“Thanks,” I say. “Guess all those crime shows finally paid off.”
Tires screech, and an Acura sedan pulls into the parking lot behind us.
Speak of the poodle.
The door opens and out hops a gray suit. I almost expect a fountain of green beans to spill out behind him. Frank closes the gap between us in a few quick strides, and pulls me into an awkward hug. I could be wrong, but I’m fairly certain he’s crying. After a couple of manly pats on the back, he steps away and studies me.
“New hat?”
“Yep.”
“Nice,” he says, wagging his nose. I didn’t even know people could wag their noses, but that’s Frank for you, constantly redefining the boundaries of humanity.
“Victor, where have you been?”
“Long story.”
I wait for him to push, but he doesn’t. Instead he says, “You smell awful.”
“I know.”
“I mean, really bad.”
“Frank, where’s Mom?”
He smiles a little, turns to Mad, offers a hand. “I’m Frank, Vic’s . . . Well, I’m a friend of the family.”
Mad shakes his hand, while I wonder why Frank avoided my question. He turns, opens the back door for us, but I don’t move.
“Where is she?”
. . .
. . .
His shoulders drop. “She called a few days ago, let me know she’s okay, then again last night. But she won’t say where she is, just says she’s out looking for you. Of course, she’s not answering her cell.”
The street fades, replaced by sand, replaced by waves, replaced by matching tattoos.
The swinging sign of the Parlour, newly inked.
The horizon of the Palisades immortalized.
The smoking bricks of first kisses, and the desperate by wishing wells.
Mom saw me carry the urn from our house eight days ago—she must have. And she knew what was inside.
Drop me from the top of our rock.
“I think I know where she is.”
* * *
According to the GPS in Frank’s Super Racehorse of a luxury vehicle, we’re about fifteen miles from Rockefeller Center. Mad fell asleep pretty much the minute her head hit the window. In the faint glow of the passing bridge lights, I flip through the first few pages of The Outsiders, and from the get-go, I understand the main character. He’s a loner who wishes he looked more like Paul Newman.
I do not wish I looked more like Paul Newman. But I understand the sentiment.
I read a few more pages and find myself really getting into the flow of things. Flipping to the back, I read the final passage, which is, word for word, the same as the first. The Hinton Vortex: a simultaneous extreme opposite if ever there was one.
As we approach the city, I watch Mad sleep, wondering how our story ends. In a lot of ways, we aren’t really from different worlds. We both know the pain of losing a parent (in her case, both parents). We both know what it’s like to want more than what is offered us, to see an iron bell and feel the urge to ring it, to seek out the simmering underneath, to understand that none of us, for better or worse, are chained to our history.
Because history is history.
So I’ll graduate high school. And, should Frank and Mom tie the knot, I’ll show up for that, too. But after that, it’s nothing but Super Racehorse 24-7. My future is my own. And considering Florida is sunny year-round, my future sounds momentously bright.
But first things first.
I take a deep breath, and reluctantly turn to face my only real idea, my grand plan, my last resort.
“So, Frank,” I say. “You’re a lawyer. Say the cops arrest an innocent man for murder.”
There’s a pause, then . . . “Okaaaaaay.”
And I dive in. Using only broad terms and no names, I present Baz’s case in a logical fashion, including his prior arrest and suspected charges. Frank confirms what Mendes said, that if the police find a closer DNA match, then that, along with the recorded accounts of two eyewitnesses, should be more than enough to clear him. He also confirms the part about being patient. “Unfortunately,” he says, “this stuff takes time, Vic. But if it would make you feel better, I could look into it, make sure this guy isn’t in custody any longer than he has to be. I’d need his name, of course.”
“That would be great. Thanks, Frank.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I search Frank’s eyes, unsure what I’m looking for. There’s a definite resemblance between Frank and his kids, Klint and Kory, and for some reason—I really couldn’t say why—I wonder what their mother looked like.
An image: Mom and Dad and I sit around the dinner table. Dad sets down his fork, moves his hand under the table in Mom’s direction. (Those hands never got lost.) And then come the words. The I-have-cancers and the we’re-going-to-beat-its and the tears and the sad smiles and the, and the, and the . . . And even though I know it will get bad, at first, I don’t feel that it’s bad. Because I can’t see it yet. Dad looks the same, acts the same, goes to work early, comes home late, chomps his teeth when he chews pasta, watches the news while reading the paper, checks on me every night . . .
Hey, V. You need anything?
No, Dad.
You good?
Yeah, Dad.
All right then. Good night.
Night, Dad.
He’s still Dad. In the beginning. But the end of cancer is what makes cancer cancer. In the end, Dad looks like a ghost. Like some kindergartner’s drawing of my dad. And then, he isn’t even that anymore.
And that is cancer.
That is the end.
After he died, Mom went to a support group. She wanted me to go too, but I don’t know—I just couldn’t. Joining a group meant acknowledging the possibility that I wasn’t alone in that particular boat. And I wasn’t ready for that yet. But Mom was. She welcomed company in her boat, her arms wide open. For a few hours every Thursday she was my old mom again; those were the best nights. And she always said the same thing: “The doughnuts were awful, Vic, but the company was great.”
