MISTAH

MISTAH

by

Norman Savage

Smashwords Edition, July 2009

34 East 11th Street, 2A

New York, NY 10003

212-533-8134

917-687-2437

[email protected]

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Man is born broken.

He lives by mending.

The grace of God is glue.

--Eugene O’Neill

BABY

In the end I am possessed by my birthplace

and am possessed by its language

--Ross McDonald

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'd like to thank two folks who were and are instrumental to this book seeing the light of day: Curtis Thompson who seems to know more about what I'm doing or trying to do then I do; and Clara Waldhari who helped not only shape the book and offered insights into what worked and what didn't, but didn't flinch when offering what a writer hates most: criticism. I've learned in my life that nobody has to be generous to anybody else, they, both Curtis and Clara, made me regret that lesson.

Norman Savage, July 2009

CHAPTER I

***

They were chestnut & beige & ivory & black, adorned with wooden brocades across their chests and around their length, had horned saddles cinched; each had wild manes of gold being blown back by the wind. Their eyes, wild with fear, looked behind for man or the devil gaining. I put my unsteady foot in the leather stirrup, hand gripping the horn, and hoisted my husky frame onto the seat, holding the reins and imagining the horse would rear up on his hind hooves and throw me the way I saw other horses do every Saturday morning. Suddenly, it began. I chose an outside horse because not only did he seem faster and wilder but he went up and down. Although now--and here was the real scary part—I had to try to pull the brass ring from its lodging. Its metal arm extended from the rim of the carousel teasingly close to the reach of the riders. If I wanted the ring, really wanted it, I’d have to inch my way from the saddle to where almost half my lower body would be off the saddle and my upper half extended, and that was dangerous.

With only two or three chances to succeed, I couldn’t afford to waste any of them. I’d hold onto the horse’s neck with my left hand and lower arm and reach, reach and stretch, towards the prize. It was always lodged in there pretty tight and so each time I tried I just was able to get, first the tips of two fingertips, and then the top of two digits of my index and middle fingers through the brass, almost getting it out of its slot. Almost. But I couldn’t. My fingers slipped out and I turned my head to the right, seeing the ring slip away.

I was young. And I loved Sundays, then. It was the only day I had to be with my dad, but I knew, even then, I didn’t have much time. My father never had much patience for this kind of thing; the take-me-out-to-the-playground type of thing. He had one day off a week from work—even though he owned the business—and although he told me his favorite thing in the world was me, his pal, his buddy, his Ace Boo Coo, he didn’t much like spending it outside of our home. He’d wrestle with me, watch TV with me, go outside and play catch with me, but he didn’t like to do anything that’d make him put the key into his Caddy’s ignition.

There was this one time when I had missed all three chances to get the brass ring and I wanted to go on again and I could see my father was pissed. Don’t cry. I didn’t come here with ya to see ya cry. Wait here, don’t move. I was on a horse so I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine where he thought I might be going. He walked to where this skinny guy stood in a white but dirty t-shirt who had arms with faded blue anchor tattoos on each bicep who lifted up the big wooden stick that allowed the merry-go-round to turn. Even to me their language looked conspiratorial. He came back and said, All right, champ, let’s see what you can do this time. When I was near to the arm, I held my horse’s neck, as I always did, and started to lean towards the goal. This time the goal, as if it were alive, rocked to meet me! I nearly fell off my horse in fear, trying to get out of its way. Grab it! I heard my father yell. Grab it, Max, goddamn it, grab it! The next time I tried to prepare for what happened the first, but I couldn’t. My timing was completely thrown by the new rhythm. This time I stayed back and waited for it, but it didn’t come nearly as far as it did the first time so by the time I figured it out and lunged further to grab it, it was gone. Lean into it, Max, I heard again and saw my old man share a look with his fellow accomplice. For some reason, I could feel my face sagging when I saw their familiarity but I needed to concentrate on the third turn, and I managed to do so. This time the steel arm swung nearly into my chest but I grabbed it and wrestled with the ring, trying to pull one from its mouth. But I still couldn’t. The steel arm flew from my grasp and I knew real deep down gut misery for the first time in my life.

The ride ended and my father came up to help me get off the horse. I saw in his face something I’d later learn was compassion and embarrassment; the first word not usually associated with my family. We stepped off the lip of the merry-go-round before heading for Nathan’s, our last stop before going home, when he offered me a ring. It looked so small lying there in the middle of his hand. I shook my head no. Take it, Max. You worked hard for it.

