CHAPTER 4

MY LIFE IN THE CITY

(14 years old)

 

 

“All true freedom is dark.”

–Antonin Artaud

THERE’S THIS TAPE. IT ARRIVES ONE MORNING IN the mail, which is surprising because I don’t have an address. I’m between places, as they say. Specifically, I’m shuttling between a cardboard refrigerator box in the alley next to the Emerald Mountain Chinese restaurant and a wool blanket on the concrete floor of the municipal shelter. But the mailman hand-delivers the package to me just the same. I’m coiled half-asleep in my box and he leaves it at my feet.

This is just the latest in a string of strange happenings in the neighborhood. The Luchos have relocated to these scabby streets and started marking their territory. Every morning freshly shattered glass shimmers on the sidewalks like dew. Kids casually cross the avenue with newly stolen car batteries tucked under their arms like purses. There are stories about winos waking up to bloody incisions and missing kidneys. Someone set a pack of wild dogs loose to roam the rooftops. At night, you can hear them hunting the local cats.

When I spot the package, I let out an involuntary yelp. But it’s nothing more than a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and addressed in a blue magic marker scrawl that reads: “The Kid in the Alley behind the Chinese Place on 1st Avenue.” I can’t recall if I’ve ever received mail here before. I’m curious but hesitate to pick it up. For the months I’ve been living in the city, I’ve been trying to avoid any intrigue. I’m still struggling to navigate these streets. My world consists of a few square blocks and ritual activities. My focus is keeping body and soul intact.

I open the package with shaky fingers. This cassette tape is a genuine audio relic, tattered and beat-up, but someone decorated it with obvious care. A piece of notebook paper is neatly folded inside the plastic case and a dozen song titles are inscribed in a barely legible hand. Despite myself, the gesture touches me. It isn’t some menacing totem, it’s a gift. The first present I’ve received in ages. Of course I don’t have any way to play it. So I depart straightaway to see Mister Pastor, the man with all the gadgets and a heart large enough to share them with the likes of me.

The park is nearly vacant. The sky is pitch gray. A chill wind blows loose litter over the concrete pavers, spreading it in even coats. A few homeless have bothered to climb the chain-link fences that protect the partitions of dead grass from the public. They lie sprawled on the ground like neglected sculptures, blackened by the elements. I make my way toward the band shell, a scalloped steel structure as rusted as everything else. Mister Pastor always camps next to the stage in an elaborate compound assembled from shopping carts, cardboard, and plastic sheeting. I kick the side to announce my presence and wait.

The only person nearby is a skeletal old man in a frayed long-coat and stained polka-dot bandana crouched in front of a baby stroller. He makes faces at the child, popping out his yellow dentures with his tongue, and contorting his features into a hideous rictus. The kid somehow remains silent. There’s no parent in sight. This is a typical vista.

It takes a few minutes for Mister Pastor to appear. He’s decked out in the usual: black knit hat that barely corrals his not-so-natty dreads, mirror sunglasses, and rumpled tan raincoat. Apparently I’ve woken him because he’s launched into a diatribe that isn’t quite under his breath. “Damn it, Jeff,” he mutters. “Why the ofays always bothering the Pastor.”

“Somebody sent this to me,” I say. I lay the cassette in his massive hand for inspection. He turns it over several times, measuring its heft and testing its tactile properties.

“You know who it’s from?”

I shake my head.

“And you’re not concerned about that?”

“It’s a gift,” I say.

Mister Pastor looks at me incredulous. Like: How stupid can you be? I blankly return his stare: Pretty fucking stupid.

He shakes his head and trains his gaze back on the tape, probing the thing like it’s some sort of voodoo totem, careful not to disturb its latent powers. “I’d throw this away if I was you,” Mister Pastor says. “Right now.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I kind of want to hear it first.”

Mister Pastor purses his lips so hard that his whole face seems to pucker as if what he has to express could barely be contained by all that bunched flesh. “Guess you must be the boss of you,” he says finally. “So what do you need from me?”

“Walkman,” I say. “So I can listen.”

He sighs and ducks back inside the mouth of his compound. While he rustles through his array of cinched plastic bags and canvas totes, I turn away so I won’t see where he stores his treasures. Etiquette. He reappears with a decrepit-looking walkman, both headphones missing their foam casings. “Plays fine,” he says. “Just can’t fast forward or rewind.”

I want some privacy so I amble toward the green benches next to the empty dog run. The wind swirls some grimy black condoms and muddy supermarket fliers round my feet. I sit under a clump of bare trees, slide the tape into the player, and place the plastic headphones against my chilly ears. I look closer at the handwriting on the case—the series of curlicues, dashes, odd slants and sudden emphases—and for the first time truly begin to wonder who sent this.

I press play. It takes about fifteen seconds. The first strums of the acoustic guitar and then the onslaught of rattling drums and ragged horns all at once. And that voice. Oh my God, that voice. I sit transfixed. By the time the majestic echoing chords of the last song fade, something inside me has permanently shifted. Listening to this music is like being turned inside-out and finding the story of your life written on your inner organs. It’s like having your blood leeched to remind you that you have blood. It’s like—

The tape ends. I flip it over and play it again. And again. The singer sings with an inhuman urgency. He tells his story running and you can almost hear the clip of hooves in pursuit. He spins out tales of drunken fathers too scared to commit suicide, mute twins in white dresses spilling their parents’ ashes over a frothing ocean, dead girlfriends reincarnated as black swans, or blue orchids, or flaming pianos. After a while, it’s hard to keep it all straight.

Someone shouts from across the park. I switch off the music. I’m surprised to find that I must have been crying because tears stream down my cheeks. Plus there’s this faint tang in the air, a damp and acrid odor. I look at my feet. The ground is covered in fresh, grayish-green splatches of pigeon shit. I look at my coat. It’s caked in moist gobs of the stuff. No idea how long I’ve been sitting like this.

More shouts. I turn in their direction but it takes my eyes a few moments to focus. A gang of Luchos strides toward me. Six of them in black parkas, lumberjack boots, and doo-rags. Behind them, a fat plume of smoke billows from the side of the band shell where Mister Pastor is camped. A pack of dogs barks somewhere nearby.

The smart move would be to sprint headlong for the park gates. But instead I keep my ass flat on the bench, transfixed by the cassette case. I feel like I’m on the cusp of decoding its mystery and afraid to take my eyes off the handwriting. The signature lean of the letters, the yawning “o” that seems open in a shout, the frenetic “w” that hurries past with barely a nod. These are clues.

