LatinosUSA

Steve Clark

A former Senior Editor for The Paris Review, Steve Clark published fiction in The Paris Review, and poems in various magazines. His first bilingual book of poems, From the Ashes (Desde las cenizas), was published to critical acclaim by Huerga y Fierro in Spain, March 2010. City Swimmers & Other Stories is his first collection of short stories. He lives in New York City.

Masticadores & LatinosUSA offers the 10 chapters of this fascinating book by Steve Clark exclusively every Saturday.— J. Re Crivello —editor

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“Why can’t I?” said Maude.

“You just can’t. One thousand percent No.”

“I don’t see why. I really don’t.”

“First of all, it’s beneath you; second of all, I just don’t see how I can look at you the same if you do. And that’d be a shame; I like looking at you.”

He did, especially now. She was sitting at the kitchen table, early, prismatic light coming in from the garden window in their Lower East Side apartment. It was his favorite time of day, and it was late August, which made it better, with the birds (their song heavier now) and exhaust of trucks, both heading somewhere important, even though it was Sunday.

“But I really really want to.”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. No way.”

She had one hand scrunched against her cheek while staring down at a large glossy book. You could just see her eyes under her black bob, shiny as a Cadillac, his favorite mole where her philtrum and lip met. She was wearing a sleeveless V-neck, and something about the shape of the shoulder, the round brownness of it, made him want to take her back to bed. “I’m doing it,” she said.

“For the love of god, No!”

She slapped the book shut, which now you could see was

a cookbook, walked by him and started digging in the freezer.

“Maude,” he said her name, which he never did, since they had a million nicknames for each other, but he did it for emphasis. “Maude, no one puts plums on a pizza.” She had pulled out the frozen dough and was unwrapping it on the counter. “No one in the history of human existence, not even bored emperors’ wives or Louis the XVI or Marie F’ing

Antoinette ever even considered putting plums on a pizza.” “Oh, it’s happening, baby.”

She grabbed the glazed bowl (their five-year-old had insisted on the bright, almost radioactively bright, orange color before painting it at the kid pottery place). It was filled with plums, and she placed it in front of her, possibly for effect.

“This is a sad, sad day,” he said.

“Go wake up Leon. He’s going to love this.”

* * *

When he comes out of his shower, sure enough, Leon’s sitting at the counter next to his mother, slicing the pitted plums with a mandoline. He doesn’t get a chance to speak before Leon says, “Papa, we’re not letting the plums go bad, you might as well help.”

“It’s not a rocket ship.”

“Get the prosciutto out of the fridge,” Maude tells him, then to Leon, “When did your father become such a crank?” Leon smiles, the dimples are nuts.

“Fine. Fine. Fine.”

He has the package of meat in his hand when the landline rings. He looks at Maude but she only stops momentarily, stares straight ahead, then returns to carefully placing the sliced plums on the mozzarella.

“Want me to answer?” he says after the third ring.

She nods, still at work.

He steps into the little office, stares at the old phone stuck to the wall like an ivory mouse with a curly tail, picks it up, sits at his desk. “Yes, I’ll accept,” then after some crackling.

“Hi, Malachi.”

“Maude? Maude?”

Malachi’s voice is an agitated wound or a knife but comes through the receiver small, comical, though he’s anything but.

He imagines Malachi as a tiny man talking into a large cup.

“Put her on, Billy. Just two minutes.”

Billy exhales. “She doesn’t want to talk you.” “I know, but just two damn minutes.” A moment of silence.

“She’s busy.”

“Doing what? I mean, doing fucking what?”

“I’m going to hang up.”

“Why’d you pick up in the first place? Why didn’t you let

the phone ring through like a decent person?”

Billy chuckles. “Malachi, we all know I’m not a decent

person.”

“You’re a real prick.”

“Ah, the pleasantries, we’re in the middle of some important

stuff here. What is it?”

“Why bother asking?”

“I’m not asking for me.” “She can’t ask herself?”

“Ok, hanging up real soon.”

“Get Maude.”

“Bye bye.”

“Wait.” Billy feels Malachi unleash a silent groan. He

imagines Malachi’s soap-opera chin and wavy, all-over-theplace hair. It was a damn good-looking family, you had to give them that.

