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  SHADOW TRAFFIC

  Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction

  John T. Irwin, General Editor

  SHADOW TRAFFIC

  Stories by Richard Burgin

  This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the G. Harry Pouder Fund.

  © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press

  All rights reserved. Published 2011

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

  The Johns Hopkins University Press

  2715 North Charles Street

  Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363

  www.press.jhu.edu

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Burgin, Richard.

  Shadow traffic / Richard Burgin.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-0273-4 (alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 1-4214-0273-4 (alk. paper)

  I. Title.

  PS3552.U717S53 2011

  813′.54—dc22 2011004502

  A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected].

  The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible.

  For John T. Irwin

  CONTENTS

  Caesar

  The Dealer

  Memorial Day

  Memo and Oblivion

  “Do You Like This Room?”

  Mission Beach

  The Dolphin

  The Justice Society

  The Interview

  Single-Occupant House

  The Group

  The House

  Acknowledgments

  SHADOW TRAFFIC

  Caesar

  He leaned back and looked briefly at the Christmas lights on Kingshighway, then at the oddly shaped planetarium, which looked like an alien spaceship that had landed on the outskirts of Forest Park. Some piano pieces by Ravel were playing—not the usual thing you heard on the radio.

  “Is the music bothering you, sir?” the driver said.

  “No, I like it. That’s Debussy, isn’t it?”

  “No, sir. I think it’s Ravel.”

  “That’s right, of course, Ravel. How angry it would have made them to be confused with each other. Anyway, it’s a great relief not to hear any more Christmas carols for a while. Those Christmas carols are like zombies, aren’t they? They never die. I mean it’s almost New Year’s Eve, isn’t it, and they’re still playing Christmas music everywhere, and the Christmas decorations are still up because somehow it all still goes on.” Onward Christian Shoppers, he thought to himself, but didn’t say it lest he possibly offend the driver. He’d realized for some time now that St. Louis was a conservative town where young men like the driver were just as likely to be religious as people his age.

  But the driver was laughing or making some kind of equivalent sound. “I feel the same way, sir,” the driver said.

  Was he a kindred spirit? Maybe it was worth a try to continue talking. The alternative was twenty minutes more of his dark thinking and staring at the half-dark highway.

  “Do you like Ravel?”

  “Very much.”

  “Of course you do or you wouldn’t be listening to it. What other composers do you like?”

  “Oh, quite a number.”

  The driver rattled off a list, including Beethoven and Mozart, of course, but also Bartók and Prokofiev and one or two he hadn’t heard of. When he asked him if he ever studied music, the driver said, “Yes, sir, I studied piano for a number of years.”

  “Really?” So they were both musicians, though he was pretty sure he’d never worked as hard at it as the driver had. “You know, I enjoy talking with you but I wish you’d stop calling me ‘sir.’ I’m beginning to feel like an institution of some sort.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “I remember the first time someone called me sir—it was like the beginning of death—like my death watch began from that moment on.”

  The driver laughed. It was a youngish laugh that made him think he might still be in his twenties. “Of course I haven’t given you an alternative, have I? I haven’t told you my name.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “There’s a good reason for that. My name is Caesar.”

  “Mine’s Chris.”

  “How appropriate for the season—a real Chris. I, myself, wanted to be a great dictator like Julius Caesar, that’s probably what my father had in mind, too, when he named me, but instead I merely repeated the second part of Julius’s life and got stabbed quite a few times in the back. So I should call myself Caesar the Second, I guess.”

  The driver laughed again, probably out of politeness, he thought, but maybe not.

  “The truth is Caesar is actually my middle name. My real first name is Malcolm—that’s right, I’m a Malcolm. Ever know a Malcolm?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ever like one?”

  Again, the driver laughed.

  “You all right? Everything OK tonight?”

  “You just make me laugh, that’s all. You’re very funny, Malcolm.”

  “There you said it. You know a Malcolm. Now, I’m afraid there’s no going back.”

  More laughter, definitely slightly forced this time. Then as quickly as they talked, they fell silent. It was as if there were a certain number of potential subjects they could discuss, like a little school of fireflies all lit up and waiting to be picked, but then just as quickly as they arrived their lights went out and they disappeared. He didn’t like that. If it continued, he’d have to try to control his thoughts, while looking at the highway or the driver’s neck. He’d seen far too many necks lately—in cabs and planes and in theaters and in lines at the bank. It had become a world of necks, they’d taken over almost everything, it seemed.

  He was going to ask Chris how good a pianist he was—though he sensed he’d hear a tragic story if he did—when Chris suddenly surprised him with a question of his own.

  “Are you going somewhere special tonight?”

  “Moi? Why do you ask?”

  “You look pretty dressed up like you might be going out somewhere. That’s a nice evening coat you’re wearing.”

