“Don’t worry, hold on to me. You won’t fall.”
I can hear the police cars once we’ve put distance between us and
the music. Gwen’s arms are cool against my sweaty, stinky skin. She
wraps them around my neck without strangling me. I pedal. We wobble at
first, but I put all of my leg muscles into it, and we glide fast,
past the rows of houses with families clutching each other on their
lawns because something terrible has happened in their perfect
neighborhood. I pedal with the wind in my face, zooming down the Coney
Island summer street.
•••
At the entrance to the subway station, the “e” in Coney Island
flickers super fast until it just goes off completely. People stare
and take pictures like it’s the most wondrous thing they’ve ever
witnessed.
A police officer with his back against the wall stands up when he
sees me. I hold the bike over my shoulder so maybe he’ll think I’m
covered in mud. He sniffs the air, and even though I’m not standing
directly in front of him, he makes a face like he wants to gag.
“Everyone is looking,” Gwen says. I would think she were used to
it.
“Well, I’m covered in merrow goo and you’re half naked. Of course
they’re looking.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“No.” I stop at the MetroCard station and feed it money.
It pops out the yellow MetroCard, and I love that Gwen, with all
her smoke-bending magic, stares at it with her eyes wide open and
says, “How did you do that?”
I wiggle my dirty fingers near her face and snap them to make her
jump back. “Magic.”
She purses her lips.
We use the big entrance. Four lines leave from here, and I don’t
know where to go. I dangle the pearl in front of Gwen. “If I were an
oracle, where would I be?”
Her gray eyes follow it. I wonder if I could hypnotize her by
doing this long enough. She taps her chin with her index finger,
completely oblivious to me. “I don’t know about oracles, but if I were
a magical object with an owner, I could find her anywhere.”
I push the bike to the map on the wall. “We’re here.” I glance
around to where people walk in and out of the train station. Ryan is
dead and the world continues like it didn’t even happen. I shake my
head to focus. “What do I do?”
“Just hold it near but not against. It should guide you to her.”
A bald man walks past with his children in hand. “Daddy, that man
stinks so bad!” The man gives me a nasty look but smiles at Gwen, the
mermaid princess.
“Stand over there, will you?” I ask her.
“Why?” Hands on hips.
“Because if you’re standing there smiling, no one will pay
attention to me.”
“Oh.” She leans against the bike, reminding me strangely of the
posters on Angelo’s bedroom walls.
I feel so stupid holding a pink pearl against a grimy subway map
while a mermaid queen in a bikini stands against a bicycle. Nothing
happens at first, but just when I’m going to pull away and blame it on
Gwen, the chain pulls against my hand. Like a magnet, the pearl runs
along the map, past Brooklyn, past the Verazzano Bridge, and I curse
at the thought that we might have to go to Staten Island. But it
rights itself and shoots straight up to Manhattan, past the Empire
State Building and Times Square, right to Turtle Pond in Central Park.
“Got it.”
“Good, because that man just gave me this.” She holds a twenty in
her hands.
“I should keep you around more often.”
We make it through the doors just as the conductor announces them
closing. I grab a seat in the middle by the maps. We’re alone.
“May I?” She holds her hand out to me, and I place the pearl in
the center of her palm. It’s funny how the lines in her palm are so
different from mine, thinner and shorter. I don’t know what I’m
expecting her to do-make it bigger, make it dance. She makes a sweet,
pensive sound, then hands it back to me. The train lurches and she
falls on top of me. The bike falls to the floor. For a second all I
can think about is crochet and sequins.
She pushes herself up and gets comfortable across the three seats
with her feet on my lap. She wiggles her toes, which I guess is a
mermaid thing. The newness of feet.
“Stop thinking about it,” she says.
“How can I stop thinking about it? I see his face when I shut my
eyes.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“I hate when people say that. Because it’s not true. I could’ve
been faster. I don’t expect you to get it.”
She regards me coolly. “Just because I’ve seen a lot of death does
not mean I’m immune to it, Tristan. This isn’t a game. It’s a war of
few, but still a war. You have to decide that you’re going to come out
of it alive or not at all.”
“You know, Gwen,” I say, “I’m glad that you’re on my team.”
“I’m not on your team. I’m on my team. You just happen to be on it
as well.”
“I’ll be sure to remember that.”
We get off at Sixty-Third and Lexington Avenue, a train station so
far underground that I lose count of the flights of stairs we have to
climb before we’re actually out.
“It’s like trying to ascend the circles of hell,” Gwen gasps.
“Wait a minute. Is there a mermaid hell?”
“Yes,” she says, “I call it humanity.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Shut up. You love humans.”
“I do not . Using land as an escape from boredom is natural. It’s
like taking up a lover or going to one of those theme parks.”
Taking up a lover? I shake my head. I’ve already learned that
lesson. “Just for the ride?”
The air is grittier in Manhattan. There are more people on the
streets than near the small Brooklyn hangouts. We hop onto the bike
and head into the park, which is fairly deserted at this time of the
night.
“Another map.” Gwen points. I hit the brakes, and she falls onto
me. “Now you’re just doing it on purpose.”
She studies it in the soft light of the lamp post. “It’s not far.
That way.”
Something about the way the breeze blows around us and then shifts
suddenly to the west tells me she’s right.
“This park smells new,” she comments.
“That’s what happens when you’re so old.”
“If there were a gentleman here, he’d slay you for speaking to me
that way. I’ll teach you a thing or two about chivalry yet.”
“Didn’t they tell you? Chivalry died about the same time as punk
rock.”
“I think you like to say things that I’m not going to understand
on purpose.”
“But you’re so cute when you’re confuzzled.”
She smacks the back of my head.
“This isn’t right.” I stop pedaling, this time slowly so that she
doesn’t fall off. “No. It’s not.” I’m no oracle, but the pond is so
open, so bare. I can see the water, the ripples of lamp posts and
shadows. A tiny movement catches my eye. Between the shadows of
buildings that cut right through the night sky, the squirrels
scavenging and dogs barking, I don’t know how I notice her, but I do.
A tiny woman wrapped about a hundred times in a deep red shawl
stands at the top of a small mount. Her face is blocked by shadows and
a mess of black hair. She stands and stares, tilting her head to the
side as if something about me is amusing. Then she turns and walks
right into a passage of trees, so it looks like the darkness swallows
her.
The ground is too littered with rocks and broken branches to take
the bike. We feel our way clumsily.