by David Fuller
Phyllis patted his arm. “Not so fast, you’ll tip it.”
She took over from him and the whole business slowed down. He watched the basket’s rhythmic passage above the carts, the neighbors, the traffic, toward a place where the world had been kept out. He watched the basket grow smaller among the hanging clothing on other clotheslines, as it passed over her sidewalk and neared her building, watched it clear the windowsill and part the curtains. Phyllis stopped pulling when the basket was well inside and could no longer be seen.
The curtains settled. Now they moved only when nudged by a breeze. He waited. An automobile driver sounded his horn at a hound who had stretched out in the middle of the street. A deliveryman unloaded boxes in front of a pharmacy. A trolley clanged. Another man called his dog, who was finding the middle of the street somewhat noisy with that horn blowing in his ears.
As he waited, he decided he was being overcautious, he would stop all this nonsense, march across the street, up the stairs, and knock on her door. He would convince her of his identity and she would open up to him. It was what he should have done in the first place, this entire exercise was unnecessary. If Etta was there, then she wanted him to come for her. This adventure with Phyllis was just more overthinking.
Phyllis seemed to read his mind. “Give her time. She’ll get around to sending thanks, but sometimes it’s a while. I think she puts the cans up first. Generally, I brew a little tea, and by the time it’s cool enough to drink, the basket’s back. You want tea?”
“No, thanks.” His eyes moved to Han Fei, down on the sidewalk. Han Fei was looking at the entryway to E’s building across the street.
Longbaugh did not know what to do. Every passing minute caused him to doubt that Etta was there. He looked again at Han Fei, wondering if his young friend was right and this E might not be his wife. Han Fei continued to stare at the building’s front door. Longbaugh caught something in Han Fei’s intensity and looked there as well. He could not see what Han Fei saw, with the angle and shadow. Han Fei turned his head and their eyes met. Longbaugh was surprised by the boy’s anxious expression. His focus now split between actively waiting for the basket and wondering what had unnerved Han Fei. His eyes went to the second-floor window. Nothing had changed. His eyes went to the entryway. This time he saw someone move in there. Not Hightower. But someone familiar.
Han Fei called up, a warning: “Cowboy—”
“Coming down,” said Longbaugh.
“See him?”
“I see someone.”
“Know him?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“Not the big one.”
Longbaugh put his hand up to hold that thought and ran from Phyllis’s kitchen and down the stairs. He came out onto the street and looked into the entry of E’s building. Whoever it was remained in shadow. Then, for an instant, the shadow was backlit by the flicker of a match, and Longbaugh saw the young man’s face illuminated as he used the match to light something. The young man looked up and threw the thing over his head, as if he stood at the foot of a staircase. The young man turned and came out quickly, looked around, and registered Longbaugh’s direct gaze. The young man jolted. In that first moment, he thought the young man ran because he had been recognized. He knew him all right, Black Hand, the tall, lanky pimply one. Longbaugh had neglected to shoot him that night because he was reminded of Billy Lorigan. The bullet he had aimed over that pimpled head had sent him running away, in just the way he was running now. Longbaugh took a step after him and froze. Remembering Etta and the basket.
He looked at the second-story window. Curtains fluttered. It was not the breeze. Something was happening. The basket pushed through the curtains and out over the street, jerking along on the clothesline. The instant before it happened, he knew, as the basket inched, he knew, as he looked at the young man running, he knew, he knew the flicker and he knew what had been thrown at the second-floor landing, but before he could turn and run, he was clapped to the ground as a huge invisible hand pressed his body against the sidewalk and held him flat. Smoke and flame shot out the windows, an obscene yellow-and-gray tongue, the closest laundry flying sideways. The end of Phyllis’s clothesline was blown free and momentarily arched high in the air like the curl of a whip, the basket shivering, suspended, then all of it dropped straight down, along with splinter-projectiles of brick and glass. Rolling to his belly to protect himself, Longbaugh twisted his chest toward the second floor, arm up against incoming shards, mouth open to warn her, too late now that the dynamite had hurled everything out onto the street. Any garments still pinched by clothespins now hung limply, helplessly burning and waiting to fall.
The street froze, followed by pandemonium as vendors rushed their carts in all directions. A few people ran toward the blast, but most ran the other way. He charged the building’s entry, where a cloud rose out of the doorframe like cigarette smoke from an open mouth. He dove into a dense wall of fume through which he could neither see nor breathe. After a few bullheaded steps into darkness, he fell to his knees, coughing, eyes streaming, lungs burning for air. He tried to turn back but he had lost his sense of direction. He crawled toward where the light was brightest. A hand grabbed him and pulled him in the other direction, and he was back out the door, on the street, where life was visible. He did not know the man who had saved him, and although he looked around later, he did not see him again. He thought about the light he had crawled toward and realized it was something burning.
He saw the wide-open mouth of the crying baby before the sound punched its way through the oatmeal mush in his ears, saw the dog frantically barking before hearing its sharp yaps, saw the expression of terror on the face of a woman before he heard her screams. Small piles of laundry blackened and curled on the street as the flames gradually went out. It did not appear that great damage had been done down here, despite the litter of detritus, that the neighbors’ responses were more about the shock of having their private lives butt up against impossible violence.
