August and Then Some (11 page)

“No, she'll be OK till we leave. She's just thirteen, you know, she can't drive yet so she comes for the ride.”

“Yeah, thirteen's a rough one. You sure she's OK?” he said with the tone of someone who honestly cared about anything that might come out of my mouth, barring nothing. I'd never really seen him as someone I could talk to about the whole situation, but the time, the place and the me weren't right, so I scratched a fake itch on my forehead, hiding what my face might have shown.

“Yeah. I mean … She's cool.”

“Um hum,” he said with another invitation to go on. But I didn't. I just waited until the pause started to feel a little weird then I said, “I'm gonna get going on the rotation, Rick.”

“It's all you. Keys are up there.” He pointed to the corkboard where we hung all the keys to the cars we worked on. “The ones with the red tag.” I reached up to grab the keys and I knocked off another set by accident. I picked them up and when I tried to hang them back up I knocked off a different set. I crouched down to grab them, but couldn't. I could feel my fingers on them but I couldn't get a grip. Then I realized my hands were shaking. I could see the keys, I could see my hands and I was telling my hands to chill out, pick up the goddamn keys, and put em on the friggin board already, but they wouldn't. Ricky let out a little laugh and said, “You need some help there, tough guy?”

“No, I got it.”

I got on my knees and I tried picking them up with my other
hand. No good. Then I tried with my pinky, which was stupid. I tried with two pointing fingers. My hands were short-circuiting.

Ricky said, “JT, just leave em already, I'll get em.”

What he said set something off in me. Of all the things my hands couldn't do right they had no problem making fists by themselves. I raised them above my head then came down and pounded those keys into the floor. Hard as I could.
Bang
. I did it again.
Bang
. Then my mouth opened and this big sound came out. “Leave them.”
Bang
. “I'm not leaving a fucking thing.”
Bang
. “Mother fucker.”
Bang
.
Bang. Bang.
It felt like I was doing it in slow motion and it went on for a long time.

Finally Ricky put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Take it easy. Come on, take it easy.” He wasn't saying it like I was fuckin insane. He was saying it like there was nothing wrong with what I was doing, but it was just time to stop. So I did. I stayed on my knees and thought,
did I just do what I fucking think I just did?

I looked up to the glass of his office door and saw him in reflection nod his head like he understood, like he sees people do what I just did every day on his way to work. He said, “Seventeen's a rough one, too.”

I stood up, but I was too embarrassed to look at him. “Sorry, Rick.”

He said, “It's all right,” like it really was. I kind of believed him, kind of didn't. “Listen, JT, I got no opinions, just a good ear.”

“What?”

“If you need one, I got a good ear. I know I got a big mouth, but I got big ears, too. You understand me?”

I said, “Yeah.”

“You can take off the rest of the day if you want to.”

“No, I wanna keep going. I wanna do the Monte.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“All right.” Then he reached over to the board, grabbed the keys and held them out in front of me with no sense of urgency. I didn't want to reach for them so I cupped my hands below his and he dropped them right in my palms. My fingers closed around them. I looked up to him and saw a look on his face I'd never seen before: a sad smile.

Maybe the friend-of-a-friend thing and getting me in the office to tell me about the Monte was bullshit. If I'm right, I don't feel like he was really throwing me a lie. It was only an offering disguised as one.

“It's around the side,” he said.

“I'm on it.” I looked at the floor when I said thanks. Then I walked out. I never even realized I punctured my hands until I tried to get the keys in the car door and saw blood.

COUNSELOR: What do you all most desperately want?

The problem with this counselor is she thinks she's dealing with people who can answer that question. One parent should be certified, and the other one should also be certified. The kid should not even be here, and wouldn't be unless a judge told him to.

MOM: I want Jake to come back home and live with me.

COUNSELOR: Jake, have you considered that?

ME: No.

COUNSELOR: Francine, why do you think that would be a good idea?

MOM: Well, don't you? Look at him.

COUNSELOR: Tell me what you see when you look at him.

MOM: I see a kid who made a mistake and the world is treating him as if he's a hardened criminal, and I want to remind him that it's not true. And I want him to know he needs more help right now than he thinks he does.

COUNSELOR: Jake, you want to say anything about that?

