Indian Summer

Indian Summer

by Christopher McHale







303 East 3rd.  Michael Krieger lived there for years. How many years?  He didn’t know.  Let’s see.  When he got back from Nam, there was a time when he lived on the Upper East Side, that was like being drugged, the city too wide up there, the blocks too long; it felt like it took hours to walk to the store to buy a loaf of rye bread and then walk back again. It made his feet hurt living on the Upper East Side.  So he moved down to what they call these days, Alphabet City, 303 East 3rd. As soon as he got there he liked the place, like the address, went to the deli and played the number 353, the five substituting for the letter ‘E’ as in east, because it was the fifth letter in the alphabet.  He didn’t win.



The neighborhood around east 3rd when he moved in was like the wild west.  First day there some karate guy, black belt guy, strong motherfucker kind of guy, died with a kitchen knife in his chest.  Right on the corner.  People talked about it for weeks.  Nine year old boy did it.  Kids were tough down there and he had to admit, he liked that.  Michael Krieger liked things tough, maybe, wasn’t sure, but he liked to think of himself that way and for folks who liked to think of themselves that way, well, this was a good neighborhood to live in.



Over the years the neighborhood changed and lots of people from little colleges in New England moved in. They wanted to be tough as well, edgy, arty.  They wore their pants too tight and cultivated this pale pasty skin and smoked cigarettes holding the butt weird, with two fingers, like the thumb and the forefinger, like they all wanted to be French.  Michael Krieger didn’t get it and he didn’t want to get it and he was too goddamn old to move now anyway, so he put up with it, and he and all the other old coots watched this wash of whatever walk by.  Sounded harsh, but it wasn’t really.  Michael Krieger, who thought he got the world, thought he understood it all, found out, as many of us do, the world was not meant to be gotten or understood and anyway it was all entirely besides the point, this getting or not, this understanding or not.  It didn’t matter, because the longer you lived the less you knew, and sometimes, even, in the end, you suddenly learned something was not real that you had assumed all along was as real as could be, and perhaps more intriguingly, you discovered something you thought was a fairy tale was in fact the most real thing of all. All very confusing and it all made Michael Krieger laugh, because at a certain point, what else was a man supposed to do?



He had this one friend.  How many friends can a man have?  Maybe two, and a woman if they were lucky.  Maybe if they were really lucky the woman would be a friend as well, like to hang out and drink a beer on Sunday and watch a game, or maybe shoot pool up at Julian’s when Julian’s was there, before they turned it into a dorm, more college kids now, being tough in the hood, only the hood wasn’t so tough anymore. It was more like it looked tougher than it was, but that was perfect, that was America these days.  Image was important.  The right hair cut, the right piercing, the right pair of ripped jeans and you could go right to the top, have all the money, the success, the American Dream, as he’d been taught to call it.  Alright, dreams were simpler these days and he liked it that way.



His friend’s name was Charlie, Charlie Parker, like the jazz player.  It was perfect because the other Charlie Parker, the one from the fifties, died right around the corner. There was a plaque on the side of the building noting it.  Where famous people died, even if they died pissing in their pants from too many drugs and just generally all around fuckedupness, even if they died that way it was historic.  He wouldn’t dispute it. It didn’t seem right to him and he was pretty judgmental about things like that, but there didn’t seem any point in carping about a plaque on the side of a building where a musician had died fifty years ago.



Charlie was like him, a guy, too old to fit in anymore, too old to smoke, to old to drink, to old to get laid, too old to even be around and that’s the way Charlie felt about things, like nobody cared a damn if he was there or not, like people passed him on the street and didn’t even acknowledge him, or say hello or goodbye or fuck-off, that’s what it had become, like Charlie was dying for somebody to say fuck-off to him so he would know he was at least alive. Pretty pathetic, huh? Yeah, Michael Krieger thought so too and just shook his head whenever Charlie got into it, about how the world had changed, and by the world he meant the city, because the city was Charlie’s world.  At least Michael thought it was because that’s all he knew about Charlie, though it turned out he didn’t know much about his friend and by the end of the day he would know more and by the end of tomorrow he would know almost too much.  Michael Krieger could never figure it out, what was too much and what was not enough.



