“Can I get another glass of water?” I asked. When I offered her my empty, holding it up to the light, I could see traces of some powder sliding down along the sides. She drugged me! “Holy shit!”
She bolted into the bedroom. I jumped to my feet and raced behind. Inside was a queen-size bed with four metal posts—perfect.
“What the fuck did you slip me?”
“Nothing! I swear!”
With my right hand I yanked her wrist up tightly behind her back, painfully. With my left hand, I reached around front, ripping open her shirt so that her breast tumbled out.
“What did you slip me!”
“Nothing, I swear! It must have been soap from the dish-washer.”
I shoved her face forward and yanked up the right leg of her pants. There it was—the dark green sea horse.
Suddenly I felt myself growing weak.
“You drugged me, you bitch!” I grabbed some ties dangling from her doorknob and had to work quickly, securing her before I passed out. Then when I came to, I could finish the job.
“I can’t believe I found you,” I said, circling the silk tie around her right wrist firmly, pulling it tightly around the post, knotting it again and again.
“Please leave me alone!” she begged as I began with the second wrist. Tying the knot, twisting, cinching, retying, until all she could do was wiggle.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
“No!” she groaned. “Who?”
“It’s me! I reached right up the ass of the Internet and pulled you out,” I explained, as I secured her right ankle to the right post of the bed. I felt her head shaking violently. She was weeping as I collapsed on top of her. “You must have known I was coming for you,” I added, feeling so little keeping me conscious. “You had something ready for me. Didn’t you?”
That’s when I saw that she wasn’t crying at all, she was giggling, but I had her arms and one leg tied tight. I hit her hard across the face. My lids and limbs were so heavy, and her free leg was kicking—I couldn’t lasso it to the post. Sluggishly, I raced up and fit the tie into her laughing mouth. I tied it again and again. She’ll be ready for me when I …
* * *
Smacks across my face, whack upon whack, till I start blinking. I’m handcuffed and she’s looking down on me.
“Men are such half-wits,” she says.
“What are you talking …?” I’m barely able to speak.
“What’s your handle?”
“My what …?”
She smacks me some more. As I awaken, I see I am in a stone room, probably her cellar. I’m spread out on the frame of an old metal army cot without a mattress. My wrists and ankles are cuffed to the four corners. In the bright light, crusted splotches of blood are visible on the floor. She keeps hitting me hard across the face.
“What the fuck!” I yell out.
She empties the contents of my wallet on my chest. She is holding my knife. I can see that she has clipped a square of my pants away so that my genitals are exposed.
“Listen carefully, because I don’t want to lose my temper. I’ve been e-mailing with five of you little piggies. I got the first one immediately, and the second one three months ago, so that leaves three. What name do you use when you e-mail me?”
“I’m GOTCHU.” I can barely open my mouth.
“Oh, you’re the idiot that I sent the faceless photo to,” she explained. “The others all insisted on seeing my face.”
“But … but I caught you,” I say groggily.
“You caught me?” she asks. “I sent enough geographical references for a retard to figure out where I live, and it took you what, six months? The other guy figured it out in six weeks.”
“Witnesses saw me come into your house!”
“Who’s going to find you missing?” she asks. “You don’t work for the census. You don’t live around here.”
“What are you going to do?” I’m slurring, barely able to keep my eyes open. “Are you going to kill me?”
“On the contrary, I’m going to do everything I can to keep you alive as long as possible,” she says. “Oh, but don’t worry, your scalpel is going to get used, after all.”
NEW LOTS AVENUE
BY NELSON GEORGE
Brownsville
On a recent late-fall Saturday afternoon Cynthia Green was walking down New Lots Avenue in East New York with her seven-year-old daughter Essence and an armful of groceries from the local bodega. The slender, pale-skinned young woman was thinking of how to convince her mother to babysit Essence that night so she could go out, when a black sedan pulled up beside her. The black man inside called out, “Act like you don’t know me!” Being that this was the kind of car only a cop would be seen in and she wasn’t carrying anything more criminal than two forties, she decided to stop.
When she looked at the driver, Cynthia said, “What you doin’ around here?”
Cousin Johnny replied, “Workin’.” He was a thick-shouldered, brown-skinned man with the makings of a soon-to-be-large natural do. He was wearing a green road Donavan McNabb jersey. There was small Sony video camera on the seat next to him.
“Workin’ in this car?”
“Nice, huh?”
Cynthia knew cousin Johnny as a cop. And he still was, only more so.
“Now I’m with DEA.”
“Since when?”
“Since the last two years. You don’t keep up with your relatives, do you? Anyway, how’s my favorite cousin doing?”
They exchanged family updates—what this and that cousin or aunt was doing. Then Cynthia said, “You better be chill around here.”
“Don’t worry,” he replied, “all I’m doing is taking pictures right now. You know the Puerto Rican dude who lives over there? They call him Victorious?”
“The Victorious that lives over there?” She pointed toward a brown two-story row house. Johnny nodded affirmatively. “Yeah,” she added, “I know him well.”
“Well,” her cousin said, holding up the video camera, “this is for him.”