A thick gob of saliva lands at my feet. The Luchos. They ring the bench, glowering like a surly Greek chorus. One smacks his glossy lips and another rubs the vacant white orb where his cornea used to be. I try to look casual while scouting for potential help. The only person in sight is an elderly woman in a babushka combing the grass for discarded crack vials. A pack of dogs sniffs around her, nipping each other’s asses.

Some quick options: Run. Not fast enough. Fight. Six against one. Scream for Mister Pastor. Judging by the fire at the band shell, I have a sinking feeling about that one, too.

The tallest Lucho—El Lucho Jefe—removes his doo-rag, signifying serious business. A thin ridge of bone runs along the top of his scalp, giving him an almost prehistoric profile. I tense. Pure animal reflex.

“Hand it over,” El Lucho Jefe says. His voice is a droning hiss. He balls the doo-rag in his oversized knuckles.

I blankly return his stare.

“The walkman,” El Lucho Jefe says. “That’s ours.”

There is only one acceptable response here. All other possible combinations of words are clustered above the same trap door and invite the same vertiginous fall. I brace myself. “It’s not yours,” I say.

“You sit in this park,” El Jefe says. “Then it’s ours.” He smiles, revealing incisors that have been filed to sharp points.

I look at the cassette case in my palm and the tape slotted into the walkman. That voice. The handwriting. My gift.

“You can’t have it,” I say.

“Excuse me?” El Jefe says. He cracks his neck. A theatrical gesture, hand twisting neck to the side; it’s accompanied by the loud pop of impacted bone.

“I said, you can’t have it.” Normally I skirt beatings whenever possible, but this time is different. Looks fly among the Luchos. As they silently confer over this unexpected turn, I hoist myself onto the back of the bench. Better leverage in case of attack. For one wild moment, I think of the tape as a grenade that I can hurl at the ground and obliterate the entire gang with a brilliantly loud detonation. I zip the cassette and walkman inside my jacket.

El Lucho Jefe clears his throat. “I’m gonna say this one more—”

I lunge and knock him to the ground. Before he can react, I sink my teeth into his nose and clamp onto it as hard as I can. He screams and tries to throw me, but I hold onto his head and bite down harder. No idea where I get the idea or the ferocity. Maybe it’s something from one of the songs.

The other Luchos awkwardly try to pull me off, unsure whether this is causing El Jefe more pain. His nose is squelchy cartilage in my mouth. I can feel it start to give. So can he. More screams. More cursing. I bite down harder. Around us the Luchos are barking like furious dogs. With a savage jerk, I rip my head to the side. His nose is in my mouth. A chunk of spindly, rubbery gristle. There’s less blood than you’d think. Everything halts for a moment as El Lucho Jefe gives a heart-shuddering, high-pitched shriek to the heavens. I spit his nose on the ground.

This is when I first notice the pack of dogs has swarmed us. A teeming mass of thick-necked mutts, growling and gnashing their teeth. The Luchos who aren’t clustered around the writhing El Jefe lunge at the animals and fight them to reclaim that forsaken lump of flesh.

I tear off down the nearest pathway. The loose soles of my sneakers slap against the concrete as I sprint for the park gates. My precious cargo is still zipped inside my jacket, cuffing against my heart as I run. Two frothing mutts are fast on my tail.

I dash out of the park and spy the wall of a community garden across the street. As I scuttle up the steel fence, one of the dogs snaps at my calf. I give it a ringing kick to the jaw and climb higher. A metal barb peels off the knee of my jeans. More scraped skin. Huffing and wheezing, I finally pull myself to the top of the fence. The dogs pace below with bared teeth. They have me tree’d but I don’t care.

It turns out I’m pretty high up. A panorama of the entire park unfolds before me. Thick veils of smoke still heave from beside the band shell. The Luchos limply drag El Jefe toward the far avenue to hail a taxi. A handful of people lie face-down on patches of lawn. One of them, the elderly woman in the babushka, is dead. Not sure how I know, but somehow, from up here, I can tell.

Black storm clouds mass overhead. A sour wind stings my eyes. The dogs continue their angry vigil, but I’m no longer afraid. I remove the walkman from my jacket and play the cassette from the beginning. I squeeze my skinned knees together against the fence and press my hands over my ears. From the first quavering notes, I can feel again how everything has changed. The city streets below aren’t the same streets as a few hours ago. The cardboard box behind the Chinese restaurant isn’t the same cardboard box. There is blood smeared on my lips, and I let it remain.

The graffiti appears several days later. Or maybe it’s been there all along. The back walls of the Chinese restaurant are covered with slogans and scribbles, but this morning one particular tag catches my eye. It’s a silver spray paint sketch of a king’s crown with a line through it. A single word is scrawled underneath. It says “Seen.” I sit in my cardboard box and fixate on it for several minutes. I’m entranced by the flowing and interlocking lines of the design. They leave me with an inexplicable chill.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of chorgling noises from the nearby dumpster. The fat kid must be back again. His head shoots up above the metal rim, his face smeared with the runny leftovers of General Tsao’s Chicken and Egg Foo Young. He’s worse than the rats. He gorges himself on almost everything, including the greased plastic paper. I scoop some loose rocks and bottle caps off the ground and hurl them at him. “Get out of here,” I hiss.

It’s the only way to get his attention. The fat kid is virtually a zombie. His eyes are dead, as if any spark of personality has been buried beneath an avalanche of bad fortune. He lets out a pathetic bleat and clambers up the fire escape, vanishing onto a nearby roof. Typically, the only edibles he’s left in the dumpster are the remains of the oranges the restaurant serves with its fortune cookies. I collect several slices and stuff them into my pockets. I pat my sweatshirt to make sure the tape player and my cassette are still there. It’s time to find some real food.

Walking the streets, on the lookout for any of the scattered Luchos, I spot several more silver tags. They materialize in out-of-the-way places: The lip of a mailbox, the back of a crosswalk sign, the inner curb of a sidewalk. At first, I figure they must be different from the graffiti on the wall. But the design is always the same. The crossed-out king’s crown. The word “Seen.” Nobody else seems to pay much attention to this graffiti.

