Man Gone Down

by Michael Thomas

  “What house?”

  “Adams.”

  “What year?”

  “I left.”

  No one wants to ask the question—“What happened?” So they are silent for a moment. Maggie’s face goes sad, concerned. I don’t like it this way.

  “I moved here. I wanted to try something new.”

  “Acting?” Maggie’s up again.

  “Music.”

  “Are you a musician?” I can see her picturing me at Lincoln Center, in my tux, tuning up in the horn section. It seems a shame to mar the image.

  “No.” They’re puzzled, but Marco seems to be enjoying himself, the budding story—if you can call it that. To me a list of events, well detailed or not, has never been one.

  “I chickened out. I was playing around the city, working construction, too. I went back to school.”

  “Where?” asks Maggie.

  “Hunter. It’s a city school.” Maggie stays spunky. Diana nods to herself as though she’s figured something out.

  “How was that?”

  The food comes. My steak, though plated beautifully, looks inedible—a dense slab of flesh. I’m not hungry and my gas pains have stopped. In fact, it seems that my stomach has disappeared.

  Marco stops his fork at his mouth.

  “Do we need wine?”

  The girls refuse. I wait for everyone to begin and then I cut off a piece. I chew and swallow. The meat seems to free fall, as though I’m throatless, returning to its original shape as it does. It finally hits bottom. My stomach comes alive, rigid and unhappy.

  “So what do you do?” asks Diana, no longer so formal. I’m not sure why. Perhaps the food and drink have started working. Perhaps she, because I can’t match her resume, is no longer threatened. Perhaps she likes me. Maggie seems very interested, not in my response, but in Diana’s response to me. She’s lost her smile, chewing slowly. Marco is consumed by his food.

  “You teach, right?” More of Marco’s faulty intelligence, but it’s okay. I start nodding, not to her question but to some internal beat I can’t seem to refuse. Her syntax is slipping. Her jaw muscles relax. She puts her fork down and spreads her long fingers on the white tablecloth. Her hands are fine and ringless. She gently pushes her palms into the linen. Her calm makes Maggie change—drop the rosy-cheeked smile. They’re not so young anymore. They both exhale and seem to, right there in their seats, become women.

  Marco hears the silence and stops. We all exhale together and look to one another. I feel tired and it seems okay to show it. I cover my face with my hands, rub my palms into my eyes as though I’m just waking up. When I take them off my face, Maggie and Marco are eating again. Diana watches me. Everyone has a new face, born from a tacit agreement that the old bald white guy isn’t here: The Irish Catholic girl doesn’t have to pretend to be a WASP; the black girl doesn’t have to out-WASP her. And Marco can stop trying to guess at who’s mocking him—all manner of thing well.

  I’m still nodding. And it must seem to her a profound response—that I’m contemplating my years, my road to here. Perhaps I am, but I can’t tell. The nod becomes a slow rocking. She joins me, rocking. Poor Diana, trapped in oak-paneled rooms and towers of glass and steel, never an error in diction, tone, or pronunciation, but never arrogant, never haughty. Poor Diana, some twenty-first century princess. For her sake, I lie.

  “Yes.” We both stop rocking.

  “Where?”

  “Hunter College.” Another lie.

  She nods, once. “That’s great.” Maggie nods, too. “My mom went there, back when it was free.”

  “It was a teacher’s college.”

  “Yep.” The three of us take it in.

  Marco gestures at my plate with his fork. “How is it, man?”

  I look down at my half-eaten steak and wonder how I’ll finish it. I cannot. Maggie pushes rice around her plate. Diana picks at her vegetable concoction. Her jaws move slowly and evenly. I cut another piece and wonder if I should bother chewing it before dropping it into the pit.

  “I inhaled mine.”

  “Was it good?”

  “Great.”

