Amarelle was on the line, speaking loudly, for apparently she was using a pay phone. He kept asking her to repeat what she'd said, so obtrusive was the background noise. She kept saying, "Can you hear me?" She seemed to be listening for signs in his voice that he was annoyed or worried she had not come home.
She explained she'd met her sister Amarelle in Manhattan; they'd had a girls' night out
doing the town; she didn't think it made sense to come back to the streets of the Bronx at that late hour; instead they would go to Aschelle's place in Peekskill; she'd spend the weekend there.
Radix let her gush through the background noise which transmitted a sense of the great churning fun she was having right then; which, she seemed to imply, he was sadly missing.
This was what they ought to be doing – getting out more often, especially on Friday nights; away from their wretched neighborhood; amidst the neon and headlight flow, the traffic and sidewalk strollers, clubs and restaurants.
"I have to go, they're waiting for me in the car. We're parked near a fire hydrant."
She didn't say where off Fifth Avenue they were, who "they" were; but he imagined her hanging up the phone and stepping back into the world she'd found; wanting that now more than she wanted him.
And as if to confirm what world it was he had elected to live in, the dog at the back of the house next door started barking. Ark ark ark. Then a seven-second silence, then more arks. The dog could be hungry or angry or bored with its chained status, he couldn't tell. Only its owner understood its language.
He heard another sound, someone bouncing a basketball on the sidewalk outside his front windows. Bounce bounce bounce, some conversation, then bounce bounce.
He peered through the blinds. The streets had the usual derelict look. The baskeball bouncer, tall and narrow-faced, apparently returning from team practice, a duffel bag slung on his shoulders, had stopped to talk to his homeboys. Carlos and the crew were camped out on the stoop; they passed around a marijuana joint and a large bottle of beer in a brown paper bag. They talked in their fierce crotch-reaching way, shifting from foot too foot, walking away to dramatize a point; struggling to make sense of their world.
A full moon was out in the clear night sky. He hadn't seen the moon in a long time. The upper regions of the universe seemed to vanish as night fell, leaving him to contend with indifferent street lights, obscuring brick buildings.
This life in the streets – its underground runnings, the corner businessmen - had a way of absorbing the unexpected and carrying on. A man is shot in a hallway; stains on the walls get washed away, the body goes off in a black zippered bag; grime and debris swept up. The roadway clear again, everything prepares to forge ahead.
Radix turned back to his bedroom. He had a long weekend in front of him, and no one to bounce his thoughts off like a human backboard. But like the barking dog next door he'd find a way and language to engage the world.
(from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 