Another Bullshit Night in Suck City Page 13

  Over the years my father’s spent a night or two at the Salvation Army. Slept in the Greyhound station on more than one night, upright in a plastic chair, feeding coins into a tiny television bolted to the armrest. Between places, was all, scoping out the next thing. He still has friends, he can make a few calls. Twenty years earlier he finessed a suite at the Ritz for six months. He’d been selling encyclopedias door-to-door without much luck (Broads’d answer the door in their nightgowns and say, “No, my husband ain’t here, come on in for a drink”), sleeping on a friend’s roof on Beacon Hill, and one night in a downpour he ducked into the lobby of the Ritz. Encyclopedia Americana’s relocating to Boston, he told the desk clerk. Room service, the works, he boasts.

  Light filtering through the leaves outside, shadows of leaves on the shade, a murmur somewhere in the walls. It made more sense to unscrew the doors and lay them on their side, to park the taxi beside my bed, to fill the tub with ice, to close my ears with newspaper. I called my son from the payphone in the hall, told him to bring his truck, he could have whatever he wanted, that the queers wouldn’t get their paws on a thing. He’d never seen the inside of his father’s room, never saw the picture of his mother beside my bed, me holding him in my arms at the door on Pinkney Street. He’ll come with his truck and we’ll move somewhere, another room, or maybe to Maine, with a barn.

  inside out

  (1987) I’ve been working at the shelter for three years at this point, an old-timer, working less or not at all during the summers when living on the boat. Three years is a lifetime at the shelter. The Cage became Housing became the Floor. Now full-time, a counselor, sometimes even the supervisor—I have risen to the top. I’m not thinking of my father much at this point. I get a letter occasionally but sometimes I don’t open it for weeks.

  Until one day, out of nowhere, my father telephones—Get over here with your truck. The first time I’ve heard his voice on the phone, the first time I’ve ever spoken to him, really, beyond that “Hi” when I was eight. I’m sitting behind my door with a shotgun, he now says, waiting for the knob to turn.

  I go to the address he gave, bring my truck. I ask Emily and Doug to come with me, as witnesses, as backup, as support. I didn’t know when he said shotgun if there would be a shotgun. I took him at his word. I want you to have everything, he said. All my life I have been what is known as accident prone—broken nose, broken arm, broken knees, broken spleen, broken teeth, broken fingers, broken cheekbone, broken ribs. While doing construction—drilling concrete, cutting pipe—three times steel slivers became lodged in my eyes, and three times removed. Your eyes are covered with scars, the doctor said, any more and you won’t be able to see. In context what was a drunk sitting behind a door with a shotgun? But when we get to his building I go in alone, because if there is a shotgun I don’t want a crowd of us in the hallway. I knock on his door, but from the side, as I’d seen tv cops do. I don’t touch the knob until he barks, Who is it? and I identify myself.

  I find him sitting naked in a galvanized tin tub in the center of his room, bathing and drinking straight vodka from a silver chalice, like some demented king from in the Middle Ages. As I push the door open wider, still standing off to one side, still thinking of the shotgun, he rises from his bath and stands before me, naked. His breasts sag, suds funnel off his cock. Thanks for coming, he says, I’ll be with you in a minute. I try to look him only in the face as I stagger backward and out into the dim hallway. Take your time, I mumble, my brain racing. Why was he naked? Why had he risen as I opened the door? Why had I come when he called?

  Water can be a symbol of purification, to stand naked before someone a sign of truth, of nothing to hide. A chalice can hold a sacrament, a chalice can hold poison. Nakedness can be both a threat and an offering. Archimedes lowered himself into a tub and formulated the laws of mass and density. Eureka! Water is the universal solvent! But water also drowns, rivers rise and breach their banks, fields become mud, family photo albums fatten, teacups float from cupboards. Why had I come? The years my father was in prison I could imagine his room—the thick walls, the bars, a slit of blue sky high above his head. Sometimes I imagined a cage, stacked on top of other cages, each with its own man inside. Or a hole in a basement with bars for a ceiling, a screw pacing above, twirling a nightstick. I could place him in a prison, he who had been unplaceable. But that had been ten years earlier, when the letters had started. Ten years of a father built entirely of his own crazy words. When he called I didn’t think of not going. If I didn’t go to him I would always wonder, if not about him then about his room, this room he was now losing, just to picture it, to hold it in my mind.

