The Heart is a Poor Judge Ch. 08

Eddie finally took another sip of his drink. "I am of the opinion that each of us is, and will always be, the son of exactly one man: the one whose sperm met with the egg destined to become us. Once that man is gone, no one can replace him. But Gabe, if I had just given your father the chance, he would have come awfully close. And now, as I come to know the moral bankruptcy of so many of Otero's dealings, I realize what a gift Marco's steady and virtuous hand was to us all."

"My father was not that virtuous."

"Maybe not in every way he could have been. But in the ways that mattered to me...and compared to our friend at the head of the table...he was a saint. When we lost him, we lost a stabilizing force."

Lydia lifter her head, blue eyes waking up again. "We don't know all the facts."

"We know most of them," Eddie countered.

"You're saying my father kept Otero in line," said Gabe.

Eddie nodded sleepily. "That's what I'm saying."

"And what about you?"

Eddie gave the kid a long, hard look. "Your father possessed something which I lack. Something that made Otero listen to him. Reign it in whenever his ideas turned barbaric--made him step back from the ledge. Oh, God, if I only knew what it was Marco did to become that man's truth whisperer..."

Miguel noted a change in his boss, both in demeanor and tone, as if something crucial within him had shifted. He had just been marveling at Eddie's eloquence, never having known anyone who could speak so well after drinking so much. In fact, the man's only true tell, besides the uncharacteristic laziness with which he slouched in his chair, was an abysmally loose tongue.

And just as Miguel made the observation, Eddie seemed all at once aware of how much he had let slip. He cast a frigid look about himself, straightened up like a soldier and said, "How about we respect the man in his home and discuss other things?"

Even Miguel agreed by this point that it was advisable. The voice of Otero, who had grown boisterous at his roost across the water, sounded in brassy rings over his many attendees. A karmic risk arose in Miguel each time he heard it.

"Other things," of course, meant small-talk. A sterile mood settled in, and by this stage in the evening, none of them possessed the energy nor wits to reverse it. For one bleak period of several minutes, they said nothing. Miguel lifted his gaze and once again made eye contact with Lydia. On that night, she was still hardly more than a stranger. But some expressions, no matter how subtle, no matter the degree of acquaintance, can be universally read. And Miguel knew suddenly that he stared into the face of a person who was terrified.

;-;

Monday, August 9th, 1999

He arrived early at the warehouse Monday night for a 9 p.m. consultation with a vendor. The vendor was late--not necessarily cause for alarm, but certainly rare in an industry he had come to know as uniquely punctual. Why add extra unknowns when the premise of each and every meeting lay rooted in felony?

He settled his nerves with housekeeping, dusting the crevices of shelves jammed with files, thickly lining every wall of the already cramped office, forming a manilla tomb. He gathered a year's worth of stale purchase orders and handwritten receipts, already painstakingly sorted, and began hanging them in a newly-installed filing cabinet (number eight) along the office's exterior wall.

The buzz of fluorescent lights presided overhead. They created a kind of silence that was never truly silent--not enough to allow one to perceive, for example, the soft padding of footsteps across a polished concrete floor.

"Hello," came a voice from right behind him.

Miguel had been kneeling before the gaping bottom drawer of the metal cabinet. He was so startled that he flailed onto his back before scrambling to his feet. The man was white, nearly Miguel's height and somewhere in his mid- to late-twenties. He matched the description of the vendor.

Miguel glanced up at the wall clock above the workbench. Almost half past nine. "You're very late."

The words were empty, almost playful: "Sorry about that."

"How'd you get in?"

"Door was open." The man began to appraise his surroundings. His eyes infiltrated every surface, every corner. He stepped slowly around in a broad circle, clicking his tongue. "Not a bad setup you got here."

Across the room, the small service door lay several inches ajar like a puncture in a hot-air balloon. Somehow, unbelievably and unforgivably, Miguel had not secured it. He rushed over and pulled it shut, snapping the deadbolt in place. "Was this open?"

"Unlocked. I opened it."

Even in the not-silence, Miguel should have heard it opening. The weather stripping brushed audibly against the frame under normal conditions, unless a person took special care to make it quiet--and why had the man not closed it behind him? "You always have to knock."

