And Sons (29 page)

“What?”

“The statue over there.”

“Oh.”

“Or maybe just famous for New York kids. Climbing that thing is like entering the octagon, the amount of injuries it causes. I swear some psycho butters the thing every morning. The left ear of the white rabbit almost killed me once.” Andy pointed to the scar near his eye.

“Nice,” from Emmett.

“How tall are you anyway?” Andy asked.

“Six-one.”

“Sixteen and six-one. What a tremendous nephew I have.”

“Thank you, dear uncle.”

“I’ll be lucky to crack six-feet.”

“My mom’s tall.”

Andy for a moment considered the height of mothers and then said, “I guess so.” He stopped where the hot dog cart should have been and surveyed the area like a great white hunter searching for umbrella prey. “Where is that bastard?” he said, knowing exactly how he sounded. To his right was the oversized and homely bronze of Hans Christian Andersen, with his self-reverential Ugly Duckling staring up at his feet, in looks more duck than swan, a straight-up mallard, as if the sculptor had somehow confused the tale with
Make Way for Ducklings
, or, worse, had given the illiterate public the literal version of the tale, turning the story into a story of delusion. But Andy couldn’t care less about this artistic choice. “There are usually a lot more people here,” he said, “lots of action when the weather’s warmer and less gray. There’s like water in the pond and people sail these toy sailboats, not really toys, more serious than toys, you can rent them over there, like these remote-controlled sailboats. I’ve actually never done it. I have no talent whatsoever with wind. But I did fall in once, by accident. Or kind of by accident. It was stupid. I was like twelve and I was trying to be funny—actually I was being funny, if I say so myself, but then I got soaked. The water’s super-gross. Oh, and there’s a hawk, I think it’s a hawk—a peregrine—no, that’s a falcon—either a hawk or a falcon and people go crazy for this bird, I forgot his name, and he like lives in one of the buildings on Fifth, not in the building, obviously, like a resident, tenth floor please, but in the façade, like builds a nest in the façade and raises little baby hawks or falcons—chicks, right—and everyone oohs and aahs and lines up with cameras and binoculars, a real fucking fan club. Pall Mall or something like that—wait, that’s a brand of cigarette. He might be dead now. Or he’s moved somewhere else, downtown probably. Or Brooklyn. One time he perched on the ledge outside my bedroom
window. Pretty amazing, seeing that kind of wildness up close. The pigeons and rats, they probably have no idea what’s hit them. There they are, in this city, their main predators taxicabs and kids, and suddenly from nowhere
swoosh
and
boom
. Maybe it’s almost thrilling, like, Oh yeah, this is how I should be living my life, too bad I’m now dead.” For some reason Andy wanted to tell Emmett everything, but Jesus, put a cap on those emissions and get back on subject. “Where the hell did that guy go?”

“There’s another cart over there,” Emmett said.

“It’s not the same.”

“Maybe he knows where the other guy went.”

“Why would the dude move from this primo spot?”

“Why don’t we ask?”

“I don’t know, asking seems—”

“I’ll ask,” Emmett said.

“Yeah?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“Okay, most excellent nephew, you ask.”

Like a newly formed vaudevillian duo, Andy gestured for Emmett to lead and Emmett nodded and kicked toward the cart and its vendor, who seemed a veteran of the Crimean War, his expression so flinched as to be flinchless. Seeing these boys approach, he raised his eyebrows as if warmth came one punk nickel at a time.

“Excuse me.” Emmett smiled a California sunset.

The man replied with a vista onto rubble.

“Do you know where the other hot dog cart went, the one over there?”

The man turned to where Emmett was pointing.

“It’s very important we find him,” Andy added.

The man regarded these two as another fleck of New York shit blown in his eye. “He in trouble?”

“Not that important. We’re just curious.”

“About what curious?”

“About where he went curious.”

“And so back to why curious. If you want hot dog, soda, knish, I your
guy, but if you want information, well, that make me informant and I not your guy.”

“It’s not like that at all,” Emmett said.

“Do we look like feds?” Andy asked, desperately wanting to look like a fed.

“Who’s Fetes?”

“No, feds, as in FBI.”

“Don’t pull bullshit on me, kid. You want a hot dog or what?”

“Not from you,” Andy said.

