The Kiss of the Prison Dancer Read online

On the way back to his cousin’s house he came upon some children playing in the street. A boy in a blue polo shirt torn halfway down the back kneeled at a hydrant, counting “One, two, three, four …” while other boys scattered the length of the block to hide behind cars, in driveways, and behind garbage cans. Max stopped to watch. “… forty-nine, fifty. Anyone around my base is it,” the boy concluded. Max could see a freckled face peer out around the corner of a house, a mop of blond hair rise cautiously over the hood of a car. The boy with the torn shirt walked slowly down the street. Another boy crept up to Max. “Let me walk next to you, Mister,” the boy whispered. With the boy at his side, Max moved through the game, awkward and humble. Suddenly, the boy with the torn shirt saw the boy at Max’s side and the two boys raced for the base. Max felt his heart lift. At the next corner he stopped to pat on the head a boy hiding behind a car and then he went on. Almost unaware of what he was thinking, he said to himself: Yes, the boy is guilty. Holtz is innocent. He reached the house and told Morris he had been for a walk.

  That night he understood. He closed his eyes to sleep, but he opened them again and stared at the white ceiling as if the words were written there. He must not let Holtz die. He could not let Holtz suffer for something the boy did. He could not let Holtz become a kind of Jew.

  8

  In the morning his first thought was to go back to San Francisco immediately but he didn’t know what to tell Morris. At breakfast Georgia asked him what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” Max said. “I was just thinking.” If he said he was sick they would insist that he stay in Los Angeles, and he certainly couldn’t tell them he had to go back to turn a boy over to the police. Then something occurred to him and he excused himself from the breakfast table and went into the living room to think about it. Suppose he went to the police and they wanted to know why he didn’t tell them about the boy before? Suppose, he said to himself, they wanted to know what I was doing in the park that night? He began to pace back and forth. And what, he thought, if they can’t find the boy, then what? He went back to the kitchen and sipped at his coffee.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” Morris asked.

  “Sure,” Max said. “I’m all right.”

  The next day Morris got him in to see a television show being taped and that night they watched the program, trying to see Max in the audience. “You should have waved your arm,” Morris said. One day he went to the beach and another he did some shopping with Georgia. She had trouble finding pants to go with the blouse she bought the previous week and following her around from store to store, standing uncomfortably in the women’s wear sections as she tried on and rejected what seemed to him like dozens of pairs of pants, it came to him like something tossed up by the tide: he would have to find the boy himself. Once the idea came to him, it seemed easy. He would put the matter to him, appeal to his conscience, and when the boy understood that an innocent man was going to die in his place, then surely the boy would turn himself in. He even saw himself lecturing the boy on responsibility, going down to the police station with him so the boy would not be afraid, and the boy shaking his hand and thanking him as he was led away.

  Max paced off the remaining days of the week as if he were himself imprisoned, sentenced to this vacation that prevented him from doing something important. When at last he was on the train, he sat on the edge of the seat, urging it forward. It was not until Sunday night when he stepped onto the platform in San Francisco that he asked himself how he was going to find the boy. People entering the station parted and went around him. The crowds disappeared into the lobby, and Max was alone on the sidewalk, asking himself over and over: How in this entire city will I find him? He took a taxi home.

  At work the next morning he told everyone that he had a fine time. Only Shmuel wanted to hear all the details. “Leave me alone,” Max told him. “I’ve got lots of work to do.” Letters and folders were piled high on his desk and Max contemplated them with satisfaction. The work would help him get through the day quickly and after supper he would begin the search. He decided the boy must live in the vicinity of the park and he would walk the streets around there until he found him. There had not been time to shop so he had dinner in a cafeteria on Geary Boulevard and then, rehearsing to himself what he would say when he found him, started walking down one block and up another, looking for the blond boy with the cupid mouth and the pimples.

  By the third night of his search he was out near the ocean, close enough anyhow to smell the salt and have the fog engulf him, pressing its cold wet hands against his face and cutting off his air like some maniac. He was discouraged. He might pass the boy right by and not recognize him. The boy might not live around here. He might have run away, gone to Mexico, India. Max took the bus home.

