by Paul Griffin
‘Get her some flowers.’
‘Know where I could get some nice flowers this hour, partner?’
‘Deli.’
‘Right.’ José swiped a breath, threw his arm over Ray’s shoulder. ‘Pal o’ mine, I’m skunk drunk.’
‘Thankfully. Otherwise your face would hurt a ton.’
‘Prob’ly hurt a ton tomorrow, huh? Coffee’s startin to kick in though. I’m gonna be jacked up enough to puke in a minute. Let’s go get Trini. I got some apologisin to do.’
‘You do. You go. I’ll stay here, sweep up, whistle the dogs back.’
‘Leave ’em. Hell, I’m trying to dump ’em all these years, and now you’re gonna whistle ’em back? ’Sides, you can’t even whistle.’
‘Imagine Breon came back right now, no dogs to warn us?’ Ray said, face blank.
‘Son, Breon comes back now, he can have me. I’m
ready for the bullet. I ain’t felt this whipped since juvie. You go get the damn dogs, I’ll get Trini, we’ll all meet back here in half a hour, make us some more coffee and play poker.’ José jabbed Ray’s arm as he limped for the door on woozy legs. At the door, he spun around, suddenly wide-awake. ‘Ray, quick, out the back way, run.’
‘Huh?’
‘Cops!’ José pushed Ray outside. ‘Run, man!’
Ray ran for the weed tree forest. Then it hit him: Trini had run south. Yolie’s was north, south was the precinct. He spun around. José had tripped twenty yards back. He waved Ray on. ‘Git, man,’ he wheezed.
Ray pulled José into the weed tree thickets, threw José’s arm over his shoulder. They limped as one by moonshine.
José pulled away, out of breath. ‘I ain’t-a make it, man. My head, man, gonna explode. I’m shit dizzy. Go.’
‘I ain’t ditchin you.’
‘Then we split up. Meet in that dead spot there under the highway, that street that runs—duck.’
Flashlights swept the trees.
‘Okay, listen a me, Ray-Ray. Here’s what we do. Go to the dock. Boost a skiff. River’s dark as hell. They won’t see you on the water once you get past the sewage plant there. You know what I’m talking about?’
‘Yeah, but hell with that, I ain’t leavin you behind.’
‘Right right, I know I know, but you’re gonna get the boat, right? Then I’ll meet you, see?’
‘You’re lyin a me.’
‘Goddammit, son! I ain’t lyin! You pick me up on the other side of the plant, a’right? You go the long way for the boat, take the tracks. I’ll shortcut by the overpass. I won’t make it if I go the long way. I see you in ten minutes.’ José limped back toward the stationhouse.
‘You’re snowin me bad, man.’
‘I’ll meet you. And brother? Once you hit them tracks, you run. Now git.’ José limped away onto the trail.
Flashlights hit José. He cupped his hands, yelled south instead of where Ray would run, north, ‘Run, Ray!’
One of the cops jumped at the decoy, ran south.
José screamed south, ‘They’re comin, Ray!’
Another cop went south.
A third cop cuffed José. José didn’t fight. He screamed, ‘Run! Run.’
Ray squeezed through the rip in the chain link, slid down the weed-struck wall onto the tracks. He ran north, hugged the lee wall, tripped in the wall’s shadows as he made his way through the trackside trash to the old car, the safe place.
The car had been trashed and ransacked, the backseat ripped out, the cooler full of canned goods and water emptied. Ray reached under what was left of the dashboard, through the rusted plate that separated the engine from the passenger compartment.
The old pool stick case was still there.
Ray emptied its goods into his pockets, four hundred some dollars of small bills double wrapped in Ziploc, a first aid kit, and a pair of mini binoculars. Wet from old rain the first aid kit was useless but for the brandy flask. Ray pitched the med kit, tucked the flask into his pocket, grabbed the binoculars and slinked through the junkyard south into the wildwood west of the tracks.
From the darkness of the high grass Ray glassed the view uphill on Riverside Drive. The binoculars were funky with dirt in one lens and a crack in the other, but Ray made out Trini’s face all right, her hands over her mouth.
The cops walked José past Trini. The J-man begged the cops to let Trini come to him. They did. He kissed her. The cops led him away. Trini was shaking. ‘I’m sorry, baby,’ she yelled. ‘I’m sorry.’
