Tolstoy Kicks Ass!

The 1/9 station at South Ferry never had cops watching the turnstiles, so it was no problem for Rai and Z to get on the train headed uptown. Rai could feel a thrill pumping her legs, so she didn’t even sit down. The ads that she had always hated now fascinated her, so she pulled Z from car to car with her eyes above peoples heads, reading each text and thinking how she might change it to make people think. From time to time an idea passed through her head, but Z only knew because she would whisper “cool, fucking cool.”

By the time they pushed their way off the train at Columbus Circle, Rai was almost skipping. She knew that her mood flowed like a roller coaster, so she wanted to squeeze every bit of joy she could from the moment. She ran up the labyrinth of stairs and emerged at the corner of Central Park. Z followed more slowly; he knew where she was going. As always, their destination was the softball fields near the carousel, home of the summer corporate softball leagues that infest New York. Z was irresistibly drawn to games between different factions of the bourgeoisie. He liked to heckle.

When Z had found out about the leagues, back in June, he thought he had discovered the perfect medium to preach against capitalism. He would stand at the top of the half-full bleachers and shriek, “Now that’s a strike against corporate hegemony!” any time a batter whiffed.

Fortunately, some time in the fifth inning of the first day he did this, an older man stepped up beside Z. A black man, or Z would not have listened. “You should take advantage of that voice, son. Right now, you’re just makin’ an ass of yourself.”

Z was offended. “I’m getting my message–”

“You’re not. People know how to tune you out. You have to be specific.”

“Huh?”

“F’rinstance. The team at bat is McCauley Reed. They just got the new RJR contract.”

“The tobacco people?”

“Yep. And I know for a fact that some of them feel plenty guilty about it. Why don’t you try that?”

Z liked the suggestion. He tried everything from “Lucky Strike!” to a vulgar limerick comparing the size the McCauley Reed collective phallus to a cigarette. Inevitably, he also used a couple of didactic slogans on marketing to kids or dumping in the third world, but those didn’t get much of a response. The limerick, on the other hand, earned a huge laugh from both bleachers.

By the end of the game, the McCauley Reed attorneys were furious, and the old black man’s firm had pulled off a surprising upset — he was, indeed, a senior partner. His advice to Z had not been disinterested. Z had earned himself a reputation.

Z came back the next day — this time without Rai, who, embarrassed, had decided to sneak into the Metropolitan Museum of Art instead — to find several people willing to feed him lines, gossip, and insider trading secrets. Once again, he angered the stronger team into a series of errors. This pattern continued all summer until Z had become a fixture at the fields. He’d learned which lines got a laugh and which bred anger. He’d also learned that a lot of quotes may have sounded great in the Communist Manifesto but fell flat in Central Park.

As Z walked toward the bleachers, two black attorneys sprinted toward him in order to vilify the other team.

The first, out of breath: “Smith Engleman represents Nike sweatshops in Indonesia…”

The second, puffing: “Peabody Griff is legal counsel to Wackenhut. You know, the private prison company…”

Everyone had learned the arguments that pushed Z’s buttons.

Rai tapped his shoulder and pointed at the bleachers across the park. “I’m gonna go talk with Mike. Come get me when you’re done.” She strode straight across the lawn, ignoring the fact that it was the shared outfield for four diamonds.

From halfway across the field, Rai made out Mike on top of some low bleachers. She waved. His eyes probably didn’t work as well as they once did, but even an old man would be able to recognize her black skirt and yellow blouse in the middle of the outfield. As always, he waved back with an enthusiasm incongruous for his years. She marched past the first baseman, oblivious to the nasty looks the outfielders threw at her, and leapt up the bleachers. She embraced Mike almost hard enough to knock him off his seat.

“And a pleasure to see you too, my dear,” he smiled, catching his breath.

Each day that spring, Mike had come to sit by the fields, and one day he’d caught Rai hiding from Z’s hysteria behind a copy of The Brothers Karamazov. With the discovery that both loved Alyosha, they fell into deep conversation. Despite facial features and refined manners that convinced Rai he’s been born in Paris, Mike turned out to be Russian. He was actually quite handsome, in the way of a retired uncle who has seen so much of the world that he can find every new experience amusing.

Mike — né Mikhail, but he didn’t want to seem too Russian — had come to the United States the year before. He worked as the night security guard for an apartment complex in Queens. Rai suspected, without any evidence, that the menial labor came as some sort of debt to the Russian mafia: he was just too smart and literate to be doing it otherwise. For him, the encounter with Rai was a blessing. Not only could he interrupt his solitude with long chats with a cute girl, he got to teach an enthusiastic pupil. He would suggest books, and she would eagerly read them. Then, they would sit by the side of the field, listen to the crack of the bat, and talk about Myshkin and Onegin and Chichikov. Since Z had no interest in any Russian authors except Lenin and Trotsky, the conversations with Mike were a great release for Rai, and perhaps the only chance she had to talk about big ideas without reference to the promised revolution.

“I got it figured out.” Rai was not one for the social niceties of greetings and small talk.

“It?”

“It. The whole meaning of life thing.”

“Indeed? I congratulate you.” Mike’s tone was confusing. Rai never knew how much of it was teasing and how much was the Russian accent.

“And y’know what?” she barged on. “It’s a whole lot simpler than I though.”

“Then you will be able to tell it to me? In words that I can understand?” Mike’s English was surprisingly good, but he got less of Rai’s slang than she might have thought.

“Yeah. Sure.” She paused to create the drama she thought the announcement required. “The meaning of life is… saving people from their own fucking stupidity.”

Mike held back a laugh with some success. “I think I do not understand.”

“OK, listen: I came up with this great plan. Or we did, me and Z. We’re gonna teach the Muggles philosophy.” She felt a childish contentment flow into her body.

“I am sorry. A Mu… a what?”

“Muggle. There’re these books about a little kid who’s a magician, and everybody who’s not magic is called a Muggle. I thought it was kinder to most people than calling them ‘those fucking idiots’ all the time. Muggles are just average, boring, stupid people. Like almost everybody.”

“Indeed.” Mike barely cracked a smile, but Rai knew he was laughing.

“Yeah, well you come up with a better word.” She returned to the subject she really wanted to talk about. “Yeah, so like, most people are fucking idiots, right? But it’s not their fault, not really.” Condescension dripped from her voice. “They’re capable of so much more — well they could be if I did something besides sitting around on my ass and reading all the time. So I’m kinda hoping this’ll wake people up and make ‘em think about stuff, y’know? Like why some people don’t have a place to live and why everybody’s starving in Africa and shit.”

“Very noble.”

“And y’know what? It feels good. Really good. Like I know what I’m doing with my life, like it’s meaningful or some shit. Yeah, you’re right on. It’s kinda noble, huh? Using my gifts to help the less fortunate. Charity for the poor in knowledge.”

“Indeed. I feel privileged to be in the presence of an Albert Schweitzer for our time.”