  The next day the lining of his throat had gone raw. At work he sneezed in fits; he knew he was getting a cold and he cursed the boy and Holtz and the night he had gone to the park.

  “You look like you need another vacation,” Shmuel observed.

  “Mind your own business, Shmuel,” Max said as loudly as he could with his throat on fire.

  Shmuel threw both his hands in the air. “I didn’t say a word.”

  As soon as he felt better, he decided, he would go to the police, but it was Sunday before his head cleared and he was not sure the police would be open on the weekend. Monday afternoon he worked late replacing worn-out folders. He was the last one to leave. Standing on the corner, urging himself on to the police station, he suddenly heard another voice whispering: The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, and with a quick surge of joy he boarded the bus for home, eager for night to come so he could try the little grove where the murder had taken place.

  While he prepared dinner he relived that night. He could still feel traces of the terror that froze his heart when the boy leaped from the bushes. After he ate he paced the room, waiting for the sun to give up the day. It was just one month since the crime occurred; he was sure he would find the boy in the park.

  Clutching the front of his coat with one hand and reaching out to feel the black leaves along the path with the other, Max passed the bench he had sat on that night, stood by the grove, and came back to the bench to rest. A man’s life is in your hands, he would say. You cannot run from responsibility. Look at Eichmann! That didn’t sound right; he would not mention Eichmann. A man’s life is in your hands. An hour passed. We are all weighed on the scales of justice. Another hour passed. What am I doing here like a mishuganah? he asked himself, and went home.

  For two more days he searched the park, walking the paths near the grove or sitting on the bench where he sat that night pretending to read but examining the people who passed by. Once he even forced himself to go into the grove and stare at the spot where the girl had lain. He remembered the newspaper pictures but there was nothing there now, not even an indentation in the grass.

  The next day he had a different idea; he would explore the neighborhood where the girl lived. Remembering that the newspaper had printed her address, he went through the old papers stacked in the Thompson’s garage until he found it. She lived seven or eight blocks away on the other side of Geary and with that part of the paper torn out and thrust in his pocket he went to work and returned that afternoon not to his own house but to hers.

  It was a street of cream colored stucco houses in the last neighborhood before the fancy homes with views of the Golden Gate or the Presidio. The girl’s own house was in the middle of the street. The curtains were open but there was no sign of life. Max felt a terrific curiosity to look into her house. Cautiously he climbed the three steps to the door and listened for footsteps, prepared to run if anyone came. There was no sound so he leaned over as far as he could to look in the window. He could see a comfortable looking couch and a coffee table with newspapers on it. The floor was covered by an orange carpet and against the far wall on the mantle over the fireplace was a picture draped with a black cloth. He could not see the picture clearl
y but he knew it must be the girl.

  “What do you want?” a voice in the street called.

  Panicked, Max turned and saw a tall man with a round face and a pencil-thin moustache approaching.

  “Does Shmuel Pinsky live here?” Max asked, his voice breaking.

  “Get out of here!” the man said.

  Max ran down the steps and mumbled an apology as he passed the man who went into the house. Oy, Max thought, the girl’s father.

  He hurried down the street. Two blocks away he saw a high school and he went there. Some boys were playing basketball in the yard but none of them looked like the boy he was looking for. On another street he came upon a luncheonette and when he went in he saw the boy in a booth. Max’s heart stopped. For a moment he and the boy stared at each other as they had in the park, but the boy did not recognize him and resumed talking to his friends.

  Max sat down at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee. He peeked over the menu at the boy. “Anything else?” the waitress asked.

  As Max sipped his coffee the boy’s friends left and Max wondered if he should join the boy in the booth. He rehearsed again what he would say. The boy got up, put some money down by the cash register, and left the luncheonette. Max quickly took another sip of the hot coffee, dropped fifty cents on the counter and followed the boy out.

  Within half a block the boy sensed that he was being followed. He glanced back, but kept walking.

