I Am Radar
Page 54
“Mom,” he said suddenly, the book in his hands. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay to be scared,” she said. “It means you have something to live for.”
• • •
IT WAS NEARLY 3:30 A.M. by the time they parked the van next to the little cottage beneath Xanadu.
“Okay,” said Otik. “We have three hours. No dillydally.”
There would be no dillydally. They feverishly transferred the birds and much of the cottage’s contents into a white shipping container that sat on a trailer not far away in the parking garage. There was a lot of equipment. More boxes and tools emerged from that little house than seemed physically possible. All of it was apparently fragile, and Otik would bark at both of them about holding this with two hands, or not disrupting that by rattling it around too much. Radar tried to be helpful, but more often than not he felt as if he was simply in the way.
When they were finished, Radar collapsed onto the ground. He was utterly exhausted. He expected to seize, to pass out, for his body to fail him, but somehow he managed to stay online.
He opened his eyes. Lars was standing above him.
“Congratulations,” said Lars. He offered Radar a little white pill.
“What is this?”
“To make it official,” said Lars. “It’ll make you grow small. Like Alice.”
Radar must’ve looked alarmed, because Lars smiled and said, “It’s for malaria. It might give you some unusual dreams, but believe me, the alternative is much worse.”
The three of them poured a little coffee into some mugs, clinked them together, and took down the pills.
“To dreams,” said Lars.
“To entanglement,” said Otik.
“To Kermin,” said Radar. As soon as he had said it, a kernel of doubt popped open in his chest. This pill had not been meant for him.
“To Kermin,” said Lars gravely. “May we make him proud.”
“To boat,” said Otik. “We have half hour before it is gone.”
• • •
201-998-2666: Ana Cristina, hi it’s Radar. I don’t have much time to write because I’m on my way to a boat and you probably will never get this anyway since your phone is dead but I just wanted to tell you that I’m going away for a while. My father was supposed to put on this show in the Congo but he disappeared so now I’m going instead of him. Kind of crazy, I know. So I won’t be able to meet your Mom right now altho
201-998-2666: Sorry, I guess I reached the limit for a single text. I’ve never written one of these before. I guess they don’t want you rambling on for a long time. So I’ll try to keep this short. These buttons are very hard to write on don’t you think? I prefer Morse Code. I’ll teach you someday, okay? It’s not hard, you just have to get used to it. Point is I was so happy when you invited me to meet your mom before
201-998-2666: Wow. Hit the limit again. That’s embarrassing. Now I’m not sure I want you to get these. All I meant to say was: I want to meet your mom, I want to eat empanadas with you. I’ll miss you. I hope Jersey is okay after all this. Talk to you soon. Xo Radar.
609-292-4087: Radar! Hi!! :)
201-998-2666: Ana C? Your phone works?
609-292-4087: I got a new one :)
201-998-2666: I hope I didn’t wake you. It’s like 6?
609-292-4087: I couldn’t sleep
201-998-2666: Are you okay?
609-292-4087: Yeah my mama is freaking but we r okay! I M so sorry 2 hear about your papa :( I hope he is okay
201-998-2666: Me too.
609-292-4087: You don’t know where he is?
201-998-2666: No
609-292-4087: You’ll find him :) Everyone turns up
201-998-2666: Thanks. I hope so.
609-292-4087: So r u really going to congo? That’s in africa????
201-998-2666: Yes. I’m kind of nervous. We’re taking a boat.
609-292-4087: Boat to africa! Like a movie :)
201-998-2666: I’ll miss you
609-292-4087: I was thinking about u
201-998-2666: Yeah?
609-292-4087: Did u know yr name is same forward-> RADAR back-> RADAR :)
201-998-2666: Yours is too! At least ANA is. Cristina kind of messes it up . . .
201-998-2666: Just kidding.
609-292-4087: your funny !!!
201-998-2666: Oh. I can’t go. I can’t leave you!!!
