lofts, too, but I need ground-floor space for the kind of store I have. I need the passerby trade, the people who start out browsing the bargain table and wind up coming inside. To duplicate what I’ve got I’d have to move clear out of Manhattan, and what’s the point? No one would ever walk into the store. Including me, because I wouldn’t want to go there either. I want to stay right where I am, Carolyn. I want to be two doors away from the Poodle Factory so we can always have lunch together, and I want to be a block from the Bum Rap so we can come here after work and get snockered.”
“Are you getting snockered?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Well, you’re entitled,” she said. “And it’s good insurance against visiting the Gilhooleys tonight.”
“The Gilmartins.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“The Martin Gilmartins. If your name was Gilmartin, would you name your son Marty?”
“Probably not.”
“I should hope not. What a thing to do to a kid.”
“Well, at least you won’t be picking their locks.”
“Are you kidding? I never have so much as a beer before I go out. And I’ve had what, three drinks?”
“Three and a half, actually. You’ve been drinking mine.”
“Sorry.”
“No, that’s okay.”
“Three and a half scotches,” I said. “And you think I could pick locks in this condition?”
“Bern—”
“I couldn’t pick bagels,” I said.
“Bern, not so loud.”
“That was a joke, Carolyn. ‘I couldn’t pick locks, I couldn’t even pick bagels.’ Get it?”
“I got it.”
“You didn’t laugh.”
“I figured I’d laugh later,” she said, “when I have more time. Bern, the thing is you’re talking kind of loud to be talking about picking locks.”
“Or bagels.”
“Or bagels,” she agreed. “Either way, the volume control needs adjusting.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize I was shouting.”
“Well, not shouting exactly, but—”
“But loud.”
“Kind of.”
“I didn’t realize it,” I said. “Am I talking loud now?”
“No, this is fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“It’s funny how you can talk loud without even knowing it. It never happens on Perrier, I can tell you that.”
“I know.”
“Do you have any quarters?”
“Quarters?”
“Round things,” I said. “George Washington on one side, a bird on the other. They still call them quarters, don’t they?”
“I think so,” she said. “Here’s one, here’s another. Is that enough, Bern? What do you want them for?”
“I’m going to play the jukebox,” I said. “You wait right here. I’ll be right back.”
The jukebox at the Bum Rap is eclectic, which is to say that there’s something on it to offend every taste. It leans more toward country and western than anything else, but there’s some jazz and some rock and a single Bing Crosby record, with “Mother Machree” on the flip side of “Galway Bay.” In the midst of all this are the two best records ever made—“I Can’t Get Started With You” with a vocal and trumpet solo by Bunny Berrigan, and “Faded Love,” sung by The Late Great Patsy Cline. They are wonderful recordings, and you do not by any means have to be drunk to enjoy them, but I’ll tell you something. It doesn’t hurt.
I finished Carolyn’s drink while the records played, and I was chewing ice cubes by the time the second one was done. “How lucky we are,” I told Carolyn. “How incredibly lucky we are.”
“How so, Bern?”
“It could as easily have gone the other way around,” I said. “We could have had Bunny Berrigan singing ‘Faded Love’ and The Late Great Patsy Cline singing ‘I Can’t Get Started.’ Then where would we be?”
“You’re right.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “You’re right when you say that I’m right. You know what that means, don’t you?
“We’re both right.”
“We’re both right,” I said. “God, what a world. What an absolutely incredible world.”
She
Carol Gorman and Ron J. Findley