Kids of Appetite (23 page)

. . .

. . .

“My mother and Nzuzi looked like Tutsis. Everyone said so, even from the beginning. It was not a problem—they simply had Tutsi features. But now, in Kinshasa, it was a problem. The Rwandan conflict had outgrown Rwanda, and many native Congolese were hunting Tutsi, burning them alive. I am speaking of the general population, you understand, not army rebels. Kids in the street threw rocks at my mother as she passed, simply because she appeared to be a Tutsi. Nzuzi was only four at the time, but they were ruthless to him as well.

“The International Red Cross had a camp in Kinshasa for Tutsis, a place to keep them safe. It was decided we would move there until things resolved. The night before we were to join the camp, my mother baked a loaf of bread. The flour was not cheap, but she was intent on making something for her friends who had let us stay on their compound. She sang while she baked . . . ‘
Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see
. . . .' When the bread was done, she sent Nzuzi and me next door to deliver it. I remember how warm it was in my hands, and how much I wanted to take a bite. It was the last time I craved bread.

“Nzuzi and I delivered the bread intact. The woman we
called Mama accepted it with a smile and offered us a bottle of Coke. I had not had Coke since Brazzaville. Nzuzi had never had it. I remember he looked up at me to see what I would say. Suddenly the boss, I put on my in-charge face, very serious, and was about to say no, thank you, when I found myself nodding like crazy. Nzuzi and I split a bottle of Coke. It was my last soda.

“When the gunfire started, I did not jump. Nzuzi stood next to me, holding my hand, and I remember his little fingers flinched, but just barely. We had grown used to it. By the time we got back to our room—”

. . .

. . .

Baz stared into the tiny flame of the candle, but something had changed. His eyes were expressionless even as tears filled them and spilled.

“They were dead.”

. . .

At first I wondered how Baz had done it, thrown his voice like that. His lips hadn't even moved.

“Nsimba and Mother,” he said, only again, it wasn't him. I turned, saw Nzuzi Kabongo looking at me, his voice cracking now. “They were dead. They had been killed.”

I thought it likely that these words, the first I'd heard from Nzuzi's mouth, described the very incident that had made him stop speaking in the first place. And I found myself wishing for more time with him, more time to learn how to hear him say other things, things that weren't quite so hard and heavy.

There was more, I was sure—the Kabongos' story was a jar with no bottom, and so it could never be filled. But Baz was done. And so was Nzuzi. And I did not push.

“They were dead,” repeated one of the Kabongo brothers. I honestly could not tell their voices apart.

* * *

At some point, I fell into uneasy sleep. When I woke up, I had to pee like a Super Racehorse. Mad and Nzuzi ate bread and cheese with unbridled gusto; Coco was still fast asleep across Baz's lap, and Baz quietly hummed a calming, gorgeous song. I did not know the melody, but I would have bet the house it was a hymn.

Baz stopped humming, handed me a piece of cheese. “Rise and shine, little man. We need to review the plan.”

At three p.m. Margo Bonaparte would provide a distraction to clear the kitchen of employees and free us from the clutches of the grease trap for good. She would drop off Baz, Mad, and myself at the police station, then swing by Bergen Regional Medical Center to pick up Mad's grandmother, who, if Rachel had pulled it off, would be checked out under a false name and waiting in the front lobby. Margo would then take Nzuzi, Coco, and Jamma to St. Bart's, where Topher would be waiting.

“Father Raines said the God's Geese bus leaves precisely at four,” said Baz.

Precision in time is a lost art
. It was a hard detail to forget. There was no doubt what time that bus would start for Tampa.

Coco stirred in her sleep.

Baz lowered his voice, spoke now to Nzuzi. “Until further notice, Christopher is me. You understand? He is in charge until we get things sorted out.” Baz reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thick envelope with the words
RENAISSANCE CABS
written on it. I saw a couple of hundreds peeking out of the top. He handed it to his brother. “Make it last, Nzuzi. Also inside is a note for Christopher, explaining everything that has happened, including what to do with Mad's grandmother once you get to Tampa.” He looked at Mad, put a hand on top of hers. “Remember what Father Raines said about those programs for the elderly. Until you can be with her, she will be taken care of. Okay?”

Mad nodded, wiping away tears.

