Felix’s eyes twitched, and he reached up his left hand and put it against my cheek, so I held it there and finally smiled back at him.
FISH’S STUDIO
You and I played for a couple of hours straight, until we were both about to pass out from hunger. You leaned your guitar against the couch and clicked off the amp. “I have to eat,” you said, reaching deep into your back pocket for your wallet. Your jeans hung low by the time you got it out and opened it up. You pulled out a few wrinkled, sorry-looking bills.
“This is the last of it,” you said, holding up the loot.
“Let’s make it good, then,” I said, getting up from the throne. “And after today, I guess you’ll have to get a job from Fish too, huh?”
You laughed a little. “Sandwiches?” you said. “Or Danny’s?”
“Danny delivers,” I said. “Let’s make the food come to us. I’ll call.”
I went up to the bar, more crowded than it had been but still pretty thinly packed. The places with good sidewalk seating out front did a lot better until the night really cooled everyone off. It was still pretty early—not even dark yet. Fish still wasn’t back, so I just grabbed the phone off the bar and hit the speed-dial for Danny’s Pizza.
“Is this Fish or Kid?” came Danny’s voice.
“Hi, Danny,” I said. “It’s me.”
“What do you need? Plain large?”
“Yup, and bring it to Fish’s Studio,” I said. I hoped he could hear my smile.
“What the hell is that?” he said, Brooklyn to the bone. “You’re at the bar. Caller ID, stupid.”
I loved him to death. “Well the pizza’s going to the studio,” I explained, “under the bar.”
“All right, all right,” he said, “when you hook up the phone in the ‘studio,’ you let me know. Until then, I’m sending my delivery to the bar.”
“Ah, you’re no fun,” I said. “Fine. Give it to Valentino.” I glanced at the lion by the door, and he saluted to let me know he heard me.
“Now you’re talking,” Danny said. “Twenty minutes.”
“Thanks.”
…
After our late lunch, Scout and I leaned against the front of the couch and dozed. Between us, we’d polished off that whole pie, and with our bellies full and our musical appetites as sated—for now—we slept deep. When Fish banged on the cellar doors, we woke up, you with your head in my lap, and I smiled down at you. “Fish is here.”
You smiled back, then jumped to your feet as the doors swung up and open and Fish’s big black boot appeared.
“Wake up, you little mongrels,” she called down. “Give me a hand with this shit, huh?”
Fish brought all kinds of stuff: carpet fragments, egg crate foam, and even a few panels of what looked to be the real McCoy soundproofing material, like the kind they used in the music room at school. The work took us the rest of the afternoon. Fish had found a few staple guns, two hammers, and a bucket of nails, and we went to town, hanging everything everywhere: all over the walls, across the whole ceiling, even on the underside of the cellar doors and back door to the garden.
“This stays closed when the bar’s open, okay?” Fish said sternly. We nodded and shot a few more nails into the panel of carpet that even covered the window to the back door.
“How am I going to breathe in here?” you said, and I quickly threw the back door open.
“Better?”
You nodded and smiled, and I glanced at Fish. She sighed. “Fine, if you need air, open the back door—just a crack.”
You smiled at me and offered me your hand for a high five. I accepted and laughed.
“Nice to hear you laughing,” you said quietly in my ear, so of course I stopped.
“But after tonight, no hanging out in the garden if the bar’s open,” Fish went on. “Outside that door is officially bar territory, got me? Kid, if you need to smoke, go out front.”
“Bah, I’m quitting,” I said, grabbing a big chunk of foam from the pile of materials in the middle of the room. “As of right now, I’m done.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Fish said. She started for the back door.
“Can Scout help out upstairs,” I called after her, “with me?”
“Of course,” Fish said over her shoulder. “Scout will owe rent too, am I right?”
You put a hand on my waist as I stepped onto a short ladder near the back door. I turned, and you held my eyes a moment. “I’m glad you quit smoking,” you said. You looked at your feet and then tossed your bangs away from your forehead. “It was creepy—the lighting up, the lighters—little fires in your pocket.”
