Kids of Appetite (24 page)

“Who?”

“Christopher.”

. . .

“Topher,” I said in a breath. I remembered the fierceness in their hug, and the shine in Topher's eyes when he spoke of the kids, and the speed with which he'd agreed to put his life on hold indefinitely to help the Kabongo brothers.

The red lights, it seemed, weren't always as chaotic as they appeared.

. . .

“This will definitely go in the book,” said Baz, his eyes focused on the police station.

Mad pulled the edges of her knit cap down. “You think that thing's going to have a happy ending?”

“Happy in some ways,” said Baz.

In the ensuing silence, Mad and I were left to consider the ways in which his book might have a tragic ending. There were, unfortunately, many possibilities.

“‘Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am
with you to deliver you,' says the Lord.'”
Baz turned to face Mad and me. “I know what to call it now.”

“You know what to call what?” asked Mad.

“The book. I have a title. It is quite long, which Dr. James L. Conroy advises against in his book. But I'm beginning to think Dr. James L. Conroy is full of shit.”

“So, what is it?” I asked. “What's the title?”

Baz smiled, and his eyes clouded, and for once I knew exactly where he went: a place where he and his father watched movies in peace; where he rocked his baby sister to old hymns of great faithfulness and merciful mornings; where he and Zuz held quiet conversations well into the night; where he and his mother never had to write Chapters to begin with. In this land the only explosions were those of laughter, the only breaking was of bread, and the only shootings were of stars across the clear Brazzaville sky.

“
They Lived and They Laughed and They Saw That It Was Good
,” said Baz.

He turned and walked across the street.

Manhattan is a great place to feel small. And I don't necessarily mean metaphorically, though considering the Ralph Laurens and Louboutins and Kate Spades, I suppose it works on that level too. I just mean, there are
so
many people, and
so
many cars, and
so
many structures, and structures
upon
structures, a vast expanse of hugeness the scope of which cannot be put into words except to say Manhattan is like a vertical ocean, and the sidewalk is the beach, and standing there, looking up instead of out, you think,
My God, where does it end?

It is the infinite horizon.

Vic and I stand at the foot of Rockefeller Center. Frank found a spot to let us out, but apparently he can't park here. He rolls down the passenger-side window, hands Vic a cell phone, and a thin roll of cash. “Miss your cell?”

“Not really,” says Vic, slipping the phone into his pocket. He thumbs through the money. “What's this for?”

“You're about to go to an observation deck atop a famous building in New York City during Christmas. This is called a perfect storm. And perfect storms get pricey.”

Vic slips on his backpack, leans into the open passenger window. “You're not coming?”

“Parking's a nightmare. Listen, once you get up there, call me, okay? If you find her, I wanna know
immediately
. I'll just drive around till I hear from you.”

Even with the knit cap, the cold is beginning to permeate my entire head. I pull out my pack of cigarettes and light up while Frank and Vic stare at each other, trying to figure out what to say next. It would almost be sweet if it weren't so painfully awkward.

Drag.

Blow.

Calm.

Vic clears his throat. “Umm, well, th—”

A car horn honks directly behind us. Frank honks back, then smiles at Vic. “You're welcome. Now go get our girl.” He rolls up the window, pulls out into traffic, and disappears in the undertow.

Drag.

Blow.

Calm.

“He's nice,” I say.

Vic turns from the street, faces me. “
You're
nice.”

I laugh a little burst of smoke as he takes a step closer.

“I wish you wouldn't smoke,” he says.

“You can't tell me what to do.”

And now Vic is kissing me as waves of people crash all around, and I drop my cigarette, and he slips a hand up under my cap, his palm cold against the shaved side of my head. His other hand is on my back, and I can tell he's nervous, every move carefully calculated, but I don't mind—I love his math. His lips are cold and firm, and I keep my eyes open the entire time, knowing he can't close his, and we find sweetness in our mutual functionality. It's a wide-eyed, punked-up, open-mouthed, cold teeth, eager-tongued, asymmetrical feast.

The kiss ends as kisses do—it's done with us, even if we aren't done with it.

“Could you feel it?” asks Vic, a slightly smoky scent still hovering in the inches between us.

“What?”

“My smile. I wanted you to feel it.”

I stand on my tiptoes and kiss his forehead, then his nose, then his lips, then his chin. “I felt it.”

God, I love the sweet, sticky brine of Manhattan.

* * *

It's hard not to think in terms of necessity. If the KOA needed bread, we passed on ice cream. We rationed our Babushka's allotment, knowing it would only last so long. We made a habit of thinking in terms of usage over time and, in the process, discovered that frugality was not unlike a muscle: it strengthens with use.

