All Gone Read online

  A few times a man has come over to the bench and once even a woman who looked manly and tried to talk to me, but I brushed them off with silence or a remark. Then one morning a man walks over when I’m alone on the bench and nobody else is around. I’m not worried, since he has a nice face and is decently dressed and I’ve seen him before here waiting for the train and all it seems he wants now is to sit down. He’s a big man, so I move over a few inches to the far end of the bench to give him more room.

  “No,” he says, “I don’t want to sit—I’m just curious. I’ve seen you in this exact place almost every Saturday for the last couple of months and never once saw you get on the train. Would it be too rude—”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I won’t ask it. I’m sorry.”

  “No, go on, ask it. What is it you want to know? Why I sit here? Well I’ve been here every Saturday for more than three months straight, if you’re so curious to know, and why you don’t see me get on the car is none of your business, okay?”

  “Sure,” he says, not really offended or embarrassed. “I asked for and got it and should be satisfied. Excuse me,” and he walks away and stands near the edge of the platform, never turning around to me. When the local comes, he gets on it.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been that sharp with him, but I don’t like to be spoken to by men I don’t know, especially in subways.

  Next Saturday around the same time he comes downstairs again and stops by my bench.

  “Hello,” he says.

  I don’t say anything and look the other way. “Still none of my business why you sit here every Saturday like this?”

  I continue to look the other way.

  “I should take a hint, right?”

  “Do you think that’s funny?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you want me to do, call a policeman?”

  “Of course not. I’m sorry and I’m being stupid.”

  “Look, I wouldn’t call a policeman. You seem okay. You want to be friendly or so it seems. You’re curious besides, which is good. But to me it is solely my business and not yours why I sit here and don’t want to talk to you and so forth and I don’t know why you’d want to persist in it.”

  “I understand,” and he walks away, stays with his back to me and gets on the train when it comes.

  Next Saturday he walks down the stairs and stays near the platform edge about ten feet away reading a book. Then he turns to me and seems just about to say something and I don’t know what I’m going to say in return, if anything, because he does seem polite and nice and intelligent and I actually looked forward a little to seeing and speaking civilly to him, when the train comes. He waves to me and gets on it. I lift my hand to wave back but quickly put it down. Why start?

  Next Saturday he runs down the stairs to catch the train that’s pulling in. He doesn’t even look at me this time, so in a rush is he to get on the car. He gets past the doors just before they close and has his back to me when the train leaves. He must be late for someplace.

  The next Saturday he comes down the stairs and walks over to me with two containers of coffee or tea while the train’s pulling in. He keeps walking to me while the train doors open, close, and the train goes. I look at the advertisement clock. He’s about fifteen minutes earlier than usual.

  “How do you like your coffee if I can ask, black or regular? Or maybe you don’t want any from me, if you do drink coffee, which would of course be all right too.”

  “Regular, but I don’t want any, thanks.”

  “Come on, take it, it’s not toxic and I can drink my coffee any old way. And it’ll perk you up, not that you need perking up and certainly not from me,” and he gives me a container. “Sugar?” and I say “Really, this is—” and he says “Come on: sugar?” and I nod and he pulls out of his jacket pocket a couple of sugar packets and a stirring stick. “I just took these on the way out of the shop without waiting for a bag, don’t ask me why. The stick’s probably a bit dirty, do you mind?” and I shake my head and wipe the stick though there’s nothing on it. “Mind if I sit and have my coffee also?” and I say “Go ahead. It’s not my bench and all that and I’d be afraid to think what you’d pull out of your pocket if I said no—probably your own bench and cocktail table,” and he says “Don’t be silly,” and sits.

  He starts talking about the bench, how the same oak one has been here for at least thirty years because that’s how long he’s lived in the neighborhood, then about the coffee, that it’s good though always from the shop upstairs a little bitter, then why he happens to see me every Saturday: that he’s recently divorced and has a child by that marriage who he goes to in Brooklyn once a week to spend the whole day with. He seems even nicer and more intelligent than I thought and comfortable to be with and for the first time I think he’s maybe even good-looking when before I thought his ears stuck out too far and he had too thin a mouth and small a nose. He dresses well anyway and has a nice profile and his hair’s stylish and neat and his face shaven clean which I like and no excessive jewelry or neck chain which I don’t and in his other jacket pocket are a paperback and small ribbon-wrapped package, the last I guess a present for his little girl.

