Jack Womack, page 14
“Somebody else evicted,” Wanda muttered. “Damn landlords never give nobody a chance to make good.”
As in our day, a radioed teen added sound onto noise; here his implement was lasereo size, held but two buttons, plugged into a lampbase with a long cord and broadcast a pregame baseball show from the Polo Grounds, wherever those were, to an attentive crowd. All along the sidewalks locals hung, chattering in groups, arguing between pairs, wandering along. Men kneeled above subway grates, dropping down lures of string as if to fish.
“Built the grates,” she said. “Never built the subway. Ran out of money. Still going to tear the el down next year, they say. Tore down the one on Sixth Avenue last year.”
At one shaded streetcorner an elderly woman sold big pretzels, her cart two wooden crates, her display case a worn wicker basket. “Pretzels,” she mouthed, toothless. “Pretzels a penny. Please buy a nice pretzel.” Plaid-skirted little girls hopped across chalked pavement; shirtless boys flung pocketknives into a patch of dirt where once a tree had stood. Dozens waved and smiled at Wanda as we passed; she acknowledged all with word or nod. We passed two men in ragged wear curled atop themselves, bunched behind trashcans, dead to all worlds save their own.
“Bet you don’t see that in your day,” she said. “Damn Depression’s never going to end, I don’t think.”
She was right; in our day, in similar terrain, there’d be twenty piled deep, sleeping as they might until they were awakened by assault or siren or the smell of their own flesh burning away.
“Least it finally caught up with the ones that had all the money,” she went on. “They’re still better off than us but they’re hurting bad. Serves ’em damn right.”
We walked before a newer building, a three-story stone with curved chrome trim and silver letters. UNITED STATES BANK, it was; FOUNDED 1933. Wanda spat on its steps.
“Your bank?” I asked.
“Only bank there is,” she said, “if you use banks.” At the next corner we pushed through an audience; they surrounded a man standing atop a rickety stepladder, flapping his arms as if to attempt ascension, his voice echoing like summer thunder.
“Negro man wants a fair deal!” he shouted. I eyed two black policemen standing near. “Wants the same pay as a white man if he does the same work. Wants to go where he wants when he wants like a white man do. Wants respect for being a man!” His crowd assented. Having passed, Wanda paused, turned to listen. “Not a half man, a whole man. With whole rights. Have schools worth sending your kids to. Have subways you can sit on and not stand!” An enormous yes rose from the crowd. “Have police working for you and not against you!” His small mob’s roar tripled twiceover. The two policemen quickly moved.
“All right, break it up—”
“Move along,” said the other, pushing aside two white-haired elderlies. “Break it up.”
“Look at ’em,” said the speaker, descending from his ladder. “We want free speech in this country like the white man has—”
“Get back to Russia,” cried the larger of the two guardians, rushing up, clubbing the man pavementways; before he kissed the street his crowd was gone. Wanda lowered her head; turned and moved on.
“What’s ongoing?” I asked, following.
“One of those speechifyers,” she said. “Most of ’em hang out over on Lenox. They don’t like ’em comin’ over here too much and they never like ’em when they start talking about cops. But ever’ word he said’s true.”
“He bore no Russian look,” I said. Wanda laughed.
“Babes in the woods, all of you.”
A few hundred meters more and we reached our evident destination, a small candy store with dirt-blackened windows. Eyeing up and then downstreet, she entered; a bell attached to the door tinkled as we crossed over. The windows were dew clean in comparison to the shop’s inside. Beneath a long smudged glass counter lay Kerr’s butterscotch and Oh Henry! bars, their gray paper crinkling around their grisly cores. Several yellowed papers stacked near bore previous month’s dates. Countered behind was a sullen young boy, an oversize cloth cap shading most of his head, a toothpick wiggling at mouthcorner.
“They’re in?” she asked. The brat nodded without looking, thumbing rearward towards an all-concealing drape. “Better be.” Slipping behind the curtain, we faced a smooth wall broken by a single metal door. She knocked three separate knocks. Someone sized us through the door’s spyhole before unlocking; the watchman showed, a slender man of café-au-lait tint, wearing a dress vest and trousers cut for look rather than ease. Lowering his pistol, he smiled, gleaming incisored diamond’s glint.
