Chapter 2

G2 knew where the community center was; he’d been there before. It might be nothing—and if it was he was no worse off than before—but something deep inside told him this was the night. He wrinkled up his nose as he got closer, searching in the air for a tell-tale scent. He was almost to the door before he finally caught it. They were serving dinner for the homeless tonight. Dinners at community centers were always the best. You could go in and eat your fill of whatever they served, grab a few slices of bread to put in your bag, and leave without having to listen to more than a few God blesses, and maybe a prayer. There were always missions you could get a meal at, but the price of food was often to sit through a long sermon, sometimes even before they let you eat. They wouldn’t let you bring wine into the mission and it was too late by the time you got out to get any. Some nights, Gerald was too hungry to resist. He didn’t object to the sermons or what people believed and tried to get him to believe. He could even nod his head at what they said and whisper “God bless” back at them. But sitting sober at one of their sermons always started Gerald thinking. And thinking like that could make you crazy.

“Brothers and sisters,” a preacher would start out and G2 would start asking himself if he was related to the preacher. And if he was related and everybody in the room was the preacher’s brother or sister, then he must be related to everybody in the room—even the black men, the Asian whores, and the Mexican day-laborers. Now G2 knew none of them were raised in the same house he was. He was pretty sure his mother only had two children. But his father might have had children by as many women as he wanted. Of course, he would have to travel all over the world to get Chinese and Mexican children. He’d be a regular George Washington who was father of his country. It just showed that religion started out lying in the first three words. Brothers and sisters. But they want people to believe really unbelievable stuff. G2 figured that if a preacher could make a bunch of bums in a mission believe they were his brothers and sisters, he was well on his way to making them believe any other thing he wanted to preach. G2 had long since learned how to talk like they wanted. Yes sir. I believe. Amen. God bless. If you tried to argue with them they couldn’t let go. They’d talk you to death and you’d be lucky to get cold soup for dinner. But at community centers you just walked in on a night they were serving dinner and filled a plate with hot greasy pasta and ate. Nobody looked in your bag to see if you were carrying a bit of wine. Nobody preached more than a God bless. Nobody noticed when you stuck an apple and three slices of doughy Wonder Bread in your pocket and left. Nobody noticed you. They were good people.

That’s the way it was with people. You get on in this world by nodding your head and keeping your eyes down. If you challenged people, they’d get you. G2 was never going back to Miami; that was sure enough. It was warm enough and you could sleep under the boardwalk or out on the beach without freezing to death as long as you weren’t there during a hurricane and kept out of the way of the patrols. But G2 argued with a man in Miami. It was a long time ago, but people like that don’t forget. It was nothing, really, but some folks just have to keep arguing even after you give up and move your bedroll to the other side of camp. Then they sneak up on you in the middle of the night and kick you in the gut with two of their friends, and you crawl away and slip into an empty boxcar on the first train heading north and you never go back.

When Gerald was a senior in high school, he heard that his friend Jeff had been shot and was in a hospital in Milwaukee. Gerald was compelled to go visit the friend that he had played army with in the neighborhood. The Milwaukee County General Hospital was a bleak place. It was, Gerald found out, the same hospital that operated the TB sanitarium his father worked in during the Korean conflict and had a large wing that was considered a mental hospital. The medical facility was painted white throughout. Gray tile paved the hallways giving the impression of a stark black and white photograph of a hospital from another age. The people housed in its wards were mostly indigents who could not afford medical care. They were the people that Gerald’s family had sometimes referred to as being “on the county.” In the barbershop, Forrest the barber had once asked Gerald’s father what ever happened to Old Man Sanders. He never came into the shop anymore. Gerald’s father shook his head sadly and said, “Sanders lost his job and the bank took his house. He’s on the county now. Probably can’t afford a haircut.” Jeff’s ward had eight beds in it and Jeff was in the third on the right. As soon as he saw his one-time friend, Gerald couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he’d come here. Jeff was stretched out on the bed flat on his back. The TV in the corner of the room was playing “The Edge of Night” and occasionally Jeff’s eyes flicked toward it. The sound was turned so low Gerald could hardly hear it. Jeff’s eyes watched Gerald come into the room but he didn’t turn his head.

Gerald had dressed in his good slacks with a white shirt and tie on. He didn’t know what the rules were for getting into a hospital. He’d just turned eighteen, but maybe they didn’t allow people to visit who were younger than twenty-one. He’d chosen the tie carefully, opting for a straight narrow black tie instead of one of his father’s broad multi-colored ties. Gerald’s father had had a different tie for every day of the year. He wore a tie to the office every day. When he was killed, Gerald took all the ties into his own closet and a few white shirts as well. This was the first time he’d actually worn one of them.

“You some kind of a priest now?” Jeff asked as Gerald came up beside his bed.

“Naw. I just didn’t know if they’d let me in to see you.” Gerald could tell Jeff was in a sour mood, but who wouldn’t be lying in this place flat on his back.

“Why’d you come? Nobody else came. None of the gang. Not one of the guys who said they were my friend. They all scattered and left me there.”

“I don’t know,” Gerald said. “We used to be friends.” There was a little silence with neither boy knowing what to say next. “What happened?” Jeff looked at him and managed to turn his head slightly to see him better.

“You with the cops?” Gerald shook his head. “They want to pin it all on me. I didn’t do anything.”

“What happened?” Gerald repeated.

