by Mark Dawson
13
Freddy Blanco looked at the time on his phone. It was already six, and there was still no sign of his father.
Freddy had been home all afternoon, playing Madden on his PlayStation. He had picked the Giants, just like always, and played a match against the Cowboys in anticipation of the game tonight. The tickets were in an envelope on the kitchen counter. He had gone to look at them more than once, sliding them out of the envelope and running his fingers over the glossy surface. The tickets were decorated with action shots of Odell Beckham and Eli Manning, the jump-ball touchdown that had sealed the win against the Eagles the last time the Giants had played at home. Freddy and his father had watched that game on Fox, and Freddy had said—for the hundredth time—how much he would love to go to see a game in person. His father had promised him that they would go one day; he had come home with the tickets the very next day. Freddy knew that finding a hundred and fifty bucks for something like that was difficult for his father, and he noticed that his watch—a second-hand Rolex that had been passed down to him by his own father—was missing. Freddy didn’t say anything, but he’d found the receipt from EZ Pawn Corp on Atlantic Avenue and he knew where the money had come from.
Freddy tried not to feel guilty about that. It was easier when he saw that his father was almost as excited about the game as he was.
He looked at the time again. It was a quarter past six. The game kicked off at eight, and it would take an hour and a half to get there.
He opened his father’s bedroom door to see if there was anything there that might give him an idea where he had gone. There was a Foot Locker bag on the bed. He opened it and took out the Adidas box from inside. He opened the box and looked down at a brand-new pair of Mastodons, identical to the pair that had been stolen from him by the junkies across the road. The sneakers were white, unmarked, and still had the smell of fresh leather. He reached into the box, took the shoes out and removed the bunched-up brown paper from inside them. The sneakers would have cost two hundred and fifty bucks. He had no idea how his father would have been able to find that much, especially after he had just laid out a hundred and fifty on the tickets for the game. He ran his fingertips over the raised stitching, then turned the shoes over and followed the indentations on the underside of the oversized sole. He took off his beaten-up pair of Nikes, slid his feet into the shoes and laced them up. They were the right size. He didn’t know whether he should wear them—he didn’t know whether his father had been planning on giving them to him as a surprise—but he didn’t want to take them off, either.
Freddy went and stood by the mirror. He was wearing the Odell Beckham Jr jersey that his mother had bought for him at Christmas. It was second-hand, faded and with a small hole where the stitching had come apart, but he had loved it then and he still loved it now. The sneakers looked so white and pure that he wasn’t sure if he would ever want to wear them outside the house, but then he thought of what his friends at school would say, and he quickly decided that it was something that he would be able to get over.
He took out his cell and checked the time. Six twenty-five. He forgot the sneakers and started to worry again. He pressed redial, calling his father for the third time, but, once more, the call went through to voicemail.
“Hey, Dad,” he said. “It’s me. It’s nearly six thirty and I don’t know where you are. If we don’t go now, we’re not gonna be there in time and we’re gonna miss it. Call me when you get this.”
He went into the living room and paced the room, back and forth, watching the minutes tick by. Manny was ninety minutes late. He had promised that he would be home at five so that they could make the journey to Jersey together. The gratitude that he had felt at the replacement of his stolen sneakers curdled and grew sour; it was replaced first by worry, and then—coloured by the memory of what things had been like before and the fear that his father had let him down again—the worry became resentment.
Freddy didn’t know what he should do. He went over to the counter, took the tickets out of the envelope and stuffed them into his pocket. His dad had made a sacrifice to buy them, and Freddy wasn’t about to let them go to waste. He called again, left a message to say that he was going to go to the stadium and that he would meet him outside, grabbed his jacket and set off. He was halfway to the station when he realised that he was wearing the new sneakers. He paused, wondering whether he should go back and change out of them, but then he saw that it was already 6.35 and he knew that he didn’t have time.
He started to jog toward Crescent Street station.
