30 Pieces of a Novel (22 page)

After they get off the subway the kids tell him they want to go straight to the rides, which is the main reason they like coming out here, and they walk on the boardwalk—some of the cheaper rides are right off it—and he wonders, just as he thinks he must have wondered the last two times, what spot under it his cousin was killed. “Should we go on that big turning wheel?” his younger daughter says, and his older daughter says, “Yes, please, Daddy,” and he says, “Okay by me, if you're game, but it's going to count as two of your permitted six rides, it's so expensive,” and they walk to it while he's thinking, Or did the killer, who was probably the drug dealer, kill his cousin somewhere else? Or a friend of the dealer, or two friends, or just two thugs working for him, on the beach at night, his cousin somehow lured there, or maybe his cousin walked out there on his own—to see the stars better, he was somebody who'd do that, or because he liked solitude and he'd find it there more than any other place here at night—and they followed him, or even on the boardwalk when nobody was around, and dragged him under the boardwalk to get him out of sight and go through his pockets and slice apart anything that might contain money or credit cards. Why the tie over the back? Maybe in the scuffle, if there was one. Or else as a symbol of something then or only in this particular part of Brooklyn: “This is what we do to someone who pokes his nose into our business.” Lots of cops around, he notices. He read in the paper a week or two back about a Russian woman being raped under the boardwalk by three boys, so maybe that's it. Kids, she said they were: fourteen, fifteen at the most. They slashed her face and chest with knives and razors, then raped her. They used condoms. Why, they were afraid of getting AIDS? This respectable Russian émigré mother of two small children, jogging on the boardwalk, would have AIDS? And they'd think like that? Or it could be they thought it cool, using condoms. “Hey, let's all use bags when we rape her, that's something new.” Or else they didn't want—this is probably it, and learned from some older guys—to leave any semen in or on her. You can be identified as the rapist by your DNA. And they must have taken the condoms with them, the newspaper article said, since the police canvased the rape area and the three or four condoms they did find were so old they could have been from the previous summer. He didn't tell his wife about the woman because he didn't want her to use it to keep them from coming out here. She knew about his cousin, but that happened years ago and, as she said, “Deplorable as his murder was, in some ways you could almost say he was begging for trouble. Because what would you have done? Confronted the dealer if you saw him trying to sell drugs to kids—even to our kids?” and he said, “Maybe,” and she said, “Don't ever,
ever
. You get a cop. Otherwise, you put not only yourself in danger but also our kids.”

Lots of garbage, he notices, while his girls are in one of the cars high up on the Ferris wheel; plenty of screaming from up there and he listens carefully but can't tell if any of it's from them. The area around here always had lots of garbage, but he doesn't remember this much. “Why are you going out there?” his wife said this morning, and he said, “Because the kids like it, they can let off some steam, it's a day at the beach after a couple of weeks in the hot city, and some old memories for me are brought back when I'm there. Looking up through the boardwalk slats at people walking. My Aunt Essie and her family. Nathan's. At the time it was—before it was a chain—
the
place to go just before you took the subway home; it's right across from the station. With the best hot dogs, best fries, and certainly the best hot buttered corn anywhere, or that's what we thought. And as a kid, you go out there thinking that, you usually end up confirming it, even if the food really isn't that great. Or maybe it was. Maybe the hot dogs were kosher then and fresh and grilled perfectly and the corn was the best any joint could buy and picked that morning and they boiled or steamed it the absolutely right number of minutes, but not anymore. Last year and the year before—I gave them a try twice and that's enough—the food was crap and the place was seedy and dirty.”

