The Critical List

by Wenke, John;

  Joey sighs, exasperated. His students were the same way. Everybody wants more than they need.

  “The undeveloped acreage near the waterfront, below Locust. Walking to work, I tripped over James P. Pierce. He was rushed into eternity, before schedule, execution style, as the newspapers say. He’s there. You have to get them to get him. I can’t do any more. I already said too much, but I made a promise to Pistol’s ghost. I’ll take good care of his personal effects.”

  The receiver slips from his fingers into the cradle. Now, he will need to smoke two extra packs for the next forty days and forty nights. His stomach twists into a walnut. Joey wants to drink.

  “Yo! Hey, Joe!”

  He turns. Across the street, at the edge of the parking lot, Carmine stands inside a great parka. He looks like an Eskimo.

  “More than half the crew ain’t in. I need you, Joe. You can work the forklift.”

  Joey Merriweather waves to his brother-in-law. He points toward the next corner.

  “Busy.”

  Facing Carmine, Joey sidesteps up the block. Keeping pace, slipping on mincing steps, Carmine waves his hands.

  “What do you mean, busy? There ain’t a car in sight. Where the hell you going? I need you today. It’s time to wash my back.”

  Pushed along by the gusting ghost, Joey fingers the wallet.

  “Minute!” he shouts and waves his left index finger.

  “By the way, who the hell were you talking to? I thought you didn’t talk no more.”

  Joey reaches the mailbox and yanks the handle. As he drops the wallet into darkness, he feels the ghost leave. It hurries back to Pistol. Somewhere in the city sirens are singing.

  “Come on! Get over here! Joe, listen, I need you. You can work as many hours as you want. I’ll pay you double.”

  He sidles across the street.

  Carmine grabs his elbow. They sidestep and slip-slide across the parking lot.

  “Let’s move it. We got all this fruit to unload. I got an idea, Joe. Let me know what you think. At lunch, now that you’re talking, why don’t you settle down in my office and give Patsy a call? She’d love to hear from you. She worries, is all. She won’t show up again and try to drag you into the car. I promise. She just wants to talk to you. You don’t have to say much. Just say hello. At lunch, we’ll kick back and give her a ring. How about it, buddy? Just call and say hello. What do you got to lose?”

  Young Mr. Moyen

  Young Mr. Moyen came forth at sunset, tripped over the threshold, and stumbled down three flaked rickety front steps to the cracked slanted sidewalk. Felicia put out a hand to steady him, but when his feet tangled, he flew beyond her, not stopping till his shoulder struck the lamppost and he twirled like an antic child, settling to the curb, legs flat out. When he looked up, he saw the deep folds of Felicia’s pink and green peasant dress flapping his way. He got to his knees, clutched the knobs of her hips, and pulled himself up. When he lost his grip, his face plunged between her legs. The scent of mothballs and Sweet Honesty perfume almost made him gag. With a determined gasp, he pushed himself up, his chin riding the chubby slope of her abdomen and snapping across the wire-framed mound. Mr. Moyen got back on his feet. Thin and willowy, he was four inches shorter than his three months’ bride.

  “It’s a bad sign,” Felicia said, “this falling all over yourself. If you’re so exhausted, you should just stay home.”

  Mr. Moyen worked as a washing machine operator in the southwest Philadelphia General Electric plant. All day, with the help of a hydraulic platform and a hand operated crane, he loaded machine parts and casings on metal trees. They were conveyed along an elliptical track where they were washed, dried, and painted. When the pieces came back, Mr. Moyen put them on wooden skids. Lenny, the shop steward, took them away on a front loader.

  “I can’t miss the union meeting. I’m expected.”

  “It’s the right time of the month.” Felicia’s smile seemed to waver, as if she were reminded of an embarrassing complication. “In twenty minutes we could be trying. When you’re done, you can sleep and have nothing but nice dreams.”

  “The best dream,” Mr. Moyen fretted, “is no dream at all. I hate finding myself in strange places, locked in a box or caught in an alley with dark figures closing in around me. When it happens, I know I’m dreaming. I want to wake up but can’t.”

  “That’s why you need sleep.” This time her smile was full and forthright. “It never takes you long. Stay with me, especially tonight. Please. It’s time.”