  When my father calls me back in he’s half dressed, buttoning a shirt. Pleasure to see you, Nicholas. Aside from the circumstances. I look into his face, try to see myself. I listen briefly as he rants about the new owners, then I go outside and call in Emily and Doug. My father smirks at Emily, never having seen the two of us together, asks about her folks. How are Steady Ray and Clare de Lune? He begins to tell Doug of being forced to listen to the faggots going at it, night and day, but Doug cuts him off. I glance around his room, crammed with old magazines and what appears to be worthless junk. In the newspaper that morning I’d read that computers can now simulate what cannot be seen, the shape of “nothing,” the structure that holds this nothing together—its representation looked like a gaping mouth. Anything you want, kid, I’m serious. I glance at a painting, all spatters and drips. That’s a real Pollock, kid, he was a friend. Worth a fortune now. It’s yours.

  Half an hour later I give him a few hundred dollars to put his stuff in storage or to find another place, ask only that he not appear at the shelter, that he not fuck up my job. He tells me not to worry. I take the painting, along with a copy of Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. A few days later my brother will point out that Pollock had misspelled his name when he signed the painting. There was no shotgun.

  cloverleaf

  The world’s so large, each city full of cheap rooms, each room behind a door. Men lie in these rooms, press their bodies into mattresses, pull the shade in the morning, pace wide-eyed at night. Someone always comes along, picks you up. You have to end up somewhere, right? Damn near law of physics.

  If not for his cab my father will be outside. I have plenty of places to go, but no place to be. Easy to sleep in the cab, his hands tight on the wheel. He’s not homeless, not yet, not ready for sleeping on the ground, not sober. Overnight the taxi becomes his room, the city his floor plan. Logan to Kenmore, Beacon Hill to Harvard Square, back to the garage in the Fenway to refuel, the great rotary of being, the cloverleaf of life. The plan is to live out of his cab, lease it twenty-four hours at a time, three back-to-back shifts. Park down by the waterfront, in Southie, in Winthrop, watch the planes take off, stash a bottle under the seat, drive to the storage unit, pick out some clothes to last a few days, eat a sandwich, drive. He still makes money—listening for the dispatcher, ferrying people here and there, driving past black men in suits with their hands in the air. If he has to shit in the middle of the day he goes to the Greyhound station, where no one notices a taxi parked out front for half an hour. A spot reserved for taxis. For a shower he goes to the Y in Charlestown, just over the bridge from the North End. Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast. It’s not all fun and games. Cabbies get shot in the head every night, everyone knows they have a pocketful of cash. Between the door and his seat he keeps his spiked club, where his left hand can find it quick—Bammo, spike to the jugular, lowlife won’t know what hit him.

  But one night in late March he forgets to stop drinking—meter on, meter off, blackout, awake. Another overnight in jail, to stand before the judge in the morning. The police said they found an empty fifth beside me. Said I hit someone or some fucking thing down by the Common. What could I say to that? A fine must be paid, damage made right, before he steps out into the cold sunshine without his hack license, a free man on probation.

  Boston, than
kfully, is a small city, walkable. So he walks, up Beacon Hill to his post office box, to check in on the Fact Foundation, then along the mall on Commonwealth to Mass Ave, then down to his storage unit. It’s almost one by the time he makes it, by the time he changes into a new shirt it’s too far to walk to Charlestown for a shower. Besides, he’s hungry, after refusing the powdered eggs they offered him in the cell. He walks back to Beacon Hill, because that’s what he knows, stops into the Sevens, orders a bowl of the soup, takes his time eating, reading the paper between spoonfuls, asks for more bread, gets it, asks for a beer and they bring it, spends half of the money in his pocket before he steps out into the dusk.

