Thriller

He held out the headphones, said, “By any chance, Grams, did you leave these in my room?”

  She put on her reading glasses to see what he was holding. “Boy, you’d have to put me in a full hazmat suit to touch them feces-looking things.” She slipped off her glasses and turned back to The Today Show.

  Benny stared down at the headphones trying to figure out how they looked like feces.

  On his way home from school that day, Benny ran into Ronny and Simón on Seventh Avenue. They were coming out of a bodega with their daily Twinkies and strawberry Nesquiks, and when they spotted him, Simón held out a fist and said, “B Man.”

  Benny tapped Simón’s fist. Then Ronny’s.

  “Spare a little change?” a pencil-thin homeless man said, rattling the coins in his old Styrofoam coffee cup. He was sitting on an overturned bucket outside the store, his usual spot, and he looked like death.

  “Nah, old man,” Simón said.

  “You don’t need change,” Ronny said, “you need a bar of soap.”

  When the guys turned and started walking, Benny slipped the homeless dude a couple quarters. Like he always did. Not because Benny was some great guy. But because this skinny old beggar, for whatever reason, made him think of his grandma. And whenever he thought about his grandma, sick at home, while he was out hanging around, he felt guilty, like he owed somebody something.

  They cruised Seventh Avenue, Ronny and Simón unwrapping their Twinkie packs and Benny looking more closely at the headphones around Ronny’s neck. They were Sonys. Same model as the ones he’d found in his room. Ronny’s initials weren’t JB, they were RL, but it still seemed like a crazy coincidence.

  “So it’s true what I heard?” Ronny said.

  “What?” Benny said.

  “Your boy’s trying to talk to my sis?”

  “Who, Ray?” Benny said.

  “You ain’t gotta lie to kick it,” Simón said. “Sylvia’s been, like . . . developing, man.”

  Ronny looked at Simón.

  Simón shrugged and sipped his strawberry milk.

  “I think they’re mostly friends or whatever,” Benny said.

  “He doesn’t think he’s some big baller?” Ronny said.

  “No way,” Benny said. “He’s too busy trying to make it out of seventh grade.”

  Simón smiled a little.

  Ronny didn’t.

  They were all quiet for a bit as they continued walking, Benny spying the serious look on Ronny’s face. He was two years older. A freshman. Already the star power forward on John Jay’s varsity hoop squad. Benny thought how weird it was to see such a powerful-looking dude rocking a pink milk mustache.

  “Yo, Sylvia’s irritating,” Ronny said. “And those bangs she got make her look like a Chihuahua.”

  Simón laughed.

  “But tell your boy Ray,” Ronny said, “if he messes her over I’m gonna have to stomp him out.”

  “Ray won’t mess nobody over,” Benny said. “I promise.”

  “Yeah?”

  Benny nodded.

  Simón opened a second Twinkies pack and handed one of the greasy yellow loaves to Ronny, who broke it in half. He held the shorter end out to Benny, and Benny took it.

  “It’s all good,” Simón said.

  Benny bit into the Twinkie just as they reached his block. They parted ways with a series of fist bumps and head nods. But when Benny was a quarter of the way down his block, Ronny called out, “Yo, you live by that boarded-up brownstone, right?”

  “Yeah,” Benny said. “Why, what’s up?”

  Ronny just nodded, though. Then he and Simón rounded the next corner, out of sight.

  Benny walked down Second Street thinking about Ray and Sylvia and Ronny’s headphones and the initials JB. He sat on the stoop in front of his apartment, looked across the street, where Ray lived, and swallowed the last of his Twinkie half. Benny was always answering for Ray. Why was that? And what would happen if Ray messed over Sylvia now? Would Ronny come looking for him, too?

  He turned to the condemned brownstone next door. The one Ronny had just mentioned. Tags everywhere, boarded windows, signs warning, Keep Out. He imagined this was what his grandma’s lungs would look like if they were an apartment building in Brooklyn. His own lungs hurt just thinking about it. He fell into thinking about her again. What if she got worse? What if one morning she never woke up? And Benny peeked into her room and found her there. No longer breathing.

