by Ivy Pochoda
“Me what? Just get your cerveza.”
“Traeme mi cerveza.”
“What?” Fadi says.
“He wants you to get him his beer,” Ren says. He’s come partway down the aisle.
The wino stops dancing. He recoils a few steps as if he’s been stung.
“Please just take your beer,” Fadi says. He’s been considering banning the wino for good. He wants to get rid of him before the cruise ship docks.
The wino tiptoes backward until he is standing outside the store. He curls his fingers and puts them in his mouth. He blocks the entrance. He points a finger at Fadi. “La recompensa es mia.” He dances from foot to foot as if he’s walking on hot coals. “La recompensa es mia.” His voice is getting louder, a sharp, birdlike shriek. Fadi’s having enough trouble keeping his own customers and attracting new ones without the wino adding to the problem.
“You want your cerveza or not?”
“Sí.”
“Go get your beer or get out.”
The wino looks at Ren and shakes his head. “La recompensa es mia,” he says. Fadi watches two young women cross the street and enter the Puerto Ricans’ store.
“Renton, choose him a beer,” Fadi says.
“No, no!” He points at Fadi. “Tu.”
Fadi goes to the cooler and fetches a forty of Bud. When he returns with the beer, the wino is still cowering in the door, glancing at Ren, then stutter-stepping backward when Ren returns his stare. Fadi hands him the beer. The wino snatches it, stuffs a couple of crumpled bills into Fadi’s hand, and scurries away. On his way out the door, he rips down the poster of June, crumples it, and shoves it in the pocket of his trench coat.
Fadi lunges after him.
“Slow down, boss,” Ren says. “The girl’s gone. Only greedy folk care about rewards.”
“You wouldn’t care about the money if you found her?”
“There’s no way the police would hand over that cash to me even if I led them to her body. They’d cuff me the second I stepped into the station.”
“So you wouldn’t risk it for the fifteen grand?” Fadi asks.
“No.” Ren puts his hands in the pouch of his sweatshirt.
Ren crosses to the plexiglass cabinet on the counter on which Fadi tapes his local news clippings. He points to a picture of the Queen Mary docked in the Red Hook cruise terminal. “Forget the girl, boss. You see that? That’s where the money is. You’ve got to be ready. Shipshape.”
While Ren takes inventory of the soda, Fadi opens the suggestion box and combs through this week’s complaints. Among the twenty slips of paper only one pertains to June.
Tomorrow will mark the two-month anniversary of the disappearance of June Giatto. Please light a candle for her.
Fadi gets out his old laptop and begins to type up the grievances from all over Red Hook—the people from the Houses who want their streetlights fixed, the green thumbs who want people to stop sneaking into the community vegetable garden after dark, the person who wants the Dockyard shut down.
Two of the submissions make him laugh.
Yo, RunDown, you mess with one of my pieces again, I’m going to come after you.
“Creative” as it may be, graffiti is a crime and RunDown is a vandal. Stop defacing our buildings.
Ren finishes with the sodas and sits on a camp chair with the newspapers. The rhythmic rustle as he turns each page creates a comfortable rhythm for Fadi’s work. He is almost done cataloging this week’s complaints when he pulls a suggestion out of the box that makes him curse aloud.
“You cool, boss?”
Fadi nods and Ren returns to the paper.
Dear Citizens of Red Hook—do you know that our self-appointed community leader employs a dangerous criminal in his store?
Fadi stares at the slip of paper. He turns it over. It’s written on a torn sheet of loose-leaf paper. The handwriting tells him nothing. He crumples the paper and drops it in the garbage. This is the first time he’s rejected one of his submissions. But calling a graffiti artist a dangerous criminal seems ridiculous even by the standards of his newsletter.
Fadi phones the BBQ place across the expressway. He orders one chicken and rib dinner and one BBQ sampler. He gets a side of everything. He wants Ren to have more than his fill, have extra for the next day and the one after that. He sets up the folding chairs under the awning and puts a couple of beers in brown bags. He wants Christos and the wino to watch him sharing his dinner. He wants the neighborhood to know that he’s not alone. He’s not a stranger. He has an ally.