ME: Yes. What I most desperately want is to know why I feel like I'm on trial every time I come here? Like I'm the one who you're all trying to figure out, or straighten out, or freak out, or whatever out.

COUNSELOR: We're not trying to figure you out, Jake. I just want to give you all a chance to tell each other what you want to. There's a lot of anger, and that's normal, but it—

ME: Lady, haven't you learned who you're talking to yet?

MOM: Jake, don't talk to her like that.

ME: And there
she
goes, coming to the rescue. She comes to everyone's rescue but who she's supposed to.

COUNSELOR: Who's she supposed to rescue?

ME: (Looking at my father who is getting skinny, has less hair and more of it is gray.) Who do you think?

COUNSELOR: I don't know. Tell me.

ME: My sister.

COUNSELOR: From what?

ME: (Looking in his general direction.)

DAD: (Looking at the ceiling, rolling his tongue around the inside of his lips instead of yelling.)

COUNSELOR: Why your sister?

ME: Because he was messing with her, I thought we already established that.

COUNSELOR: Well, you established that in your written statement, Jake. But your father didn't corroborate it so—

ME: And did he expect you to smell good after he slung that shit on you?

MOM: Jake, please.

ME: (Loosing my shit.) NO.

MOM: (Covering her mouth with one hand.)

DAD: I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED.

EVERYONE ELSE: (Startled and confused.)

DAD: (A softness takes over his eyes.) OK? I can't. Look. (Putting his hands out for all to see. The nails are chewed almost to the cuticles, which are also chewed. They are scabby. Destroyed.)

COUNSELOR: (Flinches.)

ME: (Not recognizing or trusting this guy and his new hands.)

DAD: All right? Want me to get all emotional and shit. I mean what the fuck do you think I am? Can't we see what we're doing now, instead of what we were doing then? (To counselor.) Everybody changes, right?

COUNSELOR: It's possible.

DAD: Well look at me. (Spreading his fingers out wide.) You want me to bury myself in the dirt below the wrists? (Making fists.)

ME: You haven't changed. Since when do you change?

DAD: That's your brain talking. Not mine.

ME: Your brain talks? You hearing voices now?

MOM: Jake.

ME: Because
I
am. All night. You know what that's like?

DAD: I do.

ME: Good.

DAD: At least we're in something together.

ME: We ain't in shit together.

DAD: (Shakes his head, puts his hands in his lap.) You wanna keep it that way that's good for me. (Leaning violently back in his chair.)

ME: (Seeing the guy I recognize.) ISN'T IT FUCKED UP AND STUPID TO ANYONE ELSE THAT
I'M
THE ONE WHO MIGHT GO TO JAIL AND THIS
FUCKING GUY GETS OFF ON A
TECHNICALITY
? IT'S NOT FAIR. IT'S NOT FUCKING
FAIR
.

EVERYONE ELSE: (Quiet.)

ME: (To him.) THEY LET YOU OFF, BUT YOU'RE NOT FORGIVEN. NOT AFTER ALL THIS TIME AND ALL THIS SHIT. YOU'RE
NOT
. NO ONE FORGIVES YOU. I hope you cry alone.

DAD: I do.

Silence.

COUNSELOR: (Handing me a box of tissues. Speaking calm as fuck all.) Your father's problems with your sister are a separate case that I assure you all will come up. I'm not at liberty to judge it, but we can talk about it. John, would you like to say anything to Jake, about what he said?

DAD: (Shaking his head, eyes almost closed.) No.

ME: (Leaning toward him.) Goddamn you fuckin mutt.

Mom: Jake, stop already.

ME: Yeah sure, I'll stop. (Leaning back in my chair, legs stretched out in front of me, hands clasped behind my head.) No more open exchanges for me. I'm now a closed exchanger.

COUNSELOR: Jake, I know you're in pain.

ME: I'm
not
.

COUNSELOR: And I hate to have to put it this way to you, but understand: the judge gave you the benefit of the doubt.

ME: What doubt?

COUNSELOR: The judge knows you're not a thief. You're a kid in pain and you were driven to do something you wouldn't have done otherwise. Your defender said it and
we all believe it because it's obvious. You're still guilty of a crime, but you're not headed for a life of thievery. You're too lousy at it and I think you've learned that by now. If we don't open up—and I say this to all of you—I'll have to end these sessions and Jake will go right to trial with no other plea available but guilty. You will be tried as an adult and you can be looking at a year for grand theft auto. I mean you did do it, Jake. And here's what I'm not supposed to tell you: the only thing that a defender can help you out with is
why
you did it. If we don't get to those reasons then you're probably looking at jail time.

