Drop (26 page)
Alex could bitch all she wanted, but I never said we’d be flying over together. She could wait the week I needed to feel my arrival, reacquaint myself with every inch I’d been barred from, do a posh crawl down Neale Street to find the packaging that would best present the product that I would be selling in my interviews in the days to come. I’d let the flat in Clapham for a month, enough time to enact my rituals and still offer Alex a few weeks for touristy persuals. I wasn‘t getting stuck in a queue for Parliament as the real city called.
Past one more ‘
Mind the gap
’ and Stockwell was behind us. Soon we were slowing down again and this time would be the last stop. Immediately I seized my position in front of the doors, my nose perfectly aligned with the crack so that when they slid open, I stepped forth to Lambeth ground.
Escalator rise, rising. Me at the bottom, queuing to climb, looking on. It was worth telling Margaret I would meet her in Brixton, at the brasserie, as opposed to the sterility of Heathrow. This is how it was supposed to be. From the back of the tile valley, I watched as before me my heralds crowded in twos and glided upwards. I stepped onwards to moving stairs, not sure if it was elation or mechanics that raised me. Exits passed, I had two feet in this town once more.
Brixton! I flung out my arms, quickly poking the old guy on my right in his temple and having my left arm and suitcase swatted down by several passersby. Finding a safe place away from the traffic, hugging the urine-stained wall by the 7-Eleven, I looked up at that sky once more, my infinite duvet, as it drizzled back down on me. So polite it’s misting; I didn’t even have to squint my eyes as I kept walking on.
In the Iceland, tired people grabbed for one more frozen thing to go thunk at the bottom of their carts. Staring at pictures of airbrushed gourmet interpretations of the cardboard’s contents, they imagined the meal soon to come, as well as the one that would always be sitting on ice, waiting to exist for them. They knew that the real version would be much duller in color, muted in curves, and be served on less attractive chinaware, but as they stood in long lines it was those pictures they looked down on. They were thankful they could afford such overpriced illusions. Outside the market’s sliding doors, I walked slowly at irregular angles through the crowd of workers waiting to take buses further south than the tube line. They were so damn beautiful, so damn tired, necks elongated and to the side to see if the next red blur coming their way had their number in its eye. So damn fine because you knew the reason they were rushing home was that there was love somewhere waiting for them. Maybe love was just a bed or a dog or a list of responsibilities they would need decades of separation to romanticize, but they were still hustling towards it without question. Across the street, on the corner down from the bagel shop, were Brixton boys, stationary and proud of this. Leaning against the jaywalk fence with bomber jackets they had no business wearing in summer heat, sporting baseball hats touting professional teams for games for which they didn‘t even know the rules. Too cool to acknowledge the water falling down on them. It wasn‘t lost on me any more, the sense of familiarity, that of all the worlds within this city, I‘d chosen the one that mirrored the place I’d been running from.
In front of the brasserie, there was no red Fiat to be seen, a quick glance inside revealed that Margaret was not yet present, even in that backroom where he used to sit and rant at me. Nothing back there but an old drunk laid out with his body on one chair and his feet on another, hat pulled over his sleeping face and trench pulled around him as if it were raining in here, too. I grabbed the remote control sitting on the table before moving far enough away to avoid conversation. After the barmaid took my order I clicked on the set hanging high in the corner.
That stink, that smell of whatever gelatin forms in carpets fed a daily diet of spilled beer, just like the one that used to ooze out of Café Society, back on Chelten, around the way. Like it all poured from one linked source. Like there was a certain amount you could drink, a certain darkness of shadow that you could pass through and end up at any other stank joint in the world. On the television, every unrecognized advertisement confirmed how long I‘d been gone, and I studied them for whatever new trends had manifested, planning on doing the same thing that night in my rented room, preparing myself for the first interview tomorrow. I would get the job, I knew this. My portfolio was strong, and so it seemed was their interest, just in writing me a continent away. Still, there was the question of money, and more important, what position would they throw my way?
