Cube Sleuth (11 page)

Now I know what Helen found in Ron’s bedroom that made her cry, made her want to come to me as fast as she could and dull the pain in my bed. I guess he’d written out his date ideas in detail. She doesn’t know he told me about them. This is the first small mystery I’ve solved, and I’ve solved it by a coincidence.

For my accent, I impersonate Janosz, a character in
Ghostbusters II
who also has a non-distinct European accent. “Vere are ve to going then?” My favorite part of acting is getting to be someone else for a while, someone without my hang-ups and flaws. I decide to fully become Rodebrecht for the night, a happy tourist and not a jerk who’s jealous of his dead friend.

“We will eat at Pat’s or Geno’s. We will go to the Mütter Museum and see midget skeletons and jarred fetuses. We will run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art like Rocky Balboas. But we will before that be… riding the Duck! We are going on a tour of this great American city, Philadelphia. I bring disposable cameras so we can get photos of all these great firsts tonight!”

Now I remember Ron’s idea fully: to tour the city we’ve lived in our whole lives as if it were brand new to us, to play ugly tourists. I liked the idea when he told it to me, but thought it was more of a fun prank than a romantic first date. Ron clearly knew Helen better than I do.

The last Duck leaves at 6:00 p.m., and since Helen insists we park at 30
^th
Street Station and take a cab into Center City like real tourists, leaving now will give us just enough time to make the last ride. She drives.

The Duck is a modern update of the World War II DUKW, an amphibious vehicle that looks like a giant clog on wheels. The original DUKWs stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. In 2005, DUKWs rescued Hurricane Katrina survivors. But usually, the Duck is filled with tourists wearing plastic duckbills on lanyards around their necks. These bills are called Wacky Quackers, which tourists use as they roll through the streets to make the locals cringe.

After wasting eighteen dollars parking at 30
^th
Street Station (she could’ve parked at a meter for three bucks), we waste another fourteen dollars on a cab to 6
^th
and Market, where 6
^th
is called Independence Mall.

I look up at the sky and see the sun starting to set. The clouds look like rake marks in a Zen garden and the sky is the purple of a three-day-old bruise. It’s the middle of March, a really nice day. Cold enough not to sweat in our track suits, but not so cold that we need coats. I don’t spend a lot of time outdoors in general, but I haven’t noticed the weather much since Ron died. I guess I haven’t noticed a lot of things since Ron died.

Our act starts the second we hail a cab. We’re Rodebrecht and Helena Vigo from Moldavia, both twenty years old, married for two years, going to Loyola College in Baltimore, where Helena is an English lit major and I’m a theology major. We met in high school, married right after graduation. We honeymooned in Wildwood, New Jersey and have been living in a couples’ dorm at Loyola ever since.

Yousif, our cab driver, listens to our story with minimal interest, and giggles when we say we honeymooned in Wildwood.

Waiting for the Duck at 6
^th
and Market, we meet Miles and Candice Cohen, restaurant owners from Seattle visiting Philly as part of a three-week tour of the East Coast. Boston, New York, Philly, D.C., Atlanta, and ending with five days in Disney World.

“God, you’re just babies.” Candice smiles warmly. “How long have you been married?”

“Two years,” Helena and I say at the same time. I kiss her forehead. Helena holds her clove between inverted thumb and forefinger, an old-school European.

Candice looks at her husband with an expression I take as “Aw, honey, remember when we were like that?” Miles wears the same smile as his wife, but hasn’t spoken a word by the time we board the Duck.

The captain hands each of us a Wacky Quacker as a greeting. Helena slips hers around her neck and immediately quacks in my ear so loudly I fear my eardrum has ruptured.

First stop is Independence Hall. I haven’t stopped to look at these sites since I was seven, and all of the trivia is news to me.

Our captain likes to break up the edutainment (his word) with a duck joke or two.

What time does a duck wake up? At the quack of dawn
.

What did the duck say to the pharmacist?’ Give me some chap stick and put it on my bill.”

Candice and Miles sit beside us, and Candice talks to us the whole ride. “So, Rodebrecht, you’re a theology major. That’s so interesting. Any good religious facts for us?”

Twelve years of Catholic school and three required religion courses at La Salle means I actually know plenty, but it’s all related to Christianity. The Cohens are almost certainly Jewish. “My concentration is Christianity. One common misconception people have is that Jesus is the Immaculate Conception.”

