Troika (21 page)

I
f you asked me to make a list of my most favorite things about New York—and it’s a very long list—there’s a sublime stretch in Central Park that is at the very top. I cannot even think of a close second. Maybe the Frick or the Guggenheim or the pool room at the Four Seasons.

On this warm autumn day, Perla and I cross Fifth Avenue and walk south along the park’s edge. Unlike the paved sidewalk on the east side of Fifth, the sidewalk that runs along the park is made of bumpy, hexagonal stones and is thus, despite the determination with which I work the wheels, difficult for me to traverse. Perla notices my struggle. She steps behind me, grabs the handles in back and pushes.

Just north of Seventy-second Street, my front wheels dip into a depression caused by a couple of missing stones, and the chair comes to an abrupt halt that causes my upper body to lunge forward. The
seat belt cuts into my waist, and although I cannot feel it poke at my skin, I do feel its impact on the band above my waist, pulling it downward, stretching it.

“I got it,” Perla says.

I can’t see what Perla does now, but I understand the physics and can thus imagine her movements. Perla squeezes the handles and pushes down on the rear wheels, taking pressure off the front of the chair. She then extends her right leg backward and braces it on the ground. She leans forward and pushes hard. When the chair does not budge, she leans even lower so that now her chest, her breasts brush the back of my head. Perla’s body is upon me, if even for just a split, fully clothed second.

“One, two, three,” she calls out. And then the wheels release, up and out of the hole—and we are on our way. At Seventy-second Street, we make a right into the park, and then another quick right, where we descend downward to Conservatory Water. The path down to the pond is steep, and there is no way I alone can control the chair on the descent.

I look back at Perla as we both peer down the sloping path. “You got this?” I ask.

“Got it.”

Again, I cannot see what Perla is doing, but the physics dictate that she is now leaning backward, her left foot forward and just under the edge of the chair, her shoulders turned a bit to the right so she is generating a bit of torque that allows her to lower the chair slowly down the path. About halfway down, her left foot gives way on a patch of gravel, and we—me, her and the chair—accelerate at a scary rate. Perla stomps her left foot on the pavement. Her foot bounces a few times before she can plant securely and assert the necessary counterforce.

We continue our deliberate journey downward with Perla
controlling the pace. I now comprehend the physical strength of this girl. I picture her on the pole, suspending herself, her muscles twitching. I imagine her making love to Julian, the strength of her arms, the arch of her back. I imagine her on top of Julian, using her strength to fuck him. These thoughts are bittersweet for me. There is, of course, great pain, but there is also some pleasure.

We stop in front of Conservatory Water, a small, man-made pond that accommodates not real boats, but rather radio-operated toy boats with crisp white sails that cut gracefully through the still water. Along the edge of the shallow pond, children hold the controls, protruding antennae directing the boats. The occasional duck glides by, glances at the boats with bemusement and moves on, careful not to come into contact with the lifeless creatures.

Perla and I do not speak. We watch the boats, the faces of the children, their wonderment that the mere flick of a finger can move an object. Right, left, forward—but never backward. The only way they can go back to where they started is to make a series of rights or a series of lefts. They have power, these kids.

“Let’s go this way,” I say, pointing west. “There’s another pond, a lake really, with real boats.”

We move north along the edge of the toy boat pond. On this flat, paved walkway, I work the wheels with ease. We pass the Alice in Wonderland statue on our right and go under a stone arch, stopping when we reach the park drive. A peloton of recreational cyclists flies by in a blurry whoosh. Noting the danger of crossing the busy road, Perla steps behind me. She looks both ways, then again. And she runs me across the drive with a powerful burst.

The next body of water, the lake, always reminds me of a Seurat painting: couples in row boats, the men working the oars, turning their heads to avoid a collision, the women sitting on the opposite bench with a full view of what is to come, wincing when a stray boat
comes too close. On this day, the lake is algae-rich and has an emerald hue. There are many ducks and two swans, a couple I assume. A huge turtle swims past us, slow and unconcerned, just below the surface of the lake’s water. Perla and I settle by the southern edge of the lake, a few feet away from the glorious Bethesda Fountain, the Angel of the Waters. Across the plaza, a gospel singer—off-key—sings “Oh Happy Day.” On the ground before him is a hat with just a couple of coins in it.

There are a few minutes of stillness, a few minutes during which Perla and I try to process every detail of this stunning, encircling tableau—one in which I guess we both participate. The singer finishes the song, and Perla and I move in his direction. Perla takes a twenty out of her purse and drops it in the hat. She then turns to me. “The best way to show a person you value their talent,” she says, “is to pay for it.” She smiles, and I believe this is her elegant way of acknowledging an obvious but unspoken fact: that I know she’s a stripper.

