by Paul Hond
“It’s a bad time,” said Emi.
“A bad time. It’s been a bad time for months. Why?”
“I’m sorry,” Emi said. “Please just bear with me.”
Mickey barked a laugh. “What does that mean?”
“Tomorrow,” Emi said. She looked up at him. “Okay?”
Mickey laughed, less savagely than before. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow, in case you don’t remember, we have a date out back. That gardening has got to get done.”
The garden. Was there a greater, more enduring monument to their union? Over the years they had transformed it into a small paradise: heavy rocks of brown, gray and ocher (Mickey had driven to western Maryland and collected them himself) lined the side of the house, with pink and blue creeping phlox growing out from the cracks. The two beds near the patio boasted yellow tulips, reddish lilies and pink begonias. Along the back fence were the vegetables, which this year had featured two kinds of tomatoes, sweet but wildly deformed carrots (the soil had been too heavy), artichokes, cucumbers, green beans and bell peppers shaped like weird, sunken faces. The harvest recalled a mutual feeling of parenthood: the pulling up of the carrots from the ground, slowly, in anticipation of length and shape, and the timid plucking of the tomatoes from the vine, leaving both gardeners amazed by their frank redness, the shock of ripe testicular discovery in all that fuzzy, bristly green.
“Okay,” said Emi. “Tomorrow night then.”
“Yeah?” said Mickey. He planted his feet, folded his arms. “What about it?”
Emi grinned, and for a moment she looked thirty years younger. She raised the tip of the bow to her parted lips and tickled the shaft with her pointed tongue: a parody of seduction behind which she concealed the real thing. She laughed at herself, but intimately, as if in dialogue with herself; then gave a stroke to the E string to indicate she was ready to resume her work.
Mickey felt a sudden despair. It was all so easy for her; she channeled everything into her music. He was the one with the needs, the big dumb urges. He longed for an outlet, a means of expression. How could he explain it?
He kissed Emi’s head—he had no words—and went upstairs, where he stood confused in the living room before deciding to go up and talk to Benjie.
Ben’s door was closed, and Mickey rapped on it lightly. Other fathers might have to bang on their kids’ doors, to compete with the rock music. Not Mickey. Nothing but quiet behind this wood. Such quiet, in fact, that Mickey could almost imagine the room was empty; that the kid, like everyone else in his high school class, had gone off to college.
He rapped again. “Benjie?”
“I’m busy,” came a voice.
Mickey took a breath and counted silently. He could make splinters out of that goddamned door. “I’ll give you until three to open this door,” he said. “One.” In fact he’d never actually reached three; at two and a half he always got his results. The realm of three remained a mystery to both of them. “Two.”
The door opened, and as often happened, Mickey was jolted by the sight of this young man in a T-shirt and undershorts, with a few whiskers on the chin, of whom people would remark, “He looks just like his father.” Mickey wasn’t so sure. For one thing, the kid was skinny, almost gangly. A featherweight. His dark hair—darker than Mickey’s had ever been, and without the touch of gray that had singed Mickey at the temples during adolescence and left him with a virile silvery head at thirty-five—was buzzed close to the scalp, and he wore a tiny gold stud in his right earlobe. Oh, there’d been a heated battle over that (“What’s next—lipstick? Mascara?”), but Mickey eventually threw in the towel.
“What are you doing in there?” he said, trying to see into the room.
Ben shrugged. “Nothing. Just playing Empire.”
Mickey wanted to tell him that if he’d used the computer for his studies instead of goofing off with games, maybe he’d rule a real empire someday, or at least be a productive citizen of one. But there were other issues at hand. “And where were you today,” Mickey said, “that you couldn’t pick up a phone and call?”
“Playing basketball.”
“All day?”
“Then I went to Nelson’s.”
Mickey raised his eyebrows: Nelson was the delivery man at the bakery, a ghetto kid from a broken home whom Mickey had hired nearly a year ago. “You were down in that neighborhood at night?” Mickey said.
“It’s not as bad as you think.”
“Don’t tell me what I think. I don’t want you running around down there. At any time. You understand?”
