Intruder

by Peter Blauner

  “Good man.”

  Philip pats him on the back and they cross the outfield toward the wrought-iron fence. Philip’s flashlight quickly finds the opening they saw John G. go through and the three of them squeeze between the bars. They make their way along the ledge and then drop down, one by one, onto the tracks.

  The first thing that strikes Jake as he struggles to get his flashlight working is that it’s the darkest place he’s ever been. Even by shutting his eyes, he’s never experienced such blackness. Philip’s flashlight illuminates a foot or two of track before them and Ronnie’s sneaker lights blink faintly behind them, but otherwise there’s nothing. Not even vague shapes or nuances. This must be what it’s like inside a coffin.

  There’s a shivering sound, like an electric current snaking through the tracks.

  Jake takes his first steps carefully, trying to figure out where the third rail might be. His left leg still hurts a little from the bicycle accident and he has the uneasy feeling that people are watching him.

  “Freaky deaky,” Ronnie mumbles.

  But Philip’s flashlight is already pushing on ahead, challenging them to follow. Something passes lightly over Jake’s left foot, and a second later, he realizes that it might have been a rat. Every nerve in his body is straining, telling him to go back home, fix himself a drink, and snuggle up in bed with Dana. But if he leaves now, he’s a coward. Not just in Philip’s eyes, but in his own. He finally gets the flashlight working and moves to catch up with Philip.

  The tracks begin to curve around to the left and Jake smells leaves burning in the distance. The smells of September. After a few seconds, he catches a glimpse of fire.

  Philip’s beam moves toward it quickly, lighting up sections of track, old hubcaps, and stray garbage along the path. The flame is about forty yards away, under a rounded stone archway. A wild orange light throws shadows of crude housing against the walls.

  “Welcome back to Planet of the Apes,” says Ronnie.

  The sound of rolling tin approaches. Closing in from the right.

  “Stop your mouth,” says Philip.

  He swings his flashlight beam toward the noise, splashing Jake’s face with light before he finds a short one-armed man with a shopping cart full of cans. He’s like some kind of drugged-out troll with his ripped clothes and burnt-looking scalp.

  “Ow, my eyes. What’re you doing, man?”

  “Where’s the other guy?” Philip says.

  The man shields his face with the one arm. “Who?”

  “We’re looking for John Gates,” Jake speaks up. “The white guy who wears the MTA shirt.”

  “John G.?” says the troll, making the name sound like a curse. “He lives over in the suburbs with Rat Man.”

  He points to the fire under the archway on the left. “Hey, Abaham!” he calls out. “Company! Man wants to talk to John G.”

  A black man’s voice answers from somewhere under the archway, but the words are lost in the rumble of West Side Highway traffic overhead.

  Philip’s flashlight beam moves toward the sound but finds only a flaming oil drum.

  “Abraham, come the fuck out, man!” the troll yells. “These people came to see youse guys.”

  More rats scurrying. The shivering sound again. Jake glances behind him and sees that the lights at the south end of the tunnel are gone. There’s no easy way to turn back.

  “Who’s that calling out my name?” Abraham shouts.

  Jake raises his flashlight and sees a tall black guy in a baseball cap stepping from behind the fire. As he comes toward them, dreadlocks swing like a ragged curtain around his head.

  “Yo, get that shit outta my eyes,” he says. “You tryin’ to blind me?”

  Jake moves the beam away from his face and sees a second shadowy figure emerge from behind the fire. Bony hips, lopsided walk. There’s no mistaking John G.’s silhouette.

  “Yo, whatchoo you looking for, man?” says Abraham, moving out of the light’s beam as he approaches. “This is my tunnel. Who invited you down here?”

  As Philip moves past him to confront Abraham, Jake catches a sour tart odor with a sting on the end of it. House scotch. It takes a couple of seconds to fully register that his new friend has been drinking. He suddenly has a vision of himself tied to a huge rock rolling down a steep hill.

  “We’re not interested in you,” Philip says to Abraham. “It’s your friend we wanna talk to.”

  “Well, he’s with me,” says Abraham. “You wanna talk to him, you talk to me.”

