ALIVE AND ALONE

We had been searching together for six and a half months when Mr. Black told me he was finished, and then I was all alone again, and I hadn't accomplished anything, and my boots were the heaviest they'd ever been in my life. I couldn't talk to Mom, obviously, and even though Toothpaste and The Minch were my best friends, I couldn't talk to them either. Grandpa could talk to animals, but I couldn't, so Buckmin-ster wasn't going to be helpful. I didn't respect Dr. Fein, and it would have taken too long to explain to Stan everything that needed to be explained just to get to the beginning of the story, and I didn't believe in talking to dead people.

Farley didn't know if Grandma was home, because his shift had just started. He asked if something was wrong. I told him, "I need her." "You want I should buzz up?" "It's OK." As I ran up the seventy-two stairs, I thought, And anyway, he was an incredibly old guy who slowed me down and didn't know anything useful. I was breathing hard when I rang her bell. I'm glad he said he was finished. I don't know why I invited him to come along with me in the first place. She didn't answer, so I rang again. Why isn't she waiting by the door? I'm the only thing that matters to her.

I let myself in.

"Grandma? Hello? Grandma?"

I figured maybe she went to the store or something, so I sat on the sofa and waited. Maybe she went to the park for a walk to help her digest, which I know she sometimes did, even though it made me feel weird. Or maybe she was getting some dehydrated ice cream for me, or dropping something off at the post office. But who would she send letters to?

Even though I didn't want to, I started inventing.

She'd been hit by a cab while she was crossing Broadway, and the cab zoomed away, and everybody looked at her from the sidewalk, but no one helped her, because everyone was afraid to do CPR the wrong way.

She'd fallen from a ladder at the library and cracked her skull. She was bleeding to death there because it was in a section of books that no one ever looked at.

She was unconscious at the bottom of the swimming pool at the Y. Kids were swimming thirteen feet above her.

I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud.

She'd had a heart attack.

Someone had pushed her onto the tracks.

She'd been raped and murdered.

I started looking around her apartment for her.

"Grandma?"

What I needed to hear was "I'm OK," but what I heard was nothing.

I looked in the dining room and the kitchen. I opened the door to the pantry, just in case, but there was only food. I looked in the coat closet and the bathroom. I opened the door of the second bedroom, where Dad used to sleep and dream when he was my age.

It was my first time being in Grandma's apartment without her, and it felt incredibly weird, like looking at her clothes without her in them, which I did when I went to her bedroom and looked in her closet. I opened the top drawer of the dresser, even though I knew she wouldn't be in there, obviously. So why did I do it?

It was filled with envelopes. Hundreds of them. They were tied together in bundles. I opened the next drawer down, and it was also filled with envelopes. So was the drawer underneath it. All of them were.

I saw from the postmarks that the envelopes were organized chronologically, which means by date, and mailed from Dresden, Germany, which is where she came from. There was one for every day, from May 31, 1963, to the worst day. Some were addressed "To my unborn child." Some were addressed "To my child."

What the?

I knew I probably shouldn't have, because they didn't belong to me, but I opened one of them.

It was sent on February 6, 1972. "To my child." It was empty.

I opened another, from another stack. November 22, 1986. "To my child." Also empty.

June 14, 1963. "To my unborn child." Empty.

April 2, 1979. Empty.

I found the day I was born. Empty.

What I needed to know was, where did she put all of the letters?

I heard a sound from one of the other rooms. I quickly closed the drawers, so Grandma wouldn't know I had been snooping around, and tiptoed to the front door, because I was afraid that maybe what I had heard was a burglar. I heard the sound again, and this time I could tell that it was coming from the guest room.

I thought, The renter!

I thought, He's real!

I'd never loved Grandma more than I loved her right then.

I turned around, tiptoed to the guest room door, and pressed my ear against it. I didn't hear anything. But when I got down on my knees, I saw that the light in the room was on. I stood up.

"Grandma?" I whispered. "Are you in there?"

Nothing.

"Grandma?"

I heard an extremely tiny sound. I got down on my knees again, and this time I saw that the light was off.

