Chapter 17

          

 

                "This is it?" Maxwell asked, staring out at the restaurant, his mouth suddenly dry, unable to turn his gaze from the gaudy building, its arches and stucco front stolen from a half dozen European cultures and pasted together into a jigsaw puzzle of what was supposed to serve as class, with one culture clashing against another, a little Greek side by side with a little Nordic, a little German with a little Old Tyme English, Tutor or something close to it. And despite all this, management had still found a way to put up a billboard-sized map of Sicily on the building's side.

 "What's the matter?" Patty asked.

 "I'm not sure I brought enough money for a place like this," Maxwell said.

                "If that's all you're worried about, I'll order something cheap," Patty said, her tone suggesting a significant concession. "I suppose they have something you can afford."

                Maxwell had parked the car instead of pulling up to the front door where valet service could have done so for him. Patty seemed to resent that aspect of their date, and eyed the line of other cars, the Lincolns and the Mercedes, Cadillacs and Jaguars pausing before the doors for the suited valets to help the guests out. She was apparently used to such treatment.

                Closer up, the place looked even more ridiculous than from the car, little things like gold door knockers from an Old English style had clearly been added to provide the place with a sense of class. But it was Middle America's sense of what class should be, rather than what it was, like the Governor's mansion Ronald Reagan built during his reign in California during the 1960s, a phony sense that fit in with a working man's view of the world, working men who had struggled out of the poverty of their own lives, made rich by inflated property values and other activities, giving wealth without taste.

                Much of Northern New Jersey had been settled by blue collar Italians seeking a better life in the suburb, whole neighborhoods and families making the transition across the Hudson River all at once, building new neighborhoods of single family houses where meadows once stood, building bigger and more outrageous houses as the value of their own houses grew, and their union jobs guaranteed them wages they hardly deserved.

                It wasn't the Mafia that built up New Jersey -- though there was an ample helping of that included -- but a dramatic shift in culture that turned farms into visions of "the old country" or rather how poor immigrants suddenly rich thought the old country should be, something akin to that 1960s teleview show: "The Beverley Hillbillies."

                At the double doors, three very large brown-haired, black-eyed men jumped up from seats on either side, clearly alarmed by the arrival of people on foot. Each man had the thick neck and arms Maxwell had seen on wrestlers in school, with shoulders that looked as if they wore football pads, but did not, their tuxedos barely able to contain their chests. He expected the buttons to pop off at any more, like heated popcorn kernels.

                "Nice to see you again, Miss Patty," the apparent leader of this pack of wolves said as she stepped up into the brighter lights near the door, giving Maxwell one more dark look before reaching to hold open the door. "Are the folks inside expecting you this morning?"

                Patty paused, frowned, her blue gaze studying the faces of the men. "No, I don't think so," she said. "Should they be?"

                "Well," the man said, glancing with a cringe towards his companions, and then at Maxwell, and at Maxwell's appearance: his gaze working up from the sneakers, jeans, denim jacket to the scruffy hair. "Usually when you come here, someone calls ahead."

                "You mean we need reservations?" Maxwell asked, drawing one more resentful look. The men, clearly, did not want someone dressed like Maxwell into their private club. The fact that Patty had dressed about the same didn't seem to bother them.

                "Sort of," the man said.

                "That's nonsense," Patty said, making a move towards the door only to find one of the other hefty valet’s barring her way.

                "I'm afraid we've got to call inside to see if it's okay to let you in," the leader said, though still glared at Maxwell. "You know we don't like strangers here."

                "I'm not a stranger," Patty said.

                "No, but he is," the man said, hooking a thumb at Maxwell.

                "But he's with me," Patty insisted.

                "We know, but who are you with," the man said, for the first time his words taking on a tone something less than respectful.

                The questioned stopped Patty in her next stride to get passed the barrier. She stared at the valet nearest her, then at their leader, her dumbfounded expression emphasized by the sudden rush of red to her face.

                "Are you telling me the only reason I get in here is because I was with....?"

                The lead valet nodded.

                "What a crock of shit!" Patty exploded, then turned and hooked Maxwell's arm, leading him back down the stairs. "Come on, Longfellow, let's get out of here."

