Chapter 41 Section 5

"Hi, Bobby." "I'm busy here." "Hi, Bobby." "I'm busy here." "Hi, Bobby. We want to tell you something." "Let me tell you, right, I'm busy." "Juju wants to talk to you. Hey, Bobby. Listen to me." "Go away, okay?" "Hi, Bobby." "You fuck off." "Hi, Bobby." "Didn't you see me working here?" "Hi, Bobby. Juju wants to tell you something." "what?" "Hi, Bobby." "Okay, what is it?" "this matter."

"Okay, what is it?" "Squeeze the shit in your fist," Nick said. She didn't know what to call it, something light, a breeze, something changing, a flower on a tree or a fragrant raindrop.She stood on the doorstep, watching a man walk across the street, rust falling from the fourth-floor fire escape. Two doors away, a truck pulls up in front of a grocery store.The shopkeeper's son came out, unlocked the big lock on the metal door facing the sidewalk, and pushed the sliding door open.Two men unloaded the crates of Coke, put them on a trolley, and pushed into the store.Two people, one young and one old, with crates in both hands, walked along the path and entered the underground storage room.

Clara lit a cigarette and started to walk across the street to pick up the baby.Today, Wednesday, the child is in the care of the tailor's wife, and it is almost time to pick him up. The young man came up to the doorstep. This was his third or fourth delivery to the basement. "You'll let me take a puff, will you? Take a puff." She looked at him, considering his request. "I don't want to ask you," he said. She looked at him, at his wet shirt and battered denim overalls.He rested the crate on his belly, the veins popping under his rolled-up sleeves. "One sip," he said, "makes a world of difference."

She said, "Does it go to the sky or to the ground?" He smiled and looked away.Later, he looked at her and said, "What does it matter which way you go when you need to smoke?" She stretched out her hand, trying to pass him the cigarette.But instead of putting down the crate of Coke and reaching for the cigarettes, he went up two steps toward her and looked her in the eye.That means, she either puts the cigarette in his mouth, or changes her mind about giving it. At the beginning, she didn't make a decision, took a sip by herself, and asked him: "Aren't you afraid that this will affect your physical development?"

After six or seven days, she went out of the apartment and locked the door.Someone stood on the doorstep, looking in from outside the foyer.She knew who the man was and what he was doing here.She made a gesture of either avoidance or invitation.Then she put the key back in the lock and opened the door. He followed her into the spare room.She turned around to find him looking at her.He was a huge man, holding her, leaning against the wall, with one hand on her upper arm, which she reached out to push away.She expected herself to be crazy, but she didn't feel that way.He tried touching her upper arm again, and she waved it away.He shrugged and laughed, enjoying the interaction.She put her hand on his chest, thinking it would make him stop laughing.

"Are you the kid I'm supposed to know? Who are you? I don't care," she said. He was dark and muscular, and he pushed her against the wall again.She reached back to push the hair from her face, feeling that as long as he was in this room, no one would know that crazy things were going on here.This is the spare room, the studio.She shouldn't be naked here, but her feet felt cold on the uncarpeted floor.Nothing very special happened here. His hands were caressing her body, and his body smelled of cigarettes and something else—a strange mixture of body odor and sweat.The two kissed for a long time, seemingly for hours.Those long kisses were so wet that she lost them, felt distant and empty, felt his hand rubbing her breasts roughly.Suddenly, though, she pushed him away and went to the closet at the end of the hall to find the mattress for the crib.It was a Jewish heirloom that had been used for generations.

She went back into the room and handed him the rolled mattress.He held it upright as if to bump it, tongue sticking out. She looks around the room.He untied the ropes that bound the mattress, spread it out, knelt on it and waited.At this time, the room looked very beautiful, with shadows, lines and blanks, obscurity and clarity coexisting.She came up to him, of course with distrust, and motioned for him to sit down. She didn't know what was going to happen, and the seconds passed by.Later, he took her into his arms, kissing and stroking her, but she still resisted.She thought of the word touch, thought of the word penis, smelled the basement smell of his body and the smell of the dusty shabby room, and resisted any movement he made.