“What that mean not from you? I got good dog, fine dog. Even better sausage.”

“Way overpriced.”

“My price same price as everybody else around here price.”

“Yeah, and that’s called price-fixing and that’s un-American.”

“My story make you weep it’s so American.”

“I’m sure it is, sir,” Emmett said, trying to get back on track. “We’re just looking for the other guy because we really like his pretzel.”

“His soft pretzel,” Andy clarified.

“His soft pretzel,” Emmett reclarified more politely.

The man’s top lip threatened to curl past his nose. “I got pretzel,” he said, gesturing toward the bready concertina that rested on a pan.

“Yes, we know—”

“I got good pretzel.”

“Yes but—”

“My pretzel as good as his pretzel.”

Andy stepped in as if those were fighting words. “Sorry, but no way.”

“Sorry but same exact pretzel. We all get same exact pretzel from same exact pretzel supplier and we all cook pretzel same exact way, not even cook, just salt, warm, and serve, the pretzel the same exact for all of us, no difference.” The man paused. “So two pretzel?”

“Maybe we—” Emmett began saying but Andy went bad cop.

“Just tell us where the other guy is selling his pretzels.”

“This no sensical. Have you ever try my pretzel?”

“Why would I try your pretzel when I can get one of his pretzels?”

“Because my pretzel identical.”

“I beg to differ.”

“But you never try,” the man said. “And I hear what you say, my pretzel-loving friend, some carts no respect with their pretzel, just moist doughy blob, oversalted, three bites and you feed rest to desperate bird. No cart like to sell pretzel. No good profit with pretzel. Not many people eat pretzel. Pretzel take up space. Pretzel need to be toasted. And the fucking salt, people wanting certain amount of fucking salt, just right. Bullshit. Hot dog good, sausage good, knish good, soda and water good, all that good, but pretzel bullshit. Old-timey, they say. Still better than pain-in-the-ass roasted nuts. That I never understand. But me, like you friend, me, I like good pretzel, I respect pretzel and I want pretzel to shine. I mean look at my pretzel. It pleases the eye, my pretzel, no? And these pretzel just display pretzel, window pretzel. Real pretzel right inside here, in toasty box, the ready-to-go true pretzel.” He lifted the lid and a cloud of twisting heat burst into the atmosphere. His hand, half-gloved in a napkin, sunk in and removed a knot of golden brown. “I am proud of this pretzel,” the man said.

Emmett grinned. “I never realized how much I liked the word
pretzel
. Or maybe it’s just your accent. It’s like
pretzel
is a poem written by Pushkin.”

“Pushkin?” questioned Andy.

“Okay, maybe not.”

“No, no, I like that. Pushkin’s Pretzel.”

“Not that I’ve read a word of Pushkin,” Emmett admitted.

“Me neither but I still like it.”

“Pushkin was a queer,” the man said.

“What, like gay?”

“Not gay, queer. Big-time queer. He and Gogol, queer together. Father of Russian literature and its weirdo uncle, both queer. But thank God for the queers. It is easy to love a woman, it is in nature, but art to love a man, and a profound art to want to put your horse in another man’s stall. Now which of you queers going to give me two dollar and fifty cents for this pretzel?”

“We’re not gay,” Andy said. “At least I’m not.”

“Me neither,” Emmett said, unclear whether to nod or shake his head.

“We’re related.”

“Nephew, uncle.”

“Which
is
kind of queer,” Andy admitted.

The man shrugged. “Asshole is asshole if you don’t buy pretzel.”

Emmett started to reach for his wallet but Andy stopped him. “You can’t.”

“All this pretzel talk has gotten me hungry.”

“No,” Andy said with absolute gravitas. “We will find the other guy.”

“He’s not here, and these look good. Let’s just try—”

“We will find him. It’ll be worth it, trust me.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You one fucking hard-on,” the man told Andy.

“Just tell us where he went.”

“I offended.”

“I’ll give you ten dollars.”

“You can buy four pretzel for that.”

“Just tell us.”

The man dropped his rejected pretzel back into its creel. The outstretched bill seemed a bribe against his honor, with both money and virtue in short supply, and after brief internal debate conducted via eyebrow, he took the bill, giving five dollars in change. “He got permit at carousel, the fucker.”