"How was I supposed to know? I turned the knob, it opened."

"Everybody knocks," Miguel said firmly.

The man said nothing.

Miguel did his best to put away his shock and confusion. He faced the man as he would any other vendor and began their dealings. As they discussed pricing and Miguel gathered signatures, the man cast repeated glances about himself, anywhere but at Miguel and the paperwork. He seemed enraptured by the space. At one point Miguel ducked into the office for a fresh pen, and when he came back out, found the man wandering the far wall opposite the workbench.

"Please stay over here," Miguel called out. He had never said anything like that to a vendor before--no exchange called for it until now.

The man walked casually back toward him. "What kind of capacity are we dealing with in a place like this?"

Miguel read his behavior clearly. The man was not ignorant of the formality he should have adhered to. Asking such an inappropriate question in that eerily cursory tone did not signal sloppiness--not in this case. It was bold, haughty, intentional. "I don't know," he answered firmly.

By some miracle, the meeting concluded without incident. Once the man was gone, Miguel went into the office and called Eddie's cell phone. Eddie told Miguel he would accompany Gabe in the delivery car later that night, and the three of them would debrief together. Then, a grave request: Miguel was to stay inside the warehouse until they arrived. He was not to return home during the intervening hours (which he had indeed planned to do). It felt like a prison sentence.

;-;

"We're going to do it this way for a while," Eddie announced as Miguel unloaded the car. "I was already considering it, even before tonight."

Gabe stood glassy-eyed to Eddie's right, snugged against the Acura as it unleashed a steaming breath of engine heat into the cool room.

"So," Miguel said. He heaved the largest of the packages and slid it to the back of the workbench. "Any guesses who the fuck that guy was?"

Eddie stood with his arms crossed, puffing his chest and biting his lip like he was still processing it himself. Because, of course, he was. "I wonder if--" He stopped dead. He looked up at Miguel, who saw behind Eddie's weary eyes to his ever-toiling mind, frantically lifting stone after stone to view its underside, never quite finding that thing it searched for. "I'm sorry, I just don't know."

Miguel was driven home that night. It was nearing two in the morning and still very hot; a somber layer of cloud held in most of the heat of the day. He had buckled himself into the center of the back seat and sat with his arms crossed, sweating and hugging himself. Eddie was at the wheel. The ride ended barely after it began, and for the first time, Miguel wished he lived farther from the warehouse.

"I'll get out here, too," said Gabe as the car came to a stop in front of his building.

Eddie only nodded. Miguel caught his eyes in the rear-view mirror. He seemed deep in thought.

They were both out, walking side by side toward the lobby doors when Miguel heard the transmission click into park.

"Hey." Eddie's voice came though the open passenger window and echoed off the granite wall of the building.

They both turned back to face the car.

"Take care of each other, understand?"

Miguel could barely process the words. "Yeah," he muttered.

The kid took his hand, squeezed, let it go.

The week progressed within the bounds of a new kind of normal, with Eddie now present for nearly all of Gabe and Miguel's workplace interactions. Miguel no longer walked between the warehouse and his home; Gabe and Eddie picked him up a short time before they would normally meet. All three remained together under the metal roof until a simplified version of the warehouse duties were executed. Incidentally or not, Miguel was assigned no more meetings with vendors, all week long, and none were scheduled over the weekend.

Eddie's constant presence wasn't nearly as irritating as it could have been. He spent most of the week--at least when he was around them--in an upbeat mood. He mentioned his children on several occasions. His daughter Gabby would enter first grade in two weeks. She would be the youngest in her class and, Eddie assured both of them, the most intelligent.

On Friday night, just as they were about to lock up, Eddie paused and looked between them. "Have the two of you moved in together?"

The kid shot Miguel a glance. "I still have the house."

"I know that," said Eddie.

There was no blaming Eddie for assuming. Gabe had bailed out of the car alongside Miguel every night that week. "We never talked about it...but yes, we basically have."

Eddie paused. "All I really meant to say was that I think it's a good idea."

"Thanks for your input," said Miguel. He knew the words sounded irreverent, but in his heart he meant them.

"It's--uh, well...it's hard to find someone. You know, to take care of you. It's something you appreciate more and more as the years pass. One day, you'll start feeling a lot of gratitude. For the other person...and maybe even for yourself--that you didn't let it all go, even when it wasn't easy."