The kids come off the Ferris wheel hungry, and he says, “Okay, let's get some grub,” and they chant, “Nathan's, Nathan's,” and he says, “You don't remember last time? One of you got sick, even, I think, but I forget on what.” They go to a fast-food chicken place on the boardwalk. He has coffee; they get a plate of fried chicken and fries and cole slaw. The slaw's sour and the chicken tastes funny, the kids say. “Taste it,” and he says, “I take your word. After we drink up, we can get something somewhere else,” and his older daughter says, “But we don't want you to think we're wasting good food. See for yourself,” and he pulls a piece of meat off; it looks okay but it tastes as if it's been cooked in the same oil they fry fish in. He thinks, Should I? Ah, go on, no harm here, and they give me one bit of lip I'll say, “Okay, just saying,” and goes up to the counter with the plate and says to the woman behind it, “Excuse me, but was the chicken and maybe even the fries—I didn't have one—fried in the same oil the fish is? It sure tastes it,” and she says, “This is a chicken place, we don't cook fish here, just chicken and things that go with it,” and he says, “Then I don't know, then,” and goes back, and his older daughter says, “No luck?” and he says, “Well, I didn't really try.” A dog walks in off the boardwalk, sniffs around, the kids offer it a chicken leg and just as he's about to say, Don't, people eat here, the woman says, “Please, there, nothing for the mutt or he'll never stop coming back. Give him a kick outside, but watch it he doesn't bite. I know him from before: a stray,” and he whispers to the kids, “Let her do the honors,” and dumps their plate and cups into the trash can, yells “Thank you,” and they leave.

Few more rides. The last, the Water Flume, is the only one he ever goes on, because the spray, whenever the boat makes a sharp turn or slides down the tubing and hits the water, cools him off. “Okay”—wiping his arms and face with a handkerchief, he had the lead seat—“now time for the beach, and I'd like to read,” and they both say they don't want to go, and his younger says, “I can't stand that horrible smelly house to change in,” and he says, “Listen, we came this far to the ocean—more than an hour's subway ride; the walk from the station to here—we have to spend some time in the water or along the shore. Half hour max, then, I promise,” and they go down to the sand, kids take off their sandals and roll up their shorts and look for shells by the water. He puts his sun cap on, lies on a towel facing the water, and reads. It's windier here, sand gets in his eyes and on the pages, sky gets darker—is it going to rain? Wasn't forecast and there's still plenty of sun behind him and are those rain clouds or just—well, another kind of cloud?—when some lifeguards at the station nearest him are blowing whistles and shouting and waving and people on the beach are pointing out to the water and some are running down to it and the lifeguards throw off their caps and shirts and race to the water with ropes and a small surfboard or float, and he squints in that direction and sees someone in the water about two hundred feet out, maybe more, can't ‘“ell if it's a man or woman but it's an older person, he's sure, and now it seems a bald one, so a man, or maybe that's a racing cap, waving his arms to be saved, it seems. He listens but can't hear the man, if he's screaming, maybe because of all the yelling around him to the lifeguards in the water: “He's over there … there … to the right … to the left … get him before he drowns.” Lifeguards are halfway to him by now, then reach him and seem to stretch him out on his stomach on this board or float and start bringing him in, two on either side, one in front pulling a rope, when a woman, it's clear by her voice, about fifty feet out and thirty feet to the left of the lifeguards and the man, yells, “Help, help, stuck, help!” her arms flailing, and then her head disappears and bobs up again and two of the guards swim hard to her, grab her from behind and hold her out of the water by her waist and she seems to calm down—Gould even thinks he sees her smiling—and swims in with one of the guards, the other swimming back to the third lifeguard and the man on the board. Gould's standing now, kids beside him, his younger clutching his hand. More lifeguards drive up to the shore in a Jeep, two of them jump out to help the three lifeguards walk the woman and the man out of the water, another lifeguard stands on the front seat and says over a bullhorn, “All swimmers out of the water now…. Attention, attention. All swimmers must leave the water now. This is your lifeguard speaking, this is a city lifeguard speaking: everyone out of the water till further notice. No swimming in this area till further notice. Serious undertow, there is a serious undertow, so nobody in the water till the all-clear signal's given. I repeat: no going into the water till the all-clear signal's given,” and a man asks her, “And what's that?” and she says, “When the time comes, we'll let you know.”

