The Complete Collection. William Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ are kids and women hanging out of windows, mostly broken-paned windows, but the houses look as if nobody lives in them. There are no curtains or drapes. Junk wrecks of cars are pulled up on lawns and in alleyways. Boy, I never knew what a real black slum looked like. There’s nothing like this in California or Paris.

      I’ve been to Watts, but at least there it’s individual houses, not these walls of broken windows. There it looks temporary; here it’s as if it’s been this way forever and is going to stay that way.

      People are stretched out on the streets and on pavements, like Paris clochards – only young people, some of them wearing jeans, T-shirts; and nobody’s paying any attention.

      Now we’re starting to run red lights because every time we slow down or stop, the car’s covered with people. They jump on the hood, knock on the windows, thump on the sides of the car with fists or open palms. If we stop two minutes, goodbye car; goodbye hubcaps, aerial, anything that can be torn off. So we’re carefully running red lights and staying away from the sides of the car. I’m working over our map trying to zero in on the address. Dad’s hunched around the wheel as usual.

      The wild thing is most everybody’s laughing. They think it’s the funniest thing in the world seeing these two whiteys in blue driving this wet dream of an automobile straight through their territory. I don’t think they actually believe it. Maybe they’re only trying to be friendly and aren’t being threatening at all, but it looks threatening and we’re both scared shitless. The car’s beginning to stink from our fear, even with the air conditioning.

      There’s another thing that’s weird. Out there, everybody’s in undershirts or without shirts and the sun’s beating down after the rain. Pavements and streets are steaming, steam is coming out of manhole covers; it’s all filthy and disordered. But inside the car, we’re sitting on smooth leather seats. We’re surrounded by clean, canned car air; the radio’s playing stereo with soft background classical music. It’s hard putting it together. We’re astronauts, tearing through a hostile environment, only able to exist because of our support systems. If one thing goes wrong, if we make one mistake, we’re goners.

      The kings of France must have had the same feeling. Poor old Henry IV, with some nut jumping into his carriage in the Place des Vosges and doing him in. No wonder Louis XIV built that château out in Versailles; he was probably one of the first people moving to the suburbs, escaping center-city madness.

      Well, we finally come to the address on our papers. We’ve got the right street, the right number, everything tallies, but this can’t be the right place. This is 2007 Montgomery, but it’s the worst of all. This area is unbelievable. There are practically no houses which aren’t completely boarded up. The people in the street are virtually naked. There’s a broken fire hydrant across the street and kids are jumping around bare-ass in the water. This is pure jungle in the middle of Philadelphia.

      We go around the block three times, not knowing what to do. By the second time around, they’re waiting for us. Kids run up as we go by with mouthsful of water, spurt at the windows and laugh. The house with the right number looks to be completely abandoned.

      We’re finishing the third turn and we’re about to crash on out of there. We stop for one more close look to see if there’s any chance anybody could possibly live at that number. Two kids climb up over the hood and sit on top of the car with their bare wet feet hanging down across the windshield.

      Amazingly, a door opens in the house and a white woman comes running down toward us. She’s wearing a yellow dress with no sleeves; she has dark, almost blue hair. She runs to the side of the car and presses papers against the window. It’s a copy of the delivery papers with Dad’s picture stapled to the top. I unlock the door, she pulls it open and slides in beside me. She smells of whiskey and perfume. Opening the door is like opening the door to an oven. It’s the first time we’ve had a door or window open since we left Bala-Cynwyd.

      ‘Are you Mr Tremont?’

      Dad reaches over and takes his papers out of the glove compartment.

      ‘It says here I’m supposed to deliver this car to a Mr Scarlietti.’

      He shows her the papers with that name.

      ‘I’m taking delivery for him; Mr Scarlietti is out of town right now. I’ll sign for it and give you the fifty dollars. That’s right, isn’t it?’

      Dad looks at me and I shrug. What the hell else are we going to do, sit in this car forever? At least the kids have all scrambled off and are sitting or standing along the curb across the street. Dad pulls out the repair bills; they come to over three hundred bucks. She looks at them, then at us suspiciously. Dad tells her he called from Los Angeles and Mr Scarlietti gave permission to have the voltage regulator replaced; the universal joint was done right here in Pennsylvania on the turnpike, but we couldn’t get to him for permission.

      ‘If you don’t believe me, just call the garage, the phone number’s there on the bill; it’s in a place called New Stanton.’

      He points to the number and she stares some more at the bills, then smiles.

      ‘Looks as if this is some car. I don’t have that kind of money on me; one of you’ll have to come inside and get it. Four hundred would cover everything, right?’

      Dad nods. I’m having a hard time putting together that kind of money and this car with this neighborhood, if you could call it a neighborhood. Dad says he’ll stay in the car while I go in.

      I’m more than a little bit nervous. This woman is good-looking, too good-looking, maybe thirty-five, flashing eyes, smooth arms, good legs in high heels with platforms.

      She runs up the cracked cement walk between the worn-down lawns and up some broken steps onto an unpainted porch. Outside the car, I catch not only the full push of heat but the smells. It’s a mixture of a burning dump and rotten oranges.

      When I follow her through the door, I can’t believe my eyes, or skin, or anything. First of all, the place is air-conditioned, but that’s the least of it. I’ve stepped into a gigantic room. They’ve knocked down the walls to about ten of those row houses and put them together. The walls are covered with red brocade and there are mirrors everywhere with soft pinkish-orange lights. The rugs are dark, burgundy-wine red. It’s like those last thirty-nine pages in Steppenwolf! It makes Caesar’s Palace look like Savon drugstore. I’m standing there with my mouth open and the lady’s disappeared.

      I’m expecting to be hit over the head with a velvet-covered black-jack. This is some kind of big-deal gambling joint or whorehouse, maybe both.

      I’m thinking I’d better just run and tell Dad to drive like hell. We can drop this car in some white neighborhood with square curbs. We’ll phone from there, tell them where the car is and jump on a plane. We’re way over our heads. I’m actually beginning to feel cold under my jean jacket. Maybe I’m going into shock, my circulation isn’t pushing the blood fast enough.

      I look around. There are staircases up for each of the different houses they’ve put together, so I can look down the line and see one staircase after the other. With all the mirrors and the dim lights, it’s hard to tell exactly what you’re actually seeing anyway. There are small wooden bars built in under each of those stairs, and leather or red plush couches all around the walls. It’s got to be a whorehouse all right. I’ve never been in one, but this is the way I’d’ve imagined one up.

      Finally, just as I’m ready to scoot, the lady comes back. She isn’t hurrying so much now, СКАЧАТЬ