A Ship Made of Paper

ofhis initial goals.In law school, Daniel envisioned himself practicing some kind ofpublic service law, though exactly what kind constantly shifted.Children’s rights.Civil rights.

Environmental law.Something that could make the world a little better.

And in order to practice that sort oflaw he had to be in a major city, New York, Washington.His first job out oflaw school was with the doomed Lawyers’Immigrant Defense Society, which lost its funding six months later.From there he went to a private law firm, with its share ofcorporate clients but with a reputation for doing interesting pro bono work—one of the partners had a son in prison in Malaysia on trumped-up drug charges and it resulted in the inflammation ofthe entire firm’s conscience.

“My client deserves some consideration here, Your Honor,”Daniel says softly, indicating with his tone that he’s ready to deal.Lulu would be happy with Schmidt’s insurance company covering her emergency room bills and maybe coming up with ten or fifteen grand for her pain and suffering.

“All this for a few measly bucks?”Hoffstetter shakes his head.“How the mighty have fallen.”

Paisley speaks from the depths ofhis chair.“We’re willing to pay her initial medical costs, Judge.”

“Let’s not encourage her, Monty.She’ll be throwing herselfin front ofcars and diving into empty swimming pools ifwe go along with her little scheme here.”

“Your Honor—”

“Mr.Emerson, I really did expect better things from you.”

But Daniel persists.He knows he’s getting whipsawed by Paisley and Hoffstetter, but in a few minutes he’s able to go back to the courtroom and tell Rebecca Stefanelli that the other side is willing to settle for med-ical expenses plus ten thousand dollars, and she is so thrilled that she hugs him excitedly and kisses him first on the ear and then on the eye.And a few minutes after that, he’s in his car, driving through a cold, pelting rain, on his way north to Leyden, for his next appointment.The mountains on the west side ofthe river are obscured by mist.A stiffwind comes from the northwest;the trees barely sway, they just bend and stay that way.

Daniel is on his way to his office, where he needs to gather some papers before going to his next appointment.He stops at a gas station a couple miles outside ofLeyden.It’s an Exxon station that used to be run by the father ofone ofDaniel’s boyhood friends and is now owned by a couple ofEgyptian brothers.He pumps a tank ofgas into his car and then goes in to get a cup ofcoffee and a shrink-wrapped bagel.The rain lashes the windows ofthe station.There is a display ofheavily scented carved wooden red roses, drenched in some artificial, vaguely roselike scent; the smell mingles with the smells ofthe coffee machine, the wax on the linoleum floor, and the residual aroma ofgasoline.Both ofthe brothers are behind the counter, heavy men in their thirties, with rough skin, dark, wavy hair, and short-sleeved shirts.

Even when his friend’s father owned this station, it was one ofthe few spots in the area where boys and men could find pornographic magazines.

In the past, the magazines had names likeChic,andCheri.Now, the mag-azines are not only more numerous, but their names are more overt, even a little nutty.Juggs,andBeaver,are next toAss TimeandPink andTight.And though there are precious few black people who live in Leyden, this store stocks a wide range ofAfrican-American porn magazines.

Daniel has been eyeing the black porn covers for quite some time, though he has yet to muster the courage to even browse through what’s inside.But today, after getting his coffee and choosing his bagel, he saun-ters over to the magazine rack.He imagines the Egyptians will be watch-ing him, but it’s something he can live with.

Big Black Butt, Brown Sugar, Black Booty…There is something about the stridency ofthese titles that strikes a reluctantly responsive chord in Daniel.He picks up one ofthe more benign titles— Sugar Mama—and opens it up.

He has never slept with a black woman, never seen a black woman undressed.In high school in the hills ofNew Hampshire, he had a crush on a black girl named Carol Johns.They kissed, she pressed her hand against the fly ofhis jeans.But when he tried to touch her breasts, she moved away and said,“Uh-uh,”and then the next day her brother, an am-bitious, bespectacled kid in a blazer, hit Daniel full force in the back of the head with his algebra book.

