by Matt Burgess
“No car. No food.”
It was perhaps foolish of Alfredo to think this night would be different from any other night. Foolish to think he could somehow charm a sack of greasy food from this acne-scarred gorgon. Behind Alfredo and Winston, a car, a real one, honks its horn. Alfredo wishes he could drive this ghetto car down the streets of Jackson Heights, drop Winston off on Northern Boulevard near the Doberman—here, you figure it out—and then keep going, all the way home. He’s tired. It’s been a night full of setbacks, and Alfredo wants to go home, wash his face, smear on his anti-zit creams, rub Isabel’s belly, and, if he wakes her up, play their I Wish game. Like everyone else, she’ll probably want to talk about Tariq. She’ll want to know Alfredo’s plan of attack, but he will insist they play the game. I wish the baby gets your chin, he’ll say. I wish he has your elbows, she’ll say, and Alfredo will contest that one. Whispering, they will argue under their sheet on the sofa bed, debating which one of them has the superior elbows.
The car hits its horn again. It isn’t a polite beep-beep as before; this honk’s got teeth. Normally Alfredo would maintain the charade. Still squatting, feeling the burn in his quads, Alfredo would hook an arm behind the passenger seat’s imaginary headrest and back the ghetto car out of the drive-thru and into the parking lot. Tonight, however, he stands up—his knees popping—and walks away.
“Wait up!” Winston says. With his height advantage and longer legs, he catches up to Alfredo easily. “What a bitch, huh? That McDonald’s girl?”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Alfredo says.
“About what?” Winston says. They match each other step for step, the two of them moving quickly down Northern Boulevard, their boots slapping the pavement.
“About saying what I said. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Winston says. His hand flutters at his side, as if he was about to clap Alfredo’s shoulder, but he apparently thinks better of it. “I’m sorry too.”
They stop at the intersection so that traffic may pass. It is Friday night and there are plenty of cars, Camrys and Civics and Corollas, yellow cabs and gypsy cabs, drunks returning home from the bars and clubs in Manhattan, drivers escorting escorts to johns, janitors and doormen and security guards coming off their shifts—all of them stream by while the light says go. Impatient, eager to get moving again, Alfredo hits the green button on the corner. He knows it won’t do anything. These buttons—To Cross Street, Push Button, Wait for Walk Signal—were all disconnected years ago when the Department of Transportation switched to computer-controlled traffic signals. The only reason they remain scattered on street corners throughout the outer boroughs is because it’d be too expensive to remove them all. Mayor Bloomberg and Giuliani before him and Dinkins before him and Koch before him, they all figured, Fuck it. So we’ve got some buttons in Queens that don’t work. They’ll act as placebos, as decoration. At the very least, they’ll fool the tourists. But Alfredo isn’t fooled. This is his home. He knows this push button doesn’t work, and yet … he pushes it anyway.
The light changes from Don’t Walk to Walk.
Nothing to get all excited about. Alfredo pushed a nonfunctioning button and the cars stopped and a traffic light switched in his favor. Someone like Isabel might consider this an omen. She would take this blinking Walk sign as an indication that the universe is going to start tilting in his direction, that the infinity logos will turn out to be no big deal, that the bacon cheeseburger will prove unnecessary, that the Doberman is going to happily lick the Valium straight out of Alfredo’s palm and a few minutes later the dog will yawn and his thin legs will tremble and he’ll eventually pass out and then Alfredo will—will do what? Go get wire cutters from some twenty-four-hour hardware store. Open up a hole in the fence like the one near the handball courts at Travers Park. Breathing naturally, Alfredo will lift up the dog and take it to Max’s basement and—because the push button worked—the next day the cops and Mr. Allouez will find a hole in the fence and the cars untouched and the dog gone and they’ll perfectly misunderstand it. The headline in the Post will read “World’s Smartest Doberman Escapes Confinement! Lock Up Your T-Bones!” And then Winston will quit drugs for real and the Mets will beat the Yankees in tomorrow’s game and the dogfight will go off beautifully and Alfredo will make lots of money and an impressed and intimidated Tariq will leave Isabel alone and—a little further along in this favorable future—Isabel and Alfredo and their healthy-hearted baby boy will move out of his parents’ apartment and into a place of their own, where Isabel will take bubble baths surrounded by candles. Someone else might think all that, but Alfredo doesn’t. He doesn’t believe in omens. He doesn’t think that in Queens white doves settle down onto the prows of arks. And even if for a tantalizing moment Alfredo allowed himself to believe in all that good-times-are-a-gonna-be-rolling bullshit, there is, five blocks away, a navy blue 1997 Chevy Impala that says otherwise.
