Man Gone Down (54 page)

“When I signed on to do what I was going to do, it was during a dark time. There existed in this country's dominant class a horrifying mix of paranoia, cynicism, ignorance, amnesia, sadism, and base desire, and it was wrapped in a synthetic cloak of privilege and entitlement. Forgive me—I'm mixing metaphors, I know—but that collective was like a seed, and things grew from it: the white American middle class, the immigrant middle class. And like thorny, dense hedgerows grew barriers between the classes, barriers between the races, and barriers between the people and their government—between the people and themselves. Strange times. We were kids then, so we didn't know, but we felt it. Well, I've lost my place—let me make it brief. I knew back then,
we
knew, that it was just a big lie—that it was all corrupt. From the military industrial complex to every untried lynching,
our
country had gone to shit—perhaps always had been shit since its inception.”

He clears his throat with a sharp bark, focuses on my tie, and then goes back to the window. “I thought it could be, should be,
had to
be
—different. So I tried, in my own way, to make it different.” He points at me but doesn't look. “You were just a baby when we marched on Cicero. We thought every loud noise was a gunshot.
Cicero, hah
—an American town named Cicero, I never thought about it before. And
that
town—how rich.

“I wasn't in Memphis. I was here. I was ill with an extraordinary fever, so I remember it strangely. Bobby Kennedy told me, via the television, of course. I'm sure you've seen that footage. I thought I was going to die. I'd never been so scared in my life—not in Cicero, or anyplace else where they brought the guns and the gas and the dogs. Each time I exhaled I thought I'd never take another breath. I just lay there on the couch—
that room was dark, man.
And when I recovered and was up and about, I forgot all about my bout, until, of course, they killed Bobby. The same thing happened. I forgot, not the act, but that despair. I suppose that's the mind coping.

“But I'm older now, less prone to emotional swoons. Now I remember. I say it again,
dark days are here,
my boy. There's hardly any—
discrimination.
True, no one's getting their brains blown out—'round these parts, at least, but I see the darkness in the possibility that there aren't any brains left to be splattered. Or perhaps I was wrong—perhaps we all were: black and white, right and wrong, good and evil, oppression and freedom. Did you know that I was the first black student to receive a doctorate in philosophy from my alma mater?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Ah, well, taking a dialectic approach to your potential and probable murderer. Synthesis during crisis—what would that look like? A man in the middle of a riot scratching his chin. At least, back then, only part of the world was mad. Nonetheless, someone's got to know right from wrong, son. Someone has to weigh in.”

He pushes a stack of papers to one side of his desk. “In my advancing years I've been known to prattle on to my semicaptive audience. Forgive me.” He sucks his teeth and focuses on a point just above my head. He grins broadly, inhales sharply, gestures grandly a few times in the air and makes his voice loud and bright.

“Still the aesthete? Or have we dirtied our hands yet?”

“I'm sorry, sir.”

“You poets—practicing or not—you arbiters of taste, of morality, do you ever wonder who does the dirty work for you?” He brightens his tone even more, as though delivering a punch line. “Now you come to me for assistance. Where were you when we needed your help?

“I'm sorry,” he taps the desk. “But I had plans for you.” He looks at me with a toothy smile and turns his palms up to the air in mock bafflement.

“We all did.”

“They had plans for me, too.” He looks down Lexington like it was a tunnel of memory that he wished to go down, knew he could not—and it gave him great sorrow as well as great relief. “There's still something in the works for me, I believe.” He sighs. His breath seems to gently expel the vision. “Why do you need this letter? Wait—don't answer that.”

“It's for my kids.”

“Ah, a noble sentiment.
Righting your ship
at last, eh?”

It strikes me as being particularly mean. I jab back.

“Hegel missed the boat, you know.”

He seems unfazed. “Didn't everyone—you, too?”

“Yeah, but no one's building shrines to my miscalculations, least of all me.”

“You sound embittered, my friend. What, did the aesthete take some real-world knocks?”

“I'm not an aesthete. I never was.”

“Really, what then?”

“Just a man.”

“Once again—how noble.”

“Someone's got to be.”

