New Yorked

by Rob Hart

  The bar Iva was talking about is Cargo, because unless there’s been some drastic change, it’s the only bar in this neighborhood that does pub trivia.

  My last apartment on Staten Island, before I scored my digs in the East Village, is right up the block, so I used to drink at Cargo on the regular. It’s a squat building across the street from a crack motel. The outside is painted with a mural that changes every six months or so. Last time it was giant parrots, one of which was devouring a person. Now it’s a giant, rustling American flag.

  Inside there’s nobody I recognize, just a few people saddled up to the bar, drowning themselves in amber liquid. I pull the photo of Iva out of my pocket, go up to the closest drunk and put it on the bar in front of him. “Know this girl?”

  He stares at the photo and slurs his words when he says, “Wish I did. She’s a pretty one. You got any more photos?”

  “Keep it clean. Ever see her around here?”

  He holds up the photo, shakes his head, motions for the bartender. The drunk says, “Clyde, do I know this girl?”

  The bartender tosses a towel over the shoulder of his brand-new vintage-style t-shirt and adjusts his glasses. He shakes his head, “No Ronnie, you don’t.” Then he looks at me. “But I do.”

  “Well then. You and I need to talk.”

  He looks me up and down and asks, “What do you want?”

  It’s not even noon. All the more reason to drink. “A glass of Jay and some answers.”

  “Jay?”

  “Jameson.” Idiot.

  He pours me a finger without ice and I toss a few bucks worth of fake money onto the bar. He rolls his eyes and stuffs it into his back pocket, says, “It’s customary to tip.”

  “I tip for good service. Tell me about Lindsay Lennox.”

  “Tell you what about her?”

  “Tell me about the last time you saw her. Was she here Sunday night?”

  “She hasn’t been here in a while. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Her sister is looking for her. She tapped me to find her. You keep up with the attitude you’re not getting that tip.”

  “Nothing in life is free, pal.”

  I down the drink and toss a handful of the play money onto the bar. He shakes his head and takes it. An old man at the end of the bar pulls himself out of his beer long enough to watch the exchange with a look of shocked disbelief.

  Clyde says, “She was in here two weeks ago. She was looking for a contact.”

  “What kind of contact?”

  “She was in trouble. Some kind of trouble with her boyfriend or husband or whatever. She was looking for someone to talk to him.”

  “Talk to him how?”

  “I think it was the kind of conversation she wanted to end in a hospital bed.”

  “And why did she come to you?”

  “Because I know a guy.”

  “Tell me about this guy.”

  “Right.”

  He goes back to wiping down the bar. I am done playing. I get off the stool and reach over, wrap my hand around the back of his neck, pull his close face to mine. His eyes go wide. I tell him, “I’m just looking for the girl. My understanding is that her husband is bad news so you’re really not doing her any favors by playing hardball.”

  He yanks himself away from me, eyes spiraling around the room, trying to decide if he should ask for help or just do whatever he can to get me out of there. He settles on the latter. “The Communist.”

  “What?”

  “The Communist. Russian dude, hangs out in Coney Island. If you go there now, you’ll probably find him on the boardwalk. Don’t tell him that I told you about any of this.” He slides a menu to me. Through gritted teeth, clearly not wanting to, but out of some sense of obligation, he says, “Before you go, you should have brunch. Our specialty is a full English breakfast.”

  “Thanks, but no.” I slide the menu back at him.

  Bay Street is heavy with cars and buses. Bringing people to the ferry terminal. Bringing people away from it.

  I spend a long time standing on the corner, thinking about hopping on the S48, taking the ten-minute ride to my mom’s house. She would be pissed if she found out I was on the island and didn’t come visit. Probably already someone has driven past, recognized me, and called her to tell her how much I’ve grown. Staten Island is like that. The small town America of New York City.

  I could do that. There’s even a bus down the block headed my way. But when I turn and look in the general direction of her house, I feel something pulling me back.