Rai was not about to admit that she did not know who this Schweitzer was, so she barreled on. “Yeah, so if you know of any cool quotes, y’know, the kind that’ll lift people up out of the mud of ignorance, tell me. ‘Cause Z’s got lotsa shit in here–” she waggled the little book that Z had left with her when he went off to heckle “– but most of it’s not exactly right for the job, y’know?” She opened to a random page and read. “‘Spengler, who showed how useless the humanitarian and bourgeois ideologies of the early days of the bourgeoisie had become for present day entrepreneurs.’ Walter Benjamin. What the fuck’s that about, huh? Like it’s gonna transform the life of some stockbroker commuting from Jersey.” She flipped to the back of the book, where Z scribbled his romantic, poetic quotes. “‘I like it when you are calm, for it is as if you were absent…’ Pablo Neruda. God! Not bad enough that it sucks, but it’s sexist, too. Silent women, absent women! Make us disappear!”

“This is not something I worry about.”

“Huh?”

“You becoming silent. Or calm.”

She chuckled. “Yeah. Not exactly the shy daisy, huh?” She slid the notebook back into the pack. “But if you run into anything cool, tell me and I’ll plaster it around the city.”

“Of course.” He bowed his head like the butler in an English film, then interrupted the subsequent silence with the question that really interested him. “So what are you reading, my dear?”

“Reading? Oh, yeah. Lermontov. Didn’t I tell you? Pechorin’s under my skin, I gotta say. Weird shit. I’m even dreaming about him.” Mike had suggested Rai read A Hero of Our Time, and Rai was happy to share her enthusiasm for the book. Finding people impressed with her reading habits was easy, but to find someone who actually shared them was special.

“Indeed? And in these dreams, is he as dashing as Lermontov describes?” Rai loved Mike’s voice. Even when he spoke of the most serious things, it had the tone of a joke, a sort of playfulness she had never heard from anyone else.

“OK, I didn’t exactly dream about Pechorin. More like I dreamed I was talking about him.” She ignored Mike’s unsuccessfully repressed laugh. “I feel like I gotta share the story, y’know, it’s so cool. And Z’s hardly gonna listen to me, so I guess I gotta work it out in my sleep, huh?”

Mike smiled again. “I am happy that sometimes you like my suggestions.” Two months before, he had recommended Anna Akhmatova. After Rai found a copy in the public library, she had stormed back, furious. She hated poetry, she had declared, and how did he dare tell her to read such self-indulgent bullshit? Mike still liked to needle her about the intensity of her response.

“It’s mega-cool. God, those mountains, and the roaring rivers, and the horses, and the natives, and the gunfights. If my life were that exciting, I’d be happy forever.”

“My dear, you have told me stories that–”

“That’s what Z says, too. Whatever. Fleeing Chechen tribesmen is just so much cooler than dodging the cops.” She flinched, then bobbed aside as a foul ball whizzed by. “And Pechorin! What a fucking character, huh? Now that’s a life. Stealing horses and playing cards and seducing bitchin’ skirts… Makes me wanna become some fascist Tsarist fuck, y’know? Don’t tell Z…”

Mike had learned the signs that showed that Rai was trying to get a rise out of him, so he overlooked her exaggeration. Even so, he would not allow such a gross misinterpretation of one of his favorite novels. “Helenushka, I believe you overlook–”

“I overlook everything. What fun is it to read if–”

Mike’s half-amused, half-paternal eyes quieted her. “Pechorin adventures because he is bored. He does many bad things–”

“And he’s still bored. I know, Mike. I’m no dumbfuck, OK? Pechorin’s a real bastard, but I like him. He’s got something.”

“Something, yes…”

“I mean, I’m hardly gonna argue that he’s no motherfucker, ‘cause he is. But really, who isn’t, huh? Pechorin’s got the guts to show what he is.”

“Perhaps I understand. Pechorin is brave, and dashing, and handsome. It makes sense to see yourself there.” He smiled to make sure Rai accepted the compliment. Mike was the first adult man she’d met since she left home who didn’t want to get into her pants, which made her feel authentically comfortable with him, and able to appreciate his charm.

Mike was comfortable with silence in a way that most Americans weren’t, so the two could watch the game together without a word, even though neither had much knowledge of or interest in baseball. One afternoon, under Rai’s insistent questioning about Mike’s deeply unRussian attachment to the sport, he admitted that he came to the fields for aesthetic reasons. No, not for the emerald grass, or the crack of the bat, or the symmetry of the game — the beauty many American men saw in baseball. What he loved was the absurdity of it all, the immense energy expended on nothing. Rai’s incomprehension of this explanation led to a month-long obsession with Gogol, Bulgakov, and other Russian masters of the absurd. She now felt she understood Mike better, but she still didn’t care for the sport.

A hugely fat advertising executive smashed a drive down the left field line. The ball seemed to have flown halfway to Fifth Avenue, but it was back in the infield before the runner could reach third. He got caught in a run-down — actually, a walk-down — and was quickly out. Mike smiled in a knowing way, and Rai laughed dismissively.

Afraid he would start to talk about the game, Rai returned to the topic at hand. “That’s not really it. The Pechorin thing, I mean. Sure, it’s great that he’s this courageous dude, and he couldn’t give a fuck what everyone else thinks… but it’s more like… I dunno. Like his world makes sense to me.”

“The despair? Where all there is is playing games, and telling stories about adventures, and duels–”

“Like I said, it makes sense.”

“– and seducing beautiful women?” Mike continued over her interruption.

“So the metaphor’s not perfect. But you gotta admit the parallels. His life is my life. Kinda.” Seeing Mike’s confusion, Rai tried to explain better what she meant. “Look. Think about those awesome insults, ‘cept you gotta hide ‘em so the other guy can pretend he didn’t understand. So he doesn’t have to challenge you to a duel, right? Same thing in hip-hop culture. Go a little too far, and you invite a duel — maybe with a blade instead of a pistol, but basically the same. And people got way too much time to talk about shit, whether it’s in that spa or on the street. We’re bored, so we whack off with words. Stories, games, cards, gambling. The street’s Russia. And I’m its Pechorin. Bored, hopeless, and laughing her head off.”

Rai’s references to despair were one of the few things that could take the sparkle from Mike’s eyes. Though she seemed to believe her own words, she always said them so lightly and jokingly that it was unclear if she was making fun of herself or constructing a wall of bitter laughter against very real fear. “But Helen, Pechorin is an evil man. He seduces and abandons Bela. He ignores Maxim, once his best friend. He seduces Mary, then breaks her heart. He kills Grushnitsky in a duel. The book is wonderful, yes, but you must not identify with Pechorin.”

Rai didn’t like it when Mike turned serious; he wasn’t as much fun and he had a tendency to lecture. Worst of all, he was generally correct. “I’m not gonna imitate him, Mike. It’s just that we see the world the same way.” Again, she heard the defensiveness in her voice.

“Sometimes, when you believe you recognize yourself in a mirror, you begin to copy the reflection…”

“Sure, Pechorin and me both suffer from too much spleen. But I’m not gonna challenge somebody to a duel, or break somebody’s heart just ‘cause I’m bored.”

“And why not?” The corners of his mouth had begun to dance again; perhaps with his point made, his natural vivacity could shine through again.

