“Hey, you.” I messed her hair. “What’s been going on with you lately?”
She hugged me and said, “Nothing.” Then she stepped back, twisting up her face. “You stink, Moe. You smell like Aunt Gertie’s hall closet. Do you have perfume on or something?”
“Don’t be a wise guy or I’ll give you such a smack.”
She put up her fists like an old-time fighter. “Sure you will. I’ll show you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I put my dukes up too. “Come on, tough girl.” I gave her a light slap on the top of her head.
She kicked me in the shin. “There!”
“Ow! That’s cheating.”
“I have to have some advantage. You’re bigger than me.”
“I’ll give you an advantage right in the jaw, you. Now get outta here and go do your homework, or I’ll kick you in the tush.”
As Miriam said, the call had been from Mindy’s dad. He’d left a phone number with a long distance area code, and detailed directions on how to get from Brooklyn up to the rehab hospital in Westchester County. The note also said Mr. Weinstock needed to speak to me as soon as possible.
“Seventh floor nurses’ station, Nurse Havemayer speaking,” said the woman at the other end of the line.
“Good afternoon.”
“Is it still afternoon?”
“Not for much longer,” I said. “It’s already getting pretty dark outside.”
“Sorry, how may I help you?”
“My name’s Moses Prager and my girlfriend’s father, Herb Weinstock, left me this number to call.”
“You’d be Mindy’s boyfriend then.”
“Yeah, but — ”
“Don’t be surprised, Mr. Prager. We spend a lot of time getting to know our patients and their families. Would you like me to get Mr. Weinstock for you?”
“I’d like that very much. Thanks.”
“I am going to put you on hold. Don’t hang up, okay?”
“Promise.”
A minute later, Herb Weinstock got on the phone. “Moe, how’ve you been?”
“A little worried I haven’t heard from you.”
“I understand, but we had to get Mindy settled in here and see what was what.”
“How’s Mindy doing? Is something wrong?”
“She’s awake, Moe. She’s not talking much yet, but our girl’s awake. She knows who we are and she can make herself understood. She’s a little bit confused about things, but the doctors say that’s normal with injuries like hers.”
“I see you left directions for me. You have any idea of when I’ll be allowed to come up?”
“How about now? Her doctor thinks seeing you would be good medicine for her.”
“I’m on my way.”
• • •
Due north of the Bronx, Westchester County was what most Brooklynites referred to as fancy-shmancy. Certainly, my relatives would have called it that. Westchester had lots of big old houses on big old lots, exclusive country clubs, and not many Jews or “coloreds.” I had little doubt that most of its churchgoing residents gave thanks every Sunday for those three blessings the Lord had bestowed upon them. I think I half expected the road sign welcoming me to the county to be shaped like a bottle of Scotch and to be painted like plaid golf pants.
For all of Westchester’s fancy-shmancy-ness, the first locale a traveler encounters as he or she crosses over the Bronx border is Yonkers, a gritty, working class city, not exactly New York State’s garden of Eden. Yonkers functions as a kind of demilitarized zone between the Bronx and the hoity-toity part of Westchester County, a buffer between the ghetto and the eighteenth green. For that reason alone I liked the place. That, and for its harness racing track. I don’t think I ever realized just how many horse racing venues there were in and around New York City. There was Aqueduct and Belmont, Yonkers, Roosevelt on Long Island, and Freehold in Jersey. But I guess that’s not so many, considering there used to be two racetracks just in my part of Brooklyn. Once upon a time they raced ponies in Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay. Back then, it seems, racetracks were like high schools: every neighborhood had to have one.
Night was in full bloom by the time I drove through the gates and up the long sloping driveway to the hospital parking lot. In spite of the dark, the grounds were sufficiently lit so that I could get a good idea of the rehab center’s bucolic setting. The hospital building itself was a tall, big brick rectangle that looked almost ridiculous perched among the low rolling hills and deep, seemingly endless woods that formed a natural wall around the place. Blankets of white snow still covered the hospital’s vast rolling lawns, even though it hadn’t snowed for days. Toto, we’re not in Yonkers anymore.
