Chapter Ten
Chapter
Ten
It was Christian’s idea.
“You said it yourself,” he declared as they left the Imperial Theater the previous evening. “How can we call ourselves New Yorkers if we’ve never been to Staten Island?”
“No, I—”
But before Danny had time to squash the insane, impossible, potentially mortally dangerous idea, Christian was already making plans.
“We showed you our city today. It’s only fair for you to return the favor tomorrow.”
“I’d be interested,” Astoria chimed in. “From a purely anthropological standpoint, of course.”
“I think it sounds tight!” beamed Nina. “Has that expression made it to Staten Island yet? Or are you still saying ‘bodacious’?”
Orion nodded politely.
And so it was that Danny’s friends would ferry out to Staten Island.
His friends. His sophisticated, oddball, highly opinionated friends.
The same ones who wore berets and jackets splattered with paint and pins that read “Question Authority!’’ and “Peace in the Middle East!’’ were coming to visit him on Staten Island, the land of mobsters’ mistresses, the Wu-Tang Clan, and landfills that could be seen from outer space.
Danny had barely recovered from his birthday, still floating on a high from the smells of West Village bakeries and paintbrushes and coffee shops and second acts of Broadway shows and Christian—oh God, Christian.
What would he think when he found out Danny lived not in a nice house on the South Shore, but a crappy apartment on a crummy street where you’d see ten cars on concrete blocks before you ever saw a busking musician or an impromptu poetry reading?
Danny would have to fake it. He spent the rest of his evening coming up with an itinerary for the field trip to “his Staten Island”—bird-watching at Lemon Creek Park, a few frames of bowling at Victory Lanes, a drive-by of the mansions in Annadale, fancy sandwiches at Frank and Sal’s—all things that would impress an out-of-towner, all things on the South Shore, all things that perhaps weren’t exactly his favorites, but at least wouldn’t betray the fact that “his Staten Island” wasn’t really his these days.
Danny rose early on Sunday, waving goodbye to Ma through the window of her Pontiac. She’d be spending the day folding linens at rich people’s homes in Tottenville. He’d just taken his last bite of cereal, ready to head to the ferry terminal, when suddenly, the phone in the kitchen rang.
“Danny, I gotta bail on you today,” Astoria’s voice said through the earpiece. “Vivian Gramercy just gave me a hot tip on a performance venue for my show and I have to go check it out before some asshole NYU student snatches it up.”
The phone had barely touched the cradle before it rang again.
“Hey, Danny,” a scratchy voice whispered. “It’s Nina. Listen, I woke up with a tickle in my throat so I should probably go on vocal rest for the rest of the weekend. Pippin’s only three weeks away and I gotta protect the gift.”
When the phone rang a third time, Danny answered it in a huff.
“Hey, tough guy,” a voice on the other end said.
“Lemme guess. You’re canceling on me, too?” Danny grunted.
“Huh?” Christian said. “No, I’m just letting you know I’m gonna be a little late. Our basement dryer’s on the fritz again, but I’m headed to you right now, albeit in a damper-than-preferable outfit.”
“Oh,” Danny said. “Well, thank God for that. Nina and Astoria had to bail, so it’ll just be you, me, and Orion.”
“Oh yeah, and I meant to tell you,” Christian said. “Orion can’t make it. He’s gotta find fifty feet of chicken wire for his winter arts project. Don’t ask.”
Twist went the jar of fireflies in Danny’s chest.
“So…it’s just gonna be you and me?” he said, trying to make his voice sound like this was a perfectly normal change of plans.
“Looks like it,” Christian replied breezily. “Okay, I gotta go. You know South Ferry is, like, three hundred stops from Flushing, right?”
Danny paced anxiously around the lobby of the ferry terminal, peering through the big glass windows at the orange vessel pulling up to the dock.
If he’d been nervous before about his friends judging his hometown, that was nothing compared with the idea of spending a day alone with Christian.
Christian—the boy he most wanted to impress.
Christian—the boy who knew all the cool places in New York like the back of his hand.
The back of his hand.
His hand.
Danny took in a deep breath as a stream of passengers trickled down the gangway and into the terminal building.
He searched each face for a familiar one until, at last, he caught sight of his friend.
Christian was wearing his signature coiffed hairdo, which, thanks to the ferry and the New York harbor, looked even more perfectly windswept than it did during the school week, but seemed most pleased with his completely un-Christian-like attire.
