Subway Love (13 page)

“Nothing, Lily. Go back and watch TV.”

“There’s nothing on. When’s Mom coming home? Where did she go? What guilty brain?”

“Nothing on? With five hundred channels? Netflix? You must have something on the DVR.” Jonas knew he sounded like their mother. Or Nick.

“It’s about Mom and Dad, isn’t it? The divorce, isn’t it?” Lily said.

Nick looked over at Jonas, and Jonas wished he hadn’t. Lily was fishing. She didn’t know anything. But it was too late.

“I knew it,” Lily burst out. “You know what I did. You know it’s my fault.” And she started crying.

“Oh, jeez, what’s happening?” Nick had two older brothers, and this crying stuff made him nervous. Jonas told him to go home.

“It’s fine. I’m not mad at all. I’ll talk to you later,” Jonas told him. He pushed his friend out the front door.

“I’m really sorry.” Jonas could hear him on the other side.

“It’s fine,” Jonas shouted.

He finally got Lily to stop crying and go to bed, only by assuring her he would never tell their mother about how she broke the hand mirror in the bathroom, though he had been completely unsuccessful in trying to convince her that the broken hand mirror had nothing to do with their parents splitting up. Somehow Lily had come to believe that directly after her mother found the broken mirror — and Lily flatly denied having anything to do with it — her parents had ended up fighting. And then ended up getting divorced, and somehow Lily connected it all to the lie, and the mirror, and to herself.

It was a story, her story, just like any other story, as plausible as it was implausible. Most people will tell themselves anything in order to feel better about themselves, but some people do the opposite. Lily was truly her brother’s sister. For the briefest moment as her sobs took over her body, Jonas (thinking that surely no one had enough liquid stored inside to remain alive after crying so long) considered telling his sister that it was his fault, not hers. But then, as quickly as she had begun crying, she stopped and she fell asleep, most likely from sheer exhaustion and dehydration. And he never said anything.

“How was it, Mom?” Jonas asked because he wanted things to be all right — if not better than before, at least right enough.

“It was awful, Jonas,” his mother told him. She dropped her keys in the bowl by the front door. “People just lie, all the time. Is Lily asleep?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to bed. Lock up, will you, sweetie?”

“Sure, Mom.” When she was in her bedroom, Jonas took his keys, grabbed his camera bag, and closed the door behind him.

MAYOR
Lindsay had declared war, and by early 1973, well over fifteen hundred New York City youths had been arrested for vandalism. He called graffiti “demoralizing and obscene,” and he said the graffiti writers were “insecure cowards” seeking recognition, though nothing could have been further from the truth.

There was talk of making spray paint illegal for anyone under eighteen, not only to purchase but to be found carrying. Attack dogs were brought into the yards, and coils of razor wire were added to the tops of the fences. Not only did MTA guards, who were usually too lazy or too fat to chase anyone for very long, patrol the yards and layups, but now real New York City police were put on “graffiti duty,” and the cops didn’t like it. It had always been risky sneaking into the yards at night to work, but now it was downright dangerous.

Max was thinking of changing his tag name again.

THE
city looks purple at night. The streetlights catching the exhaust from the buses and taxis and cars, the headlights from all that traffic, the hot steam escaping from the sidewalk grates all rise up to the moon — when it’s out and not totally blocked by the tall buildings. The light is unnatural and filtered, not quite yellow anymore, not gray, but more purple. Jonas held his camera in his hand as he walked, adjusting the settings. He had never found Laura this late before. Most of their meetings, if you could call them that, had been during the day, at least on her end of things, on her way to or from her father’s apartment as she explained it. She didn’t go out at night, and she wanted to be back before dark. From what he could gather, the city must have been more dangerous back then, or maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t a native. What time it was for Jonas didn’t seem to affect anything.

Finding Laura was hit or miss. Jonas could ride the subway for hours and not see her all day, or go out Saturday morning first thing and there she was. Or sneak out late at night. There was no telling when she might appear, and it was killing him.

