FIND BODIES
OF 2 TOTS:
TEST MOM
Oreo had read this story over the shoulder of the woman to her right. Porno panel or no porno panel, Oreo considered the use of “Tots” and “Mom,” in the circumstances, particularly obscene, the space limitations of tabloids notwithstanding.
“Poor woman,” began Sophie. But before she was well into her desultory views on battered children, mental illness, and exorbitant hospital rates, she had to break off to watch Penelope spear her way through the crowd and get off by the back door.
“… out of here!… off me!” said Penelope. Oreo watched as she posted herself in front of the post office (Ansonia station), then abandoned her post just in time to board a bus that had been tailgating the number 5 for several blocks.
The people at the back of the bus were noticeably relieved at Penelope’s departure. They talked among themselves, survivors after rescue. The people at the front of the bus stared enviously toward the rear. They still had Sophie. But with Penelope gone, Sophie quieted down. She stopped reading headlines and was content with clutching her wrists several times for a few modulated “Ow’s” and tapping lightly on her shopping bag.
As the bus skirted a park — which Oreo’s booklet told her was Riverside — Sophie got up to leave. She went to the back door, and with a sedate “Out, please,” she was gone.
All was quiet for a few more blocks. Then an elderly gentleman with one bad eye got up to leave. Oreo was sure it was Mr. Sammler. Her hunch was confirmed when he was followed off the bus by a dapper young man in a camel’s hair coat.
A few blocks later, Oreo herself got off the bus. She walked to West End Avenue, found the address she had written down, and told the doorman she wanted to see Schwartz.
“Schwartz? In four-B?” asked the doorman.
“Is that the only Schwartz in the building?”
“Yeah.”
Then, of course, dummy, thought Oreo. “Say Christine is on her way up.”
The doorman buzzed 4-B and gave his message.
“Send her up,” said a deep voice over the intercom as Oreo got into the elevator.
A few minutes later, Oreo was back downstairs. The Schwartz in 4-B was too young to be her father. Besides, she was Chinese.
Oreo on Broadway
She stopped when she came to a bar. She went in, walked straight to the back, went to the ladies’ room, peed, and walked out. She was always disconcerted when she had to do this — walk into a place where she was considered a minor. Fortunately, because of her constant bullshit, she was often disguised as an adult. On the occasions when she was challenged and had to admit that she was a minor, Oreo was deeply embarrassed. She did not scruple going into a bar and not ordering anything. She drank only fine wines and Pepsi on the rocks. What is more, she was basically tight. She did not mind relieving herself when all around her knew that that was all she was going to do. Any pot in the storm — the chestnut she had trotted out for Waverley — was her motto for these occasions. She had other, even worse puns for other occasions. But to call Oreo a minor was, slowly and caerphilly, to drive a shaft into the pits of her cheeseparing soul. She did not consider herself a minor at or of or in anything.
Oreo on Broadway again
She was hungry. Now she was sorry that she had given Louise’s fine food to a bunch of pig-eyed strangers. And Waverley Honor had eaten like a mother, the faggot. Oreo was getting testy. She had a lot of money with her, but she did not want to spend it if she could help it. Cheap. Hunger finally forced her to buy a Blimpie, a vicious imitation of a hoagie. Her refined palate, trained and coddled chez Louise, still had blotches and patches that brooked nothing but junk foods. Thus she could within hours savor her grandmother’s thrifty, piping haggis and the rotten potato salad from Murray’s delicatessen; Louise’s holey, many-tongued fondue and the galosh pizza from Rosa’s Trattoria; a blanc de blancs champagne and a blankety-blank Pepsi, which she now washed the Blimpie down with. Her testiness was disappearing.
Oreo goes to the park
She decided to take a walk through the park the bus had passed and make up her mind about what she was going to do next. She used her walking stick as a piton for climbing rocks and hillocks in the park. It was not necessary, considering the modesty of Riverside’s ups and downs, but it made Oreo feel more like an adventurer.
When she stopped to rest, she looked up the addresses on her list in her book of maps. There were several S. or Samuel Schwartzes in the immediate neighborhood. She could make a few quick runs to check them out, using the park as an R and R base.
That evening
Oreo was exhausted. None of the S.’s or Sams belonged to her, but they had been diverting. There was the Sam on Eighty-ninth Street who wanted to adopt her; the Samuel on Columbus Avenue who saw voices (“Stick your fingers in your nose,” Oreo advised him, “and they’ll go away”); the S. on Cathedral Parkway who refused to say what the S. stood for (when Oreo guessed Snicklefritz on her second try, he turned blue, and she had to call an ambulance); the S. on Seventy-fifth Street who turned out to be a Shirley who had changed the name to an initial in the directory listing because of obscene phone calls (“My wife was very put off, psychologically and actually speaking, by heavy breathers who asked for me,” he explained). There was the Samuel on Broadway who, along with his wife, was in jail awaiting trial for the murder of his son Melvin. Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz had learned of their son’s plot to smother them in their beds and throw himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan, so they got him first. A neighbor told Oreo what the accused couple had said as they were dragged away: “Imagine the chutzpah on that kid — to think of a plot like that!” Sympathy in the building was running heavily in favor of the alleged murderers. Melvin had been known on the block as Smart Ass.
Because of these and other Schwartzes, Oreo had decided to call it a day. She had gone crazy at a delicatessen on Broadway called Zabar’s and had bought a lot of goodies to eat, the gourmet in her temporarily winning out over the stingy person. To compensate for her lack of control around good food, she was going to save money by sleeping overnight in the park instead of checking into a hotel. She had found that Riverside Park’s major drawback as a campsite was that it was long and narrow. It was flanked on the west by the Hudson River and the West Side Highway. Because of its narrowness, it had been difficult for Oreo to find a secluded spot, away from children, dogs, bicycle riders, tennis players, joggers, lovers. The place she had chosen for her picnic dinner she thought would be ideal for her overnight bivouac. It was hidden by trees and a huge rock, was near a water fountain and a park john, and was, for the moment, clear of people. She shoved her orange and white Zabar’s shopping bag under a natural shelf in the rock and went to the john.
As she sat there, she noticed a hole about the size of a half dollar in the door that would provide a midget’s-eye view of the toilet. Sure enough, a few moments later a midget’s eye appeared at the hole. Oreo could recognize one anywhere. The midget giggled, and Oreo picked up an empty cigarette pack that someone had dropped on the floor and slammed it against the hole.
“It’s giving me Marlboros,” said a high-pitched voice.
Oreo got tired of stretching from the toilet seat to the door and dropped the pack. The hole was clear for a few moments. Then the eye came back. A few seconds later, wiggling fingers replaced the eye. Oreo grabbed the fingers and twisted them with a gentle but persuasive torque. The fingers were withdrawn from the hole hastily. “Yah, yah, that didn’t hurt,” said the voice.