                "But I thought you wanted to eat?" Maxwell said.

                "I do, but not in a dump like this," Patty said, glaring back at the men, challenging any of the valet’s to dispute her. "Let's go someplace where people appreciate us."

                "That son of a bitch," she said, under her breath when they were outside again. "I'll have his eyes out for this."

                "Who?" Maxwell asked, drawing Patty's wrathful gaze as they walked,

                "Never mind who," she said, letting loose of him when they finally reached the car.

                "You mean the Boss, don't you?" Maxwell said. "You used to come here with him."

                Patty stared at him across the hood of the car, her gaze narrowed into slits.

                "Yes," she said, "and with other guys, but cool guys, not fucking poets and not fucking idiots with fast, but rusting cars, who blow away important people on the highway just to look good for me."

                "You can't blame this on me," Maxwell said. "Those snobs in here couldn't have known anything about me. Maybe you just presumed yourself more important than you are."

                "Are you going to drive or do I have to find another way home?"

                "There are no busses from here to Paterson," Maxwell said.

                For the second time that night, Patty looked positively indignant, snorting as she thrust back her shoulders and glared at Maxwell, her fierce stare piercing him.

                "I don't take buses," she said. "And do you imagine for one minute that I'd stand long on the side of the road if I needed a ride?"

                "I can imagine all sorts of perverts stopping," Maxwell said, "or cowboys thinking they've found something to play with for the night."

                "You think I can't take care of myself?"

                "I think it would be difficult for anyone to handle a determined attack at night around here," Maxwell said, glancing towards the perimeter of the parking lot where the woods pressed in, bare and scrawny tree limbs looking like clawing fingers.

                "Then you're a bigger fool than I thought," she said, slapping her small purse on top of the car where it landed with a clunk.

                The sound startled Maxwell, his argument vaporing as he stared at the purse.

                "Is that a pistol you have there?" he asked.

                "No, it's my diaphragm," Patty barked. "Of course it's a gun. You think I would go anywhere with you without one?"

                "You are a trusting soul," Maxwell said, still staring at the purse as he licked his lips, his mouth so suddenly try that his throat hurt.

                "Not when it comes to me, I'm not," Patty said. "Anyone who annoys me -- bang!"

                She imitated firing a pistol using her thumb and forefinger, and though she did so with absolute seriousness, the act made Maxwell laugh.

                "You think I'm funny?" Patty asked.

                "I think you would be if you actually tried to shoot anyone."

                "How do you know I haven't already?"

                "You wouldn't be so flippant about it if you had."

                "So now you're an expert on shooting people?" Patty asked. "Why don't you tell me how many people you've shot, smart guy."

                "I've shot no one," Maxwell said. "But I've seen it done. And I've talked to plenty of other people who have."

                "Oh really," Patty said. "Mr. Poet had killer friends?"

                "No, but I've had friends who went to war," he said, "and for them, killing is no joke."

                Patty let out a snort, stared across the car at Maxwell, then slowly clucking her tongue, yanked open the door.

                "Get in the car, tough guy," she said. "I want to go home."

 

                Maxwell did not hurry Charlie, but kept a light foot on the gas pedal, hoping to stretch out the drive back.  Patty's silence was like a brick wall between them, and one which Maxwell made no effort to overcome.

                Instead, he listened to the wheels humming over the highway, and the purr of the engine, taking note of small noises here and there, the rattling of some bolt or flap of some loose wire.

                "So what's life like being a poet?" Patty asked so suddenly as to startle Maxwell.

                He glanced over at her, noting a change in her expression as well, she seeming to have gotten over her infuriation. Her blue eyes looked less ominous despite the dim light. "Do you make a living at it?"

                "No one makes a living at poetry," Maxwell said with a laugh. "Not in this day and age."

                "So what do you do?"

                "What do you think I do?"

                "Tom thinks you're a cop," Patty said.

                "Me? A cop? Tom should know better than that. Cops don't go to jail."

                "They do if they've been ordered to go there."

                "Is that what Tom thinks, too?"

