City of Margins

by William Boyle

  Nick hasn’t been in the auditorium since his last day of eighth grade. He remembers it seeming vast, cavernous. It’s small. The wood on the floor is scuffed to a fleshy color. Folding chairs are lined up in rows, most of them occupied. An American flag is hung on the wall behind the stage. Next to the flag is a big wooden crucifix, suspended by some kind of wire.

  Phil is sitting at a cheap card table on the stage, books stacked on either side of him. He’s wearing a heavy leather jacket over a red sweater, black corduroy pants, and shiny black shoes. He’s got a full head of hair now, which must be a wig.

  Alice is in the front row. Nick can tell her back from anywhere.

  He stands behind the last row of chairs and looks around. He recognizes some faces. The second row is occupied by nuns he remembers from school. Sister Maura, Sister Eleanor, and Sister Lena. Over by the door, old Sister Bernadette stands with her arms crossed, looking agitated, her white hair piled on her head in frosty curls. He doesn’t remember anything about their order, but these aren’t nuns who get all geared up in nun outfits. They’re wearing regular boring old lady clothes.

  There’s nobody else he sees that he knows except for Sonny and Josephine Divino, who are sitting in rapt attention. Nick wonders whatever happened to Antonina. He guesses college. He imagines her now, hooking up with some cute boy in her warm little dorm room, and he wishes he was still in college.

  Sister Thomasine, who Nick also remembers well, introduces Phil Puzzo. She says a few words about the book, insisting that it’s “difficult but necessary,” and then lists some of Phil’s accomplishments.

  Phil stands. He talks about putting aside the book on the Brancaccios he’d been working on to write The Bad Samaritan. “When a story feels urgent like this, one can’t ignore it,” he says. He reads the opening chapter of the book. It’s fucking Donnie picking up Ava on the Belt. He’s reading things Ava told him.

  Nick’s so mad he can’t see straight. He doesn’t want to wait to buy the book and then plug Phil. He wants to shoot the fuck right now, as he reads his bullshit. He wants him to fall back, a hole in his head, the wig blown off. He wants Alice to think it’s romantic that he’s shot this bastard over love and honor.

  He takes out his gun and aims it at Phil onstage. He’s shaky, but how hard can it be? Phil’s not a tiny target. No one sees Nick because he’s in the back. The only one who might have him in her sightline is Sister Bernadette, and she’s ninety if she’s a day.

  Phil certainly doesn’t look up and see him. He’s staring down at the page, wrapped up in the glory of his own words.

  Nick’s about to fire when he notices, out of the corner of his eye, that Sister Bernadette’s charging him.

  “Gun!” Sister Bernadette shouts, and the crowd starts shuffling around nervously, everyone looking over their shoulders or lowering their heads into their laps.

  Nick can’t fucking believe it. He’s still got his shot. “You thieving hack!” he calls out to Phil, just as he simultaneously pulls the trigger and Sister Bernadette makes contact with him, pushing him with her old, bony outstretched arms and knocking him to the floor, the gun skittering away under the chairs in front of him.

  The force with which Sister Bernadette pushed him was pretty impressive, he’s got to give her that. He never would’ve guessed she’d be able to budge him, let alone take him down. He looks up to see if he’s at least hit Phil, but he hasn’t. Phil’s ducking behind the card table like the coward that he is. What Nick’s hit is the crucifix next to the flag, causing it to sway, a hunk of Christ’s arm chipped away.

  “You stay right where you are,” Sister Bernadette says.

  Nick looks at the door. He’s clear. He could probably make a break for it. He’s afraid to look back toward the stage. He’s afraid to see Alice staring at him, whispering to whoever she’s sitting next to about what a fucking loser he is.

  “Yes, Sister Bernadette,” he says. “I will.”

  ANTONINA DIVINO

  Antonina follows her friend Janice down North Front Street, past the Bakery, and across North Chestnut. Janice is hopping around, excited. She’s the first friend Antonina made here in New Paltz back in August during her orientation. Janice is from New Rochelle, but her family’s originally from the Bronx. She’s wearing her usual l.e.i. jeans, which Antonina had never even heard of before meeting her, and a tie-dyed hoodie. She’s got a claret red wool coat she scored at the Salvation Army for five bucks on over that, and a wool hat her friend Luna knitted her is pulled low on her head. Her Walkman’s always got this mix an old boyfriend made her with Joni Mitchell, the Allman Brothers, and Richie Havens. She’s half-listening now, her headphones half-on. She’s not the best friend that Antonina would’ve expected, but Janice is great, free and funny and up for anything.

