Jane was just about tired of waiting for Albert. She wandered to his bookshelf, then drew a wiggly line in the dust on the marble platform that rested over four columns of polished wood. The figure on top was poised, set to hurl a disc. There were similar trophies clustered on the bottom bookshelf. She raised her voice so he could hear.
“You have trophies for Frisbee.”
“What?” he replied from down the short hall. “Trophies for Frisbee” she repeated.
“Oh, yeah,” he said flatly.
She could hear him sliding out of his trashed painting pants and into something clean– she hoped.
“I don’t play anymore,” Albert said as he stepped from his back room studio. She could see his forearms ripple as he wrung his hands clean with goop and a fragment of T-shirt. There were minuscule spots of chromium white left on his chiseled arms. Her eyes met his as he casually moved down the hall.
“It was more about making things fly– trophies just happened,” he said.
Jane smiled at his swimmer’s build–the wide shoulders and tapered waist. Albert stepped into the bedroom then reappeared pulling a black T-shirt over his head. He was starting to like Jane and wanted to talk about other things. He hoped to put Frisbee behind them.
Albert was an odd match for Jane Pathman. A British transplant, raised in St. Albans north of London until her father had agreed to move back to New York to please her mum. Jane’s darling mod cheek curls made a sharp contrast to Albert’s close cut mousy brown hair. Where Albert was content to observe, Jane was assertive and dynamic –a petite blonde with flirty eyes. Her tiny lithe body had been honed by years of jazz and tap lessons.
Weeks ago Jane had opened her first show near SoHo. Not a minor student affair at a lesser gallery, the show ran well with a little splash. She managed to sell several pieces. The work was geometric and safe in muted tones, well suited to the droll mid-town firm of Turner and Howe that purchased them. She was pleased and felt a growing confidence of her insight into the art world. Soon the details of her master’s from Fordham would be finished and she could concentrate on other projects.
There was a completeness to Jane that piqued Albert’s attention. He had tried to qualify his desire for her. Finally he settled on her wit, figure and accent.
Jane was taken with his height and his physique. It was a basal attraction she hadn’t really experienced. She had preferred suave and aloof art students to that point. Albert was tall ruggedly built and intimidated Jane at times.
In six weeks of dating they had found common ground as artists searching for voice and style. Spirited exchanges about use of negative space and art trends had bound them together on a few late nights. When they kissed Jane let herself be swept away. She felt small but complete in his arms.
His strength offered a security she liked. Albert’s sharp edges softened when he was with her. He commanded attention with an authoritative tone and an air of superiority handed down from his father. Albert’s brusque exterior was in every way a by-product of being the son of Lt. Col. William Bishop, an ex- fighter pilot and brief POW from Nam.
In his own way Albert had served his country, enduring his father’s return from a year of hell in the Hanoi Hilton.
“I thought you were telling such lies,” Jane called, “What’s this one? It’s huge.”
“That’s from Nationals in DC in 96.”
“There are national Frisbee contests?”
“Yeah,” Albert said sheepishly.
“We were cocky and obnoxious most times.” “How so?”
“We would be driving to tournaments and get out of a van and start throwing around crowded gas stations on the Jersey Turnpike. Or toss cereal boxes over the aisles in groceries. We would try to make odd things fly… Albert saw Jane’s left cheek wrinkle in confusion. “Cereal boxes?”
“Yup, thanks for waiting I can leave the new frame to dry.”
“You smell of citrus goop.”
“I think you’re cute too.”
“I’m hungry and you said we’d eat at seven.”
“So we should leave,” Albert said, reaching for the keys hung behind the door.
He snatched a herringbone tweed jacket and stuffed himself into it.
They wound their way down the square stairs of the three-story brownstone, then onto the street. As they stepped into the dingy Brooklyn twilight, Albert reached around Jane with a long protective arm.
“Stay close, the young shits have been getting bolder.”
“How so?”
“They grabbed Mrs. Kralovic on the stoop last weekend.”
“Was she hurt?
“No just roughed up–its the little thugs, money for cigarettes. Nothing dangerous.”
“Maybe its time to move?” Jane suggested. “No way-the back room’s all set…I have good light,
ideas working, I can’t.”
