“Sure, there’s time. Don’t we have fun at our indoor and outdoor ingrown versions of the cocktail party? Where every neighbor brings his own bottle, and where we’ve all chipped in for stale potato chips and the keg of beer upon which the matriarchs get so crocked they can’t walk? We have fun at those, don’t we? We laugh loud as hell, don’t we? Laugh, laugh, oh, how these sturdy rafters ring with the laughter of the identical people who live in the identical houses.

“JESUS, SIGNORA, THEY’RE DEAD!

“They’ve got their stupid dream, but the dream really has them! And one day all these silly sons of bitches will wake up and realize they’re living in a cemetery for young people, and that they all dropped dead the day they took title to their**!! All brick four bedroom entrance hall separate dining room wall ovens all G.E. appliances spacious plot walking distance church and shopping center bus to school and station fifty minutes New York City!!** coffins!

“They’ll realize their dreams are dead, too. They’re only young dead men living with old dead dreams. And do you know how they’ll solve it, Signora? Do you know how they’ll accomplish the resurrection?”

“How, Larry?”

“By moving into another development! A split-level development this time. A house that costs twenty thousand instead of fifteen-four-ninety on the same goddamn sixty-by-a-hundred plot with the identical neighbors all over again!”

“If you hate it so much, why don’t you get out?”

“Because I can’t, Signora. I’m trapped. God help me, I’m trapped. You know what I want? I want golden bridges, big golden bridges spanning sapphire waters! I want to gallop over them in ruby chariots, but I’m trapped, I’m trapped.”

He poured more rye into his glass.

“Go easy, Larry.”

“I’m all right.”

“Why don’t you go to Eve?”

“Why doesn’t Eve come to me?”

“Larry, Larry, you’re so unhappy.”

“I’m happy as hell. Don’t tell me I’m unhappy.”

“Do you want to come in the other room?”

“I want to stay here by the sink,” Larry said. “Leave me alone, Signora. I want to go down the drain.”

“Larry...”

“Leave me alone!”


In the living room, Felix Anders was talking to Phyllis Porter. Phyllis was a brunette with green eyes and a good figure. She had a pert Irish nose and an Irish sort of mouth, puckering, with good white teeth behind it. Her husband, Murray, was telling a garment-center joke to the Garandis and Eve and Fran.

“Of course,” Felix said, “a man has dreams, too. A man doesn’t always want to be a butcher.”

Phyllis, having consumed a good deal of alcohol, listening to Frank Sinatra singing his Wee Small Hours album, hearing the gentle hum of conversation all around her, feeling motherly and womanly and understanding to all mankind and to all men in particular, said, “What’s your dream, Felix?”

“It’s a big dream,” Felix said. “For a butcher, anyway.”

“Butchers can dream the same as candlestick makers,” Phyllis said philosophically. “What was Marty if not a butcher. Didn’t he dream? Of course he dreamed. What’s your big dream, Felix baby?”

“My dream is to make people happy,” Felix said. He paused dramatically. “Does that make sense to you, Phyllis?”

“Sure it does. Who you want to make happy, Felix?”

“Everybody,” Felix said. He was still holding the first drink that had been given to him that evening. He was not drunk and had no intention of getting drunk or even slightly high. “Everybody,” he repeated. “You.”

“Me?” Phyllis grinned lopsidedly. “How would you make me happy?”

“How do you think?”

“I d’know. You tell me.”

“What would you like?”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“I’d like to go to bed,” Phyllis said. “I mean, to sleep.”

“So would I.”

“You’ve got things on your mind,” Phyllis said slyly. “Little Felix the cat has things on his mind.”

“Nothing. Just to make people happy.”

“You can’t make me happy, Felix.” Phyllis shook her head solemnly. “I’m happy already.”

“You see?” Murray said, delivering his dialect punch line. “Everybody’s cutting corduroy, we had to cut voile?”

“I think I hear David,” Eve said. “Excuse me.”