“ ‘Cause that’s just not me.” She felt Mike’s eyes on her; it was not a judgmental gaze, but the look felt humorous or superior in some way, as if she were passing through a stage that Mike had overcome long ago and now could laugh about.

The wind shifted to blow Z’s voice across the field; she shook her head in feigned embarrassment. Mike noticed the gesture and changed the topic of conversation. “Your friend is a loud one.”

“God, yes. Sometimes it’s just too embarrassing. He loves to be the center of attention, even if they’re laughing at him. It’s so much better to talk to you.”

“He’s like the fool, is he not? The fool who wants to tell the truth, but cannot. But he is not a fool. It is not in his character, I think, though I have not yet met him.”

“Does he really have a character at all? He just puts on roles like lawyers put on suits. The Intellectual, the Marxist, the Seducer. It’s not that there’s nothing underneath…” She paused. “Actually, that may be exactly it. I told you how he doesn’t remember anything about his life before he turned fifteen, right? That’s fucked up. Maybe that’s why it’s always like he’s acting a part. A coupla of them are cool roles, y’know, that’s why he’s my best friend, but is there really an actor beneath the robe? I don’t know.” That was another reason he couldn’t understand Dostoyevsky, she thought. Z was all action, no reflection. All surface, no depth.

“You are hard on him.”

“I’m hard on everybody. Myself too.”

“You are often mad at him. I remember in July, when that woman took him to her apartment for a week. You said you never wanted to see him again.”

“He had a place to stay, so he ignored me. That’s not a good friend.”

“But you forgave him.”

“I’ll always forgive him. It sucks. Sometimes I wish I had a backbone and could just tell him to fuck off. But I can’t. Where else will I find someone like him? Who’ll argue about Sartre and Mandela and then rap 2Pac as a lullaby when I can’t sleep? Nowhere.”

“You are not jealous?”

“Jealous?”

“When he sleeps with other women.”

“Mike! You know he’s not my boyfriend. He can stick his dick wherever he wants as long as it’s not in me.”

Mike recoiled before Rai’s blunt language, but quickly recovered. “Yet he still makes you mad.”

“Of course. I hate having to sleep alone, and when he’s off fucking some blond bimbo, it’s just me and the tarp. It’s cold.”

“I wish…”

“You told me, Mike. Your bosses would kill you if you let anyone sleep in the guardhouse.”

“No, I was going to say that a guest would make it more difficult to read at night.” Mike smiled mischievously. A woman executive slid into second base as he let his voice trail off. “Tell me, Rai, why do you not go to college?” Rai loved Mike’s non-sequiturs, even when they confused her. “You are very smart, no? You get a scholarship, which means a bed, many friends.”

“They’d just make me read what they want me to read. Put me on a Career Path.” She capitalized the letters with her voice. “Imagine. Me, training to be an accountant.”

“Study literature, or philosophy.”

“I do now. And I get to read what I want.”

“But in college you have many people to talk to–”

“I have Z. That’s enough.” Rai spoke sharply, then caught herself. “And you, Mike. But I’m happy. And right now, I don’t need a bed. I have Central Park.” She waved her hand grandly toward the north like a queen showing the boundaries of her realm.

“But in winter–”

“Leave it, Mike.” She caught the hardness in her tone, so she pulled back to the teasing she so enjoyed. “I just found the meaning of life, and you want me to give it up? Just so some professor can tell me I got it wrong? Really!”

Mike knew her words were final, and that further persuasion would only invoke her stubbornness. He decided to save his arguments for another day.

Half a dozen boats travel the Harbor between Manhattan and Staten Island, so Rai and Z had to wait almost an hour before the Herbert H. Lehman docked in Whitehall. They were strangely, anxiously quiet, watching a bus load of German tourist instead of each other, then finally hurrying onto the ferry as the gates closed.

When they got to the upper deck, they found a crowd of hip young tourists on the bench that Z had marked with Rai’s little knife, so they sat several paces down. The men were tall and wore their hair long; the women wore tight black pants and carried Prada bags. Argentines, Rai thought. Why did Argentines always sit at that spot on the upper deck? Different ones every time. It was very strange, Rai thought. Though she wanted to see Z’s work, she also wanted to see the Argentines respond, so she forced herself to be calm. Z assumed his lazy housecat posture in the late afternoon sun.

As the boat pulled away from the ferry, the Argentines — as well as the rest of the tourists — stood and stepped to the rail to watch the skyline. Hundreds of cameras snapped. Rai stared quietly at the young people chattering away in Spanish that sounded like Italian.

After the ferry passed the Statue of Liberty, the tourists sat down by pairs and groups. A woman in Armani pants and a tiny leather backpack tapped her bearded boyfriend on the shoulder and pointed to the bench. He looked down quickly, smiled, then turned away, but she spoke to him again. They began a serious conversation, full of meaningful looks and thoughtful pauses.

Rai turned to Z and whispered. “Look, look! It’s working! That’s a philosophical conversation if I’ve ever seen one. Look how serious she is!”

“Seriously bourgeois.”

“C’mon, Z, they’re thinking. I mean yeah, whatever, they’re rich. But they’re thinking!”

In spite of his desire to contradict Rai, Z began to share her excitement. “Look, turn around. She’s tapping her head. That’s good. I wish we could understand them. Whaddaya think, they’re thinking through the mind-body problem?” The Argentine woman’s hands were consciously smoothing her blouse.

“Yeah, and if we make the rich think, maybe they’ll criticize–”

Z interrupted. “You won your point, Rai. Awesome plan. Consciousness raising cubed. They’re definitely on the mind body problem. Look how he’s pointing to his head, now to hers. And there’s this sense of sadness, y’know? Excited sadness, like when you’ve decided that some really important idea is, like, wrong, but you’re enjoying the process that got you there…”

Finally, the couple sat back and stared over the water with melancholy eyes.

Rai and Z looked at each other. Z held up his palm. Rai slapped him a high five, then winced. Sometimes she was stronger than she thought. Everyone on deck turned to look.

As the ferry approached Staten Island, the young Argentines stood and crossed to the other side of the boat, probably to see the Verazano Narrows Bridge. Rai and Z eagerly slid down the orange bench to look at their work. There, on the third slat of the seat, they read,

“Cogito, ergo sum.

I think, therefore I am.”

-Rene Descartes

Comments?

Z had known it was a conventional quote, perhaps the only line that even idiots knew about philosophy. At the same time, he’d decided to start the ad campaign for thought with something accessible, and he’d needed something short, because a transit cop could have arrived at any second.

Rai was happy that no janitor had painted over Z’s carving, but she was even more thrilled with what she found under it. Someone had taken a black permanent marker and written, in block letters,

“W disappears! Rene Descartes blamed!”

-The Daily News

Rai laughed proudly. Someone had read her work. It was already earning marginal commentaries. Like the Torah scroll, she thought.

Off to the left, someone had scribbled with a ballpoint pen. Rai pointed Z toward the light marks:

“Pero, es que Descartes nunca pensó en el doble sentido de la palabra ‘yo,’ la quiebra del suj–”

The words appeared to break off in mid-phrase. “What’s it mean?” Rai asked.

