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To Elizabeth Stamford's next pieceGlowing Barrel
“Diane? Hi, it’s Mike.” He clutched the receiver in a large hairy hand. His feet tingled and his back was filming with sweat. The full moon blazed a trail down the sweltering East Village street, catching tiny particles glittering in the concrete.
“Hi Mike, what’s up?”
“I just got mugged.” Mike hunched his broad shoulders and rubbed a chin riddled with stubble. He wasn’t lying either. The man had held a gun to his head and his life had clipped before him in its various stages of fight: the Marine Corps, jail, bar brawls, and all those nights: the work- nights he had trawled the seamy underbelly of the city. All this had somehow come full circle, a rim of silver encasing the blackness of gun-space. The fear came then – one Mike had known as a child, watching his stepfather’s boots move across the room. A belt buckle glinting in the sun, the promise of pain.
“You just got what?”
“You heard me,” Mike said into the receiver. “Diane?”
The destroyer’s instinct had broken in him and he had moved, somehow, felling his assailant, seizing the gun.
“You’re kidding!” Diane breathed.
With his free hand, Mike felt the shape of the gun in his pocket. He liked it there, but things were different now. He had chosen to save people hadn’t he? And then, it occurred to him that he didn’t want to talk about it – any of it. He didn’t want to report it to the police either. All he wanted was to hear Diane’s voice.
“Yeah. I’m kidding,” he said, wiping a damp palm across his T-shirt.
“That’s not funny Mike. That’s not funny at all.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Listen, Diane…I want to see you, but I have to go to work. I’m only a few blocks away from the hospital.”
“Well, I appreciate the thought. Thanks for calling.”
“Bye Diane.”
A rickety fan whirred in the office on 12th Street, and the paramedics waited for calls. Dirty Derek added to his burgeoning collection of Penthouse Pets, Giacomo Ferrone wolfed down a greasy slice, and Larry Waldek combed his thick blond locks.
“Yo Mitchell,” he said, “is that a glock in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
“You guys need to get ready.” Mike peeled off his sweaty shirt and slid the gun into his locker. There were no pictures of family or friends there – although he wanted one of Diane.
“For what?” Larry said. “It’s dead tonight.”
“We’re gonna get a trauma call.” Mike began to put on his uniform. “Soon.”
“What are you, a fortune teller?” Giacomo wiped tomato off his chin. Just then, the beeper sounded, and he picked up. “Well I’ll be fucked,” he said. “Trauma call. Alphabet City.”
Mike barely waited for the ambulance to stop moving before leaping out onto the street. Through the darkness, he saw the crumpled figure of the person he had broken. The man’s splayed limbs made a black star-shape on the cement, and for Mike, there was nothing but glory now, the wrath of Zeus descending upon his foe. Straddling the cracks in the sidewalk, he bent down over a yellow eye, blossoming with pain.
“Remember me motherfucker?” he said softly.
The eye closed and the lips parted amid a wiry growth of stubble to reveal crooked teeth and a breath that smelled of gutters. Mike bent down still further, touching the man’s leg.
“Get off me!” The mouth opened wide, a screaming canker.
“Hey, chill out. We’re here to help,” Giacomo said, handing Mike a pair of scissors. “What’s your name?”
“Jesus!” the patient moaned.
“Jesus Christ? Middle initial ‘H’?” Gently, Mike cut away the man’s pant leg. Both the tibia and the fibula were badly fractured and poked through the skin. With exquisite care, Mike began to bandage the leg. As he did so, the patient emitted a howl of agony.
“No! It’s Angel. Fuck!”
“Angel Fuck,” Mike said, putting an air cast around the limb. “Make sure you write that down Jack.”
“Jesus,” Angel blubbered as Giacomo wheeled him to the ambulance. “Gimme some painkillers man!”
“We already did Mr. Fuck. Give it a few minutes.” Mike felt in his pocket for his cigarettes. “Didn’t I just buy a new pack?” He held up a squashed box of Malboros. There were only two left.
“That was last night,” Giacomo said.