Candice nods. “Right. Immaculate Conception. Right.”

“He isn’t. His mother, Mary, was born without Original Sin to be the proper vessel for Christ’s birth. The Immaculate Conception is one of her titles. Jesus was also born without Original Sin, so I think that is where the confusion lies.” My accent starts to slip and I catch myself.

Candice touches my bright yellow thigh. “Very interesting. We’re Jewish, but we have a lot of Christian friends. Plenty who probably think Jesus is the Immaculate Conception. What else do you have?”

What did the duck carry his schoolbooks in? His quackpack
.

I search my brain for something interesting, my eyes tilting to the roof of the Duck. “OK, here’s one: Jesus is going to be crucified by the Romans on a Roman holiday where the tradition is to release one prisoner sentenced to death. The other prisoner sentenced to die at the same time as Jesus is named Barabbas.”

Candice nods. “Right. Barabbas. Right.”

“And the magistrate asks the crowd which prisoner to set free, Jesus or Barabbas.”

“Right. Pontius Pilate. Right.”

“Yes, Pilate! And the crowd chooses Barabbas. He was a thief who might have been part of a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the Romans. So why did the people choose him over Jesus? Here’s the thing: Barabbas’s first name was Jesus. Jesus Barabbas. Jesus Christ said he came from the Father, God the Father. Jesus called God Abba, which is like daddy, something the Jews of the time found blasphemous. The Jews only referred to God as Lord—”

“Right. Adonai. Yes.”

“Exactly! So, the revolutionary was Jesus Barabbas and Christ was Jesus from the Father, which in Hebrew would be Barabbas. Both men had the same name. Many scholars believe the crowd thought they were releasing Christ, that it was a case of mistaken identity.”

“Very interesting, Rodebrecht. Really neat!”

Miles speaks for the first time, his voice deep and soft. “The Islamic faith teaches that the Romans made a mistake and crucified Barabbas and let Christ go. Then Jesus got sick a few days later and God took him back to heaven. Christ is just a prophet to the Muslims. They claim God allowed this confusion so people would believe Jesus rose from the dead and believe his teaching.”

“I did not know this, Miles. Thank you.” I give Miles a thumbs-up.

“Good job, Miles!” Helena chimes in, then quacks into what had been my good ear.

What kind of oil does a duck use in his car? Quacker State
.

* * *

After feigning elation that the Duck Tour now includes spots where scenes of
National Treasure
were filmed, Helena and I part ways with Miles and Candice. We take a cab to Pat’s and Geno’s.

Having grown up less than a mile from these cheesesteak rivals, I fear I might run into someone I know and have to break character. Hopefully my old friends and neighbors find the gaudy overlit signs in front of Pat’s and Geno’s a deterrent like I do. I’ve always called these places “The Migraine Twins.”

I always got my cheesesteaks (minus the cheese) from Jim’s Steaks on 4
^th
and South, if for no other reason than they don’t have a giant glowing sign. Helen(a) is from the suburbs (of Moldavia) and has no opinion either, so we flip a coin and it chooses Geno’s.

Sitting on the same side of an orange picnic table that’s bolted to the ground, a migraine begins to form behind my eyes. Two steaming, greasy cholesterol torpedoes sit in front of us, and two strangers sit across the table. I watch Helena draw a rectangle on the center of a piece of paper.

“Rodebrecht, take this pen and write a six-letter word on this paper in this rectangle. Don’t let me see it!” The strangers sharing our table don’t attempt to disguise that they’re staring at our loud tracksuits and weird accents.

I take the pen, shielding the paper the way I did to keep kids from cheating on me in grade school, and write FARTER on the paper. “Done.”

“Now fold the paper in half like this.” Helena mimes folding it lengthwise. “Now fold it like this.” She mimes folding it widthwise.

Once I’ve folded it twice, she takes the paper from me. “Did you write the word in print letters or in cursive letters?”

“Print.”

“Craps!” Helena tears the paper to shreds. “That was my fault. I should’ve told you it had to be cursive. OK, we start again. Same word.”

She draws a rectangle on another piece of paper and hands it to me. She gets more napkins while I write FARTER in cursive in the rectangle and fold it the way she showed me. When she sits down, I hand her the paper.

