Made Men (17 page)

Winter, 1992: Upper East Side, Manhattan.

F
or a Tuesday, the
Guggenheim was packed. Frau Gitte had not felt like herself for months.

Despite
the thrill of standing before Duchamp’s lesser-known masterpiece,
Apropos of Little Sister
, she felt much
like the woman in the painting: hollow, angular—cachectic—defeated.
Ryker had an arm around her shoulders to steady her. Rickard studied her face
more intently than people ever looked at paintings.

S
he awoke hours later
at Beth Israel with a tube in her nose and another in her bladder. Lifting her
head as people, somehow entitled to do so, poked at her and asked her to track
their fingers and stare into pen lights then asked her embarrassing, maddening
questions as though she were a child or the gorilla researchers had taught to
communicate by sign language.

Was she a child? Did sickness diminish a
person like that?

Her
boys, now grown, stood straight and still as an animated man in a white jacket
and bow tie pointed to a glowing image, showing them some part of her on a
screen.

Perhaps her brain.
Certainly her head.

The
man in the bow tie shook his.

Inoperable.

Days
passed. She had the most amazing dream. A sculpture she’d seen as a child, Arno
Breker’s
Readiness,
had come to
life—the chiseled man was clothed, however.

She was grateful for that, due to his
proximity.

He
took something from her … though she couldn’t see it, she knew it was a thing
she was glad to be rid of. He spoke to her as he worked, his smooth,
statue-voice reassuring. Initially there had been other, uneasy utterances from
less confident people. The types who liked to say, “You can’t …” and “But the
integrity won’t …”

But he could. And it did.

She
awakened feeling strong and happy. Hungry, even. Someone held her hand. Was it
the sculpture? No …

The man in the bow
tie.

Crying,
though not sorrowful, she thought. Gitte wondered why. He didn’t look sad … he
was—it was …

She
placed it. He looked like she’d felt on the day the boys gave her
The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.
They
took it for her—stole it, really—two birthdays ago. She had merely
lingered to admire the Rembrandt, admiring the juxtaposition.

Frantic yet peaceful.

The
man with the natty tie, like the painting, looked both. She’d been mad at
first, once she realized the boys had stolen the painting.

We will give it back.

They’d
said.

When you don’t need it anymore. Until
then, it is only for you.

Still
upset, but also proud, she’d understood the gesture. They loved her, but saying
so wasn’t dramatic enough.

Right now, it is your painting.

“How
do you feel?” the man in the bow tie asked, no longer ignoring a child nor ape.

Had she changed?

“Good.
I feel good.”

“Good,”
he mirrored, shifting. “That’s good.” She waited him out, once more
distinguished.

If he thought he could out silence a German,
he was wrong
.

He
blinked at her, began to speak but didn’t, then blinked some more. Then sat at
the foot of her bed, studying his hands.

“Your
sons brought in a specialist…” glanced up “…a man I’d never heard of.”

Frowning,
nodding at a blank space on the wall. “He operated on you in a manner I can’t
comprehend …” He stood, wagging his tongue side to side, his jaw open as though
he were dislodging something bothersome from his lower molars and wanted her to
see the trick, then shut his mouth—disembodied—watching his feet
pace a pair of circles: a figure eight, the sign for infinity.

Gitte
thought the doctor looked like he had lost something—an intangible
item—something he would be unable, ever, to find again and was aware of
the futile nature of searching for it.

A child on a beach
who pined for his kite the day after a typhoon.

“Are
you nauseated?” he asked, almost hopeful. “Have you any pain?” Gitte ran her
fingertips along the raised, sore skin on her head.

“No.
I feel really nice. Sort of … blissful—”

The
man wiped at his eyes as though expecting the plain white cloth for blood, for
signs of the stigmata, and seemed surprised with each dab, each blot, that it
didn’t come away red.

“In
a few days we will take the staples out and you will get another MRI. I
wouldn’t have said this a week ago, but I think you are going to be fine.” He
laughed nervously, searching his molars again, eyes contemplating the ceiling.
“That is a thing I never say to patients. Even when I WANT to … even when I
THINK it…” the doctor nodded at her like a blackjack dealer she’d just tipped
too much “…you should know that.”

