Patrice scanned his phone. “ ‘The Survivors Club,’ ” Patrice read. “ ‘Meeting at The Chinese Community Center of Flushing.’ You want the address?”
“You’re a member?” Apollo asked, so dumbfounded, the bag slid right off his lap and onto the floor. He didn’t even notice.
Patrice reached down and scooped the bag. “No,” he said. “But when you checked in, it popped up on the tribute page.”
Apollo felt as if his head had been dunked underwater. “What in the fuck are you talking about?”
“The tribute page,” Patrice said softly. “To Brian.” He tapped his phone, then handed it to Apollo.
“ ‘Tribute to Baby Brian,’ ” Apollo read.
There was a Facebook page dedicated to Brian Kagwa.
It had sixteen thousand fans.
The page used the same photo of Brian that had been in all the news reports. The one Apollo had taken down in the basement of the home in Riverdale. Who’d snatched that picture from his personal page first? Which news outlet? And now it was here, too. Apollo’s fingertips felt hotter, as if the phone were burning him.
Patrice spoke softly. “I’m a fan,” he said. Then heard himself and put up his hands. “Not a fan. You know what I mean. I’m going to shut up now.”
Apollo scrolled down, reading through many, many posts. He had a lot of nicknames on the “Tribute to Baby Brian” Facebook page.
The Hanging Husband.
The Prisoner of Apt. 43.
Strangled Dad.
Failed Father.
Mr. My-Son-Is-Dead.
There were kinder ones, of course, but some were even worse. Quite a few blamed him for what had happened. Men and women, members from every race and region of the United States, international contributors, too—all of them had opinions. A segment of every population you could imagine hated him. Many more loathed Emma. Almost all of them spent at least a line condemning her to some kind of hell. The only innocent in all this was the child. And though it hurt, Apollo couldn’t argue with that.
Apollo scrolled back up the page. It had been started while he’d been in the hospital. When he and Emma and Brian had been breaking news. In all likelihood, someone had started the page with good intentions, but then his or her own life got busy, and this person stopped keeping track. Soon no one was driving the train, and everyone was driving the train. Some folks posted messages of love addressing Brian directly, prayers from more holy books than Apollo recognized. There were images of angels holding a baby that looked vaguely like Brian, and others of angels with Brian’s little face scanned directly onto the body. Pictures of Emma, and sometimes Apollo, scanned onto monsters from movies or myth, Medea a mainstay. The image of a tombstone with Emma’s name and the phrase “Rest in Piss.”
For a while, early on, there were people having ongoing arguments about the case, about Emma’s disappearance, about the inability of law enforcement to find her; various conspiracy theories about how Apollo had killed them both and got away with the crime. Posts condemning the misogyny and misandry surfaced throughout. Some threads turned into parenting forums, of a sort, where people discussed the ways Apollo and Emma had parented badly from the beginning. What evidence any of them had about Apollo and Emma’s parenting style was unclear and obviously didn’t matter. They’d been helicopter parents, and that was what went wrong. They’d been a household with two working parents, and that had started the whole mess. A few wrote of their empathy for Emma, saying she’d clearly suffered from severe postpartum depression. Some suggested, one might say gloated, that this kind of thing was incredibly common in black households. They live in hell, these people. So they act like devils.
“I can’t believe this,” Apollo whispered, but he couldn’t stop reading.
All this time—while he’d been in the hospital, in Rikers, and even now, struggling through some sort of recovery—he’d been discussed, dissected, and denounced. He felt as if he’d just been told he’d been walking around with his ass hanging out, so utterly exposed. Was it better that he hadn’t known this page existed, or was that worse?
And then there was the person who’d started the page. The administrator. He went by the name Green Hair Harry. His own page was clearly just a placeholder. The profile photo showed the Grinch grinning. Only one piece of personal information provided (Hometown: Mount Crumpit).
“Why would this guy do this?” Apollo asked, looking up from the phone.