“No,” said Ben. He looked hurt. “I don’t.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“You grew up there.”
“Don’t be a wiseass,” said Mickey. He didn’t have the energy for this, he’d take it up later. “There’s a salad downstairs. You hungry?”
“I ate already.”
“Where?”
“Nelson’s. Miss Donna made pumpkin fritters.”
“You invited yourself?”
“No. Donna invited me.”
Mickey was suspicious. He didn’t know Donna Childs too well, could barely remember what she looked like, but he got the feeling she was trying to curry favor with him on behalf of her son. It was only natural, of course, for her to fear for Nelson’s job; times were hard, and Nelson, given his circumstances, might slip up at any moment. Mickey resented Donna’s tactics, and was embarrassed that he could see through them so easily. She seemed to feel indebted to him, and there was no telling what she might do in the way of pampering Ben in her desire to pay him back.
“She always asks how you are,” Ben said. “Says she remembers you from the old bakery.”
Mickey ignored that. “I don’t want you going down there,” he said. “Nelson is welcome to come here—” He stopped himself; he didn’t mean it. Not that he had anything against Nelson personally; it was just that Benjie ought to be spending time with other kids. Kids in college. Kids from good families. “I need you to do something for me,” Mickey said, hoping to change the subject. “Tomorrow. I’ll need you to run the store.”
Ben smirked. “Why? So you can spend the day with Mom?” There was a hint of high school jeer in his voice.
“Just do what I tell you.”
“How much are you paying?”
“You’re working for the privilege of keeping your room,” Mickey said. He’d spelled it out for him over the summer: either you get a job and pay rent, or you help me out when I ask you. “Any questions?”
Ben shrugged. “I could drive the van if you want.”
Mickey took a breath. They’d been through this a million times since Ben got his license, and Mickey’d had about enough. “Is that what you want to do with your life?” he demanded. “Drive a delivery van?”
“You wouldn’t say that to Nelson.”
Mickey’s neck got hot. “Leave Nelson out of this.”
“Fine,” Ben said. He looked bored all of a sudden. “Am I excused now?”
Mickey thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “You’re excused.”
“Good,” said Ben. His door slammed shut.
Mickey stood there, unsure what to do next. The basement door, too, was closed; Mickey found himself alone, a stranger in his own house. He had a mind to get in his car and drive somewhere, anywhere. Or maybe he’d call Donna Childs and let her know that here was a father who gave a damn about his son’s comings and goings, and who would furthermore appreciate it if she would call and inform him, or, better yet, ask his permission the next time she felt like inviting his son to dinner.
He decided to go to bed early, thinking that what he really needed was a good night’s rest. He lay in the dark waiting for Emi to come up, but within minutes he was asleep; and when he awoke the following morning—he’d slept deeply, dreaming of women he’d never seen—the house was already empty: Emi was down at the conservatory, teaching her morning class, and Ben—it took Mickey a moment to remember—Be
n was keeping shop at the bakery.
Mickey yawned, swung his body upright. Nothing had changed: he felt as unsettled as he had the night before. He needed to do something, to act. Motion was the key. Keep moving. He showered and dressed and went outside.
The sky was blue as a hydrangea in midsummer. Blue-jay blue; the blue of bellflowers, of eggshells in the grass. Still, a surprising color to find in nature. Blue? Mickey stood and breathed deeply. The air—warm, burnt, spun through with the gold of leaves—took him back to childhood, to the smell of pears, of golden crusts of bread. Yes: there was, in this world, a place where he could recall himself. His access to it seemed unreal, a forbidden skin that he was suddenly free to touch.
He got into his brown Buick and started the engine.
