Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,195

filthy glass wall and, behind it, the hunched torsos of men playing cards. We walked into the office to see four men with eyeglasses and caps tipped rakishly over long faces habituated to a world of flesh for sale. There was a tar-coated Mr. Coffee machine and a half-eaten Entenmann’s cheese strudel. Three of the men wore smocks streaked with brown stains, where they’d dragged their freezer-swollen fingers dry of blood and guts and marrow. The fourth man’s meticulous street clothes were an obvious expression of superiority—a dress shirt, a sweater, a quilted corduroy hunting jacket. Rob kissed him on the cheek, so I figured that was Uncle Tudi. He was huge. I wouldn’t normally stare, but his massive anatomy coupled with his shameless self-confidence was mesmerizing. Like one of those giant pumpkins you see in October at country stores, he was squat and sideways-tilted. You couldn’t help but try to guess his weight—three hundred and seven pounds.

The guys nodded.

“How ya doin’, kid?”

“Hey, Robbie. What’s up?”

Uncle Tudi breathed thickly and finessed the cards beneath the bulk of his manicured fingers. Just past the knuckle of his left pinky was a solid gold ring set with a flat face and diamond chip. His cologne was a jungle about him. “Who’s the lady friend?” he wanted to know.

“This is Eveline,” Rob said, jiggling nervously, picking an end-slice of cake off the table.

“Eveline. What kinda name is that?”

Rob motioned with his head in the direction of his uncle.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Just a name, I guess.”

“What kinda name? Irish, English, what?”

“I think my mother just made it up.”

Tudi creaked back unevenly in his chair. “I thought so. I never hearda that name before. Sounds modern.”

“I fold,” the guy across from him said, laying down his hand and checking his watch.

“Me too,” another said.

The one next to Rob said he was in, and he threw a five-dollar bill on top of the pool. Tudi matched him, and they showed their hands. The guy had three jacks; Tudi had three tens and a pair of sixes. He scooped his winnings.

“Maybe it’s an old-fashioned name, Tudi, like Ernestine or Lily,” the guy with the watch speculated. He swept the cards into a pile and shuffled expertly.

Tudi clicked his tongue. “If it was old-fashion, we woulda heard it before. Especially you, Tony. You’re older than dead dog shit. That’s why it’s gotta be modern. Am I right?” he asked me, peering intensely and expectantly into my face like a seaman gauging a swelling cloud. One eye was millimeters larger than the other.

“I guess—”

He interrupted me. “Where’d youse meet?”

“Montauk,” Rob answered.

Somebody said, “Montauk! She fishes?”

“I ever tell you, Pat,” one of the guys said to another, “the transmission in my car has five settings—park, drive, neutral, reverse, and ‘Montauk.’ I adjust the arm and it goes.” His flattened palm cut into the air, Bzjump.

Through his teeth, Rob said to his uncle, “At Harrison’s place.”

“At Harrison’s place,” Tudi repeated as he organized his money, lining up bills by denomination, then folding the packed knot into his shirt pocket. He coughed a little, repeating, “Harrison,” then he coughed more, and the room got quiet. He picked up a napkin and held it over his mouth, and he stayed still and everybody stayed still. I had the feeling Rob was going to get hit.

Tudi shouted, “What the hell’s the matter with you, walking around with a girl this time of night? It’s meat packing out there, you moron, not the boardwalk!”

“Which one’s Harrison?” Pat murmured. “The fighter?”

The others nodded.

Tudi stood and adjusted his collar. “You got some numbers for me?”

Rob said, “Yeah.”

“Gentlemen,” Tudi stated formally. “If you don’t mind.”

We followed him to the door, and he just squeaked through by making a slight corkscrew motion with his belly. Outside, Rob exchanged the contents of his pocket for ten fifties.

His uncle perused the sheets. They were photocopies, lined and filled in neatly with numbers in Rob’s writing. “How’d it work out?”

“Good,” Rob said, sounding normal again, which is to say, confident. He always sounded confident when referring to numbers.

Uncle Tudi must’ve felt bad about yelling or good about the papers because he slapped Rob tenderly on the cheek then laid a barrel-size arm around my shoulders. “Listen,” he said. “You seem like a nice girl with a modern name. Don’t get me wrong, but don’t come down here again, understand?” His face was inches from mine; it was like kissing the moon. “I hate to think what Harrison would do if