“He’d be happy to hear that you closed that big deal. I’ll tell him as soon as he wakes up.”
“Put him on.”
“Hmmm.”
“Mom. Put Dad on the phone.”
“If you must know, I didn’t want to bother you with this, so it’s your own fault because you keep insisting. I know how busy you are, but, well, you see, they’ve intubated him.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Mom—”
The line went dead.
* * *
She waited in the plastic bucket seat by the window, right at the edge of the bed, and held his hand. He was warm and he was breathing and he looked at her and the whites of his eyes had gone yellow but the irises were the same gunmetal gray they’d always been. She loved his eyes.
She started talking and once she started she couldn’t stop. “Do you remember,” she told him, “when my father passed away?” He wasn’t going to respond, ever, so she went on. “It was 1991. They called me in the middle of the night to tell me he was gone. I screamed so loud Armie woke up crying and you got upset with him for crying, but then you started crying too and you let him come into the bed with us. He was always so young. Younger even than his age, you know? And it was so unexpected when Dad died like that. It was a real shock.”
George blinked and the tube in his mouth hissed and his back arched in a weird way and for a second, she thought, Maybe he’s coming around. Maybe it’ll be okay. Then he settled down and his back relaxed. A nurse walked by in the hallway but did not come in.
“I need a cath tray in four!” someone yelled.
Ana lifted George’s hand and held it. “You couldn’t believe it when I went to church after that. And then I started going every week and you were really pissed. But I was happy. It was just like when I was a little girl. When my parents took me. I came back with a Bible . . . it was just some old thing I picked up at the flea market, and I remember you said, ‘A Bible, Ana? It’s so tacky.’ I kept it on my night table just to get back at you. We had some laughs, I think, right? We were both pretty good at dishing it out.”
She rubbed her arms. The air conditioner was on, which seemed odd, given what was happening outside. Wind thrummed the windows.
“Dad died in his sleep. I wonder if that’s a good way to go or a bad way to go? You might not even know you’ve died? Is it more peaceful that way? Who the hell knows?”
She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself. Not yet. If she cried, that meant it was over. So she kept talking.
“You always wanted to argue about whether God was real or not. Or whether it was stupid to believe in something. Or to have faith. You never even asked me why I went. What it meant to me. I went because . . .” She stopped and then started again. “Because when my father died, I all at once felt this nagging obligation to repay what small bit of kindness the universe had shown us. We’re blessed. Aren’t we? We have three wonderful children. We have our own business. And it put us in that beautiful home we love and we made our own. I . . . I needed to acknowledge those gifts. I needed to give something, anything, back. Is that so wrong? To say thank you to whoever might be listening?”
She heard the sounds of the room. The beeping, the ticking, the sucking, the buzzing of lights. The linoleum felt cold under her flats.
“I’d always been into stuff like that. I tried EST in the seventies and you hated that, too! Oh, but you were so funny about it. Everyone thought you were a riot. And what strikes me now . . . do you know who was the only person who went to church with me?” She waited for an answer that would not come. “It was Armand. Josef and Charlotte were already teenagers. They didn’t need much encouragement to stay in their bedrooms. It was funny. None of them had ever been to church. We never had any of them baptized. I didn’t care at the time. It’s fine. But, but, when Armie and I went to church he saw everyone else going to get the Eucharist and he wanted to go up and have some of the crackers. That’s what he called it, ‘crackers.’ ‘Mommy, I want a cracker, too.’ So we went up together. He loved it. On the way home he asked if we could stop at Maxwell’s to buy some.”
She was crying now but that didn’t mean it was over, she told herself. She could go on. It could still be okay. Just get through this storm. It’ll blow over. We’ll all be back home again soon.
“I told him . . . I told him I didn’t think they sold them at Maxwell’s but that I would check the next time I was there. He said to me, ‘I like church.’ That was a good day. We went for bagels and that was sort of our thing for a while. Just me and him and church and bagels. Sometimes we drove over the bridge and just parked and looked at the river and ate bagels. Isn’t it funny that so many years later, Armie and I are going to church again? Isn’t it, George? Isn’t it a good thing?”
