A Man to Conjure With

By Jonathan Baumbach

Jonathan Baumbach's debut--a comic novel with tragic concerns. Peter Becker finds himself coming back after fourteen years to try to pick up his life where he had left it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dzanc Books
• Release date: Dec 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781938604034

Jonathan Baumbach

Jonathan Baumbach is the author of seventeen books of fiction, including Pavilion of Former Wives, Dreams of Molly, Flight of Brothers, You, or The Invention of Memory; On The Way To My Father’s Funeral: New and Selected Stories; B: A Novel; D-Tours; Separate Hours; Chez Charlotte and Emily; The Life and Times of Major Fiction; Reruns; Babble; and A Man to Conjure With. He has also published over ninety stories published in such places as Esquire, Open City, and Boulevard. Baumbach, co-founder of the Fiction Collective in 1973, the first fiction writers cooperative in America, has seen his work widely praised. His short stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Best of TriQuarterly. The New York Times Book Review referred to him in 2004 as “an underappreciated writer. He employs a masterfully dispassionate, fiercely intelligent narrative voice whose seeming objectivity is always a faltering front for secret passion and despair.”

Book preview

Part i

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Peter Becker stood at the top of the steps, shuffling his bulk, aimlessly knocking snow from the sides of his shoes. His feet were already wet. It was just a matter of not tracking dirt inside—the dirt already there its own responsibility. Waiting, he waited, though as he hadn’t pressed the buzzer (his index finger had hovered over it, had toured the air around it like a wary fly), it couldn’t be said that he was waiting for anyone other than himself. Peter Becker, meet Peter Becker—impatient but in no special hurry, waiting for himself. Now that he was home, now that he had traveled three thousand miles to return to New York, now that he had located Lois’s apartment in the Village and was, his feet cold, standing at the door, he saw no point in actually ringing the bell. What was there to say? If he stood in the cold long enough—the snow beginning to fall lightly again—he’d think of something or freeze his ass off in the process. Mostly he was afraid of discovering how the past thirteen years (almost fourteen since their last meeting) had changed them both. And after all—the reason for his coming to see her—what had they changed from? He wanted to know. In the afternoon from his squalid hot box of a hotel room he had rung Lois’s number but when she answered, an unfamiliar voice, he hung up without speaking. Without the benefit of being seen, he was unable to identify himself—a greater problem for Peter than for most. He had no memory of his own face; it surprised him each time he saw his youthful reflection in the mirror goggling out at him like an eavesdropper. In the wars of his life, he had been continuously and decisively defeated, while his face, through some private truce, continued to register the pride of indifference. He would be forty in March. What a lie his life had been!

Convinced that he had forgotten his own face, Peter had the illusion nevertheless that he remembered Lois perfectly, though when he willed her into memory she always showed up a little out of focus as though the camera had been jarred at the moment of record. The past a province of nostalgia, his recollections of her improved with age. Was it merely nostalgia? He was willing to believe that despite the violent failure of their marriage, he had loved her more intensely than any of the girls and women who wandered through the maze of his life after he had lost her. Standing at the door to her apartment now, almost fifteen years after their first meeting, he could not remember why (exactly) they had broken up except that he had a knack, a positive talent, for spoiling things. He wiped his eyes. A fool, a dull and mawkish clown, he had been a weeper all his life. These days when he went to the bathroom he suffered a sense of loss. He pushed the buzzer, then recoiled as if he had detonated a bomb. Perhaps he had.

Is one ever a hero to himself? he was saying, but no one was listening. On the other side of the room his wife and mother-in-law were chattering busily, their heads so close together that it was hard for him to tell where one began and the other left off. He leaned back in his lumpy armchair, and content for the moment with his world, bored into contentment, he closed his eyes. Even if they didn’t talk to him—actually seemed to ignore him when they got together—he was glad to have reconciled Lois with her mother. Family was important to him. His own mother had died when he was twelve, and his father, a traveling musician, a chronic wanderer, was never around for long. In marrying Lois, a further bonus for giving up the miseries of his freedom, he had inherited intact a second-hand family—almost like new. Fine. He liked the somber diffidence of Lois’s father, a quiet and gentle alcoholic. The problem was that he found it difficult—really impossible—to bear Lois’s mother, who was always around, always whispering malice in Lois’s ear, a soured woman who advertised her discontent as if everyone else were responsible for it. (Anyway, he was getting used to her.) Peter, how do you like it? one of them said. Mildred and I decided to swap heads for a week. And when he looked up, he saw Mildred’s head on Lois’s body. He covered his eyes.

