The Unlikelies

by Carrie Firestone

  “Dude, do you know where we can score some smack?” Jean was getting bold.

  “Yeah, sure. Down at the precinct two blocks away, dickwad,” the guy said.

  “We are losers.” I grabbed Jean’s sleeve and yanked him out of the store. “We are totally incapable of being shady or discreet.”

  Gordie treated us to Chinese food with his American Express card because we had spent all our cash on pretzels and water.

  “If I had that card, I’d so be at Bloomingdale’s right now,” Val said.

  “I doubt it,” Gordie said.

  Alice obsessively scrolled through Izzy’s phone. “I’m texting Ahmed again.” We had been scanning the street for the sumo wrestler, but so far, no sign. I’m on St. Mark’s. U still here?

  No response.

  “I wonder who Molly is,” Val said.

  “Molly, like the drug, Val,” Alice said.

  “Oh.”

  We sat on the steps of the naked doll store, keeping our eyes peeled for Ahmed and trying to figure out the next stop on our fruitless journey.

  “I need a nap.” Jean said what we were all thinking. We agreed to rest a little and resume our search after dark. Part of me hoped we wouldn’t resume our search at all, because I wasn’t sure I was ready to wander around at night, when the lizards came out of the shadows.

  When we got to Gordie’s brownstone, I took a shower and dabbed the monster tail and put on my leprechaun T-shirt and soccer shorts. I drew the hunter-green paisley drapes and crawled under the supersoft sheets of the corner guest bed, just before Gordie slipped in. He closed and locked the door and pulled off his T-shirt and khaki shorts. He stood for a second in his polka-dotted boxers, and suddenly I no longer needed a nap.

  A while later, I left Gordie curled up like a wombat and tiptoed down to the den, where Jean was sitting at the window, drawing a black-and-white cityscape.

  “That is so good, Jean. I’m jealous of your brilliance.”

  He wiped a clump of residue off the page and stared out the window. “I don’t know if it’s brilliance. It’s more like lunacy. I get ornery when I’m not doing art.”

  I watched him add line after line to make the outlines of buildings, then bring the buildings to life.

  “Do you think we’ll find her?” he said, pausing to look at me.

  “I don’t know. But honestly, I don’t want to go inside another trap house ever again. I still think about the scabby arm of this guy who was lying on a mattress in that disgusting living room.”

  He nodded. “Isn’t it bizarre what your mind decides to latch onto?”

  “Yeah. It is.” I thought of his face flat against the shards of honey jar and gravel.

  Jean turned the page of the sketch pad. “See this?” It was a black arm, reaching out of a block of ice surrounded by penguins and fish jumping out of the sea.

  “Whoa. That’s amazing.”

  “It’s kind of messed up, actually.”

  He turned the page and showed me the same black arm, reaching out of a tree trunk. A giant butterfly with the face of a girl rested on the palm of the hand.

  “I was nine when we had the earthquake. People ran around looking for family. I left the house and wandered toward my school. There was one section where everything was just leveled.” He smiled. But it was one of those This is so awful I don’t know how to say it smiles. “I saw something sticking out from under a windowsill that had sunk into the rubble. I realized it was a man’s arm. I wanted to help him, so I pulled and pulled with both hands.”

  “Oh, Jean.”

  “Yeah. It took me years to convince myself that it hadn’t been my father’s arm I was pulling.”

  I didn’t move. I wanted him to feel like he could talk if he wanted to talk. He flipped the page to another arm, reaching up to a waterfall dropping from the sky.

  “I decided this will probably end up being my college portfolio. This is who I am, part of me, at least.”

  “It’s incredible.”

  “There are hundreds of these. I’m hoping someday I’ll feel like I can stop.”

  I sat quietly as he finished the beginnings of his cityscape and nearly gasped when he held it up. “Jean, it’s beautiful. And I thought you were all about the smiling masks.”

