Bucky F*cking Dent (22 page)

They followed a discreet distance behind her. “Nancy Drew,” Ted said sotto voce. The
abuela
shopped for fruit and vegetables. People in the neighborhood knew her; she'd been here awhile. Ted and Mariana closed the gap, and as the woman was sniffing at a melon, she turned and made eye contact with them. Mariana immediately grabbed Ted for a kiss, to throw the mystery woman off the scent with the charade that she and Ted were lovers. When the woman moved on, Mariana disengaged. Ted was paralyzed, stuck in the previous moment, where he wouldn't mind staying for the rest of his natural days; he wasn't sure what the fuck just happened, but he was sure he liked it. “That was close,” Mariana said.

Ted managed to stutter out a “Yeah, Nancy…” and ran out of words after two.

“Drew?” Mariana asked helpfully.

“Drew, yeah, Drew,” Ted said in his daze, bringing his word total to three.

The older woman disappeared into a corner bodega. They followed in half-ironic amateur sleuth mode. Inside the bodega, they could see her buying lottery tickets, paying in crumpled bills and spare change. They walked in, Ted averting his face, hoping to catch her by surprise. He managed to get right up next to her without her sensing, as she concentrated on her lucky numbers.

She felt his presence and looked up. Ted was right there. She stopped breathing, like she'd seen a ghost. Ted was quiet, just presenting himself to her. She reached out her hand to touch him, making sure he was real. She put her hand on his cheek, seemed about to cry, and said, “
Tus ojos…”

Ted glanced at Mariana for the translation, which she provided. “Your eyes.”

The old woman continued, “
Tus ojos
 … your eye, like a man. Marty. El Spleenter?”

 

49.

“Fuck that!” exploded through the door of Marty's bathroom. “And fuck you!”

Ted stood on this side of the bathroom, locked out, Mariana beside him. “What have you got to lose, Dad? She wants to see you.”

“You got a lot of fucking nerve, I'll tell you that!”

“I just thought maybe you'd like some—”

“Some what, you creep?”

Ted turned to ask Mariana, “What did you call that thing again?”

Mariana supplied the magic word. “Closure.”

“Closure!” Ted repeated at volume.

From the other side of the door came the perhaps irrefutable retort: “Closure is for pussies!”

“I gotta say, Dad, she was looking pretty good.”

“Shut up!”

“You can't hide in there all night.”

“It's my house, I'll hide anywhere I damn well please!”

The bathroom door swung open suddenly and there Marty stood in a jacket and tie, cleaned up, hair combed, freshly shaven, a big, scowling smile on his face. Ted and Mariana were struck dumb.

Ted gave the old man a little payback: “Shavin' for his lady…”

“Shut up. I look ridiculous. Like a fucking pterodactyl. Like Al fucking Lewis. Like a vertical corpse.”

“No, Marty, you look spiffy. I would be proud to be on your arm.”

Mariana offered her arm to Marty, who gave Ted a fuck-you smile, whispered in his ear, “You, sir, can suck my dick,” and took Mariana's arm.

Off they went, leaving Ted to follow in their wake.

 

50.

The Corolla, that grumpy old Japanese man, refused to start. So they walked to the subway. This made Ted uncomfortable because he had kept his father in that newsless bubble, pretty much sealed off from the world, for the past few weeks. Marty had not ventured beyond the inside of the house, the inside of the car, and a daily visit to Benny's kiosk, where the old men had helped keep the Sox bubble sealed quite expertly. Ted had managed the VCR charade extremely well and had even convinced Marty that the “A-maz-in'” Bill Mazer was on vacation, so they had stopped watching the sports recap at night. The subway and the walk to Maria's apartment was a haphazard free-for-all in comparison. Ted was on high alert. He felt like the secret service. The Marty perimeter must not be compromised.

