Brooklyn Noir (18 page)

“Tell your mother I send my love,” he said, as his cousin walked away and Essence waved at him.

That evening, when Johnny’s car was gone (perhaps replaced by another, but who could tell?), Cynthia stopped by Victorious’s place. His parents lived downstairs and Victorious and his wife upstairs. Cynthia wondered if they could take a walk together. He was a lanky, slightly handsome yellow-skinned man with a goatee and a baldy. There was the tip of a tattoo visible on his neck just above the turned-up lapels of his beige Rocawear jacket.

She could see his breath in the cold and how the patterns of his breathing changed as she spoke. It surprised him that she had a DEA agent for a cousin, but nothing else she said did. Victorious told her the DEA had busted his apartment just the month before, confiscating “a lot of money,” but didn’t find any drugs. His wife had been there alone when it happened and the DEA had given her a receipt on the way out. She hadn’t been sleeping too well since that visit. In fact, he finally admitted to Cynthia, she’d moved back to her mother’s house in Bushwick just last week. Victorious told Cynthia what he told his wife—the money had come from the city job and from selling her jewelry, the drug stuff was just some mess. Cynthia didn’t speak on it: That part wasn’t her business. But he was a long-time friend. That’s why they were standing under the bare branches of a tree on New Lots Avenue on this night in thirty-degree weather.

“Just be chill,” Cynthia told him finally. “Maybe you better try and get your money back, you know, and start a video store or a laundry. People always have to get their clothes washed.”

“Good looking out,” he said, and then gave her a hug. She could feel his body shaking slightly, though his face was impassive. After Cynthia left, Victorious stood in the doorway of the two-story building, his head turning left and right as he peered into cars parked along the street and listened to the roar from the elevated IRT train a few blocks away. He’d lived on New Lots Avenue his whole life and almost every day thought about when he’d be ready to move.

The next afternoon, when Johnny rolled by the house, video camera on the seat, he noticed that the curtains on Victorious’s windows were gone. It wouldn’t be until the day after that he discovered Victorious had moved.

The nighttime air at Coney smells like corn dogs and fried clams and a little bit like garbage. It’s a good smell, once you get used to it, and a good place. There are lights and activity and you never know who’s going to walk past. For an old man who’s kind of curious, but also kind of not interested in talking to anyone, it’s perfect. I can watch the people and still concentrate on my world, a swirl of wooden horses and songs from the thirties that no one remembers anymore. I oil the poles when they get squeaky, track real horses in the
Post
, and count the quarters at the end of the shift. There’s not much conversation. I’m basically an ugly bastard with a thick accent, and I don’t want to scare anyone. Why should I play to type? I wasn’t born to be the creepy guy who runs the carousel.

In the summers I keep the ride open late. You never know when a bunch of teenagers from Montclair might show up. The Puerto Rican families stay out until midnight on the weekends. More and more, too, I get the kids—I call them kids, but they’re in their twenties—out on a date, trying to impress each other on the bumper cars and Whack-A-Mole. Big night for them, I guess, to look at the freaks, or to pretend like they’re freaks themselves. When they make it over to me, which they almost always do, I slow the carousel down so they can enjoy each other. The young have certain needs. I was young once, too, and once there was romance in my life.

Sometimes special circumstances arise. It was after 11 p.m. I yawned into the newspaper; no one had been by for a ride in at least forty-five minutes. I decided it was time to shut down.

Two girls came along the boardwalk. They weren’t beautiful in the way that you see on TV, or naturally beautiful, either, but they had style. In fact, they had a style that I hadn’t really seen before, hair done a certain way, t-shirts of a certain design, their skirts real short, cut at a certain angle. They had a look about them that just seemed, well, contemporary. I’m not a contemporary guy, but I could still tell.

They stopped in front of me. I felt my breath sting my chest, which happens when I get excited. One of them said,
“Please
don’t tell me you’re closed.”

I gulped. Sixty-four years old, and still a sucker. “Just about to,” I said.

