Brooklyn, Burning

by Steve Brezenoff

  I ran my finger over the wheel of my lighter, spun it safely, knowing the child-proof lighter wouldn’t flame even a little. “The crazy man did a lot of … ranting,” I explained. “Often about the giant toddler. I used to think he meant me.”

  “You have a young face,” Blank said.

  “Hence the name,” I said, waving him off, “but he didn’t mean me. That’s what I figured out just now when I thought about the real-estate guy again. His fat face, his thin hair, his scrunched up tantrumy face—he must have given the CPM a real scream one time, so that’s how he knows him: giant toddler.”

  Blank sighed, and I could smell how much coffee he’d had that day. He and the other cop exchanged a look, but I couldn’t tell if it meant We’re on to something, or This kid’s spewing nonsense. “Did this real-estate guy tell you his name?”

  I thought an instant and said no. “I didn’t think to ask. And Felix—his eyes were stars for the guy’s money. And his car.”

  “His car?” the other cop said. “It was nice?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know from cars,” I said. “It was green—and British, Felix said. I think. Looked old, but nice. You know?”

  “A coupe? Little sporty thing?”

  I nodded. “I guess. Tiny, anyway.”

  “That’s got to be Mausser,” he said, looking at Blank. “He owns three of those new condo buildings way down on Kent.”

  Blank gave him a glance and a smirk.

  “What?” the cop said. “I like cars.”

  Blank tapped the desk with his palm a few times.

  “It makes a lot of sense, Detective,” the other cop went on. “Listen…” His voice quieted a little, just hushed enough so I could hear, but so I’d know I shouldn’t be listening. I listened even closer. “Kid didn’t do this. The whole warehouse was burning by the time the engines arrived, right? This wasn’t a drunken accident by some heartbroken street kid. Let’s get Kid’s statement and move on this.”

  But Blank wasn’t convinced. “For all we know, you’re the one who took Mausser up on this offer. We know you heard the offer; you told us as much,” he asked. “What I’m saying, Kid, is why didn’t you mention any of this before?”

  Could I tell him the truth? Could I tell him I wanted them to pin it on me? That I wished I’d done it, for myself, for you, for Felix. Could I tell them I’d wanted to take the rap, to take the punishment, to put my real guilt to rest? I ran the back of my fist across my lips and shrugged. “I didn’t think of it.”

  The detective sighed.

  Back to the other cop, he said, “You’re going to tell me that one of the most prominent real-estate developers in Brooklyn went out there and hired a bum to burn down this warehouse?”

  “It’s a landmark,” the other cop said. “He wouldn’t have had a choice if he wanted to move quickly on some development down there. And believe me, he wanted to.”

  “Okay, let’s say it’s true,” Blank said. “Why isn’t there a millionaire CPM running around Greenpoint right now?”

  That got me. I actually laughed right in Blank’s face. “You’re as crazy as Felix,” I said. “He thought Mausser would actually pay up too.”

  The other cop smiled at me. “Honestly, Detective,” he said. “You don’t think a businessman is honoring handshakes with schizophrenic street people, do you?”

  Blank stood there, staring at me, for a long moment. Finally he said, “All right, have a seat a minute.” He nodded toward the long wooden bench at the wall behind me. It looked like someone had picked up a pew cheap at a church-closing sale. Then Blank and the other cop went into the back again.

  I went and took a seat. There were no prostitutes waiting there with me, no old men muttering in a drunken haze, about to be checked into the tank to sleep it off. There were no young black men glaring at me or at the cops. There was just me, sitting at one end of the bench, so I slid down as far as I could go, shoved my hands into my jeans pockets, and watched the industrial, schoolroom clock as the skinny red hand purred around toward out of time.

  …

  For once I had a clock to stare at, and I didn’t like it. I traced every minute and every second on that big white-faced clock, its red second hand not ticktocking like it ought to have. It swept around the face, smoothly and confidently. It never faltered, never took a step back, not even for an instant. It didn’t skip or change speed. It just ran along in that one-minute circle, over and over. It made me miss the dark cellar, in the middle of the night, when you and I didn’t know if it was dinnertime or almost breakfast, so we ate whatever we wanted and drank another Coke each and worked on another song.

