“A book.”
“Who’s your agent?”
“I don’t have one now.”
She finds the energy to raise her eyebrows. My last agent had told me that I needed to do some serious editing, that it didn’t seem urban enough, but that mostly, somewhere in the philosophy, I’d lost the story and, therefore, the emotional core. It had reminded me of what William Lloyd Garrison said to Frederick Douglass, that Douglass should tell the story and leave the philosophy to him. Which would mean, if Garrison was correct, then there was nothing beyond the simple narrative—no context. Or that everyone understood the context, that the context was available for all to decipher and that they all had the scope and the willingness to do so. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps I had only disconnected thoughts and anecdotes flaring up in me like bouts of gastritis. “By the rivers of Babylon . . .” Perhaps I have no narrative. Perhaps I have no song.
“Tell me a story.”
“Why?”
“You’re a storyteller.”
“About what?”
“You’re a storyteller.”
She smiles—too sexually for her to be interested in art or arcs. She seems to have a great deal invested in my story, as though if it was good enough she could get naked for me without guilt or reservation. That was what a good narrative was supposed to do, be naked and make naked.
The tart’s boomerang flies at the camera and the screen goes white. There’s an aerial shot of a dusty road. Someone strikes a chord on an acoustic guitar. The camera moves and pushes in on a crossroads tableau. The camera levels out, parallel with the ground. Someone’s sitting on a tree stump. It’s a white kid wearing a porkpie hat. He’s strumming an old Cherry Sunburst jumbo. It’s too big for him. He plays awkwardly on the clichéd Rubenesque form. He looks like he’s trying to choke a chicken-necked fat girl with one hand and caress her with the other.
A pedal steel slides in, but it sounds more Hawaii than Mississippi. In the music track he’s already singing, but in the video I’m watching the camera pan across a field and into the sky. Now he’s singing, walking along a railroad line. The following frames are filled by sorrowful images: black and white faces; toothless, broken men; hardened women; and filthy children. A drum program marks the beat. If the sound and image were in sync, it would tap out his cadence in the gravel along the tracks. He opens his mouth and sings. His voice is somewhere between tenor and baritone and sounds like he’s in some adolescent purgatory bemoaning his stasis.
“White boy blues.” She shakes her head. “Greg likes this shit. Do you?”
“I haven’t heard this.”
“But do you like it?” She’s fully alert now.
“I had this friend in high school . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I went to school just west of Boston—Newton.”
“I knew you came from money.”
“No, I wasn’t wealthy. Sometime before then Massachusetts passed legislation that made it mandatory for all cities and towns to have public housing.”
“Suburban projects? Ridiculous.”
“Well, kind of. Anyway, my mother got on the waiting list and moved us in.”
“Single mom?”
“Yeah.”
“She must be something.”
“Yes, well, she’s dead. Anyway, Gavin and me are seniors and we’re at a party. Do you know Boston?”
“A little bit.”
“Do you know Commonwealth Avenue?”
“No.”
“It runs west out of downtown. Anyway, Gavin and I are at a party at one of the mansions, in the side yard, sitting up high on the crossbar of a swing set. We are beer-less and broke. He’s got a black eye, a quick jab from his old man earlier. He’s been telling me about the marathon. How at this point, near where we were sitting, on the other side of the hedge in ’72, the pack had caught his dad. He finished as the fifth American and missed qualifying for Munich.”
I look up. She’s still awake—involved even.
“’Heartbreak Hill. Oh, well.’ He kind of sings it with a quavering voice. He wipes his nose with his hand. His right pupil is red with hemorrhaged blood. His sinus looks swollen. Inside the big house our classmates are talking about their college choices. Some are celebrating; others have already begun the process of burnishing the reputation of their safety school. My ex-girlfriend Sally is inside as well. I can see her.”
“She white?”
“Yeah. I can see her in the window—moon face, freckles, and blue pie-eyes—a concoction of German Berger and hardscrabble Irish. I can see her, the sensible part of her acquiescing to the moment’s demands. Gavin points at her. ‘That’s your true love. Hah.’ He elbows me. ‘I’m kidding, man. I’d love her, too.’ Gavin always wore an old corduroy coat as his top layer. He opens it, reaches into the torn lining and produces two tall boys. He’s like, ‘After a hard day’s work.’ He hands me a can. I give him a cigarette. He’s like, ‘Symbiosis. Good show.’ So we open the beers and toast.
