Closing Time

by Fusilli, Jim;

  “May I ask a question?” Lin-Lin said. “Does Judy represent your wife’s estate?”

  She’d begun to inch away from the station Beck had made for himself in the corner of the room. I followed, reluctantly, as did he, shuffling, slumping.

  “Yes,” I replied, “but there’s not much happening now. Judy generates some publicity but it’s all winding down.”

  Suddenly, the music stopped and the crowd began to quiet. From across the room, I could hear Judy shouting, trying to get everyone’s attention.

  “Now, now, quiet, quiet,” she said, then repeated it. She clapped her hands. “Please. Please. I have to make an announcement.”

  When it was as quiet as it was going to get, she continued. “Believe it or not, I repeat, believe it or not, I just got off the phone with an asshole who says there’s a bomb in here. A bomb.”

  Her announcement was met not with panic or concern, but with a peal of laughter.

  “No, I’m serious,” she said. “I’ve called the police and they told me everyone has to get out, and right now. So, let’s move it. Let’s go.”

  Not a single person budged.

  A hoarse shout came from across the room. “Nice touch, Judy.”

  She drew herself up, her face tightening. Her reply was terse, delivered firmly. “Ladies, gentlemen. Asshole says there’s a bomb in here; I believe him. I advise you to get out.”

  I turned. Beck looked as if he was going to faint. “Lin-Lin,” he mumbled.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Immediately.”

  Without a word to me, she walked toward the door. Beck followed.

  The crowd began to funnel casually, lazily toward the front exit and down the steps. And then I thought maybe I ought to get Bella and go as well. Maybe it was more than a prank. Maybe there was a bomb.

  I turned and, looking over the crowd, spotted her at the far corner of the room, on the other side of the brick divider, across from where I’d been. She seemed confused, as if she was trying to decide whether she should be frightened. I knew that, in a moment, she would be, and her brave smile would fall away.

  As I nudged toward her, she gestured to me quickly. I stepped up, moving with a purpose, pushing against the wave. But I had little effect on the crowd, which would not be ruffled by the threat of a bomb or by a harried man. Their faces registered nothing more than disdainful annoyance and oily condescension; they offered no assistance: They continued to move slowly, woodenly toward the exit, like peacocks coolly shuffling toward Greene Street.

  Bella was sandwiched between two glib couples who showed neither a sense of urgency nor concern for a now-frightened little girl. I stretched, reached and tugged her by the front of her jacket; as I turned I inadvertently slammed my hip into a lean blond woman at her side. The woman stumbled, a wineglass falling from her hand. Her tallish escort barked at me, but to me it was only sound.

  “Daddy—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re moving.”

  Then I felt a hand on my back. I turned to find the lean woman’s escort glaring at me.

  “Sorry,” I said to him, to the blonde at his side.

  Suddenly, the tall man in the well-tailored suit reached out and shoved Bella. She tumbled backward, but did not fall. Shocked, she quickly steadied herself.

  “There,” the man said, as he looked back at me. “A taste of your own medi—”

  I drove the flat of my right hand into his jaw, and he bit hard on his tongue. He groaned and gasped. The lean blonde in black looked on in horror as the man opened his mouth. Blood spread across his bottom lip.

  “Anything else?” I asked as she dug into her purse for a handkerchief.

  With that, I lifted Bella up and took off with her, banging toward the door, shoving through the crowd. I heard the protests, the whining shouts, the tepid complaints. But I pressed on, thinking of nothing but getting her outside, away from her thoughts of danger.

  I stepped on the red runner and slid Bella onto the hardwood. We went out in the evening’s cool air and cut off traffic as we crossed the cobblestone.

  We reached the east side of the street just as a sinewy, long-haired man in a torn t-shirt and black jeans came up behind us. “Thanks, man, for clearing a path.”

  I turned to Bella and went to one knee. “Are you okay?”

  “Now, yes.”

  “Scared?”

  “I don’t— At first, I couldn’t see you. And that guy. He pushed me. An adult.”

