13
13It’s as if the blinking cursor on the library computer monitor dares Andre to lie. The question radiates off the screen like a flash of blinding light.
Have you ever been convicted of a crime?
An inquisition. Strategically placed like a Rubicon that, once crossed, irrevocably commits you to every keystroke. Andre lustily works through the rest of the online application despite knowing that he must go back and answer the third degree.
New York City is hiring day-shift bus drivers, and if Andre gets one of the coveted positions, he’d net a third more pay, better health coverage, and a higher pension than he had with New Jersey Transit.
With his index finger suspended above the mouse, Andre fancies himself sleeping through sunrise instead of witnessing each day break above barren blocks. And how wonderful it would be to rid his apartment of those Delphian black curtains that shut out daylight, that symbolize his station in life as a night imp, coursing through the arteries of Jersey City in a diesel beast.
The frustration of four weeks, seventy-three applications, and not a single phone call drives Andre to left-click a lie.
No, I have not been convicted of a crime.
He sends the application through before he can change his mind.
Virtue for life can be found in hard work.
Lying or starving, what’s worse?
Andre records the line in his spiral notebook just as his session expires.
“Sir—”
“I’m going,” Andre says as he stands and pockets his notebook.
The librarian who doles out computer chits is firm in purpose. Before your thirty-minute session is up, she’s up. And she times it so that her face hovers above your monitor the instant you time out.
Andre is certain that she was gorgeous in her day. Even now she’s a looker if you’re into sharply dressed, middle-aged white women. The permanent scowl she wears is only rivaled in intensity by the wicked pumps, a different color each day, that add two inches to her chipper frame.
“Any luck today?” she asks.
Andre is startled because she never so much as shot him a glance in the four weeks since he started coming to the library to apply for jobs. “That remains to be seen,” Andre says. “But I hope so.”
“See you tomorrow then?”
“I’ll be here.”
Andre takes the long way home, even though the temperature outside is starting to tank. He is in no hurry to get to his apartment, which lately has become a hollow chamber absent of all life and substance. Futility seems to ooze from the walls and coat the floor, and he has to trudge through the muck to get to the bathroom, to cook, to move.
He steels himself against a rising tide of pointlessness, stuffs his hands in his pockets, and shudders as he turns onto a tree-lined block decorated with an array of handsome brownstones.
Andre hasn’t seen Ms. Rutigliano, his landlord, in several months. That’s not unusual because she spends most of the winter in a cabin that she owns in the Great Smoky Mountains. Which is why Andre is surprised to see lights ablaze on all three levels of her house above his basement apartment.
Andre slides his key in the lock, but it won’t turn.
A window on the second floor blows open, and Ms. Rutigliano’s hoary head dips out. The rubbery skin that hangs from the bottom of her arm shimmies as she stabs a bony finger down at Andre.
“You’re two months behind, Andre. When I get my money, you get your stuff.”
She slams the window.
“Ms. Rutigliano!” Andre shouts up.
Silence.
“Ms. Rutigliano!”
The second floor goes dark.
Andre races up the stoop and zings the buzzer. No answer. He rings it again.
A third-floor window flies open.
“I’m not having this conversation with you, Andre. When you’re ready to talk two months’ rent plus late fees, we can tête-à-tête. Until then . . .”
The window slams shut.
Andre spins around and catches a host of mugs slip behind sheers shut suddenly. He licks his lips, but that does nothing because his mouth is bone dry. In order to not look as foolish as he feels, Andre whips out his phone.
“Sandra,” he says as he peeks around to see who’s still watching.
“Hello?” she answers.
“Can I come see the little man?”
“That’s fine.”
Andre hangs up, and instantly the dark sky opens and mirth cascades from the heavens.
I can move back in with them.
There’s an extra bounce in Andre’s step at the thought of shacking with his family, and the idea that he once lived with them seems too good to have ever been true.
Two busses pass. Andre scans each vehicle out of the corner of his eye and is glad that he doesn’t recognize either driver. He is certain that by now everyone knows he got canned because he lied about a felony drug conviction. Andre is sure that no one celebrated his demise more heartily than Big Will.
When Andre arrives at the apartment, Sandra opens the door with Little Dre in one arm and the phone cradled between her ear and other shoulder. She drops Dre into Andre’s arms.
