Twelve (9 page)

Chapter Forty-Nine

WHITE MIKE IS
beeped again right after Molly leaves. He knew it was coming. He has an ounce to sell to some kid up on Eighty-eighth Street and East End Avenue. He doesn't feel like going out this early, but it's a whole ounce, and shit, you know.

He takes a cab up there, does the deal, and decides to walk back down to another beep on Seventieth Street. As he is passing Seventy-seventh Street on York Avenue, he sees a construction site fenced off by yellow tape. There are no workers around, though. No tools, no trucks, nothing. In fact, there is nobody around.

White Mike walks into the site. There is tape tied to sharp iron poles surrounding a hole with a ladder going down into it. The hole is well lit and looks dry. White Mike finishes his examination of the hole and goes to continue on his way, but his backpack catches on one of the poles and rips. The bottom opens up, and the ounce of weed, in a plastic bag at the bottom of his backpack, falls out and slides into the hole.

“Shit.”
How weird is this
.

White Mike looks around and, seeing no authority figures, ducks the tape and climbs down the ladder. A strong smell hits him as he descends, some mixture of sulfur and damp concrete. The hole is not as dry nor as bright as it looked from above. A couple feet away from the ladder on either side, in fact, it is dark enough so that White Mike is forced to bend down and search for the ounce with his fingers. There is steam coming from the walls, and it is humid like the streets in summer.

In the darkness, as he searches, a rat scurries away, bumping his foot. This scares him, but then he feels his heel on the Baggie and picks it up and climbs quickly back up the ladder.

Chapter Fifty

CLAUDE IS IN
his room, stripped to his underwear, practicing with the double-edged sword. He has taken it to a back corner of the room, where part of the wall is now chipped away and gouged. Claude spins and feints and then slashes out with the sword, and another chunk flies out of the wall. Claude examines his blade for nicks. Later, he sits on the edge of his bed with a whet-stone, sharpening.

Chapter Fifty-One

TWILIGHT IS DESCENDING
, and White Mike is walking home through the clear cold air. He speeds up as he hears a screaming; a wailing. He can't make it out at first, this rasping howl. It is coming from around the corner in front of him. He hurries forward, and as he is passing the corner, the screaming is so loud he flinches. It sounds painful. He turns his head and he sees that it is Captain, and suddenly he can make out the words.

“I AM THE STRONGEST.”

Captain is just at the edge of the building at the corner, and there is blood running off his hands where he has been dragging them along the stone wall. The snow underneath him is red and yellow from his blood and dog piss. Captain is not wearing a shirt, and his nipples stand distended from his huge chest. Every muscle in his stomach is perfectly defined. He jumps as he drags his arms, corded in fury, along the wall. He slams his head against the wall and slips as he lands. Blood comes down his face. White Mike is frightened, and the feeling is unfamiliar. Captain keeps
screaming, writhing shirtless on the ground now in the piss-blood snow.

“I AM THE STRONGEST. I AM THE STRONGEST. I AM THE STRONGEST. I AM THE STRONGEST. I AM THE STRONGEST.” He catches sight of Mike and rises, stumbling toward him. “I KNOW YOU. I AM STRONGEST. STRONGER. STRONGER. STRONGER.”

White Mike dials 911 on his cell phone. People hurry past the screaming black man bleeding on the ground, trying not to see him. When the medics and police come and take the Captain, they thank White Mike and assure him that everything will be okay. They ask him if he's okay.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.”

Part IV

Monday, December 30

Chapter Fifty-Two

ANDREW SITS IN
the kitchen and looks at the paper and eats crackers and drinks orange juice. He tells himself he is ready to call Sara Ludlow. He put it off all yesterday, but today he is going to call her. Just needs to get her number. Andrew figures the other kid, Sean, her boyfriend or whatever, is probably out of the hospital by now, so he will call him and get the girl's number and call her like he is just calling to get his CD back.

A West Indian accent answers the phone and tells Andrew that the young master is asleep.

Andrew switches rooms and drops himself on the couch with the remote. He channel-surfs for a couple of hours, switching between the networks and their sitcoms and Comedy Central and MTV and VH1, on which he watches the Hundred Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. Where's Sublime? When the countdown is finished, he calls again and this time gets Sean.

Andrew looks at the number he has written down. Now he has to call the girl. It is absurd for him to feel nervous. He sits down and looks at the paper again
and has another glass of orange juice and some more crackers.

“Fuck it,” he says out loud as he grabs for the phone and punches in her number.

“Hello?”

“Sara?”

“Yes?”

“This is Andrew, from the hospital, remember, you borrowed—”

“Oh, that's right. I love the CD. It's great. I've been listening to it, like, nonstop since I took it from you.”

“Good.”

“So you probably want it back, right?”

“Actually, not really.”

“Well, let me burn it first. I have a friend with a burner who's having a New Year's party, actually. You should come.”

Andrew smiles into the phone. “Yeah, definitely. Where is it?”

“Two East Ninetieth Street. Just off of Fifth. It's this kid named Chris, do you know him?”

