Envy, however, converted itself into participation in one form or another, so that Brother Leo went out to find a travel agency where he could purchase my ticket, Brother Valerian climbed to the attic to seek out a presentable piece of luggage, and Brother Quillon rose from his head-cold bed to offer to do my packing. Brother Mallory, who had performed as a boxer in San Juan in the old days, and Brother Silas, who had lain low in Mayaguez for six months at one point in his criminal career, both had an infinite quantity of tips and general information for me. Spanish is the major language of Puerto Rico, and it turned out that Brothers Thaddeus and Hilarius both spoke it, or at least claimed to. They both presented me with word lists, and then fell to disputing between themselves over nuances of meaning and pronunciations.
Brother Leo returned from his own somewhat shorter Journey rather red-faced and disheveled but triumphant. It appeared that the holiday season was popular with Travelers — I can’t think why — and all the seats on all the planes going to Puerto Rico from New York over the next several weeks had already been reserved in advance. What a lot of Traveling! But Brother Leo had used a combination of his religious affiliation, his bulldog tenacity and his natural bad temper to obtain for me someone else’s last-minute cancellation: I had a seat on an American Airlines plane leaving this very night, Friday night, at midnight. Or almost midnight; in the terms of Roger Dwarfmann’s watch, the plane would depart at 11:55. “I had to leave the return open,” he told me, handing me the ticket which had cost our community nearly two hundred dollars. “You’ll have to deal with that yourself when you’re down there.”
“Thank you, Brother Leo,” I said.
“It’s a seven-oh-seven,” he told me. “I tried to get you on a seven-forty-seven, but I couldn’t do it.”
“I’m sure I won’t mind. And thank you again.”
Brother Eli had worked out my other transportation question, which was how I would get from here to Kennedy International Airport, where I would board the plane. In his soft-spoken manner, like an urban guerrilla describing a raid, he told me what to do: “There’s a subway entrance at Lexington Avenue and Fifty-third Street.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I’ve seen it.”
“You go there,” he said. “You get on the platform marked ‘Downtown.’ ”
I nodded. “Downtown.”
“Take the E train,” he said. “Not the F.”
“The E train,” I said.
“Take it to West Fourth Street.”
“West Fourth Street.”
“You’ll change there to the A train, on the same platform.”
“Same platform.”
“A train, same platform.”
I nodded. “A train, same platform.”
“Make sure the train says it’s going to Lefferts Avenue.”
I frowned at him. “The train says?”
“There are signs,” he told me. “Small signs on the side of each car.”
“Oh. All right.”
“You want the train that goes to Lefferts Avenue.”
“Lefferts Avenue. Is that the same as the E train?”
“You just got off the E train. This is the A train.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Off the E train, on the A train, same platform.”
“Right.”
“Lefferts Avenue,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “Now, you’re going to take this train to the end of the line.”
“Where’s that?”
He looked at me oddly. “Lefferts Avenue,” he said.
“Oh! I see, it’s the train that goes to Lefferts Avenue.”
“Yes,” he said. “The A train.”
“That was a Billy Strayhorn song,” I said. “Day-yam, oh, take the A train, that’s the only way to get to Harlem. Am I going to Harlem?”
“No, Brother Benedict,” he said. “There are no airports in Harlem. You’re going the other way.”
“I see. To the end of the line. Whatsit Avenue.”
“Lefferts Avenue.”
“I knew it started with L,” I said. “Lefferts Avenue, I’ve got it now.”
“Fine,” he said. “Now, when you get there, you’ll be at the intersection of Lefferts and Liberty. You should turn right.”
“Right.”
“Right. Turn right, and walk along Lefferts southbound.”
“Southbound.”
He closed his eyes briefly, nodding. “Yes,” he said. “You’ll walk till you get to Rockaway Boulevard. It’s five long blocks.”
“Rockaway Boulevard.”
“Turn left on Rockaway Boulevard.”
I nodded. “Turn left on Rockaway Boulevard.”
“Now you’ll walk to One Hundred Thirtieth Street.”
“One Hundred Thirtieth Street.”
“It’s eleven short blocks.”
“Eleven short blocks.”
He looked at me. “You don’t have to say that,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “I see. Does it bother you if I say everything back?”
“A little bit,” he admitted.
“All right,” I said. “It’s a memory aid, that’s all. I’ll just use it for the high spots.”
“The high spots,” he said.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Okay. You’re at One Hundred Thirtieth Street and Rockaway Boulevard.”
“Yes, I am,” I said, as a substitute for repeating.
“You turn right.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll walk on a bridge over the Belt Parkway.”
“Right,” I said.
He gave me a quick suspicious frown, as though suspecting I’d snuck a repetition past him but made no comment. “Just past the bridge,” he said, “is One Hundred Fiftieth Avenue. You turn left.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “This is the intersection of One Hundred Thirtieth Street and One Hundred Fiftieth Avenue?”
“Yes.”
“I think I love it,” I said. “Where is it?”
“In Queens, in South Ozone Park.”
“South Oz — sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Now, you’ve made your turn onto One Hundred Fiftieth Avenue. You walk just a little way, and you’re on the airport.”
“There at last,” I said.
“Not quite,” he told me. “You’ll have to take the airport road to the right down to the terminals.”
“Is that very far?”
“About as far again as you already walked.”
“It must be a big airport!”
He nodded, unimpressed. “It’s a very big airport.” Studying my face, he said, “Have you got it now?”
“No problem,” I said.
He considered that for a few seconds, then said, “I’ll go write it down.”
“Good idea,” I said.
Brother Valerian had found a small canvas bag in the attic that had once belonged to Brother Mallory, and Brother Quillon had packed it. Giving it to me, he said, “I put in some aspirin, in case you get a headache.”
“Thank you.”
“And a cake of soap, wrapped in aluminum foil.”
“That was thoughtful.”
“You never know what conditions are going to be like,” he told me. “Oh, and I put in your toilet things, toothbrush and toothpaste, razor, all of that.”
“Fine. Thank you.”
“And some extra Kleenex.”
“Good. Nice.”
“And I must say I didn’t much care for your socks, so I put in two pair of mine.”