When his train came it was crowded, and he came out of the green station doors in a cluster of his friends. They were all just graduating that year, nothing they were supposed to be doing. It wasn’t like they only did this on Fridays. Every other weekday too, Lorris’d be creeping back at three or four in the morning. I didn’t really mind when he asked me for a ride; it was better than waiting at home trying to stay awake longer than he was.
He opened the front door and he was still wearing my goddamn hat, the gray Mets one. He said, Hey, and put on his seat belt while his friends opened the back doors. I looked through the rearview mirror at them, all steaming from the cold even though no one had jackets on. When they closed the doors the windows immediately began to steam up. I said, Where’s all the girls? and they started roaring, and that made me feel good.
How was your night? he said.
Good, I said.
Someone stole our jackets at the warehouse.
Always happens, I said. I told you not to take one.
Yeah, well, he said.
You’re just lucky it’s not the hat.
He took it off and held the flat brim between his fingers. He traced the NY, which popped up off the front. I know, he said.
• • •
We dropped everyone off, the hand slaps at the stoops, the car doors open and shut. The impossibility of red lights at that time of night, just look around in all directions and make sure no cops or other cars were around, and go. Treat everything like a stop sign. I knew where all the cameras were in this neighborhood, had known since I was as old as Lorris is. He never paid attention when we drove anywhere, had his eyes on his hands.
His friend Omar was last, second base to his shortstop, and they promised to see each other tomorrow. It was a few blocks from our house, and once Omar got to the door I went to put the car in drive, but Lorris put his hand on top. Let’s make sure he gets in OK, he said. We watched the living room light go on, and then go off, and then an upstairs bedroom one flicker quietly. You know we can go now, Lorris said.
I checked my mirrors and there was no one and we pulled away. When I first got my license and would drive with Lorris, we used to circle the block if a good song was on the radio and we didn’t want it to end. Then in the alley, he’d hop out and open the gate, and I’d pull in slowly, avoiding the garbage cans, trying to get the car in as straight as our dad does.
Where are you going? Lorris said.
Let’s drive a little, I said.
It was only a few blocks to the old house, the farmhouse. We used to think it was haunted. I pulled in front by the white fence. It’s funny, even in a neighborhood with so few parking spots, no one parks in front of the Lott House. Lorris gets out first like it was his idea, and he hops the fence, smoothly, two hands and a leg leap, and he leans up against the big tree next to its wide porch, a weeping reacher like I’ve only seen pictures of, except for here.
By the time I get there he’s pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and a joint, already rolled. Omar had to get rid of it, he says.
I didn’t know you smoked, I said.
I don’t, he said. I just tried it once last week. I don’t think it does anything for me, though.
You’re probably right, I say.
He lights it, and passes it to me. I take a nice small puff, like I always do, and he takes it back, does the same thing. He holds it between his fingers for a second. Do you want this? he asks. When I shrug he sticks it in a cluster of dirt and grass next to the tree.
There are a few wood steps up to the front door, and we stand there, watching the street. A Chevy Malibu goes by but it doesn’t notice us.
You thinking about finishing at Brooklyn this year? he asks.
Maybe, I say, maybe.
I know some kids who took a while there because they were working, he says. He looks at his legs.
It’s all right, Lorris, I say.
I think about how infrequently you say someone’s name out loud. I mean someone close to you, like a good friend or a brother. That girl from the Met, I think I might have said her name once. Leila, I said. Why didn’t you call? she said.
I put a finger diagonal across my mouth and take the four steps left to the door. Lean my shoulder into it hard and the lock just clicks. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket, open it up to use the light.
• • •
Later, back in the car, we listen to one song before heading home. I don’t even remember what it was. They played a lot of Michael Jackson that summer, it could have been him. Lorris and I had always liked his high voice, his style. Neither of our voices ever dropped much.
In the alleyway, the red bike was locked up against the fence, telling us that our father was home. He liked to bike to the movies, liked the ride back. It meant longer on his own time. It was only out in Sheepshead Bay, and he rode home along the water. When we closed the gate behind us, I saw the bathroom light go on, our mother doing recon. When we walked in, she’d be quiet as anything, like she’d been asleep since spring.
When they brought Lorris home from the hospital when he was born they gave me a toy cement mixer truck. I wanted to drive construction back then. I don’t remember but they said they did it so I wouldn’t be upset. I remember that I never used to be that attached to anything. Once we were playing cowboys and Indians and I shot a bow and arrow into his chest and he cried, but I didn’t feel it. Hurts, he said over and over. There was a circle mark in the center from the plastic suction arrow tip. I’d licked it before pulling the string back to see if it would stick.
There was nothing much in the Lott House. I was expecting a room somewhere, all decorated like the ancestors were about to return. Period pieces of furniture and a table set with wood forks. Some gaping hole in the floor where the tunnels were, tunnels that we could jump into and wander the underground borough by night, dust flecks falling from the side walls where our wide arms trailed for balance. There were just fold-up chairs from Parks Department events. I guess there was nowhere else to put them. I pulled one out and kicked it open, slid it across the tile floor to Lorris, kicked one open for myself. For a minute he let us sit there. You OK? he said. Yeah, I said. Yeah, absolutely. Do you mind if we go now? he asked. He looked like he wasn’t sure. I wanted to say how much I liked this place. I liked the way the wood felt under my feet. While I put the chairs back in the rack Lorris went out and waited for me by the car.