“I guess that's it,” Gould says, and they start collecting their things. A man goes over to the man who spoke to the lifeguard and says, “What do they mean no swimming?” and the first man says, “That's what the lady ordered,” and the second man goes over to her in the Jeep and says, “What do you mean no go in the water? It's a public beach, I can do what I want so long as I don't hurt no one or cause a mess,” and she looks at him, and he says, “Yeah, that's right,” and she yells to the other lifeguards, “Buzz, Jake,” and waves them over, and Gould says to his daughters, “Why's the guy acting like that? They're the bosses here; they know what they're doing,” and his older daughter says, “Daddy, come on, we got to go, and I don't want to see a fight,” and he says, “Surely there won't be … just talk,” and she says,
“Please
, Daddy,” and they head for the boardwalk, Gould looking back every so often to see what's doing between the lifeguards and the man—for now, the biggest guard has his chest close to the man's face, but the man isn't backing off; he's staring right up to the guard and making some point with his finger stabbing the air—when it starts raining. They run for the boardwalk with a lot of other people from the beach—the lifeguards and the man stay where they are, still arguing, and the two people saved don't seem to be anywhere around—get under it, and put their sandals on. “Okay,” he says, when the rain dies down, “safe to leave, just a few sprinkles left,” and they walk to the subway, Gould setting the fast pace, when it suddenly starts to pour, then lightning, and he says, “Holy shit—excuse me—but out of this electric storm,” and grabs their hands and they duck into the nearest shelter, a game and gambling area without walls—just a big tent, almost like a circus one, he sees—and dry themselves on one of their towels and just stand there, though his older girl circulates a little, watching people play the various games and machines.

“I've been robbed!” a woman shouts. “Over there—that boy and two girls,” and Gould says, “What? Where's Fanny?” She's right behind him, and he throws his arms around his kids and brings them in to him and watches the two girls and the boy running through the rain, ten or eleven years old or so, the boy holding a woman's bag, one of its shoulder straps cut. “You kids … hey, you kids!” some people yell, but nobody goes after them and the kids never look back before they dart into an alley and are gone. People crowd around the woman—“What the little punks do? You didn't see them at it? They get your arm?”—and his younger daughter says, “Was she hurt?” and he says, “I only got a quick look, but I think just her bag was stolen, which is bad enough, plenty,” and she says, “I'm scared here, I don't like the people,” and he says, “Shh, they're all right, it's those kids who stole from her who aren't nice. But don't worry, nothing to be frightened about. And lightning's not supposed to strike a place twice,” and she says, “What do you mean?” and he says, “Lightning, they say—I'm not too sure how true it is … in fact I'm sure it isn't; I can't see any scientific basis for it being true, though I'm no scientist. Anyway, that it's not supposed to strike the same place twice, meaning in this case that no one will get robbed here again today. People will be more careful now. And it'll be all right for us too, once the rain and real lightning stop,” and she says, “And the thunder,” and he says, “That too,” but he doesn't know, maybe it won't be, maybe someone or a gang of kids will try to rob them when they go through that dilapidated dark subway station, or on the stairs there, or the platform. Though usually—no, always, it seems, and for no doubt good reasons—cops are in the station and more than enough people are on the elevated platform and a train's waiting there with its doors open, since it's the last stop for a couple of lines, and if they just miss a train then another's usually pulling in. But they could also be robbed on the train once it goes, since he doesn't recall the last two times seeing many people in the car. Why did he come out here? They were here the last two Junes, so why again? It's not as if the place had added new things to it lately. He forgot to tell his wife that the kids also loved the freak show on the boardwalk and a few days ago had asked him to take them to it—he'd planned to do what he did last year: get a coffee and sit on a boardwalk bench while they were inside—but they found out when they got there that it had been closed down. But this place has become too damn threatening, even dangerous. His cousin and uncle and aunt stayed for three months in an apartment on the third or fourth floor of a building only for summer rentals. Two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, all very modest, even shabby. Where'd he sleep? On the living room couch; he was small enough to be comfortable on it. Little balcony where you could talk to your neighbors, or hear them at least, on the balconies on either side of you. They were screened, he remembers, and the bathtub was in the