Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [126]
“Truman was afraid of him, but he stood his ground. ‘Stop yelling. If everyone’s yelling, no one can be heard,’ he said. It stopped Max in his tracks. Then Truman introduced himself. He held out his hand. Max took it. Then he growled at Truman. He screwed up his face and growled like a dog. Truman winced but he didn’t budge. Max burst out laughing. From that day on, he called Truman Prince Valiant.
“We saw Max almost every day. Usually he was yelling about the revolution he was going to start, telling everyone to kill the rich and give the city back to the people. He ranted about the mayor, the housing commission, and Donald Trump. Someone said he used to be a lawyer, a public defender. Everyone said he was harmless and that he’d be gone soon anyway. The city was going to rehouse the Charles’ tenants so the developers could get started.
“But Max wasn’t harmless. He was a schizophrenic. He was out of his mind the day the police came to evict him. It was in December. We were on our way to school. I was supposed to walk all the way with Truman, but I bumped into this guy I liked. His name was Nick. He said he was starting a band and he wanted me to be in it. He was smoking a blunt. Said he’d taken some pills and that he had more at home. He wanted me to come over. So I said I would and then I told Truman to go on alone. It was only a few more blocks to the school. He knew the way. Truman didn’t like Nick; I could tell. He didn’t trust him. And it pissed me off because deep down, I didn’t either. ‘Andi, come on,’ he said. ‘Just go, Tru,’ I said. ‘I’ll watch you walk down Henry. You’ll be fine.’ He waved goodbye. And I waved back. I … I waved goodbye to him. I—”
I have to stop here. And bury my head in my arms. Virgil says nothing. He just waits until I can speak again. After a few minutes, I lift up my head, wipe my face, and continue.
“We decided to cut all our morning classes, me and Nick,” I say. “We’d just turned off Henry Street onto his street—Pineapple—when he said he was hungry. There’s a little deli just past the corner. He went in and I waited outside for him. He never called afterward. Never once in the whole month I was out of school. The next time I saw him, he was on the Promenade. Sitting on a bench with a girl on his lap. He didn’t remember. Not a thing. He gave me a hug, told me he’d heard what happened, said he was so sad. He’d been stoned out of his mind the whole time.
“I read the police report afterward. It said that Truman had walked past the Charles. He’d seen the police. He must have. There were plenty of them. He didn’t know enough to cross the street. To get out of there. The cops were evicting tenants who’d refused to leave. The police report said it was a bad scene. An old lady was crying. She had all her things in two D’Agostino’s bags. She said she’d lived there for the past twenty years and didn’t want to leave. A mother was yelling in Spanish that she wasn’t going into a city shelter with five kids. Max was yelling, too. He was on the sidewalk arguing with the cops.
“Some woman walked by just then. She was wearing a fur coat and a lot of jewelry and eating a muffin. It set Max off. ‘Still eating cake?’ he shouted at her. She got scared and dropped her muffin. He picked it up and threw it at her. ‘We’ve got no cake! No bread. No nothing. Don’t you understand that? All we’ve got is rats and bugs and cold water. You’re going to take that from us, too?’
“A cop grabbed him and told him he was done. That’s when Truman walked by. Just as the police told Max to go get his things. But Max wouldn’t go. He yelled. He shoved one of the cops. The cop tried to arrest him and that’s when Max snapped.
“He grabbed Truman. Then he pulled a knife out of his pocket and held it to his throat. He dragged my brother down the sidewalk, yelling at the police to back off. They did and Max started