“To oblivion.”
“Godspeed.”
“We hear someone on the back porch. ‘Quick,’ he says. ‘No evidence.’ We chug the beers and throw the empty cans into the bushes. Two girls we don’t know walk toward us. They stop, confer with each other, then continue. They’re cute, but they look awkward, ridiculous, you know, like girls who haven’t had sex trying to be sexy in front of boys who refuse to recognize their libidos. I light our cigarettes. They’re there under us. ‘Hey,’ says one. ‘Do you have anymore?’ So I toss the pack down and the lighter. ‘I thought you guys were athletes,’ says the other. And she’s really pretty, you know, like some wood nymph. But she’s got a whiny voice and she watches her friend light up with all her teen disdain. I take a deep drag and exhale a thick formless cloud.”
“How do they know?”
“How do they know what?”
“Who you are.”
“Everybody knew who we were.”
She’s stunned by the perceived arrogance.
“It’s not like that,” I say. “We were pretty good athletes. We did pretty well in school. You know, the poor kids usually mowed the rich kids’ lawns. It wasn’t that we were popular. We just stood out in groups like that.”
She laughs. She seems to have only one, but it serves as many. It’s context dependent, but she won’t give the context. I can’t tell if the laugh is born of amusement, irony, condescension. It’s a yip-laugh, a hyena laugh—but cut short. I look up. The blues-boy is leading a mule down a dusty road. He approaches a chain gang.
“Then what?” She beckons with both hands.
“So the smoker crosses her arms and holds the cigarette poised for another drag between her rigid index and middle fingers. ‘You know,’ says Gavin, pointing over the hedges into the street, ‘my dad ran this marathon smoking two packs a day.’
“‘Yeah,’ whines whiny in a sanctimonious tone, ‘but did he finish?’ They snicker at him. Girls were always snickering at him after he said something.”
“Oh, they probably loved you. And you probably loved it.”
“No. No, we didn’t. We were just having some drinks and talking—like we always did.”
Suddenly, I’m angry. And I’m angrier still that she’s made me angry—made me anything. And then I want to talk more, but I stop. I can’t tell if she’s even interested in the story, let alone anything more. She smiles again, this time wide and close-mouthed. Then her lips part slightly. She must have had braces and caps and regular cleanings. She takes the olive out of her glass, pulls it off the stick, and pops it into her mouth.
Still chewing, she says, “You stopped.”
I remember times in my life when I stopped talking. A camp counselor had found me in a stall in the boy’s room, fetal and battered. I’d managed to pull my briefs up, and I remember the look on his face when he realized they were soaked with my blood—a bug-eyed gasping fish—“What happened? What happened?” he’d finally gagged out, knowing on so
me level full well what had. I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t answer the guidance counselors in junior and senior high who were convinced (but asked anyway) that my drinking and my silence could be traced to the fact that I was a troubled adolescent—but why? They never asked, “What happened?” Claire had wanted to know, too, the first time she was naked in front of me and I couldn’t touch her. I wanted to. I remember that. I wanted to tell her what had happened, but I didn’t know what to say, where to start. I opened my mouth and only a dry rasp, a death rattle, came. She wrapped me in a blanket and whispered over and over, “It’s okay. I’m here.”
And then I finally did speak. “You must have something to say.” She coaxed my voice out into the light of her and hers, and then the people beyond. And I sat in classrooms and workshops and when I wanted to stop talking again, I couldn’t. It was like the inverse of what I had done as a boy—I spat out hoping to glue everything back together that seemed to have fallen apart.
“You’re funny,” she says. “You just get lost. I like that.” She reaches for my hand, stops, and rubs the Formica. “I’ll stop butting in. I really like it.”
“So Gavin points eastward, to Boston and an imagined finish line. ‘He set the American record—twice.’ He finishes his smoke, throws it hard at the ground, and cocks his head to one side. ‘Look it up.’
