South by South Bronx (19 page)

21.

The subway headlights made her squint. It was an action poem gone bad. The floaty slow rocking. A black tunnel through the belly. PJ Harvey asked, do you remember the first kiss? Red light, green light. She sat her ass right where it said PLEASE GIVE THIS SEAT TO THE ELDERLY OR HANDICAPPED, across from SAY GOODBYE TO BAD SKIN! Train sharp-dipped into curve with screechy howl. Lights flickered, cars bouncing slow glide into station. The rush of air WHOOSH as doors opened and bodies pressed in or made firm. The 59th Street N/R stop at Lexington has to be one of the worst designed train stations in all of North America. The platforms are narrow and obscured throughout by construction. People crowd the only two stairwells, so on both sides push-shovejostle while waiting for first sign of train blowing in. Always packed because both uptown and downtown trains arrive on the same platform. Trains slam wind from opposite sides and rush hour's always on one way or the other. And yet, when the train climbs out from tunnel to above

one of the best views of Manhattan available on the N train as it curve twists along bridge to sky. Crossing East River to Queens PAUSING long enough for all tourist cameras to go SNAP at that crowded island, afloat asea with its two shiny towers

the thick steel masts of a great ship

(as she had always seen it on a card in a picture book through a dream)

Queens, the book said—the most populous and diverse borough in all of New York. (Aren't they all?) Blocks are long. Tons of newsstands, bakeries, and laundromats. Lots of Greeks who drive their cars as if the devil is chasing them. (More accidents on Queens Boulevard per capita than any stretch of road in the entire state.) Ava's knowledge of Astoria came from Trudy. Her boyfriends were generally from everywhere scattered, so she got to know places like Belmont like Bay Ridge like Brighton Beach, and this Astoria—how Ava remembered just off the N stop at Broadway, how their walk together took them past banks banks banks. At least five branches in a row of long blocks. Her home branch was on 86th Street, but there was no way she was going there. Could be people waiting for her. Same for her apartment, same for work. Alan would be looking for signs. He'd have his electronic ears wide open. The moment a transaction went through, he would know. He would trace her. Ping! She had seen him use bank transactions, credit card purchases, looped video sequences from mall security cameras. It was why she came up with this little side trip to Astoria. If he was going to spot her, she would make sure he got a bead on her in a place far from where she planned to go. Alan could also very easily put a block on her account. Not only could she not remove money, even from an ATM, but if she was stupid enough to try and cash a check at another branch of her bank, they might stall her and notify the police. She didn't think Alan would do this, at least not yet. Was she just hoping, was she being stupid? At the most, she could hope to beat him to it. The last thing Alan would want to do is give her some warning that he was on to her. He preferred to tail someone secretly and pop up on them, out of the blue. She would be entering the bank. She would be standing on line. She would look to the side and she would see him, standing beside a sign advertising free toaster ovens for anyone opening a new savings account. This was the stuff of screams. She would stick to the ATMs.

The first bank she hit was just one block down from Broadway. She kept telling herself to keep cool, keep calm. She could hit five banks in twenty minutes and walk off with about two thousand dollars, imagining him sitting in front of a map with his twinkling lights and his connectthe-dots. He was circling to TRIANGULATE her position, he would be sending out units, notifying police squads, while tracking her movements until he would lose her. Until she did something else to give him a new track, because it might be better to lead him toward something than away from—where had she heard that before?—and then she was dipping her card to get inside the ATM room of a bank still closed since it was not yet 9

just barely opening time as she inserted her card, thinking there was no way he could have done it, there was no way. (She typed in her pin code.) The screen seemed to freeze for a moment. There was a strange, ominous flash. The screen went blue.

WE ARE UNABLE TO PROCESS YOUR REQUEST.
ACCESS TO THIS CARD HAS BEEN DENIED.
PLEASE CONTACT A BANK REPRESENTATIVE.

