The Antiques

by Kris D'Agostino

  He should have turned around at that point. He was getting cold. His fingers were pruning and his feet were wet even inside the boots. Grammen’s Grocery was dark, like everything else. A neon sign in the front window advertised Schlitz for Sale and an LED ticker slow-scrolled a list of sandwiches: turkey, coleslaw and Russian dressing on rye bread; Italian combo; tuna melt with bacon.

  North Third became South Third. He went by the CVS pharmacy, drifting close to the automatic doors. They did not open. The lights were on inside but the parking lot was empty and no one was there. He continued on and in this way left town.

  He saw a string of traffic cones and a big orange sign that showed the black silhouette of a man in a hard hat wielding a big shovel. A black-and-white road sign read 9G/23B. A teal van in a dirt lot belonged to Babushka Plumbing of Hudson, NY. There was a phone number to call. No job was too small. A traffic light flashed red on two sides and yellow on the other two sides. There wasn’t a sidewalk anymore so he walked in the road. Nothing moved in front of or behind him.

  The neighborhood became residential. His teeth chattered together. He tied the hood of his slicker tight around his head and dug his hands into his pockets and kept his chin close to his chest. He pressed on. He was so cold. His shoulder hurt. The feeling in the fingers of his right hand had gone a bit numb. He squeezed his fists tight, then released his grip, then squeezed again. Sometime later, an hour?—he wasn’t sure because he’d stopped thinking about how long he’d been walking—he crossed the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. The river was dark beneath and whitecaps swelled and broke in the storm. Looking south to the city, he could not make out that it was raining there, but he knew it was. He went on, down into Catskill, and walked alongside a strip mall where a Chinese restaurant called Chopsticks was still open. A bell tied to the door handle dinged as he went in.

  A woman cleaning a table looked up and told him, “We close! Bad storm. We close now.”

  He looked at her. He wasn’t sure he would be able to say anything and then he did. “I’m cold.”

  “We close. You go.”

  He went back out into the rain.

  When he finally gave up on the library job and returned to Hudson, to the basement, he was four years older and still without any sort of life plan. That was when he found the job at the woodshop in Catskill. There he assembled large quantities of mediocre unfinished furniture and there he had been, for lack of some better term, happy. The question of what he was doing with his life, and why was he doing it, didn’t necessarily get answered, but during this period it was subdued. Manageable. And there he stayed until Josef came to him with the idea of working at PG-Micnic. Josef and his talk of “real jobs” and “real money.” And that was what angered Armie the most. Not that he’d accepted the job, not that it hadn’t worked out. Not that he’d been taken in for questioning by the FBI(!), held for a day in a windowless cell and then released, and (of course) cleared of all suspicion of anything. That wasn’t what pissed him off. It was that he’d actually believed Josef. That he’d fallen for his brother’s bullshit. Like everyone else.

  Without having consciously decided to go there at the outset, Armie now realized that the destination of his epic walk was firmly set. When he arrived, the furniture factory was desolate. The parking lot was empty. In the storm-gloom it had the appearance of a bombed-out husk from some grim battle zone. He went up to the front door and pulled it and was surprised to find it open. The hall was dark beyond. He hadn’t been here in over a year.

  “You trying to break into my place in the middle of a hurricane?”

  He turned. It was Andopolis, his old boss, the heavyset Greek who owned the place.

  “Armie?” Andopolis had the worst teeth Armie had ever seen, but he’d always been nice to Armie, and Armie had paid that kindness back by just up and quitting with no warning, no notice. “You’re soaking wet, buddy! What the fuck are you doing out in this?”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “I walked.”

  “You walked?”

  Armie nodded. “From my parents’ house.”

  “Everything all right? You haven’t come to murder me or anything, right?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “You gonna ask me about some old paycheck or something?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, come on. Let’s get inside before we’re struck by lightning.”

  Andopolis walked by him and went in, flicking on the entrance lights. He took Armie back to the break room, where the staff kitchen was. It was warm, and Armie sat in one of the plastic chairs where he used to sit on his breaks. The refrigerator buzzed and the fluorescent lights buzzed.