Miguel wouldn't have known what to say if it slapped him in the face.

Mercifully, Gabe stepped up. "Okay, Eddie. I understand what you mean."

Eddie drove them both home once again. As the car pulled away, the exhaust note caused an ornate lampshade above them to buzz on its mount.

The kid turned to him. "I'm going to head home tonight."

"What for?"

"I don't know...just feels like the right thing."

Miguel pulled on his hand. "This is your home," he insisted. "You even told Eddie you moved in here--not that you consulted me, but that's fine. I'm happy about it."

"I still have a bedroom full of stuff over there."

"We'll move it all here. You can keep it all and decide what you want to get rid of later."

The kid actually seemed to ponder this for a moment. "It's not selling, Miguel. That's all I know. The market's on fire, but it's not selling."

"I told you we could put in a new kitchen. That will help--I have the money. You can pay me back once the deal goes through."

"The kitchen isn't the reason it's not selling. These past few weeks, I think I've come to understand some things about the way it all happens and I...I just..." He trailed off.

"The way what all happens?"

Gabe huffed a sigh. "I haven't let it sell. In my mind, I haven't made it possible. I haven't believed that it could happen."

Miguel was careful not to appear doubtful. "So what are you going to do? Start believing?"

Gabe hesitated. "I thought I said goodbye already...but now I don't think I have. Not really."

"You think that's what's stopping it?"

Gabe put his hands in his pants pockets. "I do."

Shit, far be it from Miguel to try and dissuade the kid. "At least let me come with you."

"I'm sorry, but I need to be alone for this." They stood only inches apart. Gabe tipped forward and his forehead thudded against Miguel's chest. Voice muffled, he said, "I'll come back tomorrow. I promise."

Miguel believed him, or at least desperately wanted to. But something about the situation made him feel terrified. He hugged Gabe as tightly as he could, then let him go.

"Give me a ring when you get home," he said.

"Phone's disconnected."

"How the hell does anybody reach you? The house could sell and you'd never know."

"I gave the agent your number."

Miguel scoffed as the kid turned and began walking away. "Promise me you'll stay safe."

"Do not go gentle into that good night," Gabe called out over his shoulder.

"What?"

"There's a payphone just outside Market South. I'll call you from there."

Miguel watched as his flowing movements drew him farther and farther away, until he disappeared around the corner of the building. Miguel then swiftly followed the same path, peeked around just in time to witness Gabe's decent into the mouth of the station.

;-;

Saturday, August 14th, 1999

"What the hell is that thing?"

"It's a computer."

The kid let his backpack fall and slop over on the floor. "Looks like a giant blueberry." He walked cautiously over. "How much did you pay for this?"

"A lot less than a new kitchen would have cost. And you don't want one of those."

Gabe looked dumbstruck. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Play games. Go on the Internet."

"How?"

"Just got it put in. You do it through the phone line. I called up Timestar and they flipped some switch on their end, and now I have it for thirty dollars more a month. Can you believe that shit? Problem is, no one can call you while you're on it. Look a me, all connected just as you sever yourself from society."

"Why not just go to the library?"

Miguel laughed. "How am I supposed to watch porn at the library, huh?"

The kid glanced sheepishly away. "I don't want to know what you would type in."

"I'm kidding...mostly. Hey, check this out." Miguel pressed the power button. A deep chime sounded and the screen flickered on. He sat himself down in front of it and less than a minute later, had the browser open.

The kid stood still, peering over his shoulder. "What are you going to look up?"

"This isn't a school project," said Miguel. "Think of it more like: Where will I go?"

"There's a whole world represented in there. Our world," Gabe said softly. "Don't you feel a little strange bringing all that noise into your home?"

"It gives me an incredible sense of freedom, if you want to know the truth. And don't forget, it's your home, too."

The kid brushed his hair from his eyes. It was getting long. "I guess it's true that you can only go forward," he said. "You can never go back."