“Shit!” she said. “You’ve got to let us ride.”

“What?”

“We really need to ride the carousel.”

She reached into her purse and took out a twenty.

“For both of us,” she said.

“It doesn’t cost that much.” Then—don’t ask me why—I said, “You two ride for free.”

The other girl, prettier than the first, touched my arm. I felt a jolt travel down my spine and into my brain. I’ve always been stupid around women.

“Aren’t you sweet?” she said.

“We’re gonna ride for three songs,” said her friend.

“Okay,” I replied.

I was going to lose a little money. I didn’t care. It had been a profitable summer. So I started up the carousel.

The first few notes of the organ coming to life scare me. It sounds like someone being resurrected from the dead, against his will. Didn’t seem to bother the girls, though. One of them got on top of a tall black horse in the front. The other took a digital camera out of her purse. While the first girl rode and waved, the other one took pictures. When the song ended, they switched places quickly.

While the second song was still playing, the girl who was taking pictures walked to my booth.

“I’m gonna get on the carousel with my friend,” she said. “Will you take our picture together?”

“Okay.”

“We’re on a scavenger hunt,” she said. “We need proof of being in different places and doing different things.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It’s very fun. You should come with us next time.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. “I have to…”

“I was kidding,” she said. “Oh.”

She got on the carousel for the third song. They sat together on a bench. I stood in front of the ride, camera ready.

“Take our picture!” called out one of them. I couldn’t tell which. The carousel had started moving and they were blurry. The first time around, I got them with their arms in the air, shouting. But it was a little out of focus.

“Again!” one of them said.

When they came around the next time, the photo took nice and clear. The girls were kissing. Not on the cheek, either. Really kissing. And they kept kissing until the ride was over. I’d never seen girls do that before.

“You get the pictures?” the first one asked.

“Oh yes.”

“You got us kissing, right?”

“Yes.”

She put the camera in her purse. The other girl patted my hand. I blushed.

“See you next time,” she said.

No one was going to Coney a dozen years ago. It was really at its low point. So when I bought the carousel, I didn’t expect to make any money. I’d retired from my city job with some savings. When you start at twenty-two, you can stop work pretty early. My wife and I didn’t have any kids, and we didn’t enjoy each other, either. She doesn’t like traveling, and I don’t like going out to dinner. I needed something to do. One day, I was walking down the boardwalk, trying to remember what it’d been like as a kid. There was a
For Sale
sign.

I talked to the Russian who was taking care of the ride. He obviously didn’t give a shit. The paint on the horses was chipping off, the poles were rusted, and the room was decorated with a faded mural dating, at the latest, to 1965, but probably further back than that. It was dingy and depress-ing.

“Who wants to ride a fake horse, anyway?” the Russian said.

He was asking a little more than I had available, but what the hell? I went to the bank and pulled some financing together. A guy I knew from the city was able to grease the walk-through inspection. After I closed the deal, I went home for dinner.

“Where’ve you been?” asked my wife.

“I just bought the Coney Island carousel,” I said.

She looked at me hard. I’ve never been able to figure out why she hates me so much.

“So?” she said. “You think you’re special?”

I’d definitely made the right choice.

The heating system was old but still pretty efficient. I spent the winter—which was miserable, with winds like knives—chipping away the rust. I bought some industrial cleaner and gave the whole place a scrub, which took about ten days. Then I hired some mural painters, real cheap, students from Parsons. They did up the horses beautifully. I wasn’t as happy with their work on the mural, but it was fresh paint, so it didn’t really matter. I hammered together a comfortable little booth to sit in. Someone came out and worked on the organ. Before I knew it, April had arrived.

I went up to Martha’s Vineyard for a few days, and didn’t take my wife. Told her I was going to visit mother in the home. The carousel operator on the island couldn’t have been nicer. I was a quick study. The day after tax day, 1992, I opened the ride.

The girls came back two weeks after their first visit. It was around the same time of night. They looked even cuter than before, if that was possible.