“It helps if you say it, Madeline.”

“Okay,” said Mad.

Baz turned to me now. “I owe you an apology.”

“You what?”

“We never completed your father's list.”

“Baz, God. It's not your fault. You guys did so much for me, I just—” A thought occurred to me, and I went with it without thinking. “Mbemba Bahizire Kabongo,” I said, feeling every bit the small boy, knowing I must have butchered the pronunciation, but seeing in Baz's eyes a certain amount of appreciation for trying. “Do you need help?”

Baz's smile grew into a dancing light. “Yes, I need help.”

I considered those molecules of chance, those billion tiny happenings, all with a notion to push my plot, construct my setting, build my character.

“Did you hurt anyone?”

His smile grew into a cluster of stars, and he answered with a single word. “No.”

“Okay then.”

For a while, we discussed tactics. If-thens. We knew as soon as we stepped in the front door of the station, they would arrest Baz, but after that it was pretty up in the air. Again we challenged Baz about turning himself in at all, but he
insisted it was necessary. Innocent or not, he was wanted, and he wasn't about to jeopardize everyone's futures by skipping town. And there was the added benefit that once the police thought they'd got their man, they would call off the search, making it easier for the others to escape undetected. “Anyway, it is only temporary,” he said. “I have faith in you and Mad.”

I only wished I could harness an ounce of that faith for myself.

But hey.

At some point it was decided our stories should end no earlier than eight p.m., enough time to give the God's Geese bus about a four-hour head start, maybe more. The police could always call other states, put out an APB or whatever. The hope was that our escaping by bus wouldn't occur to them, or if it did, that the bus would have a big enough head start to make finding it near impossible. We considered leaving the bus out of our story altogether, but Baz put his foot down, insisting we avoid anything that could be construed as aiding and abetting.

“You must tell the whole truth,” he said. “Which means stalling without lying.”

“And how do we do that?” I asked.

“Diversion tactics, Vic. They will need time. And we must give it to them.” He smiled down at my lap, where I held hands with Mad. “Like your parents, you now have a compass. Mad is east, you are west. You will have to talk, so talk. Tell them about all the girls you thought you loved, the ones from before.”

It sounded like a complete sentence, but I knew better.

The ones from before . . . Mad.

It was silent for a moment, while I inside-smiled my heart out. Baz continued stroking Coco's hair, and just then he
struck me as such a father. Not in an overly protective way, but in a sort of deep-seated softness. “The police will make assumptions,” he said, more to himself than to us. “Fine. Let them think what they want. But do not lie.”

Coco stirred in Baz's lap and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “What are you guys talking about?”

Baz smiled at her. “How Coconuts like you belong in Florida.”

. . .

“What's it like down there?” she asked, yawning. “Tell the truth.”

Baz shrugged. “I've never been. But I hear they're on the verge of a Renaissance.”

There were smiles (and inside-smiles), but no one laughed. I'm not sure it would have even been possible.

“Love you, Baz,” said Coco.

Eyes wet, Baz whispered, “Love you, Coco.”

From somewhere in the kitchen or dining area, a high-pitched ringing sounded, as if the love of Baz and Coco had set off literal alarms.

“Margo is here,” said Baz.

Apparently her idea of a distraction was to pull the fire alarm, which meant we'd have precious few minutes to get out before the place was swarming with firefighters.

“You will take care of her?” asked Baz. He was speaking to me, and I didn't have to ask what he meant.

I squeezed Mad's hand, nodded. We'd suddenly run out of time. All these minutes stacked up under us were about to topple, and we knew it.

Mad leaned over and wrapped Coco in a tight hug. “Have fun in Florida,” she said through tears. “I'll be down as soon as I can, okay?”

Now Coco was crying, silently, but so hard, her little body shook.

A hand was in front of me—Nzuzi's. I took it, shook it, and it was the best handshake of my young life.

“Good-bye, Nzuzi,” I said.

He snapped twice, shook his head. I looked at Baz, who said, “He wants you to call him Zuz.”

I am a Super Racehorse
.

I held back the tears, said, “Good-bye, Zuz.”

He released my hand, leaned across my lap, and hugged Mad. It didn't last long, but it was intense. She cried and whispered some things in his ear, things I would never know, never needed to know.