He wrinkles his brow thoughtfully and points at me. “You know, when you came off the elevator, I thought that perhaps you'd struck gold—that we'd lost you to Wall Street or hip-hop. You know, sometimes when I walk through the mall down there and I hear the students
and the music coming out of the idling cars . . . the clamor of and the clamor for lucre, I get so damn angry sometimes—sometimes just damn sad.” He shakes his head. “I can't get through to them. ‘The gospel of work and money' has taken hold of a new generation. A whole century later, they haven't read it, so they don't know it. And they think they're being militant. They're different from your generation. Then again, perhaps they're not.” He makes a fist and taps the desk with it. “So, tell me, although I know you don't want to, but there isn't anyone else but the two of us here, and this won't give you a leg up on another student. One, if I may,
black man
to another—tell me what you're thinking about all this.”

Now I lean back, exhale, and rub my face, too. I look up to the ceiling where the thieves dropped in and shudder with a wave of sleep.

“I've never found it useful to talk to anyone other than myself about where I'm from. And I think it's safe to say that most of the time, I don't understand. Sometimes I make it simple, say straight up that I'm Lila and Marshall's boy, that they were very different—wanted different things for themselves and for me and that really twisted me up, but that's too easy, and it's too late for simple rationalizations. I think I experienced most of what a black man—any man—can experience, late in America—the good and the bad, mostly the bad. And I think it's useless to blame. I have had, in my whole life, one black friend—he's now insane. They tried their best, all of them, whether they had the right or the power to do so, to make me assimilate, to
‘sivilize'
me. It never worked. That is the heart of resistance—holding out for the good: That is what I always thought it was to be black, other, or any different title I can paste on myself.”

He looks sad. He puckers his lips and looks down as if to fight it off. “So, tell me, please. And I ask you this because I really am concerned, interested, and optimistic, and I do happen to have an excellent agent, what became of your dissertation—what was it called again?”

“Eliot, Modernism, and Metaphysics.”

He smiles and nods. “Ah yes. Did you make progress? Did you finish it?”

“No.”

He slumps, showing his age. “May I ask why?”

“Because it was ‘archaic and therefore frivolous and a man of my history, background, and talents should know better.'”

“Oh.” His neck turns to rubber, and his head drops. “My son. I am truly sorry.”

“It's okay.”

“All is well then?”

“Every little thing, yes.”

He slides his hand across the desk but stops when he has to lean.

“What about my book you borrowed?”

“I'm sorry. I don't know.”

He clears his throat, pushes away from the desk.

“To whom do I address this letter?”

By the time I get to the post office, I've had it. I climb to the top of the stairs and sit down. My neck starts to tremble and I taste acid in my mouth. I close my eyes and start a letter to Claire in my head—nothing—just static mixed with the sounds of traffic moving uptown on Eighth Avenue. I try to see her; I can't—can't hear her, either—her face and voice are missing. A wave of sleep passes over me. I get lost in it—blind, breathless. It passes and I open my eyes.

I watch the city empty. They go north. They go east. The sun seems stronger—perhaps because of the late-afternoon redness it's acquired, the haze of pollution, exhalations from people and machines.

This used to be a station. I suppose it still is: once for trains, now for mail. Whatever the case, the whir and hum from the internal turbines, the trucks backing in and pulling out of the loading bays on the adjacent streets, and these warm stone stairs make the building feel alive. Perhaps all the people who've passed through—those who continue to pass and leave their marks—charge it. Even now in this empty city they seem to materialize on the sidewalk below and, regardless of shape, size, or age, bound up the stairs in their own way to the revolving door. Some nod or even wave to me, mistaking me in their haste for the greeter. It's not what I want to do. This isn't a casino, anyway. They give those jobs to ex-fighters out in Vegas—the ones who went broke, were broken. Maybe it was a sort of punishment—watching the high-rollers who made money off the beatings you gave out and took, making more off a new generation of meat—your sentence for overreaching. I get up and move away from the door.