He seemed elated—and more than a
bit terrified.

It
was as though he had witnessed a miracle.

“Thank
you,” Gitte offered, more to settle him than to be polite. “Who are you?”

The
man shook his head. He appeared unsure how to answer. It was a big question:
one his name and credentials could no longer appropriately answer.

“Yesterday,
I was considered the world’s top neurosurgeon—a tumor specialist…” he wiped
at his eyes and shook his head some more “…but today I’m just a humble, simple
man.”

New York

B
ehind a fortified
door in a concrete fortress, the Germans continued their work.

Leontyne
Price’s voice oscillated from expensive speakers—her performance as
beautiful as it was appropriate.

She
sang
Vissi d’arte,
written by Puccini
for
Tosca
, but as Price’s words
unfolded they became a part of the twin’s work as well. Ryker continued to weld
titanium: a scaffold of frames and clamps and small screws with moving parts
set to specific angles. Pausing, he pushed an articulating piece to see if it
moved like a wing.

It did.

Soon
it would hold the panels of leather Rickard painstakingly prepared. Rickard
liked the medium.

Human leather.

Preserved
tattoos sliced from men both from organized groups, and loners.

Bike gangs and criminals from Russia and Japan.
Europe,
too, and various islands.
And Louisiana and Polynesia.
Hundreds of panels.
Each pane stretched tight, scraped thin,
and tinted—very slightly—gold. Dots of ink, placed while the men
were alive, by other artists, were badges of courage.

Medals of honor.

Men
of power and status used to inspiring fear: none of them humble. The dragons
and sunbursts, crucifixes and swastikas, stars skinned from knees, fish and
owls and bears and tigers, some crude—others elegant—were cut and
sewed. Rickard installed brass grommets as Price crooned:

I lived for art,

I lived for love.

I never harmed a living soul!

With a discreet hand I relieved all misfortunes I
encountered.

The
magnanimous spooks were precise in their art.

Their work was important. Many humans
would see the final result.

U
nlike the song,
however, they had harmed living souls.

And the world was a better place for their
efforts.

A
thousand miles west, the German’s odd
yet
fully-human
associate, Bonn Maddox hunched over
his over-easy eggs. He sat by himself in the front of the diner, in a worn out
booth by the door.

A wanted man.

Bonn
shook his head, spearing some egg on his fork. He was hunted by a dozen
agencies, but that didn’t worry him. The corruption sting he’d run with the
German’s help—
and Henna’s—
in
the nation’s largest city had paid off. Officers, policemen—rooted in
graft, human trafficking, drug rings,
child
porn—were now dead. He chewed a bite of bacon, wiping his fingers on the
napkin in his lap. Killing them hadn’t bothered Bonn.

Injustice did.

The
vigilante glanced at the documents hanging along the walls.
Copies
of both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

He knew both by heart.

 
Sipping bad coffee from a chipped cup,
Maddox remembered how proudly the Puerto Rican policewoman … a good cop he’d
held comfortably captive, but who’d been too close to catching up with him …
how appreciative she’d been of the Bill of Rights that he’d hung in the room
with her and her partner, before the coup—his war on injustice in the
city.

Detective Castillo
.

She’d
known them by heart too. He wondered how she was and if she’d kept the original
Bill of Rights, New York’s copy, he’d planted in her kitchen when he let her
go. Nothing had been mentioned in the news so perhaps she had.

B
y the door of the
cafe, a flag folded into a neat triangle sat in a shadow box, an old picture of
a young man hung beneath.

Outside
snowflakes drifted, lazy and wet. The ones further out melted to slush upon
landing. A pickup truck approached. Snow
hissed
from its tires, hit a puddle, and
thumped
a spray of slush against the plate glass storefront. The flakes farther still
seemed to fall in a more uniform way,
but the ones just outside the window paused, shifting midair like mosquitos, to
peer in at the locals eating breakfast.

