Marine Park: Stories

by Chiusano, Mark

  Javi was asking about work. How it was, whether he liked it. Whether he’d had time to go to a Mets game this season.

  Work’s fine, Andrew said. We just got the crop of summer interns in, so it’s making life a little easier for the junior consultants.

  That’s good, Javi said, encouraging.

  And it’s always nice to see some young people, especially of the female persuasion, Andrew said. He grinned and looked up at Javi to grin with him. But perhaps he hadn’t heard. Andrew looked back in the mirror and remembered that Javi had a daughter. He wasn’t sure if that kind of thing mattered.

  Your father has not been in in a while, Javi announced.

  Huh, Andrew said. He didn’t know why this would be. He said so. Think he needs a haircut? Andrew said.

  Oh yes, said Javi, everybody needs haircuts. Especially in the summer. It keeps the cool in the head. Very important. You can keep cool heads.

  Andrew shifted in his chair. He watched the sculpting of his head that was taking place in the mirror. Don’t people usually have cool heads around here? Andrew asked. That’s sort of what Marine Park is, no? A bunch of cool heads?

  Javi cut a difficult part around the ear and nodded slowly. Yes, he said, but sometimes no. He went on to elaborate how the other day, while he’d been on his way to work, walking down Quentin Road, he saw a crowd surrounding a man lying on the sidewalk, and when he got closer he realized that a woman was screaming next to him, or trying to scream. She was screaming in a way by which you could tell she’d been screaming for a long time. Javi asked if someone should do something, and the man next to him, in a firehouse T-shirt, said that the trucks were already on their way. Another man in a firehouse T-shirt was kneeling with the man on the ground, trying to hold his arms away from his head, which was bleeding. The fireman held the hands down with one of his own, pulled off his T-shirt, wrapped it around the back of the man’s bleeding head, to act as a cushion at least, even if he couldn’t stop the blood. The bleeding man’s hands continued reaching for the blood spot on his head. Javi shook his head, asked the obligatory question. Someone next to him said, A hammer. He got into a shouting match, and the attacker pulled a hammer out of his backpack. The man stood his ground, because he couldn’t believe that anything would happen. Then the hammer man stepped forward and started swinging. The bleeding man fell. Finally something snapped in the hammer man, and he stopped swinging, and ran away.

  Andrew had turned to look at Javi while he told the story, the scissors fallen to Javi’s side. Did the man who told you all this see it happen? Andrew asked. Javi shrugged. Sure, I think so. Andrew pressed, He saw it with his own eyes? Someone with a hammer? Javi shook his head again. People are people, he said. I heard what I heard. They all had long hair, he added. Not good in the summer.

  • • •

  Andrew walked out of the barber shop, past the funeral parlor and the Park Bench Cafe. From behind him, he heard a voice, and he turned around.

  Hey, Javi was saying, looking up and struggling with his key in the barbershop door. Can you give me a lift?

  Andrew nodded and extended his hand toward where his car was parked, across the street. It was the same Camry. If he got the new job he’d buy a new car. The Camry was a hand-me-down, the type of thing that was good for a late twentysomething. Andrew looked at the car as he opened it. It wasn’t the type of thing you’d put a wife in. Or a child.

  Kings Highway, asked Andrew, is that where you’re going? He fiddled with his seat belt.

  Well, said Javi. He was wiping stray pieces of hair off his hands, onto the floor in the passenger seat. Andrew wondered if it was his hair.

  Could we make a stop? Javi asked. It’s a little embarrassing.

  Andrew drove and Javi directed. Up to the light on Quentin. A left on Marine Parkway, the wide street that looked like Paris. Andrew had heard once that real estate agents were telling gentrifiers that that was the beauty of the neighborhood: the wide Parisian streets. Andrew wondered whether middle class neighborhoods could be gentrified. He didn’t expect to see many coffee shops. Though even Ditmas Park was getting crowded. Left on Avenue U, Javi said.