“DT,” Alfredo says.
“You sure?” Winston says.
Alfredo’s authority in these matters should not be challenged. He has difficulty seeing something twenty feet in front of his face, but for whatever reason—call it experience, vigilance, paranoia—Alfredo can stand on the corner of Fifty-ninth Street and Northern Boulevard and spot a DT cruising down Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. A DT coming right at him, four, no wait, three blocks away? Forget about it.
Because he and Winston elicit more suspicion as a twosome than they do individually, Alfredo says, “I’ll see you in a couple of minutes. Get in touch with you on your cell.”
They don’t slap palms or shake hands, because they don’t want to give the impression they’re completing some kind of transaction. Instead, they bump fists. Just a couple of law-abiding buddies saying good-bye. Winston walks up Fifty-ninth Street; Alfredo goes down Northern Boulevard to where the Impala waits. Best to walk toward it, to not look suspicious. The Impala has pulled up in front of a fire hydrant and sits there patiently, its engine humming, its hazards off. Rising up out of the trunk, a cluster of antennae stand at attention. Alfredo looks at the car for a full second, just as he would if a gorilla was eyeballing him on the sidewalk. A one-Mississippi beat. Not long enough to issue a challenge, not short enough to invite one. After the second passes, he looks forward again. Like his big brother taught him, he walks at a relaxed, regular pace. He keeps his head up, his shoulders straight. But, of course, it doesn’t matter.
A tinted window rolls down. The driver, a fat-faced white guy, sticks his head out and says, “Help you with something?”
“Nope,” Alfredo says. The driver waits for more answers as if more questions were asked. He wears a Jets jersey, the kind with the numbers ironed on instead of sewed, a cheap and flimsy thing. Alfredo can’t see the name on the back, but he’s sure it reads “Chrebet,” the Jets’ second-string wide receiver, a white guy playing a black position. Below the jersey’s sleeve, the driver sports a green armband. Even though Alfredo can’t see anyone else, he knows there are three more guys in the car, one sitting shotgun, two more in back. Like the driver, all three of these guys will have green sweatbands wrapped around their biceps. Alfredo’s sure of it. At roll call—which started almost seven hours ago—sleep-deprived sergeants across the city must’ve announced green as the color of the day, helping the uniformed cops identify their plainclothes brothers. Chevy Impalas, tinted windows, extra antennae, phosphorescent clothing accessories: Alfredo wonders why they just don’t wear nametags that say NYPD Undercover. “Thank you, sir,” Alfredo tells the driver. “But I don’t need any help at all.”
“Who’s the big black guy you said good-bye to? That your boyfriend?”
The cop sitting shotgun leans forward. “Hey, drug dealer,” he says. He wears a green armband and an Islanders jersey. Even undercover, these guys can’t stop wearing uniforms. “Let’s see some of those drugs you got on you.”
This is how they talk. They assume you’re breaking the law and try to trick you into agreeing. “No
drugs,” Alfredo says.
“That don’t make no sense. You’re a neighborhood drug dealer. What about a dime bag? You gotta have a dime bag.”
“How about your gun?” the driver says. “Maybe we can get a lookit at the gun in the waistband of your jeans.”
If he were standing outside Max’s candy store, Alfredo might have given these guys some mouth. What’s a dime bag, Officer? Selling drugs is against the law, Officer. Out in front of Max’s store, Alfredo could get lippy because he wouldn’t have too much to sweat over. His stash would be off his person, across the street, behind a loose brick. Outside Max’s candy store, Alfredo could give these four DTs his Alfred E. Neuman what-me-worry. Because outside Max’s candy store, Alfredo wasn’t a fucking idiot. He didn’t have a bag of prescription pills in one pocket, fifty hits of Ecstasy in the other.
He shows the cops his open palms. “No drugs, sir. No guns.”
“Your legs are shaking,” the driver says.
“No they’re not.”