Patrice stared back, his mouth hanging open. “I thought you knew about the page, my man. I never would have…I got a note there was activity on the page. When I went there, I saw that you’d checked in with the Survivors. I figured if you were posting on the Baby Brian page, that meant you knew.”
“I didn’t do that,” Apollo said. “Not on purpose at least. I was just trying to cover my ass with my parole officer.”
Apollo had to stop talking. Going over the technical details about posts and alert notifications made him want to crack Patrice’s phone against the side of Patrice’s head. Speaking of Patrice, why would he even join such a page?
Patrice slipped his phone from Apollo’s hand and placed it facedown on his thigh.
Apollo leaned away from Patrice until his shoulder touched the window. Outside, they’d left Queens and reached Long Island. The yards of the homes were slightly larger, the commercial buildings no more than two stories tall.
Sixteen thousand people had joined that page? For what? As the train sped past these residential homes, Apollo wondered if he might be seeing places where many of them lived. Maybe Green Hair Harry lived in that brick Tudor home right there. Or the next one. Apollo felt his breath leaving him, dizziness so severe he might black out. What had he been worrying about twenty minutes earlier? Fucking witches? Why worry over witches when the Internet could conjure so much worse?
THE LONG BEACH station’s depot had a red-clay-tiled roof and white walls with brown accents at the corners, making it look more like a Mediterranean bungalow than the last stop on the Long Island Rail Road. It was even more incongruous in midwinter when cold winds from Reynolds Channel to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south made the building shiver.
“That’s our guy?” Patrice asked.
In the parking lot, William Wheeler stood in front of a green 2003 Subaru Outback. His arms were crossed, and he watched the asphalt as if reading tea leaves. For a moment, Patrice and Apollo stood inside the station and watched him. Wheeler uncrossed his arms and walked around the Subaru. He opened the driver’s side door and pulled out a plastic supermarket bag. It was tied at the top, and William untied it with urgency.
The waiting area of the Long Beach station was soundtracked by a low fuzzy buzz; the ticket agent left his microphone on while he stepped away from his chair at the booth. The room practically throbbed as Wheeler reached into the plastic bag. He pulled out a sixty-four-ounce bottle of soda.
Tab.
“It’s 2015,” Patrice said quietly. “Who the fuck still drinks Tab?”
A forty-ounce of beer would’ve been problematic, a liter of gin downright troubling, but a sixty-four-ounce bottle of Tab? Ridiculous. The bottle’s pink wrapper had faded to the color of fiberglass insulation. Wheeler walked back to the front of the Subaru and rested against the hood. He lifted the jug to his mouth and chugged.
“You know what that is?” Patrice said. “That’s your future.”
Apollo was mesmerized by the sight of Wheeler’s Adam’s apple rising and falling, rising and falling, his belly expanding and contracting as he gorged himself on Tab. Patrice pulled Apollo by the shoulder.
“That’s a man who’s lived without a woman for a long time,” Patrice explained. He placed an arm around Apollo and squeezed to make his point. “Not months but years. Decades. A man who lives alone for that long forgets what it’s like to be civilized. He starts walking around his house in nothing but ratty underwear. Then one day he steps out to get the mail in that underwear and doesn’t even
notice. Then he’s out on his porch in some saggy-ass boxer shorts and no T-shirt and is surprised when people think he looks like a troll.”
Wheeler lowered the bottle, took a breath through his nose, and raised it again. He drank with such gusto, a little seeped from his mouth and ran down his neck. His throat expanded like a snake swallowing a mouse.
“Living without a woman in your life is how you see these fat dudes wearing ‘interesting’ facial hair and posting angry videos about how everyone else in the world is stupid for not appreciating them. ‘Women only like jerks.’ That’s the mantra of dudes who have made themselves undateable but aren’t willing to take the blame. These motherfuckers are so backed up sexually, it creeps into their brains and rots out the skull. That’s how you end up being a grown man publicly guzzling a bottle of goddamn Tab in a parking lot on Long Island.”
