Pariah

titles Karl had yearned to see on the marquees of the Deuce, but he’d kept that to himself. Big Manfred wouldn’t have seen the humor. The same went for “buck fever,” which sounded like gay porn. Big Manfred definitely wouldn’t have found that the least bit amusing. Guns. Bullets. A scope. The truth is, Karl thought if you’re going to make a wish, why not just wish none of this had ever happened in the first place?

Dabney lofted another hunk into the crowd and it dropped between bodies. He clucked in disapproval, then turned away from the cornice, massaging his bicep, sweat spilling off him. Above, the sky was clear and bright and in other circumstances would be lovely to behold. Dabney lay on his back on the tarp and closed his eyes, shielding them with a large hand, wishing for rain. The clouds that roved the sky from time to time were a sadistic tease. Karl studied the older-but not old-man. He was still, in relative terms, beefy. When Dabney had shown up he’d weighed in at close to three hundred pounds so even now he looked formidable.

Karl’s attention drifted over to Dabney’s smokehouse. Was there still meat inside? Karl wondered if he should ask. Didn’t he deserve a second chance? Could he risk sneaking up when Dabney was asleep? No, that would be a bad idea. Lined up along the low wall on the southern side of the roof were Ruth’s flowerboxes. With seeds she’d collected from the last fresh vegetables-cucumbers, green peppers, peas, and tomatoes-she’d attempted to grow food for the building; a noble effort that never made it. Small spindly tendrils had poked out of the soil, but the lack of rain and the oppressive heat baked them before they’d blossomed.

Dabney rolled back onto his belly, then hoisted himself to his knees, crawled to the edge of the roof and looked straight down.

“You know how frustrating it is looking down there every day and seeing the top of my truck taunting me?” Dabney said. “Every day. Least those motherfuckers could do is turn it over, but they got no strength it seems. Just numbers. Turn it all the way over, onto its back like a turtle. Then I wouldn’t see it no more.”

Jutting out into the street at a forty-five degree angle languished the van Dabney had plowed into the building seven months earlier. Painted on the pale blue roof in black was the legend, DABNEY LOCKSMITH & ALARM, then smaller, SERVING ALL FIVE BOROUGHS SINCE 1979, followed by his phone number in really big purple numerals. The front end was crumpled, the small hood popped open, revealing a blackened engine block. The back doors hung open, jostled every few moments by figures that passed by or through them. No doubt sun-shy zombies squatted within.

“It mocks me. Reminds me I didn’t make it home.”

“Home is where the heart is,” Karl ventured.

“You say some stupid-ass nonsense, son,” Dabney said, but he was smiling.

“I know.”

“My van and that goddamn supermarket. Ain’t that a bitch?”

“Yup.”

Eddie and Dave, back when they’d been brawny, had hoisted Dabney from the roof of his van as the zombies groped for him. It was the first and last altruistic act either of them had committed, and even then, Eddie had needed lots of persuasion. “That nigger’ll just eat all our food,” he’d complained. “I mean look at him. He’s a fuckin’ house. He’ll probably rape all the women, even the old bitch. Niggers don’t care, man. Pussy is pussy to their kind.” The old “project your sin onto others and disparage them for it” routine. Talk about calling the kettle black. Ever since the rescue, Dabney was merely “that nigger on the roof,” as far as Eddie was concerned, though he’d never have the temerity to utter those words within earshot of Dabney, lest he end up pitched down to the congregation as a tasty morsel. Not that Karl would object. Eddie was every jock asshole that’d terrorized Karl over the years, all rolled into one.

He reminded Karl of his dear old papa.

Big Manfred was a sportsman.

Big Manfred was a bigot.

Big Manfred hated almost everything Karl held dear.

“I miss my music,” Karl squawked.

“Where’d that come from?” Dabney turned from his perch and looked at the slight young man. This normally placid little white boy was shivering with agitation, eyes popped wide and despairing. The right corner of his mouth was twitching.

“What kind of life is this? What are we doing with ourselves? We’re biding our time until we just shrivel up and die!” Karl’s voice was stretched almost as thin as his small body, but there was vitality in his anguish. He sprang up and, fists clenched at his sides, glared up at the sky. “What is this? What the fuck is this?” He waved his arms around, gesticulating at nothing and everything. “What? What? What is this? What is the point? What’s the fucking point?”

He began to hyperventilate.

Dabney rose and stepped toward him, unsure of what to do. Talk to him? Tackle him? Give him a hug? Karl’s face was pulled taut, like his skull was trying to escape its fragile prison of skin and muscle. Dabney reached out and Karl slapped away his hand, then punched Dabney in the mouth.

The force of the blow surprised them both.

Karl sidestepped Dabney and walked in measured, deliberate steps up the rise toward the edge. Dabney massaged his jaw and watched. He wasn’t mad at Karl. If anything, he was a bit spooked by the sudden change in his visitor. Karl stood right on the lip of the drop and stared straight ahead.

“Are you happy?” he asked the air in front of him. If the question was meant for Dabney, it didn’t sound that way. “I’m not.”

“No one’s happy, son. Listen, Karl, step away from there. I mean toward me. Back away from there. Not forward. Don’t jump.”

“Don’t jump.”

“Right. Don’t jump.”

“You ever see that old cop show, Dragnet? Or any old cop show, for that matter? There always was an episode where some kid would try LSD, or sometimes even just pot, and he’d be up on the roof of the local high school or church or wherever. He’d be some square from Central Casting’s notion of a hippie or beatnik. Or sometimes he or she would be ‘the good kid who’s fallen in with the bad crowd.’ And there this twenty-five-year-old high school student would be, saying things like, ‘I can fly, man. I can fly. I just know I can,’ and Joe Friday or some other stiff in a fedora and skinny tie would be trying to talk the kid down, but not off the roof. ‘Don’t do it, son, you’re having a bad trip.’ Yeah.

“I don’t want to jump. I don’t want to fall. My balance is fine. I used to play games like this as a kid. I’d pretend that I was way up high, only I’d be down on the sidewalk, walking along the thin edge of the curb. If a breeze came and unsettled my balance, if my footing got away from me and I dropped to the asphalt, in my mind I’d fallen into a bottomless chasm. There’s no breeze. I’m challenging God to knock me off this roof. Bring a wind. Sweep me away. I’m not worried. My dad always said ‘God is in the details,’ and I believe that. Because look at this world of ours. Seems like God’s missing the big picture, don’t you think?”

“I thought it was ‘The devil is in the details.’ ”

“No. That’s wrong. That’s a variation. What’s funny is that we’re not quite sure who to attribute the quote to. The consensus goes with Flaubert, but some say Michelangelo. Others go with the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, or Aby Warburg.”

“How come you know this shit?”

“It’s called retaining trivia. Maybe someone would be kind and call it knowledge, but it’s not. It’s trivia. It’s why I would have made a great ‘Lifeline’ on Millionaire. It’s why I kicked ass at Trivial Pursuit. I can throw facts at you and quotes and all kinds of shit. But it’s all meaningless.”

“It’s not meaningless.”

“Yeah, right. Keep telling yourself that. Every Sunday my dad dragged us all to church, but you know what? In spite of that, I still believe in God. They taught us that God made man in His image, and that makes perfect sense. Man is a petty, awful creature. So, from that I deduce God is the pettiest and most awful creature in the universe. We’re God Lite. Are we being punished or did God just get bored and come up with