The two rolled into a ball, groaning, shouting, sweating profusely, and breathing heavily, like drinking water.The contact part of the body makes a sound like smacking lips.Here he is, waiting for her to explore.She liked to stop and watch, now to look away, now to guide his hand.Later, she went into the kitchen, fetched a glass of water, went back to the room, poured some on his chest, and found that his body did not fit the small mattress.She handed him the glass, watched him drink, and thought that there was nothing insane that she could define clearly, except that she was naked in the studio.

Later, the two embraced again, rolled into a ball, and made another new attempt.She closed her eyes and imagined the two hugging each other.She could almost do such a thing, absolutely.Together the two carcasses roll, move, pose in various poses, merge into one, caressing each part, like the lovers in a Picasso painting. He was out of the room to go to the bathroom, and she felt weird, crazy, completely out of her mind.She just sat on the mattress and smoked, though. "Thirteen inches." "Thirteen inches." "What's your name? Captain." "Captain. Well, that sounds better than the captain, doesn't it?"

"The sky was clear and there was no snow." "Thirteen inches. Thirteen inches of something? Do you need thirteen inches? Bend over." "Hey. What army are you with?" "Bend down. I'll let you take a look, there's no snow." "Hey. What army are you with?" "You already have the title Captain. I'll give you a Motorola." "Your whole family, including your grandpa and his monkey, can't get thirteen inches." Bronzini stood in the classroom, looking at the forty-four determined-looking students in a general science class.Most of them are sixteen years old, a few are slightly older, and some are even eighteen years old.Some of those people are dull by nature, and some are foolish in class, and they are left far behind on the long and arduous journey of seeking knowledge.

