When she got to the right address, she saw him immediately, right there. He was hanging out, smoking a cigarette, drinking a Bud Lite, alone in the night. He’d put on some weight, and gotten older, of course he had. They had both been through so much.
He was staring up, where the stars should have been, and she could hear the birds that he could hear.
“Eddie?”
“Yeah, who’s that?”
She walked up closer, so he could catch her features in the streetlight.
“It’s Maggie. Maggie Terry.”
Eddie Figueroa’s face widened and paled with surprise. He stood up, arms outstretched, and staggered toward her. He might have had a knife in his back, that’s how stung he looked. He came closer, and closer. He stared at her. She expected him to fall over and crush her.
“Eddie, I’m so sorry about—”
Eddie hugged her so hard that he became her. Their breasts were pressed, flattened against each other’s chests.
“Maggie, they dropped all the charges. I’m back on the beat.”
He was so happy. It was a victory. He was dulled.
“What a relief for you, Eddie,” she said.
“Thank you.” He was shaking her hand now. Shaking it really hard. “Thanks, Maggie. How cool of you to come by.”
“Eddie,” she said. “Your father was the best friend I ever had.”
And then, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t say, He died because I am a drug addict and an alcoholic. I lied to the police commission. I am a liar. I let him down.
She couldn’t say it because she would be telling it to the wrong person. Because Eddie was a killer, and so was she. They were both on the wrong side, the lying side. And in some horrible way, they both paid a terrible price, but they both still got away with it. They both had the chance to live.
“You want to come in and have a beer?”
“No, thanks. I was just in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by.”
“Oh, yeah, what are you doing in Bay Ridge?”
“Having dinner with some friends. At that Palestinian place.”
“Okay, then.” He was so happy. He was the winner. “I’ll let you go. I’ll tell my mother you were here.”
“Okay, goodnight, Eddie.”
“Take care.”
And he disappeared into the shadows.
Then she got back on the R train, took it to Union Square, and changed for the 4 train. There was good air conditioning in the cars, but not on the platforms. It was a Sunday night in the summer and people were pretty low key.
Maggie got out and followed the instructions she had written on a piece of paper bag, and walked some underlit, empty streets until she reached her goal. It was a hot, rickety street, awkward metal doors in different stages of unbalance. Uneven steps. Unsynchronized storefronts, held together by gates and shaky metal sheets. This was where it all happened. This is where it all took place.
Some old black men were playing cards on a folding table on the sidewalk, near a pushcart selling piragua in three sweet grayish flavors. It was very quiet. An ugly dog lay sprawled on the concrete.
There was some kind of West Indian music coming from the apartment, and people were talking inside.
She knocked on the door.
A woman in the middle of a conversation came close to the door and looked through the peephole. There was the sound of locks turning, and the door slid open the length of a chain. The young woman’s eyes, her brow, and the bridge of her nose peeked through.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Ashford?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Maggie Terry.”
“Yes.”
“I used to be a police officer.”
“The police?” The woman clucked with disdain and then fear.
Maggie looked in the eyes of this stranger. It was time to make amends.
“I am here to see if I can help you get some justice. I want to do what I can to help make things right.”
And, finally, it was all on her.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the Corporation of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Special thanks to Tayari Jones and Jeffrey Van Dyke, and gratitude to Rakesh Satyal for your invaluable help. An impactful subway conversation with Nan Boyd was a great influence on this piece. Thank you to my editor Lauren Rosemary Hook, Linda Villarosa, and everyone at the Feminist Press.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CREDIT: © DREW STEVENS
SARAH SCHULMAN is the author of several books including The Gentrification of the Mind, Conflict Is Not Abuse, and The Cosmopolitans. Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at CUNY, Schulman has received honors such as a Guggenheim in Playwriting and a Fulbright in Judaic Studies. She also cofounded the ACT UP Oral History Project.
ALSO BY FEMINIST PRESS
THE COSMOPOLITANS
Sarah Schulman
A modern retelling of Balzac’s classic Cousin Bette by one of America’s most prolific and significant writers. Earl, a black, gay actor working in a meatpacking plant, and Bette, a white secretary, have lived next door to each other in the same Greenwich Village apartment building for thirty years. Shamed and disowned by their families, both found refuge in New York and in their domestic routine. Everything changes when Hortense, a wealthy young actress from Ohio, comes to the city to “make it.” Textured with the grit and gloss of midcentury Manhattan, The Cosmopolitans is a lush, inviting read, and the truths it frames about the human need for love and recognition remain long after the book is closed.
SARAH SCHULMAN is the author of several books including The Gentrification of the Mind, Conflict Is Not Abuse, and The Cosmopolitans. Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at CUNY, Schulman has received honors such as a Guggenheim in Playwriting and a Fulbright in Judaic Studies. She also cofounded the ACT UP Oral History Project.
BLACK WAVE
Michelle Tea
It’s 1999—and Michelle’s world is ending. Desperate to quell her addiction to drugs, disastrous romance, and nineties San Francisco, Michelle heads south for LA. But soon it’s officially announced that the world will end in one year, and life in the sprawling metropolis becomes increasingly weird.
While living in an abandoned bookstore, dating Matt Dillon, and keeping an eye on the encroaching apocalypse, Michelle begins a new novel, a sprawling and meta-textual exploration to complement her promises of maturity and responsibility. But as she tries to make queer love and art without succumbing to self-destructive vice, the boundaries between storytelling and everyday living begin to blur, and Michelle wonders how much she’ll have to compromise her artistic process if she’s going to properly ride out doomsday.
MICHELLE TEA is the author of numerous books, including Rent Girl, Valencia, and How to Grow Up. She is the creator of the Sister Spit all-girl open mic and 1997-1999 national tour. In 2003, Michelle founded RADAR Productions, a literary non-profit that oversees queer-centric projects.
FOLLOW ME INTO THE DARK
Felicia C. Sullivan
What happens when children are denied love and then left to their own devices? Follow Me into the Dark traces the unraveling of a family marred by perverse intergenerational abuse. Kate is a young baker whose mother is dying of cancer. Gillian is an oversexed, hyper-intellectual who looks like Kate and is sleeping with Kate’s stepfather. Jonah is Gillian’s odd but devoted stepbrother, who increasingly matches the description of the “Doll Collector,” a menacing serial killer. With Kate flailing in her mourning and beating back unwelcome memories, snippets of her family legacy are revealed just as the Doll Collector’s body count grows.
FELICIA C. SULLIVAN is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed memoir The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here (Algonquin/Harper Perennial) and the founder of the now defunct but highly regarded literary journal Small Spiral Notebook.
ABOUT FEMINIST PRESS
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n founded to amplify feminist voices. FP publishes classic and new writing from around the world, creates cutting-edge programs, and elevates silenced and marginalized voices in order to support personal transformation and social justice for all people.
See our complete list of books at feministpress.org
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