Revolutionaries

by Joshua Furst

  “Lumps,” I barked. “Where is she? What did you do to her?”

  “Fuck off,” he said.

  “No, I won’t fuck off. Tell me. Stinger. And you. You, the dumb kid on the Big Wheel. Somebody tell me what you did with Rosalita.” I pointed my gun at them like it would somehow scare them. They went right on ignoring me.

  I lurked. If they weren’t going to give me what I wanted, I’d stick around until they got annoyed enough to at least chase me away. I stomped around the room. Peered in boxes of clay jam jars stuffed with colored pencils, like I thought Rosalita might be hiding in there. I kicked things. I climbed up on the swing and creaked back and forth hoping the noise would be enough to piss someone off.

  Nothing.

  “I’m not gonna leave, guys,” I said. “Guys?” I stood up. “Did you hear me? I’m gonna stay right here.”

  Stinger pulled himself into a sitting position. “Do we even know you?” He’d seen me a hundred times, out and about. In the park.

  “He’s Rosie’s boyfriend,” Lumps said. “They diddle each other.”

  And I lost it. I just lost it.

  I shot my gun at him, but it was out of water. I’d forgotten to fill it. So I lunged into the middle of their little conclave. They were laughing at me now. All of them. Even the four-year-old on the Big Wheel, though he might have been crying. I don’t know. I went for Lumps, clawed for his neck. He was twice, three times my size. One swing of his fatty arm sent me reeling away into the record player, into the Big Wheel. The record scratched and flipped off the turntable. I must’ve been screaming. That kid, whether he laughed at me before or not, was definitely crying now. I threw myself around, hands and elbows, kicking, swinging my gun by the barrel. Not thinking about myself anymore. Consumed with thoughts of Rosalita, how she’d been abused, tortured, scarred, how I’d punish them, all of them. Even if they beat me. I’d take them all down with me as I fell. And the next thing I knew, I’d pulled that little kid from the Big Wheel and straddled him, my hands around his ears, his eyes bulging in terror. I struggled to smash his head against the ground. I remember my own shock at what I was doing. The sense of yes, wow, I was actually hurting him, but also the feeling that all this was taking place somewhere far away, out of my control. I wasn’t really there. Someone else owned my body.

  And I remember how odd it was. That none of the other kids in that room—bigger kids, stronger kids, kids who knew and supposedly cared for this boy—not one of them did a single thing to stop me.

  I can’t say how long this went on. Maybe no time at all. It felt like forever.

  And then an adult voice, deep and black and unequivocal, said, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, son?”

  And I froze and I looked up and there was Ronnie Walker. I don’t know how I knew it was him, but I did. And instead of me catching him and saving Lenny or whatever I’d imagined would happen if I pinpointed Walker’s location and turned him in to my mother, to Kunstler, to the cops, he’d caught me doing I didn’t know what to a kid even littler than me.

  I looked down at the boy. Somehow I’d already let go of him, risen up and stepped away, not altogether consciously. There was no blood. Maybe I hadn’t hurt him. He curled in on himself like he thought I was about to kick him in the ribs. Sobbing so deeply that he made no sound. The tears vibrated in his body. His mouth pulsed like a baby searching for a nipple. So maybe I had hurt him. I’ve always wondered. Right then, with Ronnie Walker staring me down, along with these squatter kids who’d witnessed what I’d done, my power and how I’d used it horrified me.

  “You hear me?” Ronnie said. “You gonna say something for yourself?”

  All I could think to do was hug my gun, use it as the security blanket it had always been, but I’d dropped it in the chaos and Walker was waiting. His presence consumed the whole room.

  I sputtered something half-formed. Just a sound, and Stinger, helpful, smug, said, “He’s looking for Rosie. He’s her—”

  “I know who he is,” Walker said.

  And it was then that I realized Rosalita was there in the room with us. Or not quite in the room but hugging the doorway. She’d always been skinny. She was even more so now. Dark-eyed and hollowed out. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks.

