Page 42 of Playworld
None of us had.
“This was when I lived on Oahu,” he said.
—
He lived there in a way he had never been able to repeat in his life. He had a job, it was true, but his salary could only afford him an efficiency room with a warming plate, a mattress, a corner for his guitar, a bathroom with only a toilet. To bathe, he used his kitchen sink, splashed his face and, with a dampened rag, cleaned his armpits and balls, or he went to the Y to shower. On his days off, he put on the only good clothes that he had, the blue button-down shirt and white shorts and penny loafers that, after he combed his hair nicely and parted it to the side, made him look enough like a tourist that he could approach the front desk of luxurious hotels to ask what time check-in was and then join the sunburned families on the elevators. He pushed the buttons for the floors none of the other passengers pressed, nodding at the couples during the quiet ascent, and then, getting off at his floor, he wandered the hallways, looking for the maid carts from which he helped himself to pillow mints and bars of soap and a roll or two of toilet paper, which he placed in his book bag. He raised the polished lids on room service trays and feasted on the uneaten slices of mango and pineapple, the clusters of red grapes, the bitten strips of bacon, the toast points hardened with egg yolk, or, God bless, the untouched Danish or pastry, which he washed down with the miniature pitchers of heavy cream or a slug of coffee. If it were lunchtime, he’d next wander to the open-air restaurants and, like one of the small birds that landed beneath the wrought-iron legs of chairs or, bravely, on the tables themselves, help himself to what remained on unbused tables: the half-eaten Monte Cristos or tails of coconut shrimp, the curled ribbons of carrot, the split rose-hearts of radishes; even, sometimes, the parsley garnish, because the bright green bite of it was enormously refreshing. Picking up a newspaper someone hadn’t bothered to properly throw away, he might even take a seat, push the tip tray towardthe somewhat baffled waiter, and say, “I’m not quite done here,” and then dip a soiled knife into the water glass and wipe it on his pants leg before cutting away the uneaten parts of burgers and omelets. Or, in a moment of inspiration, he’d drop a piece of cutlery so that it tinkled on the concrete loudly enough to bring the waiter over. “Could I get another fork?” he’d ask, and, upon the server’s return, wrap what was left in the new napkin, thanking him, and convincing even himself that he belonged.
These days spent among the tourists were vastly different from his shifts at a factory on the outskirts of Wahiawa, near the Schofield Barracks. It was a vast, high-ceilinged space with clerestory windows that, no matter the weather, seemed to pale the light to a fossil gray. The factory was an interconnected and intestinal array of machines, laid out lengthwise, of belts and sluices and sorters that transformed one thing into another. In this case, potatoes arrived in semitrucks, whose payloads tumbled onto conveyer belts that bore the tonnage of unwashed spuds, passing them first beneath high-pressure jets that unzipped their skins, which were funneled off to be ground into animal feed, while the peeled were sorted into handfuls and washed again and then fed to the slicer, where they were multiplied into tens of thousands of discs before being spread flat and, rinsed once more, tipped into oil vats in which they were fried. To then be variously seasoned and funneled into mylar bags, crimped and sealed and boxed, and loaded once again onto another fleet of trucks. He could not help but imagine, standing among the industrial clatter, an arterial clogging—not just the bodies whose insides were spackled with this mix of starch and salt once consumed but of the roads filled with wheezing trucks, of high-density feedlots ankle-deep in excrement, of once-clear streams clotted with the starchy silt of the runoff, of the islands’ winds seasoning the ozone layer with the factory’s poisonous sediment—the mess and noise of it all making its ineluctable way down to the water table and seeping quietly into tributaries and then into the sea.
Behind the factory and atop a slab of concrete were several picnic tables, these adjacent a scummed pond fed by one of the factory’s main drains, the water’s edge fluffed with food waste, pulverized potato processed to a bubbly powder. Pigeons flocked and fed on these soapy dregs, and watching them while he ate his PB&J and free bag of chips, he oftenwondered about these birds that populated the island. Did they come over on ships, accidental stowaways on tankers and freighters? Or were they blown here by opportunistic storms? And when was it, he wondered, that a pigeon, with its built-in homing instinct, sensed that it was too far from land to return and sought, in exhaustion, the oil tanker’s radar mast? Whenever he observed them here, victims of their own failed peregrinations, he wondered if such sights—the bejeweled throat of a dead bird floating on the wine-dark sea—had given rise to some minor myth, since most myths were answers to the questionHow?
