Though a tiny animal, Rizzo had left an easy trail to follow. At the Korean grocery across the street a woman sat surprised on the sidewalk, cantaloupes positioned around her like pool balls after a break shot. The grocer held a broom in his hand, ready to strike at the first sign of the demon that had invaded his store. His wife waved her hands and tried to calm the other customers in broken English. At the far end of the block, a man walking his Afghan was nearly pulled out into the street as the dog began barking and straining at his leash. Malcolm ran toward them.
The dog was barking up an alleyway and Malcolm turned in, trying to move calmly so as not to scare Rizzo. There were kitchen entrances on either side, one for a Chinese take-out place, the other a Mexican restaurant where he had once eaten with Erin and gotten sick from some bad sour cream. He paused between the two, wondering what his next step ought to be. He wasn’t even sure Rizzo would come to him. From inside the Mexican restaurant there was the sound of a large pan hitting the floor, followed by shouting in Spanish. Malcolm pushed open the screen door.
Three cooks were yelling instructions at each other. One of them held an iron skillet over his head. From high on a pantry shelf, Rizzo hung his pointed face down, his red eyes gleaming with what Malcolm was sure was pleasure.
“Rizzo,” said Malcolm in the sternest tone he could muster. “Come.” For nearly a year when he was a kid he had tried to teach a small mongrel dog to respond with this same command, before his parents had finally given the pet away. “Come here,” he said, his voice even lower.
The cook with the frying pan had been sneaking over from the side and was now in position to try a smack at the ferret, but Rizzo saw him coming and dove in the opposite direction, toward the stove. Beyond that was the entrance to the dining room. But he miscalculated just a bit, and landed on a saucepan lid that was balanced precariously above the stove. It tipped and fell taking Rizzo with it, depositing him neatly into a vat of deep-frying oil.
Malcolm had to give the chef ten bucks before he would let him fish Rizzo out and take him home. They gave him a carryout sack with Andale Andale, the name of the restaurant, printed on it, and he walked back to the apartment feeling sick. Once inside, he put Rizzo in his customary place atop the television, opened himself a diet root beer, sat down and stared at the blank screen.
He was asleep when she came in, his head dangling off the side of the chair. The sounds she made woke him. Disoriented, he was sure the apartment was being burglarized and jumped to his feet. Then he remembered.
“Babe,” said Erin when she saw he was awake, “Have you seen Rizzo?”
“He’s on the television,” said Malcolm, but even as he said it he saw that the bag was gone.
Erin noticed his expression. “I stuck your leftovers in the fridge,” she said. “You can’t leave food out like that. It will spoil.” She walked around the room, looking behind the furniture for signs of her pet. “I can’t believe you went back to that place after you got so sick the last time.”
Malcolm watched her move, trying to remember how it used to feel to look at her. When they’d first met she had seemed so mysterious and intriguing, like a carefully wrapped present delivered to him by mistake.
She noticed his bandage. “What did you do to your hand?”
“Erin,” he said. “You’d better sit down.”
She took it fairly well, considering. She listened calmly, knitting her brows in concentration, occasionally pulling at the one earring she had forgotten to take off. Then she went into the bathroom and threw up. Malcolm got the bag out of the refrigerator and put it on the table. When she came out he was standing in front of it, his hands in his pockets.
“I just don’t understand,” she said.
“Maybe he saw something out there.”
“Out that window?”
“Well, maybe he was trying to follow you.” Malcolm’s bass was still out, and he went to put it away. “What do you want to do with him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t think.” She touched the bag tentatively with one finger, then pulled back. “Did you have to bring him back like this?”
“Would you rather I’d just left him?”
“Yes,” she said. “This is so gruesome.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” said Malcolm. “I’ll take him out to the dumpster. I just thought you might want to do something. Bury him or something.” He picked up the bag.
“Wait a minute,” said Erin. “We can’t just throw him out like a piece of garbage. You’re right. We should bury him.”
