"Sir, I saw what I saw."
"Those glasses are really thick."
"But I knows what I see."
"You knows the difference between a German and Jew?"
She glanced at his badge. Esposito. She'd run into a few Espositos on Staten Island. There was Esposito's Bakery.
Esposito's Car Wash.
Esposito's Pizzeria.
Esposito's Salumeria.
Esposito's Bagel Shop.
Esposito's Car Service.
Esposito's Dry Cleaners.
Esposito's Liquor Store.
Esposito's Nursery School.
Esposito's Hardware Store.
"No sir, I don't, but I think he be Eyetalian."
"Eyetalian? You mean Italian."
"You Eyetalian?"
"It's none of your business."
"Okay, well, he looked like he could be you."
She wanted to lick her index finger to gauge the temperature in the space between them, hoping that the frigid air was biting enough to make him leave. But he pushed her down into her armchair. Accidentally. She felt a loose spring stab her in her back. Pain. Always by the hand of a man.
Mostly always white.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Let me help you." He reached out his hand.
She ignored it.
"Well, thank you for your time. If you can make it down to the precinct, we'd like for you to look at a couple of mugshots to see if you recognize anyone. Oh, wait." He flashed a mugshot he conveniently had in his pocket of a young black boy, no more than eighteen years old. "Is this him, the boy you saw?"
She shook her head.
"You sure?"
She nodded.
"Hmm, okay. Looks like you might need a new pair of glasses."
He left the front door open on his way out.
She wished that he'd trip, fall, and twist his ankle on the open cracks on the concrete steps.
When the news broke out, about how the Fly-Ass Puerto Rican Girl from the Stapleton projects was missing, most folks in the hood thought that the young nickel-bag seller had something to do with it. Everyone knew that although he and the Fly-Ass Puerto Rican Girl were kind of together, he hated the thought of a smarter, better-looking brother tapping that ass. The thought just fucked with him.
She had that kind of ass, though. The kind that once he hit it, it made him cry and he knew no other ass would ever compare. No matter how many other fly-ass girls he tapped. They were all imitations, forgeries. Her ass made a brother take a trip back to the cocoon. It was safe, warm, nurturing. No fear of pain. No fear of being rejected. No fear of having to prove his worth. It was a place where knives, guns, drugs, poverty, welfare cheese, and absent parents were as real as unicorns.
The brothers in the hood called it electromagnetic pussy vibes. But what it really was, what it really really was, was love.
That is what she threatened all of them with.
She made him fear the warmth he didn't know he yearned for. If he let go, she could undo his carefully constructed defense mechanism, his brick wall, his chip on his shoulder. Could make a brother weak. Gotta be smarter than a bitch. Tighten up. Hurt a bitch, before she hurt you.
Lucky for him, though, one of his other, not-so-fly girls assured the detective that he'd been with her the night the Fly-Ass Puerto Rican Girl from the projects disappeared.
"You don't believe me? I got a Beta tape, a little nasty, but all the evidence you need to see."
Her grandmother called the police forty-eight hours in. Not because she had been worrying. But because the gossip had landed at her dirty sandaled feet while she washed her clothes at the neighborhood laundromat.
* * *
They found the Fly-Ass Puerto Rican Girl's size-eight sandals from Kinney's in the wooded area behind Greenfield Avenue near the A&P, under the high concrete arch, the entryway to Rosebank, better known as No Niggerland.
Those words were painted on the highest point of the arch. In black.
* * *
A few weeks earlier, he boarded the R104 bus with some of his teammates from the Curtis High School football team, a.k.a. the offspring of the Rosebank Boys, whose reputation was equivalent to that of the KKK—sans the burning cross, since they were all devout followers of Jesus. He sat in the back of the bus. Slid the window open, stuck his hand out, and flipped the bird to the quarterback waiting for the bus to Grasmere, the town on the right side of the Staten Island Expressway. In return, he got a flip and a glob of spit on the window. That's when he saw her black hair blowing in the wind. He tapped Esposito's arm so he, too, could glimpse the girl standing on the corner. Esposito checked her out, then violently snapped his head. "You fuckin' kiddin' me, douche bag. She's a spic."