"Is someone in there? I'm eight years old and I'm looking for my grandma because I need her desperately."

Footsteps came to the door, but I could only barely hear them because they were extremely gentle and because of the carpet. The footsteps stopped. I could hear breathing, but I knew it wasn't Grandma's, because it was heavier and slower. Something touched the door. A hand? Two hands?

"Hello?"

The doorknob turned.

"If you're a burglar, please don't murder me."

The door opened.

A man stood there without saying anything, and it was obvious he wasn't a burglar. He was incredibly old and had a face like the opposite of Mom's, because it seemed like it was frowning even when it wasn't frowning. He was wearing a white short-sleeve shirt, so you could see his elbows were hairy, and he had a gap between his two front teeth, like Dad had.

"Are you the renter?"

He concentrated for a second, and then he closed the door.

"Hello?"

I heard him moving stuff around in the room, and then he came back and opened the door again. He was holding a little book. He opened it to the first page, which was blank. "I don't speak," he wrote, "I'm sorry."

"Who are you?" He went to the next page and wrote, "My name is Thomas." "That was my dad's name. It's pretty common. He died." On the next page he wrote, "I'm sorry." I told him, "You didn't kill my dad." On the next page there was a picture of a doorknob, for some reason, so he went to the page after that and wrote, "I'm still sorry." I told him, "Thanks." He flipped back a couple of pages and pointed at "I'm sorry."

We stood there. He was in the room. I was in the hall. The door was open, but it felt like there was an invisible door between us, because I didn't know what to say to him, and he didn't know what to write to me. I told him, "I'm Oskar," and I gave him my card. "Do you know where my grandma is?" He wrote, "She went out." "Where?" He shrugged his shoulders, just like Dad used to. "Do you know when she'll be back?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I need her."

He was on one kind of carpet, I was on another. The line where they came together reminded me of a place that wasn't in any borough.

"If you want to come in," he wrote, "we could wait for her together." I asked him if he was a stranger. He asked me what I meant. I told him, "I wouldn't go in with a stranger." He didn't write anything, like he didn't know if he was a stranger or not. "Are you older than seventy?" He showed me his left hand, which had YES tattooed on it. "Do you have a criminal record?" He showed me his right hand, which had NO. "What other languages do you speak?" He wrote, "German. Greek. Latin." "Parlez-vous français?" He opened and closed his left hand, which I think meant un peu.

I went in.

There was writing on the walls, writing everywhere, like, "I wanted so much to have a life," and "Even just once, even for a second." I hoped, for his sake, that Grandma never saw it. He put down the book and picked up another one, for some reason.

"For how long have you been living here?" I asked. He wrote, "How long did your grandmother tell you I've been living here?" "Well," I said, "since Dad died, I guess, so about two years." He opened his left hand. "Where were you before that?" "Where did your grandmother tell you I was before that?" "She didn't." "I wasn't here." I thought that was a weird answer, but I was getting used to weird answers.

He wrote, "Do you want something to eat?" I told him no. I didn't like how much he was looking at me, because it made me feel incredibly self-conscious, but there was nothing I could say. "Do you want something to drink?"

"What's your story?" I asked. "What's my story?" "Yeah, what's your story?" He wrote, "I don't know what my story is." "How can you not know what your story is?" He shrugged his shoulders, just like Dad used to. "Where were you born?" He shrugged his shoulders. "How can you not know where you were born!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Where did you grow up?" He shrugged his shoulders. "OK. Do you have any brothers or sisters?" He shrugged his shoulders. "What's your job? And if you're retired, what was your job?" He shrugged his shoulders. I tried to think of something I could ask him that he couldn't not know the answer to. "Are you a human being?" He flipped back and pointed at "I'm sorry."

I'd never needed Grandma more than I needed her right then.

I asked the renter, "Can I tell you my story?"

He opened his left hand.

So I put my story into it.

I pretended he was Grandma, and I started at the very beginning.