Apollo nodded, but the only thing he felt right then was pity for William Wheeler. He’d invited Apollo and Patrice out here and offered to pick them up, all so he could have the privilege of writing them a five-figure check. And for this generosity, Patrice paid him back with scorn.
As he and his partner walked out of the station, Wheeler waved to them with his free hand. He set the bottle of Tab on the car hood. He took two steps, and the bottle teetered forward, went flat on the hood, and rolled right off the car and onto the ground. Brown fizz streaked the hood. Wheeler spun around and crouched, plucking up the soda as if it was a fallen child. His slacks hugged him too tightly, and his jacket rode up, exposing the fleshy waist.
“I’m starting to think this dude has never been with a woman,” Patrice said.
Apollo didn’t feel compelled to bring up the two daughters Wheeler mentioned. What for? Besides, the wind rushing across the parking lot felt good to Apollo. Maybe it was also seeing Wheeler again. Even a moment this embarrassing reminded Apollo of that evening in the Dunkin’ Donuts, and Apollo understood—as he couldn’t consciously then—that Wheeler had helped, in some small way, to save Apollo’s life. Walking out of that church, after that woman’s words, well, maybe Apollo had been close to cracking up. Then this middle-aged guy wanted to sit, have coffee, and do some business, and weirdly, that was enough to keep Apollo’s mind intact.
“I know one more thing this guy hasn’t done,” Apollo said, turning to Patrice. “As much as you make fun of him, I know he’s never joined a fucking Tribute to Baby Brian Facebook page.”
Patrice actually stopped walking, stopped blinking, stopped breathing. It was as if his whole central nervous system had gone on the fritz. Meanwhile Apollo moved on. He waved at Wheeler and, when he got close, shook the man’s hand.
The inside of the Subaru smelled surprisingly sweet. The cause became clear quickly—two car fresheners hanging from the rearview. Strawberries. From the backseat, Patrice leaned forward and tapped at them with one long finger.
“Those are from my daughters,” Wheeler said. He looked more sheepish about the fresheners than he had been about the Tab.
“Daughters,” Patrice repeated.
“And one wife,” Wheeler added as he started the car.
Apollo didn’t look back at Patrice to grin or gloat. In fact, he avoided eye contact with the big man for the rest of the drive.
As Wheeler drove out of the parking lot, he said, “I used to call each one a little strawberry. When they get mad, their faces all go so red.” He smiled at the memory as he merged onto East Park Avenue. “I thought we’d go out and talk on the water,” he said, continuing east. “Does that sound like a good time for you two?”
“Like on a ferry or something, Mr. Wheeler?” Patrice asked. He looked a bit thrown off. His usual manner of leaning into, leaning over, every conversation had been forgotten. Now he sat back and spoke softly, still chastened from what Apollo had said.
“Not a ferry,” Wheeler said, enjoying holding on to the mystery.
At the light, he made a left on Long Beach Boulevard, then drove on a small bridge over Wreck Lead Channel. Finally they reached a single-lane drive. Wheeler parked in front of a two-story colonial home with a shingle hanging over the front door that read ISLAND PARK YACHT CLUB. He pointed toward a series of docks where five small boats were in the water.
“ ‘You ever been in a cockpit before, Joey?’ ” Wheeler asked.
Apollo knew the quote but couldn’t bring himself to laugh, or even grin politely. In the backseat Patrice had taken out his phone and tapped at the screen.
Wheeler flicked at the two strawberry air fresheners, making them bump and swing. “I’m old,” he said and laughed. “Just ignore me. But can I ask you guys a favor? Can you please call me William?”
He guided Apollo and Patrice to a forty-one-foot Hunter sloop. It bobbled faintly in the water, brushing two inches closer to the dock, then two inches away. William stepped onto the boat easily, but it took Apollo and Patrice a fair bit longer. Baby steps for them.
Meanwhile William opened a doorway and went below. The gray-green waters of Wreck Lead Channel slapped against the hull. The boat had been christened Child’s Play.