  He looked up when he heard a group of girls from the private school approaching. They stopped talking as they passed Benny and then giggled farther down the street. One girl had on a Santa hat even though it was March. She looked back for a half second and caught Benny’s eyes, then continued on with her friends.

  Something weird was going down, Benny thought. And it all centered around the mysterious pair of headphones.

  Before bed that night, Benny sat with his grandma watching some ancient movie on TCM. He hated old flicks, but his grandma seemed mesmerized by every boring conversation. At least Auntie Rosa had come by with groceries, so there was mint-chip ice cream.

  “Hey, Grams,” Benny said, setting down his empty bowl.

  “Hey what?”

  “You know the building next door?”

  “Of course I know the building next door, Benny. I’ve lived here my whole life.” She coughed into a closed fist.

  “I was just wondering, though,” Benny said. “Who owns it?”

  She gave a dramatic sigh and made a big production out of picking up the remote and turning down the volume. “Some silly old Polish lady. Five feet nothing with a hairy mole on her chin. Lives in a trashy studio in Greenpoint with a hundred cats. Refuses to sell the building next door because she hates her ex-husband, who’s a racist pill popper. What else you wanna know, huh, Benny?”

  Benny chuckled some and looked away. He never knew if his grandma was being serious or playing him. After a few seconds he said, “How much you think it’s worth? Like millions?”

  “Boy, what do I care?” she said. “None of that money’s gonna end up in my bank account.”

  Benny smiled.

  His grandma coughed.

  “Okay, let’s say you were given all the money in the world, Grams. What’s the first thing you’d go buy yourself?”

  His grandma stared at his forehead, like she was genuinely thinking about it, which surprised him. “I wouldn’t buy nothing,” she finally said. “But I might hire detectives to help me find something I lost.”

  “What’d you lose?” he said, knowing she meant the silver necklace from his grandfather.

  She smiled at Benny and patted his knee.

  Benny waited for her to answer, but she never did. Even-tually she aimed the remote at the TV and turned the volume back up.

  Just before three in the morning, Benny awoke from a nightmare.

  He flung off his covers and sat up. As he looked into the darkness, pieces of his dream slowly came back to him. . . .

  He was in Coney Island with his grandma, where he’d talked her into going on the Ferris wheel. When they made it to the very top, though, she stopped breathing. He screamed for help but the Ferris wheel was stuck. She clutched at her throat, her face turning blue, and all he could do was cry, like some stupid little kid, and beg for his grandma’s forgiveness. Because deep down he knew something no one else did. It was his fault. He was the reason his grandma was dying. She’d already raised her own kids. Three of them. But instead of getting to relax in her old age, like most people, she had to watch Benny.

  Benny turned on a light and found himself, once again, standing in front of Ray’s stupid drawing. He wondered if it was a bad idea to wish something about saving his grandma’s life. Since he didn’t actually believe in wishes, what if it worked the opposite and his grandma stopped breathing, like in his dream? They’d put him in a foster home. Far away from Brooklyn. And he’d have nobody. Not even illiterate Ray.

  Benny decided to wish for something simple first.
Like a test. He leaned toward the half-crumpled drawing and said, “I wish for a pizza from Pino’s. Not no single slice, either, Mr. Santa. A whole pie, steaming hot out the oven.”

  His grandmother coughed again in the next room.

  Benny shut off his light and climbed back into bed.

  First thing he did when the alarm went off was check the stool in the fireplace. He looked around the room, thinking maybe his pizza wish had morphed into something slightly different, the way his first one had gone from earplugs to headphones. But there was nothing.

  He shrugged and climbed off his mattress.

  When he came back from his shower, he checked again. All around the room. Still nothing close to pizza. He got together his book bag, went to the kitchen, and made his grandma’s green tea, put her medicine on a small plate, and set everything on the table in front of her. She was coughing nonstop, though, and didn’t even look up at him.

  “Hey, Grams,” he said, “you all right?”