Malcolm put the bag back down. “OK,” he said. “I’ve done my part. I’m going to bed.”
She nodded. He went behind his partition, took off his shirt, and lay down.
A half-hour passed during which Malcolm looked up in the darkness at the ceiling and tried unsuccessfully to will himself to sleep. He’d done all he could, more even, he thought. But still he couldn’t rid his mind of the image of the white take-out sack on the table in the other room.
He heard footsteps. Erin was standing in his doorway. “Malcolm?” she said. “I need help.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know where to take him.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Come on. Can’t you see I’m upset?”
She was actually asking him for something besides the truck keys, for the first time in a long time. Malcolm realized that, in an odd way, he was enjoying this—enjoying the power.
“He was your pet,” he said.
“Malcolm, please.” She seemed on the verge of tears. He thought back to the first job the band had played, and how she’d suddenly come down with nervous diarrhea an hour before the show. He’d had to make a last minute run to the drugstore to get her medicine.
The carpenter in him began turning the situation over, considering the angles. There was always a solution if you looked hard enough.
“We could call the ASPCA,” he said. “Or a vet. They have to dispose of dead pets all the time.”
“I want to bury him,” she said.
“All right. So what we need to do is find a place. Some grass or something. How about Central Park?”
“I want it to be close.”
He considered. “That’s tough. It’s not like we have a backyard.” He glanced out the window at the Towne House Hotel, the outside of which he’d spent so many hours staring at that each dingy brick was ingrained in his mind. “I know,” he said.
The night clerk at the hotel was staring lizardlike into a portable black-and-white television, and barely looked at them as they signed the register. Malcolm’s idea was that by taking a room they would have access to the hotel’s rooftop garden. He knew they had one, because a yellowing tin sign by the entrance proclaimed the fact. They would bury Rizzo, then sneak out so they wouldn’t have to pay. He signed the register “Les Paul,” and Erin, playing out the joke, signed underneath it “Mary Ford.” He liked her for that, for knowing him so well. He also felt the guilt again, as if it were something heavy he’d swallowed. Malcolm carried a small overnight case containing Rizzo’s remains, along with a spatula and a large serving spoon to use as digging implements since they had no shovel.
“Payment in advance,” said the desk clerk in a bored voice.
Malcolm made a show of patting his pockets. “Damn,” he said. “I must have left my wallet in the car.”
The clerk just looked at him. He had the pasty complexion of someone who spent his days asleep and his nights in front of a TV.
“The car’s in the garage for the night. I won’t be able to get to it until morning. You can trust us.” Malcolm smiled as broadly as he could, but was conscious that in his jeans and T-shirt, an earring in his ear, he looked very un-touristlike.
“Welcome to New York,” said the clerk. “Nobody trusts nobody here. You give me some money, you get a room.” He yawned and turned back to the television.
“Wait a minute,” said Erin. “I th
ink I may have some cash.” She dug into her pants pocket and pulled out a wad of bills—her evening’s pay. She counted out the amount for the room, nearly all she had.
“The grocery money, darling,” she said, taking his arm. “I forgot to give it to the maid.”
The clerk eyed her without amusement, then took a key off a hook. “Three-seventeen,” he said. “Need help with your bags?”
“No, I got ’em,” said Malcolm.
“Elevator to the third floor, turn right. Checkout is eleven-thirty.” He turned back to his television.
“I’m broke,” said Malcolm when they were on the elevator. “I can’t split this with you.”
“It’s OK,” she said. “This is cheap, relatively. When my aunt died, my Uncle Bob spent over three grand on the funeral, and that wasn’t even New York.”
They bypassed the third floor and went straight to the top of the building, got off and climbed a short flight of stairs to a metal door that led onto the roof.
“It figures,” said Malcolm when he pushed it open.