“Dunno. Mentions Descartes, though, so it must be about us, huh?”

“God, secondary commentary in another language. I bet even Rabbi Hillel didn’t get this when he was seventeen!”

Z, assiduously ignoring an allusion he didn’t understand, ran his fingers over the deeply carved letters that had started modern philosophy and killed the Church and the Middle Ages. “It worked,” he said under his breath. “I gotta hand it to you. It really worked.”

Rai was not so quiet. “Fuck yeah, it worked! Graffiti philosophy. This is our first gift to the world, Z. The first step to your revolution, maybe. We’ve stolen the words from the philosophers and we’re giving them to the people. Like Robin Hood, except–”

“Robin Hood?”

“–except giving to the poor in knowledge. Now maybe they’ll inherit the Earth–”

“That’s the meek. And it’s in the New Testament. Not your book, Rai.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is going to change everything. Write it down, Z, ‘cause this day is gonna end up in the history books–”

“And they accuse me of delusions of grandeur,” Z said under his breath.

Rai didn’t hear. Or didn’t pay attention. “That quote was fine, but not quite on, huh? I mean, hardly political. So what’s next? Nietzsche? Turgenev? I see something fin de siècle…” For the first time, a note of doubt crept into her voice. “Whaddaya think, Z?”

“I think I don’t understand you.” He felt the need to bring her down to earth. “Remember when you read those stupid Harry Potter books?”

“They’re not stupid. They’re cute.”

“She’s no Tolkein, OK? So you’re reading these books and they call non-magical people Muddles or something…”

“Muggles.”

“So you said everyone else in the world besides you and me were Muggles.”

“Your point?”

“You despise people! You think they’re stupid and worthless. And now you’re Robin Hood, robbing the history of philosophy for their benefit. C’mon, Rai…”

“Maybe I’ve been touched by noblesse oblige. The black woman’s burden.” She smiled.

“You hate that shit, Rai. And just a little comment, but you’re not black, if I remember right.”

“ ‘A mere consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’” Rai quoted.

“Fuck you and fuck your fickleness, Rai.” Incongruously, he said the curses tenderly.

“We did good, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Rai knew that any good movie would use the moment as a chance for an embrace, or at least a few quiet moments looking over the water before a fade out, so she instantly stood up and began to pace. “OK, so what’s next? I figure uptown. For balance, y’know…”

“Sit down and rest for a second.”

Her steps became almost maniacal. “Nah, we don’t want high modernist. What about something seriously classical? Sophocles, Euripides. I mean, I’d like to do a quote from the Bible, but then they’re going to think that we’re a bunch of Mormons or something. We have to establish context first.”

“Rai, sit down!” The boat had docked and new passengers were boarding for the ride back to Manhattan. As they walked along the deck, they had to dodge Rai.

“Let’s check out the Elektra, huh? That’s got some political stuff in it, a touch of feminism…”

Z reached out to grab Rai’s arm and pull her to the seat. She stood again and began to pace even harder, her voice even more intense.

“Or we could put it in Astoria. I mean, don’t you like the idea of teaching Greek immigrants about classical Greek culture? There’s that park on Newtown Street off the N.” Finally, Rai sat down, then stared at the afternoon sun. After several minutes of rest, she spoke. “OK, I’ve got a plan.”

“Please. Illuminate me.”

“I really like the public transit thing. That’s the motif.” Her voice had become calm and sane again.

“We can’t carve subway cars and busses like we carved this bench.”

“No, but here’s the great thing. We know how long it takes to pull down old ads on the subway, right? They still have the posters up for the EcoFair on the 4 train, and that happened last October.”

“OK. So?”

“So that’s our space. We work our graffiti into the ad, so the cops or MTA people or whoever don’t notice it. Like, I dunno, we slide paper under the glass in front of ‘em.”

“Getting the paper to match those Chivas ads isn’t going to be easy. Where do we get the supplies?”

“From the art room at The Place. Or we steal it from an art store someplace. You’re the expert on that. It’s just crayons and magic markers.”

“But if we camouflage it so well that the MTA inspectors don’t notice it–”

“Commuters in this city see everything except each other. They’ll be thrilled to study great philosophy if it means that won’t have to look at other people on a crowded D out of Park Slope. Inspectors just glance at it, I bet. Make sure it hasn’t been torn down.”

“I like it. Very sharp.” Rai beamed at Z’s compliment. “We need a theme, though. This is like an ad campaign for revolutionary thought, right?”

“Well…”

“Look, this is the way I see it. We’re trying to get people from point A — ignorance — to point Z.”

“Z?”

“Enlightenment.” He smiled that infuriating smile that made her want to kill him. Or hug him. It was as if he denigrated and affirmed his arrogance at the same time. “No, seriously. I see this as a kind of dialectic, y’know? We start with the Greeks, go through Hobbes and Locke and shit, and end up with Marx. It shows the progress of philosophy, and its culmination–”

“In Marx?”

“The Frankfurt School, let’s say.”

“Z, I don’t care if they have nothing else to look at. New Yorkers are not going to read Adorno in the train.”

“They will if we find the good parts.”

“I’m all for quoting Marx. You know that. It’s just… There’s a logistical problem. To do a dialectic, you need history, right? A flow of time–”

“But–”

“Let me finish, please.” Enthusiasm filled her voice. “So, say we put Plato in the N train and Adam Smith in the 4 and Marx in the A. That’s perfect for somebody who’s going from Astoria to JFK, but what if they’re going the other way? History’s backward, right? And what chance will anyone have of reading all three? Zip, really. This isn’t a college class where you can assign a reading list.” Rai heard the pretense in her voice, but it was so fun she didn’t care.

“We’ll number the quotes. That simulates time–”

“Too much effort. You have to let Muggles be lazy, because they are.”

“But we hafta have history. Otherwise there’s no progress, no context, no nothing. We have to have a narrative so that people can make sense of what we’re teaching them, or it doesn’t have the right meaning.”

Rai thought a second. “OK, yeah. Point made. But whatever. Look, Z, it’s all basically academic. We don’t even know what we want to put down. Let’s come up with some quotes first. Then we’ll worry about whether we can put ‘em in order.”

Z sighed, but they had arrived back in Whitehall, and Rai rushed off the ferry and along the shore toward Castle Clinton, so he had no chance to continue the argument. Walking much slower, Z found her five minutes later, finishing A Hero of our Time on one of the park benches that looked out over the Statue of Liberty.

In Manhattan, there are several drop in centers for homeless kids — places to get food, a shower, and laundry, but also to talk with a therapist or a psychiatrist or to find a shelter, a job, or a welfare account. Rai and Z had no interest in most of those services, but they needed food and a shower as much as anyone else, so they came to the Place, a narrow old building next to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on 46th Street near Times Square. Z liked to come in from the 6th Avenue side so they wouldn’t have to walk past the church, because Rai inevitably spat on the steps and cursed Torquemada or Fernando el Católico or any number of Christian anti-semites Z had never heard of.

They rushed through the door, but the receptionist stopped them before they could run up the stairs. “Have you signed in yet today?” she asked with a smile.