  He’s buzzed. There’s more red in his face than usual, along with a hint of moisture. I never figured him for a lightweight. He excuses himself. Maggie looks at me as though she’s a child, waiting for a bedtime story. I would like to tell her one—tell her something—but I have nothing to say. I look at my plate; the blood from the endless meat has contaminated my potatoes. I cut a big slab and swallow it. It lands heavily, making me wince. I look at the girls. They’ve pushed their plates away. Maggie still wants her story. Diana wants one, too.

  “What kind of law are you interested in?”

  Maggie starts to answer but stops and gives way to Diana.

  “Corporate. IP and such.” Maggie nods in agreement. And I must give something away with my face or body, an eye roll or slight sag, because she holds up a hand as though to hold off my judgment.

  “I’m not going to lie. I want to make money,” she nudges Maggie. They both grin. Then she grows serious. “I owe my parents that.” She tries to find agreement in my eyes—as though I would understand. Whatever she sees allows her to continue. “And I don’t want to have to worry about money. I want to be able to travel, and when I have kids, be able to take them places, as well—give them things, not spoil them. I mean I’ll want my kids to have jobs, but I also want to give them every advantage.”

  Diana can’t possibly know how many times in the last twelve years, I’ve heard this speech—how much I continue to hear it from those who believed themselves to be entitled but haven’t achieved it yet. They don’t want much . . . only what they want—some minimum of comfort and privilege. But there’s something about her that makes me listen, more than her beauty. She seems to believe what she’s saying.

  “How much personal wealth does someone need?”

  I shrug.

  “Both of my parents were teachers. Don’t get me wrong. They did wonderful work. They touched a lot of people, but how many CEOs did they meet?” She points at Marco’s empty seat repeatedly, like the gesture’s a stutter, until she finds the words. “Do you know who he’s had lunch with this summer?” She almost stands. Thankfully, she doesn’t. Militancy doesn’t become her. I think she knows that. She regroups but doesn’t recant the “he,” as though Marco was a “he” to me, as well.

  “I get it from two sides—race and gender.” She stops, seems to search for something inside and begins again. I look at the blue wall again and think of whales, great fish, sea beasts, and what a swallowed man would find in their bellies: whole civilizations, perhaps wicked, perhaps good, but full of people who have long forgotten they were once in flight at sea.

  “As an African American woman, I think I’m charged to do something.” She presses those palms into the linen again. “I just think I’ll do more in a board room than in a classroom.” She says it and regrets it instantly. I see her ashamed for the first time. She doesn’t wear it well, either.

  “Oh, my god, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She presses her hands harder and tries a pained look, like she’s looking at a dead puppy. It’s better, but still not good. I rub the table, too. “It’s okay. I know what you mean.”

  Marco returns and stands over the table.

  “What should we do?” he asks. And it comes to me, the rest of the evening—more drinks, more clichés, more strange-faced performances. He looks around the table. It seems as though between the bathroom and the table he’s lost his authority and he’s nervous because of this. He finally, after shifting a few times, sits. He extends his arm along the seatback; his hand rests dangerously close to Maggie’s shoulder.

  “What should we do?” he asks again, still nervous. He won’t look at anyone in particular. Maggie has dropped her head in resignation as though she knew this moment would come. I wonder if when she arrived on her first day she foresaw this or any of the other compromises she will hav
e to make. It’s awful to see now, bonnie Maggie, her face fallen. Marco tries to look at her in secret, but we all see it. She feels it, tries to steel herself, not to resist him, but to resist the notion that there may be another way. There isn’t even lust, nothing between them, but she’s convinced of her obligation to this dance.

  The waiter returns with a tray of small rocks glasses half filled with a clear but bright liquid. He sets one before each of us—Marco last.

  “These are from us.”

  Marco isn’t an ambidextrous drinker so he has to take his arm down to hold his glass. Maggie reshifts, straightens, thinks of moving close, thinks of moving away, searches blindly for Diana’s hand, doesn’t find it. She takes her glass as well, circles it with both hands. Diana follows suit. Marco raises his glass, as do they. I raise my water. I can’t let this continue, not sober, but I don’t want to drink—not for the girls, not for Marco or our “friendship,” not to grease the path, lube it for Marco’s entry to disaster.

