Man Gone Down

by Michael Thomas

  “This your beer?” asks a coarse, disembodied voice. I don’t answer. I turn to walk away along the path but keep my head turned to where the voice came from. Two figures step out of the darkness toward me. Cops.

  “Excuse me. I asked you a question. Sir.”

  “What?”

  He steps forward. He’s short and square. White. He already has his nightstick out and taps a bottle with it. “Is this your beer?”

  “No.”

  The other cop steps forward now, a dark brown man, not as short as his partner, but equally thick. He fiddles with his radio antennae, looks past me to the river, and asks softly, “You drunk?”

  “No.”

  “High?”

  “No.”

  “Need anything?”

  “No.”

  “Sure now?”

  “I’m sure.”

  His partner fidgets, taps his stick against his leg, and backs up into the darkness.

  “You got someplace to go tonight?”

  I point beyond the warehouse and nod.

  “Maybe you should get there. This park is closed after dark.”

  I nod again and start away. The white cop calls after me, “Good night, sir.”

  I go back to the bodega and knock on the partition. The man snaps awake, turns on the chair in a full circle, and shakes his head until he realizes who and where he is and what it is he’s doing. He sees me and smiles weakly. He gets up and goes back to the cooler for more beer. I bang on the glass and he spins around, looking scared. I hold up my hands to calm him. I point at the beer and shake my head. He nods emphatically and puts it back. He points at the cigarette rack, and I shake again. He stops smiling and looks a bit lost. I tap the glass, lightly, and point at the coffeemaker. The pot is empty. He lifts it from the burner and shakes his head. He puts it down and clasps his hands together, still shaking his head. I put my hands together, too, and then wave while trying to give him the largest smile my face will allow. He nods again, then remembers something, shoots a finger into the air, then points it at the door, waving with his other hand.

  I go to the door. He unlocks it, waves me in quickly, sticks his head out, looks up and down the street, then satisfied with what he’s seen, pulls his head back in and locks the door.

  “My friend, wait.”

  I shiver visibly, and he frowns and shakes his head. He’s a head shorter than me, small boned. He looks up over my shoulder, reaches out, almost pats it, but stops his hand and points to the ceiling instead.

  He keeps the finger up, turns away, and heads for the back. He stops in the doorway and turns back, walking to me with a small silver coffee pot. He points happily at the stack of cups near the electric one. I take one, and he fills it with dark coffee. He puts a lid on it and bends the tab back in one motion, then hands it to me. He points for me to get another. He fills this one, too, and takes it from me. He goes to the cooler, takes out a half pint of cream, and gives his cup a long pour. He pushes it at me.

  “No, thank you.”

  He looks disappointed but shrugs it off. He goes to the coffee station, picks up the sugar, and offers it to me. Again I refuse, but with a short wave. He smiles this time, sets his cup down carefully, and then pour-spoons a good four teaspoons in. He inspects his coffee closely and then turns back to me. I go for my pocket, but he waves off payment with a finger.

  “Thank you.”

  He nods and guides me to the door. He opens it, and I turn back to him. He gestures to the night, gestures at my wet clothes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I offer him a cigarette. He smiles, shakes his head, and then slowly turns it into a nod. He takes one. I push the pack at him, but he waves a finger at it. I light him. He shrugs his shoulders then points at my cup.

  “Spanish coffee.”

  I nod.

  “I’m from Bangladesh.”

  I nod again.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Here.”

  He nods. “Good night.”

  “Good night.” I back out, and he closes and locks the door. He raises his cup and sips from it. He gives one last wave, turns, and heads for the back.

  I take a sip. It’s hot and strong. I hold the cup against my cheek and start walking slowly, keeping it there until I feel my pulse under it. I stop and take a long pull, tilting my head back. The coffee going down seems to push away the encroaching chills. I lean back farther and finish it. There’s the moon, hiding behind the thin clouds, threatening to stay there as though this was the last night of earth.

  IV

  Everybody Is a Star

  And right action is freedom

  From past and future also.

