“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then she doesn’t. This is the Boulevard of Broken Dreams around here, are you kidding me? It’s all you can do to have a say in your
own
destiny, let alone anybody else’s. I mean, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ray said just to keep this moving.
“In any event,” Tom continued, “I guess I would have to say things are about as good for me now as they’ve ever been. I mean, my health is for shit, high blood pressure, diabetes, liver damage, need a hip replacement, but thank God I never bought the Package—HIV-negative all the way. Or so they tell me. Shit man, you don’t know, what am I, forty-one? I had extreme unction said over me three times in the last twenty years. But I’m still here. And that’s because there’s a reason. God had a reason for not . . . See, when people talk to outsiders or new recruits about the Program, they always downplay the Higher Power thing, the God thing, they don’t want to scare people away, and it’s understandable. You have to let each individual come to terms with what it is they’re surrendering to by themselves, right? But you know something? There
is
a God. There
is
a fucking God. People say the World Trade Center, the Holocaust, the, the Rwanda thing, the Bosnians, what kind of God is this? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a God who watches. It’s a God who gives us free will, foreknowledge of our mortality, kicks back and watches. It’s up to us.”
“You make him sound like a psychopath.” Ray’s eyes strayed to the front of the store again, to the little girl.
“Ray, understand something. Pain is the chisel with which we sculpt ourselves into who we become. Like, OK, off the top of my head? This is going to sound trivial, but Peter Garro . . . Remember Peter Garro? Built like a Greek god. Like a fucking Olympian. Never gave a shit about school. Didn’t have to. Gonna be a ballplayer, gonna be a ballplayer. Gets a tryout with the Cardinals. Trips coming off the plane into spring training camp, breaks his ankle, never gets a second chance. What was God thinking there, right? But then you consider what was the guy looking at . . . Realistically we’re talking three, four years of class D ball, C ball, B ball, then getting released.
“So what’s Peter do? He goes back to school. Winds up with a master’s in social work. Today he’s running Health and Human Services for Dempsy County. Or with me. Opening my mouth that day. Twenty-one operations, but here I am. And what did I do with my life after that . . . Pain, is the chisel. We can make a mess or we can make something beautiful. It’s up to us.”
“How about Danny Ryan’s pain?” Ray said, talk of God making him feel like he was among idiots and cavemen. “What can you sculpt when you’re dead?”
“OK. OK.” White Tom prepared for this. “Think of God as a blackjack dealer. Guy deals you nineteen, are you going to blame him if
you
say ‘Hit me’ and wind up going over? Free will, Ray. Danny had come to many a crossroad before that day, don’t kid yourself. He had lots of hot tips from above. I mean if you
really
want to challenge me on this, I mean more to the point, you can say what about some home-battered three-year-old brought in DOA to the Medical Center, or, or some young pregnant secretary crushed in the Twin Towers, and my answer to you would be, I don’t have all the answers, I just believe what I believe and I feel what I feel.
“Oh Ray, the shit I could tell you. My wife, Arletta? Ten years ago, beat up, fucked up, in and out of jail, hospitals, shelters, hittin’ that glass dick 24/7.
“Been in the program, what, eight years? Now she’s working over at the Homework Club in the Armstrong Houses, you know, the after-school program? She’s got this project going on over there, to, to, well maybe ‘cure’ is the wrong word, to
save
these kids from the streets, from themselves, through the practice of, get this, of
manners.
Can you believe that? She gets them young over there in Armstrong, six, seven, eight, and she does her thing. Last year she had the kids put on a play called ‘The Kourtesy Kids Kome Korrect.’ Toured schools all over Dempsy, Jersey City, East Orange, and the kids, the teachers, they ate it up, wherever she went. She got so many thank-you letters she made a collage of them, framed it over our bed.
“Arletta, Ray, I’m so fucking proud of her. I mean talk about a vertical climb, you know what I’m saying? And if you think
I’m
lucky to duck the Package? It’s God, Ray. He
knew
she had to put on that play. He
knew
she had to bring our twins into this world, to, to help
me
get where
I
had to go. Are you OK?”
“What?”
“Are you crying?”
