Sugar Pop Moon (12 page)

Doc Anders leans in and shines his tiny flashlight at my cheeks, which are still smarting from yesterday's bout with the Princeton wind. I'm leaning back on the black leather couch in his private office, avoiding the glare of the overhead light by staring over his shoulder at the gold striped curtains. The doc has made it clear he'd rather look me over in the exam room across the hall, but we've been friends since I started hosting his late-night poker games at the Pour House, and as far as I'm concerned, that gives me the right to be examined in his office.

I feel more civilized here. The smell of musty old textbooks reminds me he's smart. Five diplomas hang in polished frames on the wall behind his mahogany desk—the large one is from Long Island College Hospital and proclaims him a
Medicinae Doctor
. When we're in the exam room, the odor of rubbing alcohol makes me feel like a specimen—a freak of nature—especially when one of his young clear-skinned nurses is standing next to me, taking notes as the doc ticks off his various diagnoses. He's not calling out any terminology now, he's just looking, but by the time we wrap it up, he'll have spouted a few doozies that are nothing but fancy medical terms for zebra-nigger-lackey-coon.

If you met the doc at the Pour House, you probably wouldn't trust him to find his house keys. He's got kinky white hair that's greased on the sides but sticks up on the top, a long face with a narrow nose that holds a pair of brown horn-rimmed eyeglasses, and he mutters to himself when he's deep in thought. But he knows his stuff.

He pulls down the lower lid of my right eye and tilts my head toward the light.

“You haven't answered my question, Doc.”

I'm not here for a checkup; I know I'm an albino. I'm here to get the lowdown on my genetic future. I need something new to tell Pearl.

“Hold on, Snowball,” he says.

I've told him to call me Jersey, but I let it slide. He's heard me called Snowball too many times to think of me by any other name.

He clucks his tongue twice, mutters something under his breath, and scampers out of the room. I'm not sure what he's found, but my money says it's got something to do with a lack of pigment.

He comes back in and hands me a tube of cream. “Twice a day on your face until the redness goes away.”

“Swell,” I say. Then I get back to the reason I came. “Doc, if Pearl and I had kids, what are the odds they'd look like me?”

He straightens up and looks me in the eye, taking inventory of what he finds there: a nagging love for Pearl, along with a pressing need for a clean bill of sperm-health.

“I thought you two finished before you got started,” he says.

I'm not sure if he's answering my question or asking me another. It doesn't matter because there's no point in bullshitting him. The doc knows everything about Pearl, as does anybody who sits in front of me at the bar for longer than fifteen minutes.

“Just answer my question,” I say.

“Albinism takes on many forms. Even if you were to have an albino child, he or she may have very few symptoms.” He stops for a moment; he's looking for a way to explain a scientific mystery in plain language. “There's no knowing,” he finally says, and leaves it at that.

“I need something better than that, Doc,” I tell him. “I need something new.”

“It's not likely that your child would be an albino. In order for that to happen, both parents would need to be carriers.”

I think of my own parents, the two random carriers that created me. The champ doesn't like to talk about my mother, but he's told me enough to fill in the blanks. She broke off from her family when she met my father, then cut out on him right after I was born. She didn't leave anything behind, not even a clue to my bloodline. The champ knows his own grandmother was an albino, but he's never laid eyes on my mother's parents. He doesn't even know their names.

I think of Pearl and a smile cracks my chapped lips. “But Pearl's not a carrier, right?”

“Probably not,” he says. “But she could be. Anybody could. Albinism is recessive. If Pearl's great-great-great-grandmother was albino, then it's possible your child would inherit the condition. Not from you, but from you and Pearl.”

He looks at me and I think I spot pity in his eyes, but maybe I'm as oversensitive as my skin.

“It's unlikely, Snowball,” he says. “I'd bet the house that Pearl's not a carrier.”

It's hard for me to feel good with that answer because I've seen the doc bet the house—and lose—about three times a week for the past two years.

My eyes start shimmying again.

“Your eyes are still giving you trouble,” he says. It wasn't a question, so I don't give an answer. “I'll give you drops, but they won't help unless you stay out of the sun and away from bright lights. Have you been wearing your sunglasses?”

“All the time,” I tell him, even though he probably knows I'm lying. Then I get back to Pearl. “So I should just walk away?”

He sighs and leans against the side of his desk. “Snowball, uh, Jersey, this isn't a medical issue. Do you want me to answer as your doctor or your friend?”

“Both.”

“As your doctor, I'm telling you that in all likelihood your children will be fine. But as a friend, I think you're beating a dead horse. There's nothing you can say that will win Pearl over. Walk away.”

But I'm not ready to move on. “Can you change the way I look?” I ask. Rumor has it the doc helped a few of his friends run from the law by altering their faces. And I happen to know the rumor is true.

“I can put you in touch with someone,” he says. “But there's only so much he can do. Change your hair, maybe. Fix in here.” He drags his finger along a tender patch in front of my earlobe. “But it won't rid you of the albinism.”

I walk to his bookcase and look into the mirror he keeps next to a photo of his infant son. My cheeks are a random pattern of pink and red blotches. I spent one day in the wind and came out of it a chapped checkerboard.