It reminded Ted of when Marty would take him to the park for pickup football. Football wasn't like softball to Marty, he didn't bet on it, didn't take it at all seriously. So he'd allow unathletic Ted to be a part of it. Ted would have been about ten, and Marty would make sure that he got picked among the men. Ted was the only kid there and he wasn't there because he was good. He was there because Marty was the best quarterback in the neighborhood, and if he wanted his kid to play, his kid would play. Marty would give Ted a route to run on every play—down and out, down and in, stop and go—and Ted would dutifully run them. Nobody guarded Ted. He didn't know, but he was playing in a game of his own. If it was five on five, Ted would be the sixth man on his father's team. Marty would call plays in their huddle for the men and, as they'd break, he'd whisper a route in Ted's ear. The words were magical and sometimes military, like macho spy talk—
buttonhook
,
down and in
,
slant
,
bomb
. Ted couldn't remember if he ever got the ball thrown to him, but Marty would always look him in the eye and say, “We're saving you for a critical moment. They're gonna forget about you and that's when I'll hit you. Get open, buddy boy. You're my secret weapon.” It never mattered that he didn't get the ball; it was the nicest thing his father ever said to him. He was his father's “secret weapon,” and that was more than enough. The weapon had never been deployed on the asphalt. But tonight it was. Ted was going long and really was, after all, Marty's secret weapon.

Marty had insisted on bringing a six-pack of beer for the occasion. Ted had suggested wine or champagne; Marty was sure that beer was the right call. Marty also refused to bring his cane. Kinda broke Ted's heart a little that Marty wouldn't bring the cane, struggling to appear vigorous and healthy. Marty caught sight of himself in the car-window reflection, and was unable to hide his disappointment. “Whenever I catch my reflection,” he said, “I expect to see a sixteen-year-old kid and I point at it, and think, Who is that old man?”

When necessary, he leaned on Mariana for support. In solidarity with Marty, Ted and Mariana had both dressed nicely for the occasion.

As they sat in the lurching subway car, Marty saw an abandoned
New York Post
on the seat next to him, and he reached for it idly. Ted, the secret weapon, pounced and grabbed the paper from his father. Marty looked irritated. “What are you doing?”

“You don't wanna get that newsprint ink all over your hands. You'll look like a bum. Let me see your cravat now, Captain.”

Ted reached over and fiddled with Marty's tie the same way Marty would have knotted Ted's tie so many Thanksgivings ago. It seemed each action tonight was fraught with symbolism and import. It made Ted feel like he was inhabiting two worlds, the real and the symbolic. He felt a slightly pleasant vertigo from this. Mariana reached over to straighten Ted's tie. Ted looked at Mariana and wished there were something out of place on her that he could touch or correct. But there wasn't. She was perfect.

 

51.

When they exited the subway in Spanish Harlem, they could hear the Yankee game broadcast in Spanish on many transistor radios. Men sat outside bodegas, on stoops, on their cars, radios by their ear or at their feet. Ted could see his father was curious for a score, so he kept up a constant stream of obfuscating chatter as he hustled Marty forward as quickly as the sick and tired old man could. Onward to Maria's address.

They stopped outside the building. Marty looked up at the windows, lost somewhere deep within himself. “You recognize the place?” Mariana asked him. Marty didn't answer, just kept staring up at the windows or the sky, it was impossible to tell which.

To get up the stairs to the third floor was slow going. At every landing they stopped for breath. “I'm fucking ridiculous,” Marty gasped. “I hate this. I'm breathing like a fucking fish. I look like a goddamm grouper.” They finally made it to Maria's door and Ted, the stage manager, pushed Marty to the front so Maria would see Marty, and only Marty, when she opened the door. Ted waited for Marty to catch his breath. He knocked and then stepped back again behind his father. The knob turned, and Ted saw Marty straighten his back as best he could, trying to iron out the effect of decades of gravity and illness. Ted pulled at the tail of Marty's jacket to make the fit work best and take the hunch from the fabric at his shoulders.

The door opened and there was Maria. She had transformed herself from the somewhat dowdy older woman of that afternoon into a beautiful relic. She was not trying to look young, she was just trying to look like her best self, and she had succeeded. Marty and Maria stood there speechless, looking at each other over the expanse of years, taking in all the damage, sensing all the experience in the other that they had not been part of and would never ever really know.

Maria's eyes were wet and shining. She had no doubt who stood before her, and she said in her heavily accented English, “You look like a man I once knew.”

“I feel like half the man you once knew.”

