Marine Park: Stories (11 page)

I
n the afternoon, Andrew went to Marine Park to get a haircut. He'd been at an interview in the morning, for a job that would make him not rich but comfortable, more comfortable than now—with the possibility of riches, of an extra house in the Hamptons, if you followed the curve of the borough out into the Atlantic. At the interview, one partner at the firm had asked if he could tell a little about himself, his fingers hanging from the résumé like bangs, the paper resting on the crook of his arm. Well, Andrew said, I grew up in Brooklyn. Marine Park, he said. The partners nodded. I've been working in the city mostly since college. The résumé partner stopped him. That's funny, he said. How so? Andrew asked. Only a true Brooklynite would say going into the city. The partners grinned together, as if their grins connected into one grin. It's true, Andrew said.

The barber's was nearly empty this late in the afternoon. Andrew had come after work, had driven down Ocean Parkway, past the Q train at Kings Highway, Quentin Road for the last few blocks. He hadn't told anyone he'd be coming. At the barber's, Javi, who had been cutting his hair since he was a child, was looking at the sports cycle on the television bolted into the wall above his chair. He was scrolling through his phone. Hey, Andrew said. My friend, said Javi. Have a seat. I have no one. Andrew sat and Javi wrapped the light black tarpaulin of a smock around him. Underneath Andrew felt cool and dry, while Javi went to work, without talking, on his head.

 • • • 

Before Andrew got contacts, he had relished the surprise that came after taking off his glasses at the beginning and staring blankly, unseeingly, at the mirror while Javi worked. The clip of Javi's scissors vibrated from one ear to another—ever since Andrew had decided that he didn't want just a buzz cut, that he was looking for something more sophisticated. Buzz cuts had been summer haircuts, for when he and his friends were playing the St. Thomas Aquinas basketball camp near Flatbush, run by Chris Mullen, the archetype of the neighborhood, who'd gotten out in a big way. He'd played for Xaverian, starred there, was a white kid in an era when there were few. He played in a white way, as far as Andrew could remember, even when he was teaching the clinics—jump shots, dribbling drills. Nothing much like inspiration. What Andrew had liked better were the nuns peering over the hedges at the outdoor basketball hoops they set up for those months. While the boys ran bare-chested up and down the asphalt, shouting for the ball, skinning knees, the nuns sat in plastic chairs propped against the thin fences, watching, or continuing their circumnavigations around the garden. The garden looked cool and inviting to Andrew, surrounded by trees, without the heat echo of the basketball courts.

When he was older, after college, before the time when he returned home to the city, he lived near a lake in New England where he thought about that sort of thing. He had found a job as an executive assistant in the office of an insurance company, next to the lake. In the afternoons, after work, during which he sat mindlessly in the office shuttling emails from one person to another, looking out the window; after that, he'd go to the basketball court, get in as many five-on-fives as he could. The competition wasn't as good as New York, but it was something. His jump shot, which had never been his strong suit, was back with a vengeance during that time. He found that he could roll off picks, create just the smallest of spaces between him and the defender, make the shot. Midrange Mac is here, some of the regulars said when he showed up in his Camry. Keep him out past the three-point line.

But in the mornings, to wake up, to get the resolve he needed before the office back-and-forth started, he went swimming. The office loomed in front of him. It was the type of experience that would become so entrenched later in life that it would be hard to look back at this moment and think of a time when offices were new. They were life now; then they were soul-sucking. Those mornings, he'd drive to a parking spot in the woods, shedding his khakis and blazer on the backseat, and he'd walk down to the empty lake, the tight green around it and the cool air coming off the water. He walked into the water, never ran, swam out as far toward the far-side trees as he could, turned over, looked up. When he was ready he swam back.

 • • • 

At the barber's Javi was talking to him. It wasn't usual, that Javi talked to him. There had been a time once when he wanted a conversation with his barber, after having read old stories about barbers singing in your ear, giving all the political conversation. But not after looking at a computer screen all day, reading news reports and industry updates, his only break from the machine when he walked to the bathroom, which his company docked half an hour of pay for each day. They assumed half an hour each day was what people usually spent. They wanted employees to be in their seats, emailing with the companies they represented. After hours of that, Andrew looked forward to the period of useful silence, of animated quiet, that the trip to the barber's provided. How there was no sound, and he could hibernate in his own head, because someone else was already working.

