Colum McCann - This Side of Brightness

“Who you calling bitch, motherfucker?” says Elijah.

“Jesus wept,” says a cop.

“You guys know it’s illegal to be down here?”

“I lost the key to my penthouse.”

“Funny funny.”

“Forgot the mortgage payment too.”

“I told you they all crazies down here, what did I tell you? I told you, didn’t I tell you? Moles! They’re crazy.”

“Fuck you,” says Elijah. “I ain’t a mole.”

“Why you living underground then, mole?”

“Enough!” shouts one of the cops. “You all know James Francis Bedford?”

Silence in the tunnel. Treefrog sees one of the cops go across the tracks to the dead tree and look up to the roof, with snow falling down around him in the circle of his flashlight, the cop shaking his head in amazement.

“You all ever heard of James Francis Bedford?”

“Pardon me?”

“Don’t fuck with me, answer my goddamn question!”

“Never heard of him.”

Treefrog watches as Elijah and Angela stand shivering in the cold. A flashlight swings and captures Dean’s face as he slips out from his shack. He shades his eyes with his arm. Papa Love pulls back the curtain on his cubicle door.

“Another couple of moles here!”

Papa Love stands silent, outside his shack, his gray dreadlocks slack on his shoulders. Dean bravadoes up to the cops and pulls the flap of his hunting cap up off his ears.

“You know James Francis Bedford?” says a cop.

“Who?”

“Watch my lips. James. Francis. Bedford.”

“Never heard of him.”

“White guy. Six one. Scar on his chest. Tattoo here.”

“What about him?” says Dean.

“Found him dead yesterday. Heard he lived down here.”

“Shit,” says Elijah. “Someone died?”

The cop shines the flashlight in Elijah’s eyes. “Six hundred volts. Electricity went right through the top of his head. Splattered him around a little.”

“Damn,” says Dean. “That’s Faraday.”

“Who’s Faraday?” asks the cop.

“What’s wrong with Faraday?” says Angela.

“James Francis Bedford,” says the cop.

“Goddamn. That’s Faraday. That’s his nickname.”

“White guy?”

“Yeah,” says Dean.

The cop lifts his hand in the air. “About yay tall.”

“Yeah.”

“Tattoo of a circuit board here.”

“He’s dead?”

“As a doornail, buddy.”

“They killed Faraday!” screams Angela.

“You don’t even know who Faraday is,” says Elijah.

“They killed him, killed him, killed him!” She begins sobbing into the sleeve of her coat. “I liked Faraday! I liked him!”

“Where did he live?” asks a cop.

“Why you wanna know?” says Elijah.

“His family wants his stuff.”

“His family?”

“Yeah, you know, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. Come on, no fucking around. Hey you! Dipshit! Where did he live?”

“There.”

Dean points out Faraday’s cubicle.

“He lived in that piece of shit?”

“That’s his house.”

“Goddamn. What’s the toilet seat for?”

“A doorbell.”

“I’ll be fucked.”

One of the cops jimmies open the lock, and the door to Faraday’s place swings open. They step inside and later emerge with a crate filled with a bundle of papers.

“Nothing in there excepting some books,” says a cop.

“You all know who James Francis Bedford was?”

“He was Faraday.”

“He used to be a cop.”

“Faraday? A cop?”

“He was good people,” says the cop. “Had himself an accident once. Lost his nerve. Shot someone. Never recovered. His family asked me to come down get his stuff. Good people, Bedford’s family. They was all good people. Even Bedford was good people once. Before he came down here.”

Treefrog jumps down from the catwalk and walks soundlessly through the tunnel gravel until a cop pins him with a beam of light.

“Shit, we got moles everywhere!”

They gather together outside the cubicle — Elijah, Angela, Dean, Papa Love, Treefrog — and watch the cops comb through Faraday’s shack.

“What they looking for?”

“Fucked if I know. A gun, maybe.”

“Motherfuckers,” whispers Angela.

“They prob’ly killed him,” says Elijah.

“You really think Faraday was a cop?”

“No way.”

“You think he shot someone once?”

“Maybe.”

“He owes me twenty bucks!” says Dean.

“Shut up, man.”

“Hey!” says Dean to the cops. “Leave Faraday’s shit alone! He owes me twenty bucks! Leave it alone! That’s mine!”

“Finders keepers,” whispers Angela. “They woke me first. I keep Faraday’s shit.”

“I’ll slap you, you bitch,” says Dean.

“Elijah!” she shouts. “Elijah!”

But when she turns around, Elijah is not listening. He has pulled down the hood of his sweatshirt, scrunched up his eyebrows, and tilted his face sideways. Then he scratches his head and says aloud, “Faraday? Faraday had a family?”

* * *

Faraday — they hear later — had gone fishing for electricity way downtown in the Second Avenue tunnel. He went to help someone hook up a transformer, but on the way he found a fishing rod in a Bowery dumpster. He was sprung after snorting heroin and wanted to test the rod out. Whisking it through the air, Faraday descended through the emergency manhole cover into the Second Avenue tunnel. He stood at the edge of the tracks and played riverbank with the darkness, whisked the rod like a dream above his head. The little fly hook at the end of the line went spinning out and down toward the tracks, then came up again and jiggled in the air as Faraday lassooed the rod back over his shoulder. It happened in an instant: he stumbled and fell across the tracks and touched his hand against the third rail. The current sucked him in and his body went lengthwise against the metal, and the fishing rod completed the circuit. He must have been a corpse of wild blue sparks. Every fluid in his body boiled first, all the blood and water and semen and alcohol boiling down to nothing. Six hundred volts of direct current blew a hole in the top of his head. The cops had to turn the electricity off before they could peel him from the rail. They placed a bit of his brain in a blue plastic bag, one of the cops puking up at the sight, and the people who lived in the tunnel stood around, staring, saying nothing, although one of them later ran off with the rod — Angela was sure it must have been Jigsaw — saying there were beautiful rainbow trout to be found in the puddles under the platforms, the most fabulous rainbow trout ever seen in the city.

* * *

Treefrog unloops the clothesline, takes down a dark necktie, and beats it against the wall to free it of tunnel dust. The dust slips through the candlelight and descends lazily, landing on the spider limbs of wax at the base of the candles. The tie emerges black, with a pattern of red squirrels. He has forgotten how to fix a knot and so he simply loops it under the collar of a filthy flannel shirt. He tries to run a comb through his hair, but it is too long and matted and twisted. He shoves an extra T-shirt into his overcoat pocket to use as a balaclava later, if necessary. Reaching into his bedside table drawer, he takes a sample bottle of aftershave, stolen once from a drugstore, and dabs a little high on his cheeks. It smells nauseating to him. He completes the blind ritual through his nest, touching everything with both hands, finally laying his hands on the speedometer.

While waiting for the others, Treefrog plays handball against the Melting Clock to warm himself. He is down to one handball and will have to buy another soon in case he loses it.

When Angela, Dean, and Elijah arrive he lifts up his beard and shows them the tie. They laugh at the sight of him—“Mister Treefrog Rockefeller!” says Angela — so he wraps it around his forehead and the four of them leave the tunnel together. Papa Love has decided not to go. They shove themselves through the gap in the gate and leave footprints in the snow on the steep hill up toward the park. Angela squeals as the snow touches her feet. She and Elijah are soaring on what they have smoked, and she has drenched her mouth with lipstick, looking vaguely beautiful and gaudy.