“Thank you,” Andy said, turning away.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

But Emmett, new to New York, had a harder time leaving. “What’s your name?”

“Lensky.”

“I’m Emmett. Nice to meet you, Lensky.”

“I hope you choke on that fucking pretzel.”

“Thanks.”

Emmett turned and followed Andy, who was trying to get his bearings
for the carousel, somewhere south and west, he knew, somewhere in the lower middle of the park, but where exactly he wasn’t sure, wasn’t even sure if he had been to the carousel before—he must have, right, as a boy ridden on one of those circus horses that went up and down and all around with the organ music churning and the small hands gripping and the bigger hands playing the worn leather reins as if on top of a bucking bronco or on Belmont dirt, mothers and fathers snapping photos from the sidelines, the more careful parents riding alongside, the spin just fast enough to thrill without bringing on vertigo, a perfect human calibration—yes, Andy must have been there before but the question put a bit of apprehension in his step, like he had stumbled on the origin of deficit.

“That guy was excellent,” Emmett said.

“Yeah.”

They charged up Pilgrim Hill and passed the humorless statue
The Pilgrim
, high and mighty on his plinth, with his musket and his wide-brim hat and his God-possessed eyes settling on the wilderness, though this Plymouth Rock was a popular spot for late-night hookups, the joke of de-Mayflowering too hard to let pass. Sunday mornings the used condoms were displayed up at the foot of those boots like game after a successful hunt.

“You have a girlfriend?” Andy asked.

“Not really,” Emmett said. “Not now. I mean I have girlfriends and stuff but not like a girlfriend girlfriend. I’m kind of avoiding the whole girlfriend girlfriend situation at the moment. I do have a friend and she’s a girl but it’s all screwed up, thanks to me. I was rotten to her even though I was trying to be nice.”

“California girls, huh?”

“No, Lithuanian,” Emmett said.

“I just mean those California girls must be sweet.”

“They’re some decent ones for sure. I don’t know, I’d take New York girls any day. Just walking around here is like walking in a wet dream, but more sophisticated.”

“A sophisticated wet dream? What does that mean?”

“The girls have smaller tits.”

Andy laughed. “I bet you do pretty well for yourself.”

“I do fine, I guess. I don’t even care anymore.”

“That sick of getting laid, huh?”

“I’ve kind of made a pledge of celibacy.”

“No way.”

“I just want to clear my mind of that distraction and focus on other things.”

“I hear you, I hear you,” Andy said. “I feel like I’m constantly peering over a hard-on.”

“It’s been liberating.”

“And how long have you been celibate?”

“Almost three days.”

“Wow. No action in three days?”

“Not quite three days.”

“You’re like a fucking monk,” Andy said.

The two boys merged onto a path heading south. The people sitting on the benches seemed a lower class of bench sitter, staring at them like they saw their mislaid youth wander by. Andy decided to try for a more direct route that cut west through a well wooded, unfamiliar dell. He was bewildered by his bewilderment. This park was his backyard, after all, but here the land seemed to slip into its prediscovery past. Bears could have come crashing through the trees.

“How about you, do you have a girlfriend?” Emmett asked.

“Um.” Arrows could have zipped by their ears. “There is this older girl.”

“Yeah?”

“Like twenty-four.”

“Nice.”

“And we’ve been like flirting, I guess. Pretty adult content, I’d say.”

“Excellent.”

“But we haven’t fooled around or anything. Not yet. I tried to get her to send me a picture of herself naked but that was a no-go, so I sent her a picture of my junk instead.”

“Uncle Andy!”

“Actually it was someone else’s junk, a random image I grabbed off
the Internet, though I paged through a lot of dick before I found an acceptable double, so there was a moment where I questioned my motivation.”

Emmett grinned. “And she thinks it’s yours?”

“I think so. And maybe that penis had more grandeur.”

“Grandeur?” said Emmett, now laughing.

“I was adding room for growth.”

“So it’s a picture of your future penis.”

“If my future is about yay big. I’m seeing her tomorrow night. She invited me to this big book party, which will probably be awful. You should come, you should totally come. You can rub shoulders with real New York assholes. It’ll be ridiculous but the drinks will be free, and there’s no fear of getting carded. You can meet this girl, this woman, and tell me what you think. It might be humorous.”

“If my dad let’s me, sure.”