Soul Patch (29 page)

“Well, fuck me, it’s Patel. He showed up,” said Matt Poole, a fat townie kid. “I didn’t think you had the balls. Here, let me look at you.” Poole shined a flashlight in Vijay’s face. “White makeup, huh? I guess that’ll work.”

Vijay had been instructed to completely cover his face in either all white or all black grease paint. He wasn’t afforded an explanation and he hadn’t wanted to risk pushing for an answer. Poole was in all white-face too.

“Here he is, guys.” Matt shoved Vijay into the light of the bonfire.

Three other boys surrounded him, giving him an enthusiastic round of applause and exchanging high-fives. For the moment Vijay’s trepidations were forgotten as he basked for the first time in the warm glow of acceptance, however fleeting.

Ricky Smith and Dylan Cohen, both in blackface, were there as well. Smith was another townie kid. Dylan, like Vijay, was a transplant to Petersboro, and it was Dylan who had nominated Vijay for induction into this exclusive little club. The Cohens lived down the street from the Patels and both of Dylan’s folks worked up at the glass cesspool—what
the locals called IotaSoft’s squat, round building at the edge of town. Vijay recognized the fourth kid from school, but didn’t know his name. Unlike the others, this kid’s face was half white, half black.

When things quieted down, the accepting smiles vanished. Vijay was prodded along to the last building in the strip mall. Like the other buildings, its glass windows and doors had been boarded over by several generations of plywood, but this last building was taller and at least twice as wide as the other units in the shopping center. And the plywood on this place was painted black. Vijay could see places where crosses had been nailed onto the plywood and then painted over. Suddenly, he was consumed by second thoughts.

“We know you got questions,” said Dylan, seeing the obvious fear in his friend’s eyes. “We’ll answer them as soon as you get this over with. I swear.”

The nameless boy just nodded his head yes.

“You bring what you was told to bring?” asked Rick Smith.

Vijay held up his flashlight, the adjustable-jaw pliers, and cheap plastic crucifix he had purchased the previous weekend at a garage sale.

“Good job,” said Poole, spreading out a piece of paper on the sidewalk. They all closed ranks. “This place was called Jungle Jerry’s Playplex and this here is a floor plan we made up for you. There’s a hole in the concrete around back big enough for you to crawl through. It’s hidden by weeds and shit.”

“Are you sure I can get through?” Vijay asked, immediately regretting it. He sounded scared. “I mean—”

“If Fat Matt could do it,” joked Rick, “then you sure as shit can.”

“Shut up, you asswipe,” screamed Poole.

Dylan tried to calm him down. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve all done it. You’ll be in and outta there like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“Enough yappin’. It’s almost time,” Poole said, looking at his watch. “This is the deal. You gotta go inside and, see here,” he said, pointing at the diagram, “this is where the maze, big slide, and ball pit used to be.”

As Matt was speaking it occurred to Vijay that Petersboro was the least kid-friendly place he’d ever been to. There were barely any parks
and no video arcades or amusement venues. None of the fast food places had play areas and you had to go to a neighboring town to see a movie.

“Hey, Patel!” Rick shouted. “Pay attention to Matt.”

“Sorry, yes, I see.”

“Okay, then,” Matt continued. “You go to where the maze used to be and you take any piece of hardware you find lying around on the floor. Use your pliers if you have to. Put the crucifix down right on the spot you take the hardware from, get on your knees, and say a Hail, Mary. Then—”

“But . . . but . . . I am not . . . Christian.”

“Don’t worry about it. Cohen’s a Heeb and he did it.” Poole handed Vijay a slip of paper with the words to the prayer.

“Hail, Mary, full of grace . . .” Vijay mumbled.

“It’s time,” Rick said. “Everybody around back.”

Vijay’s feet were lead. He wanted to run and not stop until he was back in his bed, but he remembered the applause and the high-fives and the warmth of belonging. He walked to the back of the building, but before he caught up with the others, the nameless boy stopped him and handed him an envelope.

“Put this under the crucifix,” the nameless boy said.

“What is it?”

“A letter for my brother.”

“Okay,” Vijay agreed and shoved it in his pocket.

At the rear of the building, the boys moved the weeds out of the way and formed a semi-circle around Vijay as he crawled through the hole in the back wall. Emerging into the dank, lightless space that was once Jungle Jerry’s Playplex, Vijay could hear the boys still chanting: “Gobble. Gobble. Gobble. Gobble . . .”

CORINA DAVIS CLOSED the book when she came to the realization that she had reread the same passage seven times. The author was blameless. Corina always found it impossible to concentrate on anything but the noise at Playplex. Even now, at dinnertime for most families, the decibel level was earsplitting, but the clanging bells and shrill whistles had a paradoxical calming affect on Tanya. Diagnosed at three with ADD, Tanya found peace in the unceasing din of Jungle
Jerry’s. So three times a week, Corina Davis loaded her daughter into her minivan and forced herself to reread passages.

