Glimmering

Jule patted at his pockets, grandly pulled out a small red oblong. “See this here? This is Emma’s. One of those beeper things, they plug into some relay somewhere so they work even when the power’s down, they give ’em to all the senior doctors at Northern Westchester. I’ll leave this with Grandmother. If there’s any problem, she can call Emma.”

“And what? Emma’s going to come down here with a scalpel? She’s forty miles away, Jule! Plus you said she’s sick—”

“I don’t know that she’s sick. She just—she doesn’t look so good, that’s all. Probably it’s nothing.” Jule shook his head. “Look, leave the beeper here, okay? Emma could at least call the police or something. Don’t sweat it, Jackie, please?”

“You just told me—”

But Jule had already bolted from the car and loped onto the porch to bang at the door. It cracked open and Jack could see Mrs. Iverson’s face, the beeper disappearing into her hand. Before he could do anything, the car shuddered as Jule jumped back into the seat beside him.

“C’mon, Jackie-boy,” he begged. “How often do I ask you to do anything? I just want some company, okay? I have a client up in Goldens Bridge, an actress, she’s on Till the End of the World, I’m representing her in a breach-of-contract thing. It’s the weekend, I got to deliver something to the studio, down at the Pyramid, and—something else, something I have to do. I thought maybe you’d like to come with me. We could talk, Jackie. It was nice, seeing you this summer. It’s been a long time since we talked like that.”

His tone grew wistful. Jack looked at his friend’s unshaven face, glanced down and saw the glint of glass on the floor at his feet. “Well, yeah,” Jack said. “But couldn’t you just stay overnight here? Then we could—”

Jule shook his head. “I have this errand. I mean, one reason I agreed to it is I thought we could do this—I could pick you up, drop you off on the way back—”

His voice trailed off. He stared mournfully at the ceiling. Jack sighed.

“All right. But we have to be back by tonight.”

“No prob.” Jule turned the ignition. “Great! You’re so great, Jackie!”

“I’m a fucking pushover, is what I am. Let’s get going. I don’t want to be in the city after dark.”

“You won’t.” With a groan the Range Rover started up the drive. “Isn’t this great, Jackie?”

Jack sat in silence, trying to breathe through his mouth, so as not to smell the odor of stale liquor, and stared outside. Jule navigated the burned-out corridor of Hudson Terrace, the garish shells of mansions spray-painted with tribal designs, their verandas braided with barbed wire and broken strings of Christmas lights. Now and then they saw delivery vans, or automobiles creeping cautiously around potholes. Jack recognized the battered Jeep that belonged to his doctor, lurching away from the hospital.

They headed south on the Saw Mill. The road was corrugated with frost heaves, the median and shoulder lined with abandoned vehicles gutted of everything; even their paint had been burned or rusted away. Some wrecks had been dragged back from the road to form hivelike clusters where people moved with everyday calm: tending fires, chasing children, making windbreaks out of plywood and dead trees. As the car barreled past, dogs ran up behind them, yelping.

“Fucking leeches.” Jule swerved the Rover toward a clutch of yellow mongrels. “Someone oughta torch ’em.”

Jack said nothing. The crimson sky gave the dead cars and crumbling overpasses an archaic look. He thought of the ruined Claudian aqueduct, where he and Leonard had fucked in the dusty grass with cicadas shrilling overhead. He sighed, gazing at the monoliths of Co-op City looming up from the smoke and rubble of a fellahin encampment.

“Thinking of Leonard?” Jule asked.

“How’d you know?”

“I can just tell.” Jule eased the car around a pile of burning refuse. “You have this—noise—you make, when you’re thinking of Leonard. That son of a bitch.” He scowled at a trio of boys throwing rocks at the passing traffic.

“Oh well,” Jack said, embarrassed. “You know how it is…”

“I don’t know how it is, but I know how it should b—Jesus Christ!”

A dangerously overcrowded bus cut them off, passengers hanging from the open doors as it veered past. Jule pounded his horn, which made no sound, then turned to Jack. “You’re worth ten of him, Jackie. I mean, I could understand it when you guys were kids. But carrying a torch for someone who dumped you and lives just to torment you…”

He shook his head. They drove by the George Washington Bridge, its skeleton black against the sky. Torn banners fluttered from the girders.

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“I’m not carrying a fucking torch.” Jack stared up at a defaced billboard, advertising GFI’s e-service:

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