I told him about the tuxedo on the chair, and how I had broken the vase, and found the key, and the locksmith, and the envelope, and the art supply store. I told him about the voice of Aaron Black, and how I was so incredibly close to kissing Abby Black. She didn't say she didn't want to, just that it wasn't a good idea. I told him about Abe Black in Coney Island, and Ada Black with the two Picasso paintings, and the birds that flew by Mr. Black's window. Their wings were the first thing he'd heard in more than twenty years. Then there was Bernie Black, who had a view of Gramercy Park, but not a key to it, which he said was worse than looking at a brick wall. Chelsea Black had a tan line around her ring finger, because she got divorced right after she got back from her honeymoon, and Don Black was also an animal-rights activist, and Eugene Black also had a coin collection. Fo Black lived on Canal Street, which used to be a real canal. He didn't speak very good English, because he hadn't left Chinatown since he came from Taiwan, because there was no reason for him to. The whole time I talked to him I imagined water on the other side of the window, like we were in an aquarium. He offered me a cup of tea, but I didn't feel like it, but I drank it anyway, to be polite. I asked him did he really love New York or was he just wearing the shirt. He smiled, like he was nervous. I could tell he didn't understand, which made me feel guilty for speaking English, for some reason. I pointed at his shirt. "Do? You? Really? Love? New York?" He said, "New York?" I said, "Your. Shirt." He looked at his shirt. I pointed at the N and said "New," and the Y and said "York." He looked confused, or embarrassed, or surprised, or maybe even mad. I couldn't tell what he was feeling, because I couldn't speak the language of his feelings. "I not know was New York. In Chinese, ny mean 'you.' Thought was 'I love you.'" It was then that I noticed the "I  NY" poster on the wall, and the "I  NY" flag over the door, and the "I  NY" dishtowels, and the "I  NY" lunchbox on the kitchen table. I asked him, "Well, then why do you love everybody so much?"   

Georgia Black, in Staten Island, had turned her living room into a museum of her husband's life. She had pictures of him from when he was a kid, and his first pair of shoes, and his old report cards, which weren't as good as mine, but anyway. "Y'all're the first visitors in more than a year," she said, and she showed us a neat gold medal in a velvet box. "He was a naval officer, and I loved being a naval wife. Every few years we'd have to travel to some exotic place. I never did get a chance to put down many roots, but it was thrilling. We spent two years in the Philippines." "Cool," I said, and Mr. Black started singing a song in some weird language, which I guess was Philippinish. She showed us her wedding album, one picture at a time, and said, "Wasn't I slim and beautiful?" I told her, "You were." Mr. Black said, "And you are." She said, "Aren't you two the sweetest?" I said, "Yeah."

"This is the three-wood that he hit his hole in one with. He was real proud of that. For weeks it was all I'd hear about. That's the airplane ticket from our trip to Maui, Hawaii. I'm not too vain to tell you it was our thirtieth anniversary. Thirty years. We were going to renew our vows. Just like in a romance novel. His carry-on bag was filled with flowers, bless his heart. He wanted to surprise me with them on the plane, but I was looking at the x-ray screen as his bag went through, and don't you know there was a dark black bouquet. It was like the shadows of flowers. What a lucky girl I am." She used a cloth to wipe away our fingerprints.

It had taken us four hours to get to her house. Two of those were because Mr. Black had to convince me to get on the Staten Island Ferry. In addition to the fact that it was an obvious potential target, there had also been a ferry accident pretty recently, and in Stuff That Happened to Me I had pictures of people who had lost their arms and legs. Also, I don't like bodies of water. Or boats, particularly. Mr. Black asked me how I would feel in bed that night if I didn't get on the ferry. I told him, "Heavy boots, probably." "And how will you feel if you did?" "Like one hundred dollars." "So?" "So what about while I'm on the ferry? What if it sinks? What if someone pushes me off? What if it's hit with a shoulder-fired missile? There won't be a tonight tonight." He said, "In which case you won't feel anything anyway." I thought about that.

