Like Son (25 page)
Kim wiped my chest with a thick wad of surgical cotton soaked in cold rubbing alcohol and shaved what little chest hair I had with a white and orange plastic disposable razor. The razor reminded me of those vanilla and orange half-andhalf popsicles that were so popular when I was a kid. I used to love them. And I’d chew on the popsicle sticks for hours after the ice cream was gone. Every now and then, the stick would splinter and there was something very particular about the taste of the wood when it did—it was like sucking on cotton, and the resulting sensation was always slightly nauseating to me. Kim threw the used razor in the trash, and I felt that weird popsicle-stick feeling on my tongue. She mistook my sour face for pure nerves.
“Breathe,” she said as she cleaned my skin again.
I breathed in the strong scent of rubbing alcohol. She pressed the transfer of the sketch on my chest, slightly left of center, and handed me a mirror.
“Check if it’s how you want it. Last chance.”
I sat up. Nathalie was holding my hand. There was a wild spark in her eyes. She mouthed,
I love you
.
“It is exactly how I want it,” I said and lay back down.
Kim rubbed one of the two ointments from the tray onto my chest over the tattoo outline. My skin tingling already, she came at me with a buzzing needle dipped in black ink.
Okay, look, I’m not going to bullshit you. Getting the tattoo hurt. It really fucking goddamned hurt. I must have drained Nathalie’s hand of all its blood for how hard I clenched it with my own. For over three hours, that evil little tattoo gun’s needles dug deep into me, first outlining in black, then shading with what felt like tiny slicing X-Acto blades, finally adding color. Gripping Nathalie’s hand, I closed my eyes and focused on breathing, almost nodding off from the constant endorphin overload. The pain eventually became meditative, almost pleasurable in some fucked-up wonderful way.
At some point, I felt Kim wipe my chest and rub on more thick ointment. “Done,” she said, and patted my shoulder.
I opened my eyes and saw the shining raised brilliance of my tattoo. I swore the heart pulsed, and the banner with Nathalie’s name flapped in the breeze. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Nathalie kissed my sweat-slicked forehead. A tear rolled down her cheek. The expression on her face confused me. Was she sad? Happy? Overwhelmed?
“Sweets?”
“Love you,” was all she said.
Meanwhile, a sadistic glow warmed Kim’s face. Smiling for real this time, she bandaged the tattoo and instructed me on follow-up care. Gauze and surgical tape for a binder (I folded up and stashed my usual binder in my coat pocket), I got dressed, thanked Kim, and paid. Damn, how I paid. A hefty fee and tip—totally earned and deserved, but shocking nonetheless—having made a sizable dent in my credit card, Nathalie and I walked home.
By the time we got in bed it was almost 4 a.m., and I was totally wiped out, but in the most pleasant way, like after an awesome day of work and a long night of excellent fucking. Still, I felt like I could sleep for days. I just about wanted to die when Nathalie asked me to set the alarm for 7:00 so we could get to the protest meeting place on time, but whatever, I set the alarm. Lights turned out, the clock glowed on the nightstand next to the retablo of Nahui. The tattoo making it too painful to hold my girl, I fell asleep with Nat’s hand in mine.
A
larm blasting,I woke still holding Nathalie’s hand. “Morning,” she mumbled as I turned off the alarm. “Don’t get up. I’ll go get you a coffee, okay?” “Love you,” she said, stretching and taking over my half of the bed.
In the bathroom, I washed my hands super carefully and removed the bandage from my chest. I slathered A&D ointment over the tattoo exactly as Kim had instructed. The petroleum and weeping ink and forming scabs promised to be an oozing nightmare. My softest undershirt was transformed into a greasy, smeared mess as soon as I put it on. Resolved not to let such minor inconveniences ruin my good mood, I finished getting dressed and pulled the front door closed gently behind me. As I walked down the stairs, a revolting stench hit me at the second-floor landing. Overly tired, my mouth filled with sour spit, I pinched my nose and kept walking.
At the corner bodega I got Nat her coffee, sweet and light with soy milk, along with a dozen purple dahlias wrapped in a brown paper cone. I looked forward to a hug that would make my tattooed chest ache. As tired as I was, life wasn’t going to get any better than it felt at that very moment.
I entered the apartment and saw a shimmer. Large and gold, a wrapped box sat on the bed where Nathalie should have been.
“Nat?” I called out and closed the door behind me.
