I had to find my own help. No surprise, I found it with the mothers. The wise ones. Cal told me how to get my daughter back. Cal told me what to do. But I don’t know if I can do it.
Suddenly Apollo tapped the screen to stop the video. This was the moment when he jumped up. That woman is going to kill her baby. He didn’t want to see himself saying the words. It would’ve felt too much like he was talking about Emma.
Wheeler, seeing Apollo’s pain, flipped the phone over so the screen faced the table. “It’s a stupid habit,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Apollo slumped in his chair.
Wheeler sipped his coffee quietly. “Who’s Cal?”
“I don’t know,” Apollo answered.
They both sat quietly for a minute longer. Apollo replayed the woman’s words in his head another time.
“?‘The wise ones,’?” Apollo said. “You ever heard of that?”
Wheeler took up his phone and tapped at it with concentration. A handful of seconds passed, his eyes moved across the screen. “Oh,” he said softly. He looked up from the phone, caught Apollo’s stare, and looked back down, almost embarrassed.
“You found something?” Apollo asked. “Tell me.”
“?‘In the villages were invariably found one or two “wise ones.”?’?” William looked up. “This is from a book.”
“But does it say what ‘wise ones’ means?”
Wheeler opened his mouth and closed it. He squeezed his lips together, then turned the phone toward Apollo.
Apollo took the phone and read the screen. “Come on,” he said. “Is this for real?”
Wheeler looked away, as if he’d stumbled across someone else’s mess and felt too embarrassed to mention it.
Apollo stared at the screen and read the words again.
“Wise Ones.”
Witches.
“WELL, THAT’S JUST some bullshit. You know that, right?”
Patrice and Apollo stood together on a platform at the Long Island Rail Road’s Jamaica station. They were waiting for a train to Long Beach in Nassau County, due in six more minutes.
“He said he wanted us to bring the book to him,” Apollo explained. “And when a man has agreed to pay seventy thousand dollars for a book, you best believe I’ll take a train ride to get it to him.” He raised his eyebrows at Patrice. “And you will, too.”
Patrice waggled his head. Though he was the bigger man, his movement made him seem smaller, younger. From a distance they pantomimed a parent and scolded child.
“I feel like we’re two drug dealers out to make a sale.”
“Drug dealers don’t gift wrap,” Apollo said.
Apollo opened the case that carried the book and slid it out. The book was wrapped perfectly in paper that had been silkscreened with an ornate gold medallion pattern. Apollo had even applied a bow.
“That’s some fruity shit,” Patrice said, waving the package away. Then he leaned closer and touched the wrapping paper gently. “Is it from Kate’s Paperie?”
“Hell yeah. It’s called Yuzen Paper, Gold Medallions.”
Patrice nodded. “That shit is tight.” Now he looked in either direction. “But put it away before someone sees two grown men talking about wrapping paper.”
Apollo felt the temptation to hold the wrapped book in the air and run up and down the platform calling out Patrice’s full name and address. With his luck, though, he’d play that prank and stumble, and the book would fly out of his hands and fall onto the train tracks, where it would be crushed by an arriving train. He slipped the book back into the bag. Now the two of them returned to silence on the platform. Apollo hadn’t mentioned anything about the woman at the church or Cal or the Wise Ones to Patrice. What would he say about it? He didn’t even know what to think about it.
—
The Jamaica station had been renovated in 2006. New train platforms, elevators from the street level, and brand-new escalators. A pedestrian bridge linked the station with the newly complete AirTrain to John F. Kennedy Airport. A steel and glass canopy rose over the train platforms, allowing riders to be protected from bad weather but still enjoy the open air. There was a slightly European railway feel after renovations, a distinct difference from the Jamaica station as Apollo remembered it from the 1980s. Dresden after the bombing and Dresden today. That’s how drastic the change.
But when he looked around, he could still see the old platforms, and down on the street level, the old Jamaica, Queens. If his mother had been with him, would she have seen a third Jamaica, the one she first encountered when she was a young immigrant in the United States? How many Jamaicas might there be? If you were a thousand years old, you’d remember when all this was marshland, and Jamaica Avenue was the Old Rockaway Trail used by the Rockaway and Canarsie Indians. And before that? In the 1800s city workers dredging the bottom of nearby Baisley Pond found the remains of an American mastodon. A mastodon sculpture had been raised in Sutphin Playground. All those tales were told right here, one after the next, each informing the one that came after. History isn’t a tale told once, it’s a series of revisions.
Would it be so surprising if once there had been witches here, too?
—
The train car was nearly empty. Few were headed out to Long Beach at one in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Outside, Queens whipped by.
“I’m all for this sale,” Patrice said. “But think about if we waited until this lady was dead. We could double what this dude is paying.”
“It’s 2015,” Apollo said. “She might not die for another ten years. Meanwhile this guy wants to buy it now. For seventy thousand dollars. I bought this book for a hundred bucks. Think about how much of a markup that is already.”
Patrice crossed his arms, looking out the window. “If you’re going to make rational arguments, I’m not going to keep talking with you. But she might die, like, next year and then I’m going to be pissed we sold it too soon.”
Apollo patted his friend’s shoulder. “That won’t happen.”
“You’re going to have a quick turnaround,” Patrice said casually. “You got another meeting tonight, right?”
Patrice was right. Despite running off for coffee with William Wheeler last week, Apollo did plan to attend tonight’s meeting of the Survivors. He missed them. Plus his parole officer had looked at his sign-in sheet pretty funny. He hadn’t come out and accused Apollo of forging Alice’s signature, but the man stared at the sheet cockeyed before filing it. There was a warning in the gesture, and Apollo decided he wouldn’t risk it again. So yes, he’d be back with the Survivors. He even checked in on the Facebook page, saying he’d be coming in case the PO sniffed around his online trail.
Patrice scanned his phone. “?‘The Survivors Club,’?” Patrice read. “?‘Meeting at The Chinese Community Center of Flushing.’ You want the address?”
“You’re a member?” Apollo asked, so dumbfounded, the bag slid right off his lap and onto the floor. He didn’t even notice.
Patrice reached down and scooped the bag. “No,” he said. “But when you checked in, it popped up on the tribute page.”