  The sounds of the city were amplified at night. So, it seemed, were the garbage pile smells and the aroma of rich spices coming out of the Indian restaurants. I was careful to check in every few hours, to make sure Mom and Dad had a perfectly false sense of security. The last text sealed it: All the crew tuckered out. I think the Central Park Zoo was enough excitement. Going to bed. Love you guys. Ugh. Bad. Bad. Bad.

  Dad texted back a picture of Grandma Sullivan with a milk mustache.

  We made our way back down to St. Mark’s Place and loitered in front of a hookah shop, pretending to be deep in conversation. Ahmed still hadn’t texted back, so our only hope was the asshole homeless kids with the asshole homeless dogs the Walt Whitman guy had told us about.

  At some point, I decided it would be a good time to tell everyone about Ella’s mom. Since that first night when she had gone out in the limo, she had posted photos of herself buying an ATV for her new boyfriend, more expensive tequila, and a road trip to some Louisiana casino.

  “Now we know why nobody dropped money into her NeighborCare fund,” Alice said.

  “I feel awful that we sent that canary, and that Ella has two lizard parents. It just sucks.”

  “Sadie, we didn’t know. And how could we have not tried, after what you went through with that baby?” Val said. “I don’t regret it at all.”

  “I do think we need to reconsider our strategy,” Gordie said. “The care package model might be too risky.”

  We all agreed.

  “Damn, you’d think it would be easier to dole out a bucket of diamonds.” Jean nodded toward a man pushing a stroller full of empty cans. “I mean, there’s no shortage of need.”

  “Street urchins, nine o’clock.” Val pointed to a group of seven or eight chain-wearing, cigarette-smoking, biker-booted kids bouncing down the street with their leather-collared dogs and their Bob Marley rainbow hats in the ninety-degree heat.

  “Come on. I’m done sitting on my ass,” Alice said. She wove through a line of cars waiting at the red light.

  The “street urchins” congregated on the steps of the naked doll store. They eyed us suspiciously as we approached. I didn’t blame them. We didn’t make sense. I had foolishly changed into my Taylor Swift concert T-shirt Dad said I would wear until it died because it cost him fifty-five dollars. I hadn’t even considered wearing something tougher.

  “Dude, we’re looking for a smack house near Fourteenth,” Alice said to a skinny guy with thick black eyeliner and divots the size of quarters in both ears.

  “Why are you asking me? That’s obnoxious,” the guy said. He had a southern accent.

  “Look. I don’t have time to fuck around. Some homeless guy told us there was a pack of asshole street people with asshole dogs who hang around St. Mark’s Place that give out tips in exchange for money.” Alice put her hands on her hips and got close to his face. “I don’t know you. I don’t know if that homeless guy was full of shit. I’m appealing to the human side of your grubby ass. Might you know of a smack house off Fourteenth Street called the nest?”

  Divot Ears called over his friend, a doe-eyed girl who didn’t look a day over fifteen. She had a lime-green bruise under her eye and a puppy squirming in an open Whole Foods reusable bag.

  “Hi, puppy.” Alice smiled at the puppy. The girl eyed us.

  “This chick is looking for a smack house off Fourteenth called the nest.” Divot Guy laughed and they all started laughing. “She says she’ll give us money.”

  “How much?”

  “Wait a second,” Jean said. “Like we’re going to hand you cash so you can make up addresses. Do we look like damn fools?”

  The girl laughed. “Yes.”

  “Fair enough
,” Jean said. “But if you want money, you need to take us there.”

  It was all so bizarre, like a scene from a badly written play.

  “How much are you offering?” the girl said. “Fourteenth is a long street.” She was clearly the ringleader of the skittish group. It appeared that beneath the grime and the metal face accessories and overuse of army prints, their gang was as mismatched as ours. “You know the dealers eat kids like you,” she said matter-of-factly. “They’ll stuff you into a meat grinder and eat you on a bun with aioli and pickles.” I could tell by the way she talked that the girl was raised refined. She reminded me of Izzy.

  “We’ll take our chances,” Alice said, sounding impatient to see if this weak lead took off.

  They moved in a pack, with their collared dogs and duffel bags. We followed behind like awkward first graders boarding the big-kid bus. I tried to make small talk with a girl who clearly wanted nothing to do with my Taylor Swift T-shirt ass.