Javi was asking about work. How it was, whether he liked it. Whether he'd had time to go to a Mets game this season.

Work's fine, Andrew said. We just got the crop of summer interns in, so it's making life a little easier for the junior consultants.

That's good, Javi said, encouraging.

And it's always nice to see some young people, especially of the female persuasion, Andrew said. He grinned and looked up at Javi to grin with him. But perhaps he hadn't heard. Andrew looked back in the mirror and remembered that Javi had a daughter. He wasn't sure if that kind of thing mattered.

Your father has not been in in a while, Javi announced.

Huh, Andrew said. He didn't know why this would be. He said so. Think he needs a haircut? Andrew said.

Oh yes, said Javi, everybody needs haircuts. Especially in the summer. It keeps the cool in the head. Very important. You can keep cool heads.

Andrew shifted in his chair. He watched the sculpting of his head that was taking place in the mirror. Don't people usually have cool heads around here? Andrew asked. That's sort of what Marine Park is, no? A bunch of cool heads?

Javi cut a difficult part around the ear and nodded slowly. Yes, he said, but sometimes no. He went on to elaborate how the other day, while he'd been on his way to work, walking down Quentin Road, he saw a crowd surrounding a man lying on the sidewalk, and when he got closer he realized that a woman was screaming next to him, or trying to scream. She was screaming in a way by which you could tell she'd been screaming for a long time. Javi asked if someone should do something, and the man next to him, in a firehouse T-shirt, said that the trucks were already on their way. Another man in a firehouse T-shirt was kneeling with the man on the ground, trying to hold his arms away from his head, which was bleeding. The fireman held the hands down with one of his own, pulled off his T-shirt, wrapped it around the back of the man's bleeding head, to act as a cushion at least, even if he couldn't stop the blood. The bleeding man's hands continued reaching for the blood spot on his head. Javi shook his head, asked the obligatory question. Someone next to him said, A hammer. He got into a shouting match, and the attacker pulled a hammer out of his backpack. The man stood his ground, because he couldn't believe that anything would happen. Then the hammer man stepped forward and started swinging. The bleeding man fell. Finally something snapped in the hammer man, and he stopped swinging, and ran away.

Andrew had turned to look at Javi while he told the story, the scissors fallen to Javi's side. Did the man who told you all this see it happen? Andrew asked. Javi shrugged. Sure, I think so. Andrew pressed, He saw it with his own eyes? Someone with a hammer? Javi shook his head again. People are people, he said. I heard what I heard. They all had long hair, he added. Not good in the summer.

 • • • 

Andrew walked out of the barber shop, past the funeral parlor and the Park Bench Cafe. From behind him, he heard a voice, and he turned around.

Hey, Javi was saying, looking up and struggling with his key in the barbershop door. Can you give me a lift?

Andrew nodded and extended his hand toward where his car was parked, across the street. It was the same Camry. If he got the new job he'd buy a new car. The Camry was a hand-me-down, the type of thing that was good for a late twentysomething. Andrew looked at the car as he opened it. It wasn't the type of thing you'd put a wife in. Or a child.

Kings Highway, asked Andrew, is that where you're going? He fiddled with his seat belt.

Well, said Javi. He was wiping stray pieces of hair off his hands, onto the floor in the passenger seat. Andrew wondered if it was his hair.

Could we make a stop? Javi asked. It's a little embarrassing.

Andrew drove and Javi directed. Up to the light on Quentin. A left on Marine Parkway, the wide street that looked like Paris. Andrew had heard once that real estate agents were telling gentrifiers that that was the beauty of the neighborhood: the wide Parisian streets. Andrew wondered whether middle class neighborhoods could be gentrified. He didn't expect to see many coffee shops. Though even Ditmas Park was getting crowded. Left on Avenue U, Javi said.

