Marine Park(43)

            Ed Monahan watched the car pull away, skid around the parking lot entrance, shoot down Avenue U. There were some slum spots as you moved away from Marine Park. Who knew where the guy was headed. Ed only sold the soft stuff. He hummed to himself as he fiddled with the tire on his bike—he took faking it to an art form. From behind him, he heard another car door slam. Two more ziplock bags, and he sent them away like children.

             • • •

There was a tap on his shoulder, and Ed turned around. Hi, honey, his girlfriend Margie said.

            Ed looked her over. She was tall in the way that women are and you don’t realize it, or, rather, short but because they’re women you think they’re tall. She was wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, like she usually did. She was skinny. If Ed worried about things he would worry about this, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled her toward him and put her hand on his crotch. Been waiting for you, Ed said.

            Margie extracted her hand from where he had placed it, and instead put it on his hip and into his side pocket. She fingered the slightly damp clump of bills he had mushed there. Seems like it, she said, and withdrew some of the clump, and looked at it.

            Keep away from that, Ed Monahan said. I worked for that. Whatever, Margie said.

            Ed locked his bike up against a telephone pole, and then he and Margie walked across the street to the salt marsh nature center. The cottontails were high this early in summer, the wind off the bay blowing them back and forth. There was a gravel path that had been cut by the Army Corps of Engineers a few years ago, which made it more respectable. Used to be just about anything was growing in and around the waters. Ed took Margie here for walks in the salt marsh often, because he didn’t like to pay for the movies.

            I went into the city today, Margie was saying. Went shopping.

            Yeah? Ed said.

            Took an hour and a half to get in, because the Q train was slow.

            It happens, Ed said. That’s why I don’t go. What’s the point?

            I was thinking maybe the two of us could go in for dinner one night, though, Margie said. Ed pretended that he was fascinated with the view of the Marine Parkway Bridge. Ed? Margie said.

            Sure, he said. Maybe. For New Year’s or something. I think we could handle that. They arrived at the only tree in the salt marsh. Here, he said. And he sat down.

            Margie stayed standing above him.

            What? she said.

            Come on, Marge, don’t make me have to beg, Ed said. He began unzipping his pants.

            Let’s go to the city one day, Margie said. Before New Year’s. Like Halloween. We can go to FAO Schwarz.

            Ed’s penis, by this point, was flopping in the cool air.

            Sure, he said. Sure, anything you want. Come on.

            Margie knelt down.

            Do you promise? she said.

            Yes, he said. Yes, yes!

            All right, Margie said. I’ll let you wait on it. This way you’ll be sure to remember. And she walked away back toward Marine Park.

             • • •

Ed Monahan picked himself up, and zipped up his jeans. He stood, breathing hard, under the tree for a minute, giving time to compose himself. Little shit, he said, under his breath, even though he knew that only crazy people talked to themselves. Little pussy shit, he thought in his head. Pinko-commie-liberal shit.

            Ed fumed out of the nature center, crossed wide Avenue U, and continued into the parking lot. He went to his bike and started fumbling with the lock, until he realized that the motorcycle pack zipper had been jimmied. It was flapping open on one side. All his leftover string cream and plastic shooters were gone. Ed gargled a noise up in his throat. Who steals from a drug dealer? he wanted to know.