Ten Mile River (2 page)

‘Then don't think about it. Sad over a grill. Jesus, Ray. The cop'll boost it.'

‘I hope so. Sad to see it go to waste. That was a nice grill, that Weber.'

‘I don't give a damn about that grill. If the cop don't want it, it can ride itself all the way to the airport, let the bag handlers grill on it.' José yawned.

Ray yawned. The yawns caught fire until the train punched out of the building shadows, swung a sharp bend of track into the morning glare, squealed over the rails.

Ray wondered at José asleep on his feet, his head resting on Ray's shoulder, a smile on the J-man's movie star face, no matter the train's squeal had shaken the other riders awake and ripped them from their dreams.

2

They hopped off the subway at 145th and hiked to Ten Mile River, a park in west Harlem. An elevated highway ran over the park and underneath the highway Amtrak rail. West of the tracks were ball courts and flatland to the Hudson River. East were wildwood cliffs leading up to Riverside Drive. José and Ray knew the way through the man-high weeds and pushed into the wildwood, lost to the world.

Hidden in junk trees midway up a cliff was a burnt-out stationhouse left over from the 1920s when the rails needed switchmen. Made of brick, the hut was good shelter, though the boys made it more than that. They'd used tin ripped off from gravel yard fences under the highway to patch the roof. A streetlight tap fed the air conditioner, heater, refrigerator, hot plate. Every appliance was street found except for the TV they stole from a delivery truck. A tap into the hub box of an apartment house uphill brought them premium channel cable. Listed MIA on the Children's Services roster, they didn't have to go to school, though they kept their school IDs for the odd hot shower they grabbed at the nearby rec center, free to students. All they needed was a little money for grub and the movies. As long as they kept a low profile they could do what they wanted, and they did.

José mostly tooled around on his trick bike and tried to be smooth with the chicks in the park. Shy Ray read. He had thousands of books and magazines, some from the garbage, most courtesy of the 82nd Street Barnes & Noble, which had a window that opened onto an alley. A kid could drop a book or five out the window into the street Dumpster. During the day Ray read how-to books and histories. At night he read spicy novels and mysteries to José, who couldn't read much more than the Micky D dollar menu. ‘All I need to know,' he'd say.

As the boys approached the stationhouse, stray dogs materialised in the weeds. They mauled Ray and José with licking and whipping tails. The boys liked having the dumped pit bulls around. They were timid but looked vicious, kept squatters away from the house.

‘A'right, dammit, let us in,' José said to the dogs. ‘We saw 'em four hours ago and they're actin like we just come home from war. Them two scroungers is new.'

‘Nah,' Ray said, ‘they was here before.'

‘Now I remember. They're the fair-weather friends. We run outta food, they run out with it.'

‘I like 'em,' Ray said.

‘I'd eat 'em if you'd let me. That one right there would feed us for a winter, the fat dope.'

‘He's funny, the fat dope one,' Ray said. ‘I like him the most. C'mere, Fatty.'

‘Kissin the fat dope's filthy nose. Disgustin. You're sad, man. You're like a damn girl sometimes.'

‘What're you sayin now? I'll show you how much of a damn girl—'

‘A'right, relax about it.' José flopped onto his bunk, a half dozen dogs cuddling him. ‘Damn mutts.' He kicked the dogs off the bed but they came back up. ‘Son, wake me when you get back from fishin and I'll help you cook the fish.' José rolled over and fell asleep in a breath.

‘Callin me a damn girl,' Ray muttered. ‘Punk.' He grabbed his reels, tackle and a book, skateboarded down to the river and set his lines. That done, he cut through the weeds, slipped through a rip in the chain link, dropped into the train tracks and wormed his way through the trackside trash to a car that had been boosted and torched. This was the boys' safe place for the odd times the cops parked alongside the woods or the pipe heads stumbled onto the stationhouse, hunkered there to cook up their methamphetamine. Now and then the junkies swiped the TV, easily replaced with an upgrade from a delivery truck with a weak padlock.

Ray pulled up the car's backseat. A cooler kept the bugs out of the candy bars, canned food, bottled water and whisky ends. Ray grabbed a fistful of M&Ms and headed back to the river. He lay back and read his book, the wind off the river hot. The book was about mind over matter. He had a bet running with José he would bend a spoon just by looking at it before the summer was out. Neither kid could remember what the stakes were. It was just
bet I can bet you can't bet I will bet you won't
by now.

