One of the Deceptors with a red bandana covering his face, approached with a knife pointed toward me.
“Gimme your money!” he demanded through the red bandana.
“No!” I shouted.
Red Bandana lunged toward me. I swung a closed fist it landed on his left cheek. John kicked him from the back, only to be punched by another thug. John quickly punched each thug in the face. Red bandana thug fell to the ground. The train went dark for a few seconds. The lights came back on and John was on the floor wrestling two Deceptors. I kicked one in the ribs, and the thug turned his attention toward me.
The train stopped, and the doors opened. The Deceptors ran out. I helped John to his feet. John had a bloody lip, but seemed to be okay.
John pointed to blood stains on the floor. “One of them must have gotten hurt,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Just a little stinging in my arm,” I responded. John pointed toward the blood on the floor.
“Is that your blood?” John asked.
The trail of blood seemed to be coming from me. I lifted my sleeve, and I was bleeding from the forearm.
“It’s not that bad,” I said. I honestly felt that it wasn’t that bad at all, considering I wasn’t in much pain. But a few minutes later, my arm was throbbing, and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. John removed his gym tee-shirt from his bag, and wrapped it around my arm.
“You gotta get to a hospital fast,” he said.
“Not here in Bed Stuy. I’ll get killed on the way to the hospital,” I said. Bedford Stuyvesant was not the safest neighborhood in Brooklyn to say the least.
“You’re crazy! You can’t wait until we get to Queens. Let’s go now!” John said, as he pulled me off the train.
John and I exited the subway, and walked up to the street level. My arm was bleeding worse than before. John asked a pedestrian where the nearest hospital was, and the person replied that Wycoff Hospital in Bushwick was the closet. I was not happy to hear this, since Bushwick was too far to walk.
This is the most dangerous neighborhood in Brooklyn. People got shot here all the time. And there was no nearby hospital. We waited for the bus in front of a sign that read “Marcy Projects.”
There was plenty of activity nearby. I looked up and saw someone on the roof. Cars were pulling up to the curb. A teenager in a green track suit approached the cars, and took money from the driver. Mr. Green track suit whistled loudly twice, and looked up. On the roof top, someone threw down a soda can, and it was given to the driver. We made eye contact with the roof top drug dealer. It was Mino Torres, Stanton’s star running back.
John and I were shocked as the bus pulled up in front of us. We rode the bus to the hospital.
“Can you believe that was Mino up there?” John said. “I heard he was accepted to a great college.”
“He’s has to pay for college somehow,” I said. “Mino didn’t get a scholarship. He said where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
At the hospital emergency room I gave the nurse a fake name. John looked at me puzzled. They sewed my arm and wrapped a bandage around me. The nurse said she’d be right back with some paperwork. I ran out, grabbing John by the arm. We ran non-stop to the subway.
“I don’t understand…why did you run out? Why did you give them a fake name?” John asked me.
“My father does not have medical insurance and I can’t stick him with this bill.”
My grandmother was home when I arrived and asked what had happened. I told her that I fell on a broken glass. My father had been robbed last month and my grandmother didn’t need more to worry about. This was New York, and this was normal. I really needed to leave New York City and never look back.
That night I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about Delancey going to the prom with Juan. I was full of regret for not asking her earlier. Juan had talked me out of it with his comments. How could I let Delancey go to the prom with another boy? But what was I supposed to do anyway? She said it was too late.
Chapter 21
The following day, I sat down with Sam, Carlos, and John in the cafeteria. John yelled and berated Sam for telling Delancey that I had impregnated Svetlana. Sam exhibited no signs of regret or remorse. Carlos hurled an expletive-laced tirade at Sam. Sam and I were looking directly at each other. I was surprised at Carlos’s outburst but Sam had betrayed him as well.
“I suppose you have every right to be angry. But I don’t feel bad for what I did,” said Sam.
I sat still, ate my lunch, and continued to stare at him.
“You know me by now, and you know what I’m about. I’m not into your little high school beliefs about friendship. Look around this cafeteria. Everyone has the same social beliefs…that high school friendships are important, and that I should play by the same rules. Not me. I’m here to try to be valedictorian and to go to Harvard, and I could not care less about the rest of you losers…I hope I never see you people again after high school is over.” Sam looked at me for a response.
I said nothing, knowing that if I remained quiet, he would lose it.
“And as for you and Delancey…I don’t know what she sees in you anyway. I did not force her to go to the prom with someone else. All I did was tell her that you were probably going with Svetlana and that Svetlana happened to be pregnant. The two of you are not a good fit anyway. I mean, I didn’t want Delancey to be embarrassed showing up to the prom with a poor, unsocialized bottom feeder like yourself…I just could not have her go to the prom with you instead of me. I don’t care who she goes with, but not you. Not while I’m still in this godforsaken school.” Sam was nearly in tears.
“Sam, I feel sorry for you. If you graduate and leave without making any long term friends, then you have missed the best part of high school. High school is not only about graduating. Not everything in life is a stepping stone,” I said disappointed.
“The purpose of high school is not the same for me as it is for you. I’ll get friends later in life, from college, from medical school, from my career. I don’t need you losers.” Sam was really on edge, his voice was wavering.
“Later in life, people will befriend you for how much money you make, or what you do for a living, or if you are colleagues. But real friendships that last a lifetime are forged in high school. This is when you are still growing and people become friends with you because they like you. It’s never gonna happen again in your life,” Carlos said.
“High school is for losers and once it’s over, it’s over,” Sam replied. “High school is not the real world. In the real world, people like me, winners, successful people, they are the ones that matter most. Not the people like you, who remain desperate for over-valued and phony, emotional childhood bonds.”