ME and DAD: (Lock eyes in assessment and challenge.)

ME: Give up?

DAD: (Eyes lean toward something compassionate, but shakes his head, no.)

COUNSELOR: As I've said, every family that has ever existed has had wrongdoing in it. Human error is as old as humans. My job is not to get you all to decide whose wrongdoing is worse than the other's. My job is to get you all to talk about the wrongdoings, and see if you can try to understand each other and come to some form of forgiveness.

ME: Like we know what forgiveness is.

COUNSELOR: Well let me offer a possible … (choosing her next word like playing pick-up sticks)… definition. Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past. And, once again, it will not only keep Jake out of jail, but it will—

ME: (Still looking at Dad.) Him dropping the charges would also keep me out of jail.

Pause.

COUNSELOR: John?

DAD: (Slumping forward, putting elbows on knees. Looking at floor.)

COUNSELOR: John?

DAD: (Shaking his head. Offering zero words.)

ME: I think their relationship should have ended before they had kids. That could have put a—

DAD: Learn from my mistakes.

Short silence.

ME: (To counselor.) And for a second there I thought he was about to turn a corner.

Five forty-five a.m.-ish. I sit at the table writing a letter to Danielle by the pale light of a sun still below the skyline. Behind me Stephanie throws the sheets off her and makes for the bathroom. I snap my notebook closed and when she runs past me I nonchalantly say, “Oh, hi Steph.”

While she vomits I say, “Just another happy morning on East 9th Street.”

“Damn.” She flicks the light on. Shuffles around the medicine cabinet. I lean to my right and through a crack in the curtain I see her washing her mouth out with my toothpaste.

“I promise I won't think less of you if you brought over a toothbrush.”

She spits. Pushes the curtain out of her way. “Don't call me Steph. I hate that.” She grunts like she's fucking had it already with the whole throwing up thing. “Some mornings I wish I was throwing up in the Dominican Republic.” She looks at the notebook.

“But America takes in all the hungry, tired, poor, puking and pregnant. This is the land of hopes and dreams. Amber waves of grain, and shit.”

“Waves of green.”

“Freedom ain't all about money.”

“What else?”

“State of mind.”

“That's privilege talking right there. When your mind lives in a studio apartment with six people, the last thing gets free is your mind.” She massages the corner of her eyes with her middle fingers until her eye crud falls to the floor.

“I hear you, but I'm not feeling particularly privileged right now.”

“I ain't saying there's anything wrong with it. Now that you got me on this shit at the crack of ass in the morning, that's the kind of privilege I want for my kid.”

“Good morning, by the way.”

“Yeah, sure,” she manages.

“So if you want cash and privilege go back to school.”

“What are you, a guidance counselor?”

“I'm just—”

“I don't want to give it to my kids by myself. You feelin me?”

“I am. So who you gonna give it with?”

She has no response to that, and appears pained by the thought of who might and might not be helping her bring some kind of liberation to her kid's life.

“That's why you wanna go to the DR?”

“Maybe.”

“Then go.”

“Yeah, I'ma walk there.”

“You'll drown. Ever think of flying? Just a suggestion.”

She reaches behind her head to retie her ponytail. “I don't fly.”

“Oh, come off it.” She stops mid-tie and looks at me like she fuckin means it. “You're serious? You don't fly?”

“Didn't I just say so?” Now she's raising her voice.

“Why not?”

“Fuck you care? I just ain't getting on no plane.”

“Ever been on one?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know you're so scared?”

“You don't have to do things to know they scare you.”

“OK, pipe down, it's just a thought—”

“Bad thought.” She goes to the refrigerator, gets water.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Again?” At the cabinet she grabs a glass.

“Why've you been sleeping here? I mean, I dig it, but it's going on two weeks now.”

She uses the moment it takes to pour the water to find an answer. “Cause it's better than sharing a bed with my little cousins.”

“Cause you don't want your uncle seeing you puke every morning?”

“Maybe.” She sips.

“That all?”

“Cause I know you won't hit on me.”

