Cry Baby

by David Jackson

  He puts a hand to Albert’s elbow. Slowly guides him toward a staircase that leads down into the bowels of the building. Albert shuffles along uncertainly, and Doyle senses that Presley is becoming irritated at the snail-like pace. But he’s not going to allow Albert to be bullied into losing his tenuous hold on things.

  They start to move down the stone steps. The stress emanating from Albert is palpable.

  ‘Green mile,’ he says. ‘Dead man walking.’

  ‘No,’ says Doyle. ‘Nothing like that. We’re just gonna put you somewhere for the night. Somewhere you’ll be safe. Tomorrow we’ll bring you out again and get somebody to talk to you.’

  They get to the bottom of the steps. A corridor stretches ahead of them, painted in a drab gray. The lighting is fluorescent, and one of the strips in the ceiling keeps flickering. On each side of the corridor are the grim bars of the holding cells. Although Doyle’s night has been quiet, down here it’s a veritable social club. Somebody is singing Danny Boy; another is telling him to shut the fuck up; another is belching; a drunk is explaining to anyone who can hear how he once met the Queen of England in Times Square.

  There are smells here, too. Of vomit, of alcohol, of piss. And underlying all that, the odors of decay and dankness and human misery. This is not a pleasant place. It’s old, and it has witnessed too much. Another wash-down with detergent – even another coat of battleship gray – will do nothing to lift spirits in here.

  Albert wants to move no farther, and Doyle can’t blame him. Presley, though, seems to feel no such compassion.

  ‘C’mon, fella. I ain’t got all night.’

  Albert is trembling visibly. He looks down the corridor and his mouth opens and closes and he shakes his head and his eyes are wide with fright.

  Doyle tries telling himself it’s for the best. This is a goddamn suspect. He says he killed his own mother. You wanna feel sorry for someone like that? You wanna treat him as a special case, just because his brain is wired a little differently? Lots of killers have loose connections. What makes this guy such a charitable cause? Lock him up, Doyle. Lock him up, type your report, and let the morning shift worry about him.

  Presley’s thoughts seem to be running along exactly the same lines. Only he’s more willing to put those thoughts into action. He grabs hold of Albert’s arm.

  And that’s the flashpoint.

  That’s what causes him to turn into a whirling dervish, screaming and slapping at Presley. Driving the cop backward with his frenzied attack. Causing him to fall to the floor and then landing on top of him, still screaming and hitting.

  Doyle pounces on Albert. Grabs him around the ribcage and yanks him away from Presley. Doyle loses his footing and hits the floor himself, dragging Albert down with him. A few feet away, Presley gets up, a murderous expression on his face.

  ‘You fucking piece of shit,’ he says. He advances on Albert. Gives him a good kick to the stomach. Reaches for something on his belt. Pepper spray.

  ‘No!’ Doyle cries. He releases Albert and jumps to his feet, then barrels into Presley, forcing him backward until he slams into the wall.

  ‘What the fuck, Doyle? He’s a lunatic. Look at that crazy fuck.’

  Doyle follows Presley’s gaze. But he doesn’t see what Presley sees. He doesn’t see a raging maniac, filled with hatred and violence and a desire to destroy.

  He sees a cowering, frightened man, curled into a ball, his arms tightly wound around his head while he sobs and shakes and rocks and mutters to himself.

  Doyle goes over to him. Kneels down. Rests his hand gently on Albert’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘It’s okay. We’re not gonna put you in a cell, okay?’

  He continues to talk. Calm, soothing words that he hopes will find their way through to this man who is doing his best to close himself off from the world. A man who struggles to come to terms with this confusing world at the best of times.

  Now what? thinks Doyle.

  Now what do I do with him?

  12.40 AM

  She doesn’t feel safe.

  She came here from Brookville, Pennsylvania, where she worked as a payroll manager for a lumber company. That’s where she met Clark Vogel, who worked in the company’s export division. She fell in love with him instantly. Tried to play hard to get, because that’s the way she’d been brought up, but her desire got the better of her. She surrendered to it, and within six months they were married.

