Stuffed him with straw, Danny said and took a bit of his shake. I suppose liquids are the only thing he can stomach now. I suddenly felt a bit more charitable to the poor bastard, there but for the grace of God, et cetera.
I’m surprised they don’t call it the Wizard of Oz killing, you know, because the straw man wanted a heart, I said.
That was the tin man, Danny said.
Oh, I said.
More like the Emperor Valerian, Danny said. Heard of him?
Rings a bell, I said, truthfully.
They stuffed him.
Who?
The Persians.
Why?
To mock Rome.
What?
He was taken prisoner and they used him as a footstool and stuffed him when he died.
I was annoyed. You see, this is the sort of thing that gets Danny a reputation for having sense. He really doesn’t, but Ratko or someone else in the building will hear him come off with this sort of shite and think that he’s on to something. It pissed me off. And I knew that I was going to be forced to tell Ratko this little story and it was going to reinforce all his prejudices.
Have to head, I said and got up.
You want the rest of your coffee? Danny said.
No.
I passed it over; our eyes met for a second.
Did you go to university? I asked him for some random reason.
I did. Rutgers.
Huh, well, look at you now, I wanted to say, but of course didn’t.
I dumped my plastic utensils and plate in the garbage and went out. I was dying for a fag now, but I tried unsuccessfully to kill the thought. Danny waved at me and grabbed the paper that I’d left.
Outside it was getting a wee bit hotter, but it was still ok. From 125th you can see up to the City College campus, and I shook my head. It was all a bit awful, that killing; I thought about it while I looked in my pockets for my cigarettes before remembering I’d left them in the house.
Shite.
Later, when I’d come back from the Yucatán and was thirty pounds lighter and shell-shocked and was in a bar with Ramón Hernández, I found out all about that murder and, believe me, it had nothing whatsoever to do with Jamaicans or stool pigeons. The cops couldn’t have been more wrong, in fact, unless they’d been deliberately misleading the press. Ramón told me that it was all a Santería thing. The heart gets burned and the straw that would have been burned goes where the heart was. As long as the heart stays in your hearth or fireplace no harm can come to your house; the bigger the villain whose organ it was, the more evil is warded off. Santería is really crazy, but Ramón believes it and a lot of other Dominicans do as well; it’s what comes of sharing an island with Haitians, I suppose. But also, you have to ask yourself, how many people in New York actually have a fireplace in their apartment? Not too many I would imagine.
Anyway, at this time, I didn’t know Ramón, and after about five minutes that killing went out of my head completely. I was too annoyed with Danny showing off to care about another dead black guy in the long, vague list of horrible violence which was engulfing Upper Manhattan this year.
To walk off my urge for cigarettes, and perhaps for some other reasons, I decided to dander down to the river. It wasn’t too far, and there wouldn’t be anyone about to hassle me.
Not the nicest walk in the city. Chop shops and tough little bodegas and empty lots. On the left-hand side of the street, the relocated Cotton Club, which seems a sad reflection of the original. Next, the West Side Highway, whose elevated steel girders form themselves into a beautiful series of diminishing arches. A Columbia building, parking spaces, another chop shop, a few guys fishing, but that’s about it.
To see people fishing in the Hudson always made me unhappy. They weren’t just fishing for sport, they were eating those things or selling them. Little black ones and green ones and big ones that in another universe entirely could perhaps be trout.
Morning, I said to the boys, and I got some grunts back in reply. Didn’t want to upset their casting, so I went up about half a block and sat down on some tires. I was sweating now, some kind of hypoglycemic reaction to all that sugar at breakfast, no doubt. Probably kill me.
On the water an enormous garbage barge going up to the 135th Street depot. Farther up, coming under the George Washington Bridge, there was a yacht with its sails tied up and motor on. I sat on the railing for a while, looking at the water, thinking about cigarettes. I decided to head home. Shower, disconnect the phone, go back to bed. I’ll set the alarm for twelve so I don’t destroy my sleep cycle too severely. Maybe call that girl later.