Peter, for God’s sake …

What? Startled, not yet awake, he had the curious sensation that she had seen into his dream.

You shouldn’t sleep so much during the day.

Who’s sleeping? He opened his eyes as though it were a great feat of strength, looked around sightlessly, yawned. What time is it? he asked, as though it mattered.

It’s time to wake up, she said, tickling him. It’s okay, old Peter—my mother’s gone.

Where did she go? he wondered, his eyes closing again.

Where should she go? She went home. Peter … She shook him. Mildred thought you were very ill-mannered, falling asleep while she was here as your guest.

Guest? His eyes sprung open, a sallow-green wall stared back at him. Your mother’s here more than I am. A chronic loser, he didn’t want to start a fight. I’m sorry, he said.

Lois was laughing. "And you were snoring, Peter. You were really noisy. It upset Mildred. No one’s allowed to snore in Mildred’s house."

He held her damp face in his hands, in love with her, his wife of three weeks, his beauty.

Let’s go for a walk, she said, pulling away, or something. I can’t bear looking at this place any more.

He agreed sullenly, feeling somehow rejected, a weight of depression on his chest.

Outside, the snow was falling lightly, the sidewalk already encrusted with the snow and sleet remnants of a week of almost unrelieved bad weather. He held her blue-mittened hand as they walked.

At the corner, as they were waiting to cross, Lois said matter-of-factly, Why did you marry me, Peter?

When he didn’t answer, she took her hand away, no longer his gift, and put it in her pocket. I really want to know, she said.

I think the sun was in my eyes, he said. His chest hurt.

What does that mean? she said.

I was kidding, he said.

Everything’s a joke, isn’t it?

Were they both out of their minds? he wondered. They walked apart, the tension of their grief separating them like a third person.

I’m cold, she complained, the break in the silence a gesture of truce.

Should we go back? He took her arm. The snow, apparently suspended in the air, phosphorescent in the early dark. Watching her—a whitened green scarf covering her black hair, grayed by the snow, her eyes mourners at some unattended funeral—he was touched with love for her, his face burning in the cold.

Let’s go back now, he said.

She glanced at him, smiling queerly. I‘m just beginning to enjoy walking, she said. Really, I’m not cold any more, old Peter. She pressed his hand against her side.

When they passed a grocery store, Lois stopped him. We’re out of coffee, she said. Do you have any money?

He searched his pockets as a matter of course. I left my wallet on the dresser, he admitted. Why didn’t you tell me before we left the house?

She shrugged, bemused. Do you mind having tea with dinner?

I don’t care.

That’s too bad, because I don’t think we have any. There’s some milk in the refrigerator, but it’s about four days old. She squeezed his arm affectionately. Do you know, we’re two of a kind.

Lois, he said, a moment’s hesitation, why did you ask why I married you?

She shook her head. Because you’re a man to conjure with.

Is that why you married me? he said, his voice breaking.

I married you to get away from my mother, she said. Isn’t that what you think?

They had a way of joking with each other that pained them both.

Peter, she said—they had turned to go back, the truth: why did you marry me?

As an answer, as a question in return, his feet cold (heart warm), he put his arms around her.

When he tried to kiss her, she turned her head away. Not here, she said, as though afraid that someone who mattered might see them. He looked around to see who his rival was. A middle-aged man passed them. You don’t take me seriously, do you? she said in a harsh whisper.

What could he say? They were standing in front of a two-floor orange brick house, drifts of snow like ghosts covering most of it, a leftover red-and-white plastic Santa Claus glowing in the front window, flickering. Let’s go, he said, jiggling his toes to restore circulation. Lois walked on ahead of him. When he wiped the snow from his face, he realized that he was crying. His shame was unbearable.

What would you do, Lois said as he caught up with her, if I were unfaithful to you, Peter? Would you hate me very much?

She knew how to get at him. Something gripped him at the back of the neck. In a rage, his tears blinding him, he took her by the shoulders and shook her until her scarf came loose. Then, embarrassed, he let her go.

She had a coughing fit, unable to catch her breath. You bastard, she said, her eyes dilated with fear.