2
The old neighborhood. Mickey hadn’t been down here in years—the area had gone to hell ages ago—but as he turned onto Percy Street (and there was his old house, 2207), he wondered if it really was as bad as he’d thought. The streets were deserted, he was safe in his car; what could happen to him? Nothing. He’d never felt as safe as when he’d lived here as a boy, and that same feeling washed over him now. He recalled the snap of laundry billowing on the clotheslines, the smell of boiled turnips, cabbage, pickled herring. He could point to each house and name the family that had lived there: the Kleins, the Grossmans, the Blanks, the Alters. He recalled their cars, their dogs, their famous illnesses. He recognized a hydrant, a few curbside trees; and there, near the corner, low and secret in the gutter and wide as a monster’s grin, the dreaded sewer hole, his old nemesis, the spot to which he ran so often on tiny skinned legs, in pursuit of yet another ball that had skipped under his fat pancake of a mitt or whizzed over it, rolling speedily and with a kind of cruel intelligence toward the inevitable hole, where it would be swallowed into a plunging darkness.
He turned off Percy onto Washburn, appreciating the chill in the air, the faint smoky smell of leaves, the sturdiness of old, soot-scorched brick. Fifty years ago, he thought. He was getting on sixty; his memories touched the tips of ancient things. On the corner of Percy and Washburn there had been a grocery, Ruby’s, with its briny pickle barrels, its pink luncheon meats cut paper thin. The storefront itself was long gone, but if you looked closely at the brick facade, you could see a faded advertisement for Singapore Fruit, like a handprint vanishing from glass.
Mickey stopped his car in front of Nelson’s house on Washburn. Nelson would be on deliveries, but Donna might be home, and Mickey did have a few things to discuss with her. Should he go up and knock on the door? He looked around. Garbage cans were bunched at the curb, their tops slanted at impudent angles, like gangsters’ hats. Mickey hesitated. A man in a white T-shirt appeared on the front steps two doors down. Mickey felt for the lock, a reflex. Not that he was worried; God knew he’d driven through worse neighborhoods. Years ago, come a holiday (Passover especially, when the bakery’d be closed for over a week), he would go down as far as Fulton Street to distribute bread to his credit-book customers. He once went inside a customer’s house to use the toilet, and when he came back out his car was gone. That had been the last time.
Now he wondered if he ought to just get out of there, go home. He knew the man in the T-shirt was watching him, and it wasn’t unreasonable, given what you saw on the news these days, to imagine himself being pulled from his car at gunpoint, perhaps even shot for no reason and left for dead in the gutter as his car disappeared around a corner. He hated to think that way, but what could you do? As if to disprove the notion, he parked in front of Nelson’s and stepped out of the car; and as he braced himself to look over at the man and give a friendly nod, he realized, upon glimpsing the man’s puzzled, guarded expression, that he was being seen for what he surely must be: a cop. What other white man would have any business around here? Yes: Detective Mick Lerner, fixture at crime scenes, a man of burger wrappers and coffee cups and the occasional highball, a hardened veteran with the charm of a bulldog and the heat to back it up. This fantastic notion, made all the more vivid, somehow, by the way his tie flapped behind him in the breeze, carried Mickey all the way to Nelson’s door, and as he waited for Donna Childs to answer his knock—three times he knocked, just as Detective Lerner might—he watched as the man in the T-shirt went back into his house, looking away, as though not wanting to be involved.
Mickey knocked again, softly, regretting the authoritative raps of before. He wondered how he might appear through the peephole. Would she recognize him? A new confusion set in. What was he doing here? Why not have just talked on the phone? Before he could think, the door opened, and a young, attractive black woman—Donna Childs, no question about it—looked up at him with a fearful expression.
“Yes?”
“You’re Donna Childs?”
“Yes.” Donna placed her hand over her mouth. “Tell me it’s not my child.”
“No,” Mickey said. “No, no. Everything’s fine. I’m Mickey Lerner.”
Donna lowered her hand.
Mickey smiled. “I was just driving through the neighborhood, thought I’d drop by and say hello. I wanted to—to talk about our boys.”
“So everything’s okay?”
“Everything’s fine, nothing to worry about. Is it a bad time?”
“I was just on my way to the bus,” Donna said. “I have to go to work.” She seemed scattered, unsure of the time, the day. “I’m sorry—otherwise I’d invite you inside.” She smiled nervously. “You said you wanted to talk?”
“That’s right. Do you want a lift?”