“The funny thing is that high school will never be over for someone with emotional problems and no true friends. For the rest of your life, you’ll wish you had forged better friendships while you were here, because once it’s over, it’s over. You’ll look back and always wonder why you have no real friends. Your immaturity and emotional problems will be to blame. Sam, you will look back, hoping and wishing that you could’ve done some things differently,” I said and then walked out. John and Carlos came with me, leaving Sam alone at the cafeteria table.
At graduation rehearsal, I sat with Delancey. She was happy to see me. She said that we had such little time left and that I should try harder not to botch things up. I told her I would do my best. Juan Perez stared at us angrily.
June was a three week month for school. The prom was next week, and graduation the day after.
After school, John and I went to visit Sal at the mental hospital. When we arrived at Belleview Hospital, the front desk told us that Sal, or rather Ignacio, was all the way at the top floor of the building. We took the elevator, and while walking to the farthest wing of the facility, John had to close his eyes. The patients in the hallways were disturbing to see. Some were in cuffs, and some were in helmets. All were in hospital gowns.
The very last room in the left wing had a name plate which read “I. Carus.”
I knocked but there was no answer. I knocked again, and still nothing. John turned the lock and opened the door.
Sal was crouched in one corner of the padded room, wearing a straitjacket.
“Hi, Sal, do you remember me?” I said.
Sal tried to focus. He had a hard time recognizing me.
Sal looked terrible. He hadn’t shaved in days, and looked like he had stopped eating and sleeping. He stood up, using the wall for leverage and support.
“David? John? It’s so nice to see you both.” Sal was a shell of who he used to be. His voice was weak. He’d been the smartest guy in all of Stanton, the most scientific, the greatest of all overachievers and here he was in a straitjacket in a padded cell.
“What happened to you?” asked John.
“I went to the other side…for too long. I did not make it back before sunrise. I
was gone too long. The other side. The undiscovered country. Lucy was there. I saw
Wilson. I saw Albert. Everyone was there. It was beautiful. Four moons. Lots of lights.”
“Sal, what are you talking about? Wilson is dead, Lucy is dead, and Albert is dead. You could not have seen them.” John was confused.
“The Leviathon…it can take you there…sunrise is the deadline. David, death is not final. You know what I can do. I need more time to get back to normal. My mind is a mess. I see things, I’m far from normal. More time.”
“Graduation is coming up, Sal,” I said.
“I know. I’ve been invited to graduation. I wouldn’t miss it.”
We left the facility, shocked by the remnants of Sal’s mind. He looked crazy, he sounded crazy, but I knew first hand that maybe he was telling the truth….if not all of the truth, then some of it. John was devastated to see what had become of Sal.
On the subway ride home, we were hardly able to speak.
Chapter 22
Saturday morning at the café, Christine was understandably very somber.
“I’m sorry about Eddie,” I said. “I did talk to him that night.”
She appeared emotionally bankrupt and the energetic glow that she carried with her was gone. “I was supposed to be Eddie’s date to the prom. He bought two tickets.”
“Well, I don’t have a date. You want to be my date to the prom?” I said without hesitating.
“Sure. Why not,” Christine replied.
“He had a talent for basketball, and good grades…why couldn’t he just stay away from the gangs?” I asked her.
“It’s impossible when you live in Chinatown. It’s like a whole different world. Underworld activity is a way of life.”
“More like a way of death,” I sniped. She was from a subculture completely foreign to me.
Christine wanted to go for sushi, like we used to do. This was something that I had really missed. But I had plans with Delancey for that evening. Delancey was not spending the weekend in Long Island. Her mother was out of town, and her father was opening a new restaurant in Boston.
Christine cried while telling me stories of how Eddie had fought off those who tried to tease her for her mixed ethnicity. She really opened up for the first time. We were starting to become good friends again.
Later, Christine said she was renting a room on Broome Street. “I can’t live at home anymore. My mother and I don’t get along. She kicked me out of the house. I’m working full time and I’ll be finished with high school in two weeks. I’d like to go to college part time, and try to find a better job. I like being out on my own.” With Eddie gone, she was definitely on her own.
Upon arriving at Delancey’s building, the doorman greeted me with a friendly smile. The doorman laughed and said, “Don’t look so worried; her father already left.”
Delancey was happy to see me. It was early for a Saturday night, and I wasn’t sure how we were going to spend the evening. We had not planned anything. I was less intimidated by her luxurious apartment.
No one ever looked more stunning in just blue jeans and a tee-shirt. We drank wine and talked for an hour about everything from state college to my childhood in Queens. She spoke about her life and plans for college. She poured more red wine from her father’s liquor cabinet.
Delancey felt detached from her life, from school, and from her lack of friends. Her home life was difficult, juggling between Long Island and Manhattan, between her mother and father. Their divorce had taken its toll on her. Her father was always overbearing and controlling, but now her mother had become equally overbearing. She felt that everyone was pulling at her from opposite directions. Her father and mother were trying to poison her mind against the other.
“High school is really the beginning of the end for me. My father is going to open more restaurants in Boston, and unless I go to college in Boston, it’s going to be very difficult to see him. My mother and Bruce are talking about moving to Miami. There’s a lot of change happening in such a short time period. I really don’t know, David. I’m starting to feel like I’m sinking into an abyss. I think I’m developing some sort of depression.” She poured a second glass of the Merlot for both of us.
I looked at her face, and behind the smooth skin of a beautiful teenaged girl, I could see anguish, pain, and the weight of family pressure pushing down on her.