14
Freddy caught the J Train from Crescent Street, changed onto the A Train at Broadway Junction and rode north. He got off at Penn Station and bought a round-trip to the Meadowlands. He changed again at Secaucus Junction and pressed himself into the busy subway car for the final ten-minute ride to the stadium.
It was five to eight when he climbed to street level and emerged into the usual display of pageantry and excitement that marked a Giants game. The atmosphere was taut with excitement; the Cowboys were in town, and although the G-Men were favoured, everyone knew that it was going to be a coin flip as to who came out on top.
He made his way under the track and came out on the approach to the stadium. There were stalls offering Giants merchandise and hawkers pushing knock-offs at a fraction of the price. There were carts that had been wheeled up from Lyndhurst and Rutherford to serve dogs and burgers and pretzels. Late taxis arrived from Manhattan, disgorging men in suits and brightly coiffed women, who made their way through VIP entrances to be whisked directly to their skyboxes. The crowd pulsed and throbbed as they drew nearer and nearer to the gates and the prospect of the game that would shortly begin inside. Scalpers tried to hawk tickets, cops watched with disdain, and those without tickets stood around and jealously watched those who did. Freddy hurried along until he reached gate eight. He stopped for a moment so that he could frame a picture of an electronic scoreboard: “New York Giants vs Dallas Cowboys. Today. 8.05 p.m.”
He took out his phone and called his father again. There was no answer.
He put his back to the wall of the stadium and looked out at the dispersing crowd. Most of the fans were already safely inside the stadium and the hubbub was dying down. The scalpers lowered their prices, the touts packed up their counterfeit shirts, vendors closed up the carts with the cheap dogs and pretzels and popcorn and began to push them away so they could count up their takings. The kids without tickets took out their phones and then slouched away. A fat security guard, broad shouldered and with his belly straining against the buttons of his blue shirt, stared at Freddy until the boy had to look away.
Freddy heard the closing chords of the national anthem and then a roar from the crowd.
He took out his phone again and looked at the screen, as if that might hurry along a response from his father.
Still nothing.
He stuffed his hand into his pocket and took out the tickets. He sold one to a scalper for twenty bucks—the man wouldn’t offer more—and used the other one to get inside.
He made his way through the turnstile and into the guts of the building, then followed the concourse around until he found the gate he wanted. He showed his ticket to a waiting steward and then climbed up the last few steps to the open doorway that offered access to the stadium.
He stood there, his mouth open.
All he could see was the wide-open expanse of grass. It was a beautiful, pristine green, so vivid and bright that it was almost phosphorescent. The gridiron was painted a bright white, and the logos of the Giants and the NFL were hyperreal. Freddy gazed up at the vast structure that encircled the field, the rows of concrete and iron and the dazzling hi-def screens that glittered and popped with replays and ads and exhortations for the crowd to get behind their team.
Fireworks went off and music blared as the teams emerged from a covered walkway and spilled out onto the field.
“Popcorn!” called out a vendor as he
moved down the steps toward him. “Out of the way, kid.”
Freddy looked up at the vendor, a boy in his late teens with acne and braced teeth, and worried that his obvious nervousness would mark him out as someone who shouldn’t have been here. He stepped aside and, as he did, noticed the two empty seats at the front of the section. He checked his ticket, descended the steps, and then checked again. He tugged down on the hem of his handed-down OBJ jersey, aware that it looked dirty and out of date compared to the jerseys of the kids around him, and shuffled between a family and the seats in front of them as he made his way to the empty spaces.
15
Milton took the train from Coney Island to Jay Street. He changed from the F to the A Train and rode north to Penn Station. He went to the nearest ticket machine and paid $7.75 for a return trip to Meadowlands. He changed at Secaucus Junction and transferred to the Meadowlands service. He walked the rest of the way to the stadium. It was a new building, a typically soulless carbuncle that had been dropped into this otherwise thankless part of New Jersey. Thousands of people were disembarking from their trains and beginning the slow walk to the stadium, hands shoved deep into the pockets of thick coats in an effort to ward off the cold. A few brave souls, their common sense loosened by early tailgating, were shirtless, their bare skin painted in Giant blue.
