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Its three oclo the m.Bishops daughter is ill, stomach pains. Shes sleeping on the couch.
Bishop too is ill, chills and sweating, a flu. He t sleep. In bed, he listens to the occasional groans from two rooms away. Katie is fifteen and spends the summer with him every year.
Outside oreet, someone kicks on a motorcycle and revs it unfivingly. His bedroom is badly placed.
Hes given her Pepto-Bismol, if she wakes agairy Tylenol. He s himself in the sheet, pulls his t-shirt away from his damp chest.
Theres a radio playing somewhere in the building, big-band music, he feels rather than hears it. The steady, friendly air-ditioner hustling in the room.
Earlier hed takeo a doctor, who found nothing. "Youve got a bellyache," the doctor said, "stick with fluids and call me if it doesnt go away." Katie is beautiful, tall with dark hair.
Iernoon theyd gone, groaning, to a horror movie about wolves taking over the city. At vivid moments she jumped against him, pressing her breasts into his back. He moved away.
When they walk together oreet she takes his arm, holding on tightly (because, he figures, she spends so much of her time away, away). Very often people give them peculiar looks.
Hes been pig up old ladies whove been falling down in front of him, these last few days. Oting in the middle of an interse waving her arms while dangerous Checkers curved arouhe old ladies invariably display a superb fighting spirit. "Thank you, young man!"
Hes forty-nine. Writing a history of 19th tury Ameri painting, about which he knows a thing or two.
Not enough.
A groafelt but muted, from the other room. Shes awake.
He gets up and goes in to look at her. The red-and-white cotton robe shes wearing is, tucked up under her knees. "I just threw up again," she says.
"Did it help?"
"A little."
He once asked her what something (a box? a chair?) was made of and she told him it was made out of tree.
"Do you want to try a glass of milk?"
"I dont want any milk," she says, turning to lie on her front. "Sit with me."
He sits on the edge of the coud rubs her back. "Think of something terrific," he says. "Lets get your mind off your stomach. Think about fishing. Think about the time you threw the hotel keys out of the window." Once, in Paris, she had done just that, from a sixth-floor window, and Bishop had had visions of some Fren walking down the Quai des Grands-Augustins with a set of heavy iron hotel keys buried in his brain. Hed found the keys in a potted plant outside the hotel door.
"Daddy," she says, not looking at him.
"Yes?"
"Why do you live like this? By yourself?"
"Who am I going to live with?"
"You could find somebody. Youre handsome for ye."
"Oh very good. Thats very . I thank you."
"You dont try."
This is and is not true.
"How much do you weigh?"
"Oy-five."
"You could lose some weight."
"Look, kid, gimme a break." He blots his forehead with his arm. "You want some cambric tea?"
"Youve given up."
"Not so," he says. "Katie, go to sleep now. Think of a great big pile of Gucc<bdi>.</bdi>i handbags."
She sighs and turns her head away.
Bishop goes into the kit and turns on the light. He wonders what a drink would do to him, or for him -- put him to sleep? He decides against it. He turns oiny kit TV and spends a few minutes watg some kind of Japanese monster movie. The poorly designed monster is pig up handfuls of people and, rather thoughtfully, eating them. Bishop thinks about Tokyo. He was on bed with a Japanese girl during a mild earthquake, and hes never fotten the feeling of the floor falling out from underh him, or the womans terror. He suddenly remembers her name, Michiko. "You no butterfly on me?" she had asked, when they met. He was astoo learn that "butterfly" meant, iois of the time, "abandon." She ?cooked their meals over a charcoal brazier and they slept in a niche in the wall closed off from the rest of her room by sliding paper doors. Bishop worked on the copy desk at Stars & Stripes. One day a wire photo came in showing the heads of the four (then) womens services posing froup portrait. Bishop slugged the caption LEADING LADIES. The elderly master sergeant who was serving as city editht the photo back to Bishops desk. "We t do this," he said. "Aint it a shame?"
He switches els as Dolly Parton singing, by ce, "House of the Rising Sun."
At some point during each summer shell say: "Why did you and my mother split up?"