“Oh yeah,” Mike mumbled. Lately he’d had trouble distinguishing day from night, yesterday from today, next week from next year. It was beginning to scare him a little. He wasn’t sleeping much these days. Sometimes he’d stay out until it got light; drinking and wandering the city streets. The world seemed so upside down that often he couldn’t figure out what was real and what wasn’t. When they got to the hospital, he called Diane.
“Diane? What’s up?”
“Not much Mike. Just sitting here watching TV.”
“Oh yeah? What’re you watching?”
“It’s about lions – in the Serengetti.”
“Any good?” He imagined Diane on the tattered couch, her coffee-black eyes fixed on the set. Dancer’s legs, hair tied up in a knot.
“Sure it is,” she said.
“How are you doing? Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine.”
“I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Oh Mike, give me a break!” She sounded faintly amused.
“When will I see you again?”
“Whenever.”
“Whenever?”
“Sure. I have to go now Mike, that’s the buzzer.”
The ambulance was air-conditioned, but still, Mike’s uniform was damp with a thick, odiferous sweat. He yawned, watching the night-dimmed tenements of Lower Manhattan float into view, traffic lights dancing in the glassy summer darkness. Giacomo lit a cigarette and tapped out the rhythm of a heartbeat on the dashboard. They parked near a deli, and again, Mike called Diane. This time, a man answered the phone.
“Is Diane there?”
“Sure,” the man said. “Just a minute.”
“Hello?” Diane’s voice again – somewhat breathless.
“Diane. How are you?”
“I’m fine. You called fifteen minutes ago Mike. Can I help you with anything?”
“Not really. Diane?”
“Yes?”
“Who answered the phone?”
“Mark.”
“Who is he?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Well what are you guys doing?”
“Eating dinner. It’s getting cold Mike, I’m going to go now, okay?”
“Okay. Diane?”
“Bye Mike.” She hung up.
“I miss you,” he told the moon. And almost as soon as he got back in the ambulance another call came in.
“…605 East 14th St.” The intercom crackled and the dispatcher’s voice filled the air, “…male, eight years old, unconscious, but breathing.”
It was a typical eight year-old boy’ s room: there was a Star Wars poster on the wall, a stack of comics on the desk, and a collection of ugly little stuffed animals - the kind you’ d win down at Coney Island if you got a rubber ball into a hole enough times. The child was in bed, bathed in the glow of lamplight, with the sheets pulled down to his feet. His eyes were closed, his damp hair stuck up from his forehead and he wore candy-striped pajama pants. Cute as a deuce, Mike thought, trimming his thumbnail with his teeth.
A middle-aged woman, who had introduced herself as Shirl, sat at the child’ s bedside. Her hair was in curlers, her face sagged and beads of moisture were embedded in the creases of her brow. She was the boy’s aunt, she said. His mother had passed away and his father was…well, she didn’t exactly know.
“I got up to use the bathroom,” she droned, “and then I saw the light on, so I came in to see what he was doing…” Her eyes flickered this way and that like little gray mice “…I thought he was just faking it for Chrissakes! But then he wouldn’t wake up…” Shirl trailed off, crying softly into the hem of her nightgown, which she had pulled up to wipe her nose. Mike saw her flabby thighs, varicose veined, like blue cheese. He looked away, fingers pressing on the child’s pulse, hoping for the faintest flutter.
Pump, breathe, pump, breathe, pump…Come back kid.
CPR seemed to have had no effect whatsoever, so as a last resort, Giacomo turned on the defibrillator. Mike held the paddles up to the child’s bony chest. For a moment, his eyes rested on the boy’s face taking in the pale unblemished skin, the crescents of his lashes, the moist nostrils. Then the jolt came, and the small body shuddered and leapt as if it had been kicked. Shirl shrieked and covered her mouth. The jolt was even worse the second time, and a coil of oily sweat snaked its way down Mike’s back. He burped, tasting Italian sausage. His uniform itched and cut him across the crotch.
Come on kid. What are you waiting for? Come back to life!
But Giacomo stopped and turned to Mike, scowling. “It’s time,” he mouthed.
