by T. M. Wright
"Well, dammit," I said, "I'm going to go and look for that boy."
"Of course you are, Sam. I can't stop you. But I can tell you what you'll find. You'll find sand, and sand fleas, a few beer bottles. You'll find gum wrappers, maybe a rubber or two. But you won't find that boy. He's one of the missing. He'll always be one of the missing. Like Amelia Earhart and Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa. They all got grabbed."
SEVENTEEN
He was right. I found nothing. I looked for a good hour and a half. I dug furiously, and futilely—because no matter how fast I dug, the sand on the slope of the dune filled the hole up even faster. And finally, I lay at the bottom of the dune with my eyes on a gull circling gracefully in the tight blue sky. Abner appeared above me.
I asked him, "Where are they, Abner?"
"Where are those people?" he said, and nodded. "They're still here."
"Then why don't they take me, dammit?"
He shrugged. "Or me, for that matter? Or that old woman with the fat dog? She comes by every day. So does the man with the metal detector." He sat down next to me, elbows in the dune, and leveled a quizzical gaze at me. "I don't know, Sam," he said.
"Why do some people get stung by bees and others don't? I really don't know. Maybe someday we'll both get stung."
"That's comforting," I whispered.
He smiled. "This is temporary, Sam. This… wild talent you've got. It's temporary." He paused. "Maybe that's not the right word, maybe temporary's not the right word. Transient's better. This wild talent you've got is transient. It comes and goes. One day you've got it, the next day it's gone. Sort of like herpes."
I let out a grunt of disbelief.
He went on, grinning, "And I got it from a woman named Barbara W. Barber two years ago on the Amtrak out of Bangor. Good Lord, Sam, she gave me this disease on the Amtrak out of Bangor. And I guess she gave it to me because she didn't like me, because I offended her." He idly scratched his nose. "And I gave it to you, Sam, because you're my friend and friends help each other." He stood, extended his hand. I shook my head. "No, let me be."
"Sure," he said. "You know, Sam, I think it's like walking into a closet by mistake. You see that you're in a closet, you look around briefly, and you walk out. But the hell of it is, there are so many damned closets to walk into." After a moment he went on, "Touch the air, Sam."
"Huh?"
"Lift your hand and touch the air."
I sat up. "Why?" I said.
"Just do it, please."
I did it.
"Good," he said. "Now tell me what you feel."
"Nothing," I answered. "I don't feel a thing. I feel the air."
"Close your eyes."
I closed my eyes.
"Now what do you feel?"
I reached, groped in the air.
"Gently, Sam."
I touched the air gently.
"Tell me what you feel."
"Dammit, I don't know." I paused. "I feel the air." Another pause. "No. I feel someone's skin; it feels like water. It feels like cool water."
He said, "You see, Sam? They are still here, as I said. They're always here. Those poor, murderous slobs have always been here, in the air all around us, except now, for you, there's a difference. You can see them occasionally. And you can touch them, and you can—"
I pushed myself to my feet suddenly and grabbed him by the collar. He looked very surprised, which pleased me. "You're my friend so youdid this to me, Abner?! Why do I find that so hard to believe? Tell me. What kind of friend would do this ... this thing—"
"A desperate friend, Sam."
"You bastard!"
He nodded; his look of surprise was gone; it was replaced by grim resignation. "Sure, I'm a bastard. But I'm a stuck bastard. And I warned you. I did warn you, Sam, if you think back—"
"Where's that boy?"
"What boy?"
"Goddamn you!" My grip strengthened on his collar. "That boy with the kite. Where in the hell is he?"
Abner shrugged. "I don't know. Where would a pail of water be if you tossed it into the ocean? I don't know. Maybe he'll turn up in . . . in Schenectady, someday, or in Ottawa, or, Christ, right here. Chances are he won't turn up at all, Sam. And there's nothing you or I or anybody can do about it. He's fallen between the cracks. Lots and lots of people fall between the cracks."
I held my right hand up, palm open, near his chin. "Your keys, Abner."
"My car keys?"
"Yes."
