Ten Mile River (7 page)

Trini smiled, grabbed Ray's hand, ‘Check it: Couple days ago we're talkin about you, José says, “I do believe Ray is smart enough to become President of the United States of North America someday.” He's so cute.'

‘Yeah. Cute.' Ray looked at Trini's delicate hand in his monster paw.

She hooked her arm through his, back swung her foot to kick his butt. He jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from pulling her into a kiss.

They went into the stationhouse, found José shirtless, hanging upside down from a roof rafter, laughing himself to tears. ‘Found me a pair of gravity boots on the street! Better than drinkin beer! Yo, I am upside-down dru-
hunk
!'

‘Antigravity boots,' Ray mumbled.

‘Git on down from there!' Trini said. ‘Break your fool neck.'

José undid the clips holding the boots to the rafter, dropped down to the couch in a half flip, perfect ten.

‘What up.' He pulled in Trini for a kiss.

Trini pushed him off. ‘All sweaty. Yuck. Okay, hombre, pack your bags. You boys are movin into my aunt's attic.'

José stopped laughing. ‘
What?
'

‘Serious,' Trini said. Now she kissed him.

José backed away from Trini's kiss, kicked off the antigravity boots, chucked them to Ray, chucked them hard. ‘You in on this too?'

Ray shrugged, squeezed into the sweaty boots, moped over to the ladder that went up to the roof rafter.

‘Will y'all stop messin with them fool boots? Be
care
ful Raymond.' She squinted at José. ‘What all's your problem? You wanna stay
here
? With the bugs, the damp, sleepin with ball bats every night?'

‘Damn straight,' José said.

‘And you don't care how that makes me feel? That I worry about y'all every minute you're down here.'

‘Then don't worry, T,' José said. ‘Serious, I am not goin uphill. Goddam curfews, have to quit smokin, can't drink no more, gettin yelled at, pick up your damn clothes, do this, do that, everybody callin me a stupit idiot, gettin smacked around—'

‘J, it's Yolie, man,' Ray said. ‘Yolie's cool, yo.'

‘I know, still…dag. Shit.' José nodded to Ray. ‘You all go on up you want to, homeboy. Serious. You be better off. But me, I gotta stay put.'

‘José, my aunt would never hit you. The smokin and drinkin, yeah, you'll have to cut back, but—'

‘No. That's my final.' José made for the door.

‘Don't you walk away from me, Mister Man.'

‘I gotta go to work.' He grabbed his bike, held up. ‘Ray, make sure you walk her uphill. I don't like her in the woods alone.' He left.

Trini spun to Ray. Even upside down she was perfect, her eyes wet, her breath fast. ‘Hell is
wrong
with him?'

Upside down, Ray wanted to hug her but couldn't take his arms away from his sides, or his shirt would fall down and she'd see his flab. ‘He ain't made for the home life.'

Something banged on the far side of the station-house. The Fatty dog had just walked into a wall. Just as Ray suspected, the dog was going blind. The dog stared at the wall, walked into it again. Trini led the dog out. In the door frame and the late-day light her silhouette was angelic. She flipped her hand Miss Thing style. ‘Forget about bato boy, you're coming up, though, right?'

Ray's head ached from hanging upside down. He sighed. ‘Can't.'

‘You can, but you won't leave your boy, I know.'

He reached out to her, his shirt came down, exposed his gut. A paperback fell out of his back pocket.

She picked it up. ‘
Introduction to Advanced Particle
Physics.
' She nodded, cried a little as she hurried out of the stationhouse.

‘Wait, woman, lemme walk you home.' Ray unclipped the boots from the rafter. In his jostling, the rafter cracked. He dead dropped, broke the couch. The fat dope dog limped in and sat on Ray's chest.

9

On the way up to Yolie's Ray ran into José speeding down the avenue with a delivery. José skid-stopped his bike, the pies went flying. ‘She's mad, right?'

‘More hurt.'

‘She cry?'

‘Yup.'

‘Shit. Help me pick up this goddam pizza.'

Ray helped José scoop up the pizza that had fallen out of the boxes wet side down onto the street. They brushed the dirt off it, joggled the cheese, made the pies nice in the boxes.

José strapped the boxes to his bike. ‘Whachou doin out here anyways? You goin a talk to her?'

‘Yup.'

