Bread Is All There Is

Bread Is All There Is

By

Marco Manfre

(Contains some sexual content and references to alcohol consumption)

Sullivan Moore reached the YMCA in midtown Manhattan a bit after midnight, only to find the door locked. He was chilled to the bone, exhausted, and annoyed with himself for having wasted a couple of hours at a bar near the Port Authority Bus Terminal drinking beer and munching on pretzels. He was also hungry; he was always hungry. He spotted, across the street, a flickering neon sign that read McGruff’s Hotel, a narrow building squeezed between a parking garage and a shuttered delicatessen. The night clerk, a skeletal young man with a deeply pockmarked face, seated on a chair behind a counter that was draped in black wire mesh, leaned forward and informed Moore that there were no vacancies. In answer to his question about where else he might find a room, the clerk said, “There’s hundreds of SROs in town, man, most of them better than this dump. It’s kinda late, but maybe you’ll be lucky,” after which he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Deciding that he would find a late-night place to grab a bit to eat and then look for lodging, Moore opened the door as a mini-skirted woman of indeterminate age slipped past him into the dank lobby. Shivering, she mumbled, “Cold as a bitch out there tonight.” Then, smiling at Moore, she added, “If you’re looking for a room, I have one.” When Moore, instantly relieved, said that he would take it, the woman, who was heavily made-up, chunky, but harshly attractive, murmured in a Deep South drawl, “It’s gonna cost you, honey child.”

“Of course. How much?”

“Twenty, dearie,” and she held out her hand.

“That’s more than what the sign says.”

“Yeah, but this is a deluxe room … and it comes with me.”

Moore, who was not interested in the woman, handed over the cash and followed her up the litter-strewn staircase to her small, overheated but surprisingly neat room.

“This is my place. I keep it nice and clean. I sleep on the bed; you take the floor. If you want to share the bed, you’re gonna have to fork over ten more. If you want to cuddle with me it’ll be twenty more on top of that.”

Moore, saying that he would take the floor, dropped his suitcase and pulled off his coat and knit cap and hung them on a hook on the door. Then, after excusing himself, he walked to the bathroom that they had passed in the hallway. He wondered whether he should have taken his suitcase with him. Then, smiling, he decided that if the woman even managed to unlock it, all she would find would be neatly folded clothing, a dozen of his favorite books, and some old photos. Besides, she was not likely to pull that kind of stunt in her own room; after all, she would not be able to hide from him.

In the foul-smelling bathroom he stood at the filthy toilet and then washed his hands and face with cold water—and no soap—at the equally dirty sink, after which, refusing to touch the stained, soiled towel hanging from a hook, he rubbed his face with his hands and then wiped them on his pants.

When he returned he found the woman, who said her name was Lily, sitting at the edge of the bed sipping from a tumbler. Pointing to a small bottle on a nearby shelf, she asked Moore if he wanted a “snoot,” to which he shook his head and asked if she had anything to eat. “Sorry, dear,” Lily said, and then she asked his name. He said, “Sullivan,” and then asked where she was from. “Oh, an itty-bitty place in Alabama nobody ain’t never heard of; it’s called Edna. Left my baby girl there with my mama. I send home money to take care of her … both of them.” Moore took yanked his coat from the hook and placed it on the—thankfully—clean floor, pulled off his shoes, and lay down. He turned away from the woman, nestled one side of his face against his coat, and closed his eyes. When she asked whether he was “comfy,” Moore turned, and saw that she had removed her blonde wig, revealing a mass of curly auburn hair. Then, looking pointedly at him, Lily slowly, teasingly unbuttoned and slipped out of her blouse, leaving her bright red bra—which accented her pleasing creamy plumpness—in place. After she had given Moore a chance to drink her in, she unhooked and removed her bra, revealing large, firm, milky-hued breasts. She threw her bra at him and giggled. Then she stood up and placed her thumbs under the waist of her skirt and tugged it down a bit, and then a bit more. Once she had pulled her skirt down a few inches she quickly yanked it past her shapely hips and let it fall to the floor. A few seconds later she pulled down and wiggled out of her panties. She smiled as she watched Moore stare hungrily. She was now fully, roundly, gloriously naked. With serpent-like ease Lily engaged in a slow, swaying, 360-degree pivot. Then she daintily sat at the edge of the bed again and leered at him.

“It’s cold and nasty out there,” she murmured. “I’m done for the night, not that it was much of a night. In fact, I’m almost a virgin again. That extra thirty bucks I was talkin’ about gives you the bed and a whole night and morning of me, and let me tell you, I’m a real good ride.”

