“Fuck it,” he says out loud as he grabs for the phone and punches in her number.
“Hello?”
“Sara?”
“Yes?”
“This is Andrew, from the hospital, remember, you borrowed—”
“Oh, that’s right. I love the CD. It’s great. I’ve been listening to it, like, nonstop since I took it from you.”
“Good.”
“So you probably want it back, right?”
“Actually, not really.”
“Well, let me burn it first. I have a friend with a burner who’s having a New Year’s party, actually. You should come.”
Andrew smiles into the phone. “Yeah, definitely. Where is it?”
“Two East Ninetieth Street. Just off of Fifth. It’s this kid named Chris, do you know him?”
“Probably. You sure it’s okay if I just come?”
“Yeah, and bring people. It’s an open house, and he wants a big party.”
“So I’ll see you there?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Oh, you smoke?”
“Umm, yeah, sometimes.” Twice, because they said the first time he wouldn’t get high. Twice to see what it was like.
“Have you got any weed now?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
“Okay, well, don’t forget to bring it.”
“No problem.”
“Great. See you then. Bye.”
Shit. Andrew doesn’t have any weed. How is he gonna buy weed. Ask Hunter. Hunter’s still in jail. Shit. Andrew tries to remember what those two little potheads in his school used to tell him. About how they had the hookup. Fifty ought to be enough.
Chapter Fifty-Three
TIMMY AND MARK Rothko are walking east on Eighty-sixth Street, two more white kids playing black. Fucking crazy. They are both wearing FUBU (For Us By Us) with their Timberland boots, sizes nine and ten respectively. Timmy is the brains of the operation, as it were. Mark Rothko is the muscle. Timmy is tremendously fat. He has man boobies, but they are concealed under his wife beater and all of his designer clothing. Mark Rothko dresses the same way.
Mark Rothko is called Mark Rothko because at his first school, on a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he shoved another kid into the real Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Number 12). The huge painting came down on the kid, and both he and the painting had to be restored. And some other wiseass on the field trip started calling Mark Rothko as Mark Rothko and it stuck. Mark Rothko was kicked out of that school. Then a couple of other schools. He has no idea who the real Mark Rothko was (“some painter dude”), but he likes the name. Timmy knows him by no other.
Tonight the two of them are on a mission to score some weed. So Timmy whips out his celly to beep White Mike; Mark Rothko whips out his and starts to play Snake.
“Yo b, we gonna smoke some mad bowls tonight,” Timmy says to Mark Rothko.
“Word, word,” Mark Rothko agrees sagely.
“Yeah, and then we gonna find some hos . . .” Timmy starts tapping some hypothetical ass and grinds his hips in the air. His center of gravity is low to the ground.
“Damn.”
“Wassup?” Timmy looks up from his woman.
“You wanna go inside? It’s mad cold out here.”
“A’ight.”
Timmy and Mark Rothko walk into HMV and head for the hip-hop section. They are short enough so the cashiers can’t see them over the aisles as they stuff CDs into their cargo pockets. Mark Rothko breaks off for a minute and grabs James Taylor’s greatest hits while Timmy isn’t looking. He has heard his father listen to it. He gets back upstairs and finds Timmy doing his obscene dance in front of a poster of Jennifer Lopez. J. Lo is dressed like an Amazon warrior, complete with brass brassiere. Mark Rothko taps Timmy on the shoulder and they head for the door, all very smooth, and out before they break into a run. The store’s siren wails behind them. They make it around the block and into Starbucks, where they order hot chocolate, huffing and puffing.
“Man, I gotta quit smokin’,” mumbles Rothko.
“What?” Timmy gasps. “That’s wack, man. Let’s biggity bust.”
Timmy and Mark Rothko take their hot chocolate and continue down the street to Mimi’s Pizza, where Mark Rothko buys a broccoli slice with extra cheese.
“That shit’s nasty, man,” Timmy says.
Mark Rothko shrugs him off. Timmy drops into a chair and checks his celly. The Serbian guys behind the counter eye them.
“Yo, Rothko, we missed the call.”
