Mark Chiusano - Marine Park - Stories

At one thirty I turned off the third straight Law & Order and went through the kitchen out the back, past Mom, who had fallen asleep across three chairs. I could’ve woken her, but I don’t think she really sleeps soundly until she hears Lorris back in the house. She’d go up and pretend to be in bed before we got back. I pulled out of the alleyway, quietly, then turned the music up higher. It’s a five-minute drive to the station at Kings Highway, and at this time of night I found a spot half a block from the entrance. I shut the car off and waited.

• • •

The only time I ever remember going into the city all together by train was when we did family outings to the Met. When we were little we used to do it once a year, in the summer, at that point in July when me and Lorris were too jumpy with being out of school and Mom was tired of babysitting us. Then Dad would take a day off from work at the driver’s ed place and we’d all get on the B2 bus to Kings Highway. When Dad took a day off he didn’t want to drive, period. So we did it the whole way, public transportation, as if we didn’t have a car.

Kings Highway, where we get the train, is the best station in the city. In the winter, it looks like one of those old Russian train stops where you can imagine people escaping wars. People with all sorts of weird belongings in canvas bags, with their babushka scarves, huddled together against the cold. At nighttime, you could see the trains far out in both directions, a B stretching in from Coney Island, doors open and the smell of the sand, or a Q coming down from the city, off the Manhattan Bridge. When you catch the Q you have to know to sit on the bench on the right side; I mean the side on your right when the Q is heading toward Manhattan. Then you’re in a perfect position when it goes over the river to see all the skyline through the Brooklyn Bridge. I can’t understand people who sit on the other side, looking at nothing. It’s like they don’t ride the train every day.

We couldn’t go into the Met without playing in the Ancient Playground first. It was right next to the museum, with pyramids and stone temples that you could climb up, ladders on the inside. Lorris and I would time each other in a circuit down and through the tunnels. Mom and Dad sat on the street end, watching the cars and not really talking. When we had our half hour we went inside, and Dad would put four quarters down for all of us. No one was dumb enough to give him a look, but he always said he was ready for it. The point is it’s free , he liked to say. It’s for the people. I used to leave a nickel. I liked the part with the colonial rooms that are made just the way they used to look. God, I could look at those forever. And the big glass room with the fountain and Greek sculptures. There’s one of two bears that’s smooth and looks out of place; that was Lorris’s favorite, but the rest are mostly people, caught in uncomfortable positions.

Few months before, I’d gone to the Met with some girl from the neighborhood. She was studying art at New Paltz. I hadn’t seen her in a while and I figured I’d give her a call. She said the Met was a great idea; it was like her favorite museum ever. I picked her up in Sheepshead, and we drove in. Let me tell you, it was a good idea to go to the Met with her. She took me into rooms I didn’t even know they had there. And she always knew something about what we were looking at, especially the Greek pottery, which was her specialty. When we got to the colonial rooms, she asked if I knew that most of the fireplaces came from real houses here in New York City. They packed up whole walls and trucked them over, she said, her brown hair shaking as her eyes got bigger. I said I hadn’t known about that, even though of course I did, because I thought it was making her feel good to tell me things. I think it worked.

In front of the French impressionists, I had my thumb in my pocket, and she slid her hand around the little hole my arms made. “See when you step back,” she said, pointing, “it comes into even clearer focus. You have to look at a painting from different sides. Once I saw the Gertsch painting of the girl, and her eyes follow you when you change sides.” She had a poster of it up in her room; she showed me later that night. When she was in the bathroom after, I tried it, going from one side to the other, and the eyes followed sure, but even better was that the expression in her mouth changed. Pouting and sensual on one side and depressed on the other. The whole rest of the time in the museum she kept her hand around my arm there.

Lorris texted at three to say he was on his way: Is it all right if we drop off a few of my friends on the way home? Guys from the baseball team. I said, Yeah, I might be a little late, but meet me a block up from the station. I had the key in the ignition so I could listen to the radio but save the gas. You’d be surprised how much time you can waste just going through stations looking for a good song. When trains came in I turned it off and opened the windows so I could listen to everyone going by — which is what I imagine Barcelona in that painting Dad has would be like, sort of late at night but people still all around, taxis off the avenue. The taxis in Marine Park were all manned by Russian immigrants, most of whom didn’t know English. They played cards in the control center right next to the station, where you could go to pick up a ride. Nights I wasn’t driving — if I came back late from an outing when my boys were back from college, or hanging out after work — sometimes I got one of them to drive me back, if I couldn’t stand the idea of the walk. Sometimes you could converse, if you had the right charades aptitude, and if so they’d give you a swig from the warm vodka they had in paper bags in the glove compartment. You’d offer it back to them, they’d make a fake show of looking around in the empty streets, and then laugh that big hairy laugh and have a drink and an indistinguishable toast with you.

When his train came it was crowded, and he came out of the green station doors in a cluster of his friends. They were all just graduating that year, nothing they were supposed to be doing. It wasn’t like they only did this on Fridays. Every other weekday too, Lorris’d be creeping back at three or four in the morning. I didn’t really mind when he asked me for a ride; it was better than waiting at home trying to stay awake longer than he was.

He opened the front door and he was still wearing my goddamn hat, the gray Mets one. He said, Hey, and put on his seat belt while his friends opened the back doors. I looked through the rearview mirror at them, all steaming from the cold even though no one had jackets on. When they closed the doors the windows immediately began to steam up. I said, Where’s all the girls? and they started roaring, and that made me feel good.

How was your night? he said.

Good, I said.

Someone stole our jackets at the warehouse.

Always happens, I said. I told you not to take one.

Yeah, well, he said.

You’re just lucky it’s not the hat.

He took it off and held the flat brim between his fingers. He traced the NY, which popped up off the front. I know, he said.

• • •

We dropped everyone off, the hand slaps at the stoops, the car doors open and shut. The impossibility of red lights at that time of night, just look around in all directions and make sure no cops or other cars were around, and go. Treat everything like a stop sign. I knew where all the cameras were in this neighborhood, had known since I was as old as Lorris is. He never paid attention when we drove anywhere, had his eyes on his hands.

His friend Omar was last, second base to his shortstop, and they promised to see each other tomorrow. It was a few blocks from our house, and once Omar got to the door I went to put the car in drive, but Lorris put his hand on top. Let’s make sure he gets in OK, he said. We watched the living room light go on, and then go off, and then an upstairs bedroom one flicker quietly. You know we can go now, Lorris said.