I shook my head again. I don’t want it. Tears were beginning to well up in my eyes, but I was able to control them.

All right, Max, let’s go. He casually tossed the ring away. I saw it land in the dirt and a little cloud of dust mushroomed up from its impact. I turned away and walked beside my father and never again asked him to take me to nearby Coney Island or any other place I couldn’t get to by myself.

***

That was nearly fifty years ago. It was a stutterers’ ball. It was before I fell in love and wanted, for the first time, another’s flesh to part for me; it was before I knew what it felt like to soar, before I knew, then grooved, in this mad and twisted city that couldn’t give a shit about who and what you are and what you do, but instead affords you enough anonymity to search for your own sweet rhythm in a country that encourages mediocrity, in a nasty world that’s soaked in pain and sadness, to find that private part of yourself that’s yours and yours alone. It was before what and who I was, and were, nearly got us killed. It was before I found out who and what I was sickened me. It was before my father and brother sent over two beefy Italian goons who nearly killed me and robbed us of the love we had for each other. It was before I knew the power of words and gestures, bone and blood and blood ties. And it was before, knowing full well the folly and futility of human kind, I decided to do one more foolish thing: Return.

***

They came to the hospital two weeks later, the same two who’d beaten the hell out of me. They knew enough to give my body a chance to mend but still be fresh enough to remember what it had been through just by looking at them again. I tried to ring for the nurse, but before I could do that, or call out, one of them was beside me gripping my hand, rupturing the splints on my fingers, and putting his beefy hand over my mouth. If ya make a sound I’m gonna end your fuckin’ life right here, right now, you understand? I nodded my head. Good. He took his hand away from my mouth and let go of my hand. The pain already had shot up my arm, into my neck and head. He pulled out a brown paper bag from the inside of his jacket pocket. How ya feelin’? I just looked at him, and the other goon behind him, smelled his after shave and franks he had for lunch, trying to be unafraid but feeling my bowels loosen. A little broken up, I’d imagine, right Ralphie?

Fuckin’ right, Ralphie said.

Don’t worry about the door, Maxie, ain’t no one comin’ in, forget about that. Now this here bag you should be interested in, ‘cause in this here bag is a little over a hundred thousand g’s, and it’s all for you. You got two choices: you take the bag and once the docs tell ya it’s O.K. to get outta here you do just that: get the fuck outta here; that means everywhere here, here and New York City, too. Everyfuckinwhere. The second choice is to say no, to say, fuck you, I don’t want it; you can say that, but then we kill you, right now. And, by the way, we also kill that whore nigger bitch that you were bangin’ under your old man’s roof. What’s it gonna be? I’m countin’ ta three.

Ralphie started to hum some theme song from some television game show. I didn’t let him finish. I’ll take it.

"Smart man. Now listen, a few more easy to remember instructions: get in touch with anybody from here not only are you dead, but they’re dead, too; try to come back—

ever—you’re dead. Pretty simple, huh, no room for misinterpretation, even for a brilliant college guy like yourself. Better take care of the money, plenty of fuckin’ thieves in these joints."

Come over here you little bastard, I’m going to kill you, is the first complete sentence I remember my father saying. It terrified me then, even though I can’t recall what I did. My father usually got what he wanted through intimidation, and worse. My mom wasn’t much help. Not only was she afraid of him but was also a narcissistic woman, a nervous woman, an anxious woman, a woman who believed there were perfect and absolute ways in which to bring up kids and be a wife, lived with a disappointment and guilt that consumed her. When I looked in her eyes as a kid, I saw only her and what she needed. Unable, or unwilling, to question either herself or her husband about the ground from which the twisted plant had grown, found only me or the entire world at fault for her situation. My mom’s favorite line, although it wasn’t the first one I remember her saying to me, did become her mantra: Your children should only give you what you’re giving me and your father.

Books, words, language, were my methods of escape and shelter. I fell in love with them in a dark basement of a used furniture shop while my mother was distracted and allowed me to slip away. I discovered a bookcase filled with old, musty smelling hard-covered books, their jackets fading, their spines soft, but their words fixed against the page. Each letter, each word, connected to the next, stayed put but propelled me onward to what came next. I was in myself, but lost, until my mother, in a panic, called my name out and came downstairs and snatched me from the world I was in.