“This time, Rodey,
you
can rip it up.”

I do as I’m told.

“Place the pieces in my hand and say the word in your head again and again and I will hear it.” She rubs the torn pieces of paper on the sleeve of her tracksuit. In my head, I say “farter” again and again.

The strangers across the table watch us like we’re a TV show. One of them says “What the fuck?” when Helena pulls up her sleeve and FARTER is written on her left forearm in black marker.

“Holy cow! That’s my word! Farter.”

* * *

The strangers across the table are gone by the time Helena and I finish our sandwiches. A Coke seems like it was designed to wash down red meat; it never tastes better than when I drink it with a burger or a cheesesteak-sans-cheese. After a long slurp that ends with the hollow crackle of my empty cup, I smack my lips in approval and slam my cup on the table. I avoid caffeine because of migraines, but since I already have one, sometimes the caffeine helps. “So, I had this friend back home.”

“Back in Moldavia?”

“Is that not home?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Of course. Go on.”

“I had this friend. His name was Rannish.”

Under the bright-eyed exuberance of Helena, I see Helen tense up ever so slightly.

“Rannish has passed, God rest his soul.” I make the sign of the cross, ending it by kissing my fingertips. “This friend, he was in love for many long times with a girl. They could not be together because…of the Moldavian caste system.”

Helen squirms inside Helena.

I turn my body toward her and inch closer to her on the bench. “Well, Rannish and this girl make plans to move to America, where there is no caste system, so they can be married. He plans and plans for their first night together in the U.S. of the A. At the time, we are rehearsing our acrobatic routine for the summer solstice festival. In between routines, while we stretch, he tells me of all the different scenarios he came up with for their first night in this country. He asks for my opinions and I tell him. All of his ideas—”

Helen stands. Helena is gone. “Find your own way home.” Her voice comes out in a quivering whisper. She turns on her heel and marches off.

I scramble after her, trying to get around a crowd crossing the street.

“Bobby Pinker! No shit!” A hand grabs my sleeve. I turn and see Paul Dobber, a guy I haven’t seen since eighth grade graduation. His face is the same, but he’s impossibly muscular, like he lifts weights for a living. “Dude, what’s up? What’s with your outfit? You look like a Glo Worm.”

Paul laughs as I edge past him, saying from the corner of my mouth, “Good to see you, can’t talk, outfit’s part of a prank I’m doing.”

“What prank? Hey. Hey!”

Helen turns a corner. I run to catch up to her, grabbing her by the waist. “You have no idea where you are.”

She wrenches free before I can finish my thought and speed walks down the street. “I get a cab to 30
^th
Street and then I know the rest.”

I try to keep pace with her, but she’s in much better shape than I am. I pant, steak and bread blobs churning in my stomach. “You won’t catch a cab around here. It’s not like Center City where they’re all over the place. You’d have to walk fifteen—”

She turns another corner. I jog to the corner and see that the street she just turned onto is empty. Four side streets branch out from this street, and by the time I’ve had a chance to look down all four, Helen’s had enough time to vanish.

This is her best trick yet.

Guilty over what I’d done to Helen, I decide to walk home as penance. I walk, muttering to myself (ironically, our next stop was supposed to be the Mütter Museum), and then I add up the distance from where I am to my apartment. It’s about a hundred blocks. In
The Fugitive
, Tommy Lee Jones says that the average foot speed in the woods is four miles per hour. I’m on asphalt, which helps, but still have a three-hour walk ahead of me. The sun has gone down, and I’ll have to walk through a few dicey neighborhoods on my sheepish sojourn.

I call my brother and explain the situation. I ask him to meet me at our parents’ house, a distance I know I can walk in the forty minutes it’ll take him to get there.

* * *

My full name is Robert Domenic Pinker. I was born January 8
^th
, 1979 at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I grew up in South Philly with my parents Michael and Liz and my older brother Joe.

My parents met in Catholic school in 1960. They were both eight. Liz was Italian, Michael was Irish. When they started dating at sixteen, their ethnicity was a huge issue for both families. I have no idea why. Irish people and Italian people are exactly the same. It’s the difference between pasta and potatoes, getting drunk on beer or wine. The Italian flag is green, white, and red. The Irish flag is green, white, and orange. But there’s still some tension between the two families to this day.