“Hi-de-ho, big woman.” He sounded theatrically trained. “Come right in.”
“Put away that cannon,” she said, entering. Within showed an unwindowed office holding no furniture save for filing cabinets, a massive wooden desk and a tall coatrack. Two of those antique phones were desktopped. Hanging above the desk was a framed photo of Teddy Roosevelt; Cedric, I noted, wore similar nosepinching glasses. Cornered was what, in these days as since discovered, was called a Victrola; on its spinner black wax played Verdi’s screams, and I wondered at my musicmate’s taste. Atop Cedric’s silk shirt lay a broad green-and-purple tic, noosed tight round his slender neck. Hanging on the coatrack was a dark pearl-buttoned jacket and a sky gray derby; dried vomit speckled both.
“Miss Wanda,” he said, “I’m just a wreck this morning. Up all night taking care of Rockefeller back there—” Downhall, rearward, I heard stumbling’s sound, as occurs after a long bout.
“Dump him in a bag and drop him in the river. Cedric, I didn’t come here to get an earful—”
“He and one of his floozies got into a row last night, don’t want to know what happened but his knuckles were all skinned up—anyway, they must have been drunk. I know he was. Came home, ripped all his clothes off like he was Josephine Baker and went to the bathroom. I hear this thud like a horse keeled over in the heat and I go in and he’s passed out between the john and the wall. I greased him all over with Dixie Peach and then took hold and pulled—”
“I don’t want to hear about your love life,” she said. “Where’s this passport Norman was talking about? I got things to do, Cedric—”
“Oh. We’ll just gossip when Miss Wanda wants to, I suppose. All right,” he said, trotting deskways like a new-groomed pony. “This is our man in need?” He measured me plain; I felt X-rayed. “A military man, I hear. He’s staying with you?”
“Quit flittin’, Cedric, and get with it.”
“Put curdled milk in the coffee this morning?” he asked, arming me with quick hand. “When she gets too big for her britches”—he winked—“shouldn’t be long, you just come up here and stay with us as long as you like.”
“You’ve what’s wanted?” I asked, preferring not to commit.
“Never heard any complaints.” Unlocking his desk drawer, he took out a thin green booklet. “Here you go, you Venezuelan firecracker. Brought a snapshot? Won’t work otherwise.” Passport handed over, he toreaway my photo without looking it over; swabbed its rear with mucilage brush and thumbed it pageways into the booklet. After flapping it a few times, he decided it had dried. “Sign as I’ve got you listed. Gave you a new monicker, you’ll see.”
My readjusted natality was August 7, 1892; my alias was—
“Anselmo Perón y Caracas Valentino?”
“Sounds so south-of-the-border, doesn’t it?” he said. “I can almost see the cactus. Sign there, muchacho. A high yellow like you won’t have no trouble passing.”
A shambler emerged from hall’s dark; his form, once muscular, raced towards fat. Lee the Blood showed in less than magnificence, wearing knee-length undershorts dabbed with red hearts; a sleeveless under was tucked under shortsband.
“Wanda,” he said, rubbing his face as if to transform its shape. “What’re you doing here?”
“Collecting on tramp’s debts,” said Cedric. “Miss Wanda, you just tell Doc that if he ever wants a big favor all he has to do is get Lee to bring in all his girls for an exam”—he paused, eyeing Lee with blood—“and then plug the bitches up.”
“Easy, Cedric,” she said. Lee leaned nearer, reached around her waist as if looking for a handle with which to hold himself upright, patted one casabalike buttock.
“My fine dinner’s not gonna ride with the master?” he asked, sounding yet drunk. “Ain’t comin’ in on that tab?”
“Keep your hand offa my ass,” she said, pushing free. “Jiveass pimp. Think I want to look at your ugly face first thing when you haul yourself outta bed?”
“You have,” he said, grinning. “Got killer fizz out back. Come send me.”
“Shit. Send your dead ass to the pen. Go feel up somebody wants feelin’ up. Come on, Luther, let’s go.” Lee shrugged, grinned again, bumped back into the hall. Cedric clasped my shoulder as I trailed, his frustration all but smoking.