  “Kind bar?” I offered.

  “Whatever,” she huffed. But she took the Kind bar.

  The alleged smack house off Fourteenth was a run-down apartment building with black residue thick like tar streaking the once-white walls around the barred first-floor windows. The gang of urchins led us past the building quickly, then turned the corner.

  “I don’t want anybody seeing us with you,” the ringleader girl said, staring at me. “These people have Uzis and shit.”

  I did not like the sound of that. The shrink’s trap house had been scary enough, and that was just a bunch of trash bags and needles on a pizza box. I wanted to turn around, walk back to Gordie’s, and permanently abort the mission. I was getting more uneasy by the minute with the situation we had gotten ourselves into.

  “Where’s the money?” Divot Ears held out his hand.

  We all looked at Gordie. I had my bank card and an old MetroCard with one ride left.

  “I can’t believe we’re paying these people to take us to a smack house,” Jean whispered to Val and me. We hung back while Alice and Gordie negotiated.

  “I’ve got twenty-three bucks,” Gordie said.

  “I want fifty bucks,” Ringleader said.

  “Or what?” Alice said.

  “Or Evan will hit you with his nunchucks.”

  Evan was five seven and about ninety pounds.

  “What if I just buy all you guys pizza on my credit card?” Gordie said. It was slightly amusing that I was standing in the middle of New York City with Gordie Harris, who was negotiating with street kids to get them to play neighborhood smack-house tour guides. Shay would die laughing.

  “Do you have any clue how many idiot Good Samaritans give us half-eaten pizzas? I want sushi. The good kind.” The girl knew what she wanted.

  “And soba noodles,” some other guy chimed in.

  We ordered the sushi and soba noodles and stood around in Union Square with our street thug acquaintances near the chess players and the Hare Krishna people, who had not moved since before we took our naps. The humidity was brutal, even after the sun set over the noisy, sticky city. My feet throbbed to the beat of the chanting and the flute sounds. Blisters had formed where my flip-flop straps hit my toes.

  “What in Jesus’s name have we gotten ourselves into?” Val whispered. “My mother will have my ass. You don’t understand. She will beat me with a broom if she finds out I’m hanging out with street people. This is just wrong.”

  “Hey, Kardashian chick,” Divot Guy called to me. I couldn’t tell if he was going to hit me or hit on me, but I went anyway. “The nest is a very screwed-up situation. Get your friend and get the hell out.”

  “What kind of situation?”

  “I’m not even going to go there.”

  I almost said You seem like a nice kid. Come with us. My dad is an ice cream man. He’ll help you, but I didn’t. I knew I couldn’t help any of them, any more than I could help baby Ella, who, it occurred to me, could easily become one of these street kids someday.

  Gordie came back with two huge bags of Japanese takeout. Our tour guides grabbed the bags and walked away.

  “Geez, they could have at least said thank you,” Gordie said loudly in their direction.

  We strolled past the nest building. A stick-figure woman with mottled skin—white as glue—and hair that looked like she cut it all off herself smoked a cigarette on the front stoop.

  We loitered on the corner until Alice finally took the lead.

  “I’m going up to the door. You all hang out here.”

  “Hell no,” Gordie said. “We are not going to have a repeat of last time. We’re all going.”

  Alice pulled on her hair and stomped her boot. “Listen, you guys need to let me do this. Just stand near the door.”

  We stood near the door like a bunch of parents waiting for their kid to trick-or-treat.

  Alice buzzed. She buzzed again.

  “What?” a man’s voice said.

  “I’m here to get Izzy.”

  “Fuck you. She’s not coming out.”

  “Fuck you. Yes she is.” Superhero Alice was back.

  Nobody moved.

  Alice buzzed again. She held down the buzzer.

  “I will shoot you in the fucking head,” the guy screamed through the intercom.

  “Send out Izzy.”

  “Izzy owes me forty-five hundred dollars. Bring me forty-five hundred dollars and you can have her.”

  Alice stormed away and we all followed.

