City Boy

by Thompson, Jean

  From the backyard he could hear them clearly. There was music playing, and the smell of something charring on a grill, and voices. They’d managed to use the fire escape, a spidery zigzag metal thing, to haul themselves from the kid’s kitchen window. “Hey!” Jack called. “Hey, Rich?”

  They either couldn’t hear him or didn’t want to. Jack jumped, pulled the bottom rung of the ladder down, began a cautious ascent. He wondered how often, if at all, anyone inspected fire escapes. This one seemed barely code legal. When he reached the platform that was its terminus, he was still a good four feet below the roof. “Rich?”

  A face peered over the edge, the young, pudgy girl he’d seen once on the stairs. She was wearing a white, abbreviated undershirt. Breasts on legs. The cotton fabric squeezed so much of her up and out, even looking at her was an indecent act. She said, “You have to get on top.”

  “What?”

  “Up on the top rail.”

  There was an improvised stair made out of milk crates, and with it you could reach the railing and haul yourself up to roof level. The girl gave him a hand and Jack tried not to graze her anatomically well-defined nipples with his ascending head. He felt like Mr. Dandy. “Thanks,” he said, once he got upright and clear.

  “Wow, you’re really tall.”

  “No, just an overachiever.”

  She walked away. Among the seven or eight people on the roof, Jack identified Rich Brezak, Ivory, and Raggedy Ann.

  It was a flat roof with a raised, waist-high parapet of brick, so that it was possible to walk around on it without real caution. This was only a two-story building, but Jack had the sensation of entering some different air, like a bird or an urban astronaut. Neighboring buildings revealed themselves in new, peculiar angles. The sky opened up, the gridwork of wires pressed down. The roof’s surface was some gritty, freckled, sandpaperlike substance. Housings for different mechanical items, heating vents, ducts, piping, were scattered around, a field of metal mushrooms. There was a chimney, crumbling brick by brick, marking a long-dead fireplace. Rain still glazed the metal surfaces and puddled along the roof’s edges. Everyone was damp from the intermittent drizzle. Brezak looked as if he’d been wetted down to keep him fresh, like lettuce in a grocery store.

  He and the rest of them were squatting over a cache of bottle rockets, flares, M-80s, Roman candles, and other less than legal entertainments, laid out in a clear plastic bag. Raggedy Ann leaned across Brezak’s shoulder. Ivory crouched with her back against the chimney, fiddling with the boom box, seemingly untroubled by the other girl’s presence. He would never understand these people. “Hey, Rich?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re here to bitch. Itsa holiday.”

  “How about no more aerial bombardment. It’s making people nervous.”

  “No problem. Those were just practice shots.”

  “Practice?” Jack the obliging straight man, as always.

  “We got some big stuff here. Red white and blue, downtown-sized fun.”

  “Great. Try not to kill anybody. We have company.”

  “Bring em up, come watch the show. Somebody get this man a piña colada.”

  “No thanks.” But Breast Girl was already pouring from a thermos, handing him a cup. In fact he wasn’t anxious to go back downstairs and labor through another round of conversation where each remark landed like a bowling ball. At least up here he had no hosting responsibilities, and if it was a weird scene, it was at least weird and interesting. He took a drink of his piña colada. It tasted of summer and beaches. By now it was nearly dark, but they had distributed a number of cheap citronella candles at intervals along the parapet, shielded from the rain. The music was something not reggae, for once, it was bouncy and rapid-fire and while Jack could not say, on balance, that he liked it, there were parts of it he did. Ivory stood up from her crouch by the boom box and came to stand next to him.

  “Happy Fourth.”

  “Same to you.”

  Not that she looked happy. But then, she never did. She said, “Act like you’re telling me something really really funny.”

  Jack bent down to whisper into her humid ear. “This is about showing him how much you don’t care what he does?”

  “Something like that.” She threw her head back and laughed, hahahaha.

  “Then you shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Hahahaha. What do you know.”

  “Men don’t like being stalked and pursued.”

  “Yeah. Well that’s not what I’m doing.” Her eyes passed over Brezak and Raggedy Ann. They amused her.

  “I’m just saying. Try a little harder not to try so hard. Keep him guessing.”

