Cartilage and Skin (20 page)

There were three boys now, coming down the center of the street, with Ray in the lead and another boy, who was fatter and shorter, walking a girl's bicycle with a pink frame and a white basket attached to the handlebars, and inside the basket sat a brown grocery bag, at which the third boy—the one who had abandoned Ray earlier—kept glancing, as though he feared the bag might fall out onto the pavement, and this boy was carrying a video camera strapped to his palm and aimed up the street, as the three of them walked, approaching a commotion of cars and a small pack of people standing on the sidewalk across from Kyle's house. The boys drifted from the center of the road to the sidewalk, although the fat, short boy walked along the curb, pushing the bike beside him. When they came to the nearest police car, Ray looked at it, and the boy with the camera followed Ray's gaze, so he was now filming the two policemen who stood near the back of the car. The boys stopped just behind the policemen and taped their backs. The two men didn't turn around and see the boys, apparently not realizing that they were there. One of the men was drinking a cup of coffee and looking up at the house.

“Men are the gory ones,” he said. “Put a couple more years into the job and you'll see that I'm right.”

The other man didn't say anything.

“Or you can read the research.”

Kyle's car still protruded from the end of the driveway, although all the doors were now open and a man was poking around inside of it.

“Women like pills or poison, like they're fucking Cleopatra or someone. Dainty even in death.” The man laughed, but the other officer silently continued to inspect the scene.

“After a little while, when the blood begins to settle and the skin turns black, no one stays dainty too long.”

One police car had its lights flashing, but the siren was turned off. The front tire of the ambulance had ridden over the curb and was partially sucked into the wet soil of Kyle's lawn.

The man sipped his coffee; he seemed mildly amused.

“Women want to do it from the inside out; keep their image intact. Men,” he said, and now he was actually smiling, as if entertained by his own wit, “they do it from the outside in. With guns or knives. And they always do at least one test cut. Practice wounds.” He turned now, to address the other man. “One time, around last Christmas—Christmas is the season for this kind of shit, you know—this one fucker took his circular saw—” he said, but he abruptly stopped talking when he noticed the three boys standing directly behind him. His smile vanished, replaced by a sneer. The officer moved toward the boys, but they backed away.

“Come here,” he snapped.

Ray already turned around and started running, while the boy with the camera kept pace beside him. The officer struck a stance as if he would spring out after them, but he simply watched them running away. He was still holding his cup of coffee. The two boys laughed as they ran. The fat boy was long gone, furiously peddling his bike far ahead in the distance.

“Did you see that cocksucker?” the officer said. “He had a camera on me.”

But the other officer still didn't say anything. He stepped away from the back of the car. He moved slowly, as if nothing could possibly interest him, especially the other man or the boys. The brown bag was on the ground beside the curb; the man picked up the bag and without opening it, walked back and handed it to the first officer, who set his coffee down on the trunk of the car.

“What's this?” he asked.

“They dropped it.”

The first officer looked into the bag and smiled.

“Those bastards,” he said. Laughing, he pulled out several thick glossy magazines. On one cover, a skinny girl—with her head back, her skin pulled tightly over her ribcage, and her breasts rising up her chest, caught in motion, an action shot—was mounted upon a penis as thick as her own forearm. On another cover, a young girl grinned with a mixture of drunkenness and content as cum bubbled out of the corner of her mouth and dribbled down her chin. There were several other magazines, and the two men quickly began to shuffle through them.

Excited and greedy, one man pulled. “Give me that one.”

“I like her.”

The girl was on all fours.

“Daddy's princess.”

The men laughed.

Small amid the towering buildings, the boy walked along a crowded sidewalk, and with every step, his wounded foot dragged upon the cement. Two women were reading a menu posted on a glass door. When the boy came up to them, he appeared to regard them as no more than cardboard cutouts because he began to shoulder his way between them. He made little grunting noises. One of the women instinctively hoisted her purse, like a football, under her arm.

“Hey, now,” she said, looking down at him.

