"Nah, man, G ain't come around here today," said Robert. "You want me to tell him something for you?"

"That's okay."

"I'll tell him a message, man. What, you don't trust me?"

"Just that I came around looking for him, I guess."

"Aight. You was lookin' for him, cool."

Dylan mumbled thanks.

"Yo, Dylan, wait up man. You got a dollar you could lend me?" No one budged from slanted attitudes on the stoop. Someone drained a bag-sheathed tallboy, tossed it aside. Robert Woolfolk might have been addressing the sky, Dylan wasn't worth settling eyes on. "Because you know I'm good with you, man. These dudes don't know you, I had to stop them coming down throw a yoke on you. I told them you were my man, we practilly grew up together, you's like my little brother."

The logic was airtight. Certainly Robert's homeboys weren't saying otherwise, though neither looked inclined at this moment to yoke anything larger than a cat. Dylan emptied his pockets, his despair absolute, the dollars negligible for passage out of here.

One thing transfer of funds always did accomplish was a turning of the page.

He walked to the Heights, knowing he couldn't risk being seen on Dean Street before three, figuring no authority would doubt the legitimacy of a white kid with a knapsack in Brooklyn Heights being home early from school. There he took up station on a bench at the south end of the Promenade, sat chin-propped, pancaked between sky and the truck traffic roaring underfoot, the exhaust-flooded Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He abandoned himself gazing into the bay, ferries slugging across to Staten Island and the Statue, garbage scows loaded up for Fresh Kills, the whole watery mouth of the city. Every reeling gull was Mingus Rude tumbling from the bridge again, white wings like cape ends tipped to the water, Dylan's eye fooled a thousand times.

The sky was full of Aeroman, except it wasn't.

Dylan had never flown in Brooklyn, if the ring was gone. They'd meant to swap it back and forth, the changing from black to white one of Aeroman's mystifying aspects, another level of secret identity, but it had always been Mingus in the costume, always Dylan crouched behind a parked car or dangled as bait while Mingus flew. Now this, Mingus heroing into the projects on the far side of Flatbush Avenue, where Dylan would never go. Dylan had sewn Rachel's scraps together and told a story and then clothed in those tatters Mingus had launched himself onto a cop in a drug deal. If the newspaper was to be believed. Of course it had to be understood before it could be believed.

There was something in the story not to understand.

Or maybe something you didn't want to know.

What did Aeroman care about a drug deal drug deal ? ?

Two black kids found Dylan there at the end of the bench faced out to the island and the water and the sky. Lodge in any one place long enough and they'd find you, drawn like flies. These were just about as problematic as flies, too small to yoke him, fifth or sixth graders probably, a couple of mugging Robins lacking a Batman to back them up. If they'd roamed to the Heights from wherever, I.S. 293 probably, it had to be after three, school out.

They circled as if Dylan were a beehive, daring themselves to prod.

"What's the matter, whiteboy?"

"Your friends leave you all alone?"

"What, you can't go home? You lost?"

"You crying, whiteboy?"

"He ain't talkin'."

"Boy's stupid or retarded."

"Check his pockets."

"You do it, man."

Dylan looked up and they danced back. There was really no chance they'd touch him. He wasn't Aeroman, but he'd gained in gravity, was something middle-sized, neither gull nor mole.

"Ooh, ooh, he's mad now."

"He's gonna grab you, man, you better book!"

"Nah, he's going back to his crying."

"He a stupid whiteboy."

"He stoopid."

"Stoo -pid." -pid."

"Nigger's a faggot."

It was enough to make you miss Robert Woolfolk. The situation minus fear was only idiotic. Dylan was sick of it, the racial rehearsal. He'd been identified as whiteboy a thousand times and there was nothing more to learn. Another option, Manhattan, was so prominent it was nearly sticking in his eye. If Aaron X. Doily's ring was gone Dylan might be done with Brooklyn for a while, be done vindicating fifth grade, be through with Mingus's fucked-up mysteries and ready to complete his escape.

The two black kids grew bored of him and wandered, maybe to find some Packer or Saint Ann's kid and work off steam, pick up a dollar or two.

A barge grunted from the docks with a three-color throw-up by Strike Strike on its side, a strong piece of work. on its side, a strong piece of work.

He sat and sat, chanting Clash songs in his head, "I'm So Bored with the USA," "Julie's in the Drug Squad," records he'd never played for Mingus Rude because they embarrassed him on Dean Street, because he didn't know how. Then the Talking Heads, Find myself, find myself a city to live in Find myself, find myself a city to live in. He sat and measured skyscrapers through bars and when he was done sitting the sun had fallen, squinting its narrowed orange beams through towers and bridges, the honey light flared and grew dull, and Dylan had missed Abraham's dinner, he'd sat all day.

