The Hard Way (7 page)

“
I
call you Eddie. You said it was okay.”

“It's not my name,” he said.

“You said it was. At the fire, you said…”

But he was shaking his head, not listening to her. And then he got up, jumped up and began to walk again, Eunice following him, wondering if she could tell him what she heard, about the tall man, about Florida, wondering if he'd be able to go to Penn Station with her.

He sat on another bench, but when Eunice tried to sit next to him, he shooed her away. She moved down the path, sat on a bench across the path so that she could watch him, see what he was doing. And that's when she saw him, another man she knew. Or used to know.

Eunice's breath caught in her throat and everything seemed to stop except the snow. He was coming down the path from the north, not wearing a hat, the snow landing on his hair, Eunice's first thought to hunker into herself, try to disappear, pull the scarf up around her mouth, her old cap lower on her face.

He stopped to light a cigarette and Eunice wondered why she didn't feel anything, not a thing, as if he were a stranger. And then she did the oddest thing. She stood, the dog standing, too, and together they walked to where he was and, with the cigarette lit, he looked back up, right at Eunice, and he reached into his pocket and took out some change, holding it out to her. Eunice put out her hand, palm up, and the man dropped two quarters into it. So many homeless, Eunice thought, how did people figure out which ones to help?

“God bless,” she said as he took a step to go around her, around the dog, too.

Even that didn't do it, even hearing her voice.

Hadn't he loved her once? Hadn't she loved him? Where had it all gone, all that emotion? She might have been one of the statues in the park for all she felt for him now.

She turned and watched him pass by where Eddie was sitting, his arms tight around his body. She watched him cross the park and head west, past where the chess players sat when it wasn't snowing.
She watched until he was out of sight. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, reminding herself who she was. “Eunice,” she whispered once, and then again. And then Eddie was at her side, reaching into his pocket and handing her a hunk of bread. She saw he'd slit it open, put some butter inside. She grabbed it and bit off a piece, nothing she'd ever eaten in her entire life tasting as good. Putting her free hand into his pocket, Eunice dropped the two quarters there, then she told him what she'd heard, asking if he'd go to Penn Station with her.

“We have to walk,” he told her. He wasn't shaking anymore.

“I can do that.”

“What about him?”

“He can do that.”

“No. I mean at Penn Station.”

“Leave it to me,” Eunice told him. “I know what to do.”

And ten minutes later, walking up Fifth Avenue, “You think it might be him?”

Eddie didn't answer her. How the hell was he supposed to know if the man called Florida was the man Eunice was looking for, the one who'd pushed someone off the platform and into the path of an oncoming train? He didn't even know who
he
was.

“Could be anyone,” he finally said. “Could be she was talking through her hat.”

“Didn't have one,” Eunice said.

Eddie, or whatever his name was, nodded.

“That place you offered me to sleep?”

He looked at her the way Lookout did, giving her all his attention.

“It's along the river, across from the meat market?”

“Yeah, that's it.”

“Pretty cold spot,” she said.

He nodded.

“But?”

“Good view.” His shoulders hunched, he picked up the pace, Eunice and Lookout keeping up.

Out in the weather, things made sense that didn't make sense indoors, Eunice thought. Her hand still in the relative warmth of Eddie's pocket, they headed toward Penn Station to look for the tall man, for Florida.

Suppose they found him, Eunice thought. Then what?

There was a policeman
standing against the wall when they entered Penn Station, but he was looking the other way and, when he did turn toward Eunice and the soldier, it was Lookout he saw first. He pushed off from the wall, then changed his mind, leaning back again. Two crazies with a pit bull? Not for what he was getting paid.

Or maybe it was compassion, the snow so wet now, flakes as big as bedsheets. The dog was wet, too, not to mention cold. Either way, the policeman stayed where he was, pretending he hadn't seen them. But even if he'd come over to them, even if he'd told them they couldn't be there with a dog, Eunice had a plan.

Penn Station was for the hard-core homeless, the long-term homeless, the homeless who'd kill you as soon as look at you. Eunice didn't need Eddie to tell her that. This time, Eunice thought, she
would
keep her mouth shut. This was why she needed him, the soldier, for this population. But she'd keep her eyes open, looking not at the people watching the timetable, waiting to see when their train pulled in, what track it was on. Not those people, the ones with rolling suitcases, leather laptop bags, presents wrapped in colorful paper. Eunice watched the other ones, the ones sitting against the wall, the marginal ones, the same ones the cops were watching.