                "He said I should be careful around you, that there's more to you than meets the eye."

                "I could say as much about him, or about you, or about anybody," Maxwell said. "We all have things about us other people don't see."

                "But not many of us profess to be poets and live in the heart of Paterson without getting mugged or arrested or sold to drugs."

                "Which goes to show you how much you know about poets or poetry," Maxwell said. "You'd be surprised at the number of poets who survived worse than Paterson and created great poetry as a result."

                "Poetry about Paterson?"

                "Yes, even about Paterson. If you want, I can bring you some."

                "Of yours?"

                "Mine, William Carlos Williams and others."

                "I'd rather read yours," Patty said in a voice now so sweet Maxwell suspected sharp irony behind her words.

                "You'd be disappointed."

                "Why? Because you think I'm not smart enough to understand it?"

                "Because it isn't very good."

                "Why don't you let me judge that?"

                "All right," Maxwell mumbled, slowing the car as the highway curved around a section of Garret Mountain commonly called "Devil's Crack," a spot where state troopers routinely hung out in their perpetual hunt for hotrodders.

                "When?" Patty asked.

                Maxwell glanced over at her. "When what?"

                "When do I get to see this poetry of yours?"

                "Not now," Maxwell laughed. "I don't have any with me."

                "No notebooks? Don't you feel nicked without them?"

                "Sort of," Maxwell said. "But I didn't feel comfortable bringing them to a new club. People get the wrong idea about me."

                "Like you might be a cop?" Patty asked, her eyes glinting.

                "Something like that," Maxwell admitted. "But I don't see why you should be so interested in my poetry."

                "Because I don't know anything about you, Longfellow. I figure there might be a clue in your poems."

                "You could ask me about myself."

                "Ah, but would you tell me the truth?"

                "Try me."

                "All right," Patty said, adjusting her shoulders against the seat as if trying to make herself comfortable. "Tell me about yourself then."

                "What do you want to know?"

                "You know," Patty said with a wave of her hand. "The usual stuff: where you come from, where you want to go."

                "How far do you want me to go back?"

                "Well, I don't want a complete biography," Patty said. "But you can tell me where you were born."

                "Paterson."

                "Really?" Patty said, looking sincerely surprised.

                "People do get born here, you know."

                "Yeah," Patty said. "But most white kids leave when they're old enough to vote. You mean to tell me you survived the Paterson school system?"

                "Thanks to my Uncle Charlie."

                Patty frowned. "You mean the one who gave you this car?"

                "He didn't give it to me, but he owned it once. Yes, that Charlie. He taught me a lot, especially about how to survive."

                "Just like a father, eh?" Patty said. "That's sweet. Pray tell me what was your real father doing during all this?"

                Maxwell shrugged. "I don't know. I never met him."

                "You don't know your own father?"

                "He took off when I was born, scared what my mother's brothers would do to him, I think. From what they've told me, he was a scamp and a villain, and they spent a lot of money cleaning up his debts after he left."

                "And your mother?"

                Maxwell laughed. "She hated Paterson, which is why she took up with my father in the first place. He promised to take her away from it all, promised her Colorado, California and The Great Northwest."

                "She could have gone to those places without him."

                "She tried. In fact, most of my early memories are those of her trying to leave, travelling on buses to this place and that, Ohio, Kentucky, Chicago, Maryland."

                "What brought her back?"

                "My uncles," Maxwell said. "They said she was crazy, so they dragged her back and locked her up in Greystone Park Mental Hospital, until they felt they could trust her again, then, the minute she got out, she ran."

                "Was she crazy?"

                "Not for wanting to leave Paterson," Maxwell said in a low voice. "In that one thing she was thoroughly sane. I'd leave tomorrow if I could."

                "What's stopping you?"

                "I'm not ready."

                "So who took care of you while your mother was locked up?"

                "My grandparents, uncles and aunts."

                "All in one house?"

                "Do you find that odd?"

                Patty shrugged. "No, I suppose not, but it does sound a little clannish"

                "I suppose it was that to a degree," Maxwell admitted. "But things weren't as close as you'd think. Most of my family hated me, thinking me more my father's son than anyone in their own blood line. They kept thinking I was trying to pull something over on them, and treated me as if I already had."