  For most of us, this is the aim

  Never here to be realized;

  Who are only undefeated

  Because we have gone on trying . . .

  —T. S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages” V

  16

  August has conceded. It’s a cool morning. The sun is late. Marco and I wait on his stoop. We are silent and sip coffee from stainless-steel travel mugs. He got up extra early to brew a strong pot. He’d caught me, sitting on the edge of his son’s bed in what looked to be some half-etherized state with my bag at my side. What could I have said?

  Perhaps we’re still friends and this gesture is a testament to that. Perhaps we’re both hiding behind the mask of it being too early for talk—that we’re both still too addled—the coffee has yet to take effect. He’s put milk in mine, but I dismiss the possibility of a conspiracy. Friends, real friends don’t conspire against each other.

  A black SUV pulls up. It’s one of those dark-continent conquest mobiles. This one, however, hasn’t seen mud or sand. It’s been buffed to a high metallic shine. It’s a vehicle equipped for ghetto gentrification. The Mercedes Benz hood ornament looks like a rifle sight. All it needs is a gun turret for the roof.

  “Let’s go, man,” says Marco. He hops down the stairs, shoulders his clubs, and makes for the gate. These four sleepless nights have shot my nerves. I have trouble with my mug, trying to figure out how to close it, then which hand to hold it in. The stairs are tricky, too—too steep and too narrow in the tread. I hop-stumble the last two, and coffee splashes up through the sip slot.

  Marco has reached the car and talks to the driver through the passenger window. The other man sitting there looks past him and studies me openly. He’s square headed, preppy, dark blond, sharp nosed. He reminds me of Buster Brown the shoe boy, but grown up. He tilts his head to get a good look at my clubs—unmatched no names and brand names in an old leather bag that may once have been nice. Marco has stuffed his old/new driver in, as well.

  I remember that I don’t have any balls. I need to play with new ones—Titleist. I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to hit anything else. And I want, like a child, to call out to Marco and tell him, but I know he’ll say that he has balls and he’ll hand me a half dozen of the ones he’s found this summer in trees and tall grass, and when I hesitate, he’ll tease—“It’s just a ball.” I also don’t want Buster to hear my voice—not yet. He’s still curious but now waits for me to look at him overtly so he can nod his approval. I don’t.

  Marco calls, “You ready?” and heads for the tailgate, extending an arm for my bag. I shake him off.

  “Nice bag, man,” says Buster. I pretend not to hear him and put the clubs in the back.

  The inside of the assault vehicle is as plush as Edith’s sedan—perhaps more so juxtaposed to its rugged promise. I climb in. The driver turns to say hello, and I’m struck by his face; it’s kind. He has a small nose like Buster, but it’s rounded and soft. His eyes are hazel and twinkly, and he’s smiling—almost meekly, more boyish than anything, I suppose. He’s bald up top, probably has been losing hair since high school. He doesn’t seem to care—no plugs, no comb-over, no baseball hat. He reminds me of one of the likable coaches I had—polite, calm, rides home after practice in some oil-burning shitbox.

  “D
an. Pleasure.”

  “Good morning.”

  He turns back. Puts the jeep in gear. Buster waves a backhand at me and doesn’t turn.

  “Hey. Bob.”

  We pull out and I realize that I don’t know where we’re going—surely not to the little public course I’d been to. Jersey? Westchester? Long Island? We wind our way through the quiet Brooklyn streets to the BQE. Up front they speak in a strange and quiet code—some financial-legalese dialect. Marco looks out his window, across to Manhattan. Perhaps he’s contemplating the fact that they’re all derelict in their duties, and I wonder how to consider the three of them—the professionals playing hooky—whether their absence is arrogance or defiance. Whether Marco gets fed up with the man—although, for most, he is the man. But I know there’s the CEO, CFO, COO, the president, and each one possesses a deed on a section of his ass. And unless the other two were of that higher class, they were assed out, too. Marco and I both look out over the western edge of Queens, over the canal and the cranes—more warehouses and asphalt shingle-clad low row houses that line the anonymous streets below. He turns to me, gives a tight nod. It makes me feel a bit better, that all of us are doing something wrong, that we all may have some cosmic issue that has compelled us on this late summer morn to chance allowing our empires, both small and large, to expand or fall to ruin.