“No you don't.”

“Yes. I do. And even if you did what'll happen? I get pregnant? Oops, can't do that again. At least not now.” Another sip.

“That doesn't explain why you're not sleeping at Nelson's.”

“You finally said his NAME,” she yells.

“Tell me why.”

“DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT NELSON.” She slams the water pitcher back in the fridge then slams the door shut even harder.

“Why not?”

“Because Nelson is two guys. One before he got me pregnant, one after, OK?”

She luckily gets cut off by the downstairs neighbor who bangs what sounds like a broomstick on their ceiling a few times.

“You woke them up,” she says.

“You're the one getting loud. So what was he before?”

“I'm not getting loud.”

“You're right, you're not
getting
loud, you
are
loud.”

She looks wounded by that. “No I'm
not
,” she yells.

“You wanna notch it down before they kick me out.”

She sips her water again and thinks hard. “Am I loud, for real?” she sincerely wants to know.

“Is this one of those questions where no matter how I answer I'm gonna get a lesson on how to talk to women?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Just tell me.”

“You're loud.” She slaps her glass on the slate table. For some reason this offends and saddens her. “Take it easy. All I'm saying is that you'd be good at Yankee Stadium. What's the big deal?”

“Because the guys in my family are all so loud … my mother is loud …
was
loud, or whatever. She couldn't talk to me without yelling. My father couldn't talk to her without yelling.”

“Maybe you're not loud because they're loud. Maybe you're loud because you're loud.”

“I don't wanna be.” And there's something in her face now that is unlike all the other things I've seen. Her fighting mask just melted off and a lonely one replaced it.

“Well, you're not always loud,” I say. “I mean you're not loud like a motorcycle is loud. You don't just stand there being loud all the time, or like announce yourself from ten blocks away.”

She smirks as if that's a lame consolation.

“You're like a wind chime,” I tell her. “The more you're pushed around the louder you get.”

She calculates that with the glass paused at her lips. From where I'm sitting it seems she's silently accepting a part of herself that I can't really see and will never really know. “That's funny,”
she says. Something rises in me that makes my past feel further back than it is.

She looks directly into my eyes. She doesn't blink. “What's wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

She comes over, never losing my face, fits herself between me and the stone slab. She looks at me for a couple seconds longer then wraps a hug on me, her palms kind of patting my back, kind of rubbing it. I clasp my hands behind her. I feel her arms loosen, but she keeps holding on. She slides onto the floor, her head now in my chest. I put a hand on the back of her head. My shirt is wet where her nose is.

“What do your aunts and your cousins do in the DR?”

“They live in Santo Domingo, it's the capital. They work together cooking for a big restaurant. You know, like a tourist restaurant. They say they get treated nice and that …” She breaks the hug. Stands up. Wipes her nose. “That table was digging into my back.”

 

On the street I pick up two sacks of rocks off the pile. I turn, carry them down eight stairs, into the brownstone. Up eight stairs, into the backyard, drop the sacks. Brian stands in the shade of the trees, his back against the brownstone wall.

“You're making me look bad,” he says. It's more than ninety-five degrees and he's having a slow day. I've lapped him twice now.

“It's all I have to live for.”

“Then you're wasting your life.”

“Actually it's already wasted and it wasn't as bad as people say.”

“Oooh, a tongue that can clip a hedge. You get a nut last night?”

“Are you high?”

“No, Boss.” He army-salutes me.

“Then you should stop drinking.”

“I did once, but I became cranky and boring so I had to go back to it. Why you holding out on me?”

“I'm not.”

I turn, go down eight stairs into the brownstone. Brian follows me.

“You're bullshitting a bullshit factory.”

“So we cancel each other out.”

“I don't even get to know what she looks like?”

We go up eight stairs, onto the sidewalk.

“She's just a friend.”

“AH HAAAAA. Does she know you don't believe that?”

“I do believe it.” I pick up two more sacks.

“If you're straight you don't believe it, and you are straight.”

“Any chance of us baggin this conversation?”

“Sure, but first let me tell you something about women, Wedgie.”

“Somebody is always trying to tell me something about women.”

He pulls off his gloves and slaps them on the pile of rocks. “There's only three kinds of men who can't understand them: young men, old men, and middle-aged men.”

“That some kind of Irish proverb?”

