Never Go Alone

by Denison Hatch

  “You got it, boss. I’m right on it,” Emanuel said.

  “Don’t call me boss,” Ziros said.

  “Okay, you’re right.”

  “As far as you know, I don’t exist.”

  “Perfect,” Emanuel confirmed.

  SIXTEEN

  JAKE WAS IN DEEP SLUMBER as the sun rose through the windows of his apartment. It was bright and early when he heard a loud knocking at the front door. Nikki. Again? Jake groaned. He pulled himself out of bed after about six hours of less-than-superior shut-eye. He padded down the stairs and gazed through the peephole again—and his eyes blew wide.

  “Rory,” Jake said as he opened the door.

  “Morning sunshine,” Rory said. Rory had a big smile on his face. Extending a coffee for Jake, he took in Jake’s demeanor. “Late night?” he asked.

  “Nah,” Jake deflected. “Just catching up on my beauty winks.”

  Jake grabbed the coffee and extended his other hand to shake Rory’s. Rory grimaced.

  “What’s wrong?” Jake asked.

  Rory rubbed his wrists. “Just a little sore,” he said.

  “From the evening?”

  “What?”

  “Oh . . . Mona told me you guys were going out,” Jake said.

  Rory nodded. “And how about you?”

  “I was just chillin’.”

  “Never know,” Rory grinned. “I feel like I look over my shoulder, maybe I’ll see you one day.”

  Jake gave Rory a once-over. He grinned. “Don’t think I’m sneaking up on you. Not yet, at least. So what’s up, dude? How’d you find me?”

  “Think I wouldn’t check up on a guy I might want in my crew?” Rory asked.

  “You said ‘want.’ I’ll take that as a positive.”

  “Sure,” Rory shrugged. “Gonna invite me up?”

  “My place is a mess,” Jake said.

  “Whatever. Let’s roll,” Rory said.

  “Uh . . . I wasn’t . . .” Jake stuttered, trying to figure out what Rory was getting at. “Now? I just woke up.”

  “Today’s a big day. We gotta get.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “All right, hold on,” Jake said. “Just gotta get my stuff together.”

  “No problem,” Rory smiled.

  Jake tried to shut the door, but Rory stepped into the small area at the base of the stairs.

  “I got a go-bag packed already. Just gimme a sec!” Jake yelled as he raced up the stairs, two at a time.

  He knew that Rory would be right behind him, and he didn’t have time to make sure that there was nothing visible in the apartment. Beyond the shock of seeing Rory at his doorstep, there was definitely something else going on. He could sense it. It was like when he was in boarding school, just about to go to bed, and knew the hall prefect was up to something. He’d have to brace for anything and everything. No matter how much a man changes himself, he can’t fully run away from the person that he used to be. Jake hated feeling powerless—not knowing. He chafed against it because he felt better when he was in charge, even if the only person he controlled was himself. Jake grabbed the bag with all of his exploring gear and pivoted.

  Rory was right there, as expected, gazing around the apartment.

  “Nice place,” Rory admired the stacks of counterfeit equipment on racks in the room. “This is what you sell?”

  “Yeah. Some of it,” Jake replied. “Ready?” Jake stepped in front of Rory and headed down the stairs, hoping that Rory would follow. He did.

  ▪

  There was one more human at seven in the morning who was very awake on Jake’s street: Nikki. Her nose was running and it wasn’t from a cold. By all appearances, she had been up all night. All sorts of insane in the membrane, she was sitting inside her car on the other side of the street. The problem with Jake was that he didn’t know what she did. She was certain they were meant to be. It was obvious to her, and it was probably obvious to him too—but maybe it was just in a place he couldn’t access. Yet. That’s why he was fighting so hard to keep her away. They were too similar. They were people of the hardscrabble. They’d both had to pull themselves up from nothing. And they’d both survived, in their own way. But they could be more powerful together. And if that wouldn’t work? Well at least she’d make sure that Jake knew damn well what he was missing. He wasn’t going to be able to just stomp on her and trade her in for that cute little chica. Not without a fight. Not without a statement.

