Читать книгу The Ambidextrist - Peter Rock - Страница 11

FIVE

PROOF

“Look at that nigger come,” Darnay says, and Terrell and Swan laugh, watching John walk along the river, toward them. The empty train tracks run on his other side; the tops of cars are visible, sliding along the Market Street bridge, above and behind him.

Terrell knows it’s a bad feeling to be the last to arrive, to know the other three have been together without you, talking where you can’t defend yourself or cut one of them in return. John is closer now, his lips moving in a silent rap as he approaches, jeans slung low to show the band of his underwear. The boys are only thirteen, but they’ve known each other for years; they knew John long before he even cared that he’s white. He wears a Phillies cap, sideways and high, so they can see straight through the mesh, to the gravel path behind him. His hair is reddish, and his face is a little puffy. Freckled. Reaching out, he slips his palm against theirs, pulling it smoothly toward him. There’s no grip, no slap.

“What up?”

“Nothing.”

“Got lots to do.”

“Word,” John says.

Now they’re all here, and they look at each other, silent for a moment, uncertain where to begin. All the air around them is motionless, hot and damp. Across the river, the train station bakes white in the sun. The boys stand on the strip of gravel and dirt, fifty feet from the fence to the river, the train tracks in the middle. Along the fence, a snarl of bushes and trees hides the parking lot and on-ramp; above, the museum’s roof settles against the sky. Things between the four of them feel different, uneasy, everyone growing at different speeds and in different ways. A year ago, Terrell had been the smallest, and now he’s as tall as John and Swan. Darnay never stops growing. He speaks first.

“We do the tats,” he says, “then the test.”

“Dope,” John says.

“Dope?” Terrell says. “No one says that anymore.”

“What do they say?”

“Not ‘dope.’”

“What are we doing here?” Swan says.

Terrell smells his own sweat, feels the hot metal rail through the rubber sole of his shoe. The idea of tests had been Terrell’s, though Darnay acts like he thought of it. He takes things over that way. Terrell watches Swan; everyone will have their own test, and Swan’s is first. Each will be different.

“Test is set up for four-thirty,” Darnay says, and they all look up at the TastyKake billboard, its red-handed clock next to a giant donut. It’s about quarter to three.

“I brought the magic marker,” Terrell says to Darnay. “You seen this done?”

“Yeah,” Darnay says. “No, not really. I heard it described, though, a couple times.” He takes the cap off the marker and waves them all closer.

Each boy will get the first letter of his own name, with the rays of the sun around it. First, Darnay draws them on with the marker. He has a few whiskers, like dirt under his chin; he turns his head and there’s a D shaved into the back. His mother is a hairdresser.

“Let it dry for a second, or it’ll smudge,” he says.

The tattoos will be on their hips, below their belts, where their parents are least likely to see them—not that their parents are all around, or would care. Swan’s foster parents wouldn’t ever notice; John’s parents would. Darnay could say someone did it to him, held him down. He and Swan live in North Philly, where that kind of thing can happen—being from there gives them some authority, some experience. No one plays on the street up there. They get bused to school, into John and Terrell’s neighborhood. Next year, it’s high school.

“No one’ll see them,” Swan is saying. “And that’s the point—we’ll know they’re there. That way we can’t be split up.”

Darnay reaches into his pocket and drops a handful of matchbooks on the ground. From one, he takes a needle, and begins sharpening it on the sandpaper strip of one of the matchbooks. He touches the needle’s point, then sets it aside. He takes four cards of plastic pen refills from his socks—stolen from somewhere—and opens one. A capsule in his fingers, he tries to bite off the top; it explodes, dark blue, all down his arm.

“Just stick the needle in,” John says. “Through the plastic.”

Darnay nods like that’s obvious. His teeth are blue, and he’s spitting into the gravel, trying to get the ink out of his mouth.

“I’ll go first,” he says.

“I’ll do it,” John says. “I’m down with it.”

“That’s a pretty big needle Swan says.

“If it’s small,” Darnay says, “then you got to stick it in a million times.”

“It’s going to hurt,” Terrell says, then catches himself. “That’s all right.”

