The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx (23 page)

The desk nurse told the hospital social worker that a friend of Paul’s had left her number. She called a Lori Mayer, who called Mr. Rafael at Paul’s school and left a message that due to a personal tragedy he probably wouldn’t be back for a while.

Lori and her husband then visited their old friend Stuart Fell at Fell’s Funeral Parlor on East Tremont Avenue. They agreed to go see Paul together at the hospital and work out the arrangements. A few hours later, when they met him in the waiting area, he nodded them off as if he were in deep thought.

Lori asked the desk nurse if Paul could get some kind of help. Soon the hospital psychiatrist, a bearded man named Dr. Hugo, diagnosed Paul as suffering from an acute case of pathological grief. He gave him a tranquilizer and held him overnight.

The next afternoon, Paul seemed to be regaining connection. When he returned home, Lori brought Bea over. The little girl gave her daddy a kiss and told him that she’d heard that “Mommy is with God.”

“I spoke to Detective Chalmers who’s handling the case,” Lori told Paul. “He said they’ve put up notices to see if anyone has spotted Toto.”

“Oh, right,” Paul replied absently. He hadn’t even registered that her old Yorkie was missing.

When Lori left, Paul slumped into an armchair and watched as his little girl moved cheerfully around the house collecting dolls and other toys to play with. All he could think was that every item she touched had been bought by Lucretia. He couldn’t accept that he wasn’t going to see her again.
If I ever adjust to her loss, that would reveal the limit of my love for her. But her love for me was limitless.

When his brother had erased him in the summer of ’47, making him a ghost around Midtown, she alone had found him outside Horn & Hardart’s and brought him back to the land of the living. Even when he had despised himself, she had rescued and revived him. She had become a kind of cast for his broken life, and now that she was gone he didn’t even want to try to stand. Though he loved his little girl and knew his wife would want him to take care of her, he simply couldn’t focus. Lori, when she dropped by around dinnertime to see how he was doing, found Bea eating from a bag of moldy bread.

“Would you like to come over for supper?”

Paul shook his head.

“What do you want?”

“Take her.”

Lori said okay and bought Bea back home with her. The next day, Bill Mayer came by to tell him that Lucretia’s body was now at the funeral parlor. The viewing would go on for the next two days. Solitude was all he desired, but he knew what Lucretia would want. It took great effort to put on a suit and comb his hair. When he arrived and saw Lucretia in the coffin, he had to resist the urge to climb in and just lay with her, even be buried with her. He sat next to the box and stared downward as people filed along and gave their condolences. Everyone from the neighborhood stopped by, signed the book, and paid their final respects.

Lori arrived with Bea, who was dressed very nicely, and pulled up a chair for the little girl to stand on. Looking down into the coffin, Bea whispered, “I love you, Mommy. Goodbye, Mommy. Goodbye.”

The heat from the bright blue flame of the blasted pipeline—even at a healthy distance—was stinging Uli’s burnt face, pulling him awake. Half of him felt frozen, the other half fried. Calling out Karen’s name repeatedly to no response, Uli finally admitted to himself that he must have hallucinated hearing her voice from the bottom of the elevator shaft. Despite the cold desert night, the phenomenon of freedom compelled him to simply stare at the massive flame as though it carried the very mystery of life.

Eventually, Uli crawled away into the surrounding desert. Under the vast twinkling sky, it was almost as if he had remembered infinity and all its possibilities. Uli felt born again: The sandy breeze seizing his body reminded him that the planet was alive with both cruelty and tenderness. The fact that he was no longer trapped underground with physically and mentally impaired cannibals made him giddy.

The crescent moon offered little light. Around him in the darkness, all he could see other than the distant blue flame were the outlines of hills and large rocks. He was hungry and thirsty and knew he wouldn’t last long. Despite his exhaustion and pain, it would be better to walk now, at night, than under the great weight of tomorrow’s unbearable sun. He rose and staggered about a thousand feet before spotting a small trench into which he collapsed.

