Paint It Yellow

by López, Andrés G.

  Of course, Gabriel also thought often of Helene and wished he could be with her, though he knew that she could handle herself. This is what he loved so much about her. Though vulnerable, like anyone else, Helene knew life, and she had emerged from adversity with the strength and wisdom needed to get through new challenges. With those reassuring thoughts, Gabriel relaxed knowing that whatever happened, she would be fine.

  The morning of the twenty-seventh, Paul and Sal helped Gabriel move out of his apartment, and Gabriel was relieved to be done with that chapter of his life. By noon, the three boys ate at the local pizzeria, and Sal flirted with their waitress, Maggie, as usual.

  Gabriel asked him pointedly if Julia had liked the necklace he bought her for Christmas.

  “Are you joking? She loved it. And those black stockings just knocked me out. Purr … fection.”

  Gabriel grinned. “Well, the way you carry on with Maggie, one could assume Julia and you are done and that you’re looking.”

  “You’re setting a bad example for me,” Paul chimed in, pretending to be perplexed.

  “Hey, you’ve got to stay hungry all the time,” Sal joked back. “You know that’s my philosophy. You can’t lose your finesse for the game. And Maggie digs me, little man. It makes her day go a hell of a lot faster if she knows men think she’s hot. Makes her forget she’s at a pizza joint working for that fat Italian over there.”

  “Here you are handsome,” Maggie said to Sal when she brought the pizza. “Anything else I can get you?”

  “Maybe one of these afternoons, you can come back to my place; I’ll show you a new lower back rub I’ve been perfecting. That’s of course, if fat Dom there can spare you.”

  “Won’t your lady friend mind?” Maggie asked.

  “Definitely not. We have an open relationship.”

  “Well, I’ll see what I can work out with my boss. I could use a massage. Enjoy the pizza boys.”

  Gabriel sensed that Sal’s harmless flirtation had just progressed to imminent cheating, but he kept quiet. When he finished eating, Sal prepared a nice big tip for Maggie (ten bucks, more than the entire meal was worth) then examined the remaining cash in his wallet and declared that he needed to hustle the following day.

  “You working tomorrow, Gabe?”

  The idea of working the next day suddenly appealed to Gabriel. Maybe working a few days the busy week after Christmas and hanging out with Sal could be fun. And it certainly beat sitting around missing Helene.

  “I think I will work tomorrow,” Gabe said. “But no more night shift. I’m done with that for good.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Gibbs was happy to see Gabriel come in for a cab at five thirty the next morning, precisely the time that Helene’s father was being prepared for surgery at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Saint Paul. The dispatcher had doubted Gabriel would return, but seeing the boy back so soon after his frightening episode made Gibbs want to reward him. He phoned the garage and told Johnny Jay to gas up Vito’s car. Vito was a veteran night driver who always drove the same car. Gabriel was amazed to be given the immaculate 1981 Chevy Impala, vacuumed daily and waxed to a spotless shine weekly. With racy rims and sporty Goodyear tires, it looked like a hot rod.

  After several city rides, Gabriel pulled into the Waldorf Astoria line at 9:35 a.m., saw Sal’s Checker three cars from the front and walked up to greet him. But the line moved quickly and they didn’t have time to talk. Before Sal left with what looked like a fare to Kennedy, they agreed to meet for lunch at the Roma Deli on Houston after the noon rush.

  Gabriel’s early morning optimism soon wore off. Hustling for fares was not easy after several days off, and he was preoccupied with Helene’s ordeal in Minnesota. Instead of talking with his passengers as usual, he was mute and reflective. All the Christmas cheer had left him, like air from an old balloon.

  Even though the morning rush was in full swing, Gabriel had the urge to stop by Helene’s apartment to see if she’d left a message. He knew that heart operations took hours and it was still early for news, but his longing for Helene made him believe that perhaps she’d call and, at the very least, he could look at her picture and say another prayer for her family. You could pray from anywhere, even a sweaty cab seat, but the traffic noises, especially car horns that pounded his ears, took away any possible solemnity.

