Miriam was the exception, not for her bodily self but for her appetite: She devoured the ripe fruit of the world. He fell in love with the efflorescence of Miriam’s details. Cicero’s sudden idol had a knack for making what he’d never heard of until that instant sound exactly like the life he craved for himself:
dignified planet, Che Guevara, McSorley’s, falafel, Eldridge Cleaver, hashish, the Fugs, Ramblin’ Jack, dim sum
.
The chicken was, in fact, a chicken. On Mott Street, in the confusion of the entrance to something called the Chinatown Museum—an indoor court of attractions as decrepit and uninviting as the worst Coney Island parlor, ominous even in daylight—a dirty white hen strutted and pecked in a decorated vitrine that had been wheeled from the shadows to the edge of the sidewalk. “This is Clara,” said Miriam. “She’s going to tell your fortune. Hell of a lot cheaper than Sylvia de Grace.” Miriam purchased a token from Clara’s mute keeper, a Tom Thumb man this time, and shoved it into the slot. A winsome jingle played and Clara the chicken began a spinning dance, then pecked at one of several tabs on the interior of the cage, releasing a few grains of corn to the floor of her captivity, and a card with Chinese symbols and English words into Miriam’s waiting fingers. “Here you go,” said Miriam. “You want me to read it to you?”
Did she think he couldn’t read, after all? Cicero, so watchful and adept in the secret chambers of his self, so committed to the pathof invisibility, could nonetheless be amazed at how unilaterally his disguise as a fat black boy really worked:
Really?
You think I’m not watching and judging and desiring, not scheming to realize my desires? In certain eyes, Cicero felt granted no more sway in the human scheme than a bulldog leashed to a lamppost or a passing cloud that briefly took an amusing shape. But no. He caught his breath. This wasn’t that. What Miriam proposed was that she play oracle, take Sylvia de Grace’s place in the thwarted plan to hear Cicero’s destiny unveiled today.
“Yes,” he said. “Read it to me.”
She slipped it into her pocket. “I will, but not here. I’ve got another idea. You ever had a Dave’s vanilla?”
The answer, this time, was actually
yes
. Rose had once taken him to the Canal Street egg cream mecca. Not everything in Manhattan was Miriam’s invention. Yet Cicero strategically lied, shook his head, cocked his eyebrows, waiting for her to explain what he already knew. As with letting Miriam narrate the chicken’s fortune-telling, Cicero chose to let her believe in his susceptibility to her wonders, his gullibility, even where he wasn’t susceptible or gullible. The form Cicero’s devotion still took, with Rose, with Miriam, with his own mother, was an
unwillingness to disillusion
.
This would change.
Miriam and Cicero perched together on stools at the counter of Dave’s fountain, another timeless zone of men in dented fedoras slurping coffee under Depression-era signage, of glasses cleaned and dried with checkered cloths that were neither clean nor dry. They put their backs to the purring chaos of the intersection at Canal and Broadway and at her suggestion each sampled both a chocolate
and
a vanilla. The white-aproned counterman was only twentyish and had already seen it all in his day, didn’t blink at fizzing up four egg creams for a black kid and a hippie chick, never even quit whistling. Beneath the apron the counterman’s robin’s-egg-blue shirt was rolled midway up his forearms, the sinews and muscles of which thrummed hypnotically as he stirred syrup from the bottoms of their glasses with a long spoon. Miriam held Clara the chicken’s fortune-telling card up and then scowled for the sake of drama. “You ready? Hey, Cicero, you paying attention?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a biggie, I’m telling you.”
“What?” Cicero recognized the sound of himself completely taking the bait, felt seven
dignified planet, Che Guevara, McSorley’s, falafel, Eldridge Cleaver, hashish, the Fugs, Ramblin’ Jack, dim sum
.
The chicken was, in fact, a chicken. On Mott Street, in the confusion of the entrance to something called the Chinatown Museum—an indoor court of attractions as decrepit and uninviting as the worst Coney Island parlor, ominous even in daylight—a dirty white hen strutted and pecked in a decorated vitrine that had been wheeled from the shadows to the edge of the sidewalk. “This is Clara,” said Miriam. “She’s going to tell your fortune. Hell of a lot cheaper than Sylvia de Grace.” Miriam purchased a token from Clara’s mute keeper, a Tom Thumb man this time, and shoved it into the slot. A winsome jingle played and Clara the chicken began a spinning dance, then pecked at one of several tabs on the interior of the cage, releasing a few grains of corn to the floor of her captivity, and a card with Chinese symbols and English words into Miriam’s waiting fingers. “Here you go,” said Miriam. “You want me to read it to you?”
Did she think he couldn’t read, after all? Cicero, so watchful and adept in the secret chambers of his self, so committed to the pathof invisibility, could nonetheless be amazed at how unilaterally his disguise as a fat black boy really worked:
Really?
You think I’m not watching and judging and desiring, not scheming to realize my desires? In certain eyes, Cicero felt granted no more sway in the human scheme than a bulldog leashed to a lamppost or a passing cloud that briefly took an amusing shape. But no. He caught his breath. This wasn’t that. What Miriam proposed was that she play oracle, take Sylvia de Grace’s place in the thwarted plan to hear Cicero’s destiny unveiled today.
“Yes,” he said. “Read it to me.”
She slipped it into her pocket. “I will, but not here. I’ve got another idea. You ever had a Dave’s vanilla?”
The answer, this time, was actually
yes
. Rose had once taken him to the Canal Street egg cream mecca. Not everything in Manhattan was Miriam’s invention. Yet Cicero strategically lied, shook his head, cocked his eyebrows, waiting for her to explain what he already knew. As with letting Miriam narrate the chicken’s fortune-telling, Cicero chose to let her believe in his susceptibility to her wonders, his gullibility, even where he wasn’t susceptible or gullible. The form Cicero’s devotion still took, with Rose, with Miriam, with his own mother, was an
unwillingness to disillusion
.
This would change.
Miriam and Cicero perched together on stools at the counter of Dave’s fountain, another timeless zone of men in dented fedoras slurping coffee under Depression-era signage, of glasses cleaned and dried with checkered cloths that were neither clean nor dry. They put their backs to the purring chaos of the intersection at Canal and Broadway and at her suggestion each sampled both a chocolate
and
a vanilla. The white-aproned counterman was only twentyish and had already seen it all in his day, didn’t blink at fizzing up four egg creams for a black kid and a hippie chick, never even quit whistling. Beneath the apron the counterman’s robin’s-egg-blue shirt was rolled midway up his forearms, the sinews and muscles of which thrummed hypnotically as he stirred syrup from the bottoms of their glasses with a long spoon. Miriam held Clara the chicken’s fortune-telling card up and then scowled for the sake of drama. “You ready? Hey, Cicero, you paying attention?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a biggie, I’m telling you.”
“What?” Cicero recognized the sound of himself completely taking the bait, felt seven
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