  Andrew pulled into the Avenue U parking lot, which was nearly empty of cars. One SUV had its trunk open, playing Jamaican dance hall music. There was a cricket game happening at that side of the park, though it seemed to Andrew like it was miles away. The SUV was full of men and women watching the game, people lounging on the side. In the corner, where during the winter a company comes to sell Christmas trees, there was a small white car, which at first glance you would think was a woman’s car. Andrew wasn’t sure why—the color and the careful polish? Here, Javi said. When he got out, the door of the white car opened, and then Andrew grinned, because it was Ed Monahan.

  Andrew watched the two of them converse from his car. Ed didn’t get out of the driver’s seat. Andrew remembered Ed when they were kids playing basketball in the park. Andrew had been taller, stronger, played center all the way through, but Ed was the real prodigy, had a basketball scholarship to Molloy High School, even though he was one of the shortest guys on Good Shepherd. Andrew had never seen, before or since, on the street courts of the cities he’d lived in, a ball handler as good, one who was as tenacious getting rebounds and looking for the upcourt pass. Ed was the type of kid who, when he was getting refused entry to street games even if it was his rightful next, would take a ball from where it was resting against the chain-link fence and begin spidering, faster and faster, just to show he could. Sometimes the games stopped. More often someone just yelled, Let Whitey in. Ed would stop the wild motions then, hold the ball breathing heavy against his side, flushed with victory, convinced that he was, as everyone told him, good enough. If Andrew remembered right he’d walked on to St. Joseph’s for college—they were looking for a backup point guard. But the starter, a real beautiful kid from the South Bronx, never gave him a chance, and Ed only played the one year. When he came back he didn’t have it in him to take the fireman test, wait on that line. Someone had told Andrew he was working sanitation.

  As Javi walked back Andrew stuck his head out the window. Hey, Ed, he called. Hey. Ed Monahan looked up from where he was counting bills, startled. It’s Andrew. Andrew Dempsey, Andrew said. Ed squinted, his dirty ponytail shaking, like he wasn’t sure if Andrew was supposed to be an undercover cop or something—Marine Park had those too. Government employees popping up like McCain signs. How ya doing? Andrew asked, and Ed nodded. You know, fine, fine, all is good. Still playing ball? Andrew asked. Ed peered at him like he was crazy, and then pressed the button to pull his window up.

  Javi opened the passenger-side door, putting the ziplock bag in his jeans pocket. Sorry, my friend, he said. Just quick, no problem. Andrew grinned at him. Javi smiled back. Do you want? he asked. Andrew considered. He hadn’t smoked since college, when there were weeks he remembered being high even on the basketball court. Playing pickup, only being able to play one game, because of the kick to the lungs, feeling glorious. But he was expecting to get the new consulting job. It was the type of thing that came with a drug test. They’d probably still be interviewing for the position, and he needed to give his two weeks’ notice. Come on, Javi said. I have one of these, he said, and pulled a one-hitter from his pocket, shaped like a cigarette, where the red glow of the ember could hang on the nether end.

  • • •

  There came a time when they were driving again, Andrew driving. He was upset to find that he didn’t feel much of anything, though he was relaxed. He couldn’t remember a time he was as relaxed as he was now. He hadn’t been back to Marine Park in a month, the last time he’d seen his parents. When will you have a girlfriend, Drew? his mother asked. Isn’t it time for that yet? You’re at work too much. His father sat at the kitchen counter, his undershirt tucked into his pants, reading the Daily News. Why don’t you consult for this government? he said. They’re shit out of luck.
Might as well waste money another way. Isn’t it? his mother asked, still on the girlfriend.

  A right here, Javi was saying. They were driving along the water, where the nature center was, a plot of open land. Andrew opened the window to let it out. Straight now, Javi said. They were on Gerritsen Avenue, going down.

  Andrew found himself saying it as he was saying it. What do you talk to my father about, Javi, when you cut his hair? Javi looked at him strangely. Talk? he asked. We don’t talk. I cut. He sits. What talking? Andrew nodded sagely. It’s true, Andrew said.

  They were next to the old public library. It was the end of the road. If you went farther, you hit the water. To the right there were stores and houses, and the library. And to the left there was a basketball court. I need to get one thing here, Javi said. For going home. He left and walked to the right. Andrew sat and watched the road in front of him. Then he got out of the car.

