Long Way Down (2 page)

W
e hadn’t walked to school since Angie, my ex-wife and the mother of my unusual child, had been murdered on Amsterdam Avenue, shot by members of a Central American drug cartel. She had been protecting the boy, throwing her own body between a hail of bullets and her son. I should have been the target, not the Kid, not my ex-wife. Angie and I had our history and our baggage, and her death had not released me from all the anger, resentment, hurt, and betrayal. I carried all of those, plus the guilt that if I had done things differently, or been a different man, she would still be alive.

My second career—the first as a Wall Street trader and manager having ended with a two-year stint in a federal prison—often put me in dangerous spots. I investigated fraud, sometimes acting as a fixer or a finder in situations where street smarts met up with prison yard ethics. I straddled both worlds, in ways that often surprised me. The work had changed me—was still changing me. I had become both more tolerant and more skeptical, stronger and less fearful, yet more thoughtful and forgiving. What was legal was
sometimes just not right, and those who broke the law were more often merely weak rather than evil.

The Kid had changed me, too. My son. Now six years and eight months. I had barely known him when I was sent away. I certainly had not known of his autism. Seeing life through his eyes had opened mine. If you graphed the spectrum with Asperger’s on the far left, the Kid was definitely right of center, but he was verbal and a bright and curious learner. He was also a handful. And though I would not have wanted my ex back in my life in any capacity, my son deserved a mother.

The school was just a mile up Amsterdam and a half block over. The Kid used to run ahead each block, dancing impatiently at the cross streets, waiting for me to catch up and burning off a small percentage of his post-breakfast energy spurt. Not
spurt
. Explosion.

I had changed our route these past six months.

When we left early enough, we would take the bus, the M104, up Broadway and get off at Ninety-sixth Street. The Kid liked the bus. It was rarely crowded at that hour, as we were heading in the opposite direction of the morning commute. The Kid would take one of the handicapped seats up front—though he was not physically challenged, his autism gave him squatter’s rights to those seats—and I would stand over him. The Kid watched the driver, and I watched him.

Most mornings, though, we were in a hurry and took the subway. The Kid was not an easy, nor an early, riser, but there were other issues that slowed us down. Getting his shoes on was near the top of the list. I had bought him more shoes than worn by the whole cast of
Sex and the City
, in a futile attempt to find ones that did not “hurt.” It took the two of us a year to accept the fact that, though shoes are generally less comfortable than going barefoot, you can’t
go barefoot in New York City—especially in December. That morning we took the subway.

We were a few minutes behind schedule as we came out of the subway at Ninety-sixth Street and quick-walked toward Amsterdam. The Kid ran. I watched him as he bobbed, weaved, ducked, and sprinted, avoiding the many obstructions in his path—some of which were imaginary. I loved watching him run. When he walked, he tended to lock up his knees and hips, as though in constant fear of falling, so that he looked like a mechanical man, made up of nonmatching spare parts. But when he ran, he looked like a child. If not happy, at least untroubled. Free.

A blast of chill wind blew dust in my eye and I put my head down, taking the irritating assault on my nascent bald spot. For that one moment I was not watching my son.

The sidewalk was narrow just there, and broken, a nondescript and barren tree having driven its roots laterally in an attempt to seek nutriments in a concrete wasteland. On the other side was a short, spiked, black iron fence guarding the basement entrance, and empty garbage cans, of a six-story apartment building.

I looked up and my eyes watered and blurred in the wind, but I could tell that the Kid was not ahead, waiting at the corner. A momentary flare of anxiety caught in my chest and I whirled around in a panic. The Kid was a half block behind me, squatting at the curb and trying to engage the attention of a piebald pigeon.

Almost shaking with relief, I walked back to him, not trusting my voice to call, nor trusting him to come without an argument—and cursing myself for my inattention. I squatted down next to him. The pigeon ignored both of us.