  The child was not so quick.

  They tried for two and a half years. They told themselves it was fun trying, and at first that was true. At first they believed it was normal to have to wait patiently for the miracle of conception. But time stretched and their belief didn’t. Their enjoyment began to be pushed out by the fears and the doubts and the stress. Making love became a chore, at least for Erin. It became a means to an end – an essential but almost tedious procedure to be endured for the sake of what she really wanted. Clark felt this, of course. As much as she did her utmost to issue all the right noises and actions, it was obvious to her that he sensed her detachment and discomfort. Slowly but surely she felt him being turned off, like a dimmer switch gradually being lowered until all that remains is a cold wintry twilight.

  She could not have this. Her want of a baby became a need and then a mission. She had to use every trick in the book – some of which would have been unthinkable to her once – to keep him aroused and at her service. She knows now how selfish she was, but at the time she was beyond reasoning with. The child was everything, and the fact that it seemed increasingly beyond reach only made it more of a cherished goal.

  Her attitude was nearly self-defeating. Clark was not immune to the pain of being relegated to secondary status. When they weren’t having sex they argued furiously, or spoke not at all. He turned to the bottle, and to be honest she was glad of it, because it made him more susceptible to being taken advantage of in the bedroom. But the cracks in the marriage were widening, its foundations crumbling. She knew that the end of its short life was on the horizon, and the sadness of that knowledge was immeasurable.

  And then it happened.

  The baby. Georgia.

  She timed her appearance in the womb to perfection. No better cliffhanger was ever written. Her tiny barely-formed hands took hold of that relationship and drew it back from the precipice.

  Erin metamorphosed. Her fear and her irascibility dropped away. She apologized to Clark. Explained to him that her irrational behavior had been out of her control. She pleaded for a new start, and tried her best to become the loving wife she once was. All was fine again.

  For a while.

  When Georgia arrived, Erin found a new focal point for her love. She was the best mother ever. Clark, on the other hand, was forgotten about again. He became a hovering presence in the background. When she casts her mind back to those times, she realizes how badly she treated him. And when the marriage finally succumbed to the rot that had seeped insidiously into its structure, and collapsed around them, she was not surprised. Not even particularly saddened. She had her baby, and that was enough.

  Coming to New York was meant to be a fresh start. She knew little about it other than it presented a profound contrast to her existing lifestyle, and that’s what she needed. Something different. Something new. An escape.

  But now she’s afraid, and not just because of what’s happened to Georgia. She has heard countless times that New York is one of the safest cities in the country now. That even this part of the East Village – once one of the most violent, drug-infested neighborhoods in the city – has been tamed.

  But…

  That’s what they add. A big fat but.

  But watch what you do and where you go and at what time, they say. Don’t act like an easy target, they advise. Be aware of your surroundings, they warn.

  Doesn’t make a girl feel safe.

  She passes a group of three Hispanic men coming out of a bar on Avenue C – a street they would pro
bably refer to as Losaida Avenue, the name being a Latino corruption of ‘Lower East Side’. The men leer at her and beckon to her and make lewd suggestions to her. But she keeps her gaze fixed on the tall buildings looming ahead, her chin uptilted, acting proud and streetwise and unafraid.

  When their drunken voices fade into the distance, she releases a sigh of relief. And then she laughs.

  She laughs because she has just realized where the danger lies on these streets. It is here, in her. She is the one carrying the weapon. She is the one seeking a victim. She is the one carrying the promise of death to anyone who appears in her sights. And it is only as she acknowledges this that she senses it is time to leave this wide, sprawling avenue with its lights and cars and people. It’s time to become unseen, a shadow amongst shadows.

  She turns left at the corner of the next block, onto one of the side streets just a couple of blocks short of the Stuyvesant projects. There are no bars here. No nightclubs. No reason for most people to venture this way. It is much darker here, and that absence of light makes it seem colder. The bitter frosts have not yet arrived in this city, but looking into that tunnel of blackness ahead of her makes her shiver.