Although it’s difficult, Andre determines not to ask Sandra who she’s talking to. He forces all of his focus on baby Dre, and the little one demonstrates that it’s past his bedtime because he writhes and twists in a vain attempt to break free.
“I’m not letting you go, little man,” Andre says.
Little Dre gives Andre a solid pop in the eye with a minikin fist. And it hurts. Little Dre laughs through his pacifier while Andre blinks to relieve the pain and watering.
“That’s not funny. You don’t hit Daddy.”
Little Dre clobbers him again, this time in the other eye.
“No hitting Daddy, Andre!”
His sharp tone causes baby Dre to drop his head onto Andre’s shoulder.
Andre fights off a laugh. “You know I love you, little man, but there’s a way to play and some things you just don’t do. Hitting your father is one of them.”
Andre kisses him on the ear. Dre giggles and wiggles free. Andre goes to grab him but he’s gone. Little Dre tucks his chin to his chest and zips. He pumps his arms, and his miniature feet spin like wheels. Even so, he covers about as much ground as he would if he were running in place.
“You have to move a lot faster than that if you’re trying to get away from me, little man,” Andre says, laughing.
Junior Dre is undaunted as he wheels his way around the corner and makes a dash for the bedroom. Andre allows him to feel empowered by his speed before he scoops him up and into the air, which causes Little Dre to laugh so hard that his pacifier falls to the floor.
“Daddy’s going to eat you up!”
Andre nuzzles his face into Little Dre’s neck and gnaws. Dre screams with delight.
“This bite is with a large order of junior juice!”
Andre nuzzles—Little Dre squeals.
“And this one is with chocolate baby boy seasonings!”
Little Dre laughs until he loses his breath.
Andre cradles him into a bear hug, looks into his eyes, and plants two daddy-sized kisses on his chubby cheeks.
“Daddy loves you, little man.”
“Wuv oo too,” Little Dre says in vintage baby bluster.
“You’re in a good mood. What’s going on?” Sandra asks.
Andre turns about and is taken by the totality of Sandra’s delicacy. She is wearing a baby-doll T and sweatpants that showcase her slender waist, perfect curves, and shapely hips—the kind of outfit that she would never wear outside. Nevertheless, in the dead of winter, the radiators in the apartment get so hot that you have to practically strip to get comfortable. The “hot times,” as Sandra and Andre call them, usually correspond with when Mr. Dibiasi, the landlord, is home. Otherwise, the heat is kept at the minimum legal limit required by the state of New Jersey.
Sandra notices Andre noticing her and looks down at herself. “Sorry. It’s hot.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Andre says, ogling still.
“Well . . .” Sandra disappears into the bedroom and reappears with a loose-fitting T-shirt that shelters her graceful curves.
Andre’s mind flashes back to times when they were intimate. I wonder if she’s wearing anything under there.
Sandra interrupts his delicious thought and asks, “What’s got you so giddy?”
“I’m just happy to be here with my family.”
“Ohh-kay . . .” Sandra twirls one of her braids around her finger. Little Dre’s gaze alternates between mother and father.
“The locks were changed on my apartment, so I came here to be with you two since I have nowhere else to go.”
Sandra is silent. Little Dre smacks the top of Andre’s shiny head and disrupts the quiet.
Andre flips him upside down and tickles him senseless. “I told you, no hitting Daddy!”
Sandra shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “So what happened with Ms. Rutigliano?”
“I haven’t paid the rent in two months.”
“But you’ve only been out of work for a month,” she says.
“Instead of paying the rent last month, I held on to it for you and Dre in case I wasn’t able to get a job by now.”
“How’s that going?”
“It’s not. I’ve filled out tons of applications and haven’t gotten a single call back.”
Sandra bites her lip and looks down. “Somebody will call.”
It never occurred to Andre that Sandra was his biggest fan until he found himself alone without a cheerleader.
I took her for granted, but I don’t know how to say it the way I feel it.
“Sahn, I still love you,” he blurts, and regrets it before the words are fully off his tongue.
Little Dre claps his hands. “Yay!”
Sandra’s golden cheeks become flush. “I don’t even know how to respond to that, Dre.”
Andre turns away. “Forget I said it.”
Little Dre seems determined to pull his parents into his party. “Yaaayyy!” He claps determinedly.
Andre and Sandra face him, poker-faced, and applaud.