Gotham (10 page)

The driver makes several more turns. He has a GPS but doesn't seem to use it. We pull up outside a rundown building. The driver steps
out and checks the street in an overt way, like someone in a video checking a street, about to be surprised by gunfire or a flash mob of dancers. I can see no one, nothing. He opens the door.

Na
ti climbs out, connects the zip on his jacket and looks up high at the brickwork, beyond the graffiti tags, for Rapunzel or a party that's waiting just for him, piles of coke or ice, like perfect ground glass. A breeze swirls in, a chill on it.

He steps lightly across the kerb, still fiddling with the zip and saying something like, ‘Back in five,' without turning his head.

The driver releases the door handle and decides he should stand next to the open door until directed otherwise. He clasps his hands behind his back and takes his own look at the high windows, perhaps thinking of the party up there that is never for him, or thinking of home, or blankly gazing, just stretching his neck.

‘Five,' Smokey says, with a distinct lack of conviction. ‘He's…' He shrugs and peers out the open door. ‘Excuse me.'

He finds a number on his phone and taps the green button to make the call. A woman answers, not with hello but with a sentence, in a forceful tone.

‘Yeah, honey,' he says. ‘It's LyDell. You know how he—' Her voice cuts back in, berating him. ‘Yeah…Hmmm…I know, honey, I'd be…' He puts his hand on his forehead, waiting for the tide to turn, the storm to abate. She tears another piece or two off him. ‘Soon. When LyDell's eating. But how you doin'? That's what I want to know.'

I can hear her telling him about the pain, pulling out some big metaphors. He makes listening, soothing noises. She has plenty more to tell. He is kerbside elsewhere, useless, but making the best sounds of unequivocal
support and deep engagement that he can. We are all—fathers, husbands, partners—always precisely where we should be in spirit, even when the facts of our days and nights take us down stupid side streets like this one. Even when we should own our choices a little more than we do.

When the call's over, he looks my way half-heartedly and says, ‘She's okay.'

‘Sure. It's quite a time.' I have been in a labour ward once, and seen the female body defy logic and deliver something as bulky, wriggling and life-changing as a baby.

‘It is.' He smiles, for the first time in a while.

A wrapper blows along the sidewalk, skittering end over end. My Krug is warm in the bottle. A car drives past us slowly, beats thumping behind its closed windows.

Smokey takes another look at the building, perhaps hoping it will reveal something new.

‘Sometimes there's a girl there,' he says, still craning his neck. ‘A particular girl.'

He finds another number on his phone. This time it's the restaurant and he tells them we're going to be late. He estimates twenty minutes. Every call he makes is a new promise about time, and he sits there in his designer suit with his polished shoes and buffed nails but no say over his next five minutes.

‘There's a place,' he says, leaning forward. ‘They do a beef Wellington. Best in New York. Best anywhere, maybe. So LyDell says, and he sees himself as an aficionado. He prefers it served as soon as he arrives, so…'

‘How do they get that right?' Beef Wellington takes time. It's a multi-step process.

‘They set one up to be ready on time and there's another fifteen minutes behind it.' He watches for my reaction.

‘They make two in case he's late?'

‘They make three maybe. I don't know.'

The wind makes a shhhh sound as it skids across the open door. The driver is still standing in the exact same spot, his hands clasped behind his back, fingers clenching and unclenching. More isometrics.

‘And what happens to the others?' I do what I can to pull all the judgment out of my voice. I'm picturing a production line, one plate after another of the world's best beef Wellington dropping from the end of a conveyor belt and crashing onto the mess that's already there.

There's a pause before Smokey says, ‘I don't know.' He clears his throat. ‘This is not for the article, right? You and me talking about beef Wellington? That's just you and me talking, yeah?'

A message comes through to his phone. He checks it and flinches. He shows me the text part of it, his hand over an image. There's only one
word. ‘Pu
y.' He doesn't have to tell me who it's from.

‘At least I didn't show you the photo.' He puts the phone on the seat, face down.

There's another squall of wind, this time with rain scattering across the roof of the van. Smokey grabs for the Little Brown Bag as the rain comes in. The driver shuts the door, but the bag tips over. The plum-coloured purse slides onto the seat. Smokey picks it up—it's small in his hands—clicks the flap shut, folds the strap with care and slips it back into the bag.

‘The clothes are for him, I guess, but…' It's my best chance. The purse isn't for Na
ti's candy store girl, but it's for someone.

‘This?' Smokey sets the bag next to his thigh and keeps his hand on it. ‘I can't say for sure. It's not my place, and I also…I tell you this. His mom always said, ‘I don't want no son who's in
jail. I want a son who'll buy me something nice at Bloomingdale's.''

It's a gift Na
ti, Lydell Junior, will never deliver. It's five years too late, the best they had. Did he picture it on her arm, I wonder, back there in Bloomingdale's? Did he picture her there on the red chaise lounge among the grey yachtsmen, carried unharmed all the way to this different, invented life and its unimaginable opportunities?

‘You know we don't discuss her,' Smokey says before I can speak, ‘but I think it was important. Going there tonight, doing that. I don't know. More important than two more pairs of pants anyways.'

He gets another text, and shows it to me. This one reads, ‘You have a daughter, asshole.' No photos.

He calls back, full of joy and regret, and gets shouted at. A baby wails in the background.

‘I know, I know,' he says, battling to get to the news, to make certain all is well.

The phone is handed to the nurse for that. His lady dismisses him. He takes it on the chin and listens intently to every detail.

‘You tell her I love her,' he says to the nurse once he's heard it all. ‘D'vonne and my new best girl, you tell them both, even if one of them don't want to hear it right now.'

I can hear the nurse's voice. His baby's quiet now. He's getting acquiescence to his request but not much sympathy.

She finishes the call and he looks over to me and says, ‘Fine set of lungs, my daughter. Can't guess where she got that from. She's good. It's cool. I'll see her soon. Soon as LyDell…' He raises his eyebrows. ‘She's healthy. Everybody's healthy. That's the main thing. I thought I had more time.'

‘It's quicker with the second sometimes.' I have only one, but I've heard. ‘Congratulations.'

‘Yeah.' He grins. ‘Yeah, it is that time. I'm in the doghouse but she's in the world, man. Breathing and squalling and beautiful, too, the nurse tells me. Thank you.' He swivels in his seat, so that he's on his knees and facing forward. ‘Hey, Rakim,' he says to the driver. ‘I got me a daughter.'

‘Happy for you, Mr Carmichael.' Rakim reaches a hand up to shake. ‘So happy for you.'

There's a tapping sound at the front window, Na
ti's voice just audible through the thick glass saying, ‘What the fuck?' His arm is over his head, as though the light rain might strike with enough force to cause actual pain.

‘Sorry, sir.' Rakim moves quickly.

Na
ti steps back as Rakim simultaneously opens his door and pops a black umbrella. He launches himself from his seat and shelters Na
ti while pulling the rear door open.