  We hit the LIE eastbound. Still no talk. No music and the Benz is so quiet. It seems that we aren’t moving save for Queens flashing by: brick apartment buildings, now Shea, now LaGuardia, and eastward, colonials and more anonymous streets.

  “We’re going to the club,” says Marco, turning from the window. “Is that okay?” I take a sip of my milky coffee, which, even in the astronaut mug, has gone cold.

  “I don’t have a collared shirt.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get you set up.”

  I’m not sure who the we is or are. Driver Dan and Buster Bob are quiet, looking out the windshield. If the we is they, they aren’t letting on. Dan looks too honest, too kind to be involved in any kind of setup. “Do you have anyone we can hunt at the club this weekend?” I don’t see it, not from him, but Buster, yes. I put the words in his mouth. “Hey, Maracoh—got any sport?” Marco watches Queens disappear. In purchasing his assimilation he’s sold me out, but I won’t give them the satisfaction of running, or even fighting. They can shoot me where I stand.

  * * *

  There’s no outbound traffic so the trip is quick. We exit the highway, decelerate, turning. The trees thicken, and there are sudden breaks in them.

  “You’re an English professor, right?” asks Dan with a hint of reverence. I look at Marco, who refuses to turn from his window.

  “Yes.” What else can I say?

  “This place, the first time I came here reminded me of Gatsby. You know what I mean?”

  “Oh, are we in one of the Eggs?” I reply, fumbling, which, I suppose, if one were to cut me a lot of rope, might sound interesting. Dan just nods—mouths a delayed and quiet “Yep.” I look out my window, but there’s only trees. I look out Marco’s. There’s a great lawn—Gatsbyesque, I suppose. Island Estates. Private way. We pass more great lawns—driveways lined with pearly stones or crushed shells, which suggest that they retreat a great distance from the road and terminate at something grand, but most of them have multiple mailboxes at the gate. Hundred-acre estates have been halved over the years, and then halved and halved again. If there is some postmodern Daisy up one of those drives, I’m sure she won’t be coming down to the road to fetch her mail. I feel a quick twinge inside, like my stomach, for a second, has folded over and back, when I consider how dead she really is.

  THE COUNTRY CLUB says the signpost, EST. 1921. We turn off the tiny road, disappear behind a line of junipers, down a gravel drive. We slow down. To the left is a green. Dan rolls down his window and waves to an elderly man who looks up from examining a putt. He recognizes Dan, waves back, and returns to his study. I’ve never seen a green like this one—two tiered, immaculate, almost artificial. The man addresses his ball, and Dan speeds up. I turn to look out the back to watch him, but he’s not ready. He steps away, reexamines his line, then is obscured by the first in a row of enormous oaks.

  “Pretty nice?” asks Marco.

  “Lovely,” I answer. Still looking back as though I possessed supernatural vision.

  “Played here before?” asks Buster without turning. I’m offended by his lack of effort. I decide I don’t like Buster—that it’s all right for me not to, to make an aesthetics-based decision. Buster is bad: his smug nose and lips; the tiny cleft on his chin; his absurdly blue eyes—the kind that first his mother and later his wife bought shirts and ties to match. He takes care of his skin. It’s well scrubbed, well oiled, but his close-cropped hair was done at a barbershop. He’s not so far gone—maintains just enough old-world masculinity in his grooming ritual. He turns to me to check if I’m really there, not believing that I heard his question. How could he have been ignored? I get a better sense of him when he turns. He’s much larger than Dan—more rectilinear; his shoulders, his head, his jaw—everything really, except for that smug little nose. In another time he’d be sporting a smug little mustache—lip cover. It fits too well here in Gatsby land. He’s Tom, dreaming of future conquest and past athletic glory. But we all know that during Buster’s playing days Ivy League football was already bush league and that the land grab is long over. I wonder what kind of car he has and how many Mexican workers he can hide in his trunk. I dislike Buster more than Tom. At least Tom had Polo as an outlet. This guy’s violence is too contained. He speaks again, even more truncated.

