Manhattan 62 by Reggie Nadelson Read Free Book Online Page A

with Max Ostalsky; how I ended up talking too much; how I let him play me.
    I had signed up for a course at NYU the summer I was working the High Line. I didn’t have much free time, but I went to my class when I could, and it turns out we have classes in the same building, Max and me. Same building; same time. Before class, he always has his nose in a book, checking his work, practicing his English. But afterwards it becomes a habit for us to meet up for a cup of coffee, or a beer.
    Around NYU, people like Max Ostalsky. He’s goodlooking, he laughs, he’s interested in everything, and people take notice of it. “He’s awfully nice for a Communist,” one girl tells me.
    Students, professors too, invite him home for dinner. Miss NYU gets her picture taken with Max. Peaceniks inquire solemnly about his views on unilateral disarmament. Sometimes in his old-fashioned brown leather briefcase, he carries little gifts for his new friends—painted boxes with pictures of Russia, wooden dolls that contain smaller and small dollies inside, even Russian chocolate bars.
    Max debates anyone who wants to, in class, in the park, he listens politely, and sticks up for his country. But he has a sense of humor, and tells me that for his paper on Moby-Dick, he’s planning an essay on the whale as the engine of capitalism, and then he chuckles about it.
    Does Max know the crew-cut fellow in the wrinkled tan suit I saw opposite his building on University Place is FBI and only pretends he’s a grad student? But it’s none of my business.
    The day in July my name hits the papers Max is waiting for me, as usual, on the steps at NYU, a copy of the New York Post in his hand.
    â€œThis case must be so difficult, Pat?”
    â€œIt’s my job.”
    I can see he wants to talk about it, but I’ve had it with the story for now. I take the newspaper from him, and lob it into a garbage can. “Enough of that. Enough.”
    â€œMay I buy you a glass of beer?”
    I’m glad for some diversion. It’s six, but still light, high summer. The park is full of pretty girls. Everywhere I see girls like the dead girl on the High Line: young, pretty, a whole life ahead of them. I’m not sentimental about the dead, it’s my business, but this is different. I could use a drink.
    â€œSure, a beer sounds good. Why not?”
    â€œThat is fine,” says Max.
    â€œNice duds,” I say, as we stroll across the park towards MacDougal Street.
    â€œThank you,” says Max who looks pretty good, decent haircut, new tortoiseshell specs; in the chinos and pink button-down shirt, a dark blue jacket over his arm, he looks, what does he look? American. An all-American College Joe and even he way he holds himself, he fits in with the other adult students. A lot of them are in their twenties, even thirties. Most everyone goes to class in a coat and tie, the girls in heels and their mothers’ handbags, the ones who are looking for a husband in the dental school at least. “So who’s been advising you on your clothes?”
    Max glances at the chess players on the north side of the park, eye on a couple of men in hats, one white, one Negro, hard at it.
    â€œYou play?”
    â€œSome,” he says.
    â€œYou any good?”
    â€œIt depends who is on the other side of the table.”
    â€œLet’s get that beer.”
    â€œYes. Sure. It is Mrs Muriel Miller, by the way, my, what would you say, landlady, who helps me with shopping. She is very kind, Pat. I think she considers me like a son, or better to say, a nephew. I believe she is lonely because her own son is married, and on Long Island.”
    â€œThe clothes?”
    â€œOf course. Last week she accompanies me on top of a Fifth Avenue bus to many stores.”
    â€œWhat did you think?”
    â€œI think she wants to convert me to your system through shopping, and to be honest, the stores are quite amazing,