"Caught Stealing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huston Charlie)Part One September 22-28, 2000 Eight Regular Season Games Remaining My feet hurt. The nightmare still in my head, I walk across the cold wood floor, shuffling my feet in the light grit. I’m half-drunk and I have to pee. I’m not sure which woke me, the piss or the nightmare. My john is just a bit smaller than the average port-o-potty. I sit on the pot and rest my forehead against the opposite wall. I have a pee hard-on and if I try to take a leak standing up, I’ll end up hosing the whole can. I know this from experience. Plus my feet still hurt. It takes a while. By the time I finish I’m just about asleep again. I get up, flush, and shuffle back to bed. On the way, a last bit of piss dribbles onto my thigh. I pick up a dirty sock from the floor, wipe the urine off and toss the sock in a corner. I crawl back under the covers and twist around a bit until I’m arranged. I start to drift back asleep and the nightmare begins to rise up again in my mind. I force myself fully awake to keep it from getting back in. I think happy thoughts. I think about a dog I used to have. I think about Yvonne. I think about baseball: long, lazy games of baseball, plastic cups of cold beer between my thighs, peanut shells crunching beneath my sneakers.Fly balls soaring over loping outfielders. The beautiful ease of the long pop fly out… No! Wrong! Baseball is a mistake and the nightmare is rushing back in. I think about home. Home does the trick and I start to ease back asleep. And only then as I finally fall asleep do I register the blood I saw on the sock when I wiped my leg, the blood from my piss. I sleep. These things are not related: my aching feet, the nightmare, the blood. My feet have hurt for years because of the job. The nightmare has been going on for half my life. The blood in my piss is brand new, but I know exactly where I got that too. I got the bloody piss from the beating I took from a couple of guys last night. By last night I mean a few long hours before the nightmare woke me up. And when I say I took a beating from these guys, I really mean they gave it to me. Free. I got lucky; they both had small hands. Go figure, two big guys with small hands. It happens. They didn’t want to bust up those little hands working on my face, so they gave it to my body. It didn’t take long. They put some good ones in my gut and ribs and I dropped. Then I took a couple boot shots in the kidneys. That’s where the blood is coming from. The alarm goes off at 8:00A.M. Now that the booze has worn off I hurt everywhere, but my feet are what’s really killing me. I go to the can, sure enough: more blood. I brush my teeth and hop in the shower. Bruises are starting to well up all over my torso and the hot water feels good. I leave the shower running and walk dripping to the fridge, grab a cold beer and take it back to the shower. The water feels good, but the beer is better. It takes the edge off my hangover, kicks up the dust of last night’s drunk and gives it life. I take the washcloth from the shower caddie and gently scrub my feet. Out of the shower now, I finish the last of the beer while trimming my toenails. I clip them very short and even and make sure there is no grit hiding at the edges. I find a clean pair of socks with no holes and get dressed. I head out the front door. There’s time for breakfast. At the diner I have bacon and eggs and another beer. The first beer was good, but the second is even better. I’m heading into the third week of a pretty good binge and the first couple drinks of the day are always the best. I have to ease into it with beer because my job starts late. If I hit it too early I’ll be drooling by the time the shift begins. I sip the beer, eat my chow, and look over the sports pages. As a rule, the Back in California, the Giants are suffering their usual late season collapse. A week ago they were in striking distance of first place. But after a seven-game skid, they’ve been eliminated from contention for the division and are trailing the Mets for the wild card by four games with eight games left in the season. Meanwhile the Dodgers are red hot and have the division clinched after winning twelve of their last fourteen. I look at my watch and it’s time to go see the doctor. I hate the Dodgers. I’ve had this appointment for a week. I’m not here about theblood, I’m here about my feet. I’ve tried every kind of shoe and insert I can find and my feet are still killing me. So now, after years of bitching, I’m finally seeing a doctor. I could ask about the blood while I’m here, but what the hell is he gonna tell me? He’s gonna tell me to go to an emergency room and they’re gonna tell me that it’s not life-threatening. They’re gonna charge me a few thou I don’t have to tell me to rest a bit and not to drink alcohol or caffeine. I don’t drink caffeine. It makes me jittery. I sit in the waiting room and think about that second beer and how good it was. I’m not worried about the kidney. If the kidney was serious, I’d be unconscious by now. It’s contused: my kidney is scraped and it’s bleeding a bit. Dr. Bob comes out of his office and calls my name. Dr. Bob is a great guy. He’s an Ivy League med school graduate who came to the Lower East Side and opened a community practice. He’ll take anybody as a patient insurance or no insurance, his rates are as low as they get, and you pay your bills whenever you can. All of which suits my situation. He told me once he didn’t want to make people healthy just to make them poor. Like Isaid, a great guy. I told him about the feet a week ago and he sent me out for some X rays. Now, in his tiny office, he turns from where theX rays are clipped to one of those light things on the wall and sits on the stool in front of me. He starts to look at my feet. He really takes his time, inspecting them. He holds each foot, first one and then the other, and kneads a bit, searching for some imperfection. All the while, he directs his eyes upward, as if they might interfere with the examination: a safecracker with his eyes shut. – Doc? – Shhh. He squeezes my feet a few more times, then stands up. He’s talking now, but I’m having trouble hearing what he’s saying. He’s gesturing from my feet to the X rays. I’m thinking about getting out of here and drinking my next beer. I’m thinking how I wish I were lying down right now because I feel a little strange. He is looking at me oddly. The roaring in my ears is not the hangover. I cannot hear over it and it occurs to me that something must be wrong. The examining table spins out from underneath me and I thump to the floor. I try to lift myself up, but I can’t. I feel a warm wetness spreading over my lap and down my legs. I can see the tops of my feet. I can see the tips of my three-hundred-dollar sneakers that are supposed to be the most comfortable things that money can buy but are not. And I can see the bloody urine trickling out the cuffs of my jeans. Something is very wrong. I sleep. This is how life changes. You’re born in California and raised as an only child in a pleasant suburb a ways east of San Francisco. You have a nice childhood with parents who love you. You play baseball. You are tremendously gifted at the game and you love it. By the time you are seventeen you have a room full of trophies. You have played on two teams that have competed for the Little League World Series and are the star player on your high school’s varsity squad. You’re a four-tool player: bat, glove, arm, and legs. You play center field. You lead the team in homers, ERA, RBI, stolen bases, and have no errors. Pro scouts have been coming to see you play all year and when you graduate, everyone expects you will skip college to be signed for development by a Major League club. At every game you look into the stands and your parents are always there. In the regional championship game you are caught stealing third. You slide hard into the bag as the third baseman leaps to snare a high throw from the plate. Your cleats dig into the bottom of the base and as you pop up out of your slide, the third baseman is coming down with the ball. He lands on the ankle of your caught foot and, as you continue up, he falls down with his full weight on your lower leg. The bone sticks straight out from your calf, and you just stare at it. The pins they stick in your fibula restrict growth in the bone. It will not heal properly and for the rest of your life you have a hard knot of scar and bundled muscle tissue that aches in cold, wet weather. No one even pretends you will play again. You stay away from the games and don’t see much of your old friends. You have new friends, and you get in a little trouble. You work after school and buy a Mustang and fix it up with your dad, the mechanic. You drive everywhere and drag all the local motor-heads. You always win. When there’s no one around to race, you drive fast on the back roads outside of town and get a rush from the speed. It’s not baseball, but it’s something. Out by the cattle ranches, after midnight, a calf wanders into the road through a split in the fence. You swerve and pound down on the brake pedal. The wheel crazes out of your hand and the car heels down on the front right tire. The tire explodes. The wheel rim bites into the tarmac and the car flips up and begins to sail end over end. You are suspended in the car, held tight to the seat by the four-point harness your dad insisted you install. The car tumbles through the air and passes harmlessly over the calf. The Ford completes a full revolution, lands on its bottom, careens across the road and slams its front end into an oak. Your friend Rich does not have his seat belt on. When you first saw the calf and slammed the brakes, Rich was kneeling on his seat, turned around and rummaging in the back for a sweatshirt. During the flip you are for a moment suspended upside down. Rich bounces around the interior of the car and falls to the roof, sprawled on his back. He is looking at you, into your eyes, his face less than a foot away, inches away. The car flips with sudden violence, Rich disappears from your vision, and as you plow into the tree he appears to leap at the front windshield from somewhere behind you. He launches through the glass and flies the short distance to where the oak catches him brutally. Lots of people show up at the funeral and cry and hug you. You have a bruised sternum and a cut on your cheek, and you look no one in the eye. Afterward your parents take you home. In the spring you graduate and in the fall go to college in Northern California. You think about being a physical therapist or an EMT. You think about teaching like your mom. You won’t go to work in your dad’s garage. You don’t want to work on cars anymore. You don’t even drive. You never graduate. You go to college for six years and study a bit of everything and do well at all of it, but you never graduate. You’re not sure what to do and then you meet a girl. She’s an actress. You show up in New York with your girl and the two of you stay on the couch at her friend’s place. Two weeks after you get to the city, she gets a job on the road and leaves. The friend tells you that you have to move out. New York has great public transportation. You never have to drive. You decide to stay. You find an apartment the size of your folks’ kitchen. You get a job tending bar. For the first time in your life you start drinking. You’re good at it. You live in New York, but you always act like a guy from a small town in California. You help winos out of the gutter, you call an ambulance when you see someone hurt, you loan money to friends who need it and don’t ask for it back, you let folks flop at your pad and you help the blind across the street. One night you go to break up a fight in the bar and get knocked around pretty good, so the next day you start taking boxing classes. You drink too much, but your parents don’t know that. You’re a good guy, you’re tough and you have a reputation in your neighborhood for helping people out. It’s nice. It’s not the life you expected, but it’s nice enough for you. You feel useful, you have friends and your parents love you. Ten years pass. One day the guy who lives across the hall from you knocks on your door. He needs a big favor. That’s when life really changes. When I wake up, the first thing I think about is the fucking cat. I’m looking after this guy’s cat for a couple weeks. God knows how long I’ve been out and if the thing is even alive. Fuck! I knew this would happen. I told the guy I wasn’t good with animals, that I can barely take care of myself, but he was really up against it, so I took the damn cat. Then I see I’m in the hospital and figure out I may have more important things to worry about. A joke: Guy is born with three testicles and spends his whole life feeling like a freak. Boys make fun of him in gym class, girls laugh at him. Finally, he can’t take it and goes to have one of them lopped off. The doctor takes one look and tells the guy no way, it’s too dangerous, might kill him or something, but he sends him to a shrink who might help out. This counselor or whatever he is tells the guy to take it easy, he should be proud of this third ball, he’s special. I mean, how many guys have three testicles, right? So the guy feels great after that. He leaves the doc’s office, walks into the street, goes up to the first man he sees and says, “Did you know, between you and me we’ve got five balls?” This dude looks at him funny and says, “You mean you only have one?” First guy I see when I walk out of the hospital I go up to and start talking. – Did you know, between you and me we only have three kidneys? He doesn’t say anything, just walks around me like I’m not there. New York, baby, New York. I’ve been in the hospital for six days: one unconscious and five conscious. The doctors removed the kidney, which had been nearly ruptured by the two big guys with four small hands and further damaged by my negligence and massive consumption of diuretic liquids.Booze. The kidney was at “four plus” when they took it out. At “five,” they simply explode and kill you. I have been told that I should never again consume alcohol in any amount for the rest of my life on pain of death.Likewise no smoking or caffeine. I don’t smoke and, like I said, caffeine makes me jittery. After I blacked out, Dr. Bob called the EMTs and had them take me to Beth Israel. He rode with me in the ambulance and when we arrived he got me past all the emergency room crap and directly into an operating room. He saved my life. One of the doctors told me all of this and when Bob showed up I tried to thank him, but he waved it off in a just-doing-my-job kind of way. Then we get to my feet. – So, your condition is chronic and brought on by the amount of time you spend on your feet at work. I’m a bartender. I work a ten-hour shift five nights a week.Sometimes six or seven nights. – You could buy a lifetime supply of Dr. Scholl’s and get your feet massaged every night and it would not help. If you want the pain to go away, you are going to have to get off your feet. – What if I?