Property of / the Drowning Season / Fortune's Daughter / at Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  The air was cold and clear; snow reflected white light into my eyes. So I lost out with McKay. So? If nothing else, I could call a bluff. If nothing else, I could let him know I was no fool. Leaving, hah. Although, I admitted, there in the light of the Avenue, it wasn’t a bad line.

  At least I had had a chance. If nothing more I had taken the opportunity to tell McKay to go to hell. How many could say that? So? So, all I wanted now was coffee and a seat at Monty’s counter, that was all. But standing outside the Orphans’ clubhouse, I began to cry. No sound, only tears. The door of the clubhouse slammed. I could hear the echo of boot heels on cement, and McKay was beside me.

  “You don’t listen, do you?” he said.

  “I can hear,” I said.

  “What’s this?” McKay was referring to the tears. I had told him we would see who cried, well, now we saw. So I began to walk down the Avenue. I knew McKay wasn’t one to follow. But he didn’t have to follow, he simply held my arm, and although my feet kept on moving, I realized that the rest of me wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t have a chance. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I said, what is this?” said McKay.

  McKay was angry now; his voice grew quiet. I was certain McKay’s anger had surfaced not with my leaving the clubhouse, but because I had involved him with something that had to do with tears.

  “I feel it’s really none of your business,” I said.

  “Perhaps you haven’t heard,” said McKay, “that I never involve myself in what ain’t my business.”

  He was wrong. I had, indeed, heard that. He never got involved unless it was a matter of defending his honor.

  “The hell it is,” I said.

  “Accept it,” said McKay. “This is my business. You are my business, and that’s all there is to it, whether or not you want it that way.”

  McKay lit another cigarette and handed it to me, and maybe he smiled, I don’t know. And he couldn’t have known that acts of kindness made me cry. That cigarettes being lit and offered to me when I cried could make me sob. So I did. McKay studied the effect of winter lighting, and the nuances it could lend to the shadows upon a Chevron station. He waited until I could take the cigarette from him.

  “What you need is coffee,” said McKay.

  “That’s not what I want,” I said.

  “Yeah, coffee.” He nodded. “I know you ain’t used to the ways of the Orphans. All right, last night was hard for you. You think Starry enjoyed it?”

  McKay led me toward the Chevy and opened the door. I sat in the car and he began to shut the door after me, still muttering about the soothing effects of coffee. I held the door open.

  “What I want,” I said as McKay stood in the street, one arm leaning upon the glass of the car window, “is for you to fall in love with me.”

  “No,” said McKay.

  “No?” I said.

  “No. I don’t go in for that,” said McKay. “That falling in love, I don’t go for that.”

  “All right,” I said, as he closed the door of the car. Through the black-tinted windshield I watched him walk to the other side of the Chevy. “All right,” I said, as McKay opened the door of the driver’s seat and was there beside me. “Then I’ll take what I can get.”

  I had faith in McKay, so I closed my eyes, and in the warmth of the Chevy, with my head leaning against the velvet upholstery, I heard only the lullaby of the Chevy engine. McKay could decide what direction to go; I needed more sleep.

  I awoke on the George Washington Bridge.

  “McKay,” I said. “Why are we on this bridge?”

  “We’re going to safe territory,” said McKay. I was beginning to doubt him.

  “Where’s that?” I asked.

  “Clifton, New Jersey,” he said.

  “I see,” I said. “Clifton, New Jersey, is safe territory.”

  I did trust McKay; it was his sense of direction I thought a bit strange.

  “Hey, girl, you see T.J. after the Night of the Wolf?”

  “No.” I had assumed that T.J. was somewhere gathering pieces of himself off the street.

  “No,” said McKay. “And you might not see him soon again. You want to see him, check out the critical ward, and you just might see him there. What do you think, this is a game?”

  “Hey, where was I last night?” I said. “Where was I, drinking champagne? I got hit, you know. I almost got cut.”