The boy didn't seem to hear her.

The two women stepped apart, to let him through. As soon as he passed them, the women turned their attention back to the menu.

The boy continued along the sidewalk. He was dressed in a set of navy green sweat clothes that were a little too big on him. Although his hair was neatly parted to the side, something in his hazel eyes made him appear unkempt, almost savage. He looked at the passing faces, with a broad gaze that simultaneously devoured and yet dismissed the faces. He walked up to a bakery. Wicker baskets of bread were displayed in the window. When the boy pulled the door open, a tiny bell tinkled. A young, dark haired girl looked down at him from behind the counter, apparently frustrated by the sight of him.

“Oh, God,” she said.

“The man,” the boy said fiercely, as if giving her a command.

“I don't know who you're talking about.”

“The man.” The boy turned his gaze from the young girl to a seating area where there were several tall, marble-topped tables and stools with black cushioned seats. A man with a gray beard lifted his head up from a book. A pair of adolescent students, both with backpacks, ceased talking and looked at the boy.

“The man,” he demanded of the customers, but they simply watched him with vague interest.

“Why do you keep coming in here?” The girl had her hands flat on the countertop. “I just gave you a bagel a few minutes ago. I'm going to have to call someone if you don't stop coming in here and screaming like that.”

“Hey,” the boy said, “hey,” as if the girl had turned away from him. “The man.”

“I'm calling someone.” She stepped back from the counter and lifted the phone from the wall. “See,” she said. “You're going to get in trouble.”

“Hey,” the boy persisted, with rapid bursts. “Hey. Hey. The man!”

He then turned and walked briskly toward the door, putting his weight upon the heel of his wounded foot. Apparently oblivious to any threat, he yanked the door open. The bell tinkled once as he left the shop.

The man with the beard suddenly stood up.

“Call the police.”

The young girl, as much fearful as confused, was still holding the phone, her eyes wide and her mouth partly open.

“Call them,” the man barked at the girl.

He stepped away from his table and started toward the door. He paused, however, in midstride to explain. “His neck's all bruised.” He then hurried out the door, but less than a minute later, he returned.

“He must've ran or something.”

The girl was leaning over the counter, to get a better view of the door.

“I didn't see his neck,” she said quickly. “I didn't know.” Her bottom lip began to quiver, as if she might begin to cry. “I didn't—”

In a car lot bordered by a high metal fence, a man in beige coveralls was squatting beside the battered station-wagon. He placed his hand upon the front tire.

“And what do you think I want with it?” the man asked. He had a round face and a dark complexion.

Ralph took a pack of cigarettes out of the interior pocket of his suit jacket, brought the pack up to his mouth, tapped its bottom, and pulled out a cigarette with his lips. He put the pack away and then lit the cigarette with a silver lighter.

“Tires are all bald, the hoses are brittle, and it's burning oil something fierce,” the man said.

“Yes,” Ralph said, smoking his cigarette and staring out over the rows of cars. He had gauze and white surgical tape wrapped around his knuckles.

“This isn't worth anything,” the man said.

“Well, how much will you give me for it?”

“It's not worth anything.” The man stood up and patted the hood of the car, as if to prove his point.

“Five hundred,” Ralph said.

“I'll give you a dollar to drive it out of here.” The man smiled with his broad mouth and fleshy, burgundy lips.

“Five hundred.” Ralph exhaled the cigarette smoke, apparently indifferent to the man's humor.

“You can't even get that from its parts. The only thing worth anything is inside the gas tank.” The man chuckled now. “I don't mean to slight you,” he said.

“Yes,” Ralph said. “Well, how much do you think the gas is worth?” He wasn't looking at the man.

“About seventy-five dollars.”

“All right then,” Ralph said as he pulled a slip of paper out of his suit pocket, placed it upon the hood the car, and quickly signed it. “Two fifty.” He handed the man the paper.

The man raised the paper and inspected it, as if checking for counterfeit money.