The rooftop garden was not really a garden at all, but a paved deck with a few lounge chairs scattered about and some potted plants. There wasn’t a square foot of grass. The moon hung like a dinner plate over the dark contours of the city, bathing the concrete in a thin gray light. He walked over to the railing and looked down. The view was dizzying—a constellation of intersecting planes going down a straight drop of two hundred feet.
“Romantic, isn’t it?” said Erin, coming over to join him and pointing up. “You could almost reach up and touch it. Don’t feel bad. It was a good idea.”
He tightened his grip on the railing. He wanted to confess, but the words would not come.
“There,” said Erin. She was pointing at a potted tree, a palm of some sort.
“What?” said Malcolm.
“We’ll bury him there. Right in with that tree. There’s plenty of room.” Her expression was practical, her voice calm and measured. She might have been discussing the weather.
She used the spatula and Malcolm helped with the spoon. They worked around the tree’s roots, and managed in a few minutes to clear a space of roughly Rizzo’s proportions. Malcolm watched her slender fingers as they worked the dirt. A pale line still marked the place where she’d stopped wearing her ring. When they were done it was with great hesitation that he finally brought out the paper bag.
“Maybe we should say something,” Erin said, looking dubiously, first at it, then at the hole they had dug. “Malcolm?”
“You say something.”
She put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “OK,” she said. “Dear Lord, we are gathered here to say good-bye to one of your creatures, a ferret, Rizzo by name.”
Malcolm watched a tear form in the corner of her eye.
“I feel stupid,” she said.
“Don’t,” he told her.
She took a breath and continued. “He was a good pet. I don’t know why he would have run off like he did, but he did.” She looked down at her feet, as if some additional words might be written there. “I hope you can find space for Rizzo in heaven Lord. He’s not very big.” Taking the spatula, she motioned for Malcolm to empty the ferret, who was quite stiff by now, into the pot. Then she turned earth over him until he was completely covered.
They walked in silence back to the elevator, which whirred and clanked its way up to them, then opened its doors with a gasp like a swimmer coming up for air.
Erin pressed the button for the third floor. The doors opened onto a dingy hallway that smelled of cleaning fluid and old closets.
“You’re going to stay?” Malcolm asked. His voice sounded loud in the empty hall.
“Seems like a waste of money not to, and I don’t know, I don’t like the idea of going back to an empty apartment.”
He stared at her.
“Rizzo’s on his way to heaven, right now.”
Malcolm, one hand in his pocket, ran his thumbnail up and down along the edge of a quarter.
“You can stay too,” she offered. “I don’t mind.”
As they entered the room together, Malcolm suddenly found himself wondering about the desk clerk downstairs, and what he really thought. That Erin was a hooker Malcolm had purchased for the evening? That they were criminals of some sort, laying low? Or maybe adulterers in need of a place to have their affair. In the dim light, he watched Erin’s tired movements as she walked about the room, touching things with her outstretched finger—the dresser, a floor lamp, the edge of the bed—as if this gesture were enough to make the place home. A desk clerk at a place like this would see a lot, he thought. After a while, you’d stop trying to guess and just accept things at face value. As far as that guy downstairs was concerned, Malcolm and Erin were exactly what they represented themselves to be—a married couple looking for a room for the night. The details were no one’s business. It was easier that way.
DOWN AT THE STUDIO
The answering machine is on the blink, but I’ve got the door to the booth open, so I hear the phone. I figure it is probably Dave, stuck someplace, needing a ride home. Since he dried out, he has occasional moments when he seizes up, like an engine with no oil. The last time was two weeks ago, when he got off the train at Fourth Avenue, then couldn’t get himself to leave the station.
“Nick and Dave’s,” I say, hating the name, which still sounds to me like a pizza parlor. “What?”
“Nick? It’s Betsy.”
She’s been gone six years, but her tone of voice is like she calls all the time.
“Is Dave around?”
“Nope,” I say. “Where are you?”
“Right here, in Brooklyn. I moved back. I got my own place, and I’m taking acting classes.”
I can see it. She’s tall, and if she’s kept her looks, she’ll probably have a shot at commercials or something.