- – Off your feet. You’re like a computer worker with carpal tunnel: if you want it to go away, you are going to have to change your work habits forever. – Wow. – Yes, wow. Furthermore, the pain in your feet has been exacerbated by poor circulation, which I would say is related to excessive alcohol consumption. – Wow. – Yes. So stop drinking.Period. – Yeah, sounds good. And that was that. He told me good luck and was on his way out when I asked about the bill. – When you get a new job and you’ve paid off your bill here, we’ll talk about money. A great guy. Booze and my kidney.Booze and my feet.A pattern emerging. I called the bar and talked to Edwin, the guy who owns the place. I apologized for the lack of notice, but Edwin was cool and just told me not to be a stranger. Would I have quit if it was just the booze and the kidney? If someone said, “Get away from the booze and the drinking life or you’re gonna die,” would I have quit? I don’t know, but my feet are killing me and that tears it. I called my folks, made sure they knew I was OK and told them not to come out or expect me to come home to be nursed. Mom cried a little, but I made her laugh in the end, telling her the testicle joke. Dad asked if I needed money and I said no. We talked about Christmas a bit and how long I’d stay when I come out and then I told them I love them and they told me they love me and we hung up and I just fucking stared at the ceiling for a while. I called one of the other bartenders from work. Her name is Yvonne, we used to see each other quite a bit, still do from time to time. So she’s a girl I see from time to time. She’s more than that. She’s my best friend. But I also see her from time to time. She has a key to my place, so I told her about the cat and she promised to check on it until I got home. She offered to come by the hospital, but I said no. I want to be alone. I need to figure out what the hell I’m gonna do. So now I’m out. I walk up to the stiff on the street and tell my kidney joke, and then I’m taking a cab home. They wanted me to stay for ten days so they could keep an eye on me and take out my staples before I left, but my lack of a) cash and b) insurance encouraged them to let me go. I’ll have the staples out in a few days and just take it easy until then. I have one kidney, I’m being forced to go cold turkey, I have a hospital bill that makes the ten grand I carry in credit card debt look like a bad joke, and I have no job. On the other hand, I pick up a paper and the Giants are on a four-game winning streak and have picked up two on the Mets, who split a four-game stand against thePhillies. I lean back into the cab seat and feel a sharp stab in my former kidney and wonder what the hell was eating those guys who beat the crap out of me. This is how I got the cat. The guy’s name is Russ and he has this cat. Russ lives in the apartment across the hall from mine and hangs out a bit at Paul’s, the place I tend bar. I know him OK and I like him. He’s never any trouble and the few times I’ve had to float him, he’s paid his tab right away. He brings me sandwiches at work sometimes. Now, one night, a couple weeks or so back, he’s outside my door holding one of those pet carriers and I can smell what’s coming. I take my eye away from the peephole and lean my forehead against the door. Russ knocks again. I take another look and he’s still there, bouncing up and down on his toes like he has to go. I let the peep snap shut and unlock the door. Russ has a problem. Russ has a problem and he wouldn’t even ask, but he really needs a big favor. Russ’s dad is sick. This is true. I know it’s true because Russ has mentioned before in the bar that his dad has been sick for a while. The thing is, Russ’s dad is dying now and Russ needs to take off for Rochester right away and he can’t find anyone to watch the cat and he knows this is a pain, but he really needs help. Can I take the cat for a few days, a week or two at the most? I’m already half in the bag and I tell him I’m gonna be drunk for a bit and I’m worried about the cat. Russ assures me the cat will be fine. He’ll bring me the cat’s special feeder that you can fill once every couple days and its litter box and all that. The cat will take care of itself. I say yes. What are you supposed to do? The guy’s dad is dying. Russ hands me the carry box with the cat inside and goes across the hall to get the rest of the gear. I get a beer from the fridge and stare at the box. I had a cat when I was a little kid. I had it for years and one day my mom brought home a stray puppy and a few days later the cat split. Nobody’s fault, my mom felt terrible, but I never blamed her. I blamed the fucking cat, first sign of competition and the cat splits. Fickle, cats are fickle. I like dogs. Russ brings back the feeder, the litter box, the shit scooper, the litter, the food, and a couple cat toys. He offers me money, but I refuse. He thanks me a couple more times and I tell him to take care of his dad and call if he needs anything and he takes off. The carry box is sitting on top of the crate that passes for my coffee table. I’m sitting there on the couch with my beer and I realize that Russ didn’t tell me the cat’s name. I lean down and look through the thin bars of the carry to get a look at the cat. It’s a house cat, a mutt cat. Gray-striped back and head with a white belly and face.Looks to be a boy. He’s wearing a collar with a little tag. I put down the beer, unlatch the door and reach in. He comes right out, no fuss. I turn him around so he’s facing me and he looks me right in the eye. The tag on the collar is flipped around and I turn it so I can read the name. Bud. I pick up my cold can of Bud while Bud the cat gets comfortable in my lap and flops down and starts to purr. The days roll by and I don’t hear from Russ. And to tell the truth, I just don’t mind that much at all. At home I have a lot of booze to deal with. I could give it to one of my neighbors, but I figure it will be good for me to actually dispose of it. In the fridge I have eighteen cans of Bud, a few bottles of white wine, and a Silver Bullet. In the freezer I find a liter of Beefeater, half-full, and a pint of some Polish buffalo grass vodka, untouched. The cabinet under the sink is the real danger zone. There are bottles ofCuttySark, Wild Turkey,Cuervo,Myers’s, a variety of mixers in various states of undress, and full backups of the bourbon and Scotch. I also have three bottles of a killer Chianti and a tiny bottle of sake someone gave me on my birthday a few years back. I pile everything on the kitchen counter. I start with the beer, pouring it in the sink, but the smell backs up in there and my mouth starts watering, so I change my plan. I take the whole load into the bathroom and start pouring it all into the toilet. It works great and I feel very efficient: instead of drinking all this and pissing it back out, I’ve cut out the middleman. Bud comes in, props his paws on the toilet seat and takes a look at what I’m doing. He gets splashed with a little rum, shakes it off his snout, and wanders back into the other room.Smart cat. When I’m done, I throw all the bottles and cans into a blue plastic recycling bag and take it down two flights and out to the curb, where it will sit for God knows how many days before it’s picked up. It’s a fantastic day at the very beginning of fall. The air is clear, with the slightest chill. I go back in and get the piled-up mail from my box. I go upstairs and sort through all the bills, the advertising and credit card and calling card and insurance card offers, which leaves me with a letter from my mom and a jury duty notice. I empty the cat box. Yvonne filled Bud’s food thing and made sure he had plenty of water, but she left the crap for me. That’s all right. I take the bag with the kitty litter and junk mail out to the curb and put it next to the blue bag full of empty booze bottles. I wonder if I missed something, if maybe there’s still a full can of beer in there or the dregs of that sake. The air is just as cool as it was before, but I break a little sweat. This could be harder than I thought. I go back up, grab the phone, call my dealer and tell him I need some grass. He says he’ll be right over. The days I spent in the hospital got me through the worst of the shakes and nausea of coming off a binge, but I had a little help from the morphine they gave me. Before I checked out, the doctor set me up with a bottle ofVicodin, but I don’t like pills, they make me feel stupid. The bag Tim is bringing over should bridge the gap. Tim is a regular from Paul’s. He’s a forty-four-year-old jazz head and boozer who got lucky. A few years ago, Tim was a junkie living off welfare and the aluminum cans he picked out of other people’s trash. Then he fell into a great job and got himself off junk. The job: deliveryman for a dealer. Every morning, Tim goes to his boss’s office, where he and the other delivery guys pick up a list of clients and the product. They handle pot, hash, mushrooms, acid, and coke, and they will deliver to your home or office for no additional fee. Tim wanders all over the city, receiving a per-delivery commission and carefully saving his taxi receipts so he can get reimbursed at the end of the day. He carries a little extra grass so he can make impromptu deals on the side. He will also, in the course of the day, consume at least a fifth of Irish whiskey and some beer. Let’s faceit, you don’t kick junk without filling that hole with something else. Everyone has to figure out a way to get through the day and booze is a very popular strategy. Tim is what we call a functioning alcoholic. I let him into the apartment and he flops on the couch. Tim was at the bar when I got worked over. He holds his backpack in his lap and looks me over. – Hey, man, how you feel? I tell him I feel OK. We chat about folks from the bar while I slip – Most importantly, this shit was raised in the wild, not in a hydroponics tank by some mad scientist. Hold the smoke. Hold the smoke,man, you can taste the mountain air. I cannot, in fact, taste the mountain air, but I am getting high and, as I do, I start to think less about having a drink. – Hey, you got anything to drink around here? So much for that. Tim takes off a short while later. He’s a true boozer; if he doesn’t have a belt soon, his hands will start to shake. On his way out, I give him some cash for the bag and he waves as he goes down the hall, then stops for a moment. – Hey, did you ever find out what was up with those assholes, why they had it in for you? I tell him it beats me and he says so did they and gives a lame laugh, realizing it’s a bad joke. Then he leaves. It You can only smoke so much pot. I have smoked a great deal already and it’s time for a break. I really just want to have it around to smooth out the edges for the next week or so. I figure after that I should be in good shape. This is not the first time I’ve stopped drinking. I’ve hopped on the wagon a couple of times to see how it would go and, the fact is, with the kind of motivation I have, I don’t expect to have much trouble.Just as soon as I get the system all flushed out. But right now I’m just sitting here alone in my apartment with someone else’s cat in my lap, listening to the Clash’s Tasks are good when you’re trying to give up something. They keep you occupied and make your life seem