Andrew pulled into the Avenue U parking lot, which was nearly empty of cars. One SUV had its trunk open, playing Jamaican dance hall music. There was a cricket game happening at that side of the park, though it seemed to Andrew like it was miles away. The SUV was full of men and women watching the game, people lounging on the side. In the corner, where during the winter a company comes to sell Christmas trees, there was a small white car, which at first glance you would think was a woman's car. Andrew wasn't sure why—the color and the careful polish? Here, Javi said. When he got out, the door of the white car opened, and then Andrew grinned, because it was Ed Monahan.

Andrew watched the two of them converse from his car. Ed didn't get out of the driver's seat. Andrew remembered Ed when they were kids playing basketball in the park. Andrew had been taller, stronger, played center all the way through, but Ed was the real prodigy, had a basketball scholarship to Molloy High School, even though he was one of the shortest guys on Good Shepherd. Andrew had never seen, before or since, on the street courts of the cities he'd lived in, a ball handler as good, one who was as tenacious getting rebounds and looking for the upcourt pass. Ed was the type of kid who, when he was getting refused entry to street games even if it was his rightful next, would take a ball from where it was resting against the chain-link fence and begin spidering, faster and faster, just to show he could. Sometimes the games stopped. More often someone just yelled, Let Whitey in. Ed would stop the wild motions then, hold the ball breathing heavy against his side, flushed with victory, convinced that he was, as everyone told him, good enough. If Andrew remembered right he'd walked on to St. Joseph's for college—they were looking for a backup point guard. But the starter, a real beautiful kid from the South Bronx, never gave him a chance, and Ed only played the one year. When he came back he didn't have it in him to take the fireman test, wait on that line. Someone had told Andrew he was working sanitation.

As Javi walked back Andrew stuck his head out the window. Hey, Ed, he called. Hey. Ed Monahan looked up from where he was counting bills, startled. It's Andrew. Andrew Dempsey, Andrew said. Ed squinted, his dirty ponytail shaking, like he wasn't sure if Andrew was supposed to be an undercover cop or something—Marine Park had those too. Government employees popping up like McCain signs. How ya doing? Andrew asked, and Ed nodded. You know, fine, fine, all is good. Still playing ball? Andrew asked. Ed peered at him like he was crazy, and then pressed the button to pull his window up.

Javi opened the passenger-side door, putting the ziplock bag in his jeans pocket. Sorry, my friend, he said. Just quick, no problem. Andrew grinned at him. Javi smiled back. Do you want? he asked. Andrew considered. He hadn't smoked since college, when there were weeks he remembered being high even on the basketball court. Playing pickup, only being able to play one game, because of the kick to the lungs, feeling glorious. But he was expecting to get the new consulting job. It was the type of thing that came with a drug test. They'd probably still be interviewing for the position, and he needed to give his two weeks' notice. Come on, Javi said. I have one of these, he said, and pulled a one-hitter from his pocket, shaped like a cigarette, where the red glow of the ember could hang on the nether end.

 • • • 

There came a time when they were driving again, Andrew driving. He was upset to find that he didn't feel much of anything, though he was relaxed. He couldn't remember a time he was as relaxed as he was now. He hadn't been back to Marine Park in a month, the last time he'd seen his parents. When will you have a girlfriend, Drew? his mother asked. Isn't it time for that yet? You're at work too much. His father sat at the kitchen counter, his undershirt tucked into his pants, reading the
Daily News
. Why don't you consult for this government? he said. They're shit out of luck. Might as well waste money another way. Isn't it? his mother asked, still on the girlfriend.

A right here, Javi was saying. They were driving along the water, where the nature center was, a plot of open land. Andrew opened the window to let it out. Straight now, Javi said. They were on Gerritsen Avenue, going down.

Andrew found himself saying it as he was saying it. What do you talk to my father about, Javi, when you cut his hair? Javi looked at him strangely. Talk? he asked. We don't talk. I cut. He sits. What talking? Andrew nodded sagely. It's true, Andrew said.

They were next to the old public library. It was the end of the road. If you went farther, you hit the water. To the right there were stores and houses, and the library. And to the left there was a basketball court. I need to get one thing here, Javi said. For going home. He left and walked to the right. Andrew sat and watched the road in front of him. Then he got out of the car.