'So how come the freaks…?'
'The moon's for seekers, schoolboy. Some it pulls strong, some it pulls wrong.
I knew there was water out there. Rikers Island stands just to the west of the airport. Nice name for a jail. I remembered hearing the water from my cell window. Emerson must have done time, must have been there too. He'd know.
The chain link fence made a ninety degree left turn. I looked up at the street sign. Nineteenth Avenue.
Big white metal panel on the fence, red and black letters: NO TRESPASSING.
'In there,' I told Clarence, pointing.
The bottom of the fence had been pulled loose. Clarence held it up like a blanket off the ground. I slid through on my belly. He lay on his back, bench-pressed the fence off his chest, used his legs to push him under.
The jungle was thick on the other side. A clear path to the water, well worn.
Dampness muffled the airport sounds. Behind us, lighted houses, parked cars. Ahead, black water. I knew its name from the maps I'd read in jail— Bowery Bay.
The path disappeared. The undergrowth was belt high, cuppy ground below pulled at my feet. We pushed our way through, reached the edge. Thick wooden posts stood upright between cracked slabs of concrete. Scuffling noises, scratchy sounds. Rats.
'I don't like it here, mahn.'
The Rock was straight ahead. To our left, the Hazen Street Bridge. The one that carried busloads of humanity every Visiting Day, some hearts full of pain, some mouths full of dope, to be exchanged with that first kiss, contraband-sweet.
We walked to the edge. Looked down. I found a fist-sized stone. Tossed it in. Listened for the sound.
'Deep water.' Clarence.
'Deep enough,' I said, watching the softly lapping current. Remembering how cons used to study the tide tables like it was the Bible. Rikers Island wasn't Alcatraz— plenty of guys had made it outside the wire, gone into the water and lived to tell about it, usually Upstate.
'This is it,' I said to Clarence. 'This is where he dumped the baby's body. Derrick's in there.'
Clarence looked out into the night. His young man's voice fluttered in the dark mist. 'No, mahn. I don't think so. I think maybe the devil has him.'
31
My Plymouth was waiting in the side yard of Jacques's joint.
'You'll tell him?' I asked Clarence.
'Don't you want…?'
'Tell Jacques, I'll be around, give him a call.'
His mahogany face was set, eyes troubled.
'It's okay,' I said. 'All over now. We found the truth— if the baby's not in the water, he's in the ground.'
'It wasn't the baby's body the old woman wanted, mahn.'
'It's all that's left.'
'No, my friend, there's one thing left.'
'Better ask Jacques about that first.'
'Do you know we love children, mahn? Our people?'
'Yes.'
'My mother, she was handy with the switch, mahn. A strong woman.' His pale tracker's eyes held mine. 'And Mother, she had her men friends too. But never, never once, mahn, I tell you, would any of them ever raise a hand to me— it would be worth his life. I started this'— waving his hand panoramically in front of him, the hand so quick to hold an automatic or a straight razor— 'for her, mahn. For the money. She is gone now. Every year, on the day of her birth, I honor her.'
I sat quietly in the car seat, waiting for the rest The bitch who raised me had no honor. But she had plenty of hotel rooms. Attica, Auburn, Dannemora…
'What would make a woman do that, mahn? Let a man kill her baby in front of her eyes?'
'The answers don't change things.'
'What would be justice, then, mahn? So the baby may sleep in peace?'
I shrugged. He was such a young man.
32
I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into my home country. A small truck rumbled ahead of me, the early sun orange against its quilted aluminum sides. When it parked, the sides would open into a portable coffee shop, serving the mass of humans who work the courthouse district. Morning brings citizens to the street, nervously plucking at the daylight like a protective coat, safe from the vampires for another day. Their city, they tell themselves. Night comes, and they give it back.
I live under the darkness, where it's safe. Safe from things so secret that they have no name. Under the darkness— it's not territory you occupy— you take it with you. It goes where I go— where I've been. The orphanage. Reform school. Prison. Even now.