  Jake hears the tap of metal on metal to his right. Ronnie touching one of the rails with his aluminum bat; he better watch it, or he’ll catch six hundred volts. A train horn blares.

  Philip raises his flashlight again and shines it in Abraham’s eyes.

  “Whaddya, deaf, asshole? I just said I don’t wanna talk to you. I wanna talk to your friend.”

  “Yo, what’d I tell you, man, about keeping that light outta my eyes?”

  Jake moves his flashlight beam around until he finds John G. standing a little bit behind Abraham, wobbling and squinting as if he’s just waking up from general anesthetic.

  Again, he seems so vulnerable. Jake has to remind himself that Gates almost caused him to get hit by a car the other night.

  The train horn sounds again, getting closer. The Albany-to-Washington. The red lights in Ronnie’s sneakers blink.

  “I just want you to leave my family alone,” Jake tells John G., trying to wrap things up so they can all go home. “We don’t want any more problems with you.”

  “Yo, you’re the one with the problem,” Abraham interrupts. “Get the fuck outta my tunnel.”

  Ronnie hits the rail two more times with his bat, as if he’s starting to tap out a warning signal. The lights in his sneakers go on and off a little faster.

  “Just stay away from my family,” Jake tells John G.

  “Yo, this is my family down here.” Abraham breaks in again. “You stay away!”

  The five of them are converging on the tracks, with the third rail somewhere in between. Ronnie keeps hitting the steel with his baseball bat. Gates seems to be shrinking before Jake’s flashlight beam. The one-armed man is pulling away with his shopping cart, as if he senses something bad is about to happen.

  Philip keeps a steady beam shining in Abraham’s face. Now that Jake knows he’s been drinking, the scotch stench is overwhelming.

  “All right, guys, let’s get outta here.” Jake shines his light toward the south end of the tunnel, showing the way out. “I think we’ve made our point.”

  The southbound train is almost visible. A hard tiny circle of light appears at the north end of the tunnel coming toward them.

  But Philip and Abraham have moved closer and are now face-to-face in the middle of the tracks, with Philip blinking the flashlight on and off in the taller man’s eyes. They’re like a couple of ferocious Dobermans refusing to back away from each other on the street.

  “Take that fuckin’ flashlight outta my face before I shove it up your ass,” Abraham says in a measured voice.

  “Try it.” Philip flashes the light three more times and tightens the grip on the bat in his right hand.

  “Philip, gimme that.” Jake steps between them and tries to grab the bat from him.

  But Philip looks right through him and holds the bat aloft. “Get outta my way, Jake.”

  A cloud of belched-up alcohol passes between them and Jake suddenly realizes what a terrible mistake he’s made in trusting this man. He can hear the train’s wheels chugging down the tracks.

  “Come on, Philip, give it up.”

  He starts to reach for the bat again, but before he can get it, Ronnie blindsides him like a nose tackle. Jake stumbles forward and falls to one knee between two slats in the tracks. A bell rings in his head and a light flashes behind him. He turns and sees the Albany train bearing down on him less than a hundred yards away. Its light replaces the flashlight Philip has dropped.

  Jak
e looks over to his left just in time to see Philip swinging the bat at Abraham’s head. Both hands on the grip. The air slithers and sighs. Metal hits bone. There’s a hollow sickening pop and then Jake feels a light splatter of blood on his right cheek.

  For a moment, no one moves. The train light fills the tunnel and the sound of the wheels is almost deafening. Then Philip steps off the tracks. Abraham starts to crumble, grasping for air with his hands as if he’s falling off the side of a building.

  He lands on one of the rails and then rolls away as a tiny spark goes off.

  Jake struggles to his feet and jumps off to the left of the tracks just as the train goes by.

  In the flickering light from the passenger cars, he sees John G., also on this side, backing away and waving his arms in panic. Philip and Ronnie are after him like herky-jerky figures in an old nickelodeon movie with frames missing. Philip cracks Gates across the left temple with his bat and Ronnie catches him clean in the midsection with a level swing. John G. doubles up and Jake comes stumbling over, trying to break it up.