  “That how it works at your house?”

  A veil of sudden rain blew across his face; he brushed it aside. She was such an odd, a freakish, even a dangerous girl, and perhaps that was why he could speak to her without certain kinds of caution. “Pretty much.”

  She smirked at him. Her pale limp hair snaked over her shoulders. She was wearing her usual floppy cottons. She was so without vanity as to seem unkempt. The things they had done together seemed unreal to him, a sexual complicity that had no place in his waking life. She was shaking her head, smiling, her face relaxed from its pretense of mirth. “What’s your story?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I know why I’m fucked up, but what the hell happened to you?”

  Nothing, he started to say, pissed off that he’d left himself open to her peculiar sympathy. But wasn’t that what he’d started off wanting, under the guise of feeling sorry for her, somebody to feel sorry for him, his lost lonely pitiful jerk self.

  “Yo, Jack?” Reg’s head appeared at the edge of the roof. They’d sent a second patrol after the first. “What’s going on?”

  “I found the party. Check it out.”

  Reg took it all in. The candles, the music, the grill, the promise of alcohol. “Well, let me go talk to the girls.”

  “Sure.” He toasted Reg’s retreating head with his drink. Ivory had walked away from him. She was helping with the food, gray pseudo-sausages and some sort of corn and tomato and mushroom combination wrapped up in aluminum foil. Jack watched Rich Brezak and two other delinquent types argue about the timing, trajectory, and throw weight of some of the heavier items in their arsenal. Raggedy Ann was rubbing against him like a cat. Jack found the thermos and poured another drink. All around them now, from other rooftops, from vacant lots, back porches, the unsecured territory of parks, a steady crackle and whine of fireworks sounded, some of them visible as clusters of white or red starbursts, or a tail of orange cinders on a concussion rocket. There was a smell of gunpowder and drifting smoke, there were voices everywhere in the darkness, hooting, cheering, a sense that anything might happen, the city taken over by fire or violence, just for the hell of it, in the name of having a good time.

  Jack was halfway to an agreeable drunk when Chloe, Fran, and Reg climbed over the edge of the roof. He was surprised to see them. At the most he expected Reg, while the women stayed below and thought dark thoughts, said dark things. But here they all were, making their way cautiously across the uneven, puddled surface. Jack saw them in silhouette, backlit by the alley light. “Hey there,” he said brightly. He thought Chloe was probably still mad at him, and now she was here to rip him a new one. She and Fran had their heads together, giggling, amused by something, maybe just the notion of being here. Okay, not mad.

  “Hey yourself.” Chloe sounded friendly for the first time that day. “So what have we here, the alternative Fourth of July?”

  “Yeah. The kids are going to burn the place down, I thought we could watch.” Jack observed them taking in the scene, the costume of Breast Girl, the various and striking configurations of hair—braided, shaved, fluorescently tinted. Rich Brezak got to his feet, removing Raggedy Ann from his person, and walked over to rummage in the cooler for a beer. “Rich, thanks for letting us, uh, hang out.”

  “It’s your roof too, buddy
. Help yourself to …” He waved a hand, indicating food, drink, sexual favors. “Come here, you got to see these.”

  Jack followed him over to the fireworks cache. A small, respectful crowd had gathered around it. Brezak said, “We got repeaters, candles, mortars, aerials. We got a Blazing Blast Furnace. Some Whistle Whirl comets. A Galactic Glitz. And a Battle of Khe Sahn.”

  “Well that’s … Jesus Christ, where did you get this stuff? This isn’t fireworks. It’s ordnance.”

  “Internet,” said Brezak. “I figure the small stuff, the candles and rockets, we can set off whenever we want. But once we get going with the heavy hitters, we gotta dump and run, cause some chickenshit’ll call the law down on us.”

  Chickenshit Jack thought the kid had probably found his true vocation, as a tactician and guerilla commando, if only he had anything resembling a cause. He was cool and resolute, well provisioned, even organized. Whatever musky charisma kept the two girls fighting over him showed to good advantage as he consulted with one of his lieutenants over the fine points of the Airborne Mortar Kit. Raggedy Ann had draped herself over the kid’s knees. Jack had lost sight of Ivory. It occurred to him, dimly, that he ought to keep track of her if only to steer her away from Chloe.

