Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

My father was not a good father, but I’m not sure if that necessarily makes him a bad man. I have been told by people that I am a good father, but I’m sure just as many have covertly called me an asshole. My father wasn’t an asshole. And I know he wasn’t a chump or a fool. There must have been dignity in him in some amount, at some time. What left him sucking ass for pennies and cheap, blonde sex? What broke him? I see him on a distant shore. To bring him back is to remember him well — good, kind, perhaps a hero at one time, strong before they got him. And I don’t care about the details, who did it and how it was when he went down. I want him to have gone down fighting. But I haven’t a myth of creation for him, nor one of his demise. The only chance I have in this life is for my children to remember me well. But I haven’t any G-rated myth to spin or juggle, just a distant, malingering man, a gaunt-faced, odd-eyed phantasm, wraiths, demons, symbols, and signs. And there’s no way to co-opt them, no way to co-opt hell — it has no voice, only soundless wails and cold fire. And if you speak of it, your escape and your triumph, you were never there. Nobody uses the prince of darkness. I wonder what it’s like, sitting in a dust chair, knowing nobody will be coming. Watching yourself disappear.

It’s late afternoon, but it’s dark because I’ve cut across the shadow realm of Brooklyn. I had to get away from the suits who have emerged from the courthouses and subways of downtown. Their sheer numbers are offensive in that they look like a herd but on many levels don’t behave like one. The mass cloaks the individual improprieties — a quick look at an ass or tit, a fleeting dream of sin, but they do nothing for the group, save add to its mass. Another dark suit, another dark pair of shoes, another professional — parasitic, dreaming that another paper pushed, another leer is an individual act. And of course, the subsuits, who believe themselves different because they held out for khakis.

I cut across the shadow realm because I cannot stand it right now. I walk in lightless Brooklyn, where the sun never seems to reach, between the jail and Fulton Mall, where strays run, miscreants, gypsy cabs, nannies released from bondage, fry joints, usury shops — they will never “fix” this part of Brooklyn. And of course my response is dichotomized, but I’ll take a petty criminal over a suck-ass any day.

I’ve seen too many apartments in New York City. Single or married with children, I’ve looked at too many, met too many brokers, tried to appease too many racist landlords, negotiate with too many slumlords while looking for that special something. They were all too small, too dark, too dangerous, and certainly, all too expensive. And our “friends,” or those people we were entering adulthood with, who may have become friends — good friends — were all gone to the North or West or back to their hometowns. We stayed, thinking of ourselves as somewhat charmed until Marta showed up with that new lease. Her apartment hadn’t spoken to us, either, but it had seemed relatively fair and she hadn’t hesitated in shaking my hand.

The broker’s waiting in front of the building of the apartment I know we can’t afford. He’s small, white, balding, dressed in an ill-fitting Banana Republic outfit. It makes him look like a child who’s just emerged from the fitting room. I walk up beside him. He sizes me up and decides by way of my Gap clothes that I’m safe enough to acknowledge. He shoots his chin out at me.

“Hey, chief.” He checks his watch, reshoulders his bag, and steps to the curb. He clears his throat and spits into the gutter. He looks back at me, nods a few times, as though he’s moving his head to a plodding rock song. I point to the building.

“Are you showing the apartment?”

He recognizes my voice from the phone. He tries to compose himself. “Right on time” is all he can muster. He stares up at me, trying to reconcile the voice and the person before him now.

“Can we go in?”

“Absolutely, my friend.”

He unlocks the gate and gestures for me to go in. We walk up a narrow, wooden stair that seems ready to shear off the wall. We stop at the top landing, finished in peeling linoleum.

“No pets, right?”

“We have a fish.”

“Fish — hah. I think that’ll be okay.”

He unlocks the door and swings it open for me. The entire apartment is almost immediately discernible from the doorway. You step into a large living area. To the right is a galley kitchen, narrower than the rest of the space to allow for the stairs and landing. To the left on opposite ends of the north wall are two doorways that lead to bedrooms.

“I thought this was a three-bedroom.”

“It’s two plus a den.” He waves in the direction of the wall. “There’s another room off one of the bedrooms. It’s perfect for a small kid.” He waits for my reaction. I don’t have one. “It’s nice and quiet in the back. You can’t see it now, but this front section gets a lot of morning light.” He steps into the middle of the room, does a half turn, taps the floor with his shoe. It’s the old, plank subfloor, wood-filled and urethaned to look finished. He points to a door just inside the doorway of the east bedroom. “Check out the bathroom.”

I walk to the back. The lumps of spackle and paint resemble cave wall sediments. The door jambs are twisted, and the hollow-core doors look flimsy under the deteriorating molding. Heavy applications of paint seem to be keeping it all together, like glue in places, like wood in others.

The bathroom has been refitted with a cheap pressboard vanity. One head butt from X would do it in. The floor is sheet linoleum. The new fixtures are ready to leak.

“Not bad. New, clean, right?”

I look back at him. The floor slopes down to the center of the room, making him a full two inches shorter.

“The school here, PS — I don’t remember — it’s supposed to be pretty good. It’s just around the corner.” He starts walking to the kitchen and stops. “Your kids go to public school?”

“No.”

“Oh, shit. I don’t have kids, but I have friends. That’s a big nut.” He pretends to consider the cost for a moment. “Come see the kitchen.”

Outside on the avenue he changes, becomes more sedate but more direct at the same time. “Listen,” he begins, looking at the traffic, “we’ll need your information.”

“I thought you had it.”

“Well, we ran your credit, and your — is it your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, your wife’s credit. They’re okay. Called your old landlady — that’s cool. We need your financials. Did you bring a W-2 or something with you?”

“I didn’t make a lot last year.”

“That’s okay, okay. How are you doing for this year, you working?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get a pay stub, a letter to prove it? The owner is a good guy, much easier than most. I’ve worked with him for a while now and I’ve never given him a bad tenant, so he trusts me. As long as they check out with me, he’s cool, you know?” He looks at me now for emphasis. “I don’t discriminate, with anyone. I think that’s stupid. As long as you can pay the rent — you know, and don’t wreck the place. But like I said, you check out fine.” He starts nodding as though he’s agreeing for me. “So the paperwork. And then we’ll need a bank check — first, last, and three months security.” He keeps looking at me but mumbles the last of it. When I don’t respond, he shuffles away from me, backward toward the building. He leans forward.

“Is that a problem?”

“How much is this?”

“Twenty-five. Twenty-five. So that’s. .”

“You want $12,500 up front?”