  But she walks. She takes a deep breath of the cold air and starts walking.

  Perhaps, she thinks, someone will try to attack me. He will come at me out of a doorway or from behind a dumpster. He will leap at me and try to put his hands on me and he will give me an excuse. He will give me a reason to kill him – something that I can use to tell myself that it was a justifiable action on my part. He attacked me and I killed him in self-defense, and that’s an end of it. I will be able to live with myself if that happens. I will not feel guilt every time I look into the eyes of my baby.

  ‘Good choice, Erin,’ says the voice in her ear. ‘Dark up here. Deserted. Nobody will see what you do. You’ve got all the makings of a great killer.’

  She doesn’t want to hear this. Doesn’t want to be told what an emotionless hunter she’s becoming. I’m doing this because I have to, she thinks, not because I want to. There’s a difference. A world of difference.

  And then she becomes aware of a presence. Across the street. A clatter of something metallic, followed by some tuneless male singing. She halts and tries to make her eyes see through the gloom.

  From out of the shadow of a tree he appears. A homeless guy, looking big and burly in the many layers of old clothing he wears. He’s pushing a shopping cart ahead of him, piled with all kinds of crap.

  Erin glances up and down the street, checking for onlookers. Nobody is here to see. She steps off the curb. Starts to walk toward him. He continues to shuffle along, one leg moving more stiffly than the other. As she gets closer, she realizes he is singing lines from ‘Camptown Races’:

  ‘I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag, someone bet on the gray.’

  It is only when she steps onto the sidewalk that he notices her. He stops moving, stops singing. Just stares wide-eyed at this figure homing in on him from out of the darkness.

  When she gets within a few feet of the man, she is able to get a better look at him. He is black, somewhere in his sixties. His round face is cracked and grainy, like old leather. There is a tuft of white hair on his chin, and he wears a baseball cap. His bulky coat is tied up with TV cable, its frayed ends showing the metal core.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ says the voice. ‘Now you’re talking. Perfect, Erin. Absolutely perfect.’

  She continues to stand and watch the man, and he stares back.

  ‘What could be better? Nobody will miss him. Plus, you get to rid the streets of another vagrant. That’s so great, Erin. I admire your thinking.’

  She says nothing. She wants to say no, this isn’t the one, and then to move on. But she can’t. She can’t because part of her is thinking yes. If I have to kill someone, if I really have no choice in that matter, then shouldn’t it be someone who has no attachments? Someone who makes no contribution to society? Someone who is, in fact, a nuisance and a blight on this city? I could keep on going. I could walk all night long and not find a more suitable candidate. Isn’t this a no-brainer?

  The man opens his mouth. ‘I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag,’ he sings to her, but in a more subdued voice now. ‘Somebody bet on the gray.’

  ‘Camptown Races,’ she says.

  He narrows his eyes. ‘Some know it as Camptown Ladies.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  He nods. ‘Because of the way it goes. The Camptown Ladies sing this song.’

  ‘Doo-dah. Doo-dah.’

  He nods again. ‘You know it?’

  ‘I know it.’

  She thinks, Why am I doing this? Why am I even speaking to this guy?

  But she knows why. She knows what beginning she is creating here, and what ending it will surely give rise to.

  ‘Who are you?’ asks the man.

  ‘Just a passing stranger,’ she answers.

  ‘’Cept you’re not passing. You’re here, on my doorstep.’

  ‘Your doorstep?’

  He gestures at the space around himself. ‘It’s the only home I got.’

  She reaches up and pushes an imaginary doorbell. ‘Ding-dong.’

  He pulls his head back in surprise, then gradually lets his neck muscles unwind again.

  ‘What you doing out here, girl?’

  She shrugs. ‘Walking. Thinking. Dreaming.’

  ‘Dreaming ’bout what?’

  ‘Getting my family back.’

  She knows it’s a surprise answer, and she watches him chew on it for a while.

  ‘That’s a good ambition. Family’s important. Prob’ly the most important thing on this earth.’

