The Soul Thief_ A Novel - Charles Baxter [33]
Nathaniel involuntarily takes in the People’s Kitchen. Its sights and smells—the graying dust on the front windows, the vinegary odor of cooked food and gamy dirty clothing, the collection of cast-off benches and chairs on which the four other shabby diners sit, absorbing what nourishment they can, the cars on Allen Street rumbling by in a gray audible haze—the entire scene, he knows, should depress him with its overtones of despondency, what his stepfather used to refer to, smilingly, as miserabilium. Gray day, grayer mood. But no: he feels comforted and slightly elated to be here among scruffy outcasts. These are his people.
“So what’s your point?” Nathaniel asks.
“My point? My point? Listen, there’s gotta be a word for people like you, people who get off being around people like me. I’m just trying not to go down the drain here, man. Maybe you haven’t noticed: my future ain’t what it used to be.”
He rubs at his chin. He is working himself up and shivers with agitation.
“You look at me. Okay, I got a habit. Also I got a pregnant wife, but we love each other, me and Luceel, and you come in here, asking me questions like I’m some award you got in the Good Deed Department. You sit there, college boy, pretending like I got a whole bunch of choices in life, a cookie jar full of cookies. You got a word for yourself, for what you are, you little shit, you slimeball educated fuck?” He says this quietly, with scary neutrality.
“A sentimentalist,” Nathaniel says. “But I thought we were talking about my stolen shirts.”
“Whatever.” Ben takes another bite of bread. Outside a siren passes. “So, on account of you once made me a cup of coffee, I’ll say this to you, at least: No, it wasn’t whoever you said it was, Iceberg or Coolberg or Kustard or whatever the fuck his name is or was, who asked me for a couple of your shirts and the other stuff. Hey, someone comes up to me, askin’ for help on a job, offering money, I don’t ask this jerkoff who they are and what they want this shit for. I just do it.”
“So who was it? Who was he?”
“Not a ‘he.’ It was a her. Your girlfriend.”
“Jamie? What would Jamie want with my clothes?”
“That’s funny. You’re funny. Jamie. I like that. Me, I do my women one at a time. Sorry to disappoint you. I never heard of this Jamie. Wasn’t her.”
“Theresa?”
“That’s the one.”
“How’d she find you?”
“Guess you must’ve told her about me.”
“Did she talk to you here?”
Ben shakes his head emphatically. “We’re finished, you and me. No more questions, and no more answers neither.” Ben takes his spoon and taps it twice on the soup bowl. “No, wait a minute, I just thought of something.” He turns to gaze through his film-noir eyeglasses at Nathaniel for a long moment, during which the sounding clatter of dishware comes out of the kitchen, and Ben takes a stagy cigarette from his shirt pocket, sticks it into his mouth, and lights it with a safety match. Outside on the street, a car hoots. “You know what? I’m better than you.” He inhales and nods, agreeing with himself. “Much better. I love my wife, is the thing. I don’t have to apologize about that to no one. Okay, I’m a big screw-up. I’m a flop as a moneymaker. Mistakes were made. But I’m okay with that. You could even say I was happy, once I was dead.” He points the cigarette at Nathaniel, and Nathaniel flinches. “And you are whatever you are.”
17
HIDEOUSLY PERKY and upbeat, Theresa on the phone informs Nathaniel that, yes, indeed, she will certainly discuss the theft of his clothing (a joke! for heaven’s sake! a joke!), but, no, she will not do so at his apartment or at hers, which she refers to as “ma maison,” the sexy irony in her voice side by side with comic pretentiousness. Then she coughs and says, “We’re certainly not going to have a ‘long serious talk,’ as you call it, while we’re sitting around somewhere. I don’t like sedentary quarrels.” Instead, they will meet at Delaware Park at the west end of the pond, and together they will jog until they reach the zoo, whereupon