August and Then Some, page 14
“She’s some kind of dancer. I don’t know what he does, I only met him once. He’s on the road a lot.” An upright piano with brass pedals stands against a wall and holds pictures of well-dressed, important-looking people with their arms around other important-looking shoulders. “They play?”
“Guess so.”
“You play?”
“Someday,” she says. And I believe her.
“I feel like I should take off my boots.”
“Yeah, you should.”
I move back to the door to flip them off and I see a painting of what looks like a fish hanging above a piano. In my socks I step closer to the picture and see it’s signed on the bottom right. “Holy shit.”
“What?”
“Is this real?”
“It’s a real painting.”
“No, I mean is it a real Warhol?”
“Who’s that?”
“He was a painter.”
“Thank you.”
“Sorry. He was the guy who designed the Campbell’s soup cans, and he did those paintings of Marilyn Monroe that look like cartoons. Someone shot him. I seen a movie about it.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Well, this is him.”
We stare into it for a few seconds.
“But check this out,” she says like she’s about to show me the best thing in the whole place. She leads me down the hallway by my hand. As we walk she flips the dishtowel over her shoulder. It’s a movement so natural and habitual—she becomes someone who is used to not worrying about themselves, their marriage, or their money. Like someone who’s comfortable wearing a killer dress, a dishtowel, or a kid over their shoulder. Like someone who owns a place and a life like this.
Down the hallway we get to the third of three doors. Stephanie puts her hand on the knob and lets out a smile the size of an eagle’s wingspan, holds a finger over her mouth reminding me to keep quiet, and cracks the door open.
A girl sleeps in a white bed. She’s got a window that from eight stories lets her scan the tops of brownstones and offers her a small view of the Hudson River. Against a pale purple wall she’s got a wooden toy chest that doubles as a bench; it’s painted with an underwater theme with a red seahorse as the main character. Dolls and stuffed animals sit on the window shelf and above her head a corkboard displays her crayon masterpieces. “She sleeps like she trusts everything,” Stephanie says like a woman who easily recognizes that kind of trust, but is not sure she’ll ever feel it.
Stephanie closes the door, and I hold the picture of this sleeping girl in my mind as we walk back down the hallway. “Veronica,” Stephanie whispers. She looks back at me. “She’s four.” She looks at me again. “You OK?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You look like you’re somewheres else.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s … she’s just cute.”
“No doubt. We gotta make her dinner. She’ll be up soon.”
We walk into the kitchen. “What does she like?”
“Same thing all kids like. Macaroni and cheese.”
“I like that, too.”
“Yeah?” she says, all happy and surprised. “Will you eat some with me?”
“Definitely.”
“Ah-ight, grab that pot.” She points over the stove where the pots and pans hang off the hood by heavy hooks. I reach for it, bring it to the sink and fill it up with water as Stephanie makes for the fridge. She gets out the butter, holds it up, says “Mantequilla,” and throws it right at my heart. I catch it. She grabs a hunk of cheese: “Queso,” and hits me with another strike.
She holds up an opened carton of milk and I say, “Leche. No throw.”
She brings it over to me, looking impressed. “Donde aprendiste hablar el castellano, chico blanco?”
“Um, that was something about me being white.”
“That was something about you being white and speaking Spanish.”
“Well, you know, I kill a lot of time in coffee shops. Some of the lingo sinks in.” I slap her on her ass and she doesn’t even blink. Just says, “Pasta.” And points to a cabinet. I put the pot of water on the stove; she turns on the fire.
The cabinet is stacked with five different kinds of pasta. “Elbows?” I ask her.
“Claro.”
I throw her the box; it shakes like a muffled tambourine when she catches it with two hands.
Cautiously I say, “Um, I don’t like macaroni and cheese with breadcrumbs on it.”
“What?” She spits that word at me. “What the hell kind of American pussy are you? You got some seriously stupid-ass taste buds, and no cool at all. Get the fuck out this house. I don’t want you here.” I look for a smirk on her face but she’s dead serious. “Now,” she adds.
