Breaking Night (36 page)

“Liz,” he stepped in, a grim expression on his face. He was suddenly very serious. “That’s . . .
horrendous.
It sounds like you’ve been through a lot, and I do want to help. But I also want to make sure I’m helping in the right way, do you understand?” I don’t know why I thought he meant calling social services. My eyes found the quickest exits. I could outrun this guy; the train back to Bedford was just five blocks away. “What I mean, Liz, is that I see from your appointment slip that you’ll soon be seventeen, with no high school history whatsoever. Is that right?”

“I have one credit,” I said. Coming out of his mouth, seventeen sounded so old. Of all the kids who interviewed before me, none of them could have been older than fifteen.

“Well, I admire your effort to come here today. I just want to say, if this is the right place for you, then that’s one thing. But that depends on what you’re looking for. Four years of high school might be a lot for a seventeen-year-old. I would be remiss if I did not inform you that there is an excellent, six-month GED program offered at night on the other side of this building. . . . Before we talk more, I just want to make you aware of your options.”

Options. He’d struck a nerve. All those times I’d watched Ma humble herself to Brick, accepting his demands, his rough shoves, his shouting, opening her legs to him out of need—all because she lacked options. Daddy with his sharp mind and his rich life experiences, his education, living in a shelter, without options.

“I’m an ex-con, who would hire me?” he often said. “My options are limited.” Being in the motels, eating from the trash Carlos left behind, no options. I’d heard GEDs turned out great for many people. But after all that Ma and Daddy had gone through, something in my gut told me graduating high school meant I’d have more options.

“I see where you’re coming from, Perry, and I really appreciate your help . . . but I want to graduate high school. It’s just something I have to do.”

Hearing myself say it out loud made it real. Speaking what I wanted was totally different from just thinking it. Speaking it made me connect; I could feel it. I was shaking. Perry’s eyes were still on me. I tried to guess what he was thinking about what I said, what he thought of me:
Failure
.
Dirty. Train wreck.
Or he was trying to decide how to tell me no in the most polite way possible. With that tie and those glasses, those shiny shoes, he looked like the polite type. He probably grew up in Westchester, I thought. He probably told people like me “no” all the time, just like the rest of them did.

Perry leaned back heavily in his chair and let out a small sigh. But he didn’t look stressed; he looked emotional. I waited.

“Liz,” he started, sitting up again, sending my heart racing.
Here it comes,
I thought. His voice was much lower, his face completely serious. “Can you get here on time?”

A smile pushed itself across my face and my eyes welled up. “Absolutely,” I answered. “Yes.”

The only catch was that I had to bring in a guardian to officially register me in school, as soon as possible.

Daddy and I met on Nineteenth Street and Seventh Avenue later that week. By then, I’d started to sketch out a plan. I would register for school, spend the summer working, save money, and attend Prep while living off my savings. It seemed solid. But the whole thing hinged on Daddy’s help—I needed him to get me past these registration papers. From there, everything else I could handle on my own.

When I showed up for our meeting that muggy Thursday morning, I found Daddy leaning on a lamppost, engrossed in a book. I paced myself as I approached him, taking time to ready myself and take deep, relaxing breaths. The last thing I wanted was for Daddy to see me emotional; I don’t think either of us knew how to deal with each other’s emotions. That’s probably why we had a silent agreement to pretend we didn’t have any. But seeing him there, I was emotional. For months, I’d grown so accustomed to seeing strange faces and moving endlessly to new locations that the familiarity of Daddy’s face, standing out from a sea of faces, hit me hard. No matter how much time or hurt had passed between us, I simply missed my father. Now here he was again, resurfaced, a thinner, unshaved version of himself, tattered-looking, made offbeat by the busy Manhattan life that surrounded him. He looked as fragile as Ma had that day on Mosholu Parkway when we blew our wishes into the sky on dandelion puffs. Rarely had I experienced my parents outside of our home, or away from University Avenue, but every time I did, the world around us kept reminding me of their limitations, how society made them look vagrant.

The night before, I’d called his shelter and was patched through to him by a woman who called out his name sharply, which made me feel sorry for him, protective. The way he’d spoken, so faintly into the phone, I might have woken him from a nap, I thought.