Dr. Karnam was in the doorway, clearing his throat. He did a halfhearted knock on the jamb to announce his presence.
* * *
They didn’t speak. The sky was so dark he could not differentiate where one cloud ended and another began. A canopy of deep purple. And behind the clouds lightning pulsed, concussive thunder, and he knew, even before he got there, he knew.
Andopolis swung the pickup around into the circular drive. The ER awning was bright-lit and inside, too, the entrance and the inner waiting room were bright-lit and fluorescent. Rain pounded the windshield and the roof so hard that the wipers could not keep up.
“You gonna be okay?” Andopolis asked.
“I have this feeling it’s going to be bad in there,” Armie said.
“You want me to come with you?”
He thought about it. “I’ll be all right. Thanks for the lift. I’m sorry I came lurking around the place.”
“It’s not a problem. You’re always welcome.”
They shook hands and then Armie crossed the water world between car and building. A hospital employee behind glass told him the room number. When he got there his mother was in the hallway surrounded by doctors.
“He’s gone,” she said.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he said.
Dr. Karnam asked him if he wanted to go into the room, if he wanted to see his father one last time. He stood there in the hallway with checkered green-and-white linoleum beneath his feet and thought about the question.
* * *
Nothing moved on Delancey Street. Nothing was open. The occasional lost soul emerged from the scrum and passed, head down, clutching at flapping bits of clothing. Murk obscured the tops of even the shorter buildings. He ventured as far as Essex Street before the looming tower of the Williamsburg Bridge emerged. He paused in the entranceway of Burger King to look at his phone. Hoping some leftover power miraculously lingered, he tried to turn it on. Nothing. Zero. Black. He saw no option but to cross the water. He could not return to Natalie’s, for obvious reasons. He could not go to Ariel’s. He didn’t remember where she lived, anyway. The prospect of heading back to his apartment, even if the power were still on, felt like a surefire panic attack waiting to happen. He needed the warmth of a body against his. Without his phone he couldn’t even scour the numbers amassed in his contact list. Amber: xxx-xxx-xxxx, Diane: xxx-xxx-xxxx, Gwen: xxx-xxx-xxxx, Mara: xxx-xxx-xxxx, Taryn: xxx-xxx-xxxx, Samara: xxx-xxx-xxxx, Sheila: xxx-xxx-xxxx. Whoever: xxx-xxx-xxxx. One of them was sure to be home, probably all of them, given the circumstances, and surely one of them would allow him entry (pun intended) with the right persuasion.
And so to Nora’s. He would cross the bridge on foot.
He tucked his chin into his collar and made for the pedestrian walkway. White DOT trucks barred the ramps in both directions. A squad car sat parked across the median. One cop, draped in a baggy orange poncho, stood at the entrance. They had to get right up in each other’s face to hear.
“Bridge is closed, pal,” the cop said.
“I live over there.” Josef pointed at the pedestrian walkway.
“Tough shit, boss. Call a friend.”
“My phone died.”
“What!”
“My. Phone. Died.”
The cop just nodded. “I’m gonna have to ask you to move along. You should not be outside right now. It’s extremely dangerous to be outside right now.”
Josef looked down the empty corridor of Delancey Street. He crossed to the north side of the street and ducked into the doorway of the Delancey, a bar he liked because he often had success picking up women on the outdoor roof space. He wiped water from his face. He surveyed the area. Up the block were the concrete archways that decorated the inbound side of the bridge. The traffic barrier behind the arches was at least shoulder height, but he was confident he could vault it.
He ran for it. He sprang, jumping higher than he anticipated, hit the top of the barrier, and grabbed at the thick metal bar. It was too slick and he lost his grip and tumbled back, twisting his wrist in the process. He fell on his ass and cut the fleshy part of the palm on his left hand. He sat and sucked blood from the wound. The seam of his left pant leg had torn. He laughed and stood up and peeked between the nearest arch to check that the cop hadn’t turned around. He backed up and with a mad dash hit the wall a second time, clutching the metal bar with the crook of his uninjured arm. His legs scampered on the stones and he half hoisted, half ran, up and over. He landed in a squat and froze. He waited. The cop raised a hand. Josef barely heard him. “. . . are you fucking nuts! Get back here!”
