by Paul Griffin
‘I need a favor.’
Jerry squinted. ‘Okay?’
Ray rolled up his pant leg. ‘Cut it off.’
Jerry took Ray into the shop, grabbed his three-foot clippers, cracked the titanium tracking bracelet strangling Ray’s ankle. Ray bounced.
‘Wait.’
‘What.’
Jerry stuffed two grand into Ray’s hand, Ray dropped it, kept going.
‘Don’t be like that, kid, c’mon. ’Ey, come next week. Maybe I got something for you.’
‘Not interested.’
‘Something legit, I mean.’
Ray kept walking. He checked Dad’s wallet. Three hundred eighty bucks. He should have taken Jerry’s money. ‘Genius.’ He walked to the zoo, waited for it to open, chucked the ankle bracelet into the lions’ feeding cage.
He went to a diner to get warm, stuffed himself with pancakes, fries, Coke, fell asleep at the back table. The diner was a dive, empty, and the waitress let him sleep.
Sometime later he felt a hand on his shoulder, jumped, the waitress’s hand on the back of his neck. ‘The hell?’ He jerked away from the waitress. ‘Where am I?’
‘El Fogonero.’
‘El—the firefighter?’
‘The diner. That’s its name. You shaking. You was talking in you sleep.’
The table was wet from where Ray had rested his head to sleep. He wiped the drool from the table with his sleeve, wiped his mouth.
‘You was crying,’ the waitress said.
‘I, damn. Sorry.’
‘Baby, lemme make you a hot chocolate, bring you some pie. On me.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Ray looked out the window. The bank clock said afternoon. ‘But I gotta go.’ The waitress went to get the bill. Ray left a hundred-dollar tip under his dirty plate.
12
Winter covered Ten Mile River in three feet of icy snow. Ray followed the sneaker tracks to the stationhouse, saw the TV flicker, smiled. ‘Scarface.’ His smile faded. Turn around. Run.
But then that old feeling came back, a vague memory of the J-man howling.
That laugh.
Ray kicked in the door, dropped his knapsack, pulled a boxer’s pose. ‘’Sup.’
José bounced off the couch. ‘’Sup.’ He punched Ray. ‘How was yours?’
Ray punched back. ‘It was nothin. Yours?’
‘Nothin. Ray-Ray. The double Ray. Dag, son, ’sup?’
‘’Sup. Dag, you took off a coupla pounds, huh?’
‘Prison food. You put on a few. My boy’s huge!’
‘Prison food. Place is trashed, huh?’
‘And here I thought I done a good job cleanin up,’ José said.
‘Pipe heads?’
‘They was too stoned to steal the TeeVee. Knocked it over, got lines in it now.’
‘When you get free?’
‘Two days back. Kid Ray, back in business!’ José jumped Ray.
Ray body slammed José to the couch broken from Ray’s fall from the ceiling rafter seven months before. ‘Where’s the dogs?’
‘Whores. They’ll be back soon as they smell us cook somethin.’
‘You been back two days and you ain’t cooked?’
‘Cereal. The Capitán. Don’t look at me like that. I was waitin for you to cook me somethin.’
‘That sure I’d be back, huh?’
‘Where else you gonna go?’
Ray faked a grin.
‘Where’d you dump your bracelet?’ José said.
‘Lions. You?’
‘Smokestack. Yo, c’mere. I gotta show you somethin. Ray, wait’ll you see ’em.’
‘Them?’
José led Ray down to the unheated basement, where two blue bodies hugged.
‘God. Damn,’ Ray said. ‘Jesus. Pipe heads you think?’
‘Shooters, tracks on their arms. Suicide pact, I make it.’
Ray toed the frozen bodies, afraid they might jump up. A man and a woman dead in each other’s arms. It was the saddest, filthiest, most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. ‘How’d you get ’em down here?’
‘They was down here already.’ José grabbed the man’s frozen leg and slid him, the two bodies frozen solid, frozen together. Under the man’s leg was a shot-out hypodermic needle. The bodies were skinny, young.
‘You been up there two days watching TV, and all the while they were down here?’
‘They dead, son,’ José said. ‘What they gonna do to me? It’s the livin folks I worry about. What oughta we do with ’em?’
