Port Authority

One icy February night, sitting in my car in the school's parking lot, the whole story -- came out.

Scott was plugged up with a kind of wordless fear and needed to let it out. It would have helped if I could have held him, but we were bundled up in thick, down coats that made me feel like the Michelin man. Even getting close was a challenge, wrapped up in marshmallow.

When he finally started his confession, the words shot out in blasts of cold air, rising up like smoke rings.

"I didn't get mugged," he said.

In November, he'd travelled to New York's Port Authority, a black guy spotted his Leica sticking out of his bag and Scott got beat up in the bathroom. I didn't ask what he was doing in there, letting his camera be seen. Shooting the stalls? Close-ups of the urinals? It crossed my mind that maybe he lingered too long, approached the wrong guy, and paid the price. Anyway, it was a big scandal when he returned, bloody and bruised, robbed of the expensive camera his father had given him.

"Not goddamn safe in New York," he said, "especially Port Authority. I don't know why you and your friends have to go. If you have to, just get off that 42nd Street, do your business and come home."

"That wasn't what happened," Scott said, "I left it."

His words wrestled themselves free.

"I left it. I left it there!"

He told me he'd been seeing a shrink for a year and a half -- more big news for a kid in a suburban town, and that he'd stopped showing up two months ago. He was also on medication, another revelation.

"So?"

"I got off and went to a stall, he said, and I thought this was all going to confirm my fears.

"I had a knife -- a steak knife from home. I put my bag down and got it out. And I stabbed myself, here," he said, pointing to his stomach. "Then I freaked out, dropped the knife and got out of there. I didn't even think about the bag."

Luckily, there was a bus about to leave and he got on it. He pressed his coat tightly to his stomach, and made it home. He'd left his car in the parking lot and drove to the ER.

"It wasn't very deep. It was off here, to the side."

I snaped open both our coats and pressed against him. Scott wrapped them around us like a blanket and cried.

I wished I could have been able to deal with him more after that but I just couldn't and we drifted apart. I had a job at a bookstore, he finished school and moved away. To New York.

Three years later I was dancing at a club in Jersey and I saw his younger brother. He was a sweet kid and, his bedroom being next to Scott's, I was sure he must have heard a lot of headboard action on those hot afternoons. "What the fuck?" I yelled. "You. Here." I pressed the back of my hand against my forehead. "Oy, what a bad influence we were."

"Wasn't you." he laughed. "Bad genetics!"

"I leaned up and spoke into his into his ear."

"So-- where is he? How's he doing?"

His brother turned to me and just looked into my eyes, and kept looking.

The Disco music played on all around us.