  “Cheers.” No one echoes him, but we all drink. He sips at the strange booze. Then nods his approval. He sets the glass down. Maggie tenses and awkwardly leans toward him, but he leaves his hand on the table.

  “You don’t drink?” asks Diana.

  I ignore her and turn to Marco. “So James fancies himself a goalkeeper this fall?”

  He shakes his head to jump into the new context. “Goalie, yes.”

  “James is?” asks Diana.

  “My son.”

  Maggie’s face is lightless. Perhaps the face she reserves for the morning after.

  “Do you have kids?”

  “Yes, I do, three.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot.”

  “I suppose.”

  She sneaks a look at my untouched glass. “And you don’t drink.”

  “Would you like mine?”

  “Oh, no. I was . . .”

  “I’m a recovering alcoholic—sixteen years sober.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “Not really.”

  “You should be proud.”

  “Proud of what?”

  “What you’ve accomplished.”

  “And that is?”

  She exhales sharply to break the cadence. Maggie has drifted off, scanning the lower room for a way out. Marco wrings his hands. Diana leans in, lowers her voice, as if to tell me a secret. “We need people like you.” Then lower still, “Strong black men.” She straightens again, ready to share with the others, who are pretending not to listen—regardless, they don’t seem to care. She speaks to me as though she’s suddenly become my mentor. “Educator. Father. Role model. You should be proud.” She looks at my glass again, openly this time. “It takes a lot of willpower—what you’re doing.”

  “Willpower really has nothing to do with it.”

  She snorts—a violent little laugh. I snap up in my seat and bark back to match her tone.

  “And I don’t see what my sobriety has to do with my melanin count—other than a predisposition to drink. What is it other than another manifestation of my genetics?” It throws her, brings Maggie back to us, and stops Marco’s wringing. I wonder what he’s heard when I speak. “And insofar as will, I find it harder to drink than not.”

  I start wringing my own hands under the table. To stop, I present them to the others. I extend my left index finger to the ceiling, then slowly flex and straighten it again.

  They’re silent—dormant. My powers have grown over the years. I’ve put them all to sleep.

  A taxi takes the girls west. The valet holds the door open for Marco. He tips him and we get in. Marco tries to hide the fact that he’s smashed. He rides the clutch, lurches from stoplights. He makes it to the FDR without rear-ending anyone and begins to weave through the traffic. I wonder if I can sue him if he crashes.

  “Got the cigars?” I give him one. He bites the end off and spits it out the window. “Matches?”

  “No.”

  He jumps across two lanes and gets off on Twenty-third. He pulls over and points at a bodega.

  “Would you mind?”

  When I come back out, he’s leaning against the car chewing on his cigar. His face has changed. It’s sharper, somber. I’ve never seen him this way before—introspective, perhaps. I strike the match and the pop and sulfur bring him out for a moment. But after I light him and he thanks me, he goes back to that face.

  “You know, I always wanted one of these.” He shakes his head. “And now I realize that it’s just a car.” He stands straight and walks away from it and starts to pace the sidewalk. I light my cigar. The smoke tastes like chocolate, leather, and wood. He calls from across the sidewalk. My smoking seems to have signed some unknown pact with him.

  “What happened back there?” He draws a circle in the air with the cigar.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Really?” He asks as though I’m being deposed. “Everything seemed to . . . everyone seemed to be having a good time.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, no.” He waves at me while looking down at the street. “You did the right thing.”

  “I did.”

  “Yeah.” He looks at me with the grave face, almost angered that I would question him when he was so sure of himself. He goes to take a drag and stops. He walks to me, eyes wide and blazing. He points at his chest, defiantly, then he starts to speak, then softens as though he’s just seen something delicate flash in his mind.

  “I’ve never cheated on my wife.” He says it as though he’s now on the stand. “Not even when we were just dating.”