  Gabriel clicked on his “Off Duty” light and waited in the center lane for the green light at the corner of 35th and Seventh, but just as he was about to escape, an executive headed for Wall Street snuck into his back seat and sighed with relief at having found a cab. He was one of the hundreds emerging from Penn Station’s cavernous train-lined underground into the Manhattan sunshine, looking for swift passage across that human and machine jungle.

  Hadn’t he seen the “Off Duty” light? Gabriel wasn’t angry, just dismayed that his plan for a break would be delayed. He didn’t have the courage to ask the man to get out and, instead, hit the accelerator. He snaked through the thick Midtown congestion — around pedestrians jaywalking everywhere, and other taxis and city and tour buses, construction and delivery trucks, bicyclists, pretzel vendors, and coffee and breakfast vans. The horns, meanwhile, kept coming at him with a hurricane’s fury; a fast escape was impossible. His passenger, relaxed in the back seat as though he were lounging at a beach resort in the Caribbean, took out The Wall Street Journal and read.

  By 14th Street, new congestion arose and Gabriel felt the weight of this taxing job, as if for the first time. He really didn’t know what was wrong. Was he worried about Helene? Was his restlessness a premonition of something going wrong in Minnesota? Was he anxious because of the threat on Sal’s life? Did it have something to do with finding out about Nancy and Janie?

  Something was not right. And then at 13th and Broadway, he got caught in a nasty gridlock and jammed on his brakes, slamming both hands on the steering wheel with such force that the car shook.

  “Fuck!” It was a cry for everyone trapped in that crazy city — suffocating daily, unable to get out or do anything about it.

  Gabriel’s passenger was startled, but he only leaned toward the open divider and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not in a hurry. And it clears up just ahead.” It was obvious the man did this daily.

  Gabriel felt ashamed. “Sorry, sir. I apologize for startling you.”

  The man sat back and folded his paper like it was a fancy cloth napkin at a formal dinner, then placed it on top of other important documents inside his open briefcase. “The day’s just beginning,” he said.

  Gabriel maneuvered his cab around an idling delivery truck and stopped so that his passenger had plenty of room to get out between parked cars.

  “Here you go. Keep the change.” The executive handed Gabriel twenty bucks for a $5.80 fare. “The day’s just beginning,” he repeated. “Have a good one.”

  Feeling the shame of a tip unearned, Gabriel pulled out carefully and waited for pedestrians crossing at the busy street corner. He wanted to leave the district, to make his way toward Sixth Avenue. For some reason, he felt emptier than he had earlier that morning. It was now 10:20 a.m.

  On Church Street, a young woman flagged him down. With her long hair and sunglasses, she reminded Gabriel of Helene the afternoon he had first met her. She was attractive in her black business suit, and when he turned to get her destination — she was headed uptown to Baker’s Rare Books — he saw her manager’s pin with the name “Charlotte” below it in fancy script. On any other morning, Gabriel would have conversed with her, but he was relieved when she took off her glasses, opened her bag and worked on her morning makeup. Gabriel found Sixth Avenue, caught a string of green lights and $3.80 later, deposited this rare book connoisseur at Baker’s — a quaint establishment. She gave Gabriel a five spot and asked that he keep the change. Gabriel thanked her, feeling that perhaps a wonderful opportunity for conversation had been lost.

  He managed to cross 34th Street, congested as it was, at 10:37 a.m., without being hailed. T
here was gridlock on 35th just ahead. On the left side of Sixth, he got stuck behind a bus with a large delivery truck on his immediate right, so it was impossible to escape. Traffic finally moved forward, but as it did, Gabriel did something he would never have done if he’d been paying any attention, and he knew it instantly — he turned left onto 35th Street toward Seventh Avenue traffic. “Shit! What the hell am I doing? What’s wrong with me today?”

  This would be a costly mistake. With all the double-parked delivery trucks and the gridlock on Seventh, he could be stuck on this side street for a half hour without a passenger. His mind wandered to Helene and again he felt like praying, overcome with emotion as he sat in that agonizing, snakelike line of automobile and truck traffic. He whispered four Our Fathers, for Helene and Edward, and Helene’s father and mother. The following morning, Gabriel would ponder why he hadn’t said a fifth for Sal, given how worried he’d been about his safety.