Larry had taken off his shoes, and he leaned against the sink and looked into the bottom of his glass. It was almost one o’clock, and he wondered when Eve would serve coffee and cake, wondered when all these people would go back to their own houses. The Signora had gone into the bathroom, and he stood alone in the kitchen, holding up the sink and listening to the saddest music in the world and hearing the happiest, gayest voices in the world and hearing above those the ring of the telephone.

“Telephone,” he said.

No one answered. He put down his glass, shoved himself off the sink and went into the corridor leading to the bedroom. The light in the boys’ room was on, and he could see Eve leaning over David’s crib, talking to him soothingly. The telephone kept ringing.

“Nobody going to answer that?” Ramsey shouted from the living room.

“I’m getting it,” Larry said to Ramsey. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said to the telephone, and then he picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi.”


David was crying without reason, the way only a small child can cry when awakened by strange voices in the middle of the night, crying without fear, without sadness, simply crying uncontrollably.

Eve said, “Don’t cry, baby, Mommy is here. Now don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry.”

David would not stop. She held him close to her breast, the way she had done when he was an infant, and he sobbed his misery against the naked flesh above the low-cut neckline.

“Please, darling. Come now, darling. Don’t cry. Mommy’s here,” she said soothingly, over and over again. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry, darling.”


He stood quite still by the telephone. He had not expected her voice. In the darkness of the bedroom, with the laughter coming from the next room, her voice sounded calm and warm and loving.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Home.”

“Him?”

“Upstairs. Asleep. I had to call you. Can you talk?”

“No.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll talk. You listen. Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you drunk?”

“Because I love you.”

“I miss you, Larry. I miss you so much. It’s torture to know that you’re there having a good time.”

“Please!”

“Is it bad?”

“Yes.”

“Very bad?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad. I want you to be miserable without me. I want you to miss me as much as I miss you.”

“I do. Maggie, what are we going to do?”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.”

“About what, darling?”

“About the world,” he said.

“The world?” She began giggling. “Honey, you’re drunk! You sound adorable! Oh, I wish I could hug you.”

“Honey, what’re we gonna do about the world?” Larry asked again.

“We’ll let the world worry about itself,” she said. “Let’s just worry about each other.”

“All right. But what about Puerto Rico?”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. What about it?”

“Larry, I don’t understand you.”

“It’s poor and dirty,” he said. “It could be clean. I can make it clean.”

“Yes, darling.” She giggled again. “Oh, God, are you drunk! Oh, I could kiss you.” He heard a smack against the mouthpiece. “Did you get that? I kissed you. Did you get it, darling?”

“Yes.”

“Will you get drunk with me sometime? I want you drunk.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. We’ll get drunk for breakfast.”

She giggled again, her voice close to his ear, her giggle very warm and very intimate.

“I love you,” he said.

“Again,” she whispered. “Again.”

“I love you.”


“Don’t cry, David. There are people here, honey. You don’t want them to think you’re a baby, do you?”

“Where’s Daddy?” David asked, sobbing.

“Outside. Do you want him?”

“Yes,” David said, nodding, sobbing.

Eve went to the door frame.

“Larry!” she called. “Will you come here a minute, please?”

“I’ll get him,” Ramsey shouted from the living room. “He’s on the phone.” Ramsey got to his feet and walked to the bedroom. Leaning in the doorway, he said, “Hey!”

Larry turned from the phone, saw Ramsey, and then turned back to the mouthpiece. “Who did you want?” he asked.

“I want you,” Maggie answered.

“I’m sorry,” Larry said. “I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

“I’ve got the right number, darling,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Larry said, “there’s nobody here by that name.”

“Call me tomorrow,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

“That’s quite all right, sir,” Larry said. “I feel the same way. Good night.”

“Good night, my darling.”

He hung up. He turned to Ramsey. “Wrong number,” he explained.

“Your wife wants you,” Ramsey said.

He walked past him and into the corridor, hearing Betty singing with Doris in the living room, seeing Felix off in the corner talking to Phyllis, hearing Murray telling a dialect joke to the Signora, watching Max using his hands to describe flight to the Garandis, seeing Fran stagger out of the living room toward the kitchen bar, her empty glass in hand. He walked past the living room and down the corridor to the boys’ room, and then into the room.