Pauly in love
Pauly’s jacket hangs from outside the door when come into the carport, an annoying little detail the distracts me as I unlock the door to my apartment next door.
I have chores to
do before work; my dog needs walking, my laundry washed, and I need no morning
mysteries to distract me.
I’m tempted to knock on Pauly’s door, think better of it; he hates being disturbed for no reason, perhaps the rain earlier had caught him unawares, and he’s left the jacket out to dry.
There’s an odd yet familiar scent, of mothballs and cedar chips recalling my grandparents’ house and the stored clothing they dragged out of closets for each change of season, a memory that has nothing to do with Pauly, and yet lingers in the air, raising more questions I decide can wait until noon when Pauly usually rises.
I do not have to wait, finding him on my way back with the dog, wearing the jacket I saw, ducked into a narrow space in front of his door, struggling to put on a tie, hair slicked back – without the baseball cap – making him look like the one of the parade of office workers we see regularly making their way to the train station in Garfield, dressed better now than he ever did for my wedding or anybody’s funeral, and up so early I suspect he must be headed for the library to avoid paying a fine on his books.
I call to him; he doesn’t respond; staring into space in a dream-like state suggesting he isn’t really awake at all, stirring only when I persist and ask him what made him rise from the dead before the sun is fully up, he mumbling something about enjoying the fine spring weather, as if completely missing the rain that came and is soon to return, icy downpours of a still frigid April winter has refused to relinquish its grip from, with heavy clouds still hanging over us with the promise for more.
I ask him where’s off to; he looks away, embarrassed, refusing to answer, his gaze avoiding mine, finally mumbling, “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a secret.”
“A secret? What kind of secret?”
“For Christ’s sake, can’t I have a secret? Why do my friends always have to give me the third degree about everything I do?”
He tells me to go away, and only later, Virginia, the woman with whom he works at the Fotomat across the river, tell me, “Pauly’s in love.”
Bob, the district manager, blames me.
“How can this be my fault?” I ask.
“You talked me into giving him the job,” he says.
I talked Bob into giving Pauly the job, since Pauly hasn’t been able to pay his share of the rent back when we shared the same apartment Pauly now lives in alone, since Paul moved in with me after his ex-girlfriend asked him to move out of her mother’s house so she (his ex-girlfriend) could get married to some guy she met in Philadelphia, and the band broke up from which he expected to get the money, and since Pauly doesn’t have a car to drive to a job, I gave him my job at the Fotomat because I only worked it to pay my child support payments, and since I have a car I agree to take a spot at a more remote Fotomat, allowing Pauly to work the Fotomat just outside the Quick Chek three blocks from our apartment Pauly could walk to when he failed to get any of the rest of us to give him a ride.
Knowing he is secure in his ability to pay rent; I move out and take the smaller apartment next to his.
This should be a perfect arrangement, only nothing with Pauly is ever simple and nobody, not even the divining white witches that sometimes hung around the band could predict that Pauly – just turning 34 – would fall in head over heels for a 17-year-old Fotomate who worked at the Fotomat in Saddlebrook and with whom Pauly spent hours on the company phone conversing with – even as customers late complain about their inability to call and find out about their film development.
“He can’t be in love,” I tell Virginia, she reminding me that he’s only 36, a ripe age for men like us, who start thinking we’re about the lose our virility, we either buying some outrageous expensive car or dating some outlandishly young woman half our age, and since Pauly still can’t afford even a cheap car, he apparently has taken the second – if not less travelled then less traveled road for him.
Back at my apartment, a tap comes on my door, Pauly barging in, demanding to use my phone, and when I ask why, he says, “none of your damned business.”
“It’s my phone,” I say, making him grumble, “I have to make a phone call, all right?”
He punches out the number, waits, tapping his fingernails on the table, then slams down the receiver, mumbling, “damn,” then barges out the door without thank you or goodbye.
Later, I get a call from Virginia who asks me where Pauly is, still angry at him for his misuse of my phone, I tell her, “I’m not his caretaker,” and she says I’d better be because there’s $400 missing from the register and Bob wants to know what Pauly did with it.
“Missing, how?”
“From the night deposits,” she said. “Four deposits are missing.”
“Are you suggesting Pauly would steal?”