“No,” coughing into his fist, the flesh beneath his eyes feeling dense, as if packed with damp sand, Ray right then once again just wanting to
do
something—something clear-eyed and right and good, something selfless yet to the heart of him, to find that thing, that place, and stand fast; commitment, not flourish; commitment, not gesture. To stand fast, to stand fast, to stand fast—the ferocity of his yearnings reawakening that drilling ache—but with the pain this time came, uninvited, his memory of the assault, the shame of it; and then self-loathing began to rise in him like a watery acid.
“It’s your heart, Ray. That big heart of yours.”
“The fuck it is,” he muttered, but Tom, starting to get all teary too, hadn’t heard him.
“I want for you to meet Arletta, man. And I want you to meet the twins.”
“Sure,” Ray said hoarsely.
“My boys, you know what their middle names are? Sosa and McGwire. Eric Sosa, Maceo McGwire. Well, you remember me with baseball.”
Ray nodded, it being way too late to say, I don’t remember you at all.
“All right.” Tom wiped his eyes. “Back to business. This place here?” swirling a hand to take in the bodega. “You know what I want to do? Rip all this shit out, the shelves, the counters, the cuchifritos, everything. Then I’m gonna put it back together like it was, like the Mope had it, like
we
had it. Lunch counter with stools, those Formica tables along the windows, you know, with those red vinyl banquettes, put back the soda pumps . . . I’m even going to sell comic books again . . . But you know what I’d really be selling with all this? I’d be selling a safe haven for those kids out there.” He tilted his chin to the courts across the street, and finally Ray remembered him, remembered Tommy Potenza, last image first, a visit back to the old neighborhood about twenty years ago, after his parents and everybody else had moved out, coming upon Tommy, a guy from the opposite end of the projects, a guy he only knew by face, who at that moment on that day was sitting by himself on the low cement ledge bordering the handball courts, his back against the chain-link fence. Tommy had left no impression on Ray of being stoned that day, but he was definitely on the wrong side of eighteen to be still hanging there, the playground packed with the new generation of Hopewell kids; black, Dominican, Puerto Rican—Tommy sitting alone, still dressed like a thirteen-year-old in ill-fitting jeans, red high-tops and a wrinkled white T-shirt, just sitting there flaccid-faced, staring out at the action as if he were in a daze—as if he were stranded, so lost and stranded, Ray now imagined, that he had to be rechristened White Tom.
“And Ray, let me tell you,” Tom brought him back, “those kids out there? I set this place up like I want? They will come. They’ll come in here every day after school, get a Coke, a candy bar and two packs of baseball cards. They’ll sit at those tables and do their homework. And if they’re a little light in the pocket? Depending on the kid? What’s his home situation? If he’s, you know, retrievable? That kid’s got a tab with me.”
Ray smiled, looked off. White Tom was starting to sound like George describing the rabbit farm to Lenny.
“And they’ll come, Ray. They’ll come in droves because the shit’s so fucked out there, so utterly fucked . . .
“And along with every Coke, every Hershey bar, they’ll get a free antidrug lecture. You want to hear my lecture?”
And before Ray could beg out, White Tom took a further step back, removed his sunglasses, removed his teeth, lifted then pinioned the hem of his shirt under his chin, and raised his arms from his sides, inviting Ray to see him: the swollen bluish gut, the caved-in chest, the caved-in mouth, the eyes steady enough, but cracked and starred like fried marbles; the picture as a whole a great antidrug visual but a disaster as a sales tool for bringing investors on board.
“Remember that song?” He put back his teeth, his shades. “‘Every picture tells a story, don’t it’ . . . ?”
“Right,” Ray said faintly. This planned takeover would never happen. Whether the guy behind the register got arrested or not, whether the bodega got padlocked or not, White Tom Potenza taking ownership here would never come to pass; he was sure of it.
“So anyways, it’s my understanding that it’ll run me about ten, eleven thousand for the back taxes, another four, five to grease various wheels. Now, Daddy Warbucks I’m not. Obviously. Nonetheless that’s OK, because to tell you the truth I have a few silent partners on board, a couple of housing cops if you can believe it, and these guys are coming in on this, putting their money where their mouth is, because they share my vision, my, my commitment . . .
“Plus, I got a guy in my meeting can hook me up for the fixtures and furniture, counter stools, chairs, tables, dishes glasses pumps spigots refrigerator dishwasher. Another guy in the meeting can wire me into meat, bread, produce, anything along that line. I mean it’s not like it’s
not
gonna cost, but I’m getting rock-bottom prices every step of the way.”
