Man Gone Down (19 page)

Bigboots stabs his spade into a pile of dirt but doesn't pick it up. Rice Tooth turns away from his bucket. Grimace buries the pick head and starts beating the dust off his pant legs. Lispy and then Eyebrow come down. Lispy turns on the spigot. The hose lurches, filled with water. He picks it up and holds it for the others as they, one by one, rinse their faces and hands. Rice Tooth turns to me.

“Big man. Mange?”

Lispy pushes the hose at me, signaling that he'll keep holding it. I walk over and extend my hands. He splashes my forearms, then my palms. Under the water the clay gets gooey and sticks to my skin, then loosens and runs off. It's now more like fine silt, noticeably discrete particles. I wash my face. The water is cold, and it seems to erase the morning's work. I take the hose from Lispy and hold it for him. He washes, nods thanks, and shuts the water off.

We all climb up and out and enter the light one by one. We gather on the sidewalk, squinting. Grimace shoots his thumb in the direction of Third Avenue and starts walking. They all follow. I don't. They pass Roman, who's leaning against a street sign a few houses down. I sit on the stoop. I look at my arms. I didn't do a very good job cleaning—no
matter, I'm not eating. I try to picture Delilah's face, what it would've done if I hadn't gotten her drinks last night. What it would've done if I hadn't walked her home. It doesn't come. Claire's voice does—over the phone, singing “Happy Birthday” with the kids, then taking the phone for herself and saying, “Happy birthday. We all love you,” and then the pause. It must be some kind of defense mechanism I have that prevents me from seeing her face—the face she makes when I tell her everything's cool, the face she'd make when I tell her I'm digging a ditch for Roman and Vlad.

I know it's Johnny Little Nancyboy because of the truck. It's a dark blue pickup and it's new, but it's just like the one he used to have. It's clean and he parks it in the same way—up on the curb, as though he's on official business and has a permit to do so.

He gets out. He's aged since I last saw him. He wears his cap forward now, and it's no longer the Mets—just a logo. He's put on weight, about fifteen extra pounds, and it doesn't suit him well. He's short, but he used to be wiry and hard, like an angry weasel. Now he looks more like a well-fed squirrel, until he opens his mouth. He still sounds like an angry little bastard.

“Qué pasa, homey? The Polaki treatin' you right?” Johnny always seemed to think that because of who and what he was—an Irish Puerto Rican from Queens—he could spit out racial epithets and ethnic slurs with impunity, although around me, he stayed away from the ones that disparaged blacks.

“Just shittin' ya.” He takes his phone out of its holster and flips it open. He stares at the screen, whatever's on it, closes it, and puts it back.

“So, professor, I was just stopping by to check in. Things going all right?” He doesn't wait for an answer. He walks up the stoop and pokes his head in.

*  *  *

“Professor. You're gonna be a professor. That's cool.”

He had been my assistant on the old crew. We'd just installed a door jamb—trimless mahogany—and he was bringing the door over.

“So what will they call you?”

“Who?”

“Your students.”

“Professor.”

“What, that's like one up from mister and one under doctor?”

“I suppose.”

“Do I have to call you professor?”

That was what I thought to be my last day in construction. I gave him my old chisel set.

“Looks okay.” I find it hard to believe that he, in the years since I last saw him, back when he had difficulty cutting lumber square, had learned much at all. He was a high-strung little pothead, ready to fight with anyone. I guess the kids in his neighborhood had picked on him, given him his nickname.

“You free tomorrow, you got anything going on?”

“Yeah, I'm free.”

“Cool. Cool. Call you at that same number? You got a cell?”

“That number's fine.”

He goes to pat me on the shoulder but thinks better of it.

“Let me know if I can do anything.”

I don't say anything. He has his back to me. He does a quarter turn and picks up his phone again.

“How's the old lady? You still . . .”

“She's fine.”

He looks up from the phone and flips it shut. He looks down at me under the visor as though he's my baseball coach and I'm back on the bench after taking a called third strike down the middle. He gets back in his truck, starts it up, and rolls down the window. He shoots me a salute.

“All right, professor.”