“Agreed,” I say, admiring both her generosity and her subtle candor.

Perla looks around the plaza. “Where now?” she asks.

I spin my wheelchair around and point south, toward the forty or so steps on both sides of the arcade. We cannot scale so many, so I point to the path on the far left, a good forty-five-degree incline that leads up to the band shell. As I look at the daunting hill, I consider that this is my fifth test of Perla. So far, she has passed the previous four. To start, there was the invitation to see us in New York, the invitation that I strategically encouraged Roger to deliver on my and Julian’s behalf; the second was the invitation to sleep over; the third was the offer to take a walk in the park; the fourth, the decline to the pond with the toy boats; and now the incline above the Bethesda Terrace.

We stop at the base of the hill and consider our strategy. “I think we gotta get some speed going before we hit the hill,” she says. Perla stands behind the chair and reverses about twenty feet. “Hold on.” And like a sprinter taking off from the blocks, Perla runs. Within about ten yards, we’ve got speed galore. And by the time we hit the incline, Perla has generated enough energy to keep us going at an admirable clip until we get three-quarters up the hill, where we reach a set of steps. Perla stops a few feet away. “You buckled up?” she asks.

I check my belt and tighten it. “All set.”

Perla slowly spins me around so that I am now facing north toward the lake. As I grip the armrests, she pulls me backward until the wheels bump against the first riser. Then step by step—all nine of them—she pulls me up to the crest of the hill, and there we stop. Exhausted, Perla pants and bends over at the waist, hands on her knees. I turn to her. And when her breathing soon regulates, she stands up and looks at me. Her sheer shirt is now wet with perspiration and clings tightly. But unlike earlier in the apartment, she is no longer self-conscious. She glances at her breasts, and rather than cross her arms over her chest, she smiles, spins and elevates to get a look at the fountain, the lake, the people below.

I now take the lead as we continue south, and Perla walks closely by my side. To our left is the empty band shell; before us, the grand American elms, haunted, twisted and gnarled. We cross a small patch of gravel, and the crunch of the stones under Perla’s feet reminds me of strolling through the Tuileries with Julian. Perla and I make our way south through the bench-lined corridor between the elms, and then we make a left, turning east for the final few hundred yards of this transcendent stretch.

We pass under the Willowdell Arch, a short stretch of musty darkness that smells of urine, and then emerge back into the
sunlight. We stand before the brass statue of Balto, a sled dog from Alaska—heroic and lauded—whose back has been buffed and shined by the seats of thousands of children who have jumped on top for a photo. Then we move down a short, rock-lined path to the Delacorte Clock and arrive just in time, half past the hour, to watch the animals—a monkey, penguin, hippo, bear, elephant, goat, kangaroo—dance and make music. Tourists gather around the clock, taking photos, little kids dancing along with the animals. Children, too, are bittersweet for me. In light of my situation, I have mixed feelings about them. I experience a subtle change in mood in the presence of these children, these families, these symbols of my loss. I go from this moment, which was until now a great moment, to someplace in the past—a place where I was ambulatory and fertile.

Perla observes me; I can feel her gaze upon me. I can feel that she has detected my shift in mood. “You ready to go home?” she asks. Perla has passed her next test—one that I had not planned, one that has arisen by chance.

Relieved, I look back to her. “All ready,” I say.

W
ell, it’s a perfect day to take a walk through the park, sort of warm even though it’s fall. I don’t think I could have a better tour guide than Sophie, ’cause she knows just about everything there is to know about the park—the toy boat pond, a beautiful fountain—Angel of the Waters, it’s called—the band shell, these crazy-looking elms, even why the back of a brass dog is all shiny and bright. After the walk, I looked up this Balto dog and it turns out he brought medicine, antitoxin they say, and saved lots of people in Alaska a long time ago. And now the real Balto is stuffed and in some museum in Ohio, which is sort of weird. It’s weird that he’s stuffed and it’s even weirder that he’s stuffed in Cleveland.

It’s good exercise for me, too, ’cause I don’t get much down in Florida. I’m on the pole, but that’s not really exercise. That’s just holding on for dear life. So we’re walking around the park, and there’s a lot of up and down here, and sometimes having to push
Sophie in that wheelchair wears me out, but in a good way. I’m all sweaty and my tits are on display, and even though they’re not too big, every guy who passes me is taking a look. And it gets so obvious that Sophie turns around when I’m pushing her and says you think they’re looking at the cripple in the chair or the wet T-shirt contest you got going on back there? And I laugh and say maybe a bit of both. But what I’m really thinking is that if these guys have any sense at all, any idea what pure beauty looks like—crippled or not—then Sophie’s the girl they should be staring at.