Donna looked at him. “A ride?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Okay,” said Donna. “Let me think.” She placed her hand on her cheek, trying, Mickey guessed, to find a way out; she was off her guard. “If I get a ride …” Her brown face was round and smooth as a bowl. She was forty, Mickey calculated, but she looked ten years younger, what with the dozens of thin braids that fell to her shoulders, each one so elaborately woven that Mickey could be exhausted just by looking at them. She wore jangling bracelets and an Indian cotton dress with intricate floral patterns; when she moved there was a quiet rumble of hips, of bosom.
“It’s not a problem,” said Mickey. “Where do you work?”
“Me? Downtown. On Cathedral Street.”
“Let’s go then,” said Mickey. He smiled, gave a coaxing nod in the direction of his car.
“Okay—okay then.” Donna closed her door, made sure it was locked. “Down on Cathedral,” she said, fumbling with her keys. “I give shiatsu massage.” She had a serious yet musical voice through whose jitteriness Mickey heard a slight Southern twang that conjured up uncut grass, wildflowers and Sunday picnics in the shade. “Ever heard of it? Shiatsu?” She was overcoming fear. “It’s Japanese for ‘finger pressure.’ It’s good for tension, circulation. It cleans your cells. Helps fight disease.”
“Sounds like hocus-pocus,” Mickey said good-naturedly.
“It works. You should try it sometime.”
“Me? I just had my annual physical. Doctor gave me a perfect bill of health.” Mickey drew a long breath, his chest expanding with the youthful pride he took in his physique. Standing naked just last month in the cold-tiled examination room as Dr. Abel touched, probed, listened and scrawled glowing notes on a pad, Mickey had become aware of himself as a specimen, a true marvel of fitness; so that now, leading Donna Childs to his car in full view of possibly hostile neighbors, he took refuge in the temple of his health—the thump of his small, efficient heart, the flow of his spotless blood—and, from the most discreet portal of this sanctuary, eyed his companion with a mix of wonder and disbelief: he hadn’t seen her in years, not since the days of the old bakery down on North Avenue; suddenly, everything came back to him.
“Éclairs,” he said. “Chocolate-covered éclairs.”
Donna laughed. “My favorite,” she said. The nervousness was gone: they could have been old friends. “You remembered that?”
&nbs
p; Mickey smiled. “Your mother always warned you you’d get sick. But you insisted.”
“And you always backed me up.”
Mickey laughed. “Just doing my job.” He unlocked the passenger door and walked around to the driver’s side, patting the hood of the car on the way. “What were you—nine, ten years old? I never saw such an appetite.”
Donna followed him with her eyes. “I’m still trying to reverse the effects.”
Mickey laughed as he got into the car. “Aw. Come on now. I’m sure you’re just fine.”
Donna got in and closed her door. “I’ve always wondered,” she said, and the humor drained from her voice. “When you hired Nelson. Did you know who he was? Or who I was?”
“Well,” said Mickey. He buckled his seat belt. “I did recognize the name when he filled out the application. The parent’s name. Donna Childs. Sure, it rang a bell.”
“I thought it would,” Donna said. “Not that I expected it would get him the job. I guess I’d like to think you hired him, you know, on his own merit.” She looked at her smooth hands, the fingers ringless, probably on account of her line of work. She said, “He doesn’t know that you once knew my father.”
Mickey glanced at his passenger. Despite himself, he felt increasingly aware of their differences; was this really the little colored girl with the pigtails and the big front teeth, smiling up at him at the bakery counter? He lowered his window, wanting air. The cultural myth of the automobile as a haven for outlaws and lovers added to his growing sense of the illicit, a sense heightened by the strange apparition of his own whiteness: the pink fingers on the wheel, the sallow face in the rearview mirror; or perhaps it was the features of the interior—the locks, the straps, the buckles, the mirrors—that smacked too strongly of fetish, of leathery pleasures and general sexual peril. He said, “Nelson got the job fair and square.”
“Good,” said Donna.
They passed some decrepit row houses whose windows were boarded up. Mickey turned onto Coldspring, heading for the expressway. “Me and your father had one fight,” he said. “We really didn’t know each other that well. I think we kept in touch for a couple of months, but that was it. We just sort of—fell out of touch.”