A few hours later he began hearing sounds. Several shapes were moving across the desert floor. He thought they were some kind of nocturnal creatures at first, but as the dark blue sky lightened, he could see they were people. Three men passed far off to his left. They appeared to be wearing striped vests, but otherwise they looked dirty and bewildered like those trapped below. The group was heading toward the large geyser of flame that roared forth from the ruptured pipe. The men seemed to be discussing something. Abruptly, two of them started pummeling the third, until the man collapsed to his knees. As the attackers moved away, Uli decided to wait several minutes before cautiously approaching the victim.

40

T
he motorcade made its way to Woodlawn Cemetery and Lucretia’s body was interred next to her mother’s grave. Afterward, Paul and Bea were driven back to the house. A couple hours later, Lori stopped by and discovered them sitting quietly in the living room, both still in their funeral clothes. She fed Paul and took Bea back home with her. Paul lingered around the house over the next few days, just sleeping and moving silently from room to room. On the afternoon of the third day, he heard a knock at the door. He answered to find Leon standing there awkwardly in torn overalls.

“Sorry I didn’t make it to the funeral. After my mom’s death, I just couldn’t bear going through it all over again.” Leon removed a fifth of whiskey from a brown paper bag.

Paul led him into the kitchen and set down two glasses.

“First my mom, now your wife,” Leon said.

“None of this would’ve happened if …” Paul couldn’t finish. He sucked down the burning liquor like cold water on a hot day. Leon had barely finished his first glass by the time Paul had knocked back most of the bottle. When Leon realized that Paul had passed out and pissed his pants, he shook his friend awake and told him to clean up and get dressed.

“Why?”

“I need some company.”

Leon drove Paul in his old pickup a few blocks south into Morrisania and parked in his driveway. His dogs barked nonstop as he helped Paul inside. His large home was filled with foil wrappers, empty bottles, soiled clothing, and old newspapers. Over the next week, Paul ate, drank, napped, and watched ballgames on TV, all in the same tight armchair that had once belonged to Leon’s mom.

Paul called Lori one afternoon and asked in a slightly drunken slur if he could speak to Bea.

“She’s at school, Paul. It’s 2 o’clock.”

“I’m slowly getting back on my feet,” he mumbled.

“No problem.”

“Can you tell Bea I’ll come get her tomorrow after school?”

“Sure, she’ll love that.” After a pause, Lori said, “Paul, I got a call from your boss at school, Mr. Rafael. He found someone to take over your classes, but he needs to know whether or not you’ll be back next term.”

“Great,” Paul replied without really listening. Upon hanging up, he looked out the window and glimpsed the railings of that goddamned freeway several blocks north.

“He’s always taken everything from me,” Paul murmured to Leon. “Now it’s time to take back.”

“You probably want to kill more than ever now, but …” Leon trailed off.

“If you kill someone they don’t feel pain. We have to let him feel—”

“It’s over now. Maybe you should just live in peace.”

“Fuck no! What that cocksucker did to this neighborhood … And those who stayed have been subject to years of tumult and harassment. There isn’t a wall in my house that doesn’t have cracks running through it. Not to mention that dust. Bea spent nights coughing herself raw. I mean, Lucretia would run tape along the doors and windows and we still couldn’t keep out that goddamned dust and—”

Suddenly, shouts and screams erupted outside. Bottles were shattering, kids were fighting.

“This used to be a good street. Now we’re in the middle of a fucking ghetto that’s getting worse every day.”

“Can you blame everything on one fucking highway?”

“THAT FUCKER TOOK EVERYTHING!!!” Paul shouted, and grabbing his overcoat he stormed out the door.

He marched angrily up to Lucretia’s home, but as soon as he got to the door he felt it. Her presence was there waiting for him. He stumbled back down the stairs and wound his way along the dark, chilly streets back to Leon’s place. Once inside, he gulped water right out of the faucet until he gasped for air, then he kicked off his shoes and plunked down in Leon’s mother’s armchair where he thought,
I’m taking it all—the whole damn city—down with me!

He awoke very late the next day and barely made it to Bea’s school in time to pick her up. After buttoning her coat, Paul took his daughter’s little hand and led her down East Tremont Avenue.

“Daddy, I’m hungry,” she said.

Paul bought Bea her favorite meal, a slice of pepperoni pizza and, from a nearby diner, a side of creamed corn. Back at home, he gulped down a fifth of Scotch as she ate and they both watched television. Soon he passed out on the floor. When Lori woke him up at 9, she said that Bea had run across the backyard shouting, “Daddy’s dead!”