  He surveyed the darkened rooftop, but couldn’t sort anyone out among the moving shapes. He sensed a need for craft and strategy, without entirely being able to remember how he ought to proceed. Somebody had fired up a joint. It wafted among the other burned smells. He located Chloe, finally, talking to Reg. And here was Ivory, a safe distance away, loitering near the fireworks. He took note of how amazingly stupid he’d been to have anything to do with her.

  Chloe was wearing Jack’s rain slicker. It came almost to her knees and with her bare legs it made her look as if she might have been wearing nothing underneath it. What if Spence, Spence and Chloe … He made himself follow the thought. What if Chloe’s infidelity—Christ, what a word. You needed a word you could spit out of your mouth, like fuck. There probably was such a word but he couldn’t think of it. Maybe whatever Chloe had done was just as accidental and detached and stupid as what he’d done, and didn’t really count, except now he supposed he was only making excuses for himself.

  Jack turned around and collided with Fran. “Whoa, sorry, sorry.” He was flustered but Fran was laughing up at him.

  “Silly. Watch where you’re going.”

  “Sorry,” he said again. Fran seemed to be blocking his way. Jack rearranged his face into jokey good humor. “You having fun yet?”

  “Well they are a little, like Chloe said, alternative. But sure. Any old party in a storm.”

  “I get that. Funny.”

  “I’m just glad it quit raining.”

  “Yeah.” Jack had stalled out conversationally. His head was full of rum and fumes and an idiot’s rage.

  Fran lowered her voice so that Jack was forced to bend down to hear her. “I want you to know, if you ever need to talk to somebody, give me a call.”

  “Talk about what?” he said, then backpedaling, “Thanks. But I don’t think I’ll need to bother you.”

  “Like you would ever be a bother. Not.”

  “Sure. Thanks anyway.” He tried to make her disappear. Hocus pocus.

  “I know I’m babbling. I love you guys. I consider both of you my friends. You’re both precious to me.”

  Precious? Shit. He was alarmed on all fronts, what the hell was she suggesting, something about Chloe that everybody knew but him, and even as Fran plied him with concern she seemed to be offering up her big blond tits and pink-painted mouth and all the rest and how was he going to tear himself loose from the woman? Just then another round of firecrackers, loud ones, went off, and everyone turned to look at them. Jack pantomimed something to Fran that he hoped conveyed sincerity, regret, an urgent errand, and walked off to join Chloe.

  She was still talking with Reg, only they had turned away from each other to register the firecracker noise. Jack made an effort to shrug off the alcohol, knew he was beyond making efforts. “Howdy, folks.”

  “I’ve been trying to hit on your woman.” Reg not too sober himself. “But I’m not getting anywhere.”

  Had everyone gone loco tonight? Jack punched Reg in the arm. What a guy. He hadn’t yet fixed on what he should say to Chloe so he turned back to the show. Brezak stood at the edge of the roof, overlooking the street. He had perfected a kind of one-handed lob, holding a lit firecracker at the top of the arc for what was probably an unsafe second or two for maximum cool effect. Then he let it fly. Oooh, said his audience. Oooh and oooh. Brezak took a bow.

  “I thought he wasn’t going to do that anymore,” said Chloe. More commentary than disapproval, or at least it didn’t sound as if she wanted Jack to do anything about it.

  “I don’t think it’s going to go on much longer.” They were setting up the bigger pieces along the edge of the brick parapet. The idea seemed to be a grand finale. At least the rain would probably keep anything from igniting. Raggedy Ann was standing at an admiring distance, Ivory just behind her, although they weren’t conversing. Maybe they’d worked it all out, maybe it was like one of those leering TV shows where the guy or girl—that’s what they were, guys and girls, certainly not men and women—had to choose between two dates, or sometimes even more than two, and you watched the show mostly so you could make fun of how shallow and nasty everyone was, but not entirely.

  Jack turned around, but now Reg had disappeared. “Where’d Reg go?”

  “To pee off the roof, I think.”

  “He wasn’t really hitting on you, was he?”

  “Oh, you know. Reg.”

