Manhattan 62 by Reggie Nadelson Read Free Book Online Page B

especially this F.A.O. Schwarz. Of course, we have a grand toy store in Moscow, but I am like a ten-year-old boy here. Grown men in suits are admiring the train sets. Perhaps Mrs Miller thinks I will defect for a beautiful Lionel train set.”
    â€œHow do you feel about that?”
    He looks at me, startled, perplexed, concerned suddenly.
    â€œI’m kidding you, man.”
    â€œI see.” He’s uneasy now, just for a moment, fumbling for his cigarettes.
    â€œIt was a joke, Max. I’m kidding, I’m fooling around with you, man.”
    â€œOf course. Can you believe how time flies, Pat? It’s almost a month since we first met. I have been meaning to tell you how grateful I am to you for answering so many of my questions. So many of the graduate students are, would you say, square? I try. I try to sound more, more swinging. Can you say that would be copacetic? Or am I cruisin’ for a bruisin’?” He bursts out laughing. He makes me laugh. I say, “Very American, daddy-O.”
    â€œI have also become pretty fond of the whisky you introduced me, too. I am down with it. By the way, Mrs Miller asks if you would come for dinner. She is awfully kind, I have my own room, and a bathroom for myself,” says Max. “Mrs Miller believes I, a young man, must have my privacy, and I am not sure what this means. We do not have this concept, you see. I feel I have fallen into a magic rabbit hole. What is privacy precisely, Pat? This is not something we understand in my country.”
    I explain as best I can. Crossing 3rd Street, Max looks around MacDougal like a kid eating cake with both hands, he takes out his notebook and scribbles in it, puts it back.
    â€œWhat language do you write in?”
    â€œAh, only English. I promise myself I will only speak in English, I will write in English. If I dream in English, this means I am truly fluent.”
    â€œWhat do you write about?”
    â€œOh, everything. This is like theater. So many things I have to recall, to write to my family.”
    Every night the Village throbs with music, music from folk clubs, jazz clubs, bars, cafés, coffee houses. Along MacDougal, kids wait to get into the Gaslight Café and Café Wha and they’re crazy with excitement. “Did you hear that new guy, Dylan? You heard him? Is that her, is it Mary?” cries a girl in sandals. “My mother will flip her wig when she hears I’ve been to the Village.”
    Suburban kids dressed in black as if for a costume party, return tickets to Long Island in their pockets, throng the street, drunk with the prospect of a night out in Greenwich Village. Italian boys stand around, posturing; like Bobby Darin, or Tony Curtis, they figure, pompadours glistening with Brylcreem, hands jammed in pockets, eyeing tourists with disdain, maybe spoiling for a little action on a hot summer night.
    â€œThis is like theater,” Max says. “So much.” He has out the little notebook, scribbling furiously. Puts it away. Extracts his pack of Lucky Strike. “Where shall we go for our beer?”
    â€œLet’s go to Minetta Tavern, it’s across the street.”
    Inside Minetta, Max examines the photos of boxers on the walls and then climbs onto a stool at the bar next to me. He orders Rheingold for us both. I add a double Scotch for myself. Me, I also want some meatballs. I haven’t been eating. The food here is good, and it’s cheap.
    I down the drinks in one gulp and order cheap red wine. I eat a couple of meatballs and order more wine. I feel better. This is what I need, a night off the case I can’t solve, and from my nightmares.
    â€œSo what’s new, Max?”
    â€œI am now familiar with disc jockeys such as Cousin Brucie Morrow, and Murray the K. and his Swinging Soirees for Submarine Watchers, isn’t that it, Pat?”
    â€œMax, man, I am proud of you, so easy to fall for the folkie stuff, living down here in