“Daddy. I’m going back to school. I need you to register me. Uh, I was hoping you could register me.” I got right to the point because time on the shelter phone is limited. He’d asked twice for clarification. “No, not a program, Daddy, a real high school, yes. I kind of need you there.” Everything in my body resisted using the word
need
with him. “Do you think you can make it?” If his answer had been “no” for any reason, I’m not sure what I would have done. But it wasn’t. He agreed to meet me, without the hesitation I’d expected. Though I hadn’t explained to him about the lying part. That I would save for later.

For the school’s administration, I designed an airtight story that in no way indicated I was homeless. I would use a friend’s address and a fake phone number as my cover. Because I knew the school would never be able to reach Daddy, I’d tell them he was a long-haul truck driver who was on the road for weeks at a time. I decided the story was believable enough to work, so long as I could get Daddy to go along with it.

He smiled as I walked up to greet him, a huge smile at me from under his newsboy cap. I smiled back, and my hesitation gave way to the simple joy I felt from seeing him again. We hugged, and after he rubbed a single page from his thick book carefully between his fingers, and took a moment to dog-ear it, tucking it into his shoulder bag, we began walking. I was nervous about talking to him about anything too serious—our current lives, Lisa,
Ma
—so I got right into the details about Prep, as though we saw each other every day and could afford to be casual. I coached him on all the little, important parts.

“Two hundred sixty-four East 202nd Street.” I recited a phone number. “Zip code 10458. Can you remember all that, Daddy?”

His face was all twisted up, and I could tell he was wondering what he’d gotten himself into. “You want me to say
what
?” he yelled. “Lizzy, they think I’m a
truck driver
?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t matter. They’re not going to quiz you about the industry, ya know?” He seemed more panicked than he was angry; I noticed his hands shaking a little.

Maybe my own uneasiness about entering meetings like these was inherited.

“And I live
where
?” he asked.

Vince, the co-director of Prep, Perry’s partner in running the school, met us. Also a middle-aged man with glasses, Vince seemed a little more serious than Perry, with a harder edge to him. Still, he smiled just as much and he turned out to be equally as warm and kind. When we walked into his office, he presented Daddy with a set of papers, spreading them out on the table between the two of them. The parts where Daddy needed to sign were already X’d.

“Good to meet you, Mr. Murray,” he said, shaking Daddy’s hand. Daddy smiled a complacent smile, obviously uncomfortable.

“Finnerty, actually,” Daddy corrected. “Liz’s mother and I were never married. It was the seventies, you know. She was spirited and all—actually she was completely crazy.” He laughed. I cringed. Vince didn’t bat an eye; he only smiled at Daddy. “Call me Peter,” Daddy said.

He was so nervous, it was making me nervous. What would I do if we couldn’t pull this off? Where would I go if we blew my one chance? I stared at Vince in search of any sign of suspicion. “Okay,” I intervened, clapping my hands together. “Let’s get this moving, then. I don’t mean to rush, it’s just that I don’t want to hold up my dad or anything. You know, with work and all.”

Even though his hands were trembling, Daddy managed to sign the same neat, jagged signature I’d seen him apply to absent notes and welfare documents my whole life. He muttered to himself and kept pushing his tongue around in his cheek.

“Hmmm, okay. Good, great. Perfect,” he kept saying. “Good, got it.”

My eyes were fixed on Vince, my heart pounding. I tried to look calm and cheerful. “Address?” Vince asked, with his fingertips perched onto a computer keyboard.

I looked over at Daddy. His eyes were trained on the ceiling and he was rubbing his hand on his forehead to jog his memory. “Nine thirty three—” he began, butchering Bobby’s address.

“Two six four! Two six four, Daddy!” I quickly interrupted. “See what happens when you don’t get enough sleep!” I patted Daddy’s hand, my smile nervous. “He works too much,” I said to Vince, shaking my head to fake lighthearted disapproval. “Two hundred sixty-four East 202nd Street,” I finished for him. I gave Vince the phone number, too. Now I was shaking. We almost blew it. But I finally relaxed as I saw the meeting come to an end when Vince stood and reached out for Daddy to shake his hand again. Daddy gave Vince a smile familiar to me from our meetings with social workers.