It would never happen; Ray was both saddened and relieved.
“So, in addition to what it’s gonna cost me to take title, from what I’ve been told, I’m looking at maybe between thirty and forty thousand to open the doors. But you know what, Ray? I know you’re bracing yourself for the big touch here, but I’m not asking you for a dime. I’m going to First Dempsy and let
them
pay for it. All I’m asking
you
for, is to walk into that bank with me and cosign the loan. Now, I know you’re thinking, Who the fuck does this guy think he is hitting on me . . .”
“Not at all,” Ray said, then stalling for a graceful way out, “So whatever happened to the Mope. Did he die?”
“By now, I’d assume so, but no, he was just getting robbed every week, got sick of it and sold the place. I’m talking twenty years ago.”
“Robbed. How do you know that won’t happen to you?”
“How do I know? Because the Mope didn’t have cops as partners and the Mope wasn’t packing this.”
White Tom turned his back to Ray, then lifted his shirt again, this time revealing a .25 automatic snugly tucked against the base of his spine.
“I’ll tell you what,” Ray said. “You pay the back taxes, take title, then come back at me and I’ll do what I can.”
Tommy cocked his head and studied Ray’s eyes; a half-smile playing on his face.
“What,” Ray said self-consciously.
“Come here.” Tommy raised his arms, Ray stepping in for another hug. “You’re wrong, you know,” he said in Ray’s ear. “This is most definitely gonna happen.”
“The fuck, man . . .” Lazaro, the owner, his daughter riding his shoulders like a circus queen, came up on them. “What are you guys doing back here?”
“Lazaro, this is my boy Ray, from back in the day.”
Ray extended his hand, Lazaro taking it, sizing him up.
“We just got caught up in catching up,” Tommy said easily.
“You buying something or what. ’Cause in five minutes I’m putting a fuckin’ meter back here.”
“Hey, sweetheart.” White Tom wiggled his fingers at the little girl up top, some vestigial junkie amorality in his false playfulness.
A moment later, as Ray followed Tom to the door, he took a last glance at Lazaro, his pregnant wife and his daughter, all now absorbed in a Spanish soap on a miniature TV behind the counter, the three of them as serene as if they were cruising down a highway, oblivious to the head-on that was waiting for them just a few miles down the road.
“Buckle your seat belts, huh?” White Tom Potenza said under his breath as he pushed through to the street.
Standing in front of the bodega, just as Ray was about to go his own way, White Tom startled and embarrassed him by reaching out and taking his limp right hand out of its pocket pouch and holding it in both of his own, gently turning it palm up and then down, before letting it retreat into its unnatural curl.
“You gots to do that physical therapy, my man. No joke.”
“I know, I know.” Ray turned his head away.
“And beware of
this
shit,” flicking the Vicodin bottle in Ray’s shirt with a fingernail.
“Here . . .” Ray impulsively tossed them in the general direction of a sewer grate, shame once again working its magic. “OK?”
“Can I ask you something?” White Tom said, ignoring Ray’s invitation to applaud. “Not that it’s any of my business, but how come you won’t tell Neesy who gave you the tune-up?”
“How come?” Ray tasting that rising acid again. “I don’t know. Maybe because I had it coming?”
To his surprise, White Tom simply nodded.
Ray stood alone outside the basketball fence, scanning the action as if he were looking for somebody. And when he finally got himself into gear, cutting through Big Playground again in order to get to his car, he became aware this time of the boy-girl thing; the sweet slow walk of the teenaged Hopewell girls, both languid and alert as they sashayed past the games; and in response to their presence, the self-conscious herky-jerk moves of the boys as they muscled their way to the baskets; this fenced-in arena still, as it was in his time, suffused with a nearly unbearable sexual longing.
As he came up on the smaller kiddie playground again, he spied Carla Powell leaving one of the projects’ laundry rooms, lugging a shopping cart stuffed with four pillowcases’ worth of wash.
She looked lumpy and tired, hauling the cart after her just like Ray’s mother had back in the sixties; like her own mother had too.
Catching her in the midst of this eternal drudgery, he was struck with the weight of what it must feel like to have never left this place, or to have left but failed out there and had to return; to metamorphose from one of the tireless ever-burning kids to one who’s now worn down by them, vexed by them.