On the TV, a fifteen-second spot for Golden Crowns pulled my attention. Someone had pitched the idea of actually making a tiara compiled of cereal kernels, and that mess of a concept had made it all the way through production and onto the screen. An airbrushed, latex-coated crown sparkled thanks to video illustration; obviously brand recognition seemed more important to them now than making the product look edible. You need me, I nearly said aloud. I was just getting a flash of their rented ex-sports figure’s smile when the box turned off suddenly. Snap, then dark, dead, and powerless. The remote, by my side just a moment before, had disappeared. I was looking underneath the table to find where when I saw the movement behind me. Not Margaret coming in the door, but the drunken corpse rising. Bent over in my chair, I could see his shoes and pant legs through my own, no doubt walking over in my direction to start a long and laborious conversation, one that he repeated on the hour with whoever sat in the room. This was England, homeland of social discomfort, so to avoid my own I pretended to finish tying my shoes, all the while fixing my sights on the bathroom I would soon be darting to. From there, after an appropriate pause, I would shoot back through, grab my pint and bag without stopping and take a seat at the bar, close to the exit door. When I heard him clearing his throat of whatever bacteria made its home there, my calves tensed, and I was almost up, when the sound of that voice hit me and I couldn’t even manage standing any more.
‘I told you you could get here without me.’
Ever feel you’re falling, right there while you’re sitting down? Like that sleep thing, when you jump awake, kick out your legs to fight the gravity you imagine. But you’re not asleep, so there is no other consciousness to skip to, no place of escape, and the only thing that rises is the bile that climbs up your esophagus. That was my moment, right there, sunk back into the chair. The rest of the actions or opinions about this unreality that would appear later, in weeks and eventually years to follow, they would all be born of this grid, this measure of time that I was even sectioning off as it happened. So by the time I turned around and saw David, my David, no longer dead and standing there, that 210 reality had already made its initial impact, had already passed on and left me with its complications as proof of its arrival. Standing there. Not a ghost because spirits don’t smell like that, sweating alcohol and sucking Trebor’s Extra Strong Mints on the side of their mouths. Ghosts don’t get fatter with time, definitely not by a good two stone, or lose battles with male-pattern baldness so that they had less hair than when living. And most definitely, they sure didn’t smile like that either. There is no gloating in the hereafter, that I was sure of. Not in heaven and definitely not in hell.
‘You fucking bastard’ was all I could offer, and even that little more than a whisper. Of all the thoughts causing traffic in my cortex, that was just the one that got through. David stared at me, watching the realization drip in as the blood in my face dripped out. Drop drop. After the block of time that it took for him to realize that I would definitely not be the one to do the talking, David, ever living, laid the pint in his hand on the table next to him and took a seat once more. Oh, this was his holiday. You could tell he hadn‘t had a day this good in a while.
‘Nice one, right?’ He laughs my way. ‘You don’t get a surprise like that every day, do you? That was too lovely! Too good! Originally, I’d had a mind to meet you in your hotel room. Had it all planned, see? You’d come in and I’d be laid right out there on the bleeding bed, all casual like! Brilliant, it would have been!’ David yells, punching the air, nodding at me as if I‘m in on this joke too, his arrogance waking me from my confusion. ‘But then, when you
finally
called Margaret and said meet you here, I was just so excited. I mean, it was as if we were working together again. Just perfect! I’ve been here for three hours!
‘Oh, come on, please. You flatter me. I’m not a complete fool. You must have had your suspicions. Really, I don’t believe you. Of course, I ran into your Fionna at Marks and Spencer two months past – I swear the little flit shat herself right there in the beverage aisle!’ David laughed, biting his bottom lip, scrunching his nose and nodding each drop of truth in it back at me. My head throbbed with each motion. Even my eyes hurt; the room seemed unbearablly bright to me.
‘Which are the lies,’ I managed, forcing my breathing back under control to do so. Meaning: which parts of my past were constructed just for your deception, which monuments were real, and which made of putty and clay.
‘Oh really, it’s not all that, is it? After I nearly burned the house down on meself, it just offered a chance, didn’t it? So I bribed the missus to go along with the …’ He paused, enjoying himself. ‘Appearances.’
‘With what, my apartment?’ I snapped. I wasn’t even sure yet if I should be angry, but it was a good emotion and I was going with it.