  “Play here?”

  “Never.”

  “Gonna like it.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  They’ve all managed to shave—nickless. They’re all wearing polo shirts—different colors, but the same nonetheless. Their assemblage—haircuts, smooth cheeks, collars, carriage—adds up to some sort of badge, a pinky ring for some sort of blue-blood mafia. I stop there because of Marco. I think he’s my friend, but the evidence points away from that. Dan stops the car. And even though the analogy is offensive—makes no sense—I wait for Marco to put a bullet in my head.

  Nobody shoots. They open their doors, and I follow suit. Someone has snuck around back and opened the hatch. Two teens, one black and one white, take our clubs out and stand them beside the walk. Dan whispers something to the white kid. The black kid does his best not to look at any of us. He fusses with the bags, tries to make them all stand up in the rack.

  “Let’s go,” says Dan. Buster and Marco follow him up the path to what I assume to be the clubhouse—obscured by more enormous oaks. I’m left in the netherworld between the house and the ride. I want to say something to the black kid, as though I possessed wisdom, some armored words for him for now and for later. But all I have in my head is the beginning of a disjointed autobiography. Now he looks up at me, queerly. He’s a handsome kid—dark skinned and dark eyed: a question in them, asking me, perhaps, what I’m doing still standing there. He shoulders two bags and turns away.

  My companions are gone, into the clubhouse. I walk up the cedar-chip path beyond the trees and up to a grand old Victorian. I stop at the door. An older couple walks up the path toward me—the man from the green, and another man, whom I thought to be a woman, I’m not sure why. They don’t seem to notice me until, a pace away, they both look up. Not surprised. Almost calculated. The man from the green gives me an unreadable nod. The other ignores me and opens the door. He stops, says hello to someone coming out. It’s Marco. He greets both men; neither cracks a smile and they go in.

  Marco turns to me with a puzzled look.

  “What happened?”

  “I was talking to those kids,” I point back down the path, at the trees. “I lost you.” He looks down, then at the big door, then sideways at me. “Sorry. I thought I’d find you again if I stayed put.”

  “We were in the pro shop,”
he points at the wall as though it was cut away. “You could’ve just come in. You’re my guest.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “However you want it, man.”

  He seems hurt again but not like the night before—it’s a hurt that, away from booze and maître d’s and young women, has room to grow, on his face, in his stance. Marco is my friend, and it becomes apparent that he needs me, and needs me to need him. I smack him on the arm, the best I can do right now.

  He shows me the shirt.

  “I hope it fits.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Use the locker room—it’s at the end of the hall to the right.” He looks up almost cross-eyed, reassuring, “It’s cool—all right.”

  “All right.”

  “You need anything else?” He looks happy again—that innocent look he has—eager, can-do, optimistic.

  “Yeah.” He perks up even more. “I need balls. Pro shop?”

  “No, not there,” he waves a finger at the house. “They’re criminals.” He points at his chest. “I’ve got balls. I’ve got plenty of balls.” He gestures to the door with his head. “Go get changed. Our tee time’s soon.”

  Marco is a good man. He’s my friend, so I smile and give him another slap on the arm, which he seems to like. He opens the door for me, and I turn to go in. The clubhouse is like the inside of a hollowed-out oak tree—oak floors, walls, and long benches along them in the great room. The tarnished frames of the oil paintings have lost their luster, and they, too, seem to have been carved into their places. The charter members, like so many smears of berry juice on the wood cave walls.

  “All the way across to that hallway,” says Marco, “then the first door on the left.” He hands me the shirt.

  There are people inside. Some sit and some move, but all are like bees in a torpor because of the early morning cool—safe for now. I’m backlit by the sun, still low over the first fairway. My shadow is long on the floor.