The Broken Bubble Page 10

  “What time did you get up?” she said. “The next morning.”

  “Around ten,” he said.

  “I thought you should sleep. So I didn’t wake you up. Did you see my note?”

  “No, I cleared out as soon as I could.”

  Pat said, “I said in the note that you should go ahead and have breakfast. There was bacon and eggs in the refrigerator. And if you wanted lunch there was a frozen chopped steak in the freezer.”

  “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I saw the note. But I wanted to get out.”

  “Why?” She walked over beside him and the hem of her coat dangled by his shoulder. Close beside him her legs were smooth in that fine, regular manner that was so gratifying to the touch.

  “Because,” he said, “I was miserable enough as it was.”

  “You saw the write-up in the Chronicle?”

  Pouring the odds and ends into the carton, he prepared to carry his possessions downstairs. “I’m parked in the taxi zone,” he said. “I don’t know how long I can get away with it.”

  “Are you moving out your things?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She followed as lie lugged the carton along the hall to the stairs. “Can I carry anything?”

  “I can manage,” he said.

  “Use the elevator.”

  “Habit.” He returned to the hall and, with the corner of the carton, punched the button for the elevator. “You’re going out tonight?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You look good,” he said. “When did you get that suit?”

  “I’ve had it.”

  The elevator arrived, and Pat held the door aside for him.

  “Don’t come down with me,” he said.

  “Why not?” She was already in the elevator; she touched the button, and the elevator descended. “I can help you with the car door.”

  When they reached the ground floor, she went ahead of him. He carried his load outside onto the sidewalk and to his parked car. Sure enough, a San Francisco cop was prowling at the license plate, considering it for a ticket. His motorcycle leaned by the curb, and he was already reaching his gloved hands toward his pad and pencil.

  “Station business,” Jim said, balancing his load to get out his keys. “Records and scripts.”

  The cop eyed him.

  “We always use this loading zone.” As Pat opened the car door, he shoved the carton inside onto the back seat and went quickly around to the wheel.

  “This is a taxi zone,” the cop informed him.

  “I’ll be right out of here,” he said, starting the motor.

  The cop shook his head and returned to his motorcycle. Jumping bodily on the accelerator, he roared off into the nighttime traffic and was gone.

  “I have to go back up,” Jim said. He had forgotten his hat and Anacin bottle.

  “Will he be back?” Pat said.

  “No,” he said, shutting off the motor. “Not for a while.”

  They went back up, this time walking up the flight of stairs. The building was cold and deserted, and the stairs were gloomy. Beside him, Pat put on her coat; he helped her with it.

  “It’s scary,” she said, “this late at night.” She held onto the bannister. He said, “I appreciated that, your letting me stay.”

  “If wish—” she said. “I wish we could have gone ahead.” She stared down at the steps.

  Upstairs on the station floor, she caught Frank Hubbies attention through the glass window of the broadcasting booth. When he stepped out, she said, “Has Bob been in?”

  “No,” Hubble said, “not since you were in last.”

  While Jim got his hat and Anacin bottle, she telephoned Bob Posin’s apartment. Hanging up, she said, “No answer.”

  “He’s out making money,” Jim said.

  They went back down the flight of stairs. There, under the windshield wiper of his car, was a ticket.

  “He came back,” Pat said.

  “He or one of his kind.” Furiously, Jim tossed the hat and Anacin bottle in with the other things.

  “You should have moved it,” she said, “when he told you to.”

  “How do you like that,” he said, trying to control himself. “You can’t believe in anything anymore.”

  “You always hated to get a ticket.”

  He stuffed the ticket into his pocket. “Don’t you? That’s ten bucks shot. For nothing.”

  “Calm down,” Pat said.

  “Good night.” He started into the car.

  “Wait,” she said hesitantly. “I don’t want you to go off like this. Why don’t you take me across the street? That wouldn’t do any harm.”

  He looked to see what was across the street. Most of the shops were closed and dark, and he dismissed them, but the Roundhouse cocktail lounge was open, and he realized that she meant it.

  “The bar?” he said.

  “No,” she said, changing her mind, “let it go.”

  “Why not?” he said, taking hold of her arm. Why not indeed, he thought to himself, not letting her go.

  “I better not,” she said.

  “If it was all right for me to stay with you the other night—” He led her across the street—the traffic was held up at a light—and onto the far curb. “This certainly ought to be okay.”

  She was nervous. “It’s so much like a date. As if you were taking me out again.”

  “I am,” he said, keeping tight hold of her.

  Pulling away, she walked a few rapid steps; her heels clacked on the pavement. “I was just afraid if you drove you might be under too much strain; you are, aren’t you? You might hit something. And I’d blame myself.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, pushing open the doors of the bar. With all his willpower, he kept himself from looking back; the doors swung shut, and he was inside, alone. The Roundhouse was a small high-class bar where the drinks were mostly water and cost more than he could afford; he traditionally avoided the place. The booth seats were red leather with brass studs. Quite a number of women were at the bar, and they were all well dressed. At the rear, a jukebox played dance music, strings and winds. The air was close. Everyone seemed to be smoking as well as talking.