‘We gotta get ’em outta here. Spring comes, they thaw, rats’ll come.’
‘And we got enough pests around here with the roaches, the damn dogs when they come back.’ José warmed his hands with his breath. ‘Let’s bag ’em and drag ’em.’
‘Like, put ’em in the regular old garbage?’
‘No, in the special garbage. The hell they feed you in that Spofford?’
‘Ain’t right,’ Ray said.
‘That’s about the stupidest thing I ever heard.’
‘Leavin Earth like they done, I gotta give ’em a proper funeral.’
‘That right there is what too much readin gets you, “Leavin Earth.” Son, you don’t gotta do it. Plus, you got eyes? The river’s froze.’
‘Not all the way out. In the middle it’s open, dammit.’
‘You’re jokin, right? He’s not jokin. Ray, we get caught draggin human Popsicles onto the river ice, folks are gonna start askin us a thing or two!’
‘We can tarp ’em in the rowboat with the army tent, they’ll look like bunched sail, we sled ’em down.’
José rolled his eyes. ‘Gonna be dark soon, moron. Barge’ll run us down in the black. Then you got the icebreakers. I don’t know about you, kid.’
‘I don’t know about me either.’
‘Punk does six and some months hard time, comes out more a kid than before. A’right then, let’s chuck these lovers into the river before the goddam sun sets.’
They covered the bodies with a heavy tarp, pushed their stolen rowboat through the snowy woods to the overpass. Snow fell hard, the wind picking up. A crow swung with the branch it sat. Ten Mile River was empty.
‘Snow’ll make for a pretty funeral,’ Ray said.
‘“Pretty funeral.” Idiot. Snow’s our cover. Help me push this mess.’
They lugged the boat up the overpass steps. ‘You wrote her?’ Ray said.
‘I’m gonna write her to tell her I’m in jail?’
‘But you kissed her. You can’t swap spit with a chick and then just up and disappear. When you find out you’re gonna be gone for a long time, you got to write her to tell her you’ll be back someday.’
‘You don’t gotta tell me what I gotta do, Ray.’ José spit. ‘Besides, my writin is lame. I was embarrassed of her seein I can’t spell good.’
‘I’m-a school you, startin tomorrow.’
‘You’ll school me nothin. Hey?’
‘What?’
‘You write her?’
‘Psh, I’d go behind m’ boy’s back like that? Psh, insultin me, man.’
‘You do what you want. Y’all were friends, I don’t mind you writin her.’
‘Anyway, she ain’t the type to call you out on bad spellin. They ain’t like us, chicks. They got feelings.’
‘Talkin about chicks like he knows a damn thing about ’em.’
They stopped to catch their breath.
‘We oughta go see her,’ Ray said.
‘I been thinkin about it, believe me, about her, don’t think I ain’t. Thinkin about you, me, her and her cousin and all, how we was opposed to go on that double date.’
‘Cousin’s long gone by now I bet.’ Ray stared at the tarp over the stiffs, remembered their threaded fingers, their legs locked at the hips. He put himself in place of the dead guy and Trini in place of the dead girl, their lips near touching, their eyes at each other, leaving Earth together.
‘Wake up,’ José said.
&n
bsp; They set the boat at the head of the down stairway. The clouds rippled like God’s shabby sheet strung out to dry, the day dying, the snow, the boat, the boys’ faces cast dark blue. ‘Aw hell, duck.’ José pulled Ray below the eye line of a snowdrift.
A garbage truck banged up the Drive, kept going.
‘Phew,’ Ray said.
‘Too cold for “phew” today. Goddam thirty degrees out here.’
‘You’d prob’ly still find a way to take off your shirt.’
‘What’s this now?’
‘Nothin.’
They flanked the boat like bobsledders, gave it a running push, jumped in. Ray hunkered in the bow but José rode the bodies as the boat bombed the overpass steps downhill over the flatlands, skipped the break-water onto the frozen river. The boys pushed from there. A half mile out the icebreakers had gashed the Hudson with a stripe of black water a quarter mile wide. The water was empty with the snowstorm, even the tugs lying low.
‘Gettin dark fast,’ José said. ‘Let’s do this.’
Ray nodded at a buoy locked slantways in the ice traps. ‘In case the wind blows the skiff while we’re doin the funeral, you wanna moor it to that buoy there so it don’t blow off the ice?’
