High Crime Area (17 page)

I felt a wild impulse to laugh.
Rhomboidal radiance!
It would be futile to ask what this could possibly mean, for of course, as Harvey would say, poetry does not
mean.

Harvey said, “It's the dreamy vowels of ‘dawn-dusk-dew' that are seductive. And the beautiful word which I've broken into twin spondees—‘even-ing.' Note the drawn-out sound of ‘lunar' and the harsher nasal sound of the ‘
a
' of ‘scape.'”

I told Harvey that it was very—interesting.

“A poetry of sheer
sound
. For the inner ear—the
soul
.”

Harvey paused, shutting his eyes. A noise in the near distance, as of a firecracker exploding, or gunfire, did not distract him. “‘Sleek-sleet-sky-shattering.'”

“Very—striking.”

“‘Tight fists of shit.'”

Seeing my startled reaction Harvey laughed, pleased.

“Actually, that's my single complete poem, a haiku. The title explains all—‘Self-Portrait America 2012'—‘Tight fists of shit.'”

This “haiku” was stunning to me. The ferocity with which Harvey recited it suggested a meaning far deeper than the merely musical.

“It's ingenious, Harvey. Three spondees, isn't it?”

“Essentially, yes. ‘Tight fists' and ‘shit' are spondees—‘of' is lightly stressed. If read properly, the poem embodies its (unintended) meaning: ‘Tight fists of shit.' You will note the strong ‘
i
' repetition.”

Harvey opened his eyes wide now, and was staring rudely at me. As if he'd detected something forced and fraudulent beneath my schoolgirl enthusiasm.

“Do you have any other poems? I'd like to—”

“Not that you'd like, I think.”

Harvey's face shut up tight. A few seconds later, as if the caller had been purposefully waiting, his cell phone rang and he staggered off to answer it, in the other room.

Then, there were interrupted mealtimes.

Loud knocking at the door, and it was Leander, Tin, and Maralena.

Harvey hurried to let them in. Harvey offered them wine, ordering me in a lowered voice to wash our glass tumblers.

“Lydia was just making dinner. Will you stay? Eat with us?”

Leander grinned and shrugged, as if he were doing us a favor. Tin frowned, staring down at the floor; he seemed deeply moved. Festive Maralena said, “Ohhh thank you, Har-vey! We would sure love that.”

Maralena insisted upon helping me at the stove. Boiling pasta, checking to see if it was
al dente
before dumping it into the colander. In the cramped kitchen area Maralena laughed and gossiped with me as if we were old friends, or sisters. Several times she nudged against me as if accidentally, like a big upright purring cat.

The men sat at the table, drinking. But they drank red wine as if it were beer, or a soft drink. Leander's wild dreadlocks tumbled down his narrow muscled back and the Maori tattoo on his face glared whitely against his purplish-dark skin. Tin, flat-faced, small-eyed, vaguely Asian, was so solid-fleshed, the chair he sat in creaked and wobbled. Leander teased, “You fat-ass! Watch you'self you gon break these people's nice chair.” It was part of Leander's humor, the chair in which Tin was sitting was secondhand and the vinyl seat soiled and certainly not
nice.

Tin muttered what sounded like
Fuck you
. His flat face darkened with blood.

Harvey seemed dazed by our visitors, whose presence transformed the bleak setting. Leander was swaggering and charismatic as a rap star, Maralena gorgeous as the singer whose name I didn't know how to pronounce—
Beyoncé
. Even Tin, homely, strangely self-effacing, with a small mouth like a vise, exerted a curious sort of attraction. Beside these
so physical
individuals Harvey and I felt to ourselves like white-skinned wraiths.

And there was Maralena carrying plates of steaming-hot food to the table, slyly nudging her thigh against Harvey's arm.

Maralena wore gold lamé pants so tight they might have been poured molten onto her shapely buttocks, belly and legs. And, on her shapely torso, a black jersey tank top. When she'd arrived at the door she'd been wearing a
faux-
fox jacket over these clothes and on her head her shoulder-length cornrowed hair quivered like slithery little snakes.