CAR PARKED ON QUENTIN, BEING WASHED
On the morning of the funeral Lorris slept until his father woke him. Mr. Favero had woken earliest, so he went in the shower first. He shaved and came out. Wake up the boys, Mrs. Favero whispered, while she took off her faded T-shirt and bra. Mr. Favero didn’t look at her bare back, although some mornings he did. She stepped into the shower. Mr. Favero walked into Jamison’s room, where they were both sleeping in the air-conditioning, and put a hand on each of their heads.
Lorris had come home from college the day before. He was only staying for the weekend. Mr. Favero had waited on Thirty-Fourth Street, off Seventh Avenue, watching for the Megabus to come in. Then he and Lorris had left the car parked and walked into a corner coffee shop. Lorris bought his father a cup and a croissant, with a five from his wallet. Lorris drank a cup of tea himself, something Mr. Favero had never seen him do before. It was a dark little room, empty except for people using the bathroom before getting on a bus, or passengers carrying heavy bags looking for a bottle of water or directions afterward. The two of them sat at a window table and watched the charter buses slowly empty and leave. Mr. Favero asked questions, informed by their phone conversations, about school. When the coffee was gone they went outside to drive back to Brooklyn.
The room, facing the avenue, was quiet in the morning. Jamison woke first, although Lorris had been up and down before. He wasn’t used to sleeping at home again. He always took some days to get accustomed to new beds, t
he new sounds of people breathing, the walls and creaking pipes. It had taken him a long time to fall asleep with his brother’s breathing. Sleep OK? said Mr. Favero. The pullout bed was close enough to the real bed that he could lean in between both of them. Lorris nodded, and Jamison groaned. He rolled over and reached to the nightstand for the clock.
Mrs. Favero was the last one to get dressed. She had spent a long time picking between the dark navies and black blouses that she had in the closet. Mr. Favero was already downstairs, in a suit, looking at his watch and drinking coffee with the boys. Each of them took a mug. We should leave, Mr. Favero yelled up. You wait a minute, Mrs. Favero answered. She was talking to herself in the mirror.
The whole avenue was blocked off. There hadn’t been any notices, nothing hung on trees or bus stop poles, but everyone had known to park their cars on the side streets. Mr. Favero led them off to where the car was on Kimball, reached around and opened the passenger-side door. Lorris and Jamison squeezed their legs into the back. Jamison fingered the broken handhold above his head. We need gas, said Mr. Favero. We’re fine, Mrs. Favero said. There were other people getting into their cars on the side streets. Mr. Favero stopped at the stop sign. The Dentons’ house next door to them was empty and quiet, and there were flowers on the sidewalk.
It was difficult to find a parking spot. Mr. Favero circled the church lot twice. Lorris remembered having youth baseball awards nights here, all the kids from the different teams in their different colors. Lorris’s favorite had been yellow, the one year when they let him pitch. He’d been on the youngest Denton’s team that year; they’d both played outfield together. They’d been in the same school until ninth grade, though now they weren’t close. As they passed the entrance to the church hopelessly for a third time, Lorris was struck suddenly by the memory of one of those awards ceremonies, early in the summer, a lazy blue tinge to the night. Four ice cream trucks had been double-parked on the street fighting for customers. Someone finally came out of the gates to tell them to turn the jingles off. You couldn’t hear the league commissioner, who was also a fireman and lived on Thirty-Sixth. Lorris had gotten the Most Improved Award, he remembered, and Tyler Denton had been MVP. Tyler was playing in college, though Lorris wasn’t. For God’s sake, Mrs. Favero said. I’ll try Avenue V, said Mr. Favero. As they passed Avenue R and the front of the church they saw the long line of firemen walking slowly in through the front doors. They all had their dress uniforms on, like a September 11 memorial, year after year, the tenth anniversary just like the fifth. Lorris barely remembered it, though he was old enough to. He and Jamison had slept in the same room for weeks. The firemen walked down the double yellow line, in the middle of the closed street.
Good Shepherd was not a big church, though it wasn’t a small one. It wasn’t particularly well decorated. There was a large skylight stained-glass window up over the altar, which was supposed to be the crowning work of art, but looked strangely geometrical and out of place, almost like an Islamic mosaic. Mrs. Favero had once felt strongly that the boys go to church. Her mother had been like that. But it began to feel less and less important. Just the year before one of the deacons was accused of improper sexual conduct. I knew it, Lorris had crowed, over the phone. He had already been at college. He always used to look at me funny, Lorris said. Mr. Favero had put an end to such jokes quickly. Enough, he said. The small bronze font for holy water at the front of the church was almost empty, and the ground was squeaky and damp around it, when the Faveros crossed themselves. They sat in the back row, because it had been so difficult parking. Lorris had only seen a coffin once before. The new priest, from some foreign country, stood up.