The last wave of morning commuters has disappeared up Van Brunt and the bus service has slowed to its midday schedule when Fadi hears someone calling him. He puts down El Diario and goes to his door. The Greek is standing in front of his restaurant, waving Fadi over.
“Come,” he calls, waving both hands.
Fadi points back toward his counter, suggesting to the Greek that he’s got merchandise in there, easy to steal. The Greek should come to him. Then he points at the crosswalk on Visitation. The Greek shrugs. Fadi goes back inside and pours two cups of coffee.
They meet in the middle of the street. Christos’s apron is speckled with oil and streaks of red sauce. He smells of fried onions. Fadi offers him the coffee, but he waves it away, leaving Fadi holding a cup in each hand.
“You are too good for my information?” Christos says. “You do not care to print in your paper?”
“I print everything,” Fadi says.
“Everything but what has to do with your own business.”
“You wrote the thing about Renton? Painting a mural doesn’t make him a criminal.”
“Mural? What do I know about a mural?” The Greek wipes his hands on his apron. “I only know what Estaban tells me.”
“Who’s Estaban?”
The Greek jerks his head back toward the Cruise Café where the little wino is peering out the front door. “He says your worker is a criminal. A dangerous man.”
“And what has he done?”
“Murder.”
Fadi dumps the extra coffee out onto the street.
“I think the neighborhood has the right to know,” Christos says.
“Who has he murdered?”
“You want I should tell my customers that you only print the news you like?”
“If you can prove it, I’ll put it in the newsletter.”
“Sure. Sure,” Christos says. “You are killing your business. You don’t even wonder why?”
“Because of the newsletter? The newsletter is for the community. It’s for my customers.” A car is trying to turn from Visitation onto Van Brunt. The driver honks, then leans out the window, cursing. They cross to the Greek’s side of the street.
“You even check with your customers before you write? You make other people’s business your business. You tell them what to do. Where to go. The vigil for the missing girl? You announce it to the entire world.”
“It was a public service.”
“For their public.” He jerks his head down Visitation toward the Marino house. “You think they like you to advertise their event at the church? That you print your theories about their tragedy. Just sell your coffee and your papers. Better for you.”
Fadi takes a sip of his coffee. “Thanks for the tip,” he says, crossing back to his store.
“My information, you print it,” the Greek calls. “You print it or I tell people myself.”
He can’t imagine how the Greek is so easily convinced by the wino.
Two kids taking a holiday from school are hovering over the candy bars. They hustle out the door when Fadi returns. He sits on his wobbly stool and picks up his latest newsletter. Submissions for his complaint box are up, but his customers are dwindling. He turns the paper over and stares at the picture of June. She’s out of reach. The news and the neighborhood have moved on.
When Ren comes in, Fadi doesn’t mention his conversation with the Greek. From time to time the wino appears on the doo
rstep of the Greek’s, dancing in place, biting his fingers and pointing at Fadi’s.
“Little man’s bugging today,” Ren says.
For dinner Fadi orders pizza. It’s too cold to eat outside, so he and Ren sit behind the counter. They are nearly done when something crashes through the window. The glass cracks. Fadi rushes outside. The sidewalk in front is empty. From the street he watches the glass slide from the window and splinter on the street and inside his store.
A jagged hunk of metal lies on the floor of the bodega. Shards of glass are strewn over the pastry display, the Coca-Cola cooler, and the floor in front of the counter.
Street sounds flood the store. The night air blows in, rustling the newspapers and making the items on the bulletin board flutter. Fadi looks over at the Greek’s. The Cruise Café is shuttered. People in front of the bar cross into the middle of the street to get a better look. When they realize that no one is hurt, they retreat to their post. The Puerto Ricans stay out of sight.
The window, nearly ten feet long and four feet high, will be expensive to replace. It will take a week to get someone out here to do it. Fadi grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes.
