Ten Mile River

by Paul Griffin

  Even José was gigging. Yolie had him at The Palace until she caught him sucking face with Trini one too many times and sent him down the street to her friend Romeo’s shop, The Slice Is Right. José dug pedaling pie. ‘They pay me to ride my bike, Ray-Ray. Find a better job in this fool country of ours.’ José was socking away his money to buy a motorcycle.

  At day’s end, going downhill to Ten Mile was tough for Ray. With José out on deliveries, late nights were lonely. Uphill here in the Heights life hummed 24/7.

  And Trini was here.

  She’d hang with José mornings, but she and Ray had the rest of the day together working in the shop. Trini was taking summer session physics to get a jump on junior year. Ray would hang with her after work, help her study, lose himself in her textbooks. ‘Please go back to school this fall?’ she would beg.

  And he would smile, look away, wonder if he should.

  Yolie knew the boys had ditched school, but dropping out was common up here. She had dropped out herself. She told them, ‘Work hard, save your money, you be a’right.’

  José skid-stopped in front of The Palace, a stack of pie boxes strapped to the back of his bike. He banged on the shop window. Ray swung out and José gave him a brown-bag slice. ‘Extra cheese?’ Ray said.

  ‘Don’t ever say I don’t take care of my boy.’ José was off with a smack to the back of Ray’s shaved head.

  Ray got back to sweeping a mountain of hair.

  Yolie was working the register, giving a lady her change, when two kids waiting for cuts started a slap-fight with each other. They were pals horsing around, but the way the cussing was flying, you wouldn’t know that. One kid tripped, knocked over a folding chair. Yolie grabbed her heart at the racket.

  ‘Yo,’ Ray said to the kids.

  ‘What up?’

  ‘Y’all take it outside.’ Six three, two sixty, shaved head. Ray was scary.

  ‘We’re gettin haircuts,’ the bigger one said.

  ‘Not here you’re not,’ Ray said. ‘Not until y’all learn some respectable language in the presence of a lady.’

  ‘Fuck you then,’ the kid said.

  Ray took one step, the kids flew.

  Ray turned to Yolie, her hand on her heart, her eyes calm.

  ‘Sorry about that, ma’am,’ Ray said. He righted the upended chair.

  ‘Amor, flip the sign to closed, lock the door, come upstairs. I want to talk with you.’

  Ray turned out the lights, went outside to pull in the chairs Yolie left out there for the old folks to rest in while they were shopping, dragging their carts and walkers and clunky Velcro-strap Frankenstein shoes up and down the avenue.

  ‘Yo!’ Ray heard behind him.

  He spun to find a rock had been hurled at his face. He ducked. Over his head the rock smashed on the shop window and rained sticky yellow goo onto the back of his neck. Somebody had bulleted a rotten egg at him.

  ‘Yo faggot!’ The two kids he’d just tossed out of the shop were at the sidewalk edge. They flipped him off and ran.

  Ray pulled a workman’s rag from his back pocket, wiped the egg off his neck, cleaned the mess from the shop window. ‘Goddam kids.’

  Yolie collapsed exhausted into the old salon chair she’d had Ray bring to the upstairs kitchen, where after a full day of squeaky kids drooling over her melones she liked to sip herself a nice Brugal. Trini massaged her aunt’s shoulders. The women were smiling.

  Ray nodded his head respectfully as he came into the kitchen.

  Yolie nodded back, appraised Ray. ‘I like having a big strong boy like you around. People respect you.’

  ‘Thanks, ma’am.’ He wondered if she smelled the rotten egg on him.

  ‘You’re a man, me entiendes? Un hombre fuerte.’ Yolie tapped her heart with her knuckles.

  ‘’Preciate that.’ Ray Mond, the man. Be shaving once a week soon.

  ‘I’m thinking about expanding my business,’ Yolie said. ‘I’m gonna take Enrique wide, grow out from the Heights into Harlem and Inwood. I got muñecas up in The Bronx crying for el Hormón. I need someone to manage the orders and the deliveries. It’s a big job. You gonna run it.’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  Trini winked at Ray. She might as well have kissed him.

  ‘It’s gonna be a lot of work,’ Yolie said. ‘Long hours, but we gonna make a lot of money. You save, you buy you mami a house within five years, not vinyl, brick. On the perfume alone we be millionaires. Throw in the vitamin supplements, we own the city, the Trump got nothing on us.’

