About Schmidt - Louis Begley [47]
It was clear to Schmidt that he had to get away. How to do it was less clear. The man’s thick legs occupied the entire space in front of him, and Schmidt did not think he could step over them. He would have to shake the man and ask him to move over. That’s what he did. The man broke wind again, and inquired, Your bowels acting up or your bladder?
It seemed to Schmidt that he winked as he said these words.
Neither. Please get up for a moment. I’d just like to get by you.
Hoity-toity, aren’t you? Isn’t that something: he would just like to get by me! What’s the matter, doesn’t he like sitting with me?
He shook with laughter, and spread himself more comfortably in the seat, putting his gloved hands—the gloves were of knitted cotton thread, of a sort Schmidt hadn’t seen in years, that Charlotte had worn with her riding clothes—on the handle of his cane. He gave Schmidt another wink; this time there was no doubt about it.
Sir, I don’t know you and I don’t want to talk to you. I just want to leave this seat. Will you please get your legs out of the way!
The man pursed his mouth. He he he!
The way he laughed, or perhaps it was his mouth, reminded Schmidt queerly of the first judge before whom he had ever appeared, on a routine unopposed motion to ask for permission to amend an answer to a complaint. The judge denied it. He he he. And then he said, Haven’t you heard me, young fellow? Sit down! That had been an absurd ruling, and it took considerable labor to overturn it, but what was he to do now? Remain in the stench for another hour, with this mad hobo sneering at him? Ring for the attendant, an adolescent girl sitting next to the driver, and try to get the driver to mediate?
Let me out, he told the man. I can’t wait. I’ve got to go to the can this very minute.
That’s better. Now let’s try saying please.
Please.
The man stood up in the aisle. As Schmidt squeezed past him, the man caught him in a long embrace and kissed him near the ear. Yeah, I like you when you’re polite, just like my brother, he whispered.
In the chemical toilet Schmidt washed his hands and face. As he made his way back toward the front of the bus, he saw that the man’s eyes were closed. The driver was a big black, listening to a West Indian talk show on a radio stuck in his shirt pocket. The row immediately behind him was empty, and that’s where Schmidt sat down. The Warden was somewhere on the ground near his previous seat. He wasn’t going back there to search for a pocket book. When the bus stopped in Southampton, he dashed out, found his car in the jitney parking lot, and locked himself in. Only then did he look back. The man may have stayed aboard. He was nowhere in sight. Schmidt waited for his heart to stop pounding, started the motor, and pulled out of the parking lot onto the highway. Then, in the beam of his headlights, he saw the man energetically walking east on the side of the road, swinging his cane and nodding his head with great satisfaction.
V
ALL NEXT MORNING, Schmidt waited for Charlotte to call him. Surely she would want to tell him she was glad the first encounter with the Rikers had gone well. Would she say, I was proud of you, Dad, you looked so nice in that old suit? Then he would mention the conversation with Renata about a weekend visit when the Rikers might see the house. Schmidt had contempt for people who find it easy to say, left and right, come to dinner soon, you must visit us at the beach, let’s see a movie together, and then let the subject drop. He had invited Renata. That had created a piece of unfinished business to which he would attend promptly, for instance when he wrote or telephoned to thank her for the holiday lunch. His normal preference was for writing, typically on one of the postcards he collected for the day he might want to make a sly allusion to this or that event, but a telephone call appeared more friendly. It was his intention to be friendly toward that woman; he had been thinking about her. He assumed that Charlotte’s office was closed on the Friday after Thanksgiving,