“It’s supposed to hurt,” John says. He sticks the needle into an ink refill, then into Darnay’s hip, following the line made by the marker. Darnay—lying on his side, holding down the waistband of his pants—is either smiling or gritting his teeth.

Terrell and Swan watch, though there’s not much to see. Above them, a stampede of wild horses, mustangs, fill a Marlboro billboard, the cowboy with his lasso up in the corner. They meet here because it’s no man’s land—no one lives here, near the museum, except old people who drive straight into the parking garages of the tall apartment buildings, who never really go outside. The boys come here in the summer; sometimes they jump onto the slow moving trains, then jump off again, lying about how far they’ve gone. Up the Main Line, or all the way to Trenton. When it’s cooler, they play on the rooftops, down near Terrell’s house; now the tar is too hot and sticky. It comes off on your shoes, burns your skin.

Swan and Terrell walk away, toward the river. They sit on one of the square cages, full of white rocks, put there to support the bank.

“It’s a good idea,” Terrell says, looking back at John and Darnay.

“Yeah. It’ll be cool, probably.”

The river swirls beneath their feet, dark patches of oil like puddles sliding by, rainbows on the surface circling plastic bottles and other trash. Their shoes are untied, thick tongues standing up; Terrell feels the cotton stuffed in the toes of his, to make them fit. He sees that Swan’s wearing a pager, transparent orange plastic, attached to the waistband of his shorts.

“Just needs a battery,” he says. “Then anyone can call me up, anytime, and I’d know it.”

“Lot of people calling you?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Terrell’s known Eric Swan longer than the others, since second grade—they’d gotten caught taking the pencil sharpener apart, after being told there were razorblades inside. Now Swan is wearing his Sixers uniform. He’s so skinny all the bones show in his face, and that makes his eyes seem larger than they are, switching slowly back and forth. His hair is shaved close, but not as close as Terrell’s. Swan’s mouth is always set in a slight frown; he’s always thinking.

“Didn’t you ever want to be the champion of something?” he says. “Have them put a medal around your neck?”

“Champion of what?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

Behind them, Darnay’s now working on John, who lets out little gasps.

“Sound like my baby sister,” Swan calls.

“Don’t get in my face because you’re nervous.”

“I’m not afraid of getting mine,” Swan says.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” John says.

“Hold still,” Darnay says.

Now Swan’s staring straight up into the sky. Under Terrell’s hand, there’s a crack vial between the stones; he flicks it into the water. His keys, on a string around his neck, rattle. He throws a stone at a splintered board floating by, and so does Swan. They both miss. Behind them, now, two gray-haired white people, wearing red jogging suits, have stopped a short distance from where Darnay is atop John, sticking him with the needle.

“It’s fine,” John is saying. “We’re friends.”

After the people walk past, Darnay climbs off. He looks over to Terrell and Swan.

“Your turn,” he says.

“Let’s see,” Swan says.

Darnay and John pull down their waistbands. Both of their hips are covered in ink and blood, smudged all over, the D and J hard to see.

“We didn’t do the rays.”

“Hurt too much?”

“Takes too long.”

“Can add them later, if we want,” Darnay says. “Mom’s boyfriend got a dragon on his back—took ten times to do it all.”

“Mine stands out more,” John’s saying. “It doesn’t look as good.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Not mine.”

“Your mother’s.”

“And your daddy’s even whiter. Pasty.”

“We supposed to share a needle?”

“That’s not about this. Where you been? Health class? Next you’ll be handing out condoms.”

“That’s for Swan to worry about.”

“I got one,” Swan says.

“They make them that small?”

“Magnum,” Swan says, reading the label. “Deal with that.” He picks up the needle, then the ink.

“Go with the black,” Terrell says. “You’ll run out of blue and then it’ll be two colors.”

“The colors won’t show,” Darnay says. “It’ll just be dark in there.”

“Make sure it’s deep enough,” John says.

Terrell feels the prick of the needle. It hurts less than he feared. A little blood rises up; the wounds will scab over, then heal, the ink caught there beneath his skin’s surface. He sits next to a stack of long square railroad ties that stink of creosote. He holds his breath, and so does Swan; they both exhale as Swan puts more ink on the needle.

“How come we’re not in the shade?”

