Man Gone Down

by Michael Thomas

  I think of his two little rooms, a grab bar and stool in the shower. No visitors. There’s dust in the air. You can see it floating. It rises from the armchair when he sits. You can see where it’s settled—on the television, the windowsill, stuck to the pane. Dust and ash from cigarette ends absentmindedly dropped on his sleeve. He sits with his failures. The past ones echo and multiply in the now. They become solid iron, barring entry to the present, denying any future. And memory can be an affliction. I can feel it. He is sad. He is lonely. He has nothing—no wife, no teeth, no audience, and so, in a sense, no story, no language. He is old and he is not regarded well by his son, perhaps the only one who can free him from his flat bench in hell.

  I miss my father. I remember liking him. I would like to go back there—to liking him, feeling safe with him. He exists across an ocean of memory. It is deep, almost frozen, and swimming with monsters. Beowulf, on a dare, once swam across an icy sea in his suit of mail. There were sea beasts—“fiend-corpses”—that tried to pull him down into the dark, where they would rend the drowned king limb from limb. “On a whim,” he went. He made it, soaked, frozen, and spent. If he’d known what was waiting for him, would he have taken that dare? If he’d known what was waiting for him, would he have made it across, or would he have gone down?

  My father was not a good father, but I’m not sure if that necessarily makes him a bad man. I have been told by people that I am a good father, but I’m sure just as many have covertly called me an asshole. My father wasn’t an asshole. And I know he wasn’t a chump or a fool. There must have been dignity in him in some amount, at some time. What left him sucking ass for pennies and cheap, blonde sex? What broke him? I see him on a distant shore. To bring him back is to remember him well—good, kind, perhaps a hero at one time, strong before they got him. And I don’t care about the details, who did it and how it was when he went down. I want him to have gone down fighting. But I haven’t a myth of creation for him, nor one of his demise. The only chance I have in this life is for my children to remember me well. But I haven’t any G-rated myth to spin or juggle, just a distant, malingering man, a gaunt-faced, odd-eyed phantasm, wraiths, demons, symbols, and signs. And there’s no way to co-opt them, no way to co-opt hell—it has no voice, only soundless wails and cold fire. And if you speak of it, your escape and your triumph, you were never there. Nobody uses the prince of darkness. I wonder what it’s like, sitting in a dust chair, knowing nobody will be coming. Watching yourself disappear.

  It’s late afternoon, but it’s dark because I’ve cut across the shadow realm of Brooklyn. I had to get away from the suits who have emerged from the courthouses and subways of downtown. Their sheer numbers are offensive in that they look like a herd but on many levels don’t behave like one. The mass cloaks the individual improprieties—a quick look at an ass or tit, a fleeting dream of sin, but they do nothing for the group, save add to its mass. Another dark suit, another dark pair of shoes, another professional—parasitic, dreaming that another paper pushed, another leer is an individual act. And of course, the subsuits, who believe themselves different because they held out for khakis.

  I cut across the shadow realm because I cannot stand it right now. I walk in lightless Brooklyn, where the sun never seems to reach, between the jail and Fulton Mall, where strays run, miscreants, gypsy cabs, nannies released from bondage, fry joints, usury shops—they will never “fix” this part of Brooklyn. And of course my response is dichotomized, but I’ll take a petty criminal over a suck-ass any day.

  I’ve seen too many apartments in New York City. Single or married with children, I’ve looked at too many, met too many brokers, tried to appease too many racist landlords, negotiate with too many slumlords while looking for that special something. They were all too small, too dark, too dangerous, and certainly, all too expensive. And our “friends,” or those people we were entering adulthood with, who may have become friends—good friends—were all gone to the North or West or back to their hometowns. We stayed, thinking of ourselves as somewhat charmed until Marta showed up with that new lease. Her apartment hadn’t spoken to us, either, but it had seemed relatively fair and she hadn’t hesitated in shaking my hand.

  The broker’s waiting in front of the building of the apartment I know we can’t afford. He’s small, white, balding, dressed in an ill-fitting Banana Republic outfit. It makes him look like a child who’s just emerged from the fitting room. I walk up beside him. He sizes me up and decides by way of my Gap clothes that I’m safe enough to acknowledge. He shoots his chin out at me.

  “Hey, chief.” He checks his watch, reshoulders his bag, and steps to the curb. He clears his throat and spits into the gutter. He looks back at me, nods a few times, as though he’s moving his head to a plodding rock song. I point to the building.

  “Are you showing the apartment?”

  He recognizes my voice from the phone. He tries to compose himself. “Right on time” is all he can muster. He stares up at me, trying to reconcile the voice and the person before him now.

  “Can we go in?”

  “Absolutely, my friend.”

  He unlocks the gate and gestures for me to go in. We walk up a narrow, wooden stair that seems ready to shear off the wall. We stop at the top landing, finished in peeling linoleum.

  “No pets, right?”

  “We have a fish.”

  “Fish—hah. I think that’ll be okay.”