  “Wait,” Max shouted, hurrying to catch up. “I want to talk to you.”

  The boy looked back again but he did not stop.

  Perspiring now, Max began to run. The boy disappeared around the corner. Max felt the muscles in his legs ache with an effort they had not made in many years. When he got to the corner he could not see the boy anywhere. He had to rest. Mopping his forehead, he thought, Well, I’ve done my best.

  The boy stepped out of a doorway. “What do you want?” he asked.

  Max dragged air into his lungs, trying to catch his breath. He studied the boy’s face. There was a big pimple on the side of his nose and smaller pustules on his forehead which he had not noticed in the dim light of the park, but there was no doubt. This was the same boy. He even saw the same anxious look appear on his face.

  “What do you want?” the boy repeated, taking a step backwards.

  “I want to talk to you. A man’s life is in your hands.”

  The boy backed away some more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, turning and walking away.

  “I’ll go to the police!” Max yelled.

  The boy stopped. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to give yourself up.”

  “For what? I didn’t do anything.” His voice cracked.

  “Let’s talk.” Max looked around for a convenient place. All he could see besides houses was the edge of the Presidio, the big army reservation two blocks away. “Maybe over there,” Max said, taking the boy’s arm.

  “Who are you?”

  As they walked Max told the boy his name and what he had seen that night and told him about the button. The boy nodded. He remembered almost bumping into someone.

  “What’s your name?” Max asked.

  “Harold. Harold Kirby.”

  So now the face that had haunted Max for so long had a name. He repeated it to himself. They walked the next block in silence, but when they came to the Presidio they saw there was a fence around it. On the road leading in there was a guard house. A soldier in a white helmet came out and looked at them so they continued walking.

  “Why did you do it, Harold?” Max asked as kindly as he could.

  The boy shook his head. “It was an accident.” He started to walk away.

  “An accident?” Max said, grabbing his arm. The picture in the newspaper floated into his mind. “What kind of accident?”

  The boy pulled his arm free. His little cupid mouth opened and the words flowed out in a sing-song just on the edge of cracking. “You have to know what kind of girl she was.”

  “Wait,” Max said. Some people passed them, a woman with a little boy and a man, all holding hands and swinging the little boy in the air as they walked. The little boy giggled with delight. Max and Harold started walking. Like father and son, Max thought. In another block they could see the Pacific Ocean, hear it crashing against the cliffs below. “She wasn’t your girlfriend then?” Max asked.

  “No. I knew who she was. Some of my friends used to talk about her. Well, I had nothing to do that night. All my friends had dates and I was just hanging around, tired of watching television, so I went out for a walk and I saw her sitting by herself in that hamburger place on Geary.” They could see the ocean now as it ran up on the beach and slid back, but it was a long climb down. Harold had to raise his voice. “I never did anything like that before. I mean, I haven’t gone out with a girl since I was sixteen and got acne. It’s getting better now, though.” He turned his face to show Max. “I’ve been taking care of it.” Suddenly he pounded his fist into his thigh. “I asked her how come she didn’t have a date. She said she just had one. Then she went into all sorts of detail about how this guy—” He looked at Max and then away. “—made love to her like. So I said would she go out with me. She said sure. She let me pay for her hamburger and then we walked around a little, talking about school and people we knew. I thought we would go to her place, but she said no, her parents were home, and we couldn’t go to my place because of my mother, so I suggested the park.”

  Down below the waves assaulted the cliffs. “Go on!”

  “So there we were kissing and fooling around and I thought this time for sure. Because, Mister, I never did that with a girl. All my friends did. At least they said they did. Some said they did it with her. I started to push her down, you know, and she said no she was tired from the other guy and pushed me away and I pushed her back.”

  Max grabbed the boy by the shoulders. “Go on!”

