Part 44 (2/2)

Gift for who? For you or me?

What's that supposed to mean?

Are you giving me? Or buying me?

For Pete's sake, I just want you to take it easy, find another job.

Is no other jobs for me. You know this, Julius. Is no way out.

There's always a way out, Margaret.

Why you doing this?

I want you to be around more. Spend more time with me. Is that so bad?

Why?

Say, what kind of crazy third degree is this?

People do not just help other people for no reason.

Okay. You want a reason? I like you.

She holds up the roll of money. What this make us?

I don't think there's a word for us, Margaret.

She thinks. She wraps both hands around the money.

I just want you to be happy, Margaret.

Is very kind. Thank you, Julius.

At Willie's request, Mad Dog pays a visit to Margaret's boss and delivers her resignation, effective immediately. Now, while Willie is off planning the next bank job with Mad Dog, Margaret is arranging fresh flowers in his room, shopping for his books, combing the newspapers for jazz concerts and movies they might like.

Some nights, if Willie is too tired, if he has a job coming up, he and Margaret heat some soup, listen to the radio. She likes him to read to her. He teaches her Tennyson. Come into the garden, Maud. He replaces Maud with Margaret. He teaches her Pound. Now you will come out of a confusion of people. She loves this line, says it over and over, though she's not sure what it means.

Poetry doesn't have to mean anything, he says.

So poetry is like Humphrey Bogie.

Well-no. It's just that sometimes a line of poetry is beautiful, that's all. And the beauty is the meaning. Or it's all the meaning you need.

I like things that have meaning.

I think people care too much about meaning. Meaning is a pipe dream. A grift. I like things that are beautiful. That's why I like you.

She smiles, presses her cheek to his.

Best of all Margaret enjoys stretching out on Willie's bed and wrapping an arm across her eyes while he sits in his chair and reads the newspapers aloud. They have a similar slant on the world, a kindred sense of good guys and bad. She hisses when he reads about Joseph McCarthy, smiles when he reads about Gandhi.

Before they both get under the covers and turn out the lights she reads their horoscopes. Her mother was fascinated by astrology. What is your birth date, Julius?

June 30.

Uh-oh. Cancer.

That bad?

Same as me. We the only sign ruled by the moon.

What's that mean?

We moody, sensitive, emotional.

That's the bunk.

Is true. You do not know yourself.

What makes you say that?

No one do.

No one knows me, or no one knows themselves?

No one knows nothing about no one.

For Willie's fiftieth birthday Margaret buys him a new fedora. For Margaret's twenty-seventh birthday Willie buys her a charm bracelet, a silk scarf, a black-and-white bonnet. Though it cost the least-thirteen dollars at Saks-she likes the bonnet best.

You'd think I bought you a mink coat, he says.

I like this better. Nothing is hurt for this.

He thinks of the money he used to buy that hat, the bank he robbed to get it. One of the tellers sobbed with fear the whole time he and Mad Dog were cleaning out the safe. He puts the thought from his mind as Margaret sets the hat on her head like a diamond tiara. She glides around Willie's room wearing nothing else. He tells her that her body is remarkable.

I know.

He laughs. He calls her his Irish Cleopatra. Get it? he says. Clee O'Patra?

She doesn't get it, and he can't explain.

Late on the Fourth of July, very late, it's too hot to sit in the room on Dean Street. It's too hot to sit anywhere. Willie takes Margaret for a ride on the ferry. They stand on the deck, enjoying the breeze, smelling the water, listening to the last fireworks crackling onsh.o.r.e. Margaret is happy. Willie is content. Until the Statue of Liberty comes into view. The seven rays of the statue's crown, representing the seven continents, look exactly like the seven cellblocks of Eastern State and the Burg-he never noticed until now. How is it that every time he looks at this statue he sees something he didn't see before?

Margaret puts an arm around his shoulders. You are having unhappy thoughts, Julius.

I am.

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