  “I got a blanket somewhere,” Andopolis said. “Hold on.” He went into his office, which was partitioned off from the kitchen by large windows. Armie watched him open and close cabinets before coming back with a blue wool blanket. “Here, take this. You’re soaked. Gimme that jacket.”

  Armie wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and sat shaking. Andopolis took a coffee mug from the sink and filled it with scalding water from the red tap on the water cooler. Armie took the mug. It was hot in his hands and felt nice. He relaxed into the seat.

  “What are you doing walking around like a zombie in a hurricane?”

  Armie took a deep breath. “I don’t know . . . I just . . . I needed to clear my head.”

  “Well, I’m sure by now it’s turned to mush!”

  “It’s fine. I’m okay.”

  “It’s not fine. You could seriously mess yourself up. I’ll drive you back. Jesus. Where have you been? You just up and quit? You don’t tell me why, you don’t send an email, nothing. What happened?”

  Armie shrugged. “I’m sorry. It was . . . I thought there was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, I guess.”

  “You were gonna fire me?”

  “Hell no! You were one of the best guys I had. Nah. I’m selling the place. Well, at any rate, it’s sold. Another year and this’ll all be gone and some fucking condos’ll be standing in its place.”

  “Well, that sucks,” Armie said.

  Andopolis looked around. He took off his baseball cap and scratched his head and put the hat back on. “I made furniture here for thirty-eight years. My grandfather had this place before me. He bought it in 1905, if you can believe it. Right after he got off the boat. Well, not right after, but soon enough. I’m not saying it was the most lucrative business ever, but he did good. I tried to do good.”

  “I liked working here,” Armie said. “You were always nice.”

  “That’s ’cause you did good fucking work. Not like some of these assholes I got now.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I wish I had options but, well, what the fuck, huh? What are you gonna do?”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Maybe go back to Greece. Or start something else up if I can find a good deal on space. Everything’s so goddamned expensive around here now. It’s not like it was.”

  “I hope it works out for you,” Armie said.

  “So what’s your deal?” Andopolis asked. “You make anything anymore?”

  “I’m working on a few things here and there.”

  “Yeah?”

  “My dad’s sick, so I’ve been busy with that.”

  “There’s always something, right?” Andopolis stood up and looked around. “Well, what the fuck? What are we doing here? I came by to make sure nothing got fucked up in the storm. Can you believe that? Why do I care! Let’s get outta here. I’ll give you a lift. Where you going?”

  Armie looked up at him. “The hospital.”

  Since college, the days and the months—all the time, it felt—had blurred together for him. It passed, there was no stopping it, for him or for anyone, but he had trouble accounting for most of it. Charlie often emailed him suggesting he move out to Los Angeles. T
here was plenty of work in the studios, especially for carpenters, she told him. Hell, she knew a few she could put him in touch with. But how could he move across the country when he couldn’t even leave Hudson?

  * * *

  She let him pick whichever backpack he wanted. Of course, the only one in the whole store with horses on it happened to be pink and My Little Pony–themed.

  “No way,” Rey said. “Not happening. He can’t have it.”

  Abbott stood hugging the backpack with his eyes closed like he was in love.

  “If you don’t let him get this,” Charlie said, “he’s going to have a meltdown, right here, right now, in front of all of these people. Is that what you want? Because it’s pink?”

  “It’s for girls.”

  Abbott inspected the backpack with outstretched arms. He turned it from side to side, admiring it. Charlie knew the look on his face. He was not much for taking the middle ground. Rey always seemed to forget.

  “I won’t buy it,” Rey said. “I won’t let you buy it.” He got down on a knee and tried to ease the backpack out of Abbott’s hands.

  “I love it,” Abbott said.

  “You don’t want this one,” Rey said.

  “I totally want.”

  “Totally?”

  “Horsies.”

  “Okay, how about this?” Rey swept his hand outward. “We buy another one. Any other one. And you can have a special present.”

  “Which?”