He looked up. Smoke was clearing around the building, revealing a hole in the sky of flags, and beyond that he saw blue with occasional clouds. He looked to the damage of the second-floor room, where no one could have survived. He himself was stunned, emotionally numb, as now he was convinced it had been Etta. He felt something on his cheek and touched it to find tears. His cool intellect determined that his eyes watered to clear smoke and debris, and as he thought it, he knew it to be only partly true, as an expanding hole of mourning spread beneath him and consumed his intellect and walled him in, rising so quickly over his head that he expected it to fold over and swallow him in darkness. He saw the basket on fire near the gutter. Any note she may have written in response was now ash, the last chance to know if it had been his wife. On the far sidewalk, Phyllis spoke to a policeman. She apparently had not seen him there in the gutter, even as she looked wide-eyed in his direction. Through the bloated deafness in his ears he thought he heard her say, “He was just there. I think he went inside.” He may have been reading her lips.
Grief choked him, dragging a heavy cloak of apathy down on his limbs. Whatever interest Longbaugh had had in what might come next had been blown to shreds. Police rushed in from all directions, and his animal instinct for survival filled him as he looked for an escape. But just as quickly that instinct deserted him, and he fell back to apathy. The weight was too massive, he could not rouse his body to save himself because he had lost the desire to care. They could have him, the police, Siringo, anyone. If she was gone, then what difference did it make? He would remain there in his immobile gloom, and when they came to ask questions, he would tell them all of it, and they could have the rest of his wasted, lonely, useless life, because why the hell not? It had been just a matter of time, she had evaded the fire at Triangle, but not this one. He came alert for a heartbeat and realized he had been staring at something on the street beyond the basket. As he cocked his head and focused he saw it
was a soft lump of clothing, not fallen laundry but human, with a shoe and legs and arms, and he recognized Han Fei, with his face down in the street. Anger rose in his gorge, the lethargy of surrender abandoning him. He refused to believe he could lose two of them in the same blast, refused. He lurched to his feet and was staggered by the resurgent pain in his side. He drew a full breath and strength gradually returned to his legs. He walked, a wooden man becoming flesh. He knelt down by the body. Han Fei’s back and hair were white with ash and debris. Longbaugh brushed much of it away and rolled him over carefully, expecting the worst. Han Fei rested in peaceful silence, Longbaugh falling again under that dark cloak, heart sinking to the street, until Han Fei’s body tensed, seized, his eyes jerked open, and he sneezed and coughed. Longbaugh laughed aloud.
He spoke and barely heard his own words through the thrum in his ears. “Can you move?”
Han Fei squinted at him, blinked a half dozen times, moved his tongue around the inside of his mouth, then spit out something black. He shrugged.
“Try your fingers.”
Han Fei moved his fingers, then his hands and arms.
“Good, well done.” Han Fei smiled as if the compliment was for a major accomplishment. “Now feet.”
Han Fei wiggled his toes under shoe leather, then made circles with both his feet. He bent his left leg to bring up one knee.
Longbaugh looked up. Phyllis waved at him from across the street, “Mr. Harry, Mr. Harry!” He scooped Han Fei up and carried him away from Phyllis. He stopped to look down into the burning basket. If there had been a note, it existed no longer, as even the cans were scorched. Longbaugh turned in a circle looking for Hightower. He did not see him.
They sat side by side on a train crossing the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan, Longbaugh propping up the boy in a seated position, leaning him against his side. His hearing was improving, particularly in his right ear. They exited the train but Han Fei faltered and Longbaugh picked him up and carried him to Doyers Street in Chinatown. Han Fei drifted in and out of consciousness, but came awake long enough to guide Longbaugh to a bright blue door. Longbaugh carried him up narrow stairs to his family’s rooms. His mother bubbled and clucked, calling out in rapid Chinese through an open window to her sister, Han Fei’s auntie, at another open window in a different apartment across the narrow air shaft. The room then swarmed with women, now giving orders, now carrying tubs of water and assorted ointments. Longbaugh stayed long enough to see that Han Fei was in good hands, and he slipped out. He reached the street but met Han Fei’s auntie rushing toward him carrying bandages and towels. He nodded to her and tried to vacate the doorway to let her through, but she blocked his path.
“He’ll be fine,” said Longbaugh. “Nothing broken.”
She took one of the towels and reached for his face. He flinched, his startled head jerking backward, but she persisted and he held his ground and let her come. The towel met his cheek and she wiped his face. He saw blood on the towel when she took it away.
“You’re not cut,” said Han Fei’s auntie, inspecting his skin. “Someone else’s blood.”
“Ah,” he said stupidly, and wondered whose. “You should probably take those inside.” He again tried to leave.
“George speaks of you.”
“George?”
“My nephew.”
“His name is George?”
“George Washington Chen. My sister—his mother—wanted him to be as American as possible. Did he not tell you his name?”
“He said Han Fei.”
“Han Feizi? He called himself Han Feizi, the philosopher?”
“Uh, no, just Han Fei.”