609-292-4087: I’ll be here when you get back :)
201-998-2666: You promise? You’re like the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I feel like I’ve known u forever
609-292-4087: I know what u mean
609-292-4087: U there?
201-998-2666: Sorry, We’re here I think. I have to go. Ahh!
609-292-4087: Don’t worry be safe!!! I’ll miss you
201-998-2666: I’ll try to text u when I’m in the congo
609-292-4087: Okay that would be great :)
609-292-4087: Like my own reporter in the jungle :)
201-998-2666: It’s weird how close
201-998-2666: I feel to u now. Just the words between us
201-998-2666: ???
609-292-4087: I know
609-292-4087: Nos vemos radar -><-
201-998-2666: What’s this? -><- ?
609-292-4087: I just made it up :) same backward & forward
201-998-2666: Okay. I get it
609-292-4087: Maybe its being close w/o being close
201-998-2666: -><- see you
609-292-4087: -><- x
2
As dawn broke across the Newark quayside, Radar stood on the dock watching the great white shipping container slowly descend into the hull of the ship. The gantry crane jammed and the container jerked sideways, swaying back and forth against a velvet maroon sky. From inside the container they could hear crashing and splintering.
“Jebi se!” Otik yelled next to Radar. “They are fucking it! Tell them they are fucking it!”
But then the cable winch caught again and the box resumed its graceless plunge into the bowels of the boat.
The Aleph—the vessel to which they were about to entrust their passage across the Atlantic—had seen better days. Her hull was pockmarked by welding scars and archipelagoes of rust, and with every meager rise and trough of the sheltered bay, her joints creaked a painful symphony. In an oddly boastful tone for a man revealing his ship’s inadequacies, the captain had informed them that she was supposed to carry six thousand tons but in her current state could manage only five, and that even this sank her below her summer Plimsoll.
“But she will not sink?” Otik said nervously. “She floats, right?”
“It’s true, she’s unhappy with the world,” the captain said in lieu of an answer.
Dressed in the crisp whites of his command, Captain Alfonso Daneri was a barrel of a man. He had greeted each of them with both hands, as if he had known them for years. His beard looked like a giant sea urchin hauled up from the depths, and his eyebrows were two monstrous caterpillars that haunted his forehead, undulating with every consonant.
“Some boats are born this way,” said the captain. “Some boats learn their misery. She was put on the blocks for two years in Quanzhou, and now she trusts no one.” He was rubbing his hands together in slow, languid circles, as if savoring a piece of music that had only just finished.
“‘She trust no one,’” Otik repeated. “What does this mean? This is something you say and everybody says ‘Okay, yes,’ but actually no one knows what in fuck you are talking about.”
“The sea takes back everything she gives,” said Captain Daneri, clearly enjoying himself. He tapped the toe of his boot against one of the kidney-shaped bollards that secured his ship. “She signs no allegiance. She has no kin, keeps no kin, owes no favors.”
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Radar noticed the captain swaying ever so slightly. He had the sudden urge to reach out and steady him.
Otik scoffed. “This is man who will take us to Africa? Oh, please. We make some more chance to swim there.”
Lars stepped in, placing a hand on Otik’s shoulder.
“Apologies, Captain. We’re all a little tired,” he said. “What he means to say is only that we’re transporting valuable cargo and want to make sure the ship’s seaworthy.”
Captain Daneri’s face grew suddenly serious.
“You see these boxes?” he said, gesturing at the rows and rows of multicolored containers stacked four high across the deck of the ship. “This is the new world. These boxes disrupt space and time. The world is now inside the box.”
“I don’t know about you,” Otik said to Lars. “But if I’m going to die, I choose to die maybe somewhere in the jungle, on land, not in middle of fucking ocean.”
