After fifteen minutes, he tells himself he’ll wait only another minute before hanging up. He gives it three. He’s sure that as soon as he hangs up, that’ll be the exact moment they were about to get to his call. He decides to give it one absolutely last minute.
He turns back toward the car in time to see two kids - boys no more than twelve or thirteen - doing something at the back of his car. He can’t see what they’re doing; they’re partially blocked from his view by the open trunk lid.
“Hey!” he yells.
They straighten up and look in his direction.
“Get away from there!” he tells them.
They hesitate an instant before turning away from him and breaking into a run. Goodman smiles to himself. He feels empowered, pleased that he’s succeeded in frightening them away, even though they were only boys.
It’s several seconds before he notices that they’re each carrying one of his suitcases.
He drops the phone and tries to run after them. But his back seizes up before he can even reach the car. By that time, the boys are a full two blocks away, turning a corner.
He figures they weigh about ninety pounds each. They’re wearing sneakers. Goodman’s ten pounds overweight and wearing Thom McAn loafers with leather soles. Even with his back in good shape, he knows he wouldn’t stand a chance. He gives up.
He’s too far from the phone to hear the voice of the emergency operator who finally answers his call.
He bends down painfully, picks up the jack handle, and tosses it into the open trunk. He struggles with the spare tire until he gets it upright, then rolls it up and into the trunk and back into its well. He closes the partition that covers it, slams the lid of the trunk, and gets in behind the wheel.
His suitcase and garment bag contained all of the clothes he had with him. With them gone, he doesn’t have so much as another pair of undershorts.
Goodman says “Shit” out loud. It’s the strongest curse word he ever allows himself.
He feels absolutely drained, too exhausted to do anything. He decides to head back to the motel, maybe spend another night. He figures both he and his back can use the rest, even if it’ll mean another $36 for the night’s stay. He can try calling the police again from there.
Of course, first there’s the little matter of the flat tire.
Goodman gets back out of the car, walks around to the tire, and looks at it. He decides maybe it’s not quite so bad after all. He remembers an old line about only the bottom of a tire being flat. He guesses he can drive on it, slowly, until he gets to a service station. He gets back in, starts the engine, and backs carefully out of the diner’s parking lot.
He drives cautiously in the right lane. Before he’s gone two blocks, he spots an automotive-parts store. He pulls in and buys some pressurized tire inflater labeled Jiffy-Spare. He’s never used one before, but he’s heard that they generally work about half the time. Knowing his luck, he figures one out of three should be more like it. With tax, the three cans come to $10.39. He pays cash.
Outside, he screws the nozzle onto the valve of the low tire until he hears a hissing noise. He can feel the can grow cold in his hand as it empties. To his astonishment, the thing actually works on the first try: The tire fills with air. Some gummy, white stuff shows when he unscrews the can.
He drives back to the motel, feeling pretty good about things. With no usable spare tire, he’s succeeded in fixing a flat tire by himself. Not everybody could have done that, he decides.
As soon as he turns into 140th Street, Russell Bradford knows he’s going to be okay. He sees right away that several of the regulars are out working. Big Red is there. So is Eddie Boy. And the new kid who’s got dust.
Russell walks over to Eddie Boy’s steerer first. He’s a pimply-faced junkie who always seems spaced-out. They call him “Zombie.”
“Hey, Zom,” Russell says. “What’s happenin’?”
“What’s happenin’?” may be a term of greeting to others. But on 140th Street in the South Bronx, it’s not just a greeting. To the hundreds, or thousands, of the Russell Bradfords of this world, “What’s happenin’?” is a very specific question. Loosely translated, it means pretty much this: “What are you selling? How are you selling it? How good is it? And how much is it going for?”
“Night Train,” Zombie tells him. “Dynamite, man. Dimes.”
Russell thinks over his options for a minute. He knows he needs to stretch his $20 out and make it count.
