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Not knowing. To be completely blinded by life. She saw his demise coming but thought he’d pull through with strength from family and Allah.

Maybe prayers are not listened to, she thought. Maybe they dissolve the minute after leaving your soul, in a pew, kneeling, worshipping on hands, and knees.

Words and thoughts disappear in mid-air, never lifting high enough to God’s ear, Basima whispered, alone to no one.

The mother of two spent her time thinking of Salman. His erratic behavior before leaving each day. His strange smell and appearance when he came home late; disheveled, red eyes, smelling of whores. But, she never confronted him. She just prayed it would stop.

Basima had to find out the truth. Discover what happened to her husband. She decided to follow this trail, leading to him during the rest of her days; making missing person posters, calling police stations throughout the burroughs, asking questions around Hunts Point, unveiling who he was. And, tossing prayer aside. It had done no good.

At first, she felt sorrow followed by grief. Now, she just felt angry. The children always asked when Baba was coming home. Household chores neglected. Smells from the kitchen ceased. Basima was now cold and angry. Her children felt this.

The young wife asked Salman’s parents to watch over the young ones during this time. They, too, were at a loss. However, the older couple agreed. The boy and girl would live with the grandparents for a while until this mystery came to an end; maybe months. Perhaps a year. She would discover the truth.

And maybe that was the will of Allah. Maybe that was his divine plan. Or it could be Salman’s free will.

But why? Why so much suffering? she thought. Our lives and choices turn into children’s prayers.

She sat at the bus terminal in Toledo, Ohio. Tired. She rode all night on a Greyhound, not knowing why she was leaving town, unsure of her actions.

Jamie had dreams about Ben. Thoughts he’d never left town. A sleeping movie where he was standing in front of a chalkboard, pointing at adjectives and participles. Reading The Sun Also Rises out loud to a class of high school students. Teaching.

This dream turned to truth. The days of Ben drinking and using drugs, one day manic, the next deeply depressed. It got to be too much for her. The rumors and stories about him turning out to be true. A man she fell in love with, falling apart.

The coldness of the Greyhound station forced Jamie to rub her hands together while a cigarette dangled from her lips. There was no one else inside. Bums stood on street corners asking for money, cigarettes, and hope. Cold winds blowing off Lake Erie.

I’m going to find him, she whispered. Going to see for myself what became of him. Where do you find a man without a tombstone?

Back on the bus, she went. Back to dreaming.

I had this friend, Frank said. He was a pimp to this girl I knew in the Bronx. Except, he didn’t treat her like a whore. He didn’t act like a pimp. He was more of a guide. Some kind of guru.

Really, the bartender said.

Yeah. He was kind of this spiritual force to both of us. He’d talk, and we’d listen. 

It’s good to have friends like that, he said as he wiped down the bar. Not all of us are so lucky.

He listened to jazz all the time on this tinny sounding radio. WKCR. 

The college station?

Yeah.

We listen to it sometimes. My boyfriend likes it. They play Billy Holiday.

Right. He was a big Charley Parker  fan.

Who?

Saxophone player from way back.

Oh.

He was one of the innovators of bop.

Right.

I don’t expect you to know who he was. Queens don’t listen to bop. They listen to Billy Holiday.  They both laughed.

Right?

True, the bartender laughed. True. Another one? Frank nodded his head and smiled. I see you in here with George. Is that your guy? Your old queen?

Hey. We all gotta make a living.

Cheers to that.

Anyway. I’ve looked all over for him. This friend of mine.

The guru?

Yeah. Hmm. We were tight. We’d talk, drink in silence, get high. All with music playing in the background. I gotta find him.

Sweetheart. Did he move?

He’s always on the move.

Billy Holiday came on singing Stormy Monday.

See. Billy knew.

Yeah. She sure did.

She sat on the edge of the bed; right arm missing, left leg gone. The patient looked at Meg lying there, examining her, wondering what the story was. She just sat there looking at her, eyes darting over Meg’s covered body. Meg could feel her presence. She rolled over to face the amputee. They looked at each other curiously, not knowing what to say. Finally, the silence broke.

Next year, I’m going to try out for the New York Yankees, she said in a Dominican accent. You think I gotta shot.

You got just as good a chance as I got, Meg told her.

Probably won’t make it because I’m a woman, she laughed.

Probably. That would be the case.