  ‘Missis Yolie, I’m just about to turn fifteen. I don’t know if I can—’

  ‘Look at me. I started when I was fifteen. You good with numbers, you a hard worker, you fix anything, you don’t give up, and I trust you. I’d be crazy not to make business with you. Yes or no?’

  ‘Hell yes.’

  ‘Good. Just have you mami gimme a call.’

  Trini stopped massaging her t’a’s shoulders.

  ‘My moms?’ Ray said. ‘Wuh-why?’

  ‘You ain’t gonna be home for dinner most nights. Weeks will pass and she won’t see you. I just want to talk with her first, explain the opportunity, the sacrifice, make sure it’s okay with her.’

  ‘Oh, it’s okay with her, ma’am. I’m sure of it.’

  Behind her t’a’s back Trini folded her arms, gave Ray mean eyes, mouthed Tt, Raymond!

  Yolie reached over her shoulder, took Trini’s hand, gently brought Trini to her side. ‘Why is he lying to me, and about what?’

  ‘I better go,’ Ray said.

  Yolie said, ‘Sit down, amor. Trinita, start talking.’

  Trini told Yolie that Ray and José had no parents. She told her the boys were living on their own.

  Yolie calmly took in the info. ‘And why now you’re telling me this, Trinita? Why would you lie to me?’

  ‘I didn’t lie. You never asked. I wouldn’t lie to you. But now that it came up—’

  ‘Do I have to tell you with your A averages that holding back is lying, chica?’

  ‘Tt, I, like, was afraid you wouldn’t let me hang out with them,’ Trini said.

  ‘Because they have no parents? Is that what you think of me? And you, señor, why you were afraid to tell me these things?’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

  Yolie stared at Ray for a long time, her anger turning soft, her eyes beginning to get wet.

  Now that Yolie had offered him a partnership in her business Ray wanted to tell her that he was on the lam, that he had a record, but Trini would freak out. She had no idea the boys had crime in their past.

  Yolie seemed to decide not to cry, winked at Ray, sipped her Brugal. ‘Okay. Here’s what we gonna do. You amors gonna come live here with us, you and the José.’

  Trini mugged her t’a with kisses.

  ‘You gonna live in the attic,’ Yolie said. ‘You got your own bathroom up there. Needs work, but you fix it.’

  ‘I ain’t know what to say, ma’am.’

  ‘Say yes. I like that word. First thing you gonna fix for me? Put a lock on chiquita’s door.’

  ‘My door?’ Trini said.

  Yolie nodded at Ray. ‘Him I’m not so worried about, but that José is a little wolf.’

  Trini blushed. ‘He ain’t like that, T’a.’

  ‘Oh, he’s like that,’ Yolie said. ‘Trust me. He wouldn’t be a man if he wasn’t.’

  Then what’s that make me? Ray wondered.

  On the way to Ten Mile Trini chattered on about how they could fix up the attic, about how the boys would have a future now. That Enrique Hormón would make everybody rich, that the boys could go back to school, Ray to some fancy college someday. ‘You don’t seem too excited,’ she said.

  ‘Just thinkin,’ he said.

  ‘About what?’

  That you’re about to find out José ain’t comin uphill, not even for you. ‘Nothin.’

  ‘Raymond, what’d my t’a just say? No secrets. Do you want to live with us or not?
’

  More than anything. ‘I’m just wonderin what we’re gonna do with the dogs.’

  ‘They’re comin, bato. Think I’d let ’em starve down here? We got the yard out back. Come night, put a couple in my room, couple in the attic with y’all until we adopt ’em out into good homes. I got all these friends downtown at school, they’re into the pet rescue thing big time. We keep a couple pups at The Palace, everything is everything.’

  ‘You got it all worked out, huh, uptown to downtown. You ought to run for mayor.’

  Trini smiled, grabbed Ray’s hand, ‘Check it: Couple days ago we’re talkin about you, José says, “I do believe Ray is smart enough to become President of the United States of North America someday.” He’s so cute.’

  ‘Yeah. Cute.’ Ray looked at Trini’s delicate hand in his monster paw.

  She hooked her arm through his, back swung her foot to kick his butt. He jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from pulling her into a kiss.

  They went into the stationhouse, found José shirtless, hanging upside down from a roof rafter, laughing himself to tears. ‘Found me a pair of gravity boots on the street! Better than drinkin beer! Yo, I am upside-down dru-hunk!’