"I know, stupid. I was just playing."
"Don't fuckin' play like that. You know I heard she fucks teachers, old men, and homeless dudes for money."
"Right."
"You a nigger lover?"
"Joking, stupid."
"Yeah, well, don't say shit like that. It's bad enough your hair looks like fucking Brillo."
His father hated his hair.
"Now that's a hot babe right there!"
Esposito was pointing at Liberty. Talk about whores. Between Liberty's legs was a neon sign that read: Enter, 24 hours a day, at your own risk. But he wasn't one to play follow-the-leader, even if Liberty did have a bodacious rack. He wasn't interested in what Liberty had to offer.
* * *
He'd invited her into the woods, a few feet beyond the arch, the midway point, because that's where you went when you wanted to experience that thing, that thing, that thing. It would eventually become the place that would be known as the scene of the crime.
She went anyway, knowing the danger, but trusting his pretty green eyes.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the sharp brush. He scratched his arm trying to stop the branches from poking her eyes out or, worse, ruining her perfect skin. Finally he found the dirt path, the one that lead to the wide tree stump where young couples had carved and revised their love for one another.
She turned a full 360, taking in the dense, almost impenetrable brush, and sat next to him on the wide tree stump.
He said, "If you didn't know that there was advanced civilization just fifty feet away, you'd think you'd just stepped—"
"Onto an island," she said.
"Yeah. If you listen carefully, you can hear the ocean."
"Really?"
"Close your eyes. Use your imagination. Do you hear it? Do you hear the waves hitting the shore?"
He stared at her perfect face, moving closer to it, looking for something wrong with it. Anything to not want her.
"Not really."
"You have to listen, shhh. And keep your eyes closed."
"I hear it."
"You do?"
"Yes. I can hear ships in the distance."
"You hear ships?"
"Yes, I can see them now. Oh my god, it's the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María."
She opened one eye and waited for his laugh.
"Funny."
A rustling sounded in the bushes. He jumped up. Then stood still. Dusk had set in.
Squirrels ran past their feet and up into a tree. "Aww, how cute. We scared them," she said.
"We scared them?"
They laughed.
He'd never gotten this close to a girl like her before.
"So, how can someone as beautiful as you not have a boyfriend?" He stroked her hair and watched the strands of black silk fall between his fingers.
"I don't know."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Why do people ask permission when they're going to say or do what they want anyway?"
He chuckled. "Why did you come here, with me?"
She rolled her eyes. "You invited me."
"That's the only reason?"
"I like you. You're different."
She took her hair back. He watched as she twirled a thick strand around her
finger.
A rustling sounded in the bushes again, but this time they ignored it. As he moved in closer to her, three intruders crashed through the brush. His older brother and two others, all bored and angry, all high, circled around them. He and the Fly-Ass Puerto Rican Girl jumped up.
"What the fuck, dude? Are you fucking serious? You do know that Dad will beat your ass if he finds out about her? Come on, get your ass home now."
"I'll be home later."
"I said come home now."
"I said I'll be home later."
When his younger brother didn't follow him, he moved closer to the Fly-Ass Puerto Rican Girl, circled around her, and asked, "You live in the Stapleton projects, don't you?"
But before she could answer, his younger brother squeezed between them.
"Does Dad know you're still smoking pot?"
"Does Dad know you're still smoking pot?" mimicked the older brother.
The friends laughed.
"It doesn't matter, we know how to find her."
He spat at his little brother's feet. She felt some hit her open toes.
"You're dead."
The three intruders walked out of the brush and disappeared into the darkness.
"Meet me tomorrow in front of PS14," he told her.
"Okay."
"I'll pick you up. We'll take a ride and talk."
"Okay."
