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Joe Buck thought that he had never been this cold in all his doggone life. All day long, inside or out, walking, sitting, eating, shitting, he was cold. It was as if Rico’s apartment didn’t even have walls. The wax paper in front of the mostly broken windows let the icy winter winds right through, and so did his coat, and so did his skin. The cold had seeped into his bones and made itself at home.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know cold—it got plenty cold in Texas, especially at night. But to Joe that was a different kind of cold, one that seemed to make stars blaze even brighter and had a kind of solemness to it, the way it descended along with the sun and made everything go dark and still. It used to make him feel rigid and dull when he walked down the streets, like a rattlesnake startled out of hibernation.The New York cold on the other hand was a frantic cold that made your teeth rattle in your head and made you shiver so much you felt like you were dancing. It made people dart around even faster than they already did, ducking their heads deep into their collars as they hurried down into the warm belly of the subway.
So it was out of necessity that he and Rico had started to share a bed, making like snakes and huddling together for warmth. Rico’s coughing was worsened by the cold and it had kept Joe up at night, driving him fairly crazy, and he was worried besides that Rico would catch pneumonia, or they both would. This way, they slept fairly comfortably most nights, exhausted as they were all the time. Joe had never shared a living space with a man before, and certainly not a bed. He’d been around women all his life, and when he’d dreamed about going to New York it had always been about lavish women in lavish apartments, clean and plush; silk sheets and bubble baths and champagne. The last place he’d imagined himself in was this hole in the wall.
Tonight the wind was whistling through the cracks in the windows, making one hell of a noise, and since it kept him awake Joe stared up at the ceiling and wondered just how he’d ended up here, and how he might improve his situation.
He was an optimist. He was a dreamer. Dreamers, his grandmother used to say, go places the rest of us don’t. They can see things in their minds that haven’t come to pass yet, and they can dream themselves out of trouble. Joe liked to believe that was true. Even here, on this mouldy mattress with Rico Ratso Rizzo pressed into his side, he could slip into a fantasy where he was at the Ritz with a beautiful woman, and the howling wind became a howling jazz band in the background as he whirled her around a fancy ballroom. Dreaming about something was the next best thing to having it, he thought. He had to keep dreaming of that better life. If not, he was sure he’d lose his mind.
Just look at Rico. His Florida fantasy was almost all he talked about these days. The idea of getting out of the city seemed to be the only thing that kept him going. It kept both of them going, since Joe had become both their meal ticket; it was his hustling and Rico’s stealing that was going to earn them money, and since Rico was too sick to get out of the house most days, it came down to Joe. He thought about the curiosity of that too—that he no longer needed Rico to show him around, but Rico needed him now.
A freezing gust caressed his feet which already felt like icy clumps, and Joe began to shiver and could not stop. After a few minutes he felt Rico stir next to him and begin to curse under his breath.
“Joe,” he hissed. “You awake?”
“Yeah.”
“Your teeth are chattering.”
“So?”
“Ya woke me up.”
Annoyance flared up in him and was doused again just as quickly. He didn’t feel like arguing. It was too cold to argue.
“I cain’t help it.”
“I know.”
Silence again. As Rico’s breath slowly deepened again, Joe’s mind went back to drifting. If he had a job and his own place, he wouldn’t have to stay here anymore. But what was he to do—go back to washing dishes? He was never going to meet any women that way.
And what about Rico? He couldn’t just leave him behind here, could he, as sick as he was?
Rico gave a sudden huff of annoyance and turned on his other side, so that his back was towards Joe. “Goddamn it, I give up. Ya sound like a goddamn machine gun.” He coughed briefly. “I was havin’ a nice dream, too. Dreamed I was in Florida.”
Joe was tempted to tell him he never complained when Rico woke him up with his coughing, when he suddenly remembered something his grandmother had once said to him. It was back when he had just moved in with her and it had been an unusually cold winter. Sally Buck only had a gas stove in her living room; her bedrooms were left to the mercy of the weather.
“When you get real cold,” she’d said, “think of warm places. Imagine you’re there, feelin’ the sun on your skin, feelin’ the warmth. Imagine you’re like a teacup and the sunshine’s pourin’ on in there. You’ll feel warm in no time, sweetness.”
“Hey, Rico?”
“Hmm.”
“Tell me about Florida.”
There was a pause. “What about Florida?”
“It’s warm there, ain’t it?”
“Warm?” Rizzo scoffed. “It don’t get warm in Florida. It gets hot. 80 degrees every day, minimum. And it’s humid. That means it’s a wet heat, like it’ll make you sweat.”