“I guess,” I said, and I found a couple of nails in my pocket to get started hammering the foam into the wall above the door.
“Anyway,” you said as you turned away, “that’s another thing settled, at least.”
…
That day was our last in the back garden. Fish gave us a little reprieve, so after a quick jam to break in the new soundproofing, we joined Jonny out back for a couple of Cokes just as the sun was going down. When a group of smokers came out back, and Jonny headed inside, you and I retreated to the back fence. We leaned there, you and me, far from the small cluster of smokers; I couldn’t stand being any closer or I’d light up myself, and for once I was serious about quitting. I was hot—sweating and breathless, and my face hurt from smiling. The Cokes tasted so good on the hot summer evening, and after playing drums for an hour, me and you just staring at each other over my crash, I drank the whole thing in one go.
“Your new songs are so good,” I said, picking at a pocket of pebbles in the dry dirt next to my butt. “I hope we get a chance to play out this summer.”
I snuck a glance at you beside me, hoping you’d pick up my meaning, between the lines: If you’re leaving at the end of the summer, we better hurry up and gig, huh?
You might have, but I think your head was just someplace else. “Sun’s almost down,” was all you said, looking up over Fish’s roof.
Another ending, I thought, wondering if that’s what you meant, and I reached for a way to keep you here.
“I’ll show you something,” I said, leaning forward, overeager. “If you want.”
You looked at me smiling and nodded, so I hopped up and brushed the dirt off my ass and then gave you my hand to pull you up. “Come on.”
You followed me to the metal ladder that hung down from the fire escape. I grabbed one of Fish’s cast-iron chairs and slid it across the patio, letting the scrape of the iron on the stone floor shriek and squeal for everyone to hear.
“Are you crazy?” you asked, smiling, and I smirked back and jumped onto the chair. On my toes, so my shirt came untucked and my belly showed, I could reach the bottom rung of the ladder up to the second floor. It came down with a clank and the smoking crowd turned to watch, some smiling with us, some baffled. You gave them a wink and put your finger over your mouth: shhh.
“Have you done this before?” you asked, grabbing the ladder and following me up to the second-floor fire escape.
“Once,” I said.
(THE VIEW IS AMAZING)
Felix and me had played until after closing with no plans to stop and no idea of the time. I didn’t even see Fish come in; suddenly her hands were on my sticks. I looked up and saw her angry face, eyes so narrow and tired that they were more red and black than their normal arresting and austere green.
“It’s five in the goddamn morning,” she said. Her voice was harsh and hoarse.
Felix’s guitar rang out, hanging on a very big G7.
“I guess we lost track of time.” I leaned over and switched off Felix’s amp. It clicked and the volume dropped with a thud. Without the amplification, Felix was free to continue strumming, and he did.
Fish nodded at Felix, then turned back to me. I got up from the throne to put away my sticks. “Go home, okay, Kid?”
“Yeah, I will.” I dropped onto the couch and pulled open my bag to find my
cigarettes. “Promise.” Lying liar.
Felix shook his head as he strummed and his lips stretched into his Cheshire smile. “Never promise.” He sang it, like life was his personal opera.
Fish rolled her eyes. “I’m locking up the bar, both doors, and going home. Felix, lock this cellar when you leave, and the garden door. And, please: leave.”
Felix stuck up his thumb at her and Fish shook her head and left. I lit my cigarette and went over to the back door to enjoy it, slipping my pack into my back pocket.
“I can’t believe it’s so late. We played for like five hours straight.” I looked at Felix for a second and he was looking past me—maybe through me. I turned and blew a lungful into the garden. The darkness behind Fish’s place—out over the rest of Greenpoint and beyond—was already fading. The slightest orange haze was forming, out over the water treatment facility past Provost Street.
“Want to really see it?” Felix had come up behind me. He put his small hand on my shoulder and I turned around. He slid past me and grabbed one of Fish’s cast-iron chairs. There was a loud clank, and he was scaling the building.