I looked at my watch; it was around seven. I wasn’t as tired as I should be.
Riverside Park was relatively empty, a few dog walkers, a few joggers, homeless guys, and the Columbia University women’s volleyball team, which cheered me up immensely. At the top of the many steps, I had to catch my breath for a moment or two. I went by the dreadful wreck of Grant’s Tomb and down 122nd past the music school. I got my keys and did that gun-keys-keys-gun thing I’d been doing recently and went in the building.
I made some more coffee. Showered, shaved again by mistake, brushed my teeth, put on the fan, and climbed into bed. Only about another hour and the doorbell went and it rang and rang and I almost cried out in frustration: Dear God, will no one let me sleep in this world? I got up, and when I opened the door Bridget came in without a word.
Bridget. She is almost too beautiful. Ethereal, poised, elegant. Some days, it’s as if she’s just stepped out of a poem by W. B. Yeats. Aye, you can imagine her haloed against a dewy wood, singing of Tír na nÓg, summoning you to a barrow in the earth. You would know all this and still you would bloody follow her.
Yes.
Bridget. Heart-attack red hair. A dancer’s grace, but with curves and long, long legs and a bum Rubens could have spilled a few pots of paint depicting.
She dresses well, too. Today she’s in jeans and a white T-shirt that has a daisy in the middle of it, between her breasts. She’s wearing Converse high-tops, which make her look goofy, a counterbalance to the haircut that makes her look a little older. None of this, though, is important. She could be two hundred pounds heavier and wearing a potato sack and it wouldn’t make a difference. It’s her face. The expressions that move across it like a storm on the lough. The thin nose that gives her an aristocratic bearing. The pale skin. And those eyes. I can’t describe them. Lieutenant Narkiss and all other women are put out of your head in a second. Blue and green on different days, but those are just the names of colors. When they flash dark you want to crawl into a hole somewhere, and when they’re lit up you feel the universe is too small to contain your happiness.
Bullshit, I know, but once you’ve seen her, you’ll get it.
She was going out with Andy for a while, but Andy has enormous, complex, and ongoing problems with the INS, and apparently the buggers hassled the poor kid so much that he couldn’t really give her the time that she deserved. He had to work and he had to get down to the INS office at four in the morning (they only let in the first thousand applicants every day), so Bridget eventually dumped him. Bridget was seventeen then and Andy, who was nearly two years older, was her first boyfriend, I think. It was a very tricky situation, and I, for one, suspected that Andy was relieved not to be going out with Bridget anymore. I’m not a huge conspiracy theorist but if one was of a conspiratorial nature, one might have gotten the impression that Andy was somehow not really into Bridget at all, and in fact he was perhaps the stalking horse for another party entirely. Sure enough, Darkey started going out with her about a month later. Darkey is mid-forties, and her parents might have been more disturbed about the age gap had she not shown that she could handle men by dumping that inconsiderate eejit Andy, who was always arranging to go places with her and then pulling out at the last minute because of his difficulties with the authorities. Though now, with Andy apparently skulking around death’s door and in a coma, I’m sure all is f
orgiven.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Bridget is Darkey’s girl. Whether she’s the only girl, I don’t know, but he plays it like she is. They’ve been going out over a year and there is some old-fashioned talk from Mrs. Callaghan of an engagement. Bridget is the youngest of five and the rest are scattered to the winds at university or in California or wherever, so it wouldn’t be such a huge loss for cute wee Bridget to end up with less-than-cute Darkey White. She could do worse, in fact, for although twice divorced, Darkey is sitting pretty with his building business, his glass company, and his shares in Mr. Duffy’s various coys. Both Pat and Mrs. Callaghan like Darkey too, and it’s not that they’re afraid of him; they’re not, they really like him. They’re afraid of Sunshine (and who isn’t?), but Darkey they like and trust.
