Man Gone Down (34 page)

“No pets, right?”

“We have a fish.”

“Fish—hah. I think that'll be okay.”

He unlocks the door and swings it open for me. The entire apartment is almost immediately discernible from the doorway. You step into a large living area. To the right is a galley kitchen, narrower than the rest of the space to allow for the stairs and landing. To the left on opposite ends of the north wall are two doorways that lead to bedrooms.

“I thought this was a three-bedroom.”

“It's two plus a den.” He waves in the direction of the wall. “There's another room off one of the bedrooms. It's perfect for a small kid.” He waits for my reaction. I don't have one. “It's nice and quiet in the back. You can't see it now, but this front section gets a lot of morning light.” He steps into the middle of the room, does a half turn, taps the floor with his shoe. It's the old, plank subfloor, wood-filled and urethaned to look finished. He points to a door just inside the doorway of the east bedroom. “Check out the bathroom.”

I walk to the back. The lumps of spackle and paint resemble cave wall sediments. The door jambs are twisted, and the hollow-core doors look flimsy under the deteriorating molding. Heavy applications of paint seem to be keeping it all together, like glue in places, like wood in others.

The bathroom has been refitted with a cheap pressboard vanity. One head butt from X would do it in. The floor is sheet linoleum. The new fixtures are ready to leak.

“Not bad. New, clean, right?”

I look back at him. The floor slopes down to the center of the room, making him a full two inches shorter.

“The school here, PS—I don't remember—it's supposed to be pretty good. It's just around the corner.” He starts walking to the kitchen and stops. “Your kids go to public school?”

“No.”

“Oh, shit. I don't have kids, but I have friends. That's a big nut.” He pretends to consider the cost for a moment. “Come see the kitchen.”

Outside on the avenue he changes, becomes more sedate but more direct at the same time. “Listen,” he begins, looking at the traffic, “we'll need your information.”

“I thought you had it.”

“Well, we ran your credit, and your—is it your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, your wife's credit. They're
okay.
Called your old landlady—that's cool. We need your financials. Did you bring a W-2 or something with you?”

“I didn't make a lot last year.”

“That's okay, okay. How are you doing for this year, you working?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get a pay stub, a letter to prove it? The owner is a good guy, much easier than most. I've worked with him for a while now and I've never given him a bad tenant, so he trusts me. As long as they check out with me, he's cool, you know?” He looks at me now for emphasis. “I don't discriminate, with anyone. I think that's stupid. As long as you can pay the rent—you know, and don't wreck the place. But like I said, you check out fine.” He starts nodding as though he's agreeing for me. “So the paperwork. And then we'll need a bank check—first, last, and three months security.” He keeps looking at me but mumbles the last of it. When I don't respond, he shuffles away from me, backward toward the building. He leans forward.

“Is that a problem?”

“How much is this?”

“Twenty-five. Twenty-five. So that's . . .”

“You want $12,500 up front?”

“Yeah, that's a big nut, huh?”

I don't answer.

“Yeah, that's big.” He steps closer to me and looks down at my feet. “Listen, it's not a great market for landlords.” He reshoulders his bag. “This unit has been sitting empty for a while now. I tell him, “Let's just get it rented—get some money coming in.” He turns away
from me and spits, but it's dry. “Personally, professionally, I think it's overpriced.”

“Then why doesn't he lower it?”

“That's a good one—you're funny.” He inhales. “But your mindset is good. I think if you made him a reasonable offer, he would take it.” He turns back to the building. “It's a really nice space, but like I said, it's a bit on the high side.”

“How much is a bit?”

“Like I said, make an offer. If you're serious, give me a call or come by—I'll get you in. Just don't wait too long—I mean, I'm always showing it, and it is a good deal.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Okay, pal,” he says, suddenly without interest, “you see.”

