A Taxonomy of Barnacles, page 30
“So pocht das shicksel on die forte,” he shouted. And then, just in case she’d missed the joke, “This is how heredity knocks on the door.”
As a result, Barry and the symphony conspired to shatter Beryl’s nerves, lulling her with its pastoral refrains only to shake her from sanity with the next explosion. Beethoven’s intent, Beryl decided, was to write the musical equivalent of a car crash. The symphony was neither a dirge nor a dance, nor even a military march. In Beryl’s mind, the piece was written to double as a torture device.
Barry saw no problem with this disciplinary mode. He loved Beethoven’s eccentric symphony not only because he himself tended toward the madcap and melodramatic, but because the music told a story with which he identified: the battle between fate and the human will, the war between nature and nurture. Beryl appreciated the piece for different reasons. She loved how it divorced rhythm from melody, how its strange structure served and still obscured its narrative as though four movements alone could not satisfy its epic proportions. She didn’t find it madcap, nor melodramatic. She found it, in turns, serious, like a church with broken windows, light-hearted, like Benita singing in the shower and strangely somber, like Central Park in the winter. Mostly, she loved how it made her feel when her father didn’t mar it with interruptions. Her heart swelled in the modulating bridge. Her ears twitched during the second movement. Her spirit soared when the brass section surged. She felt the fourth movement’s fermata as though her own heart had stopped. And by the last note of the finale, her soul was overwrought.
Leaving the house would be a feat due to Barry’s close monitoring of piano practice. Acknowledging the necessity for an accomplice, Beryl roused Benita before she woke for school to make an arrangement.
“Benita,” she said, very matter-of-fact. “I’m going to need your help.” She refused to adopt her sisters’ approach to dealing with Benita, sweetening their voices condescendingly then submitting to her extortion.
Benita rolled over to show her face, matted by heavy sleep, then responded to Beryl with characteristic utilitarianism. “It’s going to cost you,” she said.
On reflex, Beryl turned away but she knew she had no choice. The urgency of the present circumstances ostensibly put her over a barrel. Deciding the situation forgave such a shameful act of capitulation, she regarded her sister with new loathing, and entered negotiations. “One night of piano practice,” she said. “I’ll call if the situation changes.”
“Hmm,” said Benita, relishing her advantage, “that’s a tall order.”
“You know the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth,” Beryl went on.
“Of course I do,” said Benita. “But that second movement’s a killer.”
“What’s it going to take?” Beryl asked, refusing further indulgence.
And then, Benita surprised Beryl. “I’ll do it as a freebie for now,” she said. “You’ll get me back when I need it.”
Despite the horror of owing a debt to Benita, Beryl accepted. Benita would stand in for Beryl later that evening, dutifully adjourning to the music room at five o’clock sharp to play the piano part for Beethoven’s Fifth symphony as Barry monitored from down the hall, yelling like a sergeant. Benita would continue with this regime until the sooner of two events: Beryl’s return with Latrell in tow or the discovery of her absence. With this in mind, Beryl dressed quickly in her school uniform and then left the house with Benita as though meeting the morning bus. She waited anxiously for its approach, tugging at her uniform and peering down the avenue like a late commuter cursing the empty tracks. Finally, the bus arrived and Beryl made her escape. As Benita boarded, Beryl ducked behind the bus, sprinting across Fifth Avenue, and slipping into the park, unnoticed.
It was Beryl’s plan to search every inch of Central Park. She would make her way to the inner depths, trekking north up the lower loop into Harlem, stopping to rest and recharge in Strawberry Fields and the Shakespeare Garden. As an added precaution, she would spend every night in a different section lest the nighttime inhabitants of the park remember her face and give her away when questioned by the police. She would spend night one on the first tier of the outdoor theater, night two at the reservoir entrance, and night three camped out on the Great Lawn, adjourning to the tunnel near the Bethesda Fountain in the event of rain. Unfortunately, Beryl had never been terribly fond of camping and therefore found the prospect of three days in the wilderness more than slightly daunting. Central Park might as well have been the Amazon, its inner depths thick with forest, roamed by wild animals, and ostensibly out of the city’s earshot.
