Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

I keep moving down the aisle. In another bin are some coloring books and a couple of stacks of random small notebooks. On the cover of one of them is a watercolor of a beach. It’s actually quite skillfully done — simple quick strokes. The perspective seems like it’s from a high dune, and out near the horizon line a great whale is breeching. I take that, too. I scan the rest of the aisle for C — nothing.

I look over the food, but all the meats in the deli-case look old and crispy, and the offerings on the steam table are gray. I take a small warm bottle of water, then go to the candy aisle and get two oversized Snickers, mint gum. I see the packs of baseball cards and next to them football and soccer. I take three packs of soccer cards and go to the front. I lay my things out on the counter, and the grim old man begins to silently ring them up. I give him a twenty. He swabs it with a marker, holds it in the air, and waits. I look over my offerings and get a sharp pang in my chest, which shoots down to my gut. Bringing these things is worse than coming empty handed. He gives me my change, reaches under the counter, but I wave him off. I stuff them in my bag and go.

The bus is strangely empty: Only one side is filled. I pick a seat in the beginning of the back third and drop into it heavily. I lean against the window and look across the aisle. There’s a woman across; from the way she’s settled in, looks like she’s been riding this bus awhile — long overdue up south. She’s older — maybe in her sixties, dark brown, a bit heavy, and her eyes are almost closed. She holds a summer hat in her lap. Her hands rest on her stomach — thick, long, ringless fingers interlocked. Her thumbs circle each other slowly. She turns, smiles, and nods. I nod back. We turn away.

The bus is warm, but not so much as to release the trapped smells that Gavin had warned of. There’s a rumble I can’t place, then realize that it’s the diesel engine echoing in the garage. The driver climbs aboard, looks down the aisle, sits and closes the door. And then we’re out on Eighth Avenue. I look for Gavin on the sidewalk, but I know he’s gone. I don’t know where he will go and I think for a moment that I should’ve asked him to come with me. I close my eyes and see his face — what it is now— “God bless Gavin,” I mouth. I open my eyes and roll my head to the side. The woman across the aisle smiles as though she’s the recipient of my benediction. I fight back a yawn and nod back to her. She turns to the window, looks at the east side of the avenue rushing by — the remaining porn shops and troubled minds out in front, people in suits and people in coveralls. I’ve always liked New York City at times like this — the emptiness of late summer, the gestures of the absent population, the space and the silence, and the sun starting to fade and go down. All of it through a closed window. In motion. The city offered a perfect opening when we all rolled into it. I was anonymous, had my notebooks, and couldn’t wait for my arm to heal so I could play guitar. Shake’s now old used car, the Plymouth Duster — he called it the Feral Coupe, and he drove me down the West Side before cutting across Houston — sharp Indian-summer day. I’m not nostalgic. I’m out of that memory’s orbit anyway, and now the closure is just right, as well — late-summer sunset with sleep coming on.

I take out the list once again and open the little table. I write, “Get on the bus,” and then cross it out. I reread the list and make dots next to each task, just to be sure. I fold it and put it away. I take out the little notebook and open it — more like a sketchbook, the pages unlined. I write on the inside cover, “ When you were born, you were so small I could hold you in the palm of my hand” —I close it, and then question what I wrote — if I omitted, repeated, or misspelled any words and then what it even means. The book suddenly seems too private, even for me. I wonder if I should send it later — if there will be a later, or if it, like so many other plans and stories, will sit under a bed or in a closet, get lost or smudged and torn till it’s illegible. I don’t know how I’ll give them these things: in private, each child alone, trying to understand the significance of my calling to them. And then later, much later, them finally understanding that it was the last time I was their father. The old woman groans. I put it away.

I get brief glimpses of scenery — the sun at the west end of 125th Street, the warehouses of the South Bronx, the thick stream of cars going past my window. We make the expressway, but the bus stops and starts like we’re still on the city streets. I have a quick hunger pang and remember the candy bars. I take one out, start to open it, and feel the old woman watching me. I turn. Her eyes look sunken, and her breathing’s rapid and shallow. She fidgets with her hat. I lean over to her.

“I’m sorry, are you okay?”

She nods weakly, not bothering to raise her head from the seat.

“Are you sure?”

She nods again and leans to me. “It’s okay, baby,” she says slowly with a thick drawl. “I just have a touch of the sugars.”

I slide over to the aisle seat and offer her the Snickers. She looks at it, closes her eyes, and shakes her head slightly. I put it on the seat beside her.

“Sweetheart,” her voice brightens, but she keeps her head down. “I can’t take this.”

“It’s okay,” I point at my bag. “I have another.” Then I whisper, “I’m not really hungry — just trying to pass the time.”

“Thank you,” she exhales but still doesn’t move. I must look worried because she nods and says, “Oh, I’ll be fine now.”

I must doze off because when I look out the window again, there aren’t any more buildings, only trees going by. We’re moving quickly — no traffic, no city — now a break and a shore and the beginning of a bridge. We mount and I look west, up the twist of water. It must be a sharp bend up there, because even though we rise and cross, I can’t see beyond the turn. So I forget about it and concentrate instead on the straight I can see — just beyond the obstructing bridge. I wonder what it was like one hundred, two hundred years ago. Who fished? Who drowned? What was it like to settle on these banks without the concrete and steel? Then, perhaps because of how the late light has cast the top of the dark water silver, I think of Pincus and his mustache— the river as mustache. I think the banks are moving inward, narrowing the water, but it’s blackness on the border of my vision — a darkening, contracting scope. And I’m gone.

I think I was thirteen. I don’t remember the time of year, but it was mild — perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to place, a quick shot of atypical warmth in a cold season. I was coming home from some kind of practice, and my feet were wet and puckered from the sodden field.

I came in to find both of my parents at the kitchen table sitting over coffee. They weren’t talking, but they weren’t ignoring each other. It seemed almost peaceful, actually, the two of them looking down at the table or into their cups with quiet faces, like shy kids on a date. My mother poured more coffee for herself. My father gestured for me to come in and sit down as if it was his house, too. I put my bags down, but I stood.

“How are things?”

I looked to my mother for some kind of prompt. She nodded slightly but kept her head down. It had been three years since I’d seen him. I hadn’t considered, until that moment, that perhaps they’d been in contact — talking about me. Things had been going well for Lila and me — as well as they ever had or would. We didn’t talk much, but I was bringing home good grades and staying out of trouble — fulfilling my promise, I suppose. Sometimes I’d catch her watching me strangely, as if she didn’t believe she was seeing what she saw. Other than that, she left me alone. She had found a decent job, and I’d gotten money together mowing lawns and such. She wasn’t drinking so much, and I’d yet to really start. The rent was current, and although she was three months behind on the electric, a debt she’d die with, we were well. I don’t know why she let him in the door.