  “Anything under forty bucks.”

  Abbott considered the proposal. Charlie checked her phone. Melody had texted. The shoot was winding down. She needed Zankou Chicken at once because the catering was “pukey.”

  Abbott shook his head. “I want horsies.”

  “This one is for girls.”

  “Noooooo.”

  “Yes. It is. It totally is.”

  “Totally not,” Abbott said.

  “Well, you’re not getting it. Pick another one.”

  “Here we go,” Charlie said, throwing up her hands.

  She expected him to freak out. What she didn’t expect was for him to turn, with the bag, and speed away through the doors, out of the store, and into the courtyard. The alarm blared. The security guard gave chase. Abbott made it as far as the decorative bridge spanning the fountain. By that point he was unintelligible, screaming, tears streaking down his face. As Rey grabbed him, Abbott whipped his hands around and slapped his father with the backpack. One of the strap clasps grazed Rey’s eye and he fell back with a yelp. When Abbott saw what he’d done, he froze. The security guard stood panting, holding a hand to his chest. “I’m gonna have a coronary!”

  Charlie scooped Abbott up into her arms just as he began to cry again. The backpack fell to the ground. People gawked. Charlie didn’t care, but she knew if Abbott realized how much attention he’d drawn, things would get worse.

  “Usain Bolt, over here!” the security guard said.

  “I am so sorry,” Charlie said. “We weren’t stealing anything.”

  “It’s all right.” The security guard waved a hand. “We got this little sprinter.”

  Rey clutched his eye, cursing to himself. “Little shit!”

  “Rey!” Charlie pushed him.

  Abbott struggled against her, not wanting to be touched. The only way to calm him down was to march directly back to the store, swallow her embarrassment, and suffer the looks of the girl behind the counter—who unwittingly upped the cruelty by wearing a Team Thornglow tank top emblazoned with the franchise’s signature pulsing Edwardian lettering—and purchase the My Little Pony backpack. She swiped her own credit card so Rey wouldn’t have ammunition for the inevitable fight to come.

  Afterward she ducked into Barnes & Noble, Abbott holding her hand, sated now that he’d gotten what he wanted. They took the escalators to the top-floor restroom and she locked herself in a stall. Abbott stood staring at the pony illustrations on the backpack. Charlie took deep breaths. It felt wonderful to be away from Rey, even if she was hiding in a bathroom stall. She wasn’t sure where he was. Back at the car, she assumed. Fuck him, anyway. Her phone dinged.

  Mom: DAD NOT DOING WELL

  Melody Montrose: ETA?

  She fired off responses to both of them. Asked her mother for clarification. What did “NOT DOING WELL” mean? She also wanted to remind her it was not necessary to type in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME but didn’t want to prompt any unnecessary exchanges. She told Melody she was on her way. Abbott didn’t take his eyes off the ponies.

  She rooted through her bag, disregarding the heavy bundle of paper-clipped receipts representing just one week’s worth of expenses from Melody that she would ask Hazard-Maker Entertainment, Thornglow’s production company, to reimburse. Despite her $20M fee for each film, Melody insisted on handing over expenses, much to her producer’s chagrin. Charlie’s bag contained: a half-full case of Tic-Tacs, a bottle of water with hardly any water in it, three balled-up snotty tissues, her wallet, her phone, keys to the Volvo/house/office, the electronic card that opened the gate to the Chalet, her laminated studio ID, beeswax lip balm, sunglasses, the mysterious panties in their Ziploc bag, a knot of hair ties, spare socks, some rubber bands, a sweatband for her head, and an assortment of other odds and ends. She found what she was looking for, deep—deeper than the bag appeared to even have the capacity to go. The amber bottle had two little pink pills in it. She kept two on hand at all times for emergencies and she categorized them, in no particular order, as:

  1. Rey.

  2. Her mother.

  3. Melody.

  4. Abbott.

  Any of the four warranted a pill. And this thing at the Grove didn’t rate all that high on the Abbott Incident scale but, coupled with the events leading up to it, the day was ranking in the all-time-worst-awful range. She felt lost. Her mother was driving her crazy. Melody was driving her crazy. Rey treated her like an enemy and he treated Abbott like someone else’s kid or, worse, like damaged goods. Like Abbott was a broken appliance or computer. Something in need of repair. She wanted to scream in his face, THERE ISN’T A GENIUS BAR FOR LITTLE BOYS, ASSHOLE! He’s just a kid. He’s got problems, sure, who the fuck doesn’t? And by the way, are you fucking cheating on me?