  Antonina’s changed in her time here, too. Her hair is back to its natural color, brown, and she hasn’t washed it in over a month, taking Janice’s advice and rubbing it with some kind of hippie oil she gave her. She’s thinking about dreadlocks. She hasn’t shaved her legs in a month either. She has her combat boots and overalls on, still a go-to outfit. She’s wearing thermals under the overalls and a man’s bomber coat Janice didn’t want anymore. She doesn’t have a hat on. Her ears are cold.

  She had her last final of the semester yesterday and aced it. It was a pretty good first semester, all told. She liked her classes, especially English 101 and Art History. She works three nights a week at a coffee shop called the Sleeping Turtle, where these hardcore bands sometimes play. Lizzie’s in Boston and has come down to visit twice because Boston freaks her out. Antonina’s going back down to Brooklyn in a few days. Her dad’s coming to pick her up when the dorms close for winter break.

  Antonina’s made out with ten people since moving here, not that she’s really keeping track. Seven guys and three girls. She’s slept with two of them, one guy and one girl. The guy’s name is Lane. He’s from outside Syracuse and is in one of the bands that plays at the Sleeping Turtle. Jan’s Long Crawl, they’re called. She’s slept with him a few times, actually. He’s kind of dumb. He smokes a lot of weed. The girl, her name is Celeste and she’s in her mid-twenties and works at Earth Goods on Main Street. They drank a bunch of wine one night and went back to Celeste’s apartment in the attic of this rooming house on Church Street and had a really nice time.

  She can’t believe she wound up at Mikey’s school. She wonders whatever happened to him. After Donnie was murdered, Mikey went missing. It’s hard to imagine he didn’t have something to do with Donnie dying, even if no one seems to care. She doesn’t think Mikey could’ve killed someone, but she guesses there are a lot of people like that, who seem incapable of something until they’re not. She wishes it was the future, and there was some way to get a glimpse of where he is and what he’s doing. She’d heard a rumor from her mother that Donna Parascandolo or Rotante or whatever hired Mikey to kill her ex-husband and that they were having an affair and ran off together. That was some real Pamela Smart shit she just couldn’t buy into. Antonina knew Donna from around Bishop Kearney, and she was no Pamela Smart. But she is gone, too.

  She saw Ralph a lot her senior year of high school. He was pretty fucked up about Donnie getting offed. Whatever had happened, if he knew or not, he didn’t go into it. He seemed like he was under a lot of stress, but all she knew for sure was that no one had killed him. He was happy about her going to college and thought a state school that wasn’t too far from the city was a good call. He was happy she wanted to use the money for college. He still calls her, once a week. Her roommate, Sky Suarez, thinks it’s weird this old dude who isn’t her father always calls her. It is weird. Ralph wants to come up for a visit, but that’d be even weirder.

  She’s been pretty good with the money. She’s mostly used it on tuition and books. She’s got the income from the coffee shop, and she’s starting work study next semester. If she plays it right and keeps working, she might not have to get financial aid at all.

/>   She’s been good about the money, that is, except for the drugs she occasionally buys. Like tonight. She got these shrooms she’s carrying around in her pocket for her and Janice from Lane’s friend Eric. They’re walking down to Huguenot Street to eat them and trip in the dark with all these houses and graves from the 1600s and 1700s around them. Maybe they’ll go on the Rail Trail and sit on the banks of the Wallkill.

  It’s dark out now. She likes that it’s dark early. The dark feels different upstate. It wraps you up in a good way instead of just hovering over you.

  When they get where they’re going, standing under a streetlight in the center of quiet Huguenot Street, Janice lowers her headphones and says, “Okay, hit me.”

  Antonina fumbles around in her pocket and comes out with the baggie of shrooms. She empties the pieces into her palm. They look like bark. Janice divides them and takes half of what’s there. They toss them in their mouths at the same time and chew frantically.

