Out on the Cutting Edge

"I don't know if I can explain it."

"Try."

"He didn't have much of a life," I said, "and he didn't have much of a death, either. For the past year he's been trying to stay sober a day at a time. He had a lot of trouble at the beginning and it never got to be what you could call easy for him, but he stayed with it. Nothing else ever worked for him. I just wanted to know if he made it."

"Give me your number," Bellamy said. "That report comes in, I'll call you."

I heard an Australian qualify once at a meeting down in the Village. "My head didn't get me sober," he said. "All my head ever did was get me into trouble. It was my feet got me sober. They kept taking me to meetings and my poor head had no choice but to follow. What I've got, I've got smart feet."

My feet took me to Grogan's. I was walking around, up one street and down another, thinking about Eddie Dunphy and Paula Hoeldtke and not paying much attention to where I was going. Then I looked up, and I was at the corner of Tenth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, right across from Grogan's Open House.

Eddie had crossed the street to avoid the place. I crossed the street and went in.

It wasn't fancy. A bar, on the left as you entered, ran the length of the room. There were dark wooden booths on the right, and a row of three or four tables between them. There was an old-fashioned tile floor, a stamped tin ceiling that needed minor repairs.

The clientele was all male. Two old men sat in silence in the front booth, letting their beers go flat. Two booths back there was a young man wearing a ski sweater and reading a newspaper. There was a dart board on the back wall, and a fellow wearing a T-shirt and a baseball cap was playing by himself.

At the front end of the bar, two men sat near a television set, neither paying attention to the picture. There was an empty stool between them. Toward the back, the bartender was leafing through a tabloid, one of the ones that tell you Elvis and Hitler are still alive, and a potato chip diet cures cancer.

I walked over to the bar and put my foot on the brass rail. The bartender looked me over for a long moment before he approached. I ordered a Coke. He gave me another careful look, his blue eyes unreadable, his face expressionless. He had a narrow triangular face, so pale he might have lived all his life indoors.

He filled a glass with ice cubes, then with Coke. I put a ten on the bar. He took it to the register, punched No Sale, and returned with eight singles and a pair of quarters. I left my change on the bar in front of me and sipped at my Coke.

The television set was showing Santa Fe Trail, with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Flynn was playing Jeb Stuart, and an impossibly young Ronald Reagan was playing George Armstrong Custer. The movie was in black and white, with the commercials in color.

I sipped my Coke and watched the movie, and when the commercials came on I turned on my stool and watched the fellow in back shoot darts. He would toe the line and lean so far forward I kept thinking he would be unable to keep his balance, but he evidently knew what he was doing; he stayed on his feet, and the darts all wound up in the board.

After I'd been there twenty minutes or so, a black man in work clothes came in wanting to know how to get to DeWitt Clinton High School. The bartender claimed not to know, which seemed unlikely. I could have told him, but I didn't volunteer, and no one else spoke up, either.

"Supposed to be around here somewhere," the man said. "I got a delivery, and the address they gave me ain't right. I'll take a beer while I'm here."

"There's something wrong with the pressure. All I'm getting is foam."

"Bottled beer be fine."

"We only have draught."

"Guy in the booth has a bottle of beer."

"He must have brought it with him."

The message got through. "Well, shit," the driver said. "I guess this here's the Stork Club. Fancy place like this, you got to be real careful who you serve." He stared hard at the bartender, who gazed back at him without showing a thing. Then he turned and walked out fast with his head lowered, and the door swung shut behind him.

A little while later the dart player sauntered over and the bartender drew him a pint of the draught Guinness, thick and black, with a rich creamy head on it. He said, "Thanks, Tom," and drank, then wiped the foam from his mouth onto his sleeve. "Fucking niggers," he said. "Pushing in where they're not wanted."

The bartender didn't respond, just took money and brought back change. The dart player took another long drink of stout and wiped his mouth again on his sleeve. His T-shirt advertised a tavern called the Croppy Boy, on Fordham Road in the Bronx. His billed cap advertised Old Milwaukee beer.

To me he said, "Game of darts? Not for money, I'm too strong a player, but just to pass the time."

"I don't even know how to play."

"You try to get the pointed end into the board."

"I'd probably hit the fish." There was a fish mounted on the wall above the dart board, and a deer's head off to one side. Another larger fish was mounted above the back bar, it was a sailfish or marlin, one of the ones with a long bill.

"Just to pass the time," he said.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd thrown a dart, and I hadn't been good at it then. Time had by no means improved my skills. We played a game, and as hard as he worked to look bad, I still didn't come out looking good. When he won the game in spite of himself, he said, "You're pretty good, you know."

"Oh, come on."

"You've got the touch. You haven't played and your aim's not sharp, but you've got a nice light wrist. Let me buy you a beer."

"I'm drinking Coca-Cola."

