A couple moments of silence, and then the Dutchman piped up. “Wow. This guy is a rock, isn’t he?”
“Vernon, don’t you have anything to say? There are biological reasons why you would be so, shall we say, disinterested in your rape-product, but this … don’t you believe deeply in ‘respect,’” – and here the hatted-man employed exaggerated hand gestures to puff himself up when he said ‘respect’ – “or such similar ghetto bullshit. Aren’t you going to say something?”
Vernon nodded solemnly, but that was fake too, like his hand cleansing ritual. “I heard what you had to say, I heard it. I may not be smart as you,” he said aggressively, “but I heard what you had to say. You best believe, I’ll be checking in with you, for sure. You won’t be getting away with this.”
“Oh okay, there we go. The threats. That’s better.”
“I don’t get this,” Vernon continued, rotating the business card between his fingers, “what makes you think I won’t just go to the police with this. I know the detective on the case. You don’t think the police want to catch a child killer?”
“Feel free to. See what happens,” the hatted-man said, matter-of-factly.
“What’s your name, son.”
“I won’t tell you my name, daughter. Or I can tell you one of my many names, if you like. I’m not your son, by the way,” and here the hatted-man again betrayed his exuberance with a smile, tipping Vernon off to the many easy jokes at his disposal, “and it’s too late for this now. You had your chance to ask questions. You blew it. We’ll be in touch.”
And with that the hatted-man stood up, followed by his companions. Vernon hadn’t touched his coffee. “C’mon, you too,” one of them said to him. Two of them were too close for comfort, and the one on his left tapped Vernon’s elbow, as if to say, “rise!” Vernon got up warily.
The guy who touched him on the elbow pulled a gleaming silver pistol halfway out of his coat. “Ok. So you walk that way,” the man pointed back to Queens Boulevard, “and you go home. I’m going to walk you back to the station, okay. You get on the subway, and you go home.”
He stuck the gun against Vernon’s solar plexus. Vernon walked forward, the man two solid steps behind him. Vernon didn’t look back, and none of the men at the table said anything to mark his departure: like his experience with prison, all that had just transpired was just some discrete chunk of time that now felt like nothing at all, an unreality, cordoned off and compartmentalized into nothingness.
“What’s your name, man,” Vernon asked, still looking forward.
“Can’t hear you. Not interested, either.” Vernon didn’t know what he was doing or what he was planning. He could see the foot traffic approaching on Queens Boulevard, and thought of spy movies, scenes of throwing somebody in his captor’s way and running off. Then he’d look back and see his captor yell “fuck!” and his captor would try to maneuver through the crowd and get a clear shot, but he couldn’t because there were too many people, and again his captor would yell “Fuck!” and … scene … fade to black.
But Vernon did nothing of the sort and just walked back to Queens Boulevard, his captor at his back.
“I don’t get you. Not that it matters, but we thought you’d be a little more … informative, in your way. I mean, it was disappointing how … he loves a good debate on ethics. We all do. I think he thought you were something you weren’t. Maybe someone more … engaged. Your situation was … unique, to say the least. Not like anything we’ve seen, tell you the truth. Don’t you give a shit about this?”
“I do, man. I do. I do more than you think. Tell me, how can I get in touch with you again, if I wanted … to talk.”
Before Vernon could turn around fully, the man interrupted and made some gesture toward the subway. “We’ll get in touch with you. We aren’t far. We never are.” Vernon detected a smile on the man’s face, sensed it somehow, and instead of running or turning or overpowering him or doing something, he went down into the subway, through the turnstile, and got on the R train to head back to Woodside.
>< >< ><
Before he knew it he was back in his home. Well, not his home, but his mother’s apartment. Where he used to call home. Back to Hot Pockets and dingy light and hot air redolent of musk, mold and age. It had all been a dream, in a sense, just a nightmare. He’d plunged unexpectantly into this netherworld, populated by bizarre characters of inexplicable beliefs and moralities.
What was this? What was he to do? Was this is it? His son dead; the mother of his child, left to grieve alone. Even that expression, mother of his child, was cumbersome. A wife was something, but the awkward phrase ‘mother of my child’ was klutzy, as if having to use that title was part of the punishment for having a bastard.
Look what apathy had gotten him. Here he was, so safe in his not caring. Like he didn’t care if Kim-ly didn’t love him and never loved him and never even understood him. Like he didn’t care that he lived in his mother’s project apartment, or that he hadn’t had a real job for god-knows-how-long.
>< >< ><
The first and only time he’d ever mugged someone he’d been arrested, for godsakes, and that too was probably because he was too lazy to care.
Not lazy, but fatigued somehow. He always felt like he could collapse upon himself. Too lazy to live. When the cops busted him — minutes after he’d committed the robbery — he didn’t really protest or run or anything. They just swooped in and got him, got stupid, lazy Vernon, the water-cooler joke who mugged two white kids right across the street from a fucking parked police car.