  Around us, the crowd filled the street, and drivers, unable to continue north, began to sound their shrill horns. As she tried to cross the traffic, a young woman in a flannel shirt, a cowgirl hoopskirt and Western boots pounded impatiently on the hood of a black Jeep.

  Behind me, Sadler Boyd shouted, “Did anyone remember to bring the champagne?”

  And again there was laughter, and in a moment it was as if the party had simply moved out onto Greene Street.

  I had stood and draped my arm on Bella’s shoulder. “You okay?”

  She forced a smile, then sighed. “Except for my dignity, I suppose so.”

  I felt a tap at my elbow. It was Edie.

  “Terry, I think Judy—”

  I turned and, at that instant, saw an orange flash. Then I heard a sound, not a roar but a compact, muffled explosion. A gasp from the crowd, and then smoke. A cry.

  “Judy’s inside!” Edie shouted.

  Sudden silence, shock; and billows of smoke, racing out and upward. Then, the frenetic honking of car horns.

  “Bella, you stay here. You stay with Edie.” To Edie, I said, “Keep her close to you.”

  She moaned desperately. “Terry …”

  And I ran back across the street, into the dark cloud as I took the steel steps with a leap.

  The smoke was thick and made it impossible to see. And then, as I pushed forward, gagging, eyes stinging, the smoke vanished: The room was hazy. It had taken on an almost ethereal quality, looking only vaguely familiar, as if I had been there in a dream.

  I shouted, “Judy!”

  The only light was behind me, from the street. I moved slowly, with my hand on the brick divider that ran down the wavering center of the room. As I went farther, I could see the residue of damage: Several paintings were on the floor, the table in the corner that had served as a makeshift bar was overturned; broken glasses and champagne and wine bottles.

  The white door in the back was off its hinges, and the surrounding frame was heavily damaged, and I proceeded carefully in its direction, crushing shards of glass. As I crossed under the cracked frame, I saw Judy on her back, apparently unconscious. Moving closer, I saw that blood flowed from the back of her head, and there were streaks of blood on her right calf. And then I noticed that where her left foot had been was now a mangled mass of flesh and exposed bone. Blood spurted with each beat of her heart.

  I quickly took off my belt and used it as a tourniquet on her left calf. As I lifted her to address the wound on her head, a hand from behind me clasped my shoulder.

  I turned, and there was a man in blue and with him two EMS workers, and they instructed me to go, brushing me aside as they went to work on Judy’s leg and head.

  I stood behind them as they scurried around her, and I moved aside as the rolling gurney was brought in.

  Now a cop told me to move on, for the second time in three days, and I went through the dust and smoke, stepping over the fallen glass, propping up a pair of paintings that had dropped to the floor.

  When I reached the street, I saw Bella, without Edie, and she ran toward me. It was then that I realized my hands were covered in Judy’s blood. Surprisingly, Bella did not panic; she seemed to understand.

  “Is she dead?”

  “No,” I said, “but she’s hurt.” I looked around. ‘Where’s Edie?”

  “She ran,” Bella replied. “She ran away.”

  By the time I emerged from the shower, Bella was in boxer shorts and an old t-shirt of mine, and was ready for bed.
I threw on a pair of sweats and a long-sleeved henley, made a quick call to the hospital to ask about Judy and went down to the kitchen to fill Bella’s favorite cup with cranberry juice.

  I went back upstairs through the dull light, each footfall bringing an ancient creak from beneath the old carpeting. In her room, Bella was nestled in her bed, covers up to her neck, her head on her Winnie-the-Pooh pillowcase. She clutched an old, stuffed toy moose, and she smiled wearily. On her nightstand was Franny and Zooey and a dog-eared biography of Jimi Hendrix that Diddio had lent her.

  “Are we going to have nightmares?” she asked as she sat up.

  I handed her the cup. She took a sip and slid it next to the books.

  “No,” I answered. “We know Judy’s going to be all right now.”