The rest was blur. The rest was a mad rage a red light a green light and how she wanted to smash things. There was a block on her account! How? How had Alan worked so fast? There was no way he could have done that this very morning. He couldn't have done it over the weekend—the murder went down on Saturday. There was no way he could have known prior to that, or suspected she would run. Yet the block was there, already set up in the machine. Now her card had been confiscated. She couldn't even try another machine. That's what made her the angriest, the thought that Alan had already laid a block on her by Friday, one full day before the setup, the handover, the action sequence. Alan had cut her off. Before any betrayal, he had betrayed her first. There was no other explanation.

She took out her cell phone as she hurried back up Broadway to the N train. She thought of just calling him, of telling him what she thought of his little trick. She thought about it long and hard as she walked those long and hard blocks.

When she got to the train station, she decided she would not call him. Not from Queens. The block being activated like that would already tell him she had been there. She had to be somewhere else, stepping off the N train at Queensboro Plaza. Crossing the platform to catch a Manhattan-bound 7 train. Alan could be scanning Astoria streets just as she disappeared into the belly of five million people

to Grand Central. Windows cathedral size and filled with sun. Stopping to check the big board with its flickering letters that sound like mosquito wings. Arrivals, departures. To wander the platforms of Metro-North. The smell of carbon and train exhaust. A strange, thick heat. Crumpled copies of the
new York Times
. Peeking into slumbering trains that stood empty, open-mouthed. The 9:40 to New Haven, Connecticut. Some place far north, almost hinting at a flight back to Boston

(there could be five million people coursing through the New York City subway system every day. At least)

while she walked through the empty train. It let out small breaths, like someone napping on a couch. Soon a dinging of bells, voices on the PA.

An engine sound. She picked a seat in a car she hoped would remain empty all the way home.

She pulled the cell phone out. Held it like Kryptonite. There was no air. It felt like the inside of a closet. She had the strange longing for a vodka, coffee, and a cigarette. That small kitchen. Him breathing out smoke.

“Changó, Changó.”

She turned the phone on.

“Mink Presario Ravel Melendez.”

The voice came through the small speaker by the phone. By the phone where the desk was. By the desk where the picture windows were. Boxes crates blank canvases paint supplies bursting from ripped cartons. A wooden floor. A pair of easels under a big chunk of skylight. (To work two at a time, that was the thing.) In moments of UNfocus, the picture windows were the go. To see street through them was to float above it. Head to toe it was Prospect Avenue and a view of the South Bronx pouring in was as captivating as any R. Crumb street scene any time any dare. It was a pure inspiration hit.

The skylight. Not dingy dirty frosted glass seen at the top of some stairwells. This was beautiful sunlit glass full of sky and old rain that collected along the edges. The deep green of thin vines hanging down, green lush dangling from skylight so nature one would expect birds, the flapping of wings. Instead, the squishy sound of wet brush. Into glob of paint on palette, that mixing board—he was a fucking deejay at his mixing board blending this tone into that. No instant color splash this time, but hours of pencil and charcoal to lead to this, having her first materialize in blackand-white. It was a big stretch, from sketchbook to canvas size, and he stretched them canvas big, about 200cm x 140cm. When the color attack came, it found him squeezing tubes searching through boxes looking for that weird metallic sunlight. Chrome glint, but no silver. A color he would have to invent. To yellow some ochre. To materialize the face the body the curve the lower back almost like that '50s pinup. Pulled out that big book on Vargas. Her feet dangling from the edge of that sandy island. (Get it? The island's floating OVER the ocean.)

“Mink Presario Ravel Melendez?”

His agent was Bruce Hornsby, a London art critic who came to embrace all things mutliculti. Long after the term grew cold in the United States, the Brits took it up. Mink was doing well in London, but when faddy terminology hits the skids, it generally takes everyone associated with it along for the downride. Bruce had a good feel for Mink's work, but lately whenever he called with a gig it was about some fucking rootical tribal slave Yoruba Aztec jungle ghetto CROSSING BORDERS show, and Mink didn't want that. To him it was just cheap shoddy instant packaging by people who didn't know there was more to being Puerto Rican than that. Mink wanted different packaging. Bruce knew the song pretty well, and didn't call much. Besides, there was nothing new to sell because Mink hadn't been painting. It was pretty much understood that whatever Mink did now would probably not fit a faddy preconceived cultural market. It was a bit of a curse and a bit of a thrill, for both of them.