Marched halfway up the block José spun back toward Trini, ‘I love you, baby!’ He grinned as the cops put him into the back of their cruiser. ‘I’ll be back, baby. Don’t worry, darlin, I’ll be back.’
23
Ray waited three hours in the high grass until he was sure 5-O wasn’t coming back. Ten minutes after the NYPD cruiser drove José away the cops who chased south came back up the Drive, got into their squad car and left. Nothing happened since. Ray spent the better part of those three hours looking for the dogs, gone.
He wondered if he should turn himself in, get back into the system with José. For parole violation they would eat six months, nine max. After that they would be at large once again. Ten Mile was done now that the cops knew about it, but they could head north, find a squat in The Bronx, live free, just like the old days. All he had to do was walk up that hill.
The old days.
No.
Drunk was better than hungover so he kept drinking, slugged from the brandy flask as he pushed through the weed trees toward the water. He hurt at the idea of Fatty on his own. The lame old half-blind mutt would be food for the other dogs soon.
He picked the lock chaining a rowboat to the dock, set the boat in the water, rowed mid river, let the boat coast south.
He snapped the string necklace that kept a spoon at his heart, held the spoon to the sky, told himself that if the spoon bent there was a God, one who had his back. He concentrated as never before but couldn’t bend the spoon. He chucked it over the side.
He made himself still to take it in, the fact that he was alone, no man’s slave, no man’s boss, no man’s sidekick.
He wondered about that night out on the river, in these very waters. The blue folks twisted in that suicide embrace on the basement floor, transported over the ice to what he at the time thought was a peaceful end but now knew was no different than leaving them to rot in a dark cellar. They would have decayed either way.
Most of all he wondered about Trini. She’d three times called him Ray instead of Raymond. Tonight she’d called him baby. What might have happened if he never set her up with José, instead plain old asked her out a few times, brought her a few more flowers, told her how he really felt? Would they have had a shot? Last year he would have said no way. But tonight he was thinking maybe. Not yes. Maybe.
He could ride on maybe for a while.
Maybe he would go back to school someday. Maybe he’d be a teacher. Maybe he’d never go back. Maybe he’d be his own teacher, his own student. He didn’t know which way he would end up, but—for the first time— he had a hunch he would end up.
The boat slowed, stopped. The tide had gone slack. From the middle of the river Ray saw the light had died out in the empty stationhouse. Now there was nothing left. No José, no Trini, no dogs. Just Ray and Ten Mile River.
Out on the water the air was too damp for a man to take off his shirt, but Ray took off his shirt anyway. He sank the oars and pulled. Rowing south he watched the George Washington Bridge fade in the distance.
‘The Wonder Thieves. Yeah, that was us.’
Working the boat downriver toward the bay and beyond the bay the ocean, Ray rowed against the tide.
Thank you…
My wife and life Risa Morimoto, Elisa Paik, Kirby Kim, David Vigliano, Team Dial, Lauri Hornik, Regina Castillo, Christian Fünfhausen, Jasmin Rubero, Emily Heddleson, Shelley Diaz and especially la reina, Nan Mercado, and the absolutely wonderful Robyn Meshulam, Scott Smith, Diana Choi,
Dave Starr, Quang Bao, Jennifer Carlson, Nan Talese, Jennifer Joel, Nicole Aragi, Nat Sobel, Hammad Zaidi, Cherry Montejo and Eric Chinski, Sue Lee, Tom Lino, Bobby Wong, Mike Marotta, Tony Capone, Nina Waechter, Francisco Aliwalas, Mike Brisciana, the Central Park Medical Unit, everyone who reached out to the LaMastas, and especially Thommy Garvey, Rubén Austria and Manthia Henriquez for those remarkable workshops, Linda Zimmerman, Lisa Watson, Zach Minor, Leticia Guillory, Linda Gomez, George Dick and Gwen Hardwick for a great year with CAT/CRTD, Luigi Santiago, RIP, my families, Griffins, Zancas, LaMonicas, Murrays, Fitzgeralds, Morimotos, Imuras, Yamadas, Sakurais and Hoests, especially Kari, all my goddam dogs, Johngie, Kath, Matt and the gals, my mothers, Noriko and the one and only MLG,
and
my father. Pop, you are the king.
and
the kids I met teaching: may your courage set you free the way it did me.