Z stalked back down the stairs, a bit angry that her tone was so kind that he didn’t have an excuse to get really furious. “Why the fuck do you staff always make us sign shit? You know who I am.”

“Please, Z. You know the state gives us money based on your signature. It’s a small price to pay for a meal and a place to hang.”

“My privacy? A small price?” He took the pen from her and scribbled “Leon Trotsky” on the sheet. The man was dead; he didn’t need his name any more. Sometimes Z was stunned how stupid people could be — how could they not have recognized the name as an alias? Rai signed “Helen Miller” in neat print on the next line.

“Breakfast is almost ready. You’d better hurry.” The problem with the Place, Z thought, was that staff were too nice. Some of them, at least. It almost made him feel guilty for the writing and art supplies he stole. Rai, on the other hand, actually liked having people smile at her. Not that she would admit it, of course, but kindness didn’t happen very often in her life.

Close to forty kids were hanging out in the common room with only one harried staff member, but Z decided not to take advantage of the situation beyond throwing out his chest and talking loudly to show he was “the baddest motherfucker in The Place.” He pulled out a mat, threw it on the floor, and crashed down on it. “I’m gonna skip breakfast,” he said more quietly to Rai. “I’m beat. Your tossing kept me up all last night. Just sign me up for a shower, huh?” He closed his eyes and was almost instantly asleep. Rai nodded to him and walked slowly over to the lone adult to ask her to put their names down.

Rai caught herself yawning, checked the state of her mind and her throat, then paused behind an intense chess game. A white kid with long hair and slow, languid movement leaned over the board, trying to work a way to extricate himself from a nasty knight fork.

“You’re fucked, Petey, just accept it. Lose the queen and move on,” his opponent taunted. He was a wiry Hispanic boy wearing a leather jacket painted with the words “Cannibal Corpse” and the picture of one skeleton performing cunniligus on another. His movements were as quick and nervous as his friend’s were slow. Petey reluctantly slid his king into the C file, allowing the other boy to pounce on the queen. “Yeah baby! Power is shifting in the Place! Petey is no longer number one!”

Petey moved his rook across the back row, threatening the knight. “Just play, Toker.” Then, with an evil grin, “Watch da board.”

Toker pulled his knight out of danger and threatened the other rook. “Mate in two. It’s all over!” His eyes gleamed proudly.

Petey slammed his rook across the board, trapping Toker’s queen behind his defensive pawns. “Mate! Fuck you, Toker!” He stood up and walked across the room to the air conditioner, not needing to look to see how Toker’s face would fall. He turned the fan up.

Rai tapped Toker on the shoulder. “You should step out your rook’s pawn when you castle on that side.”

“Yeah, obviously. Shit. I thought I had him.” He started to rearrange the pieces on the board. “Hey Petey. Who called next?”

“It’s breakfast time, man.”

Toker turned to Rai. “Wanna play?”

“Nah. Not enough time. I play slow.” She gestured to the clock, which said breakfast was about to be called. “Next time I’m here.” She yawned.

“Dude.” He nodded. “I’m Toker. Don’t see many chicks around here who can play the game. Where’d you learn?”

“Rikers.” This was patently untrue, but it was easier and less embarrassing than explaining that she’d sat in Barnes and Noble with half a dozen chess books in front of her. Saying she’d learned in jail also gave her the street credibility she knew she was lacking.

“Yo, so maybe we can hang out sometime. Y’know, smoke a blunt, go to the park…”

She rolled her eyes and looked at him with what she hoped was a dismissive glance. “Watch the board, Toker.”

The intercom sounded: “Attention all program members and available staff. Breakfast is now being served.” The room drained except for the dozen or so kids who needed sleep more than food.

“See ya, then. Maybe we can play after we eat.” Toker gave Rai a wink and ran to breakfast.

Rai looked at Z, who was fast asleep on the floor. She thought about joining him; she was exhausted, and she knew that she needed sleep if her brain was going to return to its normal pace, but she decided against it. She wasn’t thrilled about leaving him to go and eat alone, but she was hungry, so she trudged up the stairs.

When Rai came to The Place — or any of the other places where street kids hung out — she had no real interest in talking to anyone besides Z. In honest, self-critical moments, she admitted this snobbery depended on two rather shameful personality traits. First, there was her need to feel superior to everyone else. She sometimes explained that in her sophomore year of high school, her English teacher had been so frustrated with her too-quick completion of her reading assignments that he started to throw books at her almost at random, just to keep her busy. She had become fixated on Ibsen. For a year, she had posted her favorite quote from Enemy of the People in her locker: “The majority is always wrong.” For a girl in Vanillaville who often thought that the world was against her, it was a comforting idea; on the street it was dangerously elitist.

Rai would also confess to a second reason: simple fear. She also illustrated it with a story.

The first week she’d been in New York — maybe a month after she’d met Z, late spring of the year before — Z had gone off with a one night stand. Claiming the demands of his libido, he often searched for women to seduce, but Rai had seen quickly that these liaisons depended on the weather forecast he read on the front page of the Times. On a cold or rainy night, he wanted a bed.

Rai had been hanging out alone in the common room of The Place before dinner. Lightning cracked outside; torrents of rain cascaded down the dirty windows. She’d come in a couple of times that week and gotten to know a couple of kids. None were really that smart — by her standards, though staff at The Place would have begged to differ — but at least a couple were interesting and not too painful to talk to.

“Where you gonna sleep tonight?” she had asked a thin, pretty black girl with dyed hair who had offered her a chocolate bar the day before.

“You don’t want that, girlfriend. I’m walking down to 34th Street to see who wants to gimme a roof tonight.”

“You lookin’ for a place to sleep?” A muscled Hispanic boy on the other side of the girl spoke. “Me and my doggs just got a crib. I mean, it’s uptown and nothing great, but there’s no rain, huh? Whassup? That big boy of yours dump ya?”

“He’s not mine, and he had other plans.” Her voice seemed hopelessly prim, and her defensive tone grated against her ears. She felt so pretentious, but she didn’t want to insult anyone. She was still insecure about life on the street. “I mean, thanks, but I don’t want to put you out…”

“Fuck, no biggie. When I was on the street, folks did it for me. Just paying back the karmic balance, y’know?” He smiled sweetly and shifted his voice into a less gangsterish tone. The smile lit up his face and almost erased the tear tattooed under his left eye.

“But your friends…”

He gestured across the room to three boys and two girls, then beckoned them over. They walked around the big table where a bunch of kids and staff were playing chess and cards, then pulled up a couple of chairs. “Yo, this is Helen.” They all nodded slowly, sizing her up. And finding her very small. The big latino pointed them out one by one: “D, Flaz, Adonis, Mouse, and Tracy.” The last two were the girls. One white, one black. The men were black, except for D, who had no color at all. Almost albino. “And I’m Big.” He capitalized the word to show that it was a name, not just an adjective.

Mouse spoke up. “It ain’t big, and we can’t keep ya forever unless ‘n ya pay rent, but come tonight, yeah?” She pointed to the torrential rains out the window.

