Why had I even come here?
I sifted through my paintings, looking at the likenesses of Dado, his patterns and configurations, his obsessiveness over gleaning and stripping and constructing that I’d been trying to recreate.
There were rich colors against hard lines when I added my ink pen; some were torn and layered in places. I was trying to work fast enough to avoid missing him, building with these too-thin materials, trying to make them thick and dense and real. Trying to make the past real.
I opened the door and stepped in. Breathed in the fresh-cut wood smell of Dado’s shop. I just wanted to be in Jon’s store.
He saw me and stopped working and came out, stretching his back. I waited to be invited up, but when he didn’t, I went to the counter and put my paintings down.
He came over, took the sheaf of paper, then looked at the first one. He was still for a long time before he turned to the next. And the next. He glanced at me, and back down. “You’ve painted with watercolors before, I see,” he said.
“I guess. I used to make my own out of pigments.”
“Some unusual techniques here,” he said.
“My dad taught me some stuff,” I said.
“And where is your dad now?” he asked.
“He’s dead.”
Jonathan nodded like he knew. “So, Ror,” he said. “You been getting into graffiti?”
My feet tried to find the ground. “How do you know?”
“Because I know those kids. Nessa, well—Nessa, that wild birdie. Trey Winthrop. He came to this neighborhood when he was thirteen, when his father got sick. He mighta got in Art and Design, if it wasn’t for that.”
“Trey told me his father left.”
“Yeah?”
I shrugged.
“Kevin Battaglia. He tell you I gave him plenty of paper, enough to wrap around the earth? Reuben Gomez—I gave him painting lessons right here in my back room. I tried to help them all,” he said. “But you—when you walked in here and I saw those drawings, Ror, I knew you were different. I thought you were a really good artist, that you had potential. But you steal from me again, I’m calling the police, I don’t care who you are or where you came from or what you been through.”
My face hot, I stared down at the paintings, colors swirling before my eyes. A rage burned in me.
How did a person know if they were any good, anyway?
He said, “Listen, you don’t need those kids. You need to work seriously.”
I met his milky eyes. Behind the anger, I saw he was—invested—like he cared if I came or went. Like he wasn’t going to let me go so easily. Why did he care?
“You hear what I’m sayin’ to you, Ror? Sometimes, you kids don’t hear.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said.
He stared at me hard. “You don’t belong with any gang, either.”
“They’re not a gang!”
“I know—Noise Ink, Flying Skulls—you get messed up with them, you’ll never get out.”
I shook my head—he didn’t know anything about them. “They’re not a gang, dammit! They’re a crew.”
“You belong in a gallery, in a museum, Ror. Not a crew!”
The red fury I’d been holding in for months boiled over. “How do you know where I belong? What the hell is a museum—how does anybody even get into one? Or a gallery? I mean, who the hell wants to wait till they’re dead to be seen when I can be seen every day on the street? Tell me that, old man!”
His face had that lost look, that surprise at my anger.
I pushed at him: “Well, what do you think? Where does someone like me go—really go? Who am I painting for? How do I know I’m any good? How do I know some gallery won’t ignore me like they did my Dado, huh? You work for them, you make these frames for them. How do I get in? I don’t even have enough money to buy paint. So, what do I do, huh? Say something!”
I was sweating, breathing hard. My clothes felt too small. He was looking at me like from a high tower that was just getting higher, his belief in me winging further and further away. I didn’t want to see that, but I couldn’t help myself. “Trey says you have to be rich, white, know the right people. Or you have to be dead to get in those places. Forget it if you’re a girl.”
That flipped Jonathan. He gathered his breath and roared: “Trey! What the hell does Trey know? Open your eyes, for crissake, kiddo, get your head out of your ass and go into a gallery. There’s plenty of living artists, and they’re in galleries that anybody can go into, even someone like you, don’t know her ass from her elbow. Walk down to Fifty-Seventh Street and look at Audrey Flack and think about what got her there. Go to SoHo. Go down the Village and look at young painters just coming up, like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat—a homo and a black kid, for God’s sake! Those guys started on the street, but they didn’t stay there. Open your mind, Ror—I wouldn’t be giving you supplies if I didn’t think you were good enough. You need something, you ask me for it. You don’t steal it. That makes you a petty thief, just like Trey.” He banged his hand on the book. “Not an artist!”
I felt my mouth hanging, my breath sour in my dry throat. Like arguing with Dado in real life. I felt like an ass. I turned and ran.
It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I’d left my paintings with him. No way I’d go back.
31
WAS JONATHAN RIGHT?
Was Ma? Marilyn?
Was Trey?
What did I feel, what did I really think—how come nobody asked me that?
It was a good thing, because I didn’t have an answer.
32
I WAS SITTING in my room, drawing on the floor, when Dado came in with the roll of paper. He dumped it down and kicked it so it uncoiled. We watched as the path formed.
“Stand up, now, Ror,” Dado said.
I did.
He reached to embrace me, and I could smell the chemical plant on him. I’d waited all day for him to come home. That sickly smell—I wished I could wash it from him.