  After Jake and Rory walked away from the apartment, Nikki stumbled out of her car. She crossed the street. Smoking a cigarette by the entrance to Jake’s building, she nonchalantly dropped a butt. As she crouched by the lock, she dug into her purse and pulled out a credit card. She slipped the card into the door crack and fiddled with the lock and handle to Jake’s apartment. The handle rotated slightly, and she felt a small bit of tension release on the lock, but she wasn’t able to jostle it enough. The door remained locked.

  “Crap.”

  She eyed the edges of the door. The door and its frame were both made of wood. She glanced left and right. No one was around. Nikki reared back and slammed the door with her knee. Once. Twice. Again while jamming the card and—the lock didn’t give. But the center panel of the door did. She looked down at her skinned knee, having bashed a small square out of the bottom quadrant of the door. Just enough to push herself through . . .

  Once she was up the stairs, she didn’t dilly-dally. She pulled out a can of spray-paint from her purse and she used that thing like a fire extinguisher at a burning orphanage. Bright orange spray-paint flew through the air like a plume, exploding all over the surfaces of Jake’s apartment and his possessions. She gave new meaning to the expression, “the writing’s on the wall.” It was. Like “Die Scumbag” and “Asshole!” Nikki wasn’t happy and she made it clear. After turning the screens of his television and laptop completely orange, she moved to the bedroom. She treated Jake’s comforter to a new color hue. As she stepped around the bed, she looked down.

  Jake’s gleaming NYPD badge stared back at her from the floor, and a gun sat on the night table next to his bed. Nikki was stunned. She was supposed to be the predator today. But now she was a deer in the headlights.

  “Oh my god . . .” she said.

  And then she dropped the can of spray-paint on the floor and began to think.

  ▪

  In the south Bronx, Jake and Rory walked off the subway and down the stairs from the raised tracks of the 167th Street Station. Once they were on the ground, Rory put his hand on Jake’s shoulder.

  “Today’s about me,” Rory said. “I know you have a lot of questions. I’m going to tell you why I am the way I am. It all started here.” He pointed four blocks down the street towards the bustling activity around Yankee Stadium.

  ▪

  Once they were closer to the stadium, Rory glanced up into a shadowy area underneath the train tracks.

  “This is the place,” Rory said. It appeared to be home to a thousand varieties of bird.

  “What about the animals?”

  “If birds are gonna stop you, you got a world of problems ahead of ya, buddy.”

  “Nothing’s going to stop me,” Jake said.

  “That’s what I like about you.”

  “What?”

  “You believe what you say. Even if it’s all a front.”

  “Thanks.”

  “There’s a lot of winners who are like that,” Rory said. “And a lot of dead people.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Jake replied.

  Jake and Rory slowly climbed up the latticework of the train track’s structure. They pulled themselves onto a horizontal platform, designed for servicing, just underneath the tracks. Hearing a cacophonous rumbling behind them, Jake held on for dear life as hundreds of tons of metal vibrated above. Once the train had passed, Rory and Jake continued working their way along the largely invisible sub-layer of the raised track.

  A hun
dred feet later, they finally reached a position directly across from Yankee Stadium. A piece of slanted steel about five feet wide angled down from the subway structure and towards the stadium. Rory shimmied onto the steel surface. It was precarious. They were about thirty feet above the ground. The only feature that prevented Rory from slipping off the bridge was a small beam at the base of the slanted steel support. Rory lay back, his spine resting on the steel and the balls of his feet anchored against the beam. Once he was in position next to Rory, Jake realized that it wasn’t all that bad. It was like a metal sun lounger, at a slightly higher angle than one might be accustomed. But the best part was the view that their free seats afforded them. They were able to stare directly between an outfield scoreboard and a brick wall that supported the stands inside—into the field itself. Rory and Jake sat back on their urban explorer-style vantage point and watched the Yanks take on the Phillies.

  “Pretty good,” Jake said.

