I looked at Brett, sitting in the shadows with his book.
When I left Brett’s, I observed that the walk between our apartments had stretched, along with our friendship. Rubber bands, bubble gum, waistbands, balloons. They stretch until they can’t snap back. The distance between when we were best friends and now felt almost impossible to cross. In science we learned the word “eons.” I forget exactly what it means, but it is the right word to describe this distance. And now that we were eons apart, I needed more than ever to reach him. What type of transportation crosses eons? Not feet. Not the N train. What?
Nobody was home. On my desk was my laptop. There was also a piece of stationery with a teddy bear on it and a note in Mom’s handwriting.
Claudeline,
You may have your computer back now. Want to keep it? Stop stealing.
Mom
You couldn’t accuse the woman of overexplaining herself.
For once I didn’t feel like checking my e-mail. Instead I stared out my window, trying to figure out what, exactly, had gone wrong between Brett and me. But as soon as I started working on that problem, I spotted the Thing outside in the shadows, chomping and sloshing its tongue around, so I opened my desk drawer and took out the thick book of word searches I’d stolen from the language arts closet. Word searches are okay, as far as language arts is concerned. Circling words makes time pass without you having to feel the ten billion things that are infecting your blood and rusting your bones. I dug out a pencil and crawled into bed. The confetti of letters blurred together, then unblurred into crystal-clear things, one by one.
SUITCASE.
COCONUT.
KOALA.
When I woke up, the word-search book was a paper sculpture on the floor, and it was dark. I didn’t even remember falling asleep.
The park at night is the one place in the neighborhood Grandpa said was unsafe. He told me never to go there alone.
But what did Grandpa know about staying safe?
Nothing, obviously.
Soggy clouds soaked up the streetlights and muffed out the moon. The blob that ate Brooklyn, dark black. And there were people. Too many people drifting in too many shadows. It was the kind of night when stuff happens that nobody sees, nobody will talk about, no matter how many times you ask.
Brett wasn’t gonna be with me when I looked directly at the Thing I’d been worrying about since Grandpa died.
Nobody was.
Maybe that was the only way. To stare right back at it. Alone.
The neighborhood was layered with smoky shapes. Floating black, liquid blue, gray-yellow. A cool wind swished my hair around my neck. Up ahead I saw a shadow in a long coat, and for a second it happened—my heart beat like a train rushing toward me and I knew for a fact it was Grandpa.
But it wasn’t. Because the truth is, Grandpa got shot. He got murdered, right here in Sunset Park. No matter how many articles I read in the newspaper—and there weren’t enough; shouldn’t every single article in every single newspaper be talking about this, every single second of every single day, forever? What else mattered? I’d never understood what happened, and nobody would explain it to me.
But that wasn’t even what I was the most worried about.
If somebody was mad enough at Grandpa to kill him, was there another kid outside tonight, somebody just like me, with her brain waves all crisscrossed, and her heart sliced open, seeing dead people walking down crowded streets, only it was because of Grandpa Si?
What was Grandpa’s business? Not the glamorous stuff from the movies about wearing slick suits and bribing politicians and teaming up with dirty cops. Not the myths about powerful gods and goddesses battling to the death and shaking out the pockets of the mortals who got caught in the crossfire and slaughtered on the battlefield so the gold could rain out for whoever wanted to scramble over all those dead bodies, collecting it. Not the television shows where the good guys and the bad guys bleed together until the whole world feels like a mess nobody can hold their breath long enough to clean up.
Did Grandpa hurt people?
The wind stung my eyes. As I got closer to our bench, a glob of shadows jostled. A cracked voice yelled, “You! Kid! C’mere!”
I turned around and sprinted down the hill. When I got to the street, I was out of breath, and my hair was sticking to my mouth.