useful. I stuff my dirty clothes in a sack. I grab a handful of quarters from my change jar, but on the way to the door, I stop. Bud has a little blanket in his carry box and I decide to wash that too. Russ should be back in a day or two and it would be nice if Bud has a clean blanket. This is the way I think. It’s my mom’s fault. I grab the blanket and pull and it snags on something in the box. I tug harder and hear the blanket rip a little. I put the laundry sack down, get on my hands and knees, and reach into the box tounsnag the blanket. Paul’sBar closes at 4:00A.M. On a Thursday it’s usually all regulars by 2:00A.M. So when I’m working, that’s when I start my serious drinking. Last Thursday there were about ten regulars hanging out in the place and I was starting to get my head on when the big guys came in. They plop down at the far end of the bar and I wander over. These guys are genuinely big; even sitting on the stools, they loom a little. But big means nothing, I’m more curious about the way they’re dressed. Both guys are wearing Nike tracksuits: one in black, one in white. They are sporting several gold chains each, which go well with the gold-rimmed Armani sunglasses they both have propped up on their shaved heads. These guys are not our usual crowd. I take them for Poles or Ukrainians left over from the old neighborhood before the East Village went Latino and then arty and now yuppie. They order anAmstel Light and a cosmopolitan.Each. They haveRussianic accents. And this is still far from the weirdest pair we’ve ever had in the place, so I fix the drinks and take the cash and they say thank you. As I walk back down the bar to get my own drink and resume my game of movie trivia on theMegaTouch, I hear cursing behind me. I turn and the guy in the white tracksuit is holding hiscosmo like the glass is full of vomit. – This is shit. He turns the glass upside down and spills it on the bar. The guy in black tastes his and promptly spits it back up, also on the bar. – This is also shit. I cannot drink this. To prove his point, he takes another sip and spits it on the bar,then he stands and walks to the trash and drops the drink, glass and all, into the can. I don’t like to fight. I have fought very little in my life, but what I have noticed is that even when you win, you get hurt. I work out four days a week and take boxing and self-defense on the weekends. I have steel-toed boots and a Buck knife. I have an ax handle behind the bar. None of this will help, because I don’t want to fight and these guys clearly do. I smile. I walk down the bar to the two tracksuits, a smile plastered on mysemidrunk face, radiating joy and love. I am Martin Luther King. I am Gandhi. I will ask these gentlemen if they would prefer another drink or their money back. I will carefully wipe their spit off the bar and all will be at peace, because I don’t want to fight. They sit at the end of the bar,Amstels untouched, the one upturnedcosmo glass before them and, as I approach, they both slip their sunglasses over their eyes like they’ve been blinded by my smile. And that is when I notice the small, girlish and simply beautiful hands they both have. I am not afraid. These men are lovers, not fighters. These men are concert pianists with graceful digits made for music, not pugilism. I reach the end of the bar and open my smiling mouth to offer them a round on the house as compensation for their disappointment. They grab me, drag me over the bar, and beat the crap out of me. Then they leave. I’ve been beat up before and had it hurt a lot worse. I don’t even look that bad. But I do close the bar early and spend the next several hours drinking and holding an ice pack to my ribs while Tim, a couple other regulars and I tell fight stories: the high and low moments of beating and getting beat. We have chalked up the tracksuits as psychos and, hey, what more can you say? A few hours later the blood shows up in my piss. I give Bud’s blanket a gentle tug and I can feel that it’s caught on something. I reach in and feel around, expecting to find a flange of molded plastic or some other deformity in the case itself. There is a flat object taped to the bottom of the box and the corner of the blanket is caught under a bit of the tape. What I took for tearing blanket was tearing tape. I untangle the blanket and, in the process, I detach the object. It is a tiny manila envelope that feels like it contains a key. I look at the envelope. The key feels odd, a bit bulky in some way. This is not mine. This is not my business. This is the spare key to Russ’s apartment or his safe deposit box or something. It is not for me and I suddenly feel nosy. I untangle the tape and reattach the key as best I can, trying to get it exactly right. I also put the blanket back in. If the blanket is clean, Russ might figure I saw the envelope and it could make him uptight. This is what I’m thinking. Then I think about having a drink and this reminds me about the laundry. I pick up the sack, say good-bye to Bud and leave. I never put two and two together and, after all, why should I? I moved into the East Village about ten years ago, when I first came to New York. There was a little grocery downstairs from me where you could walk up to the counter and buy crack or dope or coke. It’s a nail salon now and there’s a sushi restaurant across the street. There are still plenty of junkies and burned-out storefronts and a handful of hookers, but the wildwildwest feel the place had when I got here is gone. Condos, boutiques, and bistros are popping up like fungus. But murders, muggings, and rapes are way down, so when people bitch about gentrification I usually tell them to fuck off. I like sushi fine and the Japanese girls in the salon hold my UPS packages when I’m not home. And, hey, the place still has color. I come out of my building with my buzz on and stand for a moment at the curb and enjoy the fall sun. Jason is sprawled at my feet. Jason is a wino who has lived on this block from before I ever got here. He’s a real old-fashioned wet-brain drunk. He is also the barometer of my own drinking habits and this moment is a good one for me to see Jason sprawled on the sidewalk at midday, utterly unconscious, with ashortdog of T-Bird still in his hand. I step over him and head for the laundry. The truth is,I’m pushing it a little bit here. The doctor who yanked my kidney told me to take it real easy, going up and down the stairs with garbage and doing my laundry is probably not what he had in mind. I think he had more the lounging-around-on-the-couch kind of easy in mind. But I need the action, so I separate my darks and lights and add my detergent and bleach and softener and pump quarters into the machines at the Korean laundry. The place is pretty much empty, so I sprawl across two seats, pick up a This is what is left of the season: The Giants will close a series against the Rockies today,then have three games on the road against the Dodgers. The Mets will finish off the Marlins and play three home games against the Braves. I will not cry when the Giants lose. I just don’t have it in me anymore. I move my clothes to the dryer and flip through the rest of the paper. The dryer stops drying and I get my clothes. Everything is piping hot and I’m tempted to change jeans right there just to get that toasty feeling on a chilly day. I settle for slipping on a warm sweatshirt. I fold everything and pack it all back into my bag. I haven’t thought about a beer in about an hour or at least no more than once or twice. Mission accomplished, I balance the laundry bag on my shoulder and go home. Outside my front door I shift the bag from my right shoulder to my left to dig for my keys. This is a mistake. I no longer have a left kidney. What I do have is a big hole held closed by a bunch of staples. When I stretch my left arm up to hold the bag on my shoulder, my staples also stretch. Or rather the flesh stretches and my staples stay right where they are. I gasp and squeak a little at the pain and drop the bag, spin around and do a little pain dance. Then I get my shit together along with my keys and put the bag back on my right shoulder. As I do this, as the bag is settling onto my shoulder, I register something in the window of the pizza place next door. There is a counter that runs along the front window of the place and people sit there to eat their pizza and you can’t see their faces and they can’t see out unless they hunch a little because the front window is plastered with Italian movie posters down to about a foot above the counter. The owner of this place is a huge movie fan. I know this because I get all my pizza there and we talk movies sometimes. He’s a nice guy and I always tell him he should take those posters down so people can see out and in through that nice big front window. But right now I love those posters. I love those posters because of what I just barely glimpsed on the counter: four beautiful, small hands, dressed to the wrists in Nike tracksuits-two in black and two in white. I feel certain that the pizza those hands are clutching is being shoved into the mouths of two hugeRussianic thugs with a fondness for light beer andfoofy pink cocktails. I drop my keys. I drop my keys in such a way that anyone sitting at the counter of the pizza place will be able to see me if I bend to pick them up. This is so fucked up. Careful to keep the laundry bag positioned in front of my head, I squat, bending at the knees, and pick up the keys. I have not moved the bag from my right shoulder since I caught my glimpse. I do not know what the hands are doing. Nor do I know for certain that they are the hands I think they are. But I am freaked out. I hurry to get the door open and drop the keys again. Fuck this. I squat again and this time I shift the bag just enough so I can peek up into the window of the pizza shop and see who exactly is at the counter and get this over with. It’s them. They don’t see me. I stand, work the key in the lock and am inside very quickly. Weird shit happens in New York. I have run into people on the street here who I knew once in elementary school back in California. It is not impossible that these boys live around here and just happen to likeMuzzarel’s Pizza. But I’m scared anyway because this is so fucked up. I am walking up the two flights to my floor and I am repeating a mantra to myself: – This is so fucked up. This is so fucked up. This is so fucked up. And that’s why I don’t really register the sounds coming from the hall just outside my apartment until I’m a few steps away. The knocking I hear coming from my hall might just be the exterminator, or a friend, or Federal Express with the bag I lost at JFK three years ago. But the presence of the Russiangoombahs downstairs makes me think otherwise. My feet are carrying me into view of whoever is there, and my sense of self-preservation makes an executive decision. I shift the laundry from my right shoulder to my left so that it will hide my head from anyone at my door. I ignore the pain this causes and step onto the landing. I do not stop. I turn and take the next flight up without ever looking at my door. All knocking and conversation has ceased and the only sounds are my steps and breathing and the ridiculous pounding of my heart. As I mount the stairs to the next floor and climb one, two, three, four, five steps, the noise behind me begins again. When I reach the top floor of the building, I stop. There are now three floors between me and whoever is down there. My side is screaming. But what really sucks, is that for the first time in days my feet hurt. The building I live in is no palace, but when I first moved in it was in I’m standing in the hall on the top floor and I can hear the guys outside my door as clear as day. That is, I can hear that they have stopped knocking on my door and now there is only some shuffling and whispering. And then I hear what sounds like a door opening and more shuffling and a door closing and total silence. And I think,I really do, that those fuckers are in my apartment. What I want to do is,I want to call the cops. In this situation, there is no reason not to call the cops. People break into your apartment, No reason except for the huge bag of grass sitting on my coffee table and all the paraphernalia it’s hanging out with. The door to the roof has a combination lock. I know the combination. I climb the half flight of steps to the roof door, work the lock and step outside. I finally put down the laundry bag because it’s really fucking killing me. I have to leave the door just a bit ajar, otherwise it will latch and if I open it, I’ll trigger the fire bar and set off the alarm for the whole building. I did this once when I was working up here with Carlos. He spewed out every curse word he knows in English and Spanish and a few inTagalog that he’d gotten from his Filipino wife. Afterwards, I bought him a beer or three and he forgave me, but it was a pain in the ass. Fire trucks, tenants in the street, traffic jammed up and all because I needed to go inside to use the john. So I leave the door a little ajar. I have no plan. I can still call the cops, but I figure the pot is a good enough reason to take a wait-and-see approach, at least for the