I let him get far enough away, and then I follow. I walk west to Marta's on the north side of the avenue, the side I haven't walked since C was born—past the antique shops, the jail. I cross the multilaned Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard, where there never seems to be a walk signal, the dangerous parking garage. And finally reach safety in front of the Middle Eastern shops, the green grocer, and the market.

Marta's doorbells never worked. When people came to visit, they had to call from the street and we'd throw the gate keys down to them. Marta's not home, anyway; I can tell because the hallway light is on. She did this when she left, day or night. She never goes far—to the corner market or to the hardware store. I lean against the neighbor's wall, the Mexican restaurant, just starting to receive happy-hour customers, and take my list out for editing. The creases already have their own subcreases. The ink is starting to blur. I decide not to change the rent numbers. I refold it and put it away. This would be about the time we'd be returning home from a playground, the kids bubbling with the prospects of television, or lobbying for their dinner choices. Sometimes I would wait for them, just like this, looking west and east, wondering from which direction they'd be coming, trying to fight off the
tiny pangs of dread, and then seeing C first usually, X trying to keep up, and then Claire with the girl, either in the stroller or toddling alongside it. Sometimes she'd be pushing it, hidden from my sight, and that tiny dread would flare into near panic until I'd see Claire's mouth move, encouraging her to walk a little faster.

I look east toward the river. They aren't there. The shipyard is full of crates—trailers—full of trade. I can't believe that in all my time on this block I only noticed the idle cranes and the sunset. I wonder what it's like to be a longshoreman, trudging up the slight incline from the yard with my hook over my shoulder. I've never seen anyone do that. I don't know why I remember this block, this view specifically, only as some kind of historical collective—thickly layered memories that, in the end, become one: that soft sunlight on the metal, on the water sweeping up toward me along the tarmac as imperceptibly as the sun drifts down in the sky. Memory, imagination, and crisis—surely a most unholy trio.

I wonder what others would do. Some would move away, but where is there to go? New York's no damn good. It seems that those born here become, ironically enough, provincial. Boston is too thick with history, yes, but now it's too small. This city has dwarfed it. Besides, Claire believes she loves it here; having grown up in the country, she never wants to go back to the homogeny, the boundless whiteness, in which she believes our children could not survive. But to escape that we've thrown them into another mess, the social experiment redux—an ahistorical one at that. Now, however, there is at least one brown kid per class instead of per grade. It's another disaster. Brown kids as cultural experiences for the white ones. The teachers, the administrators, seem to believe that they are all on equal ground, but if they'd stop and think for just a moment, they'd realize that there is no shortage in experiencing the glory of white people in this country—this world. I see him sometimes—C—when I've been early to pick him up, sitting alone, concentrating on a painting. And although I know it's a projection of my own consciousness, I cannot think anything other than that behind those beautiful
and stoic copper eyes he is wracked by loneliness and pain.
Stand up straight,
I say.
Enunciate,
I say.
Dignity,
I say—the preparation for life is more daunting than the life itself. I'm too hard on my boy. I wish I could take it all back, but I fear already that my boy is too damaged. I've tried to cram what I've learned into his little body before he's experienced it himself. What else is a father to do? They tried to make me ready, but I was never ready. What am I supposed to do? Perhaps a brown father need only be a safe place for his brown boy, where he can come to be afraid, to fall apart and cry.

Marta appears out of the east, dragging a shopping cart behind her. She's never looked well. She's old and stooped, limping, and scowling perhaps from pain. She wears a black ski hat, an old navy blue windbreaker, and gray cotton sweatpants. She crosses Clinton Street with the light, but a car from Atlantic tries to turn past her. It doesn't make it and stops in the crosswalk, partially blocking her path. She looks at the car as though it's suddenly materialized in front of her. She freezes, not knowing whether to scold the driver or herself. Another car, trying to turn, honks at both of them. I go get her.

She doesn't seem to recognize me at first, but when we reach the sidewalk, the safety frees her to look at me closely. She gives me a cracked-lip, close-mouth smile.

“Oh, Sonny, how are you?”

