The Fortress of Solitude (25 page)

Dean Street’s kids were drawn out-of-doors, or back to the block from some other place by magnetism, a weird call. Nobody knew they were nostalgic until they saw Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude in the golden leaf-light that covered the middle of the block, a dream of a summer ago, ripened into history while nobody noticed. Plus here’s this new gawky grim-faced white boy in the street, knees tangling as he tried to stop the screaming rifle-shot grounders and line drives Mingus kept winging off the stoop.

Irresistible not to look. And then to wander over.

“King Arthur, man, you done fell down!”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t
sorry
me, son! Sorry is for snakes.
Catch
the damn ball!”

Mingus arched one high over the parked cars, destined for number 233 Dean’s sunken concrete yard, the shallow where a stoop had been demolished. Dylan leaped to intercept, found the spaldeen cool in his palm, transmitted from Mingus’s hand to his by way of the stoop and the air. He tossed it back casually, over Arthur. Mingus shook his head, medium-impressed, unwilling to exaggerate.

Alberto drifted up, hands in pockets. He quickly sussed the situation, then set himself behind Arthur to gather what dribbled or zinged through, just wanting to put his hands on the ball. Next came Lonnie, then a couple of young Spanish kids whose names nobody could stop forgetting. Mingus waved them into place, the infield turned into a mob. He kept throwing.

Marilla and La-La arrived, elbow-perched themselves on Henry’s stoop, trying not to look like they cared.

Henry himself had gone off to Aviation High School in Queens, was never around. Just a ball-game ghost, the name given a particular stoop.

In theory five catches got a kid up to bat, in practice today who knew? Mingus was writing the rules. Arthur and the little kids, they didn’t know any better. Alberto was deferential, easy. Dylan, Mingus’s conspirator, was camped in the outfield, not saying. He knew Mingus’s druggy adamancy, had seen him go into a zone, tagging, or just making some point aloud, talking in circles. He’d stay at the stoop until he threw a home run.

Arthur Lomb shot Dylan paranoid eye-bolts from within the crowd of kids jostling in the street for up-the-middle position.

Dylan if he bothered to notice was one of the older kids around Dean Street now.

He was more aware of his feet leaving the ground as he reached for another line shot, robbed another long bomb out of 213’s yard. Perfect catch numero tres.

Marilla sang, high falsetto,
I used to go out to parti-i-ies, and stand around
—

He’d hung in the air just as long as it took, matched the flight of the spaldeen exactly. Then came down soft, unjarred.

White boy was some kind of catching machine today.

You were
flying
.

’Cuz I was too nerv-uh-us, to really get down
—

Arthur Lomb kicked a grounder down the street sideways and they all stood head-lolled watching him corral it.

“Yo, Mingus,” said Lonnie, falsely breezy. “I seen all of the Funk Mob visited your pops the other day.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mingus deadpanned.

“You must of seen it, Mingus, man. They had a big white limo all in the street. They looked like superheroes, man.”

“What drug you on, Lon?”

“Don’t
say
you don’t know what he’s talkin’ about,” said Marilla.

Dylan had heard Earl and a couple of kids mention it the day before—the limousine, the wild-costumed musicians that had poured out of it.

“I saw nothing,” said Mingus, increasingly pleased with himself, thriving on the absurdity of denying it.

“That boy’s
lying
,” said La-La, shaking her head.

Mingus reared, the spaldeen shot into the sky. A dark smudge wobbled to describe the pink ball’s torque against the background of sun-stained leaves.

“Take
that
!” taunted Mingus.

Dylan flew and found it in his hand again.

The ring and the ball in some kind of partnership of magical objects.

You between them: the beneficiary, airborne.

“Dang! My man can
jump
!”

Dylan flipped the ball back past gapes of astonishment in the street.

“Watch your boy D-Lone, King Arthur man. Learn a thing.”

“I’m taking notes,” said Arthur Lomb sourly.

Marilla flopped her head and rolled her eyes, resumed singing, syllables stretched in petulance,
But my bod-dee-ee, yearned to be—freee
—

By the time Robert Woolfolk arrived Dylan had robbed nine of Mingus’s sure home runs, was perhaps assembling a legend, some kind of miraculous stand patrolling the far sidewalk, the air above. The game had become nominal, just an elaborate contest of wills between the stoned Mingus, the flying Dylan. The others were stranded, monkeys-in-the-middle, feeding off scraps.

