Fresh Kills (40 page)
Authors: Bill Loehfelm
“Like the city, when we just look at the many different, contradicting parts of my father on their own, it is impossible to see how they all fit together into one man. It defies logic. It doesn’t make any sense. But if we do the best we can to stand back and see him as a life, one life, maybe we can see that, though we may not understand how, the parts
did
fit together. Not always, maybe not ever neat or pretty, but the parts made a whole. They made a life. And that life is what we are left with now that he’s gone. What we do with it, how we carry him forward from here is up to us.
did
fit together. Not always, maybe not ever neat or pretty, but the parts made a whole. They made a life. And that life is what we are left with now that he’s gone. What we do with it, how we carry him forward from here is up to us.
“So what I’m going to try to do, when I remember him, is to stand high enough and look long enough to see the whole man, the whole life. All I ask of you, in his memory, is that you try to do the same.”
I brought my hands out of my pockets and let them rest on the podium. I searched for the next thing to say. Then I realized, surprised, that I was done. I wondered how much of what I had said I would remember, how much of it I would still believe if I did remember. I guessed I’d find out, when I thought of this day. But that was for the future. There was nothing left to do right then but go back to my seat.
Julia and I climbed into the limo and followed the hearse as it delivered my father to the same sprawling cemetery where my mother and her parents were laid to rest. I spent the ride with my eyes closed and my head back against the seat. Julia rested her head on my shoulder. She twisted a rosary through her fingers but she didn’t pray. She just quietly cried. Molly and Jimmy and Rose followed in their cars. Nobody else came with us.
After Father talked of ashes to ashes and dust to dust, I watched, my arm across Julia’s shoulders, our friends gathered behind us, as the casket was lowered into the ground. I felt my stomach sink with it. The scene reminded me of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. The last scene. Where the ark is sealed in an anonymous brown box and wheeled into the back of an enormous warehouse. All that awesome power, hidden away in a plain brown box and forgotten.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. The last scene. Where the ark is sealed in an anonymous brown box and wheeled into the back of an enormous warehouse. All that awesome power, hidden away in a plain brown box and forgotten.
Like my father. Carefully sealed in a box of his own, lowered into a hole in the ground and buried. Packaged clean and neat, and put away. All that had emanated from him, bled or poured out of him into the world and into me; the fury, the frustration, the flailing violence—it was all gone. It walked no more halls, charged no more air, boiled no more blood. Not even, at least for the day, mine.
Julia broke away from me to thank and to pay the priest. I walked a few steps off to the side and lit a cigarette. Molly, Jimmy, and Rose approached the grave. Each plucked a flower from the arrangements. At the grave, one at a time, they dropped the flower in, and blessed themselves. They gathered at a respectful distance to wait for Julia and me.
Julia took two flowers. She dropped one into our father’s grave. She carried the other to our mother’s headstone, a few feet away. She laid the flower down at the foot of the stone, then knelt and prayed, her eyes squeezed shut. A bird sang in the trees. It was the only sound. When Julia was finished, she stood and made the sign of the cross. Then she kissed her fingertips and wiggled them at the headstone, a little grin curling the corners of her mouth.
I didn’t take a flower. I walked to the edge of the grave and looked down at the casket. Burial seemed to me a cruel ritual. Cheap. We bury garbage. Why do we bury each other? What made burial any more than throwing someone away? A plain box and a pile of dirt. Some greenery over the top, just to pretty up the ugly truth. Just enough dirt to keep you from stinking up the neighborhood. Was this what we got for our troubles? For our fury and pain? For our agony? For the love and home we made? Was this what awaited us? The same fate as the garbage we dragged to the curb. Was there a way to cheat that fate?
From the pocket of my suit jacket, I pulled the photo of my father and me on the ferry. One more time, I studied the two of us, burning the scene into my mind, making it into a memory, something, one thing I could carry away from the edge of his grave. Other scenes materialized behind my eyes. He and I at the top of the Towers. His football team, his wedding day, he and my sister on a carousel pony. The fights with my mother, the fights with me. My father and Fontana. The scenes and the memories, good and bad, ran and swirled together. Like the colors of a kaleidoscope, all the images and colors blurred at the edges where they touched. I could not think of one moment, it seemed, without seeing all the others.
In the pocket of my leather jacket I found the scrap of police tape I’d taken from the murder scene. I wrapped the photo in the tape, tying the tape in a knot. I held the bundle in my fist. With the same fist, I tore a bunch of shamrocks from their pot. I kissed my fist. Then I took a deep breath and tossed the whole lot into the grave. Stray shamrocks stuck to my fingers. I shook them off and watched them spiral slowly down and settle on top of the casket. I got down on one knee, my leather jacket creaking at the shoulders, my cigarette burning low between my fingers. I spent a few long, last moments looking down at my father and his son.
I wasn’t throwing them away, I decided. I was just changing the way they continued to live.
SIXTEEN
JULIA AND I MET THE OTHERS BACK AT THE CHURCH. JIMMY SAT
on the hood of his car, the girls standing at either knee. Except for them, the parking lot was empty. The church was locked up and dark. As I got out of the car, I caught a whiff of exhaust from the traffic cruising by us on Annadale Road, the rest of the island going about their normal afternoon business. Otherwise, it was a beautiful spring day.
on the hood of his car, the girls standing at either knee. Except for them, the parking lot was empty. The church was locked up and dark. As I got out of the car, I caught a whiff of exhaust from the traffic cruising by us on Annadale Road, the rest of the island going about their normal afternoon business. Otherwise, it was a beautiful spring day.
“Now what?” Jimmy asked as Julia and I approached.
We looked to one another for ideas, none of us having given the rest of the day much thought. It was a good feeling, having the day wide open and free before me. I held up my car keys.