“Ya ain’t been here long, and ya don’t wanna get sick,” Adonis added. He was not quite as handsome as his name, but almost. And he knew it.

Rai felt very alone. Half a dozen emotions collided inside her head. She was afraid of the rain and of sleeping alone in a new city. She knew that everyone else at The Place had concluded that she and Z were snobs; this looked like a chance to show that she could be part of the culture. She sort of wanted to be liked — she’d only left home about six weeks before, and her large array of defense mechanisms were unformed.

On the other hand, she knew exactly how dangerous it was to go home with six people she’d just met. Two of them were girls, she told herself. It couldn’t be that bad.

A lightning bolt struck nearby and thunder followed a second later, making up Rai’s mind for her. “Yeah. After dinner?”

“Meet us out front.”

Everyone had filed upstairs to eat, and Rai followed them. She felt even more solitary than when she’d been alone in Washington. It was much lonelier to be around people, she mused.

As promised, the apartment in the Bronx was small. One bedroom, one bed, some cardboard boxes spread on the floor as mattresses, and dirty clothes and jackets piled in the corner. Flaz opened the oven door and turned it on. “Cold as fuck in here!”

The only decorations in the place were a bong in the corner and a poster of Bob Marley. The stained walls showed gang tags in black and red.

Tracy went to the fridge. “Wachu want. Miller or vodka?” At the same time, D handed her a hand-rolled cigarette.

“I don’t smoke, but thanks.”

“Then drink.”

“I’d like water, please,” she shouted in to Tracy, desperately trying to project a happy tone. She backed away from D toward the wall. Unfortunately, away from the door. Big and Adonis walked over, much closer than her comfort allowed.

“Ya don’t fuckin’ smoke and ya don’t fuckin’ drink,” Big said.

“But do ya fuckin’ fuck?” The laughter that followed Adonis’s joke was not friendly.

Rai stood up to her full five foot two and mustered a few brave words. “May I just go? I don’t think this is going to work.”

“You use big words and you talk all yuppie and you think you’s better ‘n us, but you ain’t.” This from Mouse, in the kitchen.

“I don’t give a fuck if you’s some Arab princess. You gonna learn some respect. Proper fucking respect.” Big enunciated the last words carefully, like a cop or a judge.

“Don’t call me an Arab, you fuck. I’m Jewish.” Rai stood up even straighter. Big stood stock still, as if amazed that someone so small would stand up to him.

Adonis cut in. “Bloodsucking Jew. Well, let’s see how you suck something else…” He reached down to unzip his pants. Rai spit in his face.

Rai never discovered what they had been planning had she not resisted, but the spit guaranteed that she was going to suffer before she left the apartment.

In telling this story, Rai always skipped what happened next, saying only that she woke up on the D train as it pulled into Coney Island at three in the morning. Bruises were beginning to show on her face. The bites and scratches on her arms and shoulders were beginning to clot. She felt dried blood in her hair.

A half-sleeping nightmare filled the rest of the night as the train bounced back and forth between the Bronx and Brooklyn. Each time someone stepped into the car, she woke with a fit and curled herself into a ball in the corner. Then, as she would start to doze off, she dug her fingernails into her leg, harder and harder, even drawing blood. “That’s what you deserve for going with them. That’s what you deserve. Coward. Coward. Coward,” she chanted to herself until commuters began to fill the train at about 6. Finally, she moved the “coward” chant from her lips to her mind, afraid to draw attention to herself.

At 7:30, someone did notice her. A young woman got on at Broadway-Lafayette and the crowd pushed her into Rai’s corner. The woman could tell there was more to Rai’s balled up form than the typical street lunacy. She touched her very lightly on the shoulder. “Are you OK?”

Rai slapped her hand away. “No. Leave me alone.”

“Can I do–”

“No. Leave me alone.”

“I can–”

“Are you fucking listening? Leave me alone!” Rai curled into a ball again and closed her eyes. The woman stepped back.

At West 4th, she offered help again, but this time Rai told her to fuck off. When she finally got off at Penn Station, she was almost crying. Rai curled up in the corner again.

As the train headed into the Bronx, it emptied of commuters, and Rai could almost sleep again. No one bothered her for the next several hours.

By midmorning, she could no longer hold her bladder, so she scrambled off the train at 42nd Street and stumbled toward the Public Library. She took the elevator to the third floor and closed herself in the women’s bathroom, placing a mop in front of the door so no one else would come in. She peed, then washed herself carefully.

The cleanliness seemed to straighten her spine. She held her shoulders up, opened the door, moved the mop, and inched carefully down the marble staircase. Then to the Sephora in Times Square, where she doused herself in Christian Dior, put on enough base to hide the worst of the bruises and enough eyeliner to make the bags under her eyes look intentional, gothic. Slowly, she walked to Bryant Park, where she knew Z would show up eventually. The sun was hot and the grass had already dried from last night’s storm. She actually managed to sleep a little.

Z woke her at about noon. Scared, she automatically reached into her pocket, but found that her little knife was gone. Relieved to see it was just Z, she sat up and hugged him. Only then did she begin to cry.

For the next several months, Rai couldn’t imagine hanging with another street kid, even insisting they go to soup kitchens for adults, but Z’s exclusion from The Place was less voluntary. After convincing Rai to tell him what had happened, he went straight to find Big, Adonis, and their gang. They were hanging out in the common room as they always did.

Z stepped up to Big and spoke softly; soft is not a volume Big and his posse were used to, so they listened carefully. “You have no honor. You have no respect. You are worth less than the used douche of a leprous whore.” If he had shouted this, he might not have left the room alive, but they were confused by his soft voice. “I will take each of you, one by one. And each of you will feel what she felt. Do you understand? Come to Sheep’s Meadow at midnight.”

He pulled out his switchblade, flicked it out, and licked it. Then he turned his back and stalked away. As he walked out the door, he heard the verdict: The Place imposed its no weapons policy and expelled him for the next six months.

No one showed up at Sheep Meadow to challenge Z. He just sat in the middle of the field, cleaning his fingernails with the blade, a pose movies had taught him was intimidating. Rai watched proudly from the nearby woods.

A year later when they showed up at The Place, Big and his friends were gone. Rumor had it that Big was upstate on some drug charge, and the rest had disappeared. Even so, Rai was reluctant to hang out with other kids if she didn’t have her bodyguard.

That story floated around her head as she walked up the stairs, but Rai was hungry enough to plow through the line to get cereal, yogurt, and some fruit — she pinched an extra orange and slid it into her pocket for Z. She could feel that she was almost working on autopilot. Not enough sleep, she thought. She sat at an unoccupied table in the rear and put her back to everyone else; she hoped no one would join her, and she put her nose in her book just in case someone didn’t get the message.

With the book in her hands, she managed to forget the filth that coated her skin and the nightmares that had assaulted her as she slept on the ground the night before. As Grigory Pechorin slashed through the Russian Caucasus, life began to feel less boring. And a little less horrid.

Rai had not noticed, but as she had read, the dining room had emptied. She finally looked up at the sound of her name. “You Rai?” a staff member asked, the phone in one hand. Rai nodded. “Hustle down to the shower. Your turn.”