Bearlike, he hovered over her, choked with the sour taste of regrets.

The next thing he knew, she was running away from him, small steps to keep from falling, almost skating on the slick snow, slipping, retaining her balance apparently as an act of will. He watched numbly—what else was there to do?—then went home to an empty apartment; Lois had not been back.

She stayed with her parents for the next three days. He called twice on the first day—his apologies written out on a 3 × 5 card so that he wouldn’t make a fool of himself (hard not to be what he already was)—but she refused to come to the phone.

He stayed home from work the next day so that in case she came for her things he would be there to talk to her, to unburden his guilt, to convince her of his remorse. It was a wasted day. Giving occasional side glances at the clock, he prowled about their basement apartment with the dull commotion of a trapped fly, picking up things that were out of place and putting them down again—God knows where—absent-mindedly. He made the bed but forgot the top sheet, lying a wad in a corner under the bed. A big man, he crowded the place with his misery, bumping his head against a low-hanging pipe, discovering the bump hours later. He swept one half of the room and left the dirt neatly piled in the other. The radio blared all day. Peter raged at the thoughtlessness of his neighbors and planned, against the scruples of a lifetime of cop hating, to call the police until he discovered that it was his own radio, which he had turned on in the morning, that was making all the noise.

In the evening he went to the grocery store—two blocks down and one over—and rushed back, leaving his purchases behind, afraid that Lois might come and go before he returned. On first sight he found his apartment more or less as he had left it, including the pile of dirt on the floor, which was beginning to erode, but it seemed to his practiced eye that the place had undergone some subtle change in his absence. Keeping his back to the door, a man of method, Peter glanced around the green-walled room, turning his head resourcefully in an attempt (had it ever been done before?) to keep the whole room under surveillance at once. It couldn’t be done. As soon as he took his eyes off them, large areas of the room managed through the desperate cunning of the in animate to get away from him. How his memory played tricks with him! There had been something on the desk, something of Lois’s, that wasn’t there now. Yet for the life of him he couldn’t recall what it was, except that he was certain (more or less) that it was a textbook for one of her courses or conceivably one of her handbags or something. Something was gone. Agonized, he forced open the top drawer of the imitation-maple dresser, breaking off one of the knobs in his haste, to see what else was missing, what else she had taken in his absence. In his grief, in his outrage at having been pillaged invisibly, he took her things from the drawer—scarfs, slips, blouses, stockings, sweaters—and flung them in a fury of energy, scattering Lois’s remains to the four walls of the room. When he ran out of things to throw, he sat down on the floor among the debris and had a heart-to-heart talk with himself. Peter, he said to himself, you’re out of your mind, which calmed him and left him exhausted. He fell asleep on the floor, tangled in her clothes, as close to her as he had ever been. He dreamed of love and awoke with a stiff neck.

In the morning, having overslept (forgetting to set the alarm), he decided to go to work anyway, even put on his only and best suit (a gray flannel he had bought at Klein’s out of season); but riding to the city on the IRT, airless and mobbed, something whistling at high pitch in the top of his head, he reneged on his decision. His eyes ached, among other things, and the prospect of a full day of proofreading economics reports was more than he could bear. He plunged through the doors at the next stop, then stood numbly on the platform, watching the train that had delivered him rush away from the station, nostalgic at its leaving without him. What could he do all day? Where could he go at eight-thirty in the morning? It struck him how regimented his life had become, how inflexible he had become. The subway soot, ancient and ineradicable, clogged his pores, infected his breathing. His head throbbed as though there were a huge crack in his forehead, getting larger by the minute.

Buddy, watch it. Somebody was touching his arm. Don’t stand so close. What’s a matter—you got something against life?

Who me? When he looked down he was surprised, scared to death, to find himself at the very edge of the platform. I wasn’t looking, he said, teetering nervously, backing up. Sorry. Thanks. He turned around to offer his appreciation—not many people in New York cared whether you fell onto the tracks or not—but the man who warned him had already disappeared into the crowd.

At nine o’clock Peter was sitting in the Fifth Avenue Cafeteria on Eighth Street, nursing a cup of coffee and a sweet roll—the economy of having something in your mouth to pass the time. He reveried about Lois (what else was there to think about?), blaming himself for her loss, hating her for his self-contempt. He had wanted her too much, and all his life he had never got what he really wanted, or if he did get it he didn’t keep it long. He knew he was anxious—everyone said to him, Peter, you’re anxious—but what could be done about it? You are what you are, he philosophized, and if you’re not, then you’re nothing. He was the exception: he was who he was, and he was nothing for all the pains of being himself. Someone sat down at his table, but in no mood to talk with a stranger, Peter kept his eyes on his coffee; tiny gems of grease floated by, winking at him.