Mike nodded and lifted his hands from the child’s chest. Giacomo sat back on his heels. Clearing his throat, he said:
“Ma’am, your nephew is dead. We can call a preacher if you wish or…”
“No!” Shirl yelled. “He isn’t dead. He was breathing for Chrissakes! He was breathing right up until you started messing with him…” With his forefinger, Mike touched the sole of the child’s foot, which was still warm; unhardened. There was paperwork to be done now, the police would come, and they’d have to take the kid to the hospital for an autopsy, biopsy, shitopsy, and whatever else the city required.
“What’re you doing?” Shirl demanded when she saw Giacomo preparing a needle. “Hasn’t the poor baby been through enough?”
“Blood sample, ma’am,” Giacomo said, “standard procedure.”
“Don’t you touch him!” Shirl cried, and flew at Giacomo, her long fingernails scratching against his throat. He leapt to his feet, dropping the syringe. “Jesus!” he said. Mike sprang up, pinning the woman's arms behind her back. She smelled of hairspray and stale cigarette smoke. He told her to calm down, and tried to keep talking to her, but his words just floated by like a Sinatra song about love and the moon. He was relieved when a neighbor came, holding Shirl and soothing her while he and Giacomo strapped the child to a stretcher.
Mike parked the ambulance on the street. He and Giacomo had left them – Shirl, the neighbor, the dead little boy – at the hospital, and now the job was done. Giacomo lit a cigarette gazing on what was left of the night. Mike rooted in his pocket for a quarter and meandered towards a pay phone on the corner.
“Diane? It’s Mike.”
“Really?” she said facetiously. “I never would have guessed. What’s up?”
“He died.”
“Who died?”
“A little boy at Stuy town.”
“You need to go home Mike, get some rest.”
“Is that guy still there?”
“Yes, Mark is still here.”
“Who is he?”
“I already told you Mike. He’s a friend. I have to go now.”
No more calls came in that night.
The ambulance moved slowly down Avenue A and the leaves hung like dirty rags from the trees in Tompkins Square. Mike was used to this beat; the junkies, the gutter-punks - the bloody revelers. Every so often, he and Giacomo took them to the Emergency Room, but by the next day they were back on the street looking for their next fix. Sometimes, Mike thought, he would just as soon have killed them.
In the mirror then, Mike saw a blond girl slumped on the sidewalk. She seemed to be missing her shoes, but her milk white socks weren’t at all dirty – yet.
“Going to be a long night, isn’t it sweetheart?” Mike gazed at the girl who shook in the side mirror, vanishing as the ambulance rolled away. He began to bite his nails. “Hey Jack, you ever thought about going out West? To like, some town in the mountains or something?”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Giacomo lit a cigarette.
“I don’t know. No reason I guess…” A siren was going off inside Mike’s head, and the stinging aftermath of the mugging, the broken leg still had not left him. Maybe, he thought, maybe I’m meant to break things instead of fixing them. Maybe I’m meant to tear things apart.
He put his quarter in the slot, dialed and leaned against the side of the phone booth. A distant ringing came, and he looked up at a moon so bright it made him squint. “Remember me motherfucker?” he whispered. “Remember me?”
The man answered the phone again.
“It’s for you.” Mike heard him say.
“Diane?”
“Mike, it’s almost two in the morning!”
“Diane, what’s that guy still doing there?”
“What do you think?” She spoke very softly, and he knew she was trying not to hurt his feelings.
“Well, why didn’t you just…”
“I’m sorry,” she said, in that same small, sweet voice.
“Yeah? Oh well. Fuck it.”
He slammed the phone back into its cradle, and then he picked it up and slammed it into the metal siding of the phone booth. He did it again and again until the receiver cracked, and then he stopped. He was tired now and his arm ached. He lit a cigarette and stood looking up at the sky. Tonight would slip away like all the others and he hated it, as much as anything he’d ever hated, but he loved it too. He loved it because Diane had been in it, but with time it all would fade. With time he’ d think of it only as the night he had broken some guy’s leg, the night another child had died. Clouds marbled the night sky now, and the moon lit them up. One cloud was like a giant archway, another was like a hand, and still another the shape of a gun, the barrel – glowing.
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