I say it weakly, without thinking. “I’m a dead man, Gavin.”
“Pfft,” he spits. “Who isn’t?”
He extends his arm to the sidewalk, and then we descend. We stand facing each other for a moment. The waves of walkers part around us. Gavin bends his arm and taps at his bare wrist.
“Your ride’s here.”
I nod.
“So you’re getting on a bus?”
I shrug.
“A rolling obstreperous ass? You know, when the seats on those things warm up, the smell of every butt that ever sat in them is awakened.”
He points in the direction of Penn Station. I shake my head. He nods with mock gravity. “Ah yes — you are a true American. Nomadic. Romantic. Appearing out of nowhere to stake your claim on a place of dreams. Down the highway with you.”
I look at the clock. He doesn’t. He points over my shoulder toward the Port Authority. “You know I got here early and I got confused, so I went to the station to look for you. You’re taking a Greyhound, right?”
I nod weakly.
“Right. Well, there isn’t a 5:15. There’s a 5:33—express to Providence and Boston. Is that it?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He taps his wrist again, then points north. “Skedaddle.” He holds out his hand as if to shake, but he’s pinching something in it — a folded bill. I hesitate. He pushes it at me.
“For your eczema.”
I look down, shuffle, reshoulder my bag.
“No, I owe you. Anyway, I’m set for a while. I’ll try and get you more later.” I take the bill and put it in my pocket without looking at it. We shake. He slaps me on the shoulder. “All right, captain. I’ll be seeing ya.” He starts to turn away.
“Hey, Gav?” I mumble.
He cocks his head to one side, smiles, and croons in a baritone. “Mmm-yess.”
“What’s the B-side of oblivion?”
“Pardon?”
“Its inverse.”
He smiles mischievously, squints. His eyes move slowly back and forth and upward behind the lids, as though watching something secretly ascend. He opens his eyes. They’re bright. He leans in and whispers.
“Heaven.” And leans back.
“Is there beer in heaven?”
He rubs his whiskers. “Mmmm-yess.”
“Can we drink it?”
He smiles wider, clasps his hands together, and croons again.
“Why, mm-yesss.” He waves, points uptown, and whispers, “Godspeed, brathir.”
20
Port Authority Bus Station is crowded and noisy, so I get on line without thinking. I don’t feel sick or weak, just tired. That feeling grounds me, though — my limbs and eyeballs pulsing. It keeps me, oddly enough, awake on line — mindlessly though. I don’t even think about Gavin’s money until I’m given back change for a hundred.
I have a little time, so I go to the men’s room to change. Strange: no junkies, no winos, just people going to the bathroom. I know it’s filthy and it stinks, but my senses seem to get it only in part. I lock myself into a stall, knowing that I should feel a certain terror, but I don’t. I don’t even mind letting my bare feet touch the floor when I change my socks. I wash my face and look into the polished steel mirror. Come and get your beating. Out of the wool suit I feel the chilly air. This place is conditioned for summer’s dog days, not its temperate ones. Now a shiver. I tell myself that it’s the caffeine and hunger.
I go into a strange little store — part deli, part drugstore, part newsstand — a part of the strange fluorescent mall. I don’t know what I’m getting, but then I taste my breath—gum, water. On the way to the counter I pass a bin of plastic dinosaurs. They look better than the cheap, squishy ones they usually sell in places like this — generic gestures at some sort of extinct monster type. These look to be near museum gift shop quality. I pick out a gray-green carnivore. It’s hard, heavy. ACROCANTHASAURUS is written in embossed letters on its belly. I wonder if X has ever heard of this one.
I keep moving down the aisle. In another bin are some coloring books and a couple of stacks of random small notebooks. On the cover of one of them is a watercolor of a beach. It’s actually quite skillfully done — simple quick strokes. The perspective seems like it’s from a high dune, and out near the horizon line a great whale is breeching. I take that, too. I scan the rest of the aisle for C — nothing.
I look over the food, but all the meats in the deli-case look old and crispy, and the offerings on the steam table are gray. I take a small warm bottle of water, then go to the candy aisle and get two oversized Snickers, mint gum. I see the packs of baseball cards and next to them football and soccer. I take three packs of soccer cards and go to the front. I lay my things out on the counter, and the grim old man begins to silently ring them up. I give him a twenty. He swabs it with a marker, holds it in the air, and waits. I look over my offerings and get a sharp pang in my chest, which shoots down to my gut. Bringing these things is worse than coming empty handed. He gives me my change, reaches under the counter, but I wave him off. I stuff them in my bag and go.
The bus is strangely empty: Only one side is filled. I pick a seat in the beginning of the back third and drop into it heavily. I lean against the window and look across the aisle. There’s a woman across; from the way she’s settled in, looks like she’s been riding this bus awhile — long overdue up south. She’s older — maybe in her sixties, dark brown, a bit heavy, and her eyes are almost closed. She holds a summer hat in her lap. Her hands rest on her stomach — thick, long, ringless fingers interlocked. Her thumbs circle each other slowly. She turns, smiles, and nods. I nod back. We turn away.
The bus is warm, but not so much as to release the trapped smells that Gavin had warned of. There’s a rumble I can’t place, then realize that it’s the diesel engine echoing in the garage. The driver climbs aboard, looks down the aisle, sits and closes the door. And then we’re out on Eighth Avenue. I look for Gavin on the sidewalk, but I know he’s gone. I don’t know where he will go and I think for a moment that I should’ve asked him to come with me. I close my eyes and see his face — what it is now—“God bless Gavin,” I mouth. I open my eyes and roll my head to the side. The woman across the aisle smiles as though she’s the recipient of my benediction. I fight back a yawn and nod back to her. She turns to the window, looks at the east side of the avenue rushing by — the remaining porn shops and troubled minds out in front, people in suits and people in coveralls. I’ve always liked New York City at times like this — the emptiness of late summer, the gestures of the absent population, the space and the silence, and the sun starting to fade and go down. All of it through a closed window. In motion. The city offered a perfect opening when we all rolled into it. I was anonymous, had my notebooks, and couldn’t wait for my arm to heal so I could play guitar. Shake’s now old used car, the Plymouth Duster — he called it the Feral Coupe, and he drove me down the West Side before cutting across Houston — sharp Indian-summer day. I’m not nostalgic. I’m out of that memory’s orbit anyway, and now the closure is just right, as well — late-summer sunset with sleep coming on.
I take out the list once again and open the little table. I write, “Get on the bus,” and then cross it out. I reread the list and make dots next to each task, just to be sure. I fold it and put it away. I take out the little notebook and open it — more like a sketchbook, the pages unlined. I write on the inside cover, “When you were born, you were so small I could hold you in the palm of my hand”—I close it, and then question what I wrote — if I omitted, repeated, or misspelled any words and then what it even means. The book suddenly seems too private, even for me. I wonder if I should send it later — if there will be a later, or if it, like so many other plans and stories, will sit under a bed or in a closet, get lost or smudged and torn till it’s illegible. I don’t know how I’ll give them these things: in private, each child alone, trying to understand the significance of my calling to them. And then later, much later, them finally understanding that it was the last time I was their father. The old woman groans. I put it away.