  …

  When Detective Blank came in from the back, I was lying on my side along the wooden bench. My neck was stiff and my right arm numb. Night had moved in completely, and I’d hardly taken my eyes off that clock. I heard the bass of boys’ car stereos, cruising up and down Greenpoint Avenue, or across Franklin, and their voices calling to each other, in Spanish and Polish. Over them, smoother and more comfortable, I heard joking and mumbling and barking from the cops—right in the room with me, behind the big desk, from rooms off the main one.

  “Okay, Kid,” Blank said to me. I swung my legs around and sat up. “You can get out of here. You’ve been helpful.”

  “I’m off the hook?” I said. The pleading in my voice, and the relief, surprised even me. Didn’t I want this rap not twenty-four hours ago? What made me love freedom so much, forgive myself finally for one life and one death? But I knew. I knew it was you.

  Blank nodded, only slightly, and said, “Go home, all right?”

  I shook my head. “Can’t. We have a gig tonight, down at Fish’s.”

  He laughed quickly. “Of course. You play drums, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “I have a cousin plays drums. I’ll introduce you.” He started for the back, and I called after him.

  “Will you come see us play tonight?” I couldn’t believe I was inviting the man who arrested me to our gig, especially since I wasn’t sure I’d even find you. It seemed now like I wouldn’t. Still.

  “I’ll try to swing by,” he said, which meant he wouldn’t. I guess the division between those who maintain society and those who try to break it down has to stay firm sometimes. “You tell Fish to card everyone tonight, okay?”

  “I will. Gotta go.”

  I didn’t care if he was dismissive. I didn’t care if he wasn’t the sympathetic civil servant I expected or thought I deserved. I didn’t care if I never saw his square mug again. Beaming like the light in your eyes, I jumped up from my police station pew and pushed through the front door.

  …

  My damp sneakers slapped the pavement as I ran, like they had more than a year before when I ran to the warehouse, desperate for another night inside even as it burned. I ran past silent brownstones and a solitary dog walker. She looked at me from under heavy eyelids and tired bangs, stepped back, and yanked the leash as her little dog yapped and thought about my ankles. I turned the corner from Meserole to Franklin hard, right across Calyer and Quay, away from the burned-out warehouse, my body taking an angle like the sidewalk was banked.

  Franklin was full, and cheery drunken voices flowed over me—not sentences, not even a clear word. Two men at the corner of Franklin and Greenpoint, outside the Polish club for a cigarette—only feet from where me and Konny first saw Jonny—looked me up and down and wondered: Chłopak albo dziewczyna? I gritted my teeth and closed my hands into fists, wishing one of those fists was wrapped around your warm hand.

  There were a few more drunks lingering outside at Fish’s place. None of them was alone; they were all embracing or touching, holding hands or kissing. They were happy and so alive, even as they slumped or swaggered with weariness or liquor, and I wondered if I’d ever see you again.

  GO DOWNSTAIRS

  I tore into Fish’s place at 11:30. I was hot and tired, and mostly by then I was glad I hadn’t found you: my arms and fe
et and mind weren’t ready to drum, my heart was aching, and my eyes were sore and watery, itching from the smoke and grit of a day walking through the last summer sun in Brooklyn. The last thing I wanted to do just then was take the stage behind Felix’s kit. I stood by the door—by Valentino, who nodded and smiled at me—and looked the place over, caught my breath.

  Inside Fish’s wasn’t crowded; sixteen-plus nights are always weak. A couple of neighborhood girls were at the bar, hanging on Fish. Ace and his new girl were down at the far end, near the jukebox, watching Jonny hotdog around on the quarters pool table. I noticed the drum set was already upstairs and wondered for a minute who’d set it up, figuring on Jonny or Fish, knowing how worried they get about me—knowing they probably wanted summer to end well for me this year.