Men
at the counter chewed gristly breakfast steaks and dipped sausages into egg
yolks as, elbow-to-
elbow,
they discussed the news and
the weather.

Farmers and retirees
.

Bachelors
tired of eating cereal alone. Craving companionship more than food. An ancient,
bowed man with dirt-stained knuckles curled around his own chipped cup nodded
his thanks for the refill and studied the steam rolling off the brown fluid,
head tilted amicably to better hear his neighbor.

“More
coffee, handsome?” The flatterer was a tired waitress with a genuine smile,
perhaps fifty. With his white shock of hair covered by dye and his brown contact
lenses, slouched as he was in the booth, over the hot food, Maddox looked like
a big farm kid home from college for the winter break. The type who would have
a sports scholarship but take serious classes and surprise everyone by becoming
a scientist instead of a draft pick.

“Yes.
Thank you.”

Shuffling,
the waitress ambled back, her head bobbing side to side to help her sore knees,
behind the counter.

The locals got refills if they wanted
them or not
.

Pouring
the row of cups full, parsing tiny tubs of paper creamer out, chatting as she
went, she seemed able to validate and compliment even those she knew wouldn’t
leave her a tip.

“Did
you get your snow tires on Irma?” one asked.

“Not
yet,” said Irma. “My studs are worn. I might just leave the Michelins on this
year. Not that I’m rooting for global warming or anything, but it’d be nice not
to need snow tires anymore.” A few chuckled.

“When
I saw the Halloween costumes for sale at the store, my next thought was snow.
Then snow tires.
Next I thought about how the price of my
blood pressure meds has doubled since universal healthcare saved us.” This was
her act. Her shtick … and it worked. Bonn felt himself smiling along. “I need a
statin now, also, by the way.” She stopped in front of a
man
eating
bacon. “Apparently it isn’t the bacon that kills you, George,
it’s that I’ve had too many pieces of it.” Cheers. They were grateful not to
discuss the weather.

Pouring
the next cup full, “Or heaven forbid, a piece of toast, Norm.”

She knew all their names.

More
important, she knew that they needed to hear them. To be seen and recognized as
people.
To be special.
Individuals
braving the slush and the snow and the dingy fields for her coffee.
Irma
grumbled something Bonn couldn’t make out, but her voice carried as she rounded
the counter to wipe down the already glistening small tables. “And I love
toast!” Burnishing a scar in one, she added, “So I’ve got to decide if I’m
going to buy snow tires and let my arteries clog up a little more or slip
around a bit and stabilize my residual years of bacon and butter.” Laughs.
Knowing nods.

The
row of men, thankful for the topic of costly medications, exchanged anecdotes
until a young woman swung the glass door open, stomping on the brown mat,
brushing off snow. The old-timer tipped his ball cap, reminding the others of
their manners. She picked up her to-go bag, but Irma wouldn’t let her pay and
teared up as Irma bustled her back outside, patting her, wiping at errant
snowflakes.

They
stood, the girl and the waitress, breaths steaming unheard words into the
chill. Without Irma there, a reverent lull ensued. Finally one of the farmers
asked the others quietly, “That Ingersoll’s girl? Moved to Ohio for a while?”
A few nodded. One sniffed.
“That’s one of the
real reasons Irma can’t buy her snow tires. Two kids still at home, takes care
of both parents, works cleaning motel rooms at the Best Western when she’s not
here … but still buys a hot breakfast for people who need one. A saint, that
woman.”

Agreements murmured down
the line.
Bonn
glanced down the row of working-class backs.

America. This was what he’d gone to
find.

He
propped a stack of bills under his breakfast plate that caused his eggs to
slide, and pulled the hood up over his dyed hair. Another twenty on the counter
by the register for his breakfast as the row of
deeply-lined
faces nodded their good-byes. The man with thick, curled hands turned stiffly
to face him, fiddling with the cigarette that he planned to smoke outside.
It appeared painful for the farmer to turn his
neck, as though he’d spent fifty years staring straight through the windshield
of a giant combine.

“Drive
safe, young man. That highway’s slick.”