A single set of footsteps sounded just over our heads. There was no time to say the things I wanted to say. So instead I just looked at them. And I think maybe they were thinking the same thing, because no one said anything at all. We all just looked at one another.

It was quite momentous.

. . .

A swooshing sound: the kitchen mat being pulled back.

“And they called themselves the Kids of Appetite,” said Coco. “And they lived and they laughed and they saw that it was good.”

Zuz snapped once.

. . .

“And they saw that it was good,” whispered Baz.

. . .

“And they saw that it was good,” said Mad, her hand still in mine.

. . .

Everyone looked at me.

“You guys are the most beautiful run-on sentence I've ever heard,” I said.

“We,” said Mad.

“What?”

“
We
are the most beautiful run-on sentence you've ever heard.”

We
.

What a word.

The latch above our heads clicked; I looked up and whispered the words that simmered underneath, the words full of heart-sense, located somewhere between Somethingness and Nothingness. “And they saw that it was good.”

We shielded our eyes as the hatch door swung open, and out of the violent light came the beaming face of Margo Bonaparte.
“Bonjour, mes petits
gourmands!”

Outside the Hackensack Police Station

Madeline Falco & Bruno Victor Benucci III

December 19 // 8:35 p.m.

“Coming Up Roses” ends.

“Coming Up Roses” begins again.

The magic of Mad.

The wind hits my hair in a new way: short, sharp, staccato. I pull the blue hat out of my jacket pocket, slip it on. Mad sings into the nighttime ether while we sit on the curb in the parking lot across the street from the police station, a steady hum of traffic rolling by. Earlier this afternoon, Margo Bonaparte dropped us off in this exact spot, and I stood here with Mad and Baz, trying to build up the courage to walk inside.

Seems like weeks ago.

And Baz is still in there.

And like that—I understand why all the other Chapters gave more than a story. Baz had given me something. I couldn't define it, but it wasn't there before. It was something warm and real, something like what I had with Dad. They reminded me of each other, actually. And it was more than just their plans for the future, and their love of baseball. They understood the simmering underneath; their
simmering bubbled up to the surface, burst through in the brightest of red lights.

“Okay, my turn to make a declaration,” I say.

Mad smiles at me. “Do it.”

“I, Bruno Victor Benucci III, being of sound mind and body, do hereby announce throughout the four corners of Bergen County—”

“Do we have four corners, though?”

“However many corners there are, let it be known that I commit to visiting the Hackensack Police Station on a daily basis, where I will annoy the ever-loving bejeezus out of anyone and everyone until they release Baz Kabongo.”

. . .

. . .

Neither of us take our eyes off the police station. The declaration isn't enough, not by a long shot. Truth is, the minute it became clear they weren't immediately letting him go, I had a thought. It was an idea that would cost me something, sure, but not much when I compared it to what I'd gotten from Baz.

There were so few red lights left in my cluster. I'd already lost Dad; I couldn't afford to lose another.

“I'm serious,” I say. “I have a plan.”

“Good.”

Even on a freeze-your-literal-thumbs-off night like this, Mad's up-closeness is undeniably warm. It makes me sad for the future, not knowing when or how often I'll see her. But it makes me glad for the now, because there she is. Right there. Next to me. Just being her.

. . .

. . .

“You sure he's gonna show?” she asks. No one had been
able to reach Mom all day, so before leaving the station, I had an officer call Frank to come get us. I flash back to Klint and Kory crooning atop their perches on my mother's dining room furniture while Frank took a knee, and I have to wonder the same thing—will he even show up?

“He'll be here,” I say, hoping my voice sounds more confident than my brain.

“You think he could take me to the bus station?” asks Mad.

“Sure. As soon as we're done at the hospital.”

“Hospital?”

I give her my best
Are you kidding me?
look. “Mad. You're injured. Probably, they'll put you on bed rest for weeks.”

“Vic—”

“You don't wanna go to the hospital, fine. Don't come crying to me when your bones grow back at weird angles.”

“You know I have to go, right?”

I swallow hard, avoid her eyes. “Sergeant Mendes told us not to leave town. You could get in serious trouble.”

“I can't just abandon my grandmother down there. I have to go.”

I stare at my boots. Suddenly I hate my boots. Fucking stupid boots. “Fine. I'm coming too, then.”