moment. Especially since I have no clue what these guys are doing. I do not have nice things. There is some cash in my place and a couple standard appliances, but other than that, the weed is probably the most valuable thing I own right now. So I’m on the roof and I have no plan. I walk to the front of the building and, when I get close to the edge, I go down on my hands and knees and peek over. Good call. Black tracksuit and white tracksuit have moved across the street. They are standing in front of the tattoo parlor there and doing the “look how damn inconspicuous we are” thing. One is talking on a cell phone and the other is drinking a bottle of Yoo-hoo through a straw. They are both avoiding looking at my building. I have entered new territory. These guys are looking for me. I feel confident that they have my place staked out and are looking for me, acting as lookouts for the guys in my apartment. This has never happened to me before and I’m at a bit of a loss for the next move. And that is when I realize that it’s time to cut the crap because this is potentially a very dangerous situation and I should just call the damn cops. I creep back from the edge of the building, stand up and head for the door, which the nice fall breeze has apparently blown shut. For a moment, I think about just opening the door. Trigger the alarm and that would surely bring this whole thing to a swift conclusion. Bad guys dash out, fire trucks and cops show up, I tell the simple truth and, if I get snagged on the pot, well, so be it. Sometimes you just have to be a grown-up and bite the bullet. Instead, I turn into Spy Boy and decide to climb down the fire escape to get a closer look. I used to break into houses. I was seventeen and couldn’t play ball anymore. My leg was so messed up I couldn’t play anything for a while. In gym I rode the bench with the burnouts and watched my jock friends play and thought about how I’d like to beat the shit out of their healthy bodies. After about a week, I started sneaking off with the burners to get baked behind the equipment shed. That’s how I met Wade, Steve, and Rich. Breaking into a house in the suburbs is easy. Unlocked doors are common and unlocked windows are universal. No one had an alarm back then. Rich and Steve only did houses they knew were empty. That was fun. You hop a fence and usually just go in the back door. You run the house quick, looking for cash or jewelry or drugs, just what fits in your pockets,then you get out. Wade liked to hit houses when the people were home. I liked it too. You pick a house. What you’re looking for is no lights at all or lights in one room only. A house where all the people are sleeping is a charge, but a house where someone is awake is unreal. You test the side garage door and go in there. Once in the garage, you can get a feel for what’s going on in the house. And I was at it for a few months until I got busted. The cops stopped me and Wade after we did a house. All they were looking to do was hassle us for being out after curfew, but we smarted off and they got us with cash, a bottle of Valium and some lady’s engagement ring. I quit after that. My folks picked me up at the station and I quit. They looked so disappointed. I didn’t see much of Wade and Steve after that, but I stayed close to Rich. The fire escape for my apartment is at the back of the building. I move down it quick and easy, or as quick and easy as I can with the pain in my side. I stop when I get to the floor above mine. The fire escape extends down at a sharp angle, half ladder/half staircase, and dumps you about a foot to the left of my bedroom window. Unless one of these guys is standing right at the window, I should be able to creep down and press myself against the bricks between my place and Russ’s. From there I can listen and decide if I can afford to take a peek or if I should just get the hell out. I relax. I am ready to start down the steps. And the dog in the apartment I am outside of starts to bark bloody murder. I don’t think. I fly down the steps and flatten myself against the bricks. The only way I can be seen now is if someone sticks their head out the window. I wait while I catch my breath and the dog winds down. No one opens my window. I am calm. I settle against the bricks and listen. They are in there. I can hear low voices and what seems to be a great deal of rummaging and low-key destruction. The sound is a bit faint and does not seem to be coming directly from my bedroom just inside the window. I decide to take a peek. I turn so that I face the bricks, inch over to the window and dart my right eye out and back as quickly as possible. And I see nothing. I breathe. Slowly this time, I poke my head out enough to see a wide swath of the bedroom and living area and I see nothing. No people, no signs of search or forced entry. I see only Bud sitting on my bed where he is not allowed and looking at me with an expression that clearly says: “What the fuck are you doing?” Yes, the searching sounds are in fact coming from behind me in Russ’s apartment. I repeat the process. I edge to Russ’s window and do the quick peek and get an impression of a big mess and some people. I do some more breathing and go back for a better look. There are three guys in there; I’m not sure what they look like because the blood pounding in my temples keeps blurring my vision. One of them is big, one is small, and one is medium.The Three Bears. Russ’s apartment is being broken into by the Three Bears. The thought makes me giggle. I hold it in, and it almost bursts out again. I have to get off this fire escape before I start to laugh. I go back to my bedroom window, which is locked, of course, but my bedroom has two windows and the second one is unlocked. It is, however, a few feet beyond the fire escape. But right now I want to be in my apartment and that’s all I know. I climb over the rail. I plant my left foot on the escape and grip it with my left hand and stretch. If I hadn’t had a major surgical procedure in the last week, this would be easy. As it is, it hurts like hell. I bite my lip to keep from shouting and it makes my eyes water, which, for some strange reason, makes me want to sneeze. I plant my right foot on the window ledge. The window is not ajar, so I can’t get a grip on the lip. I have to press my palm flat against the glass and push up. I don’t have enough leverage. I’m going to have to get lower. I loosen my grip on the escape just a bit and bend at the right knee while I stretch farther with my left leg. My staples dig in and my left arm is sore and I press my palm against the window and push up with my right arm and leg and tears are now streaming down my face and as the window lurches open I sneeze massively and throw myself into my bedroom as my left foot slips from the escape. The top half of my body flops into the apartment, my hips caught on the sill, my legs dangling outside the window and more searing pain radiating from my side. There are quick footsteps next door as someone runs to Russ’s window. I drag my legs inside, shut the window and curl into a quiet ball in the space between the bed and the wall. I hear the window next door open. I hear someone climb out onto the fire escape. I sense someone at my window looking in. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I stay like that until I hear them leave Russ’s apartment about fifteen minutes later. Then I getup, go to the bathroom, and puke. Big surprise: Throwing up makes my staples hurt. But I don’t appear to have popped any of them during all this. Adrenaline is leaving my body and in its wake it leaves a huge craving for booze. I drink some water. I straighten up my apartment. I remember my laundry on the roof and decide to leave it there until later, tomorrow even. Then I smoke a roach, flush the rest of my high-grade Virginia pot, make a phone call and play with Bud while I wait for the cops. I tell them about everything except the grass. First, I tell the uniforms who answer the call. I tell them about getting beat up. I tell them about finding the tracksuits outside my apartment. I tell them the idiotic tale of my climb to the roof and descent by the fire escape. They’re pretty nice on the whole and only laugh a little about what an asshole I am. Then Detective Lieutenant Roman of Robbery/Homicide shows up. If the job description for a great cop said “dark, brooding, efficient as hell, and looks great in a black suit,” then Detective Lieutenant Roman would be your guy. He asks me all kinds of incisive questions as we sit around in my apartment and all he ever looks at are my eyes and his little notebook. – How many people did you actually see? – I think five, altogether. – Why “you think”? – I didn’t get a very good look through the window, so there might have been more. But I know there were the two guys downstairs and I definitely saw three in Russ’s apartment. – Russ is Mr. Miner, your neighbor? – Right. – Tell me about the guys downstairs. – Two big guys, they were in the pizza place next door and when I got to the roof they were watching the building from across the street. – These are the two who beat you up last week? – Right. – And when they came into the bar that night, did they ask for Mr. Miner? – No. They didn’t ask for shit except a couple drinks. Then they went haywire. – OK. The guys in Mr. Miner’s apartment, what can you tell me about them? – Uh, one guy big, even bigger than the two Russians. – Russians? – The guys who beat me up, the guys in the tracksuits, had accents. I think they were Russian or Ukrainian or Polish. – You said Russian. – Or Ukrainian or Serbian forall the fuck I know, justRussianic. – OK. What about the big guy in the apartment? – Big. And I think he was Latino or something. – Hewas, what, dark? – Yeah, dark skin, butlightish. I mean he might have been black, but not dark black. – Brown complexioned? – Yeah. – Hair? – Lots of it, I think.Long hair, black. That’s what I think. – OK, who else? – A small guy with bright red hair. – Carrot topped? – No, – Fire engine? – Almost. – Good, that’s good. – Yeah? – What about the third? – Uh, not much.Averagish size, dark hair, and wearing black, I think. – You think he was wearing black? – He was definitely in black or very dark blue. – OK. He looks at his notes and waves one of the uniforms over. Without saying anything, he takes the uniform’s notebook and flips through it, looking for something. He hands the book back to the uniform and takes another look at me. And he – Can you tell me, this is difficult and I don’t want to compromise you, your friendship with Mr. Miner, but can you tell me, is Mr. Miner involved in any illegal activities? Well, fuck, what do I do with that? – Fuck, I don’t know. – This is crucial. You understand that, yes? If your friend is in danger, we need to know everything there is to know. – I understand. – Good. Now do you have any reason to believethat. And I just cut the guy off. – Forchrissake, no. Frankly, I don’t know what the guy does. I think he’s trying to be an actor or something, I think he works at a club in the meat-packing district, but I’m not sure what the fuck he does. And as much as I like him, I’m not so much worried about him being in danger since I’m the one got the shit beat out of him. I’mspazzing a little here and I know it, but honestly I’ve been under a lot of pressure and I just snap. Detective Roman doesn’t even blink. As far as he’s concerned, we’re having a lovely t#234;te-#224;-t#234;te over tea and fucking crumpets. – OK. That’s good to know.As far as danger goes… – Yes? – I wouldn’t worry too much. Figure the guys who beat you up came into the bar looking for Mr. Miner and you must have pissed them off somehow. And if they are looking for him, not you, they probably have no idea that you’re his neighbor. So take it easy and we’ll get this all sorted out. Color me reassured. – Thanks, that helps. – And you’re certain you don’t have a number where Mr. Miner can be reached? – No. – When he left the cat, he gave you no phone number and no address? – No. – OK. – It’s just, he was in a hurry and I was a bit loaded that night, so… – OK. – But he always talked about his dad being upstate somewhere. Rochester, I think. – OK. – And I’m pretty sure about the place he works, where it is and all. – OK. The way Detective Roman says “OK” this last time makes it clear that I’m just babbling now, so I put a sock in it and he makes a last note in his book. – Let’s get to it. He stands up, pulls out a pair of thin rubber gloves, and goes across the hall to Russ’s door, which he can’t open because, of course, the bad guys locked it behind them. But that’s OK because whoever looked out the window while I was flopping around left that wide open. One of the uniforms goes through the window and opens the door. I stand in the hall and watch Roman do his thing and I am thoroughly impressed. He goes through the place like a machine, telling the uniforms what to touch and what not to touch. He pokes and pries into every corner and dusts for prints and gets the job done in a way that makes you happy to be a taxpayer. Then he’s finished. He closes the door to Russ’s apartment and slaps a police seal across the jamb. He gives me his card and tells me to call right away if