“Word? Dawg, call him back. I gots to get blizzy.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
WHITE MIKE IS talking on the phone to a friend he went to school with, when he went to school. Warren, who goes to Harvard. He was White Mike’s other best friend in high school. It was always Mike and Hunter and Warren.
“So how’s the city?”
“The same, you know.”
“Merry Christmas, by the way.”
“Yeah, you too.”
“How was it?”
“The same. My dad gave me cash. I never see him, you know, but he got a little tree for the kitchen table. He’s sort of sentimental.”
“Yeah, we got a big Christmas tree.”
“When do you go back?”
“Monday, after New Year’s. What are you doing for that?”
“Probably just make the rounds. There’ll be a lot of calls. You?”
“Cancún with the whole family. Leave tonight.”
“How’ll that be?”
“Boring. I’m almost looking forward to going back to school.”
“Yeah?”
“No, seriously. It’s better up there than you think. You should come.”
“Maybe.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Hey, man, I’ve been reading and everything. I still think like a student, sort of, you know?”
“There’s no discipline.”
“Discipline. My whole life is discipline.”
“And so real.”
“As if you were ever going to do anything but go to Harvard.”
“Yeah. Well—”
“And you come back here like you’re learning something important. I was walking along the street yesterday, going to sell my last ounce to that Alport kid, and my bag got caught on a pole and ripped, and the weed fell down into a hole.”
“Okay.”
“So I went down into the hole—it was a whole ounce— and it’s all dark and humid down there, and there was a rat. And you know where I was?”
“Hell? With Dante?”
“And you go to Harvard, and who do you think is learning more?”
“Don’t be melodramatic.” Warren flinches as White Mike whacks the receiver against the table.
“Hello? Mike?”
“I’m going to Coney Island.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
AFTER SEAN GIVES Andrew Sara’s cell-phone number, he tries to go back to sleep but can’t because his arm hurts. And he wonders about Sara and this guy Andrew. And Sara and everyone else she flirts with, which seems to be everybody, depending on what she wants. He wonders if he cares, particularly.
He has to go back to the doctor in a couple of hours because the doctor wants to change his dressing and see how he is doing. So he gets up and goes through the difficult routine of dressing with a cast the size and shape, he thinks, of a crooked elephant penis. It is nothing like an elephant penis. His mother cut the sleeve off a sweatshirt, so he wears that. The housekeeper asks him if he would like some breakfast and he says sure, how about some French toast. She makes it, but he doesn’t eat it. He never eats breakfast, and wonders why she hasn’t figured that out. She tries to chat about his arm, and he takes a few bites so he doesn’t have to talk. In the elevator on the way down to the lobby, he pushes the button marked TAXI. When he gets downstairs, one of the doormen has hailed a cab. Sean gets in.
The cabbie is a short white guy with a huge gut pushing up against the steering wheel. The interio
r smells artificially of air freshener and chocolate, as if he were inside one of the bags he used to carry his Halloween candy in. The reason, he sees, is that in the front seat is a big tub of candy. Tootsie Rolls, lollipops, bags of M&M’s, bite-sized 3 Musketeers.
The license proclaims the driver Theodore Rimby, who smiles a big gap-toothed grin and wears a bow tie in his picture. He has a thick mustache and dimples. He wears a bow tie now, and a big Russian muff. It is cold in the cab; the heat is not on.
Sean gives Theodore the address and sits back.
“No problem. Goin’ to see a doctor, huh? For your arm, maybe? I couldn’t help noticing, but that’s a heck of a cast you got there.”
“Yeah.” Sean is unimpressed by the cabdriver’s deduction. The address, after all, was for Lenox Hill Hospital.
“I was in a hospital a little while ago. I had a heart attack, and boy, it was scary. But I got back into the cab fast, you know, gotta get back.” Theodore jams a fat fist in the tub of candy. “Want something? I got a lot up here.”
“No thanks.”
“It’s all wrapped already, if you’re worried, don’t worry.”
“No thanks.”