  “Sorry there’s no popcorn, man. When me and Will grew up, we didn’t have any money. This is what we did for fun. We figured out how to see the games for free. I’ve probably seen two hundred innings from right here, and not one time in my life has anyone noticed.” They both watched the game proceed. During a brief lull, Rory spoke again. “We figured out how to do everything for free. Not just baseball. Whatever you could imagine, Will and I figured it out. Getting into concerts, Coney Island, anything. We did it.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Jake said. “If Will taught you everything . . . why doesn’t he explore anymore?” Jake glanced towards Rory.

  “Will’s dead,” Rory finally said.

  “Oh, dude . . . I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “He always wanted to drainsled the hydra from the top of the city to the bottom. One day he started at the Cloisters up in Washington Heights . . . but he never came out.”

  “That’s horrible, man. I’m so sorry.”

  Rory shook his head. “It never made any sense. You know the rules. Will created those. He kept to them. The hydra’s dangerous. He knew that more than anyone. He wouldn’t have gone in without spotting it.”

  “So what do you think happened? He just made a mistake?”

  Rory didn’t reply. He stared out over the baseball field.

  “Let me tell you about Will. He wasn’t just an explorer. First and foremost, the man was a humanitarian. He cared about people—all people—because he knew they were what made a place special. Nothing about New York matters when it’s just a bunch of glass boxes. Even here. When we were kids, walking up River to the old stadium? It used to be filled with little vendors’ shops, one-of-a-kind restaurants. All sorts of entrepreneurs selling handmade bats, shirts they’d manufactured in the garment district. You name it, and it was there. Now all that’s gone. It’s been replaced with bricks that try to make the place look old but were put up in 2009. You know? It’s one chain restaurant after the other, owned by conglomerates who spent a thousand dollars on décor, bought some old Yankee jersey off eBay and put it inside a Plexiglas box so that their customers can think they’re still in the past. That’s the future. The future offers no hope for someone from the bottom because there’s nothing that you can touch and feel anymore. Will knew that. He saw it coming.”

  “Did he go to MIT, too?” Jake asked.

  “No,” Rory shook his head. “But he made sure I went to college while he worked in the community. He’s the guy who started the Friends of Unincorporated Brooklyn. He put his life on the line for the people, for vibrant places that were being starved for life by the big money that started flowing in the eighties. He stood for something, and he taught me that’s the most important thing you can do. We don’t climb up to the tops of buildings just to say we can. We don’t even go into sewers for the pictures. We want to understand our world. We want to know how it’s changing. Otherwise we’ll all turn around one day, and there will be nothing left.”

  “I gotta tell you . . .”

  “What?” Rory asked.

  “I’m on board with that, Rory. I couldn’t agree any more,” Jake replied.

  “It’s not all glamor,” Rory said. “I want to make sure you’re prepared. You might have to get your hands dirty.”

  “That’s my favorite thing to do,” Jake grinned.

  “There are heavy interests against us. Arthur Metropolis? You know him?”

  “Uh . . .” Jake stalled. “He’s a developer, right? He’s building that complex down by Whale Square.”

  “That guy hated Will. He hates us now too. But we’re not as good as Will was. At organizing. We try, but we’re just not. So once he passed, Metropolis had less friction. Less problems . . .”

  “Wait. You think Metropolis had something to do with your brother?”

  “I don’t know,” Rory said. “There’s a lot of mysteries below the depths—once you peel back the surface.”

  “But that’s outrageous.”

  “Is it? City wouldn’t even look for his body at first. Berg said it was too dangerous.”

  “The mayor?”

  “Used to be city superintendent . . . He’s the man who shook my hand and told me that I’d never see my brother again. Guess who his number-one supporter is?”

  “Metropolis.”

  “Bingo,” Rory said.

  All of a sudden, Jake was much less worried that Rory had made him last night. But that didn’t end his anxiety. Instead, his heart was pounding out of his chest. Jake had been waiting for this moment for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for the small door to open at the end of the hallway. But what he’d heard was nothing like what he was expecting. It was worse. It was a rabbit hole, and unfortunately Jake knew that he’d have to jump in and stay on the trip—all the way to the bitter end.