***

The garbage trucks come each night between three-thirty and four. It seems they always have, but now there’s more to take away because there’s more Korean stores, more bodegas, more bars and each, whether forced to or not, have a different contractor hauling their shit. It seems that they’d need only one to a block but they have at least three and that doesn’t include the public ones. The red beady peepers on the dial say four fifteen and my eyes, as if my lids were glued, have been open since two. I’ve got an hour and change before the alarm goes off, prompting me to get ready to go to a job I don’t really want. I’m supposed to want to help kids when it’s me I want to help, and I can hardly do that.

And talk about nightmares—I was about to go back and into that black hole, that cesspool of indifference, that putrid air of obsolescence: The Board of Education, City of New York. Man! Hold on! Talk about being in it. I was sure that some crazy or dimwitted black or coffee-colored Latino kid, angry at my color or nose structure, wearing one of those do-rags, was going to laughingly stab the shit out of me in a never patrolled, yellowed-lit, piss smelling, staircase, in a crumbling schoolhouse, in a remote, nondistinct corner of this unforgiving town.

The sonofabitch was eating me alive. The refrain, burnished from decades of use to an oil-slicked golden luster, had chiseled itself into every neural crack of opportunity. What had begun as tempest and triumph of magnificent proportions, had devolved into the acid pool of a stomach gone bad.

At my age, with the lack of credentials or pedigree, I was almost unemployable. Even the Post Office, which probably holds the record for employing the sick and demented, the eccentric and the psychopathic, would not take a flyer with me, and if the truth be really known, it wasn’t exactly The Board of Ed that was employing me. It was an adjunct, an offshoot, an amputation really of The Board that had come into existence in the early 1970s only because white kids had begun to get more than just friendly with booze and dope. They had, to their parents and then to their legislators’ horror, actually fallen, head first, into it. They were unequivocally, without a doubt, man, I don’t believe it feels this good, in love with the shit and JUMPSTART was created to help these parents’ kids fall out of love, and quickly.

I’d taken a week of training at the end of August in preparation for this task and I could tell that if that kid was going to get touted off dope it wasn’t going to happen with this program or the collection of people I took training with, myself included. I quickly could see that they, although perhaps well-intentioned, knew little about drugs, counseling, kids, or human beings. In short, they were perfect candidates for this position and The Board of Education in general. It was probably no accident, that after hundreds of resumes, phone calls to those living who I thought might be in a position to help and those too dead or not dead enough to care, and scores of interviews, the job I least wanted was the job that wanted me. I had kicked dope and booze scores of times since the wondrous Sixties—with and without help—and could bullshit with the best of them about the horrors of drugs and the best high of all is the high of success and the way to be is drug free, and all the rest of those silly-assed sayings and slogans that lay claim to a belief system that really helps those who’ve put those slogans into print or programs into action. Now, there are as many slogans as there are programs and we still don’t know anything more about what makes a person get high, want to get high, want to remain high, or want to get straight. Hail the open markets and those who profit by them!

I laid there, forty years of memories buzzing through my head like a swarm of bees gone mad, first loves and old loves and people who mattered and those who didn’t, and slights and acknowledgments and promise and promises, armies of deceptions, lies and deaths, waiting for the alarm to go off, waiting for a reason to get out of the bed, my body carved by surgery and disappointment, expecting more grief... more fucking grief.

CHAPTER II

She was almost as fat as she was tall. She looked like a bowling ball with legs. I was standing outside of the door to the room, inside this huge cafeteria for the students. I was told to report at nine o’clock that morning. I had been there since eight thirty or so. I don’t know why, but I always get to appointments early and am usually uncomfortably anxious in situations where I have to wait. She was already thirty minutes late.

You must be Heller, she said.

I nodded but didn’t say anything. I just looked at her and at the man, also Puerto Rican and almost as short as she was, but skinny as a blade, who stood behind her. She was just a shade over five feet and, as I said before, wide. I figured her age to be around forty and the guy, whoever he was, to be about the same, maybe a few years younger. He didn’t look very bright, at least not as smart as she. He carried in his hands an assortment of cleaning utensils: Windex, Endust, Pledge and some rags, which had seen better days.

My name’s Tina Lourdes; you can remember it because it rhymes with gorgeous. That there’s my boyfriend, Carlos.