During the elevator ride up to the seventh floor, it hit me: what if the progress Mindy had made was all the progress she was ever going to make? I was no expert on head injuries, but even I knew life wasn’t like on TV or in the movies. You didn’t just wake up and have everything go back to normal. At a minimum, you lost some of your memory. At worst … I didn’t want to think about that. I knew it could get bad. There was this girl from high school, Gloria, who’d been hit by a car on Ocean Parkway. She’d banged her head pretty bad when she landed, and was in a coma for weeks. Most of her other injuries had healed pretty well, but when she came out of the coma she was like a different person. She was angry all the time. She didn’t like any of the food or clothes or music she’d liked before the accident. I’d been so obsessed with Mindy’s survival that I hadn’t ever considered what might lay ahead for her. Suddenly, I wanted to run. Elevator cars, however, kind of limit your options for egress, so when the doors opened on the seventh floor, I went in search of Nurse Havemayer.
You know how sometimes you’re sure you’ll recognize a person you’ve never met? Well, I thought it would be that way with Nurse Havemayer. I was wrong. I’d imagined the nurse would be kindly, sweet, and portly. Not all that different from my Angie at the Onion Street Pub, only without the updo and whiskey breath. Instead, another nurse pointed to a lovely, petite woman of some exotic Pacific extraction.
“Nurse Havemayer, I’m Moe Prager.”
She saw the question in my eyes. “Havemayer is my husband’s name,” she said, smiling up at me. “My clan name has too many vowels for most other Americans to pronounce. If I couldn’t still hear it in my head, I think I would have trouble with it too. Come, you’re here to see Mindy, not make small talk with me.” She took me by the arm and walked me down the hall. “Now listen to me, Moe.” Her tone was deadly serious.
“Yes.”
“Mindy is doing very well, and her doctors believe she should make a nice recovery.” Her use of the word nice in lieu of full did not escape me, but I said nothing. “She can speak a little, but no full sentences yet. You also have to keep in mind that she is still a bit confused. She also gets somewhat frustrated at her inability to express things fully. That’s normal. It’s even healthy … to a point. What we don’t want is for her to get agitated. Do you understand?”
“Yep. Don’t get her worked up.”
“Exactly.” She pulled me to a stop and knocked on the door. “Here we are. Her folks are inside. Remember, take it slow.”
I stepped into the room, my heart pounding. Mindy’s folks gave me a big hug both at once, their heartbreaking smiles dissolving into joyful tears. When they released me, I saw Mindy sitting up in bed, a broad smile on her face. And then, just like in the elevator, it hit me. In the few short days since I’d seen her last, my mind had wallpapered over what she looked like after the beating and replaced it with the image of her face as I had known it before: the hazel brown eyes, the full lips, the slightly crooked nose, the perfect jawline, and the curly brown hair that cascaded over her forehead like a storm. But that wasn’t the face I saw smiling at me. Her cheeks were swollen, purple with healing bruises. Her left eye was nearly squeezed shut with swelling. Her nose was no longer just slightly crooked, and a lot of her hair had been cut away. The cuts on her face were scab
bed over. As Nurse Havemayer had seen the question in my eyes, Mindy saw the horror. She put her hands to her face and turned away.
As she turned away, I turned to her folks. “Can you give us a few minutes?”
Her mom started to say, “Don’t get her — ”
“I know,” I said. “I won’t.”
When the door closed behind them, I walked straight over to the bed and gently turned Mindy to face me. I kissed her so desperately that I thought my heart might explode. The rest of the world fell away, and there seemed there was nothing between us. It had never been this way for us, not even when I was deep inside her and our bodies were in harmony. I’d never felt anything like it before and I doubted I ever would again. When I eased back, I saw that we were now both crying.
I said, “I love you.”