“Promise you’ll give her the message?”

“Why do you think I picked up? There are other things I could be doing on Sunday morning.” As he says it, he realizes there’s nothing else other than watching the culinary catastrophe in the kitchen. “Come on, spit it out, man. Don’t have all day.”

“You can formally apologize to her for me. I formally say

I’m sorry. Tell her that.”

“Fine.”

“You didn’t ask for what?”

“Call me a genius, but I imagine it’s for blowing off your mother’s funeral, leaving her to do all the talking and handling, and besides that—”

“Hold on there, Genius. I’m NOT apologizing for that.”

Billy stares at the phone. You couldn’t tell if he was bored

or interested.

“No, no, no, no,” Malachi groans. “Not for that. That was

necessary. I’m proud of that.”

Billy shifts in his chair. “Of not going to your mother’s

funeral?”

“Yes, I am. I’m not a goddamn phony.”

“All right, buddy. You been reading Catcher in the Rye again? You’re what—38 years old? Get a fucking grip. I don’t care how you felt about your mother, you show up. Even if she’d sent you to Auschwitz, you show up for your mother’s funeral. And even if you hated her that much, you don’t let your little sister handle all the mess. You BE a man, and handle it.” Billy’s surprised at how worked up he’s getting. He probably shouldn’t be saying all this, considering, but he can’t help it. He finishes with, “Jesus Christ, you’re like a moral infant. Wah, wah, wah.”

Billy’s heart’s beating pretty fast when he stops, and surprisingly there’s silence on the line, but then he’s more surprised when he hears sniffling.

“Are you crying?” But the sniffle gets louder, and he realizes Malachi’s giggling.

“You’re fucking laughing.”

“First off, I never read Catcher in the Fucking Rye, alright Hemingway? Secondly, you’re wrong. If you didn’t love and actually hated someone, even if they are your mother, you don’t show up like Saint Gabriel at their funeral pretending death absolves. I want to go and listen to everybody tell me what a wonderful woman the old bag was and then hear about how god is wrapping her up in his gooey arms? Give me a break.

And anyway, none of this is the point—”

“Love if you got to it then, don’t have all day to chit chat.”

“Okay, then let me a get word in, hot shot.” Malachi pauses to see if he will. He continues, “ What I want to apologize for

is . . . Do you remember the old FAO Schwartz?”

“For the love of god.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, the one on Fifth in the 50s.”

“Exactamundo. Well, we were there one day buying a toy for my ex’s kid. She was turning four, and I wanted to get her something she’d like. You can imagine I’m not exactly the type who’d know what a four-year-old girl would like for her birthday, so I asked Maude to come along, which she did, and we picked out this cute doll in a flannel shirt or something. We were in a hurry because I’d left it to the last minute, and the birthday was at some Serendipity-like place on the Upper West Side. I was making Maude come because the girl loved her, even though she barely met her, so even though Maude was supposed to go meet friends for brunch, I convinced her. Anyway, I started to get really impatient because she was slow, was wearing these sort of low boots with heels. I kept making her walk faster, telling her we’d be late and that we couldn’t be. She kept saying, Why don’t we take a cab? and I told her it was just across the park, and of course a little uptown, that it’d be faster if we’d just walk, which she did, and faster too. Anyway, it was about a 22-minute walk because we did it speedy, and the kid loved that Maude was there. We even made it on time. But after the kid blew out the candles, I found Maude in a corner with her boots off, rubbing these big blisters. I guess she wasn’t wearing socks, and she didn’t tell me. She wasn’t mad, but why didn’t she mention the socks? I mean, who wears boots without socks? But tell her I wanted to apologize for that; I should’ve sprung for a taxi.”

The line was silent. Two men pretty much the same age,

phones pressed to their ears.

“That’s what you want to apologize for?”

“Yes, that’s what I want to formally apologize for. Formally.” “Okay, I’ll tell her. Bye, Malachi.”

After he hangs up, Billy sits in his chair a moment. When he steps into the kitchen, the pie’s in the oven, Leon’s playing with magnet tiles, building some kind of airport, and Maude is looking out the window. He walks over and puts a hand on her shoulder. She asks the question though she knows the answer.

“What’d he say?”

“Same as last time.”

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