She fumbled in her purse for the keys before finally coming up with them and opened the door. Quickly, she sped into the room as Carlos trailed behind her and moved to the desk that sat in the right corner of a large room. Your desk is over there, she said pointing to where a partition stood and where the desk she mentioned must be somewhere behind it. Yeah, that partition I got because I didn’t get along with the guy who was here last year... I hope I don’t have the same problem with you. She began sniffling and then snorting. Fuck, man, I can’t believe it... this is what the dust does to me. Shit. Carlos, start cleaning; just don’t fuckin’ stand there. Go ahead, she said and laughed good-humoredly. She then, with one huge snort, which sounded like a pig in a trough rummaging around for food, inhaled all the mucus she had in her nose, and swallowed it.

Where do you want me to start, Mommy? he asked.

I moved around the partition as her boyfriend, Carlos, was beginning to dust her desk.

Rhymes with gorgeous, I kept saying to myself and shaking my head as I made my way over to where I was going to be parking my ass for the foreseeable future, Holy shit. This sad excuse for a desk had an equally sad excuse for a chair. Both were broken and filthy—the desk dirty and chipped while the chair had a broken wing that you didn’t know about until you put the weight of your arm against it—but I really didn’t care all that much, not in this environment I didn’t. Live a life of music and mayhem, a life that skirted preparation and rules, a life that I made up as I went along, unplanned, and, in some instances, downright reckless, then, well, you get, always, what your hand calls for, I thought, and ruefully chuckled to myself.

Tina, I hollered across the divide, where do I pick up a time card and fill out those first day forms they were telling me about at orientation last week?

Go downstairs to the main office and ask Linda. She’s the Chink, and she’ll give you a card and the rest of the shit, but take it easy, man, it’s the first day and no one does nothin’ this day. Just punch in and relax. You can borrow what you want with the cleanin’ stuff. I hate dirt, man. Allergies. I get all messed up; my nose gets so much shit in it I can hardly breathe and my face gets all swollen and my eyes tear and everything. I can’t stand it.

Yeah, I know, I said but didn’t know anything of the kind, never had an allergy in my life, I’m going to go downstairs and—Linda you said her name was?—and get started. I can’t believe I’m punching a time card at my age. Back punching a time clock.

I been punchin’ it for eighteen years now.

Eighteen years? Holy shit! The only thing I’ve done consistently for eighteen years is breathe. I got up from my desk and went around the divider, looked at her and wondered how to best live with this woman without going insane. I saw a coffee truck outside. I’m going to get one for myself, you?

Black, medium, one sugar; thanks.

She didn’t offer to pay and I didn’t ask her. I needed some favors in the bank and knew I was going to rely on her for a bunch of things before this semester was very old. The only thing I knew how to do for sure was make it up as I went along. Still and all, I would need some cold and hard currency before then, and even if she seemed like a nutty Puerto Rican babe, she knew her way around, if not the world then certainly this school, but more importantly, this Mickey Mouse job.

The school, shaped like a triangle, was originally built to be a prison for those awaiting sentencing. Because of that, there were no real windows to speak of, only on the very top of some walls there was a slit of about a foot that ran around the width of the room. But the light it let in was minimal, consequently the building seemed always dark and airless.

I found Linda sitting behind a desk answering the phone and directing calls. She’d say by rote: Hello, this call may be monitored for future review. How may I help you?

You can help me by showing me how the hell I can get paid around here, I said, during a lull in the action.

She smiled and held up an index finger as a call came in. I stood there feeling stupid but waited. Do you believe there are teachers calling in and asking me when the term begins? she said and smiled. I’m a lowly para and some of these teachers get paid an awful lot of money to know when they’re supposed to be workin’. I don’t know, maybe I’m dumb, but you would think that after doing this for so long you might be able to get it right.

Nah, first of all never say, ‘think’ when you’re in a public school. It taxes the mind too much. Second of all, this system beats the hell out of you. I’m surprised they’re able to go to the bathroom and know when to hold it and know when to sit down. That’s for the guys, of course.

You’re tellin’ me! Here’s a card... and who are you? She had an easy laugh, but after I told her who I was and who I was working with a cloud came over her face.

What? What is it?

You seem all right. Watch that one upstairs.

Do I have to?

Nobody has to do anything. This place is a perfect example. But I just did you a favor and you’ll thank me later, even if you don’t do nothin’ with it. She got out a blank card and printed my name, Max Heller, the month, and handed it to me. Place it anywhere on the right side there.

I took the card and printed the time I got there, eight thirty a.m. I didn’t think they’d mind if I did that on the first day, but I was wrong. I placed my card by itself and walked out of the Administration Office and, turning left, proceeded down the corridor towards the tip of the triangle. I was about twenty feet away from the front desk, where a few security guards were laughing about something when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white middle-aged guy, five feet six or so, with a military German gait, wearing a starched white shirt, striped blue and red tie, gray slacks and carrying a walkie-talkie. He came hurriedly towards the same desk from the other side. He looked Jewish, assured, and in control. The banter from the black security guards ceased. He barked something into his communication device.

