Alligator. Dima Alzayat
and the other the kidnapper. Ralph’d just drool and watch. Our weapons of combat would transform into torture devices and we’d pretend to slit each other’s throats and ply fingers off one by one while yelling things like, ‘Gimme all your dough,’ and, ‘Where’s the cash stash, punk?’ We knew a kidnapper wasn’t gonna ask for money – but we couldn’t quite figure what it was he would ask for, what it would be he was after, so we carried on like that. My mother found us once, after I’d tied Tommy good and tight to the chair and was threatening to zap him from here to Jupiter with my plastic gun if he didn’t tell me where he’d hidden the goods. She nearly tore us to crumbs but my father, who was just getting home and in no mood for a fight, said, ‘Salwa, they’re like caged ferrets. You gotta let them have a tumble every now and again.’ Still, she told Tommy’s mother and made me carry the fan upstairs. But by the end of that week we were back down there and at it again.
When we were feeling really daring we’d creep down to the ground floor, a small open space that housed abandoned bicycles and the door to the outside. I’d drag Ralph along so he couldn’t tell on us and Tommy would twist the metal latch and pull the door, thick and hulking, and we would stick our heads out one by one into the humid air. Soon enough we began daring each other to step out onto the pavement, to walk to the corner where the Guatemalan man sold fresh fruit and cigarettes, and eventually, to sprint full speed around the entire block once if not twice. Even now, more than thirty years later, I can remember the way the warm air filled me as I ran, how it surged and swirled in my lungs. I must have passed the fruit stand then and taken a right, ran past Earl’s Drugs and Stuff and the video store, turned right again and rushed past Didi’s Donuts, the hotdog cart and the laundromat. That must have happened but I couldn’t tell you at the time what I was passing, the streets feeling new and foreign even though I’d walked them all the years of my life, had known nothing but their shapes and colors. Instead, I glimpsed the curves of lips and angles of noses, the arches of brows and lines of grimaces. A bald man with a diamond ear stud leaned on a shuttered shop, a suit in a fedora brushed my arm as he passed, another wearing nothing but shorts and sneakers bounced a basketball as he went. I ran fast enough so I didn’t look at any one of them directly, couldn’t tell you the colors of their eyes, but knew that they could look toward me, could see me if they wanted. As I rounded the final corner, I’d erupt into something of a frenzy, a current coursing through my veins, leaving me feeling at once fearless, like I could do anything, and relieved that I wouldn’t because someone was expecting me to return.
I can’t say exactly when it was that Ralph went missing. I just know it was the week before we started school and the sun was low enough to turn everything orange.
Tommy’s parents had gone to visit a relative in Queens and my mother had offered to watch him until after dinner. I never invited my school friends home in those days and a sleepover was unthinkable. The one time I did have someone over, this kid Joey, Ralph drooled all over the Chinese checkers Joey’d brought with him and during dinner, kept his mouth clamped tight while my mother tried to feed him steamed carrots and rice. By the end of the meal, his face was covered in orange pulp and Joey was staring at him like he was a zoo exhibit. The next day the entire class was talking about it.
Sure, Tommy wasn’t especially keen on Ralph always hanging around, but he knew Ralph, knew what being his brother meant and didn’t mean, what it said and didn’t say. When I found out Tommy would be eating with us, I begged my mother to cook something normal. It was 1979 and exotic-sounding dishes with names like South Sea Beef and Chicken Tahitian were all the rage – culinary experiments that ended with my father sweating just trying to keep them down and Ralph spitting half-chewed chunks onto his plate until she caved and made him a hotdog.
That night though, she’d agreed to Spaghetti Bolognese and the smell of crushed garlic and simmering tomato sauce wafted down to Tommy and me as we stood on the ground level of the building, bent over with hands on knees, panting. We’d already run around the block three times each while Ralph sat and played with his plastic trucks.
‘Come on, Ben. Just let him go once,’ Tommy said, still gasping for air.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m bored just doing the same old thing.’
I shrugged. ‘We could play Legos.’
‘Oh, come on. He wants to go, don’t you, Ralph?’ Tommy looked to Ralph who had picked up a truck that was down to its last wheel, was flicking the wheel with his finger to make it spin.
‘It’s almost dinnertime,’ I said. ‘Anyway, he won’t do it.’
‘Sure he will, he’ll do anything you say if you’re the one to say it.’
Ralph glanced up to me just then and I remember searching for something in that look, for a twitch or a well-timed blink. Anything. But on it went, that endless gaping stare.
‘See?’ Tommy said. ‘He’s just waiting for you to say it.’
I stood there for what must have been no more than a minute but it felt like all of time was stretched before me, pulled like Silly Putty in all directions at once. My ears burned and I knew my face would follow. I remember wishing he would just say something, that he’d open his mouth and a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ would make its way out of his garbled brain. I’d heard him speak before, knew he could. But the one time I needed him to, he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Instead he sat silent and watching and I felt my insides grow hot, like someone had lit a match in my stomach and left it.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Ralph, run around the block one time.’ Tommy let out a small yelp and pulled open the heavy door. Ralph slowly rose and walked toward it, never breaking my gaze as he moved. I hoped then that he would just turn around and run up the stairs instead, decide to watch television or cling to my mother’s skirt as she cooked, anything. See, I’d say, I told you he wouldn’t do it.
But he did. He walked through the door and took the five steps down to the sidewalk, squinting his eyes to adjust to the light. And then I knew it was actually happening, that Ralph was gonna run around the block alone, be outside alone for the first time, and I just wanted it to be over. ‘Run fast, Ralph. Around the block, okay?’ I called. ‘Just fast and around the block.’ But he was no longer looking at me, had turned his eyes to sky and sidewalk.
He had just taken off toward the fruit stand, his arms stiff at his sides but his stride certain in its direction, when I heard my mother bellow my name from upstairs. Tommy shook his head, signaling me to ignore her. But again she called, louder this time and I knew she’d come barreling down those stairs, her legs thick and bowed like a charging bull’s, if I didn’t answer. I stood in the doorway and called to Ralph, but already he was at the corner and had escaped the reach of my voice. Again, my name left my mother’s lips and echoed in my ears. Tommy was now pushing me toward the stairs, knowing we’d both be punished something awful if we were found out.
I took the steps two at a time and found her bent over the television. ‘I wanna move it to the kitchen, Ben. Tired of all this walking back and forth.’ If she had looked at my face for even an instant she would’ve known right then and there what I’d done but she was struggling to get a firm hold of the thing. ‘Come on, try to get the other side.’ It was heavy, that television, the kind built into a wooden console as if it didn’t have a right to exist alone, had to be disguised as a piece of familiar furniture first. It was too cumbersome to pick up but impossible to push. Our difference in size didn’t help either. Even after getting it up, we had to put it down and re-lift every few steps. The sweat stood on her brow and her dress clung to her like cling film. I would’ve felt sorry for her if I wasn’t so worried about the trouble I’d be in if she knew. While we took a break to catch our breaths she asked after Ralph and I told her he was on the stairs with Tommy. I pretended I knew that for certain. Wanted to believe I knew that for certain. Enough time had passed.
When we’d finally moved the damn thing into the kitchen, just as she raised her head and turned her eyes to meet mine, I made for the door. ‘Fetch Ralph and Tommy and come back up here. That’s enough for one day.’ I left without answering, nearly fell twice running, slipped and slid down the last few