“Drop in anytime,” he said, unsmiling. “Soldier boy.”
Once we’d restreeted I looked at Wanda, her face bright with anger; this time, at least, I knew we hadn’t been the cause.
“You’re connected as well?” I asked.
“Did some work for him, long time ago,” she said, disposing of the subject as she would a used tissue. “Anyhow, that passport ought to keep you out of most trouble.”
“The name’s senseless,” I said. “My residence is typed in as Bogota. That’s Colombia—”
“Who’ll know?” she asked. “Colombians?”
Jacketing the pass, I bumped hand into the tracker; decided to recheck Skuratov’s lack of movement. Covering it with jacket and hand, I flicked it open as Wanda stopped to buy a paper from a newsstand fitted below an el stair; the ascent’s three-flight rise was roofed with metal shingling, upheld by delicate iron posts showing rust, needing paint. The moving light showed plain on tracker-screen.
“How’s to downtown fastest?” She pointed upward, seemingly unsurprised by my outburst. “He’s moving. On rubber, must be—”
“Just hold on a minute,” she said, grabbing my arm, whispering earways. “Don’t let people see that damn thing. What’re you talking about?”
“He’s enrouted,” I said. “We’ve got to see where he settles.” Judging the tracker, he’d entered lower Manhattan; no chance he was ambulatory alone.
“That thing shows where he’s going, right?”
“Someone’s taking him. What if he’s being airported or inaccessibled? He’s got our only ticket and I’ve got to trail—”
“Mean you want to go downtown?” she sighed, knowing my answer.
“It’s essentialled,” I said. “If he was footing, no, but at this speed—”
“Well,” she said, “sending you down by yourself be like having a baby crawl through a snake pit. Don’t suppose we got time to run home first—”
“No,” I said. “It’ll be a follow only. Safety’s assured.”
“Let’s go then. But look, I’m not going to chase some asshole I don’t even know back and forth ’cross town all day long. Once you get used to things you can do your own running.” Reaching into her purse she extracted a coin, handed it over; the nickel bore a bison and an Indian, each finely sculpted. “Slide it in the turnstile slot when we go through.”
The station at ascent’s summit outwardly resembled an overworn Swiss chalet bearing muddy orange gables and tilting cupolas; RIDE ON THE OPEN-AIR ELEVATED was stenciled along its side. The place’s innards showed as a museum’s period room, its fixtures and look antique even for that day. A uniformed clerk kept watch over all from within a black-brown cubicle, guarded from those without by a window barred with brass rails. Friction of many feet gave the floorboards rolling rises and valleys. A cast-iron stove’s sooty pipes shot upward, through the pressed-metal ceiling; round its black pot and stubbed legs, buckets of sand grouped as if for storytime. Blue glass windows inking the light daubed azure wash over all. Passing through the light metal turnstiles, we heaved open the high doors leading to the platform. Forty blocks down tracks vanished in perspective’s depths. Cantilevered above, on track’s left, were additional tracks; expressline, undoubted, unreachable from where we stood. Wanda spread her paper’s wings; I eyed Skuratov’s progress, Eighth Avenue’s roar ringing unabated through my ears. He was on Canal bearing east. To lose him before finding him would make hash of hope’s semblance; I swore he wouldn’t get far from our grip.
“Should you contact Doc?” I asked.
“No phone up here,” she said. “I’ll call once we get where we’re going, wherever that is.”
Her paper was the Journal-American; knowing but a single city daily in my normal life, the multitude here struck me as recklessly superfluous. Studying seeable pages as she held it before her, noting an entry believed pertinent, I grasped a corner of the sheet to attempt to read.
“Want to see it?” she said, releasing the rag’s front unit. Its lead concerned Landon and Edward, whose names unfamiliared; upon a quick scan, realized that the President and King of England were meant. More essential to our own moment was an astronomic note, filling lower corner right.
METEOR BELIEVED LANDED IN JERSEY MARSHES
No Martians Reported This Time
No details there inhered; as well, no word of search and seizure, though such seemed certain under circumstance. This tale, obviously, was nothing but a coverfable. How was Skuratov? While green evidenced life, it didn’t guarantee consciousness—yet if his mind ranged free as ever, would he not send for us, rather than await our own search to turn him? If he developed a new cadre of minions here with which to work his ploys before we accessed him, there could be no telling the things he might manage to loose down upon us.