“I'm well, and you?”

She finds her scowl again. “Oh, Sonny, don't ask.”

“What's wrong?”

“You were so good. How are the babies?”

“They're great.”

“Beautiful babies.”

“Thank you.” It strikes me—knowing someone for the better part of a decade and never having a conversation with them—pleasantries in the hallway. Silent car rides to her daughter's grave.

“Where you move to?” I point south. She points a finger at my face
and then waves it. “You should have never left. These people now—animals. Filthy animals. When you and your wife move here, you were young. I think they like you—
psst.
They complain—every little thing. I try to say, this is like family. They no want that.”

“What do they want?”

“They want to make trouble. They want to complain.” She starts walking to her door. I follow. She stops, fumbles with her large ring of keys, goes to unlock the gate, and stops again. “You want tea or something?”

“Thank you, Marta, no. I have to get going.”

She looks to the river. Her face relaxes from anger to sorrow. She sneaks a look up at me.

“I got your message.”

“Great.”

“Listen, okay. I'm just going to tell you this.”

I can't look at her. I turn out to the street and pretend to watch the heavy traffic. She grunts and stutters behind me, then gives up. I hear her put the key in the lock. She opens the gate. She lets out a high, hurt dog whine.

“Don't be mad at me. I don't like it when you get mad at me.”

I can't turn, but I do my best to answer calmly. It comes out curtly. “I'm not mad at you.”

“You just like when you moved out. I know you mad. Please don't be mad. You like my own son. You better son than my own son.”

I turn to her. She paws her keys and shifts painfully from side to side. She opens her mouth to speak but only manages a wheeze. I raise my hand to stop her, but she tries again.

“I'm in trouble, Sonny. He got me in trouble again.”

“Manny?”

“Si.”

I wave for her to continue.

“He was doing okay. He asks me for some money to go to school. He was doing okay, so I give him a little. He gets his grades and he shows me them. I don't ask, but he shows me them to prove he's doing
good. He says he's going to summer school. I ask him if he needs help, but he tells me he has a job. He thinks he'll be okay. Okay, so it's his birthday. He's doing so good. He comes to me and asks—he needs credit card for books and things. He says he'll pay the bill but he needs me to cosign because he don't make enough money. I don't feel right. But he says he really needs it, so I say yes.”

She lowers her head and shakes it slowly. “First the phone calls and the letters. And they keep calling me. They say they gonna put a lee, li—”

“Lien.”

“A lien on this building if I don't pay. They say they ruin my credit. They say I can lose my house. Sonny, he charge five thousand dollars. They say I have to pay it all. He never make one payment. I don't have that kind of money.”

I wave for her to stop. She won't.

“I promise I pay you back. Every bit. It's a lot of money, I know, but I pay it—five dollars a month if I have to. I pay it all.”

“It's okay.”

She peeks up at me again. “You not gonna sue me—no?”

“No, Marta. I'm not going to sue you.”

“I know it's hard times for you, too.”

“I'll be okay.”

She smiles again, this time with her mouth open. She has lipstick on her teeth.

“You should never have left.”

I shrug my shoulders and start to go.

“I'll call you . . . soon.”

I wave back to her without turning.

I change my guitar's strings and play, but the new ones sound too bright, so I put the old ones back on. I play scales, moving up and down the neck. I've never been very good at them. My fingers aren't precise. I blame this partly on genetics; there's always seemed to be an interruption between hands and fingers, as though the nerve bundles were suddenly terminated at the calluses and then the builder used cheaper, less conductive wire. My hands are good for hammering, or crushing beer cans. I've always tried to be careful with my hands around Claire and the kids, especially their faces. They seem to disappear in them. Claire has always marveled at my hands, thought that they were beautiful—copper and ash—not hammy but far from fine. The boys have hands like mine, enormous, but they're children's hands, still soft, pink for X, russet for C, and they seem better integrated, more so than mine, which look like the contract between beast and man hadn't been agreed on.