Brainquake (7 page)

Her mother was born a deaf-mute. Her father was a numbers runner. She grew up using sign language to communicate with her mother. She learned that her father worked for a syndicate that employed hundreds of runners, men who picked up small bets from shop owners, clerks, taxi drivers, tobacco stores, cops, pimps, whores, firemen, and truckers—all gambling $2 and up on picking the last three figures of the day’s trading at the Stock Exchange. The figures were published every day in the last edition of the newspapers.

She shared a small apartment in Washington Heights with her mother and father. Specialists were too expensive, demanding money in advance to treat her mother, to try to get her to hear or speak.

And you could live without hearing, without speaking. Cancer… She knew the hell Zookie was living in.

She was a hatcheck girl when her father keeled over from a heart attack. The next day her mother died from the shock. A week later the double funeral, paid by Barney, who drove her to the cemetery. Max the Mouthpiece got her the job with the legitimate half of Pegasus in the Dispatch Department for $300 a week.

What her mother could never do because of lack of money, the Boss was determined to do for the deaf-mute baby she adopted at the orphanage. She’d named the baby Samantha, after her mother. The three hundred dollars weekly went to a nurse who knew sign language, to rent and to food. Several promotions followed. The raises went to specialists. No matter how many times she was told Samantha would never hear or speak, Rebecca kept paying, kept insisting they keep trying. Upped to Assistant Dispatch Chief. Truckers who hauled pianos and furniture soon dropped their resentment toward the female over them. When she was put in charge of Dispatch, the truckers threw her a party. Word flew through the legitimate half of Pegasus that Rebecca knew how to treat her people. They felt at home with her. They trusted her.

Word of this trust reached Max who offered her a thousand a week as assistant to the boss of bagmen in Manhattan. Max trusted her. If she turned it down the conversation had never taken place. Bagmen? The only conscience she had was her daughter’s health. Rebecca accepted the job, spent every penny on new specialists. When her superior retired, Rebecca Plummer became boss of bagmen at $3,000 per week with a fat bonus every six months. She kept spending all her money on Samantha.

In a medical journal she read about Bill Wilson, a deaf-mute who partially licked it and was willing to help others. Bill was 26. He worked closely with Samantha, using his experience to help her. When Samantha was 23, she married Bill.

The Boss picked a bigger apartment that they all lived in. She knew that Samantha was in good hands. But she kept bringing in doctors. All her bonuses went right to the most expensive specialists. She bankrolled Bill and Samantha to Europe to contact specialists there and hunt for a miracle no matter how much it cost. The news was always bad but the Boss never gave up.

She never would.

The light blinked. On the monitor Max was waiting. She pushed the floor button. The door slid open. Max came in. He was pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked pained.

The Boss knew it was about Paul.

“I need an aspirin,” Max said. “Bad headache all day.”

She gave him a pill from her bottle. He swallowed it dry.

“I could’ve told you on the phone, Rebecca, but this news…I wanted to tell you to your face.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “The throne okayed you handling all five boroughs. You’ll of course keep Manhattan as your main office, but they’ll all report to you. Triple salary. Double bonus every six months.” The proud smile on his face turned to a grimace, like he was tasting something sour. “What the hell did you give me, Rebecca?”

She couldn’t contain her relief. She hugged him.

“Vitamin C, Max!”

“Goddam it, Rebecca, you trying to poison me? All I asked for was a goddam aspirin.”

It was dark when Paul was discharged from the emergency room. He flagged a taxi, was driven back to Central Park. His taxi was still there. He climbed behind the wheel, his head still whirling, bandaged face aching, bruised eye smarting. Paul drove slowly through the streets. No bones were broken. He was trying to fit the pieces together. He’d had an attack when the man was shot. Why didn’t he have one when the bomb went off? When the people rioted?

Had it all even really happened? Was it all in his head? A mirage…

…they were sitting in faded blue canvas folding chairs…he and his mother…outside the shack…and the sky was muddy… she was reading
Robinson Crusoe
aloud…word by word and spelling the words…and she saw him pointing at the sky…

“Ship.” He forced the word out. He was seven. He had learned some words.

His mother looked up at the skyscrapers.

