Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

“Excuse me?”

“Yes,” she answers in that strangely low voice, peeking around the wall as she does.

“I need to step out for a moment. Is that okay?”

“Sure, honey,” she’s squeaky again. “You’re not chewin’ and screwin’, are you?”

“Me, no. I just need to find a phone.”

“No cell phone?” she asks somewhat disbelieving.

“No, sorry.”

She thumbs at the counter. “You can use this one. Ben wouldn’t mind.”

“Thanks, but it’s long distance.”

“Oh,” she exaggerates. “I think there’s a pay phone across the street.”

“Thank you.”

She looks at the scone, crinkles her face, and fakes a pout. “You didn’t like it?”

“Oh, no. I haven’t started.” I look down at the little menu. “I was thinking that I’d like a sandwich.”

“Really?” she perks up. “So you’re saving that for dessert?”

“Yes,” I lie. “I’ll have the grilled cheddar.”

“Great. Go make your call.”

I go outside to call Claire — the preemptive strike. I have to go up the avenue a ways to find a working pay phone. I dump a pound of Marco’s change in.

“Hello?”

It’s Edith. Tight-jawed Edith. I suppose it’s good to know that she addresses everyone like this — formal and suspicious. Closed to anything moving or new.

“Hello?” she asks again, raising the tone, perhaps an eyebrow, as well. Someone, I think X, shrieks with pleasure or rage in the background. Edith’s growing cross at both of us. I speak.

“Hello, Edith?”

“Oh, it’s you. I didn’t think anyone was there.”

“Sorry.”

“Quite all right.”

“Hey, is Claire handy?”

“No.”

I don’t expect the negative response to a formality. I stumble.

“What’s going on there? What’s she doing?”

“She’s out.” She says it with too much relish — especially for a woman like her: Edith the ghostless; Edith the sexless — no boyfriends — only vague peripheral suitors; Edith of the closed wallet, who, in spite of her only child’s pleadings still maintained that public school — something she’s never experienced — would be fine for grandchildren.

“Out?”

“Yes, out.” What had she said to her late husband as he prepared another miniature for a sculpture that wouldn’t sell? Thank goodness they both had trust funds. He drained his to make art and put his daughter through school. She added the proceeds from his life insurance policy to hers.

“Where’d she go?”

I try to imagine her with faceless people at the Sizzler or Red Lobster out on Route Six.

“Boston.”

“Boston?”

“Yes, she’s meeting some of her school friends.”

“When will she be back?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No sense in making the trip back late, is there?”

“No. No.” I try to regroup — to keep her from hearing my head winding up, preparing to spin. I don’t want it to spin. Not in that way. Hotels. Mojitos — or whatever those murmuring, smarmy, preppy fuckers are into. “We’re having drinks with fun names, so that means we’re having fun.” Claire would never fall for that shit.

“So she’ll call you — when?”

“May I speak to the kids?”

“Which one?”

“Whoever is near.”

“Hold on. I’ll see if they want to talk.” She lowers the phone to her hip, in part to keep from having to talk to me, but also to muffle whatever she’s saying to the children — what they’re saying back to her. “No, I don’t feel like talking.” Getting kids to talk on the phone is second in difficulty to getting them to perform in public — it’s mood based. Edith is censoring my children’s response for me. She’s not all bad — perhaps not bad at all. Second Avenue, the pale sun is like a yellow bruise, pain spreads dimly from the center. Light on the sky, on the six-story tenement walk-ups. The East Village has changed — Mercedes southbound on the avenue, jackets and ties. Upscale eateries. Strollers and well-groomed young mothers. Where are the squeegee men and the junkies? Where is the shopping cart brigade? The stolen-goods sidewalk sales? Where are the flamboyantly gay boys walking alongside the old Ukrainian women pulling their pushcarts, the bag of rugalach on top? Maybe it’s just in this moment that I’ve chosen to look up that they are gone. The sky is like a fading contusion on white skin; the sun, the center of the blow.

“Daddy,” lisps X. His voice dispels the sky. His face fills the void.

“Hey, kid.”

“I’m not kid. My name is X!”

“Sorry, X.”

“Oh, it’s okay, Dad.”

“What are you doing?”

“Playing.”

“Are you playing dinosaur?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m playing ancient sea creature.”

“Do you like sea creatures now?”

“Ancient sea creatures, Dad.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yes!” I hear the jump in his voice and then the thump of his landing.

“Which ancient sea creatures?”

“Oh, I love Archelon.”

“Archelon, who’s that?”

“He’s a giant sea turtle.”

“Wow.”

“I also love Hybodeth.”

“Hybodus?”

“Yeah, Hybodeth.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was one of the first sharks. I love sharks, Dad.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yes. They’re cartilaginous.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. But Dad?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who my favorite ancient sea creature is?”

“Who?”

“Megalodon!”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Oh, yes, Dad. His name means giant toof.”

“Giant tooth?”

“Yes!”

“What is he?”

“He’s a giant shark. He’s like a giant great white shark — as big as a whale.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Yeah.”

His focus drifts for a moment — Edith.

“Okay, may I have the phone back, please?”

“But I’m talking to my dad.”

“Yes, and you’ve talked to him for a long time.”

“But I need to tell him something.” His voice starts to bleed into a whine.

“What do you need to tell him?” she asks. The phone wants more money. I dump a dollar in. Edith tries to talk over the robot voice and X’s protests.

“Hello, what’s wrong with your phone?”

“Can he finish?” Edith goes silent but doesn’t do anything. “Can you put my son back on, please?”

“Oh, yes, sorry. Of course.” She fumbles, regroups, then holds the phone away, but I can still hear. “Your father wants to say good-bye.”

“Bitch,” I mouth.

“Sorry?” She’s still there.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, hold on.”

“Dad,” he’s calm again. My first thought is to tell him not to yell at his grandmother, that he needs to be polite. Fuck it.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Dad, I’m worried.” My guts crash down into my bowels, explode, reform, and spring back up again, but not in their proper places. I fight off the urge to howl.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m worried about Megalodon.”

“Why, it sounds like he can take care of himself.”

“No, Dad — he’s dead. All of them are extinct.” Even his breathing is lispy.

“What about the others?”

“They’re extinct, too.” His breathing grows heavier, faster, the pitch rising. He’s about to crack. “Dad,” he whimpers, as though he’s been punched in the gut. He waits, takes a deep breath, exhales. I know Edith’s standing over him, looking down, puzzled, annoyed. Whatever it is, he somehow knows that he can’t break in front of her. “I wish they were back.” He squeaks the last word out, then comes the first breath of a sob. He bites down on it, holds it, refuses to let it go. And I can see him — man-jaw clenched, squaring it even more, every muscle flexed, and those eyes, searching around and around for an answer to this rush of feeling.