Night Train is a brand of heroin. The dealer actually stamps his brand name onto the paper in which he sells his product, not very differently from the way boxes and cans in a supermarket are labeled Heinz or Sara Lee or Birds Eye. After all, the customer has a right to know what he’s getting for his money. If he likes it, he’s going to want to buy it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. This is the nineties, after all. This is all about competition and marketing and brand loyalty.
“Dynamite” warrants that the product is top-drawer. In this case, that means potent, able to deliver a real high, and, at the same time, stay with you.
“Dimes” are $10 bags. “Nicks” would be fives, “treys” threes. But the smaller bags tend to be weaker. They’ve often been whacked once more, and they’re there for the truly desperate, who don’t have the money to buy the better stuff. Even in the world of the addict - particularly in the world of the addict - the haves make out; the have-nots suffer.
“Gimme one,” Russell says.
“One time,” Zombie calls out, and from nowhere another kid appears, one whom Russell hasn’t seen before. Russell hands the kid his crumpled twenty; in return, he’s handed two fives and a small square of paper. The kid disappears. Russell turns and walks away. All the while, from twenty feet away, Eddie Boy watches. Not once does he touch the drugs or the money, or say a word.
Next Russell walks over to Big Red. Big Red is big, and, as always, he wears his trademark red baseball cap.
“What’s happenin’, Red?”
“Blues, yellers.”
The colors refer to tiny glass vials containing a few rocks of cracks. They are distinguished only by the color of their plastic caps. The blue caps are going for $7 apiece today, the yellows $5.
“Any good?” Russell asks.
“Ain’ nobody bringin’ ‘em back,” Big Red tells him.
“Gimme two yellows,” Russell says.
“See the cashier,” Big Red says, nodding toward a skinny woman with cornrows. Russell steps over to her and gives her his two fives.
“On the phone,” she tells him without looking at him.
Russell turns and walks to a phone booth ten feet away. The phone is broken; the receiver has long ago been cut from the wire cord and never replaced. But on top of the phone, Russell finds two tiny glass vials with yellow plastic tops. He pockets them and walks off.
Back at the motel, Goodman registers for another night’s stay, paying the $36 in cash. He’s given a different room this time, and right away he finds that there’s something wrong with the air conditioner: It works, but it’s terribly noisy, like maybe it’s suddenly about to taxi across the room and take off. But he’s already removed his shoes and socks, and he’s happy to have the room, so he doesn’t complain. Besides which, the bed in this room is nice and hard, which should be good for his back.
At the Formica-topped desk, he goes through his receipts, an old accountant’s habit, and counts his money again. Breakfast has cost him $7.75; along with the three cans of tire inflater stuff and the extra night in the motel room, he’s already spent $54.14 today, leaving him with just $53.97. There’s no way he’s going to make it back to New York, even with the $100 in traveler’s checks.
He runs a hot bath, figuring soaking in it will be good for his back. While the water runs, he uses his telephone credit card to call his answering machine in New York. He has to shut off the air conditioner to hear the tape.
There are six messages in all, and for a mom
ent he figures at least one of them has to be a callback from one of the jobs he sent resumes to last week.
He figures wrong.
Three are from collection agencies regarding overdue bills. One is from his former employer, informing him that his medical coverage has been canceled and his gas credit card stopped. Another is from his mother-in-law, telling him that his daughter - who’s been staying with her while Goodman looks for a job and gets back on his feet - has been complaining of headaches lately and that she’s worried about her. The final one is from his uncle, who’s called to announce that his angina is bothering him. Goodman erases them all.
He’s about to call his mother-in-law when he remembers the spare tire. He’s got to try the police again before he does anything else. But as he dials 911, he becomes aware of the sound of water running in the bathroom. He decides the call can wait until he takes a bath.
He waits until the tub is full, well over the overflow outlet, before he turns the faucets off. The water is hot, so hot that he can barely stand it, and he has to lower himself into it gradually. But once he’s able to stretch out in the full length of the tub, it feels good, and he senses his back beginning to loosen up just a bit.