Later, at the house next door, everyone said what a nice service it had been. Genine Denton, the wife, was nodding quickly, her chin jutting out too far. People had said such nice things, Lorris heard someone say. He heard someone say, almost excitedly, I didn’t know he went to Midwood! I didn’t even know Midwood existed back then. The Stanton family was all there, showing the new family the ropes. No one played whiffleball on the corner of Thirty-Fourth and R, where the green sign was, the Fire Captain Thomas J. Stanton memorial corner. I didn’t know his firehouse had been so close to the World Trade Center, a woman near Lorris gasped. The closest one, someone else answered. Make it through that and then. Lorris shook Tyler Denton’s hand, but Tyler walked away before he could say much. Eventually Mrs. Denton went with Mrs. Favero next door, where they put the food that wouldn’t fit in their fridge into the Faveros’. Then she sat on the couch next to Mrs. Favero. They talked about when their children used to play in the living room there. Mrs. Favero asked if she remembered Legos. Mrs. Denton said that she did. Mr. Favero came in the door with his hands in his pockets looking for them. He stood in front of the couch. He suddenly didn’t know what to do.
That night, after they’d changed out of their good clothes, the ones they’d had in closets in plastic bags, they sat down to watch television. Mr. Favero had been on the couch there since dinner. He hadn’t done the dishes. There wasn’t enough room for all of them on the couch, so Jamison lay on his stomach on the floor. He was laughing at the sitcoms. After the news, Mrs. Favero asked the boys to take the recycling out. Jamison looked at her strangely. Dad always takes the recycling out, he said. He was leaning up on his elbows. You could do something around here sometime, she snapped. Jamison got up and Lorris went with him.
They lugged the white bags out of the trash cans, in the backyard, dragged them around the alleyway and out to the front. Lorris noticed that the tree, in the backyard, looked even more like a face than it usually did—like one of those children’s movies where inanimate objects come alive.
Check out the tree, Lorris said, while they passed it. The face.
Jamison looked at it. I never notice it, he said.
They put the recycling where it belonged, matching the rest of the white bags in front of the other houses. Lorris watched the grease from the tomato cans color the bottom of his bag. He thought about how long it would take to pool through the bottom. Jamison took out his cell phone, wiped his hands on his pants before touching the screen.
Who’s that? Lorris asked.
A girl, Jamison said.
You’re so full of it, Lorris said. You make it like it’s a different girl every day. Show me the text.
I’m not showing you anything.
Here, Lorris said, and reached for the phone. Jamison jerked it away, finished the text, and put it back in his pocket. Give it up, Jamison said. He started walking up the stairs to the house. When he got to the top of the stairs he said, Maybe we can play some baseball this weekend, before you leave. He looked back at Lorris like he was waiting for an answer, so Lorris said, Course. Jamison went in and the door banged. It made Lorris feel good. Jamison was back and forth like that all the time. While Jamison went in, Lorris saw an upstairs light go off in the Dentons’ house.
It was still light out, and warm. It would almost be summer. Lorris checked to see if the screen door stayed unlocked and walked up Avenue R, toward Flatbush. He didn’t even have a sweatshirt on. There were no spaces between the houses here, as there weren’t until right by Flatbush, after which they changed back again. They grew into each other on both sides. Most of them were painted red. Lorris wondered if someone had planned the houses out beforehand, or if they shot up in perfect rows. Suddenly he felt claustrophobic, the way he sometimes did on bus rides, when the ride was too long and it was already dark outside the window. There would be the cars flashing by on the other side of the highway, sometimes a gas station and lit-up rest stops, but that was it. The emptiness made him feel restless. That’s how his legs felt, like even if he wanted to he couldn’t get up. Tomorrow he would take the bus back to college.
On Quentin Road, in front of the supermarket, Lorris leaned back against a fire hydrant. A man on the same side of the street was washing his car. He was scrubbing with a thick sponge. Lor
ris watched him twist the material in his hand. There was a bucket of water on the ground next to him, the water sloshing against the edges. The hose next to the sidewalk was leaking and getting Lorris’s shoes wet. The man worked over the same point on the car for a long time, and then he leaned his forehead on the hood and kept pressing, not looking. The metal at the top of the fire hydrant was biting into Lorris’s leg, but he felt that it would be the most impossible thing in the world for him to leave just then.
THE TREE
We were heading out to buy a Christmas tree off Knapp Street. I thought we used to go to Marine Park, Lorris said. Tuh, said our mother. We never went there, she said. We haven’t been there in years, she amended—They’re too expensive. I thought I remembered always going to Marine Park to get our Christmas tree when we were kids, even after—sawdust on the ground, a pile of old cut-up trees in the corner of the parking lot, which would stay there until spring, when the Parks Department trucked them away: same weekend they dragged the baseball fields—but I guess I was wrong. My mother, a school secretary, is nothing if not together. Since Lorris has been in college she’s been substituting in math. I’m in the basement, which has its own bathroom, just for a while. My father just kept driving. Is this Katy Perry? he asked Z100.
Marine Park: Stories Page 14