Greene, he said, you’re supposed to be at the rear. Now get there.

He sounded like an asshole, but Greene, who, though a woman, looked like the Hardy part of Laurel, quickly left and the others reverted to a more security-minded air. Clearly satisfied that his presence was noted and his order heeded, he moved off to bust some other poor bastards’ balls. Before he did, however, he noticed a strange face, mine. He silently sized me up and grilled me as if I didn’t belong in his universe. I looked directly into his stare but made sure I did so without threatening him while going towards the front doors. Once I passed him, I didn’t look back.

It was already hot outside even though it had not reached noon. The summer was not what you’d expect from New York City. It was cool, with not too many days reaching ninety-five or above, even in the dog days of August, but today was going to be in our city’s parlance, a scorcher. Instead of going directly to the coffee caboose parked on the sidewalk in front of the school, I walked around the corner. I wanted to gaze at The Brooklyn Bridge. Every time I ever had a chance to look at it, it evoked some kind of awe in me, awe for those who built it, awe for the structure itself, and awe for the times in which it was built. I walked it—with less frequency now—every chance I got. One of the good things—if the word good could ever be applied here—about this gig was the fact that the school sat underneath the bridge and I could look at it, if not walk it (weather permitting) every day I decided to come to work. The other things that I liked were my proximity to water and Chinatown. I stared at her cables and the sky’s robin’s egg blueness for a few minutes then came back to the coffee cart where the guy inside the booth was feverishly filling orders, mostly from the office workers next door. I never had much faith in coffee sold from a cart, but since there were no shops nearby, I took a shot.

Jesus, you all alone here? I said to him when I finally got up to the cart’s window.

Yeah, the guy never showed up. It figures the first day the teachers are back, I’m here all alone. What can you do?

Two things: a small with milk and Sweet & Low and a medium black one sugar.

He wore glasses and had these jerky, almost spastic movements with his arms, hands, upper torso, and head that caused his glasses to slide down his nose. I thought he looked like the type who still lived with his parents and gave them most of the money he made for them to save it for him. He’d probably be very good to the woman he’d marry, if he married at all. I gave him the money and he returned my change without looking up. He said Thanks and Can I help you? in the same breath.

I heard the shouts fifty feet before I hit the door. Jackson, whom I’d trained with, was going at it pretty good with Lourdes. Carlos stood back. He was waiting to see if the knife I knew he kept in his boot would be needed. I moved over close to him and when I saw I had his attention looked down towards his feet. I made sure I didn’t blink when he looked into my eyes. Some people you just know you need not fear, no matter who they think they are.

You don’t tell me nothin’. Who the hell do you think you are anyway comin’ in here like you own the place? I been here for over five years and I got everything you see in this office and I’m not giving it up for you or no one else, Lourdes said in a voice that tried to end the conversation.

I don’t care how long you’ve been here. This here is a JUMPSTART office, and we all work here and you have to share, Jackson said in a voice that bordered on pleading. He noticed me standing there and looked at me for some sort of understanding or male camaraderie. I gave back neither.

I don’t have to share shit. Lourdes looked at me, too.

We’ll see about that.

Jackson was a pervert—at least I thought he was. I trained with him at the end of August with a crop of employees new to JUMPSTART. I was an old fuck already compared to the twenty to thirty something year olds who trained with me, except for Jackson, who must have been in his early to mid-forties. He was black, skinny as a reed, and seemed to be a combination of African-American and Jamaican with these dreadlocks that came from his head like radical television antennas, sticking straight out of his scalp in seven to ten different directions. He thought he was the smartest one in the class until I opened my mouth. If he thought I was competing with him, he was sadly mistaken, but I fucked with him just the same. Early on, I noticed that he annoyed some of the young women, even made one or two of them uncomfortable enough to go to our trainer, Roger, to complain. One chick was cute as hell but, I was sure, a lesbian. The fact that Jackson didn’t have a clue made me dislike him even more. Also, he rubbed his cock without any pretense or deception. A perfect candidate, I thought, to teach in the public school system, especially in a role as counselor to high school girls. Roger called him into the corner to pull his coat about his behavior, and I could see he took great offense. Just cool it, Roger told him. Reluctantly, shaking his head like, ah shucks Jesus I can’t believe someone would be sayin’ this stuff about me, he shuffled into his seat, casting sideways glances at his accusers as he went.