Now that they’re on my radar, the tags appear everywhere. They blanket the row of abandoned buildings near the park. They’re scrawled over kicked-in doorways, next to corroded fire escapes, across boarded-up windows. They bloom on ravaged walls and overflowing trash cans. An enormous silver crown glints off the bus shelter for the crosstown local. I run my fingers along its lines and trace the contours, trying to read some message in the tack and texture of the paint.

My body starts to shiver. There’s a subterranean surge of excitement as I remove the tape case from my sweatshirt and place it next to the graffiti. After a careful comparison of the handwriting, there’s no doubt: The person who painted these is the same one who left me the cassette.

I want to believe these tags are encrypted personal messages. They’re puzzles to solve. They’re an invitation whose time is running out. I need some space to deliberate, so I hop the nearby fence and wander through the park. I select an empty wooden bench near the playground. I suck on several orange rinds while I try to untangle my thoughts.

I find myself staring at a nearby lamppost. There’s another tag but this one looks different. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but the image of the crossed-out crown seems to shimmer. I kneel on the asphalt to study it up close. My fingers trace the curves of the design. It has a slippery feel. The tag appears smeared and I can’t figure out why until I look down at my hands. The paint is still wet.

The person must be nearby. I spring to my feet and begin to search the park. Everyone around me becomes a suspect: The dog-walker with three lunging hounds on a single leash; the heavy-lidded woman whose shopping bags encircle her feet; the bum with the rabbinical beard and newspaper shoes who greets passersby with kissing noises.

I exit the park and madly scan the streets. My mind buzzes like a burning beehive. I’m looking for anyone smuggling a can of spray paint. I scrutinize the shifty-eyed punk sprawled in a doorway with his shoplifted cans of warm beer. The Hispanic man perched in front of the bodega, massaging the batteries of his busted cell phone. The drag queen who touches up her rouge while waiting for the express bus. Their blank expressions don’t give anything away. Maybe they’re not part of this game.

I scour the neighborhood, methodically threading my way through the grid of streets and occasionally zigzagging headlong down one of the avenues, but I don’t have any luck and eventually return to my base. When I reach the Chinese restaurant, a pony-tailed Asian waitress is stationed next to the nearby pay phone, chain-smoking a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. It looks like she’s about to say something to me when the phone rings. She places her hand over the receiver in a proprietary way but doesn’t pick it up. While I wait for this curious drama to play out, I stare into the window of the restaurant. A trio of teenagers are huddled around a pot of tea and an order of steamed dumplings. Their fingers are coated in silver spray paint.

I peek my head inside. These two boys and the girl are the only customers in the dingy dining room. They seem lost in heady conversation. A cardboard stencil is propped next to the girl’s tea cup. It’s a king’s crown with a line through it. As I ease myself inside, the metal prayer bell tied to the door handle gives a harsh jingle. The trio spins around.

I stumble a few steps toward them. My mind stammers. I’m dumbstruck, or terrified, or maybe just overexcited. No emotion stands still long enough to name. I have no idea how to explain myself, so I remove the plastic tape case from my sweatshirt and hold it out. By way of introduction.

The trio silently consults one another, then motions me over to their booth. None of them seems surprised by my presence. “We were wondering when we’d run into you,” the girl says.

Looking at them sitting here, next to a fish tank filled with stunted carp and surrounded by strains of pinched Eastern folk music, something occurs to me. The obviousness and enormity of it buckles my knees. In a hushed and imploring voice, I ask: “Did you make the music on this tape?”

It’s impossible to read the contorted shapes their faces make, the cryptic crisscrosses of furrowed brows and creased lips. They look like I’ve just complimented their dead mother’s ass. The girl finally speaks up. “That’s not us,” she says. “The singer on that tape is Kin Mersey.”

The trio introduce themselves. The girl calls herself Lena. Her hair is a tangle of red, yellow, and black ringlets, the roots of previous dye jobs aggressively on display. The ratty locks almost seem like an apology for her delicate and classically beautiful features. The boy caressing the back of her neck is Hank. He flashes a high-wattage grin. His bare arms are covered in elaborately primitive designs, but these interlocking totems resemble magic marker scrawls more than actual tattoos. I try not to stare at the other boy whose disfigured profile seems to be the result of a terrible burn. Markus has sparkling eyes that belie his taciturn expression. He slides over to make room for me in their booth.

Lena takes out a wallet constructed of black duct tape and extracts a photograph that’s been folded into eight equal-sized squares. She arranges the image in front of me. “This is Kin,” she explains.

It’s a grainy shot of a small rock club. There are low ceilings, black curtains tacked against the walls, a set of speakers dangling above the wooden stage. Several pasty guys play an assortment of drums, trumpets, dismantled synthesizers, and cable patches. But the focus is on the lead singer with his frizzy blond curls and a red scarf wrapped around his squat neck. This has to be Kin Mersey—his mouth open wide and his teeth bared. He’s captured mid-yawp. He coddles a battered acoustic guitar in the crook of his arms like a sleeping infant and appears utterly lost in the undertow of the song.

“This is from his final show,” Markus says. “It’s the last confirmed picture of him.”

“He quit in the middle of the tour,” Hank adds. “He sold all his instruments on a street corner and vanished. Nobody has seen him in years.”

I examine the photo more closely, as if it’s one of those optical paintings where you adjust your focus and an embedded image suddenly emerges. There is something unsettling about the way Kin seems so absorbed in the moment, his eyes as white as boiled eggs, rolled back into their sockets.

“Why’d he quit?” I ask.

“Nobody knows,” Lena says. She takes a long sip of tea and swallows hard. I notice the dusting of silver spray paint on her knuckles and the base of the cup.

“I saw the graffiti,” I say. “I wasn’t sure what it meant.”

Lena flips over the photograph of Kin Mersey. On the backside, there’s a smaller image of Kin sitting on a stoop wearing a paper crown on his head. It’s rakishly askew. He probably got it from a fast food restaurant but it still manages to look defiantly regal. “The crown is his symbol,” she explains. “It started as some inside joke, but the image stuck.” As she talks, her hand obsessively traces and retraces the image. “There are rumors Kin is hiding out in one of the nearby projects. We did the tags to get his attention. To coax him out into the open.” She straightens the collar of her immaculately tattered raincoat. “That’s also why I gave you the tape.”

“But why me?”

“You’re on the street,” Lena says. “You know what’s really happening.” She sweeps aside her multi-colored tresses so there’s nothing obscuring her eyes. “You must have heard some stories about Kin. You have to know something.”

