The AntiChrist Was Conceived in Queens

Chapter 2 - The Grind

Chapter 2

The Grind

In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground…

~ Genesis 3:19

Rain killed his father. It was an accident, or maybe even self- defense. But now his father is hell bent on killing him, even as Rain is desperately trying to erase his misdeed and raise Leo from the dead. Rain had no idea it would cost this much. It’s complicated, but I can explain.

Leo used to tie itchy rope around Rain’s toddler neck and hitch him to a stilt under their house on Handyside Street in Belize City. Rope long enough to let Rain shoot marbles in the dirt yard, but too short to let him run into the street after his ball again. Now Leo had him tied to the shop.

Man, Rain has been feeling tied up for a long time.

When he was eight, Rain wanted to be the Jackson Five. All by himself. Sing, dance, play all the instruments, feel up Diana Ross. He wanted it all. So they let him have the used blue drum set the tenant upstairs left at the curb with the rest of the trash the day he moved out of their brownstone in Astoria. The snare and the kick had torn heads, so Rain stretched duct tape like sterile strips, substituted old pot covers for cymbals, set up in the garage, and played for hours every day. Until he came home from school one afternoon to find his drum set missing, sutures and all.

They never gave an explanation, just a red-and-white plastic guitar a few months later for Christmas. Rain played for hours every day. Anything that would fit on the old Victrola in the living room. Strummed along by ear until he knew the chords. Even learned how to do the Jackson Five spin while playing, just like on the cartoon. Until the afternoon he thought he saw Gumby from the corner, sitting in their garbage can at the curb, strangled by fishing line. Again, no explanation.

One year later Rain stayed after school with some friends to play ring-o-leevio in the dumpster at PS 85. It was cold and the court was empty, but they spotted a homeless basketball in the corner of the chain-link fence trying to warm up under some dried leaves. An old rubber Spalding®. Dead. There was a small hole in it, from where its life left. It wouldn’t bounce, but they shot it anyway. His first time playing basketball and he liked it. Even made more than he missed. And when they left to go their separate ways home, Rain took the ball with him. Sutured this one whole with duct tape, too. Bought an air pin for 29¢ at the stationary on the corner of 33rd, went to the gas station on 31st and filled it with new life, and the Spalding came back! His first resurrection. So he hid it in the backyard, under some leaves, and every morning before school he’d retrieve it and stay after and play for hours, and then come home and hide it again.

Man, he excelled. Three years later Rain made the junior high team, and a decision.

But now it’s his senior year and Rain is locked up. In his father’s dream and his own nightmare, doing hard time behind plate glass windows in the stubborn shadow of the El, surrounded by dingy brick and swarthy folk. A regimented existence. Sweep the sidewalk. Clean the storefront windows. Sweep the showroom. Clean the glass in the display cases. Sponge mop the kitchen. Wash the pots and pans. Knead the dough. Shave the edges off the furrowed lips of a gazillion tin coconut tart holders. Grate coconuts. Peel potatoes. Serve the customers who always seemed more curious than convinced. Make the always too light money drop at the bank.

Rain shared this sentence with his mother and little sister, Monique, whenever she was around.

Leo’s Pastry Shop sat obstinately on one of the busiest corners in Queens, 31st Street and Astoria Boulevard. The Grand Central Parkway meets the Triboro Bridge there, with its cables like giant steel ropes dangling from a heaven that angels don’t shimmy down from anymore, while 31st Street crosses the parkway and the N train crosses everything. Across that river of speeding noise, on the other corner, at 31st and Hoyt, is the Stage, five acres of asphalt oasis in the middle of a brown brick jungle. They called it that because that’s where they performed.