It was in this position—still on his knees—that he turned to face the back room. The door had been shut. A neon green sticker was affixed to the door, about a foot above the handle, half on the door and half on the doorframe. He crawled closer; his legs trembled too much for him to stand.
“These premises have been sealed by the NYC Police Dept. pursuant to Section 435, Administrative Code. All persons are forbidden to enter unless authorized by the police department or public administrator.”
Even now, in his mind, this remained Brian’s room. He put his hands to the walls to press himself up. He didn’t want Brian to see his father crawling. Eventually this room would have to be opened, too, but not tonight. He thought that being here—in this place, at this door—would cause an instant avalanche of emotions, but instead he felt quite the opposite. He felt nothing. He couldn’t even tell if his heart was beating in his chest.
Apollo lumbered into the bathroom. He hadn’t taken a shower alone in sixty days. He ran the water and removed his clothes. He spent half an hour under the spray before he even started cleaning himself. When he finished, he made it to the bedroom. He hadn’t slept on a good mattress in ninety days—the one in the hospital had given him an ache in his lower back. But he couldn’t make himself lie down in the bed he’d shared with Emma. He stripped off the comforter and top sheet and went back into the living room. He plugged in his phone, then lay down on the couch. He looked up at the night sky through the windows here. No stars.
“What now?” he asked.
He fell asleep long before his phone rattled and lit up. In the dark it shone brighter than a star. Then, after a moment, all went black again.
PATRICE STOOD IN the doorway of his basement apartment in southeastern Queens. The owner of a two-story home had decided to make a little extra income, something to help cover the mortgage. She’d had the basement converted into an apartment and rented it on the sly for $1,300 a month. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and bathroom, a private entrance at the back of the house. Patrice lived here with Dana, the woman he’d met after he returned from Iraq and his marriage fell apart.
Patrice leaned out the doorway and sniffed at Apollo. “It’s the Bird Man of Alcatraz. You’re late.”
“I had to take a train and a bus to get here,” Apollo said. “I forgot that Queens was this far from New York.”
Patrice waved one big paw. “We started eating without you.”
“I brought wine,” Apollo said, lifting a brown bag.
“You brought wine from a place that doesn’t even give out plastic bags?”
Apollo had to smile. It felt good to see this guy again.
Behind Patrice a woman, Dana, called out. “Why don’t you let him in rather than standing out there putting all our business on the street?”
Patrice looked over his shoulder. “Baby, our entrance is on the side of the house. Most we’re doing is letting the neighbors get a look.”
“Come inside!”
The ceiling down in the basement felt low to Apollo, and Patrice had to be six inches taller than him. The wood-paneled walls sucked up the ceiling lights and made the whole room darker. The kitchen and the stove both had to be ten years old. Older. The best item in the kitchen was the dining table, beamed in from a Crate & Barrel. Aspirational furniture that took up too much room in the cramped kitchen.
Dana had set the table elegantly, a red gingham check tablecloth and rattan placemats; blue gingham check napkins and white porcelain plates with silver trim. As Apollo entered the kitchen, Dana was already setting out the exact same arrangement for him. Once Patrice shut the door, a passerby would never know—or probably even imagine—that inside a basement apartment in southeastern Queens there lay such a beautifully appointed dinner table. It was like catching a glimpse of the glittering soul inside a rumpled passenger on a subway train. Apollo lost his breath for a beat.
Dana took down two wineglasses after Apollo revealed his bottle. They owned only two wineglasses. She gave Patrice a coffee mug for his wine.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Apollo said.
Dana poured the wine. “Nobody wants to come this far out into Queens. We’re just glad you made it.”
Dana hugged Apollo. She had big arms, big legs, and a broad back—a perfect body for hugs. Where Patrice’s hold had been wary, Dana’s offered only warmth. The baby’s funeral had happened while Apollo sat on Rikers Island. Both Patrice and Dana had attended the ceremony. The way she held him now, the long slow warmth of it, conveyed her condolences better than words ever would.
“You sit,” Patrice said to both of them. “I’ll serve.”
Dana patted Patrice’s belly before she took her seat. “He acts like he’s being gallant,” she told Apollo. “But he just wants to be sure you know who made the meal.”
Dana worked for the Port Authority as a senior toll collector at the Bayonne Bridge in Staten Island. It was an hour’s drive from their place in Queens. On the days when Patrice went on book buys in New Jersey, he’d drive her out and pick her up again in the afternoon. They had a good thing together, and both seemed to know it.
Patrice slipped a ladle from a drawer. “Crockpot chicken,” he began. “Chicken legs and breasts, half a jar of pitted olives, three teaspoons of olive brine, one lemon cut into slices, one teaspoon of Herbes de Provence, a cup of chicken broth, half a teaspoon of salt, an eighth of a teaspoon of pepper.” Patrice dipped the ladle into the white crockpot on the kitchen counter, and the rich smell of brine and lemons made Apollo lean forward as if the food was already in front of him.
“And one bay leaf,” Patrice added as he filled the first bowl. With the low ceiling and the close walls, he looked like a brown bear doing a cooking show inside a cage.
“I can’t believe you’re living in a basement,” Apollo said.
Dana sucked her teeth. “What’s wrong with living in a basement? I found this place for us.”
Apollo looked at her and smiled. “But Patrice is terrified of—” And caught himself. He looked back at Patrice, who’d stopped moving midserve. Apollo could see Patrice watching him even as he pretended to be playing host. Dana clearly hadn’t been told that basements made Patrice quiver, but—just as much of a surprise—Patrice really thought he’d kept this secret from Apollo, too. Once he would’ve passed this off as the normal way of life. People tell little lies to get by. That goes for marriage and friendships, too. But now Apollo couldn’t brush off these untruths as benign. If our relationships are made of many small lies, they become something larger, a prison of falsehoods.
“Patrice is terrified of commitment,” Apollo offered. An old chestnut, a truism about men, an idea so blandly conventional that to say it was like casting a kind of sleep spell. They were no longer sinking into the depths of the issue but merely skating across a slick, thick surface. Chatter. Sitcom humor.
Dana visibly relaxed in her chair. “Maybe before, but then he met me.”