The day in question, the one we are discussing, a Tuesday, mid-October, nice day like you get sometimes in the north-east, unexpected, warm, precious because the pages in the calendar told you summer was over, winter coming, so in your head you’re getting ready and then you wake up and it’s warm, an echo of what is already lost but somehow returns for a moment, like a last kiss in airport terminal that feels extra special, juicy and bittersweet all at the same time, on this day Michael was content to walk around the neighborhood at his patrol pace, which was slow and measured, like a cop maybe in the way past, at least that’s way he saw it, pausing to talk to Wing Ho, the laundry guy, or watch some school kids go past and wonder how it felt, your jeans hanging below your ass like that, how it couldn’t be comfortable, but the style mattered more than anything to kids, he knew that, but all the same, he saw Charlie Parker standing on a corner and he knew something was wrong.  Man had a thundercloud over his head.  Man was scowling and filling the air with noxious fumes like a diesel truck that needed to go into the garage and get tuned up, values replaced, like that.



Michael didn’t really want to ask, not on such a beautiful day, but there was no turning around, disappearing in the other direction, or walking by like they weren’t best friends, so he said, “Hey. Charlie Parker!  How are you?”  Strong, like he meant it.  It was the way Michael Krieger was.



Of course, Charlie shrugged him off, mumbled an ‘okay,’ like that was enough or the truth or anything but an invitation to pursue it further.  He wanted to talk. Michael could see that easily enough, so he suggested they go into Henrietta’s across the street and get some coffee, maybe some pumpkin pie, because there was sign in the window advertising pumpkin pie and the pies in Henrietta’s where not bad, better than average.



“Look at this,” Charlie said and pushed a piece of paper across the table.  It was a clipping out of a newspaper, an obituary.  Charlotte Grier, (nee Hanratty) on Nov. 2, 2009 at home surrounded by her loving family after a courageous battle with cancer.  Loving wife of William R. devoted mother of Joseph, Kevein, and  Mary Elizabeth.



“A friend?” Michael asked.



“Yeah.” Charlie answered, suddenly taciturn, glowering, not comfortable to be around, but of course, Michael Krieger was not a man to be told when to be around or when not to be around.  He waited, knew he might have to get out a crow bar to pry the rest out.



“Sorry, man,” Michael finally said.  “My old man used to call the obits the Irish sports pages, but I didn’t get it. Now I’m getting it.  You reach a certain age, you know?”



“Yeah.”



Another long beat of silence, long enough for Michael to lean over and sip his coffee.  Henrietta always put too much in, making up for the fact it was crappy tin can coffee was Michael’s guess.



“So, she was a close friend?” Michael asked.



“Look, here’s the thing . . .”



Michael braced himself.  Usually, when Charlie used that phrase it was followed with about a thirty minutes non-stop spew of words.  His friend also had a rise of color in his face.  Not good.  Charlie, however, surprised him.



“We were married.”



Then Charlie Parker got up and left.



Next morning Michael woke up and did his usual get through the first hour thing, which mainly was about doing nothing except making some coffee and then looking out the window for an hour, since he didn’t have a computer or a newspaper and he didn’t want to walk down the stairs and back up the stairs, because his feet hurt from all the days he’d used them, the feet having been good enough but abused through the years in Nam and San Francisco, and all over Western Mass when he’d dated that girl from Lennox, and hikes all over the place, when he’d decided man had to be in nature at least half the time, and just sometimes walking around the city all day, the feet carrying a load these days because Michael had let himself go, in a sense, though he didn’t see it that way, and now he was sporting a tidy 230 pounds.  Sitting there in the window, street and noisome world below, he thought about what he thought about yesterday, about Charlie and the pain Charlie was in, because it was right there on his face, not something he was used to seeing, Charlie usually being a hard ass cynic of the first order, but yesterday hanging his head like a whipped dog, though it was understandable if the man’s wife had died, ex or not, the sort of thing that might knock the pins out from under you, Michael knew that.  Michael was the kind of guy who took action sometimes, changed it up, offered help, moved the ball down the field, just looked for ways to understand, or if not that, then listen.  Way Michael was.  He’d always been that way.  His mother had thought he’d make a good priest, and Michael somewhat agreed with her, except he didn’t believe in God, which was one problem, and he was overly found of women, which he had been led to believe was another issue.  But still, in his head, he had a charity, a generosity and it was the way he was, no denying it, so he came up with a plan to help his friend.



Not a complex plan, a simple one, but one the required a little preparation. He gulped the last of his coffee down, now filled with the urgency of his mission, or maybe just filled with something to do today, as opposed to most other days, and he skipped his shower, tugged on some jeans, a t-shirt, looked in the mirror, smooshed his bed hair down, sucked in his gut and headed out.  By the time he got down to the street he’d forgotten about the gut sucked in thing and it didn’t matter anyway. At this point in his life, Michael was Michael and he didn’t see how he could be anybody else.