He turned and ran. As he came to the first rise of the bridge, the walkway split. The bike lane veered off to the left and foot traffic went right. He slowed and glanced behind him. The cop was just standing there, not pursuing. The wind on the bridge was stronger than on the street, and he braced his movements by clutching the handrail. Don’t be a pussy, he told himself.
He took the right-side path, his logic being that the way the wind was twirling, he’d at worst be blown off onto the subway tracks rather than pitched into the cold, dark river. He tried to jog but the wind buckled his knees and sent him along on a staggering zigzag pattern. His breath kept getting blown just out of reach. Water stung his eyes. He kept going. Uphill turned to downhill.
He had no idea what time it was when he reached Brooklyn or how long it had taken him to make the journey across. He looked back. The skyline, etched against the veil of plum-colored clouds, was dark below Thirty-fourth Street and twinkling uptown. He saw the sign above the outbound lanes: Leaving Brooklyn Oy Vey!
He stopped under the bridge on Bedford Avenue, catching his breath and wiping at the water as it ran down his face and neck. His hand was bleeding. He half expected to see the flashing lights of cop cars waiting for him, but the street was empty. Under the bridge was dryer than everywhere else. The wind shrieked through the skeletal supports above. He slumped against a chain-link fence and waited until the burning in his lungs subsided. Had he known how much extra cardio the day had in store, he would have skipped the gym that morning, but his schedule had not included battling his way across the Williamsburg Bridge during a hurricane. It had for weeks included one thing (well, maybe two, if he included celebratory sex): Marc Crawford and finalizing the BellWeather Capital deal. Crawford and his team had bought out another fledgling company essentially identical to Josef’s. The problem was that BellWeather’s software was closer to launching. They were in testing phase. They had deeper pockets and, more important, wider advertising reach. If they didn’t team up, Josef ran a good chance of obliteration in the marketplace. His nuts were all in one basket. His finances were spread thin. One-PASS needed to be a success. The ace up Josef’s sleeve was that Roger and Ellis had designed a sleeker and more creative interface than Crawford’s people.
He continued up Bedford Avenue to Nora’s building. It was strange to see that here, so close to the water, the power was on and people were out. He passed crowded and noisy bars. Restaurants open and full. He ducked into a corner bodega. The guy behind the counter sized him up. “Man, you so wet!”
“Give me one of those Win for Life scratchers.”
The bodega guy tore a ticket from one of the rolls. Josef leaned on the counter. “You’re bleeding on my stuff!” Josef used his keys to scratch the ticket. He didn’t win anything. The bodega guy said, “Your pants all ripped!”
“Do you have any bottles of wine?”
“No wine. Beer.”
Josef went down the aisle and grabbed two 40-ounce Colt 45s. The clerk put them in a paper bag. “Nine dollar eighty.”
Josef patted the inner pocket of his raincoat. He’d left all the contents of his wallet spread across Ariel’s desk. “I promise I’m good for it,” he said, and snatched the bag and ran. He hit North Seventh Street and broke left toward the river, leaving behind him the diminishing screams of the store clerk. “You motherfucker! Come back here!”
He arrived at Wythe Avenue just as the paper bag tore open. One of the 40s fell to the sidewalk and shattered. The other he bobbled and nearly dropped. He carried the salvaged booze in his right hand; his sliced palm hurt too bad to touch anything. The rip in his pant leg had spread to mid-thigh. He saw his bare, hairy leg beneath.
He cruised into the vestibule of her building and dialed her apartment on the video buzzer.
“You should have called.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You look like shit.”
“Buzz me up, damn it, it’s like a hurricane out here!”
When he got up he shed his clothes and stood naked, water and blood dripping onto Nora’s kitchen tiles. Barksdale circled him, bouncing about, licking at the puddle. Josef drank half the 40 in one sloppy chug. It ran down the sides of his mouth and neck. The dog jumped at his knees.