  “What I don’t get is why he’s here.” Walker looked at Rosalita as he said this.

  She limped into the room. I thought she was headed toward me, and I reached out to hold her. To shield her. She walked on by. Wouldn’t even look at me. She went to the boy I’d attacked. He’d pulled himself to the wall by then and, sickly as she was, she wrapped him in her arms, held him tight, comforted him.

  “You think she’s gonna choose you over her own brother?” Walker said.

  Her brother. Her family. How, exactly, were these people connected? They weren’t Walker’s kids. Stinger was the only one who was black. Lumps—he was as pale as a Polack. They were a scraggly bunch of city kids who’d somehow all ended up in the same place.

  “Just stop hurting her,” I said weakly.

  “Hurting her? Nobody here’s hurting our Rosalita.” He met my weakness with fury. Since I’d seen him last, he’d grown wild muttonchops and his hairline had eroded, all of which made him seem that much more bootjack and terrifying. He got right up in my face. Forced me back a step. “I’m gonna lay it down for you, kid. And you’re gonna listen. Rosie over there’s got some imagination. She sees visions. She gets ahead of herself. Ain’t our fault if you fell for them. I know nothing about you, kid, and you knowing nothing about us, but I’ll tell you this: The only reason I haven’t thrown you out that window over there is that I respect your daddy. You understand me?”

  It took all I could manage to nod my head. Rosalita still wouldn’t look at me. She rocked her little brother in her lap like he was the single thing she had left in the world.

  “I said, do you understand me?”

  My internal organs were liquefying. But somehow I squeezed out one last spasm of resistance. “What about her scars?”

  “Don’t you worry about her scars.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. Shit, boy. Do I have to repeat myself?”

  “But Lumps—”

  “Lumps nothing. The kid is slow. Even you should be able to see that. Lumps didn’t give Rosalita those scars. Not a person in this house gave her those scars. Hell. Use your head, kid. How do you think she got here to begin with?” Spit flew from his mouth. Tiny projectiles raining down on me.

  He was right. I knew nothing about nothing.

  Rosalita, she…it didn’t matter anymore.

  Reining himself in now, quiet, menacing, Walker said, “Why are you still here, boy?” If I moved I’d start crying and if I cried, I’d piss myself. “Go.”

  “Can…” I said, “can I get my gun first?” I’d dropped it in the scuffle.

  Walker followed my eyes to where it lay next to the record player. He stalked over, picked it up, held it out toward me. “This?” he said. “This ain’t a gun. This is a fucking toy.” And then instead of letting me take it, he cracked it over his knee. I let out a shriek as pieces flew everywhere. Shards of plastic. Doohickies. Dropping the pieces still in his hands to the floor, he said, “This is a motherfucking gun.” And he whipped a pistol out of his waistband and aimed it at me like he just might use it.

  By the time I made it to the first floor landing, down among the fishes, I’d let go of all my functions. There was no me left to hold any of them back. I was the sum of my parts—tears and snot and piss and suddenly viscous shit. I tried to run the six blocks home but my feet felt like they were caked in iron. Each step more laborious than the last. I trudged. I staggered. I knew just how I looked. My piss-stained jeans chilled and began to chafe and I kept having to stop to wipe the mucus from my face.

  Then, home, there was
my mother like she’d been waiting for me. She wrapped me up. She cleaned me off. She didn’t ask what happened and I didn’t tell her.

  * * *

  —

  In my memory, this all happened in the day or two before we left to visit Lenny. This and Phil’s gig. The events tumble together. Blow after blow, slamming me all at once.

  That can’t be right, though.

  There must’ve been some respite in there somewhere. Some moment or two of blank expansive safety. Of boredom. Of keeping on. Even now, when I’m trying so hard to remember, my mind’s erased the happy parts of my past. To toughen me up. To help me survive.

