A Hole in the Universe (22 page)

 

 

There was a short article in the paper the next day reporting a holdup at the Nash Street Market, owned by Neil Dubbin. Gordon was relieved his name hadn’t been printed. That night Dennis called. “Lisa just showed me the paper. That’s why I’m calling. About the holdup. We wanted to make sure you’re all right,” he was saying into the answering machine. Hearing Lisa in the background, Gordon felt safe picking up the phone. He said he was fine, then explained how he’d been outside while it was taking place. Well, that’s good. That’s good, Dennis kept saying, then handed the phone to Lisa, who wanted to talk to him.

“Gordon, it’s not safe. You can’t keep working there. That’s it. I’m going to call my father and—”

“No, Lisa. I’m fine, really. I don’t want you to do that.”

At work he would look up to find the women staring. With his approach they would look the other way, pretending to be busy. Leo had stopped talking to him altogether. Now when his teenage daughters came into the store, Leo hustled them into the back room away from Gordon.

Neil was disgusted. “What do you think you’re here for? Cuz you’re a good bagger? Cuz I want the fucking floor there fixed? No!”

For one reason and one reason only—to prevent exactly what had just happened. But where the hell had he been at the moment of crisis, of conjunction, when once again the planets lined up in the inexorable constellation of bad breaks and failure under which Neil was doomed to live out his life? What the hell had he been doing rounding up carts when that was Thurman’s job?

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry’s not gonna cut it. Not when I’m out three thousand dollars.”

Three hundred, Gordon knew but didn’t say anything. The police weren’t around the corner before Neil was running new tapes through the registers for his insurance company.

“Tell me something,” Neil said, following him out to the loading dock the next day. He was unshaven and his clothes were wrinkled. “You must have connections, right? I mean, you know, people that know people, well . . .” He lowered his voice. “Like for instance, people that are good with . . . fires.”

“No, I don’t.” He just stood there, holding on to the empty crates.

A look of disgust came over Neil’s face. “I don’t get it. You’re supposed to be inside, but no matter what June says you gotta get outside. You have to, you want to because you love the fucking pouring rain so much. Then what do you do, you take off, you go for a walk. But meanwhile there’s a fucking holdup going on. You come back, but what, just a little too early, though, right, so you take off again. And now I’m supposed to go, ‘Oh, what a fucking coincidence’?”

“It was. But if you want to fire me, that’s all right, I understand.”

“Get outta my fucking way!” Neil gave him a shove and pushed past him, then paused as if to accommodate the expected or desired attack.

The next morning Neil was about an hour late opening the store. His hands shook and everything had to be repeated before he seemed to understand. Later that afternoon there was a commotion by the register. Serena shouted for help.

Thurman had Cootie pinned up against the wall.

“Those’re mine! I swear to God, those’re mine!” the old man insisted as Thurman fished packs of cigarettes out of his pockets. He pulled three more packs from the lining of the ragged jacket. Eleven in all.

“That’s it.” June picked up the phone.

“No! No, please don’t! Don’t let her. Please, Neil! Please!” Cootie begged. “I’ll work, I’ll pick up all the papers out there. And the cans, they’ll all be yours. You let me before, Neil. And I did a good job. You know I did,” the old man bawled. “Please, Neil, please!”

“Why? Why the hell should I?” Neil sounded as desperate as the old man.

“My dog. My poor little dog.” Cootie pointed to the animal tied to the parking meter. Briars studded his matted fur. “They’ll put him to sleep. They told me last time, they said they would. Please, Neil, please. I’ll do anything.”

Neil took him outside, then stood close by, talking, while Cootie untied the dog. The bedraggled creature rose on his shaky legs, then limped down the street next to his master, who hunched forward, trying to light a cigarette against the wind.

The next day Gordon went into the storeroom, surprising Thurman as the boy was stuffing two cartons of Newports into his backpack. Gordon asked if he’d paid for them. What the hell business was it of his? Thurman sneered, zipping up the backpack.

“It’s Neil’s business,” he said quietly.

“Oh, fuck, yeah, right.” Thurman laughed.

“Just put them back, and that’ll be the end of it,” he said.

Thurman was already heading out through the store.