  But before he can get there, a sharp blow to the back of his head reduces everything to black again.

  When Jake comes to, Philip and Ronnie each have him by an arm and they’re dragging him down the track, back toward the open south end of the tunnel.

  “Yo, you see that shit?” says Ronnie.

  “What?” asks Philip.

  “The spark. You know. The spark from the track just before the train came. You fried that nigger.”

  “I didn’t see any spark.”

  “You must’ve dropped him on the third rail, cuz.”

  “Ah, that’s terrible,” says Philip. “They’re supposed to have those things covered. Somebody could get hurt down here.”

  They both start laughing.

  “What did you do?” says Jake, only now realizing Philip hit him from behind.

  “Ha?” says Philip, sounding irritated.

  “What the fuck did you do? You fucking killed a man. You may have killed two men. Are you fucking crazy?”

  “Jake, it hadda be,” says Philip.

  “But we can’t just leave the scene of a crime.” Jake drags his heels, trying to force them to stop and turn back.

  “Look, I’m not gonna stand here and argue with you.” Philip almost jerks Jake’s right arm out of its socket. “What’s done is done.”

  Again, Jake is aware that dozens of eyes are watching them from the tunnel’s dark corners and recesses.

  “We should call the police,” he says.

  “You do and you’ll go to jail with us. You know what the law is, Counselor. You’re an accessory to murder.”

  Jake’s stomach feels like a bloody abattoir. “But I didn’t know things were going to turn out this way.”

  “Like hell, you didn’t. You wanted to get rid of him. This is what it takes.”

  This is what it takes. Philip touches Jake on the arm with the baseball bat. “Look, this is gonna have to be our secret,” he says, hurrying Jake along. “We can’t tell anybody what happened here tonight.”

  “We’re gonna have to stick together,” says Ronnie, pulling hard on Jake’s left arm.

  “Yeah, like family,” says Philip.

  It’s another couple of minutes before they reach the ledge and climb back through the opening in the fence. The park is deserted. Dozens of pigeons sit on top of the batting cage. Across the river, the lights of New Jersey glitter like a thousand accusing eyes.

  Jake finally tears himself out of Philip’s grip and goes to stand at the edge of the outfield, trying to catch his breath. The whole time he was underground, he’d been praying for the moment when he could surface again and rejoin the world of the living. But now that he’s back, he feels as if he doesn’t quite belong here anymore. Even the cool September air feels wrong in his lungs.

  His life has just been divided into two halves: everything that happened before tonight and everything that will happen afterward.

  25

  John G.’s ribs feel broken. His face is sticky with blood and his legs are weak. His head is a bell full of pain. He keeps waiting to go into shock, so that he won’t be able to feel anything. He wants to be numb. But numbness doesn’t come. He still feels too much.

  Keep moving. Keep moving. The men with the bats could be along any minute to finish him off. It’s not just the Haldol that’s been kicking in again lately. Fear has shot a hot wire into his brain and brought him to rapt attention. Every detail of what’s just happened is now tattooed on his memory: the flashlights, the train approaching, the baseball bats, Mr. Schiff’s voice calling out, telling them to stop.

  He keeps limping along the tracks, dragging himself from the scene. He’s too scared to go back and see about Abraham. All he’s about at the moment is hurting and moving. Through the dark, past the grate by the boat basin garage, around the bend at Seventy-ninth Street, beyond the yellowing burlap tent with the light flickering inside.

  For a brief second, he’s back in Father Tortora Park in Patchogue. Playing cowboys and Indians. I’m a good guy. I’m a bad guy. Come get me. Bang, bang. Ka-chow. Hide behind the rock. You’re dead. No, I’m not. You just think I’m dead. Come get me, sucker.

  But then he remembers that Abraham is dead. It’s no game. That burly light-haired guy with Mr. Schiff beat his brains in with a baseball bat. Slaughtered him like an animal. He keeps seeing the spark off the third rail where he fell.

  There’s no time for mourning, though. The men with the bats could be along any second.

