Your Day In The Barrel Read online

  Peace and love, folks, where have all the flowers gone?

  I walk home.

  By the time I get to Genelle’s I don’t care if they kill me or not. I started out tired from Francine and Mona’s and didn’t get any sleep last night and now getting mugged (very tiring) and walking umpty-ump blocks to here has finished me off. I used a spare key stuck on a magnet two floors above the apartment, let myself in, and collapse on the bed and sleep, sleep, sleep until the phone rings.

  “Yun?”

  “Howdy, it’s Tom.”

  “Time zit?”

  “Eight thirty. At night.”

  “Somebody mugged me.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. I ran down that side street and somebody pulled me into a doorway and ripped me off for 900 bucks.”

  “You see who it was!”

  “Nuthin’ man. Never saw him. He was real good, got to say that.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Listen, are you home? I’m gonna clean up a little and I’ll call you back. I wanna know what happened at that rally after I left.”

  “That’s cool. I’m home. Talk to you later.”

  “Later.”

  I take a shower, maybe the best thing that’s happened since the dope fell out of the sky, shave, eat some Grape Nuts with evaporated milk I find in a closet, and do dishes. I pause a second, I think I hear somebody at the door but figure it’s cats or rats or junkies doing one of the apartments on the door, and go back to work. Pretty soon I got the apartment cleaned up and I take a bag of garbage out to the hall. As I leave I grab the empty milk can and sort of balance it on top, ’cause the bag is wet on the bottom and I’m holding that with both hands out away from my body. Opening the door is like a trick on that old TV show, Beat the Clock, where hubby got sprayed with whipped cream or folks had to use their teeth to get Ping-Pong balls under a doormat. In fact I’m going “Tick-Tock Tick-Tock” and cracking myself up as I take out that garbage, imitating the clock they had on that show. I get right up to the door of the little closet in the hall where the garbage cans for that floor are kept, and the milk can rolls off onto the floor, leaving a little yellow trickle on the worn carpet. “Shit” I say and put the bag down carefully. I bend down to get the can and reach up with one hand and open the door. There’s a sharp crack and air riffles in the space I occupied a second ago and a small chunk of plaster explodes out of the wall. Reacting, my body hits the floor as my foot kicks that door shut ’cause whatever came, it came out of there. Immediately there are two big splinters of wood chewed out of the door, accompanied by two slightly muffled cracks from inside. Like a fish, I flop myself across the hall and into the apartment taking the door shut with me as I go in. Outside the garbage closet door opens and someone goes running down the hall. Looking down, I see I’ve pissed all over myself. When I get some control I open the door a sliver and look out. There’s plaster dust all over and wood splinters and garbage and that milk can right where I left-it. I look down the hallyway and two doors are open an inch, each with an eye peering out. They see me and the doors slam and I can hear all manner of locks and bolts being shot home and chains hooked up as folks get back in their fortresses. I’m betting no-one’s even gonna call the cops.

  Somebody, I figure, was in the hall when I thought I heard noise out there, they heard me coming, thought I might be going out, and jumped in the garbage closet and squatted on top of one of the cans. They could have stepped out after I went by and put a couple in me and I never woulda known a thing. And odds were way against the residents on that floor taking out after somebody carrying a gun. Odds were against them taking out after anybody, period, ’cause who knows? Judo, Karate, Kung-Fu, one James Bond el choppo in the neck and you fall down dead, broken like them bricks in the demonstrations. But I didn’t go out. I went to the closet and opened the door and they blasted away, and if I hadn’t been bending over to pick up that milk can ...

  I sit on the edge of the bed and treat myself to a good shaking fit. Wise-ass who sharpened up a can-opener a few hours ago is no more. This is gonna be a matter of survival and now I got to think a whole new way. When I’m shook out, I take another shower and change underwear and pants. I light a cigarette, wishing it were a J, and dial Lieberman.

  Who doesn’t answer.

