by Tim O'Mara
“Holy fucking shit, Hector,” the other cop said. Holy fucking shit was right. Jack Knight. “Did I tell ya it might be my old buddy, Ray, or what?”
“Yeah, Jack,” Hector said, doing the work of getting Zeke to his feet. “You told me.”
“Damn, Ray,” Jack said. “Three times in one week. What’re the odds of that?” He shook his head and smirked. “The call came in, said it was the school, I thought, ‘Hot damn! Wouldn’t it be great if it were Raymond?’ And here we pull up just in time to see you cold cock that son of a bitch. Man!” He lowered his voice so only I could hear him. “Kinda like that cheap shot you gave me the other night, huh?”
“Not quite, Jack,” I said.
Jenkins came over and offered me her hand.
“You okay, Mr. Donne?”
“Yeah,” I lied, getting to my feet. “Nothing a new pair of knees won’t fix.”
“You fucking asshole!” Lisa screamed. She was in Zeke’s face now, tears streaming down her cheeks, spit flying from her mouth. “You goddamn stupid fucking asshole!”
“Get her inside,” I said to Jenkins. “Call her folks.”
Jenkins went over to Lisa, and put her arm around the scared kid. After struggling a bit and letting out a few more screams, Lisa allowed Jenkins to lead her up the stairs and into the building. Right past my boss.
“Officers!” he yelled. “Ron Thomas. Principal.” He stopped a few feet in front of Jack and his partner. Thomas looked at me like I was becoming an inconvenience. “Officers, I’m sure your report will clearly mention that this incident occurred outside the school building and was therefore not school-related.”
As Officer Hector took Zeke over to the squad car, Jack took his notebook out of his back pocket and flipped it open. He rested the tip of his pen on the blank sheet of paper, looked at my boss, and said, “And you are?”
“Ron Thomas,” Ron Thomas said. “Principal.”
“You called in the complaint?”
“Yes. I was hoping to avoid it happening on school grounds.” He took a loud, deep sigh. “Looks like we were just in time.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “We were.” Jack bent over and picked up my umbrella. I reached for it, and he pulled me closer. “Feels good to hit one of the street monkeys, don’t it, Ray?”
I ignored the question and turned away from Jack. My boss saw the way I was moving and asked, “Do you need medical attention, Mr. Donne?”
“I don’t think so.” My knees disagreed, but I blocked out their screaming by gripping the handle of my umbrella as tightly as I could. “Thanks.”
“That was quite a shot you gave old Zeke there, Teach,” Jack said. “Working out some anger issues, are we?” When I didn’t answer, he went on. “Just out of curiosity, what you got in the bag?” He reached into the bag and pulled out the Whitman book, all four hundred pages of him. Jack grinned. “Yeah. Pussy shit used to kick my ass, too.”
“So,” Ron Thomas said, clearly not comfortable in Jack’s presence, “we are done here?”
Jack Knight made a smooth gesture out of flipping his notebook closed.
“Yes, sir.” All professional now. “You’ll get a copy of our report. Make sure you fill out one of your own. You can fax a copy to the precinct.”
“But—”
“It’s a school-related incident, sir. This here is school property and”—he gave me a dismissive, fuck-you look—“school personnel were involved. Have a good one. Sirs.” Jack crossed the street and joined his partner in the squad car. My boss and I watched as they did another U-turn and headed off.
“Jesus, Ray. I don’t need another incident report heading off to the D.O. And what the hell was that? You know that guy?”
“We used to work together,” I said. “A long time ago.”
I looked at my watch and started hobbling toward the steps.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“I work here,” I answered. “I’m going to my classroom.”
“No, no. You’re taking the day off. You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine, Ron.”
“I’m not asking, Mr. Donne. I’m telling you. Go home. I’ll cover you for the day.” I was about to argue when he raised his hand. “The last thing I need is you getting injured inside school. Besides … you look like shit.”
“Can I at least sit for a while?”
“Outside the building. On the steps.” And with that, Ron Thomas, Principal, entered the building he was in charge of.
I took a seat on the bottom step and closed my eyes. Inside, the first bell of the day rang, signaling to all it was eight twenty, and homeroom had officially started. A minute later, a blue, battered pickup truck pulled to the curb. Lisa’s father came out and ran right at me.
“Where’s Lisa?” he said.
“Inside,” I said. “With school safety.”
He took the steps two at a time and vanished through the front door. With the side doors now closed, a few late students made their way past me up the steps, some in more of a hurry than others. A delivery truck pulled up, and a guy in a brown shirt and matching shorts filled a hand truck with boxes of copy paper and eased them up the steps, one loud crash at a time. Fifteen minutes went by before Mr. King exited the building, his arm around Lisa.
“Go on,” he said. “Wait for me in the truck.”
Lisa walked down the steps and headed toward her dad’s truck. She got to the gate and turned. “You okay, Mr. Donne?”
“Yeah, Lise,” I said. “I’m fine.”
Even from twenty feet away, I could see the tears in her eyes as she said, “Sorry.”