“Whoa.” I’m kind of stunned. “Sorry.”
She holds a scowl on me. “Naw, I’m just fucking with you,” she says. “I don’t like that shit neither.” She laughs.
I exhale. “Damn that was good. You had me.”
“I know, your face was ten years old, like your momma was yellin at you.”
“You’re scary, man. I don’t want to be the guy who fucks you over.”
“Then don’t.”
The kitchen windows steam over. I stick a fork into the pot, spear an elbow, blow on it then feed it to Stephanie. She chews. Assesses. Swallows. Shakes her head. “Another minute.”
“Aren’t you supposed to throw it against the wall to see if it sticks?”
“That’s spaghetti, and that’s stupid, and you ain’t throwing no food, on no wall of no kind anywhere in this place.” She pokes me in the ribs. “Let’s set the table.”
Stephanie turns the burner off. From the oven I throw her two mitts, she uses them to lift the pot. I put the strainer in the sink, she pours the water and pasta into it, we both grab for the cold water tap at the same time and both let go. “You,” I say. She turns the cold knob and I swirl the strainer around.
“Don’t call me a stupid American, but I like it kind of soupier.”
“Yeah, just mixed. Not baked and sliced.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s how Veronica likes it. Me, too.”
At the stove I dump the drained elbows back into the pot and she slices a hunk of butter on top of them and stirs. “I need the—”
“Cheese grater?” I say.
She points to a cabinet with her chin. “Second from the left.”
“Got it.” As I reach in it feels familiar and unfamiliar. Scary and relieving.
Over a low flame she grates in the cheese while I stir. We watch it melt. Then she pours in milk. She stops, and looks at me for approval. I say, “A little more.” She drops in some more. “Perfect.” We let it heat till it bubbles and smokes. I kill the flame, blow on another bite and feed it to her. Then I take a bite. We both chew looking at each other. “More salt,” I say with a full mouth.
“You right.”
Veronica sits at the table like a bobble-head version of herself, eating with her fingers. Stephanie goes through about eight napkins keeping her clean. I now know that Veronica also likes to eat eggs, except the crunchy parts, that she will own two horses when she gets older, that her daddy likes the Yankees and she likes me because I like them too, that one day she’ll go to camp, that she likes the taste of stamps, orange (the juice and the color), and the movie Antz.
After dinner we all sit on the couch, Veronica in her Little Mermaid pajamas, and watch Sharon Stone and Woody Allen, as ants, pontificate on individuality, free will, and the true nature of love, while searching for Insectopia. Veronica falls asleep between me and Stephanie, but Stephanie keeps running her hand through Veronica’s long blonde hair.
Stephanie’s cell phone rings Gwen Stefani’s “Let Me Blow Ya Mind”. She whips it out of her back pocket and answers it before it wakes Veronica. She takes it halfway down the hall and in a whisper says, “Hi … I’m still here … Because she’s sleeping …Late … Me and the kid, who you think?… Watching a movie … Yes, by myself … Yo, I ain’t playin that with you. I ain’t gonna start yelling and wake up the kid, OK? So, goodbye …Goodbye … Good. Byyyye.” She sings that last word and snaps her phone closed. “Damn.”
She comes back to the couch. We’re not saying anything about it, but it feels like Nelson is sitting in the chair next to us.
After a while I ask, “Should we put her in bed?”
“No,” Stephanie says, petting Veronica’s hair. “She’s good here.”
Nothing left to do
A picture hangs on the refrigerator in the house that until a few weeks ago was mine—it’s of Mom and Dad as kids. Eighteen, nineteen maybe. On a date in some cheesy-looking Chinese place in their old neighborhood. They had napkins folded like origami swans and tall bamboo glasses with umbrellas sticking out. In the background was a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge that had miniature lights poking through the holes. The table behind them had two regular chairs and two metal folding chairs that looked like they’d been brought out from the back room and dusted off. Now that I’m thinking about it, this Chinese joint doesn’t sound as cheesy as it does heartbreaking. But hey, it was probably fun for them. Exotic, you know? My dad was in a tie, Mom was wearing a low-cut number. They were showing a lot of teeth in this snapshot, probably laughing at the accent coming off the waiter who took the black-and-white picture.