She blinked her eyes. I knelt by the side of the bed, resting my head on her thigh, her hands on my head. I stayed that way for a few moments until Mindy prodded me to look at her. When I looked up, she brushed my left cheek with the back of her hand. She put her other hand on my heart. No one needed to interpret that for me.
I asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded yes and smiled. “S-s-oon,” she struggled to say.
“I know.”
Then the smile ran away from her face. “B-bob — B-bobby?”
My heart sank a little. After everything between us, I thought, it was Bobby whom she really cared about. I was right. For girls, it’s always about their firsts. When she saw the dejection on my face, Mindy slowly shook her head no and cupped my face in her hands. It was as if she had read my mind and was saying, “No, that wasn’t what I meant.” It was amazing what people could communicate to one another with only a very few words and gestures. She took her hands away from my face.
“B-bobby,” she repeated, balling her hands into fists and crashing them into each other.
Now I thought I understood. “You were right to warn me. Someone tried to run him over the day this happened to you, but he’s fine. You know Bobby, he’s always fine. He’ll live forever.”
She shook her head and the look of consternation on her face was profound. I knew that look. You grow up a Prager, believe me, you know that look.
“Danger!” The word exploded out of her like a cannon shot.
“Look, I’m good. I’m safe,” I lied, stroking her face to calm her. “I think I’ve sort of figured out some of what’s going on.”
Mindy’s eyes widened, but I couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or curiosity. I opened my mouth to explain that I had tracked down Abdul Salaam, the man who’d put her in a coma in the first place, and that someone had already seen to it that he paid severely for what he’d done. I said nothing, reminding myself that she might not remember everything that had happened during the time surrounding her attack. I didn’t want to confuse her any more than she might already be.
“Relax, Min. It’s gonna be okay. I think I know what happened, some of it, anyway. No one’s gonna get away with anything.”
But instead of relaxing or comforting Mindy, that just seemed to set her off. She shook her head furiously and wagged a finger at me. She struggled to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out. Her face bright red with frustration, she pounded her fists into the mattress. When I tried to hug her, she pushed me away. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I reached over and pressed the call button. Mindy was so caught up in her own world that she barely noticed.
If I’d expected to see her parents come rushing in, harsh judgment on their faces, I would have been wrong. Only Nurse Havemayer walked through the door.
“I’m not sure what I did,” I said, looking up at her like a panicked little boy. I guess that’s just about what I was. “I don’t know what to do.”
“It will be okay, Moe. Mindy is fine, believe me. Why don’t you say so long to her for now. I’m sure she’s tired and frustrated at not being able to say what she wants to say to you, in the way she wants to say it.”
It was only when Mindy stopped pounding the mattress that I realized Nurse Havemayer wasn’t talking to me at all, that she was talking to and for her patient.
I wiped Mindy’s tears away with a sweep of my thumbs. I kissed her on the cheek and she let me hold her. “I love you, Min. I’ll be back soon.”
When I stepped outside the room, Mindy’s folks were nowhere to be found. Maybe they’d gone to get a cup of coffee or a lungful of air that didn’t smell like a hospital. Wherever they’d gotten to, I was just glad they had gone there. I don’t think I could have dealt with their distress or judgment. I was already sick with guilt for upsetting Mindy, and for not loving her fully enough when I had the chance. I may not have slept with Samantha that time at her apartment, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t wanted to. I think I must have spent half the time I’d been with Mindy, thinking about Sam. There had been so many times I was inside Mindy when the woman inside my head was Samantha, so many times when my mouth was pressed to Mindy that it was Samantha’s taste I imagined. The world may judge you only by your deeds, but that’s not how we judge ourselves. Even though I don’t think we can ever know ourselves, not really, we know things about ourselves the world can never know. We know what’s in our hearts. We know our lies and desires. And suddenly I knew something else. I finally knew what I had to do, and I didn’t give a shit about the fallout.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Knowing what I had to do and doing it wasn’t nearly the same thing. I understood that what I was about to get myself into was stupid, and possibly dangerous, and a dozen other things that should have prevented me from even considering it, but there are times when the Brooklyn motto of “Hey, what the fuck!” applies, and you push ahead. The dead winter calm that hung over Manhattan Beach didn’t exactly inspire me to action. The only sounds I heard other than the huuh … huuh … huuh … of my own nervous breaths were the water gently slapping the wood pilings in the Sheepshead Bay side of the peninsula, and the whispered rush and retreat of the ocean on the other side.