                "All except for your uncle, Charlie? From the way you describe him, he didn't see to hate you."

                "No, he was the only one who didn't, and he did his best to protect me from the others. But he wasn't always around. When his job or college took him out of the house, the family took revenge on me. later on, he went off into the army, and while he was gone, the family tried to kill me with work. I fled the house to avoid them."

                "Where did you go?"

                "Out."

                "You mean on the street?"

                "I spent most of the years between 8 and 16 wandering around, trying to keep out of my family's way, coming home for meals, sleep or when I saw Charlie's car parked at the curb."

                "And your family didn't try to stop you?"

                "Stop me? They loved it. They would have preferred if I never came home. That's the reason they never came to bail me out of jail after the robbery, and why they didn't hunt me down after news came back from Vietnam about Charlie."

                "Robbery?" Patty asked. "You robbed someone?"

                "Not exactly," Maxwell mumbled, still seeing the splattered bit of red and grey on the store front window in his memory.

                "What exactly happened?"

                "If you don't mind," Maxwell said with a long sigh, "I'd rather not talk about it."

                "You mean you'd keep this secret from me?" Patty asked, mocking him. "That is no way to start a relationship."

                Maxwell glanced over at her, his mouth taking on the sign of a smile, that withered instantly as he noted her attention wandering, outside again, to study the dull outskirts of Paterson, the hills and mountains opening up into the wider flatlands that stretched all the way to the horizon. With the advent of dawn, not many lights remained, just a sprinkling here and there, and many of these early morning workers struggling up to make the 7 a.m. whistle as such places as Heller Candy or Continental Can.

                "What exactly do you mean by relationship?" Maxwell asked, calling her attention back to him.

                She blinked, then looked at him. "What do you think it means?"

                "I know what the word means, but not what you meant by it."

                "Well, a friendship is a relationship of sorts, isn't it?"

                "Are we friends then?"

                "I'm not sure friendship quite covers it," she said, mysteriously.

                "Then are we lovers?"

                "LONGFELLOW!" Patty yelped, but still with the mockery in her voice. "I'm surprised at you."

                "That isn't an answer."

                This time, when Patty stared at him, her eyes sparked with the same blue fire Maxwell had seen in them when she danced, when she had one of those poor pudgy men squirming at her feet.

                "I'm not sure you deserve an answer," she said, and turned her attention out the window again, Paterson now nearly perfectly visible under the growing light of dawn, a wide blue sky rolling out over it, like a hand smothering the remaining lights. Banks of street lamps winked out, as did the flood lights illuminating bill boards.

                It seemed to Maxwell that the city now went to sleep rather than woke, though he knew that in an hour or so, traffic would grow so thick and horns would sound so loud as to leave no doubt as to what state the city was in.

                Oddly enough, he preferred the darkness, or at least wished to hold onto it for a few more hours.

                Yet by the time he reached the proper exit, he no longer needed his headlights and switched them off, then turned the car onto the ramp that led back into the maze of streets. Around him, milk trucks and newspaper trucks joined pastry vans and plumber vans, and pickup trucks and a host of rusted, dented clanking and steaming working people's cars which made their way through the narrow streets, some double and triple parking in front of little bodegas for coffee and buttered rolls. No face turned to watch Maxwell pass as if his patched and grey GTO fit in perfectly with them, as if was one of them.

                Normally, Maxwell woke about now, called to Jack, then readied himself for his run, following some of the same streets he now crossed by car, seeing some of the same people, and same scenes, only now, with these at the end of Maxwell's day rather than at the beginning. It all seemed wrong, twisted, an unwelcome interruption in an important ritual in his life, the day and night switched, with darkness standing in the place of light.

                Finally, the car reached Patty's street, Maxwell steering it to a vacant space before her door. Even in daylight, her doorway remained dark, a slanted gash in the face of brick gapping mockingly while around it, and up and down the block, store front gates sealed up the other doorways, making them as fast and secure as medieval castles. A few glittering lights from the apartment windows above teased the street with early morning hints of life, but nothing more.

