May We Be Forgiven

with the person’s name written in red marker in a white rectangle. As I’m pulling in, I happen to glance at an old house off to the right, and, like witnessing an apparition, I see a dapper fellow wearing an old tan corduroy jacket come out the front door and head towards an ancient station wagon, and I’m thinking it’s the ghost of John Cheever going out for a ride.

    B ucolic on the outside, but like a furnace inside, sweaty, sticky, with a gamy smell. I pass through the metal detector and into the waiting area. The guards bring George to the visiting area in shackles; we speak through holes drilled in thick Plexiglas—holes filled with the spittle of every criminal’s family that has come before us.
    “How are you?” I ask.
    “How could I be?”
    “It was an accident,” I say.
    “I am not asking for your opinion,” George says.
    “You look horrible. Walter mentioned that you’d been in the hospital.”
    “I had proctitis and gonorrhea.”
    “What is going on in there?”
    “I’ve had to make my own way,” he says, shaking his head bitterly. “There’s nothing good about this place. My teeth are rotting. I used to get them cleaned four times a year, now my breath smells like shit all day. You sold me out. You gave me up, and for what—Lillian’s chocolate-chip cookie recipe?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You took advantage of my sweet tooth; you used the cookies to fuck me over.”
    “They already had you, George,” I say. “I’m the one they used, like a human shield. I gave of myself to protect you. I had no option to turn them down,” I say. “They had me by the balls.”
    “You have no balls,” George says.
    “Nice, George.”
    The inmate in the visiting booth next to ours falls to the floor and has a seizure.
    “How are my roses?” George asks as the guards move to clear the room so they can attend to the sick prisoner.
    “They have black spot. I’ll spray again tonight if it doesn’t rain,” I say as I’m exiting.

    O n the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Nate comes home from school with a friend named Josh. The next day, we borrow the Gaos’ minivan and drive into New York City. Cy, Ricardo, Nate, Josh, and I head for the Lionel Store while Ashley and Madeline have a plan to get their hair done and go for lunch. The city is crazy with people, I feel like a tourist—jostled by everything.
    At the Lionel Store, it takes a while before the sales guy realizes exactly who the train is for, but once he does, he gets into it, and seven hundred dollars and lots of accessories later, we leave the store—each of the boys carrying a heavy bag. I take the boys out for ice cream. It turns out Nate has never had a banana split. I order two for the table, and Cy scowls at me. “It’s my big day,” he says. “Let us each have our own.”
    And we do.
    When we are done, we rendezvous with Ashley and Madeline, who have had not only their hair done but their toes and nails as well.
    “One more stop,” Cy says, as we cram back into the minivan. He directs me to the Eighty-first Street side of the Museum of Natural History.
    “I’m not sure how close I can get—they close a lot of the streets ahead of the parade.”
    “Your best is all I ask,” Cy says.
    I park in a lot a couple of blocks from the museum and, like a line of ducks, we follow Cy, bumping into people as we go, echoing a chorus of “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” At the barricade on the corner of Eighty-first and Central Park West, Cy whispers something to the cop and pulls his old driver’s license from his wallet. I glance at Madeline, who seems to know exactly what Cy is doing. She smiles.
    “Of course,” the cop says, opening the barricade and ushering us all through.
    Cy smiles, pleased with himself. We are now among the select few pedestrians on the block where the Macy’s parade floats have been laid out in the middle of the street and are being inflated. “There’s a hose going right up Betty Boop’s ass,” Cy points out.
    “Betty Poop,” Ricardo exclaims.
    “How did we get here?” Nate asks.
    “I’ve still got a card or two up my sleeve,” Cy says.
    “We used to live right here on this block,” Madeline says. “For many, many years. Our girls grew up playing in Central Park if it was sunny, or among the dioramas in the Natural History Museum if it was cold or raining.”
    “Cool,” Nate says.
    “This parade is the stuff of my childhood,” Cy says. “I was here when Mickey