For the sake of thoroughness, she began her hunt at the very bottom of the park, heading south from the Arsenal to the Sixtieth Street entrance only to turn north again on sight of the Plaza Hotel. She did, however, stop at a vendor to stock up on some provisions, buying an orange soda and a pretzel with extra mustard for added nutrition. No trace of Latrell in the grand courtyard in front of the Plaza. No sign of Latrell on the leafy promenade lined with caricature artists. No Latrell sitting in the lush grass field where the old pony ride used to be. No Latrell on the steps of the Central Park Zoo, watching the seals sunbathing. Beryl stopped to consult her map and took a seat on the bench facing the zoo. Perhaps Latrell didn’t want to be found. The search would be harder than she’d thought. At this moment, the Delacorte Clock struck noon, jarring Beryl from her despair. Despite the growing urge to turn back, she watched the stone animals dance around and waited for the song to end before heading west into the midday heat toward the carousel.
* * *
Despite her stated antipathy to Beryl, Benita forged a similar path as though the pain of separation from her sister was simply too much to bear. By lunchtime, Benita was certain she had developed a full-blown allergy to school. She had less than zero interest in the cafeteria meal of Tater Tots and breaded pork—its skin emitted an acrid odor that was vaguely reminiscent of Bunny’s Seder meal. As she picked at her food, she ignored the giddy ruckus of the lunchtime rush. Her time, she felt, was better spent at home focusing on her new course of action. Throughout her afternoon classes, she ignored her friends and teachers, instead staring sullenly past them, her eyelids heavy with ennui. Mary Talbot, of course, was the recipient of most of Benita’s venom, which she expelled through a series of homicidal looks, unapologetic staring, frenzied notebook-scribbling and, when other students could be used as props, blatant whispering and pointing. But even vengeance failed to offer the usual pick-me-up. Benita marveled that she had ever found this life satisfying. Now, she saw school for what it was: a terrible waste of time.
By the end of the school day, Benita had heartened a bit. She spent the duration of her bus ride home considering the positive aspects of her temporary impediment. Perhaps it was a blessing that the talent show had not worked out. The venue, she now realized, was lacking in sufficient worldliness. Suddenly, all previous accomplishments seemed cruelly insignificant. Track meets, spelling bees, science fairs, and living room plays all shrunk from their former stature to seem small and paltry. Perhaps she should set her sights on a more universal forum, a starring role in a Broadway play, a front-page story in the New York Times, an invitation to train at NASA, a gold medal at the Olympics. Of course, she feared she lacked the time to attain these lofty goals. At this rate, one of her sisters could win. She needed to do something drastic.
So it was with some excitement that Benita considered a new ploy. She started by recalling the ten instances in her childhood when her father had been most angry. He had certainly bristled over the years at Belinda’s gripes, taking on his combative daughter with a certain sporting delight. He had matched the volume of the girls’ most violent squabbles, either in efforts to settle their disputes or simply to subject them to the same insufferable treatment. And once, though he didn’t know Benita had overheard, Barry had uttered during a fight with Bella, a string of curse words so profane even Belinda had been hard-pressed to translate them later that night. But there was one moment when Barry’s distress clearly exceeded all others. The loss of Barry’s pet monkey, Harry, combined with the mysterious and likely gruesome circumstances of his disappearance to crush Barry so completely he nearly lost his grip.
Living with a monkey, though seemingly odd, had instilled order in the Barnacle apartment. Every day after work, Barry entered the house and launched into his typical regimen, calling out the name of every daughter in residence, followed by the name of whichever woman was the current matron. This enthusiastic if loud entry had a certain galvanizing effect, causing daughter, wife, and pets alike to rise to a higher level of attention much like a concert musician at the sound of the conductor’s stick. One by one, each party made their way from the solace of her bedroom to greet him and submit to a tacit inspection. Greetings were exchanged, moans were uttered, and days were discussed in brief snippets, each daughter offering, according to her age and hormonal level, the appropriate amount of disdain for school, a summary of tests, races, or contests in which she had participated that day, along with a pithy diatribe on the cumulative effects of the mental oppression of being judged on external symbols as opposed to inner merit.
