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Ben worked the opening shift most Wednesdays—up at five-thirty, into the hissing shower and out, stumbling around his apartment gathering clothes by the light of the desk lamp. He walked to Luis’ under a lint gray sky, the streets silent except for the distant clatter of garbage trucks and the sound of his own footsteps.
He tried to think of Trenton as his city, the place that had been waiting for him while he toured high school classrooms with his tubful of notes, rattling off arguments that made judges sit up just a little straighter in their chairs. He told himself it held secrets—networks of back alleys, used bookshops where debates broke out like playground scuffles (and were governed by similar rules), maybe a hidden room beneath the New Jersey State Museum housing an exhibit that was actually interesting.
Sometimes, though—particularly on Wednesday mornings, fuzzy headed and scrabbling with a recalcitrant key at the front lock to a dry-cleaning store—even Ben Wekselbaum could be less than persuasive.
At seven-thirty Gus (nobody on the payroll at Luis' was named Luis—he was a mythical figure invoked in the face of overbearing customers) showed up with two cups of shitty coffee.
“I still don’t drink coffee,” Ben informed him. “Not even coffee so terrible a credible argument might be made as to its not being coffee at all.”
“Aw, come on.” Gus plunked himself down on the window ledge and began digging rumpled packets of Equal from his pockets. Once he’d amassed a sizeable heap, he popped the lid off a cup and dumped in enough sweetener to send up a cloud of fine white dust. “Live a little. It’s coffee. This early in the morning, it is what separates us from the zombies.”
"I don't like it, Gus. What’s more, I don't wanna like it. Habits are dangerous things—you drink that one innocent cup of coffee, before you know it ten years have gone by and you’re brewing a pot every morning because without it your eyes won’t focus. I refuse to live out the rest of my days shackled to a coffee maker. Zombies.” Ben shook his head, unable to suppress a smile. “That’s a new one.”
They had this conversation at least once a week; invariably, it ended with Gus downing both cups of coffee.
When he got off at one-thirty, Ben walked back to his apartment on aching feet, the phantom weight of a smock around his neck. His hair was damp with sweat and although, like an Olympic swimmer inured to the reek of chlorine, he no longer registered the scent, he knew he gave off the kerosene-sweet odor of dry cleaning. As if his skin had become too delicate, too refined for the likes of soap and water.
But all of it, the litany of petty afflictions, receded at the thought of a free afternoon. “Afternoon”—he’d never given the word due credit, infatuated as he’d been with polysyllabic monstrosities like “incontrovertible” and “contradistinction,” words that could tear an opposing argument wide open. There was a straightforward elegance to it, a promise of relief, the cool shadow spread beneath a tree.
As he climbed the steps to his apartment he weighed the merits of simply getting lost for the rest of the day—taking a wrong turn and seeing where it led. He didn’t notice Hal Hefner until he’d nearly fallen into his lap. “Wha—hooooly,” Ben said, beating a hasty retreat down the top few steps. He stood for a moment, marshalling breath and dignity. “Hal Hefner. What brings you here?”
“N…ah”—Hal scrambled to his feet—“New Jersey Transit. Also, you—you—you said I could stop by.”
Ben drummed his fingers on the railing. “So I did.”
"It looks exactly the same," Hal said with a laugh when Ben shouldered open the door. He paced a quick circuit of the room, grinning at the discolored wallpaper and threadbare armchair like they were old, dear friends. "I know this sounds a—a little crazy, but I was worried I'd come here and..." He balled his hand into a fist, then splayed his fingers.
“You thought maybe I packed up the magic banjo and took my show on the road? Nah. Have a seat.” Ben switched on the fan perched in the window; a mechanical buzz filled the apartment, followed by a tepid breeze. “Tell me your troubles. As long as they’ve got nothing to do with abstinence, that is. I am sick to death of abstinence.”
“So am I,” Hal said emphatically.
They looked at each other—Hal flustered, Ben adopting the politely neutral expression every expert debater masters—and burst out laughing.
“In all seriousness,” Ben said, stretching out in his chair, “what’s the occasion? It’s not every day someone camps out at my door.”
Hal shrugged the classic high school shrug, the one that managed to convey a bone-deep weariness with not only the question at hand, but all questions everywhere. “School’s out. It actually—actually it’s been out for like four days. Ginny Ryerson’s graduated, she’s going to Yale. That’s what I heard.” He sighed, and slumped, and bowed his head. “Anyway.”
“I’m not surprised.” Ben spared a thought for Ginny as he’d first known her—a sophomore whose hand would clamp down on his arm when she encountered a promising bit of research, like they’d reached the top of a roller coaster and were about to plummet down together. She was probably at home right now, measuring the walls in anticipation of her diploma’s arrival. “It’s rare that Ginny doesn’t get what she thinks she wants.”
“I bet she was valedictorian,” Hal said listlessly. “I—I—I bet she gave a speech, and everyone, when she was done, they all told her how…”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. As a matter of fact, that might’ve given her some trouble, having to write a speech about something she actually believes in.”
“Yeah.” Hal nodded—tentatively at first, as if he’d caught the faintest strain of a song he couldn’t quite recognize, then with more certainty. “Yeah. Hey, today was—it was b—b—b—“ He sucked in a breath. “Today I sold my books back. To the school. My brother has this, he has this scam where he digs through the trash for other people’s books and then—and then forges copies of their class schedules. What I mean is, what I’m trying to say—I’m kind of—well, I’m loaded. That and my arms really hurt and it’s probably a good thing I won’t see Mister, ah, Coad until next year—and—and here we are.” He paused. “In the big city.”
“I’m not taking you to a strip club, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Ben said.
“No, ha ha. No. I thought maybe we could go someplace you like? Pre—preferably someplace that serves food, since I didn’t exactly eat lunch.”
“I know the perfect little Mexican place,” Ben said. “How’s your Spanish?”
"Fantástico.” Hal smiled. “I was—somebody once told me I could be Vice President of the Spanish club.”