by Ivy Pochoda
“I haven’t seen him in a few.” Fadi closes the paper and pours himself a cup of coffee. “Are you the boy he’s looking after?”
“Looking after?”
“With the groceries. He was always putting bags aside for someone.”
The boy eyes Fadi. “He sent stuff for my mom when she got sick, if that’s what you mean.”
“What’s your name?”
“Cree. Do you know where he is?”
“I don’t. I don’t even know where he lives.”
“Bones Manor.” Cree takes a newsletter from the counter, flips it over, and stares at June’s picture. “June Giatto,” he says. “That seems like a lifetime ago.”
“The guy who rescued her friend Valerie brought her in here. Laid her down right where you’re standing. I thought she was dead. She’s a good kid.”
“I know,” Cree says. “She’s cool.” He shuffles his feet. “I was on the pier that night.” He bites his lip and looks away. “It was amazing—those two girls just floated on moonlight. You know what I normally see by the water at night?”
Fadi shakes his head.
“Crazy shit. But those girls were like nothing else. They were possible.”
“You never told anyone you were there?”
“Only Ren. But he already knew. He was there too.” On his way out, Cree takes a newsletter, folds it, and tucks it in his back pocket.
He was there too. These words keep Fadi up all night. They run through his head on the bus from the subway. They distract him from paying attention to the jumper on the façade of the confectionery manufacturer.
Ren had never mentioned that he was near the water the night June disappeared. But he was certain that she wouldn’t be found. He’d discouraged Fadi from looking for her. Fadi knows it’s a long shot—that Ren is probably miles away from Red Hook—but he wants to know what the kid saw on the water that night. He wants to know why he never bothered to tell Fadi he’d seen the girls.
The neighborhood, just waking up, is bang and clatter. The first iron gates are rolling up. The early delivery vans are trundling over the faulty asphalt. Fadi walks past his store. When he gets to the water where Local Harvest will be, he doubles back. He finds a small cobbled side street with a derelict bus stop. There’s a man inside, huddled on the bench, keeping warm in his puffy black coat. He stirs as Fadi passes.
“Excuse me,” Fadi says. “Can you tell me where Bones Manor is?”
“A dollar,” the man says. His face looks like spent charcoal.
Fadi fishes out a five.
The man shakes his head, then coughs and spits. “Up there, there’s a hole in the fence. Between the iron walls. But they don’t want you.”
Fadi’s footfalls echo like gunshots. He walks parallel to the corrugated iron fence, searching for the gap. Soon he sees a corner that is bent back. He leans in close and hears the whisper and rustle coming from inside.
Fadi circles the block. Each time he passes the gap in the fence he rushes by. It is only when the first hint of sun dulls the sky over the Houses that he dares to peek inside.
A stagnant body of water, larger than a puddle and smaller than a lake, stretches out in front of him. Around it is a sparse shantytown of makeshift abodes—containers used as houses, lean-tos made from trees and tarps—a ghost town left to the ghosts.
He picks his way along the edge of the water and up onto a concrete platform that allows him to look over the lot. The water whispers as he passes. The reeds talk behind his back.
On the far side of the Manor, someone is bringing a small fire to life. Two figures huddle over the narrow flame, their thin shadows stretching across the water. The Manor has the same hungry, haunted look Ren first had when he turned up in Fadi’s store. Fadi can imagine him here, in this world that seems halfway between the living and the dead.
At the back corner of the lot, Fadi nearly trips over the little wino. He’s slumped underneath his coat. Fadi nudges him with his toe. The wino rolls over and curses in Spanish.
“Estaban,” Fadi says.
The wino opens his eyes. His shriveled face looks like a peach pit.
“I’m looking for Ren.”
The wino shakes his head.
“Ren. Renton. You know who I’m talking about.”
“No se.”
“Yes,” Fadi says. “Yes, you do. He works for me. He lives here.”
“No mas,” the wino says. He closes his eyes. Fadi nudges him again.
“Where does he live?”
“Gone,” the wino says. He flutters his hand in a wavelike motion.
“Where?”
“No se.” The wino pulls his coat over his head, blocking Fadi out.