“That’s the way it appears.”
“That’s crazy. Pauly wouldn’t steal anything.”
“Maybe not the Pauly you used to know, but this Pauly is different, this Pauly’s love.”
I tell her Pauly is notoriously lazy and maybe simply didn’t want to walk up to the top of the hill to the bank after work and decided to bring the bags home and do it later, yet could not answer her when she asked how he could have done this four days in a row, four bags of missing deposits -- is he doing drugs? Are the two of them planning to make a get away with the cash? Even a love-sick Pauly knows they can’t get far on $400.
Bob intends to call the police yet wants to confront Pauly at least once before he does, as if as mystified by the transgression as the rest of us, unable to believe that an otherwise perfectly radiational (if also eccentric) Paul can pull such a bone-headed stunt as this, even for love.
We are all standing around the booth in the Quick Chek parking lot when Pauly shows up, still dressed in a jacket smelling of mothballs, wearing a slightly askew tie, his love-struck expression growing into something more puzzled when he sees us and asks, “So why didn’t you invite me to this party?” and then even more puzzled when Bob blurts out about the money and asks what Pauly could possibly be thinking, and demanding to know what he’s done with it before the police come and haul Pauly away to the slammer, a sober Pauly staring in utter disbelief at all of us, as if we are the crazy ones, a love-blinded pack of fools, and then, not even waiting for Bob or me or Virginia to offer a ride, he starts the long march up the hill to the bank, all of us – except for Virginia who is on duty – leaving our vehicles behind to follow, a pack of blind rats stumbling in his footsteps until we reach the place where the money should be, but isn’t, and the bank manager telling us he hasn’t a clue as to what any of us are talking about, and will call the police himself if we don’t stop making accusations – Pauly making them the rest of us nodding – about how this is nothing but bank fraud and trying to blame Pauly for the miscue, and then, Pauly halting in mid-sentence and asking, “do you have a broom?” and the miffed manager as mystified as the rest of us nods towards the utility closet, and then falls in line behind the rest of us as Pauly takes the broom and goes back outside to the night deposit drop, shoves the handle of the broom down into the mouth of it until some clerk somewhere inside the bank yells, about the sudden appearance of four canvas sacks popping out from the shoot containing the missing money.
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I’m tempted to knock on Pauly’s door, think better of it; he hates being disturbed for no reason, perhaps the rain earlier had caught him unawares, and he’s left the jacket out to dry.
There’s an odd yet familiar scent, of mothballs and cedar chips recalling my grandparents’ house and the stored clothing they dragged out of closets for each change of season, a memory that has nothing to do with Pauly, and yet lingers in the air, raising more questions I decide can wait until noon when Pauly usually rises.
I do not have to wait, finding him on my way back with the dog, wearing the jacket I saw, ducked into a narrow space in front of his door, struggling to put on a tie, hair slicked back – without the baseball cap – making him look like the one of the parade of office workers we see regularly making their way to the train station in Garfield, dressed better now than he ever did for my wedding or anybody’s funeral, and up so early I suspect he must be headed for the library to avoid paying a fine on his books.
I call to him; he doesn’t respond; staring into space in a dream-like state suggesting he isn’t really awake at all, stirring only when I persist and ask him what made him rise from the dead before the sun is fully up, he mumbling something about enjoying the fine spring weather, as if completely missing the rain that came and is soon to return, icy downpours of a still frigid April winter has refused to relinquish its grip from, with heavy clouds still hanging over us with the promise for more.
I ask him where’s off to; he looks away, embarrassed, refusing to answer, his gaze avoiding mine, finally mumbling, “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a secret.”
“A secret? What kind of secret?”
“For Christ’s sake, can’t I have a secret? Why do my friends always have to give me the third degree about everything I do?”
He tells me to go away, and only later, Virginia, the woman with whom he works at the Fotomat across the river, tell me, “Pauly’s in love.”
Bob, the district manager, blames me.
“How can this be my fault?” I ask.
“You talked me into giving him the job,” he says.
