Potter's Field

by Rob Hart

  As we approach Bombay’s building I realize I don’t know his apartment number, so I text him and he writes back immediately: 4B. When the car pulls up I thank the driver and climb out and he peels off, leaving me on a quiet street, the apartment building in front of me, a high school behind me, everything lit yellow by the sodium streetlights.

  I feel lightheaded from anticipation. Step into the foyer, hit the bell for 4B, and the door buzzes. Press the button for the elevator but it’s frozen on the third floor, so, fuck it, I take the stairs, moving faster up the landings until I’m nearly running, and I step into the hall and the door is opening and Bombay steps out and I throw my arms around him, almost knocking the two of us off our feet.

  He slaps his hand against my back. Once, then twice. We stay there like that.

  Bombay is my best friend in the world. Another person I met through an act of violence—in his case, a bunch of dumb kids in a post-9/11 frenzy smashing him into a locker because he committed the crime of being dark-skinned. I made them stop. It got bloody. We’ve been inseparable since.

  He’s the only person I maintained regular contact with while I was gone, and being here right now is the best I’ve felt since I got home, because he looks the same—shaved head, day-glo polo shirt. That smell. I don’t know what the smell is. It smells like Bombay.

  He pulls back, gets a good look at my face, frowns.

  “What the fuck happened to you, bro?” he asks.

  “Long story.”

  “Well,” he says, stepping into the apartment. “I ordered pizza and I don’t have to work tomorrow.”

  Something else to fill me with light and happiness: pizza. Real pizza.

  The apartment has a tidy kitchen right off the front door. Tidy in a way like it barely gets used. A living room crammed with bookshelves, laptops everywhere. Stuff Bombay is repairing or tinkering with. Discarded bags of chips and bottles of diet soda.

  I toss my bag on the floor and he turns on the television, switches it to a hip-hop radio station. Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides plays as I settle into a chair. Bombay sits on the couch across from me.

  We stare at each other for a second, until his face cracks into a smile and he says, “What the fuck man! You’re home.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you want something to drink? I don’t have any whiskey, but I have some beer, and I think there’s a bottle of merlot…”

  I shake my head. “I’m good.”

  Bombay freezes. “You don’t want a drink?”

  “Jesus, is it that shocking? No, I don’t want a drink.”

  He puts his hands up. “I’m not judging man. It’s a good thing. What took you so long to get out here?”

  “Detour to Mamoun’s,” I tell him.

  I leave it at that. I don’t want to get into the meeting with Ginny. I don’t want to explain it to him. Because I was barely in town for a half hour before I’m back in her employ. It’s for a good cause, but Bombay is a worrier.

  There’s a knock on the door. Bombay runs over, exchanges cash for pizza, and comes back with two boxes. Sets them down on the coffee table.

  “You want something non-alcoholic to drink?” he asks.

  “Water is good.”

  He disappears to the kitchen and I flip open the top box. Steam curls off molten cheese. I know this is going to hurt but I don’t care. I know it’s rude but I don’t care about that either. I pick up a piece and cram it in my mouth and it singes the top of my mouth and burns on the way down but it is so delicious and I love it.

  Bombay comes back, sets down two blue plastic cups full of ice and water. I tell him, “I hope you ordered some pizza for yourself.”

  “Fuck you, man,” he says. He reaches for a slice. I bat his hand away and he raises his fist. We laugh and he takes a slice, holds it aloft, allowing it to cool.

  “Now, fill me in on what happened,” he says. “Starting with Portland.”

  I tell it between bites. Figuring I owe it to him, because a couple of times I tapped him for favors—Bombay works with computers, which are not really my forte, so if ever I need some light hacking or some research, he’s my man.

  It’s a Holmes/Watson-type scenario, but with less sexual tension.

  I tell him about Portland, where I was working in a vegan strip club. About Crystal, one of the dancers. Her shitty ex took their daughter from day care. It turned out to be at the behest of her estranged father, a politician running for higher office. He wanted to bury the skeletons in his closet by putting Crystal’s daughter, Rose, up for an off-the-books adoption, and running Crystal out of town. I found Rose and put an end to all the rest. I don’t tell Bombay the part about how I accidently killed the politician’s right-hand man and buried him off a hiking trail in the woods.

  I tell him about my stop in Georgia, where I was waiting for my passport to come through so I could flee the country for a bit. Hiding out at South Village, a hippie commune owned by Tibo, a mutual friend. How a militant environmental group wanted to kill some folks to make a name for themselves and me and some other people at the commune stopped them. I tell him how I was self-medicating with alcohol, then stopped drinking, then got hit with a case of delirium tremens in the middle of the woods. It’s why I ramped way down on my alcohol intake. He’s proud of me for this.

  I tell him about Prague, where a spy—or at least I think he was a spy—blackmailed me into working for him, and the whole thing went sideways, and I ended up on the radar of an assassin, and that’s why my face is battered. The U.S. bank that’s currently under investigation for colluding with a terrorist group to push into oil fields in Iraq to drive up barrel prices—I’m the reason they got found out.

  He takes all this in, nodding silently, smiling or laughing at a few points as he puts together the points where he came into play.