‘I'll try to smoov things out with 'er tomorrow mornin. But Ray? I ain't livin over that Braid Palace. She can leave me, I'm still down at Ten Mile.'

‘I know.'

‘You got gum?'

‘Just ABC style.'

‘I'll take it,' José said.

Ray spit out his gum, ripped it, gave half to José.

‘Yo, somethin else,' José said.

‘Tell it.'

‘Jerry called The Slice lookin for me.'

‘How'd he know you're workin at The Slice?'

José shrugged. ‘Scary, huh? He got a sweet one goin down tonight. I told him we do it.'

‘Yeah, huh? I dunno.'

‘Ray, please, man. Dukie, I'm thirteen hundrit bucks away from gettin me my Ninja, man. Paulie gonna give it to me cut rate.'

‘You're talkin to him when we owe him dough?'

‘Punk mugged me. Ordered a pie to his apartment, I knock on the door, next thing I know I'm on the floor. Was such a sweet move I couldn't even be mad about it. Sometimes you gotta tip your hat. Anyway, we square with 'im now. But I don't get that bread to 'im end of the week, he gonna sell the bike to somebody else.'

‘There's other Ninjas out there, man. You keep hustlin pie the way you doin, you have that thirteen hundred in no time at all.'

‘I do the Jerry, I got my bread
tonight
. Last time, Ray-Ray, I promise. I see you later. Don't be late.' José sped off. ‘And leave that paint scraper home, Mailbox Man.'

‘Riskin my Enrique future for a goddam secondhand Ninja.' Ray spit his gum into the trash. Friends to the ends be a heavy load sometimes.

Ray rang the door buzzer. Yolie leaned out the window over The Palace, dropped the keys to Ray. He let himself in and upstairs.

‘Trinita told me about the José.'

‘She around, ma'am?'

‘Homework at a friend's. Talk to him. Tell him to relax. I'm not a cop, okay? You know me.'

‘I know, ma'am. Missis Yolie, I talk with you a sec?'

‘Ob'course. Come, we talk in the attic. I show you.' She took his hand, led him upstairs.

Boxes of Enrique Hormón cluttered the attic. ‘We put this stuff down the basement, plenty of room for you two, right?'

The streetlight bled through the faded cheesecloth curtains, painted the floor soft silver. Not only did the bathroom have a shower, it had a toilet. No more squatting in the Ten Mile woods.

‘Washing machine and dryer in the basement.'

No more lugging laundry uphill to the Spin-'n'-Win on slippery winter days.

Ray looked out the back window, took in the yard with its bamboo and palms, a tiny aboveground pool. He'd been in the back to work but hadn't seen it from this high up, all at once. It was a patch of oasis amidst the city concrete.

‘For your babies, they can sun themselves all day, you build a doggy door, they come and go in and out the house when they want. Nice, no?'

Ray nodded. ‘Nice.'

‘You pale, amor.' She felt his forehead. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Ma'am, before you bring me in on the Hormón and all, there're some things you should know about me.'

‘Okay?'

‘I, like, got a record, ma'am. Me and José. We're on the skipped parole list.'

Yolie didn't blink. ‘A'right, what else? Amor, don't look so surprised. You think I'm bata, hijo? Old Yolie knows what time it is. Why else would you be hiding down there in the park? I grew up here back in the day, okay? We did what we had to do to get by. I know where you from, and you welcome here, my home, my business. You special, chico. I got a feeling about you. Look at you face now. Raymundo,
coño
, don't worry so much. It's not the end of the worl, okay? It'll be a'right. C'mere, give Mami a hug.' She pulled him into a tight one.

Her breasts crushed him, but he didn't want to sex her up. He didn't want to cry either, but he did.

‘How could you lie to me like that?' Trini said.

Ray spun around, found Trini standing in the doorway, schoolbooks in hand.

‘Y'all are criminals?' she said. ‘Y'all thug-hustled me.'

‘Trin, I'm sorry—' Ray said.

Yolie cut in, ‘Chica, how dare you judge him? You hold back on me, and that's okay, but he holds back on you, it's not? This boy is your friend. Now, I'm not having this in my house, this bad feelings. You two go downstairs, talk this out, make friends again. Go 'head,
vayan, hagan amigos
. I have to cook the books for tomorrow with the accountant and I don't have time for this nonsense. Go on now, make up.'