  Antonina waits for something exciting to happen, for the dark to come to life, for bodies to rise from the ground or for the houses to take flight. This is her first time with shrooms. Janice has done them before. She tells her that they’ll take hold soon, that this is going to be the best fucking night of her life. Antonina’s ready.

  But nothing happens. For a long time, an hour at least. They wander up the road past dark houses, and everything feels totally normal and boring. “You got ripped off,” Janice says.

  “Tell me about it,” Antonina says. “I’m gonna kick Eric’s ass.”

  “He should be afraid. I wouldn’t fuck with you.”

  They walk back to campus, stopping on Main Street to pet a dog tied up outside the Main Street Bistro. Antonina’s furious. She keeps expecting something to suddenly shift, for this to be part of it, this feeling that nothing will ever happen until something does. But it stays the same.

  They head up Plattekill Avenue, past the fire department, cutting through Peace Park. When they get back to Antonina’s dorm, Bouton Hall, Janice gives her a hug and says, “We’ll have the best night of our lives next time.”

  Antonina goes inside, checking her mailbox in the main alcove and finding an early Christmas card from Grandma Divino. Her note is illegible. She’s included a crinkled five-dollar bill and a couple of scratch-offs.

  Antonina’s room is on the third floor. On the way up, she sees a boy she knows from her Social Issues & College Life class and a girl she met at Take Back the Night.

  The third-floor girls’ end of the hallway has been decorated for the holidays by her RA, Rebecca. It looks like the hallway of a kindergarten. Wooden soldiers and menorahs cut out of construction paper. A couple of wreaths. A big board that says HAPPY HOLIDAYS in glue and glitter.

  Sky is sitting in bed when Antonina gets back to her room, eating a bag of potato chips and watching Edward Scissorhands for the ninetieth time. “How’d it go?” Sky asks.

  “A bust,” Antonina says.

  “Eric screwed you? I told you he was sketchy.”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. Nothing happened.”

  “Your man called.”

  “Ralph?”

  “Who else?”

  “He say what he wants?”

  “He said he’ll call back. And he has, twice already.”

  Antonina sits at her desk and runs her fingers over the edges of a stack of CD jewel cases and cassettes that she has piled next to her textbooks. What could Ralph want so desperately? There hasn’t been another incident like the time he followed her and Lizzie into the city, but she always worries that it’s coming.

  Sure enough, less than two minutes later, the phone rings. She picks up.

  “Hey, sweetie,” he says, and he sounds bad, different. “I’ve been trying to get you.”

  Antonina looks at the floor. She can feel Sky’s eyes turn from Johnny Depp on the TV screen over to her, not wanting to miss this as it unfolds. “I was out,” Antonina says to Ralph.

  “Let me guess, with Janice?” Ralph says. “She’s a good friend, right? I don’t know about that Sky, though. She’s not so nice to me.”

  “What is it? What do you want?”

  “I’m at the diner. Can you meet me here?”

  “In the Bronx? I can’t.”

  “No. In New Paltz. Right across from the movie theater. I don’t know the name of the joint.”

  “You’re here?” Antonina keeps her eyes on the floor but hears Sky sit up and shuffle around.

  “Can you meet me? I’m in a bad spot. We are. Me and Pags both. I just want to say goodbye.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Please,” he says.

  “Okay, I’ll be right there.” She hangs up.

  “What the fuck, dude?” Sky says. “He’s in town? This is creepy. You’re eighteen. He’s what, forty-something?”

  “I’ve gotta go,” Antonina says, without hesitation. “Can I borrow your car?”

  “The keys are by the TV.”

  Antonina stands and goes over to get the keys to the little shitbox Camry Sky inherited from her brother. She’s thinking how Ralph’s been good to her. She doesn’t know why exactly he’s chosen her to be the closest thing he’ll ever have to a daughter, but she owes him this much at least. She’s never heard him as desperate as he sounded on the phone.

  “What’s this guy got on you?” Sky asks. “I’ve known girls with pimps, this is how they act.”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Antonina says.

  “You shouldn’t lead him on.”