He stood behind a large podium and spoke, his eyes sometimes looked at the wall, sometimes at the ceiling, sometimes at the windows on the wall opposite the podium, sometimes at the smoke rising from the bus on Fordham Road, sometimes at the edge of the woods. side of the university.There, fourth-year students wear bachelor gowns.On the stone pillars of the south courtyard wall of the campus, the names of alumni who died in World War I are engraved in capital letters. Fordham University. "We can only observe the world clearly after we understand the structure of nature. We need to calculate, measure, verify. This is the scientific method. Science. Observation and description of phenomena. Phenomena. Human five senses can perceive things. Seasonal changes are Makes sense. At a certain point, the cold dies down and the days get longer, every year, and the time is accurate. Last class, we discussed the difference between equinoxes and solstices. I believe, you Remember this, Miss Innosandi. Planets turn in an orderly fashion, and we can predict their orbits through the sky, admiring the mathematics involved. Planets orbit the sun in ellipses. Ellipses, slightly Flattened circles. Here we find form and law, the laws of nature working in harmony. Think of the rhythm of the waves. Think of the birth of a baby. A woman gives birth on time— — Applebaum, eyes looking ahead. We say, everything is going as it should. During labor, we can see the accuracy of the laws of nature. The woman goes through the stages in sequence, the fetus grows, develops. We can predict , we can say, maybe this week or next week, the baby will be born. Everything is on schedule - Miss Innosandi, chewing gum like you are. The development of the fetus is also on schedule, it will take nine months , weighs seven pounds two ounces. We need numbers in order to understand things in the world. We think in numbers, for example, to tell time in decades. We need to know fundamental principles - Alphonse Catanzaro —in order to understand the world more clearly.” A voice came from the back of the classroom. "Call him Alan." There was a burst of cheerful laughter in the classroom, like a breeze blowing through a haystack.For the most part, Bronzini does a good job of maintaining classroom discipline.The students understood that he did not want to confront them head-on.Bronzini speaks contemplatively and softly, sometimes veering off topic and away from the day's learning.They see this as his personal evasion, similar to their own. Another voice sounded near the window, a girl's voice, imitating a sissy. "Don't call me Alphonse, call me Alan. I want to be a movie star." This time, the knowing laughter of the students resounded in the classroom.Bronzini felt great sympathy for the boy, the emaciated Alphonse.Instead of criticizing them, though, he continued lecturing, trying to drown out the students' hilarity with his voice.Poor Alphonse, his thin face is covered with unfortunate acne, like grapes. "We need numbers, letters, maps and charts, and scientific formulas in order to know the structure of things. E=MC2." He wrote the equation on the blackboard. "Why do a few marks written on a blackboard, a few little squiggles, represent the shape of human history? Energy, mass, speed of light. Protons, neutrons, electrons. How big is an atom? Let me tell you .If man were the size of an atom, think, Gagliardi, that the whole world could stand on the head of a needle. Think of the enormous energy stored in matter. Matter is something that has mass Things, including solids, liquids, and gases. Think of the energy released when an atom splits. Energy, the ability of a physical system to do work. I wish to know why a few symbols carved on stone, and a few symbols written on paper, The amount of information that can be expressed, including the implied meaning, has such destructive power. Think of the enormous energy contained in this response. This is real power. Think of the way the human brain thinks. The brain How wonderful and powerful it is to carry out identification and analysis, and the brain to control the expression. It takes such a wonderful and wonderful skill to express such a complex natural force and the invisible magical effects in atoms into a formula on the blackboard Imagination? The atom, the unit of matter seen as the source of nuclear energy. The idea of ​​the atom came up with the ancient Greeks in the 5th century BC. Miss Innosandi, BC. Before chewing gum. Atoms are small, tiny, Small, something within something, within something. Keep going down, down, down. And down, down. Next time, we'll be discussing Chapter 7. Get ready, We will conduct an oral test." There was a muffled groan from the classroom. "Maximum public embarrassment," Bronzini said. Students left classrooms in small groups and entered long corridors.There, the other four thousand students began to gather in the great youthful agitation that marked the conditions for the release of energy. Winter isn't over yet, but there's something tender in the air today.The rhythm of early spring is very warm and refreshing.Albert followed the usual route into the high street, looking at the shops and social clubs along the way. At one point, he stopped, ate a pine nut biscuit, and asked how the woman's son, who was a North Korean artilleryman, was doing.In another place, he wiped his mustache with his thumb, stood in front of a man with pink eyes who