Radiant City

by Lauren B. Davis

  “What do you expect? No need to blow a gasket. You’re lucky she didn’t insist on coming with me.” Terror replaces anger. “Look, I know this is bad. I know it’s embarrassing. But it’s nearly morning, Joseph. It’s nearly four-thirty in the morning and I’m getting mighty tired.”

  “Is it that late?” Joseph stands and cranes his neck to watch Farida glide away, her bottom swaying in skin-tight black pants.

  “Let’s get you out of here without blowing your cover.”

  “My cover?”

  “Yeah,” says Jack. “Without making it look like Mama sent Matthew here all the way after you.” He snorts and sways and then reaches out to steady himself against the wall.

  “I guess my cover doesn’t much matter now, does it? Merde. And what if I don’t want to go?”

  “I’m not going to drag you out. Fuck that. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. I’ll let her know you’re alive and you can do what you like.”

  Jack comes down the stairs, his heel slipping on the fourth step forcing Joseph and Matthew to grab him. He only laughs and slaps Matthew on the back. “You missed the poetry. You missed the performance art.” He says the word in such a way that Matthew assumes the performance must have involved human excrement, or toads, or someone squeezing blackheads.

  “I thought we talked about this. Was this your idea?”

  “What? Was what my idea?”

  “He’s sixteen! His mother’s going out of her tree. For Christ’s sake, Jack!”

  “Didn’t know it was that late. Want a toke?” He holds out a soggy joint in the fingers of a hand that also holds a bottle of beer. He’s been drinking for so long his sweat smells of it.

  “C’mon, Joseph. We’re getting out of here.”

  Joseph’s shoulder stiffens under Matthew’s hand.

  “I don’t want to go. What is this? You are now my mother’s …”

  “Her what?” says Matthew.

  “Her … flic.”

  Cop. Matthew can live with that. In the wide ocean of possibilities, it is not so bad.

  “Like I said. You make your own decisions.”

  Jack stands in their path, swaying. “Aw, man, let him stay awhile, Dad. He’s got a thing going.” He puts his finger up to the side of his nose and grins, his eyes wandering from side to side.

  “Maybe you should call it a night as well, Jack.” Someone yells from upstairs and there is the crashing sound of metal chairs collapsing. Matthew’s stomach squinches up into his throat. “I didn’t think this’d be your kind of crowd.”

  Jack’s head tilts back and he chews on the inside of his mouth. “Don’t think I fit in with an artistic crowd? That’s the truth, right? Is it? You know what I think?” he says and folds his arms across his chest. As he does so, his hands get tangled in some complicated manoeuvre designed to keep him from burning himself with the joint. In the transaction the beer slips to the floor and the glass shatters. Jack looks at it sadly; he looks at Matthew and smiles lopsidedly. “Maybe you’re right.” And then he laughs. The Jack Laugh, the one that makes heads appear in the stairwell, even over the music.

  Joseph’s muscles relax under Matthew’s hand.

  The three of them make it out of the building slowly, picking their way through the maze of halls and half-lit doorways, the pulse gradually diminishing as they descend. Once, they get lost and find themselves in a bathroom of sorts where someone has set up a child’s wading pool and a hose from the sink. It smells of bleach and mildew in equal measure. “Just like a Turkish jail,” says Jack. They retrace their steps and find the stairs.

  “I see you found him,” says the border guard.

  “Was I lost?” says Jack.

  “You never know,” says the guard and unlocks the door.

  The air is colder than Matthew remembers. He buttons up his

  jacket, but Jack seems immune. Joseph looks tired and a little pasty.

  “I have to find a phone to let your mother know you’re all right.”

  Joseph hangs his head.

  “Tell you what,” says Jack. “I’m coming home with you. Sure. Explain it was my fault.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” says Matthew.

  “She’s going to be very mad.” Joseph’s eyes cloud, sulky under heavy brows. “She treats me like a child. It is impossible.”

  “She’ll be glad you’re all right, but I suspect that yes, you are going to have to face the music, my friend.”

