The Christmas Kid

He looked back then. Nobody was following. Not even Seanie. A taxi cruised along the avenue, its rooftop light on, looking for a fare to Manhattan. I could just get out of here. Just jump in this cab. Call the store. Plead sudden illness. Just go. But someone was sure to call Rush and Molloy at the Daily News or Page Six at the Post and report the no-show. BROOKLYN BOY CALLS IT IN. All that shit. No.

And then a rosy-cheeked woman was smiling at him. The manager of the bookstore.

“Oh, Mr. Carmody, we thought you got lost.”

“Not in this neighborhood,” he said. And smiled.

“You’ve got a great crowd waiting.”

“Let’s do it.”

“We have water on the lectern, and lots of pens, everything you need.”

As they climbed to the second floor, Carmody took off his hat and gloves and overcoat and the manager handed them to an assistant. He glanced at himself in a mirror, at his tweed jacket and black crewneck sweater. He looked like a writer, all right. Not a cop or a fireman or even a professor. A writer. He saw an area with about a hundred people sitting on folding chairs, penned in by walls of books, and more people in the aisles beyond the shelves and another large group standing at the rear. Yes: a great crowd.

He stood beside the lectern as he was introduced by the manager. He heard the words “one of Brooklyn’s own…” and they sounded strange. He didn’t often think of himself that way, and in signings all over the country that fact was seldom mentioned. This store itself was a sign of a different Brooklyn. Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. There were no bookstores in his Brooklyn. He found his first books in the branch of the public library near where he lived, or in the great main library at Grand Army Plaza. On rainy summer days he spent hours as a boy among their stacks. But the bookstores — where you could buy and own a book — they were down on Pearl Street under the El, or across the river on Fourth Avenue. His mind flashed on Bomba the Jungle Boy at the Giant Cataract. The first book he’d ever finished. How old was I? Eleven. Yes. Eleven. It cost a nickel on Pearl Street.

During the introduction, he peered out at the faces, and they were different, too. Most were in their thirties, lean and intense, or prepared to be critical, or wearing the competitive masks of aspiring writers. About a dozen African Americans were scattered through the seats, with a few standing on the sides. He saw several men with six or seven copies of his books: collectors, looking for autographs to sell on eBay or some fan website. He didn’t see any of the older faces. Those faces still marked by Galway or Sicily or the Ukraine. He didn’t see the pouchy, hooded masks that were worn by men like Seanie Mulrane.

His new novel and five of the older paperbacks were stacked on a table to the left of the lectern. He began to relax. Thinking: It’s another signing. Thinking: I could be in Denver or Houston or Berkeley.

Finally, he began to read, focusing on words printed on pages. His words. His pages. He read from the first chapter, which was always fashioned as a hook. He described his hero being drawn into the mysteries of a grand Manhattan restaurant by an old college pal who was one of the owners, all the while glancing up at the crowd so that he didn’t sound like a professor. The manager was right: it was a great crowd. They listened. They laughed at the hero’s wisecracks. Carmody enjoyed the feedback. He enjoyed the applause, too, when he had finished. And then the manager explained that Carmody would take some questions, and then sign books.

He felt himself tense again. And thought: Why did I run, all those years ago? Why did I do what I did to Molly Mulrane?

I ran to escape, he thought.

That’s why everybody runs. That’s why women run from men. Women have run from me, too. To escape.

People moved in the folding chairs, but Carmody was still. I ran because I felt a rope tightening on my life. Because Molly Mulrane was too nice. Too ordinary. Too safe. I ran because she gave me no choice. She had a script and he didn’t. They would get engaged and he’d get his BA and maybe a teaching job and they’d get married and have kids and maybe move out to Long Island or over to Jersey and then—I ran because I wanted something else. I wanted to be Hemingway in Pamplona or in a café on the Left Bank. I wanted to make a lot of money in the movies, the way Faulkner did or Irwin Shaw, and then retreat to Italy or the south of France. I wanted risk. I didn’t want safety. So I ran. Like a heartless, frightened prick.