  The line of taxis and trucks in front of him suddenly began to move, and in less than five minutes, Gabriel had hooked left onto Seventh and sat comfortably in the center lane. How had that happened so fast? It was ten forty-five. If he found a passenger at Penn Station for a longish fare, he might salvage the morning, but the congestion made it impossible to get anywhere near the curb for a pickup. There were two stopped buses near the station’s main exit doors and numerous taxis immediately behind and parked almost three rows deep into the middle of Seventh. To get a fare, a passenger would have to come to him. Gabriel felt he had no choice but to get as close to the curb as he could.

  The light turned green and Gabriel fought to move right, bullying his cab into the second layer from the curb. When he glanced over at the sidewalk, he could not believe what he saw. Walking demurely in the bright sunshine, her white knitted sweater reflecting the light and making her appear like an angel amid a crowd of strangers, Jennifer Amman moved toward him. Gabriel slammed his gearshift into park, threw open his door and jumped out, eager to see if she was real.

  “Jennifer!” he yelled.

  With his door wide open, he stood on his car’s chassis, leaned over its roof and waved. Would she see him? Hear him? He knew it was her. It wasn’t an apparition. “Jennifer! It’s Gabriel!”

  The car horns behind him suddenly blew so loudly he nearly slipped off the chassis. The driver of the taxi immediately behind Gabriel’s stuck his head out his window. “What the hell are ya doin’? Moove it!”

  Gabriel refused to be dissuaded as he tried to get Jennifer’s attention amid the chaos, and he continued standing there, not wanting to take his eyes off her. The driver behind finally gave up and waved to the driver behind him to back up. Then he threw his car into reverse, backed into the other cabby’s bumper and pulled around Gabriel’s cab. “Ya crazy kid! Should have yer license revoked!”

  But Gabriel did not hear him. He was somewhere else. As Gabriel’s heart beat faster, the crazy pounding pulse of that mid-Manhattan heart slowed and then stopped. The people, skyscrapers, buses and cars, taxis and trucks, fumes and horns, were all suddenly not there. In seconds, he had shut everything out and entered his own world where Jennifer sat across from him at Stony Brook University library. He had to reach her somehow.

  “Jeniffffffer! Jeniffffffer!” The engorged veins in his neck looked like they would burst from the effort. But it was worth it.

  Jennifer’s head turned. Finally! She saw Gabriel and her sweet mouth widened into the most beautiful smile Gabriel had ever seen on her face, a smile that said everything he’d wanted to know for two long years — that she’d loved him! Still loved him! That it hadn’t been an illusion.

  “How are you?” she screamed above all the surrounding sounds. “How’s Paul?” Gabriel was elated; she still remembered the profound love he had for Paul; she hadn’t forgotten all those intimate conversations they’d shared.

  “Great! How’ve you been? How’s your brother?” Gabriel screamed back. His voice carried his love over the roofs of two taxis. Jennifer’s brother had had open-heart surgery as a child and had been very sick afterward. While they dated, Jennifer was always preoccupied with her younger brother’s health. Gabriel had met fifteen-year-old Taylan on Christmas break in 1979, when Taylan had served as chaperone on a date to see The Jerk. Taylan was charming and soft-spoken, and Gabriel had instantly liked him; he’d found him as lovable as his own brother, had shared these feelings with Jennifer and she’d been thrilled. Their mutual love and conversation about their brothers had cemented their own budding love.

  “He’s fine! I’m starting work today, at Macy’s!” She pointed at the store on 34th Street.

  Gabriel knew her dream had always been to work in Manhattan and his smile widened. Then she gestured to her watch and Gabriel knew she had to leave. She waved goodbye. In seconds, she disappeared into the throng crossing that wide divide, became a phantom in Gabriel’s memory of a cold winter’s day in mid-Manhattan that would always bring him bittersweet joy.

  “It was great seeing you!” Gabriel screamed. “Good luck at your new job!” He didn’t want her to go yet. But she did. In seconds she was gone and soon, he could no longer discern her figure in that horizon of bright colors, in that stone, steel and glass background. And that swiftly, the grand unexpected moment became history, its end as abrupt as its beginning — seconds that surged eternal in those few shared words between former lovers.