Milton crossed underneath the track by way of a wide tunnel and emerged in the broad approach that ended with the stadium. He made his way to gate six.
Charlie was waiting for him.
“Cold enough for you?”
“Freezing.”
“They’re forecasting a ton of snow later this week—you hear?”
“I did.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll be warm tonight. They keep the suite very pleasant. Let’s get inside, shall we?”
Charlie led the way through the turnstiles and into the concourse of the huge MetLife Stadium. Milton loved football and baseball, but he had always preferred the old stadiums compared to the blandly efficient replacements that had been erected in the dynamited wreckage of their predecessors. He had been to the Bronx to watch the Yankees and had been cowed by the sheer vastness of it, everything angled toward the most efficient ways of extracting even more money from the spectators. He always found the new places to be flavourlessly corporate, and he quickly came to the conclusion that this place would be no different. There were the lines of identical concessions, the antiseptic cleanliness and the hollow ambience that one might expect to find at an airport terminal. Never mind. The football was what he was here for, and this evening’s game promised to be a good one.
Charlie led the way to a line of elevators, and they got into the first empty car and rode it up to the fourth floor. The lobby that met them opened up to a long corridor that stretched away to the left and right, with doors on the left-hand side marked by chrome numerals. Charlie led the way to number 22. A stencil on the frosted-glass doors announced the suite belonged to Rapid Semiconductors, Inc. Milton had never heard of the company before.
“This is us,” Charlie said. He opened the door and ushered Milton inside.
It was impressive. The suite was split into two distinct areas: a bar area with granite countertops and dark wood panelling, and then a spacious living room with comfortable leather furnishing. There were sliding glass windows at the other end of the room that overlooked three rows of exterior cushioned suite seats with teak arms. The bar area was loaded with food, the boxes and packages all conspicuously branded with the Giants logo, and a large flat-screen TV showed the pre-game show.
They were the last to arrive. There were eighteen other men and women in the private suite, and it was obvious from the way they greeted Charlie that he held a senior position in the company.
“How we doing?” he called out.
A young man raised a pint of beer. “They’re looking after us, boss. You want a drink?”
“No, thanks.” Charlie smiled. “We’re good.”
He led the way to the sliding doors and the three rows of five seats outside. Milton followed him. The cold hit him at once, his breath steaming in front of his face. The seats were separated from those belonging to the suites on either side by glass panels embossed with the MetLife logo.
“Boss?” Milton said.
“Yeah,” Charlie said.
“Is it your company?”
“It is. I’ve done okay for a drunk.” He nodded back in the direction of the suite. “There’ll be a bit of drinking going on in there tonight. Just saying.”
“They don’t know about you and the fellowship?”
“No. You okay with that?”
“Yes,” Milton said. “I’ve got plenty of time under my belt by now. I’ll manage.”
They both looked down on the field as the teams came out for their warm-ups.
“Should be a good game,” Charlie said.
16
The first couple of hours were quiet. Carter drove, working their way around the sector so that he could give the rookie the heads-up on the areas where they usually found the most trouble. Rhodes was quiet and attentive, seemingly hanging on Carter’s every word. Carter wanted him to loosen up a bit and, when he told Rhodes to relax, the rookie apologised, said that he would and then quickly reverted to the same intense state of concentration as before.
Carter shook his head, but he got it. He remembered his first day on the job, eight years earlier. He had been nervous, too. The academy was necessary, but it didn’t prepare you for a life on the street. Theory was one thing, but theory went out the window when the rubber hit the road. You needed instinct and smarts to make it as a cop in the Seven Five, and no classroom was going to teach you that. You either had it or you didn’t, and the street would find out one way or another.
