The Fugitivities, стр. 83
Laura, where have you gone? When will you come flying back to me? Your face peers into my dreams. How does it do that? Maybe because you are the one person I can speak deeply and freely with. I feel totally free when I write to you. Listening to music and watching the hand of time pass over the city. I like to listen to these jazz shows on WKCR when I write just to absorb some of that artistry. It’s something in those brothers that moves me. I hear them playing like the only thing that matters is beauty. Even with all we going through. I hear them say, hold on now. Listen. How beautiful we are.
The other day I went downtown, found myself on Sixth Avenue. And truth be told, I had never thought of it before but we call it: Avenue of the Americas. The Americas. We should always use the plural, I think. What a beautiful ring it has to it. A life in the Americas. On every street corner and every subway car in New York City, the Americas. One island in the human archipelago. Headstrong and unstoppable, like the Staten Island Ferry, always chugging headlong into the looming shadows of the white buildings. Some folk stare up from the deck holding a paper cup full of coffee wondering if they’ll ever catch a break. Me, I always preferred to stay apart from the crowd, looking back at the way we came over. You see, people always thought of me as just a body, a man they could use. But I got a mind, and my own philosophy. And being in the world a good number of years now, I have come to believe that it’s in the nature of the human spirit to search. For a long time, I myself was on a search to understand where I came from and why, and what I ought to do with myself. And when I met you in Paris, I thought that maybe you were part of the answer. I guess I always thought the answer would be something new. But it’s not. I understand why you left. I know you’re searching for something too. Just remember that it might not be a new thing, but the old one to come back to that drives you onward again. I guess I’ve gotten carried away. It keeps happening with me now, when I sit down to write you. It’s as if I need to get the whole world off my chest, and you, Laura, you are the only intelligent person left on Earth.
I’ve got to get down to the playground. Late afternoon, low eighties. Perfect weather. The Knicks are playing tonight I keep fixin’ to give up on them, but I’m trying to give faith and patience a chance. I got to admit, I still wish it was me balling in the Garden under the big lights, taking it up the floor. Hitting them with a sweet move, the God Shammgod reverse finish at the hoop, taking it back to the old school, when we played the game the right way. But I know it’s too late for all that. What I really want you to know is that I still have the passion. The years may be creeping up on me, but I got no plans to get old. There’s just too much still to do with the neighborhood, with this city I love, with this mad country I got to live in. I feel a little tired. I guess I’ll sign off here as I always do with a wish: to see you again. When you next consider flying across the waters, think of coming here, think of coming back to me
Nate Archimbald
Laura met him at exactly nine o’clock on the street outside El Vasco. Jonah suggested they go for a walk, a proposition she accepted without comment. But their mutual pained attentiveness only prolonged the unbearable and she stopped him short at one of the wide corners where they had been waiting for the light.
“Why don’t you get to whatever it is you want from me? I’m not in the mood for romance today.”
“Well, I have to give you something that won’t make sense at first, but I know that it was meant to be this way, maybe not the way I’ve gone about it, but I know that you need to read this, and when you do I hope you’ll do the right thing and leave Salvador. Not just Salvador but Montevideo.”
“What do you mean?” asked Laura, suddenly stiff.
“Trust me, promise me, no matter what—that you will at least get away from Salvador.”
Before she could react, he pulled out Nathaniel’s letter.
“This is from Nathaniel. Nathaniel Archimbald. I met him in New York, and he gave me this letter because I think he knew somehow that I would meet you. It’s crazy, I know, but here we are. You should have this.”
Laura didn’t move. She seemed paralyzed. They were silent for a time, and then she spoke.
“You need to leave.”
“Okay.”
“Now. Please leave.”
He could see anger and confusion cloud her face. He thought to kiss her on the cheek, but she motioned him away, so he murmured an apology and left her there clutching Nathaniel’s letter in her hand.
All the way to the ferry terminal in Colonia, Jonah could feel his face burning. When he got on board and took to