Three blocks to the south, just before the street went to city housing hell, towers of brick and narrow hallways and a tundra of drugs and guns and plaid and fuzzy rules of survival that shifted day to day, there was a garage run by a fellow named Henry, Henry the same age as Michael, and a vet as well, but black, and in that difference, a difference of skin, Henry coming from a particular time and a particular reaction to things, there would always be a gulf between the two men.  Differences though sometimes don’t mean a damn thing, except they are there and acknowledged and there’s not a damn thing you can do about something like one guy is white and one guy is black and the world will never look the same to them.



In the back of Henry’s garage, under a piece of oil stained canvas, Michael kept his motorbike, an old one, older than Michael even, a 1940 Indian, red, with the chrome pipes down the side, low, and the seat modified for two, from the original unpadded single one, and that gear rack in the front under the amazing old light and the horn, the big silver circle, the Indian logo in the middle, the whole bike a masterpiece of design and sentimentality and speed and vibe and just flat out fun.  Michael rode it maybe three, four times a year, and Henry kept it for him for free in the garage, because housing such a nifty bit of mechanics was good karma for the whole garage.



“You taking it out?” Henry asked when Michael went to the back of the shop and lifted the canvas off.  He asked, but he knew, because Michael Krieger had that Indian look in his eye, that quiver in his step, his hand shaking a little as he pulled the canvas back.



“I’m taking Charlie for a ride,” Michael said.



“Charlie Parker?” Henry asked.



“Maybe Cold Spring.”



“Out of Manhattan?”



“Yeah.”



“Ain’t you heard? You do that Charlie turns to dust,” Henry said.  “He’s got a voodoo spell on him. At least I always supposed he did.”



“Sure.  Well, we take our chances,” Michael said.  “He needs a change.”



“You think?”



“Yeah, I do.”



“Change don’t sit too well with a guy like Charlie,” Henry said.



“How do you know?” Michael asked.



“Maybe I just don’t want to find if it does or it don’t,” Henry answered.



“Way I see it, he’s going to moan himself into a grave unless he blows some of the dust out.”



“And you think a ride on the Indian is going to do that for him?” Henry asked.



“It does for me,” Michael answered



Michael pushed the bike to the front of the garage and put his helmet on. He pulled on a pair of gloves and adjusted some goggles around his eyes, the lenses dark, ready for the sun.  It was another beautiful day, deep blue sky, no clouds, a Wednesday, Indian summer settling for a good run and a perfect day for a ride north.  He started the bike up.



“You’re something else,” Henry said over the rising throttle of the engine as Michael coxed it into life.



“What do you mean?”  Michael asked.  Then he held his hand up. “Forget it I don’t want know.”  He pulled away, waved over his shoulder and disappeared around the corner at the end of the block.



Henry pulled an empty paint tin over to the side of the building and sat down, lit a cigarette and just enjoyed the day.  There was a whole day of work ahead but no hurry to it.  He took a drag and thought Michael was rare.  That’s what he thought of the man.  Rare.



When Michael pulled up to the curb where Charlie stood and asked him to hop on, Charlie was pretty skeptical at first, and then downright pissed off, sulking, mortally insulted, weirded out in fact by even the suggestion he would do something as odd as getting on the back of the Indian and riding away.



“Where?” Charlie asked.



“Cold Spring, I was thinking,” Michael answered.



“What’s that?”



“A town. On the river, Charlie.  Nice. We can get lunch.”



“What kind of lunch?”



Michael had to take a breath here.  The man could make nothing worth it so easily.  Michael guessed that was why Charlie didn’t have many friends, but that was nothing, none of them had many friends.  There was Michael and Charlie and the garage guy, Henry, and the fellow who owned the deli, Mohammed, and a couple of guys who always played chess all day long in the park, maybe fifteen people in the whole neighborhood you might call friends.



“Come on, Charlie.  I don’t know. Lunch ain’t the point.”



“What’s the point then?”  Charlie asked.



“To get out, to blow some of the cobwebs out, to just, you know, ride the Indian,” Michael said.  “That’s pretty much it.  You don’t want to, okay, it’s alright, I’m okay with it, I was just thinking is all.”