So when Vic forked over sixty dollars for us to take an
elevator to the top of a motherfucking
building
, I snorted out loud. The employee behind the desk gave me a weird look, like I was the one with topsy-turvy perspective.

“Sorry,” I say. “I'm sure your elevator ride is worth every penny.”

We follow a line of people—rampant tourists, if the snacks and T-shirts and assorted knickknacks from the souvenir shop are any indication—to a set of elevators and climb aboard. Vic and I jostle into the back corner of the compartment as more people come out of nowhere. One little kid won't stop staring at Vic, and just when I'm about to say something, the doors close, and a number of things happen: first, the lights dim, which incites a chorus of screams; music begins as the elevator ascends, and I notice the ceiling is made of glass, so we can see the elevator shaft as we rise; the length of the channel is lined with bright-blue lights, so the whole thing actually
does
feel like a ride; a movie projects against the glass ceiling, some sort of Achievements of Human History video with cameos from Martin Luther King Jr., Neil Armstrong, and Richard Nixon (so okay, maybe not
achievements
so much as
milestones
), and it's all very bright and flashy and techno, until we reach the top, and the last frame flashes on Barack Obama's beaming face, and a robotic female voice says (I shit you not),
“Welcome to Top of the Rock,”
as if arriving at the top of this building is just one of the many Important Historical Things I might witness today, ranked slightly under Barack Obama's face.

Vic and I are the last ones off the elevator.

“Welcome,” says Vic, a dreamy lilt in his voice, “to Top of the Rock.”

I throw one arm out in wide-sweeping grandeur. “Where
all
your dreams come true.”

We laugh, look around for where to go next. I'd expected the elevator to take us straight to the rooftop, but it only went so far as the highest floor of the building. There's another gift shop, and across the room, people in hats and coats are going up an escalator.

“There,” I say, grabbing Vic's hand and starting in that direction.

“What's wrong with your face?”

Even though the voice is nearby, it seems to come out of nowhere, as if we'd had a third person with us this whole time who only now decided to speak up.

The kid is only a few feet away, holding his mother's hand in front of the gift shop window. It's the same kid from the elevator, the one with the staring problem. He's probably ten or eleven—old enough to know better. The mother says nothing, but I can tell she heard. Her face is beet red, even as she pretends to be window shopping. I'm about to tell them both off when Vic walks right up to the kid, bends down so he's eye to eye with him, and says, “Nothing.”

The mother turns around now, if for no other reason than because a complete stranger is kneeling down, talking to her son. But she doesn't say anything. I think even she can sense the scary realness of what's happening.

The kid studies Vic's face from different angles, completely undeterred by their sudden proximity.

“Really?” he asks.

Vic points to the kid's head. “What color is your hair?”

“Brown.”

“And your eyes?”

The kid smiles a kid-smile. “They're brown too.”

For some reason, I start crying. I honestly don't know why.

Vic asks, “Do you like music?”

The kid nods.

“What kind?”

“The Ramones.”

Vic looks at the mom, who shrugs, and I laugh through tears because the kid's answer reminds me so much of Coco.

“I like jazz,” says Vic. “And a little opera.”

The kid's mom smiles down at her son, and I think maybe she's smiling at Vic too.

“So you were born with brown hair and brown eyes,” says Vic. “Some people have blue eyes and red hair, some have green eyes and no hair.”

A small crowd of shoppers who'd been within earshot of the conversation now gathers around Vic and this kid. “Different skin colors, eye colors,” says Vic, “different families and histories and ways to love. It's better that way. We get Joey Ramone
and
Miles Davis.” The crowd chuckles quietly. “So you were born like that”—he points to the kid's face—“and I was born like this.” He points to his own.

The kid nods and smiles up at his mom, and I think back to the first words I ever heard Vic say, on a snowy night by the USS
Ling
.

I hope you were right,
he whispered into the jar.
I hope there's beauty in my asymmetry.

I never got to meet Vic's dad, but I'm thinking he was a pretty smart guy.

* * *

At the bottom of the escalator, people zip up coats, and slip on hats and gloves as they ascend. Vic kneels over his backpack, pulls out his photos and the urn.

“Ready?” he asks.

But there's a subtext in his tone, in the way he's standing—
upright, feet together, the urn resting waist-high in both hands like he's about to walk it down the aisle and devote himself to it in sickness and in health.

“You go,” I say, picking up his backpack and slinging it onto one shoulder. “I'll wait here.”

“You sure?”

I motion over to the gift shop. “Yeah, I preordered one of those Obama Fatheads—gotta see if it's ready for pickup.” Vic looks at me, and I know he's smiling. I smile back, hold up my index finger. “Might get a patriotic foam finger while I'm at it.”