There’s an annoying gurgling noise that comes from the overflow outlet, which is several inches below the water level itself. Goodman places a washcloth against the outlet and holds it there with one foot. The gurgling noise stops, though some of the water continues to escape. With his other foot, he twists the faucet marked h open just enough to create a constant trickle of hot water. This combination keeps the tub full and the temperature hot.
Goodman rests the back of his head against the sloped portion of the tub. He imagines he’s in a cocoon, warm and protected from the rest of the world.
He thinks of the spare tire. For the first time, he allows himself to wonder just how much drugs are inside it and what they could possibly be worth. He guesses there could be twenty pounds, maybe twenty-five. He has no way of knowing if it’s heroin or cocaine, or what. He has absolutely no frame of reference for calculating its value. But even if it’s worth a $1,000 a pound - which he guesses is a pretty conservative estimate - it comes to at least $20,000.
He wishes he were a different person, a person who had the nerve to keep the drugs, and the knowledge to turn them into cash. But he knows he has neither the nerve nor the knowledge.
He lies in the bathtub with his eyes closed, soaking until his fingertips shrivel up like prunes. Then he releases the washcloth from its job of damming up the water and turns off the hot faucet with his foot. He listens to the gurgling noise as the water is sucked into the overflow outlet. After a few minutes, the level has dropped and the temperature has cooled. He flicks the drain toggle open with his toe, and the water level drops more rapidly. He pulls himself to a standing position and steps out of the tub, telling himself that he feels a little better.
Wrapped in a towel, Goodman dials 911 again from the phone beside his bed. This time, a real voice answers on the third ring.
“Operator one-one-seven,” a woman says in a professional-sounding voice. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“I’ve found some drugs,” Goodman says.
“What kind of drugs?” the woman asks him.
“I don’t know. Narcotic drugs.”
“Stay on the line, sir,” the woman tells him. There is a click, as though he’s been put on hold. But the woman comes right back on without a pause. “I got a jerk wants to turn in some drugs,” he hears her say in a different voice, not so professional-sounding. “What do I tell him?”
Goodman says, “Hello?”
There’s another click, and now it sounds as if he is put on hold. After about fifteen seconds, the woman comes back, using her professional voice once again.
“Sir,” she says. “If you wish to surrender a controlled substance, you must bring it to police headquarters during normal business hours. We cannot be held accountable for the actions of this or any other agency until you physically surrender the substance.” It sounds to Goodman as though she’s been reading the words from some prepared text.
“What are normal business hours?” he asks.
“Monday through Friday, nine to four-thirty.” Goodman suppresses a chuckle. That’s Florida for you. In New York, normal business hours are more like six in the morning to nine at night.
“Where’s headquarters?” he asks.
But all he hears is a dial tone. She’s already disconnected him.
From 140th Street, Russell Bradford works his way back uptown to 145th. There, in front of a laundromat, he finds Robbie McCray waiting for him. Even before Robbie spots Russell, Russell can tell Robbie’s hurting, from the way he’s shifting his weight from one foot to the other and moving his shoulders back and forth, sorta like he’s gotta take a piss. Only Russell knows Robbie doesn’t have to take a piss.
“Man, where you been at?” Robbie says when he finally sees Russell come up on him.
“Takin’ care a bizness is where I been at,” Russell says.
Russell follows Robbie into a building. It’s a five-story brownstone that once belonged to a wealthy white family, years ago. Then it was subdivided into apartments, which were rented to blacks and Hispanics. Now it’s abandoned, the glass gone from the windows and replaced with sheets of plywood. There’s a padlock on the front door, but it’s busted: Somebody sprayed it with a freezing agent, then hit it a couple of good shots with a hammer. Works every time.
They climb the stairs and open the door that leads to the roof. They step out slowly, not knowing if anyone’s there. But they’re in luck: It’s empty, except for hundreds of empty vials, bent needles, torn papers, empty glassine envelopes, a year’s worth of other garbage, and a couple of pigeons, which take flight on seeing them. It smells of urine and shit, and they watch their steps carefully as they thread their way to their corner.