In darkness he returned to the block and tried Mingus's door.

Mingus Rude appeared at the gate of the basement entrance, himself, intact, dope-eyed. He showed no particular objection to Dylan being there.

"D-Man. What up?"

"Where's the ring?"

"I got it, it's cool, don't worry."

"Where?" Dylan looked up and down the block, fearing surveillance of some kind. There was nothing, his paranoia wasn't even mirrored in Mingus. Two nights later nobody cared, Aeroman or Errorman was a joke, a name passed along stoops before fading from memory.

"I hid it away."

"Did the police see you fly?"

"The cops, man? They think I sprung out a tree tree."

"What-"

Mingus put up his hand to say Enough, not now Enough, not now. "You wanna come in? I got King Arthur here."

The shelf was empty, no costume, no ring, just the football helmet, Manayunk Mohawks, its bowling-ball curve now tagged in soppy marker by Art and Dose. "Get Off" was on the stereo, the needle hadn't actually plowed the music off the vinyl yet though it sounded like it was getting close. Arthur Lomb lay on his side on the bed, his cruddy Pumas on the bedspread, sifting seeds from a nickel bag in the gatefold crotch of the Spinners' Pick of the Litter Pick of the Litter. Crumpled rolling paper lay balled in a loose circle around him, failed tries, like some ring of dubious enchantment. He grinned at seeing Dylan: Welcome to my chamber, bluh-hah-hah! Welcome to my chamber, bluh-hah-hah!

Arthur Lomb had become a foul gnome. He seemed smaller. That was likely an optical illusion, a matter of losing himself inside titanic hooded sweatshirts and droopy military pants which could have held dozens of his pipe-cleaner legs. Arthur's clothes were growing though he wasn't. He completed a joint at last, repulsively swooping it through his mouth to cauterize the paper with saliva. He only spoke after it was lit, in order to demonstrate expertise in speaking through gagged breath, his voice helium-dwindled with effort: "You heard Gus got arrested?"

"Shut up, Arthur."

Arthur handed the joint to Dylan, his own held toke exploding in a gust from his lips. "He went to the Myrtle Avenue projects at midnight and jumped out of a tree in his underwear. I suppose if you're tripping on LSD or heroin it might strike you as a good idea. I saw something like that on The FBI The FBI once. A girl ate the bark off a tree in a vacant lot. She was pretty hot, too." once. A girl ate the bark off a tree in a vacant lot. She was pretty hot, too."

"I'm right about to kick your ass."

"Do it, superhero."

"When I do you'll be weeping."

"I'll look forward to that day, it'll be worth seeing you dress up in your homo suit, Arrow Man. Arrow Man. " "

Arthur needled like he moved rooks, unashamed of the obvious. He was monotonous and punishing, easy to tune out. Mingus had seemingly acquired the skill.

"What's your power going to be, Dylan? Because we all need powers now, we're Superfriends. I was thinking maybe I'd be able to undress people with my mind, I mean like their clothes would really actually vanish vanish, criminals would be humiliated and surrender on the spot. I'll call myself Fig Leaf Man Fig Leaf Man."

Mingus didn't meet Dylan's eyes when they handed off the joint. Questions remained simpler to leave unanswered, Mingus flying solo, Aeroman's agenda at the Walt Whitman Houses. If he'd wanted to bust up a drug deal he only had to go as far as Bergen, or Atlantic, the foyer of the prostitute hotel. Or upstairs, for that matter, to Junior's apartment, where deals occurred on a daily if not an hourly basis.

But maybe that was the dilemma which had spun Aeroman off his usual orbit-the risk of meeting someone familiar in a local deal. Up to and including Barrett Rude Junior or Senior.

"Yo, D-Man, you got got to hear this record 'King Tim Personality Jock' by Fatback-" Mingus began. He moved to the stereo, marking the conclusion of his two-night's-ago adventure as a topic, announcing the resumption of the real story: they lived in a famous era where heroic advances in musical styles, the discovery of a new to hear this record 'King Tim Personality Jock' by Fatback-" Mingus began. He moved to the stereo, marking the conclusion of his two-night's-ago adventure as a topic, announcing the resumption of the real story: they lived in a famous era where heroic advances in musical styles, the discovery of a new break break previously unheard, could happen at any moment. "Shit is seriously previously unheard, could happen at any moment. "Shit is seriously dope dope, check it out."

