Part 7 (2/2)
”What a wonder”
”I honestly don't remember”
”God is merciful,” the Molecule said dryly; he didn't believe in God, as his son well knew ”You hated every ood hated me”
”But Mom lied”
”I am shocked”
”She always told me you left when I was just a little baby”
”I did But I came back I am there when you come sick Then I stay and teach you to help you walk”
”And then you left again”
The Molecule appeared to choose to ignore this observation ”That's why I try to walk you around so ”
This possible second motive for their walks-after his father's inherent restlessness-had occurred to Sammy before He was flattered, and believed in his father, and in the potency of long walks
”So you'll take o?”
Still the Molecule hesitated ”What about your et rid ofyou”
At this the Molecule smiled From all outward appearances, the renewed presence of her husband in her household was nothing but an annoyance to Ethel, or worse-a betrayal of principles She criticized his habits, his clothing, his diet, his reading material, and his speech Whenever he tried to escape the fetters of his aard, obscene English and speak with his wife in the Yiddish in which both were fluent, she ignored him, pretended not to hear, or simply snapped, ”You're in America Talk American” Both in his presence and behind his back, she berated hi-winded stories of his vaudeville career and his childhood in the Pale of Settlehed too loudly, simply lived too loudly, beyond the lis Her entire discourse with him appeared to consist solely of aniht, and every night since his return, she had invited hiirlish shame, into her bed and allowed him to enjoy her At forty-five, she was not very different than she had been at thirty, lean, ropy, and smooth, with skin the color of alle of ink-black hair between her legs, which he liked to grab hold of and pull until she cried out She was a woone without the companionshi+p of a ranted him access to even those parts and uses of her that in their early life she had been inclined to keep to herself And when they were finished, she would lie beside him in the darkness of the tiny room she had partitioned froreat hairy chest, and repeat into his ear in a lohisper all the old endearht, in the dark, she did not hate to have hiht that had made him smile
”Don't he so sure of it,” he said
”I don't care, Pop I want to leave,” said Saht,” said his father ”I pro, when Saement on the old Carlos circuit, in the Southwest, said his note, where he spent the rest of his career playing hot, dusty theaters froh Sahty Molecule never again passed within a thousand ht, about a year before Joe Kavalier's arrival, a telegraround outside Galveston, under the rear wheels of a Deere tractor he was atte to upend, Alter Klayman had been crushed, and with hi fro with a partner
5
The two uppermost floors of a certain ancient red row house in the West Twenties, in the ten years before it was pulled down along with all of its neighbors to abled apartment block called Patroon Toere a notorious tomb for the hopes of cartoonists Of all the ans who had shown up, bearing fragrant, graduation-gift portfolios, mail-order diploe of ink under a ragged thu under its rotted tied kid froone on to meet with the kind of success they had all believed they would find-and the father of the Sh on to better lodgings across town
The landlady, a Mrs Waczukowski, was theof a gagned his strips ”Wacky” and on his death had left her only the building, an unconcealed disdain for all cartoonists veteran or new, and her considerable share of their inally, there had been six separate bedrooms on the top two stories, but over the years these had been recombined into a kind of ad hoc duplex with three bedroo rooed on a pair of cast-off sofas, and as referred to, generally without irony, as the kitchen: a former maid's room equipped with a hot plate, a pantry made from a steel supply cabinet stolen from Polyclinic Hospital, and a wooden shelf affixed with brackets to the ledge outside the , on which, in the cool s, and bacon could be kept
Jerry Glovsky had moved in about six months earlier, and since then Sahbor Julie Glovsky, Jerry's younger brother, had visited the apartnorant of the details of the apartar-smoke allure of male fellowshi+p, of years of hard work and sorrow in the service of absurd and glorious black-and-white visions At the present time there were two other ”permanent” occupants, Marty Gold and Davy O'Dowd, both of whom, like the elder Glovsky, shed sweat for Moe shi+flet, aka Moe Skinflint, a ”packager” of original strips who sold his material, usually of poor quality, to the established syndicates and, more recently, to publishers of comic books The place always see, lying around with their naked big toes protruding from the tips of their socks In the whole city of New York, there was nohall for the sort of laborers Sammy required to lay the cornerstone of the cheap and fantastic cathedral that would be his life's work
There was nobody ho men pounded on the door until Mrs Waczukowsi, her hair tied up in pink paper knots and a robe pulled around her shoulders, at last dragged herself up from the first floor and told them to scram
”Just another minute, madam,” said Sammy, ”and we shall trouble you no more”
”We have left some valuable antiquities in there,” Julie said, in the same clench-jawed Mr Peanut accent
Sa men smiled at her with as many of their teeth as they could expose until finally she turned, consigning them all to hell with the eloquent back of her hand, and retreated down the stairs
Sammy turned to Julie ”So where is Jerry?”
”Beats et in there Where is everybody else?”
”Maybe they ith him”
”Don't you have a key?”
”Do I live here?”
”Maybe we could get in the ”
”Five stories up?”
”daave the door a feeble kick ”It's past noon and we haven't drawn a line! Christ” They would have to go back to the Kra and ask to work at the rutted tables in the offices of Racy Publications, a course that would inevitably bring theaze
Joe was kneeling by the door, running his fingers up and down the ja, Joe?”
”I could get us in, only I leave behind my tools”
”What tools?”
”I can pick the locks,” he said ”I was trained to, to what, to get out of things Boxes Ropes Chains” He stood up and pointed to his chest ”Ausbrecher ”Ausbrecher Outbreaker No, what it is? 'Escape artist' ” Outbreaker No, what it is? 'Escape artist' ”
”You are a trained escape artist”
Joe nodded
”You”
”Like Houdini”
”Meaning you can get out out of things,” Sas,” Saet us in?”