“Vic.”

“I am. I'm coming.”

“What about your mom? And what about Baz? What about your plan? You leave town, who's gonna spread news through the four corners of Bergen County—”

“Or however many corners there are.”

“Right, or however many corners there are. You can't leave, Vic. Not yet.”

I want to kiss her really hard for that
not yet
. Like, really hard. But this is my problem, because that's basically how I
feel all the time around her. And a guy can't just go around kissing a girl really hard all the time.

I'm pretty sure about that anyway.

“So what then?” I say.

“I don't know.”

“We just never see each other again?”

“Of course we'll see each other. And in the meantime, we can look at the same sunset.”

I want to tell her she can shove her sunset; I want the sun itself.

But I don't.

“.
 . . and you're coming up roses everywhere you go
.”

While Mad sings, I rub the tiny scratch on my throat courtesy of the Self-Portrait Man. I can still feel the force of his arms around my shoulders, the heat of his breath on the back of my ear. He was strong; Zuz was stronger. I think about that photo of Coco's dad, Thomas Blythe, in the hospital. I may never know for sure what happened to him, but considering the ease with which Zuz dismantled the Self-Portrait Man, I can paint a fairly plausible picture. I hear Zuz's voice from the grease trap:
Nsimba and Mother,
he'd said.
They were dead. They had been killed
. And he was just a little kid at the time—I can't even imagine.

But I bet Zuz sees the vacant eyes of his mother and sister everywhere he goes.

“He was going to kill me,” I say.

Mad stops singing.

“Your uncle was going to kill me. What Zuz and your grandmother did—it was self-defense.”

Mad nods. “Self-defense.”

I wonder how many times over the course of my life I'll remind myself of this. A lot, probably. Because no matter how
true a justification, it always rings of falsehood.

Mad pulls out a cigarette, lights it, inhales. “By the way, good work with the whole brothers-having-similar-DNA thing back there. Cracked the case, pretty much.”

Frank's words from dinner last week cover me like a heavy quilt.
Genetically speaking, brothers are just as close in DNA to each other as they are to a parent.

“Thanks,” I say. “Guess all those crime shows finally paid off.”

Tires screech, and an Acura sedan pulls into the parking lot behind us.

Speak of the poodle.

The door opens and out hops a gray suit. I almost expect a fountain of green beans to spill out behind him. Frank closes the gap between us in a few quick strides, and pulls me into an awkward hug. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain he's crying. After a couple of manly pats on the back, he steps away and studies me.

“New hat?”

“Yep.”

“Nice,” he says, wagging his nose. I didn't even know people could wag their noses, but that's Frank for you, constantly redefining the boundaries of humanity.

“Victor, where have you been?”

“Long story.”

I wait for him to push, but he doesn't. Instead he says, “You smell awful.”

“I know.”

“I mean,
really
bad.”

“Frank, where's Mom?”

He smiles a little, turns to Mad, offers a hand. “I'm Frank, Vic's . . . Well, I'm a friend of the family.”

Mad shakes his hand, while I wonder why Frank avoided my question. He turns, opens the back door for us, but I don't move.

“Where is she?”

. . .

. . .

His shoulders drop. “She called a few days ago, let me know she's okay, then again last night. But she won't say where she is, just says she's out looking for you. Of course, she's not answering her cell.”

The street fades, replaced by sand, replaced by waves, replaced by matching tattoos.

The swinging sign of the Parlour, newly inked.

The horizon of the Palisades immortalized.

The smoking bricks of first kisses, and the desperate by wishing wells.

Mom saw me carry the urn from our house eight days ago—she must have. And she knew what was inside.

Drop me from the top of our rock
.

“I think I know where she is.”

* * *

According to the GPS in Frank's Super Racehorse of a luxury vehicle, we're about fifteen miles from Rockefeller Center. Mad fell asleep pretty much the minute her head hit the window. In the faint glow of the passing bridge lights, I flip through the first few pages of
The Outsiders
, and from the get-go, I understand the main character. He's a loner who wishes he looked more like Paul Newman.

I do not wish I looked more like Paul Newman. But I understand the sentiment.

I read a few more pages and find myself really getting into the flow of things. Flipping to the back, I read the final passage, which is, word for word, the same as the first.
The Hinton Vortex
: a simultaneous extreme opposite if ever there was one.