Then, as though mocking both the girls’ resistance and their father’s demands, Harry would click his heels in a parody of military attention, standing erect to the greatest possible extent given his species’ typical posture. Point taken, Barry would smile and silently concede his excesses, at which point defenses would be dropped and the group would devolve into something more like a normal, happy family. Having successfully diffused tension, Harry would launch himself onto Barry’s shoulder and administer a series of loving kisses that Barry, despite his fear of germs, was hard-pressed to resist. This was but one of the many tricks in Harry’s repertoire. He could also paint excellent self-portraits using cray-pas and fingerpaint. He could read, or at least, flip the pages of books. He could mimic a song perfectly after hearing it played a single time. And when a family member was feeling sad or had simply had a frustrating day, he could intuit this melancholy from the other end of the apartment and would join the sad sack to cheer her with a smile or to place a hand on her back. Everyone in the house was unanimous about Harry’s high level of evolution. The monkey was not merely intelligent. He was graced with empathy, the hallmark of human consciousness.
The most compelling proof of Harry’s mental state occurred at a more somber time, during one of Latrell’s longest and most alarming disappearances. After searches of local hospitals and numerous calls to the police, the Barnacle house began to approach a state of emergency. That night, while Bella lay awake in bed, praying for Latrell’s return, she was roused by a loud, screeching sound coming from the apartment below, in the direction of the indoor jungle. Hopeful of finding Latrell attempting a covert reentry, she rushed downstairs in her nightgown, running down the steps of her spiral staircase like a child on Christmas morning. Downstairs, Barry’s apartment was quiet but for a low, almost indiscernible hiss, which Bella followed down the hall, creeping past her daughters’ bedrooms.
She finally found the noise after a thorough search of perennial blooms. Harry crouched between a yucca and a rubber plant, staring mournfully out the window like a sailor at the horizon. At the sound of rustling leaves, he looked up to meet Bella’s gaze, his eyes revealing sincere and entirely human sadness. But the most peculiar thing of all was his odd position. His head was bowed toward the ground in an expression of humble desperation and his hands were clasped in the middle of his chest as though he were deep in prayer. Of course, the family debated the exact meaning of Harry’s posture, arguing that clasped hands could signify so many things other than prayer and furthermore, even the most devoted disciple could clasp his hands in the shape of piety without thinking of anything religious. Still, from that moment on, Bella was unflinching in her belief in nature. In her mind, this was indisputable proof that beyond feeling the full range of human emotion, Harry was graced with an awareness of distinct perspectives. Indeed, she argued, Harry was endowed with such sophisticated sensitivity as to be compelled by love and compassion to imagine God in the home of an atheist.
Benita was certain that losing Harry marked the low point in her father’s life. In fact, as far as she could tell the event was more upsetting than his divorce. Bella agreed that the moment constituted a traumatic event because she claimed it was a reenactment of Barry’s greatest regret, never having a son. It was this conjecture that caused Bella to react insensitively to Barry’s grief and Bella’s reaction, in turn, that caused Barry to suspect Bella had played more than a passive part in Harry’s disappearance. Either way, the details of the crime scene would haunt Barry for years. The empty stairway, the severed rope, the desperate scratches on the wall and finally, the indelible image of a noose hanging from the banister, its loop just slack enough to support two opposing notions: Either someone had untied the knot and aided Harry’s escape or Harry had untied it himself and was therefore the only ape in the history of the world blessed with opposable thumbs.