“I can take a crap and give you the title, if you want,” the man said. He laughed at himself as he folded the title several times, until it was a small square, and stuck it in the breast pocket of his coveralls.

Ralph continued to smoke his cigarette, as if the man hadn't said anything at all.

The man revealed a clip of money from beneath his bib. He took out a hundred dollar bill and handed it to Ralph, who briefly glanced at it and then tucked it away in his pants pocket. He seemed to imagine that the transaction was over, and he merely stood there to finish his cigarette. The man, who continued to talk to Ralph, could have simply dissolved and drifted vaporously away. After Ralph smoked the cigarette down to the filter, he flicked the butt onto the loose gravel and started to walk away, without bothering to take leave of the man. Even so, the man came up beside him, as if he didn't realize that he'd been disregarded, and handed the yellow license plates to Ralph. The two men walked side-by-side across the car lot, the man talking all the while and occasionally pointing at one car or another with a screwdriver he had in his hand. He escorted Ralph up to the gate.

“It was a pleasure,” the man said.

Only then did Ralph seem to acknowledge the man, by giving him a slight nod. Ralph walked along the fence, which ended at the corner of the block, and then he turned right, angling across the street. He stepped between two parked cars and continued along the sidewalk, still holding the plates, though now raising them up and looking at them, as if he'd just discovered that he was holding something. He was on a narrow side street, where the buildings were faceless, with neither curtains nor blinds in the windows. When he came upon a subway grate, he bent down and tried to slip the license plates through, but they wouldn't fit. He turned down a busier street. After a few paces, he suddenly stopped and headed back in the opposite direction. At the corner of the street, a drainage gutter was along the curb. Without losing stride, Ralph dropped the plates into the gutter, and then his bandaged hand rose up to his suit jacket and took out the pack of cigarettes again. Smoking the newly lit cigarette, he approached a cart on the corner, where a man in a bulky brown coat was selling hot pretzels. Ralph looked at the man intensely for a moment, and the man looked back at him with a puzzled expression, but before he could say anything, Ralph resumed walking. A little farther up, at another stand, Ralph bought a newspaper and a cup of coffee. With the paper tucked under his arm and the cigarette in his mouth, he descended the stairs into the subway.

There was a girl this time, standing beside a tree behind Kyle's small detached garage and watching Ray as he walked up to the back of the house and then lifted himself up to peer into the bay window. He glanced at the girl. Before the back door, there was a slab of concrete, where a gas grill sat beneath a black tarp. He waved the girl over, and she left the cover of the tree and came across the lawn. She was slender, the openings of her short shirtsleeves flared a bit at her shoulders, and her sandy brown hair was pulled back from her face with a purple barrette. Ray looked at her as she inspected the house.

“There's no car in the driveway,” Ray said. “That fat real estate lady hasn't even been here in almost a month. They'll never sell this place, especially that woman. She's a cow.”

“Stop it, Ray,” the girl said.

“It's true,” he said. “Wait here. I'll let you in.”

He walked alongside the house, and just on the other side of the air conditioner unit, he sat down on the grass and lightly tapped the bottom edge of a casement window with his heel. The hinges squealed, and they were so rusty that once the window was open, it didn't swing itself shut. Ray turned onto his stomach and slipped himself feet first through the narrow opening. Shortly after he disappeared, the window closed, from the inside.

The girl waited on the concrete slab. She stooped down and lifted up a ceramic flowerpot that was on the ground beside the door. When Ray opened the door and stuck his head out, he saw her standing there with the pot in both of her hands.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for a key.”

“I'm already inside.” He smiled at her. “You're a goofy girl.”

Putting the pot down, she said,
“You're
a goofy girl.”

He held the door open, and she stepped past him. He followed her from the foyer, into the kitchen, where she took a seat at the table. He glanced out the bay window for a second, as a precaution perhaps, and then sat across from her. He kept his eyes upon her face as she looked about the kitchen as though it were a museum. When she met his eyes, she let her gaze linger a moment, before standing up and walking out of the kitchen. He followed her.