“Here’s the train,” she said, looking north. It’s slim bulk widened as it neared, and soon enough its six olive-drab cars clanked to a stop before us. I approached the nearest steps; noticed pale startled faces peering through the carwindows.
“Where you think you’re going?” she asked, fastening my arm with vicious hold, dragging me rearward. “Come on. Down to the baggage car.”
“There were seats aplenty there—”
“It’s the law,” she said as we shoved in. The rear cars teemed with mob; we slicked past, butted through those standing, found places to toe our feet. The jungle-wet air bore the scent of a million unwashed; tiny fans bolted above us, ceiling-attached, lay still within their grilles. None but black faces glistened around us, all drenched by noon’s humid sponge. As we rolled ahead half the standees lurched; none had room enough to fall.
“Why aren’t the front cars availabled?” I asked, my face shoved almost into hers.
“They aren’t,” she said, clutching a nooselike loop hanging from the ceiling. “Things must be mighty different in your day, Mister Major General.”
“Multichanged, yes,” I said.
“Give anything to know how it is we turn into you,” she said. I had no idea whether they would or not, and so said nothing. Through an entanglement of arms I looked towards the window, taking in views down passed streets, quick shots of Harlem’s roofs and spires and steeples. At 110th the line curved as on a roller coaster, sweeping west at seven-story height. Across the park’s June green bower, midtown showed by daylight, six kilometers away, its towers’ pastels grayed and blurry in the shimmering air. Full though the sky must have been with particulate and poison, there was so much more of it to see, and all heaven seen seemed newmade, creation’s dust yet sparkling its vaults.
“Ninety-sixth!” At each stop the conductor shouted station name. “Ninety-sixth and Columbus Avenue. Watch y’step gettin’ off—”
I rejudged the tracker’s tale. “Whoever’s with him stopped,” I said.
“Where is he, then?” she asked, fanning herself with her paper as the crowd slipped away. After we pulled away from Ninety-sixth the car had nearly emptied; we took space on the varnished-rattan seats. Pressing appropriate buttons I blew the grid.
“Centre Street north of Canal,” I said. “Near Grand. Chinatown.”
“That’s not Chinatown,” she said. “That’s Little Italy. That’s where we’re going?”
“Unless new movement shows,” I said. “It’s reachable from here?”
“We can get off first stop above Canal and walk across,” she said. “I forget the name but I know it when I hear it. Just be damn sure we’re not down there longer than we have to be.”
As we rattled down Columbus it became Ninth, and then Hudson. Tenements became lofts became pinnacles, became tenements again, dipping and rising where in my time stood nothing but glass spire and small-balcony condo. As I sat squashed between Wanda and a sleeping man, newsprint edging from betwixt his shoe and sole, I felt sudden wrack, filled with isolation’s rage: never had I felt so inconsolably alone. I’d sustained parents’ loss, seen battlemates liquefied in midconversation; felt loneliness’s breath cool my neck during advance solos in distant lands; scratched away at the unscarred wound left when, without warning or evident reason, my wife vanished one late afternoon. Only the latter pained as much, yet here, surrounded by strangers whose actions never showed plain, in a city disorienting by its vague similarities, in a world whose soul was of alien stuff, the worse worsened. Not even Alice could comfort here.
Not far-distanced stood downtown’s needles; we neared.
“You and Doc partnered long?” I asked, desperate for the human touch.
“Since I was eighteen.”
“So few years—”
“Norman was sixteen.” She smiled. “It was arranged,” she said, not explaining further. As we instationed the conductor shouted Desbrosses’ name. “This is it.” Standing, she centered her balance to keep from tumbling as the train slowed. “Come on.”
Descending, following a zigzag north of Canal, we scuttled past radio shops hustling Tesla lamps, restaurants offering pigs’ feet at ten cents per plate, grocery windows shuddered with carcasses of rabbit, pig and calf, clothiers peddling knickers, flappers, breeches and BVDs.