  Bella had shown no signs of fear; a little uneasy on the cab ride home, but now she seemed fine. The night, I suppose, had been filled with a chilling sort of excitement for her. I tried to get her to open up, but she kept insisting she was all right. “Little Mango can’t beat this one,” she said, as if what happened was nothing more than a new story to tell her friends. I don’t know how she does it: She bounces back. She’s indomitable. I don’t need Elizabeth Harteveld to tell me that.

  “You’ll grind your teeth,” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  “You will, Dad. You should let Dr. Harteveld give you something.”

  I ran my hand across her smooth forehead.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “You’re too excited to sleep. You should read.”

  She nodded. “You know, you saved me, Dad.”

  I smiled. “I don’t think so, Bella.”

  “No, you saved me. Really. I was in the corner you said Judy was in.”

  I leaned over to stroke her hair. “Good night, little angel.”

  She bounced on her side and retrieved Salinger’s tale, and I headed toward the stairs, my steps echoing through the empty house.

  TWO

  Thinking I’d run and maybe work the heavy bag after I dropped Bella off at school and before I went where I needed to be, I didn’t take a shower, nor did I shave, and I looked very much like what I was when I went out to Harrison to pick up the Times: a man who had slept fitfully, if at all; a man whose morning grooming consisted of flicking cold water on his face after brushing his teeth.

  The chill off the Hudson did little to invigorate me and I quickly came back inside. And there was Bella at the kitchen table. She hadn’t showered either.

  “Give,” she said. “Please.”

  I cleared my throat. “Good morning, Dad.”

  “Yes. Good morning, Dad,” she said quickly. “Now: Give. Please.”

  I handed her the Times. Bella had been reading newspapers since she was three years old. For her fifth birthday, she asked for a subscription. Marina blamed me for this, and I suppose she was right: I began to read the clever features I’d seen in the newspaper to Bella and Davy when they were in the cradle, too young to understand the words.

  She asked, “Where will it be?”

  “Metro section.”

  “I’m excited.” She dug out the second section and flipped the broadsheet pages. After a moment, she groaned in disappointment. “Look at this. A little tiny box.”

  I looked over her shoulder. The headline read: EXPLOSION AT GALLERY. The matter-of-fact story was more or less correct, confirming what I had learned: Judy was in “serious but stable condition.”

  “Was there anything on the radio?”

  I said, “I didn’t have it on.”

  I went over and clicked on the box we kept on top of the refrigerator. As the NPR commentator droned on, Bella shrugged. “Well, now I know more than I’ll ever need to about the farming habits of the Bantu-speaking Ovambo of Namibia,” she said.

  She got up and went toward the stairs. “One of us should shower,” she offered.

  “Your classmates will be pleased.”

  About 20 minutes later she returned, bounding happily down the stairs as I read the Arts section, something about a revival of Odets’s Awake and Sing. I got a peck on the cheek as she went to the cabinet, removed a Pop-Tart and shoved it into the toaster. Her hair was damp.

  “Anything yet?” she asked as she pointed to the radio. “About Judy, I mean.”

  “No.”

  “You need a press agent. I mean, if you’re going to insist on doing this.”

  “Oh, I think not, Bella.”

  I saw it in a flash: coverage, and it confirms Addison’s unspoken fear: I do what it is I do now to embarrass him. Which is wrong, though on a few days not by much.

  “You are the hero. People need to know.”

  I took a gulp from a bottle of water. “Look at this,” I said as I pointed to the paper.

  She grabbed the section as she sat across from me.

  “You slept on the couch, didn’t you?”

  “I started a movie,” I said. “The Enemy Below with Robert Mitchum, directed by Dick Powell. Next thing I knew it was 5:30.”

  The toaster popped and I served my daughter her breakfast of choice, along with a Kermit the Frog multivitamin. I noticed that a strap on her blue denim painter’s pants was twisted and her black turtleneck was rolled up in back, but I said nothing. Earlier, Bella advised me that when it came to contemporary fashion, my judgment was in question and my help was anything but. “An irritant” was the exact phrase, I believe.

  She looked up. “Your cabdriver that got killed,” she said. “It’s very sad.”