Ray was embarrassed he'd cried in front of not one chick but two. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Trini pushed him into a salon chair, sat in the one next to him. ‘How could you not tell me?' She kept her voice down, but she was angry.

‘Like you said before, we were afraid you wouldn't hang with us.'

‘What'd you do? What crimes?'

‘Mostly bennies—breakin and enterin. Some grand larceny that got bumped down on a plea. We never hurt nobody.'

‘Right, you just stole their money.'

‘We stole food, mostly. At first.'

‘I must have
Sucker
tattooed on me somewhere I don't see. Here my heart's breakin for you boys, all those sob stories about foster care—'

‘
Yo.
' He calmed himself. ‘Those were true.'

His anger surprised her. She looked away, pouted. ‘Ttt.'

He studied her in the mirror's reflection, found Yolie in her eyes, the fullness of her lips. ‘How come your aunt ain't married?' Ray said.

‘Lost her man in Gulf One, never got over it.' She turned back to Ray. ‘This whole import business thing, she's doing it for you, you know? She doesn't give a damn about the money. She talks about you every night, says she thinks you're gonna be a big man someday, somebody gives you half a chance. She's your half a chance, and y'all are too stupid to come on uphill. What a waste.'

‘I'll talk to him, T. The J-man, he's set in his ways, though. Give him a little time to settle down. We'll see. I gotta tell you, though, I'm a little worried about bringin trouble to your aunt. Some neighbor gets mad at her, drops a dime, cops find out she's harborin two fugitives in her attic—'

‘You know how many illegals she's hidden in that attic while they were on their way to getting green cards?'

‘Harriet Tubman of Washington Heights, huh?'

‘Raymond, you can't lie to me like that, not ever again, okay?'

‘Okay.'

‘And promise me y'all aren't gonna do any more rustlin.'

‘No more rustlin,' he said.
If I can get out of this last job
tonight
, he didn't say.

10

Ray knocked on Jerry's door. José could wait another goddam month or so for his Ninja.

‘Round Face. You're early.' Jerry looked out into his lot. ‘Where's the ride?'

‘Yeah, um, about that. We don't wanna do it.'

Jerry frowned. ‘Well, you're gonna do it anyway.'

‘Look man, I came here out of courtesy—'

‘No, you came because you know if you scooch out on me I'll have somebody ram a screwdriver through the back of your beach ball head there, and you're right. Listen, it's too late now, kid. Yous are either bringing me a Lincoln Navigator or a pair of thumbs.'

‘How's that?' Ray said.

‘I already got a buyer gave me half the money. This is gonna be an ek-scape vehicle this thing yous're boosting tonight. I scooch this guy and the guy, he's this maniac Russian, he'll cut off my thumbs. Now, if I'm short a pair of thumbs I'll need yours for replacements, see? You and José, which one of you's a lefty?'

Ray liked his thumbs, especially when they were attached to his hands. ‘Okay, but this'll be our last job with you.'

‘Right. Yous kids, you'll be back again next week begging me for work.'

‘Don't bet your daughter's Catholic school tuition on it,' Ray said.

‘Talkin about my daughter, Round Face? Half-breed mutt. Get over to that vehicle heist before I pop a cap into your fat ass.'

Ray left. ‘Asshole.'

‘Don't try to skip out on me, Ray. Wherever yous go, I'll find you. Believe me.'

Ray believed him.

Some gangbanger leaned out of a bass-booming, cruising Mercedes, chucked a Dunkin' Donuts bag into the street. A flock of lean pigeons dropped down on the fresh trash.

‘How'd I get here?' Ray said to the pigeons.

The pigeons didn't give a damn about Ray. They pecked that Dunkin' waste as if it were manna.

‘Four hours ago I'm promisin her I'm-a go clean, here I am again, hidin in the park bushes, lookin to boost an eighty-five-thousand-dollar ride that's gonna be used as an escape vehicle for drug runners, a hit maybe? That woman's brain is an audio recorder, girl remembers what you said word for word from the day she met you. She finds about this, she's gonna play me back that conversation to the syllable, “And then
you
said, No more rustlin, and then
I
said—” '

José skidded up, a pie box strapped to the back of his bike. ‘You gotta stop talkin to yourself, Ray. I seen you, son, from halfway up the block. It's gettin serious. That was a full-out conversation you were havin with you.'