by Rob Hart
I remember this kid. I wouldn’t say I ‘attacked’ him, but I didn’t leave him untouched. Didn’t hurt him, but made it clear I was ready and willing. I cringe. Put up my hands in a “calm down” gesture and tell him, “Look, it’s a really long story, but first off, I want to apologize…”
“Fuck off,” he says. Points at the door. “Get out.”
I look at Lunette. She shrugs and downs the rest of her glass of wine. I take out my wallet, peel off more than we owe, like a fat tip might make up for me being an asshole, and slide out of the booth. He steps aside as we make our way for the door.
Halfway there I stop and turn. “I’m sorry. I know that might not mean anything.”
He doesn’t respond. Just stares at me like he thinks it might make me catch fire.
Back in the cold, Lunette puts another cigarette between her lips, lights it.
“Well,” she says, smoke spilling out of her mouth. “That was fun.”
“I guess I deserve that.”
Lunette leans against the side of the building. Says, “You didn’t think leaving was going to let you outrun karma, did you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Doesn’t work like that.”
“Apparently not.”
“What?”
“It’s weird,” I tell her. “So much has changed since I left. And yet it’s like nothing did.”
“The way it goes,” she says, flicking her half-smoked cigarette into the street. “Now walk me back to the ferry. I’ve got some stuff I need to do.”
We turn and make our way down Bay Street. I’ve got work to do, too. The ferry terminal is where I need to be. It’s where I’ll get the bus to Port Richmond so I can find Kathryn Petersen-Wichnovitz.
I’m happy for Lunette—I really am—and maybe this is selfish, but I was hoping she’d be able to help me.
Something. Anything.
I think she senses my disappointment, because halfway back to the ferry she says, “Brick.”
“What?”
“Guy named Brick,” she says. “I never copped from him, but I know some people who did. He’s supposed to have the best shit. Might be a place to start.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know. That’s the last of it. I’m serious.”
“Sure thing.”
I put my arm around her shoulder, pull her close, kiss her on the side of the head.
The s46 bus never gets above first gear. It inches down Castleton Avenue, coming to hard stops that make the people standing nearly topple onto one another. I manage to score a seat in the back but don’t have it for long, because an older lady gets on the bus and I wave her over. As she makes her way through the crowd, some high school kid thinks I’m vacating for him, so I get between him and the seat until the old lady is set. He’s annoyed but backs off when it dawns that I am literally twice his weight.
I catch glimpses of the street outside the windows, obscured because I’m stuck in the middle of the scrum, trying desperately to hold onto the overhead bar by my fingertips. Things look the same. That much is nice.
We pass the stop where I could get off and walk up to my mom’s house and that makes me feel guilty. I wonder if I should go now. If she’s not home, wait. I don’t have my keys on me but I know where she keeps a spare hidden; in the garage out back, underneath an old planter half-filled with stale dirt.
It would be so easy.
But then I’d have to tell her some hard truths about my life and that feels impossible.
I tell myself that if someone else selects this stop I’ll take it as a sign. The universe telling me to stop being such a fucking baby. But there’s no ding. The sign over the driver doesn’t light up. The bus shelter flashes by.
I pull out my phone and use the remaining time to brush up on the articles I sent myself.
By the time we approach Project Sanctuary, I’ve learned a couple of things:
When pharmaceutical companies introduced opioid painkillers, they downplayed the addictive nature. Doctors prescribed opioids like candy so people got addicted. Eventually, those addicts couldn’t get refills, and pills are expensive on the black market, so they turned to heroin, which was cheaper, widely-available, and close enough in terms of the high.
Capitalism in action.
That explains, in a general sense, why heroin is making a comeback.
Why it’s hitting Staten Island so hard is a little less clear.
I have some theories. There are a lot of civil service workers in the borough, given the lower cost of living. Cops, firefighters, sanitation workers. People who break their asses in half just to make a living. They have high rates of injury and good health insurance. With good health insurance come good painkillers. But part of the problem, it seems, isn’t the workers—it’s their kids. The average commute time for Staten Island residents is among the highest in the nation, given the shit options for public transit and the poor road infrastructure. So kids have a lot of time unsupervised.
I feel like, too, there’s an element of hiding in plain sight. Staten Island has a lot of wide open space. A lot of suburbs. The police out here, I’m sure they all do their best, I’m sure they’re nice guys and gals, but the island has a reputation for being the kind of place you go when you’re put out to pasture, or seeking a lighter workload. I remember hearing a story a long time ago about how the police precinct on the South Shore had a screen door.
“Quaint” is not the kind of descriptor you’d think to assign to any part of the NYPD, which is bigger than the armed forces of some entire nations.
Point is, if I were still doing illicit shit, this would be a good place to do it.
Ultimately I think the problem comes down to isolation. The island is so cut off from the rest of the city. It feels lonely. You’re a mile or two away from everything and you feel like it may as well be another galaxy. The times I felt alone were always when I fell the hardest. Propped myself up with booze and coke and cigarettes. Things that offered me temporary relief.
I get it.
Thinking you’re helping yourself by hurting yourself because at least you feel something.