All right, kids, what’s going on here? I asked, but didn’t really want to know. The last thing I wanted to do was mediate an argument when I wasn’t getting paid for it.

Talk to him, talk to that guy over there; he come in here like he owns the place, Lourdes said.

Jackson, Jackson, I told you my name is Jackson, say my name, he said, with the same whine in his voice that he’d had last week. It seemed he was born with it and, through circumstance, nurtured it as well. This is JUMPSTART. This ain’t Tina Lourdes’ program—everything that’s in here—the desks, the computer, the phones, everything, is for us all to use. We all supposed to be helping kids and how we gonna be doin’ that if we not be sharin’ with each other? How?

"Listen, I don’t know about helping kids and I don’t know about being nice to each other—you’re too old to be singin’ We Are the World type of bullshit, Jackson—but one thing we can do: not get in each other’s way. And, Jackson, besides, you’re gonna be doing classroom presentations mostly, hardly be in here, right? And when you are I’m sure you can carve out a space for yourself or maybe Lourdes, since you’ve been here for awhile you can help us get another small room for Jackson to hang his hat in and maybe get a desk and some other stuff that he’ll need and that we’ll need and this way we all can have some space. O.K., how does that sound? So let’s just try to be easy with each other and see what happens."

Yeah, I think maybe I should just get a room of my own, if I could; three into this room don’t go; who would I speak to ‘bout that?

Arroyo. Her name is Jackie Arroyo. She’s on this floor, down the other end, complete other side, same room as this. I’ll speak to her in a little while, if you want.

I can do my own talking, Jackson said.

Hey, man, no one’s challenging you, be easy will ya, Christ, I said.

I gotta get out of here for a little while. I’ll see you later.

Jackson walked out as if there were eyes on him. And there were.

What’s with that motherfucker?

Carlos made some kind of sound, a cross between exhaling and growling. I looked at him and moved away.

I don’t really know, but I do know I don’t need the grief. You’ve been doing this for a long time, but I’ve been living longer than you have and I can tell you based on what I know about the woman we work for that the less I have to see her the better and trouble, like the trouble we just had, is a perfect excuse to bring her down here.

I don’t want to see her either; I know her for fifteen years and she was one nasty cunt then and she’s worse now. She paused for a moment and laughed. Listen, I don’t mind, you can use my phone, computer, anything you want, but that motherfucker came in here so hard that it irked the shit out of me and I’m not going to stand for that. I worked too hard to get that shit, and he came in here and demanded it. The last guy that worked in here we weren’t speakin’ to each other for the whole year. I think he was racist, man. But, shit, I’d like to get along with you. We can help each other, too. Just go easy, man, that’s all I’m sayin’.

I just want to do my time, punch the card at three, and get the hell out of here. That’s it. I’ll be honest with you: I didn’t take the job to do nothing except get on the city’s tit, earn a buck, get health benefits, and not think too much about this once I leave the building. The last thing I want to be is a referee in here. Now, what do we have to do today? They said somethin’ about meeting the Assistant Principal and the rest of the guidance staff or something like that?

That’s at twelve. We got plenty of time.

You have maybe—I’ll be fifty-five next month.

Christ, I thought, fifty-five years and Send in the Clowns had finally come in, were laughing, and were chewing up my ass. I’d heard Sassy, Sarah Vaughn, sing that tune many years ago at Lincoln Center. Alone, she went over to the mike, placed her thumb and forefinger on its’ shaft and coaxed, flirted, and bent each word until the heartache of age had seeped into all of us there. Nobody breathed; nobody dared breathe. When she finished, I looked over at the lady I happened to be head-over-heels in love with, and she, her eyes filled with tears, took my hand in hers and I thought, once again, I had the world right where I wanted it.

