Personal Effects Read online

  This pleased Lucas to no end.

  I braked the Cannondale near a streetlight and watched my brother from afar. He was a hundred yards away, alone, burning calories around the park’s Arc de Triomphe-inspired seventy-seven-foot marble arch. He was practicing his hobby, parkour.

  The brainbendingly fast-paced maneuvers Lucas was performing around—and now on—the Arch have not officially been classified as a sport, although anything that requires this intense level of physical dexterity and stamina falls into that category as far as I’m concerned. Lucas tells me it’s a state of mind, an urban survival philosophy whipped into blurred motion. He insists parkour is a discipline, a martial art whose opponent is the cityscape. I default to his expertise; he’s been doing this for two years now. Last year, my father and I spent Lucas’ nineteenth birthday in St. Vincent’s emergency room after Lucas suffered a nasty drop from a second-story windowsill. Dad’s fancy dinner plans were ruined. He’d fumed the rest of the night.

  Them’s the breaks.

  Lucas is half-Wikipedia, half-evangelist about all his passions, so everyone he knows, knows a lot about parkour. The word is a truncated, modified version of the French term for a military obstacle course. It’s also called the “art of displacement.” The point of parkour is as simple as its execution is complex: traverse your urban surroundings in the most efficient and speedy means possible. If a fence separates you from your destination, jump it. If it’s a wall, scale it. If it’s a building … well … get all Spider-Man on it. Brick walls are sidewalks for the parkour-proficient.

  This is a scrappy, dangerous pastime. I once watched Lucas rocket up the fire escape of a five-story New York University admin building, scramble to its roof in rapid-fire movements evocative of both crab and gorilla, make a running leap to a neighboring building, bound down its fire escape, and land on the sidewalk on all fours, like an unperturbed house cat. By the end of this performance, I’m sure my heart was pounding faster than his.

  And here he was in the gloaming of Well7, again dashing toward its legendary Arch, now in the air, now bounding up its surface, side-crawling several feet, now shoving himself upward and backward, away from the marble, twisting his thin frame into a back flip, his body trapped in graceful silhouette for an instant—a black-and-white still of human ambition and freedom, I thought—now landing on his toes, tucking his body into a roll … and now standing, panting, grinning in my direction, glancing back at the thing he’d conquered.

  I pedaled over. Lucas yanked the bandanna off his head, freeing his long, curly brown hair, inherited from our mother. His fellow parkour practitioners (called traceurs and traceuses, depending on their sex) called him Socket, in honor of his shock-mop of hair and buzzy, infectious personality. (He usually acts like he’s French-kissed an electrical outlet.)

  My brother tugged off his battered backpack, unzipping it in one energetic motion. A cluster of black cables snaked from the bag to his body, down the neck of his loose-fitting long-sleeved T-shirt. I looked a question at him.

  “Welcome up, buttercup,” he said as he reached into the bag. He pulled out a compact notebook computer and fussed with a small box attached to the device. The laptop was a “Toughbook,” a seemingly indestructible and very expensive device. Lucas could never afford something like this on the salary of his part-time clerk job at NYU’s admissions office. This was last year’s Christmas gift from our dad.

  The cables connected to the PC sprang free. He flipped open the laptop and dropped cross-legged onto the concrete.

  “Hey. What’s up?” I asked. I nodded to the computer.

  Lucas smiled, his teeth aglow in the LCD light. “You’ll love it, Z,” he said. “You’ll ’dore it.”

  He raised a hand high above his head. “Okay, so you’ve got bird’s-eye view,” he said, “and you’ve got worm’s-eye view.” His hand now shot earthward. “And of course, you’ve got first-person POV.”

  My brother’s fingers now tapped the side of his head. I nodded. He was talking camera angles. Lucas was a film student at NYU. I couldn’t fathom how Lucas’ professors kept up with his supersonic mind.

  His eyes never left the computer screen. His fingers slid across the device’s trackpad, double-clicking as he spoke. “But what about a hand’s-eye view, huh? Or a foot’s-eye view? Right? Yeah?”

  He extended his arm. A small plastic gadget was strapped to the top of his hand. He tapped his sneaker, where an identical device was tucked into his shoelaces. Cables extended from these, up into Lucas’ clothes. I blinked, doing the math. He’d rigged tiny vidcams to record his parkour moves.