Mingus only turned away briefly to punch Arthur Lomb on the arm. Arthur shouted "Mother fucker! fucker! " and stroked the punched spot, but didn't shift from where he lay sprawled, a cackling, smoke-numbed dwarf on the bedspread. " and stroked the punched spot, but didn't shift from where he lay sprawled, a cackling, smoke-numbed dwarf on the bedspread.

Aeroman was dead or at least on hiatus, a serious layoff. He'd likely never appear in the same form again. Dylan was certain the costume was lost or destroyed. The costume was irrelevant anyway. With its bedsheet stripes and wobbly Spirograph emblem it had been too personal, too tender for the street, Dylan understood that now. Aaron X. Doily was right to renounce his cape, Dylan had missed the hint. Now Doily's ring was hidden and it should be. The ring was an enigma to contemplate, a subject for further review. The costume was likely just as stoopid stoopid as Arthur Lomb made it sound but the ring wasn't a part of Arthur's story, or for that matter the cops', or as Arthur Lomb made it sound but the ring wasn't a part of Arthur's story, or for that matter the cops', or The New York Times The New York Times 's. 's.

They got stoneder and stoneder and quit talking.

The three together might have been a normal occasion if you didn't think about it too hard. From one perspective it was odd it hadn't happened before.

But Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude still had secrets, even if those were on ice, hidden somewhere unspecified behind Mingus's thousand-yard stare.

Dylan Ebdus told stories and drew pictures, Arthur Lomb carped and needled, but Mingus Rude possessed a greater force, moods which prevailed, moods like laws. He cold-shouldered whole unwished regions of existence, his scowl chopping down fathers, grandfathers, schools. It wasn't an argument. For now, Aeroman was vanished, painted out.

Three white high schoolers cavort along West Fourth Street, returning from J&R's Music World to an apartment on Hudson where a certain divorced mom's not home, where they've got keys and the regular afternoon run of the place. All three are armored against late-fall weather in black motorcycle jackets, the Brando-Elvis-Ramones variety, leather skins studded with chrome stars and skulls, buckles dangling loose and fronts unzipped against the chill. The three grab-ass, swing incompetently from lampposts, talk in private tongues, nerd-punk argot.

November 1979: "Rapper's Delight" has just cracked the top forty. It's also cracked the attention spans of the white kids at Stuyvesant, including this bunch. The song is on the radio and on the street, leaking from stores and passing shoulder-hoisted boom boxes, a different sound, and impossible to miss.

But to really hear it for yourself someone's got to lay down cash and bring the thing home.

The Sugar Hill Records twelve-inch in its generic sleeve is bagged with their other purchases, Eno, Tom Robinson, Voidoids, Quadrophenia Quadrophenia soundtrack. "Rapper's Delight"'s place on the pop charts is as a novelty single, late entry in the lineage of "The Streak," "Convoy," and "Kung Fu Fighting," and it's in this spirit these white boys have made their purchase: the record strikes them as inconceivably stupid and killingly funny, two concepts lately the opposite of mutually exclusive, Gabba Gabba Hey. soundtrack. "Rapper's Delight"'s place on the pop charts is as a novelty single, late entry in the lineage of "The Streak," "Convoy," and "Kung Fu Fighting," and it's in this spirit these white boys have made their purchase: the record strikes them as inconceivably stupid and killingly funny, two concepts lately the opposite of mutually exclusive, Gabba Gabba Hey.

Self-loathing worn inside out as a punk's moron pride.

If one of these three knows more, he's not telling.

But put it this way: if one of those shops on St. Marks Place retailing punk fashion sold T-shirts reading PLEASE YOKE ME PLEASE YOKE ME you'd buy one in a minute. you'd buy one in a minute.

Then zip your jacket wearing it home from Manhattan.

Now, in the safety of the apartment, the other records are put aside while the twelve-inch is plopped on mom's turntable for instant-gratification hilarity. The needle is stopped and shifted backward a dozen times for incredulous confirmation of some sequence of chanted rhymes, I don't care what these people think, I'm just sittin' here makin' myself nauseous with this ugly food that stinks I don't care what these people think, I'm just sittin' here makin' myself nauseous with this ugly food that stinks. The three white boys bust up, barely able to breathe for laughing.

"The-chicken-tastes-like-wood! " one gasps. " one gasps.

Jackets are shed. Divorced mom's boyfriend left a six of Heinekens in the fridge, the fool, and these are swiftly drained. A box of Nilla Wafers is demolished, down to the crumbs at the bottom of the wax liner, which are shaken out and inhaled. "Rapper's Delight" is played again, the punks doing an antic dance, pogoing on the couch, playing at break dancing, striking poses.

