Still, there was no choice but to go on. And so she took the paper from her bag and once again turned to the classified section. She scoured its pages, noting the varied skills she did not possess. She knew nothing of computers, nothing of bookkeeping, nothing of management, nothing of organization. She couldn’t set a broken leg or clean a tooth. She couldn’t fix anything or assemble anything or break anything down once it was assembled. She knew nothing about the theater, nothing about carpentry, nothing about recruitment. She had no experience in retail, had never sold a skirt, a greeting card, a record. The only thing she’d ever sold was herself, her voice, and that was probably long gone.
She folded the paper and considered just how little she’d learned in her life that anyone else could use. She knew scores of old songs, could play a little piano. But so what? The world was full of people who could do these things. The point was to be able to do something that someone else wanted done and would pay you to do. Or maybe just something you had that someone else wanted. Maybe no more than your body.
She froze, appalled by the idea that she could think so little of herself. And yet, what did she actually have to offer? What could she do that a thousand other people couldn’t do better?
She knew that these were devastating questions, and that if she pursued them, she would fall and fall and at the end of her fall she would reach the bottom of her will and there lay prostrate and defeated, a woman fit only to be scooped up and tossed into the backseat of a car and driven back to Long Island.
And so she decided that there were some realities that no one could afford to stare in the face, because if you did, you saw only the heartless truth of your situation, and if you did that, you’d give up on everything. The winners were the ones who ignored the facts, because the facts were like whirling swords, forever slashing at your hope, and against which you had only the armor of your refusal and avoidance and denial, whatever you needed to say,
She rose and made her way back across town, pausing briefly in Washington Square Park to watch the street musicians who gathered there. Some were singing folk songs and strumming guitars. There were a couple of rappers, and near the fountain, a lone crooner of the old standards. He was in his sixties, Sara supposed, his voice a bit gravelly, and yet somehow perfect for the world-weary lyrics of “But Not for Me.”
Listening to him, she realized how little she’d known about life when she’d sung the old romantic songbook. She was sure she could sing these songs more truthfully now, because of all that went wrong and faded and vanished, all that betrayed and disappointed you, the things that never added up and the things that never made sense, and because she knew that for her to sing them in any other way would be to sing a lie.
CARUSO
So, could Piano Man be Batman? Caruso wondered as he sipped his beer. The guy sure didn’t fit the image he’d had in his head. But facts were facts, and he’d watched from just across the street and seen Mortimer talking somberly to this same guy who sat, playing the piano, utterly ordinary, nondescript, and who for all the world didn’t look like he could find a black guy in Harlem, much less some crazy broad who ditched her husband and sure as hell didn’t want to be found.
He grabbed his beer and strolled to the back of the bar.
Piano Man had just come to the end of a song, so it seemed to Caruso that it was a perfect time to chat him up.
“You worked here a long time?” he asked.
“Seems like forever,” the man answered.
Caruso took a quick sip of beer, then glanced about the nearly empty bar. “Slow night.”
“It’s early,” the man said. “We get a better crowd at night.”
“So, you got entertainment.” Caruso nodded toward the piano. “I seen the sign outside. Abe Morgenstern at the piano.”
Piano Man shrugged. “I just like to keep from getting too rusty. We used to have a singer.”
“This all you do, piano?” Caruso lit a cigarette.
“No, I own the place,” Piano Man answered.
“Own the place, no shit,” Caruso said. He smiled. “My father had a small business,” he lied. “A bakery. Lived right over it. All night he could smell the work he’d done that day. Never got away from it. It eats you alive, a small business.”
“It takes up a lot of time, that’s for sure,” Piano Man agreed.
“So, you’re like my dad, you live upstairs?”
“No,” Piano Man answered. “I got a place over on Grove Street.”
Caruso smiled cheerfully. He couldn’t tell if Piano Man was lying, but he hoped he was. He loved being lied to because it confirmed a truth he needed for his work, the fact that people were scum, so whatever you did to them, they fucking deserved it.