“They look up to me to get confirmation, but I look out to Commonwealth Avenue—Heartbreak Hill—following its meandering twist downtown. It has a grass-lined median running down the center. The houses are enormous. ‘What are you guys doing next year?’ Gavin thumbs my shoulder. ‘He’s going Crimson.’ They both crane their necks as though it will help them process the information. Gavin shakes his head and mumbles to me, ‘Gotta walk around armed with documents these days—fucking junior cynics.’ Then he points at them, ‘This is the last American hero, ladies, the only true noble left. He’s good to his ma—good to my ma, too.’ They act like he hadn’t said anything. They just ask, ‘What about you?’ He doesn’t answer. He pulls out another stolen beer. ‘Where’d you get that?’ they ask, and he snaps, ‘What are you, pigs?’ They turn to each other. Some unspoken code sends them away. ‘Fuck,’ whispers Gavin. He hands me two beers. He guzzles his and breaks out a pint of rum, which he begins drinking like a beer. ‘I should make a map of where I hid the stash before I get too wasted.’ He looks around the yard. Then back out to the avenue, like he’s already forgotten that idea. ‘Maybe we should take a few and git?’ I say.
“He considers this for a second. ‘Nah.’ He traces his swollen cheek with a fingertip. ‘Fuck ’em.’ He passes me the rum. I drink and hand it back. ‘We gotta make this quick and messy.’ He gives me a snort, then takes it back. ‘Fuck,’ he says again, but more like a bark. He sings, ‘What’s a boy to do? What’s a boy to do?’ The back door opens again. We hear boys’ voices. Angry. Moblike. I thumb back at the boys who are approaching us. I tell him that the jig’s up. He smirks. ‘C’mon, man.’ He finishes the pint and smirks again. He throws the bottle into the hedges.
“‘Where’d you get the drinks, Gav?’ He opens another beer. Most of the party has emptied out into the yard. We’re surrounded by angry boys. They look up at both of us, but they yell at Gavin. ‘Where’s the beer?’ He doesn’t answer. He sips at his new tall boy. ‘Asshole!’ one from behind shouts. They have us outnumbered thirty to two, but they’re tentative. Gavin finishes the beer and drops the empty in their midst. ‘Look, Gav,’ one tries to appear reasonable. ‘Just give the beer back.’ Gavin touches his chest and whimpers in mock distress. He raises his voice an octave. ‘Gentlemen. Are you accusing me of stealing?’ He pulls out another beer. A roar goes up in the crowd. They pull him down from behind. He lands on his back. Everyone goes silent. They back off, scared of their violence. In classes we’ve taken with them, they’ve read Emerson and Thoreau. Some of their parents have told me stories about marching with King, campaigning for Bobby Kennedy, going to jail. The children of the latest enlightenment watch as Gavin comes to.”
“’You shouldn’t have taken the beer.’ Some nod in agreement. Gavin stands slowly. He holds his hand up to me to assure me he’s okay. One kid tries to implicate me. Asking, ‘What were you doing?’ They all ponder the question, but they don’t press it. They knew better than to attack a black kid, not because of what might happen to me, but what would happen to them. And they haven’t completely reconciled the gap between black man myth and reality.
“Gavin fakes a punch and the whole mob flinches. He laughs. He looks at me and gestures at them with his thumb. He winks. They’re angry again. But suddenly he’s gone—pushing his way through the crowd. They grab him. Thirty boys hoist him over their heads. He’s still laughing as they take him inside. I break through the hedges and make my way to the sloping front lawn. They’re gonna kill him for stealing their beer. They’ve got him on the porch. His coat’s gone. They throw him down ten stairs and he rolls into the gutter. I run down the lawn. I see him, skinny, freckled, semiconscious on Heartbreak Hill. I see the arc that’s brought him to that moment: the boat that brought his grandfather from Cavan, the docks where he welded and riveted the hulls of the great mercantile ships. I see his father, a young man, running up the hill and Gavin, a young boy, watching him fail. Then today, his father’s fist in his freckled face. Gavin has always been my best friend. The mob descends the stairs.