We sort of fall into the hug when it comes, and Vic speaks into my shoulder. “I understand why you have to go to Florida. I do. Just promise me, we'll figure something out, okay?”

“I promise.”

“I'm serious, Mad. I want more than the . . . mother
frakking
sunset. I want a plaque on a park bench.”

Under normal circumstances, the length of this hug would be way awkward. But these are not normal circumstances, and instead of pulling away, I pull closer. A big part of me is sad I'll have to leave Vic, but it's that very same part that is so happy to have found him. Vic's theory of simultaneous extreme opposites is starting to remind me of a certain goldfish I know: it just will not quit.

“I want a plaque too,” I say. “And hey—it's not like I'm leaving this second.”

“I know,” he said, his words warm on my neck. “I may be stuck.”

I smile, and we just stand there hugging, and it is entirely glorious. People are side-eyeing us, but fuck 'em. This isn't about them, and it's not even about me, not really—it's about Vic not wanting to go up those stairs. And I get it. If
I'd had a list of places Mom or Dad wanted to be scattered, places that reminded me of the way things used to be, of a love I was born into but somehow lost along the way, I'd prolong things too. In a way, the list resurrected Vic's father—as long as he had it, he had a piece of his dad. But its completion means acknowledging the end.

“So let's do this,” I say, pulling out of the hug, looking him straight in the eye. “I'll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I still don't know what the fuck I'm going to do with my life, but I know it'll turn out okay. Because Jamma and Baz and Zuz and Coco will always be my family, but they are my Alt. My Neu is gloriously asymmetrical.

“Vic.”

“Yes?”

“The biggest thing is letting go.”

The prospect of standing on an observation deck is quite exciting, a sort of mecca for a quiet observer such as myself.

An observation deck is a very literal place.

. . . up, up, up . . .

As the escalator rises, the temperature drops. Nearing the top, I shift the urn around and flip up my jacket collar, but it does very little to ward off the cold. The biting wind stings my eyes, but no matter how much I want to shield them, I can't.

Because: this view.

The entire deck is surrounded by tall glass partitions, each one separated by four or five inches. I walk right up to the edge. On the other side, New York City is spread out in all its bustling nighttime glory. Buildings on buildings on buildings, and lights everywhere. Parks and trees, cars and streets, people, people, people, buzzing about.

Thousands of tiny red lights, some dwindling, some just being born: the circle of light-life.

“Victor?”

Mom's voice is like recognizing a single grain of sand on the beach. I turn and see her standing next to a bench near the escalator. And now she's right in front of me, and now she's pulling me into a hug, and now she's crying. In my hands, the urn feels heavier. Like Dad gained weight.

Mom pulls away a little. “Where have you been, Vic?”

“You first.”

For a minute neither of us speak. Answers are coming, but something about being up here with the whole world spread out before us messes with trivial matters like conversational timelines.

“This is where he brought me,” she says, turning back to the view. “Your father proposed right here. Said he had little money and no ring, but plenty of plans. He always had plans.”

I think about Dad's plans, how people might see the things he achieved—or
didn't
achieve—and assume he failed to see those plans through. But I know better. Because I was one of his plans. And so was Mom. And here we are, together, on top of the world.

Together.

What a word.

“We looked into bringing you up here once,” says Mom.
“Show you the place it all started. But it got so expensive. Bruno planned to save it for a special occasion.”

Considering the urn in my hands, the momentous nature of what I'd come up here to do, and the company I was currently keeping, I'd say Dad executed this plan to a T.

I set his urn between my feet, pull the photographs from my pocket, and stare at the first one—at Mom and Dad, my young parents in love, right here where we're standing, with New York City behind them—and think about everything that's happened between then and now.

Things are different: the Twin Towers are gone.

Things are the same: the city is alive.

Things are different: I am here.

Things are the same: Mom and Dad are here.

Things are different: Dad's in a jar.

Things are the same: we are, each of us, hopeless hopers.

All things revolve around simultaneous extreme opposites.

The second photo offers the ultimate origin story. Mom and Dad with their fresh tattoos: one east, one west. I look up at Mom, then down at Dad. Guess the tattoos worked. Even now he's compassing us in the right direction.

“Where did you get that?” Mom takes the photo in one hand, covers her mouth with the other.

I don't answer. She knows where it came from. The third photo I keep down by my side. That one's just for me. Maybe one day it will be my origin story. Maybe I'll have a kid with Mad, and they'll find that photo of their mom with no one else in it, and they'll see the same kind of east-to-west type love I see in my young parents.

