Manhattan Nocturne Read Free Page A

table, clothing, a few chairs, clothes, a baby’s crib, a television, a box spring. Flung into the snow, the blackened wreckage looked like some of the assemblages you see in the galleries in Soho, an artist’s pessimistic statement about whatever age we now live in.
    Did you know the family involved? I asked the woman. Yes, I be in that apartment a hundred times. How did you find out what happened? I didn’t need nobody to tell me, ‘cause I saw the whole thing myself. I be washing the dishes and I seen the smoke and everything out the window, and I told myself that don’t look good, that look like Benita. So I call the emergency, and then I went downstairs. The woman glanced at me. She had more to tell me, and I waited. I don’t usually press. People will say what they have to say. But when they get stuck, you can go back to the chronology. What time was this? I asked. Almost twelve o’clock noon. Okay, you were washing the dishes; what did you do when you saw the smoke, were you surprised? I was so surprise I drop a dish, matter of fact. What happened when you got outside? I was looking up at the window hoping that the fire department gonna make it pretty soon and then I’m looking up there when Demetrius, he come jumping through that window. He on fire, burning like, all over his shirt and hair and pants, and he holding Benita’s kid, uh, Vernon, he only four months, and then Demetrius fall, he just fall and fall and fall, and I can tell that he gonna land on top of the baby, and I was worrying about that, and then just before Demetrius land, then he like, he do this little kind of flip, and he land on his back holding the baby up, like, I could see he did that on purpose so the baby be okay. Like, that was the last thing Demetrius ever did in his life, do that little flip and hold that baby up, ‘cause then Demetrius, he land on his back, just like that —and here the woman slapped one black hand smack flat on top of the other—and he lay real still like, and I go running over and pick up Vernon ’cause I see Demetrius, he not gonna make it, and I check that baby over good, and then I thank the Lord,
’cause Vernon, he not hurt. Little shook up’s all. He cry only a little bit and I put him up in my arms. But Demetrius look bad. He got blood coming out of his ears and then I saw how he was all shot up by them boys. Then I just hope that Benita, don’t she come jumping …
    The woman stopped and looked away, back toward the window. She shifted her baby, gave the bundle a pat on the rear. Anything else? I asked. Nuh-uh. I waited a moment more, looking her in the eyes. Thank you for your time, I said. The woman just nodded. She was not shocked or distraught, at least not apparently. The events in question did not violate her view of the universe, they were just further proof thereof.
    I see a lot of this, to be honest, and there was no time to stand around and be mystified by the brutalities of urban life; the story was due in the paper’s computer system by 5:30 P.M.—about three hours. I had what I needed and was heading back toward the car, already composing the lead paragraph in my head—when my beeper trilled against my leg. GIVE THE CHICK A CALL, it said. Lisa, phoning from St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she operates. A lot of reporters carry cellular phones, but I hate them; they tether you to other people’s agendas and can interrupt you at the worst moment, ruin interviews. I walked around the corner to a little Dominican luncheonette, and when the bell on the door tinkled, a couple of the regulars turned around, and one boy of about eighteen slunk coolly out the back, just in case I was somebody he needed to worry about. They see a big white man who isn’t afraid to be someplace, and so maybe I’m a cop.
    There was a pay phone on the wall.
    â€œYou’re due at that cocktail party tonight,” Lisa reminded me.