Last Night
Crisp turns at the sound of a zipper: in the bathroom, Dante presses down on the top of the suitcase while Rodrigo, dripping sweat, forces the zipper all the way closed.
“All righty now,” Dante says, emerging from the bathroom. “Let’s get this show on the road.” He looks at Crisp and gestures toward the suitcase. “How about Princeton does a little bit of work?”
Crisp takes the extension handle, tilts the heavy case onto its pair of rear wheels, and drags it toward the apartment door. It has to weigh over two hundred pounds, maybe two fifty, with Jerome crammed inside. He tries not to think of that, tries not to think at all.
Dante detours into his bedroom and emerges moments later with his hair neatened, his hat in place, and Crisp’s Galaxy, which the dealer clearly thinks is his own, in one hand and the gun in the other. He drops the phone into his jacket pocket and shoves the gun into the back waistband of his pants. He tells Crisp, “You go first, and no funny moves. We got our eyes on you.”
Rodrigo flips the seven locks.
The door sways open, its squeal obscured by the pounding in Crisp’s ears.
What if, he begins to think, then forces himself to stop.
Don’t think. He pulls the suitcase.
Four flights feel like forty as he struggles to hang on to the handle while Rodrigo holds the bottom of the suitcase and they slide it down the crest of each step, trying not to let it jam on a stair. Dante follows, doling out advice about using the weight to “build up speed but not too much.” Crisp ignores him and wills himself not to drop his end of the heavy case.
Keep going, get outside, find a way to escape.
Only when they step into the rising sunlight do other people start to appear. A nurse in a lavender pantsuit decorated with repetitions of Dora the Explorer and her monkey. A middle-aged man in a shiny ill-fitting suit and Payless business shoes. A younger man walking bowlegged and pretending his sagging pants aren’t making his morning commute almost impossible. A harried mother carrying a baby, and her teenage daughter, who is clearly less than thrilled to be pushing a double stroller containing a pair of toddlers. Crisp and the girl flash looks of mutual irritation as they pass each other, she pushing a load, he pulling one. What does she think: That he’s on his way to school with a giant case of books accompanied by his two dads? He feels profoundly misunderstood, unseen—forgotten—and doesn’t respond. The way people avoid looking at Dante and Rodrigo as they strut along confirms his sense from earlier in the hall that no one would help him escape. They might even help his captors get him back.
Fuck you, New York City Housing Authority, for building apartments like living tombs that segregate a whole race of human beings.
And you too, America, for slavery and its cotton-picking aftermath. For the fibers that never leave your lungs when you breathe the free air that isn’t so free when your skin is black or half black or even just one drop black.
And you, NRA and Congress, for keeping the killing machine going with your lust for money and guns. For all this havoc down on the streets where you never, ever go.
And you, Mo Crespo, you, for…for breaking his mother’s heart…for not sticking around to show him how to do this…for making him swallow anger that erupts at the wrong times…for this…for everything.
Don’t think. Just pull.
Once they’re at the edge of the projects, Dante takes the lead and Rodrigo the rear, with Crisp walking between them rolling the suitcase. Anyone who is out at this hour is engaged in the industrious pursuit of trying to get somewhere, which works in their favor. Time for work, school, day care, the parole office, dumping bodies. Crisp’s stomach heaves bile into his throat. He swallows. Keeps pulling.
Twenty minutes into Dante’s chosen route the streets grow bleak and bleaker until they’re the only people in sight. Once they clear a decimated ball field they enter an end-of-the-world scene of tow pounds and dump sites and parking lots for shipping containers. When a rat zags across Crisp’s path he stops looking down and instead looks up: seagulls gliding in a blue sky. It’s shaping up to be a clear morning.
If he could only get home and tell his mother and grandparents how sorry he is for all the trouble he’s caused since Wednesday. Really, deeply sorry. If she still wants him to call Princeton, he’ll call Princeton. If that’s now off the table, he’ll find another way to live his life.