“All right, calm down,” said Lars. “I happen to agree with the captain. One could make the argument that the world is inside the box.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ve never lost one,” said the captain. “There once was a group of pirates in Lagos who snuck aboard my ship. They went for one of the boxes sitting on the deck. They didn’t know what was inside; they just went for the nearest one with a crowbar. And do you know what they found? Horses. Thoroughbreds. We were bringing them down to a race in South Africa. Their trainer was upstairs asleep at the time. But can you imagine? The pirates open this box, they are like boys at Christmas, and what do they find? Horses.”
Fig. 5.1. “Parts of Shipping Container” and “How to Load a Ship”
From Peels, S. (1999), A Short History of Deliverance, pp. 69, 83
“You transport horses?” asked Radar.
“Oh, no. Not anymore.”
“So what happened?”
“It was very unfortunate. The horses got loose on the deck. One of the animals went overboard. Another broke its leg. A terrible shame. I had to shoot the beast in the head with a pistol. It looked at me, very calm. It knew what must be done.”
“And what about pirates?” said Otik.
“Oh, we caught them. I showed them the box and I said, ‘You will never touch another box again.’ And then I tied their feet together and I said, ‘Go find me that horse,’ and I pushed them off my ship.”
“You killed them,” said Otik.
“No, no, no,” laughed the captain. “I gave them the gift of the sea.” He made a fist with his hand and kissed it.
• • •
THEY WERE THE ONLY human cargo. Radar was not sure whether their presence on board was even legal or whether technically they were stowaways, but when it came time to depart, the captain made a flourish of inviting them to stand on the bridge wing while they pulled away from the docks. A scruffy local pilot, who looked and smelled as if he had only recently stopped drinking, came aboard to guide them out of the harbor. It was clear the captain was none too pleased with the man’s brazen intoxication, but he did not protest as the pilot parked himself on the bridge and started issuing instructions.
A black-and-white tug latched onto their bow and began turning up chop as it levered the Aleph out of her berth. From the wheelhouse they could hear the pilot rapping out commands in a kind of drunken staccato. Captain Daneri would repeat them, but silkily, like a man cajoling his slighted lover.
“Dead slow ahead!” barked the pilot.
“Dead slow ahead,” intoned the captain.
“Starboard five-oh!”
“Starboard. Five-oh. Please.”
“Stop!”
“Cut the engines, Mr. Piskaryov.”
Drunk or not, the pilot was good. With the tug grumbling by her side, the Aleph gradually backed out into the bay. Above, gulls turned circles overhead. Otik was studying them intensely, writing microscopic notes in a journal. He pointed out some element of their flight dynamics to Lars, who nodded, forming his two hands into a diving bird.
A rip from the ship’s horn made Radar jump. The gulls scattered. Inside the wheelhouse, Captain Daneri kissed his fist and shot them a grin.
The sky lightened, softening the hulls of the great tankers that lined Newark’s port. As they turned, the familiar stench of the Hackensack rose up and filled Radar’s nostrils. He shivered, seized by the violent urge to get back onto dry land. Craning his neck, he tried to catch a last glimpse of home, tried to make out the great swath of darkness that encircled the little shack behind his house on Forest Street, tried to see the A&P where she worked, but the sun had already risen and the darkness had fled. Kearny and its mysteries melted into an endless Jersey panorama.
A panic that had been gathering in Radar all night now broke through and overwhelmed him, as if a large animal pelt had been thrown across his back, so thick and heavy he felt he might collapse under the terrible weight of it. He already missed Ana Cristina. He missed his mother. He missed Kermin. He missed everything.
Radar clenched at the handrail of the boat, reeling. He had made a terrible, horrible mistake.
The intensity and vast ballast of this sensation felt very different from the nimble prelude to a seizure. There was no telltale whiff of lemon or cinnamon, but beyond that, he felt much too clear for an electrical malfunction. No: he could tell his body would not let him disappear into an epileptic netherworld. Not now. It held him fast, forcing him to confront his choice, eyes wide open.
What had he done? He was not supposed to be on this ship.