  “Kid.” Dazed, I slowly turned my head to the bar. Fish was leaning across it, holding out a Coke. I walked over and took it. “I was afraid you wouldn’t make it,” she said.

  “I didn’t make it. Scout’s not here.”

  Fish smiled at me. “Drink that Coke, Kid. You look about to keel over.”

  I glanced at Valentino, who looked back at me through those tinted glasses and tidy dreads, and took the straw between my lips. It went down like a treat.

  Valentino leaned down from his stool. “Kid,” he said. “Go downstairs.”

  I looked back at Fish, absently handed her the drained, wet glass; it nearly slipped from my hand. “Scout’s here?”

  Fish smiled when she said, “Scout’s not going to leave you, sweetie. Not for long.”

  I bolted through the bar, even past Jonny, who flashed me his grin and shouted my name, and past the new girl and Ace, who’d moved to the pool table and looked about to screw, out into the back garden. A few customers were out there, hanging around the back fence, smoking cigarettes and nursing cans of PBR and bottles of High Life, but I spun on my heel and hopped down the steps through the garden door into the practice space.

  It was dark and quiet, with only Felix’s Christmas lights on. I stepped carefully inside and stopped, unwilling to take another step.

  (HOW I FOUND FELIX AND LOST HIM)

  It was a Sunday night last summer; it was my last night to pretend the summer was magic, to pretend I wouldn’t make my way to school in the morning, looking like I’d spent a month living in the gutter. But I couldn’t stop pretending, not yet, not with Felix playing a solo set up at Fish’s bar, as if to let me have one more night. The crowd was light, but I was there, right up in front. I kept my eyes closed and swayed back and forth with each word—gravel and grit and smoke and smack in every one. Felix’s eyes were closed too, because he always sang like that. He wanted to feel alone, he said. “At the end of the day, when everything is over: that’s the drone of silence and the ocean and the deep blue, you know?” he would say. “When everything else turns off, when not even a light bulb is humming, when not even a subway is running up in the Bronx, when LaGuardia and JFK shut down, when the cabs don’t run and when the Sound and Harbor and ocean all freeze up … that’s what I’m singing, Kid. That’s what I’m praying for every time I close my eyes.”

  He finished his set and put down the guitar, then just sat on his stool, his eyes closed. He was serene, but not there—he wasn’t at Fish’s anymore. Still, I clapped and cheered and wanted to grab him, but Jonny held my wrist and took me to the bar and put me on a stool. He ordered me a drink, and Fish looked at him, squarely. But he nodded and she brought me a vodka cranberry that she wouldn’t even let Jonny pay for. I sipped it, watching Felix all the while. When the drink was gone, I put my head on the bar so I could still see him, and, listening to Fish and her barback case up empties and kick out drunks, I let myself drift off.

  …

  Jonny woke me up. “It’s late, Kid.”

  “It’s almost five, sweetie,” Fish said.

  I grunted and opened my eyes. There was Jonny. He glanced at Fish, then took my elbow and I got down from my stool.

  “My bag,” I said. “Downstairs.”

  “Go through the back,” Fish said. “I think the garden door is open.”

  I started coming to a little stronger once I was on my feet. The stage was empty. “Where’s Felix?”

  “He left an hour ago,” Jonny said. “He was pretty messed up, though, Kid. You didn’t need to see that.”

  “What did he take?”

  Fish shrugged and zipped her cash bag. “I need to lock up this shit hole. Run and get your bag, sweetie. Jonny and me will wait for you.”

  I hobbled past the pool table and the stage, out into the back garden. It was all lit up, in flashing reds and greens and blues and yellows, from the Christmas lights still on and flickering through the wide-open garden door.

  “Felix?” I said, stepping down into the dank practice space. It smelled of smoke and sweat and beer and mildew, like it always did, but there was a new smell too. My eyes adjusted quickly to the holiday lighting and I found the couch. Felix was lying there, with his arm out over the side and his feet on the arm of the couch.