  Mr. Moyen’s groin tightened. In their room’s dim light he could see what was ahead of him—breasts sagging to her waist, squatting astraddle, pushing down as if to break him in two. Her eyes would be squeezed shut and the three pink ribbons that normally kept her thick brown hair wrapped in a bun would shake like a hanging coil of electrified garter snakes.

  “I have to go, especially tonight. I gave my word to Lenny.” He pulled away, stumbling. With a lift of his toes, Mr. Moyen kissed his lawful wife lightly on the forehead. “Trust me. It’s all about the future.”

  “Well, then,” Felicia sighed, “I shouldn’t be holding you back.”

  “Just keep the faith and don’t forget to pray. Jesus.”

  Mr. Moyen turned and hastened down the sidewalk, conscious of neighbor eyes staring from both sides of the sloped street. Perhaps they could see behind his impassive face to the guilt that itched like a troublesome rash. His lies to Felicia were luminous beams shooting from his heart, attracting the smiling gaze of old hunched Martha Carrier. She was watering pink petunias in large stone pots. In her late seventies, the pious Mrs. Carrier worked as a crossing guard at the corner of Hathorne Street. Every afternoon she handed lollipops to school-weary children. Mr. Moyen escaped her gaze lest she glimpse how this quiet neighbor boy—no, this young good man—was not simply out for an evening stroll but in pursuit of terrible intentions.

  Mr. Proctor for one didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about his neighbor. He was a squat man in his fifties. He had a pleasant face and wore a flopping green golfer’s hat. He was holding the leash of his black Labrador retriever, Danforth, who sniffed the base of a telephone pole. A retired master carpenter, Mr. Proctor spent many free hours framing houses for Habitat for Humanity. He had yet to speak to Mr. Moyen about anything other than Phillies’ games.

  “Can you believe the bums?” Mr. Proctor cheerfully hollered. “Up by three in the ninth and they let it get away. The team’s going straight to hell.”

  Danforth lifted his leg and sprayed.

  Mr. Moyen offered a foolish thumbs-up. He had meant to smile, but as he hurried down the rowhouse canyon he merely grunted. He caught the eye of Ann Hibbins, Felicia’s best friend, who was sitting on her porch. In the windup swing, her son glided back and forth, his chubby hands smacking the tray and scattering Cheerios.

  “Thank God for Mr. Corey,” Ann said. “The whole block could have burned.”

  Two doors down, a brick rowhouse was boarded up, a consequence of yesterday’s fire. With cigar in hand, Mr. Hale had fallen asleep on his couch. He crawled out the front door before smoke and flames gutted the interior. The cinderblock firewall kept the adjoining houses from becoming involved, a situation abetted by the heroic efforts of Giles Corey. When the fire broke out, he had been washing his maroon Taurus on the sidewalk. He climbed atop his porch and in defiance of smoke, flames, and common sense, he hosed his neighbor’s roof until the fire engines arrived.

  “I can’t talk,” Mr. Moyen mumbled. “I’m running late. Felicia said she’d call you in a few minutes.”

  Mr. Corey was sitting on his stoop. He waved to Mr. Moyen, who tucked his chin inside his shirt and nodded curtly. He received shouted greeting from Thomas Putnam, who was across the street re-screening his front porch. Mr. Putnam managed an auto parts store, but his great passion was coaching Little League sports.
His three sons were grown and gone, but year after year he coached baseball, soccer, basketball, football, and roller hockey. He was a permanent deacon at St. Francis Assisi, parish coordinator for the annual Catholic Charities Appeal, and president of the Liturgical Council. With sliding stomach and gurgling bowels, Mr. Moyen waved to Mr. Putnam, who seemed like he wanted to speak, perhaps to ask again if Mr. Moyen would be so kind as to cover door-to-door solicitations for Hathorne Street and one or two adjacent blocks.

  Fortunately, Mr. Moyen reached the corner and sneaked a quick look behind. Felicia was still standing on the sidewalk, reaching a black hand into the darkening air. She might have been throwing a kiss or waving him home, but he stepped around the corner into long shadows, which blotted out the pink and purple sky. With his back turned against his street, the church, convent, and rectory, he traveled eastward along the uneven cracked and weedy sidewalk toward the little cluster of shops that gave the Darby trolley loop its deceptive glow of life.

