Page 20 (1/2)

I didn’t burn many calories I took the elevator to the lobby, walked out onto Fifty-seventh Street, turned right, and walked a few doors to Ninth Avenue I turned right again, and Ar’s was halfway up the block

And did I feel a netic pull? I don’t know Maybe I suppose I was attracted and repelled at the same time, and in about equal measure

I opened the door, walked in, and one breath told arettes Two thoughts hit me at the same time--that it smelled awful, and that it smelled like home

There were ten or a dozen people at the bar, and I recognized most of thee parties, just groups of two or three The conversation throughout was sufficiently ot rid of the jukebox shortly after he opened the joint, and kept the radio on an FM station that played nothing but classical ’s are a collection of incongruities, and the pick of the litter is theon the rear wall Directly beneath it, looking across the rooh a pair of Buddy Holly–style horn-ri a suit and a tie and a half sarette From the looks of the ashtray, it wasn’t his first

" ‘Lucille,’ " he said "You know the song, don’t you? Hell, everybody knows it She picked a fine time to leave him, with their four snot-nose brats and a crop in the field So the singer decides not to nail her after all, because he feels sorry for the whiny-ass husband Never happen in real life, not if she was as fine-looking as the song makes out Sit down, for God’s sake What do you want to drink?"

The waitress was new to me, a dishwater blonde, tall and slender She had an air about her that suggested she was easily confused, but she got the drink order right, bringing lass of Coca-Cola and Steffens another Scotch He said, "Vann Steffens You don’t remember me, do you?"

"Have we met?"

"As a nized you theyou Couple of times, you and I were in the same place at the same time Not this place, but one that’s not too far from here Or was, until it closed Morrissey’s, the after-hours You remember the place?"

"Of course"

"They performed a humanitarian service, the Brothers Morrissey Made sure a man didn’t die of thirst just because it was past four in theI was there now and then over the years, and I saw you there at least twice and uy named Devoe, had a piece of a joint on the next block"

"Skip Devoe His bar was Miss Kitty’s"

"Another joint that’s closed And it seee, wasn’t he? How’d he die?"

"Acute pancreatitis," I said, and that was indeed what it said on Skip’s death certificate I always figured it was a mix of drink and sadness that took him out

Steffens shook his head "Hell of a world," he said "You and et introduced at Morrissey’s? I can’t say one way or the other I was never there before three, four in the s happened that I don’t res I remember that never happened Anyhen I heard your na about"

"How did that happen?"

"A felloas talking," he said, "about how you were looking for a fellow named Robert Williams with a ho ot hiarette, crumpled the now-empty pack "You don’t smoke, do you?"

"No"

"And you’re in here drinking Coca-Cola I heard you were off the booze these days Make you unco in a joint like this?"

"No," I said That wasn’t entirely true, but I didn’t see that I owed him the truth "You said your name’s the same as the muckraker"

"Joseph Lincoln Steffens, dropped the Joseph in his writings Wrote The Shame of the Cities, about municipal corruption Put an end to it, too, as you arette "But what he’s most famous for is what he wrote when he came home from a trip to the Soviet Union ‘I have seen the future and it works’ Except everyone got the line slightly wrong, because he wrote that he’d been to the future, not that he’d seen it And he changed his mind about it anyway, decided it wasn’t the future and it didn’t work Proving you’d better be careful what you say, because people are going to change the words around on you, and go on quoting the the"

"You’re being polite, Matt I know enough about hi a naeneration or two back It used to be Steffansson, like the polar explorer, and no, he’s not a relative either"

"And your first naiven my mother for that one, God rest her soul I chopped it down to Van, and then I tagged an extra N onto it because people thought that was my last name, Van Steffens, like Van Dyke and Van Rensselaer"

"And they’re not your relatives, either"

"You begin to see the pattern, huh?" He patted his breast pocket, rearette," he announced "Where’s the machine?"

I shook my head "No machine There’s a little food arettes"

"And this place doesn’t? Why the hell not?"

"Ji"

"There’s an ashtray on every table Half the people in here are s to prohibit it He just doesn’t want to encourage it"

"Jesus Next door?"