So when Jonas saw the kid from the museum, the writer, as he called himself, standing at the top of the subway entrance smoking a cigarette, he half expected to see Laura again right behind him, coming up the stairs.

Jonas was about to say something to him.
Spike, right?
But the kid spoke first.

“Hey, you’re that boy,” Spike said. “The
boy
friend.”

“Huh?” Jonas managed. He looked down the stairs. Only a man bumping an oversize suitcase onto each step up into the light appeared from below. No Laura, though he could feel her. It was a longing. It never left him.

“She’s not up here,” Spike said. He blew smoke circles into the air. “She can’t be. You know that.”

Jonas didn’t question how or why this kid knew that or why he should believe him, but of course he did.

“I don’t know what she sees in you,” Spike went on.

This kid had no right, no reason, to judge.
What did he know? Who the hell was he?

“But if you do me a favor, I’ll help you find her.” He stamped out his cigarette on the sidewalk.

Jonas looked at Spike. It
was
Spike, wasn’t it? He felt stupid using that name. That couldn’t be his real name. On the other hand, Jonas was game for anything that could make it easier to find Laura.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I need someone to take photographs for me. I need to record this. I need a record of it. I need witnesses to my greatness.”

None of this sounded very safe. Why did this Hispanic kid need to ask a stranger to take a picture of his greatest if there wasn’t something criminal involved? Just thinking that made Jonas feel like a racist, but on the other hand, better safe than sorry. He could practically hear his mother’s voice.

“Why me?”

“Your camera.” Spike nodded at the bag slung over Jonas’s shoulder. “You’ve got a camera.”

“I thought you had a camera,” Jonas said. “I saw you with a camera before.”

“It got stolen.” Spike shook his head slowly. “So, you in, Romeo?”

The sidewalk lit by neon pouring from the storefronts, the traffic speeding to make the green light, the street lamps that bent their heads and illuminated everything below — nothing was different, maybe, from when Laura made her way to this subway station. But maybe everything was different — the make of cars, the way people dressed, the tensions, the dreams, the politics — he didn’t really know. In the end it was the same concrete under his feet, and hers. The same black sky cut between the same soaring buildings; the same moon, just a different light.

“I can’t wait all night,” Spike said. “But, hey, if you’re a chickenshit, I’ll understand.”

He was. Jonas had been pretty much all his life, but if he was going to see Laura again, he would have to think outside the box. Of course, that was understood. Lately nothing fit inside the box.

“OK, I’m in,” Jonas said.

Spike nodded in approval and laid out his plan: the time, the place; it all came out fast.

“And don’t forget”— Spike was still talking —“plenty of film, fast — four hundred or higher. No flash. You got a light meter? Be there. Don’t forget. And I’ll make sure she’s here.”

THE
truth was, Max had no idea how to find that girl Laura and he certainly couldn’t promise he’d bring her to Jonas tomorrow night or any night. He unlocked his closet. His mom didn’t pry into his stuff, but he kept it locked anyway, and the key hung from a split ring holder that he attached to his belt loop. Max had work to do. This was art. True art is more important than love. It certainly lasts longer. He opened the closet door.

The shelves were stocked with spray paint, all colors. There was Red Pepper Red and Cherry Red. He had to know which one to choose. There was Golden Pear Yellow and Bright Idea Yellow, very different. Celery. Hosta Leaf. Global Blue or Peekaboo. Rich Plum and Purple. It had taken him months to collect it all. It had to be lifted, not bought. It just did. He didn’t make the rules.

If his father knew he had stolen all this paint, shoplifted anything at all, he would kill him. His dad had wanted to move for years. Out of the Bronx. To Yonkers, he would say. Westchester somewhere. Or Connecticut. But Max’s mother wouldn’t leave her family. Her mother, Max’s grandmother, was housebound. She needed her family nearby. His mother called him for dinner again.