anything else happens and to have Mr. Miner call him immediately if and when he returns. Then he and the uniforms leave and I sit down on my couch and wish I had a cocktail and Bud jumps up in my lap and I remember the fucking key in his box. I can’t sleep. I lie in bed and think about Russ and the tracksuits and their pals. I think about Detective Roman telling me not to worry. I think about not having a job and I think about the money I owe. I think about the key. I think about the key a lot. When I remembered the key, I froze. The cops had just left and part of me was screaming to go after them with the key, but I froze instead. Who knows what the fucking thing is and why Russ put it there? But he entrusted it to me. Granted, he didn’t tell me about it, or the fact that some guys might be looking for it and I might be getting beaten up. So fuck him. And so I grabbed the key and ran after the cops, but they were gone by then. In the end, my head was in too many knots to do much good thinking, so I put the key back in Bud’s box and, since I was so beat, I tried to hit the hay. But with all the shit I’ve been through today, I can’t get to sleep. Or keep from thinking about a drink. I haven’t gone to bed without at least a nightcap in quite a while and I’m not sure how to go to sleep without it. I try to read a bit. I try to watch TV. I end up back in bed, staring at the ceiling. I can’t take it. I get up and dig in a desk drawer and take out an old brass pipe. Carefully, I break it down into its several component parts and scrape the weed resin from each one. I collect the resin on a fold of paper, reassemble the pipe, form the resin into a gummy ball, drop it onto the screen, and light up. A resin high is not an up high. There just isn’t much helpless giggling involved. Likewise it is not a lightweight high. It is not for amateurs. Fortunately, I’m not looking for laughs and I have years in this business: I am an experienced professional. I take the smoke in extra deep and hold each lungful for as long as I possibly can. If this doesn’t work I’m screwed for sleep and I don’t feel like taking any chances. I put The nightmare is always the same. I play center field for the San Francisco Giants. It’s my rookie season and we’re playing in game seven of the World Series against the Oakland Athletics. I have excelled all season long, batting over.300, hitting 34 homers, knocking in 92 RBI and competing for a Gold Glove. I am a shoo-in for Rookie of the Year. We’re playing in Oakland, it’s the bottom of the ninth and I just sacrificed in the go-ahead run in the top of the inning. Now the A’s have runners at second and third with two out. Our one-run lead is hanging by a thread. I roam center field. My teammates range around me. I feel safe. I have that great big-game feel in my stomach: half tight, half loose. In the dream, I know everything about all the guys in the game, not just the ones on my team, but the A’s as well. I know everything about the whole league. I have a season’s worth of memories, all 162 regular season games plus the postseason. The batter steps up. His name is Trenton Lane. I played against him in the minors. He’s a beast, a right-handed third baseman that loves to hit heat. On the mound we’ve got our left-handed closer, Eduardo Cortez. Eddie throws nothing but fire and hasn’t given up a run in the playoffs. The crowd loves it. The guys on the field love it. I love it. This is baseball. Trenton has arms like an ape. Anything outside he’s gonna pound, so Eddie will try to drill him inside. Out in the field we’re all shading to left, hoping for a pop-up. The play is at first. The A’s have speed on the bases, a single will score both the tying and winning runs, so if Trenton hits anything playable, we’ll go for the out at first and get this thing over with. Trenton is in the box. Eddie goes into his windup, a huge, slow delivery to the plate that takes forever. Then the ball explodes from his hand at ninety-eight miles per hour. And it moves. Eddie’s pitch is perfect; it bursts out of his hand looking like it will hit the outside of the plate, then darts inside. To hit heat like that, you have to guess where the ball will be when it reaches you and start your swing just as the pitcher releases it. Trenton starts his swing in time and his guess is dead-on. He’s leaning back in the box with the bat choked in tight against his body and he lays wood right on it. The guy is a monster. Even handcuffed by a pitch like that, he launches the ball skyward. It’s coming at me. When itflys off the bat, it shoots up at the kind of angle that screams pop-up and on any given day, it’s a ball that should fall just short of the warning track in right-center. But today the wind is up. It’s blowing out from behind the plate and as I start drifting back to the wall I can see the ball get caught up there, dancing and blowing out on the currents. The left fielder, Dan Shelton, is moving in. But I call him off: I have the ball. This is my ball. I know the runners are streaking to beat out a single. I know that cocky bastard Trenton is moving slowly down the first base line, waiting to break into a home run trot. But this is no home run ball, I can see that. This is no homer. It’s gonna be close because the wind is really moving it around up there, but this is no homer. The play is gonna be right at the wall. If I’m not perfect I’ll flub the catch, it’ll drop in, and we’ll lose the game. The ball carries farther than I thought it would. It’s going over. It’s a homer. The crowd is screaming, willing the ball over the wall. I have sudden visions of Carlton Fisk waving his arm, willing his home run fair. I put on a burst to the wall and jump, stabbing my glove into the air, and feel the comfortable thump of the ball coming to rest in the woven pocket of my glove. I drop to the ground, cradling the ball, my ball, my World Series-winning fucking ball. And the Oakland Coliseum goes berserk. I am mobbed by my team. The rest is a blur leading to the champagne-drenched locker room. There are microphones and celebrities and a call from the president and Eddie wins the Series MVP and drags me up to the podium and says he wants to share it with me. Someone brings my folks back to my locker and they’re both crying and we hug and laugh and gradually things start to settle down a bit. I’m twenty-two. I’ve spent four years as a Minor Leaguephenom and now I’m a star in my Major League rookie season. I have everything I ever wanted and my whole life is waiting for me and it just sparkles. My parents head for home, the strangers clear the locker room and I start to get undressed. I am unbuttoning my jersey. As I turn to my locker, Rich is standing there right in front of it. He’s still seventeen. He has beautiful long brown curly hair that drops to his shoulders and this goofy smile that chicks just eat up. He’s wearing sneakers, black jeans and his favorite Scorpions T-shirt. I am so happy to see him. – Hey, Rich, man. How’d you get in here? – Just snuck in, man. – Wow! Wow, you look great. How are you, man? – Good, I’m good. But you! Hey, talk about wow. – Can you believe it? – Sure, man, everybody can. There was never any question. I mean, come on. – Thanks. Thanks,man, that means a lot. – But hey, that catch! Nobody, nobody could have called that.Fucking outstanding, man. – That was. Man, I can’t, I can’t describe. That just felt. – Cool, right? It just felt cool. – Yeah, that’s it, man. It felt so fucking cool. – Awesome, just awesome. So what now, what do you do now? – Well, there’s a thing, you know, just a huge bash all night. Come, man, you should come. – No, man, I’d feel weird. – No, really. – No, I’d love to, but it’s not for me, you know? – Sure. Well, look, man, it’s so fucking great to see you, man. I can’t believe you’re here, you look so fucking great. – Yeah, well, cleanlivin ’, right? – Right, man. – Well, I better blow. But, man, it’s great to see you and, man, I’m just so blown away, so happy for you, the way things worked out. – I can’t believe it. It’s my life, you know, but I can’t believe it. – Right. Well, take care, man, and I’ll see you around. – You too, man. Just come around, OK? I mean, I’m really happy to see you, so come by anytime, OK? – Sure, I’ll see you soon. And he hugs me and I watch him join the other folks leaving the room. And I think to myself, Fuck, Rich, I haven’t seen him in forever. When was the last time I saw fucking Rich? And it all starts to fall into place and I remember the last time I saw Rich and I remember his face as we flipped through the air and he looked into my eyes and I know this is all a dream and this is not my life and I gasp for air, trying to make a sound, any sound. And I wake up shouting. It’s somewhere around 2:00A.M., the nightmare has my heart pounding and my head disoriented and it takes me a few moments to sort out where I am and realize the implications of the sounds in the hallway: Someone is knocking on Russ’s door. I have an aluminum baseball bat in the closet; I’ve had it for most of my life. I hear the knock again. I pull on a pair of jeans and go to my door with the bat in my hands. At the door I try not to breathe as Islip open the peephole and look out. Three feet away, two men are standing in front of Russ’s door. One is big in a hard-as-a-rock kind of way; the other is quite a bit smaller, but also in a hard-as-a-rock kind of way. They’re both black and appear to have shaved heads, although I’m not sure about that because of the matching black cowboy hats they wear. This seems to be a theme for them. In addition to the hats, they both sport black leather vests over black T-shirts and black jeans, which I’m willing to bet lead down to black cowboy boots, but I can’t tell from this angle. The smaller one nods and the larger one lifts a hand wrapped in silver rings shaped like skulls and knocks again on the door. They wait. I wait. Nothing happens. The cowboys look at eachother, they both wear black wraparound sunglasses. The smaller one reaches into his vest and takes out a notepad and a pen. The big one turns and faces down the hall and the small oneplaces the pad against the big one’s back and starts to write. His fingers are covered in silver rings shaped like naked women. I’m sweating. It’s very cool in my apartment, but I’m sweating because these freaks three feet away from me are scarier than anything else that’s happened today. The little one finishes writing, tears the page out, tucks the pen and pad away and turns back to the door. He slips the note into the crack between the door and the jamb, but the gap is too big and the note drops to the floor. Both he and the big one bend to pick up the note at the same time. They don’t bump heads, butit’s close. They both straighten and look at each other, waiting; then they bend again at the same time. This time they bump. They straighten again and stare at each other. The big one finally picks up the paper. The little one grabs the paper from the big one, pulls up a corner of the police seal on Russ’s door and sticks the paper underneath. Then they leave. I wait a half hour before I go out and read the note. It says, “Russ, just stopped by to say hello.Deeply concerned. Please call.Ed and Paris.” And the number of a cell phone.I don’t touch the note, I read it as it hangs there on the door and as soon as I finish I dash back into my apartment. I have a feeling that these guys aren’t really deeply concerned about Russ at all. I’m drunk. I’m at Paul’s and I’m drunk and I’m not sure how I got here. It had something to do with cowboys and being scared. I know I’ve done something stupid, severalsomethings stupid, but one big thing in particular. I’m just not sure what it is. Edwin is working the bar. Wait, that’s wrong, I’m the bartender,I should be back there. I stumble off my stool and try to circle around the bar and someone takes me by the arm and sets me back down. It’s Yvonne. She’s telling me to take it easy and putting a glass in front of me. I take a drink. It’s water. – What the fuck? What the fuck’s with the water?Yo, Edwin, let’s have a beer. Edwin ambles over (he does that, he really ambles) and plops a Bud down in front of me. I take a pull and nothing comes out. I take a look at the bottle. The cap is still on. – Yo, Edwin.The cap. Pull my cap. – Get that cap off and you can drink that beer. I wag my finger at him.That Edwin, he’s a crafty fucker. There’s something in my hand; it’s a beer. I try to take a drink, but the cap is still on. I twist the cap and it doesn’t pop off. I put the lip of the cap on the edge of the bar and give it a good rap with my fist. I rake my knuckles across the bar and the bottle pops out of my hand onto the floor,spritzing beer. I stuff my bleeding knuckles into my mouth. – Yo, Edwin, I need another brew here. – Yvonne, can you put a lid on him? – Who thefuck are you calling Yvonne? Let’s have a beer, huh? I feel something against my feet. I look down and Yvonne is leaning down, cleaning up a beer some numb-nuts has spilled on the floor.Fuck, that pisses me off. I bend to help her and slide off my stool and someone catches me before I bite it. It’s Amtrak John. – AmtrakJohn, thanks for the save, man. – Sure. – You’re a big motherfucker, Amtrak. – Yep. – Big