They fell into eloquent silence again. Ted felt like they might stay here at the threshold all night, and that would be okay. The aroma of home-cooked Latin food seemed to draw them forward, however. Marty pulled the six-pack from behind his back, and said with a maître d' flourish in a thick, put-on Nuyorican accent, “Ice-col' Buh-whyssser.”

Maria laughed and wistfully repeated, “Buh-whyssser.”

Then she stepped away from the door, extending her arm as an invitation to enter, opening up her world and the past to Marty, Mariana, and Ted.

 

52.

Maria's apartment was modest and simple, and Ted could tell immediately that she lived alone and had for some time. This observation pleased him. Ted looked around at photos and such to see if there were hints of Marty's existence, but he couldn't find anything. There was a photo of John Kennedy. There were plenty of framed photos of children and a few of a man Ted assumed was their father, but he saw no clues that this man was still around. The Yankee game was on, so Ted quietly went over and turned the TV off, and Marty didn't seem to care at all. The secret weapon getting open, being deployed. Marty and Maria sat in two chairs by the window, speaking quietly to each other. Marty had a posture and affect that Ted had never seen before—soft, receptive, attentive. He couldn't remember ever seeing him like that with his mother, but that was a long time ago. It seemed that Marty and Maria had seen each other yesterday, not twenty years ago. Mariana came up behind Ted and said softly in his ear, “Stop staring at them.” Ted felt her breath on his skin, and that made him want to keep staring just so she would have to whisper in his ear again.

They sat at the small dining room table, and ate chicken and pork and beans and rice; they drank beer and wine and sangria. Mariana pointed and informed Ted of the exotica—“Empanadas, arroz con gandules, arroz con frijoles, mofongo, pernil…” All new and scary to Ted. He was afraid to eat. He looked at his food warily, like a wildebeest at the watering hole afraid of submerged crocodiles.

He could see Mariana watching Marty's beer-and-wine intake. He shrugged as if to say Well, what the fuck—this one time. A new dish caught Ted's eye—fried plátanos, or fried bananas as Ted knew them. He looked at the dish, and then looked at Mariana, who shrugged.

“Excuse me, Maria, what are these?” Ted asked.

“Plátanos.”

Thought so. He ate a piece. It was one of the best things he'd ever tasted in his life, even better than what he'd had in the diner. “I'm an idiot.”

“Not an idiot,” Mariana said.

“Thanks.”

“Maybe just a little slow. Here, I'll help you. Now, don't be scared.” She began to feed Ted a forkful of each dish as she named them for him.

“Empanadas.”

“Mmmmmmm…”

“Arroz con gandules.”

“Mmmmmmm…”

“Arroz con frijoles.”

“Mmmmmmmmmmmm…”

“Mofongo.”

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”

“Pernil.”

“Mmmm … give me that.” Ted took the fork from Mariana and began stuffing his own face. Even though Maria had trouble understanding him with his mouth so full, she got the gist when Ted said to her, “These are the best things I've ever put in my mouth.”

Maria got up from the table and disappeared into the bedroom for a minute. She came back with an old manila folder. Ted was a little tipsy himself. “The thrilla in the manila,” he said.

She emptied the contents on the table—photographs. In that distinctive Kodacolor that made everything look immediately like a memory, and made memories seem even farther back in time and more sacred than they ever were.

One photo jumped out at Ted immediately. It was apparently taken at a city ballfield eons ago. It was unposed, of the whole softball team, the Nine Crowns. In one corner, you could see Marty and Maria laughing at a private joke. There was a glow from the setting sun about it, giving it a sense of timelessness. You can't believe that this time ever passed, and you can't believe that this time ever really was. Maria and Marty started pointing out people and players that they remembered and telling stories about long-forgotten characters. “This guy from the neighborhood, Carlos Crocchetti, half Italian, half Puerto Rican, could never really make the team, pinch runner maybe, more of a batboy, always a smile on his face. One day, I asked him, ‘Carlos, why're you so happy? What's the secret?' and he goes, ‘I look like I'm happy, but truth is I'm miserable and I hate everything and everybody. Including you.' He was totally serious, the funniest fucking thing I ever heard in my life.”