  The plan was, we’d go visit my grandmother. A family reunion. The old lady wished, finally, to meet the munchkin and maybe reconcile with her daughter. We’d get there. We’d endure forty-eight hours on Long Island. And happy to see my mom finally trying to make less than catastrophic decisions with her life, my grandmother would allow her to borrow the car. Then off we’d go on a trip to who-knows-where, somewhere far away, somewhere, maybe, Underground. Anyone watching would figure my mother to be another little girl lost in the spiritual morass of the 1970s. Yet another quester who, after years of chasing the dove of peace through the dense marijuana haze of her wasted youth, had finally realized she’d never change the world.

  That was the cover.

  The truth was, we were cold and weary and in need of shelter. My mother needed strength. She needed a car, sure, but also, she needed to see her mommy.

  * * *

  —

  I remember the subway platform at rush hour. The smells—strong cologne, cigarette smoke, french fries and lingering urine. Rust. The vibrations of bodies up in each other’s space. The globs of gum ground into blackness on the concrete. I remember the anxiety that surrounded me. All these people peering down the tunnel, searching for lights. My mother among them. Unable to stand still.

  And the wind and the electric crackle of the rails and the mind-numbing roar and clatter of the train. The sudden crush.

  “Wait.” My mother held me back as the platform emptied out and the doors bumpered shut. The only two left were us.

  I remember going downtown to go uptown. Climbing stairs. Switching platforms. Zigzagging around town until somehow we arrived at the maze of blind turns that was Penn Station. The flutter of the signs as they cycled through the schedule. My mother’s hand clutching the collar of my jacket, tugging, guiding me onto a train.

  We rattled through tunnels caked in dust and soot. Up and out in Queens, I watched squat brick houses flicker past, each one identical to the last. They reminded me of Brooklyn, of those sad streets Lenny’d dragged me down on that day when we’d gone searching for his childhood home. Miles and miles of these tiny houses. All the same. And then the brick fell away, replaced by a different kind of sameness. Larger houses, cleaner but less stable. The whole world suddenly brighter. Bleached. We were in the suburbs.

  Then us standing outside the station in Great Neck, watching as shlubs in overcoats two-stepped toward the cars idling at the curb, toward their wives, their families, the rocks of their existence. And soon the lot emptied, leaving just us and a few stragglers, and then even their rides came, and it was only my mother and me again.

  I remember her checking her watch, ticking her cheek, checking her watch again.

  “Well, we haven’t been followed,” she said. “See? We’re free.”

  * * *

  —

  I remember my grandmother’s mud-brown Impala rolling into the parking lot, idling, not in front of us, but at the end of the station.

  I remember my first glimpse of the woman. So tiny. Her head barely visible over the dashboard. Her two hands on the wheel, wringing it. And I remember the darkness that seemed to surround her. A stillness. Like she’d decided long ago to hold herself tight and shut everything else out. Her eyes were hidden behind thick round prescription sunglasses. I remember that as we made our way toward the car she stared straight ahead and didn’t smile, didn’t wave.

  My mother threw the back door open and lobbed our duffel bag onto the seat. She gave me a nudge and I climbed in next to it. I remember a sense of dread, intimidation, like I’d entered an unknown, strictly controlled land. Twisting over her seat, not taking off her sunglasses, my grandmother scrutinized me. She reached out and measured my forehead with her fingers. Length and width. Even her smile was severe. “He has the Morgenstern forehead,” she told my mother. “Very good genes. There’s hope for him.” She told me to call her Oma. German, like her accent.

  Then, later, as we rolled toward her house, I remember the two of them bickering about why my grandmother had been late. “You said eight-ten.” “No, I said, seven-thirty-five.” Each of them was adamant about being right, intransigent about the other being wrong.

  And I remember my entire body tensing up like it was tuned in to a new, anxious frequency.

  * * *

  —

  In her house: a sense of mourning, of grief. The blinds all shut. The lights all dimmed. The furniture, even the massive boxy couch, was itchy and uncomfortable.

  Her husband, my grandfather, had painted in his spare time. His artwork crowded the walls. Frightened faces, sadness dripping from their hair. Bodies struggling to break out of the frame. Even the landscapes were dark and brooding, every color tinged with blood.