“Is that…” Danny hesitated as Christian approached with a massive grin. “…a polo?”
“You like it?” Christian chirped. “It’s my dad’s. Isn’t it hideous?”
“I…”
“I figured I should try and blend in, and you wear these damn things all the time.”
“Very funny.” Danny rolled his eyes.
“So,” Christian said, grinning. “Let’s see what this place is all about.”
Traveling to the South Shore of Staten Island meant having to take the Staten Island Railway, or SIR, which was pronounced like the letters and not like what you’d call a fancy man.
But when they exited from the terminal, Danny and Christian found that the entrance was blocked off with caution tape.
An ambulance had pulled up onto the curb and a crowd of people had gathered around, peeking over each other’s shoulders.
“What’s the holdup?” Danny heard a man’s voice in the crowd say.
“Jumper,” an older woman replied grimly.
“Onto the tracks? Christ.”
“Uh,” Danny wheezed. This wasn’t the first impression of Staten Island he’d been hoping for.
“That’s horrible,” Christian said, frowning.
“Yeah,” Danny said, steering them away from the crowd.
“Could we maybe just take the bus?” Christian asked.
“To the South Shore? That’ll take like an hour and a half, at least.”
“Well, we could just go back to your place,” Christian said, shrugging. “You live around here, right?”
Danny’s stomach did a cannonball into an empty pool.
Sure, someone ending their life rather than having to face another day on Staten Island wasn’t exactly Danny’s fault, but a tiny apartment with tobacco-stained wallpaper and chipped countertops and a carpet that smelled like cat piss? That was something he’d have to own.
He was just about to suggest that they slug it back to Manhattan, when the slow, high-pitched creaking of tires lit up an idea in Danny’s head.
Danny looked across the street at the sight of his old bus pulling up to the glass shelter—the S57, the one he used to ride that summer to work, the one that, despite the change of season, still ran on weekends over to the beaches on the east side.
“Change of plans,” Danny said, tugging the arm of Christian’s drooping polo and charging across Richmond Terrace.
“No effing way!” Christian gawked as they hopped off the city bus and onto the boardwalk at Midland Beach. “You’re telling me we’re still in New York?!”
Christian broke off into a run, his sneakers clopping across the wooden planks as he rushed to the railing to get a better view.
He sucked in a huge gush of ocean air through his nose, then exhaled dramatically, the brisk wind whipping through his hair.
Everything looked different than it had in the summer months.
The beach was empty, save for a few seagulls, some dried-up seaweed, and the skeletal remains of a broken beach umbrella.
“This all right?” Danny asked.
“You kidding?” Christian cried to the heavy, gray sky. “This is all that and a bag of chips!”
“Look up there,” Danny said, pointing north up the shoreline to the coast of Brooklyn and the two skinny towers of the Verrazano, looming in the distance like the Emerald City.
“That is the absolute bomb.” Christian snapped his fingers dramatically. “I thought Staten Island beaches were all broken glass and seagulls fighting over a cigarette butt. No offense.”
They strolled together down the boardwalk toward South Beach, Christian hopscotching across the wide pine planks. They walked until they reached the fifty-foot stretch of boardwalk that had burned down earlier that year.
“What happened here?” Christian asked, approaching the giant hole.
“A bonfire got out of control. Some kids from the neighborhood. It was an accident, allegedly. They’re supposed to fix it at some point, but who knows. Staten Island’s always last in line for stuff like this.”
“I kinda like it,” Christian said, balance-beaming a circle around the scorched opening. “Spoo-oo-ky.”
“You’re a dork.” Danny laughed, looking back at the Verrazano shrinking in the distance.
When Danny turned back around, Christian Geronimo had vanished.
“Down here!” a voice called from the pit.
Danny peered through the burnt hole down at his friend, who was now scaling his way down the singed beams to the sandy beach below.
“You know there are stairs, right?”
They tugged off their socks and rolled up the cuffs of their jeans, sinking their toes into the cold, dense sand. Carrying their shoes, they jogged down to the shore, breaking only when a wave of icy water washed up and snapped at their ankles.
“Holy shit!” Christian wailed. “That’s colder than Ferdinand’s toilet seat!”
“What?” Danny laughed, hopping out of the cold wave and back onto the sand. “What does that even mean?”