‘Moor it?’ José said. ‘Nah, grab that rope thing there and tie it to that post thing there on the bell light thing there, in case the wind blows it.’
‘That’s what mooring it means.’
‘Then moor it,’ José said.
‘And the boat rope’s called a hawser. The post is a bollard. The—’
‘Ray? I ain’t out here for a vocabliary lesson, dig? You say bollard or hawser one more time and I’ll leave your learned butt out here on the ice, you can sink the blue people your damn self, I swear it.’
They pushed the boat to the buoy, rocked it to spill the frozen bodies onto the ice. José bunched the tarp, tucked it under the rowboat’s bench seat. ‘Hawser. Like rope ain’t a good enough goddam word.’
Ray tied the boat to the buoy and rang the buoy bell.
‘Quit messin with that bell, ya goddam bollard. Ringin it to tell the Coast Guard we got two dead folks out on the ice. I can barely see you through the snow. C’mon, Ray, let’s git this done. I wanna dump these stiffs and go apologise to my shorty, see if she’ll let me put my hand up her shirt.’
Ray looked away.
‘Aw hell. Dag. Sorry, Ray.’
Ray rang the buoy bell again, just once. ‘That hole right there that the hawser’s goin through on the boat?’
José squinted. ‘You’re about to work my last nerve, ain’t you?’
‘That’s a chock.’
José smacked the back of Ray’s head. ‘Grab the blue feller’s foot there and let’s drag this mess to the water.’
The sunset split the clouds and lit the river red for a second before it died. The wind gusted, smelled like the water, sweet funk and salt. ‘Little warmer out here, huh?’ Ray walked right to the edge of the freeze.
‘When’d you get so balls out all of a sudden?’ José said. ‘Can’t look a girl in the eyes but now he’s darin death on the ice.’
‘Hell, I forgot to bring weights to tie round the blue folks’ ankles. Now they’re gonna float.’
‘Nah,’ José said. ‘They’re heavy as hell. They’ll sink sure enough.’
‘They’re frozen, right? Look at all the ice on the river. Ice floats, man.’
‘Well then float they will. I ain’t goin back for cinderblock now.’
‘Next time we gotta remember to bring brick.’
‘Next time, huh? Ray, ain’t no next time. This is the last river funeral I’m comin to anyways. This is creepy as hell, drownin these dead folks here. Let’s go. Let’s dump ’em.’
‘Wait,’ Ray said. ‘Should we say somethin, like a prayer or some damn thing?’
‘You know any goddam prayers? Aw hell. You cryin now, son?’
‘Hell no,’ Ray said. ‘I got a cold comin.’
‘You don’t even know these folks.’
‘It’s like this ain’t real. Like there’s not one real thing left, know what I’m sayin?’
‘No, Ray, I don’t know what you’re sayin. Fuck it all, will ya look at him now?’ José sighed, chucked his arm over Ray’s shoulder. ‘Ray, look here. In half a hour we’re gonna be watchin the fights on HBO, droppin beers and smokin full-strength Marlboros, okay? Reds. We’ll get a pizza each. Now suck it up. C’mon now, bud, it’s gettin dark. Let’s push ’em in.’
They pushed the bodies off the ice into the river. The bodies plopped, sank, came up stuck together. The tide took them fast north.
‘Sad, huh?’
‘You kill me, son. You’ll be my death. Sad, he says. Like a damn girl. Go untie the boat. I gotta piss.’
His fingers numb, Ray had a hard time digging out the knot.
‘You’re cookin me a good dinner tonight for this one, bitch. You owe me big, gettin me out here. And you’re cleanin the damn dishes too—daggit, look at this mess now.’ The wind switched, blew José’s pee back at him. He spun west to pee with the wind. ‘You’re sad is what’s sad.’
Ray popped the slipknot. The wind grabbed the boat, blew it toward the open water. ‘I got it.’ Ray ran after the boat.
‘Leave it, son,’ José said. ‘We’ll steal another one. Yo, Ray, let it go!’
Ray dove to the ice, grabbed the hawser line just as the boat was about to hit the water. ‘Lemme ask you somethin, J.’
‘Answer’s no.’
