Bleecker Street

My fingers trailed the low popcorn ceiling. I pressed into it, felt the stretch down my arms, through my shoulders and back. The streetlight caught a line of water on the sill; I’d left the window open, some snow had gotten in, melted and pooled. I hadn’t seen it happen, but I knew; I wondered if that was poetic in some way. 

My shirt stuck some from the sweat as I pulled it off. It was ‘low twenty outside, but Ma told me I ran hot; I think that’s what she meant. Sometimes she would come in from the grocery, or work, or smoking on the patio and give me a big hug just to warm up. 

I didn’t feel like making the trip to the laundromat, weather being what it was, so I decided on scrubbing the shirt in the sink and hanging it for work tomorrow; Kev never closed shop, not even when it was this white out. 

The pub lights were on across the way, and the sound of it chased the snow in through the window. I was on the second floor, so I looked down on McEnnon’s—McEnnon’s being the name of the pub. I’d watch shapes in the window, like little shadows backlit by the sun, very Icarusian—don’t suppose that’d be taken in scrabble though. 

I leaned my head out into the air. It was a narrow little street, brick with a smattering of lamposts—each wearing a dress of light and snow, casting spots on the slowly frosting street. 

“Bear?”  

I jumped, hit my head on the open window, and stumbled back rubbing at my face. Joey was standing in the doorway. 

“I knocked,” he said, not quite apologetically.

“Shit Joe, what?” 

He scratched at his bald spot with his good arm, leaning on his good leg, and squinting up at me with his good eye. “What what?” He said. He was wearing the same oversized pinstripe blazer and patched-up trousers; new shoes though. 

“What are you doing in my place, Joey?” I left the window and walked across the room to the icebox, fished out a bag of frozen peas, and held it up to my forehead. Ma always used peas. Joey took a little step back as I got close. He was probably about six foot pre-slouch, gaunt, with strangely equine features; I glowered down at him. 

“Er, well,” he said and coughed. “I was wonderin if you had any extras from the shop tonight. Slim pickins on the corner in this kinda downturn; no one likes to stop. You know.” He looked down. “Should lock yer door Bear, dontcha think? Who knows who might walk in.” 

I cracked a grin, reached past him and closed the door. “I got a pie in the oven—sausage and pineapple, extra cheese. How’s that sound?” 

“Well I ain’t really much for pineapple on pizza, but I ain’t one to complain neither. Thanks, Bear.”

I walked over to the closet and threw on a new shirt. By closet, it was really more of a hole in the wall—no door, but a metal pole to hang stuff on… so that was something. “Don’t go thanking me none, Joe,” I said. “This isn’t some kind of charity. You cold?” 

Joe cupped his hands and blew. I pulled the window shut. The sounds of the street muffled, the glass fogged and lamplight splashed up its surface. 

“Now I ain’t sayin nothin bout charity,” Joey said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back. “You know. This is just what friends do. One helps the other and the other says thanks for helpin. That’s how my mom taught me anyhow.” He winced. “Not to bring up my mom… Sorry, Bear.” 

“Have a seat Joe,” I said, and gestured to the couch. “You can move those books off to the side.” I didn’t bother with a mitt and pulled the pizza out from the oven. Joey grimaced and I smiled; he hated when I did that. “How many you want, Joe?”

He shuffled over to the couch and started moving books. “Say, you don’t really read all these, do you?” He whistled through his teeth and shook his head. 

“The ones I get around to, yeah. How many slices, Joey?” 

He didn’t look up. “I’d wager this is twice the books I’ve read in my life. Not that I mind readin, just never really get round to it. You know.”

The snow had hardened to sleet, it chittered against the window, insectile, desperate.

“Say,” Joey went on, “You remember when I was livin just down the way in Mrs. Whim’s attic? Back before she croaked?” He didn’t notice but he was itching at his arm. 

I nodded, brought the pizza cutter down and through the crust. Then again. 

“Talk about books. I mean her whole place was practically one big library. You know, she used to pay me to read em to her—when her sight went bad. Not much, five cents a page, but I ain’t one to complain.” He looked down, flipped through the pages of one of the paperbacks—a creased-up dog-eared copy of Siddhartha. “I wasn’t no good at it, really. Always got tripped up on the big words: ca-pri-cious,” he sounded out. “Rud-i-men-ta-ry. I think she was just humorin me is all. Or maybe herself…”

Joey looked up at me and tried to smile. There was an uneasy silence, made so by unspoken words—words we both knew. 

“Tell you what,” I said, “You run across the street and grab us each a hot cider from McEnnon’s. In exchange, you get dinner, your choice of book, and a place to crash tonight.” I fished a wad of cash from my back pocket and offered it out to him. 

Joey looked up at me before extending his hand. “Thirty bucks?” He said. “McEnnon up the prices?” 

“You can bring me the change,” I said. 

I turned my back and wiped a streak down the window. White filled the void between the lights. Beams of snow branched and twisted, caught on the wind, and fell, crushed beneath the starless sky. 

Joey set down the book. I heard him grunt as he stood, then pat down his jacket and walk to the door—one uneven step at a time. “See you in a few, Bear. Hot cider right?” 

“Okay, Joe.” 

“I’ll just leave that book and my dinner till I come back.” 

“Yes you will,” I said without looking. “I’ll see you in a minute.” 

He let himself out. After a moment, I walked over and locked the door. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, sat down, had a slice of sausage and pineapple pizza with extra cheese, then another. The bag of peas had left a puddle on the sill; I hadn’t seen it happen, but I knew. Funny how things change when you’re not looking. 

I glanced down at the portrait on the side table, pinched between two stacks of books and propped-up in a little gold frame. “Don’t look at me that way, Ma.”   

She smiled up, stern as ever, hair tied into a knot, eyes glowing despite their sunkenness. She was so young; younger than me. 

 “He’s a good man, Ma. Promise. He’s just on hard times is all. You know.” 

She didn’t respond. 

By the time I finished the pizza and Ma’s favorite chapter from Of Mice and Men—the one where they talk about rabbits and George puts a bullet in Lennie’s head—there was still no knock. I walked to the closet, reached inside, over the doorless door frame, and pulled down a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes; they were Ma’s favorite. I struck a match on my thumb—I’d learned to do that when I was twelve, watching The Lone Ranger, a year before I actually smoked my first Lucky. Ma hated that trick; never did stop her from asking for a light, though. 

As I walked past the couch, back to the window, I gently turned the portrait on its face. It was still snowing—harder now, big fat flakes that hardly seemed real. The Eskimos have something like a thousand words for snow; Joey had told me that once. I wondered what they would call this one.