My feet stuck to the floor in the space around the toilet in the men’s room. Mr. Ashley, who was quick to introduce himself and tell me, proudly, he’d been in the school since its inception almost thirty years ago, let me in. He told me that he didn’t believe the john had been cleaned yet but assured me that it would, eventually. The boys over in maintenance work hard, but work when they want to, he confided. Ashley appeared to be my age, but hunched over, wore a rug that was none too convincing and a rabbit’s foot that hung from a belt containing keys galore, whistles, and charms, the meaning of which escaped me. The bathroom had no urinal but two stalls, one worse than the other. There was that grayish black matter around the toilet that you knew was urine, left to colonize. I planted my left foot to the left of the stains, and lifted, with my right foot, the seat. I stood, with a wide stance, and relieved myself.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I felt like pissing on the floor myself. And pissing on that JUMPSTART banner that adorned the office I had to share with those two lunatics upstairs. How the hell were they hired? How the hell was I hired? Well, I knew how I was hired. I’d experimented with junk, and could bullshit with the best of them. I was a perfect fit; perfect to counsel screwed-up kids who were ready to either slit their throats or graduate.

The meeting was a half-hour old when Jackson showed up. He had to find a place among the ten people who made up the counseling, guidance, and JUMPSTART staff of the school. Ten of us for three thousand kids. Ms. Lynch, a beautiful, tall, black woman in her late forties, was the assistant principal in charge of us. With the exception of Jackson and myself, everyone had been acquainted for quite some time, yet, sitting in a circle to introduce ourselves, they still called each other Ms., Mrs., and Mr. Each of us gave a little background information and what we hoped to accomplish during the term. Lourdes said she’d like to follow the group she had last year and help more of them pass their classes. Jackson followed by saying he’d like to show his African American brothers and sisters that anything was possible. I just wanted to stay alive, but I didn’t say that. I said something like trying to challenge kids basic assumptions about who they are in this world and what, if anything, the world they inhabit has to offer. It was happy horseshit, I knew, but I wanted to seem like I fit in and it sounded no better or worse than their fantasies.

Carlos was up on a ladder cleaning the windows when we got back to our room. That’s good, Popi, Tina said, don’t forget over there.

Where?

Over there, there in the corner, gets so dirty in there.

He nearly fell off the ladder trying to make himself taller and stretch himself longer than he could ever possibly do in trying to see where precisely she meant. How quickly we go from Rambo to Beulah, I thought.

I went to where my desk and chair sat, sagged and broken, and looked at the papers that were given out at the meeting. They spoke about what to do in case of emergency, fire, theft, students cutting classes, pension, sick days, what constitutes child abuse, sexual abuse, late slips, field trips, personal days, holidays, and family deaths. They stupefied and mortified me. I sat there, numb, my jaw slack, my eyes waiting for pennies to be put over them.

The sound of Tito Puente brought me around. Gorgeous had put on a Latin music station and, for all I knew, was mamboing her ass off on the other side of the divide.

I’m going out to lunch, I announced, and began the arduous task of getting up from my chair and moving towards the front door.

Take your time; we ain’t got nothin’ to do today...or tomorrow. The kids don’t get back ‘til Thursday. Then the shit starts.

Just what I want to hear, I thought. See ya later, I said over my shoulder.

Chinatown, a mere two-block walk from where I was, was another home, of sorts, for me. I’d been eating there for nearly forty years and knew it well. Although I never found a small steam-heated room full of opium, I did find cheap and delicious food. I’d returned after nearly two decades away from New York City to places that held many good memories. When I sat down in those familiar seats my body felt differently; I was able to take a breath and cool out. It’s always struck me as strange how much harder it is for me to deceive my body, while my head gets tricked all the time.

Mei Lai Wah on Bayard offered the kind of food and sanctuary that I wanted. It took nearly ten years of patronage for them to begin to acknowledge me as I entered and to give a nod of their heads as I said good-bye. Their pork buns, the best in Chinatown, now cost sixty cents; they used to cost a quarter, ten cents for the coffee or tea, but those were different times.

The place, a narrow but deep rectangle, seemed a carryover from the 1930s, and judging by some of the men who worked there who were pushing eighty, it was. Of course, I knew most of them only by sight. Even after all this time, there were some boundaries that you just couldn’t cross, ever. If they were surprised or happy to see me, they didn’t let on. But I knew better. I knew at least that much. As soon as I sat down in one of their booths, a tea, a fresh pitcher of cream, and a pork bun, baked, appeared in front of me. We exchanged looks and nods of our heads and that was that. The only thing that I could tell that was different was that the cracked chartreuse, imitation alligator leather that was under my ass was cracked even more than I remembered. One edge, a bit thicker than a razor blade, was trying to eat the inside of my thigh. I moved over and opened my paper, but I couldn’t concentrate on reading so I just drifted to wherever my eye landed.

Long time, long time, where you been? a woman’s voice asked.