He had nothing of worth in him, fine, but his son didn’t deserve that. Even if his son was going to be too weak, or too smart, or not like him, or something else … even if he was a listless piece of shit who snickered at all the dunderheaded gangsta tough guy bullshit but wanted those same tough guys to accept him so badly. He couldn’t escape anymore from the need to care.
>< >< ><
Emboldened, feeing a strange rush he’d never felt before, Vernon made his way to his bedroom and looked under his mattress. It couldn’t still be here, nah … he felt around for his gun, a little .22 he’d stashed about six years ago. He’d never actually used it before, and he never ran any drugs or anything illegal out of this apartment, so he’d never worried about getting busted … but somehow it was gone. What the fuck? His mother knew about the gun, but would she really be proactive enough to get rid of it? Didn’t seem like her.
He had a spark of inspiration and bounded over to Mr. Machato’s apartment.
>< >< ><
“Hey Mr. Machato,” he said excitedly, as Mr. Machato slowly opened the door. Vernon could see Mrs. Machato, decrepit and practically immobile but all smiles, sitting on the couch. She was ensconced with linens and doilies, just as he always remembered.
“Hello … Vernon,” she said very slowly, lifting an arm, not really to wave but to do her version of waving, which consisted of showing Vernon her palm.
“Hello, Missus Machato. Nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you too, Vernon,” she said, and brought her attention back to the television.
Mr. Machato looked at him expectantly.
“Sorry to bother you. Before my mother left for Puerto Rico, did she give you anything? Like, any valuables, or a box, or anything like that?”
Mr. Machato froze for a moment, like he was processing something that did not compute. Then he nodded gravely, put up one finger, and ambled out of view. Several minutes later, he returned with a small cardboard box.
“Great. And, thanks for everything. And thank you too, Missus Machato.”
At hearing herself referenced, Mrs. Machato turned again and did her signature gesture. “No … problem, Vernon. We love … you. Say hello … to your mother, for us.” And with that, her hand went back to where it was.
He explored the box. He frowned in confusio
n when he saw the top layer consisted of innocuous T-shirts … until he felt the hard steel underneath them. Goddamn Mom, you selfish piece of shit. There was a whole mess in this box, but here was his .22. He checked the clip and, holy shit, it was still loaded, just like it was all those years ago. Only mom would repay the Machatos’ kindness by gifting them an illegal, loaded .22 for storage.
He could feel the steel jutting like a foreign protuberance inside his puffy jacket. He raced down to the elevator and tapped his foot the whole time, as if Kim-ly was going to be outside waiting for his embrace.
It was a clear day, mid-afternoon, around 3 p.m. He didn’t have a phone so he couldn’t be sure of the time, which brought his mood down. Nowadays, if you didn’t have a smartphone, you were poor. What’d it make you if you didn’t have any phone at all?
>< >< ><
It wasn’t hard getting into the Audubon Houses and he knew where to find Ms. Gloria Hernandez.
“Vernon,” she said to him, a bit warily, a bit happily, when she saw him approach her apartment in the hallway.
“Ms. Hernandez,” he nodded gently toward her. “Can I come in for a second?”
She sighed, the door half-ajar, and threw up her hands in a ‘what does it matter’ expression, but then turned back to him and smiled, sort of, an expression to show him her sour mood wasn’t his fault. “Come in, Vernon. Why not? Vernon, back out on the streets, back from the past, why not come in? These times they can’t get any stranger.”
He couldn’t read her general mood or what she was getting at. He stepped inside the apartment which looked neat and fastidious, but he didn’t have any recollection of what it’d looked like in the past. He’d last been here, what, ten years ago, on some errand of his mother’s?
“I’m glad you recognized me, that’s a good sign,” he said sheepishly and sat down.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea?” she offered.
“Tea? Look at that? No no no, that’s too fancy for me, you know,” he said with a smile. “Some water would be great.”
She brought him some water as he looked around the apartment. The place was orderly and clean and redolent of Palmolive. She was a boon to her building.
She asked about his mother and he told her he hadn’t seen her and she was down in Puerto Rico. She asked whether he was staying in the Woodside Houses and looked mildly triumphant when he confirmed it, and mentioned the trick she told his mother about sending the rent checks to a neighbor to hold onto a NYCHA apartment while you lived elsewhere. They talked briefly about his stint in prison, how he was at heart a good guy and had always been a good kid, just had to keep his head above water and his nose clean, so to speak, an expression that bespoke of drugs even though he had always been sober. He didn’t let his confusion show. He asked her about her children, and she snickered and corrected him, she only had one child, a young son, and he was good, and she mentioned he was away but didn’t give more detail. She made an utterance that sounded like she was going to say “sister” but left the enunciation inchoate. She then looked at him like she fumbled something.
“Gloria “ — she insisted he call her Gloria — “I - I’ll be honest. I need your help, if you can provide it. I’ll just say it. I had a son. He was a five, about five. He was murdered recently.”
She cursed her condolences in English and Spanish. He knew people spoke their native tongue when they felt impassioned or unguarded.
“He was killed by this group that I don’t understand. They were obsessed with … with abortion and rape and had all these crazy theories about it. They killed him because – they believed – he was a child of rape. I know this sounds crazy, and to anyone else I’d say this sounds crazy, I know, but you … I know. I know about you, and your … history. Not saying that in a bad way. I just know. Know things.”
