Oreo did not answer. She kept dragging Joe behind her until she found what she had been looking for, a playground full of kids. Oreo rounded up ten of them. She explained what she wanted them to do. She offered them a nickel apiece if they did a good job. They held out for a dime. She hesitated, then agreed.
When they were ready, Oreo found a good seat on a swing and watched. The ten children split up into two groups, five on each side. The kids started their game with relish, screaming and yelling for blood. The game was tug-of-war. The “rope” was Joe’s body.
In a few seconds, Joe began to yelp and whimper the way the Chihuahua had. “I’ll do anything you ask!” he yelled to Oreo.
Oreo tried to stop the game. The kids wanted to go on. Oreo hadn’t gotten her money’s worth yet, they said. Joe had been faking, they said. They hadn’t gotten to the best part, the tearing asunder, they said. They gave Joe one more yank for the pot before Oreo rescued him. Each side claimed victory. Oreo examined Joe’s arms with her keen eyes. One limb was an eighth of an inch longer than it had been, one only a sixteenth. Oreo, wincing at the expense, gave an extra dime to the winning side.
“Big deal — two cents apiece,” the winners grumbled as they went off. The losers gazed longingly at Joe’s short arm. In a few minutes, all the children were playing hopskotch, jumping rope, sliding the slides, sawing and seeing on the seesaw, a tableau of innocence.
Oreo took Joe aside. “Now you know how it feels. You promise you’ll never do that to a dog again?”
“What about cats?”
“No cats.”
“Squirrels?”
Oreo hesitated. She held no big brief for squirrels. They were sort of scrocky-looking. Finally she said, “No, absolutely not. No living things whatsoever.”
Joe was downcast.
“And about your parents — you should be grateful they’re not giants like my mother and father.”
Joe was fascinated. “Really?”
“When Moe and Flo spank you, what does it feel like?”
“Butterfly kisses,” Joe admitted.
“Imagine what it feels like to get a potch from a giant. One shot and you’ve had it. My last spanking was when I was six. I still have the marks.”
“Let me see?” Joe asked gleefully.
“You see my skin? I used to be white. This is a bruise.”
Joe’s eyes popped. “You gotta be kidding.”
“Would I lie to you?”
“Yeah.”
“So what. Be nice or I’ll kill you.”
By the time they got back to the campsite, Oreo had convinced Joe that his parents were seed pearls beyond price and that if he tortured any more animals she would find him and throw him to the children. Oreo’s catalog of the abuses he would suffer at the hands of underage Torquemadas made him hysterical. She had to calm him down before Moe and Flo saw him.
Oreo was happy. It had been a productive morning. She had evened the score with Joe for his medley of gypsy tunes — especially “Zigeuner” and “Golden Earrings”—thereby upholding her motto: Nemo me impune lacessit. And she was able to cross “The great divide” off her list.
9 Phaea
Boxes — Corrugated & Fibre
Boxes — Metal
Boxes — Paper
Boxes — Specialty & Fancy
Boxes — Wooden
Oreo had looked under all these headings in the yellow pages before she found a Jacob Schwartz who made boxes. She was glad Jacob — if this was the right Jacob — had not called his company the Reliance Box Co. or Best Boxes, Inc., or New York Box, Ltd. She knew beforehand that even if Jacob’s name was listed, she would not find it until last, after she had looked under all the other headings. This always happened to her. She tried some kopdrayenish on kismet by not going in order. She skipped from “Corrugated” to “Wooden” to “Paper” to “Metal.” It did not work. That was exactly what kismet — a smart cookie — expected her to do. Jacob was under the last heading: “Specialty & Fancy.” A small box told about his boxes:
Oreo liked Jacob’s motto almost as much as she liked that of Chaim Epstein & Daughter, Inc.: “A Box Is a Box Is a Box But — Don’t Mention — We’re Menshen.”
On the subway to Long Island City
Oreo looked at shoes and tried to guess what their wearers were like before she glanced up for confirmation. She guessed wrong on a pair of calf-hugging white boots. They were on a wall-eyed teenager with a lordotic slouch — obviously a failed drum majorette — and not on a Hadassah lady with a blue rinse, a type among whom such boots had been de rigueur for several seasons. She got the vacationing prostitute in the Grecian sandals (orange) that laced up to her zorch (exposed); the eleven-year-old tomboy with high-topped Pro-Keds; the black queen with liberation pumps by Gucci (red for the blood of black people, black for their race, and green for the money Gucci was making from this style); the barefoot heroin addict who had painted his feet shoe black; the waif in waif shoes; the wingéd bedroom slippers of a ninety-year-old employee of the Hermes Messenger Service.
Other than this diversion and seeing types of boxes that she hadn’t known existed (a box for leftover french fries; a fake jewel box for real jewelry inside a real jewel box for fake jewelry; a box that could be used as an extra room for the growing family, a maid’s room, or a guest room — a stock item popular with building contractors all over the country), Oreo’s trip was wasted. Jacob was in Miami at the Fontainebleau (‘‘Fountain Blue,” said his French secretary, perfecting her American accent).
Oreo had learned her lesson: don’t go when you can call. She called Equity. She called AFTRA. She called SAG. They all told her the same thing, more or less.
The less part:
Did she want the Sam Schwartz who had to change his name because there was already a Sam Schwartz on their roster or the other Sam Schwartz?
The other Sam Schwartz.
That would be Sam Schwartz, right?
Right. Would Equity-AFTRA-SAG give out his number, please?
Sorry. Can’t divulge that information. Call his agent.
Would Equity-AFTRA-SAG give out his agent’s number?
Sorry. Don’t have that information.
What about the Sam Schwartz that changed his name?
That would be Scott Scott.
Kept his initials, eh?
What?
Nothing. And, of course, Equity-AFTRA-SAG can’t give out his number either, right?
The more part:
“Is it a job?” the woman on the line said, lowering her voice.
“Yes,” Oreo lied. “Mike Nichols is talking about a two-picture deal.”
“Okay, here’s the number. Tell him Sally at the SAG office put you in touch with him. Don’t forget, Sally.”
“Right. Sally. SAG. I’ll tell him.”
En route to Scott Scott’s
Oreo had let his number ring one hundred and eighteen times before she decided to go to the Village on the chance that he might show up. She liked the flatted fifth on the afterbeat of the ring and could have listened to it all day, but finally she had torn herself away.
Oreo was standing on the corner of Eighth Street and the Avenue of the Americas. The traffic standard gave a mechanical belch and turned green. “Where is Sixth Avenue?” she asked a man standing next to her.
“You’re looking at it,” the man said.
“It says ‘Avenue of the Americas.’”