“Not your fault, kiddo. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”
She turned away, went over to the truck, and slipped into the passenger seat. Mr. King stood above me. “You really okay?”
“Yeah.” I got to my feet to prove it to him. And myself. “Fine.”
“That … boy they were talking about. Zeke?”
“Cops took him to the precinct. I got a feeling he won’t be around Lisa anymore.” Or anybody else for the next three to five years, I hoped.
“He really her boyfriend?”
“I think you need to talk to Lisa about that.”
“He…” The father’s eyes teared up. “He responsible for those bruises on my girl?”
“I don’t know, Mr. King. Take your daughter home. You and your wife talk to her. I’ll ask Ms. Stiles to give you guys a call later.”
“You think he…”
I watched his mouth twitch as those words came out. He was squeezing his keys so hard, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them melt.
“Take Lisa home, Mr. King.” He turned his head in the direction of the precinct, five blocks away. “And stay away from Zeke. The cops’ll handle it. That’s their job. Yours is to take care of your own.”
“If he hurt Lisa…”
“Let her make out a complaint. Along with mine, it’ll help put him away for a while. Lisa could be in college before he gets out.”
That brought a small smile to his face that disappeared as quickly as it had showed up. He reached down and grabbed my hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Donne,” he said. “For keeping an eye out for Lisa.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For thinking that … Lisa’s bruise…”
“Thank you.” With nothing left to say, he let go of my hand, got into his truck, and headed home. It was about time I did the same thing.
Chapter 18
I GOT AS FAR AS THE BODEGA by the subway and decided I wanted a cup of coffee. I filled the cup halfway and dumped in a lot of sugar. I had the guy fill the rest with ice, and I took the cup outside. Shaking it all together, I leaned against the entrance to the subway and watched as all the busy people hurried past me, up and down the subway stairs, across the avenue, and around the crowded intersection. I was the only one not in motion, and I felt a small sens
e of peace. I’d been moving a lot the past couple of days. Maybe Ron had been right to send me home.
I took a long sip of my coffee and thought about what I’d do with my unexpected day off when a car horn sounded, and a dark blue sedan pulled over to the curb in front of where I was standing. The car had a logo on its passenger side door that took me a few seconds to place. A snake wrapped around a cross. The passenger window rolled down.
“Mr. Donne,” Elijah Cruz said, leaning across the seat. “I believe you are late for school.”
“I got sent home,” I said. “Sick.”
“You do not look sick to me.”
“That’s what I thought until my boss told me I was wrong. How did everything go with Milagros last night?”
“The doctor said she was fine. No injuries or bruises. She was obviously disturbed by the events of the past week, but he cleared her to be released to her grandmother.”
“Good news,” I said.
“Can I give you a ride? You are going home, I presume.”
I stepped over and placed my hand on the roof. The cool air coming out of the car tempted me. “That’s what I was debating. Seems a shame to waste a day like this.”
“You enjoy the heat?”
“To a point,” I said. “It just doesn’t seem like an indoor day.”
The passenger door lock popped up.
“Exactly as I was thinking,” Elijah Cruz said. “Come. I want to show you something that I believe will be of interest to you.” And, as if sensing my hesitation, he added, “One hour of your time, Mr. Donne. Then I will take you home or wherever it is you wish to go next.”
“Wherever?” I asked.
Elijah Cruz smiled. “Within reason.”
He didn’t take me far. We were about halfway to my apartment when he pulled over and parked illegally in front of McCarren Pool. “Excuse me.” He reached into his glove compartment and removed a blue card with an official-looking seal on it. “Come.” He placed the card on the dashboard.
“You have some business at the pool, Mr. Cruz?”
“Come.”
We exited the car, and I followed him over to the pool’s main gates, which have been chained shut for over twenty years. Not today. He swung open one of the gates and held it for me as if welcoming me to a backyard barbecue.
“It is okay, Mr. Donne,” he said. “I have the city’s permission.”
“I haven’t been inside here for years,” I said, stepping past Cruz.
“You used to come here to swim?” he asked, surprised.
“When I was a cop,” I explained, “we used to get called out here every week.” I looked around at the knee-high weeds, old tires, pieces of lumber, garbage bags filled with God-knew-what, and the neglected, dying trees. “Kids partying in the pool, climbing the towers. I had to put out fires every once in a while.”
“Yes,” Cruz agreed. “My point to the city exactly. When you let a glorious place like this … fall into decay, you are asking for problems. It is only by building something positive that you make a change for the better.”
If he were waiting for an “Amen” from me, he’d have to keep waiting. We took the stairs up to the arch, the once-grand pool entrance that welcomed thousands of people off the steamy streets of Brooklyn. Now nothing more than an easel for any knucklehead with a can of spray paint who wasn’t afraid to crawl under, slip through, or climb over a barb-wired fence. We passed the admission booth and the bathhouses, and walked into the main pool area. You could fit a football field in here. In the middle of the pool, a few feet away from one of the many “islands” that rose from the floor, a man was looking through one of those scopes surveyors use. I spotted his partner about fifty yards away.