Her challenging tone and imploring look make this feel like a test. Though it’s pretty obvious I don’t know a thing, there still seems to be a correct response. I close my eyes and recall Kin’s unearthly voice.

“Maybe he hasn’t quit,” I say. “Maybe he’s making music in secret. Maybe he’s waiting for people to catch up to his new sounds.”

There’s a stretch of silence where the only sounds are the clank of utensils in the kitchen and the murmur of foreign dialects. Then Lena smiles. She says to her friends: “I told you he was all right.”

Lena pours some tea into a chipped china cup and hands it to me. It’s a clear liquid that turns out to be pure grain alcohol. I cough after the first burning swallow.

Markus laughs and pats me on the back. “We love the tea here,” he says. “It’s their specialty. You’ll get a taste for it pretty quick.”

Hank remains silent. He still seems to be evaluating me. His arms are crossed and his thumb circles one of the black totems on his bicep. His gaze remains trained on me. “Before we get all cozy,” he says, “we need you to do something for us.”

Hank looks pointedly at Lena. She nods and fishes in the inner pocket of her overcoat. She places a runny can of silver spray paint on the table, then slides the cardboard stencil next to it. Lastly, she produces a cassette from her bag that looks strikingly similar to mine. She gives me a shrug that seems apologetic, almost.

Hank says: “Paint some tags around the neighborhood to help us spread the word.”

He says: “Give the tape to someone who might have information about Kin and see what you can find out.”

He says: “Once you’ve done that, come find us.”

Hank rolls up the sleeve of my sweatshirt and writes a street address on my forearm in black felt-tip marker. Then he throws a few crumpled bills on the table and leads the others out of the restaurant. Lena waves to me over her shoulder. “Hope to see you soon,” she says. I watch as the door swings shut behind them. The bell tied to the handle clangs several times and the sound echoes through the empty dining room, rippling in waves that take a long time to dissipate.

I sit alone in the booth, scarfing down the leftover dumplings and emptying the teapot. My mind slowly grapples with the tasks I’ve been assigned. I absently scrape the silver paint from the nozzle of the spray can while strategizing the most effective placement for graffiti and ideal candidates for the cassette. There are so many variables that my head spins. Eventually I decide the best solution is to complete my charge as soon as possible. Spray a few desultory tags across the neighborhood. Give the tape to the first person I see.

When I leave the restaurant, my sweatshirt bulges with the tools of my mission. Almost immediately, I spot the Asian waitress. She’s now talking on the pay phone, the plastic receiver cupped in the crook of her neck. She speaks in a terse code punctuated by stabbing and balletic hand gestures. It doesn’t sound like English and given the hushed quality of her voice, it could just as easily be an invented private language.

I decide to wait for her and duck into the alleyway. I kill time by experimenting with the stencil and spraying the design onto the back of a nearby air conditioning unit. It takes several tries to get it right. I freestyle the last part and underneath write the word “Unseen.” I’m admiring my handiwork when there’s a scuttle of overturning trash and toppling boxes. At first, it sounds like a pack of ravenous rats. But then I realize it’s the perfect solution.

I walk silently toward the metal dumpster on the balls of my feet. I switch the cassette excitedly from hand to hand. It feels heavier than usual. I recall its potential to open up new vistas and alter the fabric of the recipient’s dreams. And here is someone who truly needs it.

The fat kid’s head pops over the rim of the dumpster. He must recognize me but the unformed expression on his face doesn’t give anything away. His eyes are mere holes. His blotchy skin is pasty and puffy. His cheeks are full of food that he mechanically continues to chew.

I hold out the cassette in the palm of my hand. I smile and inch closer, moving with calm deliberation, the way you’d approach a skittish doe, trying not to spook him. The slightest ember of light glints behind his dead eyes. He seems intrigued. “Don’t be scared,” I coax. “This is a gift.”

I have faith this simple gesture will be understood. The traffic behind me sounds like a guitar being tuned up, a discordant series of notes that’s preparing to resolve into something glorious. I move a few steps closer. I keep my palm perfectly flat. “It’s a tape,” I say. “It’s for you.”

He seems to comprehend. He tentatively reaches out his stubby fingers and snatches it from me. He sniffs the edges of the plastic case and kneads it with his hands. Then he removes the cassette and raises its shiny black shell to the sunlight for closer inspection. He stares at it with a sense of wonder, as if he spies another world in there among all that tape. Maybe he’s more like me than I thought. This is how I must have looked when I first received this music. “Thank you,” he says in a slurred voice.

I remove the walkman from the folds of my sweatshirt. But before I can hand it to him, he pops the cassette into his mouth and cracks it between his teeth. As he begins to chew, bits of unspooled magnetic tape curl between his lips, but somehow he manages to swallow. He pats his stomach. His beaming cheeks form a grin. His shiny eyes well up with tears of gratitude.

I stand in front of the window, hypnotized. There I am staring back at myself staring at the arrangement of green Gretsch guitar, white drum kit, black enamel bass. The instruments look like they’re floating on top of my body. One reality superimposed over the other. I’m flanked by Markus and Lena who seem to be experiencing the same thing. It’s like a hallucination, or maybe a vision. The three of us must all be thinking something similar but I’m the one who says it, half-whispering the words under my breath because the idea is so potent that anything louder would shatter the glass: “We look like a band.”

There’s no point entering the store to inquire about prices. The place is so new it hasn’t officially opened for business, but more importantly we’re flat broke. We peel ourselves away from the display window, hijacked by a snarl of conflicting emotions. My words have clearly initiated something. As we walk back to the squat, we argue about who would play what instrument. Markus immediately claims guitar for himself. Lena shouts drums like she’s calling shotgun. I finger the shell necklace around my throat. “I don’t care,” I say. “As long as I get to sing.” They raise their eyebrows in concert, but I’m pretty sure I could do it.

When we reach the deteriorating tenement, we linger on the street until the homeless couple turns the corner, then scurry down the steps to the basement. The kids call this “the squat,” but it’s an actual apartment Lena inherited from some relative or another. She removes the key pinned inside her eloquently distressed wool sweater and unlocks the door.