Don’t think. Just pull.
They turn off Columbia Street onto an unmarked road separating the Gowanus Bay from the Erie Basin.
“Hurry up,” Dante commands. He points to a rocky spot at the edge of the water. “There. Set it down.”
Crisp brings the suitcase to a rest.
“Unzip it.”
Rodrigo falls into a crouch and pulls the zipper until it yanks to a stop. He announces, “Stuck.”
Crisp can see that a slip of fabric from Jerome’s shirt is caught in the teeth of the zipper, but he doesn’t say anything, he stands back and watches Rodrigo struggle.
“Maybe we should push the whole thing in,” Rodrigo suggests.
Dante answers, “No.” Because the suitcase could lead back to Dante, which Crisp implicitly understands. Dante takes a switchblade from his jacket pocket and bends down to cut at the stuck fabric, pushing the knife in, sawing. When the zipper comes loose and he pulls out the knife, the blade is coated in blood.
“Look: Jerome got blood on my knife,” Dante says. “Fuck him.” He hands it to Rodrigo, who cleans the blade at the edge of the water and returns the knife spotless.
With the suitcase now open, Crisp glances at Jerome, a bruised and bloodied contortionist in death. Vomit bucks again and Crisp begins to gag.
“Put some rocks in his pockets and get him into the water, Rod,” Dante orders.
Rodrigo drags Jerome as far as he can before dropping him under the surface, and emerges soaking wet. He zips up the suitcase and this time drags it himself as the three make their way back into the neighborhood.
They turn off Columbia Street onto Lorraine, where stores are beginning to open. A semitoothless man at the newsstand waves to Dante and he waves back. At Golden Fingers Dominican Hairstyles, a bulky Latina in a minidress a size too small spots Dante through the window and rushes out the door.
“Alva, baby.” Dante opens his arms and offers his cheek for a kiss. Instead, she slaps him.
“Where you been?”
“Just flew in from Paris, France.” Glancing at the suitcase, trying to make her laugh, but she won’t have it. “What you doing open so early?”
“Nunna your goddamn business.”
“What’d I do?”
“Shana got a fever—me and her up all night long.”
Dante’s expression sobers. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I ain’t no doctor! My mama got her now, says her fever comin’ down. You gonna check in on her?”
“You know I am.”
“You bring her some ice cream.”
“I will.”
“Chocolate chocolate chip.”
Dante nods.
“Why Rodrigo’s all wet?”
“Dude pissed his pants.”
“My ass.” Alva cracks a smile. She studies his hair and reaches to nudge an errant strand back into place. He runs a palm over her rear and Crisp thinks, This is it, this is when I should bolt, knowing that he’s running out of time. “Chocolate chocolate chip,” she reminds Dante.
“Rod!” he shouts. “You go in there and see if they got any!”
Rodrigo makes a show of entering the grocery store. Alva goes back inside, igniting a series of bells as the salon door falls shut. As soon as she’s out of sight, Rodrigo returns to the sidewalk.
Dante starts walking again and Rodrigo and Crisp follow.
As far as Crisp can tell, no one seems to notice him; it’s as if he’s just another loser in training. His blood starts to boil, anger on top of fear now. He has got to get away.
I shall either find a way or make one.
He scans the surroundings and there is no place to go, mostly closed shops and boarded up storefronts, another housing project across the street. They walk under a dilapidated scaffold and emerge in front of a brick building with a colorful sign: Bumblebee Day Care.
A small school bus grinds to a halt and two red stop signs flap out from either side. The bus door folds open. Tiny voices spill out before a potbellied matron steps off the bus. A dozen tiny children emerge onto the sidewalk carrying lunch boxes. The front door of the day care swings open and a tall man steps out, another man who knows Dante. They wave at each other and Crisp sees his chance. The eye in his needle. Passage back to a world where…
Don’t think. Just go.
He leaps into the moment of sweet chaos.