  “Will was urban exploring before there were even words for it,” Rory continued. “Whatever your biggest fear was, Will would make you tackle it head on. You weren’t allowed to have any weak links if you were in his crew. It was scary as hell, but he was right in the end, and I took that to heart. That’s why today’s your day.”

  “My initiation?”

  “Tonight I’m gonna find out if you’re just puttin’ in the paces, or if you’ve actually learned something . . .” Rory trailed off. He gazed at Jake, his eyes flickering with a delicate balance of friendliness and malice. “And you know how I’m going to know?”

  Jake didn’t. “No,” he shook his head.

  “If you don’t die.”

  SEVENTEEN

  WIND WHIPPED THROUGH JAKE’S CLOTHES on the ferry’s observation deck. They had just departed from Battery Park in the southern tip of Manhattan and were heading down the bay. Jack Castle stood next to Jake, wearing what looked like a hotel uniform.

  “Just get off work?” Jake asked.

  “Gotta make my bones somehow, cowboy,” Castle shrugged.

  “How long you been doin’ that?”

  “I go through them pretty quickly. My jobs and my hobbies don’t really gel.”

  But before Jake could respond, Rory jumped in and put his arm around Jake.

  “So, figure it out yet? You’re looking at it. At her, actually. Lady Liberty,” Rory pointed over Jake’s shoulder. Jake turned and took in the oxidized copper of the Statue of Liberty looming over Liberty Island.

  “Seriously?”

  “Of course,” Rory replied.

  “Impossible,” Jake said.

  “No, no. I’ve done it.”

  “So you’re going to show me how?”

  “You’ll lead this one. You and Mona. That’s it,” Rory answered.

  “How come?”

  “Can’t get that many bodies up there. Don’t worry, man. When have I let you down?” Rory paused for a second. “And the crown doesn’t count. I need a picture of you on the top of the torch. Unfortunately, you can’t just walk right up. Torch level was closed a hundred years ago after the Black Tom explosion. Nineteen-sixteen. I guess terrorism is age-old. Anyway, it n
ever reopened. Some improvisation will be required.”

  His marching orders having been delivered, Jake glanced up at the imposing figure of Lady Liberty, rising over three hundred feet into the air. He took a deep breath, but it felt more like a gasp.

  ▪

  The biker stood upright on his whip—two feet on the seat. He slowly surfed the motorcycle down the street. Directly in front of a rowdy bike shop, Fireblade Motortech, the man jumped off his bike and engaged in a controlled, burning spin. He jumped down and rotated the bike in a circle, two hands holding the handlebars but his feet on the ground. A vast quantity of smoke rose into the air. His boys, sitting on chairs and on the pavement outside of Fireblade, clapped and laughed as the man stuck his tongue out. Almost losing control, but wrenching it back at the last moment, the controlled burn finally came to an end with a cacophony of approving hoots and hollers from the shop. Then all of the men’s necks snapped abruptly, their attention suddenly drawn to a newcomer standing at the end of the street: Nikki.

  As she walked resolutely towards the bike shop, she was immediately eyed up by men with teardrop tattoos hanging from their eyes. Overall, they gave an impression of not wanting to be fucked with, and their impression held up quite well. It wasn’t that she was in the wrong place. It was just that few women believed Fireblade was the right place to be.

  “Wassup, bonita?” a fat biker yelled. It was Jonny Diaz.

  “Hector around?”

  “Hec? I dunno. What’s he want you for?”

  “I got a good idea ’bout that,” another with a mohawk yelled.

  Nikki cocked her body at the two bikers. She was used to guys like this. They were her bread and butter. “He doesn’t know it yet,” she said. “But I’m going to blow his mind.”

  All of the bikers grinned, parting like security behind the velvet rope, to allow her into the back of the bike shop. She stepped into the darkness.

  ▪