So poor Bridget, it’s all mapped out, and the only alternative would be to fly the coop, but she isn’t the type. Besides, the coop suits her fine, and if nothing dramatic happens she will, I suppose, settle down and marry him. I doubt she’s in love with him. It’s possible that she’s in love with me, but who can know their heart at that age. At my age. I am crazy about her, though, and it’s not because she’s a looker. I don’t know what it is, actually, but it’s more than that.
Within a minute of coming into the apartment the high-tops were off and the button-down blue jeans were being buttoned down.
This place is disgusting, is her opening line.
I know. I do clean it, Mouse, is my romantic response.
Mouse is the cute pet name I’ve been attempting to impose on her, with some success. Her name for me was Rat, but I was never very keen on this and it has petered out recently.
Fucking bugs everywhere, she says.
Not literally everywhere.
There’s a dead one beside the phone, on the wall, disgusting.
I’m sorry, Mouse.
I mean to say, Michael, can’t you get DDT or Raid or anything?
I’ve tried boric acid.
What about the exterminator?
Been and gone.
So far it’s hardly Abelard and Héloïse, but she is naked, which is something. I pull off my jeans and T-shirt and carry her into the bedroom.
Have you got a beer? she asks.
It’s hardly my place to lecture her about the hour, so I go get one from the fridge. I take one myself and it hits the spot.
On the bed her back is arched and tense like a long bow, her lips are red, and that’s all it takes. She’s so pale, you could lose her in the sheets. I kiss her white belly and she lies there and grins at me, that hair curling down onto her shoulder. Looking at her, I sometimes forget to breathe. It’s all worth it, the risk, the fear. I mean, Jesus. I slip beside her and we make love, very slow and intricate for a half hour, and when we’re done we take a drink and lie there and then we do it all again. Fast this time, frantic. I climb on top of her and she wraps those long legs around my back; she moans and digs her nails into my shoulder. She’s intoxicating. Heady. I close my eyes and drink in her smell and feel her touch. I kiss her breasts and her neck and I lick under her arms, and she bites me on the shoulder.
More, she says.
More what?
Shut up, she says.
We screw like I’ve just been released from prison, and we come together and lie there panting in each other’s sweat.
When we’re both recovered we have another beer, stick on the radio, and I wander into the kitchen to make her breakfast.
I’m taking up riding again, she says from the living room.
Horses?
No, pigs, what do you think? Darkey’s getting it for me.
Nice of him.
He’s a nice guy, you know.
Yeah, that’s the rumor.
It’s when I’ve made scrambled eggs and tea and a toasted bagel that I remember to ask:
How’s the big guy?
Andy?
Aye, Andy.
A little better; he’s breathing well. Darkey phoned this morning with info, and he says he’s good, he’ll be ok. They’ve moved him to some new place.
What sort of a place?
Different part of the hospital, not the morgue or anything.
Good.
It was terrible. What do you think about it?
I don’t want to tell her what I think about it, so I just say:
That’s good about Andy. How did you get down here, anyway? The bar must have been crazy still with people.
No, no one’s there. Just Mom and Dad and me.
Yeah, well anyway, shouldn’t you be in bed? You were up with him half the night.
I was, and me and Mom actually went to visit him first thing this morning. We didn’t get in again, of course. Mom says she was always very fond of Andy, which isn’t true at all. Anyway, you’re right. I am tired. Mouse is tired. I want to sleep here, with you.
I’m suddenly very thoughtful. I wouldn’t put it past Darkey to have had her followed. Could be a goon outside right now. It’s by no means impossible. Andy getting beaten up and all Darkey’s talk about Bridget being his and the young don’t have his stamina or whatever. A chill goes through me.
No, seriously, though, how did you get down here? I ask.
I took the train. Where’s my eggs?
Eggs are coming.
You know, Bridget, I think in the future we have to be a lot more careful about—
Where are my eggs? she screams, pretending to be a diva.
