“Ick,” she said, “I hate the taste of whiskey.”
The chauffeur-driven Carey Cadillac picked them up on the southeast corner of 81st Street and Third Avenue. They got into the back seat, and the blonde crossed her legs and made herself comfortable, and then looped her hand through Buddwing’s arm and said, “Now, the first thing we’ve got to do is get your name in the newspaper. Have you ever been to the penny arcade on Broadway and Fifty-second Street?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you from New York?”
“I was born here.”
“Have you ever been to Grant’s Tomb?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. How about the Cloisters?”
“No. But I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“What on earth for?”
“So I could kiss Marjorie Morningstar under the lilacs.”
“Excuse me, sir,” the chauffeur said.
“Yes?”
“I’m double-parked, you know, and—”
“Take us to the penny arcade on Broadway and Fifty-second,” the blonde said, and the driver set the car in motion.
“Have you ever been to the Queensboro Bridge?” Buddwing asked.
“I live right on Sutton Place,” the blonde said. “The Queensboro Bridge is practically in my bedroom. As a matter of fact, I almost jumped off the Queensboro Bridge once.”
“Why’d you do that?”
She shrugged. “I was feeling blue.”
“You don’t look like the kind of girl who ever gets blue.”
“How do you know what kind of girl I am?”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Then don’t tell me what I look like.”
“I was only trying to—”
“Because nobody ever knows what goes on behind the four walls. This skin, these bones, they’re the four walls. Inside, there’s a secret person no one ever sees, no one. You probably know more about me right now than anyone else in the world.”
“How come?”
“I never told anyone else about the Queensboro Bridge.”
“You haven’t really told me yet.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I got out of bed one rainy day, and simply decided I’d had it.”
“Why?”
“How do I know why? I don’t like rain, all right? That was a good enough reason. Motivation is only for the movies. Real people are motivated by whatever the hell comes into their heads at any given moment.”
“And you were motivated by the rain?”
“No. I wasn’t motivated by the rain.”
“Then what?”
“What difference does it make? I was a kid, barely twenty-three. That was centuries ago.”
“I’m interested.”
The blonde sighed. She turned her head away from him as the car sped downtown. She seemed almost to be talking to the reflecting glass of the window beside her, rather than to Buddwing.
“I lost a baby,” she said. “I know that’s not very great shakes — what the hell, women lose babies every day of the week. But this was different, you see, because I hadn’t wanted the baby in the first place; in fact we had even discussed getting rid of it. But then — you know how these things are — we decided to go through with it; he convinced me that everything would be all right. Well, you know, you’re married, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Then you know.”
“I used to be married,” he said quickly.
“Do you have any children?” she asked, turning to look at him.
“No.”
“Well, then...” She shrugged and turned back to the window again. “He really wanted the baby, I think. Or maybe not, I don’t know, maybe he was as scared as I was. But he convinced me, you see, he really convinced me that everything would be all right, and after a while I didn’t mind the idea so much and then, I don’t know what the hell happened, maybe the maternal juices began to flow, all at once I began looking forward to having the baby, and that was when I lost it. I lost it in the sixth month. It was very messy, ick, I don’t want to remember it.”
She was silent for a very long time. He thought she had finished her story, and then suddenly she said, “The night before the bridge bit, we talked about it. At long last, we talked about it, after walking around it for months, after pretending nothing so very terrible had happened. We finally talked about it, screaming at each other in that terrible cheap crumby little apartment we had, blaming each other for what? For my failure and for his failure, for the world’s failure, for death, for life? Who the hell even knew what life or death were at that time? Who knew anything but the grind of waking each morning and facing each other with an unspoken accusation in our eyes, until that night when all the accusations flooded out?”
The blonde drew a quick sudden breath.
“It was raining the next morning,” she said. “I got out of bed, and all I put on was my white raincoat, nothing under it, and an old pair of rubber boots I’d had since I was eighteen years old and going to N.Y.U. I walked onto the Queensboro Bridge, and I thought if this was what life meant, if this was what it was about, I didn’t want any part of it. I wasn’t going to wait around until they pulled me apart piece by piece and left me bleeding on the sidewalk. I’d do it myself, my own way. I’d break myself into a million pieces before they did it for me. So I stood on the bridge near Welfare Island, and I wondered if I should go back and leave a note, and then I decided no, the hell with a note, let him figure it out for himself. I looked down — I don’t know why; the mind plays funny tricks. I was going to throw myself off, but I wanted to see where I was going to land.”
She paused, and again drew a quick breath.
“There was a nurse down there, wheeling an old man around in the rain. She was holding an umbrella over his head. It was pouring bullets, and the two of them were marching around in the rain, it was crazy. And then suddenly the old man looked up and saw me standing on the bridge, way up there. And he smiled and waved at me.” She paused. “So I didn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I guess maybe I decided if an old man being pushed around in a wheelchair on a miserable day like that could find something to wave and smile about, what the hell.” She turned toward him suddenly. “Or maybe I just decided that if I couldn’t lick them, I had better join them damn fast. I had better go home and listen to that man of mine, and get him out of that goddamn dead-end trap before the jaws came clamping down — maybe that’s what I decided. Whatever it was, when I got home, I wasn’t so sure any more. I sat in our kitchen at the table — I still hadn’t taken off the raincoat or the boots — and I just wasn’t sure any more. I just had the feeling I’d only postponed something that was inevitable, why the hell bother? Just because a sick old man smiled up at me and waved? He was probably smiling and waving because he was looking up under my raincoat.” The blonde shrugged. “Anyway, he saved my life. For all that’s worth.”
“You saved it yourself,” Buddwing said.
“I’m getting sober,” the blonde said. “You’re a terrible influence. How’d I ever get involved with a person like you?”
“I don’t know. Just lucky, I guess.”
“Yeah, lucky,” the blonde said. “Where’s the bottle?”
“I like you better sober.”
“Nobody cares whether you like me or not. Give me the bottle.”
“No.”
“Oh my, a difficult man,” she said, and sighed. “When were you born?”
“January tenth.”