‘No. A guaranteed complete stay at a rehab clinic in Richmond. Lovely place. Enjoyed it even more the second time I checked in, three months later,’ David said, toasting me, up in the air then into the mouth with a good gulp of the black stuff. The bastard is alive, and sitting right there across from me. What’s more, David has always been alive. The only person that fact is new to is me. ‘The flat was just to get you moving. For chrissakes man, I thought you’d
never
leave. Started worrying I might have to torch that bastard too. Margaret’s there now still; she just had her number forwarded from the flat she was letting. She lets me visit, on weekends sometimes. Mornings.’
‘Urgent?’ I asked, almost fearing the answer.
‘Still earning, mate. Still earning,’ David said proudly. ‘Bloody well insured, it was, wasn’t it?’ He winked at me over the lip of his glass ever so quickly. ‘Did you like the obituary? Had to pull in a favor from a bloke who works the press for the
Journal
. Between that, the funeral, and keeping the mouth shut on bloody Raz, cost me a good bit of dosh in the end. But oh, the look of it.’ With all the things I wanted to cry or scream at him, all I could do was nod back in disbelief. Head wagging. A matching sway for every thought that occurred to me. So many sentences, only the word ‘why’ linking them together. So that‘s the word I put to him. Not a plea or a demand, just one strong syllable for him to take from me, shape it like a ‘U’ and fill it up before giving it back. David stared at me through the distortion of the glass he was swallowing from. He looked like I’d just asked him the most obvious question in the world.
‘Would you have ever left if I didn’t?’ David’s voice was light, vulnerable, not arrogant but sorrowful, not for me but for himself, the one that necessitated abandonment. ‘Would you ever have learned that you could?’ he asked, rising from his chair as he did so, his arms outstretched, palms open, his face calmer than a newborn’s while sleeping. The way he stood, the way that raincoat hung off him like a robe, so many folds it would take a lifetime to carve in marble; it reminded me of a picture I’d seen of a statue on a mountain in Brazil. David moved closer, and in the moment of his step I didn’t know what I should be doing, whether to kiss him on his sweating forehead, grab that pudgy neck with two hands and take his life for daring to play with mine, or hug his ample waist in joy that something that had brought me pain was over. When the moment came that I touched him, placed my hands within his, my response was there waiting for me. A grip on each shoulder, I gave him the best Philly gesture I could manage, pulling David towards me as fast as I shot up my knee into that gut of his, politely missing his groin and forcing the bulk of my thrust into that gluttonous belly. I gave him a lift – upsy daisy, flying off his heels and even toes for a second as his weight rested on my thigh. Now there’s a new look for that face’s repertoire: astonishment. Didn’t it look good on him too, along with that new vein bulging out of his forehead and the blood of pain bringing a glow to his cheeks. Flattering. David let out a burst of air; I felt it shoot up my chest and into my nose. Dropping him down to the floor again, I retook my seat casually and David, well, he just sort of fell into his. As he refilled his lungs in loud wheezes, I reached out for his drink, toasted him with it, then finished it off. All the while the fat bastard was actually smiling at me. Not just grinning either: the more David learned to breathe again, the bigger that gash on his face became, till it damn near reached both earlobes. Just joyful in his silent agony, the old cat hugging his waist as he got a good look at this man sitting in front of him. Me, I stared right back. Grinned along with him. Took care of my own drink before throwing down a tenner and walking out the door.
My greatest blessings are: my wife and world-Meera the Magnificent, the Johnson Family, Jaynes Family, Bowman Family, Freedman Family, Dwayne Wharton, Victor Durmot La Valle, Ric Pavez, Andrea Walls (of the Philadelphia Walls), Rob Seixas, Doug ‘Boogie’ Jones, Ted LaSalla, Beth Calabro, Owiso Odera, Loren Johnson, Ray Shell, Barbie Asante, Ric Wormwood, Gloria Loomis, Karen Rinaldi, Michael Cunningham, the Akers Family, Larry Wilkins, Stephen Butler. Dad-thanks for investing in me in so many ways. Marsha-you’re cherished. O. Ben Karp-fully bonded. William and Elizabeth Johnson-thank you for the friendship. Carl Jaynes-thanks for letting me sleep on your floor so I could make this happen. Many thanks to the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Foundation. Philly.