He was tempted, but exhausted, and—despite the lingering effects of the alcohol that he had consumed earlier that night—sober enough to call to mind the gruesome stories that he had heard his entire life about dire medical conditions that come part-and-parcel with indulging in the services of so-called “loose women” such as Lily. Moore stared at her for a few more seconds, and then said, “Nice offer, but no thanks.”

“How about five bucks for the bed and just ten more for me?” Lily whispered.

Moore said, “I’m sure you’re great, but I’m kind of bummed out.”

“You’re a real handsome fella, but you know that.” Then, reclining on the bed, Lily said, “You think I’m too old?”

“No. You’re about my age.”

“No, I ain’t. I got a good ten years on you, but, you see I still got a body men like. Looks like you’re admiring it.” Then, nodding at Moore’s suitcase, she added, “I can do what those little girls out there don’t know how to do. Maybe you never got any in whatever little town you’re from.”

Moore turned from Lily and thought about his first intimate relationship. Three years before, a week after arriving in Vietnam, where he was stationed at the Da Nang Airbase, he sat at the counter of a crowded noodle shop in town. When a slim, elegantly-dressed woman took the stool next to him he froze, and then, working mightily to suppress his chronic shyness, said hello and told her his name. She smiled and, after a moment, said that her name was Mai. Moore, tongue-tied, stared morosely at his food and remained silent. Mai, sensing that the man only wanted to talk, told him—in impeccable English—about herself. He revealed a bit about his youth in Illinois. Then Mai said, “My husband … my late husband … he and I often ate here.” When Moore asked what had happened to him, Mai explained that her husband had given the wrong answer to a man with a gun. During the next hour, both of them unsure of themselves, talked quietly about the ups and downs in their lives. During breaks in the conversation Moore ate his noodles and drank whiskey. Mai ignored her food and sipped tea.

She allowed Moore to walk her home and, after a moment of indecision, agreed that she would see him again, as long as he understand that they would just be friends. Mai, who was from a Catholic family and went to Mass each day, attempted to persuade Moore to renew his faith and drink less. She stopped when she saw that her efforts on both fronts were doomed to failure.

One day, Moore, his eyes wild, told Mai that he hungered for her so much that he felt empty and desolate when they were apart. Despite the fact that she liked and was lonely and at loose ends, Mai remained cool to his desire to deepen their relationship. She explained that she had been “spotless and untouched” when she had married her husband, a man she had loved fully and about whom she thought every day. She told Moore that after her husband had been killed she had vowed to “never lie with another man.” However, later in that week, after reminding Moore that she was three years older than he was, Mai confessed that she had come to believe that she loved him. After checking to make sure her children and her mother, who lived with her, were asleep, she brought Moore to her bed. Before he left, in the early morning hours, he promised that he would marry her and take her, her mother, and her children back to the States with him when his tour of duty was over.

Mai was pleased that Moore, who, in the throes of first love and all-consuming sexual desire, spent all of his time off with her. A couple of months later Moore told her that he had been assigned to a distant province. He filled his lonely times off duty by making love to a whiskey bottle and eating entire packages of bread with butter. They exchanged letters. In his he swore eternal love and promised to return to her; in hers she expressed the hope that he was not drinking too much. She ended each letter with a prayer in which she asked “Our Blessed Lord to guide you and protect you.”

When Moore was reassigned back to Da Nang he and Mai were able to resume their relationship. They spent a great deal of time together, including many warm, floral-scented evenings wrapped in each other’s arms, making love and whispering in the dark. During his times away from her he ate to excess and drank even more.

Then Moore was badly injured in a helicopter crash. As he lay in hospital beds, first in Vietnam, and then in Hawaii, knocked senseless by powerful doses of Percocet and Vicodin to dull the pain of his injuries, he lost track of time and place. During lucid moments he thought of Mai’s last letter to him, the one in which she disclosed that she was pregnant. He thought about his vow to marry her and bring her and her family home with him. However, as time passed and he needed less pain medication, he began to dwell on what he and the others in his unit had done with men they had taken prisoner. And then, at night, he heard whispered conversations about what another unit had done to a group of women and children. Distant voices hissed that Moore had done worse, but when he sat up in the dark hospital ward and looked around, he saw that all of the others were sleeping.

As he recovered, he fell ever deeper into a cold, dark well of depression and irritability and easily aroused blistering anger. He slept for long stretches during the day and lay awake on his bed for hours at night, in torment. He no longer thought about Mai or his unborn child or his promise to her. What he wanted, all he could think about, was being released from the hospital, at which point he would … do what? Drink? Yes. Hurt somebody? Yes, oh, yes. As he fantasized about that he gritted his teeth and balled his fists. He knew what he was: a killing machine, a blood-stained exterminator, a grotesque thing with no soul and no heart. He would hurt others. That was all he was good for.