I jumped in front of a subway train. That’s my story.

I’m tired of living, Meg said. Tired of being a crack whore.

Ohhhh.  I see.

Yeah. An angel told me to come here. A kind angel. 

Kindness? Strange.

How so?

It doesn’t exist.

Probably not. Maybe I’m just tired of the streets.

You homeless?

Yeah.

What’s your dream? What do you want out of life?

To be a Rockette.

The Yankee and the Rockette. What a match. They both laughed.

Basima sat in the corner, looking out the window at kids playing in the street. A father tossed a softball and laughed. Her tea was growing cold.

It was evening time, and soon supper would be made. A bowl of rice with aromatic yellow curry served over it, cucumber salad with plain yogurt dressing, bread she had made earlier that day. The meal was for her children; she only ate a spoonful of curry, nibbled on pita. Salman’s chair was empty.

Sitting there watching men be clowns for their kids’ entertainment, anger came to her thoughts. Basima was no longer sad. A hate had set in. A hate that prayer would not take away. A type of madness consumed her. This rage, she pondered. Will it ever end?

She sipped cold tea, stood up, and walked over to the clay pot on the stove. Stirring the curry, she remembered her husband’s appetite. He was always ravenous, ate constantly. At nighttime, he would rummage through the refrigerator looking for food, leaving Basima in bed as she heard him move bowls of that night’s meal around; taking out pots of cooked lamb, lentils, dipping bread into the rich spicy foods, eating them cold, smiling the whole time. She quietly laughed; pleased that she had made her husband happy.

Taking a piece of bread, she dipped it into the yellow sauce, slurped it, and waited for her children to come to the table. The meal was ready.

Basima turned off the gas flame and placed the bowls and clay pot on the table. She spooned food onto her children’s plates and called for them. They marched to the table, single file, laughing, mocking soldiers. Prayers were lifted up. God is good. That’s what she was always taught. Basima was beginning to doubt that.

My dear boy, George said.  Where have you been? Frank looked at the old queen with his bloodshot eyes and dry caked lips. Second thought, don’t answer that. I thought I was raising you better than this, George walked over and brushed the blonde strand from over Frank’s eyes. He kissed the young man on the cheek. When will I ever learn?

Autumn in the city. Everyone gets along. The crime rate in the burroughs goes down significantly when the leaves change, the nights grow cooler, and sunlight creeps through clouds. Suddenly, the man who wanted to kill you in summer’s sticky heat is now wanting to be your best friend. It is a time of forgiveness. 

I just want to sleep, Frank said. To dream. Ah, to dream, the two laughed.  Please. Forgive me. Old habits are hard to break.

Yes, George told him. You are an old habit. Your kind is an old habit. I do love the young men. But, they never stay. They rob me blind and leave in the middle of the night. Like cat burglars. And yes, they all wear masks. That is, at least I can’t see through them. Always tricked. I fall in love too easily. I fall in love, too fast, he sang in a whisper.

George placed his age spotted hand on Frank’s shoulder. Please don’t leave me, he said. Please stay.

A breeze blew in from the open windows. Leaves danced down the street. George played a record; Harlem Butterfly sung by Bobby Short. The two curled up on the king-size bed as George sang along softly, while his young prince slept and dreamed.

Hart Island. A million souls buried in the ground. There are no names on tombstones. No plaques. Just bones on top of bones.

This is where New York buries its poor, unknown, and forgotten. Bodies rotting. Cold days in winter. There is no spring.

Basima had never heard of Hart Island. She did not know of the potter’s field. And she did not know Salman’s whereabouts. Yes, she thought of him as dead, yet there is always hope.

It had been a month. No word from her husband. No letters. Nor phone calls. Just quiet. A hovering silence.

No one identified the body of Ben. A note on him saying, please call Jamie and a number was all there was to go on. Jamie lifted a glass to her former husband and said, Now you are home. She then let go . Jamie did not cry or curse when being told. She felt relieved.

And now the two men lay in rest at Hart Island. Their lives finished. Love left behind.

Basima spent her days driving around Hunts Point, where the Bodega front glass door remained unlocked. Looters had taken everything. Shelves were empty. Cash register opened. Pennies on the floor.

She was scared to open that door. Frightened of what she might find; a husband with a bullet hole in his head. A knife twisted in his stomach. An addict, done with his days. She just drove past, telling herself, I’ll face it tomorrow.

