you have. Your life doesn't seem to interest you very much. Not like me, not like me. I must live! I
love
livingâeating, talking.... Bertha and I still have ... love ... you know what I mean. I'm terrified, please Sol..."
"Does it hurt you now?"
"Noo-o," Selig said, his expression one of inward inspection. "I don't think so."
"And just how many
stabbing
pains did you have?"
"About three or four," Selig whispered, just turning his eyes.
"And that was all?"
"Yes, except that I got this
faint
feeling after that."
Sol smiled distastefully. "You will not die now, Selig; relax. You are a very healthy man." Surprisingly, there was a note of gentleness in his scorn.
"You think so?" Selig leaned very cautiously into hope. "What was it, then, the pains, the faintness?"
"The pains were nerves. You were perhaps thinking about the possibility of a heart attack for some reason?"
"A teacher in my school, just my age, fifty-four, keeled over today. Never had a sick day, and, boom, he keels over dead!"
"Aha."
"But the faintness?" Selig asked, not letting go of fear too easily, although a craven smile of relief was beginning.
"A natural reaction to fear. The blood leaves your head, you see things as through a smoked glass, sounds get distant and small."
"Yes, yes, that was it exactly." He breathed delightedly the sweet air of fife and began looking around him with great pleasure, like a child drinking in the familiarity of his room after a nightmare. "Oh, Solly, thank you. I wouldn't say this in front of anyone else but ... well, you are a comfort, a strange comfort to me. You're younger than I am ... but it's funny, this will sound foolish, I feel as protected with you here as I did when I was a kid still living with my father. Protected ... a strange thing to say, isn't it? Tomorrow I will want to forget all about this. But now ..."
"First of all, you are a hypochondriac, Selig. But most of all you are a fool." Sol stood up. "Relax now; your crisis is over. You must take care of
yourself.
I have nothing to do with you. I am not your protector, nor am I your father or your doctor or your rabbi. I give you the courtesy of exposing your own foolishness to you, that is all. I am nothing to you, Selig. Now I am going to bed."
"Yes, Sol, thank you Solly," Selig said, still beyond insult.
And that night, Sol Nazerman was ravaged by dreams again. But mercifully, perhaps, they were torn out of recognition, because he kept waking all through the night, waking up with a strange, nameless alarm.
SEVEN
Buck White sat in one corner, brooding in the sound of his wife's flirtatious laughter. When he had been younger, his great muscularity had been an impressive focus for women's attention, but now his laborer's body was just a hard, knotty joke. He had nothing else to offer. Words came out of him in careful couples or trios. When he tried to use more than he needed for request or simple answer, they came out in a garbled winding whose beginning and end were lost to him. Once, he had won seven hundred dollars in a crap game, and his winnings had adorned him in suits and an installment car; people had seemed to smile respectfully at the dazzle he made. He sat there yearning savagely for that affluence again, his huge Bantu face lowering and hard as he watched his wife, Billy, parade her face and body for Kopey, the numbers man.
Three other men, Cecil Mapp among them, sat in another corner laughing over their beer. Actually, Cecil was drinking lemonade, under the influence of his wife, who sat with the other women in the kitchen. Billy White was the only woman among the men, and her laughter kept them all swollenly conscious of their maleness; except for her husband, who dreamed furiously of barbaric splendor and kneaded his huge hands.
"I'm going to take a little business trip out to L.A. in a couple of weeks," Kopey said with a blasé expression on his sleek, yellow face. He studied the big star sapphire on his pinky. "Pro'bly run
love
livingâeating, talking.... Bertha and I still have ... love ... you know what I mean. I'm terrified, please Sol..."
"Does it hurt you now?"
"Noo-o," Selig said, his expression one of inward inspection. "I don't think so."
"And just how many
stabbing
pains did you have?"
"About three or four," Selig whispered, just turning his eyes.
"And that was all?"
"Yes, except that I got this
faint
feeling after that."
Sol smiled distastefully. "You will not die now, Selig; relax. You are a very healthy man." Surprisingly, there was a note of gentleness in his scorn.
"You think so?" Selig leaned very cautiously into hope. "What was it, then, the pains, the faintness?"
"The pains were nerves. You were perhaps thinking about the possibility of a heart attack for some reason?"
"A teacher in my school, just my age, fifty-four, keeled over today. Never had a sick day, and, boom, he keels over dead!"
"Aha."
"But the faintness?" Selig asked, not letting go of fear too easily, although a craven smile of relief was beginning.
"A natural reaction to fear. The blood leaves your head, you see things as through a smoked glass, sounds get distant and small."
"Yes, yes, that was it exactly." He breathed delightedly the sweet air of fife and began looking around him with great pleasure, like a child drinking in the familiarity of his room after a nightmare. "Oh, Solly, thank you. I wouldn't say this in front of anyone else but ... well, you are a comfort, a strange comfort to me. You're younger than I am ... but it's funny, this will sound foolish, I feel as protected with you here as I did when I was a kid still living with my father. Protected ... a strange thing to say, isn't it? Tomorrow I will want to forget all about this. But now ..."
"First of all, you are a hypochondriac, Selig. But most of all you are a fool." Sol stood up. "Relax now; your crisis is over. You must take care of
yourself.
I have nothing to do with you. I am not your protector, nor am I your father or your doctor or your rabbi. I give you the courtesy of exposing your own foolishness to you, that is all. I am nothing to you, Selig. Now I am going to bed."
"Yes, Sol, thank you Solly," Selig said, still beyond insult.
And that night, Sol Nazerman was ravaged by dreams again. But mercifully, perhaps, they were torn out of recognition, because he kept waking all through the night, waking up with a strange, nameless alarm.
SEVEN
Buck White sat in one corner, brooding in the sound of his wife's flirtatious laughter. When he had been younger, his great muscularity had been an impressive focus for women's attention, but now his laborer's body was just a hard, knotty joke. He had nothing else to offer. Words came out of him in careful couples or trios. When he tried to use more than he needed for request or simple answer, they came out in a garbled winding whose beginning and end were lost to him. Once, he had won seven hundred dollars in a crap game, and his winnings had adorned him in suits and an installment car; people had seemed to smile respectfully at the dazzle he made. He sat there yearning savagely for that affluence again, his huge Bantu face lowering and hard as he watched his wife, Billy, parade her face and body for Kopey, the numbers man.
Three other men, Cecil Mapp among them, sat in another corner laughing over their beer. Actually, Cecil was drinking lemonade, under the influence of his wife, who sat with the other women in the kitchen. Billy White was the only woman among the men, and her laughter kept them all swollenly conscious of their maleness; except for her husband, who dreamed furiously of barbaric splendor and kneaded his huge hands.
"I'm going to take a little business trip out to L.A. in a couple of weeks," Kopey said with a blasé expression on his sleek, yellow face. He studied the big star sapphire on his pinky. "Pro'bly run
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