Oracle Night by Paul Auster

Author:Paul Auster [Auster, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological, Literary, Authorship, Novelists, Notebooks, Brooklyn (New York; N.Y.)
ISBN: 9780312428952
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2003-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

I had been to the White Horse many times in the past, but not for several years now, and the instant I opened the door, I was happy to see that nothing had changed. It was the same woody, smoke-filled watering hole it had always been, with the same scarred tables and wobbly chairs, the same sawdust on the floor, the same big clock on the northern wall. All the tables were occupied, but there were a couple of spots open at the bar. I slid onto one of the stools and ordered a hamburger and a glass of beer. I rarely drank during the day, but being in the White Horse had put me in a nostalgic mood (remembering all the hours I’d spent there in my late teens and early twenties), and I decided to have one for old times’ sake. It was only after I’d settled this business with the bartender that I looked over at the man sitting to my right. I had seen him from behind when I’d entered the tavern, a thin fellow in a brown sweater hunched over a drink, and something about his posture had set off a little signal in my head. Concerning what I didn’t know. Recognition, perhaps. Or perhaps something more obscure: a memory of another man in a brown sweater who’d been sitting in that same position years earlier, a lilliputian fragment from the ancient past. This man had his head down and was looking into his glass, which was half filled with Scotch or bourbon. I could only see his profile, which was partially blocked by his left wrist and hand, but there was no question that the face belonged to a person I’d thought I would never see again. M. R. Chang.

‘Mr. Chang,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

Chang turned at the mention of his name, looking downcast and perhaps a little drunk. At first, he didn’t seem to remember who I was, but then his face gradually brightened. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Mr. Sidney. Mr. Sidney O. Nice fellow.’

‘I went back to your store yesterday,’ I said, ‘but everything was gone. What happened?’

‘Big trouble,’ Chang replied, shaking his head and taking a sip of his drink, apparently on the verge of tears. ‘Landlord raise rent on me. I tell him I have lease, but he laugh and say he seize goods with city marshal if cash not in his fist Monday morning. So I pack up my store Saturday night and leave. All Mafia men in that neighborhood. They shoot you dead if you don’t play ball.’

‘You should hire a lawyer and take him to court.’

‘No lawyer. Too much money. I look for new place tomorrow. Maybe Queens or Manhattan. No more Brooklyn. Paper Palace a flop. Big American dream a flop.’

I shouldn’t have let myself succumb to pity, but when Chang offered to buy me a drink, I didn’t have the heart to turn him down. Ingesting Scotch at one-thirty in the afternoon was not on my list of prescribed medical therapies.

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