They hit the stairs with the first crowd headed for their train,
deviating partway down, the soldier leading her into a musty corridor on a level between the waiting room and the tracks. Eunice could see right away that this wasn't a place meant for the public, not the public watching the timetable, people going home, traveling for business, off to see the grandchildren. No. Normal people didn't use this level. They passed it quickly, heads down or looking straight ahead. The color of the walls told Eunice that, the musty smell, the poor lighting, not that the rest of the station was about to end up in
Architectural Digest.
But at least there, in the main room, and on the way down to the trains, you could inhale without getting sick to your stomach. And you could see well enough to read your newspaper, see who was calling you on your cell phone, check out the ingredients on the candy bar you'd bought to tide you over.

The soldier walked quickly, Eunice and Lookout right behind him. Eunice figured he knew where he was going. He'd been here before, she thought, glad he was along to show her the way. Is this where he washed his clothes, cleaned up, had a shave, at Penn Station? He made a right turn, then another. And there they were, a cache of homeless, eight men, three women, one with a baby. They all appeared to be a funny color, a not quite human color. Maybe it was the lights, Eunice thought, fluorescent lights that made your skin green if you were white, gray if you were black. Eunice looked up at the soldier, all business now, his pale skin tinged lime green, as if he were putting on makeup for
The Wizard of Oz.

“Got a smoke, man?” Eddie asked the first person he got to, a sad sack of a black man sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall, a plastic shopping bag at his side. He had dirt under his nails and the ends of his shoes were coming apart. Eunice thought they'd flap like clown shoes if he got up, if he walked anywhere, but he was there for the duration, she thought. He didn't even get up when he had to relieve himself, the smell emanating from where he sat so pungent Eunice thought he probably hadn't moved for days. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a butt, not
much left but one puff, if that. Eddie took it and stuck it in his pocket, then slid down to the floor next to him. Even the Dumpster didn't smell this bad, Eunice thought, sliding down, too, sitting next to Eddie.

The baby began to cry. One of the other men held his ears and started to moan. Another one, an Oriental, the first Oriental homeless man Eunice had ever seen, took one of those little packets of soy sauce out of his pocket, tore it open with his teeth and dripped a little on one finger, giving it to the baby to suckle on.

“Been out in the cold too long,” Eddie said, to no one in particular. “Can't stand the cold.” He pulled the collar of his jacket up even though it was warm in the corridor. “Wish I could get on one of these trains and go somewhere warm.”

No one responded. This wasn't the bar at Pastis, a small table near the open kitchen at Barbuto, one person says something, another comments. This was your worst nightmare. This was what you were afraid would become of you if you got sick and your insurance didn't cover you, or if your boss told you you'd fucked up and cost the company a bundle and you were out on your ass without two weeks' notice, or if you were a housewife and your husband found some chippie half your age and you didn't have a dime in your own name and you ended up on the street and then one day, someone would tell you about Penn Station, but until you got here, you wouldn't know it was the last stop, the end of the world, and now that's where Eunice was, wondering which of these zombies might turn violent at the drop of a hat, ready to turn violent herself from the odor alone, from the sight of that baby with nothing to eat, a baby with no future.

“Florida,” the Oriental man said. “You want to take the train to Florida. You don't want to fly. Uh-uh, no way. They make you take off your shoes. Did you know that? You got to dump all your pockets into a plastic box and it goes into a machine, see? And when it comes out the other side, all the good stuff's gone. You tell them, ‘Check inside the machine, my money's still in there, it didn't come
out,' they just say, ‘Move along, you due at the gate now, plane's about to take off.'” When he laughed, Eunice could see he had a couple of teeth missing, and that the ones still there were not in terrifically good shape.

“Florida. That's her old man,” Eddie said. “We've been looking for him.”

This time the woman looked up, the baby sleeping on her shoulder. But she didn't speak. She had nothing to add, Eunice thought, or if she knew anything, no motivation to say what it was.

“He's gone deep,” the one farthest away said, a short guy, looked to be in his twenties, tattoos on both hands, hair cut so short he might have been in prison up until a day or two ago. Or maybe the army, maybe another homeless veteran, like Eddie.

“Deep where?” Eddie asked, Eunice trying not to hold her breath now.

He shrugged, the little guy, shook his head. “Deep into hiding. He said they were after him.”

Eddie turned to Eunice. “Who was after him? You didn't tell me anyone was after him. You didn't say none of this.”