“Come on, Kid. Time for school. Ms. Wegant will be worried about us if we’re late.” I had never seen his teacher worried, nor flustered, nor impatient, nor happy, for that matter. Mr. Spock had a wider range of emotion. “Come on,” I tried again. “Mrs. Carter
will be mad at me.” This was much closer to the truth. Mrs. Carter held the desk in the entryway at the school, checking in all students and keeping out anyone who did not have a well-documented reason for being on school grounds. She was a large woman, but with both the strength and agility to carry it off. I was sure that I could take her in a fair fight, and I was just as sure that she wouldn’t fight fair.

I took his hand. I was impatient. I knew better. He screamed.

I let go and stood up. The screaming stopped. A childish and unworthy thought of just walking away flashed through my head. I forgave myself. If I beat myself up every time I succumbed to despair, I would have been permanently covered with black-and-blue marks. I thought about just kicking the pigeon, but held back. I would wait. Patience was the best medicine I could offer my son. It also did wonders for me.

A sudden flash of déjà vu hit me. Not really déjà vu, more a distorted memory. When my ex-wife was killed, one of the assassins had escaped by running down a side street. Could it have been that block? Or was it a few blocks farther uptown? The Kid and I would have had to move out of Manhattan altogether to avoid any reminders of his mother, or her death. I had a touch of dizziness. Possibly, I had stood up too quickly. I was disoriented, the wind blew and my eyes blurred again.

Two men turned the corner, coming down from Amsterdam. They were short, squat, and brown-skinned. Latinos. One had a black brush of a mustache; the other, slightly taller, had a badly broken nose. Despite the cold, they both wore nothing warmer than dark hooded sweatshirts, their hands tucked into the pouches in front. They looked just like the men who had killed my ex-wife—who had attempted to kill my son, and who had threatened to kill me. And I had wondered ever since if they were going to come back and finish the job. Or when. And here they were. Moving quickly.
Stone-faced. Not angry, but determined. I imagined their hands coming out, holding small guns that grew in size every time I blinked.

The white van jumped the red light, accelerated across three lanes, and suddenly slowed. The sliding panel door opened and a long-barreled weapon emerged and began spitting red flashes.
Phwat. Phwat. Phwat.
Like the sound of slapping a rolled-up newspaper against your thigh. Only, it wasn’t a rolled-up newspaper, and people were falling.

“Kid, get up. We go. Now.” I took his hand and walked back toward Broadway. The Kid must have heard the fear in my voice because for once he did not scream or fight. He stumbled along with me, his feet barely touching the ground.

Just as we approached the entrance to the next building, a woman emerged with a small dog on a leash. I rushed forward and grabbed the door before it closed, pushed the Kid inside and followed him. The lock clicked as the door shut. We were inside and the two Latinos were outside. For the moment, we were safe. But only for the moment.

The Kid stood behind me, whimpering. He had caught my fear and absorbed it. His teeth were chattering and he was shaking. There was a mail alcove to our right. I pushed him toward it and backed him against the wall. I could see the street, but it would be very difficult for anyone to see in at that angle.

“It’s all right, Kid. We’re safe. Those men won’t find us here.” I didn’t believe it and neither did he. He was crying and beginning to gasp. The gasping sometimes prefaced one of his seizures.

“I pick you up,” he whispered. He never wanted to be held or picked up. Never except for the few times when that was all he wanted. I took him in my arms and held him tight. Squeezing helped. It helped both of us.

The two men stopped at the front door and stared in the window. The window was plastic—Lexan probably—with a wire mesh
running through it. An older building, a holdover from a less safe era. The one with the mustache pressed a button on the intercom and spoke briefly. He looked familiar. Had I seen him before or did he look like a thousand other Latino men I had passed on the streets of New York City?

No one buzzed them in.

We were trapped. We couldn’t move without them seeing us, but they knew we had entered the building and it would not take much heavy-duty guesswork for them to realize we must still be hiding in the lobby. They would figure out a way to get in soon.

The mustache put his face up against the window and yelled. The blood was pounding in my ears and the Kid was crying—I couldn’t hear a thing. The man grabbed the door handle and shook it. The door suddenly looked a lot less formidable a barrier than it had a moment earlier.