“I’m so glad you came back, Dado,” I said, hugging him hard. “I wanted to tell you, I got what you meant about saving me.”
He held me gently by the shoulders so I could look deep into his husky-dog eyes. The last few years, he’d hardly met my gaze. Now, he let me in. I studied his dark widow’s peak, his sharp nose. I hadn’t seen him in so long.
“Come,” he said, “I want to show you something.”
We walked along the paper path as it opened up outside the dome. It was summertime, the acres a riot of flowers in bloom, the crickets chirping, the blue jays squawking, the bitter scent of the Kill floating over to us. I had that feeling I always did walking beside him—like together, he and I could enter into any realm. Like we lived now and in the past and in the future all at the same time. We existed at any and every moment together. As we walked, I thought—I don’t know anything about your insides, or why you took your own life, but I know I love you, and that’s the best I can do right now. That’s all I ever could do for you.
We passed through the Island, and over the bay somehow, into Manhattan. Together, we went into a gallery showing a painter whose work I didn’t know. Words written all over the walls, over faces whose open mouths were filled with letters, forced to eat them, the paint so fresh, it almost looked wet. The work made us gasp—we turned to each other.
Dado started laughing.
“Who is it by?” I asked. I looked around for a name.
He took out a bottle and stuffed in a rag, making a Molotov cocktail.
“I’m going to save you from me,” he said. “Or you will never get here.”
He lit the rag and threw the bottle into the room. It crashed and burst into flame. I tried to scream, but nothing would come out. I felt the heat and agonized over the melting paintings. He stepped into the wild f
ire—
The sound of laughter woke me. I opened my eyes, blinking, blinking, my breath exploding into my lungs. I listened to my sister’s snores, Ma asleep on the couch. She had let me back in. The TV’s glow lit up our one room: knotted dream catchers over stained carpet, used couch, half-fridge filled with food-stamp food. Clothes in boxes. Even Marilyn had given up trying to keep it neat. One day, I said to myself, one day, I’m going to get us the hell out of here.
In the hall, I heard light, familiar footsteps dancing down the stairs. I jumped off the top bunk quiet as a gazelle and pulled on my jeans, hurrying in my bare feet.
At the bottom floor of our building, I caught up to him.
“Trey! Where you going?”
“Hey, what you doing up?”
“I had an awful nightmare.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “Then I heard you.”
He chewed on his bottom lip, clearly thinking about what to tell me. “Get your shoes on,” he finally said. “I’ll wait.”
I snuck back into our apartment, laced on my boots, threw on a bra and sweatshirt and snagged my backpack. Quietly, I locked up after myself. Trey waited outside.
33
WE WALKED HALF a block west, my head still in the dream, before I asked Trey, “Where are we going?”
“Check out the trains.”
“What for?”
“To see what we see,” he said.
I struggled against the craving to throw my arms around him, to just stop and bury my face in his neck until the bad dream faded. I walked a little behind him, his long stride always getting ahead.
“Hey, Trey?”
“’Sup?”
“Am I doing it all wrong with the crew?”
He slowed his steps. “We got a lot of water under the bridge, you know? Been together a long time. Ain’t so easy to fit you in, R.”
Now I wanted it more than ever.
As if he read my mind, he said, “Just, we got business to work out. We got other crews after us. Noise Ink, we strange enough already without another girl.” His hair was tied back in a ponytail puff, showing his high forehead. He looked softer without a hat. We turned on Broadway. “What was your nightmare?” he asked.
“My daddy-o,” I said.
Trey seemed curious. “What about him?”
“He brought me a roll of paper, and he kicked it out like he wanted to show me something, and we went on this long trip, and ended up in a gallery, and I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t like to talk about it.”
“You’re telling me ’cause I’m asking,” Trey said. He stopped and turned to me for the first time. Did he have his own father nightmares? Jonathan said his father got sick. Was that why he left? “So?”
I hit myself in the heart with a closed fist. “You ever feel like you’re so numb, you could stab yourself and not even know the knife went through?”
He stuck his hand in his front pocket, and I noticed his jeans, button-up Levi’s, tight in all the right places. “Yeah, like my little brother, James. He’s gonna be three. Since our daddy’s gone, he’s been banging his head on the door like he’s tryin’ to get out. Just won’t stop sometimes.”
I looked down at the sidewalk, not sure what to say.
Trey said, “Why’d your pops bring you the paper?”
“It was like he put me on a path, the way it rolled out,” I said. I looked at him. “You think maybe you’d want to go to a gallery with me sometime?”
He held my look for a long moment, something going on in his head he wasn’t saying. “What gallery?”
“I don’t know. Jonathan said I should go.”
“Jonathan?”
A car swished by. I knew from Trey’s face I was on shaky ground. I pressed on. “From the store.”
Trey’s eyes narrowed. “You talkin’ to Jonathan?”
“He said he tried to help you. While your daddy was sick.”
We stared at each other until Trey looked away, out into the empty street. “A lot went down. He ain’t a black man. Not everybody gets the same chance.”
“Not everybody’s good as you. He told me about this artist, said he was a black kid. Coming up. In some gallery. You want to go see him?”