“Felix!” I hissed up at him, but he didn’t look back. He didn’t even slow down. The rungs of the fire escape ladder were narrower than I thought they’d be, and my fist closed over them awkwardly. The paint was peeling and sharp. I let go immediately and wiped the flakes of blood-red paint onto my pants, then tried again.
Felix was already on the third-floor fire escape, and still going up, to the roof. I climbed to the second floor, as quietly as I could. When my foot hit the iron slats at the top of the ladder, I kept my eyes on the dark window. The curtain was open, and a broad-leafed plant was pressed up against the glass on the inside. A ragged, weather-beaten teddy bear leaned against the brickwork on my side. I started up the steep steps to the third floor.
Felix was already out of sight by the time I thought to look up for him again. Right overhead, the sky was still a deep indigo, and the brightest stars were still visible. The brightest stars were the only ones that were ever visible, and you’d have to stare for a long time before you see them—most nights the night sky was just a charcoal smear across the sky, no stars at all.
The last ladder was the longest, and it curved up over the edge of the roof. It was bolted into the bricks and reminded me of the wide-runged, slip-proof ladders out of the pool. Those only have two or three rungs, though, even in the deep end. This ladder had about ten—it felt like a hundred.
When I was able to peek over the top, Felix was right there. He put out his hand and smiled at me. “Turn around,” he said when I was on the roof, on my feet.
I waited a moment to let my feet get the feel of the roof. It was softer than I thought it would be. It gave under my weight a little, like the ground under the jungle gym. Then I turned, and I could see the dome of the church on Manhattan Avenue, and the spire of the next church way up on Driggs. I could see the tanks and vats at the water treatment facility, and the BQE winding toward Sunnyside and Woodside and the Long Island Expressway, east.
And over it all was the blazing sunrise. Felix stood next to me and dropped his head onto my shoulder. I wrapped an arm around his waist. “It’s amazing,” I said. “Thanks for bringing me up here.”
I felt him shrug against me. “I like the sunrise,” he said. “But I prefer the sunset, because at least it’s honest.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sunrise is the rebirth, the promise the sun makes every morning: ‘I’m here to stay,’” Felix said. “But it’s bullshit. Because every night, it just leaves again.”
I stared at the sunrise and my eyes got wet. I pulled away a little, just so I could use my arm to reach into my back pocket for a cigarette.
“The truth is,” he said as I lit it, “the sun never sets and it never rises. It just keeps moving, all the time. It doesn’t care about us.”
I turned to him and blew my smoke out of the corner of my mouth, to the east.
IT ALWAYS COMES BACK
That night, you and I stood on the soft tar of the roof, a few steps back from the edge, looking out over Franklin Avenue and West Street and the husk of a warehouse. The Manhattan skyline was set in an aura of orange and gold and purple and red.
“There it goes,” you said. It was already lower than the Empire State, the Chrysler Building, the Citicorp Building.
I dragged my eyes off the view and turned to face you, though you didn’t notice. You didn’t notice that my eyes had gone moist as I slipped my hand into yours and you squeezed it.
“New Jersey can have it,” you said, smiling, your eyes still on the sunset. I dropped my head onto your shoulder. “It’ll be back in the morning. It always comes back.” And you turned and turned me with you, your arm around my shoulder, to look out over churches and highways and Long Island, at the deepening indigo where the sun would appear again in the morning, feigning devotion.
PEOPLE
The last few weeks of summer went by fast. Fish’s cellar was all ours, but two things hung over my head. One was the fire, and the itch in the back of my head that some guys on the force still thought I’d done it. The other was you, and your impending disappearance. It was one practice, as the summer was dwindling, when we were sharing a pizza—compliments of Fish this time—that you said through a mouthful, “We need a name.”
I leaned back against the front of the couch and let my toes in socks press against your knee. “What sums us up?”
You chewed that for a minute. “Freaks.”
