“Chino, get the fuck away from them boys!” someone called out from the other side of the street. The voice was deep and booming, but the person behind it was swishing across the street in a long, tight-fitting yellow dress and a pink wig. Whoever it was was easily twice Joe’s size, with makeup obvious even in the murkiness—thick, bright lipstick and winged eye shadow. And then to the boys: “What the fuck are you doing out here?! Run!”
As if the word was a starting gun, they ran. Joe and Robbie sprinted down the avenue past doorways, theaters, smoke shops, and piles of trash. Joe strained to see his steps pounding the pavement, but fear wouldn’t let him slow down. He could hear Robbie huffing and puffing next to him, and then Robbie pulled ahead. He jumped over a little pile of stinking garbage next to a fire hydrant. Then Joe tripped on an empty forty-ounce bottle. The bottle didn’t break, but it rolled under his right foot, so he spun around, his left foot scraping for purchase on the sidewalk. His arms were doing pinwheels as he staggered backward. Then something hooked into the right pocket of his shorts and dug into his hip. He boomeranged forward and then felt searing pain as something pressed into him. There was a tearing sound as his shorts came almost all the way off.
“Joe, what happened?” Robbie yelled, heaving to catch his breath. Joe still had no idea what had happened, but now he saw it, the scaffolding he had run under. A thick bolt was sticking out from one of the scaffolding poles. It had caught on his pocket and prevented him from falling backward, but it had also torn his pants open, as well as left a scratch.
“I got caught on something,” he said. He reached to pull his shorts up, but they were torn all the way open. The next second he was just holding them in his hand.
“Oh no.”
“Oh my God,” Robbie said, still breathing hard. “We’re almost there. What the fuck?”
“F-word.”
“Oh for . . . who cares? What happened?”
“I told you, I got caught on something.” He looked down at his body, covered only by white Fruit of the Loom briefs below his T-shirt. The ruined shorts were still in his hand. “Where are we?”
“Almost at Forty-Third,” Robbie said. “Come on, I guess.”
“I can’t be out like this!”
“What else can you do? Pull your T-shirt down.” Robbie turned away and started walking. Joe looked around him. There was no one following them. There was no one at all on the street. Still, he felt like he positively glowed with his shorts gone. His T-shirt was a little oversize, a thick-striped maroon and brown. He pulled it down as far as he could and stomped forward.
At the corner of Forty-Third and Eighth Avenue, Robbie dashed across the street in front of a black limousine and a city bus. Joe hung back, petrified of the headlights, but then got moving. Going west, Forty-Third Street was swallowed in darkness. But there on the right, just a few steps down from the corner, was the open door of a business with a corona of yellow light and the tinny sound of music. The music was the kind Joe heard where people spoke Spanish. He fell in step behind Robbie, wanting to stay within his shadow as they approached the door.
When Joe peeked in, the first thing he saw was the fattest man he had perhaps ever seen. The man was surrounded by candles and sat on a wooden chair in front of a darkened pastry counter. The candles were placed along the counter, on the floor behind him, and on shelves on the wall. The man was sweating profusely and bulging out of a tentlike baby-blue T-shirt. He wore shorts that ballooned below the belt line between his legs. On a table next to him was a transistor radio that played the music, with lots of horns and harmonious voices.
“Mira, Nate!” he called out, his dark face breaking into a toothy smile. “Tu corillo!” From the left side of the store, a tall, lanky man stood from a table and set down a tiny cup of coffee. He brushed his hands on his jeans and walked over to the door. He was dark skinned and long limbed, with sad, expressive eyes. Joe liked him instantly. He seemed kind and knowing, which was exactly what Joe craved in that moment.
“Joe and Robbie,” Nate said. His voice was deep and smooth, like a DJ’s. His lips turned up into a smile. “I’m Nate Porter. Welcome to New York.”
CHAPTER 59
Sunday, September 3, 2017
East Seventh Street
Manhattan
10:51 p.m.
Nate Porter opened the outer door to his East Village apartment building and sighed. At sixty-eight, he was getting too old for this. He had been away for Labor Day weekend with friends on Fire Island and had returned early to get a fresh start on the week. Now instead of relaxing, doing laundry, and maybe reading a book, he had a mini crisis to deal with.