Shoot the Moon (2 page)

“Wheah you gon widdout breakfass?” his grandmother asks him as he walks by her.

“Out,” Russell says.

Goodman stares at the spare tire. Slowly, it dawns on him: The tire is defective; it won’t hold air. Only they’ve been too cheap to replace it. Instead, they’ve filled it with sand or something to make it
look
normal, figuring nobody ever bothers to change a tire on a rental car, they just call the company to come out with another tire.

But Michael Goodman is stubborn. Instead of being like everyone else and calling the toll-free “Help” number for Avis, he goes back to the trunk of the car. There, nestled in with the jack, he finds what’s he’s looking for: the jack handle, rounded and hollow at one end to remove lug nuts, but flattened like the end of a crowbar at the other.

Back at the spare tire, he uses the crowbar end to try to pry the sidewall away from the wheel. There’s some adhesive stuff he has to break through, but he manages; after all, there’s no air pressure left in the tire to fight him.

He runs the crowbar end of the jack handle around the wheel, separating the tire from it completely. Then he pushes them apart far enough so that he can look inside. At first, he can’t see anything but darkness, so he turns the opening around to face the sunlight. Now, as he peers inside, he can see something blue.

Keeping the opening as wide as he can with the jack handle, he uses his other hand to reach inside. He feels something smooth that he’s unable to get a grip on. But by running his hand over its surface, he comes to what feels like a corner, which he’s able to grasp in his fingers and pull partway out of the opening.

It turns out to be some sort of a blue plastic wrap. He pinches it, trying to break it to see what’s inside. But it’s either heavy-duty plastic or several layers thick, and it takes him a minute to make a tear in it. When he finally succeeds, a white powder trickles out.

Russell Bradford walks toward 140th Street. He’s in a hurry, but he can’t walk too fast because of the cramps in his midsection. In spite of the fact that it’s 40 degrees out, Russell’s dark skin glistens with sweat.

At sixteen, Russell looks as though he could be going to school this morning, or on his way to work, or running some errand for his mother or grandmother. But he’s doing none of those things. As he walks, clutching his $20 bill tightly in his fist inside the pocket of his jeans, Russell Bradford has only one thing on his mind, one goal in all of life.

Russell Bradford is going to cop.

Michael Goodman has never before seen real narcotics. He’s tried marijuana twice in his life, even inhaled. It made him cough a lot before putting him to sleep. But Goodman has seen movies, and he’s not stupid. Without knowing precisely what the white powder is that has trickled out of the blue plastic, and without having the slightest idea how much of it there is inside the spare tire, he knows he’s stumbled upon something serious.

His first thought is that his discovery could get him arrested. That thought alone makes him uncomfortable, until it’s replaced by his second thought. It’s the second thought - that this stuff could just as likely get him
killed
- that prompts him to act.

He looks around. Spots a pay phone less than 100 feet away. Walks directly to it. Lifts the receiver. Hears a dial tone. Punches in 911. It rings twice before he hears a recorded voice.

“We’re sorry, all available operators are busy. Please stay on the line. Your call will be answered by the next available operator. If your call is not a true emergency, please hang up now and dial the seven-digit number of the agency you would like to reach.”

Goodman stays on the line as instructed. Every thirty seconds or so, the recorded voice comes back to assure him that calls will be answered in the order they have been placed. It reminds him to hang up now if it’s not a true emergency. That gets Goodman to thinking: Is his call a true emergency? True emergencies are heart attacks, fires, people in distress. He imagines that his call may prevent such a true emergency call from getting through in time to save someone’s life. He wonders if, when they finally answer his call, they’ll be angry at him for not having hung up and dialed the seven-digit number of the proper agency. But, not sure what the proper agency even
is,
he stays on the phone.

Five minutes go by like this. Ten. The phone is in the sun. Sweat runs down Goodman’s neck and forehead. His shirt sticks to his back. His eyes burn. Standing in one place causes his back to hurt even more than before. He changes positions so that he faces away from the car.