They walked out of the woods together, holding hands. But outside they let go. She walked north, head up high. He walked south, head down.
* * *
It was the day before the Fourth of July. Most folks were off from work and school was out. The firecrackers were going off full force in the baseball field nearby and the neighborhood deejay had successfully cold-lamped the streetlight, giving juice to his ones and twos. Everyone was in the baseball field celebrating America's birthday a few hours early. The rest of the neighborhood was empty except for the corner near PS14.
He pulled up in a Sedan DeVille. All white. He called her over. She hesitated.
The old woman with the crooked wig was across the street at the Foundling, picking up her reading glasses that she'd forgotten to take with her the last time she was there. She stood on the hill, waiting for her item to be brought to her. That's when she noticed the Fly-Ass Puerto Rican Girl sitting, then standing, then hesitating before walking toward the white car.
"Little girl walked, then she stopped. She peeked inside the car. But then she looked up. Over at me. That's the thing that always stabs me in my heart when I think about that girl. The way she looked up at me. Like she was asking if it was okay to leave. Why she get in the damn car if she wasn't sure? I wanted to yell out, Baby girl, don't trust it! But it was like it was meant for her to leave cause I sure couldn't do nothing for her from where I was standing."
That's what the old woman told her pastor, over and over again.
* * *
Thirty years later, he came back. Leaving his apartment outside of New York, he connected to the R train toward South Ferry to attend his father's funeral. He hadn't been on the island since leaving for college, then joining the service, then opening up his software business.
Though he had a car, he took the ferry. He knew that he would never come back and he wanted to see everything for the last time, in the way he had remembered, by bus.
He boarded what was now the S52 bus with the other Saturday-morning riders. First stop, the bus shelter in St. George.
When the doors opened, three teens boarded. Maybe two were Ecuadorian, possibly Honduran or Peruvian, the other blond, maybe Albanian, maybe Russian, but definitely not Italian. One was wearing a red, white, and blue T-shirt of an African-American presidential hopeful. Another boy was holding a skateboard, talking about a professional skateboard champion, the son of a Mexican comedian who beat the hell out of the white boy. They all spoke English.
Well.
A conversation like that, thirty years ago, could have cost you your life. Now it was small talk.
He watched the neighborhoods morph into hoods, then back into neighborhoods, then back into hoods. What was once a Burger King was now a variety of places to eat, a Sri Lankan restaurant, a Dominican luncheonette, a West African coffee shop. As the bus made its way closer to Stapleton, he took in all that was there and all that had changed. The small post office across from the train station was gone, the Genovese was now a Rite Aid, C-Town was now Western Beef, and the White Castle that sprung out of nothing, in the middle of nowhere, had moved closer to the motorcycle shop. New African-owned shops replaced some of the old African-American-owned shops and the Paramount Theater was still standing strong. Steckman's, the place that made him his number 76 football uniform, was no longer in business.
The bus turned the corner near the best pizza on the North Shore and the three boys started talking about girls. In the distance he could see PS14. He put his head down, holding onto the cold silver bar, and waited for the nausea to pass.
Her body was never found. On days he felt nostalgic, he would search for her name on the Internet, just to see what he could find. But what he found were similar names living different lives.
"Yo, check it out."
"What?"
One of the boys pointed outside the window.
He looked out and saw a beautiful girl, very familiar, not your average pretty, sitting alone on the steps.
Waiting.
"Who is she?"
"I don't know her name but isn't she that fly-ass Mexican girl from the Stapleton projects?"
He glanced at the girl again, then closed his eyes for a few stops, trying to stop the images of his past from flooding his mind.
The bus continued south on Tompkins Avenue, past the arch—the old midway point. He got up, rang the bell, and turned back to glance at the young teens taunting each other as they played video game battles on their cell phones, before he exited the bus. He stood on the corner of St. Mary's and Tompkins Avenue watching as the bus drove the boys toward the right side of the Staten Island Expressway.
Time had changed some things. But the memory of her would haunt him forever.