“Whoo-ey.” Joe closed his eyes, and pictured it; standing in the sunshine, taking his jacket off, a sweaty shirt clinging to his torso. He was beginning to feel warmer already.
“Does it ever snow there?”
“Hell, no. It never snows down there.” Rico sighed, and something dreamy crept into his voice. Joe drifted along with him, seeing everything he described. “There's palm trees everywhere, wavin' in the tropical breeze. Coconuts and mangoes and oranges just droppin' on your noggin wherever you go. The beaches got sand so white it blinds ya. All the buildings are white, too." He shifted, a little closer against Joe. "There's flamingoes—you know what a flamingo is?—and alligators. You’d think they broke out of a zoo or somethin’, but they're everywhere, just on the streets.”
"They got any monkeys down yonder?"
"Nah, there’s no monkeys."
"That’s too bad," Joe said. "I like monkeys."
He could feel Rico’s back rise and fall against his chest. His smell, though overpoweringly of old sweat and greasy hair, was something he was beginning to get used to.
“Rico? What’re you gonna do when you get down there?”
“Lie on the beach. Swim in the sea. Not even the sea is cold over there; it’s warm. You can stay in it all day if you want.”
“Hmm.” Joe was picturing it. Him and Rico splashing each other, floating on their backs, pushing each other under water. Like kids. The last time he’d seen the ocean was when he was a little kid and Sally had taken him to Galveston.
Rico sighed. “I’ll never ever be cold again.”
Joe thought that the way Rico talked about Florida was the way he had once thought about New York City: like it was the land of milk and honey. A magical place where all his problems would up and disappear, and everything was poised to go his way. He had sure been robbed of that illusion. He was about to tell Rico there had to be things in Florida that wouldn’t be so great, and ask him what was he gonna do for work? How was he gonna make money?
But he held back. What was the point? If someone had trodden on his dream while he had been on his way here, he wouldn’t have thanked him, either. Hell, he wouldn’t even have listened. And besides, if he thought Rico was being naïve, then he’d have to admit to himself that he was naïve, too, for going out and strutting around in his not-a-for-real-cowboy outfit every night and thinking about gorgeous women in ballrooms.
But, Joe thought, if he’d been warned beforehand, maybe he wouldn’t feel so disappointed now. Maybe he wouldn’t be here freezing his ass off. Maybe he should just leave Rico to his own disillusionment, while he searched for something good, something better.
But, curiously, when he tried to conjure up that dream scenario, he struggled. It wasn’t just that he felt guilty even thinking about leaving Rico, who had helped him and who was now counting on his help in return. The cold and the boredom and the hunger had made of them confederates. Now that he had someone to talk to, to rely on—for he knew Rico felt the same way, and would not leave him behind if he went to Florida—he understood that his dreams had got him far, and provided a welcome distraction, but he needed more than that to stay alive. He needed something real. And Rico was realer than most.
Rico pushed against Joe’s leg with his foot.
"Tell me about Texas," he muttered. "It's warm in Texas, ain't it?"
"Oh, yessirreebob. Hotter'n a cast iron pan fresh off the stove in summer." And Joe described it to him, the place he’d grown up. The dry, hot summers. The crickets whispering in the fields at night, when he’d lie in bed with the windows open. The air shivering above the asphalt roads. Spending his free time fishing for catfish in the creeks. The smell of charcoal and sizzling steaks. How you could look into the distance and see nothing and go towards it and still see nothing.
When he stopped talking, he was feeling warmer, but incredibly homesick. Rico had fallen asleep, and Joe lay listening to his light snores.
I wonder if places dream about us, he thought. If they miss us when we leave, and if they expect us when we’re headin’ there. Or if they don’t want us there, and they don’t hesitate to make it known. That was certainly the feeling he had here in New York City.
Rico started to cough, and Joe unconsciously tightened his arms around his stomach—not his chest—and felt Rico’s body slacken again in his arms.
One thing about dreams, he thought. It’s nice to have someone to share 'em with. To say 'em out loud to. Makes 'em more real, somehow.
Outside, the rain had started up, and the thick drops pelted the wax paper on the window with a muted clatter that reminded him of horses galloping across packed dirt. Joe closed his eyes and tried to follow Rico into his dream. The clatter became a bunch of coconuts raining down on the street, sweeping them up and carrying them along. Joe smiled. It was a funny image.
Whatever doubts he had about Florida, he thought as he drifted off to sleep, he couldn’t deny sharing Rico’s thought that it had to be better than this.
At least they wouldn't be cold.