  “Thank you but no, I’m not doing anything I’d consider special.”

  “I thought, because you’re going to the Ritz they might be having some kind of event.”

  “I am going to the Ritz but my plan was to go to their lobby and sit there with a drink and try to feel rich.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Actually, I am kind of rich. Not Donald Trump rich, but I came into some money recently.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “There’s really nothing to congratulate me for—I didn’t do anything to deserve it. As they say, ‘I did it the old-fashioned way, I inherited it.’ You’re laughing but it’s true. Strange the way money is so often connected with death, isn’t it?”

  “I hadn’t really thought of that before.”

  “Of course you haven’t. That’s one of the fringe benefits of being young, you don’t have to think about it. No one’s even called you ‘sir’ yet, have they?”

  “It’s happened once or twice.”

  “That you were ‘sir’ed’ with your subpoena? I’m surprised. But they were probably joking. I mean I’ve seen young children called ‘sir’ by people who think it’s cute. I think calling the wrong people sir is a national sport, it’s like Christmas, it will never go away. People flagellate the
aging with it in the name of respect, and embarrass the young with it in the name of humor. You can see that I really do need to have a drink, don’t I?”

  “Everyone feels that way sometimes.”

  “You, too?”

  “Sure, sometimes.”

  “But you can’t do anything about it while you’re driving your cab, can you?”

  “No, not while I’m driving.”

  “Not supposed to anyway. I thought that after I finally got my money the number of occasions when I’d need a drink would decrease. Instead the opposite has proven to be true. You would have thought I’d know better.”

  “So what’s it like to get all that money? Changed your life, I guess.”

  He paused as if he were making an intricate calculation. “I would say it’s changed my life five to ten percent, no more than that.”

  “Must be nice to be able to buy whatever you want, though.”

  “The things I bought made less than one percent difference to me, so far, if that.”

  “Really? Well, still it must be nice not to have to worry about money anymore.”

  “You get a different set of worries instead. Actually, I’d say my biggest surprise is how little I’m able to use my money to actually change anything in my life in any fundamental way. Maybe if I got it when I was younger, say at your age, it might have been different. I wanted to be, for example, at one time—well, not exactly a composer, but I wanted to be a songwriter. I wanted to write theater music though I wound up working in an office. But if I’d had my money then, it might have helped me chase my dream. Do you see? For me to get the money now at my time of life—well, it’s kind of an ironic gift, wouldn’t you say?”

  “But you’re not old, Malcolm. I mean, you could still do whatever you want, couldn’t you?”

  “Call me Caesar,” he said with a laugh.

  “You look good, Caesar. You don’t look old at all.”

  “Well thank you. That’s the kindest thing anyone’s said to me since—well, since I got my money.”

  He looked out the window and realized they were already on Clayton Road. They’d be at the Ritz soon and he felt strangely anxious.

  “So, why did you stop studying piano?”

  “That’s a long story … it just got to be impractical.”

  “Do you still play, I hope?”

  “No, not really anymore.”

  “But you could, you don’t forget something like that, I imagine.”

  “No, you don’t forget, not completely.”

  He could see the Ritz already looming above them like the brick castle of St. Louis.

  “I really do enjoy talking with you. Why don’t you join me for a drink, my treat?”

  “I’d like to but I couldn’t have a drink on the job.”

  “You can drink a ginger ale then, and just keep the meter running.”

  “How could I do that?”

  “Good point. Well, call in and tell your dispatcher you’re waiting for me, that I’m making another stop and I’ll more than pay you for whatever time we spend. Surely you can do that.”

  Chris turned to face him. He was so young that Malcolm felt a sense of shock.

  “Come on,” Malcolm continued, “here’s something for a deposit,” he said, handing him two fifties. “You can do this. It’s New Year’s Eve, after all.”

  “That’s tomorrow.”

  “It’s the eve before New Year’s Eve then. That’s still a holiday in my book.”

  “OK, sure. Thanks very much,” he said, putting the money in his pocket.

  There was a large Christmas tree in the Ritz, fully decorated, with a lot of tinsel and a star on top, but the lobby was so big the tree merely blended into the room instead of dominating it. In the approximate center of the lobby a pianist and saxophonist were playing “Someone to Watch over Me.” A few middle-aged couples and one elderly couple were dancing on the relatively small dance floor.

  Chris and he sat on a green sofa in a corner of the room waiting for their drinks. He’d forgotten that there was sometimes live music at the Ritz. That made it more difficult to talk, of course, and he sensed Chris was feeling awkward. They sat through a somewhat jazzy version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in something close to silence, then, after some tepid applause, the musicians took a break just as their drinks mercifully arrived.

  “Not exactly Debussy or Ravel,” Malcolm said, with a smile.