They both knew what he was talking about. She was hard to read, but everything about her — her heavy clothing, her stout, thick body, her delayed body language — gave off a sense of weariness.
“You know, everyone knows, apparently, right?” She laughed spitefully. “So much for Ms. Hernandez and her … operation. Everyone knows everything, apparently. And I’m always the last.”
He put up his hand as if to ward her off the trail. “It’s not like that, Ms. Hernandez. I don’t care what you do, and I don’t really know … what you do. I just know it involves … involved pregnant women and abortions and, you know, compensation, stuff like that. But I don’t care. What you do is what you do. It’s your business.
“But, I imagine that … maybe I’m stupid, you know, but I imagine that’s a small field. People got to know people. And maybe what I’m describing to you, my situation, sounds like something you may know about? Or maybe the same people? I’m just looking for a trail.”
“We all do what we can do,” she said. “Do you know what I did? I’ll tell you. I got pregnant and had abortions on purpose, for money, and referred many other people I know to the same people, for the same reason, so you know. That’s all. I never did anything more. I was just a supplier.” She spoke gracefully but her pace picked up as she spoke, as if she enjoyed getting this off her chest. “But that’s all over for me. Has been for a bit. You know, my social worker started snooping around in my affairs, in … that group’s affairs. His work colleague was found dead, and he disappeared, hasn’t been heard from again.”
Vernon nodded, said okay, not sure where this was going. “I just need a name, or somewhere to go. I don’t care what you did.”
“I know, Vernon, I know. You are a good man. I ask myself, what did I get myself into? These people were going to have abortions anyway. Why not something positive come out of it? And then, we’d get pregnant on purpose, and I’d think, it’s our bodies, we can do what we want, we are the ones taking the risk. The money is – was – good. There’s no harm in it. I didn’t ask questions. But now everyone knows and I think my time is up.”
“Please, Ms. Hernandez. For me. For my son. For my mom.” Like his mom knew or gave a shit.
“Vernon,” she waved him off. “You are not understanding me. I’m not blowing you off. I know. It’s the same people, I’m sure of it. They do a lot. But Vernon. What I’m trying to say is there is nothing you can do. They are powerful and smart. I don’t know why they do what they do or how they do what they do, but I know they are powerful and smart, and there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop them.”
“I don’t want to do anything. You want to know my plan? I’m going to take my gun and kill as many of them as possible. That’s it. That’s all I can do. I have nothing other than that. They killed my son. No police. No nothing. Nothing but going and killing as many of them as I can. If they kill me, that’s fine. I just want to kill as many of them as I can. I have nothing left and no other plans. I need to do something, and I’m realistic. That’s all I can do and I’ve decided.”
She bobbed her head slightly, and then gradually more so, impressed in a way with the simple clarity of his objective. “You know, Vernon, I’m a dead woman. I know that. Eventually, they will come for me. I don’t know why they haven’t; maybe because they know I can’t do anything because I still send people their way from time-to-time, because I don’t ask questions, but I’m not dumb. This is one of those things, I guess, that not even they can guess at. How would they know that your mother and I met randomly at a bingo game so many years ago? How could they know you’ve heard what I’ve done? Funny, how these things work.
“Just know that I never did or knew anything about any murders. That’s not what I did, ever.”
“I know, Ms. Gloria, I know.”
She assured him several more times that the stuff with the abortions, that’s all she ever knew about. She wasn’t surprised, to be honest, to learn about this dimension to their operations but she’d never had any knowledge or role in that whatsoever.
She had some addresse
s for him. Some family planning clinics they worked with, but she’d never seen any of the real players there. There was a small warehouse she visited once, in Corona, Queens, several years ago, where she’d been to a small gathering, saw things she didn’t really understand but got the sensation it was some kind of power base of operations.
She’d never been back there, had no idea if it was still there, but she gave him the address and wished him the best of luck. She kissed him on the forehead, told him she admired his bravery, that he was a smart man, going in with his eyes open, and that his son — if he could understand — would be proud.
>< >< ><
Why he chose to spend his misspent youth — and misspent adulthood – in East Harlem rather than Corona, Queens, was never clear to him. Corona, like East Harlem, was an overwhelmingly Hispanic neighborhood and steeped in the culture. Maybe it’d been because of the cultural cache of East Harlem. Everyone knew East Harlem was rough. The corner of East 125th and Lexington could look like the Apocalypse: lines of bums depositing their pilfered recyclables; every disabled old-timer in the neighborhood sitting on an upturned garbage can or leaning on a cane; out-of-it toothless women in wheelchairs waving little Puerto Rican flags; angry young men plotting and scheming and hustling, voicing their plans without shame or fear of repercussion. Corona may have its rough parts, but after disembarking the 7 train and walking north on 111st Street toward Northern Boulevard, he didn’t see much of anything, except some old-timers and maybe some young families heading to Flushing Corona Park to take their pictures by the Unisphere.
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