Fadi hovers for a moment, wondering whether it’s worth his time to drag the wino from his sleep, to lift him and shake him until he tells Fadi what he wants to know.
Suddenly, the wino bolts upright. “The recompensa,” he says. “You come for the recompensa.”
“No,” Fadi says, “I’m only looking for my friend.”
“No friend. El Diablo.”
The wino’s words barely register. Fadi’s eyes are drawn to the mattress on which Estaban had been sleeping—a pink inflatable raft. He takes the wino’s arm and yanks him off his bed. Then he holds up the raft.
“Where did you get this?”
The wino shakes his head.
“Where?” Fadi says. His voice echoes off the metal walls. He feels the Manor shift as eyes peer out from behind tattered curtains.
“Ren-ton,” the wino says. He waves his hand toward two shipping containers next to each other.
Fadi lets go of the wino’s arm. The little man staggers backward.
A pile of rubble—concrete shards and fragments of rebar—blocks Fadi’s way toward the containers. He picks his way over this heap and arrives at the place the wino indicated. The door at the short end of one of the containers is open. The other container is shut tight.
Fadi slides through the opening, then pushes the door wider, letting in a dim rectangle of light. The container is clean. A pile of discarded bedding lies crumpled in the corner. Murals in Ren’s familiar style cover the walls. There’s a low shelf made from cinder blocks and boards along one wall holding several cans of spray paint. Fadi picks one up and shakes it, summoning the familiar rattle. Then he uncaps it, presses the button, and releases a hiss of paint into the air. He’s too late. Ren is gone.
Fadi exits the container and closes the door. The little wino is peeking at him from behind the rubble heap. Fadi walks away.
At the entrance to the Manor, Fadi pauses and looks back. The sun has broken through the jagged skyline of the Houses, illuminating the murky pond and the drab concrete landscape. It has pulled the shipping containers from the darkness, highlighting their muted colors—red, blue, or orange metal.
The locked container next to Ren’s former hideout does not have these industrial hues. Unlike the others in the lot, this one jumps from the dreary landscape of the Manor with a vibrant swirl of deep blues and swampy greens.
Fadi immediately recognizes the seascape depicted on the ridged metal as the bay beyond Valentino Pier. He sees the distant skyline of Manhattan, the looming hump of Governors Island, the suggestion of Staten Island. As the sun jumps the final hurdle of the projects opposite the Manor, it lands squarely in the middle of the container, illuminating a round spill of moonlight. Centered in this opalescent shimmer is a pink raft with two figures silhouetted against the reflection of the full moon.
Fadi does not have to pry open the door to the sealed container to know that this is where Ren hid June in order to protect Cree from a crime he didn’t commit. This is the place that Ren had suggested with his hypotheses and hints. This is the secret grave that no one except the wino ever suspected. This is where the recompensa lies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A few more days is all he needs. That’s all. In lockup there had been nothing but time, identical days endlessly
repeated, each one providing a chance to make good on yesterday’s mistakes. Improve yourself. Educate yourself. Atone. But out here, time slips through Ren’s fingers. He can’t slow it down, he can’t rewind. He can’t undo.
He’d tricked himself into believing that he’d win Cree over, get him to come adventuring without explaining himself. Without coming clean. But the fine CO lady, the one who brightened up the wards just by passing by, had made him. Screamed to high hell as if she’d seen a ghost.
How come these Red Hook girls couldn’t stay out of trouble, first those white girls, then Monique? Ren had been tailing Cree the night Val and June hit the water in their raft. His plan had been to sidle up to Cree on the pier, open up a conversation, and figure a way into Cree’s life. But then the kid had started following the girls on the raft, tracking them from pier to pier.
Ren had kept close to him, so close in fact they’d nearly collided in the park in front of Valentino Pier. Ren had just enough time to hide behind a low wall before Cree rushed past him, jumped in the water, started swimming for the girls.
Ren ran to the pier. The current was swirling. Cree was thrashing out toward Val and June. Ren could see that the boy would have to turn back before he made it out to the raft. After five minutes, Cree gave up and let the waves bring him in.