  She waved him away, saying between coughs, “Just go to school, Benny.”

  He stood there, staring at her. Maybe his dream had been trying to tell him something. That she was getting worse. That she maybe needed an ambulance, and he shouldn’t leave her.

  He was about to put his bag down and call 911, but right that second she looked up and barked, “Benny. Go to school, I said. Now!”

  Sylvia sneaked up on Benny’s blind side at the start of lunch period, pinched his side. “So I heard you talked to my bro yesterday,” she said.

  Julie was a few steps behind, texting somebody on her pink phone.

  “For a minute,” Benny said. He pulled a textbook from his open locker, slipped it into his bag.

  “Yeah, well”—she patted his arm—“whatever you said, he seems cooler about me and Ray.”

  Benny nodded and shut his locker.

  “I’m still thinking of a way to repay you.”

  “You don’t need to repay me,” Benny said.

  “Nah, I always take care of people who take care of me.”

  Julie put away her phone and tugged Sylvia’s shirtsleeve. “Come on, Syl. Let’s go get Pino’s already. I’m starving.”

  “Okay, okay.” Sylvia turned back to Benny, said, “I think Ronny actually trusts you.”

  “It’s his face,” Julie said. “Benny’s got that kind of face you just believe.”

  “Maybe,” Sylvia said.

  Benny felt his believable face going red and he waved them off, said, “I don’t know about all that.”

  “It’s true,” Julie said, smiling. “I’d trust you.” Then she tugged on Sylvia’s sleeve again and they both waved and started toward the campus exit.

  Benny knew he should have some cool parting line right here, something funny, but he couldn’t think. He had to settle for watching Julie walk away.

  After school, Ray and Benny stopped by the bodega for candy. Ray paid, which Benny figured was Ray’s way of saying thanks without saying thanks.

  Outside, the skinny homeless man on the bucket rattled his coins and said the only three words he seemed to know: “Spare some change?”

  Ray walked right by, but Benny dropped in a couple more quarters.

  As they cruised Seventh Avenue, Ray told him, “You know that goes right to dude’s beer fund, right?”

  Benny shrugged. “I also know it’s a free country.”

  They stopped at the corner of Second Street. Ray was going to go play ball, but Benny had to get back to his grandma. Before they parted ways, Ray took another shot at his invention game: “Or what if there was a computer that could do homework, B. Like you’d just stick the assignment in and it’d print out all the work in like ten seconds. Then people could ball and go to the movies with their girl and still pass school.”

  Benny shook his head, told Ray, “You seriously need to read a book.”

  Ray waved him off.

  “By the way,” Benny said, “you know Julie?”

  “Yeah, you’re digging on her, right?”

  “No—I mean, I don’t know. I just wondered if you knew her last name.”

  A smile went on Ray’s face. “Bauer. Why, you gonna go stalk her now?”

  “Julie Bauer,” Benny said. “Her initials are JB.”

  “Way to go, B. I guess reading books really does make you smart.”

  Benny decided not to mention the headphones and how “JB” had been etched into the right side. He still thought Ray might have something to do with it.

  “Yo, you should wish for a date with her,” Ray said. “On the machine I drew you. I can pretty much guarantee it’ll come true.”

  Benny stared at him for a sec. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying,” Ray said, “that thing’s got magical powers. And Julie’s the perfect wish.” He started laughing and pointed at his own temple and then turned and jogged off.

  Benny’s grandma wasn’t on the couch when he got home. She was in her room, sleeping. He tiptoed into his own room and found something shocking. A large Pino’s pizza box sitting on his cracked stool. He couldn’t believe it. He popped open the box, found a mix of slices. Pepperoni and plain and mushroom and garden-style and even his all-time favorite, Hawaiian. They weren’t steaming hot out of the oven—in fact, they looked a day old—but that didn’t stop his stomach from growling. Plus, his first wish came slightly different from what he said, too.

  Benny closed the box without eating any pizza and sat there for a couple minutes, thinking. Nothing like this had ever happened to him. But what exactly was happening? He didn’t know.

