New York - The Novel

had never indicated the identity of the woman to him or to anybody else. Anyway, it had been a huge literary success. They’d made a movie out of it too. Charlie had toured the country, made friends with abunch of people out in San Francisco, stayed on the West Coast for a while, and learned to smoke dope.
    When he reached the ferry terminal, Gorham took the subway. There weren’t many people about. At the far end of his car, a couple of blacks were standing, and they glanced toward him. He cursed inwardly. They were probably harmless, but one had to be careful these days, he thought. People in the city developed antennae that sent warning signals whenever trouble came near. As it happened, he was carrying quite a bit of cash with him today. He really shouldn’t have entered a deserted subway car like this.
    Was it reasonable to suspect two guys just because they were black? Was it right for someone who knew parts of Martin Luther King’s speeches by heart to do so? No, it wasn’t. But people did. The two blacks carried on their quiet conversation, and ignored him for several stations. Then other people got in, and the two men left.
    Gorham came out of the subway on Lexington Avenue. There was only a block to walk across to Park. He reached the top of the subway stair, turned. And cursed. Then he stepped off the sidewalk into the street.
    Garbage. Piles of black garbage bags all over the sidewalk. Garbage as far as the eye could see.
    New York: city of strikes. Two years ago it had been a transit strike. That hadn’t shut the city down, because New Yorkers walked to work. But it had done nothing for the city’s reputation. Now it was the sanitation workers who were on strike. The mayor, John Lindsay, was a decent man and an honest one, but whether he’d be able to control the turbulent city and meet its financial problems remained to be seen. Meanwhile, the garbage bags were piling up on the sidewalks in ever increasing heaps. There was only one blessing. It was February. What the stench would be like if it were August did not bear thinking about.
    So Charlie Master was dying while the garbage piled up in the streets. Somehow, irrationally, Gorham felt as if his father was being insulted by the city he loved.
    Yet when he got to Park Avenue, he found his father in better spirits than he expected.
    After Rose had died at the start of the decade, Charlie had taken over her apartment. For a while, he had kept his old place on Seventy-eighth, and used it as a gallery for his pictures. Then he’d given it up, and used the second bedroom on Park as a temporary store. He’d been talking aboutrenting a small studio downtown this year, but Gorham supposed that wouldn’t be happening now.
    Mabel, his grandmother’s housekeeper, was looking after Charlie, and a nurse came in a couple of times a day. If possible, Charlie wanted to stay where he was, right to the end.
    When he entered the living room, Gorham found his father dressed and sitting in an armchair. He looked thin and pale, but he smiled cheerfully.
    “It’s good to see you, Gorham. How did you come?”
    “I took the train.”
    “You didn’t fly? Everyone seems to fly these days. The airports are doing great business.” It was true. All three airports, Newark, JFK and La Guardia, were getting busier every year. The city had become a huge national and international hub. “Makes you wonder where they all go.”
    “Maybe I’ll fly next time.”
    “You should. You just here for the weekend?”
    Gorham nodded. Then he suddenly felt a wave of guilt. What was he thinking of? This was his father, who was dying.
    “I could stay …”
    Charlie shook his head. “I’d rather you kept studying. I’ll call you when I need you.” He smiled again. “I’m really pleased to see you.”
    “Is there anything I can get you?”
    “I don’t suppose you’ve got any grass?”
    Gorham was about to say, “Oh for God’s sake,” but he bit the words back. Instead he just sighed. “Sorry, Dad. I haven’t.”
    It was one of the causes of friction between them. Gorham had smoked marijuana only once in his life. That had been the weekend after he graduated high school, back in ’66. He remembered his hesitation, how his friends had told him that Bob Dylan had introduced the Beatles to grass in ’64, right here in New York, and that their best work had begun from then. Was all that stuff really true? He had no idea.
    But Gorham had never done it again. Maybe he