Visitation Street

by Ivy Pochoda

  “Do?” Celia says, standing up from the couch and spinning around to look at everyone at once. “What he’s going to do is to stay the hell away from that boy, and tomorrow I’m going to search out his parole officer and let him know that Renton’s been harassing our family.” She falls back on the couch and fixes her gaze on Cree.

  “No one’s harassing no one,” Monique says.

  Gloria pulls her cardigan tight. “If Marcus only knew,” she says, with a look at Monique.

  “Well, he doesn’t,” Monique says. “And he’s not going to.” She stands up, stomps to the bathroom, and slams the door.

  “Don’t start with Marcus, Gloria,” Lucy says. “This is a question for the living, not the dead. Cree has business with this Renton. He just needs to figure out what it is.”

  “Cree’s got no business with him,” Celia says. “None.”

  “You’d think Marcus would have something to say about this,” Gloria says, sinking back on the couch, retreating into herself.

  “Well, if he does, he’s not saying it to you,” Grandma Lucy says. She sits up straighter, her composed posture a rebuke to her daughters.

  “This isn’t about Marcus,” Celia says. “This is about Cree. You need to tell us what you’ve been doing with this boy. What has he gotten you into?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Does this nothing have anything to do with that lineup I hauled you out of?” Celia asks.

  “No.”

  “He’s a gangbanger, baby. Don’t you know how your daddy got killed?” Celia says.

  “Of course I know.” Cree stares at the women, wondering what they want him to say. Should he apologize for his stupidity, plead ignorance, swear vengeance? Should he make a case for Ren?

  They are waiting. Cree wants to kick something and kick it hard. He wants to splinter the coffee table, splatter whatever tea Grandma Lucy has brought over on the walls and carpets, stain the room with that brew of sticks and twigs and moss.

  He wants to yank down the curtains, break the TV. And he wants to curse his father for dying in the first place and then coming back to steal the only friend he’s got.

  “Fuck this,” Cree says. “Fuck all of this.” He dashes into the hall before the women can see him cry.

  For once he’s thankful for the dim hallway, the dark staircases, the broken streetlights in the courtyard and along Lorraine Street. He’s thankful for the projects’ residents who turn a blind eye to other people’s suffering so they can get on with their own.

  Shit. He’d known something was up with Ren all along, but he couldn’t figure what it was because, Cree realizes now—too fucking late of course—he doesn’t know a thing about the kid. He doesn’t know about his parents, his past. He doesn’t know where he came from and why. He’s never seen where he lives and has no idea how he makes bank. The only fact he had about Ren was that the kid had done a stint in jail. But in Red Hook that doesn’t raise too many eyebrows.

  He hadn’t wondered why the kid turned up one day, why he knew so much about Cree, why he seemed to care so much. Ren had invaded Cree’s hideouts, laying his RunDown tag on the small corners of the Hook Cree had carved out for himself. He’d deputized those shitty little hoods to care for Marcus’s memorial, but worst of all, he’d reclaimed the boat. He’d polished it and sanitized it, colonizing the place where Cree had felt closest to his father. It wasn’t enough for Ren to have fucked up Cree’s life in the past, he was fucking with it now. That’s what this was—a complete and total mind-fuck. He either pitied Cree or wanted to torment him. And Cree had been too fucking blind—too flattered by the attention—to notice.

  Cree’s pretty certain he’s the only boy in the Houses who never got into a schoolyard fight. After his dad was shot, kids had left him alone. Teachers let him window-gaze in the back of their classrooms. Bullies knew better than to get caught picking on him. For years, it was as if a cloak of invincibility (or was it invisibility?) had been dropped around his shoulders. He could pass through the projects’ more disreputable corners and run the gauntlets of gangs, crews, and posses and attract no more attention than a “What up, kid?”

  But Cree’s ready for it now. He’s ready for the fight he wasn’t allowed to have. The fury and rage is pressing into his hands, curling them into fists, driving them to pound his thighs.