TEENAGE WASTELAND
BY ASHLEY DAWSON
Tottenville
The crowd started throwing shit at the stage when the band lit into "Heart of Glass." Angry chants of "Disco sucks!" bounced off the low roof, cutting through the percolating synth rhythms and lush purr of Blondie. Sunny hopped up and down, bouncing in time to the music and catching glimpses of Debbie Harry and her band dodging gum, spit, bottles, and various other projectiles. What was the band thinking, she wondered, performing this disco version of their song at CBGB's, the mothership of punk music in NYC?
The crowd surged ominously toward the stage. Sunny felt the song's beat all the way down in her stomach, felt its rhythms transporting her through the skyscraper jungle of Manhattan like an elevated subway on speed, but she realized how sacrilegious the band was being with this new, amped-up version of "Heart of Glass." Her magic Manhattan carpet ride got bumpy as she collided in midair with Totò, her cousin, who was bouncing even higher than her and yelling through the din at Jimmy Destri. Blondie's keyboard player, Destri was one of the prime movers steering the band toward the electro-sound that was shaking their bones silly.
Sunny and Totò had grown up running into the older Destri, whose given name was James Mollica, on hot summer days in Brooklyn. Standing onstage with his hair coiffed in a Beatlesesque New Wave mop, he didn't look much like the Jimmy Mollica she'd seen drenched in sweat, hauling the towering Giglio statue of the Madonna of Mt. Carmel through the streets of Williamsburg with a hundred or so other guys, but she still felt some kind of loyalty to him. Besides, there were Totò's feelings to consider. Pogoing there beside her, he was all smiles. Who really cared whether Blondie was playing punk or disco? All that mattered was that she and Totò were dancing together at CBGB's, in the heart of the East Village. At seventeen, they were finally making it out of Staten Island, just like Ji
mmy Destri had escaped from Brooklyn. Fleeing the island's claustrophobic suburbs, messed-up families, and time-capsule fashion sense. About time, Sunny thought.
* * *
Later, as the ferry carried them home across the dark waters of the harbor, Totò's enthusiasm for the band's new direction bubbled over.
"Ain't Jimmy's new synth cool? Sounds just like Kraftwerk!"
"Yeah, I guess," Sunny replied, "but I kinda miss the anger."
"Whad'ya mean, the anger? There's loads of anger in stuff like 'Heart of Glass.' It's all about being screwed by a boyfriend."
"I know, but Debbie Harry don't exactly sound angry," Sunny said. "She sings like she's a freaky robot or something."
"Yeah, okay, but that's the whole point, ain't it? I mean, she's been screwed over so much that she's kinda hollow inside."
"Maybe, but I figure Blondie is just trying to cash in. Next thing they're gonna be singing 'Stayin' Alive.'"
"That's total bull. Besides, disco gets a bad rap. It's not all about dickheads like Tony Manero . . ."
"Yeah, the other night I saw the Corleones at Studio 54."
"Oh, fuck you," Totò said with a grin, "you can't swallow all that Hollywood crap. There's a whole lot going on that those assholes don't know nuthin' about."
"You're only saying that cuz ya got a crush on Jimmy Destri."
Totò made a grab for Sunny, who was already convulsed with giggles. She slid quickly down the graffiti-scarred wooden bench, leaving Totò pummeling the air. Overcome with laughter, the two splayed out on the hard seats of the sparsely populated night ferry. Totò's laugh suddenly turned into a sputtering cough, which shifted into a wracking paroxysm.
"What the fuck, Totò, what's the matter with you?" Sunny gasped.
Too convulsed to reply, Totò staggered toward the bathroom. Sunny caught up with him and stuck her head under his arm to offer support. The two lurched into one of the open stalls of the men's room; Totò put his head down and started puking.
"Fuckin' kids these days," a wino pissing in an adjoining stall groused.
"Eat me, asshole!" Sunny yelled back, as she held Totò's head over the filthy john.
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