  “Yeah.” He could have made a joke about Fran, Oh, you know. Fran. But it wasn’t the same thing, it wouldn’t go over.

  Chloe said, “I’m glad we wound up here. Our little group needed some loosening up.”

  “Things were bound to be tetchy. Nobody’s fault.”

  Chloe didn’t answer. Dead topic, by mutual agreement. Jack said, “If you want loose, I’d say this crew fills the bill.” He indicated a pair of hair boys pretending, semi-seriously, to push each other off the roof.

  “They’re a bunch of lowlifes. And they should definitely keep their music turned down. But I guess they don’t ever have to worry about behaving themselves.”

  “And that’s a good thing?” The longer he kept on top of the conversation, the more he felt crafty, a successful drunk.

  “I don’t know. I guess there’s times when it would be a relief to be, well, not them, but to stop even pretending I’m normal … Never mind. I’m not making sense. Anyway they’re bottom feeders.”

  “Catfish,” agreed Jack. He didn’t want to take on the idea of normal, why Chloe might feel she wasn’t. His sodden brain was busy contending with the surprise of Chloe saying what he himself felt, at least on occasion, that the kid and his ragtag household represented something one might envy. Lack of impulse control, maybe, all the childish, stupid, spiteful behaviors you condemned in other people and secretly allowed yourself.

  Chloe drew the rain slicker close around her. It wasn’t raining, technically, but rain seemed suspended in the air around them, along with the smoke and noise of the citywide celebration. Next week she was going to New York. They had stopped arguing about it, that is, Jack had stopped. “I borrowed your coat.”

  “No problem.”

  “It smells like you. Sort of like the sheets when you’ve been in bed for a long time.”

  “Thanks, I guess.” She was giving him an affectionate look, so he supposed he passed the smell test.

  “Everybody has their own scent. If we were dogs, we could be happy just hanging around sniffing each other.”

  The first of the major-league fireworks went into the sky, whump, traveled a long, whistling path, and burst into a chrysanthemum of gold glitter at the end of the block. People sucked in breath. The thing was huge. There were small towns that wouldn’t mount shows with pieces this big. More explosions.
A trail of red stars that went off like popcorn. A blue and white waterfall, small but elaborately staged, then whump whump, two more sunbursts of redgreenpurple, and a Roman candle that cartwheeled along the rooftop, sending out zigzags of flame.

  Everyone screeched and ducked. That one had come a little too close for comfort. Jack, who was watching and cheering along with everyone else, had to wonder what might happen if Brezak launched his missiles into a power line, or a parked car. The pieces were going off too fast to allow for safety concerns. Brezak and one other boy galloped along the length of the roof, lighting fuses. The noise was terrific. Jack’s ears went, not blank, because they were filled with reverb and stinging, high frequencies, but they weren’t working the way ears were supposed to. A silver-green flare crisscrossed overhead with a mortar. Surely the kid couldn’t keep this up much longer without getting very busted.

  “Good morning, Vietnam.”

  The air shook with whistles and reports, white strobes and bursts, electric crackling. The Battle of Khe Sahn, Jack guessed. Chloe moved closer to him, trying to speak. Her words came to him with gaps in between them. “ … shouldn’t … worried.”

  Jack nodded. He was getting a little shouldn’t and worried himself, he thought it might be time to head back downstairs. He located Reg, eating sausages and gaping skyward. Chloe waved across the roof to Fran, and Fran mouthed something back. Jack saw … He couldn’t be sure what he’d seen. He was probably mistaken. By now he was whatever came right after drunk. It was dark, except for the occasional pyrotechnic flash. Even the street lamps were obscured by smoke so full of burnt particles, it settled into the back of your throat like paint. Now what the hell was happening?

  Screaming and people flailing around. None of the apparatus in his head was working right, it took him a slow time to sort out this new commotion. It was a girl screaming. Chloe said, “Oh Jesus God.” He still couldn’t see right. Even when he moved closer and stared, there was some kind of shock filter in his brain that didn’t allow for comprehension, the new smell of burning, the raw red glossy wet slick of flesh, the deep angry wound, extending from Raggedy Ann’s waist to just below her arm. Something stringy, some part of her, flopped loose from her armpit.