He and Ren survey the damage. They take a broom handle and clear the remaining glass from the window frame.
“Boss, I got your back,” Ren says.
Fadi will have to survive a week with his roll gate down. Between the ads taped to the glass and the fridges backed against it, the shattered window didn’t admit much light, yet with the gate down it will appear that the store is closed.
Ren clears out the last of the large pieces of glass. He brings up the industrial vacuum from the basement and gets to work on the bits underneath the refrigerators. “You trust me, boss?”
“Sure,” Fadi says.
“Give me a C-note and I’ll get to work. We need supplies.”
Fadi gives the kid a hundred and a couple of twenties from the register, hoping that he’ll keep the change from whatever he plans to do and buy himself some new T-shirts.
“I’ll be back before you open.”
Fadi mans the counter until eleven. His only customer is Jonathan.
There’s a cot in the basement for emergencies. Fadi’s only been asleep a couple of hours when he hears footsteps above his head. He rushes up the rickety basement steps, nearly wrenching the handrail from the wall. Ren is standing in front of the broken window. In either hand he holds a bag from Nuthouse 24-Hour Hardware.
“Easy boss,” he says. “I didn’t mean to disturb.”
Fadi rubs his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“I thought I’d dress up your gate, seeing as how it’s going to be down for a while, if that’s copacetic. Just a little touch-up. You know, attract business instead of dispersing it.” He places his bags on the floor. He selects six cans of spray paint and heads for the door.
“What’s the name of this place anyway?” Ren says.
“Hafiz Superette,” Fadi says.
“What the hell is a Hafiz?”
“Hafiz is my father.”
“Anyone around here know that?”
“Probably not.”
“So what’cha want to call it?”
“You want me to rename it right now?”
“Preferably,” Ren says.
Fadi stares at the new awning Christos ordered when he renamed his restaurant the Cruise Café. The name seemed desperate, overly aspirational—snubbing Red Hook in favor of the tourists.
“Come on, boss,” Ren says.
“The Daily Visitation.” Ren nods in approval and rattles the can. Fadi tenses, holding his breath as the first spray hits the gate. It’s off to the left—a long black arc, like the opening of a parenthesis. “What’s that?”
Ren doesn’t turn around.
“What is that?” Fadi says as Ren paints a stripe to the left of the arc.
Ren lowers the can. “You’re making me sweat. You trust me or not?”
“I trust you.”
“You’re acting like the police. Don’t you have winks to catch?”
Fadi leaves Ren and walks through the dark interior of his store. With the gates down the place feels like a cave. He sleeps fitfully. At five thirty, he rises. He takes toothpaste and a toothbrush from his shelves and washes up in the industrial sink. Upstairs, Fadi brews coffee, and assembles a tray of pastries. He takes a folding chair from the storage room and carries it out to the street. He places the tray of pastries and a large Styrofoam cup of coffee next to Ren. Ren doesn’t look up from his work.
Ren has painted the back half of a cruise ship. The ship takes up the entire length of the roll gate. She’s setting sail, heading away from the neighborhood, down Visitation in the direction of the cruise terminal. Half of the upper deck and two of the smokestacks are visible. Lifeboats hang over one side. On the stern is the ship’s name: The Daily Visitation.
Fadi steps back so he can take it in. The ship’s stark colors are offset by the electric blue green water and aqua sky.
“Walk,” Ren says, pointing up the street.
Fadi obeys. As he does so, the ridges in the roll gate bring the ship to life, making her bob and sway—sailing in place on Visitation. The water at the base of the ship ripples as Fadi passes.
Ren doesn’t wait for Fadi’s approval. “It’s the bomb,” he says. “Now you’re prepared. No one from the boat is going to skip over your place.”
Fadi paces back and forth, examining the ship from different angles, checking that it animates when approached from either direction. Two tollbooth workers cross from the Greek’s to get a better look. When they are done, they buy two large coffees, the papers, and buttered rolls. After they leave the store, Fadi calls out to Ren, “Breakfast?”