I lean forward between the front seats, look up at the brown eyes in the rearview.
“Were the doughnuts really that bad, Frank?”
His eyes smile, fixed on the road. “Vic, they were fucking inedible.”
I look out the window as we approach the city and, not for the last time, wonder what Baz is looking at right now.
* * *
The last time I saw Baz, Mad and I stood with him on the curb across from the police station, the three of us building up the courage to enter.
“Why Hackensack?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
I needed an explanation for those chaotic, disastrous red lights. They had flickered and scattered and dwindled, and I desperately wanted someone, just once, to make a little sense of them.
“Coco’s story,” I said. “About seeing the TV ad—about Hackensack being on the verge of a Renaissance, and that’s the reason you guys all moved here—I mean, it’s bullshit, right?”
“There was an ad. And Coco was excited at the idea of moving here.”
“But it wasn’t really her idea.”
Baz kept his eyes on the police station as he spoke. “Our first foster family in Syracuse had a child of their own. A son. Most people treated us like a commodity, or an exhibit in a museum. But he did not. I liked him immediately, and we grew quite close. Things happened, things I am not proud of, and Nzuzi and I had to move. At some point, I heard our foster brother had moved to Hackensack, so when we needed a place to go, we came here.”
“Did you ever find him?” I asked.
“I did,” said Baz. “You met him.”
“Who?”
“Christopher.”
. . .
“Topher,” I said in a breath. I remembered the fierceness in their hug, and the shine in Topher’s eyes when he spoke of the kids, and the speed with which he’d agreed to put his life on hold indefinitely to help the Kabongo brothers.
The red lights, it seemed, weren’t always as chaotic as they appeared.
. . .
“This will definitely go in the book,” said Baz, his eyes focused on the police station.
Mad pulled the edges of her knit cap down. “You think that thing’s going to have a happy ending?”
“Happy in some ways,” said Baz.
In the ensuing silence, Mad and I were left to consider the ways in which his book might have a tragic ending. There were, unfortunately, many possibilities.
“‘Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,’ says the Lord.’” Baz turned to face Mad and me. “I know what to call it now.”
“You know what to call what?” asked Mad.
“The book. I have a title. It is quite long, which Dr. James L. Conroy advises against in his book. But I’m beginning to think Dr. James L. Conroy is full of shit.”
“So, what is it?” I asked. “What’s the title?”
Baz smiled, and his eyes clouded, and for once I knew exactly where he went: a place where he and his father watched movies in peace; where he rocked his baby sister to old hymns of great faithfulness and merciful mornings; where he and Zuz held quiet conversations well into the night; where he and his mother never had to write Chapters to begin with. In this land the only explosions were those of laughter, the only breaking was of bread, and the only shootings were of stars across the clear Brazzaville sky.
“They Lived and They Laughed and They Saw That It Was Good,” said Baz.
He turned and walked across the street.
MAD
Manhattan is a great place to feel small. And I don’t necessarily mean metaphorically, though considering the Ralph Laurens and Louboutins and Kate Spades, I suppose it works on that level too. I just mean, there are so many people, and so many cars, and so many structures, and structures upon structures, a vast expanse of hugeness the scope of which cannot be put into words except to say Manhattan is like a vertical ocean, and the sidewalk is the beach, and standing there, looking up instead of out, you think, My God, where does it end?
It is the infinite horizon.
Vic and I stand at the foot of Rockefeller Center. Frank found a spot to let us out, but apparently he can’t park here. He rolls down the passenger-side window, hands Vic a cell phone, and a thin roll of cash. “Miss your cell?”
“Not really,” says Vic, slipping the phone into his pocket. He thumbs through the money. “What’s this for?”
“You’re about to go to an observation deck atop a famous building in New York City during Christmas. This is called a perfect storm. And perfect storms get pricey.”
Vic slips on his backpack, leans into the open passenger window. “You’re not coming?”
“Parking’s a nightmare. Listen, once you get up there, call me, okay? If you find her, I wanna know immediately. I’ll just drive around till I hear from you.”
Even with the knit cap, the cold is beginning to permeate my entire head. I pull out my pack of cigarettes and light up while Frank and Vic stare at each other, trying to figure out what to say next. It would almost be sweet if it weren’t so painfully awkward.
Drag.
Blow.
Calm.
Vic clears his throat. “Umm, well, th—”
A car horn honks directly behind us. Frank honks back, then smiles at Vic. “You’re welcome. Now go get our girl.” He rolls up the window, pulls out into traffic, and disappears in the undertow.
Drag.
Blow.
Calm.
“He’s nice,” I say.
Vic turns from the street, faces me. “You’re nice.”
I laugh a little burst of smoke as he takes a step closer.
“I wish you wouldn’t smoke,” he says.