  At the end of it all, the two of us having worked through a pizza and a half, he sits back.

  “That all sounds completely ridiculous,” he says. “Especially the last one.”

  “Yeah, it kinda does, when you lay it all out like that,” I tell him.

  “So what’s next? What are you going to do now that you’re home?”

  And here’s the test.

  Bombay has always been good at calling me on my bullshit. When you’re standing on the edge of a four-story roof and looking down at a dumpster and you’re drunk enough to believe you’ll survive the fall—he’s the friend who pulls you aside and explains why you shouldn’t jump off roofs.

  Which is a thing that actually happened to us once.

  So part of me is a little afraid to say it because if he laughs at me, I have a problem.

  “I’ve been thinking about becoming a private investigator, officially,” I tell him. “Like, as a career.”

  He nods, like he’s contemplating a dinner order. I tense up.

  “Makes sense,” he says.

  Huh. “Really?”

  “Helping people has always been your thing,” Bombay says. “You’ve got too many issues with authority to be a cop or a firefighter. You don’t have the discipline to make it in the armed services. And you could be a social worker or something but that doesn’t seem your speed.”

  “Well shit,” I tell him. “I was expecting some pushback.”

  “No. In fact, I’ll help you with what I can. It makes me happy to see you thinking about tomorrow. You didn’t used to do that.” He leans forward. “I really missed you this past year, but I’m glad to see it was good for you. Aside from you getting your ass kicked and then making up stories about assassins.”

  “There’s a lot to do,” I tell him. “First on the list is, I’ve got to find a place to stay. I’m sure my old apartment is long gone. It’d be nice to find something in Manhattan but I feel like Brooklyn might be more affordable.”

  “Plenty of units in this building,” he says, swinging his arm.

  “I don’t feel like coming back.”

  “You’re going to stay with yo
ur mom for a little bit?”

  “I want to give it a few days.”

  Bombay grimaces. “Dude, if your mom finds out you’re home and you haven’t gone to see her, that’ll kill her. Actually, she might kill you. And then she’ll kill me for letting you hide out.”

  I gesture at my face. “What do I tell her about all this? That I fell down some stairs? I’m no good at lying to my mom. Another few days to heal and I’ll go.”

  He shakes his head. This, he disapproves of. Which is fair.

  “I have a spare room, and you can crash until you get on your feet,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m going to get a beer. You want some more water?”

  I consider packing it in. I’ve been up for too long. But I’m home, and I’m safe, and it feels good. My second wind is long spent but I feel a third one coming on, so I tell him, “Grab me a beer, too.”

  “I thought you weren’t drinking.”

  “I said I wasn’t drinking much. I’m not a fucking monk.”

  He disappears, returns with a brown bottle. The label says Flagship and features an outline of Staten Island. The colors match the Staten Island Ferry—orange and blue.

  “Brewery just opened down the block,” Bombay says, cracking the top for me.

  I take a swig. It’s good. “Speaking of, fill me in. What have I missed?”

  I turn the faucet for the shower. It starts cold so I give it some time to warm up. Strip down and look at my phone. Four hours since that beer—my one and only for the evening. I wanted another but I didn’t take one and that’s progress. Glad being home doesn’t make me slide. Not yet.

  Bombay turned in and I am desperate for sleep but after being in planes and airports for the better part of a day, I need to clean up. I expect to sleep for at least 12 hours after this. More if I can manage it. I unwind the plastic wrap around my midsection, poke at the rib I think might be broken. Getting better for sure, but still not pleasant. My torso is covered in bruises. I lean into the mirror, which is slowly fogging up, but there’s enough of me visible that I know I don’t want my mother to see my face in this state.

  Bombay is right. I can’t put off seeing her, and anyway, if I’m going to be roaming around Staten Island, it won’t be long until someone spots me and lets her know. It’s sort of incredible how a borough with a population of a half million people can be so small like that.

  After the shower I head into the spare bedroom. It’s more a storage room—computer guts on metal industrial shelving, some blinking equipment on a rack, a small twin-size bed in the corner. Which looks like heaven to me right now. The apartment is hot—one of those old brick buildings with a steam-engine boiler, so the heat builds up and stays in like a pizza oven. You end up sweating your way through the winter. I pull on a pair of shorts. Take the wad of cash out and flip through it. That’s nice. I’m going to start apartment hunting, tomorrow or the day after, and this will help.

  I take out the bag of naloxone. Inside are a dozen syringes. At the tip, instead of a needle, there’s an inverted plastic cone, so you can press it into someone’s nostril without stabbing them in the brain.

  I grab the laptop Bombay lent me, swing my legs onto the bed and open it up. Take the folder, look at the pictures again, poke around a little for Spencer. Find his Facebook profile and spend a little time reading through it. There’s not much to see—most of the posts are marked off as friends-only, not for public view. There’s a stray photo here and there where somebody tagged him.

  I do find one video of him. He’s sitting in a dressing room, laying foundation on his face, his hair pulled back and covered with a hairnet, like he’s getting ready to put a wig on. He’s talking to someone off camera, giving them a tutorial on how to apply makeup for a drag performance. High, sing-song voice, full of warmth. It tugs at me a little. I remind myself: this is what I’m doing. Helping him. Not Ginny. Him.

