Visitation Street (19 page)

“I know you, Cree. You like the white girls. Always did. Just too chicken to admit it. Just you wait till they screw you over. Come to our neighborhood, thinking they can steal what they want.”

“It’s all one neighborhood,” Cree says.

Both Paulie and Jo have come to the window.

“The hell it is,” Celia replies.

By the time they reach the corner of Van Brunt, Celia has settled into her good humor. “Bitch never saw me coming. Now that I’ve ruined her day, I’m ready to start mine. Gonna enjoy every second.”

“Later, Cee. Be good.”

Celia kisses Cree on the cheek. “No, baby, you be good.”

Cree hasn’t been down to the fishing boat since he’d found Ren there. Something about that kid creeped him out. In fact, Cree was staying away from all his secret places, worried that Ren will be there or have just left. He doesn’t want to find the inconsiderate, intimate touches Ren leaves behind—the cigarette butts, food containers, and graffiti. He doesn’t want to know if the kid’s been fiddling with Cree’s setups, adjusting his telescope, rearranging whatever remains in the abandoned bar, covering the walls with more throw-ups and tags. Why Ren can’t find his own places, Cree can’t figure.

From a block away, Cree can tell that something is up with the boat. Usually, the hull, mottled with green moss, mud, and brown weather stains, is camouflaged by the weeds that cover the lot. It’s only the small deckhouse, whose blue paint has chipped and faded that signals the boat’s presence.

Today Cree can see the hull from the end of the street, scrubbed and shellacked, as bright as his father kept it. The wheelhouse has been painted too, not its original navy but a brighter shade of blue.

When Cree reaches the boat, he sees that it’s not just the paint on the boat that’s been refreshed. The deck and the instrument panels on the cabin have been polished. The torn captain’s chair has been patched with vinyl and duct tape. On the stern of the boat is a looped, cursive tag: Cap’n Marcus.

He sits in the chair. It pivots without squeaking. He spins the wheel. It rotates freely. He looks out the window at the wall of the warehouse that backs onto the lot. He closes his eyes, trying to summon the sensation of being out in the bay. But even in his imagination, the boat remains run aground. He leaves the wheelhouse and returns to the deck, sitting with his feet dangling over the port side, staring back in the direction of the projects.

He hears Ren before he sees him, whistling as he approaches from the water. The sound is exaggerated, amplified and thrown back by the surrounding buildings. Ren lopes into sight. His black hoodie covers his face. There’s blue paint on the front and sleeves. His faded jeans, shapeless and styleless, are dirty and stretched at the knees.

“Fuck you do to my boat?”

Ren removes his hood. His hair is matted and clumped. He slips through the gap in the fence and takes his time making his way toward Cree.

“I said—fuck you do to my boat?” Cree says.

Ren shakes his head. “Any fool can tell I fixed it up for you.”

“Who said it needed fixing?”

Ren’s eyes are sunken. His cheekbones stick out like tiny fists. He pulls a crumpled cigarette from his pocket. Cree notices his nails are rimmed with dirt. “You gonna thank me?” Ren says.

“You want thanks for messing with my stuff?”

“You think it’s nice or what?”

Cree hesitates. He looks over the polished deck and the fresh paint on the wheelhouse. “Yeah, it’s nice. But don’t you have your own shit to take care of?”

“I do what I want to do,” Ren says, blowing smoke through cracked lips.

“Where’d you learn how to do this shit?”

“Let’s just say, I took years of shop. Years and motherfucking years.”

“You looking for work in one of the shops around here?”

Ren drops the cigarette and exhales loudly as he stamps it out. “I work for nobody but me.”

“Don’t you have to eat?”

“Don’t you? I don’t see you with a job. I don’t see you thinking all careerlike.”

“Truth is,” Cree says, “I don’t want a job in Red Hook because I don’t plan to stick around here.”

“Is that so? You making plans?”

Cree nods.

“You still chasing after that white girl? You gonna leave her behind when you go?”

“Man, you are too far up in my business.”

“It’s not your business when you carry it on in public, jumping into the bay after her. I thought the cops were on you for messing with her. Dumb move to be chasing her in public. How come you don’t know that?”