  ‘Antigravity boots,’ Ray mumbled.

  ‘Git on down from there!’ Trini said. ‘Break your fool neck.’

  José undid the clips holding the boots to the rafter, dropped down to the couch in a half flip, perfect ten.

  ‘What up.’ He pulled in Trini for a kiss.

  Trini pushed him off. ‘All sweaty. Yuck. Okay, hombre, pack your bags. You boys are movin into my aunt’s attic.’

  José stopped laughing. ‘What?’

  ‘Serious,’ Trini said. Now she kissed him.

  José backed away from Trini’s kiss, kicked off the antigravity boots, chucked them to Ray, chucked them hard. ‘You in on this too?’

  Ray shrugged, squeezed into the sweaty boots, moped over to the ladder that went up to the roof rafter.

  ‘Will y’all stop messin with them fool boots? Be careful Raymond.’ She squinted at José. ‘What all’s your problem? You wanna stay here? With the bugs, the damp, sleepin with ball bats every night?’

  ‘Damn straight,’ José said.

  ‘And you don’t care how that makes me feel? That I worry about y’all every minute you’re down here.’

  ‘Then don’t worry, T,’ José said. ‘Serious, I am not goin uphill. Goddam curfews, have to quit smokin, can’t drink no more, gettin yelled at, pick up your damn clothes, do this, do that, everybody callin me a stupit idiot, gettin smacked around—’

  ‘J, it’s Yolie, man,’ Ray said. ‘Yolie’s cool, yo.’

  ‘I know, still…dag. Shit.’ José nodded to Ray. ‘You all go on up you want to, homeboy. Serious. You be better off. But me, I gotta stay put.’

  ‘José, my aunt would never hit you. The smokin and drinkin, yeah, you’ll have to cut back, but—’

  ‘No. That’s my final.’ José made for the door.

  ‘Don’t you walk away from me, Mister Man.’

  ‘I gotta go to work.’ He grabbed his bike, held up. ‘Ray, make sure you walk her uphill. I don’t like her in the woods alone.’ He left.

  Trini spun to Ray. Even upside down she was perfect, her eyes wet, her breath fast. ‘Hell is wrong with him?’

  Upside down, Ray wanted to hug her but couldn’t take his arms away from his sides, or his shirt would fall down and she’d see his flab. ‘He ain’t made for the home life.’

  Something banged on the far side of the station-house. The Fatty dog had just walked into a wall. Just as Ray suspected, the dog was going blind. The dog stared at the wall, walked into it again. Trini led the dog out. In the door frame and the late-day light her silhouette was angelic. She flipped her hand Miss Thing style. ‘Forget about bato boy, you’re coming up, though, right?’

  Ray’s head ached from hanging upside down. He sighed. ‘Can’t.’

  ‘You can, but you won’t leave your boy, I know.’

  He reached out to her, his shirt came down, exposed his gut. A paperback fell out of his back pocket.

  She picked it up. ‘Introduction to Advanced Particle Physics.’ She nodded, cried a little as she hurried out of the stationhouse.

  ‘Wait, woman, lemme walk you home.’ Ray unclipped the boots from the rafter. In his jostling, the rafter cracked. He dead dropped, broke the couch. The fat dope dog limped in and sat on Ray’s chest.

  9

  On the way up to Yolie’s Ray ran into José speeding down the avenue with a delivery. José skid-stopped his bike, the pies went flying. ‘She’s mad, right?’

  ‘More hurt.’

  ‘She cry?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Shit. Help me pick up this goddam pizza.’

  Ray helped José scoop up the pizza that had fallen out of the boxes wet side down onto the street. They brushed the dirt off it, joggled the cheese, made the pies nice in the boxes.

  José strapped the boxes to his bike. ‘Whachou doin out here anyways? You goin a talk to her?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I’ll try to smoov things out with ’er tomorrow mornin. But Ray? I ain’t livin over that Braid Palace. She can leave me, I’m still down at Ten Mile.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You got gum?’

  ‘Just ABC style.’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ José said.

  Ray spit out his gum, ripped it, gave half to José.

  ‘Yo, somethin else,’ José said.

  ‘Tell it.’

  ‘Jerry called The Slice lookin for me.’

  ‘How’d he know you’re workin at The Slice?’

  José shrugged. ‘Scary, huh? He got a sweet one goin down tonight. I told him we do it.’