                If the Trans Am had made its way back here, Maxwell didn't see it as he studied the street on both sides, and the lines of dented and rusting cars the locals used for transportation, Fords, Datzuns, Toyotas with a rare 20 year old Volvo thrown in, nothing more. An alley cat appeared under the nearest bumper, its eyes glinting green for a moment before blinking out. But the cat was not the only thing watching this place, Maxwell thought. An overbidding sense of watchfulness and silence hung over the block, filled with an unnatural stillness that even the early morning hour could not explain, defying the activity clearly alive elsewhere in the city.

                Didn't anyone here work early? Why couldn't Maxwell hear the clang of alarm clocks or see the bathroom lights illuminated? No echo of radio weather reports seemed to resound here, no sound of stumbling people making their way up for jobs as clerks, and truck drivers, waitresses and nurses, as if all on this block could afford to sleep late.

                Or perhaps as if this world revolved so firmly around Patty that it needed to wait for her return to begin its routines, waiting for her to make her way up the dark stairs, unlock her door, fall into her bed exhausted. Maxwell could almost see the faces of watchers perched behind closed shades on both sides of the streets.

                "That's nonsense," he thought, trying to be firm in his resolve, yet feeling the force of that belief shake him even as he turned to wish Patty good night.

                "Well," Maxwell said finally, exuding an exaggerated sigh. "Here you are, safe and sound."

                Patty let out a single snort, but kept her face turned towards the sidewalk and away from Maxwell, as if she was studying the sudden reemergence of the alley cat from under the car, a cat that moved, paused, pawed something out of the trash, then moved on again.

                Maxwell could see Patty's pale reflection on this side of the glass, but could not read her expression from it. She made no move to open the door, and no sound came from her except for the repeated rasp of smoker's breathing.

                "Well?" Maxwell said again, finally drawing Patty's gaze.

                "Well, what?" she asked.

                Maxwell fingered the steering wheel, shaking his head a little as if the movement would sort out the confusion for him.

                "You said you wanted to come home," he said. "Now you're home."

                Again, came silence, though this time Patty stared at Maxwell's face.

                "You mean to tell me you don't want to come up?" she asked after a long time.

                "Up? For what?"

                Her eyes sparkled. "For a drink, for a talk. You know the routine."

                "It's five thirty or later in the morning," Maxwell said. "You can't still want a drink?"

                "I always want a drink," Patty said. "But if you don't want to come up..."

                "I didn't say I didn't want to come up," Maxwell protested, but Patty had already pushed open the door and climbed out, where she paused with hands on her hips, slowly shaking her head.

                "If you're coming, then come on," she said. "We don't have all night, you know."

                Maxwell took a deep breath, then scrambled out, slapping down the locks on his door, then Patty's, as she strolled across the sidewalk towards the dark door -- rats and cats scrambling out of the fallen trash as she passed.

                Maxwell halted before following her into the darkness, taking one more look around, up the street, then down it, noticing the first small signs of life as a light then another flickered on in some of the windows across the street. Yet he saw no sign of the black Trans Am which he was certain was there somewhere. Finally, he stepped into the building again.

                Up stairs in the dark, Patty's Pony sneakers squeaked as they climbed. His step firmer and slower made no sound except for the moan of the wood itself where years of footsteps had worn it down. He understood its weariness, after his own long night, and he wondered what Jack was doing at this moment as the alarm rang for him to rise.

                "Most likely the bum has turned the alarm off and gone back to sleep not even noticing my empty bed," Maxwell thought. "Why not? Without me there to rouse him, he could sleep the day away in perfect luxury."

                Up top, Patty's footsteps halted with the slamming of a door. A moment later, the music roared back to life. But no other doors opened, no outraged neighbors emerged, waving their fists or shouting for her to turn if off, although as Maxwell passed, he thought he saw the peep holes darken. The music was not quite as loud as it had been earlier and of a variety radio stations called "light rock." The James Taylor song ended by the time Maxwell reached the top of the stairs, replaced by Fleetwood Mac.

                The door was open and he eased in.