Neil had enough trouble, he didn’t need this, Gordon thought as he followed the boy onto the street. “What’re you, in some big rush to get in a cell? Because that’s what’s going to happen. You know that, don’t you?”

“Fuck off!” Thurman kept saying, trying to get away, until Gordon finally yanked the backpack from his shoulder. He took out the cigarette cartons and brought them inside. The women had been watching from the window. Without a word Gordon put the cartons back on the shelf. That night Neil called Thurman’s grandmother and fired him.

Delores was ringing his doorbell. He came quickly onto the porch so he wouldn’t have to invite her in.

She had just made oatmeal cookies. “Here, have one while they’re still warm.” She started to open the tin, but he said he wasn’t hungry right now. “I’m not disturbing you, am I?” she asked.

He said it had been a long day. Across the street two men were trying to light the grill they had just carried onto the strip of grass in front of their house. The door above them kept opening and banging shut as women carried platters and bowls of food onto the porch.

“I read about the holdup. And I kept calling to see if you were all right, but you didn’t answer, so then I started worrying,” Delores said.

“I’m fine.”

“That’s good. So, what have you been up to? What have you been doing?”

“Nothing much. I don’t know.” He knew by her hungry smile that she wanted to talk about the other night.

“The paper said the guy had a gun.” She paused. “Have they caught him yet?”

“No. Not that I know of, anyway.”

“Did you see what he looked like?”

“No, he had a mask. Plus I was outside.”

She asked if he thought there was any connection to the attempted break-in at his house the other night. He assured her there wasn’t. She asked if that girl Jada had come around again since that night. That night. So that was how she would get to talking about Dennis cheating on his wife.

“She did, the other day with her dog. But I was eating, so I didn’t go to the door. She always seems to come at dinnertime.”

“She thinks you’re lonely. Aside from me, she said she’s your only company.”

“I don’t like her thinking she can just run over here anytime she wants,” he said slowly, as pointedly as he could without coming right out with it. “I feel like telling her it’s not very polite.”

Delores laughed. “You can try, but I don’t think polite’s in that girl’s dictionary.”

“I know, but it’s annoying. I mean, I have things to do. And you know how it is, after being around people all day, you just want to be quiet when you get home. And alone.”

“Alone? Around here?” Delores said as a flurry of children sped by on bikes.

If I could go inside, I would be,
he thought. Across the street, family members continued to stream from the house onto the porch steps. Below them a young man in baggy army pants was grilling sausages and hamburgers. The old woman, Inez, sat on the top step. She kept reaching back to serve everyone from the salad bowls and platters arrayed behind her on the porch floor. Salsa music blared from a second-floor window. A dog was barking. A woman with long black hair backed out the front door now with drink coolers and a stack of paper cups under her chin. A thick cloud of greasy smoke hung over the sizzling grill.

“Smells good,” Delores said.

A passing car blew its horn, and the young man waved his spatula overhead.

“Yo!” Delores laughed when he did it again as another horn blared in greeting. “It’s so muggy tonight.” She blew the hair off her forehead. “Do you mind if I sit down?” She was dragging a white plastic chair closer to the railing.

“It’s dirty,” he said, but she had already plunked herself down.

He continued to stand, holding out the cookie tin like a priest’s paten. The tapered cuffs of her yellow pants were tight on her legs. A gnarl of purple veins bulged out from one ankle. Something about her battered feet saddened him, the slender white sandal straps that cut into her callused toes, her constant search for what would never be possible. “Could I get you something?” he asked. “A cold drink?” His dirty dishes were still in the sink. His coffee was probably cold now. Irritated, he tried to remind himself how much he had enjoyed her company at dinner the other night. Until they had run into Dennis and Jilly.

“No, thanks. I’ll be leaving soon,” she said, flipping back her hair. The inappropriate long black curls gave her a look of awkward desperation, made her seem older, bigger than she was. “It’s just that I wanted to ask you something,” she said with a hopeful smile. “Did you tell Lisa to call me?”

“No,” he said uneasily.