  He stood for a moment, and while he was standing the doors opened behind him, and Pat entered. Her face was pale.

  “Come sit down,” he said, leading her to a booth and feeling, inside him, a terrible sweep of hope; he was in a state of tension, and as he helped her take off her coat his hands shook.

  “You’re worked up, aren’t you?” she said, touching his wrist.

  “No,” he said seating himself across from her. “Just about to go out of my mind.”

  “Do you expect much out of this? Don’t expect much; for my sake, please don’t make something out of this. I just want to sit here and have something to drink.”

  The waitress appeared.

  “What do you want?” Jim asked the woman across from him.

  “Just order me something I can finish.” She placed her hands together before her, touching her purse. What she wanted was Scotch or bourbon and not a mixed drink, a sweet drink. Too many sweet drinks made her sick, and he remembered mornings when he had fed her tomato juice and soft-boiled eggs and dry toast until she was able to get out of bed and onto her feet.

  After he had ordered, he said to her, “Remember that New Year’s Day we drove over to Sausalito to that joint out over the water…you lost your shoe; you sat down on the curb and wouldn’t get into the car.”

  She said, “I think I should call Hubble and tell him if Bob shows up to come over here.”

  “Don’t play coy,” he said.

  “I’m not.” The drinks arrived, and she picked up hers. “Do you think I am? Do—you think I’m a tease?”

  “No,” he said.

  “I am.”

  “Because of the other night?” He drank his own drink.

  “It only made things worse. But it’s as bad for me as it is for you… I feel terri
ble, I really wish I could die.” Already most of her drink was gone: when she was in a crisis, she drank, and this was a crisis for both of them.

  At each booth was a ceramic ashtray, as large as a pipe tray, and gray. He inspected the one by his elbow. While he was holding it, he realized that Pat was on her feet.

  “I’m going to go phone. Order me another.” She walked off, gliding forward without individual steps Her coat was over her arm; the fall of it blended with her carriage, her upright posture. She lifted her chin and straightened the lines of her neck. At the same time, she seemed to know exactly where her feet were; he could not imagine her stumbling.

  “Get him?” he asked, when she returned.

  “Still no answer.” She picked up her fresh drink.

  “He’s probably reading Looney Luke plugs.”

  After she had gone deep into her second drink, she said, “I want to show you something. It’s a present.” Opening her purse, she lifted forth a small tissue-paper package. “For Bob. I got it in Chinatown.” She unwrapped a deity figure which he had seen many, many times. “It’s a god. It brings luck…” She ran a nail across the stomach of the deity. “What do you think of it?”

  He had to tell her it was trash.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, what do you think of this? Or maybe I shouldn’t show it to you.” Another package was visible, but she put her hand over it, concealing it.

  “I’d like to see it,” he said.

  With great deliberation, she unwrapped the package.

  “A bracelet,” he said, taking it.

  “Silver. Handmade.” She reached for it, and he wound it around her wrist: the bracelet slipped to the table. It was massive. He helped fasten it for her.

  “Thanks,” she said. “See the jade?” Dull stones were set in the silver fret and scrollwork.

  “It’s Indian,” he said.

  “India?” she said doubtfully.

  “American Indian. Probably Navajo.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  “You know I’m not much on that sort of stuff. Too heavy, too much bulk. I like those thin hoops you used to wear.” Reaching up, he touched her ear. “Those earrings.”

  “They should have told me it wasn’t Chinese,” she said. “It was a Chinese store; the man was a Chinese.” She finished her drink, and he thought that she was beginning to get that fixed look; her features were becoming rigid. She had worked hard all day, and she was too tired to cope with the situation between them. Too much, he thought. For both of them. His old tenderness sprang to life inside him, his feeling for her; he knew how unhappy she was, sitting here, across from him. She could not leave and, for her, remaining was unbearable. So she was drinking.

  “Let’s go,” he said, rising. He put her coat around her, handed her her purse, and with his hands on her shoulders persuaded her to get to her feet.

  “Where?” she said. In her fatigue and confusion, she was malleable; she wanted him to take charge. “I should be over at the station. Suppose he comes and I’m not there?”

  “All right,” he said, “we’ll go back there.”

  They left the Roundhouse and recrossed Geary Street. As they passed his parked car, he saw that a second ticket was stuck under the windshield wiper. The hell with it.

  Upstairs in the station, he switched on the Best amplifier and turntable. From the studio, Hubble watched, smoking his pipe, as he fiddled with wires. Pat had withdrawn into a corner, taking no part in what he was doing. Re plugged in a jack, closed a toggle switch, and as the tubes of the Bogen amplifier reddened, he rasped his finger against the diamond needle of the transcription arm.

  From the speaker, a gross fwwfh-fwwfh sounded, an enormous tumult. This was quality equipment; over the years he had helped assemble it.

  When he looked for Pat, she was gone.

  The door of the broadcast studio opened, and Frank Hubble said, “What’s going on, pal?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You going to hold forth here?”

  “No,” he said. Over the years, he had come here and used the station’s playback equipment; in a sense it was his.

