“Oh, Sam,” the woman said, and there was so much despair in her voice that for a moment he thought she would begin to cry.
“Gloria?”
She did not answer.
“Gloria?” he said again.
“I’m here.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Why do you always call me when you’re drunk? Will you please explain that to me?”
“I’m not drunk, Gloria.”
“Then what the hell do you mean, you’re lost? How can you be lost? Where are you?”
“I’m at the Plaza.”
“What plaza?”
“The Plaza Hotel. On Fifty-ninth Street.”
“Then how are you lost if you’re at the Plaza?”
“Where are you, Gloria?”
“Home. What? I’m home, where do you think I am? You just called me, didn’t you? I’m home in bed asleep. Trying to sleep. Oh, Sam, you drive me nuts. What is it you want?”
“I want to see you.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll want to... no. Forget it.”
“Gloria, I have to see you.”
“Why?”
“Because...” He hesitated. “Because I don’t know who I am, and I’m hungry.”
“You never knew who the hell you were,” Gloria said, “and you’ve always been hungry. What’s this supposed to be, news or something?”
“I really don’t know who I am,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Gloria?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me come there.”
“Why? So you can jump into bed with me?”
“No. I want you to tell me who I am.”
“Oh, Sam, cut it out. It’s too early in the morning for this kind of crap. You’re who you are, who do you think you are? You’re a pain in the ass, is what you are. Now hang up, and let me go back to sleep.”
“No!” he said sharply. “Gloria, wait a minute.”
He heard the woman sigh on the other end of the line. “I’m waiting a minute,” she said. “But only a minute.”
“I woke up in Central Park this morning,” he said.
“So?”
“I don’t know who I am.”
“Sam, I don’t understand you at all,” she said. “Not at all.”
“I’ll explain when I get there.”
“You won’t explain nothing when you get here because you’re not coming here.”
“Your number is in my book,” he said.
“What?”
“In my book.”
“Yeah, and your number is in my book, sweetheart, and I know just what you want, and I’m not about ready to give it to you. If you think you’re going to come up here and just...”
“No, I want to talk to you.”
“Yeah, the big talker,” she said, but he could sense she was weakening.
“I mean it. Let me come.”
“I’m still asleep, I’m half asleep.”
“We can have some coffee. We can talk.”
“I’m going to put on my clothes, you know. You’re not going to walk in here and find me in bed, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.”
“Well...”
“Please, Gloria.”
“Well... all right.”
“I’ll be right over,” he said.
“All right,” she said, and hung up.
The first thing he thought as he replaced the receiver was that he now had a name, Sam, not a very good name, but a name nevertheless, Sam, and then the second thought snapped into his mind fiercely. He had not found out where she lived. He picked up the receiver again, and immediately asked for the number again, and again told the operator he was a guest of the hotel, Room 407, and then waited while the phone rang at Gloria’s apartment again.
“Hello?” she said.
“Gloria?”
“What now?”
“I forgot the address,” he said.
“You what?”
“I for—”
“You forgot the address?” She paused for an instant and then shrewdly said, “You are drunk, aren’t you?”
“No, it’s just that I can’t remember anything. I already told you that.”
“332 West Ninety-eighth,” she said. “You forgot the address. Boy, that takes the cake!”
“I’ll be up there in a few minutes.”
“If you’re at the Plaza, you won’t be up here in no few minutes,” Gloria said. “What are you doing at the Plaza, anyway? Having tea?”
“Yes,” he said. He smiled. “Yes, I’m having tea with Adlai Stevenson.”
“With who?”
“Stevenson.”
“Well, don’t bring him with you,” she said. “My hair’s in curlers.”
“I’m sure you look lovely in curlers,” he answered.
“And don’t start any of that crap,” she said.
“I won’t start anything, Gloria,” he promised. “332 West Ninety-eighth, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Forgot the address. Maybe you’d better write it down, huh?” she said sarcastically. “So you won’t forget it again, huh? Since you seem to be forgetting things lately?”
“That’s a good idea,” he said.
He took the black book from his pocket, and under the telephone number he wrote the address: 332 West 98th St. Then he closed the book and said, “Thank you, Gloria.”
“Be careful,” she said gently. “Don’t fall under any goddamn subway train.”
“I won’t,” he said. “Thank you,” he said, and hung up.
He came down the wide front steps of the hotel, and he smiled and took a deep breath of air and thought, I have a name, I have a woman, and looked across to where the fountain splashed water idly and gently, and thought of other fountains, the one in Rome by Bernini, on the Piazza Navona, with the men covering their faces against the monstrosity of the church front opposite, designed by his rival, Borromini. I have been to Rome, he thought. Where else have I been? She seemed to feel I should have known the address, seemed to think it was incredible I should have forgotten it, 332 West 98th Street. Have I been there, too?
He sighed and glanced across the street to the canopy of the Sherry-Netherland, and saw for the first time the big standing sidewalk clock. How had he missed it earlier when he had wanted to know what time it was? Time seemed unimportant now that he had a name. He heard a sound overhead, and he glanced up at the sky and saw an airplane sharply metallic against the morning blue, and thought, Time, and then grinned and walked past the fountain, and hesitated on the corner for a moment, wondering which subway system he should take to 98th Street.
Sam, he thought. My name is Sam. Am I indeed the Sam she thought she was talking to, her own Wandering Sam who calls her when he’s drunk, who’s supposed to know her address the way he knows his own name, Sam? Well, maybe not, and probably not, but in another sense I am her Sam in that it was she who gave me the name. Her number is, after all, in my little black book, so who should know her own darling boy if not Gloria? Until she tells me otherwise, why, I am Sam, I have a name, and I have a woman who is expecting me at 332 West 98th Street. Sam, he thought. Which, together with fifteen cents, will get me into the subway and on my way. My name is
The beer truck rolled past at that instant, coming east on 58th Street, and taking the corner onto Fifth Avenue, with the name of the beer splashed across the side of the truck, BUDWEISER, and the advertising slogan “Where there’s life, there’s Bud,” and he added the Budweiser to the Sam, and he completed the thought and the name, Sam Budweiser, and then rejected it, clipping it short after the Bud; and hearing the drone of the airplane again, high overhead, and looking up and immediately associating airplane with wing, and then again merging the separate parts of the beer and the airplane, he made a compound called Buddwing, Sam Buddwing, which he rather liked. Sam Buddwing. I am Sam Buddwing, the hell with you.