She looked blank.
—He had it on repeat and you switched it off?
—What kind of a song?
—Something we made. A blues. It probably sounded real, but it wasn’t.
—What do you mean, it sounded real?
—It honestly doesn’t matter. Carter wanted to make something that sounded authentic. That sounded genuinely old.
—I have no idea what you’re talking about.
—I think he wanted to show—I don’t know any more. It was something that got hold of him. I couldn’t understand it.
We came down off the expressway into a bleak streetscape of yards and lockups. Auto parts, tires, scrap metal. Graffiti throwups on gates and shutters.
—Slow down, Leonie said to the driver.
Here and there we saw people standing on street corners, young men, a woman in a mesh dress that showed her underwear, another woman wearing high boots and leggings, who walked backwards a few paces as we passed, did a little shimmy. Near the intersection where Carter had been attacked, someone had parked a flatbed with dozens of portable toilets strapped to the back.
—We’ll get out here, just up ahead.
The driver wasn’t sure.
—You want get out?
—Just for a moment.
A deathly quiet. Loading bays, a yard with a chain link fence, a shuttered cash-and-carry.
—Here.
—Remember, there’s another hundred for taking us back.
—OK, but I don’t want wait here very long. This is not a good place.
We got out. A truck crawled down the street past us, the driver eyeing Leonie. There was a clunk as our driver locked his doors. I followed Leonie to the middle of the intersection, into the gathering silence.
—There’s nothing here.
Without warning, Leonie lay down, stretching out in the middle of the intersection.
—Don’t do that. Please get up.
She didn’t reply, just lay there with her eyes closed and her arms by her sides. I knew exactly what she was doing. Being Carter, trying to feel what he felt, putting herself in his place.
I looked and listened for traffic. Then I saw a glint of light. On the corner, tucked in by a fencepost, was a candle in a dish, sitting on the sidewalk next to a bag of rotting fruit. I left Leonie and knelt down in front of it. It was one of those religious candles sold in bodegas and botánicas, with a picture of some saint on the side. The place could not have been more desolate, yet someone had lit it, kept it alight. Did they do that for Carter? Perhaps shrines just spring up after any act of violence, anywhere there is some energy that people want to harness or ward off. For months, a cluster of candles and empty liquor bottles had marked a patch of wall in our neighborhood where a teenage boy got shot. Perhaps the candle had nothing to do with Carter. Perhaps it was none of my business.
Leonie got up and brushed herself down. The driver hesitated before he let us back in to his car. We drove downtown in silence. I couldn’t shake the memory of the eerie shrine at the crossroads. I wanted to talk about something, anything. I wanted to hear Leonie talk.
—You told me Carter’s not trusted with money.
She nodded. She was fiddling with her phone. I pushed.
—I didn’t know. I mean, I don’t know the background to that.
—You never noticed? Come on. The highs and lows? The bursts of manic energy?
—I know that he had some kind of diagnosis. When he was a kid. That your parents sent him to a doctor.
—That’s what he told you? Seth, your friend Carter has episodes. He finds it hard to keep his shit together, particularly when he’s under stress. Though apparently it’s been fine lately, since you seem to have no clue that he’s even sick.
—Not everyone has the same definition of normal.
—Give me a break. There’s a woman he phones, a counselor.
—Is she called Betty?
—I don’t know. Maybe.
—I thought she was his PA.
—Well, she is. But she’s also a licensed psychotherapist. She authorizes his expenses, keeps him on track. There’s some kind of trust. Your apartment’s probably owned by that. I know the building where you have your studio belongs to Corny. He owns that whole block. Carter had to beg him for it, for, like, two years.
I’d always thought of Carter as the most independent person I knew. Someone who was truly autonomous, free to follow his desires. As I heard her talk, something bleak and dark began to draw a grid over the sky. The flickering candle, the bag of rotten fruit, the new picture of my fragile, watched-over friend.
I assumed Leonie would direct the car to drop her off home in TriBeCa, but instead she came back with me, shoving some bills at the driver and half-tumbling out onto the sidewalk. Once again we sat on the big iron bed, facing the mirror. We played records. I heard little hisses and clicks as she smoked. Little intakes of breath.
Make me a pallet on your floor
Make me a pallet on your floor
I make sure your husband never know
Again she slept in her brother’s bed. My door was open all night.
THE FOLLOWING EVENING I was preparing for her to come round. The loft was clean and tidy. I’d chosen some records I particularly wanted Leonie to hear. I’d been to a fancy deli in Williamsburg and bought cold cuts, olives, some Italian cheese.
—Buzz me in.
I unlocked the door and set about opening a bottle of white wine that I had chilling in the freezer.
—Page Six? You asshole.
I turned round, confused. She was standing in the doorway, staring at me in disgust.
—You piece of shit.
She looked at the table setting, the neatly arranged dishes of appetizers.
—What the fuck is this?
—I knew you were coming over.