I pulled out my cell phone. Who could I call? How fast could a squad car get there? Five minutes? It seemed much too long. There was no one else. I punched in the numbers.

“911. State the nature of your emergency.”

“I’m being followed. By two men.”

“Are you in immediate danger?”

Define the word
immediate
. “I think so.”

“Name and location.”

“Jason Stafford. I’m in the lobby of a building just east of Broadway.”

A short, thin Latino man in overalls and a red plaid shirt walked through the lobby toward the door.

“What’s the address, sir?” the voice on the phone asked.

“Please hurry.” I stopped and called to the man. “Hey. Hey. Don’t open that door!”

If he heard me, he gave no sign.

“Can you give me the address, sir?”

“I don’t know. We just ducked in here.” We were on the north side of the street, so it was an odd-numbered building. Broadway divided the block in two. “It’s 249 West Ninety-fifth,” I yelled into the phone. I thought it was Ninety-fifth. Could it be Ninety-fourth?

The man in the lobby stopped and looked at us suspiciously. “Can I help you?” he said, sounding like he had meant to say, “Who the ‘f’ are you and what the ‘f’ are you doing here?”

“Don’t let those men in here. They followed us.”

“Those men? I don’t think so,” he said with a sarcastic cough that could have been a laugh.

“No, really. I’ve got police on the way. Please wait.”

“Hey! No cops. Shit! Look, I’m the super here. These guys work for me. They’re my painters.” He opened the door and spoke to the two men in rapid Spanish. The man with the mustache laughed. The other guy looked worried. Below their sweatshirts, both men wore paint-spattered baggy blue jeans and canvas sneakers. They no longer looked like hit men, they looked like painters. Mustache didn’t even look familiar.

“Sir? Are you there? Can I use this number as a callback in case we’re disconnected?”

“What? No. Sorry. Please cancel the call. I’m fine. It was a mistake.” The three men walked past. The one with the mustache was grinning. The other painter didn’t think it was quite so funny.

“Are you all right, sir? Are you under duress?”

“No, really. I’m very embarrassed. Everything is okay here.” I wanted to melt into a pool of slime and seep out under the door and into the gutter. “Thanks anyway.” I hung up.

The super was leading the other two through a door down to the basement. I called after them. “Sorry about that. Really.” The mustached man turned and gave a wave and a last grin.

The Kid began hitting me in the chest with the heel of his fist. “Down. Down. Down.”

I put him down. He shook like a wet dog and gave me a look of deep distrust. His beautiful strawberry-blond hair shimmered.

Angie lay on the pavement, partially hidden from view by two parked cars. I stepped up and saw the blood. She looked so small. The breeze from a passing car blew her hair off her face. She looked surprised. Death was something for which she should have planned ahead.

Nice work,
I thought. I had panicked, managing to racially profile two innocent men, possibly causing them a hurricane of troubles if the police had arrived. And I had terrified my son. I was supposed to be his anchor, helping and supporting him against all of his usual terrors; instead I had created a new one. His father was nuts.

“Sorry, bud. I don’t know what happened.” Yes I did. I didn’t like it but I knew what had happened. “Are you all right? Shall we get you to school now?”

He walked to the door and waited for me to open it. I followed, feeling stupid and useless—and drained. My hand shook as I pushed the door open. It wasn’t the first time something similar had happened to me. I’d experienced those flashes of paranoia before. I needed to shake it off, get the Kid to school, do my morning run, and go to work. I didn’t need to spend a lot of time thinking about it, analyzing it, or explaining it to a child who would not understand anyway. Hell, I wasn’t sure that I understood it.

R
oger, the Kid, and I went out to my father’s bar that night for the closing party. The new owners, two retired New York City firemen, sat with us in a back booth, while Pop served free booze to all of his old regulars. He said it would make the inventory process go faster the next morning. At the rate the crowd was downing shots, there wouldn’t be anything left to inventory.