Because how, he later wondered, had one managed to enter the plant, searching, he supposed, for food or a place to nest, perhaps just after the shift change when the first of the day’s trucks made their deposit. When the noise of the engines, the clattering rumble of potatoes, the explosive hiss and bang of the hydraulic lift sending pulses outward, should have spooked it but instead somehow herded the pigeon deeper into the factory. Here, where he spotted it. Here, where the processing machines were at their most vertical and entangled, and above which, now, it thumped its walnut-sized head several times against the high windows, confused by their promise of open sky. Finding no exit or relief, the pigeon buzzed the line workers. They had nothing to fear, of course, it wasn’t an owl or hawk, but they raised their arms over their faces when it swooped. Several men on the line had stopped to watch, most of them laughing as the bird tumbled and dove. Still others paused to consider its plight and to be, perhaps in some small way, impressed by it. Until one of them took a rejected potato from the belt and flung it at the bird.
He could see the idea take hold among the men. A few picked up potatoes and gave them a short toss, palming their heft. Others cocked their arms, raising the improvised missile to their ears and then either failing to nerve themselves or throwing it only half-heartedly. But then several of them took more careful aim, and when one of the men nearly bull’s-eyed the creature the others, encouraged, summoned a rage—he could see it on their faces—as the bird became interloper and prize and also, in its very capacity to fly, an insult to them. By now everyone had stopped their work. No one was inspecting the belts, and this further fueled their anger, since this abandonment of their jobs, the going off-task, revealed how unnecessary to the process theywere, that the system, the factory itself, would no more stop its production without their presence than it was made more efficient by it. And what they were doing now, by mandatory neglect, was daring the foreman to notice their insignificance.
Soon the air above the factory floor was flurried with potatoes, crosshatched by their vectors, the pigeon somehow dodging and tumbling between their parabolic trajectories. The potatoes smashed with a tinny report against the walls’ corrugated tin; they splatted on the concrete floor. This madness had infected all the men except him, who had realized the bird’s only chance of escape was the windows. So nowhetook aim, cursing his weak arm with each toss but elated when a desperate heave finally shattered one of the panes. He fired again, knocking out another. Several of his coworkers had noticed his ploy and their faces registered something like appreciation: how he had iterated on the game, adding to it the satisfaction of breaking what did not belong but was owed to them, while introducing a new challenge—put a clock on the field, so to speak; gave the game a limit, a terminus. The pigeon seemed to sense the opening, the fresh air they could all smell. Darting, it homed toward sky. And as it climbed now, toward its escape, beelining toward safety and purpose beyond the empty window frame, it took a shot square in the chest. A great cheer went up as the bird fell. It landed on the floor, one gray wing flapping fishlike on the concrete. The man nearest where it landed turned and, with a quick and forceful step, crushed its skull with his heel. At this another cheer went up. Then he bent and pinched the prize by one of its wings, the torso appearing headless, and nodded in victory as he pivoted, stretching, for all to see, the creature’s entire and surprisingly broad wingspan to receive everyone’s applause. And, after taking a bow, after raising the bird above his head to what had become an ovation, he tossed it onto the conveyer belt. Which everyone silently watched as the creature slipped into the sorting machine’s innards, the dark in which it would be transformed and eventually consumed by some unlucky customer, thoughtlessly biting into what was once feather, some salted piece of claw, a metacarpus bone, some brittle sliver of beak, as much a part of the food as any other ingredient.
“That’s it?” Tanner said, since the man had gone silent. “That’s the story?”
“I don’t get it,” Cliff said.
“Me neither,” I said.
“I do,” said Oren.
—
I couldn’t sleep that night, my mind was racing so much. I thought about the story Mr. Bauer had told at dinner and imagined it first from his perspective, his having stumbled onto the very last person he’d have ever dreamed of seeing again, let alone capturing, and whom, it was obvious to me now, he had killed. He must have thought that God Himself had gifted him with such perfect revenge—for serving up this soldier, out of the millions, upon whom to inflict retribution, to balance the scales. And yet what sort of God arranged fate thus? Was God on the side of Mr. Bauer, I wondered, or was that only Mr. Bauer’s god? Because then I thought of it from the Nazi’s perspective. Tied up before these American servicemen, one of whom spoke perfect German, whom he recalled he’d once beaten, and who was now raising a rifle at his head. Was God punishing him? he must have asked himself. If this was his fate, whom in this great struggle did the Lord favor? And what of the other soldier, the one standing by Mr. Bauer’s side? Did he have misgivings, or egg Mr. Bauer on? Did he watch everything as I had, silently, when we put Pilchard on the train? Was it not better, at such a moment, to be Mr. Bauer? To act instead of stand idly by? At least there was someconvictionin acting. Oh, those moments during that year when I stood paralyzed before that of which I could not speak, that which rendered me silent! Oh, myfurythat previous morning, at Boyd, staring at the ceiling lights and torquing Kepplemen’s neck as he lay clutched to me in turn.“You’ve got to move,”Kepplemen would scream at me during practice. “You’ve got tomove.” Yet there we lay, strangely embraced and still. Yet here I lay, in the dark, thinking about all these things—about the story, finally, the man at Sheep Meadow had told us. Was that the meaning of life: that some people tried to kill things while others tried to save them? Was that what Oren understood? Were you always on one side, or did you daily pick sides anew? Did Oren feel like I’d abandoned him somehow? Was that why I felt so guilty? And if that pigeon had managed to soar free, would it soon forget this brush with death? Or would the sky forever be a greater joy?
