Hipster Death Rattle Page 18

  “You son of a bitch. I thought you had changed.”

  “Quod cupio mecum est,” Tony said.

  “Oh my god, you have to stop with the Latin shit. What does that mean?”

  “I’m happy with the life I have, thank you very much.”

  Outside of the jail, Tony went his way and Magaly went hers. She had been hoping to have lunch with him. She had thought he was different, and she had been looking forward to getting to know who he was all over again. But he hadn’t changed at all.

  She was disappointed in him, and now she knew she was going to binge at the first fast food place she found on her way.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Black Martin’s car smelled like French fries, beer, and feet cheese. But it ran fine.

  It had taken Kirsten and Gunnar four hours to drive to Pennsylvania. Things were smooth until New Jersey, as expected. Traffic and shitty drivers from end to end. And they had taken a while to get started because Gunnar always took forever to decide what to wear. And then he wore all black again anyway.

  Gunnar was typically quiet during the ride. He never said much, her Gunnar. But that’s not what she liked him for. She’d met him at a bar in the East Village, where his band Franzbrötchen was playing what they called “death metal rap-folk.” Kirsten couldn’t give two shits about the music either way, but she loved the way he held his like a giant cock.

  He’d come over from Germany to find himself, i.e., to find a band to play in. She’d heard the same story a thousand times over as a bartender. But Gunnar was a big man. And he liked strong women. And she liked big men who liked strong women.

  Patrick had been different. Very different. He liked a strong woman. But he was frail, almost feminine. They grew up together in Allentown. She was his first lay, and, as far as she told him, he was hers. They came to New York to NYU and journalism school. After a year of school, she’d run out of money and interest. But Patrick had hung in there, got his degree. Had to give him credit for that.

  Too bad he turned into such a weasel.

  When they saw the exit for Allentown, Gunnar asked her if she wanted to visit her family.

  “Nope,” she said. “We have to stay on mission.”

  She knew why he had asked. Eight months together, living together. He probably wondered if she was ashamed of him. He had written several songs to that effect. He was a sensitive one, that Gunnar, under that curly ’stache. But he had nothing to worry about. He was her man. Her right arm. She wasn’t going anywhere without him.

  Not for the moment anyway.

  When she pulled into town, she looked back on all she had left behind. The trees, the wide open sky, the used car dealerships. So green. So boring.

  They pulled up to a picturesque orange-and-red brick corner house on Whitehall Street, with a little chimney, a matching garage, and guarded on two sides by perfectly trimmed hedges. Only two blocks from the cemetery.

  “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Stoller,” she said. It had taken them ten minutes of Kirsten’s buzzer-pressing to open the door. “It’s great to see you.”

  They stood in the doorway, as American Gothic (sans pitchfork) as ever.

  His father spoke up first. “Can we help you, Kirsten?”

  “Well, hello. It’s so good to see you guys again,” she said.

  They said nothing, just looked down at her, which made sense since she was on a lower step, but still it made her feel like they were looking at her like dog shit on their driveway that they had to walk around and would have to clean up later.

  “This is Gunnar,” she said. He stood behind her, as imposing and talkative as a sequoia. No need to say he was her boyfriend. This was all about diplomacy. Keep it nice. Keep it cool. “Um, I heard you were in New York recently to pick up Patrick’s stuff from his apartment. But, well, when I moved out there was still some of my stuff there, and I think, when you came to get his stuff, you took some of my stuff. Look, I’m sorry we didn’t connect while you were in town, but I kind of need to go through his stuff to find my stuff.”

  Patrick’s mother said, “We didn’t see anything that was yours.”

  “You probably didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t clothes or underwear.”

  “Well, what was it?” she said.

  “It was personal. Something very personal.”

  “We’ve seen everything there is in there,” Mr. Stoller said. “If you tell us what it is, we can help you find it, and then you can be on your way.”

  Nosy suburban bastards.

  “A camera, a miniature video camera. It was with a memory card and some flash drives. I had bought it a long time ago and lent it to Patrick, and he was supposed to give it back, and I need it for my work.”

  “As a barmaid?” Mrs. Stoller said.