“Well, that’s okay. I was a finicky eater too”—Sean narrows his eyes at the characterization—“of course, that all changed when I got a little bit older.” Theodore laughs a big wheezy laugh, like a bus kneeling to let a wheelchair passenger get on. “Yeah, I’ve always loved candy, though, and I suppose everyone else does too. That’s why I keep it in the cab. It’s good for starting conversation.”
Sean sits in silence. Then, vaguely annoyed, he says, “I don’t really want to talk.”
Unflustered, Theodore moves on. “Well, that’s okay too. I know everyone says that cabdrivers ought to stay quiet, and that, you know, you won’t get good tips if you talk all the time, but usually people tip just the same unless you say something that pisses ’em off real good or something like that. Most people want to talk. Don’t have enough people to talk to. People tell me all sorts of things. Some still get pissed, though. This one guy, I was tellin’ him some of what I was thinkin’ about women at the time—you know the three C’s of womanhood?”
Sean doesn’t say anything.
“Cookin’, cleanin’, and childbearin’!” More laughter, like a heavy piece of machinery starting up. “Of course, if my wife ever heard me talking like that, she’d throw a shit fit, you know, but it’s the truth.”
In the backseat, Sean thinks of Sara and the hospital, and how she would look swollen with some baby, her breasts huge and heavier than they already are, gathered around her neck, all puffy and immobile with the extra weight, her hips gone from the pleasantly boyish supermodel size they are now to some other thing closer to what pretty women look like in old pictures. Like Marilyn Monroe, whom Sean has never found particularly attractive. Certainly not more attractive than any Sports Illustrated swimsuit model he has ever seen.
“You got a wife?”
Sean can think of nothing to say. “No.”
“A girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Never get married. It’s not worth it. Guess I’m riskin’ my tip, all this jibber-jabberin’. Ahh, well. You don’t want to talk, and we’re nearly there.”
Sean looks in the rearview mirror and sees Theodore’s tired eyes, and the big tub of candy next to him that he is reaching into.
“Well, why’d you get married?”
“Oh,” says Theodore, surprised, “well, they trick you, you know. And you love ’em. Or I loved mine.”
“Loved?”
“Yeah, she passed away a couple of months ago, God rest her soul. I sure was glad to see the girls, though. They came back for the funeral. One of ’em, Emily, she’s pregnant, can you believe it? I’m gonna be a grandfather. I’m trying to get her to come back for a visit, you know, but everyone is so busy. She lives in St. Louis. She says I shouldn’t be a cabbie anymore, but I like it. It’s honest work. I think that movie Taxi Driver spooked people. That Robert De Niro, he’s really good. But crazy, huh? That’s not what it’s really like. You ever seen the movie?”
“No.”
“Don’t bother. That’ll be five-thirty.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
WHITE MIKE GETS on the F train at Fifty-first Street, and all but one seat is taken. He is going downtown, all the way to Coney Island, just to get out. He’ll deal with the beeps later. It’s still early. White Mike sits in the empty seat, pulling his overcoat tight around his shoulders and making himself small so he fits between the other passengers. At the next stop an old lady with white hair and a blue coat gets on the train carrying a bag and clings to the pole in the middle of the car in front of White Mike.
He has encountered this problem before. He can never decide whether to abdicate his seat to old ladies. What are old ladies doing on the train by themselves, anyway? Old ladies shouldn’t have to ride the train by themselves. White Mike sighs and stands up and indicates to the old lady with a cough and a wave of his hand that the seat is hers. She doesn’t get it, though he sees the other passengers notice. He taps the old woman on the shoulder and points to the seat, and she nods and smiles and sits down, dragging her bag between her legs. White Mike moves to the next car down and leans on the doors.