Carter had been partnered up with Landon Shepard until last week. Shep had decided to retire. He was older than Carter and had been struggling with arthritic hips that his doctor was prepared to say were caused by the strain and stress of being a cop. Carter had chided him, trying to argue that it was a minor ailment that wouldn’t have prevented him from holding down a job in construction, the line of work that Shep’s father had gone into. Shep had dismissed the suggestion; there were plenty of cops in the precinct who would have loved to pick up a minor injury that meant that they could retire, too. Disability was no bad thing if it meant that an officer couldn’t run for more than a hundred yards or hold out his gun; small ailments like that would always be enough for the city to agree to a retirement, especially after notice had been drawn to them. If that officer got into a scrape and a member of the public was put at risk because he or she wasn’t one hundred per cent fit, the financial fallout from a legal case would always beat how much it might cost to pension off the cop and train a replacement.
So Shep had applied for retirement. He had gone before the medical review board. They’d taken a look at the notes that his doctor had provided, done their own examinations and then recommended that the application be approved. His wife, Alice, had a career as a dental hygienist and they had already paid off the mortgage on their house. Carter had been upset when Shep told him that he was going to call it a day, and had spent the better part of a week’s worth of patrols trying to persuade Shep that it was a dumb idea. He hadn’t had any luck, though, and, in the end, he had been forced to admit defeat. The retirement had been made official and Shep had started to draw his pension.
“I need a drink,” Carter said. They were on Belmont. He pulled over and parked outside Whitey’s bodega. “You want anything?”
“I’ll get a Coke,” Rhodes said, reaching into his pocket for the money.
“Put it away,” Carter said. “I got it. You want anything else? A sandwich? A pack of smokes?”
Rhodes opened the bag that he had brought with him to the car and took out a Ziploc bag with a sandwich inside it. “I’m good,” he said, holding it up.
“You made your own sandwich?”
“I didn’t know how it
would work,” Rhodes said, a little sheepishly.
“You don’t need to do that,” Carter said with an amused shake of his head. “Don’t bother with that tomorrow. I’ll show you how it gets done, okay?”
Carter’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and looked at the screen. His wife had texted him.
“You okay?” Rhodes asked.
“It’s my wife,” he said. “She’s just reminding me that I agreed to go up to Kmart after I finished tonight to pick up a crib.”
“You’ve got a baby?”
“Not yet. Got one on the way.”
“Congratulations,” Rhodes said with a bright smile. It was the most natural reaction that Carter had seen from him all day.
“Thanks,” Carter said. “You got kids?”
“No,” he said. “It’s just me.”
“No woman?”
“Not right now. When’s the baby due?”
“Two weeks. A little boy. She’s as big as a house now and she ain’t too keen on going outside, so I promised I’d go and get the crib. It’s the last thing we need before the nursery’s done. Wasn’t like I was going to forget.” He put the phone back in his pocket and unclipped his seat belt. “I’m gonna get a beer, too. You want one?”
“What? Come on,” Rhodes said. “We’re on duty.”
“You’re not gonna bust my balls about that, are you? I’m thirsty. You must be the same. Wait here.”
He got out of the car. It was cold outside of the warmth of the cabin, and he zipped his navy-blue jacket all the way up to the top as he glanced up into the dark skies. The kid looked like he was going to be okay. He’d have to bring him along carefully, get him started with small indiscretions and then see how far he could push him before he got too uncomfortable. Carter had been brought along the same way when he had started. It had been Shepard who had broken him in, and Carter had returned the favour with a few of the rookies that had followed after him. It took a while, sometimes, to realise what was possible as an officer working the street. Carter had picked it up quickly, and it hadn’t taken long before he had been bringing opportunities to Shepard and pushing him beyond where he had previously decided he was comfortable. It was Carter who had found the hook-up with Acosta, and that had proved prosperous ever since