Desperate, he looked back at the docks. The distance between ship and shore had widened considerably. Fifty feet. Now seventy-five. The water white and restless from their maneuvers. He could dive in. He did not know how to swim, but surely he could make it just by thrashing like a dog. How hard could it be? He would not look back at the ship; he would haul himself from the muck and mire, run home, lie prostrate at his mother’s feet, and offer a thousand apologies for his madness. Then he would find Ana Cristina and he would hold her, wet and shivering, and he would never let her go.
He released his grip on the railing and stumbled up to Lars.
“I need to go back,” he said.
“For what?”
“I can’t go.”
“You can’t go?”
“I need to find Kermin.” He willed back the tears. “I can’t leave her alone like this.”
Lars studied him.
“It’s too late,” he said. “We’ve left.”
“Please,” said Radar. “Tell them to stop the ship.”
“She’ll be okay.”
“She won’t be okay. It wasn’t me who wanted to go,” he said, realizing what he was saying.
“I need to go back,” he said quietly.
Lars looked into his eyes. They stood like this, the tug twirling the boat around, and then Lars nodded and walked into the wheelhouse.
• • •
AS THEY SWUNG AROUND Bergen Point and headed toward the arched gateway of the Bayonne Bridge, Captain Daneri strode out onto the bridgewing, with Lars in tow.
“What’s this I hear about you jumping ship?” bellowed the captain. His posture had changed decidedly. Arms akimbo, he was all right angles and mariner’s scowl. His left eyebrow arched and trembling like a flag in a stiff wind.
“I’ve got to go back, I’m sorry,” said Radar, stepping backwards. “I don’t want to cause any—”
“May I ask why you got on my boat in the first place?” said the captain.
Radar looked around to see if anyone was watching. “I know, I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I really am, but I’ve got to get off. Please.”
Lars was standing behind the captain, delivering a quiet glare in Radar’s general direction. It was the first time Radar had seen this side of him; in all other matters, even during the previous night
’s gloomier episodes, Lars had been nothing but calm and cheerful, a steady rudder to Otik’s mania. But here was a glimpse of the fire within. Seeing that glower, Radar understood how a group as obscure and unfeasible as Kirkenesferda had persisted through the years. It was an indirect kind of rage, a seething generalis. He could feel himself shrinking beneath the onslaught.
Hearing the commotion, Otik abandoned his bird-watching and approached their little trio.
“What’s this?” he said.
“Apparently your compadre doesn’t want to voyage with us,” said the captain. The eyebrow twitched.
“I told you!” said Otik. “I told you, Lars. He is like the little child. He is half the man of his father. Less, probably. One quarter-half of one percent.”
Captain Daneri thrust a finger into Radar’s chest. “What’s eating at you, my boy?”
Radar opened his mouth but said nothing.
“Go on,” the captain said. “What’s got you turned around?”
“My father disappeared,” he said. “He’s the one who was supposed to be here, not me. I can’t just abandon my mother in the middle of a blackout. I have to go help her find him.”
“She told him to come,” said Lars.
“She was probably tired of dealing with him,” said Otik. “She wanted him kaput.”
“She didn’t know what she was saying,” said Radar. “Please, sir. Let me off. I won’t bother you anymore. I just need to go back. They don’t even want me here.”
“It’s not true,” said Lars. “We need you. And you need us.”
The Bayonne Bridge was above them. The metal laced into a perfect convex, launched lightly from either bank, unequivocal in its conceit. It was a dream of men. Of all men.
The captain went to the railing. He rubbed his beard with the palm of his hand.
“A nasty little strait, this Kill van Kull,” he said. “Straits are what get you. Your bow is pushed from shore and your stern is sucked in. You must go straight, but you cannot steer straight. So what do you do?” As he said this, he pointed at the wheelhouse, where the pilot was alternately giving commands and speaking of whores. Yet you could tell that he was completely in control from the ease with which he switched between his story and his directional orders. And so could the captain, apparently, who was comfortable enough to leave the pilot while he lingered out here with them.