What was running through Charlie’s mind, Michael didn’t even want to guess.  The guy’s eyes were darting up and down the block, he twisted his fingers together and he shook his head side to side. The side to side thing was sure, definitive, crazy almost and Michael pulled on his gloves and started the bike up.  “Okay,” Michael said,” no problem,” and then just like that Charlie hopped on and said, “Let’s go!” grabbed Michael’s waist and squeezed him hard.  “Wait a minute,” Michael said above the Indian’s rattle.  “Put this on.”  He handed Charlie a helmet. “And these,” a pair of goggles just like his. “And you don’t have to squeeze me so tight. You ain’t falling off.”



Charlie had never been on a motorbike before.  He felt naked, exposed, stupid, like people were pointing at him and laughing, though he couldn’t see anybody doing that, and in fact people hardly noticed them.  The neighborhood seemed different from the back of the bike.  Distance less, the whole thing smaller, insignificant, just a couple of familiar blocks. They went back past Henry’s garage, Henry still sitting there smoking, watching the two of them pass, the two old men on the Indian, going to the corner and disappearing.  Henry had to laugh at the sight.  It put him in a good mood for hours.



After a couple of miles, Michael forgot Charlie was back there.  The ride, the traffic, the flow up the East River, over the bridge, through the Bronx, off the highway, because that part of the highway was rough, too many trucks and crazy kids from Harlem using it as their own personal speedway, so through the Bronx hoods, busy places, lots of shops and people and trucks unloading and all sorts of stuff, just the city buzzing along like it did every day no matter what, even on a beautiful day like this when the summer was gone and the winter was close and maybe on a warm autumn day like this it would be better just to stop and take a ride north and feel things for a change, feel things as opposed to doing things.  New York was always and always about doing.  Not where they were going.



Michael picked a route, he seemed to know his way around, all the little streets, the rows of house basically the same size and all of it looking pretty much to same to Charlie on the back of the Indian, but Michael moved through the Bronx maze sure of his way, down this narrow street and then onto a wide road, then past a cemetery, “Miles Davis is buried there,” then up a side road, past a park, “oldest golf course in America,” Michael a tourist guide on their trip, shouting out all sorts of stuff that Charlie found interesting and wondered about, like Miles Davis, a freak by all accounts, a real legend, a junkie, a genius, an ass hole. Charlie read the stories, a real asshole, but he guessed maybe most geniuses could be assholes and who would stop them?  Nobody. Genius was an unbeatable trump card.  At least that’s way it seemed to Charlie.



They worked their way back to a service road, then finally onto the thruway, Michael letting the Indian have its head, burning out the carbon, the old bike free to speed, the Indian built for speed and now lifting its frame and eating up the road, Charlie snugging in tighter to Michael, thinking maybe it looked gay and not giving a damn at the same time, the main thing being don’t get tossed.  Michael handled the bike well, under control and after a mile or so at interstate speed, Charlie began to relax and enjoyed the noise, the wind, the lean of the curves on the highway as they leaned into a lane leading to the far right of the tollbooths. The tool booth guy commented, “Wow, that’s an old bike, what is that?” and seemed suitably impressed with the explanation, the year, and even the two old coots on the back.  It made Charlie feel good and feel cool, not something he was used to feeling, either good or cool, and for the first time he conceded in his skull maybe Michael had the right idea, maybe it was good to get out of the neighborhood, out of the city, get some fresh air, some change of scenery.



There was no doubt Michael knew where he was going, confidently moving up the highway, then back onto local roads, through the town of Tarrytown and into Sleepy Hollow.



“This is a real place?” Charlie asked, and Michael nodded yeah, the ghosts and all still here, the graveyard, the church, the freakiness of the place still in tact and the locals still feeling it sometimes in the dead of night.



“This is the Headless Horseman Bridge,” Michael shouted back to Charlie.  The bridge looked pretty ordinary, not much, easy to miss, but Charlie imagined it all anyway, a guy riding a horse, no head, weird, easy to imagine pissing your pants if you came across something like that, and Charlie wondered if stuff like that could be real, why not, ghosts and spirits and riders without heads, why not, made the world a more interesting place.



The road got quiet, straight, a canopy of trees, autumn colors, golds and yellows and reds, like you never expected to see, like a painter had come down and painted each one, crazy, and Charlie watched them all pass, squinted his eyes a little so they became blurry and realized it had been years since he had seen so many trees, literally years, there being only a tree or two here and there in the neighborhood, and even in Tompkins Park nothing like this, where it felt like maybe the trees owned the world there were so many of them.