“Probably taken.” I pushed myself up and onto the couch, then sprawled out across it. “How about the Runaways?”
“Joan Jett!”
“Oh yeah.” I rolled onto my stomach and let an arm hang off the edge, picked at the carpet fragment disguised as a rug. “What are your songs about? I mean, in general.”
You shrugged and dropped a folded crust into the box, then leaned back on your hands. They were probably greasy with pizza and for a second my heart skipped as I thought about licking the sauce from your fingers.
“Just the world in general, I think. You know, people.”
“People it is.”
“As a name?”
I smiled. “Why not?”
So we were People. Finally
….
Our breaks usually had us wandering aimlessly, or else just lying around in the cellar, wishing for an air conditioner. That afternoon it was too hot even to wish, so we went out the sidewalk cellar doors and walked—more like a prance, really—away from the steamy cellar and into the cooler, drier air. Both of us buzzing on the music, we held hands and moved slowly west. I don’t know how you felt, but I imagined it was just like me. I was so light and aware, like my skin and hair were electric and I could have moved with my eyes closed, with cotton in my ears, seeing and hearing better than I ever had before. My heart swelled with every step, and I decided to take you to the warehouse. I wasn’t trying to be morbid. It was my old place—my home, really.
The high, temporary chain-link fence was still up and woven with yellow tape, but it wasn’t any deterrent, not to us, not to the men who wanted a place to sleep or to drink without being bothered. But I wasn’t thinking about them. I felt happy and high, weightless. The weeds among the ruins on West changed the smell of Greenpoint, just for a few blocks, and it hit me like last summer. I smiled.
“I want to show you something,” I said, and gave your hand a squeeze before I let it go. Then I ran to the fence.
“Hey!” you called after me, smiling—I could hear the smile, and in my mind I could see your eyes, wide and aware.
I bent down and lifted up the fence at the bottom; it was lazily installed and easy to get past. I crawled under, then turned and held it up for you. You followed me, and I let it snap back down.
“The famous warehouse,” I said. I put my hands on my hips and surveyed the warehouse, blackened and empty. I thought about that night and Konny and Fish, and about the
couch in Felix’s room. It would be gone now, maybe a few coils and nails in a heap of charcoal and shrunken synthetic cloth.
You came up behind me and I leaned back. “I heard about it back then. I hadn’t realized it was right here,” you said. “Not before I met you, I mean.”
It had been all over the news, I knew. The thing burned and burned for two days. Still, I was surprised you’d known about it. I was surprised anyone had, outside of the neighborhood, like when a girl in art class had heard about Ace’s cheating on Konny, or when the rest of the country slapped NYPD hats on their collective head five years ago, like it was their business.
I remembered that I still didn’t know where you were from. I had guesses: Long Island? Jersey? The moon? I reached behind me and grabbed your hand to pull you along, toward the remains. “Come on.”
“We’re going in there?” you said. “Is it safe?”
“Not at all,” I replied, laughing, and led you to the loading bay Felix and I had always used, and that I’d used most nights alone too, until May. It was brighter in that first chamber now, since so much of the roof had burned away. The windows had all been smashed out, probably by firefighters, and boarded over. Nearly all the boards were gone, though, by now. The one that had once blocked the loading bay was the first to go, just a week or so after the fire.
You climbed in behind me, with your shining eyes wide, and your mouth open in wonder. I recognized that look, because I must have had it all over my face when Felix first took me deep into the empty warehouse the previous summer. It was a different place now; when I put out my hand to stable myself, stepping over an I-beam, it came back black with soot.
I stopped between the two sets of stairs. Both still stood, but it was hard to tell if they led anywhere, or simply to a burned-out second floor. “I lived up that way,” I said, pointing to the set on the right. “Those other ones led up to this crazy homeless man. He tried to kill me, pretty much.” I rubbed my elbow a little, as if I still had the bruise the empty bottle had left.
Brooklyn, Burning Page 10
