And then I see them. Three Penneys standing near the gate. Glancing my way, holding tickets, huddled together like the Three Stooges of badly dressed espionage. At first, I’m angry. And then the last words of the young Penney from before roar through my head.
Just wait.
The people continue to board the plane over the next fifteen minutes until the waiting area around the gate is nearly empty. A few last-minute stragglers wander over, and several people rush to the ticket agent with their boarding passes, relieved not to have missed the flight. Finally, there are just the three Penneys and me. The ticket agent speaks to them. They remain near the desk but don’t board. One of the ticket agents comes up to me and asks if I have a ticket for this flight and tells me that it’s the last call for boarding. I tell her I get panic attacks and am not sure I’ll be flying tonight. I ask if everyone is on board and she gestures to the Penneys and says there are a few left to get on but the flight is nearly fully boarded. I tell her I need a minute. Again, as before, I feel as if I am at some terribly important juncture. If I go, I might get arrested in Paris or Berlin. If I stay, I might get arrested here. If I go and don’t get arrested, all might be fine after a few rough days with Noah. If I stay here and somehow don’t get arrested, I will keep using. This I know.
So I stand up, turn away from the gate, and expect to get arrested. I look back once and see two of the Penneys walk over to see if I’m walking back toward security. I don’t turn back again and start heading out toward baggage claim. I know that I won’t make it to the taxi stand. I’m about to be swarmed with Penneys, police, airport security, and God knows who else. The last lines from a novel I worked with years ago somehow surface through the panic. It would be now, they read. It would be now.
I fish for my cell phone and see that it’s on its last bar, which is blinking red. I call David. It’s after eleven and his wife, Susie, picks up. I apologize and tell her it’s important and ask if David is there. They are clearly in bed. He picks up, asks what’s going on. I tell him I’m about to get arrested for drugs at Newark Airport and that I need him to find a good lawyer. I’m probably shouting when I tell him he has to move fast because he shushes me and tells me to calm down. He asks where I am in the airport and I tell him I’m about to pass out of the departure gate into the baggage claim area. He says to just stay on the line and get in a taxi and come home. I tell him I’m not going to make it to the taxi and then the line goes silent. The battery dies. I keep walking. No one is stopping me. I cross the departure terminal and into baggage claim. Suddenly the Penneys have all disappeared. I’m convinced they’ve raced out of the terminal through the upper level and are waiting at the taxi stand. I walk out of the baggage claim area, through the automatic doors, and cross the street. A taxi comes up. I get in. The driver asks, Where to? I say, One Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but because I expect we’ll be pulled over before we leave the airport, I warn him it’s going to be a short ride. He grumbles and pulls away from the curb. I look at his ID and the photo is unobstructed and shows the same gray-haired, bearded Indian man driving the cab.
I’m floating in a state of shock. Every second that passes, every inch the taxi moves forward without sirens and the glare of flashing lights seems like a miracle. Then it occurs to me that they’re all probably just waiting at the apartment. I ask the driver if I can use his cell phone. He passes it back and I call David. I’m in the cab, I tell him, but I don’t know that we’ll make it to the building. He says he’ll meet me in the lobby and to calm down. I agree as the taxi speeds toward the tunnel, back into the city. I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. I can picture the spectacle of police cars and unmarked DEA vehicles surrounding One Fifth, lights strobing and tenants’ faces lit with appalled interest. I wonder if Trevor, my favorite doorman, is on the desk tonight and what he’ll think when I get cuffed and carted off.
But there is no spectacle. Just David, with bed hair, bundled in a coat, waiting in the lobby. He looks exhausted and annoyed and says he’s spending the night. In the morning we go to breakfast and he asks which rehab I want him to take me to and despite the grim concern I see on his face I answer, None.
We sit in the front window at Marquet, on stools, and the day outside and everyone in it flashes like a taunt. This is a shiny world, I think, for the Davids and the Noahs, for people whose lives I can only see as unblemished and lucky. A place where I’ve been allowed a visit but cannot stay. A place I’ve already left.
David walks out of the restaurant and doesn’t look back. Whatever his last words are, I don’t remember, but they are quick and clear and sad.
Under Control
He’s ten. It’s dinnertime. He’s a little more excited than usual because he has a friend over, Kenny, and his uncle Teddy from San Diego is visiting for a few days. He loves Uncle Teddy. He has a pool, asks lots of questions about school, and is one of the only people who can make his father laugh, lighten him up. His mother makes hamburger gravy — a dish that takes ground beef and stretches it out with canned cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix and is poured over biscuits or rice or mashed potatoes. Or maybe she’s made creamed chicken. Same idea as the hamburger gravy but with a bag of frozen vegetables — peas, carrots, pearl onions. These are the dishes she makes — the ones she learned in Youngstown, Ohio, when there was little money, after her father died, the ones she made as a stewardess living in Queens with four roommates. He loves these dishes; will eat them as if there is never enough and have seconds and thirds. His father calls them slop. Tonight he says he can’t believe she wanted to feed shit like this to his brother. When he is home from one of his trips, he usually cooks something else — a piece of fish on the grill, a boiled lobster — which is what he’s doing tonight.
The kitchen is crowded. His mother fusses at the stove. His older sister, Kim, is setting the table, and his younger brother, Sean, and younger sister, Lisa, are watching TV in the next room. His father’s large crystal tumbler is full of Scotch, and his uncle Teddy holds a bottle of beer.
The boys are taunting the lobsters in the sink, making up names for them and running commentary on their crustaceal movements the way sportscasters would a wrestling match. Kenny names the runt Mama-Pet, their nickname for Kim, and the two of them giggle as the bigger lobsters climb all over it. Oh noooooo… Mama-Pet! Kenny turns to Kim, who is doing homework at the dinner table, and says, Run, Mama-Pet! You’re getting crushed. Run! Mama-Pet, run! The two boys can barely speak they are laughing so hard. It goes on and on until Kim storms off with a slammed book and a bloodcurdling I hate you two! They love it and are dizzy with laughter. Uncle Teddy laughs, too, and gently tells them they’re terrible, but it’s clear he is amused.
Dinner is served and his father is quiet. Teddy is younger, but someone outside the family would probably think he was the patriarch, the eldest of the seven brothers and sisters, the leader. Maybe this is why it feels safe to talk at dinner. Maybe the easy laughter in the kitchen and Teddy’s smiling approval gives him just the confidence he needs to open his mouth. And so he does. He tells Teddy about his soccer team. How they travel to nearby towns; how he plays right inside, sometimes center. He tells him about Joe, the heaviest kid in the class, who is also one of the fastest, and how he plays halfback and scores the most goals. His father is quiet through this but gets up a few times to go to the kitchen to refill his drink. Kenny talks about their classmate Dennis, who, he says, doesn’t bathe and lives in a house without running water. Dennis has a deformed eyelid, one that folds over half his left eye even when open, and Kenny explains how this was caused by malnutrition when he was a baby. That his family is so poor they couldn’t afford to feed him.