I talked Bob into giving Pauly the job, since Pauly hasn’t been able to pay his share of the rent back when we shared the same apartment Pauly now lives in alone, since Paul moved in with me after his ex-girlfriend asked him to move out of her mother’s house so she (his ex-girlfriend) could get married to some guy she met in Philadelphia, and the band broke up from which he expected to get the money, and since Pauly doesn’t have a car to drive to a job, I gave him my job at the Fotomat because I only worked it to pay my child support payments, and since I have a car I agree to take a spot at a more remote Fotomat, allowing Pauly to work the Fotomat just outside the Quick Chek three blocks from our apartment Pauly could walk to when he failed to get any of the rest of us to give him a ride.
Knowing he is secure in his ability to pay rent; I move out and take the smaller apartment next to his.
This should be a perfect arrangement, only nothing with Pauly is ever simple and nobody, not even the divining white witches that sometimes hung around the band could predict that Pauly – just turning 34 – would fall in head over heels for a 17-year-old Fotomate who worked at the Fotomat in Saddlebrook and with whom Pauly spent hours on the company phone conversing with – even as customers late complain about their inability to call and find out about their film development.
“He can’t be in love,” I tell Virginia, she reminding me that he’s only 36, a ripe age for men like us, who start thinking we’re about the lose our virility, we either buying some outrageous expensive car or dating some outlandishly young woman half our age, and since Pauly still can’t afford even a cheap car, he apparently has taken the second – if not less travelled then less traveled road for him.
Back at my apartment, a tap comes on my door, Pauly barging in, demanding to use my phone, and when I ask why, he says, “none of your damned business.”
“It’s my phone,” I say, making him grumble, “I have to make a phone call, all right?”
He punches out the number, waits, tapping his fingernails on the table, then slams down the receiver, mumbling, “damn,” then barges out the door without thank you or goodbye.
Later, I get a call from Virginia who asks me where Pauly is, still angry at him for his misuse of my phone, I tell her, “I’m not his caretaker,” and she says I’d better be because there’s $400 missing from the register and Bob wants to know what Pauly did with it.
“Missing, how?”
“From the night deposits,” she said. “Four deposits are missing.”
“Are you suggesting Pauly would steal?”
“That’s the way it appears.”
“That’s crazy. Pauly wouldn’t steal anything.”
“Maybe not the Pauly you used to know, but this Pauly is different, this Pauly’s love.”
I tell her Pauly is notoriously lazy and maybe simply didn’t want to walk up to the top of the hill to the bank after work and decided to bring the bags home and do it later, yet could not answer her when she asked how he could have done this four days in a row, four bags of missing deposits -- is he doing drugs? Are the two of them planning to make a get away with the cash? Even a love-sick Pauly knows they can’t get far on $400.
Bob intends to call the police yet wants to confront Pauly at least once before he does, as if as mystified by the transgression as the rest of us, unable to believe that an otherwise perfectly radiational (if also eccentric) Paul can pull such a bone-headed stunt as this, even for love.
We are all standing around the booth in the Quick Chek parking lot when Pauly shows up, still dressed in a jacket smelling of mothballs, wearing a slightly askew tie, his love-struck expression growing into something more puzzled when he sees us and asks, “So why didn’t you invite me to this party?” and then even more puzzled when Bob blurts out about the money and asks what Pauly could possibly be thinking, and demanding to know what he’s done with it before the police come and haul Pauly away to the slammer, a sober Pauly staring in utter disbelief at all of us, as if we are the crazy ones, a love-blinded pack of fools, and then, not even waiting for Bob or me or Virginia to offer a ride, he starts the long march up the hill to the bank, all of us – except for Virginia who is on duty – leaving our vehicles behind to follow, a pack of blind rats stumbling in his footsteps until we reach the place where the money should be, but isn’t, and the bank manager telling us he hasn’t a clue as to what any of us are talking about, and will call the police himself if we don’t stop making accusations – Pauly making them the rest of us nodding – about how this is nothing but bank fraud and trying to blame Pauly for the miscue, and then, Pauly halting in mid-sentence and asking, “do you have a broom?” and the miffed manager as mystified as the rest of us nods towards the utility closet, and then falls in line behind the rest of us as Pauly takes the broom and goes back outside to the night deposit drop, shoves the handle of the broom down into the mouth of it until some clerk somewhere inside the bank yells, about the sudden appearance of four canvas sacks popping out from the shoot containing the missing money.
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