  “Almost,” said McKay. “What do you know? Do you know that Cantinni was murdered by the Pack? Wasted by their treachery? Do you see the scar the Dolphin carries? That was just innocent fun they had with you last night? You say you think occasionally? Then think what would’ve happened last night if Starry hadn’t of thought fast and said she was meeting Jose. Just think.”

  I was thinking. Yes, Starry had acted fast. But it was McKay whose hand had knocked upon the door. I looked at him. He was concentrating on the lanes of the bridge, for a wind had come up and the Chevy edged first toward the divider and then into the lane to our right. McKay was driving as he must when he raced the Chevy. We were flying over the near-empty lanes of the bridge.

  “Could you pull over?” I said.

  “Honey, I don’t trust the Pack for shit, for all I know they could’ve followed us. Clifton is safe territory.”

  For that matter, so was the George Washington Bridge.

  “Could you pull over?” I said.

  “Are you going to be sick?” said McKay.

  “No.”

  “Because if you’re going to be sick, I’d rather you not do it in the car, see? It messes up the car, see?”

  McKay kept his foot on the accelerator. Wind and the steel columns of the bridge passed us by.

  “I race this Chevy, and you can’t race a car someone’s been sick in,” said McKay. “Particularly not when the upholstery’s velvet. Don’t let my talk of the Pack scare you sick, girl. And not in the car, that’s all.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m going to be sick. Pull over.”

  I had no intention of being sick. The thought hadn’t entered my mind. Had it, I would not have thought twice about McKay’s upholstery. And I felt no fear of the Pack. So they were not playing games—well, neither was McKay. No, I was not afraid of the Pack. I only knew I’d rather be with McKay there above the Hudson River than in a room across the street from the Greyhound Station in Clifton, New Jersey.

  McKay turned the Chevy into an emergency parking area—one telephone and cement.

  “I’d rather not go to New Jersey,” I said.

  “Sure,” said McKay. “Sure, I understand. You ain’t being forced to go anywhere with me.”

  “That’s true,” I said and moved closer to him.

  “Do I understand?” said McKay.

  “I have no idea, do you?” I said, as I unbuttoned my jacket.

  What do you expect? I had no previous history of seduction on the George Washington Bridge. Or on any bridge, for that matter. I had no previous history of seduction at all.

  “McKay,” I said, and I sat with one leg raised, so that I could unzip my boot. “I want to fuck you, but not in New Jersey.”

  I used those words because I knew McKay would smile when he heard them. And he did. I would not use words that would make him turn away and say, “No. Not me. I don’t go for that.” I pulled my T-shirt over my head. I was afraid to tell McKay that if it wasn’t him it would be no one, and so I was silent. I held my arms around McKay and felt the touch of his hands on my shoulders, and then across my back.

  And as I lay with McKay on the front seat of the Chevy, I forgot we were parked on the George Washington Bridge. I forgot the Hudson River below us. McKay unzipped my jeans and I thought I would tell him once, only once, and say the words so softly that perhaps he might not hear.

  “McKay,” I whispered, as I pulled my jeans off and felt him move as he unbuckled his belt. “There has never been anyone but you.”

  Whether or not he heard me, I didn’t know. But for some words the sayi
ng can be far more important than the hearing.

  I unbuttoned McKay’s shirt. He still wore the Orphans jacket and the black leather pressed against my breasts.

  “McKay,” I said. “McKay, honey, take off your jacket.”

  “No,” he said, and he kissed me. For the second time, he kissed me.

  “Why not?” I whispered.

  I felt McKay hard against me. Because I knew the answer to my question without McKay speaking, I felt fear. “Can’t you forget?” I whispered. And I knew the answer: that there was no time, not even now, when McKay could forget the Orphans.

  “Darling,” said McKay, and I could barely hear him. “Darlin’,” he said, and McKay was inside me now, “I am always prepared.”

  And no, we did not get caught fucking on the George Washington Bridge. No maintenance crews peered through the black-tinted windows, and no tow trucks dragged the Chevy away. I did not shiver, with McKay’s jacket thrown about my bare shoulders, as the Highway Patrol forced McKay to stand with his hands upon the roof of the Chevy and his back unprotected by the colors of his jacket.

