It turned out she'd parked on the same block on a narrow side street;
close to black garbage bags piled up for the sanitation truck, and
pigeons pecking at scraps of food. Not many people about. Doors and
windows locked tight, though from an attic window nearby a face
peered down at them.
Her car keys out, Judy Wiener stood frozen and unsure, staring at her
car. "Why does it look so different?"
Radix looked at the car. He couldn't see anything odd about it, until
she drew his attention to the wheels. Where the silver hubcaps should
have been, there was just the rusted metal plates and the exposed lug
knots. Everything else looked intact.
He threw a quick nervous glance up the road at his car. From a
distance it looked untouched but he couldn't be sure.
"Well, I suppose I ought to be thankful they left the wheels. At least I
can drive home," Judy Wiener sighed.
She didn't want to be angry at the Bronx, not at that moment. Lost
hubcaps were a small price to pay for trying to see Xavier. And in any
event she felt certain once he was well again, once he'd found out
what had happened to her car, one way or another he'd get her new
set of hubcaps, no problem.
Still, a wariness crept over her face, knitting her brow. A white
woman had casually parked her car on a Bronx street; and now this!
Radix shook his head, sharing her irritation that this sort of thing
happened. Two blocks away, the main street was active: people
streaming on sidewalks, the subway stop, commerce and buses. He
could sense her distaste for this narrow street, with its dark hints
anything could happen once your back was turned.
The face at the attic window across the street looked down at them.
"You sure you know your way out?" Radix asked. "The expressway is
back that way?"
She managed a game smile. "I'll probably take a left at the end of the
block…and go back that way."
"Well, I'd better get going. See if the wheels are still on my car. Talk to
you later."
That night minutes after ten o'clock Judy Wiener called. How did she
get his number? "Don't you remember, we exchanged numbers last
semester…? the new Department procedure, just in case one of us
wasn't coming in?" He didn't remember. "It's just that I've never used
yours before."
In any event, she was calling because when she got home she'd
discovered her licence plates had been stolen. Stolen? "Well, removed,
along with the hubcaps." She paused. He waited, wondering, Why
couldn't this news wait until they saw each other the following day? "I
mean, why would anyone want to steal my license plates?" she went
on. "They took the back plate, they left the front plate; or maybe
they'd planned to take that one too, I don't understand. What could
anyone do with just one licence plate?"
What she wanted at that hour, it seemed, was someone in the Bronx to
understand what had happened to her; someone who could explain why
these things happened. There was too, Radix thought, just a hint of
accusation in her voice. It sounded far off, solitary, as if she was
standing in an empty room.
"It doesn't make sense," he'd say whenever she paused in her
bewilderment.
The whole day was already unreal, as if the hands of the clock had
played with time, speeding things up, slowing things down. Soon he'd
go to bed.
Maybe the following day things would be rearranged; the licence plate
found, the neighbourhood thief arrested; and ̶ who knows? ̶ he might
have better luck, or no luck at all when he stepped outside, for that
was how time passed him in the Bronx these days.
(from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 