"You're going to take my car?"
"Give me your keys, dammit!"
"I need my car." He fished in his pocket, found his key ring, which had a half-dozen keys on it, and let it dangle from his fingers so they were just touching my hand. "I always thought you were pretty bright, Sam. I guess I was wrong."
"Let go of the damned keys."
"Think, my friend. Think!" He let go of the keys. I let go of him and took a step back. He went on, "Think about what's happened here. Think about what's happened to me. Think hard about what could happen to you, Sam."
"Abner, you really are full of crap!"
He grinned. "I need my house key." He nodded at the key ring.
"You actually lock that place up?"
"Of course I lock it up. You think I want just anyone going in there? I've got . . . valuables in there, Sam. I've got things to protect."
I gave him the key ring; he took a key off it, gave it back to me, and said, "You've got to let her warm up a good three or four minutes, Sam. The choke advance needs work."
"Sure, Abner." I started for the side of the house. "At this point, I'm worried as hell about your damned choke advance,"
Behind me, he called, "And don't leave her parked on some side street if you can help it. Don't leave the doors locked, either. It doesn't do any good. They'll just break a window or screw up the lock—" He said more, but I didn't catch it, because by then I was halfway around the house.
~ * ~
I parked the Malibu, doors locked, in an alleyway off Third Avenue near 10th Street. It was midafternoon. The clear blue sky had given way to a sultry overcast, and that alleyway looked like the inside of a cereal box.
The drive back had been an ordeal. Every inch of the way, I felt like I'd been drenched in gasoline and was being chased by a thousand people with torches.
Sort of like herpes, Abner had said. It comes and goes. One day you have it, the next day it's gone.
"You bastard, Abner," I whispered.
At the other end of the alleyway, a tall man dressed in a dark suit and overcoat stood facing me. He held a cane in his right hand. I could see his features only indistinctly—a receding hairline, deep-set eyes, thin lips, a long straight nose.
"And what the hell do you want?" I yelled.
He pointed his cane at the Malibu. "If you park it there, young man, it will be vandalized. Are you new here, to New York?" He had a deep and resonant voice that dripped with authority and demanded respect, which I was in no mood to give. I growled at him, "What in the hell are you? My keeper? Take a hike."
He chuckled shortly, deep in his chest. "No. I'm not your keeper. I'm no one's keeper. Forgive me." And he turned to his left and was gone.
Torches, I thought. Gasoline.
I got back in the Malibu, put my head on the upper edge of the steering wheel and I wept.
EIGHTEEN
I parked the car in a parking garage near Fourth Avenue and 3rd Street, found a phone booth, and called Leslie's number.
Her father answered. I sighed. If there was anyone I didn't want to have to deal with then, it was Frank Wirth. I wasn't even 100 percent sure that I wanted to talk to Leslie, or at least that I should talk to her, because I was almost certain that an argument would start—that's the way things had been tending lately, ever since my ill-conceived remark that her father should be "where he can be taken better care of." But she was, after all, the person I loved most in this world; she was my reality, and I needed her.
"Hello, Mr. Wirth,"
I said. "Could I speak with Leslie, please."
"Who's this?"
"It's Sam Feary, Mr. Wirth. Is Leslie there?"
"I don't know no one named Sam Fury."
"Feary, Sam Feary, Mr. Wirth. I'm Leslie's… fiancé." It was half true. I'd asked; she hadn't given me an answer.
Silence.
"Mr. Wirth? Are you there?"
"You the one she's been seein'?"
"Yes, sir. Could I speak with her, please?"
"You the one ain't been around for a week?"
"Yes, sir. It's a private matter, sir. Could I please speak with her?"
"No," he said flatly.
"Why?" I asked.
"'Cuz she ain't here."
"Could I ask where she is?"
"Sure you could. Go ahead and ask." I heard a grim little chuckle.
I sighed. "Okay, Mr. Wirth, I'm asking. Where is she?"
He answered, "She's somewheres else," and laughed. "She's somewheres else, Sam Fury." Another laugh.