“You gonna keep the name?” Roger asked. Roger was a semi-retired clown, and a full-time kibitzer. He was also my friend. We had met at our neighborhood bar when I was still single, and despite our differences in age, background, careers, education, and almost every other aspect of life, something had clicked and we had become friends. When I got out of prison, I discovered that I had far fewer friends than before. Roger was one of the ones who had stayed by me.

“For now,” the older of the two said. “It doesn’t matter what the sign says out front, everybody calls it Sweeney’s, anyhow.”

My father had bought the bar, and the building, from Mrs. Sweeney after her husband drank himself under the table one last time. Sweeney had tried a couple of different names in the early years,
finally sticking with Broadway Bistro, though it wasn’t on Broadway and served nothing that could be remotely called French, except the fries. But the fireman was right, everyone in College Point, Queens, called it Sweeney’s.

The Kid dipped one of those French fries in a lake of ketchup, placed it in his mouth, and sucked off all the ketchup. I let him. It was a gross habit, but just one of the many compromises I made for him. With autism, you learn quickly to pick your fights or you lose.

“You two going to take turns working the stick?” I asked the firemen.

They gave each other a quick look. “Nah. Tim here is a good cook, but he’s not the most entertaining guy you’d ever want to meet. He’ll cover the kitchen, I handle up front.”

“Where’d you learn to cook, Tim?”

“On-the-job training. When you go into a burning building, you know that your team is watching out for you. You make a mistake, one of those guys is going to bail you out. But if you’re the guy who makes dinner every night, you’ve got the whole company making sure you get out in one piece.”

I laughed. “I’d say he’s pretty entertaining.”

The older fireman gave a small smile. “That’s his one good line. Ask him to tell a joke.”

Tim shook his head. “I don’t do jokes. I remember all the punch lines, but never the setup.”

“Come on,” Roger said, waving in the challenge. “You give me the punch line and I’ll do the setup.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Yeah, yeah. We can do this. Come on, give me one.”

Tim thought for a minute. “Okay. How about, ‘Don’t sell that cow’?”

Roger laughed. “That’s a good one. The dying what . . . ? Somebody’s mother? The priest? Which version?”

Tim was laughing with him. “The priest.”

“Ready? Here we go. The old priest, Father McCluskey—the leader of his flock, the head of the parish—is dying, ya see. And the whole village is lined up outside the rectory, waiting to get in to pay last respects. And Mrs. Donahue comes in with a glass of milk—fresh, still warm from the cow. ‘Oh, here ya are, Father, this’ll set ya right up.’ Well, the old guy takes one sip and starts coughing. Just about croaks right there. Everybody in the room freezes. Except for Mr. Donahue, who don’t like to see his wife disappointed, ya know. He takes the cup, and while everybody is staring at the old guy still rasping and spitting, Donahue pours two fingers’ worth of Irish whiskey out of his flask into the cup. He pushes forward and holds up the priest and gets him to take another sip. ‘Come on, Father, this’ll do ya good,’ he says. Well, Father McCluskey swallows that first sip, sits right up in bed, grabs the cup and downs it in one go. Then he lies back down on the pillow, smiling like he already sees the gates of Heaven opening and the angels singing him in. He whispers something. ‘What’d he say?’ all the people yell out. Well, Donahue leans over and puts his ear by the old man’s lips and listens for a minute. The old one whispers again and Donahue bursts out laughing. ‘He said . . .’” Roger gestured to Tim.

“Don’t sell that cow!” Tim yelled out.

Roger and I laughed. Even the other fireman laughed. The Kid held his ears and scowled. Abrupt loud noises were painful for him, but he was coping. Just one of the many ugly tricks that autism played on him every day.

“See?” Roger said. “You can tell a joke. Don’t let ’em tell ya any different.”

My father, looking rushed, harried, and happy, stopped by our booth. “Liam, you want to join me behind the bar? Lend a hand? Meet the regulars?”

Liam, the older fireman, stood up. “I’ve known half of them since grade school, but yeah, I’m with you.”