"This is an evaluation from his commanding officer," Georgia said, tapping the case. "It's exemplary. This is the tie he wore to his mother's funeral, may she rest in peace. She was such a nice woman. Nicer than most. And this here is a picture of his childhood home. That was before I knew him, of course." She tapped every case and then wiped away her own fingerprints, kind of like a Möbius strip. "These are his varsity letters. This is his cigarette case from when he used to smoke. Here's his Purple Heart."

 

I started to get heavy boots, for obvious reasons, like where were all of her things? Where were her shoes and her diploma? Where were the shadows of her flowers? I made a decision that I wouldn't ask about the key, because I wanted her to believe that we had come to see her museum, and I think Mr. Black had the same idea. I decided to myself that if we went through the whole list and still hadn't found anything, then maybe, if we had no choice, we could come back and ask her some questions. "These are his baby shoes."

But then I started to wonder: she said we were the first visitors in a little more than a year. Dad had died a little more than a year ago. Was he the visitor before us?

"Hello, everyone," a man said from the door. He was holding two mugs, which steam was coming out of, and his hair was wet. "Oh, you're awake!" Georgia said, taking the mug that said "Georgia" on it. She gave him a big kiss, and I was like, What in the what the? "Here he is," she said. "Here who is?" Mr. Black asked. "My husband," she said, almost like he was another exhibit in his life. The four of us stood there smiling at one another, and then the man said, "Well, I suppose you'd like to see my museum now." I told him, "We just did. It was really great." He said, "No, Oskar, that's her museum. Mine's in the other room."

Thank you for your letter. Because of the large
volume of mail I receive, I am unable to write
personal responses. Nevertheless, know that I
read and save every letter, with the hope of one
day being able to give each the proper response it
deserves. Until that day,

Most sincerely,
  Stephen Hawking

 

The week passed quickly. Iris Black. Jeremy Black. Kyle Black. Lori Black ... Mark Black was crying when he opened the door and saw us, because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope.

Nancy Black's roommate told us Nancy was at work at the coffee store on Nineteenth Street, so we went there, and I explained to her that coffee actually has more caffeine than espresso, even though a lot of people don't think so, because the water is in contact with the grounds for a much longer time with coffee. She told me she didn't know that. "If he says it, it's true," Mr. Black said, patting my head. I told her, "Also, did you know that if you yell for nine years, you'll produce enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee?" She said, "I didn't." I said, "Which is why they should put a coffee store next to the Cyclone at Coney Island! Get it?" That made me crack up, but only me. She asked if we were going to order anything. I told her, "Iced coffee, please." She asked, "What size?" I said, "Vente, and could you please use coffee ice cubes so it doesn't get all watery when the ice cubes melt?" She told me they didn't have coffee ice cubes. I said, "Exactly." Mr. Black said, "I'm going to get right to the point," and then he did. I went to the bathroom and gave myself a bruise.

Ray Black was in prison, so we weren't able to talk to him. I did some research on the Internet and found out that he was in prison because he murdered two kids after he raped them. There were also pictures of the dead kids, and even though I knew it would only hurt me to look at them, I did. I printed them out and put them in Stuff That Happened to Me, right after the picture of Jean-Pierre Haignerè, the French astronaut who had to be carried from his spacecraft after returning from the Mir space station, because gravity isn't only what makes us fall, it's what makes our muscles strong. I wrote a letter to Ray Black in prison, but I never got a response. Inside, I hoped he didn't have anything to do with the key, although I couldn't help inventing that it was for his jail cell.

The address for Ruth Black was on the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building, which I thought was incredibly weird, and so did Mr. Black, because neither of us knew that people actually lived there. I told Mr. Black that I was panicky, and he said it was OK to be panicky. I told him I felt like I couldn't do it, and he said it was OK to feel like I couldn't do it. I told him it was the thing that I was most afraid of. He said he could understand why. I wanted him to disagree with me, but he wouldn't, so I had no way to argue. I told him I would wait for him in the lobby, and he said, "Fine." "OK, OK," I said, "I'll go."