After fifteen minutes, he tells himself he’ll wait only another minute before hanging up. He gives it three. He’s sure that as soon as he hangs up, that’ll be the exact moment they were about to get to his call. He decides to give it one
absolutely
last minute.

He turns back toward the car in time to see two kids - boys no more than twelve or thirteen - doing something at the back of his car. He can’t see
what
they’re doing; they’re partially blocked from his view by the open trunk lid.

“Hey!” he yells.

They straighten up and look in his direction.

“Get away from there!” he tells them.

They hesitate an instant before turning away from him and breaking into a run. Goodman smiles to himself. He feels empowered, pleased that he’s succeeded in frightening them away, even though they were only boys.

It’s several seconds before he notices that they’re each carrying one of his suitcases.

He drops the phone and tries to run after them. But his back seizes up before he can even reach the car. By that time, the boys are a full two blocks away, turning a corner.

He figures they weigh about ninety pounds each. They’re wearing sneakers. Goodman’s ten pounds overweight and wearing Thom McAn loafers with leather soles. Even with his back in good shape, he knows he wouldn’t stand a chance. He gives up.

He’s too far from the phone to hear the voice of the emergency operator who finally answers his call.

He bends down painfully, picks up the jack handle, and tosses it into the open trunk. He struggles with the spare tire until he gets it upright, then rolls it up and into the trunk and back into its well. He closes the partition that covers it, slams the lid of the trunk, and gets in behind the wheel.

His suitcase and garment bag contained all of the clothes he had with him. With them gone, he doesn’t have so much as another pair of undershorts.

Goodman says “Shit” out loud. It’s the strongest curse word he ever allows himself.

He feels absolutely drained, too exhausted to do anything. He decides to head back to the motel, maybe spend another night. He figures both he and his back can use the rest, even if it’ll mean another $36 for the night’s stay. He can try calling the police again from there.

Of course, first there’s the little matter of the flat tire.

Goodman gets back out of the car, walks around to the tire, and looks at it. He decides maybe it’s not quite so bad after all. He remembers an old line about only the bottom of a tire being flat. He guesses he can drive on it, slowly, until he gets to a service station. He gets back in, starts the engine, and backs carefully out of the diner’s parking lot.

He drives cautiously in the right lane. Before he’s gone two blocks, he spots an automotive-parts store. He pulls in and buys some pressurized tire inflater labeled Jiffy-Spare. He’s never used one before, but he’s heard that they generally work about half the time. Knowing his luck, he figures one out of three should be more like it. With tax, the three cans come to $10.39. He pays cash.

Outside, he screws the nozzle onto the valve of the low tire until he hears a hissing noise. He can feel the can grow cold in his hand as it empties. To his astonishment, the thing actually works on the first try: The tire fills with air. Some gummy, white stuff shows when he unscrews the can.

He drives back to the motel, feeling pretty good about things. With no usable spare tire, he’s succeeded in fixing a flat tire by himself. Not everybody could have done that, he decides.

As soon as he turns into 140th Street, Russell Bradford knows he’s going to be okay. He sees right away that several of the regulars are out working. Big Red is there. So is Eddie Boy. And the new kid who’s got dust.

Russell walks over to Eddie Boy’s steerer first. He’s a pimply-faced junkie who always seems spaced-out. They call him “Zombie.”

“Hey, Zom,” Russell says. “What’s happenin’?”

“What’s happenin’?” may be a term of greeting to others. But on 140th Street in the South Bronx, it’s not just a greeting. To the hundreds, or thousands, of the Russell Bradfords of this world, “What’s happenin’?” is a very specific question. Loosely translated, it means pretty much this: “What are you selling? How are you selling it? How good is it? And how much is it going for?”

“Night Train,” Zombie tells him. “Dynamite, man. Dimes.”

Russell thinks over his options for a minute. He knows he needs to stretch his $20 out and make it count.

Night Train is a brand of heroin. The dealer actually stamps his brand name onto the paper in which he sells his product, not very differently from the way boxes and cans in a supermarket are labeled Heinz or Sara Lee or Birds Eye. After all, the customer has a right to know what he’s getting for his money. If he likes it, he’s going to want to buy it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. This is the nineties, after all. This is all about competition and marketing and brand loyalty.