  The Sunday Times had a brief piece about Aubrey Brown. Today’s story was the follow-up and the New York Times proved a proficient leg man. The cabby was a loner, the dispatcher Ellard Jackson said, and he had no family. He liked to hack. “Aubrey worked whenever he was healthy,” he added. “The overnight shift, whenever he could make it.”

  The paper had a photo of the cab. The old Buick looked like a rolling coffin under the harsh streetlights.

  Brown had emphysema, the Times said. He lived in a one-room rat-trap in East Harlem. In a passport-like photo provided by Jackson and his Dee-luxe Livery Cab Company, Brown was balding, with sagging skin and a world-weary slouch. His listless eyes looked straight ahead, through the camera, as if he was considering some far-off place, or thinking of absolutely nothing. It was a disturbing glare, and I’d had to blink, then look away. And as I did I saw him as I’d found him: head cracked, blood everywhere.

  The coroner’s office reported that Brown was killed by a combination of blows to the head. His nose was broken, and his skull was fractured from behind.

  Police declined to comment, saying only that the investigation was ongoing.

  (Also unspoken: Terry Orr has been invited to stay the fuck home.)

  Brown’s change box was emptied, and his wallet was gone.

  The reporter had done a thorough job, going to Brown’s apartment on 142nd Street and finding not much more than a hot plate, instant oatmeal, instant coffee, a radio and an old turntable. Brown owned one record: an old Thelonious Monk disk. The album contained the song “Ruby, My Dear.”

  Brown’s wife Ruby died 40 years ago. They’d been married for eight months.

  Brown’s mother died in 1997, and for the first time, he had to live on his own.

  “We’re being real cautious right now,” said Ellard Jackson. “But I got a job to do.”

  The Times turned up a niece. “I didn’t know him too good,” she said.

  The niece, Shirley Tuper, lived around the corner from her uncle.

  The reporter found a neighbor. “He did some odd jobs, I think. Maybe he was a short-order cook.”

  Friday was the best night of the week for a livery hack, the Times reported. A man like Aubrey Brown could take home $70, maybe 80; more, if there was a little rain.

  Bella said, “It hasn’t rained in three weeks.”

  “I know,” I replied as I thought about how I’d spend at leas
t part of the next few days.

  I entered the Henderson & Son Funeral Service on 135th and Malcolm X Boulevard as the service was about to begin.

  The closed coffin, not much more than a pine box, rested on a carpeted platform in front of the orderly room, before burgundy velvet curtains. Somber floral wreaths stood as sentries on either side of the box, behind the minister, who bowed his head and wrung his hands until he was assured of absolute silence. Slipping in back, I eased into a folding chair in the last row.

  He lifted his head. He was a heavyset man in a gray, five-button suit, starched white shirt and gray bow tie. “Dear friends,” he began, in a voice less authoritative than his frame suggested. “Friends of Aubrey Brown.”

  Between the minister and me were 11 rows of empty chairs. The first two rows were occupied. In front were three women in fine chiffon dresses, the kind favored by proper women of a certain age, upbringing and disposition. Their attractive hats, the kind rarely seen outside church services, were nestled in their immaculately done hair, and their white-gloved hands clasped leather-bound Bibles. Apparently, they were members of the same congregation as the minister, for he seemed to be preaching directly to them, and they anticipated his comments, nodding with knowing expressions, murmuring along, calling “Amen” with uncanny precision.

  “Our good lord Jesus, he has called brother Brown home. And home with our sweet Jesus is a better place than brother Brown ever knew here.”

  Behind the three women sat two men in neat, informal attire and a woman in wrinkled slacks and a well-worn windbreaker that was several sizes too large. She slumped in her seat, her head hung at an odd angle. I made a silent wager with myself: Ellard Jackson, the dispatcher; one of his colleagues; and Shirley Tuper, the niece.

  “And you know, brothers and sisters, that the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord,” he said flatly, with little enthusiasm.

  “Amen,” the three women responded.

  “And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again.”