Max stuffed the cans he needed into a suitcase, and more into his pockets, to see how many he could carry. Then, carefully, he put them all back, arranged in order according to hue, and locked the closet door.

“Max,” his mother shouted down the hall. “Did you hear me?”

He ignored her for a little longer and sat down with his notebook to work out the exact numbers. He had measured the cars, the windows, the doors, everything. He had drawn a grid and sketched out his drawing, square by square. He would need fillers to get it all done in one night, but he knew a couple of younger kids dying to follow him.

“Max. Now.”

Max shut his notebook. He was hungry anyway. He would be ready by next weekend. Next weekend. He would be ready.

SHE
wasn’t there — at midnight exactly — at the train station. Spike was there, or whatever his name really was, but no Laura.

“I’m telling you, man. I can do it. Something’s happened, that’s all. Just be patient.”

“This is such bullshit,” Jonas told him. They were already on the train, riding uptown, all the way to the end of the line. Never a good idea for a white Jewish boy in the middle of the night. It had been hard enough getting out of the house without arousing suspicion, especially without Nick, who texted him pretty much all night long. It required a series of typed lies, all of which he would probably be caught in tomorrow morning.

“What’s your real name?” Jonas said. “Just fucking tell me.” They were the only ones in the car. Another bad sign.

“Max Lowenbein,” he said. “There. You satisfied? Now, will you just take the pictures?”

“Lowenbein?” Jonas said. “You’re Jewish?”

“Yeah, so what?”

Jonas rested his back against the hard plastic seat. The train was littered inside with black graffiti. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed that before. “Nothing. I just thought you were Hispanic.”

“You think there aren’t any Puerto Rican Jews?”

Jonas had never heard of that, but of course he knew there were Spanish Jews. He had learned his history — Sephardim, Marranos, the Inquisition — more Hebrew school memories.

“Cool,” Jonas said. “So am I.”

“No, duh.”

“Really?” Jonas asked. It was that obvious?

“Really.”

Maybe this was all crazy and Laura certainly wasn’t going to be here, but it was exciting in a way Jonas had never felt before. Scary and different, and he felt very much alive. He had that same feeling of being beyond time, in a space in between. People always talked about how teenagers thought they were immortal, that a part of their brains had not fully developed and they couldn’t understand consequences. Jonas had never been very daring, never got in much trouble, didn’t drink or smoke very much. So maybe this is what daring felt like. Maybe it was about time.

The train ended its run for the night at the top of the Bronx at Pelham Bay Park. Max told Jonas to stay close. They exited the train with the last few remaining passengers and then slipped down onto the tracks and pressed their backs against the wall.

“Watch out for the third rail,” Max whispered. “And the rats.”

“Holy crap.”

It was darker than any darkness Jonas could remember. His heart was pounding.

“But if you feel one, don’t scream,” Max said. “Just wait. And keep quiet.”

They listened as the conductor shouted some instructions. The doors were locked; the train began to move slowly.

“Grab on.” Max stepped up and grabbed on to the back of the train, holding the bars and perching his feet on the narrow platform that jutted off the end. “Hurry up.”

In that way, they made their way to the layup and began their work. It turned out that Max had over twenty-five cans of spray paint packed in his suitcase. He wanted Jonas to document the entire project. He wanted it witnessed, recorded.
If you don’t tell the story, it might as well never have happened.

“It’s going to be the biggest piece this city has ever seen,” Max said. He began with an outline — huge, thick black lines. It was clear he had it planned out to the last dot, the last fill. Where he would start, how he would finish.

“What’s a ‘piece’?” Jonas had his camera out. The lighting was fantastic, an eerie overhead single bulb. They were underground in an area of the tunnels that Jonas had never seen before. Fencing had been erected along the concrete sides. There were no benches, no signs, no ticket booths or turnstiles, just trains resting on their tracks and darkness.