Some moments later, a hand knocked on the passenger-side window. Javi was standing there, smiling, holding a bouquet of flowers. Andrew leaned over to open the door. For the daughter, Javi said.
• • •
Andrew drove slowly, as if he could no longer afford speed. He didn’t think Javi had seen anything. He didn’t think he would have to explain—the girl stomping forward, extending her arms. They did not speak in the car, with the sun starting to go down, the arch-necked streetlights coming on. Javi kept twirling the top of his hair. He hummed softly, even though the radio was on.
Javi had told Andrew once about where he came from, a Mexican valley somewhere. His family, father and sons, mother and daughters, all were haircutters. They had been to school for it. Only Javi had come to America. It was colder here, Javi said, but often cold there in the winter. Being near the water made it temperate. In the winter, some months, Javi took up and left, went with his daughter back to Mexico, closed the shop. Andrew remembered looking at the sign, the lights off.
At the train they shook hands, hard clasps, fingers tight. OK, my friend, Javi said. All finished. He took his bouquet and left. Andrew watched as he put the flowers in his teeth to use the MetroCard, to swipe himself through.
Andrew began to drive, aimlessly. He needed to go back to his apartment in the city, park the car in the parking garage below the building, which he paid good money for. He had to be at work at eight thirty, something that didn’t seem likely to change, at the new job if he got it or anytime in the future. He imagined waking up to get to work at eight thirty for an unimaginable stretch ahead, the long days passing like opposite-lane cars.
Where could he go? He could go to the house where he grew up, watch the light die with his parents. He could park on their block, walk in, ring the bell, and watch their surprised faces. Talk to them about the future. He did not. He went off R to Fillmore, to the edge of the park, the Marine Park basketball courts, spread out on the corner of the green.
Just before he got to the chain-link, someone yelled from behind him. Hey, the voice said. Andrew turned. It was Ed Monahan. Hey, Ed said again. What’s the idea? You following me around or something? Up this close Ed looked more haggard than he used to. He looked smaller than Andrew remembered, though his arms were taut. What’re you doing back here anyway? I heard you were a city man now. Ed was just below Andrew’s face. His forearms, hairy and muscular, twitched.
Listen Ed, Andrew started, but he couldn’t finish it. He wanted nothing more than a game of basketball. A good one-on-one game, the feel of a body hitting another body, bouncing off, hitting again. Something he hadn’t felt in a while.
Listen, he said vaguely.
You listen, said Ed. Get back in your car, pussy, and get away.
So Andrew hit him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thrown a punch. His hand, as it connected with the bones in Ed’s face, broke—or that’s what it felt like. The knuckles moved up, higher than his fingers, though that didn’t make physical sense. Ed staggered back, and then he was on him.
Andrew found himself on the pavement, his face getting hit from side to side. He had that anxious feeling of first blood, the adrenaline jumping through the veins to tell the body, all is fine. A few minutes later it wouldn’t feel that way anymore, and it would just be pain, until someone pulled Ed away, with flashing lights. On the pavement, Andrew imagined many things. He imagined that it was a basketball fight he’d gotten into, a righteous one; that someone had called a hard foul and he was upholding the call, and then the perpetrator attacked. He imagined that his face, black and blue and purple the next morning probably, would look like a bouquet of flowers, cherry red with dried blood and green the stems for all the infected parts. And he imagined that Ed Monahan, on top of him until he was pulled off, was having a harder time than he might have, because he had no grip on Andrew’s head, his newly cut hair not long enough to hold on to. Andrew felt thankful for his haircut, for the cool breeze he felt passing by his neck.