Motherless Brooklyn

“Drive around the block,” I said to Coney. “He’s here somewhere.”

“Quit shouting,” he said. “I can hear you.”

“Shut up so I can hear,” I said.

“That’s all I said.”

“What?” I lifted an earphone.

“That’s all I said. Shut up.”

“Okay! Shut up! Drive! Eat me!”

“Fucking freakball.”

The block behind BRAINUM was dark and seemingly empty. The few parked cars didn’t include the K-car. The windowless brick warehouse was laced with fire escapes, wrought-iron cages that ran the length of the second floor and ended in a crumpled, unsafe-looking ladder. On the side street a smallish, graffitied Dumpster was tucked halfway into the shadow of double doorway. The doors behind were strapped with long exterior hinges, like a meat locker. One lid of the Dumpster was shut, the other open to allow some fluorescent bulbs sticking up. Street rubbish packed around the wheels made me think it hadn’t moved in a while, so I didn’t worry about the doors behind it. The other entrance was a roll-up gate on a truck-size loading dock, right out on the brightly lit boulevard. I figured I would have heard the gate sing if it had been raised.

The four stacks of the Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Plant towered at the end of the street, underlit like ancient pylons in a gladiator movie. Fly an inflatable pig over and you’d have the sleeve of Pink Floyd’s Animals album. Beneath its shadow we crept in the Lincoln around all four corners of the block, seeing nothing.

“Damn it,” I said.

“You don’t hear him?”

“Street noise. Hey, hit the horn.”

“Why?”

“Do it.”

I concentrated on the earphones. Coney honked the Lincoln’s horn. Sure enough, it came through.

“Stop the car.” I was in a panic now. I got out onto the sidewalk, slammed the door. “Circle slow,” I said. “Keep an eye on me.”

“What’s the deal, Lionel?”

“He’s here.”

I paced the sidewalk, trying to feel the pulse of the blackened building, to take the measure of the desolate block. It was a place made out of leftover chunks of disappointment, unemployment and regret. I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want Minna to be here. Coney paced me in the Lincoln, staring dumbly out the driver’s window. I listened to the phones until I heard the approach of my own steps. My own heart beating made a polyrhythm, almost as loud. Then I found it. Minna’s wire had been torn from his shirt and lay tangled in a little heap on the curb of the side street, at the other end of the block from the Dumpster. I picked it up and pushed it into my pants pocket, then ripped the headphones off my neck. Feeling the grimness of the street close around me I began to half-run down the sidewalk toward the Dumpster, though I had to stop once and mimic my own retrieval of the wire: hurriedly kneel at the edge of the sidewalk, grab, stuff, remove phantom headphones, feel a duplicate thrill of panic at the discovery, resume jogging. It was cold now. The wind punched me and my nose oozed in response. I wiped it on my sleeve as I came up to the Dumpster.

“You jerks,” Minna moaned from inside.

I touched the rim of the Dumpster and my hand came away wet with blood. I pushed open the second lid, balanced it against the doorway. Minna was curled fetally in the garbage, his arms crossed around his stomach, sleeves covered in red.

“Jesus, Frank.”

“Wanna get me out of here?” He coughed, burbled, rolled his eyes at me. “Wanna give me a hand? I mean, no sooner than the muse strikes. Or possibly you ought to get out your brushes and canvas. I’ve never been in an oil painting.”

“Sorry, Frank.” I reached in just as Coney came up behind me and looked inside.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

“Help me,” I said to Coney. Together we pulled Minna up from the bottom of the Dumpster. Minna stayed curled around his wounded middle. We drew him over the lip and held him, together, out on the dark empty sidewalk, cradling him absurdly, our knees buckled toward one another’s, our shoulders pitched, like he was a giant baby Jesus in a bloody trench coat and we were each one of the Madonna’s tender arms. Minna groaned and chuckled, eyes squeezed shut, as we moved him to the backseat of the Lincoln. His blood made my fingers tacky on the door handle.

“Nearest hospital,” I breathed as we got into the front.

“I don’t know around here,” said Coney, whispering, too.

“Brooklyn Hospital,” said Minna from the b, surprisingly loud. “Take the BQE, straight up McGuinness. Brooklyn Hospital’s right off DeKalb. You boiled cabbageheads.”

We held our breath and stared forward until Coney got us going the right way, then I turned and looked in the back. Minna’s eyes were half open and his unshaven chin was wrinkled like he was thinking hard or sulking or trying not to cry. He saw me looking and winked. I barked twice-“yipke, yipke”-and winked back involuntarily.