People Park

by Pasha Malla

  Stop saying that, home. My home is very, very far from here. This isn’t a homecoming, Deb. It’s a vacation. And we only came here because of my son.

  I just mean —

  I’m not home. Do you understand?

  But your parents —

  No plans to see those two appleheads this weekend either.

  WE MAKE A GOOD squad, Bailie — even if you’re a fuggin asphodel. Maybe because you’re such a fuggin asphodel. And I’m weedkiller! So we’re balanced or whatever.

  Um. Thank you.

  Though you still need to lighten up.

  I’m lightened! I’m wasted. I feel like I could float home.

  Starx ordered more schnapps. Olpert was still chasing the first one’s burn with cider, it fizzed in his nose, he pulled away snorting.

  Easy there Bailie.

  Olpert wiped his face with a napkin, looked at Starx. I’ve been meaning to say: you shouldn’t have socked that boy. Even if he spat on me. That wasn’t right.

  Socked. Bailie, the words you use. I hardly socked him. Just a little love-tap.

  Love-tap? You could have killed him.

  Killed? With a little knock like that? You don’t ever dust it up, as a security guard?

  At Municipal Works? Who would I dust it up with?

  What do they got you carrying? A nightstick? Spray?

  Sometimes staff come in to work latenights and I have to check their ID badges. I’ve got a scanner for that. Starx was searching his face for something. What?

  Bailie, listen. You have no idea about anything — you don’t understand people, what people can do. You probably think those blackups are the reason we started Zone patrols.

  Does this reason also explain why you go around socking children?

  Someday, Bailie — someday I’ll tell you a story.

  Not now?

  No.

  Pete brought two more shots and another round of ciders. As he turned away the phone started ringing again. He swept it from its cradle and banged it down, hard.

  Starx?

  Go talk to that woman.

  Starx sipped his drink in silence. Olpert shredded his coaster onto the bartop. The phone was ringing. Scowling, Pete disappeared into the kitchen. Starx burped. The phone silenced. And started ringing again.

  I HAVE TO ADMIT I was a little wary about meeting out here. Never mind bringing the kids, though Kellogg had some sort of freak-out.

  Oh yeah?

  Well you know. UOT. This used to be one of the neighbourhoods you just didn’t go. After Lakeview Homes closed.

  Right.

  Though I guess people are really starting to move out here?

  Her glass halfway to her mouth, Debbie paused. I’m sorry — people?

  Pearl blinked.

  What people?

  You know. People.

  Debbie put her drink down.

  People like us, whatever.

  And what are we like, Pearl?

  Forget it.

  No, come on, I’m not being confrontational, honestly. You said people are moving here — people like us. I just want to know what people you’re talking about.

  Forget it, okay? I’m very proud of you for living here. You’re very brave —

  No, no. That’s not what I mean. I’m just interested is all.

  Pearl opened her mouth, closed it, pushed back from the table, looked at her watch. The air over the table had turned jagged and static.

  What? Are we done?

  It’s past eleven.

  Right, well at this hour the trains only run every fifteen minutes. The next eastbound Yellowline is —

  Now you’re telling me how to get back? I grew up here, Deb. You’re not even from here. I love people like you, who move —

  People like me? I’m sorry, are those different from people like you? Because a minute ago we were the same. We were people like us, remember.

  This conversation is stupid. This is not a conversation. I don’t know what this is. Pearl stood. I have to go to the bathroom, she said, and moved with care, one step after the next, toward the toilets.

  Debbie gazed mournfully at the empty seat across from her, tried to pinpoint the moment things had swung so drastically in the wrong direction. If only she could rewind the night somehow, and reset it on a different, more affable path. She looked around, avoiding eye contact with the guys at the bar. The Institute kids had cleared out. The place was quiet. She realized the ringing in her ears was gone. Two hours earlier she’d fled that awful sound — and come here, to this: drunk and alone, with a basket of bones.

  LOOK, she’s solo, said Starx. Make your move.

  From Olpert came a panicked bleat, like a vexed sheep.

  What was that? Is that your alert siren?