  I look out the window but the creep isn’t around and I don’t see any red VW’s around, nor, come to think of it, do I see a telephone van. God I’d like to get a little stoned, maybe I’ll get a flash and figure out what’s going on. Where the hell is Lieberman? He said he’d be home. How the hell is that private eye, or the guy that Lieberman says is a private eye, gonna stop something like this? Whoever came in and right up to the door of the apartment, came in fancy free. For all I know he’s hanging around down in the street waiting for me to step out the door. There’s people around, but so what? There must be twenty murders a year on this block. All witnessed. All unsolved.

  Genelle has got a stash in here somewhere, I think, and check the toilet tank, and up inside the closets, and in the cereal boxes and inside the refrigerator. I even take the fridge door off with a Phillips screwdriver but there’s nothing in there. Wait a minute, why not just call Genelle and ask her? I get the information operator who handles the Adirondack section where the camps are and ask for Camp Ti-Ti-Ga-Wa. I get that number and dial it up.

  “Hello, can I talk to Genelle Fournier please?” “Who?”

  “Genelle Fournier.”

  “Hey Harry, we got anybody here named Genelle Fournier? Is this a camper?”

  “No, a counselor,” and then it hits me that she’s using a false name and for the life of me I can’t remember what it is.

  “What camp do you want mister?”

  “Camp Blue Lagoon.”

  “Blue Lagoon? This is Camp Ti-Ti-Ga-Wa,” she says, in her voice the message “how could any fool mistake Camp Ti-Ti-Ga-Wa for Camp Blue Lagoon?” “Oh,” I say and hang up. Jesus I hope I haven’t blown anything for Genelle. I try Lieberman again but he still isn’t in. I find myself calculating the time between this apartment and his place and then stop myself ’cause I can’t think of any reason for that, and I don’t want that to be true. I put a chair up under the door, though I know this won’t stop a determined person, and put all kinds of glasses and ashtrays on top of it so that if anybody does come in they are going to make a hell of a lot of noise. I put pillows in the bed to look like a

  person, get a kitchen knife and a hammer, move the couch out of the line of the windows across the street and, weapons at my side, try to go to bed on the couch. Toward morning I get a little sleep.

  I try Lieberman at ten. “Hello?”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Around. You sound a little ruffled.”

  “Well, you know how it is.”

  “You try me last night?”

  “Yeah, once or twice.”

  “Met the most incredible lady. Got home about four.”

  “I’d like to hear about it sometime. I want you to do two things for me. First, I want to know the name Genelle is using at that camp.”

  “Sure. It’s, uh, uh, hmmmm. I seem to have forgotten.”

  “What?”

  “I told you. Don’t you remember?”

  “No. How the hell can I get in touch with her?” “Well, I can talk to my friend who set the thing up. He has it written down. But he’s somewhere out west climbing mountains, and I don’t think he’ll be back for about a week.”

  “Great. Well, the second thing I know you can do. Call off that detective. Get him the hell away from here.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t ask why. Just do it.”

  “Hey, you can fire me anytime, y’know. There’s lots of lawyers in town. The Bar Association should recommend you a nice sympathetic one.”

  “Bullshit. You’re not fired. Just get that guy away, I don’t want him around.”

  “Okay. What you got in mind?”


  “I’m gonna start solving my own problems as of today. I don’t need any more protection.”

  “All right. I hope you know what you’re doing. I’ve got a wire for you from someone named Adler in California.”

  “That’ll keep. I’ll call you soon.” And I hang up.

  The next call goes to the New York State Employment Service, Casual Labor Office.

  “Casual Labor, Miss Mueller.”

  “Hello there, my name’s Jack Lewis. I got a small trucking company in Brooklyn.”

  “Yes. And you’re hiring unloaders?”

  “Right. I want them at five-thirty tomorrow morning at Pier forty-eight, Twelfth Avenue and 49th Street.” “I see. And what is the salary?”