Cree was paddling back to shore when the raft flipped. Ren could see one of the girls still clinging to the raft. The other was flailing in the drink. As Cree hauled himself onto the beach, Ren took two steps down the pier, ready to reveal himself to Cree, yank the boy back in the water, and head toward the raft. But the dark water with its hidden currents scared him. If Cree couldn’t fight the current, Ren knew he didn’t stand a chance. He never learned to swim before getting locked up. He couldn’t take more than a few strokes without panicking. Val and June had already been pulled apart by the current. The boys would never reach the raft in time.
Before Cree could catch sight of him, Ren hopped over the side of the pier, crashing onto the jagged rocks and sand below. He scanned the bay. The raft was floating empty in the direction of Governors Island. He began to head along the shoreline, trying to keep pace with the raft, hoping the girls would be swept in the same direction.
Just once he took his eyes from the water, checking over his shoulder to see if Cree had made him. But all he saw was the boy’s silhouette heading across the park away from the pier.
Farther up the shore, Ren caught sight of a white shape, fish belly pale in the moonlight. Val was swimming toward a rocky outcrop, paddling with weak strokes. A tugboat was passing too close to the coastline, churning a wake that roiled the water and sent waves crashing into the shore. Before Ren could reach Val, one of these waves lifted her and knocked her into the rocks at the foot of the parking lot. The tide pulled her out and another wave sent her back in. Val sank from view. When she resurfaced, she was no longer paddling, but floating limp, letting the water buffet her.
Ren had no choice but to get in the water now. He was terrified of going in too deep, so he waded chest high, until the bottom gave out. He kicked his legs, fighting to stay afloat. He felt the current grip him. Water flew up his nose and ran down the back of his throat. Then a wave swamped him and washed Val’s body on top of his.
He looped an arm around her waist and began to drag her to shore. Blood trickled down her neck from a cut somewhere under her hair. He listened for her breath. Eventually it reached his ear, faint but even. Ren lifted Val and carried her to higher ground. He searched around for somewhere safe to stow her while he looked for her friend. He stumbled over the rocks toward the little beach. He propped her up against a pylon under the pier, praying she’d be all right until he could return.
Once more, he decided to follow the raft. He passed the rocky outcrop, the cruise terminal, and the container terminal. Half a mile up the shore, at the border of Red Hook and Carroll Gardens, he spotted the pink raft, washed up in a stand of rusted and disused pylons. A few feet farther on, he glimpsed the other girl’s body, floating facedown. Ren rolled her over, slapped her face a few times, blew into her cold mouth. He knew enough to know she was gone. He freed the raft from the pylons and placed June on top of it. He waded into the water and floated her back to Valentino Pier.
Ren was a nobody, a ghost with no name. He could disappear from Red Hook and no one would have known he had been back in the first place. He could leave June for someone else to find and be done with it. But Cree was a different story.
The boy thought he was a master sleuth, that he snuck in and out of his hiding places unobserved, that no one saw him tiptoeing around the waterfront. The kid believed he had Red Hook to himself. But Ren knew better. Someone might have seen Cree by the water that night watching the girls on their raft. Someone might have seen him try to swim after them. Ren had heard enough stories in jail to know how these things play out. Chances were Cree would serve time for something he had nothing to do with. Life would slow to a standstill, and if he ever made it out everything would have passed him by, all because he’d foolishly tried to attach himself to a misguided adventure. So Ren hid June in the only place he knew no one would look. No body, no crime. It was as simple as that.
He carried the girl to Bones Manor along side streets he hoped were abandoned. The only person he’d come across was the crackhead wino—but he hoped the little man was too strung out to notice his cargo. After he locked June away in the airtight storage container next to his, securing the door so no one could get in, he doubled back to the water’s edge where he sat with Val until the sun began hovering behind the Houses. Soon the dog walkers and joggers would appear near the pier and Val would be safe.
On his way back from the pier he’d nearly collided with a white dude in crumpled black clothes on his way down to the water. The guy was shuffling across the park either up all night or up too early—trailing a scent of smoke and booze. Fog had rolled in, smothering the river, hiding the distant bridges and other boroughs. Even New Jersey was out of sight. The white guy stared at the water as if it might tell him something.