  Marcus’s death had become a symbol of the senseless violence of Red Hook. To engage it directly—to talk to Cree, to comfort Gloria, to smile at Celia without leering—was to admit how fucked up the place was, how far they’d all fallen. For years, Gloria had diverted Cree’s grief with her belief in Marcus’s ghost, making the boy disappointed rather than angry. But now his anger has a face.

  Cree reaches the lot where the boat is moored. He sees Ren crouching near the stern, fiddling with something in the motor. He’s focused on his task, tuned into whatever nut or bolt needs attention. Cree approaches as quietly as he can. Then he says Ren’s name. Ren stands and Cree lands a square sucker punch on the kid’s jaw. One on the jaw, one on the right eye. Ren stumbles back. Cree gets in another punch to the stomach. He grasps Ren by the shoulders and feels him go limp as if he’s not going to resist the next hit. And the one after that and the one after that.

  Cree lets go. There’s no satisfaction in a one-sided fight. Ren struggles to catch his breath.

  “I was in juvee for seven years. I can take my hits,” he says. “So bring it. I’m not going to fight you.”

  Cree is panting. His fists are sore. “You killed my dad.”

  Ren slides to the ground and leans back against the boat. “I killed your dad.”

  “You’ve been lying to me this whole time, pretending we were friends or whatever?” Cree says.

  “No,” Ren says. “I never lied to you. I just didn’t tell you the whole story. You think you would have talked to me if I told you the truth?”

  “Why do you care if I talk to you in the first place? I should be the last person you’d want to talk to.”

  Ren dabs blood from his lip with the cuff of his sweatshirt. “No, you’re the only person I want to talk to.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Cree says. “You’re fucked up.”

  “What do you know?” Ren says. “You don’t know a thing about me. You don’t know how I tick.”

  “And I don’t care,” Cree says. “All I need to know is that you shot my dad.” He turns and starts to walk out of the lot.

  “What?” Ren says. “That’s it? You’re leaving? You don’t even want to hear my side?”

  Cree stops walking and kicks the ground. “Shit.”

  Ren doesn’t wait for Cree to turn around before beginning his story. “It’s a fucked-up story,” he says. “The first thing I remember after I dropped the gun was watching this little kid walk across the courtyard. A small boy, a couple of years younger than me. I didn’t know you or know your dad. But I knew I’d fucked up. You looked lost even before you saw your father’d been dropped.”

  Cree had been crying when he reached the courtyard. Marcus’s death hadn’t been the source of that day’s grief, but it had immediately taken over, made the other thing seem inconsequential.

  It had started when Rita Marino had decided to steal one of her mother’s cigarettes. She had already downed two wine coolers and was looking for some new diversion. She’d spent an hour worrying about where she was going to smoke the slim 120. Eventually she decided on the upstairs bathroom in her house. There was a small vent that opened onto the roof where she could exhale smoke. She brought Cree in after her and locked the door.

  The smoke made Rita choke. She said it made her head spin. Cree tried to quiet her. But it was too late. Mr. Marino was pounding on the door. The Marinos didn’t allow them to play with the door closed and here they were in a locked bathroom that reeked of smoke. Mr. Marino dragged Cree down the stairs. He shoved him out the door, then thought better of it and reached for Cree’s collar. He held him tight and berated him until people came to their
windows to watch.

  “I couldn’t shake the memory of your face,” Ren says. “I thought I’d do you a solid when I got out. Help you out and such. I wasn’t wrong in thinking you needed someone on your side.”

  “Fuck you,” Cree says.

  “Here’s what’s messed up. It could have been anyone who got into the trouble I did. It could have been you.”

  “No. Not me.”

  “Why? Because you had a lot of friends growing up? You were the popular kid? I didn’t think so,” Ren says. “All it takes is for the right guys to pay you mind. Call your name across the courtyards, allow you to hang on their benches, chill in their corner. You never wanted to belong? You never wanted a crew?”

  “Not when I was twelve.”

