“Sorry to keep you.” They’re back and somewhat upbeat. Dan closes his door and turns. “Great morning, really.” He’s pinching a fold of bills. He nods for me to take it.
I take the money. I take all of their money — thick folds of hundred dollar bills. They buckle up. They all seem to possess a new levity, or perhaps an old one. I stack the folds — keep it in my hand. The bills are so crisp and sharp that they seem fake.
“We’re going into town to get lunch,” says Marco, as though it was any other day. “Hungry?”
“No. Thanks,” I mumble.
“Come on,” says Dan, looking at me in the mirror. “Winner has to buy. It’s tradition.” Then, softly, with that nasty little grin. “Besides, you cleaned us out.” They laugh in unison. I wish I’d taken off my golf shirt.
“So, what,” Dan says, still pleased by his humor. “Should I take you to the station now?”
I look at Marco, and he jumps like the seat just seared his ass.
“Shit! Shit!” He looks at me sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I forgot.” He looks away. “We’re staying here. Vacation starts today. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Mar-cooh,” sings Dan. “What’s up?” He smirks again. Marco tries to nod and gesture a silent apology across the back seat. He goes to touch my arm and stops, then my leg. Then he does nothing.
“So, what’ll it be, Tiger?” asks Dan. They giggle. They’re goofy, as though they shared a big joint back at the office park.
“Lunch? Train?”
“The train, please.”
“Are you sure?” asks Marco — quietly, although they can still hear him.
“Yes, I have to get back.” I think about giving them a reason, but I stop.
“Train it is,” says Dan.
He steers the truck through the small town, which aside from a new peach stucco restaurant, could be the setting for a Rockwell study — low-slung, cedar-shingled shops and narrow streets with sandy shoulders. Parking meters that take nickels.
The station is a whitewashed hut on the inbound side. Its roof extends over the platform and twenty feet on either side. We pull into the lot and stop in front of the door. They say good-bye much the same as they said hello. “A pleasure,” says Dan — convinced that he really feels it was. Buster looks into my face, nodding with knowledge. I give them all quick, firm handshakes. Marco paws at my shoulder as I get out but misses.
I buy my ticket for the twelve-twenty and a noxious Styrofoam cup of coffee, which I swallow in one gulp to keep from tasting it, and go out to the platform. Two teens, dressed like bikers and set for an evening of lying to their parents, join me outside. They take a look, snicker nervously, and whisper to each other. I walk down the platform toward them. It freezes their faces, shuts their mouths. I stop ten feet short of them at the pay phone and pick up the receiver. They try to hold their ground but can’t help but inch away from me and out from under the cover of the roof.
I dump in more of Marco’s change and call my father. When he finally answers, it sounds as though he’s just woken up — gravel voiced and out of it.
“Hello.”
“Dad.”
“Hello?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“Yes. Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Well, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Just seeing how you were.”
“How I were, was, or am?”
“How are you?”
“What?”
“How are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m fine, thank you.” He pauses. “And how are you — you keeping your chin up?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong? You sound down in the mouth.”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m kind of having a rough go at it.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you know, I can’t seem to get much going — money, you know, money. It’s kind of worn me down.”
He doesn’t respond and for a while the silence is comforting, as though my father was considering what I just said. He clears his throat.
“Yeah, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“How are the kids, good?”
“They’re fine.”
“Good.” Nothing. “Well, it’s great to hear from you.”
“Yeah.”
“Good to hear your voice. It’s been awhile.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you, son.”
“Yeah.” I hang up. The teens have moved away, beyond the span of the overhang, and are looking down the line for the train.
We board separate cars when it comes — the streamlined train with its silver and red engine. My car is empty, but I take a seat facing the rear anyway — sit sideways in it with my back against the window. We pull out. The chubby conductor slowly waddles down the aisle and seems to be oblivious of everything except for my ticket, which he takes and punches in a vacant way. He leaves, and I turn in my seat to face the rear. I take out the list and draw a bracket around the remaining items. I write down my liquid assets and then subtract the expenses. Then I create a sublist, which brings the dollar amount near zero — not even enough for a bus north. I see the fifty I gave Chip, who I realize didn’t speak to me until I gave him money. I let it go in my head, but I grind my teeth and hiss to myself.
I split the cash into four equivalent folds and put them into four individual pockets. I fold the list and put it away, too. I try to sleep on the empty train, but it doesn’t come — not yet. So I look out the window. We cross a strange body of water — an inlet at low tide. The exposed rocky bottom splits the remaining water like a cleft. We cut across a slight marshland, then a group of evergreens, and when we come out of the wood, I can see the bay — dark silver and green with pots of white-gold light wavering on it. The dark line of evergreens on the opposite shore gives the illusion of depth, density, but I know that the hidden land behind them was axed long ago — nothing’s land, then ancient life, then beaver, fox, and deer; Shinnecock, or maybe some forgotten tribe, divided, cleared, and subdivided until the scope of the original claim was lost.
If I found Daisy up one of those drives, I wouldn’t ask her to renounce Tom. I wouldn’t make her say she loved me, either. I’d know, for her, the past is gone. Over there, east, across that bay, she has turned off her green light and she has run. With me, across the dark water, trying to dream away my newfound shame.
17
When I come out of the train station at Atlantic and Flatbush, I see the unlit neon sign for a consignment shop. They take everything, so it says, repeated in the double plate-glass windows, and for the best prices in the city. I cross the street and look inside — guitars, amps, a drum set, and an electric piano are on display in one, a half-refrigerator, air conditioner, and stereo in the other. When I push the door open, an electronic chime sounds. The space is wide at the front but tapers sharply to the rear. A glass display case, topped by one-inch-thick plastic runs from the front door to the back of the store, where it becomes a steel door. It comes back to the front along the other side, leaving only a narrow aisle to stand in. On the walls behind the safety glass hang guitars, basses, woodwinds, and brass instruments. Standing at the back is the proprietor. He’s short and slender, pale with neatly cropped gray hair and goatee. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt and paisley bow tie. He smiles pleasantly at me.