Gavin had a special walk when he was unusually high, happy, or both. And crossing Eighth Avenue he has it now. It's different though. It has that boyish energy and lightness but coupled with a man's confidence—almost like a man riding a small unicycle with an oval wheel. He carries two coffees, holding them out in front of him like they're handlebars. He cuts through the stopped traffic. His brim's pulled down low—new shades. I start to wave when he reaches the sidewalk, but he looks up directly at me.

He mounts the stairs and when he reaches me, leans against the handrail, hands me a coffee, pulls off his shades and rests them on his visor. I expect to see a shiner or a hemorrhaged pupil, but his face and eyes are clear.

He points to the
B
on his hat.

“In town tonight. Pedro's pitching,” he mumbles. He throws a slow-motion pitch, beans the imaginary batter, points, then waves him in, mouthing, “Come on.” He puts his dukes up, sloshing the coffee out the sip hole, moves his head from side to side, then grins. He stops his mock bob and weave, checks his hand, wipes it on his new-looking jeans, and his face goes blank. Now he looks his age—older, even patrician. I see the gray poking out from under his cap, accentuated by the navy blue. Nicotine lips, the creases of time around his puckish nose. Darkening skin beginning to absorb his freckles. I can't help but think that if Gavin had a title, an address, a bank account—anything—people might actually listen to and respect him. Another wave comes. No, it's more like a clammy hand that passes through me into my guts and opens a compartment, secret to me, full of nausea.

He opens a new pack and offers me one. I refuse. He smokes.

“Nice suit.”

“Thanks.” My voice sounds low and robotic.

“Whose was it?”

“Claire's dad.”

He wrinkles his mouth, nods. “Nice.” He takes a long drag and does one of those smokeless exhalations. “You look beat.”

“Haven't been sleeping much.”

“Oh yeah?” He points at my coffee. “Watch that stuff.”

I nod and leave my head down. I almost take a sip, but I get a preliminary shot of what it will feel like to my heart and stomach. I breathe on the lid instead.

“Yeah.” He takes a deep pull. “You look thin, too”—he yanks at the air around his whiskers—“your face.”

I look up at him. He fills his cheeks with air. “Oh no, not me. I've had three squares a day of institutional starch.” He grunts a laugh and pats his nonexistent belly. “I just scarfed down two chocolate bars and a milkshake on my way here—should've brought you one. I'm sorry.”

The notion of sweets makes me gag and shiver at the same time. I check my hands to see if they're trembling. He checks them, too. He can't tell, but he sucks his teeth and shakes his head slowly, turning to look across the avenue to the Garden as he does. I follow his gaze to the marquee.

“Aerosmith?” He shakes his head, sings,
“Dream on
. . .” in a craggy falsetto. He finishes his smoke and jabs it out on the rail. “You ever miss Boston?”

I shake my head.

“I used to, but walking here to meet you, it was odd. I used to get bummed out, walking around Manhattan, especially midtown—all that high-end shit that just yells out
“Chump!”
at a guy like me. But I walked all over today—Fifty-seventh and Fifth, all that, and I seemed to pick up on some internal rhythm—you know? Something felt right. So none of it got to me.” He studies my profile closely, covertly, and raises an eyebrow. “So I decided that I'm taking over this city, but not in that typical revolutionary way.” He waits for me to respond, gets nothing, and continues. “I'm not coming for blood or money. I want something more dear—I'm coming for answers.” He opens his arms to the city. “But I need help—are you with me? Can't you see it? Oh my god, what a sight, what a notion, what a catastrophic, idiotic idea, Lorna Buffoon and Big Chief McBlackie running loose in the twenty-first century demanding answers!” He makes a fist, waves it in the air, and raises his voice an octave.
“Who's responsible,
goddamnit! I demand transparency! I demand accountability! Throw the shrines to the founder and the cryptic and indulgent logos out of the boardroom, you sons of bitches! I want answers
—
one-to-one ratios, you slippery fuckers!
—Horrors! No. Don't let it happen. I mean, I just don't think that I could handle it.” He checks me again, waves the vision away. “Sorry, man, I'm rusty. Haven't seen you in a while.” He bites his lip, puts his coffee down, and makes two fists.