But I couldn’t go home yet. Even if I admitted the rest of Grandpa’s story—that the Thing that had destroyed my family destroyed other people’s families too—
Because the Thing is people hurting people, spreading pain like it is fun, like it is nothing—
And even if I knew it wasn’t just gangsters, it’s everybody, posing with violence like it is our pet, some prop we can use to look tough—
Or does the Thing use us?—
I still didn’t know who I was. Why I, Claudeline, would want to hurt Brett, my best friend, who didn’t deserve it.
I forced myself to keep walking. Walking and walking through the blackness, searching for answers.
As I got closer to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, I heard waves of crinkling noises, like a bunch of papers flapping in the wind.
It was a fresh batch of Alma flyers. Hundreds of fluttering Alma flyers stuck with packing tape to the pillars below the highway. They were all the same, except on different-colored paper. Light pink, light green, light blue, and light yellow. Each one had a giant version of the drawing of Alma smack in the middle. Underneath, they said:
WE BELIEVE IN FRIENDSHIP
join us.
almalingonberry/circleoftenthousand/joinus
[email protected]
I would describe the mood the flyers created as a grimy Easter.
I would describe the shadow drifting under the BQE posting them as a guy with long black hair, a leather vest, rings on every finger, and an ear with seven piercings, including one of a scorpion, one of a skull, and one of the skeleton of a fish.
Big, fat, slow-motion raindrops started bursting on the ground like water balloons.
What was he doing? What was he doing?
What was he doing?
I ran. When I got home, I went straight to my bedroom and barricaded my door with my dresser. I leaned against it, out of breath.
What on this green earth is going on?
THE MONEYMAN
I have a certain experience of the way people tell lies.
—Miss Marple, detective from a book
My room glowed like fire from the morning light blazing through my red curtains. My blue T-shirt was twisted into a bunch under one of my armpits, and my bracelet was attached to my mouth. My clothes were still damp from the rain. I stretched out on my bed like a big letter X, then leaned on my elbows. My red dresser was solid, blocking my door. My faithful bodyguard.
Yes: A barricade did seem overly dramatic, now that I had gotten some sleep.
But a girl couldn’t be too careful these days.
Socks. Red socks to bodyguard my bare toes. I wanted them. How handy that my sock drawer was on my way out the door. I hopped on one foot, then the other, pulling on my socks; then I used my shoulder, then both arms, then my back to shove my dresser out of the way, and crept down the hall and outside before anybody was awake.
I stood on the sidewalk, unsure what to do. Trees spilled leftover rain, sloppy splashes in the wind.
It was Sunday, but I knew Brett would not want noodles. My brain was so messy I couldn’t even find a place to sit down, let alone use it to cross eons. Anyway, I had zero appetite.
I’d spent the night dreaming I was writing Dad an endless e-mail describing my vacation in Timbuktu. Now, I’ve never been to Timbuktu, and I could not point it out on a globe, even for ten thousand dollars. But a book about the place had caught my eye at the library. It was on top of the pile I wound up leaving next to the computer. On the cover was a desert, and writing in English, along with a language that uses calligraphy—like Chinese, but not. In my dream I told Dad I’d seen Gr
andpa in Timbuktu, only he was speaking this other language, while pink pterodactyls folded paper airplanes and a swarm of bees spelled the word “HELLO!” And somehow I knew I was invisible—but the details aren’t the point. The point is, I was e-mailing Dad.
There were plenty of boring explanations for Dad posting Alma flyers. The simplest was that he was helping her. He was a gangster with heart, like he’d said that time at the noodle shop.
But if that was it, how come when I’d asked about Alma since then, he’d acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about? And if Dad was posting flyers, he definitely knew why Mom had piles of them. What were they hiding from me?
Something was going on with my parents and Alma Lingonberry. Something shady, right in front of my face, begging me to open my eyes.
I sat on the curb, biting the edge of my phone. I couldn’t talk to Lala about this. I didn’t want to admit that I’d made friends with Alma.
Should I call Money?