“Your business?” I asked Cruz.
Cruz stood beside me. “The city has graciously allowed me the day to survey the pool.” He didn’t hide his sarcasm. “I have two weeks to present my plan to the zoning board.”
“Plan?”
“Look around you, Mr. Donne,” he said, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. I looked around. “Now close your eyes.” I kept my eyes open. Cruz had his shut as he went on, his arm held out in front of him, the palm facing the pool. “I envision a church, a temple for the people to worship in. I see”—he moved his palm over a bit—“a school the parishioners would be proud to send their children to. A recreation center”—again his hand moved slightly—“to exercise not only the body, but the soul, as well.”
He stood like that for a few more seconds—silent, his hand out in front of him—before asking, “Can you see that, Mr. Donne?”
“I see an abandoned pool,” I said, “hopelessly and unfortunately stuck between a public school and a public park, Mr. Cruz. Not to mention an old factory across the street that is probably going to be broken up into million-dollar condos in a year or two. Do you really think the city will let you put a church here?”
“Yes!” He bought his two hands together, making a loud enough noise that the surveyor closest to us looked over. “That,” Cruz said, his hands still together, eyes still closed as if in prayer, “is my vision. The vision I share with you today.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I kept quiet, waiting for Cruz to reopen his eyes. When he did, he turned to me and touched my elbow.
“Perhaps if my last name were Trump,” he said. “You—they—would take me more seriously, yes?”
“Perhaps.”
“Let them have the waterfront,” he said. “Let them build their million-dollar condominiums with views of Manhattan. Fill them with those who work across the river and would not dream of sending their children to public schools.” He fixed his eyes on mine. “I know the struggle that comes with no place to worship. My own childhood church was destroyed by fire when I was just a teenager. My dream is to rebuild the spirit of that church. Here, on this spot. This is what I ask for.”
I held his stare for a few seconds and then said, “Sold.”
Cruz laughed. “If only the city were as easily convinced.”
“Maybe you should bring the mayor out here and have him shut his eyes.”
“The mayor has little interest in abandoned pools. Or abandoned people.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” I said.
“Do you know, when they decided to shut this pool down, when they decided they could spare no more resources for the maintenance and security? That same year the millionaires running this country announced massive tax cuts. The federal government paid billions of dollars to the arms builders to produce weapons they told us they hoped to never use. They even found enough money to help other countries buy weapons and train soldiers and contribute to the culture of death.”
Cruz bent over and picked up a piece of the pool bottom, its blue paint faded but still visible after all these years. He held it in his closed hand and crushed it, allowing the pieces to fall to the ground.
“Do you know where the children of Williamsburg go swimming now? The lucky ones take the hour ride by subway to Coney Island. The less fortunate and more daring take their chances by jumping into the East River off the decaying piers. Politicians prefer their pools like their schools: private.”
I looked over at what used to be the children’s pool. The tall, brown grass covering the swimming area swayed gently in the slight breeze, a miniaturized prairie.
“Yo!” We both looked over at the surveyor, who was waving his clipboard.
“Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Donne.”
As Cruz went over to discuss business, I tried to imagine what this pool once was and what it had meant to this community. Standing here in the great, empty space, I could understand a little better what some of the old-timers had meant when they told me about McCarren. “Our homes may not have been much, sonny boy, but we were close to the pool.” An oasis.
I walked over to where Cruz was finishing up his conversation with the surveyor. They were looking at the clipboard. Cruz pointed at something and the surveyo
r nodded. Cruz smiled. They shook hands, and the surveyor went over to his coworker.
“Good news?” I asked.
“The work I would like to have done can be done.”
“Congratulations.”
“One obstacle out of many,” he said. “But it is enough to get me to the next one. Have you had breakfast yet, Mr. Donne?”
“Just coffee,” I said.
“Would you join me then?”
“I’m not hungry yet, thanks. But I will take that ride now. Home.”
“As you wish.”
We were approaching the archway when Cruz stopped. He reached over and began gently fingering the leaves on a six-inch plant that was growing out of the floor of the pool.
“What would you call this, Mr. Donne?”
I stepped closer to get a better look. “A weed?”
Cruz nodded. “Most people would,” he said. “But in reality, it is the same tree that grows just outside this fence.” He pointed to a tall tree to the right of the pool’s entrance. “That tree will grow to thirty or forty feet and was planted well before the city shut the pool. This one,” he touched the leaves of the one at his feet again, “comes from the one outside. The product of a stray seed blown over by a storm. It may grow another foot or so and still be seen as a weed, but it is truly a small miracle. To be able to survive at all, to burst through the concrete and reach for the sun. Remarkable. And yet, for all its perseverance, it will always be considered a weed until it grows too big and demands more than the soil can provide.”
“That’s too bad,” I said, as much to Cruz as to the weed.
“It will die here unless it is taken and placed where there is more water, more sunlight. If that happens, it will grow as mighty as any of its brothers and shed its status of ‘weed’ and be called a tree.” He gave the leaves one more stroke. “What do you think, Mr. Donne?”