“How come you’re so interested in my shit? How come you got nothing better to do?” Cree says.

Ren loops around the boat and examines the starboard side. “I’m just observing is all. Observing and reporting back to you things that will help you out. For instance, that white girl—that’s a no-good situation. I’m not saying the girl’s a problem, but she’s gonna be your problem. You think when the two of you start running around together people ain’t gonna put two and two together?”

Cree looks over his shoulder. “Two and two about what?”

“’Bout you being down by the pier that night before those girls got knocked off their raft.”

Cree stands up. “Fuck you know about that?”

“Fuck I don’t know,” Ren says.

Cree is certain Ren will take him down, but he is ready to jump off the deck, rush around the other side of the boat, teach Ren a lesson about messing with his stuff.

“You better watch yourself,” Cree says.

As he’s about to run to the starboard side, three kids come down the cobbled street and pause in front of the lot.

“Look at him, talking to himself just like his crazy mama,” one of them says.

“She got her bench, he got his dumb-ass boat.”

Cree recognizes the boys who were harassing Gloria earlier in the morning. They are dressed in drop-down jeans and oversized polo shirts. Two of them have a dusting of facial hair over their lips while the third is baby faced and baby skinned.

“Get moving, boys,” Cree says.

“Maybe we are where we wanna be,” baby-face says.

“This lot’s off-limits,” Cree says.

“Don’t look like it.”

The three boys climb through the fence. One of them pulls out a joint.

Ren steps out from the back of the boat. “I’d listen to the man if I were you. This lot don’t belong to you.”

“Don’t belong to him, neither.”

“Who says?” Ren says.

“Me,” baby-face says.

“Maybe I say different,” Ren says.

“Fuck you wearing, boy?” the baby-faced kid says. “Your grandpa’s hand-me-downs?” He looks at Ren’s pants and then his eyes drop to his shoes. “Motherfucking orthopedic shoes and all. You got a walking problem? You lame? Or you just broke?”

“Told him,” one of the boys says, clapping baby-face on the back.

“Get a move on,” Cree says. “Get to school.”

“School fool,” baby-face says. “I don’t need the son of no crazy lady telling me to get educated.”

“What’d you say?” Ren says.

“You seen his mama on that bench in the PJs talking to herself?”

Ren shakes his head.

“You should check her out sometime,” baby-face says. “Lady puts on a show.”

“Is that so?” Ren says.

The kid nods.

Ren takes a step closer to the group of boys. “You saying that his mama’s crazy?”

“Fucked up. Everybody knows it.”

“For real?” Ren says.

“Damn straight,” the kid says. “Like I said, you got to check it out.”

Before he’s done talking, Ren’s got him by the collar. He lifts the kid half a foot off the ground, then punches him in the face. He lets go and the kid drops. Ren’s on his knees, landing blows on the kid’s ribs and stomach. The other boys back away.

The baby-faced boy howls as the blows land.

Ren throws short, tight punches. He barely pulls his fist away before he lands another. The kid tries to roll to one side, but Ren’s got him pinned.

Cree rushes over. He grabs Ren underneath the arm and lifts him off the boy. “Enough, man. You’re through.”

Ren’s trying to scramble out of Cree’s grasp, his arms punching the air, his legs pedaling. Cree drags Ren toward the boat and leaves him there, panting. Then he returns and lifts the kid off the ground. “Go,” he says. The kid’s friends loop their arms around his waist and shoulders and help him toward the Houses. Cree squats at Ren’s side. “You messed him up bad.”

“Kids like that made the hood hell in my day. Shit ain’t going to happen this time round.” He wipes his brow with the dirty cuff of his sweatshirt. His breath is short. There’s sweat on his lip.

“Let me buy you a slice or something,” Cree says.

“No, man. You don’t need to buy me nothing.” Ren pulls up his hood and, once again, leaves Cree alone with his boat.

N
o one lets Monique forget that she had seen those two girls the night one of them disappeared. They had been her playmates until Celia explained that Monique and Cree were no longer welcome in the Marino house. Monique ran into them from time to time on the street and, as she got older, she learned how to cut them dead. She didn’t have time for those babies and their make-believe.