  ‘You got family?’

  He pauses again, then looks up to the sky. When he lowers his eyes again, she can swear they are glistening.

  ‘Once. Long time ago.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Erin, what the hell are you doing? Waste the stinking hobo, and let’s get you the fuck out of there.’

  ‘I forget,’ says the homeless guy, but it’s obvious that he hasn’t forgotten. He reverts swiftly to his questioning: ‘Girl, what are you doing?’

  ‘I… I needed someone,’ she answers. ‘And then you came along.’

  ‘Me? I can’t help you. I can’t help nobody. You should go now. Leave me be.’

  ‘What if I think you can? What if I say you could be the only person on this earth who is able to help me?’

  The man looks at her, long and hard.

  ‘Girl, I don’t know what troubles you. All I know is that I am what I am because I’m no good. I was no good to my family, and I can’t do no good for you either. Now go home, before you make me angry.’

  He moves off, wheeling his collection of items that are of meaning to him alone.

  ‘You’re losing him, Erin. There goes your chance of seeing Georgia again. Maybe your only chance tonight.’

  ‘Wait!’ she calls. She jogs after the man, then puts a hand on his shopping cart to stop him. He halts, but turns worried eyes on her hand. She pulls it away.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ she says. She is almost breathless, and not because of the jogging. It’s because she has decided.

  ‘Show me what?’

  ‘Show you how you can help me.’

  ‘I told you. I can’t help nobody.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you can. Two minutes of your time, that’s all I’m asking.’

  He studies her, and while he does so it seems to Erin that a bubble has enclosed them. It is just the two of them in the world now, debating moves that will lead to life or death.

  ‘You’re a strange one,’ he says.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Asking me for help. Normally it’s the other way round. Me asking folks for stuff. Money, food, a drink. Something I can sell.’

  ‘Must be hard.’

  ‘It’s all I know. What I don’t know is people be asking me for things. Makes me feel…’

  ‘What?’
>
  ‘Special.’

  No, she thinks. Don’t say that. Don’t turn this into something it’s not. Don’t make me feel guilty about this.

  ‘Then maybe you should help me. Maybe it’s an opportunity you shouldn’t waste.’

  ‘Excellent, Erin. Nice move.’

  The man pulls on the wisp of white chin-hair.

  ‘Two minutes?’ he says. ‘I guess I can find two minutes in my hectic schedule. What’s on your mind, girl?’

  ‘Not here,’ she says. ‘Over there.’

  She nods at the building to her right. It’s a huge apartment building in brown brick. It’s only about ten stories high, but it has a massive footprint. The ground floor level is set back, the upper stories being supported at the building’s perimeter by thick brick columns. The passageways running behind those columns are shrouded in darkness.

  The man turns his head slowly, following her gaze. ‘You want me to go over there with you? Why?’

  ‘That’s where it is. What I want to show you.’

  ‘Yes, Erin. Brilliant.’

  She finds the voice intrusive. She doesn’t need his fatuous remarks. She just wants to get this over with.

  She wonders if the homeless guy will refuse her. If he does, she’s not sure what her next step will be. Desolate though the street is at the moment, she feels far too exposed out here on the sidewalk to do what she needs to do.

  But he relents. ‘Show me,’ he says simply. And as he starts pushing his cart toward the building, she almost wants to tell him he’s making the worst decision of his life. Almost wants to call him an idiot for being so trusting of her. Yes, she looks like a harmless young woman, but doesn’t he know that appearances can be deceptive? All these years on the streets, and he hasn’t learned how to avoid risking his life?

  But maybe that’s it. Maybe he doesn’t care anymore. Maybe he’s had all the shit that life can throw at him, and what’s another pile of crap to add to his load? Maybe he just doesn’t give a damn whether he lives or dies.

  That’s what she tells herself. That’s her rationale. That’s what will make this easier.

  She walks with him. Leads him into the murkiness behind one of the brick columns. There is a faint smell of urine here. Somewhere in the distance a dog barks, and the sound of an argument escapes from one of the open windows above them.