“We're keeping up with it, Snowball.” Then he mutters, “Almost.”

I want to pound my face with his desk lamp until he tells me I'm normal, but I know he won't lie to me. I gather up my jacket and hat and leave his office feeling the way I did when I got here: alone.

Walking home from the subway, I pass the tailor shops, delicatessens, and pawnshops on 125th Street. They're all empty; nobody in Harlem has a nickel. Usually I make my way down Seventh Avenue but today I turn on Lenox. I'm happy to avoid the Salvation Army Santas—those ringing bells do nothing but remind me that I'll be spending the holiday on my own. Besides, if Denny's right and Jimmy got back on Monday, then Jimmy's triggermen are already out looking for me. I'll approach my place from Lenox and, if anything smells fishy, I'll spin around and duck back inside the subway station. I won't be able to live like this for long, though. I've been in hiding for two days and it's already getting to me. I'm going to have to take a permanent vacation or sit down with Jimmy.

Walking down Lenox, I spot my father on the corner of 123rd Street. He's only five blocks from his place—he moved us to Harlem from Hoboken ten years ago. But he's not heading home; he's pacing in a small circle. He's wearing a tan overcoat with wide shoulder pads and a dark brown fedora. He runs over to head me off at the corner of 124th.

“Ya got trouble, son,” he says, nervously looking over each shoulder as if he'd just robbed a bank.

He grabs my elbow and pulls me under the awning of Pete's Shoe Repair. He steers me into the vestibule and stands between me and the road. I can't see past his broad shoulders. He's hiding me.

“What's going on?” I say, tugging my elbow out of his hand.

“I just went by your place to tell you about Hector. Some thug was there, started questionin' me, askin' where you were.”

“One of Jimmy's boys,” I say.

“I knew this would happen.” His voice has a sharp edge to it; he wants to yell but he's controlling himself. He's got a right to be ruffled. He's witnessing his worst nightmare.

“I can straighten this out,” I say, hoping to calm him down, but my pulse is quickening and the back of my neck is getting hot.

A car rolls up to the curb and I pull my fedora down over my forehead. My father reaches around me, opens the wooden and glass door to Pete's and pushes me into the shop. As the door swings open, a sleigh bell attached to the jamb jingles overhead.

Pete's shop is painted the color of pea soup and it smells of dust and cowhide. Two heavyset cobblers are working in a room behind the counter. I only see their heads but can tell they're both swinging small rubber mallets. I take a good look at each of them, just to be sure I've never seen their round faces in Jimmy's company.

The counter is in front of us. There are shoe supplies—brushes, bootblack, laces, and horns—displayed on the right wall, and a row of four shoeshine chairs along the left wall. We settle into the two chairs at the front of the store, away from the counter. I keep my eyes trained out the window.

An old white man with large ears and sloped shoulders rushes over with a rag to buff our shoes. Normally, I'd feel for him, hoping he hadn't been reduced to shining shoes because he lost a million when the market crashed. Now I'm worried that I may soon be joining him on the bread line. I've got a bundle of cash socked away inside the hollow leg of my brass bed at home but I'll never be able to get at it, not with Jimmy's boys hovering. I can't go back to the Pour House, either, so I'll have to live off what I've got in my locker at the Hy-Hat.

“This is a tough one to straighten out without talkin' to Jimmy,” my father snaps in a hoarse whisper. “The thug at your place meant business.”

“What'd he say?”

“Not much, 'cause he didn't know I was your father. Before I buzzed you, he asked if I was a friend of yours. I said no, but he pushed me against the railin' and asked if I was sure—he even had a picture of you, the one from the
Herald-Tribune
when your club was raided.”

That was almost a year ago now. I was hoping my father hadn't seen it, but I guess that was too much to ask. The story was everywhere.
McCullough Locked Up
. It made the cover of every daily paper in town and it had my picture front and center. Jimmy McCullough may make the headlines, but I've got the mug to sell papers.

“I'm sorry you got dragged into this, Champ,” I say.

When the shoeshiner hears the word “champ,” he looks up at my father, but seems disappointed when he doesn't recognize him. Then he takes out a brush and goes back to working on his heels.

“I'm in it now, too,” my father says. He's leaning over and talking so low I can barely hear him. “He pulled a roscoe, so I rabbit-punched him. I didn't want to beat on the guy, it just happened.”

I can't help but smile. “I thought you weren't going to get involved.”

“I'm glad you're enjoyin' this,” he says, shaking his head. “Because I'm not. We're knee-deep in horseshit.”

As he talks, I feel the grin drain from my lips.

“I'd fight for you if I thought you was right,” he says. “But you're tryin' to pull me into the gutter. I'm not gonna help you pour your speakeasy booze.”

We both quiet down as the shoeshiner finishes my father's oxfords and slides his bench a few inches to work on mine. I keep my eye on the street, but the only two people who have passed the shop were elderly women.

“What were you going to tell me about Hector?” I say.

“My friend Johalis knows people in Philly. There's a gang down there, some kind of occult group. These people think albino bones are lucky.”

“They should try living in them.”

“Are you listenin' to me? This ain't a joke. They collect albino bones. You know how they get ‘em?”

I think back to the Excelsior and my throat closes when I remember the front page of Baines's newspaper.