I looked up to find, Anna, the proprietor of the place, as radiant as ever, standing over me—a position I’d more than once fantasized about. Her perfume, a rose-scented mixture of sophistication and scandal, still claimed me. Been away, Anna, not that far but far; you know what I mean? But thanks for asking.

I don’t pry, Max. We know each other long time, but one question.

Fire away.

Choice?

No choice.

Concrete or grass?

That’s two... grass.

Bad?

That’s three and you’re out! But, no, not good.

She paused and said, I’m glad you back.

Me, too.

She turned away and went to the counterman who wore a baseball cap that read, Vacancy, and said something in Chinese. She turned away from him and walked back where she’d come from and disappeared into a back room. If it offered opium, a poker game, or just a little respite from the madness I didn’t know, but I had always been more than a little curious.

They never made you feel unwelcome and, most importantly, you could sit there and nurse whatever you wanted for as much time as you needed.

And that’s what I did. The idea of going back to the job to be with Tina and Jackson was enough to cause inertia but the thought that in two days I’d be interacting with kids—kids who were as foreign to me as ham hocks or stuffed plantains—filled me with panic. It was within those two competing emotions that I found myself ordering another tea, and waiting.

When I returned Jackson and another black guy were sitting at my desk laughing and talking; Tina and Carlos were nowhere to be found. Both their laughter and conversation ceased as I got within earshot.

Don’t let me bother you guys, I said loud enough for them to hear it.

Oh, don’t worry you won’t, the stranger said.

I could tell a few things: he knew his way around this part of the block, he knew Jackson, and he was gay. Even though he was sitting, I saw he was tall, with a good- looking face that shined with costly moisturizer and hair done in elegant cornrows.

This is Panther, Jackson said.

Panther, I said, I’m Max.

Panther was just tellin’ me ‘bout our girl, Tina.

I worked with her all year. She’s a bitch, and you can’t trust her. The girl owe me twenty dollars and I’m just here to collect it ‘fore I go my own way to another school.

With all due respect fellas, I don’t give a shit.

Panther stood up. Well, you should give a shit, you’re gonna be workin’ with the bitch. The fuckin’ racist.

Yeah, man, I could see, man, like she be like goin’ postal on me, man, like she don’t like brothers, man, could see that shit right away.

They slapped high fives and exchanged grins. Then Panther leaned over close to Jackson and said something I couldn’t hear.

"Listen, fellas, you could go outside and burn the town down for all I care, you can talk conspiracy shit all night long, you can play the brothers be wronged, nobody loves us or it’s us against the world, and you’re probably right with any and all of that shit, but have the common courtesy not to do it in my face. You don’t know who the hell I am or what I’m about and even if that don’t matter to you, it matters to me. So, Jackson, if you don’t mind could you get out of my chair, let me finish up here so I could get this tired white ass of mine home?"

Jackson got up from my desk and he and Panther moved quickly out of the room to parts unknown. I didn’t know, didn’t ask, and didn’t care. What I cared about was to wait for three, punch my card, and split.

I hit the subway station at Union Square at around three-fifteen. It’s one of the hubs of New York City’s mechanical and human complexities: always busy, always foul, and always brimming with hope and desperation. There is a headlong rush to metal; a feverish grab at closing doors, eyes darting for space, thieves, cops, miscreants of all kinds and confidantes.

But there, in the gauzy florescent light, standing still, was a crowd of people, men and women, young and old, black and white, and yellow and brown, staring at two figures, one man and one woman, on two pedestals three feet from one another nearly pressed against the subway tiles facing them. Each was frozen in time. Each had the appearance of marble and had the white dust that fell from the sculptors’ chisel still on them. She was dressed in the flowing robes of an ancient Greek goddess and had, on top of her head, a rolled turban of some sort. Her arms were stretched towards the spectators holding a piece of the robe in almost a plaintive stance. The man was quite different. Dressed like a contemporary version of Mad Max in motorcycle delivery garb he stood, wearing a cap, goggles, denim jacket, jeans, and boots, arms ready to pump at his sides, about ready to walk, or take off. He, however, had not the pure white of marble but a greenish sickly tint to the white dust that covered him. Neither moved, but they stood there posing, as if part of the underground landscape. Though if you watched, for more than a few minutes, it happened. She’d curl her lips in a fiendish smile. He’d bob forward. Then he would roll a shoulder, slightly, and she’d wink or move a finger.

Those in this makeshift audience would smile or stare, not really sure how to react. Occasionally, a flashbulb would pop. Not too many deposited a coin or a bill that