For two days of absence without leave he would lose his job. He didn’t care, but cared that he didn’t. He was not a proofreader, not in the italics of his spirit he wasn’t, but then what was he if he wasn’t? Measured by what he had done in his lifetime—twenty-five going on forty—he just wasn’t. He was working himself into the anesthetic comfort of depression when he got the uncanny feeling that the man across the table was staring at him. Maybe not. Wiping the crumbs from his mouth, he looked up to see a familiar nose (broken and healed in two places), a nose like his own though even bigger and more assertive—his brother’s nose.

Herbie, what the hell …?

I wondered when you were going to notice me. So what are you doing not working?

Peter shrugged. I didn’t feel like going in. I’d better call and say I’m sick, huh? He got up; Herbie restrained him.

Plenty of time, kid. Don’t be anxious. I haven’t seen you in weeks, not since the wedding. How’s the bride? He had forgotten her name. Herbie, who was eight years older, had never married; he disbelieved in marriage, he insisted, though insofar as Peter could tell, spent most of his time living with one woman or another in his own uncommitted, freewheeling version of domesticity.

Peter sighed an involuntary wheeze, his spirit mourning for itself. Okay, he said.

Yeah? Herbie squinted analytically. What’s the matter? You look bugged.

Nothing’s the matter. He sighed again.

If you say so. Herbie went on line for some more coffee and a toasted bagel, taking Peter’s ticket instead of his own, because he had no use for money himself. When Herbie returned, Peter told him about the disrepair of his marriage. Why not? He had to tell someone and Herbie, this stranger, was his brother. At times when they were kids, Herbie had been like a second father to him—sometimes, beating him for his transgressions, like a first father.

What do you need her for? was Herbie’s advice.

Peter withheld a sigh. He needed her because he needed her. I like her, he said apologetically. I mean, I married her.

So? Herbie judged all lives by his own, which seemed to him, in the flower of its chaos, without a flaw. You either knew how to live or you didn’t. He knew; the rest—pheh! There are more where she came from, he said. Take my word for it. Come on. I have just the thing for you.

What? I don’t want any of your girls.

Don’t bug me. Come on. Herbie took a few swipes at his hair with a pocket comb, a man of habitual, unselfconscious vanity; then he grabbed Peter’s ticket from the table and was off. At the register he substituted an unused ticket and paid both bills, which totaled ten cents. In honor of his triumph, he winked at the cashier.

Peter went along under silent protest. He didn’t want to go; he went. Since it was not his decision, it had nothing to do with him, which was fine; he had enough problems of his own. And at the same time, if something good came from it—some pleasure—it was something for nothing, a bargain. A man who didn’t gamble, Peter couldn’t help but like the odds.

On the way to Herbie’s apartment (a shift in the odds), he borrowed ten dollars from Peter, to be repaid as soon as he laid his hands on a little cash. Peter consoled himself that it was only money he had given away and that brothers were flesh of the same flesh, and how could he deny his own flesh? But he worried anyway about the loss, because it was his nature to worry.

Surprise? There were two blowzy women at home in Herbie’s living room, sitting apart on the Goodwill couch as though they were strangers at a bus terminal, both puffing earnestly on cigarettes, the ashtrays running over.

Well, Herbie announced, look what I found. My brother Pete. Huh?

lo, the girls said in one nasal voice. They scanned him briefly, then went about their business; they were serious smokers. Peter recognized one of them, the heavier of the two, as the girl Herbie had been with at his wedding. The other, a small-town Betty Grable, was more conventionally pretty, but neither, in Peter’s opinion, was in Lois’s league.

Herbie introduced them. The one at the wedding was Gloria, the other Doreen. They’re both modern dancers, he said and laughed out loud at a joke no one else seemed to get. Doreen snickered as an afterthought. Gloria scowled.

Peter thought to run, but said hello. He made up his mind not to stay very long.

Is he really your brother? Doreen said. You don’t look like brothers.