;-;

The sun went down just a couple hours after Gabe's 6 p.m. arrival. Miguel had been sleeping in later than ever before, sometimes until almost noon, forsaking his long-imposed ten o'clock alarm. He had always been careful to preserve his daytime existence, knowing how easily it could slip away with such a late work shift. But he was also sleeping better with the kid nestled beside him every night. Gabe himself confessed he had never slept so deeply in his life. No matter how late they awoke, they did it together. No matter how few daylight hours remained before nighttime returned, Gabe and Miguel exhausted them as a team.

The timing was a blessing. As much as he tried to categorize Monday night's intrusion as an isolated event, he couldn't shake his impression of the strange man as a harbinger of something worse to come. It felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath him, and ever since, he had been struggling to right himself. It didn't help that nothing truly had returned to normal since then, what with Eddie constantly presiding over territory that he had liked to believe was his. But he was actually grateful for that change. The alternative--having to work alone there again--sounded much worse.

Miguel had never been one to remember faces, but this time was different. As he recalled the night, he could conjure the features and sly expression of the intruder so vividly that his stomach tightened. He found himself recounting the exchange more often that he wished; it cropped up in his mind unannounced and uninvited, loitering there as Miguel tried to shift his thoughts to other things.

He had so far managed to avoid bothering the kid about any of it. He knew that Gabe's response would be a voice of reason, reminding him that Eddie had only taken the event so seriously out of an abundance of caution; it would be absurd to allow a relatively innocuous visitor to reframe one's entire sense of place and wellbeing. He would echo Miguel's rationalization that what happened was surely isolated, unlikely ever to repeat. And because Miguel could hear these made-up versions of Gabe's reassurances play in his head as if the kid himself had spoken them, there was no need to bother with the real thing.

"Would you like to get out of the house again tonight?"

Gabe barely looked up from a book-themed Internet message board. "I'm not sure I have it in me to go dancing again."

"I don't mean that. Something mellow."

"Like what?"

"Ever been on the Ferris wheel out at the pier?"


The kid turned back and looked at the screen. "The top of that thing seems like an awfully high up place to be."

"Does that scare you?"

He spun around on the small white desk chair. "I think I might need to create an account. I don't want to, but there's this user called Photonegative and they're stinking up the whole place with these dumb ideas about Blake."

"So can we go?"

The kid pulled at the neck hole of his t-shirt. "This is your fault, you know. I've lived my whole life perfectly content reading the printed page, and now you had to go and drag this thing home."

"You're welcome."

Gabe turned back and looked at the screen. It seemed he was not registering any of the content it displayed, just taking in the blue and white light. The vacant face of Lisa Simpson, colors inverted, peered from a little box to the left of some text.

"Let's go," said Miguel. "Or am I going to have to drag you out of here?"

;-;

"I always forget what a zoo this place is," said Gabe.

They had traveled south by train, sticking near to the coast all the way down. The closest station to the pier was only three stops from Gabe's. There were, of course, many piers up and down the coastline, but this one was by far the largest, and more of an amusement park on stilts than anything else. The yawning mouth of an entrance was festooned with hundreds of lightbulbs, so numerous and radiant that their heat could be felt from far below, just as someone stationed many yards away can still sense the fever of a burning house. Mammoth arched white lettering read: "Lucky Town"--though Miguel and everyone he knew only ever called it "the pier."

They entered, air awash with golden churro and cigarettes. A clown in a rainbow wig stood at the center of a small rotating stage lined with silvery fringe. He paused, seeming to lose sense of himself for a second before tossing three gloss-white bowling pins into motion above his head.

People were everywhere, clogging narrow gaps between food vendors, forming lines with inscrutable paths for the most desirable fare. Queues for the rollercoasters, spinning lily pads and bumper cars were more organized, but even longer. Miguel began to lose hope that they would get their ride at all, as they passed for what felt like miles though the crushing herd. But the Ferris wheel, with is towering white and spindly bones, still loomed some distance away, and by the time they drew near, the crowd had thinned considerably. The oppressive din died away, leaving the immense frame of rims and spokes to rest in a dignified quiet, fitting of its old age.

At the time of its construction many decades earlier, it was among the largest examples in the world. Miguel regarded the faded and chipping powder-white coating as a graceful patina. Almost all of its alternating green and white lightbulbs were extinguished, leaving strange dim beacons dotted high over the sea at chaotic and lonely intervals.