“He’s probably at the Sham,” she says. “I’ll go look for him. Buy him a drink.”
“He drinks sodas these days. Coca-Cola, mostly.”
“Dave?”
“Just goes down for company, anymore.” The Shamrock is the last real bar in the neighborhood—the only one left that hasn’t installed ferns and a CD player. Older guys go there, and the softball teams. Sometimes a young couple will stroll in and have a beer, but it’s only comfortable if you know everyone, and have known them all your life. Dave has his own booth, and a special set of darts they keep for him in the register. If they’re shorthanded, he might even tend a little bar.
There is a long silence at the other end, and in it I imagine a whole scenario for Betsy—a place on the beach, shiny cars, palm trees.
“How’s business?” she asks, finally.
“OK,” I say. “Listen, Betsy, I’m in the middle of something, and it’s kind of late.”
After I hang up, I take a bite from a cold slice of Sicilian I picked up on my midnight break, wash it down with room temperature coffee, and go back into the booth. It’s peaceful inside, all the equipment on and silent, the tiny lights looking out on me from everywhere like red, green, and blue eyes. The big eight-track, the half-inch Otari for mixdown, the effects rack standing cool and ready next to the centerpiece, my mixing board, sixteen channels with knobs that go on forever. A momentary shudder in the power source has left the digital readout on the clock flashing in distress, but it doesn’t matter. In the studio, time takes on different proportions, expanding and contracting in relation to your state of mind. Lately I’ve begun to feel like one of those sleep-deprivation experiments. Sunlight, when I find myself in it, always seems a little strange, like it shouldn’t really be happening.
On one of our control sheets I print Dave a note, then take it to the office where he’ll be sure to find it. We’re on the top floor. There’s a kindergarten in the basement, church offices on the first, and Dave lives on the second. Our studio is rent-free—barter for his caretaking the building. We insulated nearly two feet thick so there wouldn’t be a n
oise problem.
At the front gate, I see him coming down the street, hands sunk deep in his pockets, his pace slow and steady. He looks like he ought to have a can to kick, eyes focused down on the sidewalk. I slip out quickly and go the opposite direction.
Lunchtime the next day, Dave’s eating a meatball sandwich, and I notice tiny flecks of red on the appointment book, which is to one side of him, so I move it.
“What did Betsy want?” I ask.
“She needs a loft for her apartment,” he says through a mouthful. Dave is a good carpenter. He built the studio, really, though I was there to hammer nails and haul lumber. Since we got it finished he’s been obviously bored. Taking another bite from the sandwich, he uses one finger to reposition a meatball that is trying to escape from the far end.
“She going to pay you?”
He nods. “I’m going over there to take a look in a few minutes.”
He has already been making sketches. In front of him there is a sheet of paper with some rough outlines penciled on it.
“You’ve got Neon Maniacs at four,” I say, flipping through the book.
“Just a rehearsal. I told them I’d roll some tape. Cover for me, would you?”
“All right, but I’ve got Motion Sickness again after dinner, so they can’t run overtime.”
Our deal is that we each bring in our own business, engineer our own sessions. But I’m always having to do final mixes for him, or run off copies he forgot to make, and it worries me. His whole life, he’s never stuck with anything long. He had three or four bands himself that all fell apart. Simple lack of interest.
He smiles and gets up. “Thanks, bro.” He slips on his leather jacket and heads out.
I collect his garbage off the desk, crunch the foil up into a ball, slipping it inside the paper bag, and drop it in the trash.
For about a month when he was sixteen and I was twelve, Dave changed his name to Ian. It was Betsy who suggested it. He was in an English rock phase, and played in a Yes copy band. I was in training for a position with the New York Jets; I high-stepped through the park afternoons, dodged imaginary tacklers, swung by my arms from playground equipment with the idea that stretching might somehow make me taller. I could do seventy push-ups. I didn’t think much of my brother, or the miniature domino he wore dangling from one ear.
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