Lourens Blok - A Time to Scatter Stones

The four of us Kristin and Mick, Elaine and I stood on the stoop of their brownstone for the ritual round of hugs. Mick and I settled for a manly handclasp.

Safe home, he said.

It was a crisp Sunday night late in September, the sky free of clouds, and if wed been in the country we would have seen stars. But theres always too much ambient light in the city for stargazing, and I suspect thats also true metaphorically. Ambient light, softening the darkness even as it prevents our seeing the stars.

Mick and Kristins house stands on West 74th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam. Its on the south side of the street, so when we reached the sidewalk we turned to our right and walked the half block to Columbus Avenue, which magically becomes Ninth Avenue when it crosses 60th Street. Under either name, the thoroughfare is southbound, and theres a bus that would drop us right across the street from our apartment.

It was pulling away as we neared the corner.

Elaine said, What do you want to do? Flag a taxi? Call a Via?

Via is like Uber, except with shared rides and correspondingly lower prices.

Whatever you want, I said.

Hows your knee?

Wed walked up earlier. The Ballous live just under a mile from us, and in good weather we both prefer to cover that distance on foot, but my right knee had ached on the way.

Its okay now, I reported. On the way up, it stopped bothering me around the time we crossed 72nd. You feel like walking?

I wouldnt mind. But what if your knee decides to act up on the other side of 72nd?

I said something about crossing that bridge when we came to it, and she said I meant crossing that street, and we walked along chatting like an old married couple, which in fact we had somehow become.

Wed gone a few blocks, with no complaint from my knee, and had lapsed into a companionable silence. I broke it to say, When she served raspberry tart for dessert, I got the feeling you were going to talk about your group.

You picked that up? I almost did, and then I didnt.

What stopped you?

Oh, the conversation took a turn. She fell silent, then broke the silence to say, No, thats not what it was. I decided the conversation would take a turn if I broached the subject, and it was a turn I didnt want it to take.

I nodded, and she said it was a beautiful night and she was glad wed decided to walk. I agreed with her, and we crossed another street, and my knee begged to differ. You get old and things hurt and then they dont and then they do again.

She said, I guess I decided to keep it private.

Thats fair enough.

I could have talked about it without breaking anybodys anonymity but my own. And my misspent youth is nothing Mick and Kristin arent aware of. But the Tarts, I dont know

You dont have to overthink it, I said. Its how you felt.

Your knees bothering you, isnt it? Lets get a cab.

I shook my head. Its not that bad. And as close as we are

I married a stubborn man.

You knew that going in, I said. And I think persistent is a better word than stubborn. Its less judgmental.

I was already cutting you some slack with stubborn, she said. The first word that came to me was pigheaded. But I decided that really would be too judgmental.

Were almost home, I said. See how easy that was?

Judgmental or not, you cant say it was inaccurate.

Youre cute when youre judgmental.

Is that a fact. And we are almost home, and the first thing youre gonna do is elevate that leg, and Ill fetch an ice pack. Deal?

Deal, I said.

Ive been sober a while. Id marked thirty-five years in November, as I mentioned at a meeting a day or two after the actual anniversary date.

Whenever anyone expresses surprise over my continuing attendance at AA meetings, I think of the shampoo commercial:

You use Head & Shoulders? But you dont have dandruff.

Riiight.

I dont go as often as I did early on, but I still manage to turn up more often than not at the 8:30 meeting Fridays at St. Paul the Apostle. When we resumed keeping company and that, astonishingly, was 28 years ago Elaine began attending Al-Anon meetings, but the program never really reached her, and she didnt find the companionship there that I did in AA. One night she came home with a definition of an Al-Anon slip: An unanticipated moment of compassion. And theyre pretty rare.

So you could say it wasnt a good fit for her.

Then, a couple of years ago, she heard about the Tarts. It wasnt an acronym for anything, nor was it an official name for the group. It was what some of the members called it, for lack of anything else to call it, and what it was in essence was an anonymous program for women with a prior history of prostitution.

Elaine was in the game when we first met, and that was a lot more than 28 years ago. She was a sweet young call girl and I was a detective with the NYPD, and along with my gold shield I had a wife and two sons in Syosset. I suppose we were in love from the start, although neither of us quite knew it at the time, and it lasted until it ended, and years later when circumstance threw us together again we were ready for it. I had already stopped drinking, and after a year or two she stopped entertaining clients, and now we were this nice elderly couple who still seemed to take delight in one anothers company.

I first heard about the Tarts when she came home after her third meeting. Theres this group I started going to, she said. Girls who used to be in the game.

A 12-Step program?

More or less, but without the twelve steps. One dame tells her story and then we go around the room. I dont know if I really belong there.

You do, I said, and you know it.

Oh?

You said, And then we go around the room.

We and not they.

Uh-huh.

I think youre right. Actually I think were both right. I belong there. Its funny, I thought Id dealt with all of this.

Tricking.

Yeah. Ive always said that prostitution did a lot more for me than it ever did to me.

Thats just about word for word what Churchill said.

Churchill? As in Winston Churchill?

So Im told. I wasnt there to hear him say it.

Winston Churchill was turning tricks?

God, theres an image. No, he was talking about booze. I know that alcohol has done a good deal more for me than its ever done to me.

Oh, thats right. I always picture him with a cigar, but he was a heavy drinker, wasnt he? Do you think he was right? About his drinking?

I said I had no idea. She nodded and got back on track. The conventional wisdom is that turning tricks lowers your self-esteem, but it elevated mine. I didnt have any self-esteem until I got in the life.

The game, the life...

Euphemisms, she said. Some of the members use them. Others are more in-your-face. Until I started selling pussy. Like that. What are you smiling at?

In your face.

She rolled her eyes. When I walked into my first meeting, a couple of weeks ago? I was so much older than everybody I thought I was out of place. They were all nicely dressed in skirts and sweaters or tailored jeans. And they didnt look like hookers.

Whatever that means.

But then two of them welcomed me and said their names, and another handed me a cup of coffee, so I sat down. Then the meeting started and a woman told her story. She looked like a woman at a bank whod help you fill out a mortgage application, and she had a story that would take paint off a trailer hitch. Her uncle started messing with her when she was, I dont know, eleven years old? And five years later a pimp turned her out, and she never got in a house or on the phone, she went straight onto the stroll in the East 20s. Blow jobs in cars, mostly, and a couple of times she thought she was gonna get killed, but, you know, she survived. It was a horrible story and nothing like anything in my own experience, and all the same I hung on every word and got a lump in my throat and found myself having to hold back tears.