Samaritan

by Richard Price

  “Arletta, Ray, I’m so fucking proud of her. I mean talk about a vertical climb, you know what I’m saying? And if you think I’m lucky to duck the Package? It’s God, Ray. He knew she had to put on that play. He knew she had to bring our twins into this world, to, to help me get where I had to go. Are you OK?”

  “What?”

  “Are you crying?”

  “No,” coughing into his fist, the flesh beneath his eyes feeling dense, as if packed with damp sand, Ray right then once again just wanting to do something—something clear-eyed and right and good, something selfless yet to the heart of him, to find that thing, that place, and stand fast; commitment, not flourish; commitment, not gesture. To stand fast, to stand fast, to stand fast—the ferocity of his yearnings reawakening that drilling ache—but with the pain this time came, uninvited, his memory of the assault, the shame of it; and then self-loathing began to rise in him like a watery acid.

  “It’s your heart, Ray. That big heart of yours.”

  “The fuck it is,” he muttered, but Tom, starting to get all teary too, hadn’t heard him.

  “I want for you to meet Arletta, man. And I want you to meet the twins.”

  “Sure,” Ray said hoarsely.

  “My boys, you know what their middle names are? Sosa and McGwire. Eric Sosa, Maceo McGwire. Well, you remember me with baseball.”

  Ray nodded, it being way too late to say, I don’t remember you at all.

  “All right.” Tom wiped his eyes. “Back to business. This place here?” swirling a hand to take in the bodega. “You know what I want to do? Rip all this shit out, the shelves, the counters, the cuchifritos, everything. Then I’m gonna put it back together like it was, like the Mope had it, like we had it. Lunch counter with stools, those Formica tables along the windows, you know, with those red vinyl banquettes, put back the soda pumps . . . I’m even going to sell comic books again . . . But you know what I’d really be selling with all this? I’d be selling a safe haven for those kids out there.” He tilted his chin to the courts across the street, and finally Ray remembered him, remembered Tommy Potenza, last image first, a visit back to the old neighborhood about twenty years ago, after his parents and everybody else had moved out, coming upon Tommy, a guy from the opposite end of the projects, a guy he only knew by face, who at that moment on that day was sitting by himself on the low cement ledge bordering the handball courts, his back against the chain-link fence. Tommy had left no impression on Ray of being stoned that day, but he was definitely on the wrong side of eighteen to be still hanging there, the playground packed with the new generation of Hopewell kids; black, Dominican, Puerto Rican—Tommy sitting alone, still dressed like a thirteen-year-old in ill-fitting jeans, red high-tops and a wrinkled white T-shirt, just sitting there flaccid-faced, staring out at the action as if he were in a daze—as if he were stranded, so lost and stranded, Ray now imagined, that he had to be rechristened White Tom.

  “And Ray, let me tell you,” Tom brought him back, “those kids out there? I set this place up like I want? They will come. They’ll come in here every day after school, get a Coke, a candy bar and two packs of baseball cards. They’ll sit at those tables and do their homework. And if they’re a little light in the pocket? Depending on the kid? What’s his home situation? If he’s, you know, retrievable? That kid’s got a tab with me.”

  Ray smiled, looked off. White Tom was starting to sound like George describing the rabbit farm to Lenny.

  “And they’ll come, Ray. They’ll come in droves because the shit’s so fucked out there, so utterly fucked . . .

  “And along with every Coke, every Hershey bar, they’ll get a free antidrug lecture. You want to hear my lecture?”

  And before Ray could beg out, White Tom took a further step back, removed his sunglasses, removed his teeth, lifted then pinioned the hem of his shirt under his chin, and raised his arms from his sides, inviting Ray to see him: the swollen bluish gut, the caved-in chest, the caved-in mouth, the eyes steady enough, but cracked and starred like fried marbles; the picture as a whole a great antidrug visual but a disaster as a sales tool for bringing investors on board.

  “Remember that song?” He put back his teeth, his shades. “‘Every picture tells a story, don’t it’ . . . ?”