“That’s what I thought. She invited me to Jimmy’s birthday party, and I just don’t want you to feel—well . . .” She threw up her hand as if he’d know the rest. “I mean, I know how that goes. My sisters did it to me for years. I’d show up, and guess who else’d be there? Some bozo, the brother-in-law’s divorced cousin they just knew would be perfect for me. I don’t know, maybe they ran out of bozos or maybe they finally just got tired of it, but now Auntie Doe can just go stag if she wants.” She laughed. “I’ll tell her no.”

He realized she’d meant that as a question. “No. Go. I mean, if you want.”

“Would you mind?”

“No.” What else could he say? he thought, irritated all over again.

After she left he sat in his darkened living room, drinking lukewarm coffee while across the street the party had swelled to twice as many people. A radio up in the window filled the night with rap music. On the sidewalk some of the younger boys were entertaining everyone with their dancing, most of which seemed to Gordon spastically gymnastic. An older man did the cooking now. Ronnie Feaster’s SUV had just parked in front of Mrs. Jukas’s house. The man at the grill paused as Feaster and Polie walked toward him. Seeing them, a pretty young woman in a red halter top ran to the porch railing and waved, but the man at the grill barked at her in Spanish and she sat down. Two younger girls covered their faces and giggled. The red flare of the cigarette jerked up and down in the man’s mouth as he spoke to Feaster. The man didn’t want him there. Inez stood up, arms folded, glowering down at them. The man gestured angrily with the spatula, and Feaster and Polie crossed the street. They took up positions on Mrs. Jukas’s porch, slouched and laughing as if their banishment were of little consequence.

A dog was barking. Gordon’s head snapped up, eyes opening wide. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep in his chair, but there were even more people across the way. In the distance a skinny girl in black pants hurried down the street. It was Jada. As she came closer, the barking intensified. Gordon checked his watch. Ten P.M. She ran into the house, then came right back out carrying her dog. The minute she set him down, he ran onto the grass and lifted his leg against the now unmanned grill. Jada grabbed a hot dog, then devoured it in the hunched pose Gordon had noticed before. The dog ran back and forth between people’s legs. A few kicked him away. A boy tossed a roll over the railing and the dog sank down, hind legs sprawled as he ate it. Inez called to Jada, and she climbed past the scowling women on the steps and filled a floppy paper plate from the various bowls. No one said anything. Even the children kept their distance as she sat on the steps, scooping food into her mouth with two fingers. When she was done she filled another plate and carried it down to her dog.

The women shook their heads. One called out angrily, but Inez said something and the woman went inside. Jada shrugged and kept eating.

Gordon wondered where her mother was. Jada had come into the Market looking for him the day after the holdup, but he had been unloading a truck. Leo told him later that June had thrown the girl out. Late last night Polie had come to Jada’s door with a paper bag that seemed heavy the way he passed it to her with two hands. She took it and closed the door quickly, but Polie didn’t leave. He rapped on the door until she finally opened it, peering at him over the lock chain. He was still talking when she closed the door again. He left. Halfway down the steps he turned and ran back up. He banged on the door, then kicked it. He went to the window and rapped on the glass, then took something from his back pocket and tried to pop out the storm window. A car pulled up in front of the house then, and Polie hurried down the steps and up the street.

The business Ronnie Feaster ran from Mrs. Jukas’s porch was swelling in volume. Cars parked down the street, while up on the porch Feaster’s cell phone rang with each arrival. After a brief conversation, which would be relayed to Polie, one or another of the boys, some looking as young as nine or ten, would appear from nowhere. After a word from Polie they would swagger along the sidewalk, then pause at the parked car’s window. Each transaction took less than three minutes. The boys would trot past Mrs. Jukas’s porch, then slip into her backyard. So far Gordon had seen no drugs or money pass between the boys and the men on the porch. At Fortley there had been a loose tile in a shower room and behind it a lidded soap dish to contain whatever currency was expected.

 

 

Mrs. Jukas had been home for a week. She arrived in a taxi and walked into the house unaided, but for a cane. A visiting nurse stopped by the first few days, but Gordon hadn’t seen her there since Tuesday. He kept wondering if he should go over and see how the old woman was doing, but he didn’t want to upset her. An older woman had brought her a fruit basket yesterday. A little while later the senior center van tried to deliver a hot meal, but Mrs. Jukas wouldn’t take it.