Property of / the Drowning Season / Fortune's Daughter / at Risk by Alice Hoffman
“That true about, what is it, a ball bearing in a sock?”
Tony smiled and McKay winked at me. “A ball bearing,” he said. “In my day it was brass knuckles.”
“Times change,” said Monty with a shrug.
“You want to take a ride into the city with me?” McKay asked Tony.
“McKay, no,” I said. “Don’t take him with you.”
Tony scowled at me.
“Look,” said McKay. “There ain’t no Orphans around and I want some company along for the ride. Also, I have heard it mentioned that Tony here might be interested in joining up with the Orphans. Ain’t that right, Monty?”
Monty nodded. “That’s right,” he said.
Tony’s eyes were wide. The other corner kids watched silently, knowing that they had lost one of their own.
I shrugged. “Do what you want,” I told McKay.
McKay moved near to me. “Be at the apartment when I get home,” he whispered.
“Get going,” I said.
“I’ll bring you something nice,” said McKay.
“Something nice?” I said. I thought of the safety I felt when McKay was high. Only when he was in a dream and I held him in my arms was I not afraid he would leave me. I watched McKay walk out the doorway with Tony following silently at his boot heels. I could not hear McKay’s reply.
“What you say, darling?” I called.
“He said,” Tony, the chosen corner kid, said—walking past his old friends as though he had never before seen them—“something real nice.”
My eyes stared into Tony’s. “Something nice,” I whispered. And Tony turned to follow McKay, to run and catch up to McKay and the Chevy.
I looked over at Monty. “He’s too young,” I said.
“He’s not young,” said Monty. “That boy is not young. I can spot the young ones. But that one”—Monty motioned with his head toward the empty doorway—“that one will take McKay’s place someday. Even McKay can see that. So let the kid learn the tricks now; you know he’ll learn them sooner or later.”
We silently watched the empty doorway. Then I went behind the counter, mixed up a vanilla soda, and sat once more.
“You wear the charm,” said Monty. “But hidden, of course.”
I touched the chain at my neck, the locket I always wore beneath my blouse. “Do you think I want everyone to know what a fool you’ve made of me?”
“There never was anything wrong with a fool,” said Monty.
“Is that true?” I said lazily, and I moved the clear soda in the glass around in small whirlpools with my fingertip.
Monty lifted his hand from the countertop. With a quick move he raised the sleeve of my blouse halfway up my arm, so that white muslin was pushed like petals around my elbow.
I was silent; then I brushed the cloth back into its place around my wrist.
“You’re fresh today, old man.”
“Long sleeves in the heat of July, darling?”
I ignored him; let the wind of the Avenue carry him the answers he wanted.
“How many times?”
I was silent and thinking only of dark eyes.
“How many times?” Monty asked again.
“Five or six,” I said. “Big deal, only five or six times. What is it your business what I do?”
“So I’m wrong about McKay,” said Monty. “So I’ve judged it all wrong. So he is a fool, after all.”
“Shut up,” I said. “Who the hell do you think you are to talk about McKay like that? Nobody talks about him like that.”
“Not even you?”
“Old man,” I said.
“Where is his honor when he gives you the heroin? Where is it then? Tell me, you don’t shoot up yourself, he fixes you, doesn’t he? I give any odds all of the Avenue will be talking about McKay soon enough.”
What did I care about the old man’s words? What could he know about McKay that I did not know? I had McKay; now he only saw the Dolphin to score dope, he only saw the Orphans on official business. I had him now; and it was me who sat in the front seat of the Chevy, me who kept the engine running, me who stashed the pale envelopes of heroin in the space between my stocking and the skin of my thigh. It was me with McKay.
“To hell with you,” I said to Monty. “A few charms and spells and you think you know something. To hell with you, you liar. You goddamn fool.”
“I admit it all,” said Monty, and I raised my glass in agreement. “Ignore me. Ignore the tracks on your arms. Ignore the talk about McKay. What do I know about Property of the Orphans?”
“Hah,” I said. “I’m no Property.”