"It was your fault," he answers. "Yours. You made too muoise, as a kid, I couldnt work." His ex-wife had oold Katie this as an explanation for the divorce, and hell repeat it until its untruth is marble, a mo.
His ex-wife is otherwise very sensible, and thrifty, too.
Why do I live this way? Best I do.
Walking dow Broadway on a Saturday afternoon. Barking art caged in the high white galleries, dont go inside or itll get you, leap into your lap and cover your face with kisses. Some goes to the other extreme, snarls and shows its brilliah. O art I wont hurt you if you dont hurt me. Citizens parading, plump-faced and bone-faced, lightly clad. A young black boy toting a Board of Education trombone case. A fellow with oddly-cut hair the color of marigolds and a roll of roofi over his shoulder.
Bishop in the crowd, thirty dollars in his pocket in case he has to buy a pal a drink.
Into a gallery because it must be dohe artists hung twenty EVERLAST heavy bags in rows of four, youre io have a bash. People are giving the bags every kind of trouble. Bishop, uo resist, bangs oh his fabled left, and hurts his hand.
Bloody artists.
Out oreet again, he is bumped into by a man, then another man, then a woman. And heres Harry in lemon pants with his Britisher friend, Mal.
"Harry, Mal."
"Professor," Harry says ironically (he is a professor, Bishop is not).
Harrys got not much hair and has lost weight since he split with Tom. Mal is the single most cheerful individual Bishop has ever met.
Harrys uy has just hired a new president whos thirty-two. Harry t get over it.
"Thirty-two! I mean I dont think the bot both oars ier."
Standing behind Mal is a beautiful young woman.
"This is Christie," Mal says. "Weve just given her lunch. Weve just eaten all the dim sum in the world."
Bishop is immediately seized by a desire to cook for Christie -- either his Eight-Bean Soup or his Crash Cassoulet.
Shes telling him something about her windows.
"I dont care but why under my windows?"
Shes wearing a purple shirt and is deeply tanned with black hair -- looks like an Indian, in fact, the one who sells Mazola on TV.
Harry is still talking about the new president. "I mean he did his dissertation on bathing trends."
"Well maybe he knows where the big bucks are."
Theres some leftover du the refrigerator he use for the cassoulet.
"Well," he says to Christie, "are you hungry?"
"Yes," she says, "I am."
"We just ate," Harry says. "You t be hungry. You t possibly be hungry."
"Hungry, hungry, hungry," she says, taking Bishops arm, which is, you believe it, stig out.
Putting slices of du bean water while Christie watches "The Adventures of Robin Hood," with Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, o TV. At the same time Hank Williams Jr. is singing on the FM.
"I like a place where I take my shoes off," she says, as Errol Flynn throws a whole dead deer on the baable.
Bishop, chopping parsley, is taking quick gla her to see what she looks like with a glass of wine in her hand. Some people look good with white wine, some dont.
He makes a mental o buy some Mazola -- a case, maybe.
"Heres sixty seds on fenders," says the radio.
"Do you live with anybody?" Christie asks.
"My daughter is here sometimes. Summers and Christmas." A little tarragon into the bean<s>?9９ｌｉｂ.</s> water. "How about you?"
"Theres this guy."
But there had to be. Bishop chops steadfastly with his Three Sheep brand ese chopper, made in gray Fusan.
"Hes an artist."
As who is not? "What kind of an artist?"
"A painter. Hes ile. He needs rain."
He throws handfuls of sliced onions into the water, then a of tomato paste.
"How long does this take?" Christie asks. "Im not rushing you, Im just curious."
"Another hour.&quo<mark>?9９ｌｉｂ?</mark>t;
"Then Ill have a little vodka. Straight. Ice. If you dont mind."
Bishop loves women who drink.
Maybe she smokes!
"Actually I t stand artists," she says.
"Like who in particular?"
"Like that woman who puts chewing gum oomach --"
"She doesnt do that any more. And the chewing gum was not poorly placed."
"And that other one who cuts off parts of himself, whittles on himself, that fries my ass."
"Its supposed to."
"Yeah," she says, shaking the i her glass. "Im reag like a bozo."
She gets up and walks over to the ter and takes a Lark from his pack.