spit from time to time, smiled and listened to the man's loud and urgent complaints and complaints. At the pork shop, he talks to two newcomers.One of the women, from Calabria in southwestern Italy, was accompanied by her youngest daughter.At this time, the figures of his mother and younger sister appeared in the depths of the memory tunnel, and the girl followed closely behind her mother. Today, his mother lies on a plot of land in Queens, near a large expanse of grass where headstones and crosses stand, beneath thousands of souls who have lost their daily lives.Those people are independent and have stopped complaining. He bought some meat here, some fish there, and finally went home.He thought of the Saints' Day scene every summer: members of the church band marched through the streets, playing mournful tunes, and women appeared at tenement windows.Traditionally, those musicians slowed down on certain streets in residential areas and stopped in front of certain houses.It was an old wooden house with a front porch and a trellis of roses, the mansion of the olive oil importer.They stop playing, and the people inside come out and invite them in.They wore neat band uniforms, black pants, white shirts, and carried various instruments.It is an ancient custom with no lack of dignity, and everyone files to enjoy a glass of red wine, including the elderly, the fat trombonist, and the young who are bent over the pole under the weight of the bass drum hanging from their bodies. people. Zhu Zhu didn't want to follow him in at first, but there was no other way.Once Nick goes in, Zhu Zhu has to go in too. Zhu Zhu has always wanted to see what the dead look like, and Nick is leading him to realize this wish.They walked into the vestibule of the funeral home near Third Avenue and found twenty or thirty men standing there, smoking and talking. "Maybe, it's not good to do so." Zhu Zhu said. "There is only one thing you have to pay attention to, don't laugh." "What am I laughing at?" "You have to show some kind of respect," Nick said. "We have to make those people feel like we're family of the dead." Nick gave him a push, and the two went into the farewell room.The woman is sitting on a folding chair, holding a rosary in her hand, and silently chanting.There are a few sofas against the wall, and young women are dressed in black, so others can't see what they are thinking.Several little girls stood among them, serious and pale. The two walked to the coffin and looked inside.Inside lay an old man with distended nostrils, with the hands of a carpenter or mason, fingers the color of copper, and his skin rough and scarred. "This is the corpse, take a closer look." The two knelt before the coffin. "It doesn't look as scary as imagined." Zhu Zhu said. "I think they plucked his eyebrows." "I thought people would be different after death," Zhu Zhu said. "Why is it different?" "I don't know. It's pale," Zhu Zhu said. "The whole face is pale, like chalk." "They put makeup on him, made him up." "Pale and stiff, I thought." "He is not stiff, you say this person?" "He looks like he might just be asleep, if he's sleeping in a suit." "So you're disappointed." "Yes, a little, disappointed." "Why don't you speak up," Nick said, "and let them drag us out into the street and beat us up." "This was originally your bad idea." "We should have an envelope," Nick said. "That's a bad idea. What kind of envelope?" "If we were family," Nick said, "it would either contain Mass announcements or cash." "I thought envelopes were only given at weddings, not at funerals." "Anything you do, send envelopes. They always send envelopes." "It's a terrible idea, I want to get out of here." "Too late. Pray. Let them see you pray. Let them see you honor the dead," Nick said. "See those women in black? If we don't honor the dead, they'll tear us apart." Smash." In one corner of the pool room, a guy named Stevie stretched his neck, coughed, and spat out a thick cloud of milky phlegm—he called it oyster meat—into his Coca-Cola bottle. Zhu Zhu asked: "I want you to drink a sip of Coca-Cola, is that what you do?" "Hmph. I didn't say no." "But that's what you do? Spit in it?" "You said you wanted to take a sip, but I said, take two." Stevie cleared his throat, coughed up another mouthful of oyster meat, spit it into the bottle, and handed the bottle to Zhu Zhu. "That's what you do? You make a big blob of stuff floating in a bottle. Don't think anyone in their right mind would drink from a bottle like that." "You want to take a sip, hum, take a sip, drink as much as you like." "So, you gave me all the Coke, that's what you said. Drink as much as you like, if I'm stupid enough to do that." "What's mine is yours," Stevie said. Zhu Zhu smirked, with a mocking look on his face.Then he gulped down the contents of the bottle, hiccupped, and tossed the bottle to Stevie. Nick watched with a look of admiration on his face. Later that day, he took Mike, his dog, for a walk.He walked along the hospital wall, then turned east, through the deserted street, and stopped opposite the apartment building where the woman lived.In the front room there was a bed without a sheet.It was an empty bed, an empty bed ready, he could see it clearly on the right side of the doorstep.The curtains of the room were half drawn, and a lamp was burning by the window.He stood there smoking a cigarette. He led the dog back to the pool room, and two men came down the