Trey darted his hand out, reached for my chin. “I like your face, you know that?” he said, holding my jaw.
I didn’t say anything about him changing the subject. “I like yours, too.” I grazed his cheek with my fingertips. It was softer than I expected.
“You sure you don’t want me?” he said with a little smile.
“I didn’t mean that.”
He dropped his hand and grasped mine. “You should let me draw you again. This time, for real,” he said, squeezing my fingers. He let go, turned, and started walking. We got to the subway, and he led the way down the steps.
34
WE WALKED TO the rear end of the platform, and there, sitting on the bench in front of the Fire Pops Trey had painted were Nessa, Reuben, and Kevin. My heart seized all the way to my feet. When she saw us, Nessa’s face went slack. She stood up quickly, took a couple of steps, and said, “Lookee what the cat drug in.”
“Hey, Ror,” Reuben said in a wary tone.
Kevin held his hand out for a slap as he said to Trey, “You didn’t say nothing about her coming. This is a secret mission. She ain’t even in the crew yet.”
That hurt.
Trey nodded, glancing at me. “Yeah, I just ran into her.”
Nessa stood close to me and looked up, forcing me to look down at her. I hadn’t realized how short she was. How she combed her perfect eyebrows straight up, like she was trying to be Brooke Shields.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I heard Trey going down the steps in our building. He let me tag along.”
She lifted her chin like she didn’t believe me and turned to him. He didn’t meet her eyes. Goddamn, why did I have that tearing inside? Not cool to like her boyfriend so much. Too close to trouble.
Then Trey clapped his hands. “You guys ready?”
“She’s coming?” Nessa asked.
“Coming where?” I asked.
Trey turned on her. “Yo, I thought you said it was all right, another girl!”
“Yeah, but—”
“So, just—”
Kevin interrupted, waggling his long fingers. “Look, let’s just go.” He got up from the bench. “Before the blue boys come.”
Go where? As he started to walk away, I saw he had a huge backpack but no skateboard. Reuben carried a pack, too. Nessa wasn’t wearing her headphones, was dressed in saggy sweats. Trey without any hat. Kevin walked to the end of the platform and went down the steps, into the tunnel, Reuben and Nessa right after. Zings of fear struck my heart, cold down to my stomach. Where the hell were they going? Should I just go home? I glanced at Trey, and he nodded, Get moving. I followed them to the edge, and froze, with Trey behind me.
Wait. This wasn’t what I’d thought. Trains came speeding out of that tunnel; they could flatten you in a second. The third rail could zap you. Rats could eat off your face. I stared down into the garbage puddle in the middle of the rusty track, the stairs trailing off into the darkness. And I thought trains were bad—no way I was going down there.
Trey muttered, “You want to be one of us? Don’t just stand there, move it!”
A push from behind got my feet going. He nudged me along, down the stairs, into total darkness, not giving my eyes a chance to adjust. I could hear Kevin and Reuben ranking on me somewhere up ahead—
“Ror’s so scared, I think she’s gonna shit a perfect brick.”
“No, no, she’s so scared, we’re gonna have to break her legs to keep her movin’.”
“We disruptin’ her shitty reality, awright.”
I smelled sewage and Nessa’s sweet, gummy perfume c
lose by and felt Trey still behind me, the tracks under my feet, the bumps of every tie in between. My eyes were starting to see as we stumbled from column to column. Sick, dark fear controlled me. I thought of R. Crumb’s Keep on Truckin’, and it was the only way I kept going.
“How do we know when a train’s coming?” I asked.
“We don’t,” Nessa said.
“They could rush by and cut your feet off,” Reuben said.
“Then you be walking around on stumps.” She laughed.
“Yo, they could cut your head off,” Trey said. His fingers brushed the back of my neck, sending shivers through me.
“They could flatten you any second,” Reuben said.
I thought I might throw up right there.
I held my hands in front of me, and they caught on Nessa’s sweatshirt. She sucked her teeth and pushed them away, saying, “Get a grip.” I felt warm fingers on my neck, directing me to the side. Trey.
Suddenly, out of the dark, an express train came flying by on the center track, big, hard, metal, kicking up dirt and dust, filling my eyes with grit. I screamed and screamed, wanting to run back, or forward, to safety. No one could hear me. I stopped screaming and stood still, hands over my ears until it passed. I felt Trey’s fingers shaking as he let go of my neck.
After it went by, we moved on.
“Fuck, will someone just tell me where we’re going?” I said, pissed.
“Top secret. We’d have to kill you if we told you,” Kevin said from somewhere up there, his tall pinhead under a golden light. Weaving behind him, Reuben, with his long hair I suddenly wanted to pull.
“We’re going to get killed, is no one but me worried about that?” I thought of Ma and Marilyn, what they said. Damn, this was stupid. Jonathan was right. I was better than this; I didn’t have to do it this way.
“Stop complaining and keep going,” Nessa muttered.
I thought of death. We could die here and no one would find us. I thought of Kevin’s name, NIL, and I wondered if he had any special philosophy about dying while you’re already underground.
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