  “Yup. Coming with you,” says Jack again.

  “Listen, let me talk to you.” Matthew pulls Jack aside and tries to remember that taking a pop at Jack is not a wise thing to do. “This has got to stop, all right? You got to leave this kid alone. You said he had nothing to do with your selling dope.”

  “Yeah. I said that. That’s what I said.”

  “Would you want Jack, Jr., mixed up in shit like this? Hanging out in a place like this?”

  “If he’s with me, why not?” says Jack, but he doesn’t sound convinced. He takes a cigarette out of his pack and tries to light it. The match falls to the ground. “Oops,” he says and tries again. “Aw, what the fuck. What am I doing hanging around with a kid anyway? This place is a rat hole, full of pertenti … perntentious … full of shits. I miss the ole Bok-Bok.”

  “So do I, as a matter of fact.”

  Jack puts his arm around Matthew. It feels like a sack of wet sand.

  “We need a good drunk up, the two of us. Joseph!” he calls. “Come here! Joe!”

  Joseph comes over and Jack puts his hands on either side of the boy’s head, and lets his hands slide onto his shoulders, leaning into him, swaying on his feet. Joseph looks at Matthew, puzzled, and braces himself against Jack’s weight.

  “Gonna tell you a story,” Jack slurs. “My dad gimme a piece of advice, see? He said if I was inna bar fight, always need to remember it would be a dirty fucking fight. Fighting dirty. So the thing to do, see, you gotta grab an ashtray—one of those big heavy mutherfucking bar ashtrays, metal, or glass’ll do I guess. If it’s heavy enough—and stuff it down my pants in front of my dick. Get it? Protecting the boys.” He takes his hands off Joseph’s shoulder and gestures as to correct ashtray placement. Matthew and Joseph steady him. “So, few years later here I am. Okinawa, drinking in this bar with a bunch of fucking Danes—they are big mothers, right, big as me, all of ‘em, or bigger. And this fight breaks out. Nasty. Very nasty. So I remember my dear ole daddy’s words of wisendom and I grab me this big metal ashtray off the bar and pooshisin … pussin … make it nice and tight over the boys.” He stands back and splays his feet, balancing, blocking out the action. “I’m getting ready now to do some seerus damage to this Norwegie guy who’s pissing me off, when I get this feeling. This really bad shensation. Next thing I know I’m clawing at my dick, pulling my pants down and rolling on the floor trying to get the fucking ashtray off my dick. Everybody’s stopped fighting to watch me have this fucking epi fit.” He takes a deep breath. “Fuckin’ epi-lep-tic fit or whatever they think is happening and then they’re all laughing at me so hard the fight’s over. Bartender sure was happy and I’m drinking free for a week. But, and this is the point. Let me tell you now, I was feeling mighty sore.” He claps his arm around Joseph. “So, I will leave you with this: Always, always, every time, make sure the ashtray’s empty. Burning butts are the temporary ruin of a man.”

  Jack slaps Joseph on the chest and Matthew on the shoulder and ambles uncertainly off into the night.

  “Is he all right?” asks Joseph.

  “He’s fine,” Matthew says, and points to the phone booth. “Come on, we have to phone your mother.”

  They call Saida. Once she knows he is safe her voice becomes icy with anger.

  For the next couple of blocks, Joseph is quiet. He shuffles and tries to look unconcerned, but Matthew sees he is worried about what his mother will say. Now that he is back on the street, reality settles in.

  “Anthony was there tonig
ht, too,” he says, as though this would make it all right.

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “He left early.”

  “Smart guy.” Matthew tries to remember what it is like to be sixteen, to feel tied down and impatient and invincible. “Tell me about the squat. Why do you like it there?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “Hang out. Nothing. I don’t know. There are people who care about things, who understand what’s going on in the world and aren’t always talking money, money, money, school, school, school, work, work, work. It’s boring. It’s capitalist bullshit. All my mother and uncle care about is, are they making enough money. This is no kind of life. I’m going to be different. My life will mean something. I’m going to travel, see the world. I want to go to America and see these roadside attractions. Like Carhenge.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Brian at the squat told me about this. It’s in the Nebraska flat-lands. Like Stonehenge, but made from cars. Also, I want to see the world’s largest ball of twine and Paul Bunyan the giant. And Route 66.”