  “HAH!” Lucas cried, watching the ultra-jittery digital footage. “Steadicam, it ain’t—but it works!” He finally looked up at me, gesturing at the cable on his wrist. “These wires are a pain in the conjunction-junction, but still. This’ll come in handy for the project I wanna work on. Totally self-financed, fictionalized reality show. Big Brother meets crime-fighting parkour artist.”

  “And do you have a name for this zero-budget adventure?” I asked.

  “Traceur Fire,” he said proudly.

  I laughed, wondering if this preposterous project would suffer the same fate as most of his invented words. My brother is one of the most ambitious, creative people I know … but there are so many ideas whirring around in his head. He can’t choose which project to prioritize, so he flits between them, hummingbird-style. Never getting too deep.

  “I’ll tell you all about it later,” Lucas said as he unplugged the cables and cameras, stuffing the gear into his backpack. “But it’s gonna be epic, man. So what about you, Z? You experience anything epic today?”

  I laughed again. Yeah, you could say that.

  I gave him today’s highlights as we traveled from Well7 to my apartment on Avenue B in Alphabet City. We had about an hour to get to the funeral home where Gram’s memorial service was being held.

  I pedaled and Lucas bounded along beside me, occasionally busting out into a low-key parkour move. His body deftly pitched around streetlights and trash bins.

  “Hey, how’re you dealing with it?” I asked him. “Losing Gram?”

  “Freedom’s on the march,” Lucas replied. “Seriously? Aching, but mending. All the signs were there, Z. I just didn’t want to see ’em. But when she died, the pieces finally clicked into place, like Lego bricks. Click. She’s gone. Click. We’re still here. Click. We mourn, we move on.”

  “That’s pretty damned insightful of you,” I said.

  “That reminds me. Hang on a sec.”

  Lucas removed his green backpack and opened it. He closed one eye, concentrating, as his hand dove into the pack. He looked like he was about to pull a rabbit from a hat. I grinned.

  “Thought you’d want to see these,” he said, passing me a cardboard box. “These were Gram’s family pictures, going way back. There’re some docs in there, too. I scanned some of ’em for the multimedia slideshow at the memorial.”

  “There’s not going to be a dry eye in the house, is there?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  We stood there, smiling and thinking of her. It was an uncomplicated moment. Nice.

  And despite what was still to come that night—the funeral home, my screaming father and the lunatic stranger, the folded slip of paper that would be pressed into my sweating palms—I can honestly say that this moment with my brother was the last time I’ve remembered feeling carefree.

  The rest has been darkness and madness and terrible.

  6

  The Selznick and Sons funeral home, like many in Manhattan, was on the ground floor of a multistoried apartment building. And like many other funeral homes in Manhattan, you’d never know it after stepping past the polished brass-and-glass doors. The interior featured soothing cream-colored walls, a politely ticking grandfather clock, gold-framed paintings of flowers, stained glass windows. The colors in the windows matched the furniture, which matched the drapes, which matched the carpet. They were all muted, rea
ssuring shades, not distinct enough to attract attention. Stately, serene, invisible.

  Lucas and I arrived just before 7 p.m. Rachael waited for us in the lobby.

  I felt giddy as she walked toward us, then felt guilty for feeling giddy. I should’ve been thinking about Gram, somberly preparing myself for the service. But as those few seconds of her approach stretched into delicious slow motion, as Rachael’s hips rocked, as I gazed at her lips, I simply couldn’t pull my eyes off her. She’s a few inches taller than me, and God, did I like looking up to her.

  Rachael. She’s the reason balladeers were born. At least that’s what I’ve told her, a thousand thousand times. She never gets tired of hearing it, though.

  She wore an understated black dress and a matching long-sleeved sweater that hid the tattoos racing down her arms. The small tattoos on each of my wrists—the Chinese symbols for “courage” and “faith”—were covered by my dress shirt and jacket.

  We clean up well, Lucas, Rachael, and me: today we were Opposite Day impostors, proudly displaying our Clark Kent alter egos for the AARP crowd. Rachael’s magenta hair and the hoops in her nose and eyebrow spoiled the image a bit.

  “Hey,” she said, and gave me a quick hug. She kissed my cheek. “Right on time. You doing okay?”

  I nodded. She smelled wonderful.