  I’m too drunk.

  You’re not. You’re the perfect amount of drunk.

  Olpert lay his head on the bar. Her name was Debbie, the other woman had said it. She was a full person now: Debbie.

  Don’t do that, with your face. It’s disgusting. Who knows where that bar has been.

  Olpert didn’t move. Time passed, the phone began ringing again, the room pitched and reeled. He concocted scenarios with this Debbie: a phone number, a date, a kiss, a whole life together, and every night ended with their heads on the same pillow and Olpert whispering, Goodnight, Debbie, I love you. And her saying it back.

  From the real world came a clatter. The phone had stopped ringing — Pete had it to his ear screaming, What the fug? What!

  Olpert blinked. Okay, he said.

  Who’s that on the phone then, Pete, said Starx.

  Okay, I said, said Olpert. I’ll do it.

  His cheek was stuck to the bar, he had to peel himself off. Eyes bleary and bloodshot, Olpert wavered on his stool, buffeted by a secret wind.

  That’s it, Bailie. Starx lifted his cider in salute. Live, it’s time for you to live.

  Olpert searched his partner’s big face for mockery. But Starx, though flushed a ripe-cherry purple, looked stoic, even sincere.

  Easy, Bailie. You look like you’re about to kiss me. It’s only our first date.

  Sorry, sorry . . .

  No, that’s the spirit. Just, you know, direct it over there.

  Olpert swung off the stool, stepped down. The room carouselled around him. Starx gave him a push that sent him staggering toward the corner booth. He reached for something, a chair maybe, to steady himself, it toppled. He came closer, his mouth began to form the words he was meant to say — simple words spoken all the time: Can I have your phone number. Because that was all you needed, a number, to begin.

  Debbie was a person-shaped blur, Olpert’s stomach churned, then heaved with a more troubling sort of violence. Oh no, he said, and felt Debbie watching him as he stumbled past to the men’s, her eyes full of revulsion — or, worse, pity. Hands pressed to either wall he shimmied down the hallway as a miner down a mineshaft, face tightening as vomit threatened at the back of his throat.

  He swung through the door: the toilet was occupied. Olpert rattled the handle and a woman said, Take it easy. He staggered and fell against the sink, slid to a sitting position on the tiles. The stall door opened and he had a view of jeans and sneakers and from somewhere above them a female voice was demanding angry questions Olpert didn’t understand and couldn’t answer because here it came, surging and gurgly and sour, a hot spray down his uniform, all over the women’s bathroom floor.

  IX

  TS FINAL S FLICKERING, the STREET’S MILK & THINGS sign lit the parking lot in a milky pallor. The store’s lights were off. Debbie tried the door, found it locked, cupped her hands to the glass, and looked inside. Pop sat behind the counter, the great mound of him motionless in the dark. His hands were not madly gesticulating, no invectives poured from
his mouth, no perspiration darkened his poncho. He seemed sad and hunched, a shadow of himself. She’d never seen him like this.

  Debbie knocked. He looked up. Fear flashed in his eyes. She waved. The look faded, he nodded and came around to let her in.

  Mr. Street, hi, sorry, said Debbie, trying to steel the boozy slur from her voice. I rushed here as quick as I could.

  I dilated your phone number, I spoke to someone —

  Adine.

  — whom told me of your presence at this drinking bar. After localizing the number I called recurrently, and called. Ultimately upon the midnight hour a man responds, and thence you are. Should I have slept in my store, what of the Movement then?

  Mr. Street, sorry. I would’ve come quicker if I’d known —

  They took my house. After a quartered century hencefrom, they took my house.

  I know. I know.

  The men who took it — I lend you insurance, was I younger . . . With his hand Pop made the chopping motion of a cheese slicer.

  We should try to catch the last train. Do you have stuff?

  He held up a plastic bag. It seemed to be filled with candy.

  Pop locked up and led Debbie around back. Where the houseboat had been a handpainted LAKEVIEW HOMES RESTRIBUTION MOVEMENT placard lay in the gravel, which Pop collected and stroked as a sad dad might a photo of his lost child. My domicidal return can be petitioned on Monday, he said. After this Jubilee has transposed.