Very happily, Bishop begins to talk. He tells her that the night before he had smelled smoke, had gotten up and checked the apartment, knowing that a pier was on fire over by the river and suspeg it was that. He had turned oV to get the all-news el and while dialing had entered the opening credits of a Richard Widmark cop film called "Brocks Last Case" which he had then sat down and watched, his faithful Scotch at his side, until five oclo the m. Richard Widmark was one of his favorite actors in the whole world, he told her, because of the way in which Richard Widmark was able to vey, what was the word, resilience. You could knock Richard Widmark down, he said, you could even knock Richard Widmark dowedly, but you had better bear in mind while knog Richard Widmark down that Richard Widmark retty damn sure going to bounce back up and batter your k --
"Redford is the one I like," she says.
Bishop uand this. He nods seriously.
"The thing I like about Redford is," she says, and for ten minutes she tells him about Robert Redford.
He tastes the cassoulet with a long spoon. More salt.
It appears that she is also mighty fond of t Eastwood.
Bishop has the sehat the versation has strayed, like a bad cow, from the proper path.
"Old t Eastwood," he says, shaking his head admiringly. "Were ready."
He dishes up the cassoulet aches hot bread from the oven.
"Tastes like real cassoulet," she says.
"Thats the ox-tail soup mix." Why is he serving her cassoulet in summer? Its hot.
Hes opened a bottle of Robert Mondavi table red.
"Very good," she says. "I mean Im surprised. Really."
"Maybe could have had more tomato."
"No, really." She tears off a fistful of French bread. "Men are quite odd. I saw this guy at the farmers market on Union Square on Saturday? He was standing in front of a table full of greens and radishes and and this and that, behind a bunch of other people, and he was staring at this farmer-girl earing cut-offs and a tank top and every time she leaned over to grab a cabbage or whatnot he was getting a shot of her breasts, which were, to be fair, quite pretty -- I mean how much fun that be?"
"Moderate amount of fun. Some fun. Not much fun. What I say?"
"And that plug I live with."
"What about him?"
"He gave me a book once."
"What was it?"
"Book about how to fix home appliahe dishwasher was broken. Then he bought me a screwdriver. This really nice screwdriver."
"Well."
"I fixed the damned dishwasher. Took me two days."
"Would you like to go to bed now?"
"No," Christie says, "not yet."
Not yet! Very happily, Bishop pours more wine.
Now hes sweating, little chills at intervals. He gets a sheet from the bedroom and sits i with the sheet draped around him, guru-style. He hear Katie turnilessly on the couch.
He admires the way she anizes her life -- that is, the way she gets done what she wants done. A little wangling, a little nagging, a little lets-go-take-a-look and Bishop has spru??ng for a new pair of boots, handsome ankle-height black diablo hat shell wear with black ski pants. . .
Well, he doesnt give her many presents.
Could he bear a Scotch? He thinks not.
He remembers a dream in which he dreamed that his nose was as dark and red as a Bing cherry. As would be appropriate.
"Daddy?"
Still wearing the yellow sheet, he gets up and goes into the other room.
"I t sleep."
"Im sorry."
"Talk to me."
Bishop sits again on the edge of the couch. How large she is!
He gives her his Art History lecture.
"Then you get Mo- and Ma-hats a little tricky, Mo- was the one did all the water lilies and shit, his colors were blues and greens, Ma- was the one did Bareass On the Grass and shit, his colors were browns and greens. Then you get Bonnard, he did all the interiors and shit, amazing light, and then you get Van Guk, hes the oh the ear and shit, and Say-zanne, hes the oh the apples and shit, you get Kandinsky, a bad mother, all them pick-up-sticks pictures, you get my man Mondriahe oh the regles and shit, his colors were red yellow and blue, you get Moholy-Nagy, he did all the plastic thingummies and shit, you get Mar-cel Du-champ, hes the devil in human form. . ."
Shes asleep.
Bishop goes bato the kit and makes himself a drink.
Its five-thirty. Faint light in the big windows.
Christies ile, and plans to stay.
Looking out of the windows in the early m he sometimes see the two old ladies who live in the apartment whose garden backs up to his building having breakfast by dlelight. He ever figure out whether they are terminally romantic or whether, rather, theyre trying to save electricity.
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