A Ship Made of Paper

“Depends who you are,”she said softly, because it depressed her to have to talk about all ofthe instances ofprejudice, the sheer rudeness that entered into practically every day ofher life.Iris did not care to dis-cuss the details ofher life as part ofthe long and terrible story ofRace inAmerica—she thought she deserved both more and less than to be counted among the victims ofracism.Yet there was something in Daniel’s voice when he called Leyden“sweet”that made her want to bring him up short.She wanted Daniel to know thathereis where she was forced to sit for fifteen minutes before anyone came to take her or-der, andhereis where she had to show three pieces ofidentification be-fore they’d take her seventeen-dollar check, andhereis where she would never buy a Danish backpack ifher life depended upon it because the bitch who owned the store had rubbed the top ofNelson’s head, and then whispered to a friend,It’s supposed to be good luck.

Daniel has not been paying attention to what Susan is saying, and when he forces himself to focus on her, widening his eyes in an approx-imation ofinterest, his attention is seized by the sight ofKate winding her way through the Bistro on her way to his table.Her friend and edi-tor Lorraine DelVecchio follows behind her.Both women wear sum-mery black dresses, with spaghetti straps, and both women carry snifters ofcognac.Without any fanfare, Kate sits in the empty chair closest to Daniel, letting her breath out with a little sigh and allowing her shoulder to graze his for a moment.Lorraine, however, is left standing.

Nervously, his voice booming, Daniel introduces Lorraine and Susan, but Susan’s energy is turned onto Kate.“I was just giving your stupid man here a piece ofmy mind,”Susan says.

“Well, you have to be careful,”Kate says.“Daniel’s already oftwo minds about most things, and now ifyou’ve given him a piece ofyours, that might be more mind than he can handle.”

Daniel feels a nostalgic twinge ofgratitude toward Kate, for coming to his defense without seeming to, and for being so quick offthe dime: her playful caste ofmind, which was sometimes, during their time to-gether, numbing and de-eroticizing, turns out to be one ofthe things he misses most about her.

“I saw you onTV,”Daniel says.

Kate makes a little yelp ofdismay, covers her face, but spreads her fingers so she can peek out at him.

“Wasn’t shefabulous?”Lorraine says, pronouncing it so as to leave little doubt that she isn’t the sort ofperson who normally says“fabulous.”

“You were great,”Daniel says.“I loved the crack about cleaning your house.”

“That show goes on so late, I was sort ofhoping no one would see it.”

“And she lookedfantastic,”Lorraine says, again with comic, distancing emphasis.

“You really thought I was okay?”Kate says to Daniel.“That means a lot, coming from you.”She reaches for his hand, pats it as ifcomforting him.Her touch is as warm as breath.Her perfume is a mixture ofmusk and orange.The lines around her eyes have deepened.She is wearing a delicate little cross that has halfdisappeared into her cleavage.“I didn’t even want to be home when they aired it.Lorraine’s here to distract me.”

Lorraine notices an empty chair at a nearby table, but as soon as she makes a move to retrieve it the doors to the Bistro fly open and three men, or boys, charge in, one ofthem holding a handgun and the other two carrying rifles.Their faces are covered by rubber Halloween masks: Frankenstein, Dracula, and Mickey Mouse.Frankenstein, who has the handgun, leaps onto the little stage behind the bar and holds a gun to the singer’s head.Dracula and Mickey Mouse push their way into the room, waving their rifles back and forth, shouting,“On the floor, on the floor, get your sorry asses on the motherfucking floor.”And even though the Bistro’s customers are plunged into a collective terror, it takes several long moments for any ofthem to comply.

Daniel and his party lie upon the floor.He and Kate both lie facedown, chins resting on left forearms to keep mouth and nose offthe boozy grime, and their right arms reaching toward each other, until their fingers touch.

“Don’t worry,”Daniel whispers.

Kate doesn’t make a sound, but she mimes the word“fuck.”