Money is my friend the way a roll is food. Yeah, I’ll eat a roll, if I’m hungry. But it ain’t exactly my first choice.
Then again, sometimes it’s the friend you’re not that close to who you can be the most honest with, and who’ll be the most honest with you. It’s not like either one of you has much to lose.
“Yo, Money.”
“Yo, Claude.”
“Question for you.”
“Hit me.”
“This sick girl, Alma Lingonberry, with the friends and the yadda yadda?”
“Ah, sí. Flawless scam. Wish I’d thought of it first. I’m working on my own version, but I’m gonna wait till people get bored and are ready for a new dying kid. Hang on a sec, Claude—Uncle Sal, get away from my pancakes!”
Money hung up.
Whatever. Of course he’d say it’s a scam. I’d suspected Alma from the beginning too. But when you actually had a conversation, she seemed cheesy, not psycho. Then again, wasn’t that exactly why I’d called Money? So somebody’d tell me, Snap out of it!
Should I tell him about my parents and the flyers? I wasn’t sure. I just knew I needed to keep talking. I was calling him back when I got a text.
MONEYMAN: sorry c, too loud here for a convo
ME: how do u know alma not real?
MONEYMAN: she SO ain’t real
ME: right but how do u KNOW, tho
MONEYMAN: takes 1 2 know 1
ME: so u DON’T know, is what yr saying
MONEYMAN: not what i’m saying at all!
ME: doesn’t ask for money, though. doesn’t ask for anything
MONEYMAN: doesn’t have to. that’s the beauty of it!
Fine.
ME: so who do u think she is?
MONEYMAN: someone smart that i am jealous of
I tapped my phone on my knee. A lanky guy and his dachshund were strolling down the sidewalk across the street. A dust ball made entirely of candy wrappers followed them.
I sighed. Maybe if I told Money what I saw without going into detail, he’d give me an idea I hadn’t thought of yet.
ME: listen. i saw somebody plastering BQE w/ alma flyers in middle of the night
MONEYMAN: BOOM. there’s your alma
ME: maybe NOT, tho
MONEYMAN: i guess? but most likely
ME: say it’s not that person, tho
MONEYMAN: why make things complicated, claude? case cracked. take the rest of the day off! east river’s full of bluefish ready to bite
Whatever, Money. My parents wouldn’t send me messages pretending to be a dying kid. They weren’t creepy.
I was starting to worry about something else, though. Phil always said Dad would ruin Grandpa’s business. Maybe Dad knew he wasn’t a natural-born gangster (even if, technically, he was), so he wasn’t even trying to go around being intimidating like Grandpa. Instead he was running a moneymaking scam. In that case, Dad wouldn’t have to be the one writing the e-mails. He was absolutely the type of person who would do the boring parts, like posting flyers.
But that didn’t explain Mom. Mom never did sketchy stuff. It might sound surprising, with her family, but it’s true. Before beauty school, she studied phlebotomy at community college. I didn’t even know what that was, except you got to poke people with needles, which seemed appropriate. She’d just changed her mind about every career she’d started so far.
Nothing made sense.
ME: i gotta find out who alma is, asap
MONEYMAN: gotta go claude! c u lata!
ME: wait!
MONEYMAN: gotta run babe
ME: not yr BABE. and wait! need help!
MONEYMAN: PEACE
ME: where are you going?
MONEYMAN: lala needs me
Not as much as I did, but try to tell them that. How come when two friends get romantic, they melt into one useless one?
ME: whatever, money
MONEYMAN: later
Luckily, there was still one person I could talk to. Somebody who knew my parents as well as I did. The only person I trusted enough to ask.