Two bodies on Hart Island. Lying side by side. One broken soul, the other an infidel. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell them apart.

Crazies. People walking around Manhatten talking to themselves. Picking up cigarette butts and getting the last draw on each one. Cursing into the air or at passers-by. Digging into garbage cans. Eating rotted lettuce, scraps of pizza crusts, the brown core of an apple, a quarter of a sandwich.  Trash discarded by pedestrians walking to and from jobs they hate. Who are the crazy ones?

Meg sat on a swing across the street from Bellevue. She dragged her feet on the pavement below, twisting the steel strands. Her body moved side to side.

She kept thinking about what the man had told her, just tell them you’re suicidal and they gotta take you in. Three meals, a bed, and maybe a chance to get out of this life and start a new.

Was he an angel? This kind soul who did not lay a finger on me. Was he the voice of God? Meg pondered. He must’ve been, she whispered. Had to. Maybe everyone in this life gets a second chance. The criminals, the addicts, the insane. Perhaps we all get a second chance. Maybe.

Meg stopped swinging and stood up. She felt tired and hungry. Sad and angry. Meg did feel like ending it. She didn’t have to lie. This was her time. Time to get help; reach for a lifeline. And that’s what she did.

The lighted drawn figure told her to walk. She crossed the street. Cop cars lined up. Ambulances pulling up and taking out people on stretchers. Indian doctors speaking in accents walking past her. Nurses in scrubs.

Doors opened for her. A thousand people walking around. Some carrying flowers and coffee cups. Others, like her, just tried to make sense of it all; a hundred hallways all going in different directions, elevators, and staircases, North Wing, South Wing, different departments, and different needs.

Meg walked up to a desk where a gray-haired lady, very motherly, asked if she could help. Her smile was welcoming. And, although she had seen a thousand people a day for the last twenty years, asking all kinds of questions, she was still kind.

I want to kill myself, Meg told her. I want to end it all.

Darling, you’ve come to the right place.

Glass pipes. Pieces of tin foil.  Broken bottles. Used condoms filled from the night before.

Makeshift homes made of cardboard, newspapers, plastic tarps. A fire burns in a barrel.

He walks amongst the peasants in his new clothes, unable to hide what he really is.

The blacks with tangled hair, talking to themselves, like poets working on a poem. Immigrants who have given up on the American dream, drinking from 40 oz. cans. Singing songs until they pass out under the sounds of cars, diesels, and busses passing overhead. Former white businessmen in torn suits sucking on a rock. They left their wives, girlfriends, and families behind, no longer working for the gold watch, the 401k, a retirement house in Florida. Young girls sleeping off a night of making men’s desires come true behind dumpsters, in front seats of cars, bathroom stalls. All of them, waiting on their redeemer.  The second coming of Christ to take them away from this hell. They wait. They wait.

Frank is on the prowl. Nicely dressed in Western wear, he goes looking for the rock. He has cash. Plenty of it. He’s able to pick and choose his poison.

Let me have some of that, he says to a beat-up white guy. Frank never did business with anyone but the whites. For some reason, he thought they were cleaner, the rock more pure, never admitting that it’s all the same shit. The disheveled man hands him the pipe, and Bic lighter. Frank heats up the base while music in the background is drowned out from the sounds of the Bronx. Dominican girls shouting out profanities, Puerto Ricans on the hustle, whites looking to take advantage in a far away land from Manhattan. Frank sucks on the tube. And, for a moment, he’s in paradise, back where he came from, the place where he landed when he got off the bus a few years ago. He is home.

Meg? Is that you? Get in here, Ellen said. Where you been? Oh. That’s right. You went to New York to become a Rockette. How’d that workout for you? There was no answer.

I’ve been waiting for you. Every night, I say my prayers, sending one up for only you. I swear.

The wind blew outside. Sky grew dark. Rain fell.

You still mad at me? Ellen took a drink of cheap vodka. I always had the best intentions. Tried to help you. But you were too far gone. Out every night. Stealing liquor from my cabinet. Smoking my cigarettes. So I back-handed you a couple of times. Wasn’t like you didn’t deserve it.

The rain fell harder. Lightning. A full-on storm. Ellen turned on the radio. Adjusted the antenna. Dolly Parton was singing. Sang about a coat of many colors.

I used to sing this to you. Remember?

Only the thunder answered.