Victorious was a highly entrepreneurial member of the Five Percent religion. Had a job in the cafeteria of a municipal office building downtown, sold jewelry that his wife made, and, according to cousin Johnny, was extremely close to some Latino brothers from Colombia about to make a major move into East New York and Brownsville. Victorious had gone to junior high school with Cynthia, had hung out with her on the block many nights and shared his dope cheeba over the years. He was a homie.
“So,” she asked, “he’s in deep trouble?”
“No more than any of the other people I take pictures of. I’m all over the five boroughs. It pays good.” Johnny was from a rock-solid middle class family in St. Albans, Queens. Both his parents had worked for the city, and he’d gone to John Jay, majoring, of course, in criminal justice. Now he lived in Jersey in a cozy little suburban home just like his white colleagues. Except that Johnny was black, which made him perfect for the kind of work he was doing now—spying on other people of color working in the underground economy.
As Johnny sat, camera in lap, he teased little Essence, who welcomed the friendly male attention. Cynthia, who was feeling all sorts of conflicting feelings, said, “I know it’s good money and benefits, but niggas is buck out here.” Johnny seemed unconcerned. He’d made his decision about the kind of life he was living a long time ago. There was nothing Cynthia could say that her aunt Lucille hadn’t said many times before. Johnny just picked up his video camera, flipped the switch, and took a nice shot of Cynthia and Essence.
“Tell your mother I send my love,” he said, as his cousin walked away and Essence waved at him.
That evening, when Johnny’s car was gone (perhaps replaced by another, but who could tell?), Cynthia stopped by Victorious’s place. His parents lived downstairs and Victorious and his wife upstairs. Cynthia wondered if they could take a walk together. He was a lanky, slightly handsome yellow-skinned man with a goatee and a baldy. There was the
tip of a tattoo visible on his neck just above the turned-up lapels of his beige Rocawear jacket.
She could see his breath in the cold and how the patterns of his breathing changed as she spoke. It surprised him that she had a DEA agent for a cousin, but nothing else she said did. Victorious told her the DEA had busted his apartment just the month before, confiscating “a lot of money,” but didn’t find any drugs. His wife had been there alone when it happened and the DEA had given her a receipt on the way out. She hadn’t been sleeping too well since that visit. In fact, he finally admitted to Cynthia, she’d moved back to her mother’s house in Bushwick just last week. Victorious told Cynthia what he told his wife—the money had come from the city job and from selling her jewelry, the drug stuff was just some mess. Cynthia didn’t speak on it: That part wasn’t her business. But he was a long-time friend. That’s why they were standing under the bare branches of a tree on New Lots Avenue on this night in thirty-degree weather.
“Just be chill,” Cynthia told him finally. “Maybe you better try and get your money back, you know, and start a video store or a laundry. People always have to get their clothes washed.”
“Good looking out,” he said, and then gave her a hug. She could feel his body shaking slightly, though his face was impassive. After Cynthia left, Victorious stood in the doorway of the two-story building, his head turning left and right as he peered into cars parked along the street and listened to the roar from the elevated IRT train a few blocks away. He’d lived on New Lots Avenue his whole life and almost every day thought about when he’d be ready to move.
The next afternoon, when Johnny rolled by the house, video camera on the seat, he noticed that the curtains on Victorious’s windows were gone. It wouldn’t be until the day after that he discovered Victorious had moved.
SCAVENGER HUNT
BY NEAL POLLACK
Coney Island
The nighttime air at Coney smells like corn dogs and fried clams and a little bit like garbage. It’s a good smell, once you get used to it, and a good place. There are lights and activity and you never know who’s going to walk past. For an old man who’s kind of curious, but also kind of not interested in talking to anyone, it’s perfect. I can watch the people and still concentrate on my world, a swirl of wooden horses and songs from the thirties that no one remembers anymore. I oil the poles when they get squeaky, track real horses in the Post, and count the quarters at the end of the shift. There’s not much conversation. I’m basically an ugly bastard with a thick accent, and I don’t want to scare anyone. Why should I play to type? I wasn’t born to be the creepy guy who runs the carousel.
In the summers I keep the ride open late. You never know when a bunch of teenagers from Montclair might show up. The Puerto Rican families stay out until midnight on the weekends. More and more, too, I get the kids—I call them kids, but they’re in their twenties—out on a date, trying to impress each other on the bumper cars and Whack-A-Mole. Big night for them, I guess, to look at the freaks, or to pretend like they’re freaks themselves. When they make it over to me, which they almost always do, I slow the carousel down so they can enjoy each other. The young have certain needs. I was young once, too, and once there was romance in my life.
Sometimes special circumstances arise. It was after 11 p.m. I yawned into the newspaper; no one had been by for a ride in at least forty-five minutes. I decided it was time to shut down.
Two girls came along the boardwalk. They weren’t beautiful in the way that you see on TV, or naturally beautiful, either, but they had style. In fact, they had a style that I hadn’t really seen before, hair done a certain way, t-shirts of a certain design, their skirts real short, cut at a certain angle. They had a look about them that just seemed, well, contemporary. I’m not a contemporary guy, but I could still tell.