"That there is why your aim's off. The beer relaxes you, lets you just think the dart into the board. The black stuff's the best, the Guinness. It works on your mind like polish on silver. Takes the tarnish right off. That do you, or would you rather have a bottle of Harp?"

"Thanks, but I'll stay with Coke."

He bought me a refill, and another black pint for himself. He told me his name was Andy Buckley. I gave him my name, and we played another game of darts. He foot-faulted a couple of times, showing a clumsiness he hadn't revealed when he was practicing. When he did it a second time I gave him a look and he had to laugh. "I know I can't hustle you, Matt," he said. "You know what it is? It's force of habit."

He won the game quickly and didn't coax when I said no to another. It was my turn to buy a round. I didn't want another Coke. I bought him a Guinness, and had a club soda for myself. The bartender rang the "No Sale" key and took money from my stack of change.

Buckley took the stool next to mine. On the television screen, Errol Flynn was winning De Havilland's heart and Reagan was being gracious in defeat. "He was a handsome bastard," Buckley said.

"Reagan?"

"Flynn. In like Flynn, all he had to do was look at them and they wet their pants. I don't think I've seen you here before, Matt."

"I don't come around very often."

"You live around here?"

"Not too far. You?"

"Not far. It's quiet, you know? And the beer's good, and I like the darts."

After a few minutes he went back to the dart board. I stayed where I was. A little later the bartender, Tom, glided over and topped up my glass of soda water without asking. He didn't take any money from me.

A couple of men left. One came in, conferred with Tom in an undertone, and went out again. A man in a suit and tie came in, had a double vodka, drank it right down, ordered another, drank that right down, put a ten-dollar bill on the bar, and walked out. This entire exchange was carried out without a word from him or the bartender.

On the television set, Flynn and Reagan went up against Raymond Massey's version of John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Van Heflin, rotten little opportunist that he was, got what was coming to him.

I got out of there while the credits were rolling. I scooped up my change, put a couple of bucks back on the bar for Tom, and left.

Outside, I asked myself what the hell I'd thought I was doing there. Earlier I'd been thinking of Eddie, and then I'd looked up and found myself in front of the place he'd been afraid to get near. Maybe I went in myself in order to get a sense of who he'd been before I knew him. Maybe I was hoping for a peek at the Butcher Boy himself, the notorious Mickey Ballou.

What I'd found was a ginmill, and what I'd done was hang out in it.

Strange.

I called Willa from my room. "I was just looking at your flowers," she said.

"They're your flowers," I said. "I gave them to you."

"No strings attached, huh?"

"No strings. I was wondering if you felt like a movie."

"What movie?"

"I don't know. Why don't I come by for you around six or a little after? We'll see what's playing on Broadway and get a bite later."

"On one condition."

"What's that?"

"It's my treat."

"It was your treat last night."

"What was last night? Oh, we had Chinese. Did I pay for that?"

"You insisted."

"Well, shit. Then you can pay for dinner."

"That was my plan."

"But the movie's on me."

"We'll split the movie."

"We'll work it out when you get here. What time? Six?"

"Around then."

She wore the blue silk blouse again, this time over loose khaki fatigues with drawstring cuffs. Her hair was braided in twin pigtails, in the style of an Indian maiden. I took hold of her pigtails and held them out at the sides. "Always different," I said.

"I'm probably too old for long hair."

"That's ridiculous."

"Is it? I don't even care, anyway. I wore it short for years. It's fun to be able to do things with it."

We kissed, and I tasted scotch on her breath. It wasn't shocking anymore. Once you got used to it, it was a pleasant taste.

We kissed a second time. I moved my mouth to her ear, then down along her neck. She clung to me and heat flowed from her loins and breasts.

She said, "What time's the movie?"

"Whenever we get there."

"Then there's no hurry, is there?"

We went to a first-run house on Times Square. Harrison Ford triumphed over Palestinian terrorists. He was no match for Errol Flynn, but he was a cut above Reagan.

Afterward we went to Paris Green again. She tried the filet of sole and approved of it. I stayed with what I'd had the other night, cheeseburger and fries and salad.

She had white wine with her meal, just a glass of it, and brandy with her coffee.

We talked a little about her marriage, and then a little about mine. Over coffee I found myself talking about Jan, and about how things had gone wrong.

"It's a good thing you kept your hotel room," she said. "What would it cost if you gave it up and then wanted to move back in?"

"I couldn't do it. It's inexpensive for a hotel, but they get sixty-five dollars a night for their cheapest single. What does that come to? Two thousand dollars a month?"

"Around there."

"Of course they'd give you some kind of a monthly rate, but it would still have to be well over a thousand dollars. If I had moved out I couldn't possibly afford to move back in. I'd have had to get an apartment somewhere, and I might have had trouble finding one I could afford in Manhattan." I considered. "Unless I got serious and found some kind of real job for myself."