  ‘Yeah, huh? I dunno.’

  ‘Ray, please, man. Dukie, I’m thirteen hundrit bucks away from gettin me my Ninja, man. Paulie gonna give it to me cut rate.’

  ‘You’re talkin to him when we owe him dough?’

  ‘Punk mugged me. Ordered a pie to his apartment, I knock on the door, next thing I know I’m on the floor. Was such a sweet move I couldn’t even be mad about it. Sometimes you gotta tip your hat. Anyway, we square with ’im now. But I don’t get that bread to ’im end of the week, he gonna sell the bike to somebody else.’

  ‘There’s other Ninjas out there, man. You keep hustlin pie the way you doin, you have that thirteen hundred in no time at all.’

  ‘I do the Jerry, I got my bread tonight. Last time, Ray-Ray, I promise. I see you later. Don’t be late.’ José sped off. ‘And leave that paint scraper home, Mailbox Man.’

  ‘Riskin my Enrique future for a goddam secondhand Ninja.’ Ray spit his gum into the trash. Friends to the ends be a heavy load sometimes.

  Ray rang the door buzzer. Yolie leaned out the window over The Palace, dropped the keys to Ray. He let himself in and upstairs.

  ‘Trinita told me about the José.’

  ‘She around, ma’am?’

  ‘Homework at a friend’s. Talk to him. Tell him to relax. I’m not a cop, okay? You know me.’

  ‘I know, ma’am. Missis Yolie, I talk with you a sec?’

  ‘Ob’course. Come, we talk in the attic. I show you.’ She took his hand, led him upstairs.

  Boxes of Enrique Hormón cluttered the attic. ‘We put this stuff down the basement, plenty of room for you two, right?’

  The streetlight bled through the faded cheesecloth curtains, painted the floor soft silver. Not only did the bathroom have a shower, it had a toilet. No more squatting in the Ten Mile woods.

  ‘Washing machine and dryer in the basement.’

  No more lugging laundry uphill to the Spin-’n’-Win on slippery winter days.

  Ray looked out the back window, took in the yard with its bamboo and palms, a tiny aboveground pool. He’d been in the back to work but hadn’t seen it from this high up, all at once. It was a patch of oasis amidst the city concrete.

  ‘For your babies,
they can sun themselves all day, you build a doggy door, they come and go in and out the house when they want. Nice, no?’

  Ray nodded. ‘Nice.’

  ‘You pale, amor.’ She felt his forehead. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Ma’am, before you bring me in on the Hormón and all, there’re some things you should know about me.’

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘I, like, got a record, ma’am. Me and José. We’re on the skipped parole list.’

  Yolie didn’t blink. ‘A’right, what else? Amor, don’t look so surprised. You think I’m bata, hijo? Old Yolie knows what time it is. Why else would you be hiding down there in the park? I grew up here back in the day, okay? We did what we had to do to get by. I know where you from, and you welcome here, my home, my business. You special, chico. I got a feeling about you. Look at you face now. Raymundo, coño, don’t worry so much. It’s not the end of the worl, okay? It’ll be a’right. C’mere, give Mami a hug.’ She pulled him into a tight one.

  Her breasts crushed him, but he didn’t want to sex her up. He didn’t want to cry either, but he did.

  ‘How could you lie to me like that?’ Trini said.

  Ray spun around, found Trini standing in the doorway, schoolbooks in hand.

  ‘Y’all are criminals?’ she said. ‘Y’all thug-hustled me.’

  ‘Trin, I’m sorry—’ Ray said.

  Yolie cut in, ‘Chica, how dare you judge him? You hold back on me, and that’s okay, but he holds back on you, it’s not? This boy is your friend. Now, I’m not having this in my house, this bad feelings. You two go downstairs, talk this out, make friends again. Go ’head, vayan, hagan amigos. I have to cook the books for tomorrow with the accountant and I don’t have time for this nonsense. Go on now, make up.’

  Ray was embarrassed he’d cried in front of not one chick but two. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Trini pushed him into a salon chair, sat in the one next to him. ‘How could you not tell me?’ She kept her voice down, but she was angry.

  ‘Like you said before, we were afraid you wouldn’t hang with us.’

  ‘What’d you do? What crimes?’

  ‘Mostly bennies—breakin and enterin. Some grand larceny that got bumped down on a plea. We never hurt nobody.’