It was the thing I hadn’t realized I’d hoped for—my relief was so immense—to see Pilchard enter Boyd’s front hall Monday morning, safe and alive. He walked past the pews, the circles beneath his eyes darker than usual, but he was otherwise unscathed. He caught me looking at him, lookingforhim, although neither of us did more than acknowledge the other with a glance. Tanner, seated to my left, sat watching the front doors, oblivious to our exchange. Like me, Cliff also gave Pilchard the stare down, but before Pilchard registered his presence, Kepplemen appeared and intercepted him, and after cupping Pilchard’s cheek in his palm and touching his temple to his in greeting, he walked him the rest of the way down the hall and out of our sight, speaking to him with a hand clamped to his neck.
I didn’t see Pilchard again until that afternoon, in the locker room, ahead of practice, while everyone changed, and Kepplemen, who was checking my weight—I was six pounds over and we had a dual meet on Thursday—let me have it. “How the fuck are you gonna lose this, Griffin?” Before I could answer, he said, “Put on a rubber suit and don’t leave practice till you cut half.” There was an extra dose of wrath in his voice. It carried over to practice, where he singled me out during drills. “Don’t you quit,” he shouted at me as we did stand-up escapes, “don’t you dare wimp out.” To conclude practice we ran stairs, twenty-five flights in sets of five, and as further punishment he made me lead the team. After the third set, I was so gassed I had to drop to the back of the line. As punishment for this, he ordered I do two more sets on my own.
Later, in the locker room, I sat trying to pull the tape off my rubber suit’s wrists, but my hands were shaking so much I had to use my teeth. By now the place was emptying out, the last to shower were leaving, and having disrobed, I weighed myself. I had lost nearly three pounds, but Coach was nowhere to be seen to deliver the report. I returned to the bench and sat disconsolately, listening to the showers hiss, watching the steam crawl along the ceiling, nursing my disappointment and mourning the dinner I’d have to skip. Then Pilchard appeared at his locker. He must’ve just weighed himself because he too was naked—he could not have been more than a hundred pounds in clothes, his ribs were so pronounced he looked like he’d swallowed a claw clip, and his cock, which amazed us all, hung thickly between his quads like a bell clapper froma nautical rope. From his locker he tossed me a towel and said, “Here,” forlornly. Before I could decline the gift, he retrieved another, wrapping it around his waist and entering the showers. “Thanks,” I called to him. Then I shouldered the towel and followed. I was of a mind to say something to him; I felt so guilty for what had happened over the weekend I wanted to apologize.
There were nine showerheads evenly spaced on three of the room’s four walls, and Pilchard stood under the jet directly across from the entrance with his back to me, his palms pressed to the tiles, as far as possible from Kepplemen, who was showering too. He stood in the near corner, to my right, but outside the spray, so entirely lathered with suds that he looked like a statue dusted in snow. The dark room was densely fogged. The water parted Pilchard’s hair and sluiced down his back and tiny buttocks. And then he looked over his shoulder at me. He appeared almost surprised to see me there. He blinked, his lashes wet, and then glanced at Coach and back at me again—I could not read his expression. For a moment I thought he wanted to tell me something. Kepplemen stepped beneath the head, the water peeling suds from his body that splatted against the floor tiles. His eyes were closed; they’d been closed, I thought, since I’d entered. He kept them closed when he said, “We’ll check your weight in the morning.” And though I was versed in his subtext, though I knew this meant I was dismissed, I said to Pilchard, “You ready to split?” To which he, taking my hint, said, “Sure.” We dressed quickly after drying ourselves.
On the bus later, just before he got off to catch the crosstown east, I told him I’d wash the towel he’d lent me and bring it back tomorrow. He said not to worry about it and rang the bell. He exited, and I felt relief that neither Cliff nor Tanner was here to see any of this, which did not eclipse my satisfaction that Pilchard and I were now officially square.