  It was a basketball court that he hadn’t remembered ever being there before. Once he’d prided himself on knowing all the basketball courts in the neighborhood. They all had their character, like different positions. The Marine Park main courts, showcase courts—when the Times wrote a piece about basketball in the city, they mentioned it. The old men putting up tents between the courts and playing dominos. Read: black, but the newspaper didn’t say it. The newspaper didn’t mention Orthodox Jewish point guards reaching for their yarmulkes; the black men, polite, pausing the game if the yarmulkes fell off. You had to kiss them first, even Andrew knew that. It was the only thing a game stopped for. After, everyone went off in their own cars, to their own neighborhoods.

  This basketball court, it didn’t have anything like that, just a couple kids, a guy and his girlfriend, playing Horse on the far court closer to the water. Some other kids hanging on the benches, drinking something. Not a court near the water like Manhattan, where the water was a character in itself—not like a vacation home. The water was an accident here. It was rough grass and overgrown baseball fields until Gerritsen Creek, Dead Horse Bay.

  Andrew watched the guy and girlfriend taking turns shooting, his fingers in the chain-link fence. He had never been the type of kid who dribbled a basketball wherever he went; it was too showy. He took one with him, held against his side, to the park on off times, to practice his shot. There was a certain symmetry to it, the shot and the rebound, alone, the plodding along. The way you could continue to do the same thing over and over again, the only difference being the angle, the force of the shot off your fingers.

  Behind him, he heard a car drive up and slow. Andrew turned. It was a white car, clean and overwaxed. Andrew squinted at the window and he thought it was Ed Monahan’s car, Ed’s squirrel face behind the half-tinted glass. The car stopped. It seemed like there was a face turned to watch, scowling. Then the car started again, and fled, and Andrew turned around.

  He heard the last bounce of the ball. The girlfriend stood with the ball against her stomach, the boyfriend in front of her. A girl from the crowd of drinkers was yelling at them.

  Want to see ghetto? the girl was saying. Want to see ghetto? I’ll show you ghetto. And she stomped, in the way of earth-shattering steps, to where the girlfriend was standing. She grabbed her hair, and started to pull her down.

  Things got complicated then. Andrew would read about it in the Gazette some days later, but he could never tell if it was right in its entirety. The boyfriend pushed the hair-puller away; another boy came up to him with a box cutter. Andrew didn’t see a slash, more just two forward motions, and the boy moaned. The girlfriend was on the ground and someone was stomping on her chest. People were running by Andrew from the shops across the street, onto the court like a full-court press, trying to break the thing up, but Andrew couldn’t move. The baseline, painted white, was streaked with blood. A mob of people was on the court. And Andrew, Andrew walked slowly away, back to his car. Slowly he crossed the street and left the basketball court behind him.

  Some moments later, a hand knocked on the passenger-side window. Javi was standing there, smiling, holding a bouquet of flowers. Andrew leaned over to open the door. For the daughter, Javi said.

  • • •

  Andrew drove slowly, as if he could no longer afford speed. He didn’t think Javi had seen anything. He didn’t think he would have to explain—the girl stomping forward, extending her arms. They did not speak in the car, with the sun starting to go down, the arch-necked streetlights coming on. Javi kept twirling the top of his hair. He hummed softly, even though the radio was on.

  Javi had told Andrew once about where he came from, a Mexican valley somewhere. His family, father and sons, mother and daughters, all were haircutters. They had been to school for it. Only Javi had come to America. It was colder here, Javi said, but often cold there in the winter. Being near the water made it temperate. In the winter, some months, Javi took up and left, went with his daughter back to Mexico, closed the shop. Andrew remembered looking at the sign, the lights off.

  At the train they shook hands, hard clasps, fingers tight. OK, my friend, Javi said. All finished. He took his bouquet and left. Andrew watched as he put the flowers in his teeth to use the MetroCard, to swipe himself through.

  Andrew began to drive, aimlessly. He needed to go back to his apartment in the city, park the car in the parking garage below the building, which he paid good money for. He had to be at work at eight thirty, something that didn’t seem likely to change, at the new job if he got it or anytime in the future. He imagined waking up to get to work at eight thirty for an unimaginable stretch ahead, the long days passing like opposite-lane cars.