fucker. – Yep. – Wannafight? – Sit here. I’m on my stool and Edwin is passing me a glass. He gives it to me with his right hand, the one withRUFF tattooed across the knuckles in ink blacker than his skin; the other hand readsTUFF. I laugh as I drink the water and most of it sprays. – You’re a funny fucker, Edwin. A fun-nyfuck-er! – Thanks, man. – Those fucking tattoos, man. Fun-ny! – Thanks. – Yawannafight? – Nope. – Shit. Nobody wantsta fight. What’s with that? I lift my head from the bar. The bar is empty and all the lights are on. Edwin is stacking stools. I get off mine and start to help him. He looks at me. – Take it easy, man, I’ve got it. – It’s cool, I’ll help,I can help. – Just chill. Sit still. I’ve got a jacket. I’m not sure if it’s mine, but it fits. – Edwin, this my jacket? – Yeah, that’s it. Just hang on andme an’ Yvonne will getya home. – IsYvonne here? When’d she get here? Yvonne is holding my hand. We’re on the curb. Edwin has just climbed into a cab and taken off and now Yvonne is trying to get me into a cab. – Come on, I’ll take you home. You can stay over; I’ll make some breakfast. – Naw, I’m gonna walk. – Then I’ll walk with you till you get home. Yvonne is such a sweet girl. She loves to look after me, but she just doesn’t realize I’m not safe to be around. I mean really, who knows what’s waiting for me at home? – Nah, nah, I’ll just walk. I gotta call Rome. – You gotta call Rome? – Roman, I gotta call Ro-man.About the fucking cowboys. – Jesus, are you betting football? I thought you hated football. – Football is a bitch’s sport. Baseball, that’s a fucking game. That’s a sport. – Come on, get in the cab. – Nah, gonna walk home. – Then I’m coming with you. – Nah.Gonna walk alone.Safer that way for you. – I don’t need you to fucking protect me from myself, forchrissake. Fucking go home alone. Fucking get home safe, will you. I’m walking home. It’s tricky. I push off with my right foot and drift for a moment, balancing on my left. I swing my right foot out in front of myself and lurch down onto it with a jolt. Then I push off with my left and repeat the process. The walk around the block from Paul’s to my building is revealed in snapshots, a picture taken every time I plop down on my front foot. I stutter home and it feels like the very early morning darkness is illuminated by strobe light. I have a picture of my key in my hand, a picture of flipping a light switch, a picture of struggling out of my jacket and a picture of collapsing into bed.And no dreams at all. I wake up just a few hours later and I feel wrong. I’m not sure where or who or what I am. Bud is meowing up a storm. I look over the edge of the bed and am pleased to see I didn’t throw up on the floor in the middle of the night. I’m wearing all my clothes and the lights are on and something about my pants and the way they fit is off. I don’t need to look. I can feel it. I’ve pissed myself in my sleep. I’ve pissed myself and crapped myself. I try to get up without sitting. I try to roll off the bed because I don’t want to sit in the crap in my pants. I roll off and stand. I’m half-drunk and half-hungover. My stomach is a pile of nausea and my head feels like it’s floating painfully a foot above my shoulders. I stumble to the shower and get in with my clothes on. I run the water hot and strip off my filthy pants and underwear. I push my clothes into a pile in a corner of the shower and clean myself in the scalding water. Then I turn the water to cold and stand in the icy blast as long as I can. Shivering badly from the booze and the cold, I towel off. Bud is still making a racket while I dress in clean jeans and a sweatshirt. The blankets on my bed are untouched, but the sheets are urine stained. I strip them off. I bundle the sheets into a black plastic garbage bag and stuff my dirty clothes on top. I pull on some sneakers and limp painfully downstairs to the street. Outside I dump the bag of filth on the curb with the rest of the garbage. I stand hunched against the bright morning sun and the alien feel of my body. I look around and Jason is standing a few feet away, leaning against a wall mumbling tohimself. And the shame I feel overwhelms me. I have no reason, no right, to do this to myself. Life has been good to me. Life has been good to me. I say it out loud: – Life has been good to me. I know it’s true, but I don’t believe it. I look at New York. I don’t want to be here anymore, in this city. I’m just tired ofit, I’m tired of my life here. I want to go home, and I’m not sure how to do that. I go to breakfast. I go to the diner and order bacon and eggs and lots of water and OJ. My kidney, the one still there, aches in a hot, swollen way, but I don’t know what to do about it. The missing kidney just hurts in an open wound sort of way. I woke too early and now I’m getting the best of both worlds: the nasty end of my drunk and the leading edge of the hangover. Nothing seems quite real; it’s all fogged over and I’m having trouble putting last night back together. My food comes and, as I eat, I try to figure it all out. I panicked. I was very scared and wanted out of my apartment and I ran to Paul’s just a block away. I smoked a joint in the can with someone and at some point I just went ahead and had the first drink. But first I talked with Edwin. We talked about the job, but I also asked him a favor. Did I ask him for a loan? No. Did I ask for help finding another job? No. He’s doing something for me. I feel in the pockets of my jacket for clues and come up with Detective Roman’s card. Did I call him last night after the cowboys left? Did I tell him about the note? Fuck, was the note still there this morning? I can’t remember. I’ll have to call him. Fuck, I’ll have to call him and tell him I can’t remember if I called him last night. That should do wonders for my credibility. Fuck it, I’m gonna call him, I’m gonna call him and tell him about the cowboys and the key and just get this the fuck over with. But first I’m gonna go home and feed Bud because I just realized that’s what the little shit was making all the noise about. On my way out I see a paper on the counter flipped open to the box scores. The Giants took another one from Colorado, and New York choked in extra innings.One back, three to go. And as sad as it sounds, that makes me feel better. When I turn the corner onto my block, I freak out. Down the street, just past my door, two guys are fucking with Jason. The hangover is so bad, everything about my body feels detached and my brain has given the whole day a wash of unreality, but seeing these two cretins pushing Jason around sends a blast of adrenaline into my veins. I pick up my pace and start toward them. As I get closer, I break into a little trot and all I want to do is fling my body onto these guys. I hate cruelty. I hate brutishness. Jason is as helpless as they come and I’m gonna fucking disassemble thesedickweeds. I know I should have a strategy, but I don’t. I’m seeing red and any rationality I might usually possess is strangled by the hangover and my rage. I see a bottle on the sidewalk ahead of me. When I get there, I will pick up the bottle and smash it across the backs of their heads in a single brutal swipe. I have a vision: I see the first one’s skull dent a little as the bottle smashes down, the scalp tearing as I sweep it across at his friend’s head, the jagged rim of the broken bottle lodging in the fat head-skin and ear of the second one.So much for strategy. I am almost to my door. They are a few yards beyond. They are so engrossed in bouncing Jason off the wall that they have no idea I am almost upon them. I shove my hand in my pocket and dig out my keys, open the door of my building and dodge inside. They have traded the tracksuits in for baggy jeans and Tommy Hilfiger jackets, but it was them.The Russians. I don’t care about Jason anymore. I care about me. I head down the hall to the foot of the stairs and pause to listen. I don’t hear anything coming from my hallway on the third floor, so I start up. At the landing to my floor, I stop to listen again. My breath is heaving in and out and my heart is knocking against my swollen brain, but I don’t think I hear anything. I step into the hall.All clear. I move as quietly as I can to Russ’s door. The note from Ed and Paris has been tornoff, leaving a little corner of paper trapped in the police seal. I try to steady my breathing and listen very closely at his door.Nothing. Relaxing a bit more, I hear someone cough behind me in my apartment. I start to head back down to the street to get to a pay phone and I remember the creeps outside. I think about Carlos, the super, but he has a day job and won’t be home. I think about the three cool Welsh girls down the hall who keep a spare key for me in case I lose mine, but I don’t want to get them involved, so instead I head back to the roof. I run up the stairs and everything is drenched in d#233;j#224; vu. I could swear I just went through this. The hangover makes the confusion worse. My body still feels like someone else’s, like my bones and skin are detached from anything they actually do or feel. I dash out onto the roof and trip over the bag of laundry I left here yesterday. I curse. The rest is old hat. I assure myself the door won’t be blown shut this time and head for the front of the building. I crawl up to the edge and look down. The Russians have left Jason alone and taken up their spot in front of the tattoo parlor. This is stupid. I cannot afford to be stupid. The people in this building know me because of the work I did with Carlos and because I’m a nice guy. I have lived here for ten years and am well known and trusted. I will go down to the top floor and start knocking on doors until I find someone home. I will explain through the door that my apartment is being broken into and ask to use the phone. If they refuse to let me in, I will read Detective Roman’s number from the card in my pocket and ask them to please call him quickly. I will repeat this process until I achieve success. One of the Russians looks up from the street and straight at me. I duck. That is, I drop to my belly and squirm back from the edge of the roof. He didn’t see me. He could not have seen me. I repeat this to myself for a while until I get my nerve back. I worm up to the edge and peek over the ledge. He didn’t see me. They are both as before: Black Hilfiger with White Trim and White Hilfiger with Black Trim, not looking up at the top of my building, pointing at me and hustling across the street. All is well. Someone grabs me by the ankles and yanks me backward. My hands slip out from underneath me and my face lands in the grit of the rooftop. My staples scream and so do I. My apartment is small to start with and has been made claustrophobic by the sheer number oftoughguys milling about. The Russians are in the tiny kitchen area. Whitey poking in the fridge and Blackie on the cell phone he used to call the guys in the apartment to tell them there was someone on the roof. The huge guy, who looks Samoan rather than Latino and who wears black leather pants and a motorcycle jacket, is using my crapper and I’m hoping he lights a match when he’s done because he’s been in there for a long time. There’s the skinny redheaded Chinese kid in plaid pants, a green polyester disco shirt, and a red vinyl jacket that matches his hair. And then there’s the guy in the black suit. He’s the scariest one of all because I know his name. Detective Lieutenant Roman. The Samoan was the one who grabbed me on the roof. He took me on a ride through the gravel for about ten feet,then he twisted my legs around each other so I flopped over on my back. He’s much bigger than the Russians and his hands are dinner plates. He dropped my legs, bent over, grabbed my belt and lifted me to my feet. Then he wrapped one of those hands around my throat and put a finger to his lips. – Shhhhhhhh. Then he marched me down here and dropped me on the couch and I held very still and tried not to think about the oozing I could feel coming from my wound. I’m scared shitless. Then I hear Bud. I can’t see Bud, I can just hear him. He’s somewhere over in the bedroom and every so often he makes a weak, plaintive meow, the kind of sound I would make if I were a cat in a great deal of pain. I seem to be the only one in the place worried about this, and why not? These other guys are clearly assholes. Roman has been checking me out this whole time in much the same way he did when I thought he was just your basicsupercop rather than your basicsupercop gone rotten to the core. Now he sits down in the same chair he used yesterday, picks up a slip of paper from my coffee table and holds it in front of my face. It’s the note from Ed and Paris, the two cowboys. I can tell he’s going to start asking questions and I’m just praying to Jesus that I know the answers so I can tell him every fucking thing he wants to hear. – When were they here? He is clearly referring to the guys who left the note. I am composing an answer, trying to determine what time exactly I woke from the nightmare and what comes out is: – What did you do to the cat? I really don’t fucking want to say this, but all I can hear is the pathetic sounds Bud is making in the bedroom. The