The Main

Oh, he’s just tired; feeling a little cafard. There is vertigo in his sense of reality because he’s been awake too long, because of the hard scramble up the cinder embankment, and because of the pleasant, terrifying tingle, this effervescence in his blood…

Guttma

They sit in a back booth, the only customers of the A-One Café. When they came in, LaPointe greeted the old Chinese owner: “How’s it going, Mr. A-One?”

The Chinese cackled and responded, “Yes, you bet. That’s a good one!”

Guttma

Without asking what they wanted, the old man brought them two cups of coffee, thick and brackish, the lees from an afternoon pot. Then he returned to stand by the front window, motionless, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes focused on a mid-distance beyond his window.

The naked bulb above his head produces an oblique angle of light which deepens the furrows and rivulets of his face. His eyes do not blink.

LaPointe sits huddled in his coat, frowning meditatively as he slowly stirs his coffee, although he has not put sugar into it.

On the wall beside Guttma

Guttma

LaPointe looks up as though he has forgotten the young man’s presence. “Oh, you don’t need much sleep when you’re old. He has no wife. It helps to shorten the nights, I suppose.”

For the first time, Guttma

“What is it?” LaPointe asks. “What are you smiling at?”

“Oh, nothing,” Guttma

LaPointe nods. “You’ve got what Gaspard calls ‘the sits.’ “

“What?” Guttma

“The sits. That’s when you’re so tired and numb-headed that you don’t have the energy to get up and go home.”

“That’s what I’ve got all right. The sits. That’s a good name for it. I wish I were in bed right now.”

LaPointe glances at him, a smile in his down-sloping eyes.

“No,” Guttma

“We’re going to have to do some work tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow’s Saturday.”

LaPointe put his elbow on the table and his forehead in his palm. “That’s right. You see? Your college education wasn’t a waste after all. You know the days of the week. After Friday, Saturday. Come to think of it, tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“What?”

“What time is it?”

“Ah, it’s…” Guttma

“Want some more coffee?”

“No, sir. After spending the day with you, I don’t think I’ll ever want another cup of coffee in my life.” Guttma

“What does that mean? Inscrutable?”

“Inscrutable means… hell, sir, I don’t know. My brain’s gone to sleep. It means… ah… of or pertaining to the inability to scrute? Je scrute, tu scrutes, il scrute… shit, I don’t know.” He sits back, and his eyes settle on the Chinese again. “He must be lonely.”

LaPointe shrugs. “I doubt it. He’s past that.”

This simple bit of human understanding from the Lieutenant disturbs Guttma

“He should find some old duffers to play pinochle with,” Guttma

“Who?”

“The old Chinese who runs this place.”

“Why pinochle?”

“I don’t know. That’s what old farts do when they don’t know what else to do with themselves, isn’t it? Play pinochle? I mean…” Guttma

“Twice a week.”

Guttma

“Don’t blame fate. It’s your big mouth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What have you got against pinochle?”

“Believe it or not, I don’t have anything against pinochle. My grandfather used to play pinochle with his cronies late into the night sometimes.”

“Your grandfather.”

“Yes, sir. That’s mostly what I remember him doing; sitting with his friends until all hours. Playing. Pretending it mattered who won and who lost. I just came to associate it with lonely old men, I guess.”

“I see.”

“I have nothing against the game. I’m a pinochle player myself, sir. My grandfather taught me.”

“Are you any good?”

“Sir, excuse me. But doesn’t it strike you as odd that we are sitting in a Chinese all-night coffee shop at two in the morning talking about pinochle?”

LaPointe laughs. The kid’s okay. “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he says, taking from his overcoat pocket the wallet the Vet gave him, and emptying the contents onto the table. There is a scrap of paper with two girls’ names written in different hands, evidently by the girls themselves. First names only; not much help. There is a little booklet the size of a commemorative stamp, containing a dozen pictures of various sex positions and combinations: the kind of thing shown to objecting but giggling girls by a man who believes the myth that seeing the act automatically brings a woman to the point of panting necessity. In an accordion-pleated change pocket there are two contraceptives of the sort sold in vending machines in the toilets of cheap bars: guaranteed to afford maximum protection with minimum loss of sensation. Sold only for the prevention of disease. One of them features a “tickler”; the other is packed in a liquid lubricant. No money; the Vet got that. No driver’s license. The wallet is cheap imitation alligator, quite new. There is a card in one of the plastic windows with places for the owner to provide particulars. Childishly, the dead man had felt impelled to fill it in. LaPointe passes the wallet over to Guttma