“I don’t know,” Swan says.

The overpass is fifty feet away. They both look toward it, into the shade under it, where an old man is climbing off his bicycle, his head turned, watching them.

“That old dude,” Terrell says. “Got nothing better to do.”

“Don’t look at him or he might come over here.” Swan starts with the needle again. “You’ll have this for a long time. Even when you’re old.”

“It’s not like I’m going to change my name.”

“We’re getting there,” Swan says, and then Terrell just watches the needle go in and out. John drifts closer, then away again; down by the river, he’s pulling down his pants enough to check Darnay’s work.

Terrell holds still. He thinks of Ruth, wondering about her reaction. It would almost be worth it to see what she’d do, hear the things she’d say. She might just say she’s disappointed, close the door to her room, but she might really go off. Ruth will not see it, though—their bathroom door locks, they wear bathrobes, they always knock before entering a room. She does not want him to see her uncovered, so she exaggerates his need for privacy. She could be covered with tattoos, pierced with hoops, branded all over her body and he would not know.

Now Terrell has the needle, working on Swan, slowly pricking the curves of the S. He wonders what Swan is thinking, with that condom in his pocket. Ruth gives Terrell condoms, just leaves them in his sock drawer without saying a thing. He suspects she counts them sometimes, when he isn’t there; their number never changes—except for the one he tried on, to see how it worked, if it would fit—and he doesn’t know if that makes her worry more or less.

“Better hurry up,” Darnay’s saying. “Don’t want Swan to be late for his date.”

“You’ll mess it up if you hurry,” Swan says.

“We’re done,” Terrell says.

Hitching up their pants, they squint at the TastyKake clock above. They have twenty minutes to get there, wherever they’re going. Terrell drops the needle in the middle of the pile of empty ink refills and matchbooks, lights the whole thing. The boys walk beneath the overpass, past faded spraypaint, tired old tags, past the old man; he’s now pretending to sleep, with his head propped on his bicycle’s tire, one long arm wrapped inside the frame. John throws a stone, just misses him. They laugh. The old man shifts a little; his eyes don’t open enough to show.

The four boys climb a small hill, onto a level field of grass, where men stand in every shadow, lean against every tree, whistling and sending hand signals. They talk low, calling each other Negro if one ventures from tree to tree. The dealers have to stay put, hold their spots; some days the boys run errands for them—going to buy a cheesesteak or a soda can mean five dollars, even ten. Today there’s no time.

Terrell feels the tattoo, rubbing beneath his clothes; he hopes the ink is dry, and the blood, that they won’t stain his underwear. He follows Darnay across the road, onto the wide sidewalk in front of the museum, the wide stone steps. Terrell pretends not to notice the man sitting there; he tries to keep walking smooth and easy; he holds the keys in his fist, tight on their string around his neck, so they won’t make a sound. It’s the man he met in the museum, the week before, the one who started the whole idea of testing your friends. The man sits twenty feet up the steps with his shirt off, wearing dark glasses that hide his eyes. It’s impossible to say where he’s looking. If he sees Terrell, he doesn’t do anything about it.

The boys take the path around the side, past the statue with shells for eyes, beyond the steps, beyond where the man can see. Terrell looks back, once. No one is following. He feels his friends around him. They hardly speak as they head down toward Boathouse Row, where the white boys from the private schools are practicing for the crew season.

“This way,” Darnay says, as if they should have known to turn. He’s the only one who knows where they’re going.

They cross Kelly Drive and follow a smaller road, into Fairmount Park, trees on every side. Terrell is nervous, and he doesn’t have to do a thing. Not today, he doesn’t. He can’t think of what he’d want to be the champion of, and that bothers him. Swan walks to one side; he doesn’t look nervous, but he doesn’t seem excited, either. He was the only one who would admit he hadn’t done it before—no one doubted Darnay, and no one believed John, but they only needed one person for the test, anyway.

Walking faster in the sun, they take their time through the shadows. Single file, then abreast, still not speaking. They all wear unlaced hightops, and they hardly lift their feet, sliding them to keep their shoes on. The four of them move with a slithering sound.

“It’s simple,” John says. “You just stick it in and move around some.”