What was once a raucous crowd ofnightlife revelers is now fifty-eight extremely quiet men and women, all ofthem on the sticky floor, except for Doris, who remains standing behind the bar.Her boyfriend is wide-eyed, his face drained ofcolor, he is a corpse with a guitar.He remains in his folding chair, with a gun to his head, held by a robber disguised as Frankenstein.Sometime during the transition ofthis being a room full of drinkers to this being a room full ofpeople lying flat on the ground, someone has told Doris to open up the cash register and now she is hand-ing its contents to Frankenstein, who looks weirdly attenuated and grace-ful, reaching toward her to receive his bounty while keeping his gun pressed against her boyfriend’s temple.When he has the money, Dracula comes over and takes it from him, and drops it in a mesh laundry bag, at which point Frankenstein yanks the wires ofthe bar phone out ofthe wall.He grabs the singer by the back ofthe shirt, lifts him out ofthe chair.

Mickey and Dracula go from person to person, collecting cash, credit cards, cell phones, keys, watches, and jewelry.Mickey Mouse stands over them, crouching, to collect their worldly goods;Daniel, despite having told himself to do nothing to antagonize him, cannot resist the impulse to peer through the eyeholes in the masks, to somehow make contact with the human eyes within:shiny brown eyes, young, arrogant, glitter-ing with energy.He drops his wallet and forty dollars in cash into the laundry bag, which tops it off.Mickey pulls the drawstring, ties it in a knot, and then slides the unshapely sack across the floor, toward the bar, where Frankenstein picks it up.Dracula has another laundry bag under his shirt, he pulls it out and holds it open in front ofKate.She is slow to empty her purse into it, and he prods her with the greasy barrel ofhis rifle—it stencils a little broken O on her skin, and she utters a sound of distress, more from surprise than anything else.

“All right,”Daniel says, in a level, almost paternal voice.“We’re all going to be real, real careful here.Okay?”He doesn’t want to make a re-assuring gesture with his hand, or any gesture, but he slightly widens his eyes, as ifto say,Listen to me, I know what you’re going through.

“Fuck you,”Dracula replies, his voice muffled behind rubber.Eventually, with everything ofvalue collected—even tie pins, cufflinks, and ciga-rette lighters—the three masked men leave.No one has tried to be heroic.

Even as those who have been told to lie down begin to get to their feet, the Bistro remains fearfully silent, except for the sounds offeet and furniture scraping on the floor.Kate has put her arm around Lorraine, who is sobbing softly, and Daniel, who now that the crisis has passed feels light-headed, al-most giddy with relief, stands next to Kate, pats her shoulder reassuringly.

“It was those boys, wasn’t it,”Susan Ferguson says.“The ones who ran away during the storm.I heard they were still in the area, taking things, camping in the woods, or in empty houses.It was them.”

Kate nods slowly, her lips pursed.“I think you’re exactly right,”she says.

”Oh, we don’t know that,”Daniel says.“We don’t know anything.”

His voice is completely wrong, he sounds like he is trying to jolly them out oftheir thoughts.

Marcia Harnack, a lawyer who specializes in real estate, is standing nearby and has heard their conversation.“That’s what I was thinking, all through it,”she says.She is a woman with the body ofa strong man and the voice ofa shy little girl;she clasps her hands when she speaks, as if asking for forgiveness for being too large.“Star ofBethlehem.It’s what I thought when they first came in.”

“Why did you think that?”Daniel asks.

”They were definitely black,”says George Schwab, short, hard, and hairless, a little seersucker bomb in his blue-and-white suit.He has been selling offfive-acre parcels ofhis family’s old orchards, and Marcia has been helping him structure the deals.

“And how’d you figure that?”asks Daniel.

”I saw their skin, that’s how,”says George.He rises up on the toes of his tasseled loafers and clenches his small fists, as ifa lightning bolt of fury has just gone through him.“We were almost slaughtered like a bunch ofcattle in here.”

“You didn’t see their skin, George,”Daniel says.“No one did.”

“Don’t tell me what I saw and didn’t see,”George says, his voice getting higher, as ifit, too, had toes to rise upon.“You’ve got your own agenda.”

By this he clearly means Iris, and Daniel’s attachment to her, but Daniel has no choice but to ignore it.By now, two ofthe customers whose cell phones have been overlooked are calling the police;others join in the speculation and argument.

“They’re the ones who robbed the Goulianos house,”Fortune Pryor says.

”They completely trashed that sweet little house where Esther Rothschild used to live,”LibbyYoung says.

“This is really fucked up,”Daniel says.He feels like standing on a chair and exhorting the lot ofthem.His neighbors have become a dangerous collective, drunk on its own bad ideas.“This is really really really fucked up,”he