“There’s no ship. It’s a mirage, Paul. Mirage. Say mirage.”

“Mirage.”

“M-i-r-a-g-e. M-i-r-a-g-e.” She printed it out on the pad. “M-i-r-a-g-e. Spell it out with me, Paul.” He did again and again and kept repeating the word.

She hugged him.

“Good. Write it, Paul.”

He printed it slowly.

“Good, Paul. Mirage is something you see that is not really there. Do you understand?”

His face was blank.

“The ship in the sky is not real, Paul. On the water people see an island that is not there and they see ships that are not there and in the desert they see trees that are not there…they are not real. This book is real. I am real. Our home is real. The ship in the sky is not real. It is called a mirage, what you saw, not a ship, but a mirage. Now you tell me, Paul, what is a mirage?”

“Not real.”

Ivory Face was real. What happened this morning was real. His bruises were real. The aching was real.

Why hadn’t he spoken to Ivory Face before? Why did he lack the courage? His father once told him that he had courage. Paul remembered very clearly. It was after he put the pillow on his mother’s face.
He didn’t know that his father had been watching him. He didn’t understand why his father didn’t speak to him for weeks after that. And one day Barney asked him, “Did Ma ask you to cover her face with the pillow?” And Paul had nodded. “Why did she ask you, Paul?” said Barney. “To stop her pain, Pa.” His father hugged him and cried and said Paul had more courage than anybody in the world.

Where was that courage? What happened to it? Once, Barney had told him he had the wisdom of Solomon and the strength of Samson. He didn’t know who they were, but it all had something to do with courage.

All he had to do was to say, “Hello, I am Paul. I would like to talk to you.” That was all.

He had meant to ask his father many times what kind of courage he meant. The day he was picking up bets for him and told him he wanted to be a poet…that was the day he should have asked him, but that night his father died in his arms and the phone kept ringing and a woman asked for Barney and things happened so fast. The man who took care of the funeral told him it was all paid for. And Paul alone at the cemetery. Soaked. The grave was covered with canvas to keep the rain out and a voice said, “Your father fixed a spot for you to be a mailman.” It was Hoppie. He offered Paul $50 a week to learn how to be a mailman and Paul nodded.

His taxi was halfway to Pegasus. What was he going to tell the Boss about not keeping the appointment with Dr. Adson? The appointment was for him, not the Boss. He never lied to her. But now… He would tell her he was in the park because he liked the park.

There was no need to mention Ivory Face. Why should he? He didn’t know her. He had never spoken to her. As he piloted his taxi through the streets he knew so well, he remembered Hoppie teaching him. For a whole year, every day, while he was getting $50 a week and living alone in the Battery shack, Hoppie drove him through every street and alley in New York City that Paul had to know if he got the job of mailman.

He should be with Ivory Face right now. He knew that she was lonely, had followed her a few times, saw where she worked, never saw her with anybody until that stranger, and now even he was gone…

In the first year under Hoppie’s tutelage Paul learned landmarks he could spot blocks away, even at night.

Nights when he wasn’t working, he tried to write poems, read books his mother had given him, studied words in the dictionary.

Hoppie taught him how to back up fast without lights in a dark alley, how to avoid blind dead ends, how to escape from a pirate by driving behind 24-sheet billboards on empty lots through camouflaged rubble.

Paul learned how to lose a pirate on wheels in the snow, the rain, on the waterfront, on roofs, in the subway, in elevators, markets, theatres, bus depots, train stations, airports, in churches, in a crowd, a rally, at ballgames and how to use streets under construction.

He learned how to use a gun to protect the mail the way the FBI used guns to protect the United States.

In the third year of training he learned how to carry the bag. Not too fast. Not too slow. How to use store window reflections to spot a pirate following him. He had to carry the bag the way Hoppie did. Like a businessman carrying a briefcase. He had to learn what to do if, making a delivery, he came across an accident near the drop.

It was forbidden to go to the same barber twice, shop at the same market, eat at the same place, buy his clothes at the same store.

He learned how to drive a hyped-up taxi, a small van, a motorcycle.