  His train comes and when the doors open I say “Shouldn’t you get on it?” and he says “I’ll take the next one if you don’t mind,” and I say “I don’t think it’s up to me to decide,” and he hunches his shoulders and gives me that expression “Well I don’t know what to say,” and the train goes and when it’s quiet again he continues the conversation, now about what I think of something that happened in Africa yesterday which he read in the paper today. I tell him I didn’t read it and that maybe when I do read my paper it won’t be the same as his and so might not have that news story and he says “What paper you read?” and I tell him and he says “Same one—front page, left-hand column,” and I say “Anyway, on Saturdays I don’t, and for my own reasons, have time for the newspaper till I get home later and really also don’t have the time to just sit here and talk,” and he says “Of course, of course,” but seriously, as if he believes me, and we’re silent for a while, drinking our coffees and looking at the tracks.

  We hear another train coming and I say “I think you better get on this one,” and he says “Okay. It’s been great and I hope I haven’t been too much of a nuisance,” and I say “You really haven’t at all,” and he says “Mind if I ask your name?” and I say “Your train,” and he yells to the people going into the subway car “Hold the door,” and gets up and says to me “Mine’s Vaughn,” and shakes my hand and says “Next week,” and runs to the train with his container and he’s not past the door a second when the man who kept it open for him lets it close.

  I picture him on his way to Brooklyn, reading his book, later in Prospect Park with his daughter as he said they would do if the good weather holds up and in an indoor ice-skating rink if it doesn’t, and then go back to my lookout. People spit and throw trash on the tracks, a drunk or crazy man urinates on the platform, a boy defaces the tile wall with a marker pen and tells me to go shoot myself when I very politely suggest he stop, there’s almost a fight between a man trying to get off the train and the one blocking his way who’s trying to get on, which I doubt would have happened if both sides of the double door had opened, but again no sign of my two young men.

  Vaughn’s not there the next Saturday and the Saturday after that and the third Saturday he’s not there I begin thinking that I’m thinking more about him than I do of anybody or thing and spending more time looking at the staircase and around the platform for him than I do for those young men. I’ve gradually lost interest in finding them and over the last four months my chances have gotten worse and worse that I’ll even recognize them if they ever do come down here and as far as their repeating that harassing-the-girl incident at this particular station, well forget it, and I leave the station at noon instead of around my usual two and decide that was my last Saturday there.

  A mo
nth later I meet Vaughn coming out of a supermarket when I’m going in. He’s pulling a shopping cart filled with clean laundry at the bottom and two big grocery bags on top. It’s Saturday, we’re both dressed in T-shirts and shorts for the warm weather now, and I stop him by saying “Vaughn, how are you?” He looks at me as if he doesn’t remember me. “Maybe because you can’t place me anywhere else but on a subway bench. Maria Pierce. From the subway station over there.”

  “That’s right. Suddenly your face was familiar, but you never gave me your name. What’s been happening?” and I say “Nothing much I guess,” and he says “You don’t wait in subway stations anymore for whatever you were waiting for those days?” and I say “How would you know? You stopped coming yourself there and to tell you the truth I was sort of looking forward to a continuation of that nice chat we last had.”

  “Oh, let me tell you what went wrong. My ex-wife, giving me a day’s notice, changed jobs and locations and took my daughter to Boston with her. I could have fought it, but don’t like arguments. I only get to see her when I get up there, which hasn’t happened yet, and maybe for August if I want.”

  “That’s too bad. I remember how devoted you were.”

  “I don’t know it’s so bad. I’m beginning to enjoy my freedom every Saturday, as much as I miss my kid. But I got to go. Ice cream in the bag will soon be melting,” and he says goodbye and goes.

  If I knew his last name I might look him up in the phone book and call him and say something like “Since we live in the same neighborhood, would you care to have a cup of coffee one of these days? I owe you one and I’ll even, if you’re still curious, let you in on my big secret why I every Saturday for months waited at our favorite subway station.” Then I think no, even if I did have his phone number. I gave him on the street a couple of openings to make overtures about seeing me again and he didn’t take them because he didn’t want to or whatever his reasons but certainly not because of his melting ice cream.

  Several weeks later I read in the newspaper that those two young men got caught. They were in the Eighth Street subway station and tried to molest a policewoman dressed like an artist with even a sketchbook and drawing pen, and two plain-clothes-men were waiting nearby. The police connected them up with Eliot’s death. The two men later admitted to being on my subway platform that day but said they only started a fight with him because he tried to stop one of them from making a date with a girl the young man once knew. They said they told Eliot to mind his business, he refused, so they wrestled him to the ground and then said he could get up if he didn’t make any more trouble. Eliot said okay, got up and immediately swung at them, missed, lost his footing and before either of them could grab him away, fell to the tracks. They got scared and ran to the street. They don’t know the girl’s last name or where she lives except that it’s somewhere in the Bronx.