“Whatcha got, man?” Robbie wants to know.
“I got some shit, an’ I got some cracks,” Russell tells him. “What-choo got?”
“Nothin’, man.” Robbie keeps his eyes pointed down at his sneakers.
“Shit, niggah. Wassamatta witchoo?”
“I’ll make it up to you, man.”
“Fuck that shit,” Russell says. But he doesn’t have the heart to send Robbie packing. There’ve been times when Robbie has had stuff and Russell hasn’t. Besides, cracking up is better when you’re with someone else than it is when you’re all alone.
“You got a stem?” Russell asks Robbie.
Robbie produces a small, glass pipe and something that looks like a lighter but is called a torch. Russell takes the pipe. He reaches into his pocket, finds one of the yellow tops, takes it out. He unscrews the top and carefully taps what look like two white Rice Krispies into the bowl of the pipe. He lights the torch and holds the flame under the bowl until the two kernels begin to sizzle and melt.
Russell draws deeply from the stem and holds the smoke in his lungs while he passes the pipe to Robbie. They take turns until the bowl is empty. Then they pour the rest of the contents of the vial into the bowl and repeat the process.
Almost immediately, the rest of the world disappears for Russell. Nothing is left but one corner of the roof. There is no apartment, no family. No being out of school and without a job. None of that exists. Robbie’s here, but barely. Mostly, Russell is aware of only himself, right here, right now, and an incredible feeling of rising up above everything else, of floating. . . .
Goodman dials his mother-in-law’s number. Her answering machine picks up after the second ring, and he hears her voice, along with what sounds like Frank Sinatra singing in the background.
“You’ve reached two-one-two-five-five-five-two-oh-two-six. I’m not here to take your call. Leave a message after the tone, and I’ll get back to you.”
He wonders why people think it’s necessary to tell you the number that you yourself have just dialed. He can’t think of anything to say,
so he hangs up without leaving a message.
He stretches out on the bed, studies the ceiling fan for a while. Looks over at the clock. It’s the same kind that tricked him into oversleeping this morning. It’s 12:03, barely noon, though it feels like the end of a long day already. He lets his eyes close. Figures he can afford the luxury of a nap for an hour or so and still have plenty of time to find police headquarters before the end of their normal business hours.
Russell Bradford’s incredible floating feeling has come and gone. He’s finding that the feeling, which used to last for what seemed like hours, now lasts only a few minutes. He hears Robbie asking him if he’s got any more cracks.
“No,” Russell says. “Just the shit.”
Robbie forages about on the roof for a while until he finds what he’s looking for. He comes back with a rusted metal spoon, the handle of which is bent back under the bowl. While Robbie takes a needle with a rubber bulb attached to it from the inside of his cap, Russell retrieves the paper stamped night train from his pocket. He opens it carefully, until it’s completely spread out in the shape of a triangle, from which it gets its street name, “pyramid paper.” At the very center of the pyramid is a small pile of white powder.
Russell taps half of the powder into Robbie’s spoon. He watches as Robbie, not having any water, spits into the spoon, then proceeds to cook the mixture by holding the torch underneath the spoon while gently stirring with the tip of the needle. After a few seconds, the liquid begins to bubble. Robbie sets the spoon down carefully, rolls up one shirt sleeve, and removes the belt from his jeans. He threads the end of the belt through the buckle, creating a loop around his upper arm. By squeezing the bulb attached to the needle and placing the tip into the liquid in the spoon before slowly releasing the pressure on the bulb, Robbie draws the mixture up out of the spoon and into the bulb. Holding the bulb and needle in one hand, he uses his teeth to pull the end of the belt tightly. Russell, who has not yet begun to shoot drugs himself, watches as the veins in Robbie’s arm bulge.
Shoot the Moon Page 2