  A blasting, persistent taxi horn woke him — along with the irritating, vulgar voice of yet another driver behind him. Gabriel slipped back in his cab just as his back door opened and a young executive jumped in.

  “Wall Street and Broadway please. Fast as you can. I’m late.”

  The traffic around him had cleared. Gabriel clicked his meter on and gunned his sporty Chevy, almost clipping the door of a Checker cab with his left front fender. He felt thrilled to spin his rear wheels, burn lots of gas, leave some of Goodyear’s hot rubber behind on the black street before majestic Penn Station. Gabriel stared ahead at three green lights and hit his accelerator to join in the madness.

  Here we go again, he thought. And with a grin on his face, he cut off a delivery truck trying to merge left.

  CHAPTER 36

  As Gabriel sped downtown, the moment with Jennifer stayed with him; he was certain it had been destined — he had hovered around Penn Station all morning and turned onto 35th, something he’d never normally do; he had prayed for Helene and her family, and the traffic had cleared mysteriously, and then Jennifer had appeared. For that moment to have occurred, everything that morning had to have happened in that exact way, every second had counted. If just one of his fares had gone an extra block or had taken him out of Manhattan, it wouldn’t have happened. If a delivery truck had stalled in front of him on 35th or a pedestrian had caused him to stop a few extra seconds, he would have missed her.

  These thoughts temporarily pushed everything else from his mind and he began to daydream about Jennifer. Would she want Gabriel back now that she had more freedom and time? He knew Manhattan inside and out, the one place Jennifer adored. And seeing her again had to mean something — it was fate.

  Gabriel’s head spun, the thoughts gyrating through his synapses faster than his taxi’s wheels were turning on the pavement. He was so lost in thought that first half hour after seeing Jennifer that when he dropped off his passenger at Wall Street and collected his fare, he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there. He couldn’t remember making a single turn or stopping for a single light. As soon as he was in motion again, his young mind was bombarded with the romantic possibilities of this chance encounter. And then it dawned on him, what Jennifer’s parents would think and say when they found out that he now drove a cab. They wouldn’t want their daughter with him; they’d tell her he had no future.

  On this strange autopilot Gabriel headed to the West Side. When he reached Seventh Avenue, he realized he was only two blocks from Helene’s apartment and felt a huge pang of guilt. How could he have forgotten Helene, the woman who h
ad given him everything? Why was he flirting with thoughts of resurrecting the ghosts of a relinquished past? Jennifer had a new life and for all he knew, she probably had a new love. She had moved on. He had moved on. Why try to fix what had been left broken in a dead past?

  It was selfish to have forgotten Helene, even for a second, and Gabriel knew it. He realized he’d driven toward Helene’s place unconsciously. That’s where he’d wanted to go all morning. He would stop to see if she’d left a message.

  When he saw the answering machine’s blinking red light, Gabriel felt a longing for Helene that surpassed anything he’d ever felt for any woman. He pressed the play button and listened to her voice, soft and sincere, as she told him about her father’s surgery. He was doing well. She told Gabriel she would call him later with more news.

  And she missed him.

  Gabriel rewound the tape and played it again. He was stunned by how good it felt to live in the moment. And he knew that there’d be no flowers for Jennifer, no effort on his part to reawaken old passions. He’d found out what he needed to know about Jennifer and their relationship. She had loved him, but there was no future for them. And Gabriel was ready to bury those emotions without regret, to embrace what was before him, which was real and had the potential to bring him happiness perhaps greater than any he’d ever known.

  Shortly after noon, Gabriel left Helene’s place. If he could manage to stay in Manhattan and away from hotel lines, after a few short trips he could head over to Houston Street for lunch with Sal. Sal would never believe everything he had to tell him. Gabriel was eager to see his friend, to ask him if he’d found out anything else about Janie Camino’s whereabouts. Gabriel found a fare headed to Tavern on the Green, dropped the older man off and picked up another passenger headed to Penn Station. He found this truly odd. There were entire days, even weeks, when he’d not get anywhere near Penn Station, and on this day, he couldn’t stay clear of it.