I’ve been crashing with them for several months, but this place hasn’t lost its novelty. The sprawling, raw space is furnished with a few rickety chairs, soiled mattresses, and corked piss bottles. Food wrappers carpet the cracked concrete floor. Black tapestries annul the windows. It’s modest but there’s electricity and running water. And even better, a booming stereo system. We’re about to announce the discovery of the music store when the sound blasting from the speakers stops us.

The muffled ferocity is immediately identifiable. It’s the bootleg cassette of Kin Mersey’s final show. This particular recording is almost never played. In the time I’ve been here, the kids have only dared to break it out once. Hank sits on the mattress he shares with Lena, wrapped in their stained sheets, hugging his knees. It almost looks like he’s been crying. We’ve clearly arrived in the aftermath of something.

The walls rattle from the sound of the band ratcheting up for another headlong chorus. The tape is striking for its scrim of fuzz and static, but one element is instantly clear. That voice. The performance contains no obvious clues to Kin’s sudden abdication though it’s marked by an intensity that’s eerie even by his extreme standards, a disturbing vodoun vibe where it’s impossible to tell whether he is channeling the songs, or vice versa. Hank starts to stir. He says: “There’s something you guys need to see.”

As Hank stands up, I notice his fingertips are smudged black. In a few places, the ink from the interwoven patterns on his arms is beginning to run. He solemnly presents us with a blurred photocopy of what looks like an X-ray. There’s some scratchy handwriting below the image and a sequence of typed numbers. It appears to be the cross-section of a human skull, its mouth wide open. There is a square chunk of bright matter behind the teeth. “A friend of mine works in the psych ward and was there when it happened,” Hank says. “He figured we’d want to know and snuck me this copy.”

“I don’t get it,” Lena says. “What exactly are we looking at?”

“A severed tongue,” he says. “Apparently Kin chewed off his own tongue during like the tenth round of electroshock therapy.”

We silently pass the image from hand to hand. Holding the page, I’m visited by a feeling similar to the one I had staring at the store window. My collar bone thrums and my stomach flops.

Hank tacks the paper to the wall, where it hangs like some kind of fucked-up talisman. The copy is too smudged to tell anything for certain—even the name on the X-ray isn’t conclusive, the scratchy doctor handwriting typically illegible. But this seems beside the point. Hank’s tale sounds grotesque enough to be true. There have been persistent rumors that Kin suffers from schizophrenic episodes.

Everyone is devastated. Markus tries to buoy us with logic and lamely plays devil’s advocate. “There have been all sorts of crazy stories about Kin,” he says. “Who says this one has to be true?” Hank says his friend isn’t a liar and points out that none of the previous rumors have been backed up by hard evidence. I try to add my two cents, but no words come out. It falls to Lena to supply the verdict. “It’s depressing,” she says. “Really fucking depressing.” The tape winds past the final number and now only scattered shards of murmurs and applause emanate from the speakers, the sound of the audience making its way toward the exits.

When the stereo clicks off, the silence is jarring. I find my index finger hypnotically tracing the outline of the X-ray as if it formed a sort of map, as if it were a pattern to be brought into focus. Then I have it.

I say: “The new music store in the neighborhood.”

I say: “It’s only a few blocks from here.”

I say: “We’re going to steal the instruments.”

As soon as the words come out, I know they’re exactly right. Markus nods in agreement. Hank seems unsure at first, but slowly a smile emerges. “It’s beyond perfect,” Lena says. “We’ll carry on Kin’s music for him.”

Hank takes the lead in masterminding a plan. It should be straightforward, but he wants to know about more than the store’s location and the instruments in the window. He obsesses over the likely floor plan, the possible security system, the layout of the primary street and surrounding avenues. Strategies are hatched about disabling alarm mechanisms, spray-painting the lenses of security cameras, establishing the quickest routes of entry and escape. “This is impossible without a van,” Hank says. I roll my eyes, but it turns out Lena knows someone who can lend us one. Markus alone has second thoughts. It’s difficult to read the level of concern in his burned features, but he keeps hinting at misgivings about the morality of the proposition.

Lena defends the idea as my brainchild. “This is the way people on the street get things done,” she says.

“It’s a basic right,” I clarify. “Like starving people who steal bread.”

Hank puts a slightly different spin on it. “Come on,” he says. “Anybody stupid enough to open a music store in such a shitty neighborhood deserves this.”

The planning continues for what feels like hours. Maybe it’s a necessary part of screwing up our courage. That evening we’re finally ready to make a dry run and fine-tune the details of our heist. We borrow a beat-up white van that looks well acquainted with this line of work. Hank rolls up the schematic drawings he’s concocted and announces he’ll drive. Markus, Lena, and I huddle on the metal floor in the back. It feels like we’re apostles on our first mission. Markus hums the riff to a favorite Kin Mersey song, Lena taps out the beat on her stomach, and I imagine my voice soaring over top of it all.

We park the van a block away and casually saunter toward the music store. It’s one of the few occupied storefronts in this so-called commercial zone of the neighborhood. Even in the hazy light of the sporadic streetlamps, I can tell something is wrong. The display window looks unreal, as if it’s mystically shed one of its dimensions. Then I notice a shimmer of glass on the sidewalk and realize we’re too late. It’s been smashed. As we creep closer, I spot a metal trash can lying inside the store. Some bastard tossed it through the glass and cleaned out the instruments. We hear police sirens approaching and tear back to the van. We haven’t done anything wrong but Hank peels maniacally around random corners until the sound dies away. Eventually we shudder to a stop outside a bar, somewhere on the far edge of our neighborhood.

The bar is open, so we’re forced to get drunk. We slump into a table and order several rounds simultaneously. “This is just a setback,” Hank says. “We’re still going to do this. There’s no doubt about it.” But I can feel the momentum draining away. Our platitudes about carrying on sound listless, like speeches at an infant’s wake. We try to distract ourselves by focusing on the band that’s getting ready to play on the wooden stage in the corner.

Lena has an idea. She smoothes her multi-color tresses, fixes her lipstick, pastes on her cutest smile, and strolls over to request a number by Kin Mersey. A balm for our disappointments. She returns to the table wearing a potent scowl. “They’ve never heard of him,” she says, spitting on the floor. It figures. The band of athletic longhair dudes start to bang out some thirdhand hard rock. The longer we listen, the clearer it becomes these so-called musicians are committing crimes against art. The sight of them playing these instruments makes as much sense as Neanderthals operating sonar.