“How’s my boys?” Pop asked, looking at me but asking about the Kid.

“About the same,” I said.

The Kid had a line of five toy cars in front of him. Occasionally he would reach over and move one a fraction of a millimeter. Mostly he just stared at them.

A momentary flash of pain dulled my father’s eyes and he blinked, returning his concern for his grandson to its proper nook. He would keep it hidden there until, later that night, it could be unwrapped and shared with his sole confidant, Estrella Ramirez, a widow he had been dating for the past nine months. Estrella, in turn, would eventually pass on his troubling thoughts to me, in what served as deep communication between father and son.

“Come, Liam. Let’s see if you’re up to this crowd.”

Tim slid out of the booth and joined them. “I think I’ll see how he holds up.”

Roger and I were left surrounding the Kid’s long silence.

Roger sipped his cognac. I swallowed another long pull of Ketel One. I didn’t think I liked drinking vodka, but it was an efficient drink. The second one always took the edge off, rounded the corners, softened the focus. For the next hour or so, I could put aside my frustrations and disappointments and smile at my life in liquid contentment.

“We should get the Kid home to bed,” Roger said.

Roger’s sense of self-discipline involved the better part of a fifth of cognac a day, but he still managed to keep a watchful eye on the comfort and well-being of my son. And me.

I nodded. “Yup.” Never a third drink until the Kid was fast asleep, and then only when I really couldn’t sleep. A nightcap. My sleeping draught. Harmless.

“You want to take another walk around upstairs?” Roger asked.

The apartment over the bar had been my home when growing up. Now it was a bare space waiting for a tenant. I had helped my father empty the rooms, quietly amazed at how few keepsakes there were from our lives there together. He had given me the framed photos of my mother, enshrined forever in the bloom of her twenties, dead before she turned thirty. Pop and Estrella had bought a nice two-bedroom condo on Bay Park Drive, with a view of the park, the river, the airport, and the jail on Rikers Island. Pictures of my mother weren’t going to fit with the décor.

“Nope. There’s nothing there, Roger. Pop and I watched Goodwill haul the last of it out on Tuesday. Time to turn the page.”

Roger knocked back the dregs in his glass, I did the same.

“So, we’re outta here,” he said. “You riding with us, Kid? Grab your cars and come say good-bye to your Pop.”

The Kid swept up the cars and stuffed them in the pocket of his hoodie. I reflected, with no jealousy or animosity, that what Roger had accomplished with a brief, almost brusque, command would have taken me ten minutes of one-sided negotiation, wheedling, empty threats, and pitiful begging.

I went first, pushing gently through the crowd of half-drunken well-wishers. There was a boisterous, yet gentle, preholiday air. I murmured hellos to those whose faces I recognized, some of whom I had not seen in twenty years or more. There was Jimmy “Ferrari” Ferrante, two years ahead of me in school, and still two inches shorter, though that had never stopped him from beating me up once or twice a year from about the fourth grade through middle school. He was sharing a bottle of Malbec with his mother and polishing off a double order of fried mozzarella sticks. Danny Griffin—“Griff”—whom I’d heard lost a string of oceanfront rental properties to Hurricane Sandy down in the Rockaways and Long Beach. He was still trying to collect from the insurance companies,
and was now back living with his folks on 118th Street and working at Staples. Betty Polanski, from high school, now many dress sizes wider, who had informed me at our ten-year class reunion—the first and last one I attended—that she had always thought I was gay.

We tried pushing up to the bar, but it was packed three deep. Pop and Liam were swamped, but laughing together and loving it. I waited until I caught Pop’s eye, gave him a wave and a smile. He blew big exaggerated kisses at me and the Kid and we headed out.

The Kid shuffled along next to me, with Roger close behind. Just as we reached the door, it swung open and Estrella entered. She was younger than my father, but by less than a decade. They both looked ten years younger than their ages. She wore her salt-and-pepper hair proudly, in an elegant sweep. My father had referred to her as a “class act,” and he was right.