Yet in spite of the good it did Tanya, Corina was unsure how much longer she could bear it. For beyond the obvious assault on her senses, Jungle Jerry’s Playplex had come to symbolize everything she despised about Petersboro. It had not been an easy adjustment. The utter grayness of the place—broken only by rain or snow—was enough to drive her to distraction. Thirteen months ago when Malcolm had phoned to tell her he’d landed the job as a special projects manager for a big high-tech firm in New York, she’d had visions of Saturday nights on Broadway, lazy Sunday picnics in Central Park, and the occasional Knicks’ game. What she got was unending potato bogs and biweekly trips to Tanya’s occupational therapist in Syracuse. But Malcolm had worked too hard to wait for another opportunity. In business, African-American men didn’t get second chances.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the weather, the boredom, or Malcolm’s impossible hours that got to Corina. It was the people, the townies—Peterites, officially. Puds to the IotaSoft transplants. They were as gray as the weather and incredibly resentful of the company that had saved the local economy from ruin. That people could hate her for her skin being the color of black coffee, Corina could almost reconcile, but to be hated because your minivan had an IotaSoft parking permit on the bumper defied understanding. And here at Playplex, at this hour, the place was rotten with Puds. Sitting across from Corina was the perfect Pud pinup girl: dressed in polyester, smoking a cigarette, smacking her kid for dropping his juice bottle, and yapping incessantly at the woman next to her. After Corina checked her watch, she felt like her sentence had been commuted. She walked to the ball pit to get Tanya.

PAT HOLLAND LOOKED after Marge Ritter’s two boys during the week. Once a week, Marge would meet Pat and the boys at Playplex and treat them all to Pizza Hut afterwards.

“Did you see that?” Marge asked Pat, blowing smoke through her twisted lips.

“See what?”

“That one,” Marge said, jutting her chin at the black woman calling for her kid in the ball pit. “Did you see the look she gave me? Lord, those people turn my stomach.”

“Nig—”

“Them too, yeah, but I mean them IotaSoft snobs. They all think their shit don’t stink.”

“I know what you mean.”

Marge lit up fresh cigarettes for Pat and herself. “How long has Tim Jr. been in there?”

“Thanks for the smoke. He’s been in there a good hour.”

“Get your brother,” Marge ordered Mark.

“CHRIST, LADY, CALM down,” the teenager snapped at Corina, unzippering the entrance to the ball pit. “Your kid’s fine. Nobody drowns in a ball pit. What’s her name again?”

“Tanya!
Tanya!
How many times do I have to—”

“Lady, you scream at me again and—”

That was it. Corina shoved the teenager aside and crawled into the ball pit herself. “Tanya, come on. Tanya, come to me. This isn’t funny anymore.”

“Get outta there!” the overwhelmed employee shouted after Corina.

“Tanya, honey, you come to Mama this instant,” Corina shouted sternly, as if trying to make her daughter appear by an act of sheer will.

By now everyone in Jungle Jerry’s had formed a crowd around the ball pit. Two uniformed security guards pushed their way through, one gently nudging Marge Ritter aside.

“What you suppose happened?” Pat asked.

“You know them people. They can’t keep track of their kids and their fathers without a scorecard.”

Pat didn’t bother pointing out that Marge’s two sons were fathered by different men, neither of whom had married Marge and both of whom had vanished into the ether. Just then, Mark appeared at his mother’s side, tugging at her sleeve.

“Stop it!” she yanked her arm away. “I thought I told you to get your brother.”

“But—”

“Go on.”

Mark was crying. He turned to Pat Holland for help. She picked him up and asked the boy what was wrong.

“I can’t find Timmy.”

LIKE A WAREHOUSE for darkness, Vijay thought, sweeping the beam of his flashlight from side to side. No cobwebs or ghouls or big hairy spiders, just an empty building with a dirty floor. The attic in his house was creepier. There, at least, the wood creaked beneath your feet and the asymmetry of the rafters threw ominous shadows. This place was as scary as a cardboard box. His fears were calmed not only by the musty sterility of the room, but by the nameless kid’s silly ploy with the envelope. A letter for his brother!
Yeah
,
right
. They had him going pretty good until then, when his fears were amorphous and his initiation ritual unclear.

No one jumped out of the shadows, but as he approached the designated area, his newfound cockiness receded. For as the conical beam illuminated the linoleum floor, he could make out the silhouettes of several dust-covered crucifixes, a frayed and yellowed envelope beneath each cross. They were pretty spooky. Vijay swallowed hard, quickly aiming his flash away from the crucifixes. He moved to the opposite corner, farther into the demolished play area than the other boys had apparently been willing to wander. He figured the extra distance was worth it as long as the crucifixes were out of sight.

Within a few seconds, Vijay found some metal washers strewn about like spare change. He knelt down, scooped them up, put them in a back pocket, and got out the prayer cheat sheet. As instructed, he placed the nameless boy’s envelope beneath the crucifix and recited the prayer:
“Hail, Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for—”

He stopped, his eyes catching an unexpected reflection. There was something smooth and round lying about twenty feet to his left. It was hard to be sure of what the object was in the fading beam of his flashlight. He put the prayer paper under the crucifix, closed his eyes,
and tried recalling the crude floor plan. He could see it in his mind’s eye. “Yes!” He pumped his fist. “The ball pit!”

How cool was this? He would have more than just a few stinky old washers to show for his work. Vijay would have a ball too. Based upon where the crucifixes were, he was willing to bet none of the other boys, not even Dylan, had ventured this far or been this lucky. His flash grew dimmer still and Vijay chided himself for not having thought to replace the batteries before coming. To save what power the old batteries had left to give, he lined himself up with where he thought the ball would be and shut off the flashlight.