We outwait the band as a matter of principle. After their interminable set, I notice them dragging their equipment through a service entrance into the street. I pretend to use the bathroom so I can get a better view. I watch them carefully arrange the drum kit and bass amps in the back of a van. I rush back inside, grip the side of the table so hard the beer bottles rattle, and let it blurt.

I say: “There’s a van outside full of instruments.”

I say: “Stealing them from these assholes will be a favor to society.”

I say: “We’ve got to hurry.”

We sketch a quick plan and arrive on the scene just in time. The band is loitering on the sidewalk. Their van is loaded with the instruments. Hank waves his arms and calls out to them, launching into his crazed fan routine. “You guys rock!” he says. He somehow keeps a straight face while asking if they have albums for sale and when they’ve got their next gig. Of course the band has neither, but they talk a good game about future plans. Even the driver climbs out of the front seat to explain that they’ve been thinking about changing their name and rattles off some idiotic options they’ve been considering. Hank asks for their autographs and when nobody has paper, he hoists his shirt and insists they sign his stomach.

Oh, it’s pathetically easy. Markus, Lena, and I casually sneak around the other side of the van. Markus is prepared to attempt a fast hotwire, but the driver has left the keys on the seat. We pile inside, lock the side doors, and Markus guns the ignition. The engine turns over with a wheezing gasp. The van rattles and we take off with a shuddering jolt. As we lurch down the street, I see the lead singer running down the sidewalk after us, blond hair cascading behind him, arms and legs pumping furiously. But it hardly matters. There’s nothing but clear road ahead.

Then the engine stalls. Markus jockeys the key and the van frantically restarts. We look up to find the lead singer has thrown his body against the hood, his fleshy fingers clutching the windshield wipers. His lanky hair conceals his eyes but his contorted lips and crooked teeth form a terrifying grimace. “You’re gonna have to run me over,” he shouts.

“Do it,” Lena screams. Markus hits the gas and the guy spins off the windshield like a giant pinwheel. It’s sort of alarming. The instruments buckle and the rear doors fly open. The bass and several amps tumble into the street with a series of rumbling thumps. In the rearview, Hank is getting pummeled by several band members who look like they’re blending his face into the pavement.

The engine finally catches the correct gear and the speedometer leaps upward. But two blocks later, we hit a red light. Three sedans and an SUV are stopped ahead of us. Markus leans on the horn, but nobody budges. “This fucking traffic,” he groans. I look behind to see the lead singer shambling down the center of the street. His face is bloody. He’s picked up the bass from the asphalt and wields it like a baseball bat. He flails the air and unleashes a series of inarticulate shrieks.

“For God’s sake,” I shout. “Run it!”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Markus begins, but then looks over his shoulder. As we peel out, the singer swings the bass at the flapping back doors and almost knocks one off its hinges. We sweep around the stopped cars and Markus briefly shuts his eyes as we careen down the wrong side of the street. He runs the next several lights for insurance, then initiates a sequence of random turns, mimicking Hank’s getaway technique. A few more amps topple out of the rear of the van. None of us has any idea where we’re heading.

After all the moving violations and falling equipment, it’s no surprise to see the police’s flashing red lights in the rearview mirror. “Keep going,” I shout. Markus floors the accelerator and makes several swerving turns, shunting over sidewalks and mowing down trash cans. All of a sudden he hits the brakes so hard that we bounce off the windshield. We’ve reached the end of a cul-de-sac, one of the many streets that terminates at the canal. We stumble out of the van, dazed and winded, clutching our heads while executing a few looping steps. I hear a siren in the distance but the police aren’t in sight yet.

Before fleeing the scene, we rifle through the shambling heap of equipment. Markus seizes a scuffed guitar; Lena nabs a snare drum; my fingers find themselves coiled around a microphone cable. We unsteadily hop the guardrail at the end of the road and take off down the concrete bank of the canal. The squeal of braking tires and relayed calls of stern voices let us know the cops have found the van.

We run single-file along the lip of the canal. Our bodies huff and pant, but the adrenaline courses through our limbs and soon we fall into a steady cadence. We ignore the approaching shouts and roving flashlight beams. The path ahead seems clear. A canopy of intermittent stars provides the main illumination and the glassy surface of the canal throws our reflections back at us. It looks like we’re running upside-down, the soles of our shoes skimming the top of the water.

I tune in to the snare clanging against Lena’s hips like a tambourine. It suggests the martial pulse of the song we’d hummed earlier. Between breaths, Markus starts to vocalize the main guitar riff. I swallow hard, then launch into the lyrics. I’m out of breath and scared shitless, but that must help because it doesn’t sound half bad. We maintain our pace, repeating the surging chorus in our halting manner, over and over. Behind us, we can make out the rhythm of running footsteps and jangling handcuffs. There is also the faint but distinct humming of several voices. The police, who are getting closer, have picked up the song.

He doesn’t seem to realize I’ve been following him for blocks. The man purposefully winds his way through the midday crowds without a backward glance. That’s him up ahead in the mottled gray terrycloth bathrobe, the red scarf, the black canvas high-top sneakers. He obsessively shakes his frizzy blond curls out of his eyes and scratches at his cheeks. The other pedestrians probably write him off as a freak, another psychotic vagrant who wandered into his own head and promptly lost the compass. The city is littered with these sorts of casualties. But I suspect this man is something else.

Every few paces, I have to break into a jog to keep him in my sights. The man acts like he’s late for an appointment. He speeds past the shuttered laundromats, the half-empty junk shops, the buckling brick apartment buildings with grime-frosted windows. His reflection never pauses long enough to register my stare. I’ve been following him since he first brushed past me on the sidewalk, hanging behind at a watchful distance, afraid to miss anything.

The man steps off the sidewalk mid-block and bounds across the street, oblivious to the horns of oncoming traffic. A taxi swerves over the dividing line to avoid hitting him. Squealing brakes, shouted curses, a choir of middle-fingers. It’s a choreographed melee of sound and steel that the man absently conducts as he passes through like an apparition. Time seems to stretch, though his journey to the opposite sidewalk probably only takes a few seconds. Before I can blink twice, he’s vanished into the park.

I dash across the street, but the man is nowhere to be seen. The entrance to the park brims with the usual shuffling armada of runaways with stolen skateboards, homeless with borrowed shopping carts, police practicing blindness behind their shades. On a hunch, I follow the route that winds along the park’s perimeter. The sun shimmers off the concrete and the oaks overhead are too exhausted to supply a full canopy, so I have to keep squinting. I spot him in the distance, arms swinging briskly at his side, as if his shadow is a prison he’s determined to outrun.