  “That’s a fucked-up thing to say.” She opens the door and walks out of the room.

  The Camry is parked in the lot next to Bouton. Antonina finds it after searching up and down the rows of cars, getting in under the wheel. She keys the ignition, and the radio blasts on. That shit music Sky listens to. Like something from a club she’d never go to.

  She backs out of the space and then leaves the lot. The Plaza Diner would’ve been a pretty long walk, but it should take her only about three minutes by car. Up South Manheim, right on Main. It’s in a strip mall across from the movie theater where she goes at least once a week to see whatever’s new.

  When she pulls in, she notices Ralph’s Caddy parked at the lonely end of the lot, no other cars around it, the engine idling. He doesn’t seem to be inside, but the windows are fogged. She wonders why he would leave it running.

  She parks away from it, close to the entrance, and gets out of the car. She comes to this diner sometimes when she’s pulling an all-nighter. The coffee’s okay, and she likes the feel of the place. Maybe what she first liked about it, in fact, is that it reminds her of the diner where she’d go with Ralph in the Bronx. It’s not as flashy, but it’s got the same vibe.

  Inside isn’t crowded. Five college boys sit at a table off the kitchen. A guy in paint-splattered overalls is at the counter with a gyro and a glass of soda.

  She sees Ralph sitting in a booth by the window, facing the lot, so he can keep an eye on the Caddy. He looks bad. More ragged than she’s ever seen him. He’s sweating hard, the way he was the day he followed her to the city. He’s wearing a gray suit that seems to be stained with grease and a yellow dress shirt. He’s huddled over the table with a cup of coffee in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest as if he’s hugging himself.

  Antonina sits across from him. “Your car’s running out there,” she says.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Ralph says.

  “What’s going on? Why are you here? What’s wrong?”

  The waitress, an older woman with stringy gray hair and red glasses held together with scotch tape, drops off a menu for Antonina, asking if she wants coffee.

  Antonina nods, pushing the menu to the side of the table.

  “Let me tell you something,” Ralph says. “I want to be forthright with you. My intentions, maybe, have never been clear.”

  “You really don’t look good.”

  “It’s the end of th
e line for me, kid. Pags, too. He’s out in the car. We started fucking up a long time ago and never stopped. It finally caught up with us the way it caught up with Donnie.”

  Antonina looks out the window at the Caddy. “Pags is in the car?”

  “What’s left of him. I don’t know where we’re going. Just running away. I needed to see you, to say goodbye. Ain’t I helped you? Ain’t I been an okay guy to you?”

  She tries to see through his clenched arms. Is he shot? Is he sitting at this table with her, wounded, dying? What should she do?

  The waitress brings Antonina’s coffee and asks if she wants anything to eat without looking up from her pad. Antonina shakes her off, and the woman scurries away, pushing her glasses up her nose.

  “I’m gonna go to the payphone and call nine-one-one,” Antonina says to Ralph.

  “Don’t,” he says, reaching across the table slowly and putting his hand over hers. There’s blood on his cuff. She can also see with some definition now that blood is blotched on his yellow shirt over his belly. “Maybe I’m dead already,” he continues. “Maybe this is heaven. A diner with you.”

  “Ralph,” Antonina says, not sure what else to say, angling her legs as if she’ll burst out of the booth and bolt for the phone, but not moving.

  He bites down on some passing pain and then seems to come out of it. “I never asked nothing from you in return, right? I’m asking you now not to call no one. I just wanted to see your pretty face one more time.” He pauses. “You know the song ‘This Is All I Ask’? Written by Gordon Jenkins. A lot of people do it, but Sinatra’s version on September of My Years is the best.”

  “I don’t,” Antonina says.

  Ralph sings, half in a whisper, his voice breaking: “‘Beautiful girls, walk a little slower when you walk by me. / Lingering sunsets, stay a little longer with the lonely sea. / Children everywhere, when you shoot at bad men, shoot at me.’” He cuts it off there, coughing into his palm, the coffee cups on the table quaking.

  Antonina’s never heard him sing. Not in the car on the way to the Bronx, not anywhere. She’ll never forget it, the sound of singing that isn’t singing at all. It’s the sound of death. She thinks he must be delirious.