“I’ll remember that,” Swan says, and they all laugh, not sure why.

“Your test is next,” Terrell says to John. “Don’t forget that.”

A car rolls by, moving slowly, its windows tinted black. Old mansions show through spaces in the trees and are hidden again. They see baseball fields, the reservoir, basketball courts.

“Play some hoops later, probably,” John says, shooting an imaginary ball. He has a court on his driveway, but his mother doesn’t like them to play there. She always watches, frowning, from the kitchen window.

“How far we going?” John says.

“She gave me directions,” Darnay says. He leads them off the road, onto a narrow path, under the trees. Single-file, the boys kick bottles and cans from underfoot.

“People always finding dead bodies in here,” Terrell says.

Heat is caught in the bushes, thick in the leaves. Swan sneezes, then sneezes again. Bugs wheel around Terrell’s head, mosquitoes fill his ears.

“Who is she?” John says. “What’s her name?”

“You don’t know her,” Darnay says. “She’s older than us, friend of my cousin. Name’s Lakeesha.” He stops walking, then, and turns around. He points at Swan. “You go wait by that dead tree. On this side so we can see you. She’ll come.”

“Good luck,” Terrell says, and no one laughs like he expected. Their faces are serious.

The three of them watch Swan walk away, and then they climb into the branches of trees—Darnay in one, Terrell and John in another—so they’ll have a good view and won’t be seen. Terrell hears a car, far away. There’s no one around. The palm of his hand smells like metal, from holding the keys. Below, Swan does not look in their direction; he just stands in a spot of sunlight, waiting; he doesn’t sit down or lean against the tree. Clouds slide by, close overhead; the shadows they cast are no cooler than the sun. Swan didn’t ask why they had to watch, since that was both obvious and complicated. He looks smaller now than he does up close. More like a boy. Terrell thinks he must look that way, himself, from a distance.

She comes from the other direction. Lakeesha. Wearing a baseball cap—it’s too far to tell what team—and she’s at least as tall as Swan. She says something to him, and he says something back. Turning a circle, she tries to tell if anyone is around; she doesn’t see them. She’s wearing a backpack that looks like a teddy bear, its legs and arms sticking out.

Without warning, Swan starts taking off his clothes. His shoes and socks, his jersey, his shorts and his underwear. He’s standing there naked next to the girl and all she’s done is taken off her backpack and put it on the ground. The black ink blotches Swan’s hip. His ribs show. His dick is pointing at the trees, the sky.

Terrell thought they might have kissed or something, but there’s nothing like that. The girl pushes her shorts down; there’s a flash of white underwear inside them. She steps out of the shorts, then sits down on them. She doesn’t take off her shirt, her hat, or her sandals. When Swan sits down next to her, she touches his elbow and brings him around until he’s kneeling, facing her. Leaning back, using the backpack as a pillow, she pulls Swan down on top of her.

Terrell doesn’t wish he was in Swan’s place, though he no longer fears someone will come down the path, no longer worries about his balance. He does not wish he was anywhere else but here. Mosquitoes land on his legs, his face, and he does not slap at them. He can hear nothing but John’s breathing, and his own. The branch cuts his legs; when he shifts his weight, leaves quiver. He sits still again. Behind him, pale and motionless, John hisses to move left, that he can’t see. Close by, Darnay just smiles, his teeth still faintly blue.

It’s too far to see much—only the smooth skin running down from her waist, over her hips, the thin curve of her thigh. Her hands are down between their legs, and Swan’s are on either side of her, holding his chest above hers. His head is turned the other direction—away from her, away from the trees. His bare ass rises up in the air. The girl slaps at it and says something, her mouth close to his ear. She bends her knees, sandals flat on the ground, and his ass comes up again. His legs are stretched out, the light soles of his feet showing. Her hat falls off, her arms stretched lazily to the side; she seems to laugh as she helps Swan again, as they struggle together.

When they’re done, they sit next to, not facing, each other. Their mouths are not moving. Swan puts his shoes on barefoot, his socks in his hand. Lakeesha stands and pulls up her shorts in one quick motion. The teddy bear is already on her back. She walks away from Swan as he starts for the trees, stumbling, his shirt halfway over his head.