We eat and go to bed, but I can’t sleep. I find myself obsessed by the idea of Darkey tailing her. In my first week in America, Scotchy sold me a pair of binoculars he’d stolen from some guy’s car. He said I’d need them all the time in this line of work and, of course, I’ve never used them. While she snoozes by the fan, I pull on some clothes, grab the binocs, and take the stairs up to the roof. It’s a hot day and the light up here is blinding off the water tower and the roof and it takes me a minute or two to adjust to it. I go over to the side of the building and look down. Most of the cars are familiar, but there are four I don’t recognize. It’s hard to tell if anyone is inside them. If you walk on this roof and over to the next building you can get a better look at the plates and the make of vehicle. I stare through the binocs and memorize all four numbers to write down later. I wait for a long time for something to happen but nothing does.
I go back downstairs to Bridget.
I meet Ratko outside the apartment, and he’s coming in to see me. He has a bottle and three glasses. Three. Christ, she must have been pretty damn loud and obvious.
I open the door and shout through:
Mouse, make yourself decent. We’ve got company.
I hear her wake groggily and go off to the bedroom to pull on some clothes.
Her panties are in the hall, and I crack open the bedroom door and pass them through to her.
Your whips, I say.
My what?
Underpants.
That’s so Irish of you, she says and kisses my hand.
Ratko sees me smile and laughs his Santa laugh.
He loves to see me and Bridget together. I sit next to him. She comes out in my jeans and my Undertones T-shirt. Of course, she looks devastating.
Ratko Yalovic pours us a drink from a clear bottle. When he’s in a good mood, he pours me from the bottle that has the gold leaf in it, but it’s hot and his wife has been on to him about the mice and the roaches, so today it’s the rotgut.
He tells us about his problems, which are all domestic, involving wife and child, and are not really problems at all. I solve them with platitudes and clichés and he seems satisfied and genuinely grateful.
We talk about the weather, and he asks Bridget about her life. She gives him answers that are neutral and noncommittal, designed for my ears too.
I ask Bridget if she wants to nap while we talk, but she doesn’t. She likes the different company. She kisses me on the cheek as a thank-you for my concern.
Handsome couple, you two should
just go off together, Ratko says, maybe getting a little buzzed and weepy from the booze but eerily echoing what I’ve been thinking for the last couple of hours. For my heart is suddenly filled with warm feelings towards Bridget: a little difficult she may be, but she’s good and sweet-natured and you’d be lucky ever to come across such a one again.
Strong childbearing hips, I say.
Bridget laughs, and it pleases all of us.
No, you should go, leave the city, go to country, Ratko persists.
We’d go to California, she says. Or Hawaii or someplace where there’s sun and a big ocean.
Sounds good to me, I say and look at her, and she takes my hand.
What’s Yugoslavia like? she asks Ratko, knowing that he would love to tell her.
Beautiful country, coast, mountains, rivers, my parents from close to Nis, where Constantine the Great is born.
We could go there, she says.
No, you could go Ireland, Ratko says firmly.
He leans over, clinks my glass, to emphasize his point.
Yeah, we could go to Ireland, she says, liking the idea.
I thought you wanted sun, I say.
It must be sunny sometimes, she says.
I shake my head.
She laughs again.
Sometimes? she asks.
Not a time, especially not in summer, Mouse. Hell no, why do you think they’re always killing each other over there? It’s the bloody weather. Depressing.
She’s not listening.
I really would love to go to Ireland. It’s my roots, she says.
She wrinkles up her nose and looks wistful for a second or two. It makes her so unbearably beautiful that I get a little mad at her.
Get Darkey to take you, he can afford it, I say, with a hint of a sneer. She doesn’t pick up on it, though.
Oh, he is, next year. We’re going for three weeks. Darkey knows someone that owns a castle in Donegal. Maybe it doesn’t rain so much there.
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