The Risk Pool

were three mouths to feed. I tried to imagine Claude asking for a raise and couldn’t. Tried to imagine him being given one without asking, and couldn’t swing that either. The fact that they were all living together in a cheap flat suggested at least a degree of desperation. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that inviting me for even such modest hospitality had probably required a sacrifice, and I tried my best not to in any way reveal my most profound wish that they’d reconsidered the project and risked hurting my feelings. God, did we sweat over that pizza.
    Claude’s wife did not appear until after dinner when I started making excuses about having to leave. Then Claude disappeared for a few minutes, and when he returned he had a young woman in tow. Given the circumstances, I was surprised by my reaction to Claude’s wife. If ever anybody deserved to be cut some slack, granted a fistful of allowances, Lisa Schwartz certainly did. Here she was, clearly in the advanced stages of pregnancy, stuck in a close, shabby, sweltering apartment, with her husband’s mother for company, and with a husband whose prospects for improving their situation were, realistically, slim. And yet, I took an instant and extraordinarily intense dislike to her. So powerfully negative was my first impression that I was at a loss to in any way account for it or even, I fear, to conceal it.
    The young woman Claude had married was short, with dark hair and skin. Her center of gravity seemed actually
below
her sizable hips. Perhaps in deference to the heat, she was wearing a light jumper that was designed to be worn with a shirt underneath. She was not wearing one though, and the deep arm holes revealed the sides of her moist, swollen, purplish breasts, along with tufts of matted black hair. Every detail of her perfectlydreadful appearance, it seemed to me, was a conscious and pointed indictment of the smiling husband at her side. I had all I could do to shake her hand when it was offered.
    “Lisa,” I said, deciding on levity. “For some reason I half expected your name to be Claudia.”
    “Why?” the girl said, her dark eyebrows joining when she frowned.
    “I don’t know,” I said, regretting the attempt immediately.
    “There any pizza left,” she asked her mother-in-law. “I don’t feel so shitty now.”
    I did though, and when Claude walked with me down the narrow stairs and out into the street, I sat down on the porch steps, still tasting the cherry Kool-Aid. Claude joined me. The sun was down behind the houses now, but it was still light and would be for another hour. Some grubby kids were playing kickball up the block, kicking uphill so the ball would come back to them if it didn’t get stuck under curb-parked cars. It was still hot and muggy, but a tremendous relief from the deadness of the Schwartz flat. I ran my fingers through my hair and said, “Jesus, Claude,” before I could stop myself. Strangely, he didn’t seem to take the least offense, attributing my remark, perhaps, to the sweltering heat.
    For the first time in a long while I felt rotten about not having any money. If I’d had a spare five hundred, I’d have written Claude a check right there, though I don’t know what good it would have done them. It was an unholy trinity they made and I doubted all the money in the world would have made much difference, but it would have been worthwhile to introduce an air conditioner into their flat, if only to dry the glistening perspiration from Lisa Schwartz’s purple breasts.
    Clearly, though, I was more upset about my friend’s circumstances than Claude himself, who just grinned at me and said, “Life, huh?” as if his own was sufficiently awful to be wonderfully interesting. I think it was the first thing he’d said all evening, and it pretty much killed further discussion.
    After shaking hands, I left him there on the steps and pulled my father’s convertible away from the curb slowly, did a U-turn and interrupted the game of kickball. I was in a hell of a mood and when one of the kids made a wise-ass remark as I crept up through their center field, I think, if I hadn’t caught a glimpse of Claude in the rear view, I’d have gotten out and taken great pleasure inbloodying the little shit’s nose. Even when I was safely out of the horrible neighborhood, my murderous mood refused to dissipate, so I drove out of town to a spot where the old two-lane blacktop ran straight and