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“You’re lucky I like to feed you.” Charlie was already taking the stairs down.
I made a note to tell Charlie I was very straight.
A half hour later, we were on Lexington Avenue. It was a mercilessly hot day. Too hot not to wonder if New York wasn’t, in fact, a section of hell. Charlie was taking pictures of children at play—faceless, or I’d have informed the authorities—small bodegas, and graffitied buildingswith more character than I’d witnessed in all of Duffy’s WNT colleagues combined.
I brought my camera along and took some pictures too. When we were done, we walked across the street from a row of food stalls to a small café. We were almost at the door when someone burst open a fire hydrant.
Gallons of water sprayed everywhere, filling the street with gushing puddles. A flock of small children and teenagers ran toward it shirtless, splashing one another. Charlie and I exchanged looks. We were both thinking the same thing. This made for an epic picture. We took out our cameras at the same time and started working silently. Far enough away that they were just flashes of movement in the pictures. About a minute or two into taking the pictures, Charlie handed me his camera, a modest Nikon D5600.
“Hold this for me, will you?”
I tucked his camera into my backpack and watched this oldish, fully crazy man hightailing it toward the kids.
He ran into the thick circle of children, limping a little, like he carried an injury from when he was young, and started jumping over the puddles on the concrete floor, splashing them. They giggled and tugged him in different directions, luring him to play with them. Normally, I would look at this and think this should be illegal in all fifty states. But I couldn’t deny the innocence Charlie was oozing just then. At some point, one of the kids jumped on Charlie’s back. Charlie gave him a piggyback ride, running around the fire hydrant in circles while making siren noises.
“My turn, my turn!” the kid’s friend cried out.
Before I knew it, kids were jumping on his back in turns, using him as a human police car. Charlie didn’t skip one kid. Not even the one who looked like he weighed about the same as him. Even when his muscles gave up and I saw the exhaustion on his face.
After we wrapped things up, we went to a Dominican café and ate green bananas, longanizas, and cornbread. We downed two beers each before either of us spoke.
“You’re good with kids,” I said, finally. I didn’t know why, but the silence between us wasn’t awkward. Maybe because we were both used to being alone. Silence was my friend more often than not.
He waved a flippant hand. “Just as long as I don’t have to take care of them.”
“You don’t have kids of your own?” I took a lazy pull of my beer.
He leaned across the window, his eyes following a bunch of teenagers smoking cigarettes and laughing. “No.”
I frowned. “You sounded thoughtful. Is that your final answer?”
“I had a kid,” he said with a sad smile.
That could have meant any number of things, all of them tragic.
“She died when she was eight months old.”
“Fuck. Sorry.”
“What about you?” He turned to look at me. “Any little Riggses running around in different continents?”
I smiled ruefully. Arsène and Christian always speculated that I’d sired a kid or twelve during my travels, but condoms were my religion and pulling outwhilewearing them was my temple. Better to be safe than (incredibly) sorry.
“None that I’m aware of.”
“I think you should try it. You’ll make a good dad.” Charlie tipped his beer in my direction. The sun dipped behind the buildings over his shoulder, washing the rooftops in orange and yellow hues. New York was beautiful in the summer. I’d almost forgotten.
You forget a lot of things about a place when you never stick around long enough to appreciate it.
“A kid would cramp my style. Besides, I haven’t had the best family life, so I wouldn’t know the first thing about raising one.”
“I think it’s precisely the people who don’t come from perfect families who create the best ones.” Charlie fixed his gaze on my face. “It’s like kids of divorced parents always try extra hard to make their marriage work. Experience shapes you, and heartbreak defines you.”
“With all due respect, divorce is a walk in the goddamn park in comparison to my childhood. I’d eat divorce for breakfast if I could, with a side of poverty.”
“Tell me about it.” He shoved cheese bread into his mouth.
I didn’t share my life story, not with anyone, and I wasn’t going to make an exception with this nice yet oddly clingy stranger.