“Come down,” William shouted. “I’ve got beer.”
“Let’s make some money,” Patrice said to Apollo, trying to sound upbeat.
Apollo didn’t answer as he went first below deck.
WHEN SOMEONE INVITES you onto his boat, what do you imagine? That probably depends on how common boat ownership is in your life. In Apollo’s case, he wasn’t expecting things to be so…tight. There was booth seating, but the table at the center was about the size of a chessboard. The seating had been upholstered in red faux leather, making it look like a couch you’d get at Rent-A-Center. There was a galley kitchen—a sink, microwave, hotplate, and coffee machine—but the space itself was about as big as a closet and almost as dark. And the bathroom? Well, it made you envy the roominess and comfort of an airplane toilet. William’s boat was a bit underwhelming.
And yet how many damn boats did Apollo Kagwa own? Exactly none. So as he sat at the little table with Patrice and William, he lifted his beer and said, “You’ve got a lovely boat.”
William sipped his beer and smiled. “I’m going to just admit something to you because I’m not any good at keeping secrets.”
“You stole this boat?” Patrice said. He’d already finished one beer, downing the whole thing in two gulps, and was on to the next. Two six-packs sat on the table. The bottles sweated their chill.
William barked out laughter. “I didn’t steal it! But it’s not mine.”
Here he leaned back as best he could in the tight squeeze of the seating and slipped out his phone. He set it on the table. Patrice leaned forward to gaze at the screen. The boat rose and fell faintly. An icon of a small dinghy in splashing waters glowed on the phone.
“This is called Afloat. It’s like Airbnb, but for boats.” He tapped the app, and it bloomed like a flower. A picture of Child’s Play appeared on the screen and, beneath that, a timer. “I rented the boat for two hours.”
Why bother with all this? Apollo wondered. Making them take the train out here. Driving them out to a boat. The theatrics played against William’s low-key suburban dad style, but maybe some people just liked putting on a show.
“You planning to take us somewhere?” Apollo asked. “Because I have to be back in Flushing by five.”
William picked up his phone and put it back into his pocket. “I don’t even know how to drive a boat,” he said.
“So why rent it at all?” Patrice asked, on to his third beer. Maybe guilt was making him throw them down.
“It’s my app,” William said. “I wrote it. If I don’t use it, who will? Besides, I don’t get much company these days.”
“How many boats do you have signed up?” Apollo asked.
William patted the table. “One,” he said. “So far.”
“You’re a coder,” Patrice said. Then he reached into his pocket and took out his phone. He opened to a photo and held it toward William. “Check ou
t this rig.”
William cooed. “You built it yourself, didn’t you?”
“If I’d bought it, they’d charge me eight times the price!”
“I built my older daughter’s first laptop,” William said.
“You have pictures?” Patrice asked, warming to William for the first time.
Apollo couldn’t guess if Patrice wanted to see photos of the child or the laptop. William scrolled through his phone, then held the screen toward Patrice.
“Beautiful,” Patrice said.
“Put a Core i5 processor in her,” William cooed.
Apollo warmed to both these tech geeks but knew he’d better change the subject quickly or they’d spend the next two hours exactly like this. Apollo pulled the book out of its bag. That worked. William looked away from Patrice.
“You wrapped it? That’s nice. It was meant to be a gift anyway.” William picked it up after drying his hands on his pants. He brought the wrapped book so close to his face, Apollo thought the guy would sniff it.
“I guess I hoped to see it before I bought it,” William said. He looked from Apollo to Patrice. “But that’s okay. I feel like I can trust you guys.”
“Give that to me,” Apollo said. He took the book and laid it flat.
“No, no,” William said. “It’s okay.”
Patrice finished his beer and reached for his fourth but stopped himself. No matter how guilty he might feel, he was not going to risk having an open beer near a book meant to sell for so much money. A few droplets along the page edge, and William could cut the offering price by ten thousand dollars.
The Changeling Page 18
