The Sea Beach Line (22 page)

We shared a simple dinner off an upturned milk crate by lantern light, eating the bread, cheese, and hardboiled eggs she'd bought from the Korean green grocer, washing everything down with Al's brandy.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, after dinner.

“It's my pleasure. You're the first guest I've had here.”

“It does feel safe here, like you said.”

“It is. But I'm sorry it's so crowded. Are you comfortable?”

She didn't respond but closed her eyes and drifted across the bed. I was tired too. It was warm and stuffy in the storage unit. Normally, I slept in my underwear, but I left it on, not wanting Rayna to think I was taking advantage of her. As I squeezed my way onto the mattress, she snapped up with a start, then recognized me and lay warily back down.

11

FOR OVER A MONTH
,
I had slept alone in a locked metal box. Between midnight, when the front desk closed, and dawn, when vendors and other people who used storage units for work purposes started arriving, I was just about the only person in the building. The sounds of people stopping by to retrieve something would wake me up—who knows what kinds of things were stashed in a twenty-four-hour storage facility—and I noticed a few other vendors who occasionally napped or crashed in a storage unit. But if the building had any other permanent residents, they stayed well hidden.

I thought it would be strange to sleep with another person in my space, but it felt perfectly natural. With Rayna beside me, I slept peacefully through the whole night.

She shook me awake in the morning. “Isaac!” she pleaded. “Isaac, wake up!”

“What is it, Rayna? Are you okay?”

“What is going on? Such a din! Like stones against metal, from all directions!”

“Huh? Oh, don't worry about all that. It's just other street vendors starting their days. Getting their carts out. I'm used to it, now.”

“I see. This makes sense. But I guess I thought . . . maybe it was pursuers.”

“No. Just street vendors. There are no pursuers.” I was stiff with morning wood, and strained against the pants I'd slept in. “I'm going to lie here a little longer.” I didn't want her to see my erection. She might be creeped out. Or she wouldn't be, and I would be embarrassed. I hoped it hadn't brushed or pushed against her in the bed. I didn't want her to think that I was a pursuer. “There's water in the electric kettle; you can plug it in out in the hallway, and make tea if you want.”

“Don't you have to bring your own pushcart out today?” What was today? Saturday. I was planning to go out, as a matter of fact, because Saturday was a good day to make money. Tourists came down to the Village from their Midtown hotels. You could sell them every Kerouac and Ken Kesey book you had, and name your own price. If the forecast held, the day would be sunny. But I wanted to spend more time alone with Rayna.

“No,” I told her. “Not today.” I felt happy being alone with her, and I didn't want that feeling to go away. It also seemed like a good opportunity to get to know her more, to find out what she was running from and whether it had anything to do with Al. I didn't want to say all this, of course, and struggled for an explanation.

“It's Shabbos,” I said. “There's no need to work on Shabbos.” I clearly wasn't running a religious business. In fact, Rayna had seen me working on a Saturday before. But in a way, I was actually serious. Shabbos was a way to set aside a day and elevate it. Inviting Rayna into my solitary cell, and sharing a meal in here, had made the space feel special. I wanted to make the day feel special too. Why not call the day what it was supposed to be?

“Really?” Rayna asked, incredulous. “Your street cart is
shomer Shabbos
?”

“Yes,” I said, suppressing a grin. “I am a halachic street vendor.”

“But you pushed the cart home well after dark last night.” I couldn't tell how seriously she was taking me.

“Yes. It's true. It was an infraction. It was wrong of me. But Shabbos is one-sixtieth of paradise. We can still salvage at least an eightieth of paradise, I think, or a hundredth. One percent of paradise. That's something.”

I recalled another story about Aher, long after he visited
Pardes
. One Shabbos evening, he was walking with his former student, Rabbi Meir. The two men were deep in conversation, and when they reached the
techum Shabbos
boundary, Aher had to stop Meir. He explained that he was going to keep going, but he wouldn't be responsible for Meir breaking Shabbos.

The lights in the storage facility were all motion activated, which was annoying when I was sitting still, working on my stock, but meant that I didn't have to further break Shabbos in front of Rayna by turning on any light switches. Later in the morning, when we stopped by the green grocer to buy a picnic feast, I realized I had to handle money. I apologized but Rayna just laughed.

“I'm glad you aren't working today, so you can spend the whole day with me”—apparently I wasn't as slick as I thought I was—“but the rules don't really matter. I don't live in my father's house anymore.” She chose pickles, hardboiled eggs, plums, three chocolate bars, and a liter bottle of Fanta. I chose a big container of macaroni salad, an equally large container of a different kind of pasta salad with pesto, a wedge of brie, a loaf of crusty bread, and a bottle of wine. The food would have been cheaper at a grocery store, but I didn't know that either of us could handle being in a place like that, with the lights and people and aisles.

We went to Washington Square Park and sat in the far northwest corner so none of the other booksellers would see us. Malachi the drug dealer noticed me, but he just nodded, and went about his business. We spread an army blanket we'd brought from the storage space, and laid out our bounty.

“So, Rayna,” I said, after we'd eaten. “You were talking about your family's house before. In Boro Park? I still don't know much about you, or where you come from.”

“That's true.” Her face clouded, and she didn't say anything else for a long while. I had pushed too hard, as I had with Roman and
Timur. I kept asking questions, when I needed to wait for answers to come. It had been so nice spending time with Rayna, and I'd ruined it. We chewed our food in silence. Squirrels and pigeons came too close. They were not afraid of people, and they wanted a bite of our food.

“I'll tell you a story,” Rayna said, carefully. “From my family's neighborhood.”

“Yeah?” I said, wanting to encourage her without pushing.