  He goes staggering on, the pain in his head spreading down his spine and curling up through his stomach. With each step, he gives a little involuntary yelp. I’m a good guy. I’m a bad guy. He hears something scurrying along behind him and realizes it’s just more rats. Gotta keep moving. An old Doors song is playing on a distant radio. “I tell you this, no eternal reward will forgive us now . . .”

  What’s the point? Why not give up? Why not stop and wait for them to catch up and finish him off? What’s there left to live for? Back in Patchogue, he’d be standing up from behind the rock, throwing his hands in the air, shouting, I quit, I’m going home, I’m taking my guns and my hat with me. Expecting to find his mother with a drink by the stove as he walks in, seeing him and singing, “He’s a root-tootin’, high-falutin’ Cowboy Joe.”

  But here in the tunnel, a slant of light beckons from a grating at Eighty-sixth Street. Though it’s only street light, his shoulders hunch forward and his knees refuse to buckle.

  It’s as if his body still has the will to live, even after his mind has surrendered. Damn it. Against his heart’s desire to lie down and die, he keeps moving toward the light. Left foot, right foot. I’m a good guy. I’m a bad guy.

  26

  Tired, sullen, bruised, and confused, Jake makes his way back to the comfort of his marriage bed. The steam from a hot shower is still rising from his body and his pores feel open but somehow not clean.

  It’s too late to call another lawyer about what’s just happened. He’s not even sure he should make a statement to the DA at this point.

  He turns to spoon Dana from behind, wanting to feel nothing more than the assurance of her body heat and the rhythm of her breathing. Instead, she squirms away from him, as if even in slumber she senses something’s wrong.

  “Where were you?” she asks, still three-quarters asleep.

  “Just doing some work.”

  She rolls onto her side, making little smacking noises with her mouth. “Todd Bracken called for you.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know. Ten-thirty.”

  He freezes for a moment, caught in the lie. Was Todd calling from the office? Does she know Jake wasn’t there?

  “I was out meeting a client,” he says.

  She’s already on her stomach and asleep.

  He lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling, wondering how he could’ve broken their bond of trust so easily. It’s not that he�
�s never lied to her before. It’s just that he’s never lied about anything that truly mattered. There’ve been no affairs, no hidden bank accounts, no deep family secrets. He’s always told her about every case he’s had, even when she wasn’t particularly interested. The witnesses, the depositions, the judges, the motions. The only thing he’s ever held back from her, he realizes, is the murder in his own heart.

  Weird-shaped shadows stretch across the ceiling. Car windows, elongated tree branches, telephone wires. The street is absolutely silent, though. John G. is gone. Instead, there is dripping. Hardly discernible at first. But a steady tap-tap-tap over Jake’s head.

  From living in an apartment most of his life, he’s grown used to sounds from other people’s homes—babies crying, couples arguing, glasses breaking, water rushing. He remembers standing outside his own parents’ bedroom and hearing the violence in his father’s voice threatening to bring the walls down.

  His father was the angriest man he’d ever known. Other immigrants found success and opportunity in the New World; Gregor Schafransky found only justification for his precious outrage. The rest of the family came over from Poland just before the war and flourished in the plumbing supply business. For a while, they tried to support Gregor by giving him a job as a salesman, but he had neither the aptitude nor the temperament. He retreated into drink and blamed everyone else for his problems. He clashed with the relatives repeatedly and wound up working behind the counter of a deli on Stillwell Avenue. His only true accomplishments were the beatings he doled out to his wife and his resented son.

  He was the Joe DiMaggio of wife beaters, the Muhammad Ali of domestic abuse. He beat them with righteous fury and with blind drunken abandon. For insanely specific reasons and for general discontent. It wasn’t that he was violent all the time; that would’ve been more manageable. There was no telling what would set him off. Too many bottles of ketchup in the cupboard, not enough beer in the refrigerator, newspapers on the bathroom floor, a pair of glasses lost. Once he brought home lamb chops from the deli and when Jake couldn’t finish eating them, his father beat him until he vomited. Then he demanded the boy eat what was left on his plate.