  I buy all the newspapers that day and the next. One of them has a photo of the young men sticking their middle fingers up to the news photographers. They don’t look anything like the young men I was on the lookout for, so either the witness’s description of them or the printing of the photograph was bad, because I don’t see how they could have physically changed so much in just a few months.

  I continue to read the papers for weeks after that, hoping to find something about the young men going to trial, but don’t. Then a month later a co-worker of mine who knew about Eliot and me says she saw on the television last night that the young men were allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of negligent manslaughter or something and got off with a jail term of from one to three years. “It seems the elderly man, that main witness to Eliot’s murder, died of a fatal disease a while ago and the young woman witness could never be found. As for molesting the policewoman, that charge was dropped, though the news reporter never said why.”

  ON THE BEACH

  Eva, Olivia and Eric are on a beach trying to drag a rowboat into the water. “This thing will never budge,” Eric says. “My father could make it budge,” Eva says. “Here she goes again,” Olivia says. “No, let her, what?” Eric says. “My father was so strong he could lift it on his back and carry it into the water. He’d need both arms and it’d be heavy but he could do it.” “I’m sure he could. Or push, even, or at least drag it into the water by himself, but I can’t, honey. I’m simply not as strong as your father was.” “As my father is. My father’s very strong.” “As he is then. As you say. I’ve heard of his physical exploits—how strong he was, I’m saying.” “She knows what exploits are,” Olivia says. “You don’t have to teach it to either of us. I know the word and I’ve told her the word.” “I didn’t realize that. For you see, I didn’t know that word till I was twice your age, maybe three times. How old are you? I’m only kidding. I know how old. I even know how old both of you are put together. A hundred six, right. No. But good for you—both of you for knowing so many big impressive words. Like ‘impressive.’ You know that word too, right?” “Right.” “Sure, just as my father knows all those words and more,” Eva says. “He knows words that haven’t even been born yet. Like kakaba. Like oolemagoog.” “He does? He knows those? Wow. Very impressive. Anyway, I’d hoped we got past that subject. I said that to myself. But if we didn’t, some men are just stronger than others. That’s a fact. I’d be the last to deny it. You both know what ‘deny’ means, I know. And some men are smarter than others. And kinder and nicer than others and have more hair and so on. But I bet no man has more than two arms. Anyone want to bet?” “My father’s stronger, nicer, kinder than others and much much more than that,” Eva says. “He’s taller than most others. And handsome. Much more than any others. His photos say so. Others say so.” “Well that’s a good thing for a man to be,” Eric says. “For an older woman to be too,” Olivia says. “That’s what Mother says.” “Good. She knows. She’s smart. Me, I was never considered handsome. That should come as no surprise to you two, as it doesn’t to your mother. Not handsome even when I was a young man, an older woman, a small piggy, or even now as a fairly not-so-young-maybe-even-old hog. Most of that was supposed to be funny. Why aren’t you laughing?” “Because it wasn’t funny and we’re talking about someone else now, right, Olivia?” “I don’t know,” Eva says. “Daddy. All that he is.” “Okay,” Eric says, “I’ll bite. Meaning, well, just that I’m all pointy ears and curly tail uncoiled and extended snout—I want to know. What else was he? Is he. Sorry. But tell me.” “Funny,” Eva says. “He’s more funny than anyone alive. Sometimes people died laughing at things he said. But really, with big holes in their chests and all their bones broken and blood.” “Yes, that’s true,” Olivia says, “the streets covered with broken laughed-out dead bodies, for funniest is what he is and always was. And liveliest too. A real live wire, our father. You’re excellent, Eric—honestly, this is not to go stroke-stroke to you. And lively and smart, but not at all handsome, and kind and wonderful in some ways and we love you, we truly do, even if what Eva said and how she acted just now, but you’re not livelier than our dad. No sir. Our real dad was live-ly! Oh boy was he. A real live wire. He was also so sad. We shouldn’t leave that out if we want to be fair. A real sad wire. ‘Mr. Sad Wire’ we should’ve called him, right, Eva? If you could have talked then. For you couldn’t even say three words in a row that made sense. No sentence-sense I used to say about her then, Eric.” “I could so say sad wire.” “Hey, stop a moment, for where are we?” Eric says. “Was? Is? Which one is he?” “Is,” Eva says. “Daddy’s definitely an ‘is.’ And sometimes when I hear from him, like I did just yesterday, I say ‘Daddy Live Wire, Daddy Sad Wire, how dost your farting grow?’ Because that’s what he also does best—just ask Olivia.” “That’s right, she’s a true bird, we have to be fair,” Olivia says. “He was probably the world’s greatest most productive farter for more years in a row than anybody and still is.” “Is for sure,” Eva says. “The whole world knows of him. He’s been in newspapers, on TV. People have died from it everywhere, and not happy laughing