“Yeah, right.” She got up and tucked her book back into her bag. She rushed down the stairs, afraid someone might have taken her place in line. She smelled herself and didn’t like the result.

Of all the things Rai hated about life on the street, hygiene was the worst. She hated walking through Midtown with mud on her skirt. She hated the smell of her own rotten sweat. Before she had shaved her head, it had been impossible to keep her curly hair untangled.

She was glad that The Place had showers, but she wished they would allow a bit more modesty: the shower stalls were small and tough to change in, and there were always vain boys walking around naked except for their boxers. She also hated having to carry her underwear to Juan — the guy who staffed the basement shower room — and ask him to throw it in the laundry. Juan was a cool guy, but he was still a guy, and she didn’t trust guys with her bra.

Regardless, she put up with it. It was better than smelling like she did right now. She showered quickly, then hung around the basement in a borrowed, too-big sweatsuit while she waited for her clothes to get through the laundry. Kids kept passing through, but she ignored them, her nose in her book. She soon discovered that exhaustion kept her from enjoying Lermontov’s story of how Pechorin seduced Princess Mary, so she let her head drop back, and as she fell into a half-sleep.

When Z zipped downstairs, he woke her before climbing half-naked into the shower. He would take as long as Juan allowed, washing and primping and making himself pretty. Worse than any girl, Rai thought. She walked over to the dryer to get her clothes; she’d only slept about an hour, but she felt much better.

When Z finally emerged and dressed, they pushed their way upstairs through a group of kids in Crip colors who were talking in hushed voices. Rai hated gangstas, and thought it was rude of them to block the stairs, but she knew that they were not people she should have as enemies, so she excused herself primly as she walked by. She said goodbye to Tanya, the receptionist, as she passed by, but Z gave her a wink. “She’s hot!” he told Rai in a voice just loud enough for Tanya to overhear.

“Calm the libido, Z,” Rai lectured him as the front door closed behind them. “It’s time to go to work.”

“Lazy-ass motherfuckers.” Z’s body had almost melted into the tree he used for a backrest, but he could still point with his foot, so Rai followed the vague gesture through the polite cue that waited to get on the boat to the Stature of Liberty.

“The ones playing chess? God, gimme a fucking break. You don’t know shit about their lives. Maybe they’re crazy or some shit. Plus, like you have the right to judge anybody who’s living on the street.”

“I got a right to judge ‘em for being lazy. No revolutionary consciousness at all. Here they are, bourgeoisie shitting on them every day, and whadda they do? Stick out their hands and ask for change for a Budweiser. Pointless.”

“You could manage a bit of compassion.”

“ ‘Compassion.’ What a foofy liberal word. They don’t need somebody to say, ‘aw, poor thing!’ They need somebody to kick ‘em in the ass and conscript ‘em into a guerrilla army. Fucking country we live in. Even the poor don’t have a clue.”

Just as Z had learned to tolerate, perhaps even to enjoy, Rai’s intellectual posing, after eighteen months together, Rai had come to love Z’s diatribes. Though they had never acknowledged it to each other, this mutual tolerance came from a certain shared complicity. Both knew that the other was not what he pretended to be.

From time to time, Rai mustered the courage to admit to herself that she didn’t really know anything. In humiliating, weak moments, she might even admit it to Z. Sure, she spent every day reading Russian novels, and she’d learned enough of the buzzwords of intellectual life to shock anyone, but in the back of her mind a little voice reminded her that she was just a seventeen year old high school dropout. Most of the time, her anger and vocabulary and irony convinced her that she was a real intellectual, but from time to time — like when she picked up an unknown author — she couldn’t escape her doubts.

Z could not hide from himself so easily. Unsure of who he really was, “revolution” had become his identity; he read Marx incessantly, talked a great game, taunted the bourgeoisie… and did nothing. Each sunset reminded him that his existence had done nothing to bring about the demise of capital.

It would be unwise to say that Rai and Z “discovered” each others’ secrets. Perhaps they had only stumbled on the essence of adolescence, the truth of posing. But somehow, this shared falling short brought them together as neither had ever been drawn to another person.

“We gotta do something.”

“Huh?” Z did not lift his head from his book.

“I said we gotta do something.” She set aside the book they’d stolen the day before. Z did not move his eyes from the tome he had propped on his knees, so she kicked it off.

“Fuck! You’ll crimp the pages.”

“So steal another one. At least we’d be doing something.”

“Like reading isn’t doing. Sometimes you just fall into the most petty-bourgeois–”

“You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about, do you?” When Z’s chest went hard like that, Rai knew she’d gone too far, so she flipped the question mark into a teasing smile. Z began to breath normally again. “No, like seriously,” she went on in a kinder tone. “What the fuck are we doing with our lives?”

“What was last night? That’s doing something.”

“Writing my name on a wall in shitty Hebrew? Hardly. Fucking A.”

“You said it made you feel–”

“Leave off the psychobabble bullshit.”

“It’s your psychobabble bullshit,” Z reminded her.

“Yeah…” she sighed, nodded slowly, then suddenly brightened. “Hey! Y’know what? ‘Ruefully.’ You read it all the time in books, right? But, like, who the fuck ever says ‘ruefully’? Like in real life?”

Z’s snort was as close as he ever came to a spontaneous laugh. He picked up his book again, smoothed the wrinkled pages, and returned to where he had left off.

As always, Z set a reporter’s notebook and a cheap ballpoint pen by his side, ready to take down any quote that might develop revolutionary consciousness or impress chicks. Over the last eighteen months, he had filled almost every page with his minuscule, almost illegible letters. Starting from the front cover, he had scribbled lines from his favorite philosophers and Marxist theorists; starting at the back were quotes from romantic poets and anyone else that might help him in his obsessive sexual adventuring.

Rai just nibbled on a Lindt chocolate she’d stolen from Duane Reed and flipped pages restlessly. She was almost halfway through the thin book. By the time she finished the candy bar, she had become restless again, flipping from one side of her body to the other, glancing up from the book to look at the tourists or to listen to the rasta playing “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring” on the steel drums.

“Z, seriously. We gotta do something. I’m gonna go mad.”

“Only twice this week, then. That’s better’n average.” He dodged a weak kick directed at his ankles. “Ok, so. What. Whaddaya wanna do?”

“I dunno. Something important. Something to change history, y’know? Like your dude there.” She rolled onto her hip and pointed to the classic picture of Che on the cover of his book.

Z gestured into the harbor. “Check out that boat. Looks like it’s going to Brazil. Think we could overthrow the government with this?” He began to pull out his switchblade, but Rai stopped him. He snorted. “Like it’s fucking easy to change history.”
 “Did I say I wanna do something easy? Did you hear me say that?” Rai heard the clichéd tones of the Godfather in her voice and stopped. “Look, all I’m saying is that we’re smart. Right? And you know what’s up, like why the world’s so fucked. And these idiots…” she gestured at the world, or perhaps just at the tourists cued to go to the Statue of Liberty, “these idiots have all the power, but they don’t know shit. There’s gotta be something we can do, right?”