                "There's beer in the frig," Patty said, standing at the kitchen table with the ingredients of a mixed drink laid out before her.

                "Don't you ever stop drinking?" Maxwell asked.

                "I don't stop unless I have to," she said. "Do you want one of these instead of a beer?"

                "No thanks," Maxwell said, staring passed Patty towards the window as dawn spread its pink fingers across the New York skyline. "It's a little too early for me."

                Patty followed his stare, then frowned, her painted eyebrows nearly touching as they clashed above her nose.

                "What are you looking for?" she asked, as Maxwell eased across the room to glance down at the street.

                "For our little friend," he said. "He seems to have arrived."

                Down below, amid the junk cars and trash cans and wandering stray dogs, the black Trans Am pulled up to the curb across the street, its tinted windows made more ominous by the daylight.

                 "Forget the car," she said and tugged at the string which sent the blinds crashing down, blotting out dawn as well as the vision of the car. "Why don't you go make yourself comfortable in the living room which I get undressed."

                "Oh?"

                "Don't get any ideas, Longfellow," she snapped. "I won't be coming out in no negligee."

                Maxwell made his way into the room nearest the front door and eased himself down on the coach, taking note of the wall of pictures only after he had looked over the massive entertainment center, the color TV and the piles of records, many of them out of their sleeves. Every other available inch of wall was covered with the varying images of John Wayne.

                Maxwell rubbed his weary eyes, wondering if he had stumbled into a museum dedicated to The Duke. Each image was a portrait taken from John Wayne's many movies, most painting him as a cowboy, though in many he wore the uniform associated with the Army, Navy or Marines.

                The record ended. The arm to the turntable rose from the scratch surface leaving the apartment in a profound silence. Patty appeared in the doorway wearing nothing more than a man's white button down shirt, the tales of which hid all her vital parts.

                 "What's the matter with you?" she asked.

                "I was admiring your photo gallery," Maxwell said, forcing his attention away from Patty's near nakedness, and away from the implication her lack of clothing.

                "I love John Wayne," Patty said. "That's my idea of a real man."

                "But I thought John Wayne was dead," Maxwell said.

                "I know he's dead. You think I'm stupid?"

                "I didn't mean.."

                "I know what you meant," Patty said. "I've heard it all before, men telling me John Wayne is nothing but a fiction, that no man can live up to those standards. Women tell me I'm crazy for holding out, saying that if I insist on holding John Wayne up as a model I'll always be disappointed, that I have to notch my expectation down. Well, I won't, and when I do find a man like John Wayne, I'm going to fuck him to death."

                Maxwell said nothing, staring at Patty as she turned back to the record changer, she pulling out a long playing record from one of the hundreds lined up beneath the entertainment center. Then, after working it down onto the spool. Cashman and West's song about the city peeled out of the speakers, one of those music portraits of the past that no longer had validity, a three part extended song that had come at a time when pop stars wanted to be taken seriously, and then shaped epics out of their three chord arrangements, ending up with things that sounded pretentious.

                Then, something soft pressed against Maxwell's elbow, startling him out of his vision, as static sparked, and he found himself eye to eye with Patty's black cat. He barely heard its soft cry.

                "I think your beast is trying to tell me something," Maxwell said.

                Patty stared over, her painted brows folding in towards the bridge of her nose.

                "That's odd," she said. "Jessie doesn't normally take to men."

                "That's nice to hear, but what does she want?" Maxwell asked as the cat pressed against him again, this time emitting a louder and more insistent cry.

                "She wants her treats," Patty said, pointing towards the end table near Maxwell's side of the coach. "But don't give her too many the way the other guys do. She'll only vomit them up later in the kitchen."           

                Maxwell picked up a can-like container, a cardboard tube with metal bottom and plastic top, which rattled with the treats inside. He shook several onto the palm of his hand. The cat, now on the arm of the coach, pawed at his hand.

                "Well?" Patty asked. "Give some to her. Don't tease her."

                Maxwell dropped one on the arm near the cat. The treat insistent vanished. The cat dispatched the next two with equal ease, then looked up at Maxwell for more.