  “Bullshit. Fuck, man, I didn’t even know that I was being sized up until it was too late. The attention was addictive. Suddenly all these older dudes—these cool dudes—wanted me to hang with them. I saw that they were getting into some rough shit. But that was better than sitting at home alone with a busted TV. I became habituated to their lifestyle.” Ren finds a crumpled cigarette in the pouch of his sweatshirt. “One day we were chilling in an apartment on the second floor of one of the towers. A guy from my crew had a gun. Someone always had a gun, but this time I was allowed to hold it. I felt like a real sophisticated baller. Apparently there was another crew hanging in an apartment across the courtyard who my boys wanted to put a scare into. The guys told me I’d be the real deal—a hard-core banger—if I sent out a warning to their rivals. I didn’t even think about it. I just pointed the gun out the window.”

  Cree puts a knuckle into his mouth and bites down, hoping the pain will distract him from the threat of tears.

  “Remember how often you heard gunfire back then?” Ren says. “It was nothing. I heard it all the time. It was part of the everyday every day. But I never saw anyone brought down. I figured I was just adding to the background noise, the atmospherics. It took us a beat to figure out that the screaming outside the window meant someone’d been hit. My boys told me to wait in the apartment. I was still waiting there when the cops rolled in. I watched the whole thing unfold like it had nothing to do with me. Like I was watching TV. I was lucky to have been tried as a juvenile, otherwise I’d still be inside.” Ren tugs some dried grass out of the earth and tosses it away.

  “So you’re lucky,” Cree says. “So what?”

  “I’m sorry,” Ren says. “I’m real sorry.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “My parents didn’t visit me more than a couple times a year. Then they moved upstate to Troy. I didn’t even know until one of my letters got sent back. They don’t even know I’m out.”

  “I’m supposed to feel bad your family’s not together?”

  “I’m explaining something to you,” Ren says. “I’m a fuckup. I got no one on my side. And that’s my fault. But what about you?”

  “What about me?” Cree says. “What’s your business with me?”

  “You’ve got a whole neighborhood full of people, but you’re lonely by choice. That’s what I can’t figure.”

  “I don’t know what your game is, but it’s better you don’t think about me at all.”

  “Too bad,” Ren says. “It’s a habit. In juvee, I used to think about you a lot. In my eye you were still that little kid crossing the courtyard. When the weather was nice, I’d try to guess what you were up to. Because whatever it was, was better than the nothing I was doing.”

  “If the weather was nice, I should have been out on this boat with my dad. But thanks to you that never happened,” Cree says.

  “When I first got out, I just wanted to see what you looked like. That’s all. I wanted to check that you were okay, not getting into any sort of trouble. It’s fifty-fifty out here that trouble’s going to find you. I followed you around, caught wind of all your hiding spots. Then I started thinking, this boy’s looking for an escape—a reprieve. He wants an adventure but is too afraid to leave Red Hook. And that’s my fault. With your father gone, you’re frozen. Stuck in that courtyard because of what I did. You dream of getting out but you’re too scared.”

  “Fuck you,” Cree says. “You don’t know the first thing about me.” But he knows it isn’t true.

  “I don’t? Don’t tell me you haven’t been wanting to get that boat out on the water, go all those places your father promised to take you,” Ren says. “The boat’s ready. I had enough years of machine and shop to fix her up.”

  “So then what? You thought I’d just jump on board with you? That we’d sail into the sunset? That was your plan? When were you going to tell me about what you’d done?”

  “When I made it up to you as best I could.”

  “You must be crazy to even think that’s possible,” Cree says.

  “No,” Ren says. “You’re the crazy one planning to spend his whole life in this neighborhood. There’s no such thing as ghosts. The dead don’t come back. You just pretend they do so you don’t have to get on with it.”

  “What do you know about ghosts?” Cree says.

  “You want to know what ghosts are like? Try living in a dormitory full of teenage killers. You’ll see mad ghosts everywhere you look. On the faces of twelve-year-old boys who can’t forget who they killed. Who see their dead everywhere. You’ll see them in the fucking mirror when you just want to check if you’re still breathing. There wasn’t a goddamned night on the inside when I wasn’t woken by somebody haunted by the person he dropped. Ghosts aren’t the dead. They’re those the dead left behind. Stay here long enough, you’ll become one of them—another ghost haunting the Hook.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Red Hook.”

