balmy night, the wet rush of traffic, the possible crickets already—too early—and Roscoe from nowhere, the beggar, in a rush back in. “Shoo,” Marie said. “Shoo,” she said.
They sat in the rusted wrought-iron chairs, his cigarette the only color in the dark: orange where he settled in, something to follow, his breath. She sat across from him. The grass wet, the seat cushions wet: dew, or mist, and on the table the old clamshell for ash puddled; he knocked the water out. Yesterday rain, tomorrow even more and a new storm brewing. Just last week some bulbs rose from the dirt with weak white shoots, molding, soft to touch, or maybe the dirt just washed away. And who are you? she had said to them. My tulips? My narcissus?
At a great distance, the steady toll of the bell, the pain. She turns her cast in Sid Morris’s lap so he can better see. Earlier, in the muted light of one of the fringed lamps from a certain dynasty—sixty-watt, Abe had insisted, so as not to scorch the silk—Sid Morris chose colors and a brush from her tackle box, Very Grand rising as if she might swoop down and take a bite.
“Do you miss him?” Sid is saying; his hair, too long at the collar, and the way his braces crisscross his shoulders.
“Every minute,” she says.
He concentrates, biting his lip. He wears the same dirty shirt he wore when they first met. Months ago now; one lifetime: Simone standing with Henry’s Brooklyn Bridge, already flirting. I
“What?” Marie says. The medication has made her very tired, a bit out of it: the day, the evening. She no longer sleeps but if she did this is how it would feel: exhaustion. Sid Morris is talking.
“I was saying when I was a kid we had a teacher. Shivers,” Sid Morris says. “That’s what we called him, as in shiver me timbers. Anything, he’d jump out of his skin. France, though I didn’t know squat.”
“France,” she says.
“We were shits. We’d slam our books. Push them off our desks. Then we’d say, Sorry, Mr. Shivers.”
“Terrible,” Marie says.
“I was the worst,” Sid Morris says, stubbing out the last of the cigarette, the old clamshell saved from a party in Red Hook—forgotten friends who lived close to the docks, she remembers.
“One day our principal’s at Shivers’s desk. Open your books, he says, some chemistry bullshit. And that was that. No Shivers. And no one had the balls to ask.”
“What happened?” Marie asks.
Sid Morris shrugs. “Who knows?”
Sid Morris wets the tip of the brush in his mouth.
“I never thought about Shivers,” he says. “All these years and now I’m thinking about Shivers. All the time I’m thinking about Shivers. Even now, here,” Sid Morris says, painting something she cannot see. “I’m thinking about Shivers.”
In the dark, dark, beyond the movie star’s floodlight, the newly bloomed forsythia hides a swarm of ghost spiders spinning webs, their spinning systems on overdrive, ramped by the frenzy of the City’s vibrations: subway crossings, thermal energy, steam, plumbing, satellites, fleets of taxis, and down the street, on the farthest corner at the Rawhide, the regular men of ladies’ night dance and dance, refusing to believe the bar’s impending closing: they dance in two-for-one oblivion, dance like all get-out in their get-ups, pedestrians crisscrossing the thronged bicycle lanes, impossible passages, the delivery boys and muscle boys and pretty women who work at magazines weaving in and out of the stalled traffic on Citi Bikes, on foot, this a balmy almost-spring spring night, or close to it, an intimation of what will come—heat, almost tropical, rain falling in sheets, trash bins brimming, washed away, eddying—too much stuff; too many people to count.
“Fuck, Shivers,” Sid Morris suddenly says. “What kind of meshuga backyard with so little light?” He strikes a match for another cigarette. She can feel the heat of his lap through her cast or maybe she is just imagining. Far
They sat in the rusted wrought-iron chairs, his cigarette the only color in the dark: orange where he settled in, something to follow, his breath. She sat across from him. The grass wet, the seat cushions wet: dew, or mist, and on the table the old clamshell for ash puddled; he knocked the water out. Yesterday rain, tomorrow even more and a new storm brewing. Just last week some bulbs rose from the dirt with weak white shoots, molding, soft to touch, or maybe the dirt just washed away. And who are you? she had said to them. My tulips? My narcissus?
At a great distance, the steady toll of the bell, the pain. She turns her cast in Sid Morris’s lap so he can better see. Earlier, in the muted light of one of the fringed lamps from a certain dynasty—sixty-watt, Abe had insisted, so as not to scorch the silk—Sid Morris chose colors and a brush from her tackle box, Very Grand rising as if she might swoop down and take a bite.
“Do you miss him?” Sid is saying; his hair, too long at the collar, and the way his braces crisscross his shoulders.
“Every minute,” she says.
He concentrates, biting his lip. He wears the same dirty shirt he wore when they first met. Months ago now; one lifetime: Simone standing with Henry’s Brooklyn Bridge, already flirting. I
“What?” Marie says. The medication has made her very tired, a bit out of it: the day, the evening. She no longer sleeps but if she did this is how it would feel: exhaustion. Sid Morris is talking.
“I was saying when I was a kid we had a teacher. Shivers,” Sid Morris says. “That’s what we called him, as in shiver me timbers. Anything, he’d jump out of his skin. France, though I didn’t know squat.”
“France,” she says.
“We were shits. We’d slam our books. Push them off our desks. Then we’d say, Sorry, Mr. Shivers.”
“Terrible,” Marie says.
“I was the worst,” Sid Morris says, stubbing out the last of the cigarette, the old clamshell saved from a party in Red Hook—forgotten friends who lived close to the docks, she remembers.
“One day our principal’s at Shivers’s desk. Open your books, he says, some chemistry bullshit. And that was that. No Shivers. And no one had the balls to ask.”
“What happened?” Marie asks.
Sid Morris shrugs. “Who knows?”
Sid Morris wets the tip of the brush in his mouth.
“I never thought about Shivers,” he says. “All these years and now I’m thinking about Shivers. All the time I’m thinking about Shivers. Even now, here,” Sid Morris says, painting something she cannot see. “I’m thinking about Shivers.”
In the dark, dark, beyond the movie star’s floodlight, the newly bloomed forsythia hides a swarm of ghost spiders spinning webs, their spinning systems on overdrive, ramped by the frenzy of the City’s vibrations: subway crossings, thermal energy, steam, plumbing, satellites, fleets of taxis, and down the street, on the farthest corner at the Rawhide, the regular men of ladies’ night dance and dance, refusing to believe the bar’s impending closing: they dance in two-for-one oblivion, dance like all get-out in their get-ups, pedestrians crisscrossing the thronged bicycle lanes, impossible passages, the delivery boys and muscle boys and pretty women who work at magazines weaving in and out of the stalled traffic on Citi Bikes, on foot, this a balmy almost-spring spring night, or close to it, an intimation of what will come—heat, almost tropical, rain falling in sheets, trash bins brimming, washed away, eddying—too much stuff; too many people to count.
“Fuck, Shivers,” Sid Morris suddenly says. “What kind of meshuga backyard with so little light?” He strikes a match for another cigarette. She can feel the heat of his lap through her cast or maybe she is just imagining. Far
Similar Books
