A Naked Singularity: A Novel (103 page)

“That’s what I said, what the heck. Well that’s what I said after I broke down in tears of relief, hugged her, and thanked God.”

“Ask her what Mary’s first words were,” said Alana.

“Huh?”

“Go ahead, ask her.”

“Okay, I’m asking.”

“Well I tell Ma to bring her to the hospital. She says she told Mary in the car that she was going to meet her new brother. Nothing. Anyway they get there. Mary comes into the room and gives me a hug and kiss. Still nothing. Then she walks over to the little glass bassinet where the baby’s sleeping, takes one look at him, smiles and says
this is something nice
.”

“This is something nice?”

“
This is something nice
, exactly like that.”

“Okay, and she’s been talking since?”

“More than ever, like nothing ever happened.”

“Tell him the kicker,” said Alana.

“What kicker?”

“Obviously I’m curious but I don’t want to mess with a good thing either so I don’t really say anything at first. Finally this morning I got up the nerve to ask her, you know, why she hadn’t talked in months. Know what she says?”

“What?”

“She goes,
you told me if I didn’t have something nice to say not to say anything at all
.”

“Get out.”

“Swear.”

“ . . .”

“So it was good news all around that day.”

“Serious,” said Alana.

“Although one thing’s for sure, it’ll be a long time before I use a saying around that kid again.”

“Oh and ma’s lumps were nothing either,” Alana said to my still slack jaw.

Then that thing happened where everyone in the room is suddenly uncomfortably quiet and doesn’t know where to look because the person they’re talking about walks in. And beautiful Mary walked confidently with her chin held high, cutting through that silence and into my lap as I began to make out a bizarrely-illustrated book in her little hand.

This epigraph is a lie
.

Everything in lower Manhattan looked different, almost unreal, that day—like Vancouver dressed as New York. Truthfully, I was surprised to see that the old buildings and people still existed in any recognizable form since someone like me believes that when they stop going to a place it immediately changes and everyone else stops going as well. And I had planned on never returning but Soldera was going to be sentenced that day and I had to go back and see what would happen.

The cold had remained and even intensified in a way that defied calendars, the changing of the seasons, or any other logic, until finally it seemed everyone would just quit and petrify in their place. Then suddenly, the day before, the sun had reappeared—without warning and at the seemingly last possible moment—to burn off the sky’s gray and warm the air until by the end of the day people could be heard to complain of the heat. And that next day, the first of life’s cruelest month, had been more of the same, with some even wearing shorts in a gesture that seemed more symbolic than anything.

From behind two of these individuals, who wore inexplicable smiles along with their shorts, emerged a solitary black figure taking impatient purposeful strides directly toward me as I stood outside of 111 Centre. I watched his every move, frozen in that spot, as the distance between us shrank rapidly and when he stopped three feet away from me I looked near his face but without focusing.

“I guess you’re pissed,” he said. “I wondered, not an especially long time, what your reaction would be and I suppose I have my answer now.”

I didn’t say anything and even kind of looked away a bit.

“At any rate, this should smooth things over between us,” he said, extending his upturned palm with a gold key in the center.

“Dane!”

“Yeah, who else?”

“I didn’t even recognize you until just now.”

“What are you insane? It hasn’t been that long. I look the same don’t I?”

“The hell you been?”

“Take the key Casi.”

“What is it?”

“A key.”

“To?”

“To a storage locker. You’ll find the address right on the key itself. Inside the locker is the money just waiting for you to go rescue it. It’ll be safe in there for a while but I wouldn’t wait too long. You’ll see I spent some of it, a man’s got to eat, but it’s basically all there.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Well that’s a long story. Let’s go get breakfast, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going in here about a case.”

“Dressed like that?”

“I’m only going because I want to see what happens, not in any official capacity. I don’t work there anymore.”

“Yeah I heard. So why do you care then?”

“Where’d you go?”