Ray stood up, dusted the ice off his pants, took a step over what looked like a healed crack in the ice and said, ‘If there’s no heaven, you think there’s a—’ as he fell through the ice.
13
The water was black.
The tide slurped Ray out into open river so cold it burned. A slick animal grabbed his legs. Eel?
The blue folks.
‘Ah!’ Ray screamed underwater, regretting the scream for the air it had cost him.
Not the blue folks. José. He pulled Ray upward.
The J-man yelled underwater, then above water as he and Ray broke the surface, ‘—on’t let go of that thing!’
‘What thing!’
‘The hawser, man! In your hand! Gimme that.’
Ray had been holding the towrope the whole time. He and José reeled in the boat.
‘How we get up and into it now?’ José’s teeth chattered.
Ray’s teeth too. ‘Here’s how we gotta do it—ah! Cold!’
‘How? How we d-do it?’
‘You one side, me th’other. Pull up the same time. So’s we don’t—’
‘So’s we don’t tip it,’ José said. ‘Ah! Daaag! Hoooo chu-hilly!’
‘You laughin?’
The tide pulled them fast into the middle of the river. José swung around to the other side of the rowboat. ‘Ready? One, two, three.’
They kicked up and pulled. José grabbed the seat bench and humped himself into the boat. Ray, much heavier, pulled his side down into the water. José leaned back to balance the boat as he grabbed at Ray. Ray swung up into the boat, but the boat had taken on water, three inches by the time it sloshed and spread over the boat’s floor.
Ray didn’t know what was worse, being in the river or on it. The wind sizzled him in his wet clothes. He puked what was left of the morning’s pancakes into the river. José chucked up Cap’n Crunch.
‘Where’s the oars?’ Ray said between coughs.
‘I left ’em back in the shed. Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t think we was gonna put the boat in the water, Ray.’
‘Sure, why would a boat go in water of all things?’
‘In Febriary, asshole?’
Ray paddled with his hands, but the water was too cold. ‘Burns!’
‘Get your fool hands out the water. We’re the tide’s boys now. Freezin to death out on the river. That’s just lame with no glory to it.’
Ray punched the gunnels. ‘Why’d you have to jump in?’
>
‘Scarface don’t play, baby. The Scar gets his friends to where they got to go, word up.’
‘Hate you, man.’
‘Yeah, and I’m thrilled with you.’
‘Yo, I just rode a half year a juvie ’cause you just had to get a goddam used Ninja!’
‘I didn’t tell you to drive into a tree! Raymundo of Ten Mile River, patron saint a the fuckin squirrels.’
Ray swung at José, José ducked, swung back. The boat rocked, the boys stilled and stared at each other. Ray laughed and cried.
José just laughed. ‘Help me roll out the tarp.’
They rolled out the tarp, used it to bail the water, doubled the tarp, huddled under it back to back, shuddering. José took off his jacket, then his shirt.
Ray howled.
‘Go ’head and fun me, but you oughta do the same. Get some a that water off you.’ José wrung out his shirt over the side.
‘My blubber-a keep me warm. Good day to be a fat boy.’
‘All them extra cheese slices finally paid off, huh?’ José chattered as he put on his shirt. ‘Wind’s west. We’ll make Jersey before long. I never been to a foreign state before.’
They were in the wide water now, the tide fast north.
The bottom of the boat was icy, but their tarp cover trapped warm air around them as their bodies shivered to make heat.
‘Smells like juvie under here, huh?’ José said.
‘Puke if I could.’
‘Tell me words. Like bollard and hawser and stuff.’
‘Too cold. I forget all the words to everything.’
‘I don’t wanna know any more fancy words anyhow. I’m about to fall asleep, you believe it?’
‘Me too. Maybe we’re freezin to death.’
‘Maybe we’re just exhausted because some jackass got us swimmin in the winter river.’ José yawned.
The tide yanked the rowboat north up the Hudson toward the George Washington Bridge.
Ray couldn’t keep his eyes open. He shivered himself into what he hoped was the last sleep.
He hadn’t closed his eyes more than fifteen minutes when a moan woke him, then a gasp. He jumped to a sit.
‘It’s the ice,’ José said. ‘It’s breakin up.’
‘How come you didn’t wake me?’ Ray said.
‘I tried but you batted away my hand.’