“Who is it?” he asked.
“Carol,” she answered.
“Second,” he said. He unlocked the door, fumbling with it a little because he didn’t know how to greet a dead friend. What do you say? Hello, boy, how have you been? What the hell do you say? He got the door open, and he threw it wide, and his eyes went to Carol first, the way they always did whenever she was with another person. There was something compelling about her beauty, he realized, something that forced attention to her face. But this time his eyes did not linger. This time they touched her features lightly and then fled to the face alongside hers.
The face was smiling. The smile was a fixed one, and he studied the smile, and then he found the miniature white ring of muscle on the upper lip of the smile, and he grasped at the circle as a means of recognition, and then his eyes traveled upward on the face, using the muscle-ring as a nucleus. His eyes met Andy’s eyes. They were sunken and hollow, two deep pits of despair on either side of a straight, slightly flaring nose.
“Hello, Andy,” he said warmly. “How are you?” He hoped he had not sounded solicitous. He had tried to generate a warmth he no longer felt, and he hoped his voice did not betray the pity or the rich-cousin attitude he really felt.
“Come in, come in,” he said, and when they were inside the door, he extended his hand, and Andy took it in a firm grip, covering the clasp with his other hand so that both his hands were closed in embrace over Bud’s hand. He stepped close to Bud, and those fathomless eyes stared penetratingly at Bud’s face — liquid brown eyes with amber flecks swimming in them, large and round, circled with dark, sick-looking skin, receding dark-brown tunnels punched in the flesh of the face.
“Bud,” he said softly, “how are you? You look great, great.”
He did not release Bud’s hand. He kept holding it between his own hands, and he kept smiling the fixed, pasty smile and staring, staring so hard and so long that the eyes began to frighten Bud a little, like looking into the soul of a maniac, staring, staring as if he were trying to pick Bud’s face with his eyes. “Man, you look great,” he said, still holding the hand, still staring, staring until the stare became a probing, searching, relentless spotlight. And then he began nodding, the nod accompanying the stare like two burlesque performers in a soft-shoe routine, soundlessly nodding, while the pasty smile changed imperceptibly, changed to become a smile with meaning behind it, changed to become a derisive smile of self-mockery.
“And me, man?” he said softly, some of the mockery tingeing his voice. “I look great, too, don’t I?”
“You look fine,” Bud said, trying to sound sincere. He freed his hand and took Andy by the elbow. “Come on in.”
“Sure, great,” Andy said. “Carol, he thinks I look fine. Say, this is a nice place you’ve got here, Bud. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.” He stepped deeper into the apartment and looked around. “I was ready to flip with my parents. Well, you remember how it was. I don’t have to tell you. I really appreciate this, man. You’ve got no idea. Gee, it’s good to see you again. What’ve you been doing with yourself?”
Bud closed the door. “Oh, you know. Work, work, work.”
“You’re still going to school, Carol tells me. That’s a smart move, all right. I should have gone to school, Bud. I wouldn’t have fouled up if I’d gone to school. It’s all environment, you know, and influence that...” He stopped, as if he were unsure of what he wanted to say. A perplexed frown crossed his wide brow, and then he gave a tiny shrug and said, “Well, that’s the way it goes.”
“Can I get you something to drink, Andy? Carol? Anything? Why don’t you take off your coat?”
“Well, I can’t stay long,” Carol said.
“Here, I’ll hang it up.”
She took off her coat, and he asked her eyes a question, but she did not answer. She handed him the light duster, and he took it to the closet. He slipped it onto a hanger and then sneaked a look at Andy. He had changed a lot — not in a way that you could exactly put your finger on, except for the eyes, those eyes, but he had definitely changed. He had not expected so great a physical change. He had expected to see the Andy he had known as a boy.
“So how about that drink?” he asked, turning away from the closet.
“Nothing for me,” Andy said.
“Carol?”
“No, Bud. Thanks.”
He hoped this would not get difficult. It exhibited all the beginnings of a nice session in a funeral parlor. He hoped it would not turn into that.
“This is really a nice place,” Andy said again. “I certainly appreciate this. I’ll try not to get in your way, Bud. I mean it. It’ll just be for a week, anyway. Just until I take that audition. I’m almost okay now, you know. Did you know I was an addict?”
“Yes,” Bud said, thinking, Of course I knew. Are you kidding?
“Yeah, well I was. Pretty good, huh? Some end, huh? Did you ever think Andy Silvera would become an addict?”
“Well, no,” Bud said, embarrassed to hear him talk of it so freely.
“Me neither. Well, that’s the way it is. I look bad, don’t I? Tell the truth.”
“No, you look all right.”
“No, I look bad. You don’t have to lie, Bud. No, I mean it, it’s okay. I can still see myself in a mirror. Jesus, it’s good to see you again. Carol, isn’t it great seeing Bud again? Jesus, you don’t know what this means to me.”
“Sit down,” Bud said. “Take a load off your feet.” There was something very unreal about the whole thing. He tried to find out what was wrong with the picture, and he couldn’t pin-point it. But something was all wrong, the feel of it, the... the feel...
“No, I’d rather stand,” Andy said. “It’s better if I walk around. I mean, you don’t mind, do you? It’s better if I walk. I’ve almost got the thing beat, but I can’t sit still for too long. You know? I’ve got to pace every now and then. Like a tiger, eh, Carol? Well, gee, this is really a fine setup you’ve got here. Say, were you studying or something? I don’t want to bust in like—”
“No, that’s all right,” Bud said, his mind momentarily yanked back to Milton. “It can wait.” He hoped his voice had carried the conviction he definitely did not feel.
“Did Carol tell you about my audition?” Andy asked.
“Yes,” Bud said, “but not all the deta—”
“Oh, it’s a good deal,” Andy said. “Laddy Fredericks. Do you know him? He’s been at the Edison forever. Man, that band never leaves New York. That’s what killed me in the first place, you know — that road business. When I was on the Jerralds band. That’s when I met Rog Kiner, bless him. You remember that, don’t you? You were out of the service then, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that road stuff is nowhere, man. Hey, you sure you weren’t studying? Carol says you’ve got finals coming up.”
“I can study later,” Bud said, resigned to his fate. “What about the audition?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, Mike Daley — you remember Mike? Oh, sure you do. When we had the old band, when we were kids, you remember, don’t you? Man, that was kicks all right, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was...”
“No gold, but a lot of kicks. That was a real happy time, wasn’t it? Well, Mike, I dug him on Forty-second a month, two months ago — sure, it must’ve been at least two months. I’m always all screwed up when it comes to time. Well, I ran into him and I could see like he was a little embarrassed, you know. The word gets around when you’re hooked, and people can’t understand what it’s like unless they’re hooked themselves. Like when I was down at Lexington — I went down there for the cure, you know. Did you know that?... Well, I did. Well, those guys knew the score, dad, said we were all sick — but, Jesus, I couldn’t make that place. Sick, that’s what we are, all right, but people can’t always understand that. That’s because the newspapers run articles on dope fiends — fiends, that’s a laugh — and the people get the wrong idea. Man, those articles are for the birds, believe me. If you ever want the real truth about drugs, just get me talking sometime. I’ll tell you stories about it, but not what the papers said. That was for the birds. Like what they said about marijuana, hell, Buddy, mootah never hurt a fly, I mean it. I know guys who bust a joint before each meal, like taking a cocktail, you know? Are cocktails harmful, do you mind if I pace?”