  Hubble said, “Of course it’s fine by me. Like old times. But I’ll be locking up at twelve. And you don’t have a key anymore.”

  He started to go through his pockets, and then he remembered that of course he didn’t have a key; he had given it to Haynes. Without answering, he went searching for Pat.

  The door to the roof was open, and he stepped outside, onto the rickety wooden catwalk. Pat stood leaning with her elbows on the railing, smoking a cigarette and gazing across the roof at the lights and traffic of the street below.

  “I wanted to clear my head,” she said.

  “Did you have that much to drink?”

  “Yes.” She lifted her face. “Before I came up here, before I ran into you… I was already over at the Roundhouse.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You look all right,” he said, his fingers on her neck, at the line of her chin.

  She said, “I feel as if I’m walking along a long drainpipe. One of those pipes we used to crawl through when we were kids. Bent over…” She drew away from him. “You were going to play records for me, weren’t you? Like we used to before we were married.”

  “May I?” he said.

  “Do you have to? I just want to stand out here. I don’t think Bob’s coming. Please—you go ahead on in. I’ll stay out here. Please?”

  Going back in, he took an album from the record cabinet, an old Victor 78 r.p.m. set of the Sibelius Symphony No. 7. Hubble had returned to the broadcast studio; he was reading a commercial into the boom mike. His voice was audible from the wall monitor, and Jim shut it off.

  The discs were in manual sequence. He put side one on the turntable and lowered the arm. Now Frank Hubble was watching through the window of the studio; he scowled with disapproval. How wicked, Jim thought, to be playing records. A man trying to draw out and hold his own wife.

  The music, with its progression upward, its heavy quality of darkness and isolation, helped clear his mind. The weight seemed to pass from him into the music. The great structure of the music absorbed it and accepted it from him.

  So, he thought, he discovered at this late date that the stuff had a use.

  He got the music up loud enough to reach across the station, from one room to the next, out onto the roof where Pat stood in the darkness. At such volume, the music could not be evaded. Listening, he paced back and forth; he became restless, and suddenly he was afraid that no time was passing. The music had put an end to everything.

  As he was putting on the second record, Bob Posin appeared. “What a racket,” he said. “I could hear it all the way downstairs. Isn’t it getting over the air?”

  “No,” Jim said, demoralized. In his mind he had written Bob Posin out of existence.

  “Is Patricia here?”

  Entering the room, Pat said, “Where have you been?”

  “I was tied up. Straightening out the Granny Goose potato chip material.” He said it with anger.

  Pat said, “I can’t go out. It’s too late. Take my word for it; you wouldn’t want to be with me tonight. I’ve had too much to drink, and all I want to do is go home. We can go out some other time, she’ll be there for a week at least, and if she’s gone we can see her when she’s back this way.” She seated herself with her coat and purse on her lap. The drinks had begun to affect her outwardly; her face was waxen. “Just go off and leave me. Will you do that?”

  Standing his ground, Bob said, “At least let me drive you home.”

  “Have you ever seen a woman throw up nine drinks?”

  Bob Posin left. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

  “Don’t come near me,” Pat said, as Jim approached her.

  “I know you,” he said. He led her from the station and downstairs to his car; she walked slowly, step by step, her eyes on the ground. In the lobby s
he halted, and try as he might he could not budge her.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “I’m too drunk to go with you. I know how you feel about me. Honest to God, Jim, I can’t go with you. There’s no point in talking about it; I mean it, and you know me well enough to know I mean it. And If I passed out, would you want me like that? That isn’t what you want. I’m going to sit down here.” With care she went to the lobby couch, the old ratty, bedraggled couch, and stood beside it. “Go away,” she said. “In the name of Jesus Christ, leave me alone!”

  He walked out onto the sidewalk and then around the block, past bars and closed-up shops, until he reached the side entrance to the station’s parking lot. By the long route, he came back to the McLaughlen Building. In the lot was Pat’s car, and she was trying to start it. The headlights were on, and with each turn of the starter motor the lights dimmed to a feeble yellow.

  In the darkness he watched her, feeling compassion for her; the car door was open, and she was crouched over the wheel, her arm resting on it, her coat spilled onto the floor by her feet. She was crying; he could hear her where he stood. At last the engine caught, and the headlights flared up. Pat slammed the car door, threw the gear into drive, and drove directly into a car parked across from hers. The bumpers tangled with a grating metallic shriek. The engine died, and Pat sat without moving, her hand over her face.

  Walking over, he saw that no harm had been done; both bumpers were scratched, but that was all. Nobody would care. He opened the car door and said, “Sweetheart.”

  “I won’t let you,” she said. She was clutching the wheel, and on her face was the set, fanatic look that she got once in a long while; she was terrified of him and of what she had done. Probably she thought she had demolished the other car.

  “Look,” he said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. You can’t drive. You’ll kill yourself.”

  She nodded.

  “Let me drive you to your place. I won’t go in; I’ll park you in front of the building and I’ll leave you.”

  “How’ll you get back here? You have to come back for your car.”

  “I’ll walk. Or take a cab.”

  “That isn’t right.”