“Probably. You sure it's okay if I just come?”

“Yeah, and bring people. It's an open house, and he wants a big party.”

“So I'll see you there?”

“Yeah, I'll be there. Oh, you smoke?”

“Umm, yeah, sometimes.” Twice, because they said the first time he wouldn't get high. Twice to see what it was like.

“Have you got any weed now?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

“Okay, well, don't forget to bring it.”

“No problem.”

“Great. See you then. Bye.”

Shit. Andrew doesn't have any weed. How is he gonna buy weed. Ask Hunter. Hunter's still in jail. Shit. Andrew tries to remember what those two little potheads in his school used to tell him. About how they had the hookup. Fifty ought to be enough.

Chapter Fifty-Three

TIMMY AND MARK
Rothko are walking east on Eighty-sixth Street, two more white kids playing black. Fucking crazy. They are both wearing FUBU (For Us By Us) with their Timberland boots, sizes nine and ten respectively. Timmy is the brains of the operation, as it were. Mark Rothko is the muscle. Timmy is tremendously fat. He has man boobies, but they are concealed under his wife beater and all of his designer clothing. Mark Rothko dresses the same way.

Mark Rothko is called Mark Rothko because at his first school, on a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he shoved another kid into the real Mark Rothko's
Untitled (Number 12
). The huge painting came down on the kid, and both he and the painting had to be restored. And some other wiseass on the field trip started calling Mark Rothko as Mark Rothko and it stuck. Mark Rothko was kicked out of that school. Then a couple of other schools. He has no idea who the real Mark Rothko was (“some painter dude”), but he likes the name. Timmy knows him by no other.

Tonight the two of them are on a mission to score some weed. So Timmy whips out his celly to beep White Mike; Mark Rothko whips out his and starts to play Snake.

“Yo b, we gonna smoke some mad bowls tonight,” Timmy says to Mark Rothko.

“Word, word,” Mark Rothko agrees sagely.

“Yeah, and then we gonna find some hos . . .” Timmy starts tapping some hypothetical ass and grinds his hips in the air. His center of gravity is low to the ground.

“Damn.”

“Wassup?” Timmy looks up from his woman.

“You wanna go inside? It's mad cold out here.”

“A'ight.”

Timmy and Mark Rothko walk into HMV and head for the hip-hop section. They are short enough so the cashiers can't see them over the aisles as they stuff CDs into their cargo pockets. Mark Rothko breaks off for a minute and grabs James Taylor's greatest hits while Timmy isn't looking. He has heard his father listen to it. He gets back upstairs and finds Timmy doing his obscene dance in front of a poster of Jennifer Lopez. J. Lo is dressed like an Amazon warrior, complete with brass brassiere. Mark Rothko taps Timmy on the shoulder and they head for the door, all very smooth, and out before they break into a run. The store's siren wails behind them. They make it around the block and into Starbucks, where they order hot chocolate, huffing and puffing.

“Man, I gotta quit smokin',” mumbles Rothko.

“What?” Timmy gasps. “That's wack, man. Let's biggity bust.”

Timmy and Mark Rothko take their hot chocolate and continue down the street to Mimi's Pizza, where Mark Rothko buys a broccoli slice with extra cheese.

“That shit's nasty, man,” Timmy says.

Mark Rothko shrugs him off. Timmy drops into a chair and checks his celly. The Serbian guys behind the counter eye them.

“Yo, Rothko, we missed the call.”

“Word? Dawg, call him back. I gots to get blizzy.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

WHITE MIKE IS
talking on the phone to a friend he went to school with, when he went to school. Warren, who goes to Harvard. He was White Mike's other best friend in high school. It was always Mike and Hunter and Warren.

“So how's the city?”

“The same, you know.”

“Merry Christmas, by the way.”

“Yeah, you too.”

“How was it?”

“The same. My dad gave me cash. I never see him, you know, but he got a little tree for the kitchen table. He's sort of sentimental.”

“Yeah, we got a big Christmas tree.”

“When do you go back?”

“Monday, after New Year's. What are you doing for that?”

“Probably just make the rounds. There'll be a lot of calls. You?”

“Cancún with the whole family. Leave tonight.”

“How'll that be?”

“Boring. I'm almost looking forward to going back to school.”

“Yeah?”

“No, seriously. It's better up there than you think. You should come.”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Hey, man, I've been reading and everything. I still think like a student, sort of, you know?”

“There's no discipline.”

“Discipline. My whole life is discipline.”

“And so real.”

“As if you were ever going to do anything but go to Harvard.”

“Yeah. Well—”

“And you come back here like you're learning something important. I was walking along the street yesterday, going to sell my last ounce to that Alport kid, and my bag got caught on a pole and ripped, and the weed fell down into a hole.”

“Okay.”

“So I went down into the hole—it was a whole ounce— and it's all dark and humid down there, and there was a rat. And you know where I was?”

“Hell? With Dante?”

“And you go to Harvard, and who do you think is learning more?”