  “There’s something wrong with being too afraid to see anyplace else,” Ren says. “I saw you watching those girls on the raft. I watched you watch them.”

  “You what?” Cree says. He was sure he’d been alone on the pier. But there had been the shadow disappearing into the night that had made him turn from the water.

  “You followed them along the pier. I was with you every step of the way. I was even close enough to touch you. You were too mesmerized to notice. You were so jealous of their adventure, you wanted to grab a piece for yourself. You followed them into the water,” Ren says. “You swam out.”

  Cree shakes his head. But he remembers the strange chill at his back, the eerie sensation that Marcus had been close by, watching.

  “You did,” Ren says. “But you couldn’t reach them. The current was too strong. You think I’m the only person who saw you swim out? How long do you think you’re going to keep this a secret? Red Hook only looks abandoned. But it has eyes.”

  “Yeah,” Cree says. “Yours.”

  “You should be thankful that I’m keeping watch over you—distracting the cops from the fact that you were in the water the night that girl drowned.”

  “Drowned? How come you know that?”

  “I told you. I was watching. I watched the raft flip while you were swimming out. Then I watched you struggle back onto the shore.”

  “You saw what happened?” All it would have taken is a word from Ren to clear Cree of suspicion, to get the damn cops off his back. “And you didn’t say anything?”

  “Like I said, I saw the raft flip,” Ren says. “And I saw you in the water with those girls. You know how many innocent kids were in juvee with me? How many of them were guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? You’re guilty of nothing but your own foolishness. Swimming out to a couple of white girls couldn’t end well. One day your friend Val will remember that you were trying to reach her. Then what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Cree says.

  “You need me,” Ren says. “I know you had nothing to do with that raft. But the cops can’t wait to slap their cuffs on some black kid for this sort of crime. Even if there was no crime. They still have their eyes on you. You have to think about these things if you’re going to survive,” Ren says.


  “I’m going to survive. I’m surviving.”

  “You’re putting one foot in front of the other. That ain’t life.”

  “What do you know about a life? You spent most of yours locked up.”

  “Exactly. And so will you, one way or another. I’m not saying in jail. But I’m implying by circumstance.” Ren stands up.

  “You stay away from my boat,” Cree says. “And you stay away from me. I’m not going anywhere with you. Now or ever. Keep away from me. Keep away from my mom. Keep out of anywhere you think I might be. If you see my shadow, I suggest you run.” Cree takes a deep breath. His chest feels tight. His eyes and nose sting. “If I see you again, I’m going to tell everyone who you are and what you did. The biggest mistake you made, after killing my dad, was coming back to Red Hook.”

  Cree rushes away from the lot. The fucked-up thing, the really fucked-up thing, is that in the last weeks with Ren—on the boat or wherever—Cree had felt closer to Marcus. So maybe Ren’s right. Maybe the dead do cling to those who brought them down.

  Cree circles the neighborhood. There is no comfort in his hideouts. The renovation of the abandoned bar is nearly complete. A sign in the window advertises an opening night party. He retreats toward the Houses. As he crosses Coffey Park, he sees his uncle Des nodding off on one of the benches. Next to him is the wino who fingered Cree for the lineup. He’s swigging wine from a bottle in a brown paper bag. Des lifts his head as Cree passes.

  “Acretius,” he says.

  Cree stops. “Des, ask your buddy why he’s been selling me out to the police. Greedy little shit.”

  “Give me a dollar and I’ll ask him,” Des says. His voice is all rattle and rasp.

  “I’ll ask him myself then,” Cree says. He approaches the bench, towering over the wino who’s trying to shrink into his filthy coat. “Yo.” He takes the bottle out of the wino’s hand and drops it in a garbage can. The shattering glass makes the wino flinch.

  “Estaban,” Des says. “His name is Estaban.”

  “I don’t care what his name is,” Cree says.