Though I was nervous in the presence of our unexpected guests it was exciting to me to be feeding them. And my brother Harvey, who was my entire family now. Again I felt the happiness of bringing pleasure to others in an immediate and observable way.

Leander, Tin, and Maralena ate hungrily. At the ShopRite I'd bought a loaf of French bread which they broke into large pieces, shoved into the spaghetti sauce, and devoured.

“Real good, Lyd'ja!”

“Re-al good, girl.”

Maralena seemed just slightly surprised, my cooking was so tasty.

They ate, and they drank. In a daze of happiness Harvey filled their tumblers with red wine. Flat-faced Tin never spoke but only grunted, moving his jaws like a masticating insect.

After dinner, Maralena helped me clear away the plates, rinse and wash them by hand. “You a true sister to you' brother, Lyd'ja. L'nd'r be takin note of that.”

What Maralena meant, I had no idea. Her exotic eyes were fixed on me, I found it difficult to breathe.

And Maralena's special fragrance, that wafted from her hair and from the dip of her black jersey tank top revealing a shadowy crevice between her breasts.

“Thing is, girl, you' brother in some deep shit-hole with L'nd'r. Feedin him some nice meal like this is a good thing. L'nd'r got
heart,
no matter what his enemies say of him he be
stone cold killer.
”

Maralena had spoken just loudly enough so that Leander could overhear this remark if he wished. He'd been leaning back in his chair and now let the legs slam against the floor, hard. “Shut you' mouth, 'Lena, or somebody shut it for you. You read me?”

Maralena giggled, shivering. To me she said, “That boy just talkin. He ain't gon touch any blood-kin of his, he know what that bring on his head.”

Leander sneered, “You sure of that, girl?”

Boldly Maralena said, “Dint I just say I
was
?”

Now the table was cleared, Leander suggested that they play poker—just him, Tin, and Harvey.

Leander flourished a pack of cards. Showily shuffling them like a professional player.

I saw that Harvey wanted to say
yes
. But that Harvey knew he should say
no.

Harvey tugged at his mutilated ear, which was slow to heal and often itched.

“You, Tin? You in, eh?”

Tin nodded impassively.

“Har-vey, my man?”

Harvey moved his head, numbly. A foolish smile transforming Harvey's stubbled face.

Maralena said to me, “They be practicin for 'Lantic City, where they gon get their asses kicked at poker.” She giggled, running her fingers through her cousin's greased plaits in a way that seemed daring to me, provocative. Leander slapped at her hand. Maralena laughed and stepped away from Leander who was glaring at her, not smiling. Just slightly shaken—(I think this was so)—Maralena slid her arm around my waist, tight. “My girl friend Lyd'ja and me gon hang out in Lyd'ja's room listenin to some mad cool music. You boys be nice to you' host now, you hear me?”

Maralena walked me out of the living room and in the direction of the bedroom. It seemed strange to me, Maralena seemed to know her way around my brother's apartment. Behind us I heard Harvey's slow voice: “What kind of—stakes? Are we playing for money? The problem is, Leander—I don't have much cash right on hand, which you might know.”

“Shit man, sure I know. This be some friendly way Tin an me, we gon give you the opportunity to win big, climb up out of you' deep hole. See?”

Maralena led me forcibly away. Though it didn't feel
forcible
since I didn't try to resist.

Next day, Harvey lay comatose in his bed until noon.

He'd lost—oh Christ!—money to the boys.

How much, I asked.

Too much, Harvey said.

How much, please tell me.

Harvey flung his arm over his face, shivering and shuddering. He seemed about to speak further to me but then I heard his shallow erratic breathing, indicating that he'd fallen back to sleep.

All that I knew was that the three men had been playing poker and drinking and (just possibly) smoking hashish after Maralena had gone home at midnight and I'd lain on my bed partially undressed, and fell asleep to voices laughing and cursing in the other room.

It is family life almost.

They would not hurt family
—would they?

The situation seemed grave to me. Soon, Leander would come by to collect.

More than a finger-stub. More than a part of an ear.

There was thirteen hundred dollars in my bank account. I would write a check for half this amount, to give to Harvey—if Harvey would promise me he wouldn't spend it on something else but give it to Leander.