Nora wore a bra and panties and sat on the couch applying red polish to her toenails. She leaned forward and blew. NY1 storm coverage played on her enormous TV and a glass of white wine perspired on the coffee table. She didn’t look at him. “I’m not sure I want to smell you right now.”
“Haha! I broke several laws to get here.”
“Your hand is bleeding.”
In the bathroom he ran the shower and waited for steam to fill the room. He washed his hand in the sink and examined the cut. It was deep but he was (relatively) sure it would close on its own. He picked through the vast array of cleansing products lining the shelves until he discovered a coconut-scented bath gel he approved of. He showered awkwardly with his one good hand. He wrapped himself in a towel and his hand in toilet paper. He returned to the living room and finished the last of the malt liquor. “Can I have some of that wine?”
She gestured with a flick of the wrist. “Help yourself.”
“May I charge my phone?”
She lifted her eyes without moving her head.
His phone was in the pocket of his torn suit pants, which were piled in a moist heap on the kitchen floor. Barksdale had bedded down in the mess. He unplugged her iPad and plugged in his phone. The phone powered on and a series of texts popped up. Three from his mother. Two from Ariel. His mother informed him that the doctors were having difficulty stabilizing his father. Ariel told him to fuck himself and then added that she was scared to be alone in the storm and maybe he would come over?
“So.” Nora placed the bottle of polish on the coffee table beside her wine. “You’re here.”
He stood naked before her. “I won the bet.”
He woke sometime later to Nora, naked, straddling his body. Opening his eyes and watching her materialize out of the sleepy dream-haze was a wonderful sensation. Those perky breasts! Those lips! The curve of her ass! Like a dream where you were fucking the hottest woman you’d ever seen and then you woke up fucking her in the real world. But they weren’t fucking. In fact, she was dangling his phone over him and the phone was vibrating and the screen read: Mom.
“Can you answer this, please? Your mother has called, like, eighty times.”
He reached up and took the phone. Nora stayed on top of him, playing with his chest hair. It was hard to understand what his mother said. Whe
n she offered to put Dr. Karnam on to explain what had happened, he hung up. He lay atop Nora’s 600-thread-count Italian sheets with her taut body over him.
From the living room he heard NY1’s reports of the storm destroying the tri-state area. In Breezy Point she tore houses from foundations and left exposed, flaming gas pipes. She surged the waters off Battery Park and flooded the financial bulb. She lifted cars and put them down elsewhere. She blew up transistors in spectacular fashion. She tore the faces off buildings. She laid waste to the Jersey Shore, to Atlantic City, to Long Beach Island, to Coney Island. She uprooted trees and threw them down upon dogs and houses.
“What did she say?” Nora asked.
He pulled away from her, went to the window, and stood, naked, looking down at the churning water of the East River. “She said my father’s dead.”
* * *
Rey’s eye looked awful. It was swollen and a scabby red line emerged across the upper lid. He muttered under his breath through dinner, holding an ice pack to his face, complaining about how embarrassed he’d been in front of his students. It didn’t help that Abbott insisted on giving the My Little Pony backpack its own seat at the table. And that he kept talking to it. “You like meatballs, Pink Pony?” he asked the backpack.
“We haaaate meatballs,” he responded in the requisite high-pitched pony voice.
Upon returning from the Grove, Abbott had decided he was “too hot” and taken off all of his clothing. He would have stripped nude, he was at heart a real nature boy, but Rey did not allow nudity in the house, so Abbott’s exhibitionism was capped at his pony underwear. There was tomato sauce all over his chin and chest.
Charlie ran down the list of pony-related items in Abbott’s life: pony figurines and play sets, coloring books, picture books, pony dolls, pony sheets and pony bedspread, pony towels, pony toothbrush, pony slippers, two hobbyhorses, My Little Pony DVDs, a My Little Pony–themed board game, pony pajamas, pony socks, a pony tent that Abbott erected in the backyard for “camping days,” pony videos—which were just Animal Planet documentaries Charlie DVR’d and called pony videos.
The Antiques Page 11