There was no answer. The bathroom door was open. No Nathalie. Where was she? Gruesome Hansel and Gretel flash, I wondered if Nathalie might be tucked in the oven. I skipped checking that space, but did pull back the shower curtain and look on the top shelves in the closet for kicks. No luck. Instead, I found a note on my pillow next to the gold box:
Frank,
I’ll call very soon. I promise. Love you,
Nathalie
I was convinced it had to be a joke. I mean, I’d been gone for all of fifteen minutes and she’d still been in bed when I left. She sure hadn’t had much time to dress, pack, and bail again for real. Yes, it had to be a joke. A really lame and twisted one, but a joke nonetheless. I figured she had to be hiding somewhere; she just wanted to see a look of surprise on my face when I found the gift, right? Maybe she was on the stoop … ? I checked. Empty. Fuck. If she’d gone to the basement, she better come back soon because we really did have to get going if we were going to make it to the protest on time.
I slammed the bodega cup down on the nightstand, and a little coffee splashed on the framed retablo of Nahui. I dropped the bodega flowers and keys to the floor. Coat shrugged off, feet wiggled out of shoes, scarf and hat peeled and left where they landed, I slumped down on the bed and waited. Five minutes. Fifteen minutes. An hour. Nothing. God-fuckingdamnit. My tattoo itched like all hell. The tattoo. So not cool, Nat. I couldn’t understand it—how had she let me get the tattoo? What about the baby she’d said she wanted barely two days ago? It made no sense, but there was no doubting it. She was gone, really gone. Again.
I read Nathalie’s note over and over.
I’ll call very soon. I promise. Love you. I’ll call very soon, I promise. Love you. I’ll call very. Soon, I promise, love you.
I couldn’t wait any longer; I needed to know what Nathalie had left me.
The gift box’s wrapping paper was textured like gold leaf, and the bow was starched raw silk. You had to give it to her—for all of Nat’s internal conflict, the girl knew how to make surfaces look good. I fucking hated Nathalie’s wrapping precisely because it was so elegant and classy. To make things even worse, the paper and bow somehow reminded me of the stuff my father had used to wrap Nahui’s book and retablo when he gave them to me. But more to the point, it made me insane to think that Nathalie had folded and tucked and taped so perfectly when she must have known she was leaving again. Didn’t her hands tremble? Where were the watermark stains from her tears? I mean, sure, maybe she’d been planning to give me the gift for days, since long before she’d known she was going to take off, and then, totally unrelated, she decided to leave last minute. But, no matter, by the time I found the gift, it was both a bribe and a reminder that I didn’t know where Nathalie had gone, when she’d be back, if she’d return at all. Wanting to hurt the gift just a little, I ripped off its silk bow, dropped the shimmering length of fabric to the ground, and tore through the remaining wrapping.
Bulky plastic casing with dark wood laminate accents and a flimsy extending silver antenna, the gizmo I held was a distant cousin of the first radio alarm clock I’d had as a kid. A weather radio. What the hell? A goddamned stupid weather radio? Nathalie had left me a weather radio and all I could wonder was
why
. Would it forecast her return? Would it warn of apocalyptic earthquake suns? I plugged it into an electrical socket at the far side of the bed and rolled a control knob on the side until the unit clicked on.
A blizzard is expected. Central Park: fifteen to twenty inches of snow by nightfall tomorrow. It is advised to not travel if possible …
Excellent. Just peachy.
… If you must travel during this storm, avoid traveling alone. Let a family member or friend know your plans or route. Those venturing outdoors may become lost or disoriented …
The radio weatherman cared. His robotic, digitally synthesized voice providing plain-speak wisdom, he was part Stephen Hawking, part Johnny Appleseed. The longer I listened, the clearer I saw his mustached face, his tin pot hat, thick flannel shirt, and heavy work jeans. His feet were bare. Big generous heart, he’d taken off his boots and given them to a poor shoeless young pioneer he’d met on the trail. And he always had a bunch of new ribbons in his pockets for the admiring little girls who ran out from lonely log cabins in the woods to meet him. The computer-voiced weatherman sat in a rustic office situated on top of Manhattan’s highest hill, mugs of cowboy gritty black coffee keeping him alert as he carefully monitored barometric and temperature gauges. He scoped the horizon for storms with a handheld telescope. He kept his listeners safe. His job was hard and thankless.