“Of course,” Harvey said eagerly.

“But—you promise? You will give it to Leander?”

Harvey insisted, yes.

I didn't trust Harvey. But I didn't think that I had any choice in the matter.

In my bedroom, which was also my study, we'd listened to music from Maralena's iPhone. Heated dance music it sounded to me, a Latin beat, rap from the islands Maralena said, the DR where she'd been born and from which she'd been brought—by her mother—at the age of five. Much of what Maralena confided in me I didn't understand, mesmerized by her rich warm musical voice and by her rich warm fragrant skin, the Maralena eyes, the Maralena nose, the Maralena mouth tasting of wine kissing me, lifting her wineglass to my mouth, urging me to drink, red wine that was nutty-sweet, a dark-nutty-sweetness that numbed the interior of my mouth and the interior of my skull as Maralena kissed my forehead, my nose, my mouth and Maralena kissed the ticklish inside of my neck so that I squirmed breathless and helpless and I was lying on the sofa that Harvey and I had dragged into the room which served now as my bed, badly stained and sagging sofa of a kind you'd see abandoned behind a Dumpster, but over this I'd draped a blanket so you couldn't see the stains and wear-and-tear of decades and Maralena was sharp-voiced suddenly wanting to keep me from falling asleep, shaking my shoulders and her talon fingernails sinking into my skin—“You, girl! Lyd-ja! Wake up!”—her voice urgent, alarmed; so that I thought
She has fed me something. Some drug
but the thought was a frail straw not nearly substantial enough to jolt me into wakefulness.

And there came, later, maybe only a few minutes later, or in the middle of the night, which is not a true “night” in Trenton but a glowering-dark riddled with light like wormholes, and punctuated with sharp percussive noises like the
snap!
of the soul as it breaks from the writhing body, the boy with the Maori mask-face, the boy with the headdress of greased and pungent-smelling dreadlocks tumbling down his muscled back, and Maralena pushed at him, and he pushed at Maralena,
Noooo
she was pleading, or maybe she was laughing-pleading, for you don't say
Noooo
to Leander, not a serious
Noooo
and there came a creaking of the sofa springs, and Leander's rough fingers scrambling down my body like a ravenous rat, and between my legs these fingers were poking, between my helpless legs these hard probing fingers defined themselves grabbing, pinching, squeezing, poking-into; and feebly I tried to detach myself, muttering in my sleep in an extinct language I tried to protest, and Leander grunted swinging his legs onto the sofa, prying my legs apart, and Maralena was faint now at the door or already outside the door calling back over her shoulder
Damn ol' swine, that girl too white for you
—you break her li'l white neck asshole you gon regret it.

In the morning my neck ached—my spine, the small of my back, the insides of my thighs, between my legs which was chafed and ravaged as with the incisors of a devouring rat—but my neck was not broken and my memory dim and retreating and therefore consoling.
You can't remember, whatever did or did not happen is on the far side of a chasm of memory which you cannot cross.
Soon then seeking out Harvey whose shallow breathing and pallid skin worried me, at first glimpse my brother appeared to be scarcely alive as if flung across his rumpled bed where his poker-friends had left him and I'd managed to wake him out of that stuporous suffocating sleep and he'd cursed me wanting badly to remain in that sleep and lamenting oh Christ!—first memory that came to him, he'd lost more money; and I asked, How much, how much money did you lose to them and he said, Too much. And then he said, Don't ask, you don't want to know.

7.

He'd become shorter. Losing height. In the crook of his arm was a deep gash, slowly healing. He claimed it was from the IV line the ER nurses had put into his arm, that had become infected.

On a battered calendar of Harvey's I saw a pattern of red
x
's. Less frequently, blue
x
's.

I asked him what the red
x
's meant and Harvey shrugged. None of my concern.

I asked him what the blue
x
's meant and Harvey said, Rehab.

But the blue
x
's were only scattered through a month. The red
x
's were several times a week.

Getting high?—red had to mean an Up Mood.

Blue?—the Down Mood.

I told Harvey, please let me drive you to the rehab clinic. You must have a schedule of treatment there, you can't afford to miss.