The next morning Dad appeared in our room to wake us. He turned on our television and, with something like excitement, said, “John Lennon was murdered last night!” In his hand he held a spatula covered with scrambled eggs. He gestured with it toward the screen. “Tragic,” he said. Then he sucked some eggs off the blade. “Shot right outside his apartment,” he noted while he chewed. “At the Dakota.” Even through my fogginess, I could tell that he wanted to be the first to deliver this news,that by hearing it from him he believed he was somehow attached to the event. That it touched him with just a bit of its dark glamour. It was, I was coming to realize, one of his character flaws: aping pathos, he flipped it to bathos. Not that I’d have been so articulate about it back then.
Thursday’s match was against Saint Paul’s School, in Garden City. It was, by reputation, a shitty program with a bunch of fishes, but because I was so depleted after making weight—I’d sucked my final three pounds in a single day—I could neither bring myself to warm up with any intensity nor summon the ferocity necessary to win. With an additional week of preparation, I might have matched my opponent’s velocity, but I was instead subject to his hummingbird speed. His fireman’s carry I saw coming but could not stop. His Half Nelson series was executed with a relentlessness I could not counter. A lesson.This was a lesson,I thought, after he did a stand-up escape, turned, and shot a double leg, and took me down. And then the most shameful resignation came over me as he rammed his head into my ribs to secure a cradle. I could’ve kicked open his grip and freed myself. I could have prolonged the contest rather than allow myself to be muscled over. But instead I bucked on my back with just enough power to appear as if I were actually fighting. Until finally the ref smacked the foam rubber and it was over—which was all I wanted.
In short, I tanked.
I walked off the mat to the shoulder pats of my teammates, with the exception of Kepplemen, whose disgust with me manifested in total disregard and was as hot as mine was for him. There was a confrontation coming. I was certain of it from the end of the match until the ride back to Boyd—Fuck you,I thought,and fuck this season—but it did not materialize.
I hopped off the bus before my stop and got two slices at Pizza Joint. I dusted these with garlic, Parmesan, and red pepper flakes and allowed myself to tasteeverything.I drank a large Coke to wash it down, and I was sugar-flooded, carbo-loaded. I didn’t give a shit if I lost, and if I wanted to pig out now, what of it?
So that to see Naomi parked there before Juilliard was like dessert. The dome light of the Mercedes illuminated its interior. Beneath it, contained within it, Naomi seemed to float, suspended above the street. She was reading theDaily News,the paper covering the steering wheel.I hadn’t seen her since the tournament at Friends Academy, since that night I’d showered at her house. When I knocked on her window, her face revealed more than pleasant surprise, and it filled me with anticipation. The moment I took my seat, she pulled me into her arms. Coffee, perfume, her bangles’ clink, how her hair, in its light caress, seemed almost prehensile. “It’s been forever,” Naomi said as she smushed me to her. She started the car. “Tell me everything, tell me how you’ve been, how was your day?”
This was the first time I recall ever wanting to kiss her. She drove and, when she found a parking space and cut the engine, the evening’s privacy settled on us. There shined through the windshield that sea-cave light of far-off streetlamps, projected onto the long garage’s bare brick wall that lined one side of our secret place. That lake of blackness to our right rimmed by the West Side Highway also enclosed us. I had so much to tell her, but she wanted to kiss me too, and when we did it seemed that we might somehow burrow into each other, the force with which she pressed herself to me was so great and which I returned in kind. “Do you want to go in back?” she whispered, and although I didn’t know exactly what she meant, didn’t completely understand what it implied, I knew it meant more and I said yes. Naomi nodded at this, assenting, at once resigned and joyful, and I felt older somehow. She was about to open her door but then giggled and turned to kiss me again. And then a police car’s lights flashed red, white, and blue, its siren sounding a single note. The interior was suddenly floodlit, and I froze.
Over the PA, the officer said, “Step out of the car, please,” and Naomi, at first frozen herself, exited but left the door open. The squad car’s passenger window rolled down; its spotlight blinded me. “You’re parked illegally,” the officer said to Naomi, and having raised my hand to cover my eyes and turn away, I noticed the hydrant outside my window. Naomi’s back was to me. After she said something to the officer, he replied, “Can I see your license, please?”
The other officer came around to my side. He too shined a light in my face, then tapped the window with the butt of his baton. “Step out of the car, please,” he said. When I did, he asked, “Where do you live, young man?”
And in a moment, which I now look back on as fateful, I said, withsomething like surprise because the answer was so obvious, “In Great Neck.” And then: “Did my mom do something wrong?”