  “Right,” Ray said faintly. This planned takeover would never happen. Whether the guy behind the register got arrested or not, whether the bodega got padlocked or not, White Tom Potenza taking ownership here would never come to pass; he was sure of it.

  “So anyways, it’s my understanding that it’ll run me about ten, eleven thousand for the back taxes, another four, five to grease various wheels. Now, Daddy Warbucks I’m not. Obviously. Nonetheless that’s OK, because to tell you the truth I have a few silent partners on board, a couple of housing cops if you can believe it, and these guys are coming in on this, putting their money where their mouth is, because they share my vision, my, my commitment . . .

  “Plus, I got a guy in my meeting can hook me up for the fixtures and furniture, counter stools, chairs, tables, dishes glasses pumps spigots refrigerator dishwasher. Another guy in the meeting can wire me into meat, bread, produce, anything along that line. I mean it’s not like it’s not gonna cost, but I’m getting rock-bottom prices every step of the way.”

  It would never happen; Ray was both saddened and relieved.

  “So, in addition to what it’s gonna cost me to take title, from what I’ve been told, I’m looking at maybe between thirty and forty thousand to open the doors. But you know what, Ray? I know you’re bracing yourself for the big touch here, but I’m not asking you for a dime. I’m going to First Dempsy and let them pay for it. All I’m asking you for, is to walk into that bank with me and cosign the loan. Now, I know you’re thinking, Who the fuck does this guy think he is hitting on me . . .”

  “Not at all,” Ray said, then stalling for a graceful way out, “So whatever happened to the Mope. Did he die?”

  “By now, I’d assume so, but no, he was just getting robbed every week, got sick of it and sold the place. I’m talking twenty years ago.”

  “Robbed. How do you know that won’t happen to you?”

  “How do I know? Because the Mope didn’t have cops as partners and the Mope wasn’t packing this.”

  White Tom turned his back to Ray, then lifted his shirt again, this time revealing a .25 automatic snugly tucked against the base of his spine.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Ray said. “You pay the back taxes, take title, then come back at me and I’ll do what I can.”

  Tommy cocked his head and studied Ray’s eyes; a half-smile playing on his face.

  “What,” Ray said self-consciously.

  “Come here.” Tommy raised his arms, Ray stepping in for another hug. “You’re wrong, you know,” he said in Ray’s ear. “This is most definitely gonna happen.”

  “The fuck, man . . .” Lazaro, the owner, his daughter riding his shoulders like a circus queen, came up on them. “What are you guys doing back here?”

  “Lazaro, this is my boy Ray, from back in the day.”

  Ray extended his hand, Lazaro taking it, sizing him up.

  “We just got caught up in catching up,” Tommy said easily.

  “You buying something or what. ’Cause in five minutes I’m putting a fuckin’ meter back here.”

  “Hey, sweetheart.” White Tom wiggled his fingers at the little girl up top, some vestigial junkie amorality in his false playfulness.

  A moment later, as Ray followed Tom to the door, he took a last glance at Lazaro, his pregnant wife and his daughter, all now absorbed in a Spanish soap on a miniature TV behind the counter, the three of them as serene as if they were cruising down a highway, oblivious to the head-on that was waiting for them just a few miles down the road.

  “Buckle your seat belts, huh?” White Tom Potenza said under his breath as he pushed through to the street.

  Standing in front of the bodega, just as Ray was about to go his own way, White
Tom startled and embarrassed him by reaching out and taking his limp right hand out of its pocket pouch and holding it in both of his own, gently turning it palm up and then down, before letting it retreat into its unnatural curl.

  “You gots to do that physical therapy, my man. No joke.”

  “I know, I know.” Ray turned his head away.

  “And beware of this shit,” flicking the Vicodin bottle in Ray’s shirt with a fingernail.

  “Here . . .” Ray impulsively tossed them in the general direction of a sewer grate, shame once again working its magic. “OK?”

