LITMIR.BIZ

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upstairs to locate Uncle Arthur. He found him in his bed, his legs stretched to both corners, his pants still on, along with an undershirt. He looked small as he slept there in the big bed. Doll-like. Looking at him at first, a person would take him for a theatrical figure: his coloring was dramatic, silver hair, florid complexion; his features were delicate, almost childlike, with finely arched nostrils at the end of a small nose, and a fragile weak chin. He was inclined, in fact, toward the theater. He wrote publicity for the Riverdale Playhouse, and years before he had tried some plays. He claimed a producer had stolen the best of them. But he had made his living in the newspaper business, working all over the country before he married Nora, and was settled now as a rewrite man for the New York Mirror.

      Jim felt sorry for him. He was breathing heavily. He looked so haggard. He had always a beaten look about him, except when he had a few drinks, then he became a pixie, with a beaming smile and a fey humor. When he was in that humor, Nora became “PeeWee.” But once he started drinking, he could never stop, and fairly soon he would just become stupid with alcohol. Jim liked him; he had told Arthur at length of his ambition to be an actor, and maybe write plays, too, and Arthur had encouraged him.

      Arthur suddenly opened his eyes halfway, and sat up in the bed, resting on his right elbow. He pressed his free hand to the top of his head and moaned. He peered in Jim’s direction with half-seeing eyes, eyes that were hidden behind the slits of his eyelids. He gave a quick jerky motion and sat up straight.

      “Jim?”

      “Yes. How are you, Uncle Arthur?”

      Arthur lay back. “I thought they had me back in Knickerbocker.”

      Jim laughed. Arthur had given him detailed descriptions of his stays in Knickerbocker, the Harlem hospital where cops often dropped off unfortunates in need of detox. With his gift for mimicry, he had taken off the doctors, nurses, and orderlies until Jim had felt he was at the scene himself.

      “Where’s Nora?” Arthur asked.

      “She’s over at our house.”

      “There’s something going on today?” He tried to recall.

      Jim debated: should he tell him. No. “A dinner,” he said, without elaboration.

      Arthur gave Jim a wave of dismissal. “Go away now and let me die in peace.” He shut his eyes.

      “Do you want me to call a priest?” Jim asked, with a grin, remembering what Nora had told him about Arthur leaving the church.

      Arthur got up on his elbows. “Get out,” he shouted and fell back, “with your talk of priests.”

      “How come you’re leaving the Church?”

      “Who told you that?”

      “The pastor.”

      Arthur was interested. “You’re joking?”

      “Yes, I am,” Jim agreed.

      “You little fartface. Get out.”

      Jim laughed. “Maybe he’ll talk you into taking the pledge.”

      “I’m taking no pledge.”

      “You’re not keeping any, anyway.”

      “Damn straight.”

      “Why don’t you join AA?”

      “Why don’t you get out of here. Bad as the father with religion, and priests and the like. A grown man and they lead him around like he was a sheep.”

      “Nobody leads him around. He’s too pig-headed.”

      “On his knees every morning at Mass,” said Arthur in disgust. “For what?”

      “Because he loves God, I guess.” Jim was surprised to hear a sincere answer coming from his own mouth.

      “Go over to the closet, and unzip the clothes bag, and get me the bottle.”

      Jim did as he was told but he couldn’t find the bottle. Arthur then looked himself, to no avail.

      “I think she dumped it out,” Jim said.

      “No,” said Arthur. “She has it hid.”

      He looked around the room, checking under the bed, behind the radiator, and in the clothes hamper.

      “Maybe she hid it in another room,” said Jim.

      “She wouldn’t go far with it,” said Arthur.

      He pulled the drape aside at the window and there was the bottle. Arthur uncorked it, tilted the bottle back on his head and took a slug of whiskey. Jim had watched many of his relatives drink a shot as though they were taking medicine, making a face as they swallowed. But not his Uncle Arthur. Arthur loved the taste; he swished it around in his mouth before swallowing.

      Sitting again on the bed, the bottle beside him, Arthur sighed and said, “Ah, shit,” softly, not with anger, but just for something to say. Then he sighed again, looking at the floor.

      “Big head?”

      “I must have spent the whole fuckin’ night on the subway,” said Arthur. “I’m sore all over.” He reached his hand over his shoulder to knead his back muscles. “I remember some big cop giving me a hard time. They pull them out of the trees and teach them how to use a nightstick and then they make them subway cops.”

      Arthur looked up, and gave an impish grin. “Do you know what the best racket in the world is?” he asked. “Those guys who beg in the subway. Did you ever see them?”

      Jim had, of course; but he stayed quiet, waiting for Arthur’s imitation of one of them—sure to be good.

      “I have to get a hat,” said Arthur. “They always have a hat on.” He went to the closet and put a hat on, turning back the front brim. “They always have the brim turned up.” He went to the door of the room. “What’s that instrument they play?” He held one hand chest high, and the other waist high, and moved his fingers.

      “Trombone?” Jim asked.

      “That’s it,” said Arthur. “Okay, now you make a subway noise, and I’ll go outside and come in.”

      Jim tried to imitate the sound of a subway train, going clickety-click, clickety-click, while making a throat noise, and at the same time banging his hand rhythmically against the bed board.

      Arthur went out. When he reappeared at the door, he had dark glasses on; his mouth was shut, but held in such a widespread position it seemed he had a stirrer from cheek to cheek within; he was fingering the imaginary trombone; and all the while his feet were shuffling back and forth in the motion necessary to keep one’s balance in the subway.

      It was so good an imitation, Jim screamed laughing. Arthur shuffled across the room, lurching, dipping, almost falling. He pretended a rider had his legs in the aisle, and cursed out the inconsiderate man. Jim laughed so hard his breath came in gasps, and he got the pain in his side. “Stop,” he said. “Please stop.”

      Arthur took his fingers from the trombone to shake an imaginary tin cup with trembling fingers. He then lifted the dark glasses to see how much he had got. He cursed out the riders. Then he resumed his shuffle up the aisle.

      Arthur took off the glasses and hat and took a slug of whiskey. He sat on the bed. “It’s a good living, walking up and down the subway.”

      “You have a great talent,” Jim said to Arthur.

      “That’s what they told me down at the paper,” said Arthur, “the last time they refused me a raise.”

      “You should have become a comedian.”

      “If I could become something now,” said Arthur, “I’d be a playwright like George Bernard Shaw.”

      “Is he that good?”

      “A laugh in every line,” said Arthur. “And not all

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