“We decided to go down to Chicago and try to get some real booze. Guys had been drinking three-two all day and said we should have some whiskey. We all decided Chicago was the best place to go. We could get there where everybody looked the same, get some whiskey, and sit by the Lake and watch the sun come up. Then we’d roll back home. By the time we reached Milwaukee, everybody was tired of the whole idea. They said we might as well just get some booze in Milwaukee and light up the town. Norm was a Polack, so nobody’d be the wiser. We swung to the curb at the first liquor store we saw. That’s when we realized nobody had any money to buy booze. So Norm, Kirby, and Sam said they’d go in. Billy was to keep the car running and I was to watch outside for the cops. Sam had a gun and they just walked in, waved it around and took a couple of bottles and money. I didn’t know what was happening and I’d gone up to the corner to look for cops and was coming back when the three of them came running out of the store and piled in the car. Billy floored it with me running along behind to catch up. Bastard in the store came out with a rifle and plugged me in the back. Now I can’t even piss by myself.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Shoulda just kept my head down and gone the other way.” They were silent for a while. Gerald couldn’t think of anything to say. He would never have been caught with those guys in the first place. He guessed maybe he was a goody two-shoes. But maybe that was why nothing bad ever happened to him. He just wasn’t ever where the bad stuff happened.

“I ain’t ever gonna get out of this hospital, am I?” Jeff asked. “You were the smart one Ger. You were always the smart one.”

“I gotta go,” Gerald said. “I’ll come back and visit again.”

“Yeah, you do that. Thanks for coming.”

Gerald left and drove the two-and-a-half hours home lost in thought. Dad had been right. Just keep your nose clean and your head down and stay away from guns.

Jeff died later that winter.

G2 heard something he didn’t recognize in the noise of the crowded street. The bumping throb hit him in the chest and made his lungs vibrate. It didn’t seem to affect anyone else around, but it forced G2 to a wall for support. He must be crazy, thinking there was an earthquake when no one else could feel a thing. The teeth-shaking thump got louder and G2 could see a car—that was a Jeep, he remembered—approaching. As the Jeep went on past, the thumping gradually faded. That much echo in his chest made G2 feel empty. That must have been music, he thought.

There was a time when Gerald liked music. He was like any other teenager. He knew all the popular songs. They were good for getting to touch girls. Not all the songs. Some songs seemed to be made to keep people apart, dancing in their own little world as if no one else existed. One time Gerald took a girl to a dance and barely saw her all evening. When he took her home after the dance, she was effusive about how much she enjoyed herself, but she never went out with him again, even though they often went to the same dances and she never seemed to be with anyone else. There was some music, however, that seemed to make a girl melt into your arms—like at senior prom. It started out with everyone nervous about the big night, a corsage barely stuck with a trembling hand to the strap of a low-cut gown—that silent offer of a breast to caress, even if only with the back of one’s hand. The music started with lively numbers and kids jumping around—dancing—frantically trying to burn off the sexual energy that had built with anticipation of the evening. Gradually, the music slowed over the course of the night. Those who had outlasted the frenzy and were still on the dance floor moved together. By the end of the dance, their feet were barely moving, their bodies practically glued to each other.

Gerald drove his date home in his mother’s old Ford Galaxy. She sat in the center of the front seat, snuggled under his arm, holding his right hand against her breast as he carefully maneuvered the big car down the country roads, never going faster than thirty. This was a moment he wanted to last. He remembered there was music then, too, on the radio. She used her free hand to tune to a late-night jazz station. When he pulled into her long farm-house driveway, he coasted to a stop near the barn and turned off the car and the lights, but left the radio on. She sank further into his embrace, giving him even more access to her breasts as she lifted her lips to kiss him. That first kiss after the prom was exquisite. He never wanted it to end. When it did, their hands had found every intimate part of each other’s body and their breathing was shallow and intense. Gerald knew that this was the night and she was the girl. All he could think was a silent prayer that if they made love tonight he would never make love to another woman as long as he lived. She would be the one for him. But it wasn’t to be. As if in answer to his prayer, she whispered to him, “Nothing that could last longer than tonight, Gerald. No long-term consequences, just the moment.” They had cum together, but not through intercourse. When they were sated, she pulled her dress back together, kissed him one more luxurious time and got out of the car. Gerald jumped to walk her to the door, but she motioned him to stay. She walked to the back door of her house alone, turned to blow him a kiss, and then disappeared inside. They had only one date after that when she told him they were just too different to be dating. He was going to college and she was going to stay home and work. She just wasn’t cut out to be a college guy’s girlfriend. Later that year, she married a local farm boy and Gerald heard she had had two children by the time he finished college. Gerald had quit listening to music by that time. It was an interruption he didn’t need. Even when he went to see a movie with his college girlfriend or watched television, he hated the way music manipulated his feelings. Music could trigger fear, tears, and lust. Nothing could be trusted to be what it appeared to be if there was music playing.

G2 moved his feet around to see if he could dance, but he couldn’t remember any music. There was no rhythm, no sense to the movement of his feet, and no girl to hold. As he was intently trying unsuccessfully to remember a song—any song—from his teen years, a passerby dropped a coin in his cup, and all thought of music disappeared.

G2 was looking for an unoccupied corner in a retail area. People were more likely to give a handout in a retail area than in a business district. Business people were working and thought you should be, too. People who were shopping, though—especially those who bought things they didn’t really need and felt guilty about—were in a spending mode and were sensitive to people who couldn’t afford what they could. They could buy a quick indulgence for their greed and vanity with a few coins in his cup. You had to be careful of some businesses, though. He had once been taken by a well-meaning older woman into a beauty salon where she paid to have him barbered, shaved, and scrubbed. G2 came out looking young, clean, and smelling of some kind of fruit. He couldn’t get a handout for a week after.