  “Can I ask you something?” White Tom said, ignoring Ray’s invitation to applaud. “Not that it’s any of my business, but how come you won’t tell Neesy who gave you the tune-up?”

  “How come?” Ray tasting that rising acid again. “I don’t know. Maybe because I had it coming?”

  To his surprise, White Tom simply nodded.

  Ray stood alone outside the basketball fence, scanning the action as if he were looking for somebody. And when he finally got himself into gear, cutting through Big Playground again in order to get to his car, he became aware this time of the boy-girl thing; the sweet slow walk of the teenaged Hopewell girls, both languid and alert as they sashayed past the games; and in response to their presence, the self-conscious herky-jerk moves of the boys as they muscled their way to the baskets; this fenced-in arena still, as it was in his time, suffused with a nearly unbearable sexual longing.

  As he came up on the smaller kiddie playground again, he spied Carla Powell leaving one of the projects’ laundry rooms, lugging a shopping cart stuffed with four pillowcases’ worth of wash.

  She looked lumpy and tired, hauling the cart after her just like Ray’s mother had back in the sixties; like her own mother had too.

  Catching her in the midst of this eternal drudgery, he was struck with the weight of what it must feel like to have never left this place, or to have left but failed out there and had to return; to metamorphose from one of the tireless ever-burning kids to one who’s now worn down by them, vexed by them.

  On the other hand, Ray thought, despite the scars and traumas of her younger life, despite her current catalogue of ailments both physical and mental, Carla, much like White Tom and most likely his ex-dope-fiend wife, Arletta, had somehow emerged in middle age in possession of a certain battered presence; had emerged as a rock for others, a bulwark against her family’s disintegration—picking up the ones that fall off the back of the truck, Danielle had said—had emerged as so much more than a mere survivor.

  Yet despite their hard-fought victories, Ray often sensed an air of fragility around people like these, a distinct possibility that they could just as easily come apart again as not. Recalling White Tom’s advice to never take his eye off the Darkness, he imagined that their only defense against this coming to pass was an acute awareness of their condition; Carla, Arletta, White Tom and all the others like them endlessly needing to itemize for themselves what and who would be lost if they ever gave in.

  Watching Carla make her way through the projects, Ray initially had no intention of talking to her—she’d most likely freak, about the loan, her daughter, his assault—but finally, he just couldn’t help himself and called out her name.

  Either she didn’t hear him or she recognized his voice and just kept walking. Ray watched her head down the hill, waiting for her to disappear into his old building before taking the same path to get to his car.

  Once he was on the move again, he saw a tall elderly white woman coming up the hill toward him with a small bag of groceries, both of them slowing down as they closed the gap, hesitatingly checking each other out.

  She was Dolores Rosen, chalk white and papery now, the mother of one of his childhood friends, another of the stranded ones; everybody coming out of the woodwork today. But not wanting to stop and talk, not wanting to be the kid again, Ray simply walked on without acknowledging her, but catching out of the corner of his eye, as he did, her tentatively outstretched hand.

  Chapter 30

  Interview—February 27

  Pulling into the narrow driveway of the brick two-family house on Taylor Street, Nerese looked up and saw Freddy and Danielle waiting for her on the small porch outside their second-story apartment, the light streaming out of the living room window directly behind them casting their joined silhouettes monstrously large against the facades of the identically constructed brick two-families across the street.

  As she trudged up the short flight of cement stairs they watched her, silently tracking her progress like cats.

  “Whoo,” she huffed, hand to chest, putting it on a little. “So . . .”

  “Here’s the deal,” Freddy said, looking away from her. “You want to talk with him, fine. But we’re both in there with you.”

  “No.” Nerese shrugged. “Here’s what my boss’ll go for. Me and the boy alone. His mother could be in the next room listening in, but she’s got to be out of his sight. And frankly, I would prefer for you to not even be in the house, OK?”

  “Right.” Freddy snorted. “Who do you think you’re talking to with that ‘And frankly’ crap. Forget it. I’m there.”