                "No, Jessie, no," Patty said, flicking her fingers with both hands at the cat. "Shoo."

                The cat fled.

                "It's time to go into the bedroom, anyway," Patty said, rising abruptly from the coach beside Maxwell. She flicked off the stereo and the light. Then glanced back at Maxwell who had made no move to rise. "Did you hear me?"

                Maxwell's face shimmered with the pale light from the kitchen, natural sunlight now creeping across the tiled floor towards the Livingroom.

                Maxwell followed Patty back through the kitchen to the bedroom. Whereas the Livingroom had boasted of John Wayne's portrait, this world had mostly unicorns, from posters of unicorns to glass figurines, nearly a hundred other unicorn stuff dolls, post cards, letter heads, and novelties, unicorns of every ilk, some with the large eyes so typical of black velvet paintings, others more stern, like wild steeds refusing to be tamed. Patty turned on the lamp near the side of the bed, all the eyes and the horns glittering from the novelties as if set on fire, staring defiantly at him from the top of dressers or from hooks in the walls. Weariness made everything seem in a haze to Maxwell.

                Patty settled herself on the single bed, which had one side pressed against the left wall, her feet under the covers, her head and back propped up by a stack of pillows.

                "Why don't you sit down," she asked.

                Maxwell glanced around but found the only two chairs filled with stuffed unicorns.

                "On the floor?" he asked.

                "On the bed, stupid," she said, patting the open space beside her. "I'm not going to bite you, Longfellow."

                Maxwell eased over to the bottom of the bed and lowered himself gradually to a spot near her feet.

                "NOT THERE!"

                He leaped up.

                "Why not?" he said, breathlessly.

                "You were blocking the TV," she said, and pointed to the small cart across the room, a cart whose angle put him between her and the screen. "Sit up here next to me."

                With one hand she flicked on the TV with the remote control, and the other patted the spot immediately next to her.

                With much more reluctance than before, Maxwell complied.

                "You can lay back if you like," Patty said. "But you have to take off your shoes first before you climb into bed."

                Maxwell sighed with resignation, as his trembling fingers struggled to untie his shoe laces, until finally one shoe thumped on the floor, followed by the second, and he sat back, taking up a position parallel to hers on the bed.

                He could feel the softness of the pillows, as the whole bed sang a siren's song of sleep. He feared to close his eyes.

                "See, isn't this wonderful?" Patty asked. "Just like room mates."

                "I suppose," Maxwell mumbled, studying Patty's tranquil face as she watched TV. After a moment, she blinked and looked over at him.

                "You're supposed to be watching TV, not me."         

                "You're prettier."

                "Don't start that stuff," she growled. "I'm not in the mood."

                "Then what am I doing here?"

                "Does there have to be a reason?" Patty asked as the early morning movie shifted into early morning news reports and she flicked the remote to find something more interesting to watch.

                "Well, it has been a long night," Kenny said, "and you did invite me up."

                "What exactly did you think we were going to do?"

                "I'm not sure what I expected," Maxwell said.

                "Bullshit," Patty snapped. "You figured you were going to come up here with me and get laid, right?"

                "Look, I think maybe I should go," Maxwell said, pushing his legs off the side of the bed so he could rise.

                "Oh sure," Patty growled. "Be like every other son of a bitch who's come up here. Leave when I say no. That makes a girl feel real good. If I don't put out, I'm not worth knowing. Is that it?"

                "I never said that."

                "You didn't have to," Patty said, turning her head away indifferently. "Go if you're going. Just don't bother thinking you can see me again."

                "See you again? I didn't think I had a chance in the world after all that's happened tonight."

                "What do you want a commitment? If you want to ask me out on a real date, I'm likely to say yes."

                "You might say no as well."

                "That's a risk you have to take. Are you going or staying?"

                "Staying, I guess."

                "Then lay back down," Patty said, and patted the space Maxwell had just abandoned.

                Maxwell let himself fall back into position beside her, daring not to study the blue-digital readout of the clock beside the bed. The light now streamed through the window telling him all he needed to know about the time. Jack would soon notice him missing.