  “Oh, let’s say five bucks an hour. I know that’s generous but I want to make sure they’ll show up.”

  “How many hours will this be?”

  “Oh, about eight hours. Yeah, at least eight.”

  “I see. And how many men do you think you’ll need?”

  “Four should do it. Make sure they’re all there by five-thirty, they’re on salary even if I’m late. That’s very important.”

  “I’ll try to pick dependable ones. Can I have the address please?”

  “The address of the company or where they’ll work?”

  “The company.”

  “That’s 1340 Fulton St. in Brooklyn. Jack Lewis Trucking,” I say, reading from the phone book.

  “Very good Mr. Lewis. I’ll have four men there at five-thirty a.m. tomorrow, that’s Thursday morning. Thank you for calling State Employment.”

  “Thank you.”

  While I’m on the phone, I’m watching the street and who do I see but Mr. Creep, eating another deli sand-wish and walking up and down the block, just a citizen taking the air. Good, I think, stay right there and I’ll get with you later.

  I take the stairs up to the top. The door to the roof is locked to keep out the junkies (who come in through the front door anyhow) but I go back down to Genelle’s and find a small hacksaw and cut through the chain. On the roof there are two young Puerto Rican kids, a boy and girl about fifteen, smoking a joint and drinking red wine. “Don’t mind me,” I say and cross to the edge. It’s about three feet. I’d been hoping for just a step. But as the kids watch I take a run at it and land far beyond the edge. The next building over is close, but about ten feet lower than this roof. I try the door but it’s chained inside. So I hang down and drop the four feet. No problem. This time I’m in luck and I open the door and walk down the stairs. On the landing is a Puerto Rican man in his forties wearing an undershirt and holding a meat cleaver. He says “You just passing through, keep right on going and out in the street. I be right behind you.”

  “It’s cool,” I say. “I’m owing some people some money and I don’t want to see them right now.”

  “I know how it is,” he says walking behind me down the stairs, “but the fucking fire department won’t let us chain that door and this place gets like Penn Station.” I come out one street over from Genelle’s and nearly walk right into the creep. But his back is to me, and, lo and behold, here is where that goddamn delicatessen has been hiding. I knew he was getting that stuff somewhere. I lay in the cut for a minute and he goes round the comer. I go the other way and in a few blocks grab a cab up to Manufacturers Hanover.

  To my way of looking at it, I’m still traveling very neutral. Gray polo shirt, black khaki pants, Justin boots, not too scuffed. My hair isn’t crewcut but it isn’t too long and I’ve shaved this morning. But the guy at the bank isn’t all that pleased and is vibing away “hippie” all the way to the vault. That’s my problem: businessmen think I’m a hippie, hippies think I’m a businessman. But I’ve been in and out of here several times in the last week and they’re getting tired of seeing me.

  Renters of safe deposit boxes can get in to see their stuff, that’s okay, but why is this freak going down to look at his birth certificate every other day? I don’t even count the money I have left, it’s been drain, drain, drain for a while and I’m getting farther away from early retirement every day. I take out $2,000 more and a special license I’m gonna need and hope to hell this is the last. Next I go by the garage where my Chevy Carryall has been sitting, pay the parking tolls and ask the guy to fix the front end. From 57th and Eighth I walk over to 44th and Madison. It’s a cool day for August, and people look absolutely human. They don’t look happy, of New York you can’t ask that, but they look human. That doesn’t make my errand any easier.

  The clerk is too tall, too slim and too graceful, with gray hair that looks dyed to me. He says “How may I help you?”

  “Well,” I say, “my father has been asked to go deer hunting this fall. I don’t know anything about deer hunting, but I’d like to buy him a new shotgun for his birthday.”

  “What price range were you considering?”

  “Oh, not too expensive, but good, you know, dependable.”

  “I see.” He turns and gets a gun out of a glass case behind the counter.

  “This is a popular model. It’s not too dear, but many of our customers are quite pleased with it. Why don’t you hold it?”