  “Well, if you insist on being around then you have to be outside the room with your wife. Anything you hear me say rubs you the wrong way? You’re free to come in and stop me. But, and here I’m using that ‘And frankly’ crap again, frankly, unless you have something to hide, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  Danielle nodded in agreement but Freddy shook his head in emphatic rejection.

  “I’m in the room.”

  Nerese took five, studying the solid street of blue-collar houses, an unidentifiable waft of third-world dinner floating past her from up the block.

  “Look.” She slowly turned her eyes to him. “I need to clear you. You need to get cleared. Do you honestly think anything out of that boy’s mouth is going to be worth a damn to me with you sitting right next to him?”

  Freddy and Danielle’s apartment was overstuffed, spotless and far too bright; two chandeliers in sight of each other going full blast; one suspended above a seven-piece living room ensemble, the other hanging over a dining table in the adjoining alcove, this L-shaped common room almost chased free of shadows.

  Nelson sat dwarfed in the middle of a high-backed royal blue couch, beneath a painting of the Last Supper which was illuminated by two small bulbs, an electrical cord nakedly kinking down from the bottom of the picture frame until it disappeared behind the boy’s head.

  He seemed slack with dread, sitting there slouched down and gape-mouthed, staring at Nerese with bottomed-out eyes, his hands lying lifelessly, palms up, on either side of him.

  Although they could both hear his parents shuffling restlessly in the kitchen beyond the dining nook, the boy seemed completely focused on Nerese, who sat facing him, perched on the edge of a coffee table, their knees almost touching.

  “That’s healing up nice,” Nerese said, tapping her lower lip.

  Nelson stared at her as if she hadn’t spoken yet.

  “I doubt you’re even going to have a scar.”

  Again the nonreaction, the kid most likely bracing for the bad stuff, deaf to any small talk. Nonetheless Nerese kept it up, needing something, a smile, a blink, some tip-off as to how Nelson was put together.

  “You a Steelers fan?” She nodded at his oversize black-and-yellow jersey.

  “What?”

  “Pittsburgh.”

  Nelson looked down at himself as if someone else had dressed him this morning.

  “Nelson, my name’s Nerese. Do you remember me? I was here two nights ago, we talked a little at the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She smiled. “You know why I’m here?”

  “Yes.” Once again that clipped wariness, Nerese thinking, This kid has been prepped, has been warned, and is now terrified of fucking up.

  She turned to look behind her, see if Freddy or Dani
elle had popped into his sight line, then angled herself on the coffee table so that she could keep an eye on the wall between the kitchen and dining alcove.

  “I’m trying to find out what happened to Mr. Mitchell a few weeks back. Or Ray. What did you call him?”

  He shrugged, said something that didn’t quite make it past his lips.

  “I didn’t hear you, sweetie.” Leaning in.

  “I didn’t call him anything,” he said.

  “But you heard about what happened to him, right? Somebody came into his house, hurt him bad enough to put him in the hospital. You know that, right?”

  “Yes.” His eyes briefly moved past her to the wall shielding his parents.

  “Anyways”—Nerese touched his knee to get him back—“I have a hunch, Nelson, that you can help me find out who did this to the guy just by answering a few simple questions. Are you up for that?”

  “OK.” His mouth remained open after the response.

  “And by the way,” touching him again. “He’s fine, Mr. Mitchell. Pretty much fully recovered, just doing his thing, so right now it’s mainly just me being curious as to what happened, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “All right then. Now. Before we start? I have to lay down some ground rules. Well, really just one. And that is, whatever I ask you? It’s very important that you tell me the truth. But, telling me the truth means, other than saying what you know? It also means that if I ask you something and you don’t know the answer? Then you say to me, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I don’t remember.’ The worst thing you can do is to make something up because it’s what you think I want to hear, OK? Even if you’re doing it because you’re a great kid and you’re trying to help me, that one little lie will make everything else you say sound like a lie and next thing you know I can’t find my behind with two hands and a road map, OK?”