  No. Sometimes love is made on the George Washington Bridge and the traffic still flows by and the radio music plays on without interruption. No sirens flash, no gale winds rise off the Hudson. I did not love McKay any more than I had when I watched him from second-story windows without knowing the color of his eyes.

  Sorry if I disappoint you, if you wanted to hear sirens or see flashes. And are these sights and sounds expected because of youth, of leather? It is so easy to forget being young when young; easier still when cloaked in black leather. Was McKay young? Twenty-two, and his body, you’ve seen some of it, still young. But the skin and the muscles and the blood know the streets at midnight and at dawn, they know Chevy engines and honor. Do you call that young? We did not. For it is easy to forget that we were once young when we didn’t even know it at the time.

  A matter of perspective? Perhaps. That morning on the bridge would the driver of the tow truck have known I was in love? Could he have known how young McKay was? But why ask you? You passed us by that morning without seeing McKay’s eyes or feeling the touch of his hand on your skin. If a warning had been tossed from the window of a Jersey-bound Ford, I would have smiled and wrapped my legs around McKay, and smiled again. If the note had had scrawled across it: “This is a matter of perspective. And you’re not seeing,” I would have turned to McKay with a wink and a nod. If the telephone that waited in the frozen cement of the emergency parking area had rung, I would never have answered. Of course, it is easiest to forget what is never known. And that telephone could have rung for hours.

  See us, surrounded by cement and wind. Against the bed of maroon velvet. The winter and the Chevy and youth hidden by language and leather. See how little I knew; not even the letters of my own name. Only McKay, and the sound of the wind upon the roof of the Chevy.

  Because he held me closer, and because he whispered love in my ear without saying a word, I loved McKay as the colors of the Orphans jacket covered me.

  2

  McKay drove the Chevy back toward the city. What did I know of Manhattan? Manhattan may have been the city, but New York was Queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island. And I didn’t need knowledge of highways and exits; I had faith in McKay.

  Because McKay had stopped all verbal communication, and was concentrating on avoiding scratches on the finish of the Chevy while driving at sixty through Manhattan streets, I lit a cigarette and sang along with the radio lyrics.

  “McKay,” I said finally, when I had seen enough tailgating of taxis, enough running of yellow lights, enough sprinting of pedestrians from out of the path of the Chevy, “why are you going downtown?”

  McKay shrugged and pointed to the Winstons on the dashboard. I handed him a cigarette and struck a match and tried to ignore the screeching of tires that seemed to follow us. McKay inhaled and kept his eyes on the street. Let him think this was Daytona, what did I care? And I didn’t take his silence personally. Last night had been long, and this, I assumed, had not been a typical morning for him. Anyway, I knew McKay to be a man of few words. Did I look angry? For McKay had thrown his cigarette out the window and rested his hand on my leg. Did I look as though his silence offended me or had McKay heard the words of love I had spoken?

  “Occasionally I like to think, also,” said McKay.

  “All right,” I said. “About this morning or last night?” I said.

  “Last night.” McKay smiled.

  And although he smiled, I knew that was no joke. “Thanks,” I said. “Don’t spoil me with your charm.”

  “The Orphans did what they were expected to do,” McKay continued.

  “You won.” I shrugged.

  “There’s no winning,” said McKay. “There’s only defending your honor. You do a good job of it, or you don’t.”

  “Honor,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said McKay. “What do you think it’s all about?”

  I didn’t know.

  “Shit,” said McKay. “It’s honor. Like when I race this Chevy.” As opposed to what he was doing now? “You think I race for money?” said McKay. “Shit, I could make more money pulling a job on one liquor store than I can in a month of racing. It’s knowing you’re the best, see?”

  Well, I knew he was the best; everyone on the Avenue knew it. Seemed as if McKay was the only one who didn’t know it.

  “You don’t have to prove nothing to me,” I said.

  “What do you know?” said McKay.

  “What about Cantinni?” I asked.

  “What about him?”