“Write a book. Put up a website.”

“Don’t be an ass, Z.” She stood up. “C’mon. I wanna ride the ferry.”

“What the fuck for?” The lines on his face tightened in exasperation.

“’Cause it’s free. And ‘cause we haven’t been to Staten Island in forever.”

“Most people in the world manage to live happy lives without ever setting foot on Staten Island.” Though he continued to whine, Z was already on his feet, so Rai knew she had won. She pulled him across the park to the ferry terminal, leaving the tones of the steel drum far behind.

Z hated the ferry terminal. Except for during occasional police sweeps, dozens of schizophrenic old men filled the benches, smoking and yelling and occasionally urinating on the floor. Though he would not have admitted it, Z may have seen his own future there. Would anyone who lived on the street for years turn into these old men with Santa Claus beards and army jackets and nicotine stained teeth, unable to speak except in a vulgar shout? Z refused to think what would happen if he turned thirty before he started the revolution.

“Ya hungry?” he asked as Rai paced between the square-cut oak benches, looking for a seat clean of spit, Coke, or drying diarrhea. “Chocolate?”

“Yuck. That kiosk only has Three Musketeers and shit. I’d rather starve.” She caught herself, then giggled. “Yeah, yeah, the image is too close to home. I’m fine.” She had decided that she would not find a clean seat, so she strode to the heavy steel door. Z joined her soon with two Snickers bars, one of which he slipped gently into her bag. He leaned against the wall in a casual way that made all the commuters step back.

“I love the way you do that.”

“What?” he asked.

“That. Scare the shit outta people without trying.”

“Who says I’m not trying?”

“You know what I mean. I wanna get a rise like that outta the yuppies, I gotta come in here waving an Uzi. They pay attention to you.”

“They pay attention to you, little girl. Check out that dude staring at your ass.” The dude in question, whose eyes had indeed wandered, pretended that he’s just been staring at the Daily News. “But whatever, huh? It’s not like anyone really sees me. Or sees you. We’re just…”

Rai felt immensely relieved when the huge doors snarled open, saving her from one of Z’s famous diatribes. They flowed with the rest of the crowd toward the boat, Rai ducking playfully between the suits while Z tried to follow her without losing his dignity. She rushed to the front of the ferry, where a long bench pushed up against a stairwell to give her a comfortable place to put up her feet. The skirt fell away from her legs in a less than ladylike way, but she had been on her feet for too long. She unlaced her heavy shoes and sighed.

Z finally caught up with her, then threw himself out along the bench, taking up a good five seats. It wasn’t rush hour, so he knew no one would bother him.

After the tourists had pushed through onto the front desk, a little knot of musicians began to form by the front window, pulling harmonicas and tambourines from their bags. One, a fat white guy, began to mouth the sounds of a beat box, and Z groaned. “Fuck, Rai. Why the fuck I let you take me on this boat? These fuckers fucking suck cock.”

“Language, Z,” Rai lectured primly, then grinned. The boat growled into gear and a black kid pealed into an R&B descant, Z’s neck became tighter, and Rai rubbed her feet. When the rest of the musicians began a harmony line, Z sat up straight, threw his heavy feet on the floor, and marched up the stairs onto the second deck. Rai followed, trying to make herself look appear rueful.

“Fucking cheesiest shit I have ever heard,” Z declared when Rai sat down next to him on an empty bench next to the window. “I shoulda thrown ‘em into the fucking harbor. Or got a cop to arrest ‘em for creating a public fucking disturbance. Isn’t bad R and fucking B a crime?”

“Free speech…”

“And when the Lord Jesus Christ comes into your life, you will see God!” A heavy set Asian woman was prowling the aisles, shouting at the top of her lungs and pounding the heavy Bible she carried.

“Oh, God,” Z moaned.

“The Lord of Hosts is your salvation, your life, and your redemption! I say that my redeemer liveth! And yours! And yours, and yours!” She pointed to different people around the cabin, all of whom made an ostentatious effort to ignore her. “Yes! My redeemer liveth! Christ Jesus who saves all of us!” Now she pointed at Z. “Yes, even you!”

“Fucking Jehovah.”

Rai giggled. She rather enjoyed seeing her friend in such dire straights.

“And when you accept your redeemer, no, I say embrace your redeemer, joy will fill your life!” The preacher had now forgotten everyone else on the ferry. He sermon was for Z alone. “The joy that passes all understanding, the joy of the handmaid of God, the joy that explodes like a flower–”

“What the fuck?” Z tried to interrupt. “Joy that explodes like a flower? Where the fuck do you get this shit?”

“Read the Bible, son, and you will be saved–”

“Get fucking laid, woman. That’s what you need.”

Either she had heard this line before, or she was oblivious. She went on, “The Lord God says–”

“’Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed in the lillies.’” Z quoted, and for the first time, the woman blanched. “That’s what the Lord fucking God says. ‘Your stature is a palm tree and your breasts are its clusters.’ Or what about ‘and Joshua utterly destroyed every person in Eglon that day, as he had done in Lachish.’ Or…” he let his voice fade away. The preacher was already running away at full speed.

Rai gave a little round of applause and noticed the reluctant admiration of the people sitting close by. “I’m impressed. Where’d you learn that shit?” She stood and pulled Z to his feet, then headed outside onto the outside deck.

“Eat in enough church basements and you gotta have a weapon to defend yourself,” he said with what passed for a wink. “There are so many fucking idiots out there.” He looked across the harbor toward Jersey, where he thought many of those idiots lived.

“And this doesn’t help.”

“This? What?” Z asked, confused.

“All this. That Bible-crazy bitch. The tone deaf morons singing downstairs. All these fucking ads.” She pointed through the dirty glass to an HBO poster inside the cabin. She sat down on the bench, her back to the window, and stared out toward the Statue of Liberty.

“You know what’d be way cool?” she asked as Z sat down next to her.

“What?”

“An ad campaign, but like, for thinking.”

“Huh?”

“Like, all these ads, they make you wanna buy shit, right? Well what if there were ads to make people wanna think? Hard fucking core, huh?”

“People are idiots.”

“Yeah, but just ‘cause they’re always buying shit. So like, what if we make ‘em think about why people have to live on the street, or why–”

“You got a million bucks to buy a billboard on Times Square? Just to write, ‘Dude! Think!’?”

“Yeah. Right.” Her energy left her. “Gotta rob a bank first, huh?”

“Or a shitload of Russian novels.” The tone of Z’s voice stung her, and for once he noticed. He didn’t want her mad at him. “Yo, gimme your knife.”

“Huh?”

He wished he knew what he was going to do with the blade. “Your knife. I wanna use it.”

Rai pulled out her little penknife, hardly worthwhile as a weapon, and handed it to Z. He opened it, leaned forward, then dug it into the bench. Though Rai tried to look around him, he hid his handiwork with his body until he had scratched quite a few lines into the orange wood. Finally, he shifted away so she could see.

“An ad campaign for thought,” he said with unbidden pride. “So?”

Rai pondered a second. “I like it. Y’know, I kinda think I like it.”