“It's Bruce, Mink.”

“Yeah, I know. How's it hanging and all that?” (Mink mixing paints, lovingly slow stroking.)

“Good. You know I don't normally make it a habit to call this early. I'm surprised you're up. I just sent you something by special courier. It's something from the Romero brothers. I know they contacted you recently. Do you know much about them?”

Mink dabbed red. The swirl of color upset him.

“Yeah. Entrepeneur spicks. Young. Music scene. Parties. Building some kind of skating rink.”

“It's not just another skating rink. It's a whole new scene. They're talking about turning the South Bronx into the next new hot spot for the well-to-do clubbing crowd.”

Mink laughed. “We only spoke by phone. I thought they were inviting me to some opening. A big honor, they kept saying. I couldn't tell who was who, they kept talking at the same time. A big honor. I just laugh because, you know, this rink they want to build isn't far from my house. In some big old factory building down by the Bruckner Expressway.”

“Mink.” Bruce sounded prissy. “It's not just a skating rink. You're thinking Rockefeller Center. This is not that type … Are you listening?”

The different layers of red were parting, opening up. Hinting at space, depth. He dabbed in more swirls. Rose petals. Mixing it darker. A deeper hole, an emptier room.

“They're taking a big empty space and converting it into a multilevel, Euro-style dance palace. The first floor is going to be a roller rink. Not a frigging skating rink, a roller rink! Do you know the bloody difference? Jazzy birds in spandex shorts and inline skates will spin about while techno music pounds. A bar, a lounge. Video screens.”

“I can't wait to see Madonna on skates,” Mink said. Magenta, rippling the edges turbulent.

“The real dance floor is on the second floor. More lights, video screens, two big deejay booths. There's a frigging hole smack dab in the middle surrounded by a kind of mezzanine. You can be up there reclining on a rail, sipping your drink, while looking down on these gorgeous birds skating about below. The third floor has a lounge, a fucking executive VIP lounge with access to a rooftop Jacuzzi, sauna, and penthouse accommodations for those who stay late and don't want to brave the trip back to civilization!”

“Can you imagine the view from the roof?” Mink said, squeezing out another paint tube. “Who would come all the way up here for a view of the Bruckner Expressway overpass?”

Bruce sighed.

“Evidently, the Romero brothers found a lot of people who would. They're not like you or I, Mink. They're hip.”

“Excuse me?”

“They're famous for running some of the best parties and raves around. People hire them to throw successful parties. Record companies, film studios, J. Lo. They know how popular the South Bronx has become in the cultural life of the bohemian underground, the white subculture. Just imagine London, a place where hip young people think of the South Bronx as the birthplace of hip-hop, graffiti art, fashion. KRS-One. Record scratching pioneers like Kool Herc, Disco-B, Grand Wizard Theodore. Didn't you see that piece last month in
Mojo
? It's not so unlikely that the bored rich famous might mount their trusty limos and head north, away from the crowded island run by a fascist dwarf who's been shutting down clubs, threatening museums, arresting people for carrying a beer can across the road! The QUALITY-OF-LIFE GESTAPO has been raiding every club that hasn't gone underground. Fuck, it's ALL underground! Didn't you see
Groove
, for chrissake?”

“I just don't see why you should be so excited about it,” Mink said. A stroke of flesh color ripped across the canvas like a wound.

“Mink, they want you to cover the place from top to bottom with your art. Walls, ceilings, furniture. Your work would be intricately bound with the concept of the entire place. You're the whole presentation. It could be the commission of your life.”

The words seeped through all beach all sand all surf. A door opened. He felt the breeze.

“You've been bitching so much about ending up on another LATINO-OF-THE-MONTH show. Well, here's one gig that doesn't fall into that mold. They've sent me the CD-Rom and now I've sent it to you. Give it a good look. Of course, they haven't really mentioned money, but I can't imagine on such a huge project as this, that they—”

Mink slammed his thick brush into the water can.