We Are Not Ourselves
Page 22
“Excuse me!” she said, more shrilly than she’d intended. He spun around in a defensive posture, as though in preparation for a karate chop. When he saw her he dropped his hands.
“Sorry, lady,” he said. The others snickered. She knew she should just keep moving and not say anything. She had an instinctual fear of groups of young men like this. She’d heard stories of ugly incidents. Still, she felt a wave of righteous indignation pass over her.
“This sidewalk’s for everyone, you know.”
“Sorry,” the young man said. “It was an accident.”
She had wrung a second apology from him; she knew this was probably the time to stop. They could run off and have a laugh at the crazy white lady. Maybe they’d shout curses at her as they receded from view. The perfunctory way he’d apologized irked her, though. She was going to teach this young man how to comport himself, even if no one else was bothering to take the time to do so.
“You should watch where you’re going,” she said. “It’s hard enough to get down this sidewalk. There was no room to get past any of you.”
“Whatever you say.” There was a restrained quality to him, as though he were a tiger waiting to pounce.
“It’s my neighborhood too,” she said. “Just because you’re taking over doesn’t mean I’m leaving.”
One of the boys standing behind the one who had bumped her moved forward. She knew what was coming: Fuck you, white bitch! But the other put up his hand to restrain him. “Hold up,” he said. “I’m sorry for running into you. I didn’t mean to crowd the sidewalk. Nobody’s taking over your neighborhood. I was born here. There’s room for all of us.”
His articulateness shocked her. He parted the group to make room for her and indicated with a pacific gesture that she should pass. As she hastened to leave she replayed the incident in her mind, trying to make sense of the inscrutable turn it had taken. She had expected hate to be directed at her and had almost been disappointed not to face it. The kid had been raised well, there was no denying it. She wanted to forget the encounter. It unsettled her more than a brush with violence would have. A vision of the future loitered in it, an intimation of her obsolescence.
That night, when she told the story, she substituted for the young man’s oddly delicate apology a bowdlerized version of the slurs she’d anticipated hearing—which was, in any case, closer to the truth of her lived experience than this inexplicable aberration. “I wouldn’t repeat some of the vile things I heard,” she said, “even if Connell weren’t here.” It was a venial sin, she knew, but she didn’t have to labor to justify it to herself, because it was in everyone’s interest that they move to the suburbs. Ed, though, offered up only a muted version of the chivalric indignation she’d expected to hear, which stoked the fire of her anger at the gang members. Within a few days, she’d begun to consider the possibility that they’d actually said some of the things she’d put in their mouths, and there was a decent chance they had, memory being such a slippery thing.
• • •
When she went back to the realty office, she parked in front this time, and Gloria greeted her in a more familiar and less overtly warm way. A bridge had been crossed, a confidence shared. There was perhaps a greater investment on Gloria’s part in finding a house for her.
They began their rounds. On the way to each house, Gloria enumerated the positives in what Eileen was about to see but also addressed certain ineluctable realities, a little confidentially, as if to allow her to encounter these realities in a mood of mutual trust. Then they went inside. If the memory of the previous visits hadn’t been fresh, Eileen might have found the houses appealing; they were, after all, in a neighborhood more desirable than her own. But what a falling off! Where there had been five bedrooms, there were now three; where marble, now linoleum; where wood, some sort of composite, or else actual wood in a state of such severe neglect as to necessitate its wholesale removal and replacement. Expansive atriums became foyers not much larger than the claustral vestibule in her current house. And the magisterial light that pervaded the earlier houses, born of high ceilings and plentiful windows, gave way to a darkness that was all too familiar. Eileen’s expectations sank with the price of the houses.
Gloria saw the shift in mood and tried to bolster her with recitations of hidden advantages, but Eileen would have none of it. She could live down the road from the houses she coveted, she could make friends with their inhabitants, but she could not live in them, not in this life she had with Ed. She had enjoyed years of intellectual partnership, and she’d raised a happy, healthy child, and this was far more than some women ever came close to having. She felt churlish even beginning to wonder what life would’ve been like if she’d married someone else. And yet as she sat outside the latest disappointing house, she couldn’t help thinking that these were the wages of self-respect, sitting in a car outside a house she couldn’t afford anyway, turning her nose up at it.
A baleful air hung in the car. She wanted to reassure Gloria, to express her gratitude for the kindness and patience she’d been shown. “I had unrealistic expectations,” she said. “I can’t get what I want with the money I’m capable of spending.”
“Some of these houses are pretty nice, actually,” Gloria said.
“Some of them remind me of where I live now,” Eileen said. “The neighborhoods are on the border. They could go either way. I’m looking for this next house to be the one I settle down in. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder. I might as well stay in Jackson Heights if I’m going to do that.”
The houses Gloria had shown her were in areas like Yonkers and Mount Vernon, where poor and comparatively wealthy populations—they happened to be drawn along black and white lines—abutted each other. It wasn’t that she wanted to avoid black faces. She wanted to avoid black anger, black retribution, black vigilante justice. She wanted a buffer from the encroachment of crime. She didn’t want to have to watch a neighborhood go to ruin again and preside over the memory of it like a monk guarding the scrolls of a dwindling people.