The bus approaches the corner of Port Richmond Avenue. Someone already pulled the cord, so I wait for the bus to pull over, climb out with a handful of people, stand there in the cold and try to orient myself.
Port Richmond is one of the neighborhoods that could most easily be mistaken for Brooklyn. Latin music blares from the cars that whiz by. Dilapidated storefronts with cheap apartments above them. Lots of dollar stores and Spanish restaurants. My favorite: 5-11 convenience stores. It’s like Staten Island doesn’t even rate for the full brand.
The Project Sanctuary building is across the street. Low, brick, mirrored windows. I wait for the light, cross over, push through the front door.
Inside is a small lobby with a scuffed tile floor. I can see the sidewalk clearly from in here. The mirrored coating on the windows outside is one-way, so the people inside have privacy. The space feels so much smaller because of how packed it is. The chairs in the waiting area are cheap wood and cushioning, like in a college dorm. They’re filled up with a cross-section of the island. Every race, every gender, every class—from the gangbanger with teardrops tattooed under his eyes, to the guy in rumpled suit and wingtips, to the suburban mom with her daughter in tow. The daughter is too young to be in a place like this and I whisper a silent prayer that she’s just tagging along.
A few people glance up, but quickly return to what they’re doing: zoning out, dozing off, playing games on their phones, flipping through magazines. No one talks. The feeling of standing here is like being at a wake.
The walls are covered with pamphlets and posters. Multiple languages, from Spanish to Russian to Korean, advertising health services and housing programs. The light is gray, some of the bulbs blown and not replaced. Behind the reception desk, which looks pulled from a dumpster, is a short Spanish
girl with red red lips and a big smile. I approach the desk and she shifts in her seat. “Hi. How can I help you?”
“Kathryn Petersen-Wichnovitz, please.” Had to practice that a couple of times in my head on the bus ride over so I could say it right.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I do not.”
She nods, picks up the phone, murmurs into it, listens, and looks up. “Can you wait a few minutes?”
“Sure.” Since there are no open seats I stand and lean against the wall, next to a poster in a cheap plastic frame—a cloudy sky with “Let It Begin With Me” written in ornate black script.
I use the time to explore my new phone. Find some games. I’m halfway through a solid round of Solitaire when an e-mail notification pops up from my mom. I open it up to find a blank e-mail, before remembering that she sometimes puts the whole message in the subject line, like it’s a text. It’s adorable.
So when are you coming home?
My heart jerks a little.
I’m, what, three miles away? I could walk there. But she doesn’t even know I’m in the country yet.
Soon, I write back.
“Hello?”
I look up, see a woman with frizzy black hair streaked with gray. Her shoes are worn. Her clothes—slacks and a blouse and a sweater—are more durable than stylish. There are deep lines at the corner of her eyes but her face shines like a star. She is ready, weight shifted forward on her toes. The way she looks at me is: Can I help you? And she means it. My bruised-up face doesn’t throw her, but I guess that’s not entirely uncommon here.
I walk over, offer my hand. She shakes it hard. “Ms. Petersen-Wichnovitz? Ash McKenna. I was hoping I could have a few minutes of your time.”
She’s suddenly unsure. “Please, call me Kathy. What is this in regard to?”
“I’m looking for somebody.”
“Do you have identification?”
“Like, a drivers’ license?”
Her tone is sharp. “No, like a badge.”
“I do not, I’m sorry.”
She raises her eyebrow at me. That shining star dims. I can see the wheels turning—she’s trying to figure a polite way out of this conversation.
“It’s a friend,” I tell her. “He’s missing. His parents asked me to look for him.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Thank you.”
She leads me down a hallway. There are doors, some of them closed, some of them not. Most of the doors lead to offices and classrooms, but there’s also a cafeteria. A dozen people silently eating or reading at long tables. Heads down, avoiding contact with each other. Spinning on their own orbits. People drift past us like ghosts.
Kathy leads me to a small room at the end of the hall. The lights are off. I think there’s a desk sticking out from underneath the mounds of paperwork. Kathy points to a chair on the other side of the mound and I sit, take out the photo of Spencer, and place it on the pile. She picks up a pair of reading glasses, puts them on, and holds the photograph at arm’s length.
“His name is Spencer Chavez,” I tell her. “If it’s helpful, he’s in the drag community and performs under the name Jacqueline Coke. I know he’s an addict and the last anyone heard from him, he was on Staten Island. Sadly I don’t have much more to go on than that.”
She takes off the glasses and raises a sharp eyebrow. “I thought you said you were friends?”
“It’s been a long time.”
She nods. “He looks familiar. We get so many people through those doors and I try the best I can. But he looks familiar. I think he came in a couple of weeks ago.” She thinks, nods. “A few weeks ago, he was in the waiting room.”
“Do you know why?”
“That, I can’t remember. And I’m sure you understand but there are confidentiality issues here—I don’t know if he has a file here, but even if he does, I can’t pull it for someone who claims to be a friend. If you were law enforcement, I might be able to help some more. But even then…”
“No, I get it,” I tell her. “It might be helpful to know his state of mind. Maybe if he was seeking treatment…”
“If he was, I would definitely remember him,” she says. “He might have been meeting someone. He might have been getting clean needles or a health screening. We offer a lot of services here.”
This wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. There’s a sound out in the hallway. Doors opening and closing, shoes squeaking on the linoleum. Kathy looks up and over my shoulder. This meeting is just about over. I make one more stab at it. “Does the name Brick mean anything to you?”
She nods. “He’s a dealer. A very dangerous one.”
“Do you know where he operates?”
She frowns. “If I knew that he wouldn’t be in business anymore.
“I do not doubt that.” I stand up, push in the chair. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
She pauses, thinks. Says, “It wasn’t a waste. A lot of people go missing. Not a lot of people come looking for them. It’s a good thing. It’s just… there are so many. If you find him, bring him here. We’ll do what we can. Prepare yourself for what you might find.”
“What do you mean?”
“The hardest kind of person to help is someone who doesn’t want help,” she says. “If there’s one thing I know without any doubt or question, it’s that. Unless someone wants to make a change, they won’t do it. They’ll dig in deeper. He has to want to be helped. So make sure when you find him you give him what he needs. It might not be to drag him here kicking and screaming.”
I laugh a little. “You sound worried about what I might do.”
She raises that eyebrow again. Doesn’t say anything. I get what she means.
“I understand,” I tell her.
“Good,” she says. “I have to make a call. Can you find your way out?”
“Sure.” I shake her hand and take my stuff. She turns to the phone. As I step out of the office I nearly knock down a scrawny black guy in a red do-rag. He’s pushing a broom and gives me some serious stink-eye, like I should have known better than to fuck up the part of the floor he’d just cleaned.
“Sorry,” I tell him, before making my way to the front.
It was partly cloudy when I got off the bus, but the rest of the sky got filled up with gray while I was inside Project Sanctuary. There’s a stiffness to the air, like it might snow. I look at the bus stop but don’t really feel like standing still right now, so I walk down Castleton Avenue, in the direction of my mom’s house. Just to have a direction to walk.
That wasn’t terribly helpful. I guess I made a few mistakes. One, being some asshole off the street who has no authority of any kind to be asking questions. Two, assuming that any random person is going to have a lead on a needle in a stack of needles. Once again I am not as clever or resourceful as I think I am.
I call up the website for Jay Gunner’s office, click the link to his phone number. Goes straight to voicemail. Hang up instead of leaving a message, because I don’t know what to say. Hi, I’m a lunatic kid with dreams of being a PI, can I come work for you so I can get the requisite experience and that way I can stop working for a drag queen kingpin. Queenpin? Whatever.
There’s a shuffle behind me. I turn, find the sidewalk empty. We’re away from the main drag now, in a more residential area. The occasional car cruises past but otherwise it’s quiet, people locked inside, away from the cold.
I keep walking. Hear another shuffle.
Still no one behind me.
Because he’s to my left.
There’s a burnt-up house looming over me, red brick charred and windows boarded up. There’s shrubbery around the property, about ten-feet tall, blocking the view of the lawn from the street. It’s so overgrown there’s barely space left to step between the hedges.
Slightly past those hedges, a few feet away, is the guy in the red do-rag. He pulls up the bottom of his shirt and shows me the butt of the gun tucked into his waistba
nd, resting against well-defined abdominal muscles. He raises his hand and waves me toward him.
As I step through the hedges, branches smacking at my face, he says, “Tell me what the fuck you know about Brick.”
I put my hands up as I step onto the unkempt lawn, frozen grass crackling under my boots. The man doesn’t reach for the gun, but maintains the grip on his shirt so I know it’s there.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
It hangs in the air. I shrug a little. Try to get him angry.
Which may seem counterproductive. But angry is distracted, and he still hasn’t reached for the gun, which is a big mistake on his part. Guns are only a problem when they’re pointed at you. Up close they don’t matter for much. I’d rather go against a gun than a knife in close quarters.
The anger is bubbling up now, and he’s about to say something, but before he can get the words out I launch forward and put my hand on the gun, keeping it pressed into his midsection.
“Motherfucker,” he yells, using both hands to try and pull it out. But I’m pressing down with all my weight, which means I have all the leverage. I pop him in the face with a quick jab.
He stumbles backward and I wrap my fingers around the pistol grip. I step back and yank it free from his pants, put a little distance between us. Eject the magazine and toss it into the bushes alongside the house, pop the cartridge out of the chamber and let it fall to my feet, throw the gun over his shoulder.
The guy’s nose is bleeding but it doesn’t look broken. He’s even angrier than before but I can’t blame him for that.
“You want to make this into a thing, we can make it into a thing,” I tell him. “Or we can be gentlemen about it.”
He touches his fingers to his nose, looks at the blood on his fingertips.
“Yeah, real fucking gentle, asshole,” he says.
“Don’t get all indignant. You pulled a gun on me,” I say. “I could have made that a lot worse.”
“Fine,” he says, shaking his head. “What the fuck you want with Brick?”