“Dynamite” warrants that the product is top-drawer. In this case, that means potent, able to deliver a real high, and, at the same time, stay with you.

“Dimes” are $10 bags. “Nicks” would be fives, “treys” threes. But the smaller bags tend to be weaker. They’ve often been whacked once more, and they’re there for the truly desperate, who don’t have the money to buy the better stuff. Even in the world of the addict -
particularly
in the world of the addict - the haves make out; the have-nots suffer.

“Gimme one,” Russell says.

“One time,” Zombie calls out, and from nowhere another kid appears, one whom Russell hasn’t seen before. Russell hands the kid his crumpled twenty; in return, he’s handed two fives and a small square of paper. The kid disappears. Russell turns and walks away. All the while, from twenty feet away, Eddie Boy watches. Not once does he touch the drugs or the money, or say a word.

Next Russell walks over to Big Red. Big Red is big, and, as always, he wears his trademark red baseball cap.

“What’s happenin’, Red?”

“Blues, yellers.”

The colors refer to tiny glass vials containing a few rocks of cracks. They are distinguished only by the color of their plastic caps. The blue caps are going for $7 apiece today, the yellows $5.

“Any good?” Russell asks.

“Ain’ nobody bringin’ ‘em back,” Big Red tells him.

“Gimme two yellows,” Russell says.

“See the cashier,” Big Red says, nodding toward a skinny woman with cornrows. Russell steps over to her and gives her his two fives.

“On the phone,” she tells him without looking at him.

Russell turns and walks to a phone booth ten feet away. The phone is broken; the receiver has long ago been cut from the wire cord and never replaced. But on top of the phone, Russell finds two tiny glass vials with yellow plastic tops. He pockets them and walks off.

Back at the motel, Goodman registers for another night’s stay, paying the $36 in cash. He’s given a different room this time, and right away he finds that there’s something wrong with the air conditioner: It works, but it’s terribly noisy, like maybe it’s suddenly about to taxi across the room and take off. But he’s already removed his shoes and socks, and he’s happy to have the room, so he doesn’t complain. Besides which, the bed in this room is nice and hard, which should be good for his back.

At the Formica-topped desk, he goes through his receipts, an old accountant’s habit, and counts his money again. Breakfast has cost him $7.75; along with the three cans of tire inflater stuff and the extra night in the motel room, he’s already spent $54.14 today, leaving him with just $53.97. There’s no way he’s going to make it back to New York, even with the $100 in traveler’s checks.

He runs a hot bath, figuring soaking in it will be good for his back. While the water runs, he uses his telephone credit card to call his answering machine in New York. He has to shut off the air conditioner to hear the tape.

There are six messages in all, and for a moment he figures at least one of them has to be a callback from one of the jobs he sent resumes to last week.

He figures wrong.

Three are from collection agencies regarding overdue bills. One is from his former employer, informing him that his medical coverage has been canceled and his gas credit card stopped. Another is from his mother-in-law, telling him that his daughter - who’s been staying with her while Goodman looks for a job and gets back on his feet - has been complaining of headaches lately and that she’s worried about her. The final one is from his uncle, who’s called to announce that his angina is bothering him. Goodman erases them all.

He’s about to call his mother-in-law when he remembers the spare tire. He’s got to try the police again before he does anything else. But as he dials 911, he becomes aware of the sound of water running in the bathroom. He decides the call can wait until he takes a bath.

He waits until the tub is full, well over the overflow outlet, before he turns the faucets off. The water is hot, so hot that he can barely stand it, and he has to lower himself into it gradually. But once he’s able to stretch out in the full length of the tub, it feels good, and he senses his back beginning to loosen up just a bit.

There’s an annoying gurgling noise that comes from the overflow outlet, which is several inches below the water level itself. Goodman places a washcloth against the outlet and holds it there with one foot. The gurgling noise stops, though some of the water continues to escape. With his other foot, he twists the faucet marked h open just enough to create a constant trickle of hot water. This combination keeps the tub full and the temperature hot.