Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

“Did you find anything for today?” It’s a simple enough question, but it sounds ridiculous coming from her — Claire as the hardscrabble wife of a day laborer.

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing?”

“Something for Johnny — I don’t know.”

“Ick. That guy gets jobs?”

“I guess so.”

“Maybe you can start getting your own jobs?”

“Maybe.”

“You talk to Marta?”

“Today.”

“Great. School?”

“After work.”

“Will anyone be there?”

“I get out at four.”

“Oh, okay. I’m sorry.” She wants to stop asking these sorts of questions, but she can’t help herself. “What about apartments?”

“Tomorrow.”

“We don’t have much time.”

“I know.”

She brightens. “What about Pincus?”

“What about Pincus?”

“I saw his new book. It got great reviews.”

“Did it?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I keep bugging you. I’m putting it all on you.”

“No. It’s fine.”

“Things’ll work out.”

“Yeah.”

She sighs. “I feel better. I’m sorry.”

“Shh.”

“Are you coming this weekend? The kids miss you. I miss you.”

“I’ll try.” It doesn’t sound genuine to me.

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She seems to wait on the line as though she’s expecting me to say more, but she hangs up before I can disappoint.

The stink and dread of the subway when you are going to work isn’t like the stink and dread of the subway when you’re going out to the movies or lunch. It’s not the funk, or the idea that you’ll be trapped underground, it’s the stink of your dreams rotting somewhere along the rails. It’s the dread of knowing that you’re being carted off — complicitly — to the slaughter. Two hundred and fifty dollars a day in New York City will never get me out from under. Next stop — Satan’s lair. It’s seven thirty in the morning and I’m on the F-train, SoHo bound.

I try to account for every dollar I’ve spent in an attempt to figure out how it all came to this. I made money. And for a while, at least, we were operating at a surplus. Claire’s cousin Linus started a dot-com and hired me to write their copy. It was the first time in my life, since being a stock clerk during high school, that I’d brought home a regular check. It made our rent seem trivial, our monthly nut seem like nothing. We saved. I had an office and someone to direct my incoming calls. I didn’t have to do much, either. Linus used to come visit me and ask why I didn’t move his cousin out of that crawlspace we were in. He’d sit on my desk, sipping a coffee. He did the same thing when he presented me with my stock in the company. He did the same, only with a cigar, when his shares made him a millionaire. He also did it when he asked me not to sell. But not when all I had left were penny stocks, a little cash in the bank, and an odd entry on my résumé.

When I come back above ground on Houston, it’s pouring. I should’ve taken the A. I wander down Greene and stop at the address. I look up. There doesn’t seem to be anything happening on the third floor. I press the bell and wait — nothing. I wait under the cornice until I figure out that the runoff from it is denser than the rain itself.

Across the street is a store — Lucky Jeans. The gates are down. Claire has mentioned this place. I didn’t think jeans could be lucky unless they were some old ratty pair that had seen you through some days, enough days to prove that it really is luck you’ve experienced with them, rather than coincidence. The shop, even though I can’t see in, seems too high-end to be pushing used truck. It’s the entire corner, two stories of glass and logo. And how would they get the lucky jeans away from the original owner? Perhaps someone who was down on their luck. Pawn shop or other, it seems wrong. When we were kids, Gavin probably would have chucked a rock through one of the big windows and then stood around as if he hadn’t done anything. I miss my friend. I wonder how he’s doing. His last slip, what had it been? Not that it mattered. I miss Gavin. I haven’t been a good friend to him lately. I haven’t really been a friend at all. “I don’t know,” he used to say. “My people, when they don’t like something, they just blow it up.” Then he’d look at me, have a smoke or something, and then speak with that highbrow tone, opening his hand to me. “Your people wouldn’t think that right of you talented tenth. They should teach you how to make bombs or something.” Gavin was the best fighter in town. He could provoke better than anyone. People would look at his skinny body, his freckle puss, the expression in his impish eyes — shy intelligence bordering on outrageous arrogance. He would never throw a punch, only take them. I once saw someone smash a beer bottle over his skull. He went down and bounced right back up. That was Gavin — taking hits, going down, getting back up, going down again. It used to scare me horribly — to watch his father beat him, his so-called friends, the police. And the times when I’d step in, when I thought he’d be killed, he’d say no. I guess I got used to it. But now, wishing him here, I wonder how many bounce-backs he has left, or if one really does bounce back — my only real friend left on earth, whom I have let fall.

The door opens and I jump into the street to face it. A woman is in the doorway. She’s not startled. Her head’s down, as though she hasn’t seen me or doesn’t care. She opens her umbrella and looks up. She knew I was there all along. She starts out but goes only so far as to still be able to hold the door open — for me. She nods back at the opening, almost imperceptibly. I don’t move.

“Do you want to wait inside?”

I keep still — still looking. Her umbrella and raincoat are both transparent. Her hair is long, dark, and loopy. She looks as though she meticulously threw something on and then rushed out.

“Are you working upstairs? You can wait inside.” It goes against my programming to have a strange white woman, alone on a deserted street, show me trust — not that it hadn’t happened before, strange that it had happened many times. What is even more ridiculous is that I’m still in the street refusing shelter and it makes sense — to me and to her.

“Have a good day.” She lets the door close. She doesn’t wave. She doesn’t give me another look. She goes away, south on Greene, around the corner, west on Broome, and is gone.

I find a Sharpie in my bag and a scrap of sandpaper. I hunch over to protect it from the rain, and on the back I begin another list: Call Gavin. Real estate broker on Atlantic. Security deposit. Change guitar strings. They had seemed muddy this morning, as though one of the kids had been strumming them with syrupy hands. I remember a demo tape of songs I wrote. I guess I made it some time ago and I want to hear them. I remember them, the performance, too, as being quite good. I started playing on a whim, listening to Dylan, strumming along, then realizing he wasn’t just strumming. I had realized earlier that I wasn’t going to be able to plead like Marvin, demand like Otis, or croon like Johnny Hartman. My voice is odd — low and nasal, pinched at times. I always liked listening to him search for the tune, bending notes the other way, up out of blue. “What’s your angle?” Shake asked me once after a set. “I’m going to be the first big black man to sing like a skinny white guy.” I wonder if any of my old tapes are still around. I sweep Marco’s basement to figure out which box they’re in, but the picture doesn’t come. I try and focus harder, but all that comes up is a random cassette case stuffed under some papers. My voice has changed since then. I should make another.