“Listen to me,” said Monty. “If you give up yourself, there won’t be another.”
“Listen to me,” I said. “I’m not giving up anything. And I’m not giving up McKay.”
“You can wash it all away,” said Monty, and he brought out the bottle of gin and placed it on the counter. “You can wash it all away, but having seen.”
“You poet,” I said.
“So I’m a drunk,” said Monty. “So you called it right when you called me a fool. And I tell you even this cannot stop sight.”
“Close your eyes,” I said.
“Close your eyes,” Monty repeated. “There is no way to stop from seeing. Not even heroin.”
“Five times,” I began and Monty only stared at me with his winking eyes. I shrugged.
“Often at burials,” said Monty.
“You gonna get into the morbid stuff now, old man?”
“Often at burials,” he continued, “certain tribes perform a ritual of sewing the lids of the eyes closed tight. Who can really say why? Perhaps so that the dead cannot pass on secrets to the living. But eyes that will see cannot be sewn closed.”
“I’ve got the charm, don’t I? I have the magic of this locket,” I said. “The charm McKay says you once offered to him, the magic he refused.” Monty nodded and sipped gin. “Why do you lie, old man? Why do you tell McKay this is the tooth of a dragon, and then tell me it’s the tooth of a beaten man?”
Monty smiled. “There is no difference,” he said.
“There’s a difference,” I said.
“No,” said Monty. “No, the two are one and the same.”
I rose from my seat at the counter. I did not want to hear any more of his words.
Monty raised his glass to me. “It won’t stop it, the heroin,” he said. “You know that.”
“Old man,” I said as I walked to the door, and the silver locket which held the tooth of a beaten man, the tooth of a dragon, fell upon my breast, “I don’t believe a word you say.”
I walked out the door and into the heat of the Avenue. I placed sunglasses over my eyes to protect them against the reflected glare of sun and cement, and still my eyes burned, my head spun and I had to hesitate. You cannot sew closed eyes that will see, the fool had said. I continued down the Avenue to wait for McKay’s return. The burning in my eyes felt nothing like tears, nothing like pain, and only a little like sight.
SIX
ACTS OF FEAR
1
The telephone awakened me. I ran to lift the receiver and silence the ring. The morning was still dark but already hot. McKay slept deeply. Through the wires I could hear the voice of Jose.
“Are you there?” he said.
“Yes, I’m here.” I sat on the wooden chair near the window, my feet pulled up so that I could rest my head on my knees. The air was heavy, and full of the threat of thunder and more heat.
“McKay there?”
“Jose, he’s here but he’s sleeping,” I said to the Orphans’ man on the force.
“You better wake him,” said Jose. I didn’t answer; I listened to McKay’s breathing. “There’s going to be trouble, girl. Now you go wake him.”
I held the phone receiver against my neck and watched McKay sleep. It was so early that traffic noise was only just beginning out on the Avenue.
“McKay,” I said. I walked to the bed, sat,
McKay opened his eyes; there was silence and heat out on the Avenue. I watched McKay walk to the phone. I crossed my bare arms and rocked softly and did not listen to a word he said; I only watched McKay. Then I went to the kitchen to boil water for coffee and to fear some news of trouble with the police, with heroin, with the Dolphin.
McKay, already fully dressed in leathers, walked into the kitchen. “It’s the Pack,” he said.
I was relieved; I poured coffee. What did I care about the Pack?
“They’ve got Danny the Sweet,” McKay said.
“What do you mean they’ve got him?” I said. What would the Pack want with Danny, when the Orphans themselves did not want him?
“I mean they got him.” He drank hot coffee in gulps. McKay was readying himself to leave the apartment; he was willing to leave me alone with the words, “They’ve got Danny the Sweet.”
“McKay,” I said. “Not this time. Don’t give me silence this time. The Sweet is my friend, so don’t give me silence.”
“You don’t want to know,” said McKay.
He was right; I did not want to know. But because I did not reach out to the Sweet as he passed by I had no choice.
“Damn you,” I said. “Tell me.”