deaths. In planes and parks. Hundreds of dead bodies in your way sometimes. Flat on the ground, piled ten deep sometimes, black tongues hanging out, their own hands around their necks. Vultures in trees all around but refusing to pick at them the smell’s so bad. And much worse. I won’t even go into it more. Like whole cities dying, dogs and cats too—not a single breathing thing left alive. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. Rats always survive. But ‘Killer Dad’s been at it again,’ I always say to Olivia when we see this, and that time we walked through that ghost city. It doesn’t hurt us because we got natural, natural…what is it again we got, Olivia?” “Impunity. Immunity. Ingenuity. That’s us. We never even smell it when we’re in the midst of it but we can see when we see all this that it can only be he who did it.” “You girls are really funny today,” Eric says. “Inherited from him, no doubt.” “Oh no we didn’t,” Olivia says. “He inherited it from us, didn’t you know? Something strange happened in life when we were born. But everything he’s best at he got from us, or almost. We’re sad live wires or lively dad wires or just mad love wires. That’s because we brought up our father and are still doing it yet. Now that’s a real switch, isn’t it, Eva, bringing up your own dad? How’d we do it?” “I’m not sure, but that’s for sure what we’re doing. We didn’t want to, we had our own lives to bring up, but we had no choice, right, Olivia?” “No, why?” “No, you.” “He was left on our doorstep, right? Came in a shoe box with a note glued to it saying…what?” “It said ‘Feeling blue? Nothing in life’s true? Cat’s got your goo? So do something different in your loo today. Bring up your own dad. But don’t leave him in a shoe box for squirrels to build their nests in on top of him. Take him out, brush him off, give him a good cleaning. Treat him as good as you would your best pair of party shoes.’ Wasn’t that what it said, Olivia?” “Or was it a hat box he came in? ‘Put him on your bean against the sun, sleet and rain and your brain will seem much keener.’ No, that wasn’t it. ‘Treat him as gently as you would your own mentally…’ I forget everything it said. But we did. And I know it was some kind of box.” “A suggestion box. A lunch box. ‘What’s inside is nutritious and suspicious. Open hungrily and with care.’ And when we’ve brought him up all the way, Eric, I’m afraid the sad news is you’ll have to move out. Because he’ll be moving back in, all grown up then. Because no bigamists allowed in our family, right, Olivia?” “Right, Eva.” “So?” “So maybe in yours, Eric, it’s allowed, but not in ours. Family honor. Horses’ code. New York telephone directory. We’re very sorry. Unbreakable rule. But let’s stop, Eva. I’ve spun out and so have you. And we’re not being nice to Eric who’s been so nice to us. Renting this boat. Helping us push it into the water. Doing most of the work. Probably getting a heart attack from it. Dying for us just so we can have some summer fun.” “Hey, don’t worry about me, kids. Let it out. Have it out. Thrash it to me. Money and abuse are no object. Listen, I know how you’re both feeling, but you have to know I also of course wish he had never died.” “He never did, how can you say that?” Eva says. “Whatever. And easy as it is for me to say this after the fact and much as I would have missed if he had lived—I’ll be straightforward with you—I didn’t know him but have heard so many wonderful things about him that I only wish I had.” “Had what?” Olivia says. “That he can’t be replaced. By me. I know that. Never deluded myself otherwise. And that I wish I’d known him.” “So, it can be arranged,” Eva says, “can’t it, Olivia?” “Let’s stop—really. We’re spoiling our day and being extra extra lousy to Eric.” “Okay, he’s dead, heave-ho, hi-heave, what d’ya say, Joe, bury the problem? For what I want most now is to get out there to fish, splash and row.” “Well,” Eric says, “it seems we’ll have to wait for a couple of strapping guys to come along and help us or come back when the tide comes in. Anyone think to bring that card with the tide times?” “Daddy will come help,” Eva says. “Sometimes it only takes one and he’s the one. So hey, hi, daddy of mine, come and pull our boat into the water. You’ll see. I’ve wished. Daddy come now,” and she sits down hard in the sand, puts her thumb in her mouth and sucks it while she twiddles her hair in back and looks off distantly. “Eva, get up, get up quickly, you hear me?” Olivia says. “You’re scaring the shit out of us.”