Marilla and La-La chose not to note Robert Woolfolk’s saunter past their place on the stoop, his bid for their eyes. Robert couldn’t bring Dean Street crumbling to attention just rounding the corner anymore, that’s what their taunting voices claimed.
I got up on the flo-oo-or board, somebody can—choose—me
—

Inspired, street-flippant, Dylan decided not to fear Robert Woolfolk today, not on his own block, not wearing Aaron Doily’s ring. Besides, Arthur Lomb was here, official weakest link. You could practically feel Robert measuring Arthur’s neck for a yoke, like Wile E. Coyote replacing the Roadrunner with a roast chicken in his mind’s eye.

It seemed to Dylan now that Robert Woolfolk’s argument was with Rachel. Who was gone from their lives, even if Robert Woolfolk hadn’t grasped it. That wasn’t Dylan’s problem. There were days he hardly thought of Rachel once.

Today, for one.

“Yo, Gus, man, let me see the ball for a minute,” said Robert. He tilted his head, moved his eyes sideways, checking his back. “I’ll give it back, man, you know I will.” Another kid could ask to join a ball game: Robert Woolfolk had to
hustle
in. His basic premise was criminal. It wasn’t something he could leave behind when it happened to be unnecessary.

Mingus cocked his head, stared at Robert Woolfolk like Robert was speaking Martian. The younger kids wandered off, half-intimidated, half-bored, never touching the ball. Arthur Lomb frowned at Dylan, his trademark glare-of-despair. He might be calling up an asthma attack any minute now.

“Aight,” said Mingus suddenly, and bounced the spaldeen to Robert Woolfolk, home run forgotten, stakes evaporated. Mingus could do that, flip like a switch. “You can find me in the outfield,” he announced. “Me and my man
Dee
.”

Dylan shifted to his left and Mingus joined him, two center fielders in rivalry for anything in the air. Robert’s first throw, slung underhand, knuckles nearly grazing pavement, produced a line drive at eye level which banked off the car between infield and outfield, nearly taking Arthur Lomb’s head off coming and going. Robert Woolfolk remained a source of bizarre ricochets, like a busted pinball machine left for years in the arcade and still eating your quarters.

“My mother said I have to go home, Dylan,” said Arthur Lomb glumly. The non sequitur betrayed his discomfort. Who’d said anything about
mothers
?

“Okay,” said Dylan, uninterested.

“All right then, I’ve got to go.” Arthur seemed to think Dylan ought to walk him home, or at least break off playing to acknowledge the fact of his departure.

“See ya.”

“Hey, King Arthur,” said Mingus, picking up the thread. “Catch you on the rebound.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Give my regards to Pacific Street, man—and your mother.”

Alberto and Robert Woolfolk busted an instantaneous gut. Mingus and Dylan deadpanned, pretended nothing was unusual. It was hilarious in a way you couldn’t pin down, Mingus essentially saying
yo mama
without saying it.

Mutual assured deniability.

Arthur Lomb just slumped and moved down the block, a crushed pawn.

And Marilla sang
No more stand-di-ing beside the wall
—

Robert wound and unwound himself again and the ball struck high on the stoop and flew the farthest yet.

Albert leaned on a car, not imagining for a moment this was his to catch. He turned to watch Dylan and Mingus jostle elbows together, preparing to leap.

I done got myself togeth-a, baby
—

As he rose, Dylan saw the block complete. He nestled easily in the air, under the branches, above the cars. He was aware of Mingus beside him, rising not quite so high. The pink ball found Dylan’s left hand, his catching hand, ring hand, met palm of its own volition. Dylan simply there to keep the appointment. He had time to glance around, Marilla’s song slowed,
to, geth, a, ba, by
, from above Dylan saw that Robert Woolfolk had what couldn’t actually be a bald spot, but a bare place, an off-center patch of scuff or mange on the top of his head. The ball compressed in Dylan’s palm as if sighing. At the corner of Dylan’s vision Arthur Lomb sagged home along the slate.
The boy can’t catch, ain’t nothin’ you can do about it
. Dylan noticed La-La’s nice tits, was amazed he had the term
nice tits
ready the first time he’d noticed any. In truth he probably owed it to Arthur Lomb, the availability of that concept, not that he’d ever give Arthur the credit. So who needed the Solver girls, anyway? Maybe your life wasn’t bereft, your fortune robbed before it could be spent. Maybe life, sex, everything that mattered, was right here, on Dean, not gone elsewhere. At his side, Dylan felt Mingus Rude nestled slightly below him, their bodies clunking sweetly as Mingus tried to match Dylan’s leap and fell short, minus the advantage of the flying man’s ring. Mingus rising not quite so high as Dylan.