  The video is five minutes long, parts of it sped up. I watch him transform from a funny, shy kid with delicate features into a striking Amazon done up in war paint. Side by side, you wouldn’t know they’re the same person.

  Spencer Chavez as Jacqueline Coke turns to the camera and gives a giant wink, twisting her lips into a razor smile.

  The video ends.

  Doesn’t seem like there’s much for me to do otherwise. And I know I should sleep but a fourth wind is whistling through the window. I think it’s my body, knowing it’s home. I want to leave here, get on the boat, go to Manhattan, wander around, see what’s still there, who’s still out, what’s happening.

  What I missed.

  There’ll be time for that. I know that.

  I poke around on Google. Look for Crystal.

  The other thing I didn’t tell Bombay is that we had a thing.

  Chell getting killed really messed me up. She loved me, but not the way I loved her. She carried my love like a burden. And even after I found the guy who killed her, even after I chose to dime him out to the cops rather than rip his throat out with my teeth—my attempt to end the cycle of violence—I was reeling. Crystal put my pain in perspective. Both with Chell, and in a larger sense.

  After I buried Wilson and got her daughter back, I figured the safest thing was for her to leave town and for me to disappear. Maybe that wasn’t the right call, but it’s what we did.

  I thought about her a lot in the weeks afterward.

  I thought about her in the months, too.

  Her number was saved in my old phone, which got trashed in Prague. I could call Tommi, at the club where we worked. They’ve probably been in touch and Tommi would at least let me leave a message for her. But I wonder if I should. That was a tough period in her life and I’m sure she’s trying to put it behind her. I don’t know what me getting in touch with her would help. Anyway, I tend to make people’s lives harder.

  Still, it’d be nice to hear her voice.

  To know she’s okay.

  Nothing on Google. Can’t find her on Facebook, either, but given how things ended in Portland I have to figure she’s using a fake name. I find the number for Naturals, the strip club where we worked together, and sit there staring at it. It’s only 11 p.m. in Portland. They must still be open. Must be.

  I shut the laptop. Put it in the floor. Stare at the ceiling.

  Close my eyes.

  The front door creaked, barely audible over the music playing on the speakers. An orchestral piece meant to make a person want to sink into a plush chair, which is exactly what I was doing. I looked up and there was Bombay, brushing snow off his shoulders, eyes darting around Esperanto until they settled on me.

  It was around four in the morning. The bars were letting out and MacDougal was growing thick with drunken idiots. I sipped my green tea and put my hand in the air so Bombay could find me, not that he wasn’t already headed to the alcove in the back corner, to the two chairs we probably should have been paying rent on.

  As he sat, the waitress who knew our faces but not our names asked if he wanted anything. He asked for a cappuccino and she turned to the coffee station to put it together and Bombay offered me his hand.

  “So what’s the good news?” he asked.

  “Found an apartment.”

  “No shit. Where?”

  “Little bit east of here,” I told him. “One bedroom. It’s a walk-up and the shower is a closet in the kitchen, but hey, you do what you have to. It’s rent-controlled. Under a grand a month.”

  The waitress put down his cappuccino. He picked it up, held it to his lips, and blew, which did less to cool the drink and more to push a little furrow in the foam. “How the hell did you swing a sweet deal like that?”

  “Luck, for the most part.”

  I didn’t want to tell him the truth: that an old lady with a rent-controlled apartment had died. That a friend of mine had an arrangement with another friend at the city morgue. When a person died with no next of kin, he got a tip that maybe a rent-controlled apartment would be open
ing up.

  Once a tenant is dead and an apartment is cleared, a landlord can jack up the rent to meet the market. But the clever and morally flexible can take over the lease, and along with it, the bargain-basement payments.

  “Well, good on you,” he said. “I know how much you’ve wanted to live in Manhattan.”

  “Not just me. You want to live here too, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but I’m not as viscerally unhappy as you are on Staten Island.”

  “Fuck Staten Island.” I took a sip of tea, watched as a trio of drunken goons spilled into the café, stumbling toward the only available table left, close to us. I lowered my voice because I didn’t want to invite their attention. “Living on Staten Island is like living behind a velvet rope for the best party in the world.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “It’s pretty bad.”

  Bombay shook his head. “You’re being dramatic.”

  “Keep it up, I’m not going to make you my offer.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Come live with me.”

  Bombay put down the mug, suddenly interested. “I thought you said it was a one bedroom.”

  “It is. So we throw up a wall or something. It won’t be comfy, but we’ll be living in the East Village.”

  Bombay smiled. “You’d let me cramp your style like that?”

  “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

  “Nah man, I love you and all, but I like having my own space,” he said. “Anyway, I’m making good money now. I won’t be far behind you…”

  “Hey Habib.”

  Our conversation slammed into a brick wall. We both turned to look at the three goons sitting across from us.

  The one who spoke had soft, boyish features. A mop of brown hair. A look like he came from money he didn’t earn.

  “They let you out of the Kwik-E-Mart for the night, huh?” he asked.