  The bus coasts by. I can’t let her see me like this. Booze on my breath before I’ve had breakfast and beaten like old meat. Her heart’s been broken enough already.

  Time is supposed to heal all wounds. Which is a thing people say when they’ve never been cut to the bone. The big wounds, even when they do heal, they don’t heal right. Every time you move you feel the tug of the scar tissue.

  I think about the feeling that gripped me as I was falling asleep at Lunette’s. That feeling of being done with this place. Part of it was the exhaustion, and I’m feeling a little kinder now that I’m on my feet and have some booze in my system. But not much.

  Growing up on Staten Island, it’s like being behind the velvet rope of the best party in the world. Welcome to stop by every so often, but ultimately relegated to the outside. Standing at the crest of Victory Boulevard, just north of Forest Avenue, and watching the skyscrapers poke above the tree line. People live their whole lives and die on Staten Island and are perfectly contented by that. I never wanted to be one of them.

  All I ever wanted was to live in Manhattan, for a million reasons, ten million. But right now, I can’t think of any of those reasons. Now the skyline looms like a threat. Like I’ve seen it too many times and I’ve learned things about it I don’t like.

  I consider going inside the boat, but the cold air is keeping me sharp. The beer I bought at the snack bar upstairs tastes like stale bread but I drink it anyway.

  An older couple next to me mutters to each other in French. They stare at me and whisper like I’m dangerous. The man approaches me, one hand on his expensive camera, and in halting English says, “Sir, can you tell me where the trade centers was?”

  I know the spot exactly but tell him, “Doesn’t matter.”

  The man nods even though he doesn’t understand what I mean. He goes back to his wife and they point and take pictures. First at the city, and then at the U.S. Coast Guard boat with the massive machine gun attached to the front, escorting the ferry back to Manhattan.

  The wind is kicking hard enough to make my eyes water. I put my hand on the railing of the Kennedy. On the spot that I think may be where my father held me.

  I take the R into Brooklyn, then at Atlantic-Pacific switch over to the N train. As the door closes a man stands up at the end of the car and insists that he’s not on drugs, he’s looking for a job, but things are tough, he just needs a little help to get by, but if anyone has any food to spare he would happily take that, too. The sincerity is so practiced it actually sounds legit. The torn clothing and worn knit cap lend him an air of credibility.

  He walks down the car and shakes an empty coffee can and people either dig through their pockets for change, or pretend to be asleep. I think I recognize him, as in he’s done this before, but when he gets to me I pull out a twenty and shove it in the can. He extends his closed fist and invites me to bump it. I do, but I don’t feel I deserve the camaraderie. It’s not really charity if it’s not your money.

  He ducks off at the next stop and gets on the adjacent car, ready to start the spiel again.

  After so many stops I lose count, the subway comes barreling out onto the above-ground tracks of South Brooklyn and the sun screams into the car, turning every aluminum surface into a blinding source of light. It doesn’t feel right to ride a subway in the sun. The grime doesn’t look romantic. It just looks like grime.

  The train barrels toward Coney Island, looking
out into the yards of trim two-family homes. At the last stop, as soon as the doors open at Stillwell, I can smell the salt air. The summer season has been over for a while now and the neighborhood looks like it’s been wiped out by a plague. Graffiti mars the walls and trash clogs the gutters. Storefronts turn over so fast the awnings and signs are tacked up three or four deep. Stray newspaper pages drift across the wide expanse of Surf Avenue. The only real activity in the area is the jumble of customers in Nathan’s.

  Coney always makes me nostalgic. Not just because it’s where I first met Chell. The neighborhood is dingy and glitzy in equal measure. The chain restaurants and million dollar condos haven’t reached this far yet. It’s the last true refuge for the city’s freaks, of the people who remember what it means to say you grew up here.

  I actually wouldn’t mind looking for a new place down here. The minority population is high enough to scare the white folk away, which means the rent is cheap, and maybe it’d be nice to live by the sea.