Hypnotized by the steady cadence of his voice, I lay sprawled across the bed on my back and listened to the radio until sweat started dripping off my forehead and down onto the mattress. The super had turned the radiator up so high that I felt like I might faint. Prone, I stared at the ceiling. There, directly above the bed, two faint fissures in the plaster intersected. That pair of barely discernable lines quartered the room into lopsided parts. Had the cracks been there before? I didn’t remember them. I was fairly certain they were new, but I couldn’t say for sure. I’d never spent much time staring at the ceiling above the bed. My vision blurred.
… conditions will be downright dangerous …
Downright dangerous? Had the robot weatherman actually said that?
Downright dangerous?
The guy was charming if you gave him half a chance.
Under such intense observation, the ceiling seemed to vibrate. I planned to call the super.
There are lines on the ceiling?
he’d ask.
Yes
, I’d say.
And?
Yes,
and?
And what? What would I expect him to do? Fix it, of course. Patch up the fissures before they expanded and the universe collapsed. Paint them over so no trace of past damage would show. That’s what I wanted.
Like clouds turning into faces and unicorns and hearts, the lines on the ceiling shifted and, strange magic, I remembered Nathalie knew I was taking a train to D.C. the next morning for the estate auction. What if I’d gotten worked up over nothing? Given all that Nathalie was capable of, it
was
possible that the note she left with the radio was just to throw me off her trail so I’d be totally surprised when she met me at Union Station as I disembarked. Maybe she was planning a little round of traveling-businessman-meets-pretty-single-girl-at-the-train-station. That could be nice. Especially if she wore her Burberry trench with a nice pair of two-tone vintage pumps … and nothing else. Okay, maybe some stockings. With a garter. It was freezing out, after all. A little square wicker suitcase at her side would be a nice touch. And if the fates were feeling particularly generous, snow would be melting in her hair when she met me. Nathalie’s skin glowed so pretty when drizzled with dewdrops.
… stock emergency kits with high energy foods …
I would pack two sandwiches, one for Nathalie and one for me. Two peanut butter and thinly sliced banana on wheat bread sandwiches, halved with the crusts cut off. I would even pack a Thermos of tomato soup for us to share.
I continued to lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, motionless, even as the weather radio fell in and out of tune and took to alternately transmitting static. The repetitive high-pitched electronic wails soothing me in a misery-lovesmisery sort of way, I thought of a story my father told me once when I accompanied him to a chemo appointment. Back during Vietnam, he told me, a man beat the draft.
“Lots of guys did, Dad,” I’d said.
“Not like him,” my father replied.
And, as happened on more occasions than I liked to admit, my father was correct.
The story went like this:
At the draft physical exams, each draftee was instructed to put on a pair of headphones. They were then told to raise their hand, either the right or left, to indicate when they heard a sound in the corresponding headphone. One young man, tested the same day as my father, put the headphones on and consistently failed to acknowledge hearing anything each time one of three particular tones were transmitted. The military examiner concluded that he suffered from loss of hearing in both ears. He was set free and didn’t have to go to war. Later, through the grapevine at basic training, my father learned that the dismissed draftee was a classical cellist of particular talent. As it turned out, his trained ear had been able to identify and distinguish each of the tones transmitted through the headphones during his physical. Pretending not to hear three of those tones each time they were presented was a cakewalk for him. Once a child prodigy, he’d beaten the draft by means of perfect pitch.
“Inspiring, isn’t it?” my dad had said when he finished telling me the story.
The weather radio screeched a particularly painful jolt of static. I jumped. I so lacked perfect pitch, but as for dodging war duties, I was as guilty as anyone could be. I should have been heading off to 49th Street to hold a sign or something, to shout with a crowd in an attempt to make our voices heard all the way to the National Security Advisor.
Dr. Rice, please place the headphones on. Now, raise your right hand if you hear the thousands of Americans protesting your plans for war. And please raise your left hand if you hear the screams of the thousands of troops who will die in your war.
Her hands would remain in her lap the entire time. The protest chants would fall on deaf ears, because sometimes even a politician who was classically trained as a pianist—and who herself had performed at benefits with the very cellist of exceptional talent who had dodged the Vietnam draft with his perfect pitch—could be tone-deaf. Truly. Entirely. And sick as it was, I envied her. There must have been such a bliss in living with absolute certainty about what was right and what was wrong. She didn’t feel the need to acknowledge, empathize with, or take responsibility for any misery her actions caused. I had no such privilege. Instead, I simmered in the juices of knowing exactly what kind of selfish fuck I was. Telling myself I was too tired, confused, and sad to get my ass out of the apartment and to the protest, I knew I really just wanted to stay home in case Nathalie called.