I wonder if my parents ever thought about this picture when it wasn’t in front of them. I mean, they’d gone to the refrigerator often enough, they must have thought about it when they were pulling out leftovers or getting something to drink. But I wonder if they thought about it when they weren’t fighting and there was nothing left to do except get in bed. When she was reading and slid over to make room for him without looking up from the page and he was setting his alarm clock for four-thirty, thinking about cement, money, or some other girlfriend he had before her. I wonder if they remembered whether or not those kids in the picture ever took the time out to ask themselves what kind of nights they wanted when they grew up.
Here’s the thing about this picture that’s always been hard for me to admit. I don’t actually think they were laughing because of the waiter’s accent. I think the date was going really well. I think they were happy.
What the hell happens to people?
Some days I wish I had walked in, told the waiter to put the camera down before he clicked the picture. Dropped enough cash on the table to cover the check, and broke up their date.
Of course, if that worked—if they didn’t go to the car together afterward, and my dad decided he wasn’t going to slip his hand up my mother’s dress, and my mother decided to say no, and they decided to break the whole thing up—I would have been history by the end of the night. Never to be born to them. Cancelled over a dish of lo mein. Some days I think them staying out of that car would have been right.
August 8
After babysitting Veronica we walk through the West Village. It’s after midnight, everything is jumping. We come out of an ice-cream place on Bleecker Street licking cones of gelato. “What did you get?” Stephanie asks me.
“Pistachio.”
“Eeewww.”
“What do you mean ‘eeewww’? Pistachio’s the best.”
“It’s green.”
“So?”
“Pistachios ain’t green.”
“I know, but we think of them as green.”
“I think of them as red.”
“They’re definitely not red.”
“Yes, they are.”
“No, the dye is red, not the nut. Anyway would you be happy if I was eating red-dye-flavored gelato?”
“I’d be happy if you admit pistachios are red.”
I look at her gelato. “Wait a second, what the hell did you get?”
“Avocado.”
We cut through Tompkins Square Park, pass the handball courts and exit on Avenue B and 9th. We get to our stoop and I unlock the door. From behind us we hear Nelson call Stephanie’s name. He’s walking across the street looking very perturbed. Stephanie’s covered in busted. I say, “Go inside. I got this one.”
Stephanie says, “No, you go inside.”
“You sure?”
“What am I, a child?”
I’m sure she’s not. But at the same time you can’t step over the line from kid to adult as fast as she has and not leave something behind. “Go inside,” she tells me again.
“I’ll be right on the other side of this door.”
I let the door shut behind me and think it might be a mistake.
Nelson must be staring her down because I can’t hear a thing. Finally she says, “What?”
Then there’s all kind of screaming in Spanish and English. I can’t make it all out, but I had a pretty good idea what it would be about before it started. The “you’re a liar” and the “you’re a whore” part I hear clearly. When Stephanie says, “Let go of me,” that’s when I decide to open the door, and just as I get my hands on it, it swings open. Stephanie is trying to get in and Nelson has her by the arm. He and I make eye contact. Stephanie pulls away and squeezes into the lobby. Nelson stands there holding the door open. “What the fuck are you doing?” I say.
“Mind your business, asshole.”
Ralphie comes running down the stairs yelling in Nelson’s direction. “Thas it. Get out of my building.” He gets right in Nelson’s face with his attack-dog eyes. “Cierra la puerta.” Nelson doesn’t budge. “I calling the police,” Ralphie says. This makes Nelson step back. “I calling them right now.” Nelson lets the door shut in front of him, then kicks it hard. After the echo of it dies down, there’s a momentary quiet in the hallway. A very unhappy woman opens her apartment door and looks at us. Ralphie says, “We sorry. Everything’s OK.” She nods and shuts the door. Ralphie turns to Stephanie and says, “Toma una decisión ya.” Then he climbs the stairs.
