Fall and Rise (40 page)

Exit, No Entrance
. “Don't let's go in there,” he says to his mother. “We'll never get out if we do. That sign. It means death's inside.” “That sign means you can only leave through that turnstile, not go in, so try the next one without a sign.” His sister puts her coin into the next turnstile. “Don't let her go,” he says. “I'm not a dumb-ox. I know what that sign means.” His sister goes through and his mother follows her. “Both of you—come back through the leave-turnstile while you've still time.” “Hey, kid,” a man says behind him. “You coming or going, but you're blocking my way.” He steps aside, the man looks at the sign and puts a coin into the next turnstile and goes through. “Dan,” his mother says by the downtown stairs. “I'm fed up with your emotional notions and tantrums. We'll wait for you on the platform. If you're not there by the time the train comes, go straight home,” and they go downstairs. “Please,” he shouts, “I don't want you both to die or for me to be left alone.” He hears the downtown train coming into the station, pulls his cap down over his ears and runs outside. It's a nice day, sunny and mild, a faint smell of blossoms or orange juice in the air, but I have to get away from here fast as I can. He puts his arms out, flaps them, but can't get off the ground. The station's a stone house on an island in the middle of Broadway. Cars, buses and pedestrians go in all directions around it. They're making me dizzy, and he shuts his eyes and stands still till his head stops spinning. A canoe's parked at the northern end of the island. “Is this anybody's?” he asks the people waiting at the curb for the light to change. None of them turn to him, but one woman shakes her head. “Mister,” he says to the man in the newsstand outside the station, “you know if that canoe belongs to anybody?—I don't want to steal.” “You buy a paper, sonny, I give you change.” He goes to the newsstand on the other side of the subway entrance. A sign on its shutters says
Closed because of family
. Which end of the canoe is the rear? Both ends have a seat with a paddle underneath and look the same. Get into the end that's nearest and call that the rear. He gets in. The street turns to water. He looks up: it's still sunny, hasn't rained. He starts paddling home. But why go any farther? Nobody's there—my mother and sister are gone for all time. He starts crying. Stop being a baby; be a young grown-up man. You did what you could for them and now you can't do anything more. I could've gone in after them; you never would've got out alive. I could've stopped them by force; you might have your sister if she was alone, but your mother's stronger than you by more than double. He starts crying. Stop crying; get a move on, makes no difference where, before someone claims the canoe. He paddles toward Central Park West. My dentist practices right over…there. He's paddling so well and enjoying the canoe so much that he paddles into the park and through it to the East Side. There's the doctor's office I went to for my prostatitis, there's the one for my baker's cyst. He paddles uptown along Madison and at a Hundred-tenth paddles west to Broadway and then to Riverside Drive. I know someone who lives around here but I don't know who. Heck, I know someone almost everywhere in this city; I've been living here long enough. He paddles to Riverside Park and then up to Washington Heights. He stops in front of his aunt's apartment house on Fort Washington Avenue and yells up “Aunt Goldie, Aunt Goldie—it's me.” She doesn't come to the window as she always did when my parents and sister and I used to come up here when I was a boy. He paddles across the Hudson to New Jersey and back to Manhattan and down Broadway. He's hungry, rests the paddle across his thighs, takes a brown bag off the floor and opens it. There are two waxpaper-wrapped sandwiches and a bottle of soda and paper napkin inside. He unwraps a sandwich and bites into it—liverwurst, lettuce and mustard on fresh packaged white bread; my favorite kind. He snaps the bottle cap off with his thumb and drinks from the bottle as the canoe drifts along Broadway.

“Excuse me—I'm sorry—sleep all right?” He nods. “Well—how can I put this?—but it is getting late and I'd like to get started sometime today, so what would you say to getting up now? We can have that little breakfast and chat, I'll loan you a muffler and heavy men's shirt I have, and then you can be on your way back downtown.”

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