  “I’m also a photographer and an artist.”

  “We gave that away, didn’t we, Sarah?” Mr. Stoller said. “To that nice boy, Tony, who worked with Patrick.”

  “Yes, that’s right. We thought he could use it. He’s a journalist.”

  “Oh, Tony, yeah. I know Tony,” Kirsten said. She balled her fists. Fuck! “Well, I’ll ask him then. Sorry to bother you.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “Patrick’s funeral was last week,” Mrs. Stoller said. “I’m not sorry you missed it.”

  Kirsten looked down at her black boots. Counted slowly. Breathed. Still, she couldn’t get the image of something very bad happening to the Stollers out of her head. Something very, very bad.

  Just then, another old couple chirped out as they exited the house next door. “Hello, Sarah. Hello, Ken.” Clones of the Stollers. Old. Boring. Feet in the grave.

  “Well, goodbye then,” Kirsten said, backing up, taking Gunnar by the hand and walking him away.

  Mrs. Stoller called after them. “You’ve always been an unpleasant girl. Always!”

  Kirsten climbed into the car without looking back.

  “Don’t come here again!” said Mrs. Stoller, at the top of her lungs. “Don’t you dare come here again!”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “Carreau!”

  Few tourists were crawling around McCarren Park, the air was warm but tolerable at twilight, and Tony had just knocked Yogi’s ball away from the cochon. So he was feeling pretty damned good.

  He walked off to the side of the court and told Yogi, “That’s my qi working.”

  “Easy, champ,” Yogi said, tossing his dreads back, which gave off a skunky whiff of ganja. “Easy.”

  The last chance for Yogi’s side rested with a new player named Brandon. The guy wore a wifebeater, orange shorts, and calf-high black socks. He had holes in his earlobes large enough to flick quarters through, and he stopped to vape between each round. Brandon crouched and held his arm out straight to aim.

  “Okay, Brandy, my boy,” Yogi said, “you can do it.”

  Brandon tossed and his ball came up short, showering sand.

  “That is not the way the ball bounces,” said Tony. “And that is the game.”

  They had played three games, Tony’s team winning two. The light was fading as they packed up.

  Yogi was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette he had bummed off of the new guy. Tony noticed that he wore one of those odd T-shirts he had seen at the feast.

  “That ‘hipster death rattle.’ Is that the name of a band?” Tony said.

  “Oh, this?” Yogi said, pointing to the shirt. He laughed. “No. It’s—” Suddenly, he yelled. An ash from the roach-sized cigarette had burned his lips. “Holy mother of a fucker! That hurt,” he said, but then he seemed to brush off the pain. “Oh, hey, you want to go get a beer at Tim Riley’s? I need to quench the heat off my lips for sure now.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know.”

  “Just a quick one,” Yogi said. “Or two. Don’t let me drink by myself. C’mon, I’ll buy you a round.”

  Magic words. “Okay,” Tony said. “All right.”

  “Hey, you guys going for beers?” It was the newbie, Brando
n. “Can I come?”

  Yogi rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, why not?”

  Tim Riley’s was a short walk from the park. It had friendly, dark wood paneling, modern pop trash on the jukebox, and a pinball machine based on a video game.

  “Oh, this place looks all right,” said Brandon.

  They took a seat in a narrow raised area near the front windows. Yogi said, “This used to be a good bar. One of them real blue-collar bars with a lived-in feel, you know, really authentic. Now look at it. New tables. Fake sports bullshit on the walls. It’s practically an Applebee’s.”

  “Before that it was a strip joint,” Tony said. “Did you know that? Belinda’s Lounge.”

  “I did know that. It was still here when I first moved in, years ago,” Yogi said. “Decades ago.”

  A waitress with tattoo sleeves and a nose ring like a bull’s brought their beers.

  “At least the beer is still good,” Yogi said.

  Tony said. “Actually, it’s a little flat.”

  “Curséd be the ungrateful. That’s a free beer in your hand, pal.”

  “Just making an observation. And I appreciate the beer, believe me.”

  “Tony, you’re a beer snob. Now I know something about you, besides your exceptional skills at pétanque.”