At the edge of the park, Ren ducked behind some raggedy bushes. He watched the white guy on the pier, willing him to look down and see Val. The Staten Island ferry rolled into view. Some sound in the pylons caught the white guy’s attention. He looked.
Ren had planned to keep a low profile when he returned to Red Hook, hiding at the edges and never entering the Houses. But he couldn’t help himself from walking Monique home. There was something lost but adventurous about her, as if she’d purposefully allowed herself to get off the path in order to find a better route. He wanted to keep her safe, but he also wanted to follow her wherever she was going. After the CO lady started screaming, Ren knew it would only be a couple of hours before Cree came for him. He took his beating, told his story, knowing Cree would walk away.
When Ernesto and his tiny hoods checked in with him later that night, he told them he had one final job. They had to help him haul the boat down to the water. With or without Cree it was time for Ren to go.
Ren had painted the escapes he knew Cree dreamed of—electric pieces he hoped would entice the boy away. He’d wanted to show Cree, Fadi, the rest of them what they had—amp it up, draw attention to the everyday. Too bad folks insisted on dwelling on what they lacked, the adventures that were out of reach, the customers who didn’t come, the people who went missing, the people who got dropped. Ren wanted to shake them free. But some fools seemed destined to run in place.
Ren knows he has to get out before the CO lady starts asking questions. Soon someone will come down to his container. It won’t be long before they open up the one next to his.
After he let Cree pummel him, Ren sits up all night waiting for the boy to return, make good on the adventure they’d planned. He sits on the deck of the boat, watching the shore, willing Cree to appear. By the next morning, the boy hasn’t shown. Ren gets ready to leave. Soon the sky is fading from black to gray. Cree isn’t coming. It’s time to ge
t going.
The small boat is surprisingly powerful and sways under Ren’s inexperienced command. He tips left and right, trying to find balance in the water. He is afraid to pick up speed. He inches out into the Erie Basin.
Cree hadn’t needed to tell Ren that a captain returns to haunt his ship. Ren knows Marcus is with him on the boat. Hell, Marcus has been with him ever since he dropped the gun onto the windowsill of that second-story apartment in the Houses. The man had jumped up off the ground and flown into Ren’s heart, took up residence in his mind, infected and informed each of Ren’s ideas, each of his dreams. He was the ghost in Ren’s reflection, the shadow he cast on the sidewalk. As Ren guides the boat away from shore, he hopes he’s doing Marcus proud.
At first the chop of the water unsettles him. He clenches the wheel, jerking and bucking with the waves. But soon he relaxes his grip and dares to accelerate. And suddenly he understands that the boat is more powerful than the slight waves and the current.
The sun is rising over Brooklyn, and the bay blazes like a vivid burner—the kind Ren would have like to have painted on a subway or a billboard. But instead of painting it, Ren is part of it, sailing into it—all the colors in his cans come to life. As he passes below the Verrazano, crossing out of the borough, he feels Marcus take the wheel, guiding him into deeper waters where he hopes Cree will have the sense to find him.
June crosses from the Manor to the pier, fluid and slow. She pushes through the world that has grown as heavy as mud. From habit she reaches out to touch people she passes but catches nothing. She absorbs the wind, grass, benches, and flagpoles. Distances that once took her minutes to cover now take hours. She is unaware of the sun’s touch and the woodwind sounds of fall. Her world is drained of color and sound.
It wasn’t always this way. Initially, she had clung to life. That first month after she’d drowned in the dark, chilly bay, she’d tried to latch onto others, hovering near the action, hoping to be brought back. She had been drawn to the bright world around the Houses—the music from the tabernacle, the parties in Coffey Park. She haunted the cookouts, seeing whether there was a place for her between the clusters of grills that shimmered with heat and smoke. She wondered if she might come back to life as someone was opening a bag of chips or squeezing ketchup. June stood watch, as solid as the smoke that rose from the coals. She tried to lend a hand, but she was as ineffectual as air.