They stopped in front of me. I felt my breath sting my chest, which happens when I get excited. One of them said, “Please don’t tell me you’re closed.”
I gulped. Sixty-four years old, and still a sucker. “Just about to,” I said.
“Shit!” she said. “You’ve got to let us ride.”
“What?”
“We really need to ride the carousel.”
She reached into her purse and took out a twenty.
“For both of us,” she said.
“It doesn’t cost that much.” Then—don’t ask me why—I said, “You two ride for free.”
The other girl, prettier than the first, touched my arm. I felt a jolt travel down my spine and into my brain. I’ve always been stupid around women.
“Aren’t you sweet?” she said.
“We’re gonna ride for three songs,” said her friend.
“Okay,” I replied.
I was going to lose a little money. I didn’t care. It had been a profitable summer. So I started up the carousel.
The first few notes of the organ coming to life scare me. It sounds like someone being resurrected from the dead, against his will. Didn’t seem to bother the girls, though. One of them got on top of a tall black horse in the front. The other took a digital camera out of her purse. While the first girl rode and waved, the other one took pictures. When the song ended, they switched places quickly.
While the second song was still playing, the girl who was taking pictures walked to my booth.
“I’m gonna get on the carousel with my friend,” she said. “Will you take our picture together?”
“Okay.”
“We’re on a scavenger hunt,” she said. “We need proof of being in different places and doing different things.”
“Sounds fun.”
“It’s very fun. You should come with us next time.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. “I have to …”
“I was kidding,” she said. “Oh.”
She got on the carousel for the third song. They sat together on a bench. I stood in front of the ride, camera ready.
“Take our picture!” called out one of them. I couldn’t tell which. The carousel had started moving and they were blurry. The first time around, I got them with their arms in the air, shouting. But it was a little out of focus.
“Again!” one of them said.
When they came around the next time, the photo took nice and clear. The girls were kissing. Not on the cheek, either. Really kissing. And they kept kissing until the ride was over. I’d never seen girls do that before.
“You get the pictures?” the first one asked.
“Oh yes.”
“You got us kissing, right?”
“Yes.”
She put the camera in her purse. The other girl patted my hand. I blushed.
“See you next time,” she said.
* * *
No one was going to Coney a dozen years ago. It was really at its low point. So when I bought the carousel, I didn’t expect to make any money. I’d retired from my city job with some savings. When you start at twenty-two, you can stop work pretty early. My wife and I didn’t have any kids, and we didn’t enjoy each other, either. She doesn’t like traveling, and I don’t like going out to dinner. I needed something to do. One day, I was walking down the boardwalk, trying to remember what it’d been like as a kid. There was a For Sale sign.
I talked to the Russian who was taking care of the ride. He obviously didn’t give a shit. The paint on the horses was chipping off, the poles were rusted, and the room was decorated with a faded mural dating, at the latest, to 1965, but probably further back than that. It was dingy and depress-ing.
“Who wants to ride a fake horse, anyway?” the Russian said.
He was asking a little more than I had available, but what the hell? I went to the bank and pulled some financing together. A guy I knew from the city was able to grease the walk-through inspection. After I closed the deal, I went home for dinner.
“Where’ve you been?” asked my wife.
“I just bought the Coney Island carousel,” I said.
She looked at me hard. I’ve ne
ver been able to figure out why she hates me so much.
“So?” she said. “You think you’re special?”
I’d definitely made the right choice.
The heating system was old but still pretty efficient. I spent the winter—which was miserable, with winds like knives—chipping away the rust. I bought some industrial cleaner and gave the whole place a scrub, which took about ten days. Then I hired some mural painters, real cheap, students from Parsons. They did up the horses beautifully. I wasn’t as happy with their work on the mural, but it was fresh paint, so it didn’t really matter. I hammered together a comfortable little booth to sit in. Someone came out and worked on the organ. Before I knew it, April had arrived.
I went up to Martha’s Vineyard for a few days, and didn’t take my wife. Told her I was going to visit mother in the home. The carousel operator on the island couldn’t have been nicer. I was a quick study. The day after tax day, 1992, I opened the ride.
* * *
The girls came back two weeks after their first visit. It was around the same time of night. They looked even cuter than before, if that was possible.
“Remember us?” asked one of them.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m Katie, and this is Diane.”
I took Katie’s hand. “Hello,” I said.
“Can we ride the carousel tonight?” said Diane.
“Of course!”
She handed me a twenty.
They got on together this time. But they didn’t ask me to take a picture. They just rode around. Katie pulled out a little flask, and they sipped from it. I didn’t usually allow drinking on the ride, but it was late and no one was going to get in trouble.
They got off when the song ended.
“You want to ride with us?” Diane asked.
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to operate …”
“I can do it!” she said. “For one song! You can show me how.”
For some reason, I said okay. It didn’t take a genius, after all. She picked it up pretty quickly. Did a practice spin. Then Katie and I got on. We sat together on a bench.
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