He learned to avoid traffic jams by taking shortcuts. He learned he must never drive fast unless fleeing from a pirate. He was taught how to use a Polaroid. Off work, he knew that he was under surveillance by Hoppie.

For three years, he had periodic brainquakes. They didn’t show in his cipher face. Hoppie was unaware of the attacks. He had annual physical checkups by a company doctor, always passed, lucky he never had a brainquake in the doctor’s office.

Hoppie did all the talking. That suited Paul. The final day at the end of the third year, Hoppie took him to meet the Boss for the first time. On the way, Hoppie braked.

“Goddam it, Paul, I forgot!”

Hoppie U-turned, almost sideswiping a passing truck.

“Jesus Christ, Paul, I’d’ve had my ass reamed if I didn’t take you to Yonkers first. There’s a place you got to see before you start carrying the bag.”

“What place?”

“Your future, goddam it,” laughed Hoppie, “is in Yonkers.”

In the suburb of New York, they pulled up to a big isolated house. It was surrounded by trees. It was kept very clean. He knew what the word future meant. His father had explained it very clearly. He couldn’t understand why this big house was his future.

Inside, Hoppie took him on a tour. Paul saw old men playing cards, chess, checkers, staring out windows. Many had canes to help them walk.

“For retired bagmen,” Hoppie said. “When you’re pensioned off, you can live here for nothing or you can live alone. Most bagmen, the older they get, the more they’re hungry for a little company. Most of ’em here are over the hill with no memories. Those attendants there in white shirts are also retired bagmen who like helping the older ones.”

Hoppie took him to the cemetery behind the house.

“Only for bagmen. Few guys in any goddam other business get this kind of security when they’re old.”

After Paul had had a good look, Hoppie led him back to the car.

At a fast clip, Hoppie drove Paul to the Pegasus Building. On the way, he asked Paul if he was scared to meet the Boss. Paul didn’t understand what he meant. Why would he be scared?

“How about the job? You scared of pirates, of guys coming after you with goddam machine guns?”

Paul shook his head.

“Good,” Hoppie said. “Good boy. Only one thing you should be scared of, and that’s the people you work for.”

“Why?”

Hoppie drove a while, silent at the wheel, then looked over at Paul beside him. “You treat them well, they treat you well. Better than well. Like you just seen. But that’s a two-way street. You treat them bad, you break the faith or do something you shouldn’t’ve, you steal or rat or if you ever, ever talk to the fucking cops…there’s no mercy. You need to understand that. No mercy.”

Hoppie waited for Paul to nod, to say or do something to show the words were penetrating that thick skull of his, but he just watched, blank. “I keep my nose clean, Paul, so I got nothing to be scared of. But that don’t mean I never been scared. Because I seen what they done to other guys. This one time…” He shivered, and the car swerved slightly as it ran through him. “This poor stoolie bastard. They put a hit out on him. The hitter caught up with him outside his home, busted the bastard’s spine. Then he slammed him up against the wall and drove spikes through his hands and feet. Into the wall. Left him hanging there for his family to find. Fucking crucified him. Goddam poor stoolie.”

Paul said nothing. But the image stayed with him.

* * *

For four years Paul carried the bag without incident, until one morning at eleven o’clock. His small cream-colored van was rolling at 35 mph. Traffic was normal.

He was 24 years old. Making a delivery to a man waiting for him in the toilet on the second floor of the Criminal Courts Building. The man was a judge who had a private can in his chambers on the third floor, but Paul didn’t know this. He just knew where to go when. The judge had seen Paul every month for four years for the few seconds it took Paul to transfer an envelope containing $200,000 from his bag to the judge’s briefcase. The judge never remembered Paul’s face.

The delivery, one of the easiest on Paul’s route, turned shaky when a pirate’s blue sedan appeared on Paul’s left. The pirate waved his gun for Paul to pull up at the curb. Paul gunned the hyped-up engine, leaving the pirate far behind. Paul knew the exact escape route and took it. It would take as little as 28 seconds to lose the blue car, as much as a full minute. It depended on how fast Paul zigzagged through the tied-up traffic in front of the Criminal Courts Building. He heard gunshots. Women were screaming. He braked hard into the stalled car in front of him. He could see the blue sedan in the rear-view mirror coming fast.