At perihelion Dylan felt himself to be a note of music, one delayed, now floating upward. They might all be notes in a song, the Dean Street kids. Mingus was Dose. Though Dylan had been tagging the name it belonged to Mingus wholly. Mingus had his drug thing, his access to Barrett’s stash, and it was okay, it was cool. Robert Woolfolk, his part was to be skulky and scary. Robert was criminal-minded, Dylan couldn’t begrudge it. You allowed for the kid from the projects, steered a berth. Arthur Lomb, he was the white boy, slotted into place. Even Arthur was okay, he just didn’t know it yet.

As for Dylan, he had the ring. Befuddled witnesses were only part wrong, Dean Street possessed superheroes: not musicians in a limousine but Dylan, the flying kid. He’d sew a costume and take to the rooftops, begin
bounding down on crime
and they’d know then what they couldn’t be allowed to know yet. Today it had to be disguised: the Discovery of Flight, right under their noses. On his maiden bound, though, he already felt love and sympathy for all as he swam in the air, his view rearranged.

Then Marilla completed the line, hands waving for syncopation, the beat only she heard,
I done got myself togeth-a, baby—now I’m havin’ a ball!
Dylan landed, Keds squeaking softly, a millisecond after Mingus, though they’d jumped in tandem. The ball in Dylan’s cool palm. Elsewhere sweat had broken everywhere on his thrilled body while aloft.

“Kangaroo boy!” barked Mingus. “Been takin’ his
vitamins
, dang!”

La-La answered Marilla’s falsetto call with a jeering response:

Got to give it up, baby!

Oh, yeah: Got to give it up!

It would be the throwdown of the summer of ’77 though it was still just the start of July: Grandmaster DJ Flowers is coming with his crew from Flatbush to spin discs in the schoolyard of P.S. 38 after the block party on Bergen. Word’s gone out. Hottest day of summer so far only nobody complains, nobody’s tired, the sun plummets on Manhattan and the harbor, making orange light, but the day hadn’t started yet, not if you knew what was about to go down. You couldn’t drink enough beer to cool off or get sleepy. The block party itself is just preliminary, the white renovators grilling chops in their front yards, trying to get to know their neighbors, couple of Spanish guys playing steel drums, nothing special. The little kids run wild, girl and boy, Spanish, black and white mixed the way they did at that age. They spend themselves in the sun, winning and losing shitty prizes, Super Balls, green-haired gremlins, sucking sweet juice through shaved ice in paper cones, getting face-painted by a clown who’s really somebody’s mom roasting in a Day-Glo Afro wig. The young ones shriek and run, are pooped and whining by four o’clock. The older kids are stalling for night. They kill the afternoon stoop-sitting, eyeing that balloon-filler’s huge canister of helium, eating dollar-fifty plates of paella.

By six o’clock the first kids have begun to group in 38’s yard, though Flowers won’t show until nightfall. The local crews are here in the meantime, setting up a minor skirmish to whet the appetite. P.S. 38 is the domain of the Flamboyan Crew, since their celebrated DJ Stone operates out of the basement of the Colony South Brooklyn youth center next door. Indeed, it was Flamboyan Crew’s invitation to Flowers which resulted in tonight’s plans. That doesn’t mean nobody disputes Flamboyan’s primacy here, though. Geography dictates the 38 schoolyard’s really a nexus between different forces, the Atlantic Terminals kids crossing down from Fort Greene, the Wyckoff Houses element coming up Nevins. Plus the tough Sarah J. Hale High School kids, drawn to the neighboring block of Pacific from all over.

So, up from Red Hook are the Disco Enforcers—they’ve heard about Flowers’s visit and demanded a turn in the proceedings. Flamboyan’s found itself backed into a battle of the jams when all they’d intended was to host Flowers with themselves as the warm-up. No sweat, though, Stone’s up to it. He’s so sharp on the crossfader he might be Brooklyn’s king if not for Flowers. The rival crews work together to set up, to steal juice out of the nearest streetlight base and run it down to the far end of the yard for their turntables and amps. At the same time trying to conceal from one another their crates of twelve-inches, thinking to maintain some edge of surprise. The secrecy’s a bit of a joke, though: they’re all, including Flowers when he gets there, certain to be spinning the same fifteen or twenty cuts.