  This is so unacceptable. I’ve got a friend who’s a lawyer —

  They are desirous for my eradification. Sincerely! For I am the lone recalcitrant of history, of what presupposed what is. I’m the sole one who cares anymore.

  Debbie, following Pop down the path into People Park, said, Well.

  Lark! I’m the sole one.

  Are we supposed to be in the park after midnight? I thought there were Helpers —

  They can’t tell me whence to be or not be, said Pop.

  Okay, said Debbie, swaying down the path behind him, still drunk.

  They bulldoze my home and then sagefully proclaim this park better? Bah. To whom did they consult among us, the populace, the impersonatory people? This Mayor cares about people as the eagle of malignancy cares about the earth from which it plucks the worm of hope — the earth this worm has toiled, stay mindful.

  I will, said Debbie.

  The night sky had clouded over, the moon glowed dully behind a smoky scrim. Debbie followed Pop into the lightless common — a vast pool of spilled ink.

  This here, he said, was the beginning of the alley behind F-Block, I impersonated unit F-802. All the way aghast this hill were backyards. Of course it was planified then also, there was no hill. Perhaps difficult to visualize from here.

  I think Adine’s family was in Block H, said Debbie. That was near your shop, right?

  But Pop was on the move again, heading around Crocker Pond to the Slipway, which they’d climb to Parkside West Station. At the boathouse he stopped to catch his breath. The clouds parted: a perfect full moon splashed little crags of silver upon the pond.

  You okay?

  He nodded, produced a blowholish grunt. Atop the hill the train station glowed like a spaceship. See, you see? He gestured vaguely with his bag of candy, gasping. Thence was my place. You see?

  Do you mean when you had your boat in Crocker Pond or —

  They made me move from the pond! Claiming that upon my own property would be an endurable arraignment! And now the squab has come home to roast.

  I know, but was your house near here too? Sorry, I’m just confused.

  The hawk, he whispered, and grinned. I’d forgotten about him, what was his name, what did we call him? The walls were so thin that if you heard mice you couldn’t be sure if they were from next door or your own unit. And if you had mice there was a hawk, someone had tamed a hawk. This man brought his hawk to your house and you would go out and come back and the mice would be gone, all of them. But what was his name?

  The man’s?

  No, said Pop. The hawk’s.

  He had grown so lucid. He even breathed more easily — but he snorted and wheeled. Lark, why am I pontificating this story? About a hawk! Not exactly utilitary.

  It’s a great story. Our cat Jeremiah’s useless with mice. He —

  Cats, bah.

  Clouds slid over the moon.

  Climbing the slipway, between gasps Pop muttered, Stories are just stories.

  I thought it was nice. Crazy maybe, a hawk let loose indoors —

  Nice and crazy maybe is not utilitary.

  Well it’s just nice to hear a story that’s not about how dangerous it was here. In the Homes, I mean. You hear about the violence —

  Pop grunted. You entreat me of violence? Of course there was violence. Whence is there not? But is it not just as violent to force citizens from their homes? To uproot us like so many roots from the soil, with the spade of unjustice?

  I wasn’t —

  Violence. Bah.

  Debbie and Pop cut through a final thicket of shrubs onto the sidewalk. Ahead loomed the monorail station, up on stilts and halogenically lit, tracks extending north and south, and into which an escalator rose, whirring.

  With his hands on his knees Pop rested, candy bag hanging. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose and splattered the sidewalk. Across the street, the Cinecity marquee read: JUBILEE LIVE FRIDAY/ALL IN TOGETHER NOW STARTS SATURDAY! Beyond it, the Podesta Tower lofted high above everything, twirling twin searchlights into the night sky.

  Debbie never came downtown at this hour, the abandoned streets reminded her of afterhours at the Bebrog bar where she’d worked before signing on to In the Know. At the end of each night, with everything hosed down and the stools stacked and the place vaultlike and the morning lurking outside, it never seemed that the night’s revelry, or anything resembling life, could ever happen there again. And now, with the streets empty and the office towers vacant and the escalator winding up and down, untrafficked, the absence of people in this world they’d built filled her with that same melancholy.