  “How’s the food here?” Brandon said.

  “Abysmal,” Tony said. “But I’m getting a burger. I’ll pay for it.”

  “Make sure she knows that. Me, I try to eat healthy,” said Yogi. “I’ve been clean, vegetarian, vegan, raw food, paleo, you name it.”

  “I eat anything,” Brandon said. When he spoke, his earlobes wobbled like soggy onion rings. “I don’t care.”

  Yogi ignored him. “It’s like I was saying, fakeness ruins everything. Like this neighborhood. It’s not pure anymore, man. It was a place for artists, you know? Like all artists, I left behind troglodytes back home and came here to congregate with the creative.”

  Tony sipped his beer. “Theoretically leaving behind a higher percentage of troglodytes.”

  “That’s why we get these elections like we do,” Brandon said.

  Yogi ignored him again. “And then these hipsters moved in to Williamsburg, and they moved in because it was cheap and close to the city and ruined it all!”

  “Hey, man, I’m, like, a hipster,” Brandon said.

  “Impossible,” Tony said. “Hipsters never admit to being hipsters. Although those ears are a clue.”

  “See! I got the look. I got the clothes. I don’t mind the term. It’s just a stupid label.”

  “The term ‘hipster’ derives from the term ‘hip,’” Tony said, “which derives from an African word meaning ‘enlightenment.’”

  “Bullshit!” Yogi said. “That’s not enlightenment. Why not call a douchebag a douchebag? I’m no hipster, man. I’m an artist. There’s a difference. Right, Tony?”

  “Don’t ask me. You all look the same to me.”

  Yogi almost spit out his beer. “Wait, wait. What the fuck? I don’t care what this one thinks, I am not a fucking hipster, all right?”

  Brandon smiled. “Like he said, a hipster would never admit to being a hipster.”

  “I’m not a fucking hipster. You got that?”

  “Whatevs, dude,” Brandon said.

  “By the way, Yogi, you say you were here when Belinda’s was around. How long have you lived here?”

  “I’ve been here twenty-five long years, man.”

  “How old were you when you moved here?”

  “Twenty-one, twenty-two. Younger than this one—”

  “I’m twenty-eight—” Brandon said.

  “—I was one of the first pioneers here.”

  “Well,” Tony said, “I think the Iroquois might have pioneered before you.”

  Yogi laughed. “Yeah, but you know what I mean. I figured, make it here, make it anywhere, right? But when I moved in, I wasn’t like these guys. I respected the character of the neighborhood, the people, the buildings. I loved the Italians and the Polocks and the Puerto Ricans.”

  “My people,” Tony said.

  “Really, I thought you were Chinese, Filippino, something.”

  “I get that a lot.”

  “Well, your people are great. Great, salt-of-the-earth people. Genuine people. So fascinating and so colorful, you know what I mean? Not like where I came from?”

  “What, do you come from Mars?”

  Yogi laughed again, stroking his dreads. “I come from all over the place. I’ve lived everywhere. What I’m saying is look at the finger buildings we have all over the place now. They’re horrible. They don’t go with the character of the neighborhood, the brownstones and old apartment buildings.”

  “What’s a finger building?” Brandon said.

  Tony looked at his empty pint of beer. “Condo developments. They demolish old houses, and on their small lots, they put up these thin buildings that jut above the buildings around them.”

  “Yeah,” Yogi said, “so they looked like they’re giving the middle finger to the old neighborhood.” He said this while sticking a middle finger right in Brandon’ face.

  Brandon put his hands up, as if in surrender. “Dude!” he said. “I think I lived in one of those, and I had to leave because the building got condemned.”

  A woman in denim short shorts squeezed behind Yogi to take the next table. Behind her came a man and a toddler.

  “Isn’t it progress?” Tony said.

  “Progress! It’s backwards,” Yogi said. “The dictatorship of the almighty dollar.”

  “Down with the developers, then?” Tony said, raising his empty glass.

  “Death to the developers!” Yogi said, and he and Tony and Brandon clinked pints.

  After that, they seemed to have nothing else to say to each other. The noise of the bar filled the space—the jukebox, the pinball machine, the hum of conversations at other tables.