“You didn't say none of this,” another man said, a boy really, even younger looking than Eddie. Not the usual, Eunice thought. Most of the homeless were older, forties, fifties, sixties, unless they died before that. Hapless people, people whose luck had run out, innocents, crazies, kids, too, like this one, runaways, dopers, petty thieves, hustlers, liars, scum of every kind. Even babies were homeless, Eunice thought, homeless and without hope.

She didn't answer Eddie. She just sat there, the dog sitting, too, leaning against her side, watchful.

Eddie sighed. “He lower?” he asked the little guy. “He on the tracks?”

“Don't know. Ain't seen him in a while. Could be anywhere.”

Eddie got up, heading back the way they'd come, Eunice and Lookout behind him. He took the stairs down, got to where the train to Philadelphia was sitting in the station, people still getting
on. Eunice watched a man in a tan parka through the dirty windows. He was walking from car to car, looking for just the right seat, not knowing how lucky he was just to be going somewhere, to have something to do, a little money in his pocket, a meal in his belly, a place to be at the end of the day. Eunice closed her eyes, remembering the taste of the bread and butter the soldier had given her, but when she opened them, the soldier was gone, people moving around her, not too close, but no Eddie. Then she saw him again, off to the right, heading toward the back of the train, walking fast, the way people walked when they had a ticket and didn't want the doors to close before they boarded. And then the station was empty, the train gone and they kept going, Eddie, or whatever his name was, and Eunice, no one saying a word about Lookout as he followed right behind them, Eunice holding the rope she used as a leash.

Eddie stopped suddenly, pointing at her, poking her in the chest. “You stay here, you hear me?”

“Why? Why can't I go with you?”

“It's too dangerous in there,” pointing now to the door, Eunice reading the sign:
“For Emergency Workers Only—Danger—Keep Out.”

“I can do it. I really can. I'm not afraid,” Eunice told him, touching his arm, squeezing it through his coat, talking too fast.

“Yeah,” he said, “I know
you
can do it. But
he
can't. He's a good dog. I don't want to see him get fried.”

“Fried?” Eunice said. Or did she only think she said it, a sour taste in her throat and mouth, the bread and butter coming back up.

“Third rail,” he whispered, shaking free and grabbing her arms, his eyes poking her eyes now, not letting her look away, not letting her do something stupid. “I know you,” he said. “Bullets and bracelets.”

“Wonder Woman?”

The soldier nodded. “You make yourself do things even when you're scared.”

Eunice swallowed, wondering how he knew.

“If I don't come out, don't follow me. You hear, Eunice? I need you to do as you're told,” shaking her once, then pulling her against him, holding her so tight, Eunice could barely breathe. “Good girl,” he whispered in her ear, as if Eunice was his dog, Eunice feeling his breath on her face, and then he let go. For a moment, he just stood there looking at her, memorizing her face, not saying another word.

Eunice shook her head. “Don't go,” she said. “Let's get out of here.”

“Eunice,” he said, carefully, slowly, as if he were talking to a small child. Again, “Eunice.” And then, “Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to let yourself be saved.”

He pulled her hat off and then his own.

“You look too coordinated,” he said. “Here.” Putting his cap on Eunice, pulling it down as far as it would go. He cocked his head. “Much better,” he said, then he put her cap on his head, tapped the top of it, turned around, opened the door and disappeared.

Eunice wondered why the door was unlocked if what was beyond it was so dangerous, but when she looked again, she knew why, the lock broken. Hell, if Florida had gone onto the tracks, maybe he'd broken the lock.

There was another flight of stairs a few feet beyond the door. Eunice ducked under it, sliding down the wall until she was sitting, pulling the dog close, thinking about what else would be behind that door, rats the size of garbage trucks, rats with no fear of people or pit bulls, rats as desperate to survive as some of the people who went through that door, and probably better equipped for the job. Then a weird thought popped into her head, about some kind of rat that was trained to find land mines, rats that worked better than dogs because they never got bored and they never got tired, not as long as they got food every time they found a mine, bananas or nuts, maybe both, Eunice couldn't remember for sure, but she did remember that they were easy to transport. You could just pick one
up and put it under your arm, if you could stand the thought of a rat under your arm. Eunice shuddered at the thought. Even more important, they were light enough not to detonate the mines accidentally, which was more than you could say for the dogs.

The dogs learned mine detection the hard way. When they made a mistake, they got blown up. Eunice was thinking about that, sitting under the stairs with Lookout, thinking about Eddie in the tunnel in the dark, the third rail inches away, wishing he'd hurry back, wishing she hadn't let him go in the first place.

That's what life is all about, she thought, her head tucked against the dog's thick neck, always wishing things were different. But they never were.