Gabriel (3 page)

Where he was less lonely

He found his natural habitat

In the dense forest of buildings

Hovering over the stores of Manhattan

He wore baggy shorts and a bold t-shirt

If the music is too loud you’re too old

And sang along to his headset on Broadway

Every now and then he glanced back at me

A middle-aged father weaving

Through traffic behind him

Sometimes he paused for me

To catch up to buy him cologne

Or two pairs of sunglasses for ten bucks

He liked designer knockoffs

And rolled along incognito

Among the derelicts and crazies

He was a fifteen-year-old in the city

No more no less

But I imagined him as a colorful unnamed bird

Warbling his difference from the robins and sparrows

And scissoring past the vendors on every corner

I kept thinking of him as a wild fledgling

Who tilted precariously on one wing

And peered back at me from the sudden height

Before disappearing over the treetops

Take the lamp out of the mud

By the side of the road

Uncover the drum

The torch has sputtered

On its side in the rain

Light it again

Take it down to the corner

Where a group of boys grows

In the dark like a garden

He met them fooling around on Broadway

They thought it was funny

The way he’d say anything to anyone

The group invited him to hang out

It started with Kevin Tristan and Danny

Who nicknamed himself
Big Bird

They introduced him to D.

Meaty and large slow-moving slow-talking

Who once stayed with us for a month

J.M. came by sometimes a con man

Who looked like a model he said

He was born in Israel or the Dominican Republic

Then he met Joe the center

The straw-haired chosen one

Update Freddie Mercury from Queen

Tune up the rage

For the speed-metal band

Swaggering down the street

Take the lamp the drum

The torch lofted up and carried

Through the middle of town

Mr. Impulsive walked out of class

When he did not like what the teacher said

It was boring

Mr. Impulsive scurried out in a storm

Wearing shorts and a wife beater

Soon he was shivering

The neighbors complained to the landlord

Complained to me but Mr. Impulsive

Could not be bothered to close the gate

Mr. Impulsive left the house without his keys

I don’t know how many times

He camped out on the front stoop

One night he convinced a neighbor

To shimmy the lock with a credit card

He was never locked out again

Mr. Impulsive will not be sleeping at home

He’d rather stay out and crash

Wherever he finds himself at five a.m.