I let McKay hold me for a moment, and then I moved away. “Darling, I don’t have to tell you,” he said. “You already know.”
I knew; already I knew more than I wanted to. Why did I need to know more? Why did I have to know whether it was the knife or the gun?
“No,” I said. “No.”
McKay shrugged. He opened a kitchen cabinet, and the hinge cried out as the wood of the door moved. Alongside the cereal, the coffee, and the sugar, was McKay’s gun. McKay and I never spoke of his owning a gun. He stored the .22 where my eye would see it at each and every breakfast, yet we refused to give each other words or denials. He placed the gun in an inside pocket cut into the silk lining of his jacket.
“McKay,” I said. “No.”
“In the back of the neck,” said McKay. “He was shot in the back of the neck.”
“You don’t believe Jose for a minute, do you?” I said.
“Jose knows what the cops know. He knows the names of the dead.”
“No one would bother with the Sweet. He’s worthless.”
McKay nodded. “It’s to get to me,” he said. “That idiot Sweet,” McKay said softly. “They know I have no choice but to avenge an Orphan.”
McKay walked from the kitchen and I followed. “You’re not going,” I said.
“I am,” said McKay. “And you know I am. I have to go. The Pack knows that the Sweet was only worthless while he lived.”
“That’s not the way it is,” I said.
McKay shook his head. “Don’t talk to me of what it should be, girl. I’m telling it to you like it is. And it is honor now. And it is war.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Don’t go yet. Let’s get high first. Get high with me, and then go.”
McKay smiled. “Not this time. Idiot that he was, he was my soldier. Not this time,” McKay said, and he began dialing the phone. He was calling up the Dolphin, he was summoning the Orphans. I should have reached out my hand to place it on the lips of the Sweet as he grinned in the moonlight. But now if Danny the Sweet was lost, he was lost, and I did not want a sacrifice for a smile that was already lost. I did not want to have to wait once more, to have to count the bullets in the gun when McKay returned. I did not want to have to wait, to have to place bandages and cold compresses on scars after a battle fought over what was already lost.
I wanted McKay high, so he would be mine. I wanted him to forget the battle and let the heroin into his veins. Pure love, pure fear, pure selfishness: I did not want the losing to continue.
McKay spoke to the Dolphin. I walked over to him and whispered words of interference in his ear. “I want to get high,” I told him. “I need to get high,” I lied. McKay shook his head, and continued speaking through the wires to the Dolphin.
Any plan, any advice of the Dolphin’s could never hold honor. It would be revenge that would belong only to the colors of the butterfly and the scar upon the cheek. And Danny the Sweet would be doubly lost.
“McKay,” I said. “I want you now.”
What could revenge do for the Sweet now? What good was honor? I would not risk losing McKay, not for the Sweet, and certainly not for honor.
“Now,” I said. “Right now,” I whispered. I held McKay and felt the metal of the .22 in the lining of his jacket. McKay touched my face, but he did not look at me; he was with the honor, with revenge. I slipped one hand into McKay’s jeans, and with the other hand I began to work the zipper. And still he was with honor, with the Orphans, with the Dolphin. When the dark eyes finally turned to me, they were blank. I could not help but imagine that McKay did not recognize me, that he could not remember my face or the touch of my hand.
I left him talking to the Dolphin. I left him with the phone in his hand and his dark eyes blank when they looked my way. I threw a raincoat over my naked body and I grabbed the car keys off the wooden table.
“Girl, get back here,” called McKay when he heard the sound of the metal. But it was too late. I was already out and in the street. I was on a course that led to the Chevy, which always waited, paint gleaming like black midnight, in the alleyway for McKay. If words couldn’t stop McKay, and if no plea, no touch would make him forget honor and revenge, perhaps the gas pedal of the Chevy could make him forget.
I started the engine. My raincoat fluttered about my knees, for I had not had time to button the cloth around myself. Dawn was just beginning to break in colors and steam over the Avenue. I stepped on the gas.
