The Thomas Berryman Number

After leaving the forger’s building, Berryman walked up East End Avenue. He turned up 89th Street, walking very slowly to the Flower & Toy Shop. He passed six or eight young people circling around a dead man lying in his black raincoat on the sidewalk. Flies were buzzing over the man’s face and a psycho-looking girl was shooing them away with a

New York Times.

Birds and old men, Berryman thought, die terrible deaths in New York. Much worse than anything he would allow.

The color of most of the flowers was perfect, but every one of them was dead. Berryman could see that no one had been in the shop for weeks.

Long flowers were hung craze-jane over plastic vases and pots; or they’d just lain down and died in their little wooden windowboxes. Shorter flowers were fallen in heaps, as if they’d been mowed.

The more fragrant flowers (stocks, some roses) gave off a heavy odor; and mere was foul water in the room. But most of the dead flowers bore no smell.

Berryman slowly walked up the aisle, breaking flower heads off and smelling them. A hanging lightbulb was on, shining over the counter. Bells on the front door were still jingling back and forth, back and forth.

“Hey Ben,” he called out. “Benboy. Goddamnit, Ben.”

The answer was

ka-rot, ka-rot.

His boots on the wooden planks.

There was no one in the small back room of the shop either. Water was dripping on more dead flowers in a stainless steel sink. Dead flowers were in a garbage pail. Dead flowers were wrapped in gift paper and ribbons, and signed with various billets doux.

Berryman sat down and composed his own note. He wrote:

Ben,

You ‘re getting crazier than a shithouse rat. Call me on the Island or I’ll have to kick your ass.

He Scotch-taped the note on the inside glass of the front door. It looked like a closed-because-of-a-death-in-the-family notice.

For a very few moments outside, Berryman had a nervous tic in one eye. His mind was flooded with memories that portended (if one

believed,

in one way or another) big trouble for two reverse ass-kissers who had gone against near everything and everybody. Who had stoned girls and fucked Texas boys and cows.

Hampton Bays, June 23

It rained for several days straight near the end of June. It got muddy all around Berryman’s home, with the sea smelling extra salty, and all the cloth furniture cool and damp to the touch.

Berryman took the occasion to relax. He needed to relax totally before starting for Tennessee.

Now and then he caught a fish in the ocean; ate it, or threw it back. He thought that the ocean was profoundly intelligent, but that bluefish were not. He kept expecting Ben Toy to pop up, dirty and long-whiskered like some male dog on the bum.

One morning he sat sipping a mug of Yuban and munching honey cakes on the back (beach) porch. It was 9 A.M., but dark, and the house lights were on. He rocked on the love seat (cool on the back of his legs and against his arms), and he read Jimmie Horn’s fat autobiography: it was called

Jiminy.

He read every word, and enjoyed each sentence, each little vignette, immensely. Finishing one page, he would think about what had been described so adroitly, feel bad that it was over, then only slowly move on and start another page.

Over his head the rain sounded as if it was falling on soggy paper. The sky was steamy and cardboard-colored. All vertical noise was the ocean, which seemed especially wet because of the rain and wind.

It was his last pleasant memory of the sea captain’s house.

While he sat rocking, reading, humming, Oona came out in a boy’s yellow slicker and matching hat.

“What object—that is now sitting in the village of Hampton Bays—would make your day a little brighter?”

Berryman could think of nothing but the newspaper.

Oona told him that she was going to get wine; beef; com on the cob (did he like com on the cob?

yes, about half a dozen at a sitting);

mushrooms; clams (did he like Little Neck clams?

yes, about a dozen at a sitting).

She waded off through the mud in high, open-heeled sandals. Chose the best mudder, the Cadillac. Waved in the arc cleared by

swish-swash

windshield wipers. Rolled away into the stew.

Berryman drifted back into his book. It was going to be a terrific day, he thought. He was extremely comfortable, content, and Oona was getting to be a genuine delight to be with.

He read. Peacefully inhaled and exhaled the slightly mildew air. Until he was distracted by a sudden loud whacking in the house. It was a cracking whack. Then a pause. Then a whack. A pause.