“Look don’t think I abandoned you at a difficult time or anything like that. There’s twenty million or so reasons for you not to think that. Truth is I had to go a little underground for a bit but now I’m back, in the flesh, before your very eyes. Now forget about what’s going on in there and let’s go share a last meal. Many of your questions will be answered there.”

“No I need to see.”

“Need? Casi, man, I guess some things won’t change. Forget about that building will you? Go get your money is my sage advice. Bottom line is you’ll never be the true subject of anything that happens in that or any similar building and as I repeatedly tried to impart to you in our limited time together nothing else matters the least.”

“I guess I won’t be.”

“No you won’t, at least judging from that picture of Assado losing his head.”

“You saw that before going underground huh?”

“Ah Ballena, you should say what you think directly. I suppose The Whale’s still lurking, true, but that’s no longer a concern of mine if it ever was.”

“Why would it be our last meal? You going somewhere? Or just still dying?”

“Going somewhere, going back down. Truth is I only came up here because of the cold. I love the cold. But now it’s getting hot here as well and if it’s going to be hot anyway I might as well be in Florida where I’m more comfortable. Fact is you should come with me. It’s much better down there than here, you are aware of that right?” I motioned like I had to go. “Like I said, go get your money Casi. I took enough to live on for a little while then I’ll do something else to get more you know? Maybe our future paths will cross who knows? You don’t want to come now? Cool. If you change your mind later we can always hook up then. 410? You did the right thing there. It’s all how you define
right
. That’s the key. Look around you, everyone’s adopting our definition Casi. With every passing moment any given individual is being stripped of significance, either being herded together with a great number of others only to be slaughtered en masse or else being severely isolated, left to fend for itself with only its meager gifts for protection. And make no mistake but that this state of affairs is as it should be. Let us continue to hone and hone the methods by which man hangs his fellow man and be done, once and for all, with any hypocrisy.” He smiled and grabbed my hand by the wrist. He turned my palm up and slapped the key into it then clasped it closed with his two hands. Just then a woman let out a hurtful scream to my left. I looked over and saw that she was actually laughing, bent over at the waist exaggeratedly as a man hugged her from behind and smiled. When I turned back Dane was gone. I moved my head quickly looking everywhere for him but it was as if he’d never appeared at all. I dropped the key into my pocket and went inside.

As I neared the outside of Cymbeline’s courtroom the atmosphere seemed a lot looser than I remembered it. My chin was down as I was hoping to avoid anybody I knew and when I went inside I sat in the last row of a surprisingly full courtroom. Hours passed and nothing happened, Cymbeline didn’t take the bench and no cases were done.

At quarter to one I figured I would have to come back in the afternoon. But then some clown I didn’t know walked in followed closely by Sam Gold who didn’t see me. The Sergeant nodded when he saw them then motioned to the clerk. The clerk in turn called Cymbeline to say the defense attorney had appeared then he called for a DA to stand. Said defense attorney looked nervous and Gold kept whispering in his ear.

Then a DA, looking just as green, arrived followed soon thereafter by a court reporter. And when the judge materialized it wasn’t Cymbeline. It was a new judge I hadn’t seen before and I didn’t catch his name but I heard say he had come over from the Bronx and would be taking over Cymbeline’s part indefinitely. And I heard more, that the nervous attorney in the well was a new lateral hire bought in to replace the fired Casi. Don’t ask. That before leaving mysteriously Cymbeline had decreed that all of this Casi’s cases were to be transferred to her part but that such move had been rendered moot by his subsequent firing, although this new attorney had taken over all those cases just the same.