We’re standing near a clock tower and there’s animals on top, funny ones holding instruments, and next thing I know there’s music. It’s a kid’s song, and the animals are dancing and spinning around in a circle to the tune.
Frère Jacques
,
frère Jacques
. There they are, up on a stage, dancing to the music, children and their parents watching, some lovers too, and of course me and Sophie. And as I’m watching this, the dancing animals make me think about me, ’cause that’s exactly what
I
do. I get up high and dance and people have their eyes all fixed on me. And even though they’re just metal figures dancing up there, I’m pretty sure they’re more alive than I am.

There’s a family standing near us, a big family with four or five kids and parents who look so young it’s hard to believe they have even one kid. But they’re a sweet family, tourists I think, and the kids get crazy when the animals start dancing. The little one, she can’t be more than four or five, she’s got cotton candy in one hand, a big fluffy pink cloud on a stick, and she’s pointing at the animals with the other.

The girl’s so amazed that she keeps moving, step by step, toward the clock, like she’s being drawn to it. Next thing I know, she’s broken away from her pack and she’s standing alone next to Sophie and the wheelchair. She’s doing a little teeter-totter thing with her feet ’cause she’s so excited and she holds on to the big rubber wheel on
Sophie’s chair. She looks at Sophie and smiles and points to the animals with her cotton candy. She doesn’t say anything, just holds on to the wheel all comfortable and natural.

The music ends, and the girl lets go of the wheel and runs back to her family. We watch her jump on her daddy’s back, and then she’s gone. I look down at Sophie and I can see in her face that something’s wrong, that maybe this little girl being so close and sweet and intimate, maybe something about that got to Sophie. Maybe a memory? Or a fantasy? Or maybe it’s something different. It’s too early for me to tell, ’cause I hardly know her, but I can read a girl, and I know it’s time to get her the hell out of this park.

S
ophie and I are back in the apartment and I think she’s finally settling down from seeing that little girl with the cotton candy. Like I said, I’ve been in some really weird situations in my short life, and having an asshole finger you in a booth is one of them, but sitting in a fancy apartment in New York with my customer’s paralyzed wife and a take-no-crap Trinidad maid is way beyond weird. And just when I think it can’t get weirder, just when I have my escape plan all worked out, something happens that makes me even more nervous.

Julian’s off to D.C., so now it’s just me, Sophie and Norma. Sophie says to me hold on for a few minutes, and then she spins her wheelchair around like a top and goes into the kitchen with Norma. Now I can hear them talking, whispering who knows what, and it’s clear as day they don’t want me to hear what they’re saying. There’s a point where it almost sounds like they’re arguing, but still
whispering, which is real funny. When people argue but keep their voices real soft.

Sophie comes back out of the kitchen, and boy is she good at racing that thing around, moving her arms, weaving in and out of chairs, through doorways, and never bumps into anything. She’s back at the table for just a few seconds when Norma comes out of the kitchen holding her chest like she’s having a heart attack, all dramatic, and says Mum, I got an emergency on my hands, a big one. My cousin, my cousin, she’s in the hospital and I’m her only family so I got to get down to Saint Luke’s right away.

Now, the way she says it it’s real obvious that either her cousin’s not sick or maybe she doesn’t even have a cousin at all, and she’s just trying to get out of the apartment. Sophie puts her hand on her chest, all fake and dramatic too, and she says oh, no, Norma, what happened? And I’m thinking does everyone up here take the same shitty acting course?
Here we go
, I’m thinking. These two bitches are setting me up to be alone with Sophie, God knows why, and there’s no fucking way that’s happening. She seems to move real good in that chair and of course she’s got a phone in case there’s an emergency and enough money to hire an entire hospital for a house call.

Sophie looks at me with a fake-sincere look on her face and she says Perla, Norma has to run and Julian doesn’t get back from Washington until the morning, and I’m wondering if there’s any way you can stay here with me until then. I don’t mean to impose, she says, but it’s just one night.

Now, a few hours with this woman is about all I can take, but
another night?
Norma’s looking at me, waiting to see if I’m fool enough to take the bait. And Sophie, too. I look around the apartment, then I think about that shitty club and my mom spending almost every night at Felipe’s and how lonely I’m gonna be down there.

Of course, I say. Happy to stay.