Gloria sulked. They’re brothers, she said. God, I’ve never been so bored in my life.

Herbie ignored her and addressed his remarks to Doreen. Sure, he said, we’re brothers just like you two are sisters. He winked at Peter, through him, over him, at no one.

Oh, Doreen said, pouting, you’re a tease. You know I’m Gloria’s cousin. I really am, she said to Peter in case he thought she was also teasing; she was, but not about that.

C’mon, Glory, Herbie said, get off your butt, honey, and make us something to drink. Hey, sit down, Pete, huh? Herbie collapsed into an oversized red velvet armchair and closed his eyes. Relaxed, his gnarled face softened into momentary anguish as if a plaster cast had just been removed. God, he said, inhaling the stale room, this is death.

Doreen smiled brightly. If sulks could kill, Gloria would have been a mass murderer. A hostess despite her mood, she prepared and served Bloody Marys, spiked mostly with the quick-lime of her smile. We’re out of gin, she announced. Herbie and Doreen were dancing in a corner, his hand on her ass, to Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night of the Week. It was Tuesday morning, Peter kept thinking, keeping his hold on reality.

Gloria guzzled between puffs. We don’t usually drink this early, she said to no one in particular, but today’s some kind of occasion. Isn’t that right? Peter nodded. No one else answered. Today, she continued, glaring at the couple, dancing now to unheard music, is the four-day anniversary of Cousin Doreen’s arrival in the city. Up Doreen! Up us all! She finished her drink with a vengeance, then stared blearily through the mist of smoke surrounding her face like a torn veil. You dance? she said to Peter.

Yeah, Herbie said, dance with her, Pete.

Thanks, but I’m not in the mood, Gloria said.

Peter stood up, sat down.

We need some more gin, Herbie, Gloria said, acting the hostess again.

Herbie, holding Doreen, swaying to the music, held out Peter’s ten dollars behind his back with magnanimous contempt. Get two quarts of Fleischmann’s, he said. Okay?

Gloria wasn’t having any. She sat down, her arms crossed in front of her. I don’t want to go alone, she said.

Pete will go with you. Will you go with her, Pete?

Peter, dozing, grinned foggily. Where?

"Why don’t you go? Gloria said. This is your party." Some party.

Herbie agreed that it was his party and left for the gin, taking Doreen with him.

I don’t have to take this from him, Gloria said as soon as they were out of earshot.

Peter nodded uneasily. Gloria scowled balefully, held him responsible in his brother’s absence. He’ll be back, she said doubtfully, picking up cigarette butts from the rug. Anyhow, I’ve had it, she said. I mean it.

Yawning, Peter got out of his chair, stretched, his arms almost brushing the low ceiling. It struck him—a pang of nostalgia, a betrayal of the demands of grief—that for the past hour he hadn’t been worrying about Lois. Herbie’ll be back, he assured her.

Who needs him? she said ruefully. Baby, It’s Cold Outside replaced Route 66 on the phonograph.

Would you like to dance? he asked.

Gloria half smiled, shrugged, sat down, not to be bought off by kindness.

Peter wandered the room, lost. He was reminded of the times at dance halls where girls, like Gloria, had refused his overpolite, anxious advances. Worse-looking men had less trouble. Was it the uncertainty in him, the nervous desire not to fail, that repelled them? Whatever it was, he had gotten over it, had learned through Herbie’s training to cover up his feelings, yet the recollection of his humiliation still haunted him. Thinking about it, a compromise with the past, his hands sweated.

What a dump! Gloria was saying. She put a stack of records on the changer. A big girl, Gloria wore her age in the generosity of her size. She had expanded begrudgingly, as a kindness to her nature. Peter could well imagine that at twenty-five she was a cold-eyed, huge-breasted beauty, admired by men on street corners, unapproachable at least to him. But at thirty, more likely thirty-five, she was blowzy; the stays of her will had split, and everything had come loose. Fading? She was all but out of the picture. Her brownish shoulder-length hair, from having been too many colors in its lifetime, had lost all sense of its own. A revision of his first opinion, Peter found himself liking her. What do you do? he asked.

Out of his world, Gloria was tapping her foot to the music, snapping her fingers, swaying to the singer’s love words, loved. She glanced at him shrewdly, scowled, no answer.

He tried again.

You don’t have to talk, she said. Listen to the music, huh?

He listened a moment—it was Stardust—then put on