  He unlocks the door and swings it open for me. The entire apartment is almost immediately discernible from the doorway. You step into a large living area. To the right is a galley kitchen, narrower than the rest of the space to allow for the stairs and landing. To the left on opposite ends of the north wall are two doorways that lead to bedrooms.

  “I thought this was a three-bedroom.”

  “It’s two plus a den.” He waves in the direction of the wall. “There’s another room off one of the bedrooms. It’s perfect for a small kid.” He waits for my reaction. I don’t have one. “It’s nice and quiet in the back. You can’t see it now, but this front section gets a lot of morning light.” He steps into the middle of the room, does a half turn, taps the floor with his shoe. It’s the old, plank subfloor, wood-filled and urethaned to look finished. He points to a door just inside the doorway of the east bedroom. “Check out the bathroom.”

  I walk to the back. The lumps of spackle and paint resemble cave wall sediments. The door jambs are twisted, and the hollow-core doors look flimsy under the deteriorating molding. Heavy applications of paint seem to be keeping it all together, like glue in places, like wood in others.

  The bathroom has been refitted with a cheap pressboard vanity. One head butt from X would do it in. The floor is sheet linoleum. The new fixtures are ready to leak.

  “Not bad. New, clean, right?”

  I look back at him. The floor slopes down to the center of the room, making him a full two inches shorter.

  “The school here, PS—I don’t remember—it’s supposed to be pretty good. It’s just around the corner.” He starts walking to the kitchen and stops. “Your kids go to public school?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, shit. I don’t have kids, but I have friends. That’s a big nut.” He pretends to consider the cost for a moment. “Come see the kitchen.”

  Outside on the avenue he changes, becomes more sedate but more direct at the same time. “Listen,” he begins, looking at the traffic, “we’ll need your information.”

  “I thought you had it.”

  “Well, we ran your credit, and your—is it your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, your wife’s credit. They’re okay. Called your old landlady—that’s cool. We need your financials. Did you bring a W-2 or something with you?”

  “I didn’t make a lot last year.”

  “That’s okay, okay. How are you doing for this year, you working?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get a pay stub, a letter to prove it? The owner is a good g
uy, much easier than most. I’ve worked with him for a while now and I’ve never given him a bad tenant, so he trusts me. As long as they check out with me, he’s cool, you know?” He looks at me now for emphasis. “I don’t discriminate, with anyone. I think that’s stupid. As long as you can pay the rent—you know, and don’t wreck the place. But like I said, you check out fine.” He starts nodding as though he’s agreeing for me. “So the paperwork. And then we’ll need a bank check—first, last, and three months security.” He keeps looking at me but mumbles the last of it. When I don’t respond, he shuffles away from me, backward toward the building. He leans forward.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “How much is this?”

  “Twenty-five. Twenty-five. So that’s . . .”

  “You want $12,500 up front?”

  “Yeah, that’s a big nut, huh?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Yeah, that’s big.” He steps closer to me and looks down at my feet. “Listen, it’s not a great market for landlords.” He reshoulders his bag. “This unit has been sitting empty for a while now. I tell him, “Let’s just get it rented—get some money coming in.” He turns away from me and spits, but it’s dry. “Personally, professionally, I think it’s overpriced.”

  “Then why doesn’t he lower it?”

  “That’s a good one—you’re funny.” He inhales. “But your mindset is good. I think if you made him a reasonable offer, he would take it.” He turns back to the building. “It’s a really nice space, but like I said, it’s a bit on the high side.”

  “How much is a bit?”

  “Like I said, make an offer. If you’re serious, give me a call or come by—I’ll get you in. Just don’t wait too long—I mean, I’m always showing it, and it is a good deal.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Okay, pal,” he says, suddenly without interest, “you see.”

  I let him get far enough away, and then I follow. I walk west to Marta’s on the north side of the avenue, the side I haven’t walked since C was born—past the antique shops, the jail. I cross the multilaned Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard, where there never seems to be a walk signal, the dangerous parking garage. And finally reach safety in front of the Middle Eastern shops, the green grocer, and the market.

  Marta’s doorbells never worked. When people came to visit, they had to call from the street and we’d throw the gate keys down to them. Marta’s not home, anyway; I can tell because the hallway light is on. She did this when she left, day or night. She never goes far—to the corner market or to the hardware store. I lean against the neighbor’s wall, the Mexican restaurant, just starting to receive happy-hour customers, and take my list out for editing. The creases already have their own subcreases. The ink is starting to blur. I decide not to change the rent numbers. I refold it and put it away. This would be about the time we’d be returning home from a playground, the kids bubbling with the prospects of television, or lobbying for their dinner choices. Sometimes I would wait for them, just like this, looking west and east, wondering from which direction they’d be coming, trying to fight off the tiny pangs of dread, and then seeing C first usually, X trying to keep up, and then Claire with the girl, either in the stroller or toddling alongside it. Sometimes she’d be pushing it, hidden from my sight, and that tiny dread would flare into near panic until I’d see Claire’s mouth move, encouraging her to walk a little faster.