Coney Island is the last stop. A whole hour from where he got on, it is like another country, White Mike thinks, as he leaves the train. The place is all washed out in the gray of winter, and the cold bites even through his overcoat. White Mike walks with his head up because he is looking at the skeletal roller coasters and faded billboards. The place is practically deserted, and White Mike thinks it would be a good place to get kidnapped. It feels like an old part of New York. White Mike read Ragtime and liked the description of the decadence and the beach and the children playing and walking the boardwalk. He even recommended the book to Molly. No children now, though, only White Mike and what he perceives to be a transvestite hooker, although he isn’t sure. He has seen hookers before, but he doesn’t think he has ever seen one so tall or broad. White Mike keeps walking until he comes to the arcade on the board-walk. He can hear the chirping electronics of virtual explosions and the roll of Skee-Balls over their wooden tracks. He walks in.
In a dark corner, there is a larger game with a big sensor pad in front of it that a short Latino kid in a tank top and parachute pants is standing on. His parka lies on the floor off to the side. The game is called Dance Dance Revolution, and White Mike watches as it counts down from three and starts. It plays music, a really fast techno samba with a driving beat, and arrows scroll up the screen. The kid on the pad is moving his feet where the arrows point, on beat with the music. The song is too fast, though, and he is missing the beats or stepping in the wrong direction; every time he screws up, the game beeps and the kid starts laughing. But his friends aren’t laughing, and soon the kid stops. White Mike is watching discreetly a little ways away. The kid on the pad gets off, throwing his arms up at the fast music. He grabs his jacket and steps to the side. Pretty soon his turn runs out, and the machine requests another seventy-five cents. A taller black kid in a dark knit hat stands on the pad and puts in the money. He takes off his jacket and drops it on the floor. The kid is big, and his black sweatshirt is stretched a little over his shoulders. He looks strong. There is a cross hanging around his neck on a gold chain, and White Mike can’t tell whether the stones on the cross are real, but he bets they are not.
The music comes on again, and the beat is even faster than before. The kid starts moving his feet, and it doesn’t look anything like dancing. But the rhythm starts speeding up, and he isn’t missing any of the beats and the machine hasn’t beeped once, and his chain is swinging and bouncing off his chest. His arms are loose at his sides, and they swing as he moves his legs and hips. The music is getting faster, and the arrows are pointing in all different directions, and he’s keeping up perfectly. White Mike sees the kid’s face as he spins, and his eyes are closed. And still the m
achine hasn’t beeped. The kid looks like he is in a trance, and his feet fly out from under him in all directions, and White Mike realizes, as the music speeds up even more, that of course the kid must have the patterns memorized. Then the kid plants a hand on the pad in place of a foot, and as the music speeds up even faster, he is dancing on his hands and feet, doing cartwheels and handstands in place to keep up. And it looks like break dancing, only White Mike cannot believe how graceful it is, and when he glimpses the kid’s face again, it is completely relaxed, with the eyes closed easy, not shut tight, as in sleep.
The other kids aren’t surprised by this, just watch intently and don’t speak. After another minute of this silent frenzy of movement, the music finally stops, and the kid stands still as it ends and, after a moment, gets off the pad and picks up his jacket, and White Mike gets the feeling that the kid looked him right in the eye.
White Mike leaves the arcade, and something about how quiet the kids were, watching, reminds him of the two times he went to church with his mother. Both times were on Christmas Eve. White Mike didn’t mind so much, though Charlie, who was with them, hated it. White Mike’s mother loved Charlie, always had a particular place in her heart for him. Charlie always thought church was boring, and worse, that it delayed Christmas-present opening, but he went at the behest of White Mike’s mother. She was the only one who could ever really make him do anything. White Mike never tried to tell Charlie that he actually liked going to the church, liked the wooden seats and the sense of ritual and order that came with sitting and half listening to the service.
White Mike is walking from the arcade over the sand down to the water. He does not stop for one of Nathan’s world-famous hot dogs. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a dealer talking to a white man with stringy hair. White Mike doesn’t know how he knows the guy is a dealer, but he is sure of it. White Mike decides when he sees the drug dealer that this really is a seedy neighborhood and he doesn’t feel like hanging around anymore. He looks out over the gray water for another minute; while the waves break and foam on the shore, he notes that the farther out he looks, the calmer it gets, until it is just a solid gray line. The horizon doesn’t move.
Twelve Page 8