  Mr. Moyen looked at his watch—he was five minutes late—but he had not heard a trolley’s departing rumble. The rusted poles circling the tracks were black spears stabbing the sky. The sagging wires seemed the shoddy abandoned work of a large Hollywood spider. The Plexiglas shelter was deserted. It stank of urine and was defaced by graffiti and drawings. Peggy Sue goon fuck you to. A pencil-like penis impaled a stick woman’s forehead. Plastic cups, empty soda cans, smashed French fries and mustard-stained wrappers littered the cindered ground. With slouching shoulders, Mr. Moyen plopped on the gray plastic bench and patted the two tokens in the right front pocket of his brown corduroy pants. His eyes happened upon a piece of the street between the shiny tracks. Layers of asphalt had been worn down or hacked away, exposing a patch of cobblestone that must’ve dated to the early twentieth century. Back then, Darby was a thriving suburb with nothing to suggest it would become a ruinous borough in desperate need of a catastrophic tornado and the ensuing balm of Federal disaster relief.

  “You’re a little late, my friend. When I first arrived I felt just as Felicia feels: I didn’t think you’d be coming. But I’m pleased to see you’ve gotten over any apparent misgivings.”

  Mr. Moyen was startled to find himself seated hip to hip with a smiling grave-faced man. As nearly as one might guess, the stranger was about fifty years old, dressed in brown, loose-fitting work clothes and looking enough like Mr. Moyen to pass for a near relation, perhaps even his father.

  “Felicia held me up,” Mr. Moyen muttered, his voice quavering.

  Despite his humble clothing, the stranger possessed a cosmopolite ease that would have served him well at a presidential reception.

  “Good wives always hold up their good men,” the stranger smiled, cocking his ear. “But no matter, the trolley is approaching. It, too, is a little late.”

  At first, Mr. Moyen heard nothing, but then from around the bend came the grating rattle of a decrepit SEPTA trolley. As the single headlight swayed into view and caught them in its beam, the trolley turned into the loop. The whistling wheels sounded like a keening witch’s cry. The trolley thumped, banged and screeched to a stop. From out of the rear door lumbered a massive black woman with closely cut hair. She was dragging a stuffed carry-all bag. The sagging flab of her upper arm jiggled.

  The stranger stood and tugged Mr. Moyen’s elbow.

  “Felicia’s not feeling well,” Mr. Moyen stammered, clenching the sharp underside of the bench. “It’s her stomach. She can’t keep anything down.”

  The stranger rose and took the first step toward the trolley’s open front door.

  “These stomach conditions,” he smiled, “pass quickly away. Who knows? Even as we speak, she may be bustling about, getting ready for a pleasant moonlight stroll.”

  “I don’t think so. Felicia’s afraid of the night and would never go out alone.”

  The stranger smiled, “No one going out at night is ever truly alone.”

  Mr. Moyen shook his head and climbed the steps, dropping his token into the slot. The stranger followed, cheerfully greeting the hawk-nosed driver and directing Mr. Moyen toward the narrow seat behind the rear door.

  “I noticed you didn’t pay,” Mr. Moyen remarked as he slid into the cramped seat. “I have another token if you need it.”

  “It’s kind of you to offer, but you should save your last token for the ride back home. My special pass gives me unlimited access. I’m a frequent traveler on these lines. Not fifteen minutes ago, I was speaking with two of our new members at the Broad and Olney subway station.”

  The trolley lurched forward and the coffee shop, now darkened to blue by the scratched tinted glass, seemed to float and pulse in the air. The wheels shrieked on the curve and the trolley rattled toward Darby’s virtually defunct business district. Outside a pawn shop stood three black men and two white men. Handing a bagged bottle back and forth, they were laughing and talking. As the trolley passed the open door of a ramshackle taproom, Mr. Moyen pressed his nose to the glass and perceived shadowy, ghost-like figures moving in the uncertain light. He caught a glimpse, if such a thing were possible, of Sister Maria Cloyse, principal of St. Francis Assisi School, swigging from a bottle and shaking her billowing midriff in a modestly obscene manner. Mr. Moyen bent his head farther back to catch a second look, but the open door was too far behind him. On the pavement, beneath the awning of a secondhand clothing store, a beggar sat on a milk crate surrounded by three filthy backpacks and a rolled-up sleeping bag. Two policemen stood over him. One was nudging the beggar’s ribs with a night stick. Behind them, a fat white woman with curly black hair brought a steel mesh grate crashing to the pavement. The clanging metal rang like a slammed cell door. It stirred Mr. Moyen’s conscience.