  “Hey,” Brandon said, “what do you guys think of all these slashings going on?”

  “Isn’t it awful? Terrible even?” Yogi said. “No one is safe on the streets.”

  “I had a friend,” Tony said, “a co-worker—he was one of the victims.”

  “Which one?” Brandon said.

  “Two weeks ago. On a Saturday. He was skateboarding—”

  “None there is who loves a skateboarder,” Yogi said. “They should all be cut off at the ankles.”

  “Hey, man, that’s his friend.”

  “No, I agree. Skateboarders are horrible people,” Tony said. “But cutting off their feet might be a bit extreme.”

  Brandon said he had to go outside to vape, so Yogi moved into his chair, closer to Tony. “You know, if you asked me,” Yogi said, “I think there’s a lot more to what happened to these slashings. That guy Patrick was an editor at a paper. Does that mean you’re some kind of reporter?”

  The toddler at the next table began to complain about not having a window seat. The father apologized to the toddler and explained that there were no window seats available. The toddler began to bounce on his chair.

  “Some kind,” Tony said.

  “So now I know three things about you!” Yogi said. “I have an idea for a story. About how there’s more than meets the eye with these attacks.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Tony said. “I’ve got enough on my desktop as it is.”

  The toddler began to throw fries at its mother, who wore shades and seemed to be trying desperately to concentrate on her Kindle. The mother explained to the child that throwing fries was not nice.

  “Listen, man,” Yogi said, then he signaled the nose-ringed waitress for another round of beers and said they were on him.

  “Let me put it to you this way,” he went on. “And it may sound strange, so hear me out: I think this may be good for the neighborhood.”

  “What? In what way?”

  “Well, it is. Just listen—listen!—for a moment. I didn’t mean that it was good that Patrick was sacrificed, whoe
ver did that. But, but, what I mean is, it could turn the people off, the other people, the people making this neighborhood into the Times Square of Brooklyn. And not the good, old Times Square either. Then these new people won’t want to come here anymore. Like these fucking yuppies. You know what I mean?”

  “I guess,” Tony said. He thought “sacrificed” was an odd word to use. But Yogi was an odd one.

  “Like this. Look at this. Real people should know better than to bring a kid into a bar. Only entitled white yuppies do that. Know what I mean?”

  “Hey, buddy, you got a problem?” the father from the next table said. He had the soul-beaten look that all parents with toddlers had.

  “Me?” Yogi said.

  “Yeah. Why don’t you stop looking at my kid?”

  “What’s your kid doing in a bar? People curse and drink here. You think your kid belongs in a bar? Aren’t there enough fucking playgrounds for your fucking kid in this fucking city?”

  “My kid can go where he wants. It’s a free country, buddy.”

  Yogi stood up. The father stood up, too. Tony stood up and put his hand on Yogi’s shoulder. “Easy,” Tony said.

  The kid whined even louder, and then the father turned to the mother and said the kid needed to eat, and the mother said the kid didn’t like any of the food they’d got him. So they gathered their things and left, and, without asking for the check, left money and most of their food untouched.

  “That’s better,” Yogi said to their backs as they left. “That’s much better.”

  Later, Tony was too buzzed to go home. He wanted to keep talking, and he realized the person he wanted to keep talking to was Magaly.

  But since he had to pass near her house anyway, would it be such a bad idea if he just stopped by? She had always been a night owl, right? Even when they were teenagers, he used to see her on the train, dressed to go out, high-haired and heavily made up, just as he was getting home. And it didn’t mean anything for him to stop by so late. What time was it anyway? Almost midnight. Maybe he should apologize for the way he acted at the precinct.

  Tony was across the street from her house and down the block and then he saw a couple. It was obvious, even from the back, that the woman was Magaly. That wild burst of hair. But just so he didn’t make a mistake, he backed into a dark corner between a wall and a stoop. He felt creepy, standing there in the dark. But if he popped out now, and she saw him, it would only make it weird and worse. He watched them, and she laughed. And as she laughed she turned and he saw for sure that it was her. The man was Luis De Moscoso.