I parked near Doc Mishkin’s driveway, staring through the night and the bare hedges at Hyman Bergman’s house. With no lights on, the place seemed as black and lifeless as an abandoned coal mine. I think even a single lighted bulb in any window would have given me some hope of success, but there was only darkness. I’m not sure what I had expected. It was, after all, just before midnight and I didn’t really see either Bergman or Susan Kasten as night owls. One was more taciturn than the other. I’m not sure I had ever met two less friendly human beings in my life. At least the old man had the Nazis as an excuse.
I got out of the car and made my way across the street. Once there, I hesitated at the edge of the driveway for no good reason, or maybe for the best of reasons: I was scared. Just recently, scared seemed to be my baseline state of being. Forcing myself to move, I slinked quietly down the driveway, which, since I intended to ring the bell or pound on the front door until someone answered, didn’t make much sense. So when I got to the door, I went all in and pressed the bell so many times that not even the deaf could miss the sounding of the chimes. It went on that way for more than a minute. My finger was getting tired and I was getting discouraged — discouraged, as in losing whatever little courage I’d mustered up. But I just kept thinking about Mindy, about what her face looked like and how she might never be herself again. Then, just as I was about to stop ringing the bell and start pounding, a light popped on in the front room and the door pulled back.
Susan Kasten stood in the doorway, her usual disdainful glare replaced by a look of utter surprise and grudging respect.
“You wanna talk to me,” I said, “then let’s talk.”
“Come in and close the door behind you.”
She stepped back without turning her back to me. It was as if she didn’t trust that I wouldn’t jump her and kick the shit out of her the second I got the chance. I didn’t blame her for not trusting me. Given that she and her band of hapless idiots had tried to abduct
me, it would have been very satisfying. But that wasn’t why I was here, and so as she moved further into the house, I just followed. I didn’t get very far before someone pressed the tip of a gun barrel to the back of my neck. So much for my brilliant plan.
“Look who it is. If it ain’t my favorite honky mothafucka. Man, I am gonna enjoy taking you apart one piece at a time.” I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Jimmy.
“How’s the nose?” I asked.
Susan Kasten laughed. That was twice in two days, but just like the last time, it was a humorless laugh, the laugh of a mother shark.
“I’ll show you how the nose is, mothafucka.” And with that, Jimmy whipped the barrel of the gun across the back of my head, sending me to my knees and then to the floor. “That’s how it is, funny boy.”
I wasn’t out of it. I wasn’t totally in it, either. The back of my head burned more than ached, and I felt something wet on my fingers when I reached to feel the damage. I was bleeding. I wasn’t exactly gushing blood. Still, blood coming out of my head wasn’t reason to celebrate. The cobwebs cleared pretty quickly, but I stayed down.
“If you haven’t yet deduced it, Moe, Mr. Jimmy doesn’t have much of a sense of humor,” said Susan, kneeling beside me. “Four hundred years of oppression has blotted out his sense of humor. But please don’t misunderstand, he does have a strong sense of purpose.”
“Four hundred years, huh? He looks great for his age. What’s his secret?”
I heard the revolver’s hammer click back and thought my journey was about over.
“Don’t be an idiot!” Susan jumped up and stood between Jimmy and me. “We already have enough on our hands. Give me the gun and get back downstairs.”
“Don’t be orderin’ me around, bitch. Jus’ ’cause we agreed to be part of this thing don’t make you the boss a me. The white oppressor’s been orderin’ my people around for — ”
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