David Levien: City of the Sun

Rooster and Tad sit at the cluttered dinette table. Heavy feedback music is in the air and Tad drums along to it.

“So ’ s he gonna be ready?”

Rooster looks at his partner. Tad ’ s recently started smoking meth, and he ’ s on it now. Rooster can tell because Tad has that filthy sheen. It ’ s a dirty drug that opens the pores and seems to suck in airborne dirt and debris. He must ’ ve smoked up the last time Rooster was in the room down the hall. Disgusting. “Of course he ’ s gonna be ready, bitch.”

“Because it ’ s first thing, like fucking dawn on Thursday, you know, asshole?”

Tad has a wild, risky look in his eyes. Wouldn ’ t be there if not for the meth, Rooster thinks.

“Yeah, I know, douche bag.” Rooster flicks a bottle cap at him. Just misses the fat fucker.

“Watch it.” Tad moves evasively and too late. “Just so you ’ re sure, dickhead.”

“I ’ m a professional, fuck face.” This taunt catches Tad, and he isn ’ t sure where to go next, how to escalate.

“Listen, faggot,” he begins, and then there ’ s a click and a knife blade ’ s at his throat. Rooster ’ s pulled the four-inch Spyderco he carries in his back pocket and locked it back. Just like that. Tad feels the pressure of the blade against his Adam ’ s apple, a hard thin line.

“Don ’ t even say another word. Not sorry, not spit. Hear me?” Rooster ’ s face radiates blood.

Tad Ford nods slowly.

Class has just ended at JFK Middle, and kids stream out toward buses and their parents ’ cars. Carol Gabriel walks opposite the flow toward the low building and wonders why she ’ s done this to herself and not come later in the afternoon. It has been four days. The police have left her house. Every backpack she sees, every jacket, screams Jamie for a moment before dissolving into a different child. Alex Daugherty walks by her and stops.

“Hi, Mrs. G,” he says.

She bends down. “Alex. Hi, Alex.” The boy seems to know something ’ s going on but not exactly what. “You know that Jamie ’ s been away for a couple days?” she goes on. She can ’ t hold herself back from touching him. Her hands reach out and smooth the boy ’ s sleeves, his hair. Her hands, disconnected from her mind, need to know that this boy at least is real.

“Yeah.”

“Do you know if he was…upset? Was everything okay at school and stuff?”

“Yeah. Did he run away?” the boy wonders.

“We don ’ t think so.” The conversation is already taking a toll on Carol. “He wasn ’ t having any problems that he told you about? He hadn ’ t met anyone? Any secret stuff? Because you should tell me if he did, it ’ s important.”

Alex shakes his head and begins digging at the sidewalk with a toe, when a little way off at the curb his mother honks and gets out of her station wagon.

“There ’ s my mom.”

Carol straightens up and trades a glance with Kiki Daugherty, who waves. She ’ s told Kiki and Kiki ’ s said all the right things. Carol watches jealously as the other mother collects her child. If there ’ s any accusation in Kiki ’ s stare, any “What kind of a mother lets this happen to her son?” she keeps it to herself so Carol can ’ t see it. Carol hurries toward the school.

Inside Jamie ’ s homeroom, his teacher, Andrea Preston, a twenty-seven-year-old black woman, hands Carol a cup of coffee.

“We have assemblies where we teach the children not to talk to strangers or accept rides. And we had one yesterday to redouble — ”

“Yes. Yes.” Carol ’ s words echo, disembodied, against the linoleum. “Really, Jamie ’ s old enough to know all that. I just wanted to check again and see if everything was all right here. He was doing fine, wasn ’ t he?” There is panic in her voice now. Perhaps nothing was as she thought.

“He was doing fine. Really well,” the teacher says slowly, and gives a pained smile, as if to invest the empty words with hidden meaning. “A few problems with fractions, nothing out of the ordinary. I wish there was something more.” Preston ’ s face searches hers.

Carol realizes how young the teacher is and that she is shattered, too. She feels she should try to comfort the woman, but how? “Can I get those things out of his locker?”

The teacher nods.

What passes for lawn in front of the seedy house is purple gray with Thursday-morning frost. Tad sits behind the wheel of a van, an aging Econoline with covered rear windows, listening to wacky morning radio. He ’ s been keeping his distance from Rooster, who ’ s up on the porch walking back and forth and smoking a cigarette.

An immaculate black Cutlass Supreme with smoked windows and custom t-top rolls up to the house. Out steps a stout man in a slightly shiny, several-hundred-dollar suit. He wears gold and sunglasses and has a bald head. He ’ s Oscar Riggi. He ’ s the man.

Rooster stops pacing.

Tad jumps out of the van and crosses through a cloud of Econoline exhaust. “Mr. Riggi, how you doin ’?”

Tad kisses ass, but Rooster doesn ’ t go for that. He knows he ’ s not so easily replaced.

“Rooster. Tad. How are things? How ’ s our package?”

“Everything ’ s all fine and loaded, sir,” Tad answers, looking involuntarily at the van and thinking instinctively of the carpet-lined cut in the floor. He pats the van ’ s side.

Riggi looks through Tad as if he ’ s an exhaust cloud. “Things went well, I trust, huh, Rooster?”

“Yeah, you can trust, Captain.” Rooster flicks his cigarette butt in Tad ’ s direction. Not at him, but in his direction. It ’ s just far enough off so that Tad can ’ t say anything.

Riggi climbs the few steps up to the porch and flips Rooster a fairly thick roll of small and medium bills rubberbanded together. Rooster thumbs it nonchalantly and tucks it away. Riggi cuffs him behind the head, not without affection.

“Hey, I can count on you, huh?”

“That ’ s right, Oscar.”

Tad comes up to join them, much larger than both men, yet feeble and intimidated in their presence. Without taking his eyes off Rooster, Riggi reaches into his jacket pocket and produces a packet of papers that he hands to Tad.

“There ’ s the address of the other pickup. Instructions on what roads to take. Your destination is in there, too. Memorize it, write it in code, whatever, then destroy it. There ’ s travel money in there also.”

Tad stays with it, endeavors to look keen, on top of things. “Okay, okay.”

“Call me every eight hours regardless of where you are. Got it? I want my phone ringing every eight hours.”

“Got it.”

“Where you gonna call me?”

“Wherever I ’ m at, eight hours.”

Riggi gives a pinched smile, like he ’ s tasting bad jelly. “You get the rest of your money when you ’ re back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Riggi nods and turns to him. “You ’ re still here?”

Tad hustles into the van and drives off. Riggi turns back to Rooster. “You have breakfast yet?”

Fourteen Months Later

Paul Gabriel pours a second bowl of cereal. He reaches in and fishes out the prize. It ’ s a rubber astronaut that dropped in water grows to eight and a half times its original size. He puts it with the rest of the prizes he ’ s been saving for his son. There are more than a dozen now. Paul rubs a circle at his temple with his fingertips. He ’ s graying there. He ’ s pale. Tired looking, too.

Paul lowers his spoon. “Carol? Carol? Are you ready? We should get going.” A moment later she enters the kitchen. Her outfit doesn ’ t do much for her. No makeup; dark circles under her eyes. She crosses the kitchen, which is looking shabby. She pushes a sponge around the countertop and tosses it into a sink full of dishes. Carol stands next to Paul as he changes his mind about the cereal and pours it in the garbage. He has the sensation that he sees the two of them there, as if from above. They look shitty together, the house looks shitty, everything is shitty.