“There was a family who lived down the street from my family,” Rayna said. “The father ran a nice business selling hats. The Hat King, they called him. The Hat King's oldest son was a fine young man, and the family hoped that the son would grow up and take over the business. But then, the boy somehow got it into his head that he was a pigeon.” I sat, enthralled. I didn't think Rayna was going to tell me anything, and now words were pouring forth. Clearly, she was repeating a story she had heard—perhaps even told—many times before. Still, I was happy she was telling it to me.

“Why did he think that?” I asked, to encourage her to keep going.

“I don't know,” she said. “Who knows where people get ideas? Maybe something happened to him that made him feel he wasn't a human. Well, for whatever reason, all day long he would hang out in the park with the other pigeons, with no clothes on, not even a hat, pecking around. There are stone tables in the park there? With chessboards for tabletops? Where old men play?” I nodded.

“There are some in this park too,” I said, pointing down to the southwest corner, where men played chess every day. They weren't a part of my scene—I didn't come to the west side of the park very often—but they were part of the park life, just like the drug dealers, the street musicians, and us booksellers. Washington Square chess was not recreational. These chess hustlers played all takers, for two or three dollars a game. Al was a pretty good chess player but probably wouldn't play them unless he knew he'd win.

“Oh, yes,” Rayna said. “I've seen them there. Just like that. So the son would go around and around the bases of the tables, all day long. He would eat chips that children dropped on the ground. It was very embarrassing to his family. In Boro Park, everyone is always watching
everyone else. Judging. His siblings were able to get him back home at night, but only by shooing him out of the park with a broom. He'd coo at his mother—whom he'd always loved—and eat the challah she baked, so long as she ripped it into little pieces and tossed them under the table.

“The Hat King and his wife tried everything. They brought in the boy's old friends from yeshiva to visit, but he didn't seem to recognize them. They brought in rabbis, gypsy hypnotists, doctors with theories. What do you call them? Analysts? But none of them could convince him. He wouldn't respond but with a peck and a flapping of his wings. Arms.” Rayna paused to sip her wine, and a park pigeon cocked his head, as if waiting for Rayna to resume. “He knew the truth, that he was a pigeon, and didn't understand why everyone wanted to convince him otherwise.

“What could the family do? They kept on as best they could. They built a nice big coop on the front porch for the boy to sleep in, and threw scraps from their nice meals on the ground. They had to get rid of the family cat, because who could bear to watch their son chased around the house by a little pussycat?” Rayna looked genuinely shamed at the thought of a boy being tormented by a cat.

“Then, one day, a stranger appeared in the park. The Hat King's son found the man crawling around under the tables, without any clothes, making cooing sounds. Pecking around. The son waddled up to him and said, ‘What in the world are you doing?'

“And the stranger said, ‘What do you mean what am I doing? I'm a pigeon, like you, anyone can see that. I'm pecking at crumbs, like I always do.'

“‘Well, listen, pal,' the boy said, ‘you don't look like any pigeon I've ever seen.'

“‘Well, you don't look like any pigeon I've ever seen either. But if you say you are, you are. I guess we're both of us just a couple of pigeons.' The son wasn't sure what to make of this. Because the stranger looked like a human to him. But it was nice to have another pigeon that was his size, and understood his language. The other pigeons in the park didn't talk to him, and he'd been very lonely.
What's more, he knew what it was like to have people say you weren't a pigeon. That they knew you better than you knew yourself. So he decided to believe the man.

“‘I guess we are both pigeons,' he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. Is it called a shoulder, for a bird too? In any case, the two pigeons became close. The Hat King's son invited the new pigeon home to share his coop with him at night. It was large enough for two. In the day, they went out to walk in circles together.”

“What about the Hat King and his family?” I asked.

“They didn't understand. They couldn't help. They just sat back and watched. I think they were embarrassed.

“After a few days, the man went out to the park with clothes on. Pants, shirt, jacket, hat. The Hat King's son took special note of the hat, which was a very fine one. Black, with a wide brim. Wider than is normal in the neighborhood.

“‘Say,' said the son, ‘I've never seen a pigeon wearing human clothes. You are sure you're a pigeon?'

“‘Coo!' said the man. ‘You know me, friend. Of course I'm a pigeon. Is there a rule that says a pigeon can't wear clothes if he wants to? Can't we pigeons do anything we want? What kind of pigeon would be so unsure of himself he would think that wearing clothes made him less of a pigeon?' The son was skeptical, but he had to admit the man had a point. And the clothes didn't keep the man from pecking around under the table. He stayed focused on his pigeon tasks, even as he wore holes in the knees of his trousers. When the days grew colder, the Hat King's son eventually pulled on some clothes himself. Why not? He could put on all the clothes he wanted. It wouldn't change who he was.” I sat there, in Al's sweater and baseball cap, and listened to Rayna's story.

“Then, one morning, the man sat at the table and ate breakfast with the rest of the family, instead of eating his bread crumbs under the table. Again, the son confronted him, questioned his pigeon-ness. But again, the man argued back, saying, ‘Is there a rule a pigeon can't sit at a table? Maybe it's a more comfortable way for a pigeon to enjoy his meal. And maybe he wants to eat something more than
crumbs. Maybe he wants to feast on cheese and blueberry blintzes.' The son badly wanted to eat at the table, but had convinced himself he couldn't. Now he pulled himself up into a chair for the first time in over a year.

“With every new action, the man convinced the Hat King's son with the same argument. ‘Is there a rule a pigeon can't drink wine, if he likes the taste of it? And is there a rule a pigeon can't converse with humans, if he has something to add to the conversation?' And so on.” She stopped, as if she'd come to the end of the tale.

“The son was cured?” I asked. “He became who he was supposed to be?”

“No.” Rayna shook her head. “He was never ‘cured.' Some people are . . . hurt so badly they can never be healed.” She looked very sad, and I realized she included herself on that list.