“Okay.” The driver sticks his finger in his mouth and picks at something between his teeth. His face is contorted in concentration. “You don’t have any drugs. You don’t have a gun. Your legs aren’t shaking. Lookit. Your palms are empty.” Whatever was between his teeth now rests in a wet clump on the tip of his finger. He flicks it into the street. “You’re clean,” the driver tells Alfredo. “You’re a credit to the community.”
“I should be getting home,” Alfredo says. Stupid idiot that he is, he starts to walk away.
All four doors open at once, a navy blue insect spreading its wings. Alfredo can’t run. His feet burst raw with blisters. And besides, these cops would love to stretch their legs and chase Alfredo just for the pleasure of beating the shit out of him. And he resisted arrest, Your Honor. They come toward him, wearing a Jets jersey, an Islanders jersey, a Mets jersey, and a Hawaiian shirt. They are white, white, Dominican, and Guyanese. Badges swing from chains around their necks. They push Alfredo against a wall. All day the bricks of this wall have been baking in the June sun, and they feel warm now against Alfredo’s cheek. His glasses slip off his nose. There are fingers in his hair. Hands grab his ankles, pat down his legs, run up the bars of his rib cage. His feet are kicked apart. A cop bends Alfredo forward at the waist and credit-cards him, swipes the side of his hand up through Alfredo’s ass crack. They are looking for intent to sell. For a weapon, a felony charge, some overtime. Fingers pinch the wetness under Alfredo’s armpits.
“You nervous about something?” The cop’s breath is warm and moist and smells like peppermint, like red and white candies in cellophane wrappers. “What you nervous about? You got drugs in your pocket?”
“Lookit those legs shaking!”
“They are not,” Alfredo says, but the words snag on something as they leave his mouth.
“They are not,” a cop says in a high, girlish voice.
Pressed up against the wall, Alfredo feels hands plumbing his pockets. The right and the left. His eyes burn. Alfredo has never spent a single night in lockup. Imagine the irony. Going to jail the day before Tariq comes home. Through the thin cloth of his pocket, a stranger’s fingertips press into Alfredo’s thigh. They brush up against his balls and his body tightens. He goes up onto his toes, and then suddenly—with these desperate hands clutching his body—Alfredo remembers he doesn’t have the baggie of prescription pills because Winston took it away from him, nearly half an hour ago. He’s going to be okay. The Holy Ghost swirls around his feet, swells him with buoyancy. When Alfredo gets home, he will recite the Our Father. On Sunday, he will go to Mass and kneel down, eyes closed, head dipped to his chest, palms pressed together.
“What’s this?” says the Dominican cop, the one who struggles to grow a mustache. He holds up Alfredo’s beeper. “What have we got here?”
“Let me see,” says the Islanders jersey. “Looks like a drug dealer’s pager. Pager? Beeper? Is there a difference?”
“Ask the drug dealer,” the driver says.
“Is there a difference, drug dealer, between a pager and a beeper?”
“It’s just a beeper,” Alfredo says.
“You get your drug pages on this it’s-just-a-beeper?” the cop asks. “Call them back and say, ‘What you need?’ We’re talking big weight, right? Selling over in Corona. I know all about it. Selling the good shit in Corona.” He tosses the beeper at Alfredo.
In his shortened Little League career, Alfredo tended to overthink things in the field—the ball is rolling toward me, I should charge it, throw it to first—and was prone, therefore, to the occasional error. The beeper bounces off his chest, scuttles through his fingers, and hits the ground hard. But it does not split open. The top does not pop off. The Holy Ghost has Its fingers wrapped around the beeper, squeezing it tight.
The Guyanese cop picks it up off the sidewalk. He rubs his thumb over a corner of the beeper, where the plastic has been smoothed and flattened, scuffed by the fall. He is the cop with the Hawaiian shirt, the cop who apparently does not care for sports. Frowning, he presses buttons on the top of the beeper. “I think it’s broke,” he says. “It’s not turning back on.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” says the cop in the Islanders jersey. “How you gonna get your drug pages now?”