"Mr. Wirth, please—" I stopped, waited for his laughter to subside. "Mr. Wirth, if you could please just tell me where she is."
"I'll give you a clue," he said.
"A clue?"
I sighed yet again; talking with Frank Wirth had always been an unpredictable experience. "Okay, Mr. Wirth," I said, "what's the clue?"
He chuckled. "The clue is, Sam Fury—what do people call women who got habits?"
I shook my head. "I give up, Mr. Wirth. Why don't you tell me."
He hung up.
I called back immediately. He answered, "Sam's Bait Shop, head worm speaking," cackled, and hung up.
I dialed a third time, listened to the phone ring once, and again, then I hung up. Sisters, I thought. Women with habits are called sisters. Leslie was at her sister's house. I smiled. "Gotcha, Frank Wirth!" I whispered. I stopped smiling. I'd been to her sis-ter's house only once, when Leslie and I had met each other in the cab going to Queens. "Dammit!" I whispered, stepped back into the phone booth, looked up the name "Wirth" in the phone book, and found only "Wirth, Orlando A., D.D.S." I didn't know much about Leslie's sister, but I knew that she wasn't a D.D.S. and that her name wasn't Orlando.
I went back to the parking garage, got the Malibu, drove to the Jackson Heights section of Queens. And cruised around, lost, for two hours.
At last, I pulled up to a curb and called to a thin middle-aged woman walking her cat on a leash, "I'm lost. Could you help me?"
She came over to the car, looked through the passenger window, first at me, then cautiously into the back seat as if someone might be hiding there, then looked back at me. "So what are you looking for, then?" she asked. She turned her head quickly: "Don't do that, Britches"—I couldn't see what Britches was doing—then looked at me again. "Not too much damage there," she said. "What'd you say you were looking for?"
I answered, "I don't know. A street. Something like this one." The street I was on was quiet and tree-lined, with neat two-story houses nestled close together. "But there's a church on one end. Maybe it's a synagogue."
"Russian Orthodox," she cut in.
I shook my head. "No, I don't think so—"
"Yes, it is. Russian Orthodox. Bolosco Street." She nodded to her right. "Three blocks up, two blocks over." She turned to Britches. "Stop that now," she said, and I said, smiling cordially, "What's he doing?"
"Spraying," she said, and added, "Three blocks up and two blocks over. That's where Bolosco Street is."
"Over where?"
She waved her hand in the air. "Over there, of course. You can't miss it." And, tugging the reluctant Britches along, she made her way slowly, one painful step at a time, back to the sidewalk.
I leaned over in the seat. "I mean . . . Ma'am? Ma'am?" I called.
She looked back at me. "Yes?"
"I mean, right or left? Three blocks up and two blocks right, or two blocks left?"
"Right. Two blocks right." She seemed agitated. "What'd you think I meant?"
"I wasn't sure. Thanks," I said, and pulled away from the curb.
~ * ~
Bolosco Street looked as if it could very well be the street that the cabbie had taken Leslie to several months earlier. The houses were all neatly maintained two-story houses in various shades of brown, green, and beige, each with a narrow driveway and a well-manicured hedge or two. And there was indeed a Russian Orthodox church at one end.
I pulled over at the center of the block, craned my head around to look behind me, then turned back. There were a few people on the sidewalks. At what I guessed was its north end, and coming my way, a young woman was carrying a bag of groceries in each arm and having a hard time of it; near me, an older man and woman were walking close together, so their arms touched. Every now and then the man stopped walking and pointed skyward—at a bird, I supposed—and the woman with him looked where he pointed and smiled a pleasant, grateful smile. They passed me as I sat in the Malibu and I heard the old man say, "There, Emma, didn't I tell you?" And Emma said, "Yes, Robert. You were right. Of course you were right. I'm very happy."
Four or five houses ahead, a woman who, I told myself, could easily be Leslie was standing on a porch as if waiting for someone. I pulled the car up, stopped in front of the house, glanced at the woman, saw that it indeed was Leslie, and called, "Hi. Remember me?"