Only three cases were on the calendar that day and as each was called the new judge would ask the clerk and the parties for a little background. And I had never thought to look at the calendar so I was more than a little surprised when calendar number one was called and Glenda Deeble was brought out from the back, her manacled hands trailing her as she entered. Save for the considerably more swollen stomach, she looked no better or worse, just the way she would apparently always look. The clerk explained that she had two cases. That she had somehow inexplicably made bail on the original methadone sale only to pick up a felony assault on a police officer stemming from another prostitution arrest. Which was the DA’s cue to insert that there would be no offer on either case and they were recommending consecutive time for something approaching a ten-year minimum. The attorney wiped some sweat off his meaty brow, the judge made a face that was hard to interpret, and Glenda said something no one understood as they led her back in.

Number two on the calendar was a co-defendant drug case. I watched Terrens Lake and Malkum Jenkins come out together followed by an explanation that even I had a hard time following at first about how Jenkins had a pending VOP and sale in Sizygy and was in a program but picked up another sale in which it was alleged he sold with Lake who himself had two other cases, one of which he had already pled guilty on but had yet to be sentenced. The numbers thrown around then weren’t pretty either and my replacement perspired some more. It was agreed that Lake needed a new attorney since the guy who took the plea was nowhere to be found and there was a conflict on his newest case. They were put back in as one.

The last case was The People (I thought every last one the city had) versus timorous Raul Soldera. I stood up out of habit then sat back down quickly. He looked worse, his time flowing more rapidly than ours and the wear apparent. The DA did the little synopsis this time. He explained that Soldera needed to be sentenced then and there. That he had warranted and had to be returned involuntarily.

“Why wasn’t he sentenced at the time of the plea?” the judge said having lowered his chin to see above his eyeglasses.

“He was sick your honor.”

“Was? Have you looked at him?”

“Yes judge but he warranted.”

The judge looked up and stared at the DA. He shuffled some papers and mumbled then looked at the defense table where Soldera sat.

And what took place next I wasn’t sure was really happening at first. Because that judge was asking Soldera’s new attorney if he had an application with respect to
the interests of justice and this defendant’s conviction
, to which the attorney responded with true bewilderment but the DA somehow caught on pretty quickly and started protesting that
any such motion has to be in writing
. The judge looked at the DA then started scribbling furiously. He told a court officer to give the paper to defense counsel and have him sign it, which even this guy knew enough to do but only after first looking at Gold. And when the paper was returned to the judge he turned immediately to the DA and asked him if he wanted to respond to defendant’s motion to dismiss in the interests of justice. Then the DA rambled a bit off his cuff, not normally a DA strength, until the judge looked up and verbally wondered
are you done
? When the DA indicated that he guessed he was, the judge gave his ruling:

“I have before me a so-called Clayton motion to dismiss in the interests of justice just submitted by the defense,” he said looking at Raul. “I also have before me a defendant who frankly looks like he should welcome death and who is here on a nonviolent charge that probably should never have been indicted in the first place. The defendant is released and his case is dismissed.”

Soldera looked at his attorney, this man he’d likely met minutes before, with a look that seemed to say
does that mean what I think it means
? Gold went up to the rail and spoke words I couldn’t hear. The Judge got up to leave.

“Mr. Soldera,” he said, “go and sin no more. Or at the very least, what do you say we avoid this particular sin?” Then he left through the back and the part closed for lunch. Soldera, Gold, and the new attorney walked by without seeing me and I heard Raul tell the new guy he was the best attorney he’d ever had. I thought about going up to the court officers and asking for the Judge’s name but decided that, really, it didn’t matter.

When I stepped out into the hall I looked to my right in response to a low guttural moan and saw something looking at me from down the hall.

It was Ballena.

It looked at my face.

I jumped back into the courtroom, went straight for the well where I flashed my attorney pass at the clerk, and disappeared into the area behind the courtroom before anyone could voice an objection. This time I knew where I was going and before long I was running down the stairs taking two and three at a time. By the time I opened the door to the street I was covered in sweat. I climbed out of that pit the door opened into and although the area appeared to be safe for the moment I thought I should get the hell out of there as soon as possible. I walked towards Centre Street and saw no one at all.