Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

X was already beginning to fade when Edith turned on the engine. The sun was setting over the East River. The corrugated metal warehouses, the giant dinosaur-like cranes, and the silver chassis of the car were swept with a mix of rosy light and shadow. I used to drink on a hill in a park outside of Boston with my best friend, Gavin. He’d gotten too drunk at too many high school parties and he wasn’t welcome at them anymore, so we drank by ourselves outside. We’d say nothing and watch the sun set. And when the light was gone from the sky, one of us would try to articulate whatever was troubling us that day.

“Okay, honey.” Claire was buckling up. “We’re all in.” Edith tried to smile at me and mouthed, “Bye.” She took a hand off the wheel and gave a short wave. I closed C’s door and looked in at him to wave good-bye, but he was watching the dome light slowly fade from halogen white through orange to umber — soft and warm enough through its transitions to temporarily calm the brassiness of Edith’s hair. I saw him say, “Cool” as it dulled, suspended on the ceiling, emberlike. Perhaps it reminded him of a fire he’d once seen in its dying stages, or a sunset. I watched him until it went off, and there was more light outside the car than in and he was partially obscured by my reflection.

C said something to his grandmother and his window lowered. He unbuckled himself and got up on his knees. Edith put the car in gear.

“Sit down and buckle up, hon.” C didn’t acknowledge her and stuck his hand out the window.

“Say good-bye to your dad.”

“Bye, Daddy.”

There was something about daddy versus dad. Something that made it seem as though it was the last good-bye he’d say to me as a little boy. X’s eyes were closed. My girl yawned, shook her head, searched for and then found her bottle in her lap. C was still waving. Edith rolled up all the windows. Claire turned to tell him to sit, and they pulled away.

Thomas Strawberry’s bowl looks cloudy. There’s bright green algae growing on the sides, leftover food and what I imagine to be fish poop on the bottom — charcoal-green balls that list back and forth, betraying an underwater current. Cleaning his bowl is always difficult for me because the risk of killing him seems so high. I don’t know how much trauma a little fish can handle. So I hold off cleaning until his habitat resembles something like a bayou backwater — more suitable for a catfish than for Thomas. He has bright orange markings and elaborate fins. He looks flimsy — effete. I can’t imagine him fighting anything, especially one of his own.

I tap the glass and remember aquarium visits and classroom fish tanks. There was always a sign or a person in charge warning not to touch the glass. Thomas swims over to me, and while he examines my fingertip, I sneak the net in behind him. I scoop him out of the water. He wriggles and then goes limp. He does this every time, and every time I think I’ve killed him. I let him out into his temporary lodgings. He darts out of the net, back to life, and swims around the much smaller confines of the cereal bowl. I clean his bowl in the bathroom sink and refill it with the tepid water I believe he likes. I go back to the desk. He’s stopped circling. I slowly pour him back in. I wonder if his stillness in the net is because of shock or if he’s playing possum. The latter of the two ideas suggests the possibility of a fishy consciousness. Since school begins for the boys in two weeks and I haven’t found an apartment, a job, or paid tuition, I let it go.

I wonder if I’m too damaged. Baldwin somewhere once wrote about someone who had “a wound that he would never recover from,” but I don’t remember where. He also wrote about a missing member that was lost but still aching. Maybe something inside of me was no longer intact. Perhaps something had been cut off or broken down — collateral damage of the diaspora. Marco seems to be intact. Perhaps he was damaged, too. Perhaps whatever he’d had was completely lost, or never there. I wonder if I’m too damaged. Thomas Strawberry puckers at me. I tap the glass. He swims away.

I had a girlfriend in high school named Sally, and one day I told her everything. How at the age of six I’d been treed by an angry mob of adults who hadn’t liked the idea of Boston busing. They threw rocks up at me, yelling, “Nigger go home!” And how the policeman who rescued me called me “Sammy.” How I’d been sodomized in the bathroom of the Brighton Boys Club when I was seven, and how later that year, my mother, divorced and broke, began telling me that she should’ve flushed me down the toilet when she’d had the chance. I told Sally that from the day we met, I’d been writing poems about it all, for her, which I then gave to her. She held the book of words like it was a cold brick, with a glassy film, not tears, forming in front of her eyes. I fear, perhaps, that I’m too damaged. In the margins of the yellow pad I write down titles for the story — unholy trinities: Drunk, Black, and Stupid. Black, Broke, and Stupid. Drunk, Black, and Blue. The last seems the best — the most melodic, the least concrete. Whether or not it was a mystery remained to be seen.

The phone rings. It’s Claire.

“Happy almost birthday.”

“Thanks.”

It’s been three weeks since I’ve seen my family. Three weeks of over-the-phone progress reports. We’ve used up all the platitudes we know. Neither of us can stand it.

“Are you coming?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

It’s a setup. She knows I can’t afford the fare.

“Do you have something lined up for tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” I answer. As of now it’s a lie, but it’s nine. I have till Labor Day to come up with several thousand dollars for a new apartment and long overdue bills, plus an extra fifty for the bus. It’s unlikely, but not unreasonable.

“Did you get the security check from Marta?” she asks, excited for a moment that someone owes us money.

“No.”

“Fuck.” She breathes. Claire’s never been convincing when she curses. She sighs purposefully into the receiver. “Do you have a plan?”

“I’ll make a plan.”

“Will you let me know?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“I dropped my mother at the airport this morning.”

“It’s her house. I like your mother.” It’s a lie, but I’ve never, in the twelve years we’ve been together, shown any evidence of my contempt.

“I think C wants a Ronaldo shirt.” She stops. “Not the club team. He wants a Brazil one.” Silence again. “Is that possible?”

“I’ll try.” More silence. “How’s your nose?”

“It’s fine.” She sighs. She waits. I can tell she’s crunching numbers in her head. She turns her voice up to sound excited. “We’d all love to see you,” then turns it back down — soft, caring, to pad the directive. “Make a plan.”

The last time I saw them was late July at Edith’s. The boys and I were in the kitchen. X was naked and broad-jumping tiles, trying to clear at least three at once. C had stopped stirring his potion, put down his makeshift magic wand and was pumping up a soccer ball. I was sipping coffee, watching them. We were listening to the Beatles. C was mouthing the words, X was singing aloud while in the air. As he jumped, he alternated between the lyrics and dinosaur names: Thump. “Dilophosaurus.” Jump. “She’s got a ticket to ride . .” Thump. “Parasaurolophus.” His muscles flexed and elongated — too much mass and too well defined for a boy, even a man-boy, especially one with such a tiny, lispy voice. He vaulted up onto the round table. It rocked. I braced it. He stood up and flashed a toothy smile.