“All the knives in the silver service are blunt, and the wife was in the kitchen.” Carter picked his blanket off the ground and shook it out snappily. “At least I tried something.”
Jayne adjusted her husband’s battle robes around his neck. Their exploit had accomplished nothing, yet maybe it was worth the risk: both grandparents stood proudly upright, looking years younger in the glow of the streetlamp. Whereas Esteban was muttering to Willing’s mother, “I’d have flattened that tonto with a shovel, but I was ordered not to.”
“Never mind a knife, why not a hammer?” Nollie badgered her brother. “There’s a toolbox in the basement, and our friend Sam there gave you the idea on a plate!” (It was impossible to envision Carter Mandible crushing Sam’s skull with a hammer. Funny—Willing could readily picture Nollie doing it.)
Carter shot back, “At least those silver pincers are a damned sight deadlier than a box of lousy first drafts.”
“How are we going to carry that, Nollie?” Lowell charged. “It’s awkward, and incredibly heavy. You won’t be able to manage that blasted box to the end of the block.”
“Watch me,” Nollie said darkly. It was never wise to question Enola Mandible’s athletic prowess.
“I’ve put up with your egomania my whole life,” Carter told his sister. “But this is the limit. Right now, rescuing originals of your o-o-o-o-oeuvre would be imbecilic enough if you were Tolstoy. But you’re a hack. I read the Times review of The Stringer—‘prose miraculously both pallid and overwritten’—”
“At least a whole o-o-o-o-oeuvre,” Nollie said, “beats a handful of articles about hatchbacks and condominiums—”
“Children!” GGM cried. “Enough! Carter, your sister garnered many fine reviews, and no one publishes multiple novels without drawing the odd stinker. Enola, there’s nothing ignoble about an article about condominiums so long as it’s written with panache. I’ve listened to this scrapping my whole life, and I shouldn’t have to put up with playground fisticuffs at my age.”
“Still, if we’re too weighed down, Nollie,” Willing’s mother said, “we’ll be marks. This time of night, gangs rove all over this neighborhood.”
“I guess if anyone gives us trouble,” Avery said, “we can always threaten them with foul matter.”
It wasn’t fair. They were picking on Nollie because they couldn’t take their frustration out on Sam and Tanya, or the Federal Reserve, or the president.
“I’ll carry it for now,” Esteban offered begrudgingly, though he was already burdened by the largest backpack. “But keep an eye out for a Dumpster.”
“No,” Willing said. He took the box from Nollie. It was staggeringly heavy; maybe his great-aunt really was fit. He fished a sheet of plastic from his pack and wrapped the box, to protect it from the chill mist. He rested the carton on the back of the bike and lashed it to the rack with bungee cords.
“Willing,” Carter said, fetching the box he’d left in the basement stairwell. “Do you think you could manage this, too?”
Banded with another bungee cord, the silver service fit neatly in one pannier. Though precious metal would have value as barter, Willing had already consigned one sentimental attachment to functional currency. So he vowed not to trade those engraved utensils for transient food and shelter unless their lives depended on it. That set of silver was their inheritance. Sam and Tanya had the sofa. The Mandible estate, the fabled appointments of Bountiful House, came down to this one box.
It was only three or so miles to Prospect Park, but the journey took hours. Kurt took responsibility for Luella at first, but Florence had to admit he was too gentle. When Luella lunged in the wrong direction, he wouldn’t jerk the leash with enough brutality to get her to heel. When she sat on the sidewalk and refused to get up, he stood over her reasoning and offering incentives, a rational appeal that didn’t work with small children, either. Esteban took over, and slung her over his shoulder. But she struggled, kicking and biting, until he dropped her in disgust. Florence’s mother was better at managing her than the men. She employed the steady, stolid, unrelenting resolution with which women had pursued their purposes for centuries. As for Florence’s father, for the time being he didn’t voice his grief over having lost their house, or having lost her house, either. All he did declare, more than once and with vehemence, was that he was “not minding Luella for one more minute.”
Grand Man might have been in fine fettle for a virtual centenarian, but his energy was spent, after the fire, and a harrowing second ejection from his sole safe haven. He had to take frequent breaks, leaning against a parking meter, or resting on the rim of an overflowing public trashcan (garbage collection having grown intermittent at best). His cane helped, but he was as handicapped by bewilderment as by old age. It must have been jarring to go from debonair, high-stakes mover and shaker in Manhattan publishing, to retired eminence gris cum day trader in the plushest assisted-living facility in the country, to exiled nonentity shuffling along the dark, litter-strewn streets of East Flatbush. Yet however fiercely Florence summoned sympathy, it was exasperating to walk this slowly.
Goog kept complaining his pack was too heavy, and Bing wouldn’t stop crying; the flapping of his left sole on the concrete must have been getting on everyone’s nerves. Avery kept stopping to use their only fleX under contract to try to reach Savannah, who alone of the kids had kept her own fleX paid up. But the calls went to voicemail. On her husband’s insistence, Avery dialed 911 to report the house-jacking, but a recording about a high volume of calls repeatedly suggested she try again later. Lowell railed with establishmentarian outrage, whereas Kurt probably counted himself fortunate for having put off a move to the Prospect Park encampments this long. The mizzle thickened to a drizzle, and the damp cold was miserable.
Wheeling his bike at the rear, Willing shot frequent glances over his shoulder. It was no longer an hour at which sensible people went for a walk. As Linden Boulevard swished with occasional cars streaking through the area as fast as possible, their only company was huddles of lone homeless people—fellow homeless people—scowling protectively, their supermarket carts having grown more enticing than wallets. Florence jumped at the scuttle of mangy, malevolent strays. It was irksome to have to credit her son for the foresight, when she’d thought giving Milo away to Brendan’s family was deranged. But sure enough, few people could cover pet food anymore. Cats and dogs had been released by the thousands to fend for themselves.
Florence should have been seething, but she couldn’t afford to seethe. Instead she focused on getting their company through the night. Willing had a tarp; she’d found another, left behind by that useless outfit that waterproofed the basement. They had a few blankets. If they could all sardine onto one tarp, and sandwich under the second, they might stay dry; body heat should keep them warm. She’d rescued bags of peanuts and raisins from the pantry, and hoped the city had the sense to supply water in the park. This was the way poor people thought. The long view was a defining feature of prosperity. The destitute planned a single step ahead.
At last, after they’d climbed the long hill on East Drive inside the park, they reached an access point. In the sulking glow of the city’s ambient light, the sweep of Long Meadow quilted below. It was a sorry version of the promised land: edge to edge across what was once the site of picnics and games of ultimate Frisbee, a patchwork of plastic tarpaulins, planks, pressboard, Sheetrock, and corrugated iron, many of the materials for these improvised dwellings salvaged from the abandoned construction sites that hulked across all five boroughs. The patter of rain on the metal panels was almost peaceful.