"Sam?" she called. "What are you doing here?"
She was dressed in a dark unbuttoned knee-length coat; beneath it, she wore a snug-fitting purple dress.
I shrugged. "I got lost, I guess. I was taking this car back to the guy I borrowed it from—" I stopped, shook my head. "No, that's not true."
"Of course it isn't."
"I was looking for you."
"Were you? Why?"
"To talk."
"About what?" She paused only a second, not long enough to give me a chance to answer her question. "Who told you I was here? My father?"
"Kind of," I answered. I got out of the car and started up the walk to the house.
"I wish you hadn't come here, Sam," she said as I approached. "I'm still pretty upset with you."
I was halfway up the walk. I stopped, shook my head. "I can't imagine why, Leslie. That's the truth. So I said something you disagreed with. I take it back, okay?"
"No, it's not okay, Sam. I'm sorry. I can forgive you for saying it, but not for the . . . the mind-set that made you say it. You're like a million other people who want to shuffle their parents off to some dreary home as soon as trouble starts—"
"Wait a minute," I cut in. "Do you want to know how I found out where you were?"
"You said my father told you."
"Well, yes, he did. But not in so many words, Leslie; he made a game out of it—"
"Okay, okay, so he made a game out of it?! So what? He's playful. That's what I love about him; that's what I've always loved about him—he thinks like a kid. That's wonderful! More people should be that way. But you . . . you see it as senility or something."
I took a deep breath, went to the bottom of the porch steps, and looked pleadingly up at her. "Listen," I said, "I've had a pretty rough couple of days and I came here because I want to be with you, because I want us to be together. Can't we just let this thing about your father . . . lie fallow for a while?"
"Lie fallow? What are you talking about?"
I shook my head. "I don't know, Leslie. I'm tired, and I'm confused, and I need you, honey—"
"Don't call me honey. I'm sorry, Sam, but I have a date."
My mouth fell open. "You have a what?"
"A date," she repeated. She paused, looked sheepishly at me. "Well, actually," she added, "it's with my brother—"
"I didn't know you had a brother."
"It's the same old story, then, isn't it, Sam? There are lots of things you don't know about me."
I nodded. "Sure there are, Leslie, but—" I stopped. Something was fluttering heavily in the air above the house. I glanced up. I saw what I supposed at first was a gull
hovering close to the roof edge, so most of its body was hidden. I looked back at Leslie. "As I was saying, Leslie—"
"No, Sam," she cut in. "I don't want to talk anymore just now I'm sorry, but as I told you, I'm still upset with you—I've got a lot of thinking to do ... Sam, are you listening to me?"
"Yeah, sure," I managed, and it was the truth. But I was also listening to the fluttering in the air. It was behind me now. I turned my head, looked.
I saw a woman above me. She was hovering just at arm's length, her loose red blouse and pants fluttering on the breeze, her arms outstretched, her head to one side so it rested on her shoulder, her eyes closed, and her lips parted just enough that her bright pink tongue was visible.
She was a young woman. Her skin was smooth and very white. She was barefooted; her toenails were painted black. As I watched, she fluttered around me so she was between Leslie and me. I heard Leslie say, "Sam? What's wrong?" I started backing away, toward the Malibu. The woman's eyes popped open. Her head straightened. The thin, light pink line of her lips spread so that more of her tongue was visible.
I continued backing toward the Malibu.
"Sam?" Leslie called. "What are you doing?"
I shook my head. "Go away," I pleaded. "Go away, please go away!"
"What's wrong with you?" Leslie called.
I continued backing toward the Malibu.
"I love you," hissed the woman fluttering in the air above me. "Love me, please love me!"
"Go away!" I whispered.
"Sam, for God's sake—"
"Go away, go away!" I screamed, and I batted at the woman in the air above me as if she were some huge insect.
"Sam, you're scaring me!" Leslie called.
"Get out of here!" I screamed. And I backed hard into the Malibu, with my rear end first, then with the center of my spine—so it hit the roof edge—then, as I rolled to the right, I hit the roof edge with my jaw.