  The boy pulled away and seemed to crumple like discarded wrapping paper. “She fell, I guess, and I got on top of her and when she didn’t resist I thought she changed her mind and I started to pull at her underpants. Then I heard her moan and I saw blood oozing from her neck. I jumped up. Then I think I said her name and shook her. When she didn’t say anything, I picked her head up a bit and there was a broken beer bottle under it. I pulled part of it away from her and there was even more blood.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I started to run for help and then I saw you in the path and I got scared and ran away.”

  He was crying now and on his knees, his hands folded in supplication.

  “Get up,” Max said. “Get up!” he shouted, looking frantically around the street. He pulled the boy to his feet and for a moment they stood face to face, breathing each other’s breath.

  “I’m sorry,” Harold said. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  “Don’t rub.”

  Max did not know what to do. He put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. All the things he wanted to say about justice and responsibility stuck in his throat like lumps of dry bread.

  “They say she was raped. I didn’t even … We struggled, but I never …” The boy’s hands fluttered like moths. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. When I heard about it on the radio the next day I thought I would go crazy.” He was shaking in Max’s arm and bobbing back and forth the way old men do when they pray. “I went to church but I couldn’t bring myself to confess. I couldn’t even go to her funeral because I was afraid. Aw, shit!” He pulled himself free.

  “Listen,” Max said, “if you tell all this to the police I’m sure they would understand.”

  “Are you kidding? I would get the gas chamber for sure. Maybe it’s what I deserve, but I don’t want to die. I’m sorry for what I did, but I don’t want to die or rot in jail for the rest of my life neither.” His eyes widened and he squeezed hard on Max’s arm. “You’re not going to turn me in, are you? You wouldn’t do that!”


  “But you didn’t kill her.”

  “Who will believe me? They’ll say I hit her with it. That’s why I went back later and got the part with my fingerprints on it. That was smart, wasn’t it?”

  “But they have arrested another man,” Max said, pulling his arm free. “Don’t you understand? Someone else will go to prison in your place. Or, maybe even be executed. What am I saying?”

  “Let him,” Harold said, turning away. “I’ll never do anything like that again, I swear.”

  “But,” Max said. His mouth was crammed with words struggling to get out. “Why should he suffer?”

  “Look,” the boy said, turning back again and staring Max in the face, “you’re Jewish, aren’t you?”

  Max hesitated and then acknowledged that he was.

  “Well, I saw where the guy they got was a Nazi. He must hate Jews. Look at what they did to your people in Germany. That’s what he would do here if he got the chance. Why should you worry about him?”

  Max shook his head. He wanted to remind the boy that Holtz after all was innocent, but he couldn’t make himself say it.

  “Promise you won’t tell on me,” the boy pleaded.

  “I’ll think about it,” Max said. “No promises, but I’ll think about it.”

  Silence spread between them as the boy backed away. Max was aware of the ocean again, crashing away down below. The boy’s mouth opened and seemed to form the word please, though Max did not hear it, and then the boy walked swiftly away. He paused to look back once and then ran.

  Nu? Max said to himself. Now what?

  It was a long walk back to his room.

  9

  The boy’s story paralyzed Max. He could neither turn the boy over to the police nor let Holtz die for the boy’s crime. When the alarm went off in the morning, he lay in bed, letting it ring. Once he lifted an arm to stop it, but he could no more stop the alarm than he could stop the massive headache that throbbed in his temple and he let his arm drop. It was not until the alarm exhausted itself and the bell was silent that Max dragged himself from the bed. He took two aspirins before he brushed his teeth and then, unable to remember whether he had taken any or not, he took two more. It seemed as if all his blood had left his head, as if even his nerves and muscles were gone in order to leave more room for the headache. Next his bones would retract; he could feel them now beginning to telescope. With some effort he reached the kitchen chair and sat down. With all his blood and nerves and muscles gone from his head he could not remember what day of the week it was. It was a weekday. He knew that because of the alarm, so it didn’t matter very much, but he did want to know. If it was a weekday, it occurred to him, he would have to go to work. He cleaned his glasses and then, concentrating very hard on his heavy legs, he managed to stand up and put the water on for coffee. He drank some juice and put an egg on to fry too before he was exhausted and had to sit down again.