  Where could he go? He could go to the house where he grew up, watch the light die with his parents. He could park on their block, walk in, ring the bell, and watch their surprised faces. Talk to them about the future. He did not. He went off R to Fillmore, to the edge of the park, the Marine Park basketball courts, spread out on the corner of the green.

  Just before he got to the chain-link, someone yelled from behind him. Hey, the voice said. Andrew turned. It was Ed Monahan. Hey, Ed said again. What’s the idea? You following me around or something? Up this close Ed looked more haggard than he used to. He looked smaller than Andrew remembered, though his arms were taut. What’re you doing back here anyway? I heard you were a city man now. Ed was just below Andrew’s face. His forearms, hairy and muscular, twitched.

  Listen Ed, Andrew started, but he couldn’t finish it. He wanted nothing more than a game of basketball. A good one-on-one game, the feel of a body hitting another body, bouncing off, hitting again. Something he hadn’t felt in a while.

  Listen, he said vaguely.

  You listen, said Ed. Get back in your car, pussy, and get away.

  So Andrew hit him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thrown a punch. His hand, as it connected with the bones in Ed’s face, broke—or that’s what it felt like. The knuckles moved up, higher than his fingers, though that didn’t make physical sense. Ed staggered back, and then he was on him.

  Andrew found himself on the pavement, his face getting hit from side to side. He had that anxious feeling of first blood, the adrenaline jumping through the veins to tell the body, all is fine. A few minutes later it wouldn’t feel that way anymore, and it would just be pain, until someone pulled Ed away, with flashing lights. On the pavement, Andrew imagined many things. He imagined that it was a basketball fight he’d gotten into, a righteous one; that someone had called a hard foul and he was upholding the call, and then the perpetrator attacked. He imagined that his face, black and blue and purple the next morning probably, would look like a bouquet of flowers, cherry red with dried blood and green the stems for all the infected parts. And he imagined that Ed Monahan, on top of him until he was pulled off, was having a harder time than he might have, because he had no grip on Andrew’s head, his newly cut hair not long enough to hold on to. Andrew felt thankful for his haircut, for the cool breeze he f
elt passing by his neck.

  ED MONAHAN’S GAME

  Way down south and east and close to the water, where Avenue U runs parallel to the salt marsh, and the sounds of the trucks heading toward the Belt Parkway keep sane people up at night, in a house that used to belong to his parents lives Ed Monahan. Some nights Ed stays up shivering, thinking of all the ills that befall this country. Sometimes while he watches the news he thinks of ways things could be better. He owns a gun, the same one his daddy did, his daddy who was a police detective, and worked as a court officer once he retired. One day in the court Ed Monahan’s father worked in, a man made it around the metal detectors that the technicians were just installing, back before they were mandatory, and in the middle of the grand jury proceedings the man, who had been brought in to be a witness, stood up and fired three shots at the defendant on the stand. Two missed. Ed Monahan’s father, who had been seated at the front with his arms crossed, keeping his eye on the defendant, who in his opinion looked “shifty,” took one step forward and raised his gun. With one bullet, he downed the shooter. It was a true shot, but the shooter survived, and went on trial and got fifteen years prison. It was the first time Ed Monahan’s father had fired his gun. Niggers, he said.

  In the morning, Ed Monahan, who had never successfully held down a full-time job, gathered his belongings and his merchandise and packed them onto his bicycle, in wide burlap motorcycle packs he’d bought from the army surplus store on Atlantic Avenue. He put in all the string shaving cream, fire snaps, boxes of hard candy that wouldn’t melt, and toy BB guns that made clicks when you pressed the trigger down rapidly. He had a ponytail that he washed every morning. He had a girlfriend who some nights slept over, who would take her clothes off and lie naked beside him, while he struggled to get himself prepared—though this morning she was not. He had black T-shirts that he wore every day with his jeans. When he had his T-shirt on, over the wifebeater, gray from hand-washing and age, that he wore even in the summer, he wheeled his packed bicycle out of the house and toward the open street by Avenue U. Summers, he had a job to do. He was saving up to buy a car. He got up early. He felt good about himself. He got on his bike and rode the couple of blocks toward the playground in Marine Park.