  I take the gun, it’s oily and smooth and brown and polished. I stick it in my shoulder and aim at a ski mannikin in the comer. “This way?”

  “Yes. You sight on that little nubbin on the end.”

  “Ah-hah. I see, yes.” ,

  “And for a new shell, you simply pull that round piece of wood on the bottom back and then forward, and there you are. If the deer hasn’t ran away in the meantime,” and he chuckles a bit. “But how silly,” he says, “you did say that this was for your father.” And he gets this cute little smile, and I think “Christ, he knows. Maybe all the rich types buy their weapons here.”

  “I guess this’ll do fine.”

  “It’s a Remington 12-gauge model and it sells for $138.50.”

  “Good, I’ll take it. Oh one thing, I’d like to buy some things to go along with it. Like, oh, like a deerhunter’s cap and some, er, oh yes, some ammunition.”

  “Very good. The hat you get in the roughwear department, the ammunition we sell right here. What kind?”

  “Ah, well, what’s good for a nice big deer?”

  “We recommend the double-aught buckshot pellets.” “Fine, two boxes of those please.”

  “Shall I wrap it?”

  “Yes. For a birthday.”

  “All right, be back in a jiffy. Meanwhile here’s a card.”

  I’m trying to play this right, like that shit about the hunting hat and all, but here is this card in front of me. So I write “Happy Birthday to Dad with all love, Jimmy.” He comes back in a minute and gets the card and puts it on top of the gun which is in a long box of red and black stripes. He folds the tissue paper over the gun and then just slips that card in neat as can be. He’s got long slim fingers to go with the rest of him and they fly about making a nice black bow in the red ribbon closing my package. “And do we have all our proper papers?” I hand him a very kosher-looking license which he slips into an envelope and says “Will this be cash or charge?”

  “Cash. Are the bullets in the box?” I say, paying him.

  “No. I’ve put them in a separate bag for you.” He hands me the bag and I go up to roughwear and buy a red hunting hat which I throw in the garbage can as soon as I get to the comer.

  I find a car rental place about six blocks away and rent myself, as Howard Fine, a Chevy Nova. Now I got free time until tonight, so I stop for a Chinese lunch before the rush, and see two movies. By that time it’s five o’clock so I have a Chinese dinner—incredible Duck Chow Fun with noodles in a brown sauce, at a place I know in Chinatown. So far I’m carrying my long red package everywhere and nobody seems to notice. At eight I drive uptown and check into the Holiday Inn on 57 th Street near Tenth Avenue. I go out and buy a pair of scissors at an all-night drugstore.

  Back in the room, I very carefully unwrap the package. I wouldn’t
want to spoil that salesman’s artwork, and get that shotgun out and play with it. Point it at things on TV and the lamps and the toilet paper roller, whatever I can see. Next I read the instruction booklet. It looks like it was written by technical people and then re-done by some ad man. So it comes out about half engineering, half he-man in the woods. But it’s pretty clear. I manage to “place the shells in the magazine” and “place the shell in the chamber” and “release the safety” and “cock the hammer” and “now I’m ready for big game or skeet.” Ready indeed. I take the scissors and cut a small square out of box and paper directly below the trigger, just big enough to get my finger inside the box and around the trigger. Then I rewrap the gun, card and tissue paper and all, and find that if I carry the box in the crook of my left arm, my right hand isn’t actually visible. It’s better yet, in the mirror, if I put both arms around from the front. The left hand is outside, the right in the box. If I tilt the business end of the box around, my right hand and what it’s doing disappears, ’cause I can cover it with my left hand. I look maybe a little bit like someone with a nerve disease trying to carry a big package, but I sure as shit don’t see “a guy with a gun” in that mirror.

  I set the alarm and lie there for a couple of hours watching Cavett and then the late movie and the late, late movie but I don’t fall asleep. At 4:00 a.m. I move.