                The TV winked at him as Patty jabbed at the buttons of the remote control looking for images that had nothing to do with the news.

                At what point Maxwell fell asleep, he didn't know. The weight of the alcohol and lack of sleep simply dragged down his eye lids millimeter by millimeter. When he woke later, he found himself staring up a the clownish, demon face of some heavy metal singer blasting droning chords from the TV set Patty had left on and tuned to MTV.

                Patty, herself, had fallen off, too, slumped beside him with the remote control still loosely gripped in her hand. Yet Patty seemed different for some reason, changed from the hard shell of the dancer he had seen performing on and off the stage. Even the lines of makeup she had failed to remove could not reshape this face into the same stern posterior of the waking woman. In this pose, she looked every bit like a little girl who had tried on her mother's clothing and used her mother's make up, and had -- after hours of playing her game as an adult -- fallen off in her mother's bed waiting discovery.

                But even if he saw beneath her mask, other layers seemed to exist beneath this one, stirring now even as Maxwell stared, her expression shifting from passive to pain, her previously loose fingers gripping at the bed, sharp nails gathering the sheets as if in claws. Her soft mouth moved as if she was trying to speak, and Maxwell -- easing closer as carefully as he could -- leaned in to listen, but even then could only guess at the words.

                "Patty?" he called quietly and touched her arm. "I think I'd better go."

                "WHAT?" she cried out. "What did you say?"

                She had her eyes open, but seemed not to be awake, staring into space -- in the direction or her dresser and mirror. What vision she say, Maxwell could not see.

                "Patty," he said, slightly louder.

                "PLEASE!" she moaned, sitting up now, holding both hands before her face, fingers splayed so that Maxwell could see her horrified gaze between them, a gaze aimed at him now. "Please don't hit me."

                "Hit you? I wouldn't hit you," Maxwell said, her panic spreading into him, and he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her: "Wake up, Patty, wake up!"

                "Please," she moaned again. "I'll do anything you say, just don't hurt me any more."

                Maxwell's hands dropped, but as they fell, she grabbed them and clutched them to her chest.

                "Please don't, I'll do anything you want. Even with him. Just don't hurt me. I'm so tired of being hurt..."

                She stopped as suddenly as she had started, her eyes closing again, before she fell back into the softness of her pillows, her fingers so entwined with Maxwell's that she brought him down onto the bed with her. He couldn't have freed himself without waking or hurting her. Since he couldn’t wake her, he chose to lay there with her awhile, hoping she would wake up on her own.

                Eventually, he slipped into a dream, and a while later, he woke up in Patty's room again, this time  greeted by the midday light and the sound of a radio newscaster's voice announcing the time, weather and traffic reports.

                It was nearly noon.

                "Patty?" Maxwell said, easing his hands out of hers. In his sleep, she had apparently turned, allowing him to cuddle with her, his arms around her as if they had been lovers. "Patty. I have to go."

                This time, Patty didn't moan, or shout out, her eyes simply popped open, her head turning just enough so she could stare straight up at him, then, just as abruptly, she sat up in the bed.

                "What the fuck are you still doing here?" she demanded.

                "You fell asleep," Maxwell said, slowly standing, his knees cracking as the stiff muscles slid back into their normal places.

                "So you took that as an invitation to make your self at home?"

                "I..."

                "Did you have some fun at least?" Patty demanded. "Did you use a rubber, or should I make myself an appointment down at the clinic?"

                "What?"

                "You heard me, you son of a bitch!" Patty howled, and rose, as he retreated, his feet stumbling over his own sneakers, abandoned on the floor earlier.

                "But I didn't...." he started to say, but Patty only shook her head.

                "Don't hand me any excuses now," she said. "Just get out, you pervert. Get out and stay out."

                "But I didn't do anything," Maxwell sputtered.

                "Then you missed your big chance, didn't you. I told you to get out. Or do I have to call the cops?"

                "All right, all right, I'm going," Maxwell said, bending to retrieve his sneakers. He didn't even bother to put them on, fleeing with them cradled in his arms, moving first across the kitchen, then out the door, and finally down the dusty stairs.

 Paterson main menu

email to Al Sullivan