Somebody calls my name. I spot Hank and Lena cuddled on a nearby wooden bench, waving me over. I nod but keep walking. No time for niceties. The man appears to be heading for the exit by the steel band shell and I can’t risk losing him. I hear my name again and soon am flanked on either side by my friends.

“Impressively rude,” Hank says. “What’s the story?”

“Sorry.” I speak without breaking my stride. “I’m following somebody.”

“Intrigue,” says Hank. “I like it.”

“See that guy up there?” I’m careful not to be so flagrant as to actually point. “The one in the gray bathrobe?” There’s nothing to do but blurt it out. “I think that’s Kin Mersey.”

There’s a silence, then Lena says: “Oh my God.”

The man leaves the park and immediately tacks east, heading deeper into the shittiest streets of this shitty neighborhood. The three of us follow in a state of entranced speechlessness. It’s only now that we notice the lack of silver tags from our graffiti campaign. In their place are rows of unconscious homeless men curled atop cardboard pallets, their gray beards flecked with bits of newspaper. Stray dogs lick discarded alkaline batteries, looking for a leftover charge. The air is perfumed with stale urine and rancid government cheese.

As we walk, I shuffle through the endless unconfirmed stories about Kin Mersey in my mind. There’s only one rumor that truly interests me. It claims Kin has feverishly continued to write songs, generating tunes shot through with shards of terrifying beauty, creating music so radical that even his fans aren’t ready to hear it.

The storefronts start to thin out, but the man doesn’t seem to register the change. Soon it’s strictly rubble-strewn lots, half-demolished concrete foundations, construction fences slotted with suggestive gaps. He pauses at a traffic light to cinch the bathrobe tighter, keeping the terrycloth from flapping in the updrafts from passing vehicles. We cluster around a telephone pole, pretending to be fascinated by a handwritten notice about a missing hamster. This is the closest I’ve been to the man since he first passed me. My heart hammers in the slender vein dividing my forehead.

“You really think it’s Kin?” Hank whispers.

“It does sort of look like him,” Lena says.

The man’s face is swollen. His hands are chafed and raw. But the resemblance is clear. A red scarf is wrapped around the same squat neck that you’d never believe could house such an unearthly voice. The same unkempt blond hair, the same gangly frame, the same pupils drowning in that peculiar shade of cerulean blue. The words buzz in my mouth as I speak them. “It’s him.”

The man races onward. We automatically fall in behind. The crosstown expressway looms ahead, emitting a high-pitched rumble, the singing sound of rubber tires on asphalt. Several metal shopping carts lie gutted on the pavement like they’ve been gang-raped. Blackbirds squat on the telephone wires, chirping intricate tunes no one can hear. By now it’s obvious we’re tailing the guy. We’re the only figures in this desolate landscape. The man doesn’t acknowledge our presence, but my senses tingle with an animal suspicion that he knows we’re here.

His pace quickens. The air crackles with nervous energy as we realize he must be close to his final destination. High-rise apartment towers appear in the distance. Grids of identical rectangular balconies teem with makeshift clotheslines. The pinned sheets, shirts, and socks flap in the wind like flags. Ornate letters writ large in Krylon transform the sides of buildings into concrete pages from a vast illuminated manuscript. Flashes of technicolor graffiti signify cryptic warnings. He’s leading us into the heart of the projects.

“Maybe the rumors about him living here are true,” Lena says. She throws me a cautious smile. “I knew you’d lead us to him.”

All at once, we’re not alone. Sullen Haitian boys encircle a broken pay phone, their feet batting the dangling receiver like a tetherball. A trio of slit-eyed Dominican teenage girls lean against a rusted mailbox and pick their teeth. A tattooed bodega owner dumps a bucket of dirty water on the curb. We collect a catalog of suspicious and hostile stares. The three of us fall progressively farther back, afraid the man is going to get jumped and beaten, afraid the same thing might happen to us.

The man approaches the largest apartment tower. He walks past the drained cement fountain and into the empty courtyard. He pauses on one of the few green patches left in the expanse of dried mud and shriveled shrubs. He scoops up a handful of dirt and gravel and tosses it at the building. A few of the pebbles reach the third floor. This seems to be some sort of signal. In the surrounding windows, the curtains part and sets of wrinkled faces materialize from the shadows. We form another set of curious eyes on the periphery, the three of us crouched behind a dumpster.

While the man waits, he paws the ground with his worn sneakers, like a dressage horse before a demanding routine. He bends down to scoop up another handful of something, then stands motionless except for a vigorous movement of the teeth. It takes a moment to understand that he’s chewing a mouthful of grass. Green stalks and stems protrude from his lips.

“Fucking A,” Hank says. “He’s totally lost it.”

“Poor thing,” Lena says. “Maybe he’s getting in touch with his primal side. Sometimes that’s the creative way to deal with pain.”

“Maybe it soothes his throat,” I offer.

“Come on,” Hank says. “He’s just another fuck-up now. He’s a dude with no tongue, wearing a bathrobe, chewing on grass.”

“Him chewing off his tongue was a rumor,” I say. “We still don’t know if that really happened.”

“Take a look at the guy,” Hank says. “That’s all I’m saying.”

But I don’t see him that way. I half-recall tales about Old Testament prophets stabling themselves in meadows and devouring handfuls of grass as part of vision quests. Perhaps this is also part of some unseen process, a sort of metamorphosis, a peculiar demand of his muse.

There’s movement in one of the upper windows. The systematic blinking of a curtain, maybe. It happens, but the man clearly discerns the signal and approaches the entrance of the building. Before he can press the buzzer, the glass doors burst open and he’s ambushed by a shrill tribe of children. They poke and prod him, venture close then leap back with delighted cries. A chubby black girl with cornrows lets out a piercing shriek and all the kids laugh like it’s some kind of punch line. A solemn raven-haired girl holds the door open and offers the man her upturned hand. He gently clasps it and allows himself to be led inside, the whooping kids trailing behind.

Hank and Lena look uneasy, but we’ve got to move if we don’t want to lose him. We reach the lobby in time to spot the tail-end of the children’s procession winding its way into a concrete stairwell. The gang of kids stomp up the stairs, pleased by the resounding echo of their own footsteps. Their destination seems to be a couple of flights overhead. The man must be in the lead.