  Chris smiled. “No, not exactly.”

  “The pianist had pretty good chops, though, what’d you think?”

  “He played all the notes, but I couldn’t really evaluate him as a musician,” Chris said, “’cause they make them water down the music so much so people can dance to it.”

  “Elevator music, we used to call it.”

  “Yeah, I know. I used to have a gig like this once.”

  “Really?”

  “Not at the Ritz but at the Adams Mark.”

  “Still, that’s a pretty good hotel.”

  “It was a good gig, moneywise, the best I ever had.”

  “So you really were at a professional level?”

  Chris shrugged, then took a large swallow of his tequila sunrise, and Malcolm followed, fugue-like, with his.

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I was studying to be a classical pianist till that got too expensive. Then I tried to do something with jazz, but I didn’t really have the nerve and I never had the money.”

  Malcolm finished his drink and ordered another round from one of the waitresses who were pouncing on tables every ten minutes like leopards to solicit more drinks. “I wish I’d known you then. I might have been able to help you. When did you stop studying?”

  “Maybe four or five years ago.”

  “Before I came into my big money, but I still had enough where I could have helped.”

  Chris gave him a strange look and then began his new drink.

  “It’s so rare that we meet the right person at the right time,” Malcolm said, “or that we realize who the right person is in time. It makes you wonder sometimes why we’ve lived at all if we only realize things when it’s too late to do anything about them.”

  He looked at Chris for a response, but he was busy finishing his new drink.

  “There’s a poem by T. S. Eliot,” Malcolm continued, “I hope I’m not confusing him with W. H. Auden, no seriously, it is from Eliot. Anyway, he wrote ‘we had the experience but missed the meaning.’ Do you identify with any of this?”

  Chris shrugged moodily again with his eyes averted, and Malcolm felt the same sense of panic he’d felt earlier—like a buzzing in his brain, easier to hear now that the music had stopped. Then Chris finally answered and the buzzing sound went away as if it too merely had the endurance of a firefly.

  “Sure, that’s happened to me, I’ve realized things too late. But other times you do know what you should do, you realize the path you should take but just can’t afford it. I was once in the Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia.”

  “Wow,” Malcolm said, “pretty good school.”

  “Yah, but I had to take care of my father because he’d had a heart attack, and support myself, and I couldn’t do all three, so I just had to leave school before I got my degree.”

  “That’s a shame. I feel very badly for you. That’s different from what I’m saying really—that’s definitely a different kind of tragedy.”

  Chris nodded. “I’ve had the other kind, too, especially with my last girlfriend,” he said, suddenly turning his head and staring directly into Malcolm’s eyes.

  Had Chris emphasized the word “girlfriend” or had he imagined that? He heard the buzzing again and finished his next drink quickly, as if to drown it.

  “You want another?” he said, holding his glass up in the air.

  “No, thanks, I’ve got to get back to my cab now.”

  “What? You’ve hardly spent any time here at all,” Malcolm said, withdrawing a couple of fifties
from his pocket and holding them out above the table as if he were about to throw food to a fish or duck.

  “No, no, I really can’t.”

  “But I …”

  “Please put your money away, sir,” Chris said, rising from the table almost as if he were going to fight him. “My … time isn’t for sale like that.”

  “Oh my God, I know what you’re thinking, oh this is funny, sad mainly, of course, but also funny how you’ve gotten the wrong idea. Should I say what I think your idea is?”

  “I don’t have any ideas, sir.”

  “I thought you were an intelligent, very intelligent and interesting guy and you told me about your musical career and I felt badly for you and wanted to see if I could help you out and you thought or think, that …”

  “Don’t tell me what I think,” Chris said, gritting his teeth. “You don’t know me, or what’s happened to me. Your money doesn’t buy you that kind of power.”

  “You’ve misunderstood.”

  “Weren’t you quoting from that poem about experience? Well I’ve had the experience and I don’t miss the meaning and I’m going to learn from my experiences, OK? I don’t know what gives you rich guys the right to think you can treat a person as if you’ve discovered some great truth about them and what they really need and then insult them with it just because you think they’re sad or alone and poor.”

  Malcolm looked up at him and saw that his face was getting red.

  “No, not at all, Chris, you’ve really misunderstood.”

  “I haven’t misunderstood,” he said, pounding his fist on the table. A number of people looked up from their seats at them and Malcolm lowered his head. “You’ve misunderstood, Caesar,” he said, hissing his name sarcastically.

  Then he walked away from the table in a few quick, imperious strides. Malcolm was afraid to look around now, knowing that he was still being watched. He knew he should put one of the fifties on the table and go, yet he felt frozen, as if rooted to his chair.

  The leopard waitress picked that moment to pounce. “Would you like another drink, sir?”