As the elevator takes you up, you hear information about the building, which was pretty fascinating, and I normally would have taken some notes, but I needed all of my concentration for being brave. I squeezed Mr. Black's hand, and I couldn't stop inventing: the elevator cables snapping, the elevator falling, a trampoline at the bottom, us shooting back up, the roof opening like a cereal box, us flying toward parts of the universe that not even Stephen Hawking was sure about...

When the elevator door opened, we got out on the observation deck. We didn't know who to look for, so we just looked around for a while. Even though I knew the view was incredibly beautiful, my brain started misbehaving, and the whole time I was imagining a plane coming at the building, just below us. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop. I imagined the last second, when I would see the pilot's face, who would be a terrorist. I imagined us looking each other in the eyes when the nose of the plane was one millimeter from the building.

I hate you, my eyes would tell him.

I hate you, his eyes would tell me.

Then there would be an enormous explosion, and the building would sway, almost like it was going to fall over, which I know is what it felt like from descriptions I've read on the Internet, although I wish I hadn't read them. Then there would be smoke coming up at me and people screaming all around me. I read one description of someone who made it down eighty-five flights of stairs, which must have been about two thousand stairs, and he said that people were screaming "Help!" and "I don't want to die!" and one man who owned a company was screaming "Mommy!"

It would be getting so hot that my skin would start to get blisters. It would feel so good to get away from the heat, but on the other hand, when I hit the sidewalk I would die, obviously. Which would I choose? Would I jump or would I burn? I guess I would jump, because then I wouldn't have to feel pain. On the other hand, maybe I would burn, because then I'd at least have a chance to somehow escape, and even if I couldn't, feeling pain is still better than not feeling, isn't it?

I remembered my cell phone.

I still had a few seconds.

Who should I call?

What should I say?

I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped.

You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it. It's extremely lonely up there, and you feel far away from everything. Also it's scary, because there are so many ways to die. But it feels safe, too, because you're surrounded by so many people. I kept one hand touching the wall as I walked carefully around to each of the views. I saw all of the locks I'd tried to open, and the 161,999,831 that I hadn't yet.

I got down on my knees and crawled to one of the binocular machines. I held it tightly as I pulled myself up, and I took a quarter from the change dispenser on my belt. When the metal lids opened, I could see things that were far away incredibly close, like the Woolworth Building, and Union Square, and the gigantic hole where the World Trade Center was. I looked into the window of an office building that I guessed was about ten blocks away. It took me a few seconds to figure out the focus, but then I could see a man sitting at his desk, writing something. What was he writing? He didn't look at all like Dad, but he reminded me of Dad. I pressed my face closer, and my nose got smooshed against the cold metal. He was left-handed like Dad. Did he have a gap between his front teeth like Dad? I wanted to know what he was thinking. Who did he miss? What was he sorry for? My lips touched the metal, like a kiss.

I found Mr. Black, who was looking at Central Park. I told him I was ready to go down. "But what about Ruth?" "We can come back another day." "But we're already here." "I don't feel like it." "It'll just take a few—" "I want to go home." He could probably tell that I was about to cry. "OK," he said, "let's go home."

We got at the end of the line for the elevator.

I looked at everyone and wondered where they came from, and who they missed, and what they were sorry for.

There was a fat woman with a fat kid, and a Japanese guy with two cameras, and a girl with crutches whose cast was signed by lots of people. I had a weird feeling that if I examined it I would find Dad's writing. Maybe he would have written "Get better soon." Or just his name. An old woman was standing a few feet away, staring back at me, which made me self-conscious. She was holding a clipboard, although I couldn't see what was on it, and she was dressed old-fashioned. I promised myself I wouldn't be the first to look away, but I was. I pulled on Mr. Black's sleeve and told him to look at her. "You know what," he whispered. "What?" "I bet you she's the one." For some reason, I knew he was right. Although no part of me wondered if maybe we were looking for different things.

           

"Should we go up to her?" "Probably." "How?" "I don't know." "Go say hello." "You can't just go say hello." "Tell her the time." "But she didn't ask the time." "Ask her the time." "You do it." "You do it." We were so busy arguing about how to go up to her that we didn't even realize that she had come up to us.