He eases off the curb and drives away.

I see the crew returning with lunch. I go back inside and drink. The water takes the edge off my hunger. Someone outside starts beeping maniacally. Now that I'm alone, I look at the west wall, the rubble foundation and the bricks stacked atop it. The brick rows are stratified and look like a fossil record—the horizontal joints and old floor lines—but one that's been upset, the history scattered about in seemingly random sections delineated by mold and watermarks. That which was once uniform and strong is now a patchwork of stain and erosion.

A realtor once showed us a house nearby, much the same as this. The only question she'd asked me was
“Are you Native American?”
I didn't respond. Claire did, with a question.
“Why?”
she'd asked in high defense mode, ready to become as offensive as she possibly could.
“Because Native Americans built these homes. They built a good amount of the Heights and Lower Manhattan. They built these row houses to live in.”
Claire hadn't believed her but asked,
“Which tribe?”
to be polite. She seemed relieved somewhat that the woman, a mousy little WASP, had at least some story to support her curiosity.
“Mohawk. The Mohawk Indians built these.”
Claire spoke for me again,
“He's Cherokee and Apache,”
taking my wrist and squeezing it, then sliding her hand into mine.
“Wow,”
the broker looked up at me and let me watch her watch me as though she'd suddenly understood something about me, something that allowed her to stare. When we got outside, Claire stopped, pulled my head down to her, and kissed me long and unrepentantly.
“Dumb bunny
—
don't mind her.”
And she did it again and pressed herself against me. We didn't know it then, but C was about the size of a kidney bean inside of her. We walked to the pizzeria, and she bought lemon ices for us. And when that didn't seem to cheer me up, she asked,
“What's wrong with my guy?”
and then not waited for an answer.

We walked back to the house and she asked,
“Do you think we'll be able to buy a place someday?”
She looked up at the crooked facade, perhaps dreaming.
“Sure,”
I said. And she smiled. That was it. That was all it seemed to take to make her happy—my word. I've
always felt afraid for my wife because she could never understand how empty the spoken word is, how lacking her remedial care was—that the flavored ice in the little cup did nothing for me.

She was not the girl—not the girl I'd been expecting, not the girl I'd imagined, not the one who would love me. She was white and full of the courage, confidence, and apprehension that only white girls can have—nonempirical, ignorant of the stakes. I was only a year sober when I met her. Gavin and I had just finished performing—he read some poems; I played some of my songs—and the two of us were feeling fairly invincible, so we walked into a bar—not to drink, only to be around people our age. She was sitting with her friends in a chocolate brown banquette—epiphanic. She looked back at me. Gavin whispered under his breath, “
Uh-oh,”
and everything in her face told me no. She was not the one. I'd thought about it quite a bit as a boy. And although I didn't know what she looked like, I knew she wasn't white, wasn't soft, didn't cry—at least, not so easily. Perhaps she drank a bit and sang. Okay, yes, like my mother, but literate, free. And when I was older and started to wonder if that girl existed, I found liquor and Gavin. Alcoholism and fraternal love seemed to suit me better, perhaps because with a best friend, when you're drunk, you don't have to do anything. You can just, if you like, watch it all go by.

She was not the one. I kept telling myself that after we joined her and her friends and made them laugh with PG-rated versions of our childhoods. It was really quite awful, that evening, the sober ethnics entertaining the tipsy WASPs in a dive bar. We closed the place and then lingered out on Third Avenue, trying to keep the night alive. We exchanged phone numbers. She called me a few days later from the street and said she would pick up lunch and stop by. For some reason, I allowed it. Claire's eyes are oxidized lime green. They're oversized, oval, and slant slightly from the outside corners to the bridge of her nose. They're the first things anyone notices. They're ridiculous, actually, how obvious they are. But her face is girlish, open, juxtaposed to that cool, electric green. The charge they have seems to come from a place that's ancient and far away, but
she isn't distant. The rose hue of her cheeks, her long, crooked lips warm her—I can smell them. She is present, and that, to me, has always made her seem good.
“Hello,”
she said so quietly, but clearly, barely moving her mouth. She was not the one, not the one that I'd imagined, not the face of love—standing in the dim hallway of my tenement walk-up, or on the street carrying our child. I still don't know if it was her eyes or her face that made me let her into my rooms, or made me take her by the hand, look to the wall, the twisted door and window openings, and say,
“Us Indians sure make crappy homes.”