“Don't be melodramatic.” Warren flinches as White Mike whacks the receiver against the table.

“Hello? Mike?”

“I'm going to Coney Island.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

AFTER SEAN GIVES
Andrew Sara's cell-phone number, he tries to go back to sleep but can't because his arm hurts. And he wonders about Sara and this guy Andrew. And Sara and everyone else she flirts with, which seems to be everybody, depending on what she wants. He wonders if he cares, particularly.

He has to go back to the doctor in a couple of hours because the doctor wants to change his dressing and see how he is doing. So he gets up and goes through the difficult routine of dressing with a cast the size and shape, he thinks, of a crooked elephant penis. It is nothing like an elephant penis. His mother cut the sleeve off a sweatshirt, so he wears that. The housekeeper asks him if he would like some breakfast and he says sure, how about some French toast. She makes it, but he doesn't eat it. He never eats breakfast, and wonders why she hasn't figured that out. She tries to chat about his arm, and he takes a few bites so he doesn't have to talk. In the elevator on the way down to the lobby, he pushes the button marked TAXI. When
he gets downstairs, one of the doormen has hailed a cab. Sean gets in.

The cabbie is a short white guy with a huge gut pushing up against the steering wheel. The interior smells artificially of air freshener and chocolate, as if he were inside one of the bags he used to carry his Halloween candy in. The reason, he sees, is that in the front seat is a big tub of candy. Tootsie Rolls, lollipops, bags of M&M's, bite-sized 3 Musketeers.

The license proclaims the driver Theodore Rimby, who smiles a big gap-toothed grin and wears a bow tie in his picture. He has a thick mustache and dimples. He wears a bow tie now, and a big Russian muff. It is cold in the cab; the heat is not on.

Sean gives Theodore the address and sits back.

“No problem. Goin' to see a doctor, huh? For your arm, maybe? I couldn't help noticing, but that's a heck of a cast you got there.”

“Yeah.” Sean is unimpressed by the cabdriver's deduction. The address, after all, was for Lenox Hill Hospital.

“I was in a hospital a little while ago. I had a heart attack, and boy, it was scary. But I got back into the cab fast, you know, gotta get back.” Theodore jams a fat fist in the tub of candy. “Want something? I got a lot up here.”

“No thanks.”

“It's all wrapped already, if you're worried, don't worry.”

“No thanks.”

“Well, that's okay. I was a finicky eater too”—Sean narrows his eyes at the characterization—“of course, that all changed when I got a little bit older.” Theodore laughs a big wheezy laugh, like a bus kneeling to let a wheelchair passenger get on. “Yeah, I've always loved candy, though, and I suppose everyone else does too. That's why I keep it in the cab. It's good for starting conversation.”

Sean sits in silence. Then, vaguely annoyed, he says, “I don't really want to talk.”

Unflustered, Theodore moves on. “Well, that's okay too. I know everyone says that cabdrivers ought to stay quiet, and that, you know, you won't get good tips if you talk all the time, but usually people tip just the same unless you say something that pisses 'em off real good or something like that. Most people want to talk. Don't have enough people to talk to. People tell me all sorts of things. Some still get pissed, though. This one guy, I was tellin' him some of what I was thinkin' about women at the time—you know the three C's of womanhood?”

Sean doesn't say anything.

“Cookin', cleanin', and childbearin'!” More laughter, like a heavy piece of machinery starting up. “Of course, if my wife ever heard me talking like that, she'd throw a shit fit, you know, but it's the truth.”

In the backseat, Sean thinks of Sara and the hospital, and how she would look swollen with some baby, her breasts huge and heavier than they already are, gathered
around her neck, all puffy and immobile with the extra weight, her hips gone from the pleasantly boyish supermodel size they are now to some other thing closer to what pretty women look like in old pictures. Like Marilyn Monroe, whom Sean has never found particularly attractive. Certainly not more attractive than any
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit model he has ever seen.

“You got a wife?”

Sean can think of nothing to say. “No.”

“A girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Never get married. It's not worth it. Guess I'm riskin' my tip, all this jibber-jabberin'. Ahh, well. You don't want to talk, and we're nearly there.”

Sean looks in the rearview mirror and sees Theodore's tired eyes, and the big tub of candy next to him that he is reaching into.

“Well, why'd you get married?”

“Oh,” says Theodore, surprised, “well, they trick you, you know. And you love 'em. Or I loved mine.”

“Loved?”

“Yeah, she passed away a couple of months ago, God rest her soul. I sure was glad to see the girls, though. They came back for the funeral. One of 'em, Emily, she's pregnant, can you believe it? I'm gonna be a grandfather. I'm trying to get her to come back for a visit, you know, but everyone is so busy. She lives in St. Louis. She says I shouldn't be a cabbie anymore, but I like it. It's honest work. I think that movie
Taxi Driver
spooked
people. That Robert De Niro, he's really good. But crazy, huh? That's not what it's really like. You ever seen the movie?”

“No.”

“Don't bother. That'll be five-thirty.”