He could be oddly well-mannered

To the parents of his friends

He was usually welcome

From the notebook of Mr. Impulsive

It is better to sneak through a side door

Than to wait in line like a sucker

It is not necessary to get directions

It’s much better to head out right now

Time doesn’t matter

These were the antics of Mr. Impulsive

Who never knew where he was going

Until he got there

From the Book of Teenage Rage

It’s just a transitional stage
they said

He was depressed defiant lethargic rude

Restless and defensive he shuttled back and forth

Between the Upper West Side and Brooklyn

His parents were getting divorced

He told people that he was sick of school

That’s why he had gotten thrown out on purpose

He wanted to come home instead

When he dyed his hair red blond and green

It was as if he’d been running through

The spectrum of the rainbow

When he colored his hair blue

The sink was covered with blue dye

As if the sky was turned upside down in a bowl

Lights turned on all over the house

Air conditioners blasting two TVs blaring

Cabinet doors should not be closed

Upstairs in his room half-eaten plates of food

Open take-out containers uncapped drinks

Stained sheets clothes strewn on the floor

One toilet clogged the other plunged

Wet towels piled on the floor

He forgot to walk the dog

He was too exhausted

He could not be expected to answer

When the tutor rang the bell

When he read Cliffs Notes

For
Catcher in the Rye
he thought

Holden Caulfield was boring

A teenage boy finds himself

Lying facedown on top of a bus

Racing through a tunnel out of the city

He is plastered to the slippery roof

And breathing in the terrible fumes

Which go on for miles and miles

A boy clinging to the surface

His mouth full of dust

His arms and legs spread-eagled

A winged angel in the grime

Remembers the ocean wind

The spray in his face the fog lifting

The bus slows in heavy traffic

And the boy peers down to see

Himself in the front seat

Of a passing car a stick figure

Crayoned between his parents

And then the bus picks up speed

And flies into the faceless darkness

And the boy and his parents

Become a vanishing scrawl

Lying facedown on top of a bus

Racing through a tunnel out of the city

A teenage boy finds himself

Plastered to the slippery roof

And breathing in the exhaust

The darkness visible at last

And then suddenly a blackbird

Floating like charred paper

The bruised blue sky

Maybe I shouldn’t go on talking

About the self-involved young social worker

Who convinced everyone

She could handle Gabriel on her own

In Amherst where she inherited a house

From her estranged parents

It takes a village
I said

She could not manage him

But he settled into her basement anyway

It took two months for her

To decide to sell her house and move

Into a smaller place without him

She sent me an e-mail explaining

That it was just too taxing to live with him

But he was ready to stay by himself

And she could check on him weekly

For one hundred dollars per hour

They could shop together

Maybe I shouldn’t go on talking

About an undertrained overwhelmed

Unprofessional twenty-eight-year-old

But on his third night in a new place

He felt a terrible stabbing pain in his chest

And walked to the police station in his pajamas

The ambulance took him to the hospital

But the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong

With his heart it was a panic attack

Laurie and I came up with a plan

For a system of mentor/companions

And he never suffered another one again

I’d like to raise a glass to Cliff

Bearded social worker mud-man potter

Who shambled up for an interview

And worked with Gabriel for two years

In Amherst no one made more progress

Gabe condescended to him at first

Because he was really a hick poor guy

Only New Yorkers had everything figured out

And the rest of the world was playing catch-up

I’d like to raise a glass to Moises and Christa

The Brazilian psychologist the substitute teacher

And New Age mother who companioned him

I’d like to raise a glass to Tim

Founder of YES

Who called him
a bright spark of a person

And taught him the rights of the disabled

Let’s also save a glass for Melissa

Who found him three jobs through WEYA

Summer of Amherst Department of Public Works

Summer of Meals on Wheels

And Forbes Public Library in Northampton

He learned to drive and got his license

I thought he was too out of control to own

A car Janet bought him one anyway

He earned three college credits for a class

In marketing at Holyoke Community College

He believed he could sell anything at all

I’d like to raise a toast to anyone

Who can convince me there is a world out there

Where he is selling something to someone

From the storybook of bluster

And bad judgment

From the annals of loneliness

From the history of kids he met

On the street in special programs

It was dangerous to stay in Amherst

Lord of Misadventure

I’m scared of rounding him up

And turning him into a story

God of Scribbles and Erasures

I hope he shines through

Like a Giacometti portrait

I keep scraping the canvas

And painting him over again

But he keeps slipping away

He was like a spider

Preyed on by other spiders

And older insects

Sweet venom

His arrivals were swift

And his departures sudden

I couldn’t understand how

He lifted the shower door

Right off its hinges

When Gabriel cooked

The flames rose too high

And the fire alarm sounded

When the fire alarm sounded

He tore it off the wall

And left the wires dangling

From the Book of Regrets

Maybe we should have gone to Tokyo

We almost visited once

At the time of the Pokémon craze

A bunch of kids in Japan suffered

Epileptic seizures like his

Maybe we should have tried Edinburgh

Or Dublin to see if we felt at home

He decided he was Scots-Irish

We never heard a nightingale

Or played cricket on the beach

Or sang karaoke together

Maybe we should have kept him home

From boarding school Janet and I

Never quit arguing about it

I should have been calmer

I should have been more patient

At least I never whacked him

Though I wanted to a couple of times

The only punishment that ever worked

Was leaving the room

Maybe we were too hard on him

Maybe we were too soft

The therapist recommended

I kick him out on the street

I never had the stomach for it

Maybe I should have forced him

Into a wilderness program but how

He would have hated it hated me

Though maybe he’d be alive

It was a mistake

To put her daughter in an orphanage

During the Moscow famine

Tsvetaeva realized too late

It was an error

That could never be rectified

And cost her a daughter

Who starved to death she said

God punished me

It was a mistake

To marry off his darling second

Daughter at ten-and-a-half

Tagore wrote
The Child
for Rani

On her deathbed at thirteen

It could not assuage his guilt

He returned to the Grief House

For his youngest son his eldest daughter

Tears could not assuage his guilt

When Ungaretti lost his nine-year-old boy

He understood that death is death

In an extremely brutal way

It was the most terrible event of my life

I know what death means

I knew it even before

But when the best part of me was ripped away

I experienced death in myself

From that moment on

It would strike me as shameless

To talk about it

That pain will never stop tormenting me

Adolescents in the city

Of noise young men

In the land of confusion

Gabriel called him
Broseph

Joe called him
Hebro

Laurie called it a
bromance

Broseph liked rock and roll old-style

Hebro liked emo-punk

Stomp to the music

They smoked weed and watched ballgames

Got into everything with everyone

Hustled girls everywhere

They got the call for the rave

Subwayed it out to Williamsburg

Banged around clubs

Gabriel came home with a skinny Russian

Model who sat there mutely

And refused to eat

She skipped out on him once

When he was down with a cold

No no man you’ve got it all wrong

Joe explained in the restaurant

We don’t need relationships

What we need are relations

Often they argued about one thing or another

It was all very Shakespearean Joe said

Gabe was my dude my equal

Me and Gabe were young men together

Whenever I did my endeavors

Gabe was with me

We took him to Arlington Park racetrack

But they wouldn’t let him in the clubhouse

Because he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans

He disappeared

And in ten minutes he came back wearing

A button-down a tie and a blue blazer

He stopped by with a dozen incense candles

You don’t even like incense
Laurie said

It didn’t matter he had gotten them for free

He bought ten cheeseburgers for ten bucks

On the dollar menu at McDonald’s

And threw six of them away

He brought a six-pack of beer

Into the common room of the nursing home

To watch a football game with my mother