“Remember us?” asked one of them.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m Katie, and this is Diane.”

I took Katie’s hand. “Hello,” I said.

“Can we ride the carousel tonight?” said Diane.

“Of course!”

She handed me a twenty.

They got on together this time. But they didn’t ask me to take a picture. They just rode around. Katie pulled out a little flask, and they sipped from it. I didn’t usually allow drinking on the ride, but it was late and no one was going to get in trouble.

They got off when the song ended.

“You want to ride with us?” Diane asked.

“I can’t,” I said. “I have to operate…”

“I can do it!” she said. “For one song! You can show me how.”

For some reason, I said okay. It didn’t take a genius, after all. She picked it up pretty quickly. Did a practice spin. Then Katie and I got on. We sat together on a bench.

The carousel started going round.

“This is so fun!” she said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

When the ride stopped, Diane got up from the booth. Katie and I were sitting on the bench. Diane pointed the camera at us. And then Katie kissed me, hard, on the lips. I felt her tongue tickling my teeth, and I opened my mouth gratefully. My eyes were closed. Through the lids, I could see the flash going off. She kept kissing me. It felt wonderful! Another picture. And then it was over.

“Hey,” she said, “you’re a great kisser!”

“Thank you.”

She got up. Diane was scrolling through the pictures. Katie went over to look.

“Holy shit!” she said. “Did I really do that?”

“You did!” Diane replied.

“We’re gonna win this one!” said Katie.

They walked away, giggling.

“Wait!” I called out. “You’ve still got one more song!”

“Next time, handsome,” said Diane. She whispered something in Katie’s ear. Katie laughed like crazy. They turned around and looked at me and laughed even harder. I laughed back. I wanted them to know I understood.

I got home around midnight. My wife was still awake. She was always awake.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

Sometime in the last ten years, Coney got hot. The people attending the Mermaid Parade started getting younger. Lines got longer at the freak show. Riding the Cyclone became cool again. I saw a headline,
“Not Your Father’s Coney Island,”
in that
Time Out
rag. I raised my prices by a dollar. Summers became extremely active. Then they opened the ballpark, and things really went nuts.

The new kids seem desperate to me. For fun, or for something. I spent the sixties behind a desk at the Water Department. My kid brother took me to a Springsteen show in 1975. It was okay, but I never really had a taste for rock-n-roll. Not like I want to deny other people their good time. Life just doesn’t seem like a party to me, and it never has. Except with those girls.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the girls and their scavenger hunt. First, I’d never had a kiss like that. Second, the whole idea of a scavenger hunt as an adult activity baffled me. I thought it was something for a child’s birthday party. Just a dumb activity for dumb times, I supposed, like goldfish-swallowing, pole-sitting, or telephone-booth-stuffing. Maybe they’re trying to forget that there’s a war on. Or maybe they don’t know.

Still, I couldn’t wait for them to come back.

They showed up late on Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. There were still a few people riding the carousel, because it was a holiday. Katie winked at me. Diane waved. I smiled. They leaned against the entrance, smoking.

It took about half an hour for me to get everyone else out of there.

“Hello, ladies,” I said, approaching them. “Good to see you.”

“Good to be seen,” Diane said.

“Another scavenger hunt?”

“Yeah,” said Katie. “High-stakes. Winner gets ten grand.”

“No kidding?” I said. “How can I help.”

Diane looked around.

“Pull down the gate,” she said.

“We don’t close for a little while.”

She sidled against me, and I felt something stick into my ribs. Her eyes glared.

“You’re closed,” she said.

I pulled down the gate.

“Shut off the lights,” Katie demanded.

“What?”

“Shut down everything.”

“Aren’t you going to ride?” I asked.

Diane pulled the gun out of my ribs and waved it in front of my face.

“Do it!” she said.

I turned the lights off and shut the power down. The grate was closed. Diane nudged me into the booth. She pointed the .38 at my head. Katie stood behind her, with the camera. “Open the cashbox,” Diane said. She then took a picture. The flash went off. “But…”