Michael was quiet, seemed sunk into the bike, driving, riding, enjoying. Charlie could feel his friend’s joy.  It radiated off him.  It had an energy, a warmth.  The Indian was not the smoothest ride, and the racket burrowed right into your ear bone, rattled around in there like a micro ping-pong ball, caught in the twist of bone, bouncing off the membrane.  It was a physical thing, this ride on the Indian, and Charlie was feeling it already, knew he’d be stiff when he got back off, but not giving a damn at this point, content to glide through these trees, up this road, round this bend, into a town called Ossining.



“Sing-Sing,” Michael said.



‘The prison?” Charlie asked.



Michael turned left, toward the river, and made his way through some streets, until they came to a dead end, below, a long grey wall, the kind of wall you saw in Jimmy Cagney movies, where he was on top of the world and being shot at at the same time, a prison, a grey heavy place set on the banks of the Hudson River. Sing-Sing.  Happy words for such an unhappy place.  Whose idea was it to call it that? Had a weird sense of humor, that’s for sure, who ever named the prison Sing-Sing.



They got off the bike and stretched there backs, bones snapping into place, old guy stuff, neck stiff, legs stiff, ass stiff, but still feeling good, out of the city, even though the view was a lock-up for murderers, rapist, thieves, God knows what.



“Remember Billy Largent?” Michael asked.



Sure, guy weighed like a million pounds, lived on ‘B’ with his mother and cats, his mother in the habit of going out for bread or milk or fixings and getting lost, sometimes turning up in Chelsea or Tribeca, once turning up in Newark, which really made Billy worried, so he chained her to her bed.  At least that was the story.  She died chained to the bed and he got sent to Sing-Sing on manslaughter.  People talked about it for a week and then never mentioned it again. It was disturbing. No good in the story at all.  Best forgotten. That was Charlie’s take on it for sure.



“Yeah. Billy Largent,” he said. “Freak.  Guy smelled.”  He didn’t say anymore.  The prison was nothing much, boring really, a stone wall, more a place in the imagination than a place to look at it, so they got back on the Indian and headed north, the road opening up, four lanes, two in each direction, the land opening up, the river crowding in now, broad, beautiful, over a bridge, then climbing a narrow twisting road, up and around, and up and up, the Indian feeling it, working, too hard, these two not so light guys crammed onto the frame, until they came to a rest stop overlooking the Hudson River below.  It was quiet up there, vermillion sky, a hawk floating on a silent wind. 



“You see that?”  Michael pointed south down the valley.  “That’s the Indian Point nuclear power plant,” he said.  “That thing goes we all go.”



Michael jerked around like he was being shocked with a heavy volt of electricity, then grabbed his throat and gasped for air.  Charlie didn’t get the joke.



“You don’t have to tell me that,” Charlie said. “That’s the kind of thing I don’t want to know.  See, that’s why I never leave the city.  Nature’s dangerous.”



“What nature?” Michael asked.  “You talking about the nuclear plant? That ain’t nature.”



“No,” Charlie said, “but maybe somebody makes a mistake and flips switch ‘A’ instead of switch ‘B,’ or falls asleep because they had beer for lunch, or maybe anything in a place run by people, because people make mistakes eventually no matter what, maybe something like that happens and the place goes kaplooey and then, you know, things go wild, like that hawk turns and attacks us, kills us while we’re standing here admiring the view.”



“What are you talking?” Michael asked.  “Hawks don’t attack people.”



“After something like a nuclear explosion, sure they do.  It would happen.”



“You don’t know.”



“I know,” Charlie said.



“Life ain’t a Japanese monster movie,” Michael said.



“You think not?  All those monster films in Japan?  Big moths, lizards, Godzilla, all of it – it came from the atom bomb and the radiation, warped peoples minds,” Charlie said.  “They saw things, mutated things. Those movies were closer to the truth than you know.”



They’d ridden up here, stood in a beautiful place, looked down the valley, the river curving though the foothills of the Catskills, it was one of Michael’s favorite places and he’d brought Charlie here to help him, to off-set the thundercloud over his head, but he hadn’t brought the man here to hear a bunch of crazy crap.  Charlie was spoiling the place.



“You want to get out of here?” Michael asked.



Charlie sensed it, sensed maybe he’d gone too far with his friend.  He thought maybe he owed his friend.  Didn’t know.  Wasn’t sure.



“Hey, you know what?” he asked.



“What’s that?”



“You want to hear the story?”



“About the woman in the obit?” Michael asked.