The Guyanese cop turns over the beeper. Alfredo stares at it, thinking of all the other things these guys could be doing. On Roosevelt Avenue, underneath the elevated 7 train, there are drag queens selling blowjobs. There are Wall Street CEOs whose doors could be getting kicked in. Without a doubt, a block away in any direction, some drunk guy is whaling on his wife or molesting his stepdaughter. Why don’t the cops go do something about that? Why don’t they keep their hands out of my pockets and go find Osama fucking bin Laden? The Guyanese cop brings the beeper to Alfredo and clips it to the collar of his T-shirt. The beeper weighs heavy. It causes the shirt to droop downward, exposing the root of Alfredo’s throat.
“Tell us about your boy Curtis Hughes,” the cop says.
“You knew him,” the driver says. “You both being drug dealers and all.”
“No,” Alfredo says.
“No, what?”
“No, I don’t know him,” Alfredo says. He isn’t worried. These cops aren’t investigators. Ninety percent of them aren’t even detectives. DT is just something they’re called on the street. These cops—to the left of Alfredo, to the right, sitting on the hood of the car, clipping beepers to his chest—are from the NYPD’s Anti-Crime Unit. They are patrolmen who get to wear sports jerseys. They are bloodhounds, good for sniffing out drugs and guns, and that’s about all. They don’t know who Alfredo is. Anti-Crime comes heavy, assumes everything, knows nothing. If they were genuinely suspicious of Alfredo, they’d be acting like his best friend. There’d be polite questions in soft voices. So they mentioned Curtis Hughes? So what? Alfredo’s curious, but unworried. Curtis Hughes is a name that falls out of policemen’s mouths often. “He’s a drug dealer?” Alfredo asks. “Does he live around here?”
“Stop jerking us off,” the Dominican says, unsure of himself. “We know you know about him getting merked. Come on, hombre. We know you know about your boy Curtis getting beat to death.”
“That’s not right,” Alfredo says.
“What’s not right?”
“That’s not right,” Alfredo says again.
“I thought you didn’t know him.”
“Beat to death?” Alfredo leans against the wall. “I went out to get a cheeseburger and I couldn’t because I don’t have a car and I’m just walking along and you guys stop me and accuse me of having drugs and guns and you get out of the car and you push me around and …” Alfredo continues to detail the events of the last few minutes. Speaking in a monotone—it is the only voice available to him—he lists his grievances, the things that have happened to him, the things for which he is not responsible. There is a scratch in the lens of his glasses, he tells them. Caused by their hands pushing him against the wall. There is a sc
rape on his cheek from the bricks. Alfredo talks because it keeps him from confronting the death of Curtis Hughes and he talks because he knows it bores the police officers. Look at them. The Dominican dips his head to his armband and wipes the sweat from his eyes. This was a mistake, they think. If this little Puerto Rican knew anything worth knowing, he wouldn’t talk so fucking much. They stopped him looking for overtime, for drugs and guns at the bottom of his pockets, and when they didn’t find anything they took a shot on this Curtis Hughes kid, the latest African American male DOA. Best-case scenario, they break open a homicide case. Worst-case scenario, they make a kid piss his pants a bit and they’ve got a funny story for later tonight. Something to talk about over vodka tonics at Legends Bar. But instead, four plainclothes officers near the end of their shift are listening to some spic drone on about—what’s he blabbing about now?—some dog who dances to songs no one else can hear.
“Go home,” the driver snaps. He looks like a man who’s found mold on a peach he’d already bit into. “I don’t want to see your face on these streets ever again,” he says. It is the standard DT good-bye. “You understand? Comprende? Go home to your boyfriend. It isn’t safe for you out here.” The cops get into their 1997 Chevy Impala and speed away, leaving Alfredo behind, alone, slumped against a brick wall.
5
Ricochet
Late at night, Jose Sr. rolls his wheelchair across the Batistas’ parrot-infested living room. The TV plays what sounds like an infomercial—the standard get-rich-quick scheme, how to make thousands before breakfast—but Isabel can’t see the television, nor can she see Jose Sr.’s sweaty face hovering above hers, because she has her eyes screwed shut. She’s a real pro. The Meryl Streep of simulated sleep. The sofa bed’s metal bar burrows into her hip, but she gives no indication it bothers her. When Jose Sr. asks her if she’s awake, she answers with a little snore action: breathes deeply through the nose, lets the air whistle through a nostril. She drools and twitches. Her eyeballs ricochet behind their lids, mimicking REM palpitations.