“Get in the car,” I said. “There’s something we need to do.”
Nobody moved.
“Trust me,” I said.
Jimmy bit first, hopping down from his hood, shrugging at Rose and climbing into the backseat of the Galaxie. Rose got in beside him, shaking her head. My sister patted my shoulder, opened the passenger-side door for Molly, and squeezed in beside Rose. I stopped Molly before she got in the car.
“Long overdue as this is,” I said, “it’s still gonna take some nerve.”
“I’m up for anything,” Molly said, taking her seat beside mine. “Besides, I always was tougher than you.”
I walked around the front of the car, climbed into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. I turned to the others in the back.
Jimmy poked Rose in the shoulder. “Are we there yet?” he asked, several times. “She’s on my side,” he whined. “Tell her to stay on her side.”
Rose whacked him playfully in the temple. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Let’s put our backs to this place for a while,” I said.
“You always take me to the nicest places,” Molly said as we crossed the landing and turned up the last set of stairs, a single lightbulb flickering over our heads.
Finally, we emerged into the pale fluorescent glow of the train depot. Warm orange light pouring from their open doors, half a dozen of the silver trains sat idle on the tracks. They looked like a kid’s play set, fresh out of the box. The electricity waiting to power them crackled in the air, tingling in my nose.
“Up here,” I said, leading our entourage away from the trains up the wide ramp to the ferry terminal. Single file, we passed through the turnstiles.
The vast, high-ceilinged room was quiet, dimmed sunlight tumbling in through the dirty skylights. The coffee stands and fast food joints ringing the room did no business. Cashiers leaned on their elbows, flipping through newspapers or just staring off into space. A few tourists crowded together at the pea-green double doors that led to the next boat, clutching shopping bags and purses to their chests, nervously glancing over their shoulders into the yards of empty space behind them. A Port Authority cop shook the shoulder of a homeless man passed out on a bench.
We crossed the room, our dress shoes clicking on the marble floor. The big digital clock above the double doors read “Next Boat: 03 minutes.” The five of us lingered in a patch of sunlight, well away from the tourists. Molly and I held hands. Snatches of conversations in French and Spanish drifted back to us.
“You want a coffee or something?” Jimmy asked me. “A beer?”
“I’m good,” I said. “But we’ve got time if you need something.”
“Anyone?” Jimmy asked.
Everyone declined. Jimmy stayed put, rocking on his heels with his hands in his pockets.
The big clock hit zero and the doors rumbled open. We let the tourists get a head start, took our time moving down the hall, emerged into the sea air, and boarded the squat orange boat.
The other passengers had disappeared inside, heading up the stairs to the second deck. We stayed on the back deck, leaning on the railing. Seagulls perched on the pilings all around us, watching the proceedings, beady eyes glittering in their tilted heads. The whole boat shook as the engines rumbled to life beneath us, churning the brown water to froth, kicking trash to the surface then swallowing it again. The deafening groan of the horn sounded, chasing the gulls airborne. The smokestack at the center of the boat coughed up a cloud of smoke, and we heaved forward. The pilings shrieked and rocked as the ferry muscled them aside and headed for open water.
Jimmy shouted something at Julia, but she just raised her hands and shook her head, unable to hear him. Molly put her arm around my waist, leaning into me so I could hear her over the engines. “Let’s go upstairs,” she said. “It’s too loud back here.”
“You’re sure?” I asked. She nodded and walked away from me.
I smacked Jimmy on the shoulder and pointed toward the doorway. He passed the message to Julia and took Rose by the hand. We followed Molly, who was already waiting for us at the top of the stairs.
Her shoulders set straight, her chin tilted up, Molly led us the length of the boat. Pigeons and sparrows scattered out of her way, puffing their feathers as they cooed and chirped their complaints at the rest of us. An abandoned
Daily News
blew in pieces over the tops of the benches, its pages caught in the wind off the sea. Molly turned out the door onto the observation deck. I held up my hand and we all stopped just inside the door.
Daily News
blew in pieces over the tops of the benches, its pages caught in the wind off the sea. Molly turned out the door onto the observation deck. I held up my hand and we all stopped just inside the door.
“Give her just a minute,” I said.
Through the windows, I watched Molly part the tourists and walk to the front of the deck. She made the sign of the cross and bowed her head, gripping the metal railing. The wind tossed her hair wildly around her. It pressed her black dress tight against her body. As the boat plowed its way toward Manhattan, I watched the empty space where the Towers once stood open up over her trembling shoulders. She raised her head and stared straight into it. The tourists around her, oblivious, posed for photos as we passed the Statue of Liberty.
My throat tightened and my heart ached for her. Jimmy stood with his head bowed, his hands folded above his belt buckle. Rose had her arms around him, her forehead pressed into his shoulder. Julia wiped away one tear with her thumb then gave up and let them fall. She looked away from me, clutching her arms tight against her chest. There was no one to tell me what to do. I had no advice, no smart-ass remarks, no vitriolic speeches to offer in dismissal or as distraction. Nor did I feel the need.
Even in our most self-indulgently tragic teenage daydreams, we’d never imagined standing in such an ordinary place and staring into one of the great tragedies, the great crimes, in our country’s history. A crime that stole the blood of one of our own. Of all the things we talked of doing together, grieving for and with each other never made the list.
Standing together on that boat, we were someplace far beyond anywhere we’d ever conceived of being while running the streets of Staten Island years ago. We were too young and bored then, kicking around dreams of the future like soda cans in the schoolyard, tilting them into the shine of the streetlights and tossing them aside like the caps off our beer bottles. Why pay attention? Tomorrow, there would always be more. Things never changed on Staten Island.
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