  Something moved under the Cinecity marquee. A strange shape jerked through the shadows with a scraping, rattling sound. At first Debbie thought it might be a person in a wheelchair, but the figure seemed too tall — a homeless person piloting a shopping cart maybe. But there were no homeless people downtown, not anymore.

  Pop toed the escalator, retreated. How does one make an ascension?

  What do you mean? said Debbie.

  You think, with all I do, that I have time to gallivate around the city? Pollycock!

  Wait — you’ve never taken the train?

  Across the street the figure had heard them: it melted inside the entryway to the theatre. There’s someone there, Debbie whispered, but Pop was edging onto the escalator.

  No problem, he said, swept upward, here I go.

  With a glance over her shoulder — the person across the street cowered, motionless — Debbie followed Pop, the escalator lifted them to the turnstiles. Up the tracks a train eased south from Guardian Bridge Station. Good timing, said Debbie, and Pop nodded, eyes fixed upon it in terror, as if what approached were a shuttle to his own grave.

  THE MAYOR WAITED until the train pulled out before moving. With a dust shovel scavenged from the banquet hall fireplace she land-paddled out from under the marquee and wheeled right onto Paper Street. From atop the dessert cart she punted along, legs heaped on the lower tier. One foot had lost its pump and dragged on the pavement, the tights split, big toe flaking skin like sparks.

  At Municipal Works’ executive entrance the Mayor keyed in her code. The doors opened, she paddled down a long, empty hallway, out into a marble-pillared rotunda, surveillance cameras blinked red lights, past the security guard, Betty, to the elevator at the base of the Podesta Tower. And then she
was lifted into the sky: the island swelled glittering to its edges, where it ceded abruptly to the lake.

  Released one hundred storeys up, the Mayor flicked on the lights and rolled out onto the viewing deck, a bubble enclosed by glass on all sides that turned, languidly, clockwise. And though the viewing deck boasted the best and most comprehensive panoramas of the city, at this hour, with the lights on inside, the Mayor saw none of it: not the sleeping city, not the night sky, not the polished coin of the moon, not, as the viewing deck rotated south, the vast emptiness of the water, a second sky hollowed out beneath the sky. Everything was lost in the room’s reflection.

  And at the heart of this reflection the Mayor saw herself, spectral and translucent, floating out there in space, a thousand feet above downtown. The dark shapes of her eyes hovered in a gaunt face, every wrinkle a gulley, her hair a tussled silver nest. She stared into the eyes out there, on the other side of the glass, her eyes, but couldn’t see her own eyes: they were just absence, two holes punched into the night.

  Had she left the lights off, as the deck swivelled north, then east, she would have been treated to a straight shot over People Park, and across it, the tower of the Grand Saloon Hotel, the clockface a sort of second moon, the hands at right angles where the illustrationist had frozen them that morning. On the roof’s edge sat his helicopter, nosing out over the brightly lit penthouse suite. The balcony doors had been cast open, the curtains billowed in the A/C’s steady draft. And with each ruffle they revealed the illustrationist atop the sheets in his tracksuit, fast asleep.

  He needed cold air to sleep and light, lots of light. The penthouse was all marble and polished dark wood and brass, everything gleamed in the brilliance sprinkled down from a row of crystal chandeliers. Atop the nightstand was the CityGuide that lived in every guest’s bedside drawer, bookmarked with a feather four pages from the end.

  Raven’s position atop the bed’s black silk sheets was perfect symmetry: on his back, arms at his sides, legs a fist apart, face to the ceiling. His baldhead gleamed. His tracksuit was velvety. His eyes were open, yet he was sleeping, this was how he slept, and his eyes seemed to have no irises but just pupils swollen into pits, and his body produced no movement or sound, his chest did not rise and fall, there was not even a hiss of breath, and anyone happening upon this person would have assumed him dead.