I could never remember, later, if I had actually planned to go anywhere, if there had been a direction to drive toward, a somebody to see. Monty? Could it be I intended to steer the Chevy toward Monty and ask what secrets, what lies, what rumors he had heard? Starry? How could I ever have found Starry with no address, no road map, with no knowledge of Manhattan streets? Was it a desire to visit each hospital, funeral parlor, the chapels of churches, the counters of every drugstore on the Avenue until I found the Sweet? Or had I planned only to step on the gas? Nothing more than that, only to step on the gas? Only to hear the screech of tires, to know the power of the Chevy’s engine, and to feel the velvet of the upholstery against my skin?
McKay was out in the street now. I had known he would follow. For that moment I had gotten him away from the Dolphin, from honor, from it all. So I stepped on the gas pedal of the car that turned heads in the street. I put into gear the Chevy that carloads of girls followed up and down the Avenue. I sat at the wheel of McKay’s Chevy, the car with the shiny finish not even the auto shop mechanic would run a fingernail across. I drove.
When the side of the Chevy hit the lamppost, when I felt the tires rush onto the curb, onto the sidewalk, when the body of the Chevy screamed and ricocheted into the door of the auto repair shop garage, I was not surprised. It seemed the most natural of things. I kept my foot on the gas. I could hear the paint as it fell off the Chevy like dust. I kept my foot on the gas, and the engine roared, but the Chevy could no longer move, for its fender was tightly wedged into the door of the garage. I laid my forehead upon the cool wood of the custom-made steering wheel. My raincoat lay open; I felt the morning wind of the Avenue enter the Chevy’s open window and touch me. The sun had only begun to rise, and it seemed the most natural of things that I should lay my forehead upon the steering wheel and close my eyes.
“That there the craziest fucking girl you ever saw,” someone—perhaps the auto shop mechanic—said.
McKay opened the door and turned the ignition key. The engine sputtered and then died. McKay only stared at me, with the darkest of eyes he stared at me.
“Will it run?” I heard McKay say to someone on the street.
Some Avenue expert, some mechanic, some v
“Will it run?”
“Well, man, you gonna race it and that car’s gonna blow or something. Man, that’s fucked up. That’s leaking oil like something else. You want to be safe, you’ll get yourself a diagnostic test, man.”
“Get out,” McKay said to me. “Get out of the car,” he said softly.
I wanted McKay to hit me, to rip my hand from its grasp on the steering wheel, to scream bloody curses into the air, but not to force me to leave the Chevy in silence.
In the early-morning light of the Avenue the strangers that are drawn to the sound of screeching tires and broken glass gathered around us. A young corner kid of ten or twelve stooped to grab the disfigured side-view mirror from out of a pool of shattered metal and glass. From the gutter, he grabbed a souvenir, a souvenir of the Chevy, a souvenir of McKay. A memento to remember the morning when the craziest fucking girl drove the ’59 Chevy into a garage door and souvenirs lay in the gutter, in pieces. My shoulders began to shake.
“McKay,” I said. He held my arm and helped me from the driver’s seat to the Avenue sidewalk. McKay held me close to him, and the eyes of those who follow accidents were upon us.
“He’s dead,” said McKay. “The Sweet is dead.”
“McKay,” I said. I knew the Sweet was dead. I was the one who knew that, I was the one who wanted the dead to remain dead, who wanted the living to remain alive.
“That’s all there is to it,” said McKay. “He had no honor in life, but the Orphans give it to him in death. There is no way for you to stop that. There is no way for you to stop me.”
I was silent and McKay kissed me and held my raincoat tightly closed. We watched the mechanic and some older neighborhood boys push the Chevy back into the street.
“Will you forgive me?” I whispered. I knew my words could be met only with silence. He could never forgive an act that was only an act of love and nothing more. “Will you forgive me?” I said.
McKay did not answer. Then he turned from me, and I watched him toss the .22 into the glove compartment of the Chevy, watched him pour oil into an engine that seemed to have no end to its thirst. I had to let him go. I stood in the heat, in the sun, of the Avenue, and I had to watch McKay start the engine and ride away.