The record includes among others a passage mocking Superman, the rapper calling himself Big Hank mock-wooing Lois Lane with boasting couplets. He may be able to fly all through the night, but can he rock a party 'til the early light? He may be able to fly all through the night, but can he rock a party 'til the early light? An excellent question for Superman or any other flying personage, really. An excellent question for Superman or any other flying personage, really.

That's if flying wasn't the last thing on your mind.

Now the three begin quoting favorite lines, trying to mimic the rappers' inflection while keeping straight faces. "I understand about the food," says one, nearly weeping with pleasure. "hey, but bubba, we're still friends! " "

Two of these harmless, pink-cheeked punks are Manhattan-born, were privately schooled until the year they switched to Stuyvesant to spare their parents the expense. For all they know this record might have been cut specifically for their private anthropological enjoyment, and they hear it with detachment suitable for an artifact fallen from the moon. They've never heard anyone rap rap before, anymore than they've met Fat Albert or Sanford & Son walking down the street. Consensus might be that what makes "Rapper's Delight" and black people in general so criminally funny is their supreme lack of before, anymore than they've met Fat Albert or Sanford & Son walking down the street. Consensus might be that what makes "Rapper's Delight" and black people in general so criminally funny is their supreme lack of irony irony. Hey, it's not racist to find blacks earnest as hippies, broad and embarrassing as a comic book. These boys is punks, and punks sneer. That's what they do, deal with it.

Lack of irony's scarcely a problem for the third in the room, the punk from Gowanus.

Tied in splendid baroque knots, that's him. Ready to pass any and all litmus tests for self-partitioning. But hey, if standing in your Converse All Star high-tops on the couch cushions rotating hips in awkward parody you recall Marilla's curbside hula-hoop instruction a million years ago, recall too your disappointment Marilla wasn't a blond Solver, your guilt at this disappointment, your shame at your body's inexpressiveness, its unfunky failings- so what so what ? Laughing at "Rapper's Delight"'s no revenge, and anyway it wasn't your idea, and anyway it's ? Laughing at "Rapper's Delight"'s no revenge, and anyway it wasn't your idea, and anyway it's funny funny. Dean Street's another story, a realm of knowledge inapplicable here.

You've just about finished leaving Dean Street, and Aeroman, behind.

If this means avoiding the one who protected your ass all through junior high, the one you once ached to emulate, the one whose orbit you were happy just to swing in-if it means leaving the million-dollar kid's regular phone messages in Abraham's precise handwriting unreturned-that's a small price to pay for growing up, isn't it?

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around.

It's the end, the end of the seventies.

chapter16.

Though Barrett Rude Junior had it in mind all along, grist for his own heart's musing, the evening's theme was kept a mystery to those in attendance. That hadn't slowed them delving into the spread, the sliced meats and cheese and olives and egg bread and rye and cherry cheesecake he'd dialed in from Junior's, the Seagram's, the dope. This posse of freaks, Horatio, Crowell Desmond, the three girls, they never needed an excuse to party. When finally he made the announcement he got only a faint echo back, most of the crowd already too wasted by then to do more than nod sweetly and spacily, raise a glass with ice if they held one. Barry's hyped about something, Whose birthday? Whatever, that's cool. Barry's hyped about something, Whose birthday? Whatever, that's cool. But the one girl, whose name he'd forgotten, said: But the one girl, whose name he'd forgotten, said: "How old?"

She'd given him a shy smile when she came in, one of three numbers on Horatio's arm, all jingling earrings and Egyptian eyelashes, tan skintight slip-sheer dress to her pumps, nearly fifty buttons on one side, ankle to armpit, bottom dozen undone. Prime Horatio specimen, but new and unfamiliar. Picture her answering the phone, Horatio saying, Wanna meet Barrett Rude? Singer from the Distinctions? Wear something nice, baby. Wanna meet Barrett Rude? Singer from the Distinctions? Wear something nice, baby. Standing at a mirror counting how many buttons up from the floor to undo, nothing's accidental. Standing at a mirror counting how many buttons up from the floor to undo, nothing's accidental.

It talks without talking.

Brother, it sings if you listen.

Right through the door she'd started fussing, dimming the overheads digging in his drawers looking for candles, until he told her there weren't any. Then she'd thrown her shawl on his lamp, made a web of shadow that stretched across the ceiling like a groaning mouth with tassel teeth.

"You down with some Fleetwood Mac gypsy type of thing there, girl?"

Again she'd smiled without speaking, then gone and sucked up a line Horatio had laid out on the kitchen counter.

All elegance, one nail-painted finger pressed aside a nostril.