  The start of the first night, the inevitable dark. He wanders over to the library, open until nine on Wednesdays, he knows that. He’ll write another letter to Ted Kennedy, let him know what’s happened, this new situation. Kennedy will want to know, the poor and the hungry are his constituents, both he and Kennedy care deeply about the poor and the hungry. We are put on this earth to help other people, my father’s letter begins.

  Fifteen minutes before closing a guard asks my father to please make his way to the front doors. He must open his bag at the exit, show the contents to the man behind the desk. He does not look at the man, doesn’t say a word. The man puts his hand into my father’s bag, moving binders and loose papers, absentmindedly looking for books, his hands closing in on a toothbrush. My father snatches his bag away and storms out. A block west is a Dunkin’ Donuts, my father heads straight for it, muttering to himself. That ape. Harassment, pure and simple. Tomorrow he’ll talk to whoever’s in charge, file a formal complaint. His breath visible before him, lucky if it’s forty. Dunkin’ Donuts closes at eleven, at least this one. The one by the Garden is open all night. A cup of coffee could easily last two hours, especially reading the Herald. Customers come and go, one bearded guy wanders in, the girl behind the counter gives him a free cup on the condition he takes it outside. She even knows his name, Eric, she calls him, and shrugs at my father, as if to say, What else can I do? My father smiles back. Cute girl. Just before eleven she’s cleaning up, pouring coffee down the sink, wheeling trays of unsold donuts into the back room. My father folds his paper, thanks her, leaves. He considers asking where she lives, maybe try for a night or two on her couch, but decides against it. Maybe tomorrow night he’ll strike up a conversation, explain his situation, how he’s between places.

  The library’s now dark inside, a dim light giving shape to the high-ceilinged lobby, the rest fading into shadow. Trinity Park lies directly across from the library, Trinity Church rising like a medieval thought amidst the glass and steel towers. My father picks a bench facing Boylston. Who can he pretend to be, sitting here, what can he be waiting for, what story will passersby come up with? The park is lit but it’s too dark to read. Besides, he’s read both the Globe and the Herald cover to cover. Not yet spring and not quite warm, not yet, but warming. Cabs slowly pass, en route somewhere.

  He awakens to a hand in his pocket, yells out. A dread-locked man hisses, teeters back and forth into the shadow of Trinity, a stiff-legged crackhead walk. My father stands, touches his pockets, unsure what was there, what might be gone, begins to follow the crazy thief, turns and walks quickly in the other direction. The library won’t open for six more hours. A bus stop on the corner, he could wait for a bus, but no buses run, not at this hour. He could sit in the kiosk but the crackhead will find him, waiting just out of sight for him to fall asleep again, to run his hands all over him. My father’s trying to hold on to a few dollars for morning, for coffee, to buy some time inside, but the crackhead will find it, will take anything, laugh in your face, crazy bastard, even a sandwich, where can you hide anything, what can you hold on to? You might as well wake up each morning shipwrecked on a deserted beach, all your belongings washed away.

  If it rains he will remember the kiosk, which does have a roof, three sides out of the weather. But you cannot stretch out on the benches, there are armrests welded on. In the back of the library he sees a discarded blanket—closer he sees it is a man curled up on a grate. Hot, wet air steams up from the grate, warming the man like a dumpling. He’s seen this before, bums sprawled out and drinking, but he never actually stood above the blowers, let the hot air seep into his clothes. The air is sucked out of the library, he can hear the dim whir of machinery below him, the excess from the heating system, even on the coldest nights there is too much heat inside, books cooking in superheated rooms, enough to heat the sidewalks, to heat the air outside. When it snows the snow will not stick to the grate—a dark, wet spot in a whiteout. The drunks fall there, driven by cops, by clubs, by the cold. Some inner radar keeps them alive, they stagger through the storm, blind drunk and goofy until they find the steam and then they fall. Like coming upon an oasis in the desert, their bodies melt into the grates, the steam seeps into their coats, into their pores. It’s another prison, these blowers, because once you’ve landed you cannot leave, not if there is nowhere to go, not without a destination, because one step off the blower is cold, hypothermia cold, now that you are sodden. Blankets rise off your body in the fan’s heat, hang above your sleep like a dream before sailing off into the slush. Cold nights the guys crowd on, and if you arrive last, if you are on the edge, you could die, roll over a few inches and you’re a goner. The blower is a room of heat with no walls. My father stands in this room, invisible man in an invisible room in the invisible city. He sits beside the fallen man, steam rising, warming them.