  “There’s talk on the Avenue that somebody tampered with his car, fixed it good, the night he had the accident. The Pack?” I asked. “Was it the Pack?”

  “There’s a lot of talk on the Avenue,” said McKay, and he lifted his hand and drew away from me.

  Another subject to be avoided. What was not?

  “Why are we stopping?” I said as McKay double-parked the Chevy. I had a right to know at least that much.

  “Picking up the Dolphin,” said McKay.

  I moved away from McKay and rested my cheek against the cold glass of the window. Why did being with McKay have to include the Dolphin? I stared out the window. “Where are we?” I said.

  “Harlem,” said McKay.

  The Dolphin certainly moved around. With whom and for what, I didn’t want to know. If I had known the subway lines I would’ve asked McKay to let me off at any street corner.

  And so I was silent as McKay double-parked the Chevy on 123rd Street alongside a Corvair.

  “Honey, you afraid to wait in the car?” he asked.

  I wasn’t, but where McKay went, I wanted to go.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I walked with McKay. The street was quiet, except for some shadowy figures who rested up against the icy shelter of storefronts or doorways. It was too cold for almost anyone else; it was certainly too cold for me. I slipped my hand into McKay’s jacket pocket. “Is that really what you want? To be the best?” I asked him.

  “What else is there?” said McKay.

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. “Second best?” I laughed. McKay rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to answer.

  We walked to the cement stoop of a dark apartment building. Rust from the fire escape fell like red confetti as McKay pulled open the glass door of the building. I followed McKay through the darkness of the hallway and stopped when he did. McKay knocked twice with his fist.

  “Who there?” a voice said through the peeling green paint of the door.

  “McKay,” was the answer. I held his arm tighter. It was colder in that hallway than it was out in the street and I began to shiver.

  “Nothing to be afraid of,” said McKay.

  “It’s just the cold,” I told him. McKay smiled and touched my face with his fingertips and must have known that I wished I were still in the Chevy, smoking cigarettes and waiting for him.

  “It�
�s no stranger in there,” said McKay. “It’s only a cousin of Jose’s. A friend of the Orphans.”

  Some cousin of Jose’s. What did I know about Jose? How could I be comforted by his familial relationships?

  “Hey, boy,” said the figure in the open doorway. “The dude has been waiting on you.” Jose’s cousin, a thin black man in a denim jacket, motioned us to enter the apartment.

  “Been busy,” said McKay as we walked inside.

  “I see.” Jose’s cousin nodded to me.

  “Far as I can tell, Flash, you haven’t seen nothing for years now,” said McKay.

  “That’s a fact,” said Flash.

  The light was dim in the apartment, but I could see the Dolphin, in sunglasses and T-shirt, seated on a couch in the middle of the room. And even in this dim lighting, I could see clearly for the first time the colors on his skin. His arms were painted with red and green, covered by panthers and crosses and flowers with no name. On his chest a peacock, whose colors reached up in feathers to his neck. Not an inch of visible skin was bare of illustrations, not an inch without color.

  “McKay,” said the Dolphin.

  “Brother.” McKay nodded. “Jose.” McKay nodded to a figure that sat in an armchair, in darkness.

  “McKay, you taking goddamn Property?” said Jose. “What you bring her here for?”

  McKay walked toward Jose and switched on an electric light so that his face could now be seen. “You say something to me?” McKay said quietly. Jose blinked his eyes against the light. “I don’t think I heard you. You say something to me?”

  I could feel Jose’s fear and the anger of McKay. Was McKay defending me and my presence in this uptown apartment? Could this be something like love? Or only honor once again?

  “He didn’t say nothing,” said the Dolphin.

  “Hey, my cousin’s crazy,” agreed Flash. “He didn’t say nothing.”

  Jose nodded.

  “I didn’t think I heard anything,” said McKay.

  I was impressed. And more. Could this be the same McKay I had laid not more than an hour ago in the front seat of a Chevrolet? McKay who with a few words could bring about intense hearing loss in these three in this Harlem apartment?