  The place felt old. It smelled like ancient paper. Powdery. Brittle. Slightly alkaline. Like weevils had gotten into the fibers and were slowly eating away at the foundation. When I think of it now, I see psychologists lurking in the woodwork, adjusting their pince-nez, saying, Ah, we’ll always have Vienna. It was like she’d locked herself up in some ancient pain and nothing and no one would coax her out of it.

  I remember one particular painting of my mother. Twelve, thirteen. Neither child nor adult. Her curls all in tangles. Her face turned away.

  * * *

  —

  And dinner—was it that night or the next?—at some uppity French joint. Escargot. Steak tartare. The dour old-world elegance of it all. The way my grandmother seemed to fit right in. She ate in silence, concentrating. Holding her fork like a pencil. Guiding her knife with one outstretched finger. Grim and determined. Like the repetitive action of stabbing and cutting, her body’s requirement that she raise food again and again to her mouth for fuel, was a chore to be gotten through as quickly as possible. Like she resented having to do it every day. I remember, even then, at dinner in this expensive restaurant, she kept herself closed off behind her sunglasses.

  I ordered the chicken. I remember because it came smothered in mushrooms. Revolting. And I remember my mother demanded I taste it. “One bite. That’s all I ask. Then you don’t have to eat any more.” What? Huh? I thought. Whatever happened to doing your own thing? Who is this woman? What’s she done with my mother?

  It wasn’t just that she was imposing new rules on me. I’d never seen her try so hard to prove she could be on good behavior. I remember—was it the first day? The second?—she packed away her scuffed jeans and peasant blouses and threw on an old dress from her high school years, conservatively fashionable in a muted, musty way. It came down to her knees. And a cardigan for the wind. Her hair pulled back in a leather thong. Her mules looked almost dignified under all that. Good enough to get by, to look like she’d tried.

  And I remember my grandmother sizing her up, tipping her head at a certain angle—an invisible gesture, to me anyway—before finally saying, “You look very nice.”

  And unable to see the compliment through the sediment of a lifetime of criticism, my mother flashed. “Jesus. Here we go again.”

  My grandmother pled innocence. “What? I can’t admire you now?”

  “No. Because—no. I know what you’re thinking. No bra. I’ll sag. Well, fine. Everybody sags.”

  “Susan, it’s the 1970s
. What do I care if you wear a brassiere?”

  “Go ahead. You tell yourself that. But you do care.”

  And my grandmother, showing some subversive moxie of her own, stared that much more pointedly, twisting a smile onto her dour face until my mother stalked out of the room.

  Then, later, after they’d moved silently around each other, radiating warnings for what might have been an hour or more: my mother sprawled out on the couch, head thrown back, smoldering, staring at the closed blinds. How she seemed so comfortable there. So physically at ease. I could see her stretched out like this at various points in her life, as a small child, a teenager. Like she’d been here forever. Like it was the place she knew best. But also, roiling under her eyes, something else. Grievance. Affliction. The ghosts of past selves.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” she called out.

  The answer, from behind a closed door: “So don’t.”

  And then after another hour or so it was like they’d never argued at all.

  * * *

  —

  There were no clocks. I remember being spooked and disoriented by this. Just one contraption under a glass dome on the table. A fortress of chutes and gears and levers and conveyer belts that shunted marbles around a track. It was supposed to tell time in some ingenious way, but I couldn’t figure out how it worked. I studied it endlessly. Knelt on the floor and watched the marbles roll. To distract myself. To make myself disappear. Each gear spun at a different speed, pulling marbles to the top of the machine one at a time. They collected in lanes like race cars waiting for the starter pistol. Let loose at intervals, they’d slide down the various lengths of track and pool in stations at differing heights where they waited to be carted off by one of the levers or spun through a funnel and cycled back up to the staging area. The marbles that made it to the bottom sorted themselves out into numbered rows and these numbers, in conjunction with the count of marbles there at any given moment, would tell you the time if you could read them correctly.