PHIL
When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
—Sherlock Holmes, detective from a book
I jogged to the subway. On the stairs a smiley lady shoved a flyer at me—I don’t think I need to mention whose face was on it, rhyming the day away. I stopped. “Where did you get this?” I asked. The lady’s voice sounded like electronic chimes. “I’m a collector,” she said. “Would you like another?” She pulled a fistful of flyers out of a plump plastic bag. A quick glance told me they were all on different topics—going back to college, learning to speak Arabic—and that she’d been ripping them off doors and poles for quite some time. “No thanks, lady,” I said. She chimed, “Happy travels!” I handed the Alma flyer to the half-naked guy who dances on the platform and jumped on the train. As the doors closed, I heard him yell, “Hoo-hoo! Let’s make it ten million . . .”
The whole ride I listened to this standing-up couple have an argument about which one of them was getting cheated on by the other one. The girl had spiked hair and the guy had round glasses, and they were both carrying large cups of coffee.
“Every time I turn around, you’re texting somebody.”
“Why are you so paranoid?”
“You aren’t the same person you used to be.”
“What’s going on with you these days?”
This conversation kept up all the way to Manhattan. I got madder and madder. How could people who were supposed to be tight still have no clue what each other was doing? I wondered if spiked hair and round glasses were both cheating, or if neither of them was. I wondered if they even liked each other.
When I got off the N train, the arguing couple did too. I jogged through the dark tunnel and took the stairs to the street two at a time to try to get away from them. At street level the light broke. As I got closer to Guillaume’s, I noticed I was starving. I hadn’t eaten breakfast. And . . .
Phil wasn’t gonna be at the restaurant. Nobody was.
It was Sunday morning.
As I stood on Broadway, with the crowd flowing around me, my head felt blurry. My whole head. I pulled out my phone and made a call.
“Can’t talk,” said Money as he hung up on me.
The sun had cranked up the volume to full blast. The reflections from the skyscrapers were too loud, too harsh. I crossed the street to get in the shade. Five seconds later I got a text.
MONEYMAN: yo sorry claude lala sittin here
ME: so?
MONEYMAN: lala doesn’t know girl not real
ME: so?
MONEYMAN: don’t want 2 hurt feelings
ME: why hurt feelings?
MONEYMAN: too sad
ME: ?
There was a long pause.
MONEYMAN: lala writes alma long emails
ME: what?
MONEYMAN: daily
MONEYMAN: loooooong emails
MONEYMAN: per
sonal stuff
I stared at my phone.
ME: does alma write back?
MONEYMAN: yeah, but she keeps it vague
I wanted to grab a stranger by the collar and yell, “Do you have any idea how insane this is?!” But New York City has plenty of people doing stuff like that without me trespassing on their territory. Instead I inspected the ground for anything disgusting, found a clean spot, and stomped my foot.
ME: money. u have 2 tell lala. right now.
There was an even longer pause.
MONEYMAN: If i tell lala alma not real lala knows i break into her email = not cool
ME: not cool money!!!
MONEYMAN: can’t help it! 2 interesting, keep it going for a while?
ME: money! stop breaking into lala email, do not tell lala alma not real, i tell her myself
MONEYMAN: whatever
ME: also that u spy on her email
MONEYMAN: claudissimo! claudio-rooney! i thought we were the new best buds!!!
ME: enough already ANDREW
MONEYMAN: lala mad b/c i m txting other babes, signing off, bye
ME: yr selfish!
MONEYMAN: xoxo
ME: ?!
MONEYMAN: j/k
As I headed back to the N train, I had no idea what in the name of my shady, sketchy, lawbreaking family tree I was supposed to do. I felt its branches stretching backward through criminal after criminal, across oceans, over mountains, through time. I felt its trunk sinking its roots right through the cement to the core of the earth, wrapping around it like blood vessels. Pain shot up from the soles of my feet through invisible wires, hurting my brain and my heart.
I melted into the river of people, the familiar loud and colorful river of people I loved and most likely would never know too well at all.
BRETT & ME
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.
—Raymond Chandler, writer
Brett’s front door was locked. Mother Fingerless’s garden gnome stood glued back together in the pot of dirt with the fake tree. I felt like hugging him.
The Bad Kid Page 10