  “That’s good.”

  “No.”

  “Why no?”

  “Well, I’ve never been sure why. I do love her, but it’s not because of that. Your wife, if you don’t mind me saying, is a beautiful woman.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You ever cheat on her—probably not, huh?”

  “No.”

  “What about her? She ever cheat on you?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?” He drags on his cigar and checks his watch. “You never called her back. Too late now.” The thunder punctuates his words. He rolls his eyeballs up. The steak is now whole again in my belly. “Fuck, let’s get out of here.” He circles the car, opens his door, and looks across the roof at me.

  “You all right, man?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She was not the one, not the girl. “I don’t need much,” she always used to say and I hadn’t believed her at first so I tried to give her everything I could, but she kept saying it: “I don’t need much.” I never figured out what that little bit was.

  Marco starts the engine. I hadn’t noticed that the rear window extends down over it, revealing the big aluminum V-8. Transparency—a heart on display. Even so, few know what makes it go. Claire had said that she loved me, was still saying it with electric eyes and girlish cheeks—“I love you”—handing out the words like two-bit lemon ices.

  8

  Like Ahab I do not sleep but unlike him I don’t die—I dream. I dream of Claire with someone else. It makes it easier I suppose, to say goodbye. Money. Plans. Johnny Little Nancyboy left a message for me to go to Greene Street, the corner of Broome. He’d said that there would be better work.

  I get up and feed Thomas. He eats. He looks better than yesterday. I wonder who will take care of the fish when I go. I suppose I could leave a note for Marco with care instructions and they could pick him up when they get back. Maybe they won’t come back. Maybe she’ll stay with Edith. It would be better, cheaper. The kids could go to public school. The house is paid for and they would have all that space. They can just open up the door and run outside with a ball by themselves. I don’t think Claire even wants to live in New York any longer, anyway. She hasn’t danced in years and the people she’s met since then, the mothers she’s befriended, the ones she actually liked are all leaving. They can’t afford it, either.

  Having grown up poor, I never understood what it cost to
be rich: how much a home cost, how much tuition cost, how much it cost to run in certain circles, to maintain a lifestyle. We had cheap rent, and we lived in a small, naive world.

  I think I remember coming to New York to become rich—to make a name for myself, with a guitar and notebooks in tow, but it didn’t work. I don’t know why we’d expected it to, and we never made a contingency plan in case it didn’t. I see Claire and myself, twelve years ago, young and stupid—rube-like—making plans to succeed, plans that were really closer to fantasies than anything else.

  Most things fail. Most people fail. Most ideas go bad; movements, marriages. I strum the guitar. It’s out of tune, but I keep playing anyway—nothing in particular, just random chords I come to finger. It’s only money. That’s all I really need now for damage control. I put the guitar down and sit up. I get a clean sheet of paper and write a list.

  Today:

  Go to SoHo

  Go to school

  Go to Marta—get check

  Find some way to make money tonight

  Find apartment for them

  Not specific but good enough because it’s written down—doable, practical tasks. Things I will do. Things I choose to do. A contract, that sober and of age and consenting, I freely enter. I get up and get dressed. I go downstairs. Marco is standing in the kitchen, dressed and reading the Times. The phone rings. He answers and hands it to me.

  “Hey. Morning.”

  I take the phone from him.

  “Hello.”

  No one responds, but I know it’s her. I believe I can hear her breathing and I know her breaths—each one of them—elated, angry, sad. This is how she breathes when she doesn’t know what to say, when in the moment before speaking she realizes how very different we are, how enormous a gap there is between us two and that she hasn’t the power to cross it, that I have given up trying. In this breath there is an assessment, a reassessment of me, of her, of us. There is a hint of shame—that she believed in something between us, first without prudence, then without wisdom. Now there’s only breath as a symbol—an expression of loneliness.

  “Hello,” I say again.

  “Where were you?” She lets her voice waver on the verge of crying. The kids must still be asleep.