“Those little kids are just practicing, they’ll try something bigger.”
“We should think about what we’re eating.”
“Not Indian, I had curry for lunch.”
“The Green Dragon is just two blocks,” Albert jerked his thumb to the east.
“A block closer to the punks? No thank you.”
“By default its D’Agostino’s for sandwiches…” “No wait –The Dragon place is it any good?”
“The Szechwan has been good before and tonight the cheese wan ton is on me.”
Jane sidled up to Albert and swung her arms about his waist. She gently ground her chin into him. She looked up into his slightly brown eyes.
“I love it when starving artists spend money, its soo sexy.”
A smile edged its way onto his face. “Is it now?”
He wrapped his arms about her and turned east down India Avenue. His heart lifted and inside he felt a slight glow.
“So you said you had a new piece going, something about clothing.”
Albert scarcely glanced at the small circle of darkly clad teens loitering nearby. Two had thick shiny black hair that seemed freshly dyed. Their dirty thrift store trench coats gave them a desperate look of self-inflicted poverty. One had an impossibly white complexion. The others were just disheveled and pathetic.
They hunched on one stoop smoking cigarettes with a loud ugly thrash beat behind them. It pounded from a decrepit Ford Taurus, its rear plastered with band bumper stickers.
“I’m seeing toddlers as heroes of a sort,” Jane announced. “So I’m working on large frames with mementos of their age. I’m playing with innocence and size.”
“Really?” Albert asked. Toddlers as heroes he let the idea penetrate.
“I’ve started by flecking little frilly dresses with gold highlights. Then I starched them stiff and pinned them to white four by eight foot canvases, sort of swathed with pearl and pink. I tossed about a few aged photos to add personality.”
“OK I’ve got an idea.”
“There are rolling swirls and loops of ribbon about.”
“Sounds very crafty.”
Jane didn’t like the dig. “You can poke fun if you like, I’ll use other trappings – shoes, socks, tiny rattles. Its hard finding proper frames, but everything is shellacked and…”
The pause had a moment to settle.
“OK, OK” Albert absorbed her angry tone.
“I think I have one sold already,” she added.
Inside he winced from the idea of selling art before it was born. How commercial. There was no trouble with conversation, and the physical was more than fine. But this leaning towards commercial art, this disturbed him. He wondered if he could continue with Jane.
They slowed a bit to catch the crosswalk at 48th and Fredonia. The bell buzzed and the green crossing light flashed.
Albert pointed to the yellow five- toed dragon festooning the red sign a half block down. They ignored the three black-haired youths wrapped in denim wrestling about across the street.
“I’m OK with heroes.” He lifted his hands to quote the term.
“But we’ve been clubbed with firefighters and cops as the noble guy just doing his job is a hero. Its true but so worn out it’s cliché.”
“But every day for a toddler is an epic. Learning to walk is a battle, I’m trying to see them differently. Isn’t that the idea of a hero?”
“A hero ain’t nothin’ but a sandwich” Albert spewed.
“You get so grumpy over little things.”
“I thought that was one of my endearing qualities.”
“Honestly, Just sack the sarcastic shit.”
“I’ll lighten up and we’ll have a nice dinner– we’re here.”
Albert’s long arm telescoped forward and pulled the door. Before Jane’s eyes had adjusted to the light, he was telling the thin Cantonese waiter to bring cheese wan ton.
She took the middle booth just across from the register. She slid into a slouch, put off by Albert’s comment, glad to have a moment alone to process. She wondered if she could fall in love with a man as brusque as Albert. The thought hung in her mind. She wondered how she would break up with him if she decided no. She liked this tall domineering painter with the acerbic wit, but wasn’t sure it was really going anywhere.
Albert peeled away his jacket. She swiveled her head at the sound of soft footsteps. From the short hall near the restroom came a young Chinese woman with a shimmering waterfall of fine black hair. In front of her, a wide-eyed little girl of two years old wobbled with halting confidence. She froze when she saw Jane looking at her and wobbled to the safety of her mother.
The mother spoke a few quiet words of Cantonese, reassuring her Jane supposed. The mother fixed the pink barrette parting her jet-black hair.