“Yeah,” Charlie said.



“Sure,” Michael said.



“Okay, listen, the whole thing began with our names.” Charlie said. “That’s how it started.  Charlotte.  Get it?  See, my name is Charles and hers is Charlotte and it became Charlie and Charlie.  One fellow used to call us Chuck and Chuck.  Hell, that made us laugh.  Man, we had a good time and laughing was our thing, you know?  Woman thought the best date was Coney Island and a Nathan’s.  She’d sit on the boardwalk all night just to watch the freaks walk by.  Had a great imagination to.  Every freak who passed she had a story just like that.  Used to flip me out.  I told her she should write.  She was like Hemmingway, better than him, because her imagination was crazy, all over the place, funny too.  Hemmingway wasn’t funny.  Charlotte was a pisser.  Used to crack me up all day long.  Damn.  One night we go to Brighton Beach, one of those crazy Russian places.  You ever been there?  They pour vodka down your throat like it’s water.  You stay in one of those places after midnight and you have to be ready.  It gets wild.  Sometimes I seen guns and hard men, I mean it feels dangerous, but that’s its own kind of buzz, you know?  Charlotte and me stayed way late, too late really, and got so drunk, so dizzy with it.  We ended up under the table making love on the floor.  That’s how crazy it was and that’s how crazy I was for her.  Right there, right on the friggin’ carpet, I’m making love to her and didn’t give damn about what was happening around us and neither did she.  You’re gonna fall for someone like that.  At least I am.  Fall hard.  So I did.  I started asking her too marry me. Can you imagine?  I mean, look at me now.  Things didn’t work out for me and I after awhile a didn’t give a damn about it, because you don’t after awhile, all the shaving and soaping and laundry and dishes, what the hell, you let it all go, so you sit there and look at me and you think, hell, man, what are you saying?  I’m saying she married me.  Me!  Can you friggin’ believe that?  Yeah, but I was different then.  I was more directional, my compass was working, I had ideas, a lot of them, a whole lifetime of them. Weird thing is not one of them worked out, or least ways didn’t work out like I thought they should work out and that drove me nuts.  Charlotte used to say I was obsessed about being the next young thing.  Maybe.  Only thing was the young part, the young part is gone in a flash, and then you’re a dead beat.  At least in her eyes I was.  Have to ask yourself, how does that happen, the crazy passion burns out and turns to ash overnight.  It always does.  You can get like so fucking up with it, so high, so over the moon and then its gone and you’re in the gutter and after awhile screw it. You give up.  I heard Charlotte got married and lived in New Jersey or someplace, even had kids, the whole bit.  Years ago we’re talking here.  Other day I open this envelope and take out this clipping, the obituary, I showed it to you.  Charlotte Grier, (nee Hanratty) on Nov. 2, 2009 at home surrounded by her loving family after a courageous battle with cancer.  Remember that? You looked at it. I watched you reading it. You didn’t show any expression, but maybe you were faking it or maybe it didn’t hit you like me, because you didn’t know her, but I think there was a bit of faking going on, because reading something like that, a death, a cancer thing, and you know it must mean something to me, because why would a person hand you something like that if it didn’t mean anything to them? They wouldn’t. So, I figure your lack of reaction is almost a weird thing, except you’ll never be as weird as me, so who am I to judge?  Nobody to judge.  You know it as well as I do.”



         “Wait.  What are you saying?” Michael asked.



         “Nothing. I’m not saying nothing at all,” Charlie said.  “It’s just that we came out here on the back of the Indian, all the way out and I’m thinking what the hell is Michael doing with me on the back driving out of the city?  What’s it all about?”



         “You’re a pain, you know that?  Everything’s got to be about something for you,” Michael said. “Maybe it was just a ride. Maybe the Indian needed some stretching, get it out of the garage, onto the road.”



         “Sure, but is that what it was?” Charlie asked.



         “Look, I thought maybe a ride out here would help you,” Michael said. “You looked entirely fucked up yesterday.”



         “I was fucked up.  You were right,” said Charlie.  “I don’t even know who sent me that obit.  It’s kind of spooky, don’t you think, to get something like that out of the blue?  I mean, years ago, another life, so who knows me and her and we were together?  Who knew that?  Nevertheless, that ain’t what fucked me up, not the death, I mean, it happens, you have to be a fool to reach my age and not know it happens. It happens, it happens, it happens and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, so it wasn’t the death that dropped me in the gutter.”