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
And now Vic is kissing me as waves of people crash all around, and I drop my cigarette, and he slips a hand up under my cap, his palm cold against the shaved side of my head. His other hand is on my back, and I can tell he’s nervous, every move carefully calculated, but I don’t mind—I love his math. His lips are cold and firm, and I keep my eyes open the entire time, knowing he can’t close his, and we find sweetness in our mutual functionality. It’s a wide-eyed, punked-up, open-mouthed, cold teeth, eager-tongued, asymmetrical feast.
The kiss ends as kisses do—it’s done with us, even if we aren’t done with it.
“Could you feel it?” asks Vic, a slightly smoky scent still hovering in the inches between us.
“What?”
“My smile. I wanted you to feel it.”
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss his forehead, then his nose, then his lips, then his chin. “I felt it.”
God, I love the sweet, sticky brine of Manhattan.
* * *
It’s hard not to think in terms of necessity. If the KOA needed bread, we passed on ice cream. We rationed our Babushka’s allotment, knowing it would only last so long. We made a habit of thinking in terms of usage over time and, in the process, discovered that frugality was not unlike a muscle: it strengthens with use.
So when Vic forked over sixty dollars for us to take an elevator to the top of a motherfucking building, I snorted out loud. The employee behind the desk gave me a weird look, like I was the one with topsy-turvy perspective.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m sure your elevator ride is worth every penny.”
We follow a line of people—rampant tourists, if the snacks and T-shirts and assorted knickknacks from the souvenir shop are any indication—to a set of elevators and climb aboard. Vic and I jostle into the back corner of the compartment as more people come out of nowhere. One little kid won’t stop staring at Vic, and just when I’m about to say something, the doors close, and a number of things happen: first, the lights dim, which incites a chorus of screams; music begins as the elevator ascends, and I notice the ceiling is made of glass, so we can see the elevator shaft as we rise; the length of the channel is lined with bright-blue lights, so the whole thing actually does feel like a ride; a movie projects against the glass ceiling, some sort of Achievements of Human History video with cameos from Martin Luther King Jr., Neil Armstrong, and Richard Nixon (so okay, maybe not achievements so much as milestones), and it’s all very bright and flashy and techno, until we reach the top, and the last frame flashes on Barack Obama’s beaming face, and a robotic female voice says (I shit you not), “Welcome to Top of the Rock,” as if arriving at the top of this building is just one of the many Important Historical Things I might witness today, ranked slightly under Barack Obama’s face.
Vic and I are the last ones off the elevator.
“Welcome,” says Vic, a dreamy lilt in his voice, “to Top of the Rock.”
I throw one arm out in wide-sweeping grandeur. “Where all your dreams come true.”
We laugh, look around for where to go next. I’d expected the elevator to take us straight to the rooftop, but it only went so far as the highest floor of the building. There’s another gift shop, and across the room, people in hats and coats are going up an escalator.
“There,” I say, grabbing Vic’s hand and starting in that direction.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
Even though the voice is nearby, it seems to come out of nowhere, as if we’d had a third person with us this whole time who only now decided to speak up.
The kid is only a few feet away, holding his mother’s hand in front of the gift shop window. It’s the same kid from the elevator, the one with the staring problem. He’s probably ten or eleven—old enough to know bett
er. The mother says nothing, but I can tell she heard. Her face is beet red, even as she pretends to be window shopping. I’m about to tell them both off when Vic walks right up to the kid, bends down so he’s eye to eye with him, and says, “Nothing.”
The mother turns around now, if for no other reason than because a complete stranger is kneeling down, talking to her son. But she doesn’t say anything. I think even she can sense the scary realness of what’s happening.
The kid studies Vic’s face from different angles, completely undeterred by their sudden proximity.
“Really?” he asks.
Vic points to the kid’s head. “What color is your hair?”
“Brown.”
“And your eyes?”
The kid smiles a kid-smile. “They’re brown too.”
For some reason, I start crying. I honestly don’t know why.
Vic asks, “Do you like music?”
The kid nods.
“What kind?”
“The Ramones.”
Vic looks at the mom, who shrugs, and I laugh through tears because the kid’s answer reminds me so much of Coco.
“I like jazz,” says Vic. “And a little opera.”
The kid’s mom smiles down at her son, and I think maybe she’s smiling at Vic too.
“So you were born with brown hair and brown eyes,” says Vic. “Some people have blue eyes and red hair, some have green eyes and no hair.”
A small crowd of shoppers who’d been within earshot of the conversation now gathers around Vic and this kid. “Different skin colors, eye colors,” says Vic, “different families and histories and ways to love. It’s better that way. We get Joey Ramone and Miles Davis.” The crowd chuckles quietly. “So you were born like that”—he points to the kid’s face—“and I was born like this.” He points to his own.
The kid nods and smiles up at his mom, and I think back to the first words I ever heard Vic say, on a snowy night by the USS Ling.
I hope you were right, he whispered into the jar. I hope there’s beauty in my asymmetry.
I never got to meet Vic’s dad, but I’m thinking he was a pretty smart guy.