The crew comes back inside. Inca. Aztec, Mayan—who knew? We're building someone else's house.

“Amigo,” says Rice Tooth. “Amigo, you hungry?”

He offers me a foil dish full of rice and beans, perhaps a collection of everybody's leftovers. And even though I can't stand pinto beans, I salivate. But I like my food to be segregated into discrete portions, and I can't eat around strangers.

“Gracias, no.”

He shrugs and puts it by the hose. Everyone seems to be sleepy, and they drag slowly to their stations. Roman clicks from above.

“Not good, amigos.” He walks back out muttering, “Now I have to cancel truck.”

“Hey, big man.” It's Grimace. I don't move quickly enough for him. He gives a shrill whistle. I turn slowly, hoping that by the time I'm facing him I won't snatch the shovel from him and bust his head with it.

“Hey, big man.” He taps on something hard. It's a rock, half buried. It looks like the partially excavated skull of an ancient giant.

“Can you lift?”

I shrug my shoulders. I forget my size—how others must see me. He taps at the dirt around it. The others start to gather. He points at Big Boots to pick around the stone. Together they clear enough of it
to get a pry bar and spade under it. They roll it out of its hole and onto the clay. Big Boots drops the bar, bends down, and tries once to roll it with his hands. It's almost the size of his torso. It doesn't budge. He stands up shaking his head and backs off.

“Big man.” Grimace inhales and flexes, then mimes pressing it over his head and throwing it out into the pissweeds. “Diez dineros.” He whistles softly and cocks his head to the back. Lispy has moved beside me. He starts nodding his head, slowly at first, then with growing earnest.
“Si. Si.”
He sizes up the stone and looks up at me.

“Mui grande,” says Grimace, trying to bait me. I don't know what kind of stone it is, how dense it is. It's light gray. I bend and touch it. It's cool and silt covered—nothing to really grab hold of. I dig my hands into the clay to get them underneath. Grimace chuckles. The rest begin the obligatory audience murmur. I get it up to my waist and stand erect. My grip is awkward, though—flat palmed. I try to wrap my forearms under it, but it doesn't work. I start to feel the strain in my lower back. My biceps start to burn. I roll it a quarter turn and rest it against my stomach. It's better on the back for the moment, but now, because of the silt, it threatens to slide between my arms and crush a knee or a foot. I get my hands, one at a time, back around to the outsides, bend, and press. The murmurs turn to yelps.
“Over your head!”
demands Grimace, and so I press—up, up—until I can lock my elbows.
“Throw!”
squeals Lispy. I start shuffling across the clay to the back. I make it to the edge of the pissweeds and push it in. The lads give a cheer—even Grimace. He walks up to me, nodding his bowed head. He straightens, reaches in his pocket, and pulls out a sweaty ten.

“You are very strong.” He flexes again and hands me the money.

“Gracias.”

He waves his hand, puckers his mouth, shakes his head, and returns to his spade. I look out to the piss weeds—the break in them caused by my missile. I wonder what the rock would've done to my skull if I'd dropped it, and I wonder who would've been able to tell
my kids, my wife. “Vamanos!” bellows Roman from the stoop. He walks out again. Lispy gives him the finger. The others laugh, and then we all go back to work.

The sun has caught the east wall. I'm sure whatever it reveals is much the same as what it had shown before on the other wall. I don't want to look. It's time to go. Half the cellar has been excavated. They wash. I don't.

“Okay, amigos,” says Lispy, taking the lead. I shake all their hands, even Grimace's, and climb out. Vlad has arrived. He's standing behind the van with the doors open, waiting for his cargo. I go to him.

“Anything for me?”

“No, amigo.”

I look at him, questioning. He shakes his head as if to strengthen his denial. Roman joins in. They both shift and shake and look as concerned and friendly as they can.