We trail them to the third floor. The long hallway is dimly lit. The ambient gurgle of breakbeat salsa and game-show reruns filter through the walls. The children are gathered outside an apartment whose door is ajar, spilling a parallelogram of light onto the linoleum tiles. Just as we realize that the man must be already inside, the door swings shut.

The children’s chattering draws the attention of the floor’s residents. A few curious heads appear in the hall to investigate. Soon there’s a loose queue of adults and children outside the closed door. We hug the wall and try to pass for a natural part of this crowd. Lena flattens her hair to downplay the flamboyant purple streaks. Hank rolls down his sleeves to obscure the ever stranger ink patterns. I pull up the hood of my sweatshirt and disappear inside the cowl.

The apartment opens. A tall man in a shiny black ski jacket and hand-me-down grimace lets people inside. This must have already happened a few times because there’s an unspoken protocol. Everyone drops their shoes in the hallway before filing inside. We enter a modest living room with white pressboard walls and industrial gray carpeting. There’s no sign of the man. The blinds are drawn and fluorescent lights bathe everything in an antiseptic blue. The place is undecorated except for a single oil painting: A nude Amazon with a large afro reclines on a tiger-skin rug. Her ankles are shackled but her curled lips form a defiant sneer. One hand hoists a barbed iron spear heavenward and the other strokes the pink folds of her labia.

The place soon fills up. A mix of old men, pimply teenagers, and mothers hauling infants straggle in behind us. We find an open space on the floor and sit cross-legged. I’m starting to feel like an idiot. I’m only wearing socks on my feet and sitting in a strange apartment in the projects. The solemn girl with black hair stares directly at us. The other children glower and giggle. They elongate their cheeks and pick their noses. Their eyes sparkle like phosphorescence.

A women in curlers turns to me: “You here for the show?”

I must look confused because she points to the empty twin bed pressed against the far wall. It functions as a couch. Or maybe a stage. But here’s the important detail: A child’s plaything lies atop the bare mattress. I’ve been staring at it but not really seeing it. My brain has balked because the implications are too startling. My breathing becomes shallow. My mind spirals. I sense Hank and Lena also struggling to process the sight. “Here comes the something,” Lena whispers, from a favorite lyric. The object on the bed is a miniature guitar.

“Don’t get too excited,” Hank tells us. “It’s only a toy.” But the tone of his voice betrays the fact that his expectations have been raised as well.

There’s the sound of activity in the hallway behind us. A man in a red track suit makes an entrance. His coffee-colored skin and regal features are offset by a flat nose that appears to have been broken numerous times. A few hushed murmurs of a name: “Morrisot.” He gracefully navigates the room, tousling kids’ hair and shaking a few hands. His cleared throat resounds like trumpet fanfare.

“Welcome,” Morrisot says in a rich baritone. “A friend of mine is going to provide entertainment for us this afternoon. He’s a bit unusual, but don’t be alarmed. He’ll do whatever I say.” He signals the man in the black ski jacket to flip off the overhead fluorescents and turn on the bedside lamp. Mood lighting. He produces a small plastic packet of yellowish powder from his sweatshirt. He shakes the packet briskly between thumb and forefinger. The sort of precise gesture aristocrats use to ring a service bell.

The man we’ve been following lopes to the edge of the room, rubbing his gums and flashing a hideous grin at no one in particular. The way his eyes are locked on the plastic packet, the rest of the apartment might as well be empty. Morrisot tries to coax him deeper into the room but the man sticks with the shadows. He refuses the bait for several moments, then lunges for the packet. Like a matador working with a tiny cape, Morrisot flicks it out of reach and the man crashes headfirst into the bed. The crowd offers murmurs of approval.

Morrisot helps the man to his feet and smoothes his tangled bathrobe. He speaks to him in a voice that’s soft but firm, precisely enunciating each word so there’s no misunderstanding. “You want some,” Morrisot says, “then you have to play us a song.” He nestles the pint-sized guitar into the man’s hands.

The man unwinds his red scarf, sheds his bathrobe, and faces the crowd. It’s Kin Mersey. There’s no mistaking him. Only Lena seems unfazed by his extravagant deterioration. There’s an arctic paleness to his flesh. You can map the blue veins coursing throughout his bare chest. His face is scarred with pink pustules. His eyes are yellow and liverish. His teeth are rotted. The cuticle of every nail has been gnawed past the quick. My heart sinks, but then Kin licks his lips. You can clearly see the tip of a full crimson tongue.

Morrisot whispers something in Kin’s ear, coaxing him the way you’d handle a skittish show pony. It’s suddenly as if he’s more of a manager than a dealer, and it occurs to me that we may be about to hear a preview of the new sounds Kin has been working on.

Kin tentatively touches the frets of the guitar. A preternatural alertness has crept into his expression. Kin’s slender fingers tremble as they adjust the tines, but they approximate a sound that’s in tune. Lena squeezes Hank’s hands and mine. None of us is prepared for what may be about to happen. I shake myself loose from the circuit. I have to experience this for myself.

As Kin starts to strum, I’m surprised by the volume that ripples from the toy instrument. He beats out a rhythm that replicates the headlong urgency of his steps. At first the chords seem to coalesce into a familiar song, but then they violently fracture, suggesting something entirely new. My body begins to ignite. Kin leans into the rapidly splintering sound but can’t seem to find his entrance, as if the words are locked in his windpipe. His lips foam and quiver. His eyes swing back in their sockets. Sweat crowns his forehead. When he finally opens his mouth, he unleashes a terrible howl.

The sound comes choking out in convulsive yelps. The children burst into peals of hysterical laughter. This is the punch line they’ve been awaiting, but it’s no joke. A tormented expression strangles Kin Mersey’s features. He begins to weep while continuing to play. Drool collects around the edges of his lips. There’s a tragic, desperate intimacy to the performance. It’s so overwhelming that I shut my eyes. I can’t face Hank’s knowing contempt or Lena’s romanticized rapture. Everything around me feels like it’s turning to ash.

Kin lets loose another round of high-pitched shrieks. I have to get out of here. I abandon my friends, push past the crowd, and scramble through the hallway in stocking feet. I bound down the stairs three at a time, trying to forget about the spittle massing around Kin’s mouth, not waiting to discover the fate of that one still expanding bubble of saliva.