be a meeting of the minds,” L.J. said.
“Yeah, it must be a meeting of the world’s great thinkers,” Red Vest said.
Beethoven laughed and said, “You hear that? We’re the world’s great thinkers.”
“Sure, I knew that all along,” Buddwing said.
“Let’s go see how that stickball game is doing,” Red Vest said.
“Sports fans,” L.J. said, his voice deepening in imitation of a radio announcer, “here we are on Sixty-seventh Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway, about to witness the opening game of the spring classic.”
“He wants to be an announcer, this guy,” Red Vest said.
“Really?” Buddwing asked.
“Well, I thought of it,” L.J. said modestly.
“He’s very good at it,” Beethoven said, looking at L.J. in a friendly, encouraging manner, and then turning to Buddwing and trying to convince him. “Really. He’s got it down pat. And he knows all the rules, too, and the batting averages, things like that. He’s very good at it, really.”
“I’ll bet he is,” Buddwing said.
“Well, my voice ain’t so hot.”
“You got a very good voice,” Beethoven said. “Don’t you think he has?”
“Very good,” Buddwing said. “It’s a good deep voice.”
“Not too deep, though,” Red Vest said. “It’s just right for a radio announcer.”
“Yeah, if it’s too deep, you can’t hear them so good,” Beethoven said. “His voice is just right. You should hear him sometimes. He really does a good job.”
“You should see this guy draw,” L.J. said.
“What do you mean?” Buddwing asked.
“Well, I’m not so good,” Beethoven said.
“He’s great, he really is. I can’t even draw a straight line, but you should see some of the pictures he does. Hey, why don’t you run upstairs and get some of your pictures?”
“Naw, come on,” Beethoven said.
“He’s got a picture, it’s all in color,” Red Vest said, “of the rooftops on this block. You ever been up on a roof?”
“Yes,” Buddwing said. “Yes, I’ve been on a roof.”
“Well, he’s got it all down, you know, the television antennas, and the way the tar gets, and the bricks, and even there’s a pigeon coop on one of the roofs. He’s got an eye, boy! When you gonna do our pictures, huh?”
“I’ll do them,” Beethoven said.
“He’s always promising he’s gonna draw our pictures,” L.J. said, “and he never does.”
“He took this girl to the park, though, and he drew her picture, didn’t you, hah? Ah-hah?”
“She posed for him,” L.J. said, grinning.
“You should see that picture,” Red Vest said. “Hey, come on, go upstairs and get them, okay?”
I have heard this talk before, Buddwing thought, I have been in this candy-store booth with these same boys, and we talked of sex and dreams, we talked of ambition and desire, we shared together, we felt what is in this booth now, a pride and a joy and a warmth, I know these boys.
“Come on, let’s go watch that game,” L.J. said.
“I have to keep my eye on the building,” Buddwing said.
“You can watch it from the street, it ain’t going no place.”
“I guess not.”
“Boy, this Doris must be some chick,” Beethoven said.
They moved out of the booth and toward the door of the candy store. Artie looked up from his newspaper and said, “Forty-five cents for the coffee, and five for the paper, if you don’t mind.”
He’s not charging me for the extra cup, Buddwing thought, and immediately said, “I’ve got it.”
“No, no, let me take it,” L.J. said.
“No, that’s all right.”
“Come on, there’s three of us, for Christ’s sake. That ain’t fair. Hey, come on, really.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Buddwing answered, and he put fifty cents on the counter, the two quarters he had got as part of his change in Schwartz’s cafeteria. He still had the dime and the nickel in his trouser pocket, and he wondered abruptly how many bills he had left. He had spent a dollar for the taxicab, and now an additional fifty cents — should he tip Artie? — how much did that leave him? Were those three bills in his pocket, or only two? How long would his money last, and how long would it be before they dragged him, Edward Voegler, back to Central Islip and started giving him shock treatment, or put him in a tub full of steaming water covered with a rubber sheet... why, that was Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit! he thought suddenly, and wondered all at once whether he had ever really been inside a mental hospital, whether he was really Edward Voegler, the escaped paranoid schizophrenic.
Well, Doris will tell me, he reasoned, if she ever comes out of that damn building. She’s been in there for more than a half hour now; isn’t she ever coming out? The hell with her, he thought suddenly. I have my own friends, I have my own life to lead — and then he recognized how absurd this reasoning was. The three boys he had met were hardly his friends — why had he thought they were his friends? Simply because they had shared some time with him, simply because he had felt a momentary spark of sympathy from them, the idle angelic smile of Beethoven, the reminiscent gutter talk of Red Vest, the playful nudges of L.J.? They were not his friends; they were simply some guys he had stopped to talk to on a mild spring day. And yet he still felt very close to them as he walked out into the spring sunshine and heard the sudden sound of stickball bat against rubber ball, and then the clattering noise of the broom handle being dropped on asphalt.