“Well, okay then. Welcome to Prep, Liz,” Vince said, suddenly turning to me. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, hoping Daddy wouldn’t say another word. “Next thing you should do is see April for another appointment to come back and get your schedule drawn up for the fall.”

I smiled and thanked Vince. The moment he retreated into his office, I ushered Daddy toward the door. On our way out of Prep I had to talk Daddy out of stealing a copy of
Time
magazine from the office.

Back on Nineteenth Street, I walked Daddy to the train. We’d visited for less than forty-five minutes. Standing in front of the station entrance, I watched Daddy fidget, strapping and unstrapping a Velcro flap that tightened his closed umbrella. He didn’t make eye contact with me, but kept looking past me, from the umbrella and then into the train station.

“Well, I hope that did it, Liz. Sorry if I messed up in there. I think it worked out anyway. . . . Do you think you’ll actually go to school this time?” His question stabbed doubt at me, mocked my assurance.

“Yes. I know I will,” I said, with more certainty than I expected from myself. I’d borrowed some of Bobby’s clothing for the day, baggy, but still clean. I had designed a cover story about my life for Daddy, too. On our few recent phone calls, I’d told him I lived at Bobby’s house permanently now, and that I was fine. He didn’t ask questions, and I hoped it would stay that way. What I was avoiding, in every way possible, was for him to know what I was really going through. Because if he found out, I knew it would hurt him. Then he’d be living in a shelter
and
worrying about me, too. Then I’d worry about him worrying about me, and what good would that do either of us? Better to have him believe I was okay.

“Well, that’s good you’re really going this time,” he said. “Good to know. I think you might actually do that then. That’s good. . . . Yeah, Lizzy, maybe you’ll go all the way now.” Coming from Daddy, it was a real compliment.

“That’s the idea,” I said, smiling at him.

He took out a napkin to blow his nose and I saw by its insignia that he’d taken it from McDonald’s. Daddy had been doing that since I was a kid, dipping into fast food places, raiding their supplies.

“So things, are they all right at the shelter, going good and all?” I asked, leading him in my question. Maybe I didn’t want all the information about his life either; maybe I was protecting myself from worrying about him, too.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I, uh, get my three squares there. It’s air-conditioned. They treat me well. Can’t complain. Hey, Lizzy, do you have any money? Maybe for tokens or lunch?” I’d borrowed ten dollars from Bobby that morning. I had eight left. I removed what I needed to take the subway back to the Bronx and gave the rest to him.

“Hey thanks,” Daddy said. It felt good to be helpful to him again.

“No problem. I have some money saved, it’s no big deal,” I lied.

I walked him downstairs into the train station and we hugged good-bye, exchanging promises to talk and meet up more often. He didn’t stay at the turnstiles and wait for the train with me. Instead, he said good-bye and walked away far down the platform to wait. When he passed a pay phone, he stuck his fingers inside to search for loose change.

I was scheduled to begin high school in September; it was May now. I would use the months ahead to prepare; I had four years to make up. The next thing I had to do, in order to complete my registration in Prep, was return to JFK, my old high school, and get my official transcript.

Having seen Prep, JFK looked absolutely massive in comparison. I passed through metal detectors to enter the building. No one looked at me. Students were everywhere, thousands of them. It felt like a bus station. Taking the number 1 train back to Prep later that day, I sat down and ripped open the manila envelope. Columns of failing grades—45, 60, 50—were everywhere. It was unnerving, reading row after row of flunking marks. I felt like a mess, a big walking train wreck. The experience of talking about my grades (having been lectured by adults so many times) versus actually
seeing
my transcripts was night and day. Transcripts were a real thing, a tangible expression of what I had and had not done with my life, and a road map of what still had to be done. Looking at my academic disaster, I could see that I had a mountain ahead of me to climb.

Then, very suddenly, sitting on the train gazing at the JFK stationery, it dawned on me—my Prep transcripts were still completely blank. I literally had nothing, no grades, zip on my Prep transcripts yet. I could start fresh.