Russians are paying no attention to the drama taking place a few feet away. Whitey has found some cold cuts and now appears to be looking forbread, Blackie is deep in conversation on the phone, speaking what I would definitely now bet is Russian. The Samoan tower is still out of action. So that leaves Red and Roman to look sharply at each other when I ask about the cat. – Don’t worry about the cat. The cat is fine. Right now you need to tell me when the men who left this note were here. – The cat is not fine. I can hear the cat and that is not the sound of a fine cat. That cat is fucked up and I want to know what you did to it. Red and Roman look at each other in a way that screams, “So it’s gonna be like this, is it?” Red sits on the couch next to me and I try to scoot away, but I’m already pressed against the armrest. He just sits there while I stare at him and cringe a little. Roman shakes the paper so it makes a soft rattle. – What time were these men here? Bud is probably under my bed. If they hurt him, there are only so many places to hide. So he’s under my bed and he’s hurt and scared and hungry because I didn’t feed him this morning because I was too messed up. I suck. – What time? If I could see Bud and see how bad he is, I think I could concentrate to answer. I really want to answer. But as it is, I just keep picturing the poor bastard under the bed. Red slowly reaches out his fist until it is inches from my nose. It hovers there hypnotically for just a moment,then he pops it into my face. The cartilage in my nose gives a crack, blood pours across my mouth and tears flood my eyes. I snap out of it. – Last night. I think two or so. But I was asleep. I got drunk. I’m not sure. I’m cupping a hand under my nose, trying to catch the blood. Red puts a hand on my forehead and pushes my head back against the couch. Roman says something in pretty good sounding Russian and Blackie, still on his phone, comes in from the kitchen with a dishcloth and stuffs it in my hand. I put the cloth to my nose and try to slow the blood. I’m thinking to myself that this is just starting. Right now, this is just starting. Roman asks a few more questions about the cowboys and I tell him everything I can and things seem to be going swimmingly. Red fetches some ice from the freezer for my nose, to keep it from swelling up like a squishy tomato. Whitey finds the bread and is feasting quietly on an enormous Dagwood in the kitchen while Blackie carries on with the phone. The Samoan remains behind locked doors. Roman calmly asks very precise questions. And Bud keeps getting quieter and quieter. Then Roman asks the only question that really matters. – Where is Miner? And I just don’t have a suitable answer to that question. – We really need to find Mr. Miner. – And I really, really wish I could help you guys out. I mean, you have no idea how much, but I just don’t fucking know. Roman leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. He rubs at his forehead like he has this massive pain shooting through his brain. With his eyes still closed, he starts to talk. – There is an object, something valuable. The ownership of this object is in some dispute. Be that as it may, these men and I can rightfully lay claim to this object, and we intend to do so. We have formed a profit-sharing enterprise, but if we do not find the object, there will be no profits to share. And I assure you, these men value nothing so highly as profit. Therefore, they are inspired in this situation to use means and go to lengths they might not otherwise. This is the nature of motivation. The object in question was last known to be in the possession of Mr. Miner. Now, in a moment, I will ask you a question regarding Mr. Miner and no matter your answer, it is essential that I be certain you are telling the truth. If there is any doubt in my mind, I will allow these men to do with you as they wish until that doubt no longer exists. Which, I suppose, is one way of saying, “Tell us what we want to know or we’re going to kick your ass.” – Where is Mr. Miner? And as truthfully and sincerely as I possibly can, I answer. – I don’t know. Roman’s eyes remain closed. He sighs a little. – But he left a key taped to the inside of the cat’s carry box, if that’s what you’re looking for. And Detective Lieutenant Roman opens his eyes right up. I have a secret. I have a secret these guys know nothing about. I have a dirty sock stuffed in my mouth to keep my screams from shattering the whole building, but I also have a secret. I told them where the key was and they looked in the box and just as I was getting ready for my life to get normal again, Red, who was looking in the box, popped his head out with a frown. – No key. And those two words revolved around and around in my head. They meant something, but I wasn’t sure what. So they just kept plowing through the smog of my hangover, looking for a place to land while my apartment got quieter and everybody could hear Red say, again: – No key. And that’s how I end up facedown on my bed with a mouth full of sock and Red sitting on my legs, pulling out my staples one by one with the needle-nose pliers they found in the toolbox under my sink. And I have a secret. The secret is,I don’t know where the key is. So these guys can do whatever they want and I just won’t talk.Because I have nothing to say.Lucky me. I’m having trouble breathing. I have the sock in my mouth and my nose is clogged with blood, so I’m having trouble breathing. The bad guys seem to be aware of this, so they have developed a system. The way it works is, while they’re actually hurting me they leave the sock in to muffle the screaming, and when they ask a question they take it out so I can answer. Every time the sock comes out, I gasp a bit to get as much air as possible before I tell them I don’t know anything and they stuff it back in and I start to suffocate again. I’ve got about fifty or so staples. The first few they yanked out real quick, without asking any questions at all, just so I’d get the idea, I suppose. Now, they’re getting serious about it. Red sits on my legs to keep them from thrashing around and digs the tips of the pliers into my wound until he gets a good grip on one of the staples, then he starts to pull on it, slowly. The Russians have my arms pinned down, stretched straight out from my shoulders to either side of the mattress. Whitey has the right and Blackie the left. They feel like they might pop out of their sockets at any moment. I know Roman is standing near the bed off to my left, because that’s where his voice comes from every time he asks another question I don’t know the answer to. The Samoan has yet to makehimself known to me, so I assume he’s still on his own clogging up my toilet. Bud is definitely under the bed; I know this because every time I scream through the sock, he starts to yowl along with me. They started with the easy questions. – Where’s the key? To which I mostly spluttered. – But I left it right there, it was right there. I don’t know what could have happened to it. Then the questions start getting a little weird. – What is the key for? The sock comes out. – Gasp! Gasp! Gasp! What? Gasp! What is the key for? Gasp! Roman pauses for a moment and I’m expecting the sock to come back, but it doesn’t. – What is the key for, what does it open? What the fuck? – Gasp! How the. Gasp! How the fuck should I. Gasp! Know? It’s This is not a state-approved answer. The sock is stuffed in my mouth. I’m in the middle of drawing in a lungful of air and the sock cuts it off. I get sock fluff lodged in my throat and I start to choke. I feel like I might vomit. I don’t want to vomit. Please, God, don’t let me vomit. Please, God, I don’t, I just don’t want this. Please make this stop. Please. Red gets a grip on the next staple and starts to tug. The original wound was sharply defined, a pain that had carefully designated borders. As Red pulls at the staple, I feel the wound stretch. The original pain is distorted and twisted and a new pain, more crude, takes its place. Just as the flesh around the staple starts to tear, I feel a pop and the wound snaps back. The Beach Boys’ The sock comes out and I vomit onto my pillow. – What is the key for? I’m coughing quite a bit now, trying to spit up the puke and breathe at the same time, but I manage to give him an answer. – I don’t. Gasp! Choke! I don’t know. I don’t know. Choke! – What did Miner tell you about the key? – Nothing, he didn’t say. Gasp! He didn’t say. Choke!Nothing about the key. I don’t know about the key. – You knew where it was. – Gasp!Accident. I found it by accident. I get the sock again. Red is having trouble getting at the next staple, he’s really digging in. The pain is making me even more nauseous than I was with just the hangover and I think I may vomit again. Please, please, God. My throat is clenching and hitching and the blood in my nose is running back in. The coppery taste of the blood is blending with the bile of the puke. Please. Oh, God, please. The staple gives way and I scream again. They yank the sock and I spill out another flood of puke, this one tinted pink with blood. – What did he tell you when he asked you to hide the key? I can’t talk, I just can’t. I heave and blubber and beg and Roman sticks the puke-and-blood-soaked sock back in my mouth and Red hurts me again and I realize then that they are going to kill me just as soon as they can. Roman is a cop. Despite what you may have heard, the behavior he is now engaged in, not even an officer of the NYPD can get away with. They will finish asking questions and, when I have no more to offer, they will kill me. And, having had this realization, I start trying very hard to think as clearly as I can, because I don’t want to die. – What did he tell you about the key? – Gasp! Gasp!He.Didn’t. Tell. Me. Anything. Gasp!About.The.Key. – Why did he give you the key? – He.He. Gasp! He didn’t give me the key. – Why did you say you had the key? – He. Fuck. He gave me the. Gasp!The cat. The key was in its box. I didn’t know. He didn’t give me the key. Gasp! He stuck me with it. I didn’t know. – What is the key for? Think. Think. I don’t want to die. I need to think. I’m trying to think of ways not to die, but the pain and the hangover keep getting in my way and I can’t keep my thoughts together in one place long enough to make them work for me. I try to keep answering the questions without saying something that will make me dead. – I don’t know. – What does it look like? – I didn’t see it. I get the sock and another staple goes. I think I black out for a couple seconds, I can’t really tell for sure. – How do you know there was a key if you didn’t see it? – It. Gasp! It was in an envelope. Gasp! I felt it. It felt like a key. Gasp! It felt like a lumpy key.Big.Lumpy. – Where is the key now? Fuck! – I. Don’t. Know. I just don’t. And the sock.And another staple. – We did not come here looking for a key, but if Mr. Miner gave you a key, then we want it. Where is the key? – Gasp! I just. Fuck! Gasp! I just don’t know. I put it back in the box yesterday. Gasp! And last night after those guys were here, I got drunk. Choke! I got real fucking drunk. I fucking blacked out. I fucking shit my pants, for God sake. I don’t know where it is now. I left it in the box. The sock.A staple. – Where is the key? I say nothing. I try to get as much air as I can. I breathe. I try to figure out a way to live. And Roman says something odd: – Chew the fat. I have no idea what that’s about until Blackie releases my arm and starts scrabbling under the bed and I hear Bud crying. Then I realize he meant to say, “Get the cat.” In all fairness, he probably did say “Get the cat” and I only heard “Chew the fat.” Bud is giving Blackie hell under the bed and the bastard is grunting and cursing in Russian. My left arm is free now, but the circulation is all messed up and it hurts so bad that I can barely move it. Not that I’d know what to do with it if I could move it, but it’s nice not to have someone pulling at it for the moment. – Man, just. Gasp! Just leave the cat. Just leave it alone. Gasp! Don’t hurt the fucking cat. Aren’t there rules about this kind of thing? I mean, there are rules, right? You can do whatever you want to people, but you don’t hurt fucking animals. As if on cue, the toiletflushes, the door to the bathroom opens and the Samoan returns. Enter the torturer of animals. – Sorry, guys, I hadta drop a deuce. Hey, you got air freshener or what? Sooner or later, even the most profound events of your life are reduced to concerns like this. – Under the sink. – I looked there. – The kitchen. Not the bathroom sink, the kitchen sink. – Fuck you, who keeps freshener under the kitchen sink? – I do. – What, your shit doesn’t stink? You don’t needno freshener in the bathroom? Meanwhile, Blackie has got hold of Bud and is dragging him out of his hiding place, but the fur is flying. Bud comes into the light of day howling and clawing at Blackie’s eyes. As the Russian stands upright, I get my first look at Bud. He’swrithing this way and that, trying to get a piece of someone, but his left leg is twisted up real weird and he’s not moving it at all. – What the fuck? What, man, what did you do to the cat? Suddenly the Samoan reaches over and