  Not that it’ll last. Before long, they’ll tear down the Cyclone to put up an organic coffee shop and a parking lot for strollers and call it Park Slope South. Funny thing is, no matter how hard people try to redefine this city, it’s the real estate agents who have the most success.

  The boardwalk is dormant. There are some joggers and dog-walkers and sightseers. I’m wondering how I’m going to find the Communist, and then I see him. Tall and bald, wearing a black bubble jacket with a red t-shirt underneath. On the t-shirt is a graphic of a yellow hammer and sickle.

  Just when I was giving this game a little credit.

  He’s spread out on a park bench, dark sunglasses slapped over his face, staring off into the distance. He’s got his head cocked to the side, and when I get close, I can see the Bluetooth headset in his ear. He’s having a loud conversation in Russian, looking up and down the boardwalk, and then his eyes settle on me, like he thinks I might be the guy he’s waiting for.

  “Zdravstvuite,” I tell him.

  He pulls the Bluetooth out of his ear and sets off on a long string of harsh syllables.

  I put up my hands. “That and na zdorovie are the extent of my Russian. I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Who are you?” His accent is thick enough to serve on a plate.

  “Guy named Clyde sent me, although he told me not to tell you that. I’m looking for a girl.” I reach into my back pocket and find the folded-up photo of Chell from the Post. I’m about to show it to him when I realize what I’m doing, so I pull the picture of Lindsay out of my other back pocket. “Seen her?”

  Without a blink he takes off running toward the Parachute Jump.

  I don’t hesitate, head right after him, immediately regret it when the first explosion goes off in my leg. I throw myself forward, try to be faster than the pain.

  The boardwalk is treacherous, hammered together by weathered planks of graying wood that curl up and threaten to trip me. We’re both slowed down by the poor condition of it and the occasional person who gets in the way.

  We cover a few hundred yards when the Communist veers off toward the sand, glancing over his shoulder, staying far enough ahead of me to make it feel like a real chase. I doubt he’ll really try to get away from me, but I’m annoyed so I step up my pace, and before he has another chance to look around again, I throw myself into his legs and we tumble into the sand.

  My lungs are over-smoked. Like trying to breathe through a wet sock. I hold him down and will the pain in my leg to fade. He’s sprawled on the sand looking up at the sky.

  I ask him, “Why did you run?”

  “Are you cop?”

  “No, I am not cop. Why did you run?”

  “I thought you might be cop.”

  “You could have asked.”

  He sits up and I show him the picture again. “The girl?”

  He nods, still breathing heavy. “She see me last week. Say boyfriend needs to be taught lesson.”

  “I assume she didn’t mean English lit.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. What kind of lesson?”

  “What do you want know?”

  “Everything.”

  He nods. “She want him dead. She pay me to do it, but then she call me and say not to kill him. I keep money she paid up front.”

  “Can you tell me how to find her?”

  “I have phone number.”

  “You seem pretty helpful all of a sudden.”

  “You hit like truck.”

  “Well, whatever.” I get to my feet and yank him up.

  He pulls out his cell and reads the number off to me. I put it in my phone.

  He’s about to leave but he stops. “You look hungry. You go to Nathan’s. Get hot dog. They have frog legs too, if you want try. Not bad.”

  “Why does everyone think I’m hungry? I’m not hungry.”

  This game is silly. I consider stalking the guy, throwing him under the boardwalk, and pounding on him until he explains how this whole thing works. But the wind ruffles my hair and I realize my hat is gone. I wander up and down the sand for a little while until I find it kicking around in the breeze, right on the edge of the surf.

  When I’m back on the boardwalk I call the number the Communist gave me and it goes straight to voicemail.

  “Hi, this is Lindsay. Leave me a message.”

  Chell.

  It’s Chell’s voice.

  I’d know that voice upside down and underwater.