  “Well, I agree with you on that last one, anyway.”

  “The point is to travel. To drive through deserts alone. Jack says a man has to know he can stand alone.”

  “Jack says that, huh?”

  “Yes. He says a man doesn’t really know what he’s made of until he has only himself to depend on. If he can survive this, being alone and facing death, then he will never be afraid again.

  You must agree. You’ve been all over the world, in very much danger. You told me stories.”

  “Well, I can talk an awful lot of shit. And, I hate to break it to you, but so can Jack. And believe me, Jack’s a good friend of mine. But he can be one hell of a gasbag.”

  “A gasbag?”

  “Full of hot air. Tells a good story, but doesn’t make a lot of sense. Not all the stories add up. It goes with the territory, Joseph.”

  “What territory? You are telling me he is a liar? That you are?”

  “Not exactly. Just that sometimes for guys like Jack, and like me I guess, after a certain amount of alcohol, or whatever, the stories can get a bit shinier in the telling than they were in the living.”

  “No. I don’t think he’s like that at all.” He shakes his head. “No.”

  “I know you made some introductions for Jack. For his sideline money.”

  Joseph says nothing.

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t get involved with that shit, Joseph.”

  “I am not involved with anything.”

  “That’s good. Because you get caught, you’ll end up in a world of trouble. It’d kill your mother.”

  “I am not involved. I introduced him to a friend. It’s no big deal. It’s not heroin. Not crack. Just a little grass.”

  “Be that as it may. Stay away, you understand?”

  “Sure.” Joseph stopped and pulled at Matthew’s sleeve. “Does my mother know?”

  “She suspects. I’m not going to tell her any more, as long as you promise me it’s over, agreed?”

  “Yes. Agreed.”

  So, they walk, lost in their own thoughts, along the quiet streets, past the blinkered bakeries, past pharmacies with their green crosses dull and dark, past bookstores and butcher shops and travel agents with photos of Tunisian beaches in their unlit windows.

  They arrive at Joseph’s apartment building. “Well, we’re about to see what kind of man you are, Joseph. Can you step up?”

  “I’m not afraid of my mother. What can she do to me? I’m old enough now to make my own life.”

  “If you say so.”

  He presses the code and opens the door.

  “Are you coming up?” Joseph says, and it is difficult to know whether he wants Matthew to or not.

  “I just want to say good-night and make sure she’s all right.”

  “I can make sure she’s all right.”

  “I won’t stay long.” Matthew gives him a gentle push into the dark entranceway. He wants to see him to the door. He follows him up the stairs, smiling. He wants to see Saida’s face. Then he stops smiling, unsettled. Apparently, he wants her to be pleased with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Now that she knows he is alive, is free and unharmed, Saida’s hands tremble. There is nowhere to put the futility, nothing to wrap her fingers around that will help her make her son see sense.

  When Matthew first suggested she make soup, she thought he was a fool. When he left, she sat and looked out the window. She had watched him walk away, had seen him hesitate at the corner and had been afraid he would not look for Joseph, that he would go home to his bed, and she could not blame him. And then he had disappeared, and she sat in the apartment watching the candles that didn’t help at all, or did they? Did Mary send her Matthew? She had tried to pray again, but the words were a scatter across her mind.

  She began to make the soup.

  It was something to do with her hands. Cilantro, cinnamon, garlic, onions. Lentils, spinach and potatoes. The rhythm of chopping, the smell of the spices, clean and hopeful. Make something good to eat and your men will find their way home. Her mother had said that. Oh, Imma, bring your grandson home, she prayed, picturing her mother’s face, wide mouth and eyes like the sweep of a bird’s wing, like calligraphy, her brow smooth, without a worry line.