  “Felix,” I said again. “Wake up. I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.” But he didn’t wake up. So I moved closer to him and took his hand and looked him in the face. His neck was bent so his head craned back, like he’d been straining to see something over the side of the couch. His mouth was twisted a little, half open, like a stroke victim’s. But I didn’t get it, not yet. I didn’t get it until I saw his eyes, sparkling under the colored lights, flashing on and off, red and yellow, green and blue, red and blue, green and yellow. Then I knew he’d found the silence he wanted, with his eyes wide open.

  HURRY

  I was crying. My chest heaved and I gasped for air down in the dank of the cellar. With every gasp, my shoulders buckled, and I let myself fall backward so my butt was on the top step.

  “Kid, what is it?” You came out of the darkness and wrapped yourself around me.

  I took a deep breath against your chest. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  I pulled away and found your eyes, open so wide and beautiful, because they always are, and I couldn’t imagine why I’d doubted it.

  “How did you find out about the gig?”

  You laughed, so I laughed through my hiccups and tears and ran my finger down your forehead and your nose and across your cheek, and pushed your hair behind your ear.

  “I didn’t find out. I just came down here to find you. Fish told me about it like ten minutes ago.”

  I took your hand in both of mine. “Where were you all day?”

  “After,” you said. “Let’s go play.”

  …

  Fish brought me another perfect Coke after I’d settled in behind the set. I warmed up a bit while you tuned and hiked up your pants twice, three times, and tightened your belt a little. Something white and paper was sticking out of your pocket.

  You went up to the mic, and I thought you were sexy as hell. “We’re People. I’m Scout. Kid is going to play drums.”

  We gave them everything, the few people who stood watching, all of them entranced by you like I’ve always been. Jonny loved you head to toe, but between songs, when I got up and took a towel from Fish, Jonny smiled at me too. Between songs, you turned to me and counted off: one, two, three, four! and I thought Ace and the new girl, from the way they leaned on each other and gazed at us, might try to take us both home. Danny came in halfway through the set—did you see?—and smiled at me between songs. Konny was there, and even her boss and landlord Zeph, both beaming.

  But best of all, you were there, and when I left the stage so you could be up there alone, and so your dirty-honey voice could roll over me, I held your eyes, and you held mine, and everyone in Fish’s bar knew that we were for each other, even if only tonight.

  …

  When it was over, I hopped back onto the stage to break down the set as you hopped down to fall into Jonny’s admiring arms. I watched them all, hugging you
and kissing your cheeks, tugging at your arm. Everyone knew your secret now, the one I’d had for seventy-four days. I kept my head down and collapsed stands and stacked tom on snare on floor tom.

  When I looked back up, the buzzing tiny crowd was without you. My eyes found Konny’s, and I pushed toward her and grabbed her hand. She smiled at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She kissed my cheek and said, “It’s love. I get it.”

  I smiled up at her, so strong and beautiful, and remembered I loved her first. It wasn’t a desperate love, or a dangerous love, and I promised myself I’d hold on to her. Not right then, though. Right then Jonny was between us.

  “Kid, I can’t believe it.” His grin was bigger than ever, and I let myself fall against his chest. His arms collapsed around me.

  “Isn’t Scout amazing?” I said into his shoulder.

  “You’re amazing,” he said. “You’re both amazing.”

  Jonny let me go and shook his head, still smiling, and I grabbed an armful of cymbal stands to bring down to the practice space, out through the back door, into the steady yellow-white light of the naked hanging bulb shining through the wide-open garden door.

  “Scout.”

  You were standing in the center of the room, facing the steps up to the sidewalk out front. Without turning around you said, “Hi, Kid,” and I could tell you were smiling.

  I leaned the stands against the wall. “You were amazing tonight,” I said, coming up behind you. I put my arms around your waist and rested my head on your shoulder. The smell of your day was all over you, and I took a long breath off your neck. We stood like that for a while. “I looked for you today. All day.”

  “I know. I didn’t want to be found.”

  My chest thumped an extra beat once, then twice, and I held my breath after asking, “Why?”

  You didn’t respond right away and I lifted my head and moved away from you. I kept my eyes down as I sat on the couch and let myself fall over onto my side to curl up.