“I try to get him up and he pukes on himself. I turn to face the mob, ten feet above me on the mansion’s porch. The children of doctors and lawyers, liberal WASPs and Jews, well-educated teens preparing to go to Harvard and Stanford. They want to kill the poor Irish boy because he stole their beer. Gavin is my best friend. We rescue each other from our screaming harridan single moms. We steal liquor together and hide in parks, looking at the stars, sharing stories and drink. I square up and raise my fists. ‘Move!’ someone yells. ‘Don’t be a fucking loser!’ I don’t move. Sally’s on the porch, too. I look up at her—try to catch her eyes. I do. She rolls them and looks off across the street far above my head. Gavin stirs behind me. He spits. ‘Dude.’ I stay in my stance. ‘What?’ I don’t look, but I can tell he’s trying to get up. ‘Run, dude. You’re gonna lose.’ I hear him go down again. ‘You’re going to lose terribly.’”
The waiter drops off the check. I take it, and before he can leave I put down my twenty.
“Change?”
“No thanks.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she says. “We should really get together when everyone is back.” I nod while sliding to the edge of the banquette. “Here.” She pushes a card across the table. I pick it up. It’s heavy stock—linen. In pale blue it says:
Delilah Trent-Usher
Fine Artist
Delilah. I think I only think it. But I suppose, at least, my lips move. She reaches for my arm, smiling, as though she can barely contain a laugh. One eye is much larger than the other when she opens them wide like this.
“You’re not finished.”
“With what?”
“What happened?” I don’t say anything. “Thirty against one. Your lone friend down and out—what happened?”
The waiter counts his few tips at the bar while yapping at the bartender, who’s washing something in a low sink. On the monitor, migrant farmers and sharecroppers are on parade. Porkpie’s leading them, strumming hard, singing, “Yeah, yeah.”
“The cops came.”
“They broke it up?”
“I kicked the car. They took us in.”
She smiles. She shakes her head, slowly, sucks her teeth, like some sex and maternal hybrid.
“So you were a bad boy, huh.”
Gavin’s mom had told me earlier that year not to bring him home drunk anymore. Even the cops had heckled him. “Your buddy stinks, Sammy.” I wonder where Gavin is now—where he’d been calling from.
She knocks on the table. “Are you there?”
“No. We weren’t bad.”
&
nbsp; She pats the table as if to say, “Sure.” She’s figured me out again. She picks up the swizzle stick. Her hand looks like a pincer. She holds the stirrer as though she’s about to tack me to the seat back. The singer walks off a porch full of damaged people and heads back to the crossroads. His voice howls. Something sounds wrong. He hits the note, and it seems to be a lament, but it’s a lament without sorrow.
“I’m getting tired,” she says.
Outside the traffic on Smith Street is thinner.
“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“Thank you.” She does a mock curtsy. “Such a gentleman.” She winks. Perhaps her way of inviting me to do ungentlemanly things to her. She stretches her tiny two-martini body and rubs her back against the wall of the old factory.
We walk deeper into Brooklyn, down under the Ninth Street El, under the BQE, where phantomlike shapes push shopping carts filled with debris or hide in the shadows of the steel and concrete columns, toward the old warehouses that line the waterfront. She’s quiet. Perhaps it’s the booze. Perhaps she’s taking in the shapes and shadows along the way, giving them sharper form, animating them with purpose—a future sketch or painting. Perhaps she has nothing to say. We turn west before the projects and into the bright light of the Battery Tunnel. The opening wriggles in the wave of heat and exhaust.
Brooklyn is not the Brooklyn I imagined while in Boston, or Manhattan, or even Brooklyn. I’ve seen the supertankers coming in and out of the harbor through the Verrazano Straits, but I don’t remember them ever docking. I’ve seen the cranes from Atlantic Avenue, idle, and followed their line south, here, to Red Hook, where the dead warehouses sit. And then somehow without machines or hands, the containers get lined up in the shipyards. It’s as if the ports are still thriving and the longshoremen are busy with their hooks. A ship a quarter mile long passes an island with a scraggly sapling, its roots thirsty in the sand or bare upon granite piles.
Her street is cobbled. It’s like a residential oasis in a desert of dead trade. The oaks and birches are thick with leaves. An air conditioner hums and rattles somewhere behind them. An older man sits on his stoop. She stops in front of a narrow townhouse.
Man Gone Down Page 5