         “What then?” Michael asked.



         “That’s the thing, it took me awhile to figure it out,” Charlie said.  “After we left the prison, the Sing-Sing place, and we continued on up here, riding on the back it struck me and I looked at it and then I had it.”



         “So?” Michael asked.



         “So, it’s crazy, I mean I tell you and you’re gonna get on the Indian and head back down the mountain and leave me up here because it’s crazy to think like this,” Charlie said.



         “Yeah, maybe I am.”



         “Listen to this, Michael, just hear me out.  I love Charlotte.  I mean, yeah, all the stuff when we were kids, yeah, all of that, but what I realized was I still loved her and it’s been like almost forty years since I seen her.  What is that?  And then like a flash, I’m seeing the whole thing, all the loving and women in between, all of it that never worked out, it couldn’t work out because I was in love with Charlotte the whole time.  Now tell me I’m nuts. Go ahead.”



         “Wait a minute, Charlie . . .”



         “And I get this little clipping yesterday and she’s dead and it took her dying for me to get it,” Charlie said.



         Michael didn’t believe it. It was an excuse, a way around the truth of a life, but he wouldn’t say that, didn’t see the point of saying that.  He looked out over the valley, across to Bear Mountain on the other bank of the Hudson, wanted to say the right thing, but couldn’t come up with anything until he tried, “So maybe we ought to head back,” which he knew was lame.



         “Sure. Good idea.”  Charlie put his helmet on and then turned back to Michael.



         “You ever had something like that?” Charlie asked.  “A love that never quits?  That just goes on and simmers slow in the back of your heart? You got one like that? I think sometimes maybe everybody does. There’s always that one, that one connection that just won’t quit and you are always looking for it and if you find it, but you’re too damn dumb to make it work out, so you move on and play around with any plaything that comes across your path, and maybe even sometimes get serious and crazy and ‘this is the one’ with it, but it never works out, and if you have that going on in you life, nothing ever working out in terms of love and kisses and stuff, maybe you ought to stop and take a look back and see what you left behind.”



         “What the hell you going to do about something like that?” Michael asked.  “You can’t change things.”



         “No, but you can understand things better,” Charlie said.  “Maybe stop hurting folks, because the truth is I hurt a lot of people because I was too dumb to see it all for what it was. Now it’s clear as day. And I’m an asshole.”



         “Yeah, you are, but maybe not for the reasons you think,” Michael said.  “I mean something like that, what can you do?  You think you’re supposed to see things better than every body else.  I mean we go through life half in a fog anyway. Nobody ever knows half of what’s going on.  One of the advantages of getting older, yeah?  You can look at people and suddenly you see the truth of it.  Nobody has a clue.  You have to laugh at it, honestly.  Busting a gut laughing is the only thing to do it seems to me. The only honest thing, anyways.”



         “It’s just the hurting.  I think I hurt too many people,” Charlie said.



         “People hurting on you just as hard. Life works that way,” Michael said.



         “You mean fucked up?”



         “Yeah, like that.”



         “Okay,” Charlie said, “but don’t go thinking I’m not serious about this Charlotte thing.  I can tell you now I loved her just hard then as now and my whole life in between.”



“That’s nuts, Charlie.”



         “Yeah, I know you think that, Michael.  I told you you’d think that.  Anybody would.  But sometimes you look at a thing and it makes sense and you just know it’s true.  No matter how fucked up it is you know it’s true.”



         Michael thought about it a moment, looking out over the river.  A place like this could be so quiet you could hear the silence.  “Charlie, you’re a lucky son of bitch then.”



         Charlie smiled.  He had a front tooth missing and it gave him a kind of goofy, off-kilter look, but Michael knew better. His friend was a deep beast.  He knew that well enough now.



         “You mean,” said Charlie, ”you mean lucky because I had that connection, right?”



         “Yeah,” Michael said.



         “Because it went on so long it was real?”



         “Yeah,” Michael said again



         “And pure?”



         “Yeah, like that, Charlie.”



         “And most people, well they either miss or never even get a shot at something like that,” Charlie said.



         “Seems that way,” Michael said.  “What did they used to call us when we were kids? Love children?  Man, we fucked that one up.  How many of your friends found love, the kind that burns forever?”



         “I know some,” Charlie said.



         “How many?” Michael asked again.



         “Not many.”



         “We fucked it up,” Michael said.



         “Not sure its ever been any different, to be honest,” Charlie said, “but, so, let me get this straight.  You believe me?”