  He got up and opened the closet door, looking for clues. He lifted his mattress. Peeked up into the hollow fireplace. Opened the window and looked up and down the fire escape. He walked down the hall toward his grandma’s room, calling out, “Hey, Grams! You put that pizza in—” He cut himself short when he remembered she was in bed, asleep.

  He walked quietly back into his room, remembering how Julie and Sylvia had gone to Pino’s for lunch. How Sylvia had promised to pay him back. Then there was Ray bringing up his wish machine picture after school. That grin on his face when he said Benny should wish for a date with Julie. Julie Bauer. JB. Letters that made him think of Ronny’s headphones and how Ronny had wanted to confirm that Benny lived by the condemned brownstone. The private school girl in the Santa cap even came to mind. The way she’d turned around and looked at him.

  Somebody was playing him.

  Benny opened the pizza box again. Looked a little too old to actually eat, though, so he closed it back up.

  He imagined if there was a hidden camera somewhere in his room. And people all over the internet were sitting with their bowls of popcorn, watching him. Laughing at him.

  Benny spent the next two days trying to make sense of the headphones and pizza. He stopped making wishes because there was a tiny part of him that actually wanted to believe, and the fact that he had even one gullible bone in his body freaked him out.

  Still, he’d stare at the ridiculous picture for hours, running through different wish possibilities.

  At first he was convinced it was Ray. Who else knew Benny taped his spare key to the bottom of the potted plant on the fire escape out back? Things were heating up with Ray and Sylvia. Ronny had even invited Ray to play pickup with him and his boys. This had to be another example of Ray thanking Benny without actually thanking him.

  But on the flip side, how would Ray have known what Benny wished for? It wasn’t like he’d planted a microphone somewhere. Benny had scoured his bedroom, the entire apartment. And Ray seemed genuinely clueless when Benny thanked him for the pizza at school. “What pizza?” he’d answered.

  “The whole pizza in my room.”

  “Yo, you got pizza at the house, B? Let’s go handle that!”

  Even if Ray wasn’t directly responsible for the pizza or headphones, he had to have at least told somebody about the spare key.

  That led Benny to Sylvia and Julie
. They’d gone to Pino’s the day he found the pizza in his room. And Sylvia had promised to “repay” him for talking to Ronny. And what about Julie’s initials? Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence to have those same letters, JB, etched into the headphones sitting on his desk? Maybe they tricked remedial Ray into telling them about the spare key.

  Another possibility, though, was Auntie Rosa, who came by with groceries twice a week. She and his grandma hardly talked anymore, and she only stopped by while Benny was at school, but she was consistently inside the apartment. And she’d always liked Benny. Probably because she didn’t have kids of her own. Maybe this was her way of saying she’d take Benny in if anything happened with his grandma.

  He considered each and every one of these possibilities. But in the end, he always looped back to the same person. His grandma. She was in the house all day. And even though she was tough on Benny to his face, he knew she loved him. This was probably her way of doing something nice for him without getting all mushy about it. Which she hated. At the same time, it worried Benny, too. Because if she was doing something nice, maybe she knew she was coming to the end of her life. Maybe this was her way of saying good-bye.

  He tried to put that last part out of his head.

  There were still questions. Like how did his grandma hear through the wall? Her outdated hearing aids barely worked when Benny was sitting right next to her. And how’d she pull all this off in a walker? These days it took her like half an hour to even get up the block. There were definitely things that gave Benny pause, but his gut told him it had to be his grandma.

  On Thursday night Benny decided to make a special wish.

  After he and his grandma watched another boring old movie together, about some big-eared dude trapped on an island during some war, Benny washed up like normal and went to his room and closed the door. He waited until he heard the faint sounds of coughing in the next room, then he positioned himself in front of Ray’s wish machine picture.

  But instead of leaning toward the drawing this time, he turned toward the wall he shared with his grandma. “Here goes another wish, Mr. Santa,” he called out in a louder voice. “I wish for a beautiful silver necklace. To replace the anniversary one my grandma lost from her husband. My grandpa.”