Ren wipes his hands on his sweatshirt, adding to the streaks and splashes of paint. He shoves a donut into his mouth and palms two more. “I got to sleep. I need to regenerate.” He lopes down Van Brunt toward the water. Fadi watches him go. “I think we’re ready for the boat now, boss,” Ren calls. “You and me are going to give that mother a New York welcome.”
When Ren is out of sight, Fadi stalks the pavement in front of his gate watching the ship ripple and sway. People stop to stare at Ren’s work. Someone nearly misses the bus. Christos comes to the door of his restaurant and curses at Fadi in Greek.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A few minutes after the bell rings, there is a knock at the door to Jonathan’s classroom. Val is standing outside, a slip of paper in her hand.
“I transferred into your class, Mr. Sprouse. I hope that’s okay.”
Jonathan can hear the arrhythmic thunk and metallic reverb of a basketball being dribbled in the gym downstairs. He hesitates, taking in Val’s choppy haircut that makes her look like a 1960s film star, then steps aside so she can enter. The rest of the girls bow their heads together, only separating so she pick a path through their chairs. Val finds a seat at the back of the room by the window.
Jonathan presses play on the stereo and soon his mother’s voice fills the room. He knows he should retire his mother’s second-run Broadway recordings and introduce something like Le Nozze di Figaro, The Magic Flute, or The Goldberg Variations—music that’s worth teaching. But ever since he found Val under the pier, he feels drawn to his mother’s music, as if by playing her recordings he might rescue her as well.
Val rocks back in her chair.
“Hey, Val, don’t break that window like you broke Anna’s mirror.”
Jonathan glances up and catches two juniors, Stacy and Meredith, looking at Val.
Jonathan puts a finger to his lips. His students barely tolerate his class, so why should he care if they know adagio from allegro, recitative from aria? They use his class to sleep or catch up on text messages. When their whispers rise to conversation level, he turns up the volume on the stereo so they’d have to scream to hear one another.
The girls lean closer together. “I still can’t believe how fucked up she was at that party
.”
“We never should have invited her.” They glance back at Val.
For a couple of weeks the girls in Jonathan’s class have been whispering about a student who got high and put her fist into a bathroom mirror at a party. He’s heard of worse transgressions, but the school seems fixated on this story.
Jonathan approaches Stacy and Meredith. “If you two are going to continue to talk, I think it would be better if you did it in Sister Margaret’s office.”
“Sorry,” Stacy says.
“Yeah, sorry,” Meredith says. They pull their chairs apart.
“It’s too late for sorry,” Jonathan says. “Get out.”
The whole class stares at him. His heart is beating fast, and his fingers tingle as he points to the door.
“What?” Stacy says.
“I said, get out. Or have you never been sent out of a room before?”
“Not in high school.”
“Now.”
The girls hesitate. Jonathan walks behind their chairs and grabs hold of the plastic backrests. He tips the chairs forward. The girls scramble to their feet, grabbing their book bags as they head for the door.
Jonathan sits down on the piano bench and clasps his hands to hide their trembling. “Does anyone else have something to say? Maybe I’m missing something? Is it too much for you to sit and listen to music quietly? Or perhaps this is too difficult. Perhaps it is too much to ask. Maybe one of you has a story about last weekend’s party you want to tell. Or maybe now is the time to share some critical information on the behavior of one of your classmates. Maybe because this is not math or history and because we don’t have any homework, now is the perfect time for you to discuss your hangovers and how cool you all are for being able to handle more Jell-O shots or Slippery Nipples than your friends.”
The girls shift in their seats. Some look at the ground. They’re either ashamed or smiling. Jonathan doesn’t care which. “So now I suggest you shut the hell up and listen to Cabaret.” Jonathan slides down on the piano bench. One of the girls will probably report him to the headmistress for telling the class to shut up but there’s nothing he can do about it now. He turns the volume up as loud as it will go so he doesn’t have to hear himself think.