The women inside the magazine havenoms de porn,like Afreaka, Supremacy, Kenya, and Downtown Sugar Brown.Afreaka is photographed pulling herselfopen like someone showing an empty wallet.Downtown Sugar Brown has shaved, moist armpit skin that looks like cracked leather, long aqua fingernails, and a barbered crotch greased along the labia.She has hardworking hands, with dark, bunched skin at the knuck-les, a faded butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, long, pendulous breasts, with lusterless coronas.The stretch marks around her hips are like fork marks in brown butter.Daniel feels vaguely sick, reduced, helpless, yet in communion with some reptile selfthat has been waiting for him.He turns the page and Downtown Sugar Brown is joined by another woman—Cydney.They are on their hands and knees on an unmade bed, their long tongues touching.

Suddenly, a hand grabs his shoulder;he feels the scrape ofchin whiskers against his ear, and his head fills with the hoarse, aggressive whisper ofhis assailant.“Whatcha got there, you horny sonofabitch? Going for the dark side?”

It’s Derek Pabst, one ofthe four cops on the Leyden Police Department.Derek and Daniel have been friends since the first grade.Derek was a sturdy kid with an oversized head and the defiant, wayward grin of a boy with a great many siblings and overworked parents.He never did his homework, he rarely passed a test, yet the teachers quietly promoted him at the end ofevery year, with the tacit understanding that his life was hard and that school was finally so unimportant to him that they should all be grateful he was attending at all.He had a wild streak that mes-merized Daniel.Through the course oftheir boyhood, through school days and summers, they were each other’s constant companions.They climbed trees, forded rivers, shot guns, kissed girls.As far as Derek was concerned, they were to this day best friends, though the persistence of their friendship has largely been Derek’s doing.When Daniel was sent off to boarding school, Derek wrote him letters and hitchhiked the hundred miles to sleep on the floor ofDaniel’s dormitory room.When Daniel fi-nally moved back to Leyden, Derek was there to meet the van, with a picnic cooler full ofbeer, another filled with sandwiches, and three ofhis own children to help unpack the truck.

Feeling exposed and ridiculous, Daniel puts the magazine back in the rack and goes to the counter to pay for the gasoline, the coffee, and the bagel.“Will zat be ull?”the Egyptian asks, as ifchallenging Daniel to pur-chase one ofthe magazines.

“That’s it for me,”says Daniel, forcing his voice to sound cheerful.

”How are you, Eddie?”Derek asks.He slaps a five-dollar bill onto the counter.“Let me have a pack ofCamel Lights.”He accepts the pack of cigarettes, the few pieces ofchange.Eddie acts frightened ofDerek, dis-playing the almost ritualized respect ofa man who has been warned.

Derek eagerly tears the pack open, lights up.“Since Stephanie got the new furniture delivered, she won’t let me smoke in the house,”he says, smoke streaming out ofhis large, dark nostrils.

Daniel and Derek stand beneath the eaves ofthe gas station and watch the pelting rain.

“How’s Stephanie doing?”Daniel asks.

”She’s okay.She says she’s going to give Kate a call, put together a dinner or something.”

Daniel’s heart sinks.He knows Kate will decline Stephanie’s invitation, he only hopes she does it without being too blunt.Hurting Stephanie’s feelings will only hurt Derek’s.

“The kids could play, too,”Derek adds.He takes another long drag of his cigarette.“How’s Kate doing?”

“Hanging in there.”

“You really scored on that one,”Derek says.“She’s a great lady.She’s so pretty, and so fucking smart.You know what I like about her? Her laugh.She’s got a great laugh.I look for that, you know.It’s a sign.”

Daniel raises his to-go cup, shrugs.“I’m sort ofrunning late.”It sounds too abrupt to Daniel, and so he extends the excuse.“I’m going over to Eight Chimneys, finally getting to wet my beak in some ofthat river gen-try cash-o- rama.”He grins, rubs his thumb against his first two fingers.

But Derek, fully aware that money doesn’t mean very much to Daniel, acts as ifDaniel hasn’t said a thing.“I had a runaway kid this morning,”Derek says.“At large and dangerous.I picked him up at the train station.”

“Whose kid?”

“One ofthe boys from Star ofBethlehem.I swear, the people running that place don’t have the slightest fucking idea what they’re doing.

They keep trying torespectthose boys, orrehabilitatethem, and mean-while it’s a fucking jungle, with some ofthe worst juvenile offenders in the state, with nothing to keep