Three hours later Ray had a bunch of porgies and a butterfish. He wrapped the fish in newspaper, whistled the dogs back from their high grass romping, skateboarded to the stairs that ran under the tracks and hiked the rest of the way uphill to the house. He shook José awake. ‘Yo, let's cook.'

‘Huh?' José looked at Ray as if he didn't know him.

‘You wanted to cook it with me.'

‘Cook
what
?' José said.

‘The fish.'

‘Right, the fish. You cook it and wake me when it's ready, the goddam fish.' José rolled away for more sleep.

Ray went out back to cook the goddam fish. ‘Thank you, goddam fish,' he said. He was sad now, but that was okay. It made him happy as hell, being sad as hell, he didn't know why. He figured he wasn't that sad anyway, gutted the fish and chucked the guts downhill. ‘I cook, I clean, I manage the dough,' Ray said to the dogs. ‘I
am
like a damn girl.'

The dogs cocked their heads. Anything Ray said thrilled them, especially when he was cooking up a fish fry. They were quiet and out of their minds with drool as they watched Ray soak the fish in butter and stick-cook it over open fire.

‘Y'all relax.' Ray crouched to let the dogs kiss him. ‘Buckets of bad breath slobber all over me now. Look at this mess.' The train horn pulled Ray's attention west, where a tug bullied a gravel barge south. He imagined himself in the tug tower, not trolling the shallows as he and José sometimes did in their boosted rowboat, but far from shore in the fast current, riding a monster storm tide downriver into the bay, the ocean.

Ray had an urge to run away, except he had no idea where he wanted to go. More than that, what the hell would he do without José?

He winked at the dogs. ‘I could never leave y'all, don't worry. Not that y'all give a dag, whores, yessin me to death with kisses and licks and tail-waggin to get your fish.' He chopped up a bunch of porgies, fed them to the dogs. He kicked the pig dogs off so the wimp ones could eat too. He went into the house and set the table. ‘Yo.'

José snored.

‘Git
up
.' Ray yanked the window shade.

José pulled up his shirt to cover his eyes.

‘Always takin off your shirt,' Ray said. ‘Even in your sleep. You only wear a shirt to take it off. In the house, in front of the chicks in the park, anywhere. 'Ey, you hear what I'm tellin you?'

José snored.

‘Narcissistic punk.' Ray was sick at the sight of José's hair, long black loops braided perfectly into shiny cornrows. The J-man had perfect skin too, the skinny bastard. Husky Ray was zitty where he wasn't freckly, had lousy hair that frazzled and broke when he tried to cornrow it, dark red Brillo when sun-stroked. Ray kept his hair short and his shirt on.

He left the fish on a shelf out of dog reach for José and left. Halfway uphill Ray heard the door open behind him. In the door frame José scratched his armpit, yawned, ‘Yo, what up?'

‘Lazy punk.'

‘
Me?
' José said. ‘Why I'm a lazy punk?'

‘Y'all said you was gonna help me cook the goddam fish.'

‘Jesus, he's mad now. Look at 'im.'

‘Y'all better have them dishes cleaned up, the time I get back. Loafin around all your life, can't even pick up your own dag clothes off the floor.'

‘Son, that's the whole point of livin like this, no parents style,' José said. ‘So I can leave my dag clothes on the floor. Pick up my clothes? Y'all lost your mind, yo?'

‘Them dishes better be sparklin, yo. I'm serious, yo.'

‘Goddam girl, you are, yo.'

‘Fuck you, yo.'

‘
Jesus
, Ray. What's wrong, man? You a'right, man? C'mon back, man. Let's talk this out, brother.'

‘
Fuck
you.'

‘I don't get it,' José said. ‘What's your problem all of a sudden?'

Ray didn't say what was his problem. He didn't know what was his problem. He was at the street now. He dropped his skateboard, pushed his giant body uphill.

José punched through the weeds after Ray. ‘Yo, where you goin, son?'

‘Haircut.'

‘Again? Ha!'

‘Shut up, man. Serious. I'll lay your shit out. No mood today.'

‘Ray, I jus playin wichou, dawg. C'mon home, son. Ray? Yo, Ray!'

Ray kicked his board up the Drive and sweat. On a muggy morning like this one he'd have loved to take off his goddam shirt.