“Well, obviously I’m not.”

“Paul, little girls are very fragile.”

“All right,” he said softly, then went to the bathroom and shut the door.

“Should I bring her back home with me tonight?”

“No,” he growled through the closed door, “not tonight.”

Lori helped the little girl into her pajamas, made her brush her teeth and say her prayers, then put her to bed.

“Goodnight, Mommy,” Bea whispered into space. Lori gave her a kiss on the cheek and sat next to her until she fell asleep.

Early the next day, Paul dressed his daughter and gave her a Hershey’s chocolate bar. After dropping her off at school, he headed south to Leon’s yard in Morrisania. His friend wasn’t there, but Paul let himself in and rooted through his fridge, nibbling on a half-eaten turkey hero he found inside. He searched for a drink, but the house was dry.

Paul was awoken from a long nap by noises coming from the yard. Leon and some kid were feeding scrap metal into the big chopping and grinding machines.

“What exactly are you doing anyway?” he asked when Leon was done.

Leon gave him what he called his “twenty-five-cent tour.” The yard, which appeared to be just a big pile of junk, was actually an organized arrangement of various types of metal. Down the center of the yard was a small metal-processing system with assorted machinery, including a hydraulic compactor, a small crane, and great sheers for tearing up large pieces of scrap. Much of Leon’s time was devoted to simply maintaining his outdated equipment.

“You okay?” Uli asked, timidly approaching the beaten man.

“My fall dey da, Play-o war me don rink and I egnor im.” When the man looked up, Uli saw that his tongue was sticking out of his bleeding mouth.

“Where’d you come from?”

The man pointed at the ground and muttered something else. Uli didn’t know if this poor fellow was mentally deficient or just suffering from a speech impediment. He sensed aspects of both.

“How’d you escape?”

“Play-o sho us.”

“Where is he?”

“Doe know, roun ere.” The man rose and started walking off.

“Where are you going?”

“Back.”

“Back where?”

“E-low, Mku-tra,” the guy replied, pointing downward. “You com ew, or you ge kill.”

“But we’re out,” Uli replied. “We’re free!”

“De uders righ.”

“About what?”

“No un can cross da fleg-ethen. Das where de odders die.”

“The what?”

“The fleg-ethen, the fleg-ethen.” He pointed out across the sand.

“You mean the desert?”

The man shook his head no.

“Don dree da wada.”

“What water?”

“You see.” He moved off in the direction of his assailants, further out into the endless desert. Uli followed at a distance as the sun continued to rise. Soon, he spotted the other two men several hundred yards ahead on their hands and knees. But a minute later, when Uli looked again, they were gone.

Upon reaching the area where the two guys had vanished, the injured man knelt down and began fumbling around in the sand. To Uli’s surprise, the guy pulled open what appeared to be a cellar door on the desert floor. Uli watched as he stepped right into the ground and vanished as well. Uli approached cautiously and found a rectangular door the same beige color as the sand. He pulled the door upward and looked inside. Metal rungs lined the edge of a dark square chute; about twenty feet down, a massive fan was anchored beneath the grating of the floor. He considered climbing down to see exactly how and where this entrance connected to the rest of the subterranean chamber, but staring into the darkness below, he feared an ambush. He slammed the door shut and looked around—dry emptiness.

His mouth felt as parched as the surrounding desert. He put a pebble on his tongue, something to form spit around, and started walking back in the direction of the blue flame, toward gracefully contoured mountains.

41

A
boxy skyline ran the length of the hurricane fence along the edge of Leon’s scrapyard—stacks upon stacks of large wooden crates buried under the melting snow. Each crate was about three feet wide and five feet tall.

“Why don’t we just scrap these?” Paul asked.

“We can’t.”

“Why, what are they?” Upon closer inspection, Paul saw that each had a small black screen and a large hole toward the bottom.

“Fluoroscope machines for shoe fitting. You put on a shoe and you can see it on the screen.”

“Where’d you get them?”

“Some guy dumped them here because they got some kind of radioactive crap in them. I called the government to get rid of them, but they didn’t do shit. Then I wrote some letters. They keep giving me the run around, so I’m just going to take them out some night and dump them in the river.”