  I look east toward the river. They aren’t there. The shipyard is full of crates—trailers—full of trade. I can’t believe that in all my time on this block I only noticed the idle cranes and the sunset. I wonder what it’s like to be a longshoreman, trudging up the slight incline from the yard with my hook over my shoulder. I’ve never seen anyone do that. I don’t know why I remember this block, this view specifically, only as some kind of historical collective—thickly layered memories that, in the end, become one: that soft sunlight on the metal, on the water sweeping up toward me along the tarmac as imperceptibly as the sun drifts down in the sky. Memory, imagination, and crisis—surely a most unholy trio.

  I wonder what others would do. Some would move away, but where is there to go? New York’s no damn good. It seems that those born here become, ironically enough, provincial. Boston is too thick with history, yes, but now it’s too small. This city has dwarfed it. Besides, Claire believes she loves it here; having grown up in the country, she never wants to go back to the homogeny, the boundless whiteness, in which she believes our children could not survive. But to escape that we’ve thrown them into another mess, the social experiment redux—an ahistorical one at that. Now, however, there is at least one brown kid per class instead of per grade. It’s another disaster. Brown kids as cultural experiences for the white ones. The teachers, the administrators, seem to believe that they are all on equal ground, but if they’d stop and think for just a moment, they’d realize that there is no shortage in experiencing the glory of white people in this country—this world. I see him sometimes—C—when I’ve been early to pick him up, sitting alone, concentrating on a painting. And although I know it’s a projection of my own consciousness, I cannot think anything other than that behind those beautiful and stoic copper eyes he is wracked by loneliness and pain. Stand up straight, I say. Enunciate, I say. Dignity, I say—the preparation for life is more daunting than the life itself. I’m too hard on my boy. I wish I could take it all back, but I fear already that my boy is too damaged. I’ve tried to cram what I’ve learned into his little body before he’s experienced it himself. What else is a father to do? They tried to make me ready, but I was never ready. What am I supposed to do? Perhaps a brown father need only be a safe place for his brown boy, where he can come to be afraid, to fall apart and cry.

  Marta appears out of the east, dragging a shopping cart behind her. She’s never looked well. She’s old and stooped, limping, and scowling perhaps from pain. She wears a black ski hat, an old navy blue windbreaker, and gray cotton sweatpants. She crosses Clinton Street with the light, but a car from Atlantic tries to turn past her. It doesn’t make it and stops in the crosswalk, partially blocking her path. She looks at the car as though it’s suddenly materialized in front of her. She freezes, not knowing whether to scold the driver or herself. Another car, trying to turn, honks at both of them. I go get her.

  She doesn’t seem to recognize me at first, but when we reach the sidewalk, the safety frees her to look at me closely. She gives me a cracked-lip, close-mouth smile.

  “Oh, Sonny, how are you?”

  “I’m well, and you?”

  She finds her scowl again. “Oh, Sonny, don’t ask.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You were so good. How are the babies?”

  “They’re great.”

  “Beautiful babies.”

  “Thank you.” It strikes me—knowing someone for the better part of a decade and never having a conversation with them—pleasantries in the hallway. Silent car rides to her daughter’s grave.

  “Where you move to?” I point south. She points a finger at my face and then waves it. “You should have never left. These people now—animals. Filthy animals. When you and your wife move here, you were young. I think they like you—psst. They complain—every little thing. I try to say, this is like family. They no want that.”

  “What do they want?”

  “They want to make trouble. They want to complain.” She starts walking to her door. I follow. She stops, fumbles with her large ring of keys, goes to unlock the gate, and stops again. “You want tea or something?”

  “Thank you, Marta, no. I have to get going.”

  She looks to the river. Her face relaxes from anger to sorrow. She sneaks a look up at me.

  “I got your message.”

  “Great.”

  “Listen, okay. I’m just going to tell you this.”

  I can’t look at her. I turn out to the street and pretend to watch the heavy traffic. She grunts and stutters behind me, then gives up. I hear he
r put the key in the lock. She opens the gate. She lets out a high, hurt dog whine.

  “Don’t be mad at me. I don’t like it when you get mad at me.”

  I can’t turn, but I do my best to answer calmly. It comes out curtly. “I’m not mad at you.”

  “You just like when you moved out. I know you mad. Please don’t be mad. You like my own son. You better son than my own son.”

  I turn to her. She paws her keys and shifts painfully from side to side. She opens her mouth to speak but only manages a wheeze. I raise my hand to stop her, but she tries again.

  “I’m in trouble, Sonny. He got me in trouble again.”

  “Manny?”

  “Si.”

  I wave for her to continue.

  “He was doing okay. He asks me for some money to go to school. He was doing okay, so I give him a little. He gets his grades and he shows me them. I don’t ask, but he shows me them to prove he’s doing good. He says he’s going to summer school. I ask him if he needs help, but he tells me he has a job. He thinks he’ll be okay. Okay, so it’s his birthday. He’s doing so good. He comes to me and asks—he needs credit card for books and things. He says he’ll pay the bill but he needs me to cosign because he don’t make enough money. I don’t feel right. But he says he really needs it, so I say yes.”

  She lowers her head and shakes it slowly. “First the phone calls and the letters. And they keep calling me. They say they gonna put a lee, li—”