Reed Coleman - They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee

We were on a short flight of metal stairs surrounded by bare concrete. The concrete was probably a good foot or two thick. The light fixture was a simple steel cage fixed over a lightbulb. At the bottom of the stairs was another bulkhead door, only this one was more of a hatch than a door. Again, Guppy spun the heavy wheel to release the seal. Almost immediately, I could hear music coming from inside the shelter. I recognized the song, but not the band. It was a techno-pop version of the old Buddy Holly song, “Maybe Baby.” Guppy opened the hatch and pointed to a bar above it.

“Feet first,” he instructed as I grabbed the bar. “And, Mr. Klein, try to remember what desperation feels like to you.”

Some more vague advice to be shrugged off. I climbed through the open hatch. The music was louder now, but the room was black. Beneath the bassline of the music, I thought I could hear someone snoring. Guppy bumped into me as he came into the shelter. He apologized and before turning on the lights, said: “What we did, we did to save an innocent person. Our intentions were pure. You have to believe that. We could not foresee what would happen to the girl.”

“Look, I appreciate what you’ve done for me, but I’m really starting to lose my patience. Now what the fuck are you talking about?”

But Guppy did not have to answer. He did not even have to turn on the light. Because out of the blackness came the voice that would make it all clear to me.

“Hey, Uncle Dylan, is that you?”

The lights came up, and, just for a moment, so did my heart.

Zak jumped down from the upper cot of two that folded off the wall. He kissed me, threw his big arms around me and bear-hugged me for a long few seconds. But my joy in discovering him alive had already gone out of me. I was stiff and numb in his grasp. He backed off, searching for clues in the lines and scratches in my face. Guppy stood silently behind me. The synthesized music droned on as Buddy Holly spun in his grave.

I turned to Guppy: “Fuck good intentions! Your road to hell is paved with innocent bodies.”

“He doesn’t know about her, Mr. Klein.”

“Who don’t I know about?” Zak was impatient.

“The girl who dug her nails into my face after she’d been strangled. Will you please shut that fucking music off?”

Guppy came around between Zak and me and flicked off the clock radio, which sat on a small shelf amidst the most impressive and relatively compact computer workstation I’d ever seen in a noncommercial setting.

“Who don’t I know about?” Zak repeated.

“Please,” Gupta implored, “give us a chance to explain.”

“Explain!” I was screaming. “You want to explain? Here, schmuck, let’s go find a phone. Either one of you two fluent in Japanese?”

Zak shrank back. “Japanese!”

“That’s right, Zak, Kira’s dead, thanks to you two clowns. You get on the phone and explain it to her father, because I couldn’t give a shit about what either of you has to say. If you want to play God, become a writer. Otherwise, omnipotence is best left in the hands of puppeteers and lunatics.”

Zak was crying.

Guppy fought back: “We were trying to save-”

“-Valencia Jones. I know that,” I said. “You’ve traded Kira’s life for hers. I sure as shit hope she’s worth it.”

“She’s innocent,” Zak yelled. “She’s innocent!”

“Maybe she is, but she’s still on trial and I’m next. How could you jerk everybody around like this? You missed Grandpa’s funeral. Your whole family is sick. For chris sakes, Zak, they think you’re dead! I thought you were dead!”

“I didn’t know how else to get anyone’s attention,” Zak said sheepishly. “Valencia was going to jail for a long time and no one would listen.”

“Oh, you got peoples’ attention, all right. Your father hired a Castle-on-Hudson detective to look into Valencia’s case. I figure his funeral was probably yesterday. Then there’s this guy, Steven Markum, he worked up at Cyclone Ridge. He was probably the guy that planted the Isotope in Valencia Jones’ car. He conveniently broke his neck skiing the other day. Cyclone Ridge is burning down as we speak. Your dorm room and room at home were both ransacked. The best friendship I ever had is probably over. I’m wanted for murder. And let’s not forget to throw Kira’s body on top of the pile like a cherry on top of a sundae. Yeah, Zak, I’d say you got people to listen.”

“That’s not fair, Uncle Dylan.”

“No,” Gupta chimed, “it is not.”

“Welcome to life on earth, fellas. What’s fairness got to do with anything?”

“When I was a kid,” Zak said, “I thought fairness meant everything to you. I looked up to you because of that, because you were so different from my dad. Money didn’t matter to you. What was right mattered.”

“Money’s easy not to care about when you haven’t got any. Fairness and what’s right don’t even count in horseshoes.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you, Uncle Dylan. Uncle Josh used to tell me stories about you.”

“What stories?”

“About you in the old neighborhood and how the other kids respected you for doing the right thing all the time. Even my dad admires you for how you used to stick up for Larry Feld and his family.”

“Your dad hates Larry Feld and thought his family was crazy. And as for my brother Josh, he was the one who bestowed upon me the title of family fuck-up.”

“Well, I guess I’m no longer a pretender to the throne, am I, Uncle Dylan? I really am the family fuck-up now.”

That punch got through and it hurt like a son of a bitch. I knew Zak and Guppy hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt, certainly not killed. Hadn’t I done an incredible amount of impulsive things and used love and desperation as justifications? But people had been killed and there was no escaping the bloody trail that led to my nephew’s hideaway.

“Okay,” I said. “If we’re going to keep Valencia Jones’ ass out of prison and mine off death row, we better get to work figuring out just how. We can save the recriminations for our next family meal. Agreed?”

They were glad to sign on for that. I told Guppy to get his coat back on, he was going to meet an ex-cop in the mens room of the Manhattan Court Coffee House.

“What if Mr. MacClough should be suspicious of me?”

“He already is. .” I hesitated. “What should I call you, anyway?”

“Raj, Rajiv, Guppy… What you call me is of no significance, Mr. Klein. I will know you are speaking to me.”

“Jesus, how did I know I’d get an answer like that? Like I was saying, MacClough is already suspicious and when he hears about Kira’s murder, he’s gonna be very tense about being approached by a stranger. Just tell him that I hate brandy, even Izzy Three Legs Weinstein’s. He’ll understand.”

We sat there together for what seemed hours, not talking, avoiding each other’s eyes. I cleaned lint that wasn’t there, checked a watch I wasn’t wearing, looked for dirt under my clean nails. It was the first awkward time in our lives as uncle and nephew. We had always been a team, Zak and me, two men cut from the same pattern. There had never been any attempt to deny it. The poor kid really did look and sound like me, though Zak lacked the Brooklyn patois. He further lacked some of his uncle’s hard edges and street smarts. Before today, I had felt that was to his advantage. He was less suspicious, could see the sun sometimes behind the clouds.

I remembered when I was living back in Brooklyn, working my first insurance jobs for Larry Feld. I let Zak-he was only a little guy back then, three or four-tag along with me for the day. But it was safe and easy work that Saturday. All we had to do was take a few Polaroids of cracked sidewalks and dangerous intersections for Larry. We were on Kings Highway when Zak got hungry and told me he had to go winkies. Walking back to my car when we were done eating, Zak tugged my hand and asked me: “Why are you doing that, Uncle Dylan?”