Every piece of evidence supported a different explanation: murder, suicide, abduction, or the work of an insider. Throughout, Barry held fast to his theory that the crime was cold-blooded murder or, more specifically, a sinister cover-up perpetrated by a family member. Bella never flinched on her account, deferring blame to Mr. Finch. Bridget believed Harry had learned Bell’s escape route and simply followed suit. Bell was positive he had taken his life to spare himself from the chatter of Bella’s current dinner party. Some of the girls thought he had been kidnapped by Jorge. Others were more optimistic, assuming Harry had tired of his cramped quarters and simply skipped out. Benita, however, was certain Harry had remained in the neighborhood. Seeking the company of his biological father, he’d relocated to the Central Park Zoo and managed to keep his old zip code.
Regardless of the speculation, Benita was sure of one thing. When her father stared wistfully into space, he was thinking of Harry. Therefore it was not a large logical leap to devise this new radical plan, something that would earn her father’s eternal gratitude, as well as the attention of the greater metropolitan area. Energized, Benita alighted the school bus with a new thrill in her step and, instead of turning right toward her own building’s lobby, she continued across Fifth Avenue toward the park’s Sixty-fourth Street entrance. The promise of rain gave the day the faintest hint of foreboding, but Benita was only spurred on by the tumultuous weather and quickened her pace down the Arsenal steps, heading swiftly toward the Central Park Zoo.
* * *
After subsisting for three days on matzoh, parsley, and hard-boiled eggs, Latrell felt he deserved a treat. In the past three days, he had canvassed every corner of the city, interviewing piano players at thirty churches and synagogues, fourteen concert halls, three college gymnasiums, a rec center, and an old age home. Deciding that his diligent work merited dipping into his savings, he turned off Central Park West into the park and stopped at the Bethesda Fountain to buy a lunch of a Coke and a pretzel with extra mustard. Exhaustion made him more brazen, causing him to eat his meal on the steps of the fountain in plain view of pursuers. He sat like this for a while, deeply enmeshed in his thoughts, oblivious to spring’s first flowers, noting instead how many trees were still bare and brown.
Finally, he exited the park at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and ducked into the subway station on Eighty-sixth Street. Despite the length of the journey, Latrell had an ironclad plan. He intended to go to Brooklyn to check out a hotel bar on a tip from a friend in the know. According to the bartender at Bemelmans, he bore a striking resemblance to the piano player at a bar in Coney Island. Just before eight o’clock, he hopped a downtown express, jumped to a local train at Union Square, and then managed to transfer almost immediately to an incoming D train at Bleecker Street. Latrell had always been fond of this trip, though until now he had only made it with Barry when he accompanied him on his trysts or, on those rare occasions when Barry took the whole family on a pilgrimage to Coney Island.
The D train was hands down Latrell’s favorite line in the city. It was like a roller coaster except better, equally thrilling and rickety but you could ride it an unlimited amount of times for the bargain price of two dollars. He had discovered this wonderful secret the first time he went downtown as a child and had found any excuse to take it since, even when he had no destination. First, it rumbled down the East River, making its way to the bottom of Manhattan. Then, suddenly you had to hold on to your seat as the train swooped up and over the Manhattan Bridge, forcing all the weight in your body to surge from your toes. Turning right, if you squinted at Brooklyn, you could see tiny people waving their arms, cautioning you to close your eyes before the sudden drop. Turning left, there was the sturdy skyline, promising to keep watch no matter how far you strayed from home.
Latrell emerged from the train and headed to Surf Avenue. Brooklyn’s brighter light accosted him but he picked up his pace and forced a smile if only for morale. He stopped at a door whose neon marquis spelled out the words MERMAID HOTEL, or tried to, despite a malfunction in the “A” and “E” letters. The word “hotel” was a misnomer considering the building had made the decided de-evolution to motel. Still, it revealed its historical luster in its grand structure and gilded font, betraying, like so much of Coney Island, the distinct presence of the past. Due to its coupled shine and grime, it also carried a quiet admission of defeat. The Mermaid Hotel was one of many similar structures on the strip, once-luxurious summer resorts whose rooms had been quartered long ago to house a less privileged population. For all intents and purposes a welfare hotel, the place combined pomp and ruin in a disturbing ratio. The ground floor contained the remnants of a formerly grand lobby and, in its corner, a small dungeon that doubled as a bar.