         “Yeah, I do,” Michael said.



         “Crazy, huh?”



         “Yeah, crazy,” Michael said.

         

They got back on the Indian and Michael fired it up. The old engine roared to life, seemingly better for the rest stop, the noise bouncing off the granite cliff across the road.  “Ready?” Michael asked, then put the bike in gear and pulled out into the road.  Charlie was happy to get back on the tar, head back to the city, the twisting way down the mountain thrilled him, he was more relaxed, happier, unburdened, yeah, that was what it was, unburdened after all these years. He wondered if it would last, if he could find peace the rest of his days. He thought it might be possible.  At least for a day or two.  Strange. A gift from Charlotte in her death.  Something else though.  He’d opened the letter and all there was was this clipping from a local paper out in New Jersey.  No return address, nothing.  Charlie worked it out this way.  One of her children must have sent it.  Which one? He went over the names in his head. He’d read the obit so many times he’d memorized them. Mary Elizabeth. The girl. Of course, the mother would turn to the girl for a matter of the heart like this.  He pictured it.  The family gathered around, the end near, the mother calling her daughter close, whispering in her ear, telling her the story.  Maybe it was a secret.  Of course, a secret of the heart, maybe her husband, what was his name?  William.  Maybe William never knew.  Yes, that was the way it must have been, Charlotte dying, sharing the great secret of her life with her daughter.  The daughter had gotten his address and sent the notice. 



Charlie and Charlotte’s marriage had ended in harsh words. She had packed a bag and he had never seen her again.  But the connection he felt for her, from the first to the last, something like that could only be if two people felt it.  A connection like that was a two way street.  He hadn’t realized it. He didn’t even think something like that could be true, but now he did and now he believed it like he never believed anything else in his life.  Charlotte gone and the truth was before him beyond late for him to do anything about it, but his sadness lost his edge as he came to realize there was a chance, slim, a sliver, but a chance nonetheless, she had loved him all this time as well.  Crazy, crazy, crazy.  Her words, her kisses, her touch, their intimacy had been real after all.



         Michael lost control of the Indian on the next corner.  It sort of skidded on some leaves and he corrected it, then lost it again and the bike went over, spilling both of them onto the road, Michael sliding with the bike still between his knees and Charlie tumbling to the shoulder, bouncing on some rocks and smashing into the side of a stone wall.



         He lay there a moment, taking inventory, feeling things, looking for pain or just trying to deal with it, one second flying down the road, next lying here in a pile of leaves.  He looked up.  Same blue sky, no hawk though, hawk gone, probably hunting rabbits, it’s what hawks did he supposed, not too many in the neighborhood, hawks or rabbits, but he wasn’t in the neighborhood, he knew that at least, it couldn’t be, too many trees, and then there was Michael looking down at him, speaking but Charlie couldn’t hear him. Odd, but eventually the ringing in his ears stopped. He hadn’t even noticed it until it stopped and then it was gone and he glad of it.  Strange, something like that driving him crazy and he didn’t even know it until it was gone.  Now he could hear Michael.



         “You okay?”



         Sure, he was okay, he was better than okay because Charlotte loved him and it was real and had always been real and he needed that, needed that one real thing in his life so it all made sense and nothing seemed as fucked up as it had before.  He nodded his head.  Michael didn’t look good.  He was holding his arm at an odd angle and his face was pale, like he was a junkie or a punk from the late seventies, like heroin for breakfast, just not looking good at all and Charlie wanted to ask him about it, but the words got caught somewhere behind his teeth and he couldn’t get them out. Maybe later.  Right now he’d just lay here and let the world come back together. That was the best thing.



         “You stay here” Michael said, “I’m going for help.” He repeated it like Charlie was a baby and needed people to talk slow so he could understand. Michael could be such a patronizing asshole sometimes.  Then Charlie laughed.  Kind of.  It was more of a choke actually, but he meant it as a laugh and it felt like one inside.  Michael, rolling the Indian out of the garage, taking him on this day trip, worried about him, imagine that, worried about him.  What kind of guy does that?  Not an ordinary guy, he’d never realized it, Michael was more than just a neighbor, he was something else.  What the hell?  Laying on the side of the road.  What a day.  Beautiful.  And now Charlotte in his heart again. And Michael.  Charlie Parker feeling like the luckiest guy laying beside the road in a pile of leaves.  He laughed at that.  It came out like a choke again, but if felt good inside, warm, good, the way life should feel.  He smiled and closed his eyes.