Now, as Moore, lying on the floor of Lily’s tiny airless room, withdrew from his dark reverie he recalled her mocking comment: “Maybe you never got any in whatever little town you’re from.” He remembered how he had spent his evenings when he returned from Vietnam: his numerous sexual encounters with women in the back seats of cars and in cramped apartments in town; most of those women had been just as intoxicated and just as jaded with life as he had been. Some had been almost as angry. Realizing that each of those instances had probably been just as risky to his health as would be a night in bed with Lily, he considered taking her up on her offer, but he did not have much money and New York was an expensive city in which to live. Besides, he was dog tired.

“So,” she intoned in a honeyed voice, “What do you say? I can teach you all the tricks.”

Turning back to Lily, he replied, “I’m sure you can, but I’ve spent hours traveling and then too much time traipsing around midtown Manhattan and drinking. I need to sleep.”

“Hey, maybe, you want something different from good old Lily-white. I’ll bet you never made it with a hot Black chick. My girlfriend, Yvonne, lives down the hall. You want me to knock on her door? We got an arrangement. She’s young and beautiful and she’ll make you real happy.”

Moore just repeated, “No thanks.” He pressed his face to his coat and closed his eyes. As ripples of sleep washed over him he marveled at how radically his life had changed during the course of a day. The last thing Moore heard before he slipped into unconsciousness was, “It’s a real shame you’re so worn out. I kind of fancy you. Anyhow, git me up when you’re ready.”

Moore slept deeply, awakening only once, by the thump of a door slamming closed, followed by laughter and then by what sounded like a bottle breaking outside on the street. He fell immediately back to sleep. When he opened his eyes next, the room was bathed in sunlight. He lay on his improvised bed for a while, staring at the cracked ceiling,

As Moore examined Lily, roundly, invitingly naked, sleeping on her back on top of her blanket, a surge of electricity blazed through him from his now-refreshed brain to his groin. He stood up, silently slipped into his shoes, grabbed his coat, cap, and suitcase, and tip-toed from the room. He walked to the hallway bathroom, where he used the filthy toilet and washed his hands and face in the sink. The place looked and smelled even more revolting than it had the night before.

It was a few minutes before nine when Sullivan Moore reached the chilly street, which, to his great satisfaction, was already jam-packed with people, mostly men wearing long winter coats and hats, who he assumed were heading to their jobs.

That’s what I need—a job. Before that, however, he had to eat. He loved food. In fact, he had often told people that he had never met a food he didn’t like. So, figuring that one greasy spoon was as good—or as dreadful—as another, he walked into the first eatery he spotted, Friendly Al’s Cafe, where he sat at the counter and ordered the Crack o’ Dawn special: three eggs, bacon or ham (he chose bacon), home fries, toast, and coffee. As he inhaled the familiar, intoxicating aromas and then as he downed his sizzling hot scrambled eggs, fragrant, crispy bacon, and succulent home fries, he pictured breakfasts with his father. He left his favorite part of the meal—the toasted rye, slathered with creamy butter and topped with tangy-sweet orange marmalade—for the end, along with another cup of surprisingly rich, flavorful black coffee. He wondered—not for the first time—why he had always enjoyed bread so much. At home, before he had fallen into his dark trough of despair, Moore had always taken comfort in his father’s home-baked breads—whole wheat, sourdough, and especially rye. Bread is good food. Bread is home. Bread fills a need. Bread is all there is.

As Moore crunched his toast and guzzled cup after cup of bracingly bold coffee he shook his head in amazement at the number of people sitting down to eat or ordering food and coffee to take with them and wondered whether other restaurants in the vicinity were as busy as this place seemed to be.

He asked for a refill and then he walked to the front of the shop, where he picked up a newspaper and paid his bill. Back at his seat, he sipped coffee and read the ads in the Classifieds section, hoping to spot a job for which he was qualified. Not finding anything appealing but deciding that he had to land a position immediately—and then a place in which to live—he unenthusiastically circled several offers. He assumed that the salary at whichever of the menial jobs he landed would be sufficient to pay for rent, food, and other expenses and would be merely a temporary stop along his journey to a new life in New York.

As Moore sipped one last cup of coffee he wondered about his future. Then, after leaving a few coins on the counter, he stood up and walked out the door, telling himself that he was where he needed to be, and that was good enough.