grabs Bud. He wraps those huge hands around the struggling cat and locks him up. Bud’s legs are all trapped, just his head sticks out of the Samoan’s grasp. And then Blackie hits him, the fucker makes a little fist out of his little hand and hits Bud in the face. – I kicked this shit cat, this fucking shit cat I fucking kicked. This fucking shit cat, I tried to pet and it fucking bit me and I fucking kicked the shit cat. So fuck you, Mr. Bartender, can’t make a fucking cosmopolitan. Mr. Fucking Shitty Drink Maker with the Shitty Cat. He punches Bud again. They get the sock back in my mouth before I can finish screaming at Blackie. My head is clearing. The few minutes I had to breathe helped and the adrenaline has cut some of the haze and I’m starting to think a little more clearly. They want the key. I don’t know where the key is. As soon as they feel sure I don’t know where the key is, they will kill me. If I did know where the key was and I told them, they would get the key and then kill me. I have no idea what to do. Done battering the cat, Blackie gets a fresh grip on my left arm and stretches it back out. Roman twists my head to the left so I can get a good look at the Samoan and whatever he’s gonna do to Bud. Red is still on my legs and he resettles himself, getting comfortable for the next round. Roman is getting cute. – If you were the key and you had mysteriously disappeared, where would you be? The sock is still in my mouth, but I grunt so he knows I’m following him. – Where would you hide if you were a key? Breathing is starting to be a problem again. – Would you hide in this apartment? Bud now has a scrape on the side of his face where he was hit. I can’t really tell if he’s awake or not. The Samoan tucks the cat into his left armpit, keeping all his limbs pinned except for the broken left leg. – Would you put yourself in an envelope and send yourself somewhere? Very gently, the Samoan has taken hold of Bud’s injured leg. He extends it until it’s fairly straight. I can see the little bend where the bone is broken. I can hear Bud give a mew of protest, but he’s clearly run out of fight. – If you were a key that wanted to hide itself, would you give yourself to a friend for safekeeping? The Samoan starts to twist Bud’s broken leg. He twirls it around and I can see the loose skin bunch up on itself at the break. Bud comes back to life for a moment, yowling and trying to wrestle free, but the Samoan has him pinned tight. A thin stream of urine is leaking out from under the Samoan’s arm, but he doesn’t notice or care. Bud is shaking now and probably going into shock and dying. I’m jerking around on the bed, but I can only move a couple inches in any direction and the boys dig in and hold me tighter. Black speckles are filling the corners of my eyes and that’s OK because I really don’t want to see what it looks like when the Samoan gives Bud’s leg another twist. If I were a key, where would I hide? I guess I would hide with a friend, yes, that sounds like me. Fuck, yes! I start screaming it. – I took it to the bar! I took the fucking key to the bar! I gave the key to Edwin to put in the safe! The key is in the safe at the bar! They pull out the sock so they can understand what I’m saying. – On the roof, the key. Gasp! It’s on the roof. Gasp! There is a pause. I breathe. – Where on the roof? – My. Gasp! My laundry bag is up there. Gasp! I did, I did my laundry yesterday. I. Gasp! – Why is it with your laundry? – I putit, I put the key in my pocket when I found it. And. Gasp! Later I did the laundry and I washed those pants. Gasp! It’s. It’s gotta be on the roof. I left it there. – Why on the roof? – Yesterday. When I saw you guys yesterday and I went to the roof. Gasp! I had it with me. I left it there. I forgot about it. The Samoan still has hold of Bud’s leg, but he’s not twisting it anymore. Roman lets go of my head and I breathe and breathe. He turns to the Samoan. – Go check. The Samoan drops Bud. Just lets him flop to the floor into the little puddle of cat pee. Bud lies there, like me, and breathes. The Samoan is heading out the door. – There’s a lock. Roman looks at me. – Where? – The door to the roof has one of those push-button lock things. – And? – Three-nine-eight-nine-two. Roman looks at the Samoan to make sure he’s got it and the Samoan nods once and goes out the door. Roman drifts into the living room and this seems to indicate a time-out. The Russians let go of my arms and light cigarettes and Red climbs off my legs and walks around, stretching his own. I watch Bud. He doesn’t look very good. A couple minutes pass. That’s when the Samoan pushes in the wrong combination for the door to the roof, tries to force it open, and sets off the fire alarm for the building. Things go about as well as you could hope for I suppose. Roman looks at me. He just stares into my swollen eyes as he tells Red and the Russians to get out. They leave just as the Samoan is coming back down the stairs and, over the alarm, I can hear them shouting at him to get out. I can hear people starting to drift out into the hall as Roman pushes my door closed and comes back over to the bed. He is careful not to step on Bud, which I appreciate. He sits on the edge of the bed. I can move a bit, so I roll onto my right side to look at him. Everything hurts. People are talking in the halls, but no one seems to be evacuating the building. This is the nature of New York City: alarms go off so often that no one wants to respond to them until things start burning down or blowing up in front of their eyes. Nonetheless, the NYFD should be here in a moment and that gives me comfort. Roman rubs the back of his neck. – Is it up there, the key? I would like to smile at him enigmatically. I would like to rip off some cunning bon mot or scintillating repartee. I settle for spitting up some blood. – If you know where either the key or Mr. Miner is, you should really tell me now. I look at Bud. He’s a mess. I look back at Roman and keep my mouth shut. He gets off the bed and heads for the door. He opens the door and takes a last look around the apartment like he’s reliving fond memories from his wistful youth of bygone days. – I really do need that key. So get it and call me or I’m going to start hurting your friends. Don’t call the police. It won’t help. I know everyone. Good-bye. And he waves as he goes out, the door swinging shut behind him. The alarm turns off, which means the fire guys must be out there now. I could yell. I could yell for help and they would come and take me and Bud to a hospital and make us better. And then someone would ask questions and someone would call the cops and I won’t know who to trust. I need to get up and help Bud. And I will in just a second. The phone rings. I let the machine pick it up. – Hey, it’s your mom. Are you there? OK, I just called to say hi and check up on you. We didn’t hear from you yesterday when you got home from the hospital… Anyway, give us a call when you get in so we know you’re all right. Dad’s at a soccer game today, but I’ll be around. Oh, did you get a package? I sent a care package with some stuff to make you feel better while you rest. Just stupid stuff, but let me know when it shows up so I don’t worry about it. OK, we miss you, can’t wait to see you at Christmas. We love you. Call soon. I miss you, too, Ma. Mom and Dad still live in the house I grew up in. Mom is the principal at a continuation school, and Dad has a little garage and spends his days working on specialty cars. I love going back to visit. And I always go home for Christmas. I get my ticket a couple months early because it’s cheaper. The ticket is in my desk drawer right now, and I’m gonna use it to get the fuck out of here. I get off the bed and everything hurts. My legs are stiff and asleep, my arms and shoulders are sore and feel unnaturally heavy. My nose pulses hotly with every beat of my heart. The flesh around my wound feels grated. I stand and I can feel blood running down my side, into the waistband of my jeans. I limp over to Bud. He’s breathing very rapidly and shallowly and his broken leg is still twisted around. I bend over stiffly and, with as much care as possible, I try to untangle his limb. He jerks a bit and makes a slight sound but remains unconscious, which I take as a very bad fucking sign. I leave him on the floor for now and head to the bathroom. On the way, I remember something and grab the air freshener from under the kitchen sink before I go in. Good call; it reeks in here. I can’t get my shirt off over my head, so I take the scissors from the medicine cabinet and cut it off. They ripped out about nine staples and left a tear in my side just above my left hip. I drench a towel in hydrogen peroxide and use it to clean the hole. It’s bleeding, but the bulk of the stapling is intact. I get a huge wad of gauze and use it to cover the bad stuff. I have to get some electrician’s tape out of my toolbox to hold the bandage in place. My nose is a real mess. I clean up all the goop to get a good look.It’s bright red, squashed, and bent to the left, but it has stopped bleeding. I touch it gingerly with my fingertips until I get a sense of how it has been broken and what belongs where and then I give it a rasping twist and a yank. – Mother! Fucker! It gives a little crackle and starts to bleed again. I tilt my head back and stuff some more gauze into the nostrils and that’s about all the time I figure I have for first aid. The fire department has left the building and I have no idea how soon Roman and Co. might return, so it’s time to go. Bud hasn’t moved, but he’s still breathing. I get an athletic bag from the closet. I grab some clothes, my plane ticket, my ID, keys, credit cards, about a grand in cash tips from the bar. I stuff it all in the bag. Then I put in a couple towels, molding them to create a little hollow. I could put Bud in his case, but I’m afraid he’ll bounce around in there. I pick him up and tuck him snugly into the little nest of towels and zip the bag about halfway. I have him on his back so the broken leg won’t fold up underneath his body and it’s easy to imagine he’s sleeping peacefully, but he’s not. I have to get out of here. I get a cab right away and sit in there with my head back against the seat until the driver snaps me out of it. – Where to? This is not a taxi for sleeping in, it is for driving in. Where to? Which is a great fucking question, I suppose. I give the driver an address across town just off the West Side Highway. I can’t get on a plane yet. I need to get cleaned up, I need to think. I pass out. I met Yvonne right after she showed up in New York about six years ago. She was hanging out at Paul’s and mentioned she needed a job. Edwin put her to work. She was a few years younger than me, twenty-two at the time, and we hit it off because we were both from California. But she had a boyfriend, so I backed off. One night, I was working and she came in, her boyfriend had just dumped her. She stayed till closing and took me home. She’s an artist, a sculptress. She uses ceramics, old rusted iron, bits of antique wood, and assorted trash to make dollhouses. She populates the houses with handmade glass figures shaped to look like people from her own life or books or TV or movies or whatever. Sometimes she sells them, sometimes she breaks them up and uses them in new pieces and sometimes she sets them on fire, takes a picture of that and sells the picture. I have two of her houses in my apartment and last year I gave another one to Mom for Christmas. I think they’re pretty cool. I think Yvonne is pretty cool. I’m just not in love with her.Which would be fine if I didn’t know she was in love with me. We carried on for quite a while, but I cut it off in the end.Mostly. I wake up and the cabbie is pulling my arm and shouting at me: – Not for sleeping in. You are here now, so you must pay. Pay and get out. Stop sleeping and get out. We’re parked in front of Yvonne’s building. I shake the cabbie off, give him some cash, get my bag and step onto the curb. The cabbie doesn’t even wait for me to close thedoor, he just peels out and crams his taxi into the never-ending stream of cars sweeping past. I stand there for a moment, collecting myself. My side feels damp and the throb in my nose is worse than ever. Plus, the hangover still has my head wrapped in Jell-O. I try to buzz Yvonne, but there’s no answer. She still has my key and I still have hers. I open the door and start up the stairs. She has a small loft on the sixth floor that doubles as her apartment and studio. I climb the steps a half flight at a time. Bud continues to breathe. I get to the top floor and slump against the wall. I’m losing it. I support myself against the wall and walk-stumble to Yvonne’s door. It takes a while to work out the keys and, while I’m tinkering with the lock, the door opens and Yvonne is standing there still wet from the shower, wearing a robe, her hair up in a towel. She looks great. When she gets a look at me, she gives a little gasp and puts her hand over her mouth. One of the clumps of gauze falls from my nose and a stream of blood dribbles out. I smile apologetically. – Someone hurt my cat. And. I. Black. Out. |
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