“Jason, you’re not
leaving
? Just as I get here? You must stay for just one more.” She kissed me on both cheeks and gave a quick hug.

I stepped to the side so she could say hello to the Kid. “I’d love to, but the Kid needs to get some shut-eye and I’ve got an early meeting.”

“Hello, Jay,” she trilled at the Kid. Another woman might have sounded phony speaking to the Kid in that high, musical voice. Forced. Unpleasant. Estrella sounded like she meant to entertain, and it usually worked.

The Kid did not look at her, but he raised his head and gave two short nods of recognition, then dropped his gaze back to the floor again. He didn’t like to be called Jason. I was Jason. There couldn’t be two. He chose his handle and insisted that everyone call him the Kid. Everyone but Estrella for some reason. She was allowed to call him Jay. I liked it and hoped it would stick, but he hadn’t yet given me permission to use it.

“Well, I won’t keep you,” she said, throwing a brief and thoroughly insincere smile in Roger’s direction. Most women had a
similar reaction to my friend. He was neither lovable nor imposing. Or as Roger himself had once offered, “What I lack in charm, I make up for in ugly.” She looked back to me. “I hope you are working on something interesting.”

“The meeting? Not really. Kind of sad, actually. No matter how it works out, someone will be out of a job. I feel like the angel of death. I should show up in a black robe carrying a chess set.”

She tipped her head in a sympathetic gesture. “You are strong. Like your father. Remember that tomorrow.” Then she smiled and continued. “I want you to come to dinner just as soon as we get everything unpacked. Will you? And bring Wanda and Jay, of course.”

“Wanda’s a tough ticket these days. They’re aiming to open the clinic the first week of the new year.”

Wanda Tyler—the woman whom I called Skeli, a nickname bestowed upon her by an avuncular Greek restaurateur; the woman who made my toes curl in sheer delight; and the woman who had given me her trust at a time when I was not sure I deserved it—was currently in the frenzied rush of opening her own health clinic in SoHo, centering on non-medicinal pain management, using a combination of physical therapy, Reiki, and acupuncture. I was one of her main investors.

“Oh, no. It’s the holidays. And who do any of us have but each other? I will call her.” She smiled—beamed—at the Kid as we passed.

The cold air hit like a third shot of vodka. Only a week after Thanksgiving and it felt like mid-January.

“Jeeesus.” Roger’s teeth were already chattering. “Another month of this crap. I keep telling myself that I can do it, but it doesn’t get any easier.” Roger was almost due for his annual trip to Florida, where he would, for two months, sleep on his ex-wife’s couch and visit with other retired circus performers. As much as he liked
the sun and warm weather, two months was all he could take down there. The ex wouldn’t let him drink while he stayed with her.

The Kid had no more reaction to the cold than an Eskimo sled dog. He hated bulky coats, refused to wear mittens, and screamed as though wounded if I tried to put a hat on him.

“Hold on. Let me zip you up,” I said, and for a moment we wrestled in the doorway. That time I won. I got the coat zipped.

The Town Car was waiting at the corner, motor running, a wisp of exhaust in the air behind it. The Kid broke into a run like a greyhound out of the gate. I tried to keep up, but the two vodkas and too much inactivity of late slowed me down.

“Wait for Jason,” I called in a forlorn hope that he might choose this erratic moment to listen to me. He didn’t. He ran to the car and pounded on the rear passenger door until the driver came around and opened it. Roger and I caught up just as he wriggled inside and took the center seat. I strapped him in—feeling my usual stab of guilt at not using a car seat—and went around and got in on the far side.

While the Kid hated to be touched, hugged, or caressed, he did like to be squeezed. Roger from one side and I from the other made a Kid sandwich in the backseat. He wriggled against us, seeming to fight the feeling, but actually just trying to find his comfort zone. The moment he had it, he put his head back and passed out.

“Back to the Ansonia, Mr. Stafford?”

“Thanks, but we’ll take Roger home first.”

“Nah. I’ll just jump out at Seventy-second Street. I’m not ready to call it a night yet.”