Michael Thomas - Man Gone Down

“Thank you.”

He nods and guides me to the door. He opens it, and I turn back to him. He gestures to the night, gestures at my wet clothes.

“I’m sorry.”

I offer him a cigarette. He smiles, shakes his head, and then slowly turns it into a nod. He takes one. I push the pack at him, but he waves a finger at it. I light him. He shrugs his shoulders then points at my cup.

“Spanish coffee.”

I nod.

“I’m from Bangladesh.”

I nod again.

“Where are you from?”

“Here.”

He nods. “Good night.”

“Good night.” I back out, and he closes and locks the door. He raises his cup and sips from it. He gives one last wave, turns, and heads for the back.

I take a sip. It’s hot and strong. I hold the cup against my cheek and start walking slowly, keeping it there until I feel my pulse under it. I stop and take a long pull, tilting my head back. The coffee going down seems to push away the encroaching chills. I lean back farther and finish it. There’s the moon, hiding behind the thin clouds, threatening to stay there as though this was the last night of earth.

August has conceded. It’s a cool morning. The sun is late. Marco and I wait on his stoop. We are silent and sip coffee from stainless-steel travel mugs. He got up extra early to brew a strong pot. He’d caught me, sitting on the edge of his son’s bed in what looked to be some half-etherized state with my bag at my side. What could I have said?

Perhaps we’re still friends and this gesture is a testament to that. Perhaps we’re both hiding behind the mask of it being too early for talk — that we’re both still too addled — the coffee has yet to take effect. He’s put milk in mine, but I dismiss the possibility of a conspiracy. Friends, real friends don’t conspire against each other.

A black SUV pulls up. It’s one of those dark-continent conquest mobiles. This one, however, hasn’t seen mud or sand. It’s been buffed to a high metallic shine. It’s a vehicle equipped for ghetto gentrification. The Mercedes Benz hood ornament looks like a rifle sight. All it needs is a gun turret for the roof.

“Let’s go, man,” says Marco. He hops down the stairs, shoulders his clubs, and makes for the gate. These four sleepless nights have shot my nerves. I have trouble with my mug, trying to figure out how to close it, then which hand to hold it in. The stairs are tricky, too — too steep and too narrow in the tread. I hop-stumble the last two, and coffee splashes up through the sip slot.

Marco has reached the car and talks to the driver through the passenger window. The other man sitting there looks past him and studies me openly. He’s square headed, preppy, dark blond, sharp nosed. He reminds me of Buster Brown the shoe boy, but grown up. He tilts his head to get a good look at my clubs — unmatched no names and brand names in an old leather bag that may once have been nice. Marco has stuffed his old/new driver in, as well.

I remember that I don’t have any balls. I need to play with new ones — Titleist. I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to hit anything else. And I want, like a child, to call out to Marco and tell him, but I know he’ll say that he has balls and he’ll hand me a half dozen of the ones he’s found this summer in trees and tall grass, and when I hesitate, he’ll tease— “It’s just a ball.” I also don’t want Buster to hear my voice — not yet. He’s still curious but now waits for me to look at him overtly so he can nod his approval. I don’t.

Marco calls, “You ready?” and heads for the tailgate, extending an arm for my bag. I shake him off.

“Nice bag, man,” says Buster. I pretend not to hear him and put the clubs in the back.

The inside of the assault vehicle is as plush as Edith’s sedan — perhaps more so juxtaposed to its rugged promise. I climb in. The driver turns to say hello, and I’m struck by his face; it’s kind. He has a small nose like Buster, but it’s rounded and soft. His eyes are hazel and twinkly, and he’s smiling — almost meekly, more boyish than anything, I suppose. He’s bald up top, probably has been losing hair since high school. He doesn’t seem to care — no plugs, no comb-over, no baseball hat. He reminds me of one of the likable coaches I had — polite, calm, rides home after practice in some oil-burning shitbox.

“Dan. Pleasure.”

“Good morning.”

He turns back. Puts the jeep in gear. Buster waves a backhand at me and doesn’t turn.

“Hey. Bob.”

We pull out and I realize that I don’t know where we’re going — surely not to the little public course I’d been to. Jersey? Westchester? Long Island? We wind our way through the quiet Brooklyn streets to the BQE. Up front they speak in a strange and quiet code — some financial-legalese dialect. Marco looks out his window, across to Manhattan. Perhaps he’s contemplating the fact that they’re all derelict in their duties, and I wonder how to consider the three of them — the professionals playing hooky — whether their absence is arrogance or defiance. Whether Marco gets fed up with the man — although, for most, he is the man. But I know there’s the CEO, CFO, COO, the president, and each one possesses a deed on a section of his ass. And unless the other two were of that higher class, they were assed out, too. Marco and I both look out over the western edge of Queens, over the canal and the cranes — more warehouses and asphalt shingle-clad low row houses that line the anonymous streets below. He turns to me, gives a tight nod. It makes me feel a bit better, that all of us are doing something wrong, that we all may have some cosmic issue that has compelled us on this late summer morn to chance allowing our empires, both small and large, to expand or fall to ruin.

We hit the LIE eastbound. Still no talk. No music and the Benz is so quiet. It seems that we aren’t moving save for Queens flashing by: brick apartment buildings, now Shea, now LaGuardia, and eastward, colonials and more anonymous streets.

“We’re going to the club,” says Marco, turning from the window. “Is that okay?” I take a sip of my milky coffee, which, even in the astronaut mug, has gone cold.

“I don’t have a collared shirt.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll get you set up.”

I’m not sure who the we is or are. Driver Dan and Buster Bob are quiet, looking out the windshield. If the we is they, they aren’t letting on. Dan looks too honest, too kind to be involved in any kind of setup. “Do you have anyone we can hunt at the club this weekend?” I don’t see it, not from him, but Buster, yes. I put the words in his mouth. “Hey, Maracoh — got any sport?” Marco watches Queens disappear. In purchasing his assimilation he’s sold me out, but I won’t give them the satisfaction of running, or even fighting. They can shoot me where I stand.

* * *

There’s no outbound traffic so the trip is quick. We exit the highway, decelerate, turning. The trees thicken, and there are sudden breaks in them.

“You’re an English professor, right?” asks Dan with a hint of reverence. I look at Marco, who refuses to turn from his window.

“Yes.” What else can I say?

“This place, the first time I came here reminded me of Gatsby. You know what I mean?”

“Oh, are we in one of the Eggs?” I reply, fumbling, which, I suppose, if one were to cut me a lot of rope, might sound interesting. Dan just nods — mouths a delayed and quiet “Yep.” I look out my window, but there’s only trees. I look out Marco’s. There’s a great lawn — Gatsbyesque, I suppose. Island Estates. Private way. We pass more great lawns — driveways lined with pearly stones or crushed shells, which suggest that they retreat a great distance from the road and terminate at something grand, but most of them have multiple mailboxes at the gate. Hundred-acre estates have been halved over the years, and then halved and halved again. If there is some postmodern Daisy up one of those drives, I’m sure she won’t be coming down to the road to fetch her mail. I feel a quick twinge inside, like my stomach, for a second, has folded over and back, when I consider how dead she really is.