Mom wipes her eyes, hands the photo back to me, and looks out at the view. “After you left, I was a wreck. Called the police, of course. It took me a while, but eventually, I realized something.”

“What?”

“I know you. I knew you'd open the urn, find the list. I just knew. So I went to the Parlour, but by the time I got there, you'd already come and gone. I waited on our bench off the Palisades Parkway for a while, but there was no telling if you'd already been there or not. That's when I realized the only sure chance I had of catching you was skipping ahead. I got here four days ago. Found a cheap hotel nearby. Well. Cheap by city standards.”

“You've been coming up here every day?”

Mom nods. “I pack lunch and dinner. Then I sit right there on that bench and wait until they kick me out at midnight.”

I try not to think of how much money Mom has wasted.

A lot. It's a lot.

“You're everything, Vic. If you don't want me to marry Frank, I won't.”

Her words take shape, float up into the ether, and I try to think with my heart. “I want you to be happy.” It only gets me halfway there. “I just don't want to forget about Dad.”

. . .

“We won't,” she says. “I promise.”

I stick the photos back into my pocket, pull out my cell phone.

“Expecting a call?” asks Mom.

“I was supposed to call Frank, let him know you're okay. But I don't have his number.”

“Ah. Well, there's no reception up here anyway.”

She's right. My phone has zero bars. Somewhere in my Land of Nothingness, I hear pieces of a conversation from earlier today.

“Leave a voice mail?”

“Tried. Her in-box is full.”

At the time, this exchange between Sergeant Mendes and
Detective Ronald hit me heavy and hard. Not that her voice mail was full, but that the call went to voice mail in the first place.

“My first day up here,” says Mom, “I realized how isolated I was. If they found you, I'd have no way of knowing. So every night, as soon as I got off the elevator and had cell service, I called Sergeant Mendes to see if there were any updates.”

Every night for the last four nights she checks in by phone. Always just after midnight.

I stick my phone back into my pocket. “What about Frank?”

“What about him?” asks Mom. Her tone suggests she's as surprised as I am by the question.

. . .

“He's worried sick, Mom.”

“I called him,” she says. “Twice. Let him know I was okay. But all I could think was, he was the reason you left.”

I pull back the edge of my KOA wristband, stare at my tiny paths going nowhere. The saddest of talismans, a different kind of tattoo. The soft fabric falls back in place, and I know—I'm done with that now. The tiny paths will fade, and there will be no more to come. Mad did more than sew together some metaphorical patch. It wasn't that she fixed me so much as she helped me fix myself.

She led me to Singapore.

“Mom, I think you should give Frank another shot.”

She smiles sideways; I love it when she smiles sideways. “You think?”

“On one condition.”

“What's that?”

“He has to read the collected works of Dostoyevsky before picking up another Churchill biography.”

She laughs like a little bird, and I wonder if maybe I was part of a miraculous gaggle all along. “The man loves his Winston Churchill, doesn't he?”

“Yeah, what is that?”

Mom slips her hand in mine, nudges the urn with her toe. “Shall we?”

I kneel down, open the lid, and stick my hand inside. It's not nearly as full as it was a week ago, but I guess that's the point. I stand up with a fistful of ashes, the gap between the glass partitions just wide enough to wiggle my hand through.

Mom puts one hand on my shoulder.

I have Dad in my hand.

It is very complicated. But not bad. This is our family, the place our red lights have clustered and lingered.

“You okay?” asks Mom.

I nod, still holding the ashes safely in my closed fist. “I usually say something. Before I scatter him.”

We stare into the ether of the New York City winter.

. . .

. . .

Mom says, “Memories are as infinite as the horizon.”

It's strange and wonderful knowing we've been in the same places, learned the same lines, seen the same sights. All because of Dad's blueprint. Mom and Dad had gathered their love like kindling, burned it together. And now that love is being scattered all over the place.

My fist is my focus, the KOA wristband blurred in front, the city skyline blurred behind it.

“Till we're old-new,” I say.

Mom cries through her smile. “Till we're old-new.”

Now the city comes into focus, a view better than any Matisse, better even than “The Flower Duet.” The view isn't
art at all. It's not a product of the rhythm or asymmetry. It's the opposite of the
Ling
. I can't say where this view came from or how it got here. It just is. And I am in it. And I don't want to be anywhere else. And I don't want to be anyone other than Victor Benucci, son of Bruno and Doris Benucci, sire and dam of the century, the superest of all racehorses. And maybe for the first time ever, I stop seeing the colors that are here, and focus on the ones that aren't.

And in the night sky, the soaring sopranos fly out over the city, guarding it with song, catching the souls of those rare, lovely heart-thinkers.

Catching their ashes.

. . .

. . .

I let go of Dad.