“Don’t give up yet,” Gloria said. “Give it some more time.”
“Of course,” Eileen said.
24
On days Connell didn’t have games or practice at Elmjack Little League, he went to Seventy-Eighth Street Park, even though it scared him to go there sometimes. They played softball there—no league, just pickup—and during the games he felt protected. The older white crew came around, guys in their twenties who wore bandanas and sweatpants, blasted classic rock on boom boxes, and played roller hockey when they weren’t playing softball. They drank beer out of bottles in paper bags. Somehow they didn’t have to be at work in the late afternoons. The girls his age swooned over them.
He liked to throw with the high school kids who sometimes came around, because they didn’t complain if he gassed it up. He was playing catch with one of them when Benny Erazo sauntered up in a way that looked like he was carrying bricks in his pockets. Benny had gotten kicked out of St. Joan’s the year before. He went to IS 145 now. Connell had helped Benny through fifth-grade math by letting him copy his homework and look at his tests. Benny’s little brother José was still at St. Joan’s and was sometimes in the group that jumped Connell after school.
“You need to worry about your rep,” Benny said.
“My rep?”
“Your reputation on the street is that you’re soft.” Benny was wearing a Bulls jersey. He had a light mustache and smelled of cologne under several layers of clothes.
“I didn’t even know I had a rep on the street.”
“I’m just saying.”
“I’m not soft,” he said.
“People say shit. You need to take care of your rep.”
“Thanks for telling me.” Connell slapped the ball into his glove.
“Come with me and tag up later. You need to have a handle.”
“I already do.” He didn’t know why he was saying this.
Benny looked at him dub
iously. “Yeah? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
He thought quickly. “PAV,” he said, because they were the first letters that came to mind.
“I’ve seen that shit,” Benny said.
He hadn’t thought he’d stumble on a tag that easily. “Don’t tell anyone it’s me,” he said nervously.
“What does it mean?”
He thought again. “People Are Vulnerable,” he said.
Benny considered it for a second. “Deep.”
“Thanks.”
“Somebody hears you claiming his tag, that’s it for you.”
“It’s mine.”
“Draw it for me later,” Benny said. “When I come back from my moms.”
“I don’t do that anymore,” he said, trying to sound cool.
“Why?”
“I almost got caught once.”
“You really are a pussy-ass white boy.”
“No, I just have to worry about my reputation.” He paused. “With my parents.” He was trying to make a joke of it. Benny pushed him and he staggered back a step. The guy he’d been playing catch with walked away.
“I’m not fooling with you,” Benny said. “Your rep is that you’re soft. I was telling you to tell you.”
Connell knew what he was about to do might look crazy, but he did it anyway. He rolled up the sleeves of his T-shirt. “You think this is soft?” he asked, flexing. Benny reached into his pocket and took out a switchblade.
“Tell me again you’re not soft,” Benny said quietly. “Tell me again.”
Connell stood there in silence.
“Tell me you tagged up.” There was menace in his voice. “Tell me, Connie.” Benny switched the blade out for a second and showed it to him, then popped it back in with the heel of his palm. He kept it in his hand.
“What do you want me to say?” Connell asked, his terror confusing his thoughts.
“Say, ‘I’m a pussy-ass pussy motherfucker.’ ”
“I’m a pussy-ass pussy,” he said, and paused. He wasn’t comfortable saying that word. Benny laughed like he’d read his mind.
“Motherfucker!” Benny corrected. “Pussy-ass pussy motherfucker.”
“Pussy-ass pussy.”
Benny showed him the knife again. “Say it!”
“Motherfucker,” Connell said, his stomach tightening.
“Say the whole thing. ‘I’m a pussy-ass pussy motherfucker.’ ”
“I’m a pussy-ass pussy motherfucker.”
Benny howled with laughter. “You want to take care of your rep, you better not go around telling people that!” He put the knife in his pocket. “Man—I wasn’t going to use this shit on you.” He motioned to push him, and Connell flinched. Benny laughed again. “You want to stay alive, you better not go around claiming someone else’s tag. They’ll end you. That’s it for today’s lesson.”
The whole way home, Connell replayed in his head what he’d said. I’m a pussy-ass. I’m a pussy-ass pussy. When he got there, his father was on the couch with the headphones on. Connell stood over him and watched him. He watched his hand going back and forth, the index finger raised. His father’s eyes were squeezed shut, as if he was trying to see something he needed absolute dark to see. When the dull murmur coming from the headphones rose to a crescendo, the upward thrusts of his arm lifted his body off the couch. When the symphony lulled, he lay there, eyes still squeezed shut, and his chest rose and fell with his breathing.
Connell dropped his bookbag on the dining room table and headed to the basement. He added a ten-pound plate to either side of the bar and then lay on the bench. Lift it, pussy-ass, he thought, but he couldn’t make it budge. He took the plates off and did a couple of sets of ten.