As we approach the city, I watch Mad sleep, wondering how our story ends. In a lot of ways, we aren't really from different worlds. We both know the pain of losing a parent (in her case, both parents). We both know what it's like to want more than what is offered us, to see an iron bell and feel the urge to ring it, to seek out the simmering underneath, to understand that none of us, for better or worse, are chained to our history.

Because history is history.

So I'll graduate high school. And, should Frank and Mom tie the knot, I'll show up for that, too. But after that, it's nothing but Super Racehorse 24-7. My future is my own. And considering Florida is sunny year-round, my future sounds momentously bright.

But first things first.

I take a deep breath, and reluctantly turn to face my only real idea, my grand plan, my last resort.

“So, Frank,” I say. “You're a lawyer. Say the cops arrest an innocent man for murder.”

There's a pause, then . . . “Okaaaaaay.”

And I dive in. Using only broad terms and no names, I present Baz's case in a logical fashion, including his prior arrest and suspected charges. Frank confirms what Mendes said, that if the police find a closer DNA match, then that, along with the recorded accounts of two eyewitnesses, should be more than enough to clear him. He also confirms the part about being patient. “Unfortunately,” he says, “this
stuff takes time, Vic. But if it would make you feel better, I could look into it, make sure this guy isn't in custody any longer than he has to be. I'd need his name, of course.”

“That would be great. Thanks, Frank.”

“Don't mention it.”

I search Frank's eyes, unsure what I'm looking for. There's a definite resemblance between Frank and his kids, Klint and Kory, and for some reason—I really couldn't say why—I wonder what their mother looked like.

An image: Mom and Dad and I sit around the dinner table. Dad sets down his fork, moves his hand under the table in Mom's direction. (Those hands never got lost.) And then come the words. The I-have-cancers and the we're-going-to-beat-its and the tears and the sad smiles and the, and the, and the . . . And even though I know it will get bad, at first, I don't
feel
that it's bad. Because I can't see it yet. Dad looks the same, acts the same, goes to work early, comes home late, chomps his teeth when he chews pasta, watches the news while reading the paper, checks on me every night . . .

Hey, V. You need anything?

No, Dad.

You good?

Yeah, Dad.

All right then. Good night.

Night, Dad.

He's still Dad. In the beginning. But the end of cancer is what makes cancer cancer. In the end, Dad looks like a ghost. Like some kindergartner's drawing of my dad. And then, he isn't even that anymore.

And that is cancer.

That is the end.

After he died, Mom went to a support group. She wanted
me to go too, but I don't know—I just couldn't. Joining a group meant acknowledging the possibility that I wasn't alone in that particular boat. And I wasn't ready for that yet. But Mom was. She welcomed company in her boat, her arms wide open. For a few hours every Thursday she was my old mom again; those were the best nights. And she always said the same thing: “The doughnuts were awful, Vic, but the company was great.”

I lean forward between the front seats, look up at the brown eyes in the rearview.

“Were the doughnuts really that bad, Frank?”

His eyes smile, fixed on the road. “Vic, they were fucking inedible.”

I look out the window as we approach the city and, not for the last time, wonder what Baz is looking at right now.

* * *

The last time I saw Baz, Mad and I stood with him on the curb across from the police station, the three of us building up the courage to enter.

“Why Hackensack?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I needed an explanation for those chaotic, disastrous red lights. They had flickered and scattered and dwindled, and I desperately wanted someone, just once, to make a little sense of them.

“Coco's story,” I said. “About seeing the TV ad—about Hackensack being on the verge of a Renaissance, and that's the reason you guys all moved here—I mean, it's bullshit, right?”

“There was an ad. And Coco was excited at the idea of moving here.”

“But it wasn't really
her
idea.”

Baz kept his eyes on the police station as he spoke. “Our first foster family in Syracuse had a child of their own. A son. Most people treated us like a commodity, or an exhibit in a museum. But he did not. I liked him immediately, and we grew quite close. Things happened, things I am not proud of, and Nzuzi and I had to move. At some point, I heard our foster brother had moved to Hackensack, so when we needed a place to go, we came here.”

“Did you ever find him?” I asked.

“I did,” said Baz. “You met him.”