steps.He thought he'd seen one of those in the poker room.The two walked heavily, causing the puppy to back away in fright. Mike stood alone in front of the counter, counting the points. "Where did you take it, was it the men's room in Grand Central Station?" Nick held out a thumb and shook it at the two who had just left. "I know those two guys?" "I don't know. Do you know one?" "It's business, right?" "I'd better tell you," Mike said, "you'll hear anyway." "what?" "You remember that guy standing in the doorway when we played?" "Yes. Walls." "Walles wasn't here when the gun robbery happened." "I think that's kind of weird." "Several people thought so. Several people who were here that night thought that one of the three armed robbers—" "Wait a minute. They're wearing masks, aren't they?" "It could have been Walls, masked or not. Of course, Walls hasn't been seen since. So, as you can imagine, there was a lot of interest in his whereabouts. Not to mention, playing poker at the time Two of the people who were involved with that organization," Mack said, "were very close." "That organization. Now?" "Wals showed up." "Walles showed up. They found him." "He just showed up by chance, in a Puerto Rican store a mile away." "What was he doing in the Puerto Rico store?" "Buy an unripe banana. Hey, how do I know what he's doing there?" Nick laughed.The news excited him.He likes Walls, admires Walls, and once chatted with Walls.Still, the news pleased him.They found Walls and killed him.The first thing to do the next day, he told himself, was to buy a newspaper.Things like this are sure to hit the papers. "He took your money, too," Nick said, "and it wasn't just cash on the table." The TV is on, but there is no sound.Mike stood on the chair and turned it off. "I don't think there's anything to celebrate," Mike said. "It's brought negative attention. I feel like, I have to give them a sweetheart lest they shut me down. The robbery was so bad that it led to homicide detectives. Detective and journalist." "How did they do it?" "How? Shoot him. Bang, boom." "I know. But what about the specific situation? How many people? What weapons?" The photo showed a blood-stained corpse with a towel covering its head so that no one could see it. "Did they shoot anyone else? Did they drive one car, or two?" "I don't know, I didn't ask." "He was carrying a gun when they shot, I mean Walls." "I don't know," Mike said. "Did they hit the head, or something else?" "Nick. That's it. Go home and sleep." They go to shows downtown, hang out in Times Square, and watch the motley crowd, feeling superior and stupid at the same time. Late at night, they took the elevated train home.Juju sat with Ray, and Nick lay on the wicker seat across the aisle. "Heard me, I'm thinking," Zhu Zhu said, "we shouldn't be there, we shouldn't be there. Fool around, fool around, fool around. I'm right. But we shouldn't be doing things like this." "You feel guilty," Nick said. "That man's drunk, don't touch him. Maybe it's different if he's some sober wretch. This is a workman, drunk." Nick sat up. "You feel guilty, go to church and confess, you'll feel better," he said. Ray Lofaro had no idea what the two of them were talking about.Zhu Zhu knew the rules and would not tell him.Nick doesn't want to cause trouble and won't tell him. The slow train they took did not arrive at the station after a long time. They walked through the lower Bronx, past dimly lit tenements, past thousands of residents already asleep.Nick stood up and tried to break the wicker off the seat.It was difficult to pull with hands first, then kicked, and finally used hands again, trying to tear apart the braided wicker. At the other end of the carriage, a man stood up and entered the adjacent carriage.Nick looked at his back, judging in his heart whether his actions had hurt him. Then he kicked again, took a step back and smashed the back of the seat with the heel of his shoe.Using both hands, he peeled off the wicker cracklingly. He got off a stop early, and the two of them watched him walk out the door.He walked up to the building where she lived, stood across the street smoking a cigarette, and watched what was going on there.The light was on in the front room, but the bed was gone. He knew that Bronzini's mother had recently died, as his mother had told him.In a day or two it slowly dawned on him that the bed belonged to the old lady, the apartment belonged to Mr Bronzini, and the woman he was fucking in the apartment was Mr Bronzini's wife. These circumstances, he found, had little effect on him.He passed the building many times during the day and never saw her.Once or twice he stood on the doorstep of the building, smoking there, and she didn't come out.Lately, he'd stood in the dark watching the building at night, mostly in the middle of the night, those damned midnights, talking to pass the time before bed. He was seventeen years old, seventeen years and a few months old.He's going to be in the army soon, and maybe that's not a bad thing.His friend Ali has put on his military uniform, completed basic training, and is ready to go to North Korea.Ali said he was going to fuck the most beautiful woman in North Korea and leave the bad second-rate ones to Nick and the others. Nick stood there smoking a cigarette, looking at the apartment where she lived, thinking, thinking, rational, crazy, stupid, all kinds of feelings came to him.He thought about that woman.