Val and June had stopped by the park carrying a big pink raft. Monique was holding court with a crew of older boys. She didn’t bother to break away. That raft looked fun, Monique thought—different than riding the park benches every night. Monique wished the girls would ask her to come with. But June only seemed interested in getting an invite to hop the fence.

Monique had been harsh. But when they walked off, she watched the raft bumping between them and tried to imagine where they were headed.

When the news trickled into the projects that June was missing, Monique felt chilled. She didn’t have to consult Gloria to know that nothing good would come from blowing off a doomed girl. She should have invited June over the fence. It would have been simple.

People kept asking her about June. Some remembered they’d been friends. Even the boys in the park seemed to take note.

That was some icy treatment, Mo. Maybe you should have let her kick it with you
.

Sometimes the boys asked her questions.
Where your friend hiding out, Mo?
The whole neighborhood seemed out to bug Monique about some girl she barely knew.

Talking to the dead was her aunt Gloria’s business, but after a week of getting nagged about June’s disappearance, like she had something to do with it, Monique asked aloud,
Girl, where you hiding?

She didn’t expect a response.

The first time it happened, she was listening to her music, headphones on, volume up. At first she thought someone had messed with her playlist, downloaded a bootleg recording—some sped-up amateur street rap. It was a girl mc, that’s about all Monique could tell. Her words were indistinguishable, a mad flow of jibber jabber. Monique took off her headphones. The music continued.

She was at home, lying in bed, trying to make something interesting of the ceiling, waiting for the day to prove itself. She figured one of the local girls was trying to rhyme below her window.

When she looked down into the courtyard, it was filled with old men, none of them dropping beats. She opened the window. The volume of the girl’s voice didn’t change—it just kept on spewing her messy scribble-scrabble style. There was nothing smooth in her rap, nothing complex. She just went on and on, rambling and saying nothing.

Monique put her headphones back on and pumped up the volume. But the girl’s voice conquered all attempts to subdue it. Monique heard her in the shower, in the stairwell, damn, she even heard her when she was talking on the phone.

That afternoon she headed over to the park, hoping for a large crowd to block out the yammering in her ears. She joined a group of girls watching two boys trade crass rhymes.

Pool. Short shorts. Flip-flops. Bikini. Towels
.

Monique stood up. These were the first distinct words she’d been able to make out from the flow running through her head. “Cut your nonsense,” she said.

The boys broke off their contest and turned her way. The girls stared at her. She recognized the looks on their faces.

“Fuck you staring at?” she said.

She didn’t wait for an answer. She knew the looks were the same ones dropped on Gloria whenever she sat talking to herself on her bench.

Sneakers. Sandals. Slingback heels
.

Ziti. Cutlet. Stromboli. Cannoli
.

Once she was able to make out the words, there was no mistaking June’s voice. Monique clapped her hands over her ears. She bit her lip. She fought the urge to talk back. Talk back to the girl, Monique worried, and she would become like her aunt, another crazy yakking with the dead.

When she could dial in June’s voice on a distinct frequency, Monique realized that she was talking in lists—birthday gifts, family meals, favorite shoes, what she carried in her purse. She was cataloging days in her life, breaking them into the objects they contained. Monique recognized some of these objects from the afternoons she herself had spent with Val and June.
Popsicle, curtains, high heels, ladder, fence, hose, swing
—an elaborate game of make-believe on Val’s backyard swing set on a brutal summer day. Sometimes she figured out what place June was running on about—
subway, roller coaster, boardwalk, sand, water, wave, pizza
. June was looking for bread crumbs to find her way home. The only problem was that Monique didn’t want to hear it but she couldn’t figure out how to make her stop.

The first time after June starting blabbering to her that Monique tried to sing at the tabernacle, she couldn’t silence the girl’s voice and find her way through the hymn. She sang slowly, struggling to work through a song that was as familiar as breathing. She worried the congregation knew what was happening to her, that she was being reached by something beyond.
Window, school bus, boy, yard, night. Taxi, spaghetti, theater. Ferry, candy apple, concert, tall ship, pier
.

In the middle of the hymn she wanted to scream. She kept her eyes on the ceiling, ignoring the expectant faces staring at her—the people who believed that it was God guiding her voice.