Whale

José peddles fast on a beat-up ten-speed. He glides over a concrete walking path that winds through a treeless park, its grass trampled, brittle and yellow. He comes to the river’s edge and stops the bike. He looks across the water, to the gaping hole in the New York City skyline, the two tall buildings that once filled the space removed like excised molars. He remembers the day they were extracted, the phone call from his girlfriend, her last words engulfed in fear.

A flash of movement in the river catches his eye. He stares as the water begins to roil and swirl: something large rises from the depths. In fact, it’s gigantic, long and straight, brown, thick, and hissing. It breaks free from the water and hangs in the early evening air, defying gravity, owning the space. Then it crashes back into the river. It stuns José into excitement. He feels alive and scared. He bikes even faster on the way home.

“It was a whale.”

Reggie ignores José. He grabs a Snickers from the freezer, fondles it, then sticks it back in. “Not cold enough,” he says, disappointed.

He and José share a two-bedroom apartment in Jersey City. They both commute to Manhattan for work: Reggie to teach English to sixth graders, José to tend bar in the West Village. They met at a bereavement group. José was mourning the loss of his girlfriend, Reggie his boyfriend. They moved in together not long after.

“I’m telling you, it was a whale. In the Hudson River.”

Reggie brushes by. The kitchen is long and narrow. The apartment is long and narrow. It’s a railroad. The kitchen is in the middle. The bathroom is next to the kitchen. Reggie’s room is on one end, closest to the bathroom. José’s room is on the other end, closest to the kitchen.

“It wasn’t a whale.”

“Then what was it?” José holds his hands up and apart. “It was a fish, and it was huge.”

He follows Reggie into his room. There’s a thick leather couch against a wall, directly under a window that looks onto the street. A waterbed adorned with a blue velvet comforter rests against the other wall. A La-Z-Boy sits in between, in front of a wide-screen television. The apartment is on the second floor of a three-story brownstone. José’s room is nicer than Reggie’s. It’s bigger, and the window provides views of a pocket park softened by the glow of streetlights.

Reggie plops into the La-Z-Boy and grabs the remote. He switches on the television. José walks and stands in front. Reggie clicks through him.

“Move.”

José squirms, as if rays from the remote are stinging him.

“I swear on my mother’s life, I saw a whale.”

“You hate your mother.”

“Why would I lie?”

“Because you are delusional and in need of attention. You’re like my students.”

“I’m not lying,” José says, raising his voice.

“Okay, I believe you. Now move.”

José sets his jaw. “A whale,” he says defiantly. I saw it and you didn’t.”

“Whatever,” Reggie flips his hand. “Go get me a Snickers.”

José does not sleep well. He wakes early in the morning and shuffles to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Reggie is up, dressed for work, munching on a Twix bar. “What time you go in today?” he asks.

“What day is it?” José responds groggily.

“Monday.”

“I’m off.”

Reggie swallows the rest of the Twix and rubs his hands together, flicking bits of chocolate and crumbs on the hardwood floor. “Then you can do errands. I left envelopes for the electric and phone bills on the table. Get some stamps and mail them. Plus, pick up some toilet paper. We’re down to one roll.”

José raises his hand to his forehead in mock salute.

“And I need you to go pick up my DVD player. I already paid for the repair.”

“Where’s the shop?”

“Right near the park, next to the river.”

José rubs hard under his eyes, the force whitening his olive-brown skin. It’s his father’s color. His mother being white as a ghost, a red-haired Irish woman. José has her eyes, though. Ice blue. Everything else is his dad’s.

“What are you teaching today?”

“Still exploring the wonderful world of Johnny Tremain,” Reggie answers with sarcasm. “Today we read the part where Johnny’s hand gets mangled together like a crab by molten silver. I doubt they’ll get the metaphor—that America, before the Revolution, is like Johnny’s hand: enslaved, crippled, smothered by British rule.”

José stops rubbing his eyes and smiles.

“I thought the wounded hand was a punishment for masturbatory fantasies.”

“You would think that.”

“Makes more sense,” José continues. “All writing is sexually based. Whoever wrote Johnny Tremain was more interested in whacking off than the American Revolution.”

“That’s all you’re interested in.” Reggie frowns. “If you want to keep your hand, mail the letters, buy the toilet paper, and get the DVD.”

José looks at his right hand and cups it together. Then opens it and reaches for a glass to fill with water and quench his thirst.

“We’re closed. Come back in an hour.”

José shields his eyes from the overhead sun and peers into the glass door separating him from a small, oily man with blood-red eyes. It’s pitch dark in the store, with no windows other than the door that faces into an alley.

“I need to pick up a DVD player. It’s supposed to be ready. Reggie Reynolds.”

The man is spectral, wafting in and out of the scant light.

“I don’t care. Come back later. One hour.”

José looks at his watch. It’s noon. He decides to get lunch while he waits. He picks up an egg salad on rye and a Diet Coke and goes a few blocks to a small park that juts out into the river. It’s newly built, a landfill, and has a gazebo at the end and several stations for fishermen. He finds a seat on a bench next to an old man wearing a felt fedora and gray linen suit. He eats his lunch in silence and then leans his head back to take in some sun.