  This is the role Chell played. She was the girl. The missing girl. The one I need to find to find out who killed her. Whether that’s poetic or ironic, I can’t really tell for sure, so I settle on calling it batshit.

  I call the number twice more just to hear it. To hear her say a combination of words I’ve never heard so that it can be new. Chell has only been dead a few days. They must have forgotten to change this.

  So, there’s that. I have a phone number that when I call it, no one’s going to answer. But it’s enough. It’s concrete, something I can point to. It doesn’t prove anything, it doesn’t help anything, but it’s her voice. Exhaustion rolls off my back.

  My specialty lately is hitting things, which isn’t helping. So I think about what Bombay would do, which is reach for a computer. There’s a library up on Neptune Avenue. It’s open and not crowded. I sign up and find an open terminal, plug the phone number into Google, and an address in Chinatown pops up.

  Bombay would be proud.

  The building is on a stretch of Mott Street where you can buy live frogs from garbage pails alongside fruit that could double as a medieval torture device. The place is a four-story walkup that looks like it’s been forgotten by time. The front door isn’t locked, not on the building, not on the apartment.

  It’s just as sparse as Chell’s. I have to remind myself it’s a prop, that she didn’t live here. It’s a studio, with a bathroom made for a midget and a hobby-kit stove crammed into one corner. The bed is neatly made and I run my hand over it, but the sheets are cold. Inhale, but it doesn’t smell like her.

  I turn the place upside down because I can’t think of anything else to do. The only thing that seems out of place is a crumbled napkin in the waste basket. Written on it is BB-M. I pull out a chair, put my feet up onto the kitchen table and stare at the wall with my hands behind my head.

  This is what it must feel like to run into a wall at full speed. I run combinations of words through my head, try to come up with something for BB-M. Can’t even come close to it. There must be something else I need to do and I’m just not noticing it.

  The phone rings and I nearly tumble onto the floor.

  I pick up the plastic handset and press it to my ear. On the other end of the line a man says, “Go to the R station at Canal Street. On the Brooklyn-bound side there’s a pay phone at the end of the platform. Ten minutes.”

  Click.

  I get down into the subway and run into a gaggle of tourists. They’re crowded in front of the turnstiles, wearing f
oam State of Liberty headpieces, carrying street maps and I Love New York bags, bleating like geese.

  Ten deep at each turnstile, and none of them can figure out how to swipe their MetroCards through the machines. Either too slow or two fast or not all the way, so that the fare doesn’t register. The phone should be ringing any minute.

  The trains around Canal Street are connected by a labyrinth of tunnels. If I ran back to the street and found another entrance, I wouldn’t even know how to get around. I wait, and they just laugh and point, and they swipe their cards like it’s a game that’s fun to lose.

  My blood hits a simmer. I’m not the only one waiting for this mess to resolve itself. There’s a puff of air from a train pulling into the station, then the high-pitched whine as it pulls out. I shove my way through the crowd, not worried about who gets pushed to the side.

  An older guy with a baseball cap and a fanny pack, trying desperately to exude the authority of a chaperone, says, “You can’t cut the line like that.”

  “Fuck off.” When I say this some of the kids look at me with expressions that land somewhere between disappointed and afraid.

  As I shove more people out of my way the guy says, “I can’t believe this.”

  “Welcome to New York. It’s just like you heard.”

  By the time I make it to the phone, it’s already ringing. A curious skateboarder is making his way toward it so I duck around him and grab it off the receiver. I can’t believe there are still working pay phones in this city.

  The voice on the other end is the same guy who called the apartment. He says, “Meet at the usual place. No funny business. Come alone. And leave soon. It’ll be crowded.” Click.

  The usual place. I don’t know the usual place.

  I slam the phone against the receiver until the plastic earpiece cracks off and clatters to the subway tracks. My body is shaking so hard I have to grip the steel support pillar and hold my breath and slow myself down. Just slow down. This is hard, but they wouldn’t make this impossible, or else no one would ever solve it.