“That's a human proverb. Let's take a break, Wedgie.”

“I wish you'd stop calling me that.”

“I know. Come on, it's break time.” He cracks open his orange Gatorade.

“You go ahead. I'm good, I'm gonna keep going.”

“Really, stop. It's more than ninety degrees and we got six hours left.”

“Really, I'm good.”

I go down eight stairs, into the brownstone. Up eight stairs, into the backyard. The sun stings my shoulders. I look at the hundreds of bags of stones lined up on the ground, standing upright like gravestones. They make a path across this back lot like the stones across the Bronx River.

I see my dad.

I see my old bathroom.

I see his face in the mirror. One of his palms is full of shaving cream, the other holds the can. I stand on the edge of the white bathtub, my hands on the sink for balance. From here I'm almost his height and can see my face in the mirror next to him.

“Putting shaving cream on is easy, you just gotta make sure to cover all the black.”

“Dad, I got no black. I only got a little fuzz.”

“No, I know, this is just to get in some practice for when your beard starts coming in. Here. Watch. I'm covering the black, I'm covering the black …” He raises his chin and checks his neck out in the mirror to make sure he has everything whited-out. “There. See? Now you.”

He shakes the can of shaving cream up and down, I hold out both my hands.

“You're right-handed, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you put a pile of this in your left hand so you can spread it with your right hand.” He fills up my palm. “Go head cover where there's black. Or where you think there's gonna be black.”

I rub the cream on my cheeks.

“You got it.”

It smells like pine trees and dish-washing detergent.

“Now look—when you're doing the mustache part you can just cover your whole mouth.” He watches me do this. “Good. Now just wipe your finger across your lips like this. Got it?”

“That's cool.”

“Ain't it? OK, let me see. Look up. You're looking good. Now the shaving part. You gotta shave it all even. You gotta make sure you're putting the same pressure on the razor the whole time because if you don't then you got an uneven shave and you look like what your mother calls a
cavone
. You know what that is? It's a pig. You wanna press hard enough so you get a close shave but you don't want to press too hard that you cut yourself. Watch me.”

He drags the razor across his face and the whiskers crackle under the blade. He maneuvers it with the kind of steadiness it takes to decorate a cake. I've never seen him move so slowly or touch anything so gentle. Nothing. Not his wife, not his food, not his kids. And still, he somehow manages to cut himself. Right where his jaw meets his neck he gives himself a nice little slice. The red mixes with the white and this pinkish liquid oozes down his neck. I don't say anything for two reasons. First: I feel, as the apprentice, I should keep quiet until the teacher gets to the how-to-handle-cuts part of the lesson. Second and more honest reason: I want to see just how hard and long he'll bleed.

“If you want a really close shave you go against the grain.” I nod like I hear but I'm preoccupied with his cut and when the hell he's gonna notice it. A drop of blood falls into the sink. I hear the plop. How could this guy not even know he was bleeding? How could he just shave around something like it's not even there? The blood keeps falling. How could you ignore it, you son of a bitch? Bleeding is bleeding, it hurts you fuckin asshole. Can't you feel?

“Wedgie.”

“What?”

“Slow the fuck down, man.”

I'm standing on the sidewalk near the rock pile. “No, I'm good.”

“No, stop. Look at your hands.”

“What?”

“You're not wearing gloves, genius.”

“So what?” I snap at him.

“They're gonna crack if you—”

“LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.” Barehanded I grab two more sacks, turn, go down eight stairs into the brownstone. Up eight stairs into the backyard, drop the bags. I replay the sound of my voice in that last exchange and don't feel right about it. Down eight stairs into the brownstone. Up eight stairs, on the sidewalk where Brian is holding his drink and staring at me through squinted eyes.

“All right,” I say. “I was being a prick just then.”

“It happens.” He finishes the last of his Gatorade. “You ready to take a break now?”

“Yeah.” We sit on the sidewalk, our backs against the building. Brian cracks open another Gatorade for me. I thank him.

I say, “Fridays?”

“What about them?”

“I pull half days because I go to counseling.”

“OK,” he says in a way that lets me know he's open to hear more, but is not going to ask.

“Not last week. I played hooky. But I go.”

“I hope you don't mind me asking, but why the hell are you doing this job?”

“What's wrong with this job?”