  Back at our spot around the corner, I said, “Alice, this is insane. These people have Uzis.” My heart was beating so hard I felt it in my stomach.

  “Alice, I have some money saved. I can take it out.” I couldn’t believe Val was offering money.

  Alice made a WTF face. “No, Val. Just… no.”

  We stared at our shoes. We watched a cab whiz by. Finally, Gordie said, “I’ll get the damn money.”

  “God. No. We’re not negotiating with terrorists. Let me think.” Alice’s face was flushed. Her hands were balled up at her sides.

  “If they won’t let her out, how is she going to get the money?” Val said meekly.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why are you so stupid? Why don’t you go to another sweet fifteen party at the church, Val? You’re driving me crazy,” Alice yelled. Val shrank against the bricks behind her. “She’s probably going to have sex with some disgusting guy, okay? Lots of disgusting guys, maybe.”

  And then Alice puked. She knelt down and puked all over the brick wall. The puke splashed on my blistered feet.

  Val turned away and held her head in her hands. Tears dropped to the ground.

  Jean and Gordie froze in horror.

  I waited until the retching stopped and handed Alice and Val each a tissue from Alice’s bag, then wiped my feet with more tissues.

  We all inched away from the vomit and stood against the wall for a long time.

  A group of twentysomething gadflies, the kind who blew into the Hamptons and expected everyone to hold the doors for them and part the seas so they could eat a meal, stopped in front of us to decide whether or not to Uber to their stupid party. They were loud and obnoxious and I wanted to trip them and stick them with medieval bone daggers.

  “Gross. It smells like barf,” one of them said before they scurried away.

  “Okay, last idea,” I said. “I’m pulling out all the stops.” I reached back to unbutton the back pocket of my shorts. I dug down to the bottom of the deep pocket, pulled out a perfectly shaped yellow diamond, and held it up between my thumb and forefinger. I had forgotten about the in-case-of-emergencies canary until that very moment.

  Alice closed her eyes and rocked slightly. For a second, I thought she was going to pass out.

  “We are not giving anything to anyone,” Alice said calmly. “I’m sorry I yelled, Val. And I’m sorry I puked.” She took a deep breath. “This was a stupid idea. I can’t believe I dragged you guys into this bullshit.” She closed her eyes again, marched down the block
, and sat on the steps of a brownstone.

  “We’re done,” she said. “I’m going to fix this right now.”

  Alice texted Izzy’s parents from Izzy’s drug phone. She told them the address and that their daughter was with dangerous people armed with Uzis, so they should call the police. She signed it, Good luck. —The Unlikelies.

  Everything moved in slow motion for a while. I noticed a heap of garbage that had been ripped open and left exposed. I noticed a phrase somebody had spray-painted across a sidewalk square: the gilded life. My feet hurt. Every step was a struggle.

  Alice marched in front of us, staring down at the phone. Gordie and Jean followed. Then me, the pitiful limper, then Val, arms crossed, heart bruised by Alice’s words.

  “Guys, can we stop a minute?” I summoned everyone to a dark storefront. The streets were still hopping with drunken college kids, who had probably just moved into NYU for the semester.

  Gordie stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t walk.”

  Out of nowhere, Jean threw up his arms. “Can you stop whining about your damn feet? I can’t take it.”

  I was exhausted and in pain and more scared than I had ever been. And Jean’s comment filled me with fury. I took a step back. “Oh, I’m sorry I’m whining, Jean. Why don’t you hide in your sketchbook and draw some dead arms, you freak?”

  His eyes got wide. And then he left before I could take it all back. He bolted down the street and texted Gordie that he was taking the Long Island Railroad all the way to the end and could Gordie drop his stuff when he had a chance?

  I felt like I wanted to puke on a brick wall.

  TWENTY-SIX

  GORDIE HAD BEEN excited to wrap up the Izzy rescue in a timely fashion so he could have a night alone in the brownstone guest room with me.

  That wasn’t happening. It was late by the time we got to Gordie’s, and I collapsed on a bed with Val for a few hours before Gordie woke us all up to go home.