  “Yo, Hochrot,” Lucas said, a bit too loudly for my liking. I glanced around the hushed lobby. Solemn newcomers were stepping through the front doors. I gave Lucas a parental shhh. He took the hint.

  “So tell me,” he whispered. “Have you fragged your kids today?”

  Rachael rolled her eyes.

  “They’re not ‘my’ kids, Lucas,” she said, her voice low. “They’re twerps on Xbox Live, screaming at their moms for chocolate milk. These guys, they can’t stand getting beat by a girl.”

  “My geek goddess,” I said, sliding my arm around her waist. “Mortals, behold her mad ‘Onyx War 2’ skills.”

  “Oh, poor Z,” she said. She glanced up at a magenta sliver of hair that had fallen into her face, and blew it aside with a quick puff. “Onyx War was last week. It’s Bloodwire now. This game’s codemonkeys built it just for me. It’s got the three Fs: First-person … fully destroyable environments … and flame-throwers. That stuff melts my heart every time.”

  Her blue eyes glimmered. She bared her teeth, playfully.

  “Don’t mess with PixelVixen707,” she whispered diabolically. “Snarl.”

  Lucas snickered. “Snarl,” he said.

  “Speaking of messing with a good thing,” I said, pulling my cell phone from my slacks pocket. I passed it to Rachael. “Dad’s probably going to be late. Listen to the voice mail he left last night. Dial 212-629-1951, and hit 3017. That’s my password. Unbelievable.”

  Rachael dialed in the numbers and pressed the phone to her ear. Lucas leaned in, curious.

  The pair listened and exchanged more up-to-the-nanosecond slang. If you’d put a gun to my head at that moment, I still couldn’t tell you what in the hell they were talking about. I think they were dissing Dad, but I wasn’t sure. I needed subtitles when these propeller-heads got together.

  At least Rachael had a professional excuse. In addition to being a part-time fact-checker for the New York Journal-Ledger and a freelance technical writer, she was the creator of PixelVixen707.com, a gaming blog bristling with “geek chica snarkitude.” The site had started as a personal weblog, but the gaming-related posts had brought piles of readers—and ad money. I was the guy who’d created the splash artwork for her home page: a cartoonified Rachael in coveralls, welder’s goggles perched atop her head, sleeves rolled high, flexing a tattooed bicep in the classic Rosie the Riveter “We Can Do It!” pose. She held a Wii remote in her clenched fist. A mutual friend had introduced us a year ago; my for-the-check freelance gig evolved into a life-changing romance. I couldn’t image my world without this woman now.

  And Lucas’ excuse? He was just a hardcore gamer. And, well, he’s Lucas. I can’t comprehend half the things he says anyway.

  A slender, graceful man stepped toward us, his pleasant face tinged with a hint of generic sorrow.

  “Ms. Webster, are these the gentlemen you were waiting for?” he asked.

  She nodded, immediately toning down her contagious smile. “Yes, these are Mrs. Taylor’s grandsons, Zach and Lucas.”

  The man introduced himself as Mr. Kress, the “evening director” for Selznick and Sons. He efficiently ushered us past the staid, mahogany-accented couches and chairs and out of the lobby. He apologized to Lucas and me for our loss—I nodded blankly, it felt weird receiving such intimate condolences from a stranger—and then encouraged us to sign the guest book and fill out a memorial card before entering Gram’s parlor.

  I didn’t know what a memorial card was, but Mr. Kress explained as he walked us to a desk just outside the open doors of the room reserved for us. I looked past him, at the group of silver-haired folks inside. My grandmother’s urn sat on a table by the far wall, placed next to a small wooden box.

  I smiled. My high school buddy Ida “Eye” Jean-Phillipe and her father Eustacio were here. As far as I knew, neither of them had known Gram, so I reckoned they were here to support the family. Eustacio was the flint-eyed deputy chief of NYPD’s homicide division, and an old friend of my dad’s. (“From the ramen noodle days,” Dad had once told me.) Ida, an NYPD lab tech, was here for me. I hadn’t known she was coming tonight. Very cool of her to show.

  “ … so think of a memorial card as a message to your loved one,” Mr. Kress was saying as we reached the desk. He picked up a small envelope and a pre-folded card and handed them to me, gave another to Lucas and one to Rachael. “Feel free to write anything you like—a favorite memory, a prayer, a story. It’s a way to tell her that you’re thinking about her.