Jane felt the booth slide as Albert returned from ordering.
He started in trying to make things right once again. “I’m sorry to be so flip sometimes.”
He reached out one hand, it easily covered Jane’s. She hung her head and felt slightly flush at his touch. She jerked her head to flip her hair back and looked at him. The waiter approached and quickly put down two sweaty glasses of water. Albert wondered how to properly say his name, Ke, as the waiter laid the menus on the table.
The silence settled, as Albert wished for some new topic to present itself. He wanted to steer away from his faux pas. Jane turned her attention back to the tiny girl wandering about the chairs, tapping them gently and glancing back towards her mother.
Albert looked on the child and tried to manufacture a thought about Jane’s art and the girl. He looked for heroic signs but failed to see. He was touched by the deep black pools of her eyes.
He reached for his water and took a sip, wanting conversation.
Once again Ke came up quickly saying, “Wan ton vely hot,” as he slid the plate across the table. The small plate rested nicely atop the larger. Albert chuckled inside, noting the thick raised lip of the small seven-inch plate. He wished Eddie or Andy were around to wager about the “tossability” of the thing.
Six glistening cheese wan ton sizzled and squeaked below thin columns of steam.
A breeze from the open door blew through the restaurant. Albert couldn’t process the loud shouting and commotion. He knew it wasn’t Mandarin or Cantonese. He had heard the help argue before but this was different.
For a second Albert stared, not believing the spindly teen age thug. The silver pistol he was waving above his shoulder caught the dull light. The flash carried across the room. Albert saw fear in Ke. Albert looked hard at the punk, unable to see his eyes, only the black greasy hair hanging low.
Albert reached across the table, his stare never straying from the shit attempting robbery fifteen feet away. He pushed Jane’s blonde head down. She understood and lowered herself beneath the table. She tried to catch Albert’s eyes as she descended. She saw the hard look..
A bolt of logic swept past Albert–Why would he rob this place now?
-He’s gotta be high or stupid or both.-
Jane saw the Chinese mother wrap both arms about her child then twist herself around to shield. The glare of terror seeped from her and Jane was afraid for the child, who began to squeal in protest.
Albert debated. He needed a diversion and realized how it would be done.
His right hand moved to the large plate and suddenly the attack was revamped. Albert saw the punk grow nervous as Ke’s voice trembled first in Mandarin, then English.
Holding one hand aloft Ke frantically punched at the register with the other. It droned an annoying electronic no, and refused to open. The punk screamed louder, smashed his fist onto the counter, then leveled the pistol at the thin trembling man. Ke flicked his eyes to the dining room.
Albert’s long leg slid out of the booth as the robber’s head swiveled and motioned the revolver at
them issuing some guttural command. Albert nodded his head and held up his right hand. His left tightened about the large plate.
The thug turned back to Ke. Albert stood and his arm curled then extended in a fluid motion. The large plate rose from his hand and spun in lazy circles just below the ceiling.
The smaller plate was already cocked near Albert’s ear as the teen jerked his head. He swiveled and leveled the gun towards him. The tangle of dark hair fell over the punk’s face as the plate smashed on the floor beside him.
The smaller plate was already airborne. Albert’s tomahawk and his follow through carried
him across the short gulf
There was a sharp smack of bone being broken as the plate arrived neatly at the bridge of the punk’s nose. His arm dropped as Albert’s two hundred pound frame slammed into him. A cone of orange and white exploded below Albert. His ears filled with heat and the roar. Sparks singed his trousers as he flew.
The bullet ground off the floor then smashed into the suspended ceiling halfway across the room. Both women screamed, sure of the bloodshed. Shards of yellow insulation fell through the hanging dust. The tiny girl’s shriek pierced the acrid blue haze that had begun to spread after the shot.
Albert’s knees were astride his chest. He didn’t see the thin line of blood seeping from the teen’s mouth. Albert swept the gun across the floor. He had taken a few heaving breaths before he realized his right hand was a claw gripping the punk’s throat.
A noise like a baby’s whine pulled Albert’s attention. He felt a rivulet of sweat run from his armpit as he turned to see Jane’s blonde head peek up over the table, her wide blue eyes streaming with tears.