“Nice day.”

José turns to the old man. “Yes, it is.”

“But it might storm later.”

José peers up at the sky. “I don’t see a cloud anywhere.”

“Don’t matter,” the old man says with a knowing laugh. “When storms come, they come fast and furious.”

José lowers his gaze to the river. It’s flat and calm. A garbage scowl moves against the current, toward Staten Island.

“You live around here?” the old man asks.

“Just a few blocks away. You?”

“Jersey City. Born here. Worked here. Retired here. And will be buried here.”

José finishes his coke.

“I’ve been here a year.”

“Like it?”

“It’s nice.”

“Oh yeah.” The old man breathes. “Real nice. You can have it over there.” He points to Manhattan. “It’s way too busy for my taste. Shame what happened. I was sitting right here, on this very bench. Saw the whole thing.”

José winces. Remembers where he was that day, when he learned his girlfriend was trapped inside. “You wouldn’t guess what I saw last night,” he says, changing the subject. “I was riding my bike by the river and saw a whale. It jumped right out of the water. I’m not kidding.”

“Was it big?”

“Huge. Brown as your shoes.”

“I’ll be damned. I know they’re big fish in there. I saw a fin once, you know, a shark fin, come right up out of the water and cruise for a good ten minutes. It was right around when that shark movie came out.”

“Jaws.”

“Right, Jaws. That’s when I saw my fin. No one believed me. They all say I had ‘Jaws fever.’ Never saw it again.”

“Probably retired to Florida,” José jokes. He stands and stretches. “Nice talking to you. Hope you see that fin again.”

“Maybe I’ll see your whale. They’re big fish out there. No one thinks so, but I do. There’s sharks and whales and who knows what else in that river. You just got to look.”

José is at the kitchen table when Reggie walks in.

“How was class?”

Reggie gets a Reese’s from the freezer and sits down in a chair next to José.

“Terrible. A girl asked me why there are no more silversmiths like Johnny Tremain. Said it sounded like a cool job.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said the mechanisms of technology have made utilitarian artisans obsolete.”

“How did that go over?”

“Mostly glazed looks. But then Timmy Higgins, the same kid who told me Britney Spears stole his copy of Johnny Tremain, said that his grandfather was a typesetter. And that he lost his job when computers came along. Then we talked about other jobs that have been lost over the years. Someone said her mom got replaced at Wal-Mart because they have a machine that checks people out.”

“Sounds like a good discussion.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“No one volunteered any insights into Johnny Tremain’s sexuality?”

“No, but I was thinking about something. You know, at the end of the book, Tremain’s hand finally opens up.”

“I think I remember.”

“It’s only scar tissue keeping his fingers together. A doctor cuts them apart, and then Johnny can use his hand. Of course, he can’t be a smith again. But he can shoot a gun for the Revolution. Even then they were setting the tone for mechanization. Johnny can’t make a bowl, but he can pull a rifle trigger. And look at us now. We’re a people of guns and weapons, not pots and pans.”

“You’re not bad a guy, Reggie. But you need a hobby.”

José stands and heads out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

“To take a ride.”

“Say ‘hi’ from me to your whale.”

He ignores Reggie’s taunt.

José peddles fast. It’s dark. The storm is coming. Racing up the Jersey coast. Sucking salt into its eye. It’s all clouds. Black and heavy. Moving. The wind comes first. Smacks José in the face. Wobbles his bike. He hits the park and then onto the concrete path. The tick, tick, tick, tick of his tires drowned out by the whistling gusts. Sparks of lightning scar the sky. Too far away to hear thunder. But it’s there. He whips the bike forward, side-to-side, like a slalom skier. The river is kicking up. A thousand white caps. Like miniature shark fins.

José stares into the water. Bringing it into focus. The whale is there. Amidst the white caps. He knows it. Can feel it. He bikes harder. Into the teeth of the wind. Bits of rain, just drops, sporadic, land on his forearms, run down his cheeks. They pick up, it starts coming down in sheets. Pelting. Cooling. Soaking. Clinging his clothes to his body. Like a tattoo. But still, he looks in the water. Riding. Looking for the flat swath. The still water. The whale.

A thunder cap echoes. Its partner, lightning, brightens the dark. The rain blinds him. He rips off his helmet and hurls it behind him. Gulps air. Grips his hands tight on the bike. Fuses them to the metal. Silver handles. No longer hands. Just bike and body and metal and skin and rain and clothes and air and sea and wind and rain.

A loud clap deafens him. It’s like being next to an amp at a heavy metal concert. He eases up on his pedaling. Coasts. Rises up. Stretches. The muscles in the back, clenched tight in the cold rain, release. He’s numb with the pleasure. And then, to his right, movement, a blinding flash of lightning that lifts him from the bike. He’s airborne, defying gravity, and then slowly, as if descending a spiral staircase rung by rung, he lands in the river, spraying salt and water before finally coming eye to eye with his whale.