  She popped both Enabletals and washed them down with the rest of the warm water from the bottle in her bag. The door to the restroom opened and a woman burst in with a little girl in tow.

  “Quickly, quickly, quickly now, let’s get our little bum on the potty. We don’t want an accident.” They entered the adjacent stall. “There we go. There we go,” the woman kept saying while her kid peed.

  They left. Charlie crept out and ran the faucet and put her mouth under and drank until she felt nauseated. She looked at herself in the mirror. She thought she looked scared and tired and sad. She yanked the hair tie off her ponytail, put it in her teeth, collected all the loose strands together, and tied it back again. She felt better having taken the pills, though there was no way they had kicked in yet.

  She turned off the tap and let herself cry. She counted one Mississippi, two Mississippi in her head until she hit thirty. Half a minute and it was hers. Abbott was making faces at himself in the full-length wall mirror. She led him back to the car.

  Home again, Charlie gave Manuela a brief rundown of the day’s events. Her phone dinged twice in her bag while she was talking. She saw it was Melody both times and didn’t bother reading the messages. She needed a second to get collected. She switched the phone over to airplane mode.

  “Give him a bath at the usual time, don’t let him watch more than an hour of TV, I don’t care what he says, and see if he’ll eat anything. There’s carrots and pasta and leftover turkey meatballs.”

  “Sí, sí, sí,” Manuela said, standing at the foot of the stairs with a basket of laundry.

  Abbott played with his ponies in the living room, crashing them into one another. The backpack was on the sofa, full of engines and cabooses and pieces of wooden track. Charlie debated
asking Manuela about the panties. Perhaps there was an explanation. Perhaps they even belonged to Manuela? Haha! Or a daughter of Manuela’s. One Charlie didn’t know about. You’re losing it, Charlotte Westfall.

  “You laughing, Miss Charlie?” Manuela asked.

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. I was just . . . I thought . . . How are your children doing, Manuela?”

  Manuela made the sign of the cross and spoke to herself in Spanish, shuffled upstairs with the laundry, shaking her head.

  Charlie kissed Abbott on the forehead and he gave her the briefest of hugs, a rare flicker of unchecked affection. “I love you,” she told him.

  “Horse,” Abbott said.

  She thought Abbott looked more like her than like Rey. He had her nose, her blue eyes. He had her hair; his curled up around the sides of his ears and at the nape of his neck. In a certain light she caught glimpses of her father. She saw George in Abbott’s smile. In the devious way he laughed when he knew something he’d said or done, although inappropriate, was also funny.

  “I hurt Max.”

  “You did, baby.” She put her hand on his cheek. He pulled back. “You hurt his arm.”

  “He go hospital?”

  “Yes, Max is in the hospital.”

  “He dead?”

  “No, sweetie. He just needs a cast on his arm for a little while and then he’ll be good as new.”

  “Presto change-o?”

  “Presto change-o.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you didn’t mean it.” She leaned in and pushed the hair off his forehead and kissed him. He shook his head away from her. “I’ll be back after dinner.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Don’t.”

  “You wanna come with me?”

  “I take ponies . . . and backpack . . . and Ernest donkey . . . and Ming-Ming . . . and . . . cowboy hat.”

  “How about we take just the backpack and your hat?”

  “And Ernest?”

  “And Ernest.”

  Manuela returned.

  “I’m going to take Abbott with me,” Charlie told her. “We’ll eat the leftovers when we get back. You can take the afternoon off.” Manuela raised her eyebrows. “We’ll be fine. You deserve a break.”