  “Then place the card in the envelope,” he said, demonstrating. Lucas snorted. I flashed him a half-smirk: We know how frickin’ envelopes work. Jesus Christ.

  “ … and place it in the box next to your grandmother’s cremains,” Kress concluded. “We hope it will provide some comfort for your family to read these after the service.”

  The director thanked us, and softly withdrew. The three of us stood by the desk. We didn’t speak. This was … well, this was it, wasn’t it? I stared at the card, suddenly feeling awkward and clumsy and cold and oh

  —be sure to breathe, Mr. Taylor, I heard the reptilian voice of Martin Grace say, be sure to keep breathing while the patient yanks the rug from beneath you—

  I shivered, there in the hallway. Rachael noticed, and gave me a concerned look through her black-framed glasses. Lucas, oblivious, bent over the desk and began writing a message to Gram with one of the fountain pens provided.

  Rachael reached for my hand, entwined her fingers in mine and gave a supportive squeeze. I smiled. She let go, stepped over to the table and wrote her own message. Finished, they both looked at me.

  “Give me a minute,” I said. “Go ahead.” They stepped further into the room.

  And then it was me, a fountain pen and my grandmother.

  Gram, I wrote, and paused. I watched the ink seep into the thick paper, a black cumulus cloud spreading into a pale sky.

  Ink and Gram.

  The two words that had carried me through so much of my life came from my grandmother. Courage and faith, little Zachary, she had said to me after my mother died, more than twenty-one years ago. As I stood here in the funeral home, I could remember that night as her hands brushed away my nightmare tears. The veins on her hands. Her palms, smooth and soft. That’s all you need, baby boy. Courage, to face the tough things. Faith, to endure them.

  She’d been right. Her words were still in my heart, on my wrists.

  Thank you, I wrote finally. I miss you.

  I blew gently on the ink, then closed the card.

  I stepped into the parlor to join my family and friends.

  After I slipped my memorial card into the box by Gram’s
urn—brushing off the weirdness of knowing that the woman who’d helped raise me was now reduced to a canful of ashes—I worked my way toward Lucas, Rachael and Eye. The mood in the room wasn’t jovial, but there was a joyfulness. We were here to celebrate Gram’s life, after all.

  Gram’s friends all wanted to talk. She always said such nice things about you. Your father was so blessed to have her there, to help. She loved you so much. They were kind strangers, and I thanked them and held their hands and listened to their stories. I’m good at listening to people’s stories.

  “Ou byen?” Eye whispered to me as we finally hugged. “You holding up okay?”

  “You bet,” I said. “Thanks for coming. It means … it means a helluva lot.” I held her hand for a moment. My artist’s eye took a picosecond of pleasure in the contrast of her black skin against mine. “We knew it was coming. It sucks, but it’s … it’s over, you know?”

  I knew she understood. Her mother died when she was young, too.

  “And thanks again for the assist with Spindle,” I said. “You did it, Eye.”

  “Oh no,” she replied. “You did it, Z. I just helped a little.” She added a quick phrase in Kreyol that I didn’t understand, but her chuckle told me it didn’t matter.

  My high school girlfriend had lived in the States since she was ten years old, but she still peppered her conversations with phrases from her native language. I loved listening to her speak. I’ve always thought that if flowers could talk, their voices would sound like Haitian Kreyol, rising and falling, lyrical, like piccolos.

  I glanced past Eye’s shoulder at her father. Eustacio Jean-Phillipe was now pacing by the doorway of the parlor. He was talking on his cell phone.

  “Is Papa-Jean on it?” I asked.

  She grinned and nodded. “Papa-Jean” was our nickname for her dad. “It” was Spindle’s thirty-year-old surprise.

  Last week, I’d discovered that the locations of three bodies—and the buried treasure she and her two friends had vowed to hide—had been lurking in plain sight for years, sewn into Gertrude Spindler’s quilt designs. I’d gone on a field trip, traveling to the “X” on the map—a rat-infested kitchen in a long-closed Chinatown restaurant, of all places—pried up some floorboards, and unearthed an arm-length metal tube. Ida Jean-Phillipe had opened the container in the NYPD forensic laboratory and extracted a sword in a stitched cloth scabbard. Her research revealed that the sword had an ancient, blood-soaked—and apparently “mystical”—history.