“The zi is a title, it means ‘master.’” She laughed to herself. “Very like George, he wouldn’t presume to have earned that title. And so like contrary George to go the other way, all the way back to China.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was born here, so he is American. But he struggles in school. My guess is he wanted a name with strength.”
“Wait, struggles? He’s smart as an owl.”
“The children tease him for being a Chinese named after the first president.”
“And this Han Fei was strong? Sorry, Feizi.”
“You would not understand. It is Chinese.”
“Try.”
“Legalism.”
“You’re right. I don’t understand.”
“Han Feizi believed people were bad, evil by nature, and you need harsh laws to control them. He was very harsh himself.”
“George is a strange little guy.”
“How did he get hurt?”
“Too close to a bomb.”
“Your bomb?”
“No.”
“Someone trying to kill you?”
“No.”
“I see.” She gave that some thought. “Why did you bring him back?”
“You mean why did a white man bring a Chinese boy all the way back to Chinatown?”
She held her ground and looked for the answer in his face.
“I like him,” said Longbaugh.
Han Fei’s auntie thought about that for a moment. “I will tell George. What you did.”
“Tell him good-bye,” said Longbaugh.
“But you said you like him.”
“I can’t have his help anymore.”
“He will be disappointed.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“I thought you said the bomb wasn’t for you.”
“It was because of me.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“He needs to heal and go on to his own fights.”
“I’ll tell George, but I’ll say it better, so that he can hear it,” she said, and went inside with the bandages and towels.
He walked away from the bright blue door and left Chinatown behind.
His grief and gloom were replaced by anger. Hightower had had him followed, and a smarter move he had never made, removing himself from the situation. Longbaugh now wondered about his own intelligence, if he had ever been smart enough to take the fight to the city. He was steeped in doubt, his side burning, his left ear still logy from the blast.
Despite being dogged by his grief, he now began to convince himself she had not been in there. He had initially believed she was there because that was what he wanted. In the aftermath, by blaming himself for rushing to see her and thereby letting himself be followed, he believed he deserved to lose her, which helped convince him she was dead. The dynamite furthered his conviction, as if Moretti’s unambiguous use of violence added to the proof. Why blow her up if it was someone else? But now, in reflection, it seemed possible E was not Etta. All his proof was emotional, based on his anguish and sense of responsibility. He knew he had to go back. He caught a passing glimpse of himself in reflection and returned to the store window. His clothes were dirty from the blast, but his face was clean, and he wondered why until he remembered Han Fei’s auntie.
He hired a cab and asked for the Brooklyn morgue, and the driver looked at him as if he were simple and took him to Bellevue. Once there, he found a bureaucrat who seemed to be in charge. The man was disgusted by the lackadaisical way in which things were run and told Longbaugh that no one wanted to work there, so they had hired alcoholics to process and handle corpses. Longbaugh realized he wasn’t joking. The man went through paperwork, but found nothing about a Brooklyn woman in an explosion. He told Longbaugh that, considering the way things were, it was likely the body had yet to be transported.
He returned to the bridge and boarded a train one more time, to the other side of the East River, then found his way to E’s street, currently blocked to traffic. Children no longer cried, dogs no longer barked, and women no longer screamed. The police lingered but appeared to have completed their investigation. Firemen moved in and out of
the damaged building, and the scorched facade dripped. Locals made clean spaces on the street with their small brooms and narrow dustpans, and he imagined, at that rate, it would be some time before the block was clear of debris. The hanging laundry was all new and clean, and any destroyed clotheslines were already being replaced. He did not see Phyllis. He walked among them as if he belonged. No one looked at him.
He entered the building’s gutted entry and climbed the stairs, stepping carefully to find solid footing, avoiding rubble and mangled banisters. Halfway up, he looked back to the place where the pimpled boy had lit the dynamite to throw at her door on the second-floor landing. His eyes tracked its flight to where her front door had been. The walls were soaked, the ceiling dripped, the smell of acrid smoke and fire mingled with sodden wood and plaster. He stood beside where the dynamite had detonated. He made his way into the room. Police and firemen had been there but were now gone. He crossed through a smaller room into the main room where the windows to the street had been blown out. Just under the missing glass, a body was covered with a blanket. He approached it. He peeled back the blanket to see if there was anything to identify. Flies rose around his nose and eyes, and he blinked and waved at them until they dispersed.
Her eyes were half open, with one side of her face flattened and gelatinous, but intact enough to be identifiable. At the moment of the blast, she had been turned away, partly protected by an inner wall. The officials had laid her on a wood plank. He could see that her back had been scorched and pitted by explosive debris. A snug halo of crinkled, singed hair shaped her face, with a small smudge on her chin and another on her nose. He looked at her from every angle, as if the first glance had been an illusion, that somewhere in these unfamiliar features dwelled the face of his wife. But she was not to be found, as here was Eunice or Elizabeth or Edith or Eleanor, not Ethel Matthews Place.
He left the second floor without being stopped by police or firemen. He left the building and left the area through the roadblocks the way he had come, ignored as if he had belonged there in the first place, forgotten as if he had never been there at all.