3

Ray skid-stopped in front of Yolanda's Braid Palace, his once-a-week haircut spot. He popped his board off the street, caught it, told himself, ‘You are one cool moth-erfucker. Play this right and today's the day she's gonna let you kiss 'em. You can
do
this.'

He was in love with Yolie's
tetas
, especially when she leaned them onto his shoulder to clip the top of his head. She wore tight T-shirts that went just halfway down her stomach, a sapphire stud in her belly button, tight jeans, brown lipstick, sparkly blue eye shadow. She smelled like cotton candy, vanilla and sometimes, when the day was hot, salt. Even though she was old, like forty or something, she was the most seriously fine woman in Washington Heights.

Ray figured Yolie loved him back a little, because why else would she stick her big brown breasts in his face when she was gelling down his ugly red hair? Then again, she stuck them in everybody's face. But Ray wasn't past taking charity teta. A man's gotta have dreams. He's gotta eat, dream the charity teta, maybe throw in a cool pair of sneakers, and the rest is gravy.

He parked his skateboard by the door, plopped into a folding chair and waited for Yolie with six other kids in love with Yolie's breasts. He pulled his
Scientific
American
out of his back pocket and pretended to read an article about something called string theory but really he was checking out Yolie's booty. He waited until the other kids got their cuts and left, their hands in their front pockets to hide their chubbies. They didn't really love Yolie, not like Ray did. Ray dreamed not just of sexing Yolie up but of marrying her too. In the dreams he was saving her from tragedy, bandits raiding the wedding or a flood. Lots of slow-motion action scenes, his dream hair perfect, his dream body ripped, no need to wear a goddam shirt.

Gradually the string theory article pulled him in to the point where he forgot about Yolie, a feat as amazing as string theory itself, which suggested that down at their core, things weren't really made of anything. That atoms were nothing more than strings of energy. The guy who wrote the article thought this was cool. Ray didn't. ‘How's that possible? Nothing solid about life?'

‘You talkin to me?' a kid leaving the shop said.

‘You're up, amor.' Yolie called everybody amor. She patted the salon chair.

Here we go. Kid Ray, you're the
dawg
. Be suave now. ‘'Lo, Missis Y-Yolie,' he whispered, afraid to look Yolie in the eyes. He sat in the chair, his heart bashing his ribs. Somewhere in the last ten minutes the sky had turned black and puked a downpour of summer hail, and now the shop was empty except for Ray and Yolie. Ray didn't expect he'd survive this haircut. His heart was really slamming now. But what a way to go.

Yolie wrapped Ray in a smock. ‘Y'all know there's a barber shop across the street, right?'

‘Yes ma'am.'

‘Okay. It's just, this is a braid shop, you know? I don't know how it got out that I cut hair. I ain't even licensed to cut hair.'

‘I don't mind.'

‘That's what the last kid said.' Yolie's wristwatch alarm went off. ‘I gotta go to housin court, chico. You know how it is.'

Dag, Ray thought. ‘I'll come back later.'

‘No no, you stay. This one is free if you let my niece practice on your head. She's up from the island, cut heads down there. She real good.'

‘Um,
gracias, Señora Yolie, pero está bien
.' Ray hopped out of the chair.

‘Sit.' Yolie pushed Ray back down with her hands some but mostly with her breasts. Ray caved into the chair. Yolie yelled to the back of the shop, ‘Amor, y'all finish up the bookkeepin later. I got a sweetie pie waitin on a haircut here.' She mussed Ray's head, made for the door. ‘That gorgeous red hair, so thick. I don't know why you won't let it grow. We could roll it to dreads and put red bead shells in it.'

Ray imagined how long hair and red bead shells would make him look. He figured he'd look pretty much the same, fat, except with long hair and red bead shells. He was sweating under the plastic smock. He closed his eyes and dreamed of Yolie. She was kissing him on the mouth, caressing his neck—

She caressed his neck. Ray opened his eyes to the mirror and saw behind him a girl, fifteen, maybe even sixteen. She wasn't really caressing his neck but dusting it with powder before she put the paper towel around it. ‘Hi.'

Hi
, Ray almost said, his voice lost who knew where but nowhere he could find it for speaking use. This chick was too beautiful. She was like Yolie but young. She even smelled the same. Her hair was long black loops. Her eyes were black.