While he was lifting, he thought of something he could have said to Benny to make him laugh. When Benny asked, “What does it mean?” he could have said, “Pussy-Ass Virgin.” But he only ever thought of that kind of stuff after the fact. He even knew a French expression to describe coming up with witty things too late; that was the kind of pussy he was. His father had taught it to him: Esprit d’escalier, the spirit of the stairs; the thing you think of when you’re already gone. The kids who thought of snappy things on the spot never had to worry about being fat or smart or pussies. You had to have a little meanness in you to do it. You had to be willing to embarrass other people sometimes. He didn’t want to have to embarrass other people. Deep down, or not even that deep, he knew he was a pussy-ass; maybe that was why it hadn’t been that hard for him to say what he’d said to Benny.
Maybe it was partly his father’s fault that he was such a pussy-ass. His father was a nice guy. Not that he told Connell not to fight back. The last time Connell had come home with a swollen eye, his father had said, “You have my permission to fight back. You’re not going to get in trouble with me.” But Connell hadn’t wanted to risk it. He hadn’t wanted to get a JD card or suspended or worse. He’d been thinking of his permanent record. He hadn’t wanted to ruin his chances of getting into a good high school or having a good life. He’d needed the teachers on his side, the principal. He’d wanted to get out of the neighborhood. Well, now he was going to a fancy school in Manhattan on scholarship. You couldn’t get more out of the neighborhood than that. Maybe he was a total pussy-ass, but at least he wasn’t an asshole like Benny.
He put the plates back on. He thought, Lift it, motherfucker, and then he said it aloud, like he was uttering the password to a new club. He got the bar up once; it came crashing down with a loud bang. His father didn’t come running down to see whether he’d hurt himself, because his father couldn’t hear anything with those headphones on.
Pussy-ass pussy, he thought. Motherfucker.
25
Ed had been working in the garage since she woke up. He had emptied much of its contents into the backyard, which now bore an uncomfortable resemblance to those of their immediate neighbors. It was a hot May morning, and sweat was pouring off him.
“I’m taking Connell,” she said.
“Okay.”
“You sure you don’t want to come?”
“I’m a little busy.” He gestured to the clutter. She felt bad taking the boy, who probably should have been helping him with whatever this project was, but she couldn’t face those houses alone again.
In the car, Connell found Z100 and turned the volume up.
“How come you’re not telling me to turn it down?”
“It’s not that loud,” she said.
“Dad doesn’t let me turn it up when he’s driving. He says he needs to concentrate.”
“I don’t mind.” She started tapping the fingers of her free hand on the door. It was a song she’d heard while driving to work. Connell smiled at her, and she felt like the favored parent for a change. He’d always gravitated toward his father—a consequence, she suspected, of her having returned to work so soon after he was born. It probably wasn’t just that she was out of the house so much; it was also the way she got on the phone with her friends after dinner as though punching the clock at a second job. But some of that, she saw now, had been the need for escape. There would be less of that when they moved. She could begin to be more of the mother he wanted.
“Your father’s got a lot on his mind,” she said generously.
“He’s the most uptight person in the world. He grips the wheel with both hands the whole time. You can’t say anything to him.”
When they first met, he would pick her up with one elbow hanging out the window, like a cool guy in a movie.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be an adult,” she said. “There’s a lot to think about all the time.”
“He wants me to have the change ready for the tollbooth about a mile in advance. He gets all weird about it. He freaks out if I don’t have it in my hand, counted out. And then he throws it in that bin with all this force, like he’s throwing a baseball. It’s so awkward. What’s up with him? Why is he so weird?”
“It’s so embarrassing.”
A song came on that he liked and he bobbed his head up and down and tapped his hands on the dashboard.
“I want your input,” she said. “I’ve been looking at all these houses and I can’t tell what I think anymore.”
“What about Dad? What does he say?”
“Your father and I have a difference of opinion right now about whether we should move,” she said. “I’m going to have to ask you to be a man about this. I might need you to keep quiet about it for a while if we find a place we really like.”
“Sure.”
She felt her foot falling heavier on the gas pedal as they hit the Grand Central Parkway. A new spirit entered the car. She had a conspirator. She could feel it making a difference already. She felt freer than Ed as she drove. She was cool enough to appreciate her son’s music, to pick up a little speed on the highway, to let the coins wait until they got right up to the booth. She had enough energy to make important changes in her life, to pull her husband out of a pit, to yank her whole family out of the maw of a neighborhood that threatened to swallow them whole.
• • •
Gloria gave Connell the full open-armed treatment. She seemed inordinately glad to meet him. At first Eileen thought it was a salesperson’s come-on, but then it occurred to her that by existing, Connell might have been confirming that his mother wasn’t a fantasist.
“I’ve found the perfect place for you,” Gloria said. “It’s gorgeous. It’s slightly out of your price range, but only slightly. I want you to consider it. It’s as close as you can get to your perfection with the money you can spend.”
They drove up Palmer Road toward Yonkers, past the stately complexes of condos and leafy gardens, but turned off it before they’d gone too far. She had studied the area enough to know that this was an outpost of Bronxville with Bronxville post office boxes and Yonkers schools. But the schools wouldn’t matter with Connell heading into the city in the fall. A sign announced—either proudly or defensively, it was hard to tell which—“Lawrence Park West.”