Colum McCann - This Side of Brightness

Y’ain’t gonna die, Angela, come on.

And then, see, he shoved some tobacco in his mouth but I didn’t say nothing even though I wanted a cigarette. He always said he was old enough to be allowed a vice, said the one thing an old man regrets in his life is that he behaved hisself so well. So, anyways, we went on to the subway and changed a couple of times and went all the way down to that tunnel that he dug way way back. We went out and we was standing by the East River near a pile of rubbish by the old Customs House, when he says to me, he says, There’s a gold ring under that there river. Your own great-grandmomma’s, he says, and I says I know, ’cause he told me a million times. And then he says to me — you know what he says? — he says, I’d like to walk through that there tunnel and say hello to my old friend Con, he says, that’s what I’d like to do.

And I says, Huh?

I’d like to walk under that there river, he says.

And, course, I says, You’re crazy. And he just sighs and says, Come on, we’ll go down and just ride that train.

We can’t walk the tunnel, I says.

I said ride the train, he says. Ride, son.

So we went on down the steps — I won’t never forget it — we put in the tokens, and I helped him on down the steps. He still had his walking stick. At the edge of the platform we waited for the M train — it’s the M train, isn’t it? Yeah. And when it arrived, brakes squealing, he held me back by the elbow and stared at me in the eyes like this and said, he says, How about it? And I said, You wanna walk under the river? It’s Sunday, he said, let’s wait for the next one and see how long it takes ’tween trains. Might be much as half an hour. On Sundays they don’t run so good. I don’t know how long it took, but it was damn near thirty-five minutes and — I swear to whoever be up there, I swear — we looked at each other and laughed, my grandaddy and me. Then the door of that train closed and the platform was left empty save us. And we went nodded at each other. Right, he says, just a few short yards, that’s all. And we slapped hands. I was quick then — quicker’n now — and I vaulted on down onto the tracks and reached up to take ahold of him, help him down. We don’t have to do it, I says, and he says, I’d like to. It’s what I want to do. Just a couple of yards.

Watch out for the third rail, I says. And he’s all happy, saying, I know what the third rail is, son.

And then he asks me, Y’all got a lighter? And I asks why. And he says in case the train comes early, we can flick it so’s the driver sees us.

I gave him the lighter and asked him how long it’d take us to walk, and he says fifteen minutes give or take. And I says, We best hurry.

We moved on down a few feet beyond the platform and made our way into the dark. Darker’n any tunnel. I ain’t ashamed to say we went hand in hand.

Gimme your hand there.

I know you’re cold. Here, take my gloves.

Along the middle of the track, down the slope of the tunnel, he let go of my hand and held on to my shoulder, walked behind a pace. It was like we was blindfolded. I don’t know why we didn’t stop, but we kept on going. And all the time I’m thinking, We shoulda brought a flashlight with us. And then he’s pointing out all sorts of things in the tunnel: the strip of red and white metal on the wall, the curves, some place where a welder went on fire.

That tunnel — nobody living there, of course. Nobody could live there. Too narrow. But there’d been people through there, graffiti artists; there was that guy, COST REVS 2000, and all sorts of other graffiti, except nobody like Papa Love; ain’t nobody in the world can draw like Papa Love. We stayed close together. And I’m thinking, Up there, there’s boats on the water, and Brooklyn and Manhattan, and we’re walking under the river. We were shaking with the cold and damp. I was looking back scared over my shoulder. I was all right then. I mean, I wasn’t fucked up. I wasn’t fucked up in the head.

I know I ain’t, Angela.

Yeah, you’re cute too.

Sunshine and cigarettes.

But listen.

Just listen.

We shoulda gone back, but we didn’t. The tunnel was all curvy and quiet, and he takes the lighter and flicks it close to the ground a few times. Roundabout here, he says, is the wedding band. All I see is nothing but a pile of gravel and a few pebbles, but he looks up to the roof, the ceiling, whatever, and I asked him if he found the ring and he says, Just a minute. The top of the lighter was burning his thumb. Come on! I says. Just a minute, he says, I’m having a look here. Come on come on come on! He went closed the hood on the lighter, looks up, and says to the ceiling, Yankees are one up as we speak! I was getting scared then, and I was feeling bad, ’cause the Yankees hadn’t hit a homer at all, but I didn’t say nothing. I’m scared. So I grab the Zippo and take ahold of his overcoat and drag him along the flat part of the tunnel. No rats, no Skagerak, no Barents, nothing — just our breath — and he says, I remember, and I says, Remember what? and he says, I disremember.

And I says, Come on.

Holy Name, he says, which is what he said sometimes.

Move it! I says. So I reach backward and drag him by the sleeve. I’m trying to keep the Zippo lit, but it keeps flaring out on me. Keeping well away from the third rail and all. Down the center of the tracks. Faster and faster, me tugging at the overcoat. He can hardly move, and, me, I’m wondering if I might have to carry him.

I’m all right, leave me alone, Angie. I’m all right.

Angie. Angela. Whatever.

Just listen.

Maybe he felt some youngness going on through him, some shit like that, eighty-nine years old but suddenly nineteen; he mighta been following himself into his past — one, two, three, strike, return — and he mighta been rising once more — through the tunnel and the river and all — but he’s not. I’m just dragging him along, and in the distance we see the lights from the subway station — they’re still a ways away — and I’m screaming now, screaming, Come on! Come on! He stops for a moment and puts his hands on his knees and bends over and says, I haven’t felt this good in years.

And then he was just standing, staring. Maybe he recognized the corner. Maybe he was remembering things. But he weren’t moving. So I tugged him harder and harder. His feet going thump-thump on the ground and I see the platform and I’m thinking, Man, we’re home free, we are home free. We get there, right? We’ve walked under the river. All the way, one side to the other. He puts his walking stick up, and then I hear the rumble and a big blast of horn explodes from a train and two headlights flare far away, and me — I’m quick — me, I’m up on the platform and reaching down to grab him, under the armpits, pull him up — lights of the train coming — and one hand slips and he grabs again and the hat falls — that’s what’s horrible, you know, it’s the tea cosy; it’s the stupidest thing in the world — and he reaches to get it, and I try to grab him, and him, he looks at me, and I swear to whatever be up there — I swear, I swear it, I loved him, I loved him, I loved him, Angie — he was looking up at me, and his face was wanting to be saying, it was like it was saying, What do we do now, son, now that we’re happy?

* * *

There is this dream: Clarence Nathan is chopping his hands off and sucking out the marrow in his bones until there is a hollow corridor along which he walks, as high with despair as Manhattan.

* * *

Dancesca looked after me. She was sad as hell too. And Lenora, there was no end of crying. She even put his walking stick in her aquarium, but it kept falling out. I mean, nobody been missed more in the world more’n that old man been missed. I keep seeing it in my head — the train dragging him along and along. And me there on the platform screaming. And the train wheels screeching. And then all of a sudden the biggest silence you ever did hear. I couldn’t do nothing after that. I was paralyzed. Nothing there in my hands. I loved him more’n any man can love a man.