  Then the phone rang and he was not found. Not in the playground. But Matthew would keep looking.

  I miss you, Imma. Tears are a blessing, her mother had said. Tears wash us clean, they are holy water, too, she said. And I am well blessed tonight, thought Saida, wiping her face with a tea towel. Everything into the pot, simmer and stir, simmer and stir. Steam on her face like a reassuring hand.

  The kitchen smelled good, although the idea of eating felt like stones on her teeth. She set two bowls out and cut bread. She stirred the pot. Tasted. Added salt. Squeezed in lemon. And then the phone.

  “He’s with me.”

  She wanted to speak but there was only a sound, feather against air as something tethered took flight.

  “Saida?”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Where was he?”

  “He was at a party.”

  “And where was this party?”

  He hesitated for only a moment. “At an artists’ squat.”

  “A what?”

  “Sort of a commune.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” she said.

  “He’s okay.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  And now she sits, her hands folding napkins, curling up the edge of the tablecloth, picking at her clothes and dusting surfaces that have no dust on them. At the sound of feet in the hall she stands, looking at the door. She steps forward, reaching for the lock, and then stops, lets Joseph use his key. As the handle twists, she turns back to the stove, anxious that they find her doing something, anything.

  “Hey, Mom, we’re home,” says Matthew.

  She keeps her face over the cinnamon-and-garlic soup steam. She hears cloth against cloth, a coat being removed. She waits for her son to speak—the sound of his voice will inform her, give her a clue.

  “Smells good in here,” says Matthew. “Doesn’t it smell good?”

  “Very good.” Joseph’s voice low, subdued, but by what?

  “Are you hungry?” she says in Arabic.

  “A little, yes.”

  “Matthew, do you want some soup?”

  “Oh, maybe I should be going. I’m pretty tired.”

  “You should eat first. Sit.” She carries the soup to the table, ladles it into red bowls.

  They sit at the table. Joseph blows on his soup. Matthew dips bread into his.

  “It’s good,” says Joseph.

  “Why do you make me send someone to look for you?” sh
e says.

  “You didn’t have to. Nothing was wrong.”

  “La! Stop.” She slaps her hand on the table. “Do not play games with me, Joseph. You know what is right. What is wrong. You have done something wrong. It is not a discussion.”

  “It was just a party.”

  “You are not a cruel boy. But you are turning into a liar. I can smell the alcohol on you. You have been unkind tonight. To me. I have to tell you this?”

  “Tay-yib, Imma. Tay-yib.” He glances at Matthew, who has his eyes on his soup and bread.

  Saida knows her son is embarrassed in front of the Canadian, but she does not mind that. He should be embarrassed. He should be ashamed.

  “Okay? This is what you have to say?” If Matthew were not there, she would slap him; her hand is a thing with a mind of its own and it wants to slap him. She puts it under her arm to quiet it. “You are crossing a line, Joseph. Are you sure? Are you sure you want to cross it?”

  “La.”

  “And so?”

  “Ana asif.”

  “I hope you are sorry.” There had been so many words she had wanted to scream at him in the dark hours when she waited, not knowing. They are evaporating on her hot skin. “I was afraid, Joseph. I was afraid you were dead.”

  “You worry too much.”

  “Hey,” says Matthew. “You should be glad your mother worries about you.”

  Joseph puts his spoon beside the bowl and leans back, his hands in his lap. There are little spots of red high on his cheeks and his eyes are pink and look sore. “You don’t remember what it was like when you were my age. I bet you wanted to … to have your freedom, too. Get away from your mother all the time looking for you.”

  Matthew sucks his teeth. “I remember exactly what it was like.”

  “So what are you taking her side for? Tell her it’s not good the way she keeps me too close. Your mother, she was the same?”

  For a moment, it is as though a bird flies above Matthew’s face, casting shadows. “My mother died when I was about your age. She died of a broken heart.” He tears his bread into tiny pieces. “Don’t be a jerk. You’ll be out on your own soon enough. May not feel like it now. But it’s the truth. Before you know it.”