Me and Stephanie get to the third floor. “You OK?” I ask her.
“Yeah, I’m OK.” And she checks the underside of her arm for marks.
“Let me see.”
“No,” she says, “I’m going home.”
“Come upstairs with me.”
“No, I’m going home.”
“Would you just come up for a second? Please.”
“One second.” We walk to my floor.
I let us in and slam the door behind us.
“What are you doing with this fuckin guy?”
“You mean with my kid’s father?” She stands in the middle of the room, and folds her arms over her chest.
I grab a beer from my fridge. “You should be outta here, you know? Somewhere making an island for yourself.”
“Yeah, cause I got so many places where I can do that.”
“Then make an island out of yourself.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just leave.”
I pace the fifteen feet of apartment—look out the window but can’t see Nelson on the street.
“I’m not leaving my kid without a father.”
“Fucking you doesn’t make him a father.”
“And what does that make me, a ho?”
“I didn’t even come close saying that.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Stephanie, stop it. You want this kid to be raised by Mike Tyson Junior then stay. But if I have anything to say about it—and I really hope I do—you’ll find a better one.”
“Why you think you have anything to say about it?”
“Because he’s a fucking loser.” I kill the beer in two swallows then grab another. “And I don’t want to have to watch you from the fire escape, and drop ink balloons on him every time he gets out of control.”
“Ink balloons?”
“I just made that up, but you know what I mean.”
“You’d feel good doing that, right?”
“I’d feel good if you didn’t get the shit kicked out of you.”
“Throwing ink balloons, or anything else on him don’t do shit for me. You’re not getting it.”
“I get that you don’t have to be with a guy who attacks you for Christ’s sake.”
She shakes her head at me like I’m ignorant.
“What?”
“Forget it.”
“Don’t shake your head at me then tell me ‘forget it’.”
“I got an idea. Why don’t you steal his gold chains, sell them, and give me the money.”
“What the fuck are you saying?”
“Like you did for your sister. Two or three thousand dollars, that should make it all good. Get me out of town.”
“Watch your fuckin mouth. You don’t know shit about my sister.”
“You just like Nelson.”
“The fuck I am.”
“This is guys. This is what they do. They make it look like it’s about their girl but it’s about them.”
“IT WAS NOT ABOUT ME.” She flinches away from me, covering her face like she’s about to get hit, and right now it feels good to watch her like that. “YEAH THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S FUCKIN SCARY.” I move closer to her, feeling like I hover three feet above her. “And this ain’t shit, little girl. You see how mad I am now? YOU TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK WOULD YOU HAVE DONE. TALK TO A FUCKING DOCTOR?” I throw the beer against the wall behind her and it misses her by two feet. She covers her head with her hands and screams as pieces of glass make tinkling sounds all over the floor, beer sprays the side of Stephanie’s head. She crouches down to the edge of the mattress and hugs her knees to her chest. “FUCK OFF, YOU LITTLE SHIT.”
I hear the echo of my feet off the stairwell, but can’t feel them hitting the stairs. I bust through the front door and almost hit Nelson in the face with it. I jump down the four stairs and he’s right behind me. We lock on each other like Roman wrestlers trying to get the other to the ground. He slams my back into a parked car. I have two handfuls of his shirt and he’s got two of mine. We spin off the fender and fall onto the street. My right elbow hits asphalt, but I don’t feel it. I somehow get his head between my hand and the street and I’m using my weight to keep it there and line up a shot, but he wiggles an arm free and hits me right in the throat with it. I can’t breathe. Now I’m on the street in the fetal position just covering up and I’m getting kicked in my back. I see the lights. Hear the siren. I uncover myself and see Nelson hopping the garden fence next to our apartment. A cop breaks for him into the courtyards of the other buildings. My wrists get cuffed and the cop lifts me up by them.