kitchen and the toilet was in the public hall. There were two toilets to a floor, so you never really had to wait long if you had to go badly. The shower was in the courtyard downstairs. Anyone in the building and in the other buildings facing this courtyard could see you go in and out of the shower from their balconies. Now that he thinks of it, the shower had to be for just getting the sand out of your hair and off your feet, because one wouldn't have been enough for all those buildings if its purpose was for people to take a real soap shower. You hung your towel over the wooden shower door, or maybe there was a hook there, he forgets. Hook, over the door, what's the difference? Your feet could be seen while you were in the stall and if you were tall enough—he wasn't—your head. You stood on wooden slats and the water was usually cool to cold. In fact, he doesn't even know if the spigot went to HOT. He'd take the sub way from Manhattan by himself—down to 42nd and Times Square on the Broadway line, then switch to the Coney Island line, or that's what he called it—it had a more complicated name, one that was told to him often but he could never remember at the time, and now, well, it's gone. To make the transfer, he walked through the hub of the Times Square station, with shops and always lots of fast-walking people around, and then down a long ramp to get to the platform, and for some reason he sees it as a terminal stop too, a train waiting with its doors open, or one train pulling in as the other pulls out, but he could be wrong. When he got to the Coney Island stop, he took a long trolley ride to their building. A man came around the building several times a day selling snow cones from a cart he pushed. A trailer with kiddie rides would park near the building, recorded calliope music would play over a scratchy loudspeaker, and kids in the surrounding buildings and on the street would run to it. A photographer would take your picture on a pony in front of the building or in the courtyard, but he doesn't remember having one taken and there are no photos of him on a pony in his mother's albums and photograph drawer. Passing street bands, knife sharpeners in a truck or on foot, icemen, people selling produce from horse-drawn wagons, others selling cleaning supplies and pots and pans. His cousin took him on the Parachute Jump once. It was night; they sat in the same seat, strapped and barred in. His cousin seemed to laugh all the way up; well, he was usually laughing or smiling broadly, telling jokes, bantering, making fun. “Don't be scared,” he said, as they ascended slowly, “they only lost ten people in twenty years on this ride, and just five of them were kids your age. Only kidding.” When the pole above their seat hit something at the top, there was a loud pop of their parachute opening and they were supposed to quickly float down. But the seat got stuck up there for about half an hour. He must have been afraid because his cousin kept saying things like, “Take it easy, nothing to get worried about, and this time I'm not kidding you. It has to be something to do with the electricity or some snag in the release hook on top that they'll soon fix. But there was never even someone hurt on this thing in all its years here, and I've kept track. Believe me, if I thought it was something really bad and Uncle Victor's kid was in danger, I'd do everything I could to save you, even get off this seat and risk my life holding on in the open air out there if it was because the two of us on it were too heavy. Or grab you up if there was any immediate danger and carry you across to a seat that worked, even if it meant climbing a little down the wires with you to get there. But you see how calm I am, and normally I can be a mess,” and lit up a cigarette, took a few drags, and then did his swallow-the-cigarette trick he'd done lots of times, sometimes when Gould had asked him to—cigarette on his extended tongue, pulls the tongue in, mouth closes over it, he swallows, opens his mouth, no cigarette, then closes and opens it again and cigarette's there and still lit and just with his tongue he switches it to his lips and takes a puff and grins—pointed to the ocean and talked about what a great view, does he see the ship out there? must be a tanker, and look around while you can because you'll never again have so much time to sightsee from up here, but forget the pickle we're in, it's really only a tiny gherkin and we'll be out of it soon enough. A man in overalls rode up on another seat, stepped onto a platform, climbed a few rungs up a ladder to a big metal cabinet, unlocked it, and with his tools started working inside it, and Gould's cousin yelled up to him, “So how we doing, Mr. Mechanic?” and the man said, “It's gonna be fine; just stay buckled in, and I'll have you down in a few minutes.” Then: “Okay, kids, grab hold of your testicles, you're ready to sail,” and there was a loud snap from above their seat pole, their parachute opened, and they started to drop and Gould doesn't remember this but his cousin must have held on to him and he must have screamed.