  the piss of god

  Sometimes a man falls asleep in the midst of buttoning his jacket, his fingers hanging on to the last button. Sometimes, embedded in hot asphalt, you see a key, shined by the soles of pedestrians’ shoes. You check your pockets, suddenly worried. The sidewalk calls, using the trick of gravity to bring you to your knees, to close your eyes, to make you sleep. If there’s grass, if you can see it, each blade catches a sliver of streetlight, each blade wants you to hold on. Face-down you swear you can feel the earth spin, hold tight or you’ll spin off into outer space. Forget about ceilings, about walls, about doors, about keys. The bread you ate at lunch is already turning to soil inside you, nightsoil now, darkness hovering inside. Soon your flesh will crumble off you, those on their way to work the next morning will pass your whitened skeleton like so many styrofoam cups—bleached, perfect.

  If not for the rats you could crawl beneath a bush. A bush. A bench. A bridge. The alliterative universe. Rats too can pass through that needle’s eye to enter heaven, as easily as they pass into a box imagined into a house. Houses inside buildings, houses inside tunnels, some exist for only a day, some, miraculously, longer. This box held a refrigerator, the refrigerator is in an apartment, a man is in the box. Tomorrow the box will be flattened and tossed, you’ve seen the garbagemen stomping them down to fit into the truck. Wake up on the grass, soaking wet. Dew is the piss of God. Another bullshit night in suck city, my father mutters.

  And then there’s the Celtics, losing just across town. Last night Mackie had a la-z-boy set up in Rat Alley, watching a television hotwired into a light pole. My father stepped into Mackie’s living room, checked out a couple minutes of play—can these still be called the glory days of Bird? Step out of your room, settle into a discarded recliner—are you inside now or out? Position your chair before your television, take your walk, find your coffee, by morning it all will be gone—no inside no outside, no cardboard box no mansion, no birth no death, no container no contained, a Zen koan, a frikkin riddle. A garbage truck hauled the tv away, another will be put out on the sidewalk tonight. But a la-z-boy, my lord, maybe not again in this lifetime.

  countdown

  A couple months after he’s evicted, a month before he arrives at the shelter, I see my father sleeping on a bench on the Esplanade. No more room, no more cab, all has led to this bench. The first beautiful day of spring, families out for a stroll. He staggers to the edge of the river to piss, his cock wild in his hands. A little girl points
. For some reason, each time my mind returns to that day, I remember that little girl.

  Every week, it seems, scientists discover a new gene to explain why we act as we do, why we feel sad or why we get fat. Genes, it’s now clear, are a mark on the blood, and the mark can be read and the life plotted. Easy as reading a map. This red mark is your father, across a vast sea from you. The scientists say that one day I could stand in the exact spot my father once stood in, hold my body as he did. I could open my mouth and his words would come out. They say it is only a “tendency toward,” a warning. They say it is not the future, but a possible future.

  I got high not long after seeing him on the Esplanade. I had a pipe I brought back from Morocco the year before, a long painted stem, a brass bowl. I told Richard I saw my father sleeping outside and Richard said, Your father’s a nightmare.

  riddle

  One book in my grandmother’s attic was a collection of riddles, mostly kids’ stuff, lots of those black-and-white-and-red-all-over kind of riddles, but they got more complicated toward the end. It had the Sphinx’s riddle to Oedipus, one about albatross soup I never understood and one that I wrestled with for months—

  Brothers and sisters I have none,

  But that man’s father is my father’s son.