  “Well, sir, I think I’ve gone far enough. I’ve been giving the whole thing a lot of thought, and I’m not quite ready to make the kind of commitment your cause deserves.”

  “Is that right?” the stranger replied, smiling. “Perhaps we should discuss it as we go. Tell me everything you feel. No scruple should be ignored.”

  “I don’t want to be caught—”

  “It’s a consideration, surely, but you must remember we have influential friends in a host of influential positions. Police can be—”

  “I’m not concerned with the police so much. I was wondering about being caught up with”—and here he sighed—“such a crowd. What if someone I know sees me?”

  “To such a concern, I can only say how well met the two—the many—of you would be. Membership is far more extensive than you can imagine. Almost everywhere we have compatriots, companions, associates, colleagues. The same concerns that bring you out tonight have brought others before you and will bring many more tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” He shrugged. “It’s little more than a coven of friends with significant work to do.”

  “But I’ll be the first of my family to go to such lengths. How could I look—”

  The stranger’s lips wriggled like a snake and twisted into a sardonic smile. “Forgive me for interrupting, but I knew your father as well as your grandfather. Over the years, they accompanied me on many an errand. Both were members in good standing. In fact, your father and I first did business of a delicate sort when you were no more than four or five years old. It was secret little matter involving rags and gasoline. And some years before that necessary trifle, I helped your grandfather when a questionable, dark-skinned person was taken for a long car ride. When we returned from the forest, it was with a lighter load.”

  The trolley was stopped in front of a boarded-up TV repair shop. Five or six passengers clunked on. Mr. Moyen was startled to find the trolley almost packed. It had left Darby, crossed Cobbs Creak and had already gone a few blocks into southwest Philadelphia. When the trolley shunted forward, Mr. Moyen tugged the stranger’s sleeve.

  “I can’t speak for my grandfather, but I never heard my father mention anything like that
. For twenty years, before he died, he was the town magistrate. I never knew him to do a secret thing.”

  “That’s quite an insinuating answer,” the stranger laughed. “Let me put it this way. There’s always more to a father than meets a child’s eye. And as you already know, at least for a time, all depends on secrecy. Oh, my! What have we here? She really does move with surprising speed. Would you excuse me for a second?”

  They had arrived at the next corner. A boisterous clutch of people pushed and clattered up the steps. The fare box rattled. The air was rifled with confused voices and anxious squeals. A sudden scream morphed into raucous laughter. The stranger worked his way up the aisle, exchanging greetings along the way, and reached a white-haired old lady, who sat behind the driver in one of those long sideway seats. The head and profile closely resembled Mrs. Martha Carrier. Mr. Moyen alternately ducked his head to avoid detection and strained his neck sideways to steal a surreptitious look. But standing, wobbling passengers obstructed his view. When Mr. Moyen saw the stranger pointing in his direction and the old lady looking his way, smiling, nodding, he slumped in his seat and stared outside. He strained to see through the blue glass and for a second or two he glimpsed a darkened alley and a man resembling Mr. Proctor, his Phillies’ cap ajar, beating the ribs of a large black Labrador retriever with a small baseball bat. As the trolley moved along, Mr. Moyen’s curiosity gave way to a new disturbance. Among a crowd of young men emerged someone who looked like gray-haired, gentle Thomas Putnam. He was holding hands with a tall thin black man, who wore a tight red Spandex jump suit and a blond fright wig. As Mr. Moyen squinted, Thomas Putnam licked his lips, hugged his companion and buried his tongue inside the man’s ear. In an instant this scene was lost behind a double-parked Budweiser truck. Mr. Moyen looked to the front of the trolley and was startled to find no trace of the stranger. Nor could he detect among the bobbing heads the white hair of good Martha Carrier. On the side seat behind the driver now slouched a chunky young black man wearing a purple do-rag and a blue Iverson jersey.