She was not the one. I kept telling myself that after we joined her and her friends and made them laugh with PG-rated versions of our childhoods. It was really quite awful, that evening, the sober ethnics entertaining the tipsy WASPs in a dive bar. We closed the place and then lingered out on Third Avenue, trying to keep the night alive. We exchanged phone numbers. She called me a few days later from the street and said she would pick up lunch and stop by. For some reason, I allowed it. Claire’s eyes are oxidized lime green. They’re oversized, oval, and slant slightly from the outside corners to the bridge of her nose. They’re the first things anyone notices. They’re ridiculous, actually, how obvious they are. But her face is girlish, open, juxtaposed to that cool, electric green. The charge they have seems to come from a place that’s ancient and far away, but she isn’t distant. The rose hue of her cheeks, her long, crooked lips warm her — I can smell them. She is present, and that, to me, has always made her seem good. “Hello,” she said so quietly, but clearly, barely moving her mouth. She was not the one, not the one that I’d imagined, not the face of love — standing in the dim hallway of my tenement walk-up, or on the street carrying our child. I still don’t know if it was her eyes or her face that made me let her into my rooms, or made me take her by the hand, look to the wall, the twisted door and window openings, and say, “Us Indians sure make crappy homes.”
The crew comes back inside. Inca. Aztec, Mayan — who knew? We’re building someone else’s house.
“Amigo,” says Rice Tooth. “Amigo, you hungry?”
He offers me a foil dish full of rice and beans, perhaps a collection of everybody’s leftovers. And even though I can’t stand pinto beans, I salivate. But I like my food to be segregated into discrete portions, and I can’t eat around strangers.
“Gracias, no.”
He shrugs and puts it by the hose. Everyone seems to be sleepy, and they drag slowly to their stations. Roman clicks from above.
“Not good, amigos.” He walks back out muttering, “Now I have to cancel truck.”
“Hey, big man.” It’s Grimace. I don’t move quickly enough for him. He gives a shrill whistle. I turn slowly, hoping that by the time I’m facing him I won’t snatch the shovel from him and bust his head with it.
“Hey, big man.” He taps on something hard. It’s a rock, half buried. It looks like the partially excavated skull of an ancient giant.
“Can you lift?”
I shrug my shoulders. I forget my size — how others must see me. He taps at the dirt around it. The others start to gather. He points at Big Boots to pick around the stone. Together they clear enough of it to get a pry bar and spade under it. They roll it out of its hole and onto the clay. Big Boots drops the bar, bends down, and tries once to roll it with his hands. It’s almost the size of his torso. It doesn’t budge. He stands up shaking his head and backs off.
“Big man.” Grimace inhales and flexes, then mimes pressing it over his head and throwing it out into the pissweeds. “Diez dineros.” He whistles softly and cocks his head to the back. Lispy has moved beside me. He starts nodding his head, slowly at first, then with growing earnest. “Si. Si.” He sizes up the stone and looks up at me.
“Mui grande,” says Grimace, trying to bait me. I don’t know what kind of stone it is, how dense it is. It’s light gray. I bend and touch it. It’s cool and silt covered — nothing to really grab hold of. I dig my hands into the clay to get them underneath. Grimace chuckles. The rest begin the obligatory audience murmur. I get it up to my waist and stand erect. My grip is awkward, though — flat palmed. I try to wrap my forearms under it, but it doesn’t work. I start to feel the strain in my lower back. My biceps start to burn. I roll it a quarter turn and rest it against my stomach. It’s better on the back for the moment, but now, because of the silt, it threatens to slide between my arms and crush a knee or a foot. I get my hands, one at a time, back around to the outsides, bend, and press. The murmurs turn to yelps. “Over your head!” demands Grimace, and so I press — up, up — until I can lock my elbows. “Throw!” squeals Lispy. I start shuffling across the clay to the back. I make it to the edge of the pissweeds and push it in. The lads give a cheer — even Grimace. He walks up to me, nodding his bowed head. He straightens, reaches in his pocket, and pulls out a sweaty ten.
“You are very strong.” He flexes again and hands me the money.
“Gracias.”
He waves his hand, puckers his mouth, shakes his head, and returns to his spade. I look out to the piss weeds — the break in them caused by my missile. I wonder what the rock would’ve done to my skull if I’d dropped it, and I wonder who would’ve been able to tell my kids, my wife. “Vamanos!” bellows Roman from the stoop. He walks out again. Lispy gives him the finger. The others laugh, and then we all go back to work.
The sun has caught the east wall. I’m sure whatever it reveals is much the same as what it had shown before on the other wall. I don’t want to look. It’s time to go. Half the cellar has been excavated. They wash. I don’t.
“Okay, amigos,” says Lispy, taking the lead. I shake all their hands, even Grimace’s, and climb out. Vlad has arrived. He’s standing behind the van with the doors open, waiting for his cargo. I go to him.
“Anything for me?”
“No, amigo.”
I look at him, questioning. He shakes his head as if to strengthen his denial. Roman joins in. They both shift and shake and look as concerned and friendly as they can.
“You need to see the boss,” says Roman. “You need to see Johnny. He knows.”
“He knows?”
Now they both nod in unison, smiling — Roman with his expanding scar, Vlad with his gray gums. I shoulder my bag and leave.
I have gas pains from not eating. I have enough change for coffee and, if they give it to me, some kind of biscuit. The coffee shop’s bagels and muffins are inedible; the bagel store’s coffee is undrinkable. If I buy a bagel first and I’m not offered a coffee later. . but if I buy a coffee first, I’ll have to bring it to the bagel store, which would be rude. I like the people who work there, and I don’t want to offend. I decide to get coffee. Then I remember the ten I just won. I should eat something. I go to the bodega behind the projects. A blonde pillhead is outside.
“Hey, papi.”
She tries to open the door for me, but she’s too shaky. It’s hard for her to grab the handle, and when she finally does, she hasn’t the strength to move it. She’s detoxing hard. I can see her skull through her translucent skin. All the blood seems to be collecting there. It’s about to burst.
I nod to her, go in, and make my way to the coolers in the back. Bud is on sale. Six bucks for a rack of talls. I grab one and go to tear a can off. The sensation of the cold metal shoots up my arm like a fix. I take my one can and back away. A voice calls from the front.
“Can you keep that closed?”
I come out of my shock and peer down the aisle to the front. Airborne dust lingers in what little light that has made it through the fogged-out storefront. The old linoleum is gritty. There isn’t much for sale here — cold beer, warm beer, soda, bottled juice from concentrate, junk food that may have reached the end of its long shelf life on which the dust has settled. I see the clerk now. Hiding behind a rack of gum and candy. I take a single and bring it quickly to the front.