Excerpt:
"'Art imitates life,'" Flyer chants up Avenue A.  Past delis and cafes.  Video stores and juice bars.  Tattoo parlors and vintage clothing shops. 

"Or was it 'life imitates art'?" he muses.  "Now I can't remember what Velly said.  Who cares?  We're going to create a real work of art that imitates nothing and no one."

"True that," I say.

In reality, Flyer's not that good with the camera.  He never showed a real interest in film till his mom left.  It doesn't mater.  I plan to do most of the camera work.  I'm hoping it will give Dad and me something to connect on.  He always takes vacation around the holidays.  Since we're not going skiing this year, maybe we'll get some hang time here in New York — going to movies and the planetarium, losing ourselves in bookstores and then chowing down on sushi — like we used to do once upon a time. 

Flyer and I weave up our favorite streets.  I whistle whenever he's about to skate into a pile of dog crap.  Call it a sixth sense, but I always know when crap is near, even when I'm not looking down at the pavement. 

The air is thick with candied nuts and sirens.  All the stores look like they're dressed up for one of Dad's black-tie charity events.

We stop at Kim's Video, where I rent all my movies.  Red, green and gold lights wink on and off.  A tall woman in tight jeans and cowboy boots emerges.  Shop bells jingle in her wake.  She flashes a grin at the camera, then blows an air kiss my way.  My heart pounds as she disappears up the street.

"Yo, she digs you, man."  Flyer smirks.

Yeah, right.  The last girlfriend I had was Penelope Li, in sixth grade.  A beautiful girl.  But she was all prudish and broke up with me when I tried to tongue kiss her.  These days, I'd pretty much given up on girls anyway.  I could just see myself trying to cough up the words to ask someone out as a whole hallway of kids roared with laughter.  If I weren't Jewish, I might consider monkhood.

We walk past the fire station, the Hells Angels headquarters, mosaic-tiled streetlamps, decaying brownstones, and new high-rises.  We know where we're heading without even saying it. 

Around us, BIKE MESSANGERS BOB THROUGH TRAFFIC, FIRE ESCAPES SNAKE DOWN BUILDINGS and OLD WOMEN LEAN ON WEARY PILLOWS / IN FIRST-FLOOR WINDOWS / WATCHING THE HYPNOTIC TICK OF VILLAGE LIFE.  Lots of images in Zeke's notebook are easy to spot.  Others are nowhere, like STREET ANGESL and some mystery girl whose eyes HAUNT MY DREAMS. 

Sometimes I think I see Zeke, his shiny black hair like a crow's wing, or his bouncy walk.  Sometimes I hear his deep laugh rising up from a group of kids.  The worst is when my mind starts in with its tricks, making me wonder if it really is him.

Above us, cylindrical wooden water towers perch on rooftops.  They are beautiful beings, sturdy and proud.  They stand on black steel legs.  Pointy caps dot their heads.  On some buildings, there are clusters of towers — a tall mom and squat father, huddled around two babies.  On others, there's just a SOLITARY TOWER, PRESSED FIRMLY INTO THE SKYLINE, A THUMBPRINT OF OUR CITY.           

Sometimes I imagine that the towers are rockets, ready to launch into space.  Sometimes I imagine that the towers are rockets, ready to launch into space.  Sometimes I wish I could lift off with them.

I find the lone tower on top of my building and I follow the sound of Flyer's skateboard wheels as I tilt the lens skyward to film it.

Once, Flyer and I snuck up to the roof and caught Zeke climbing the ladder up the tower.  As soon as he saw us, he came back down.  He looked like we'd just walked in on him in the bathroom or something, "Don't you ever go up there!" he'd shouted in my face.  "I'll have to hurt you if you do.  I mean it.  It's dangerous."

"What were you doing?" I'd asked.

He grabbed a fistful of my jacket, just below my neck.  "I better not find you on the roof again.  I'm older.  I'm allowed up here."

I wasn't stupid.  I knew that wasn't true.  For one thing, Zeke was only four years older.  And, anyway, no one was allowed on the roof.  There was a building rule against it.  "Liability," Dad said.  "We're responsible if someone gets hurt or falls off." 

As I'm filming the tower, a bird circles the tip.  Its wings are so vast that I move the camera to check it out, but the bird is already gone.

We arrive at Jesus by the park.  Jesus, with his sad eyes and his dripping wounds, is encased in a big glass box in someone's front courtyard.  There's a tiny latch on the door.  Plastic flowers, stuffed animals, torn-out psalms, burning candles all surround Jesus' limp feet.  Letters and prayers and crayon pictures from little kids are taped inside and out.  It makes my heart sting so much, I turn off the camera.  And like I said, I'm Jewish.

Or at least we were Jewish until July, when Zeke died and Dad renounced religion.  Not just for himself, but for the whole family.  My bar mitzvah was supposed to have been this past fall — October 12, to be exact.

That morning at breakfast, Mom had said, "I'm sorry, Joseph."

For some reason, I started thinking about Zeke's bar mitzvah, how he based his sermon on the writings of the prophet Ezekiel and ended with a poem he'd written:

There was no more to it, but those are the lines I remember.  Zeke winked at Dad on the last line, and Rabbi David and the rest of the sanctuary bubbled up with warm laughter.  It made me proud and also excited for the day when I'd be up on the bimah, reading from the Torah in front of all my friends and family for the first time.  It made me so anxious to cross that invisible line, as Zeke had.

Mom reached across the breakfast table to squeeze my forearm.  I wanted to ask her why she never took a stronger stand with Dad, why Rabbi David was the only one who'd really tried.  But instead I pulled my arm away.  Mom got a hurt look on her face, so I tried to make it seem like I was just taking a bite of cereal, but I knew she saw through me.

"If people name their kids Jesus and Allah," I suddenly hear Flyer saying, "why don't they name them God?"

As I chew on Flyer's question, I finger the carved-metal bird hanging from a leather cord around my neck.  I never take it off.  Velly gave it to me in September.

"It's a milagro," Belly had said.  "A charm, a petition to the saints to keep you safe.  My father was a metalsmith in Ecuador.  He taught me to make these.  I carved a bird for you because it can take you to higher places, help you soar.  You may feel grounded now and for a while.  Grief has its own mind and its own timetable.  But, por favor, amigo, don't forget your wings.

"Look at our city, put to the test in the most painful and profound way, but beginning to rise again.  You, too, will rise again.  You must.  It's the only way to honor what you've lost.

"Keep this milagro close and it will protect you, amigo.  Te lo prometo.  I promise."

I got a lump in my throat.  "I'm not … the one … who needed protecting."

Velly put a hand on my shoulder.  "We all need protecting, amigo."

We both shut up after that.  Which was just as well, because Mom doesn't want me talking about Zeke.  She says family business should stay in the family.

I fish in the pocket of my jeans and pull out a Super Ball with swirls of blue, green, and brown colors.  It looks like the world.  I kiss it, then open the door to the glass box and place it at the bottom, near Jesus' feet, in between a candle and a stack of baseball cards.  Call me corny.

Some of Zeke's other stuff is still here — a Matchbox car, a ceramic paperweight, his diabetes I.D. bracelet, which he never wore, anyway — but most of it is gone:  books, his toothbrush, his wool hat.  I figure either Jesus spirited them off to Zeke somewhere or they're with someone who needs them.  Better than me having to look at them and get that raw, burning feeling in my chest.

Flyer digs in one of the side pockets of his cargo pants and comes up with the tiniest flashlight you've ever seen.  He turns it on and puts it next to the Super Ball.  It lights up a patch that looks like Australia, as well as a bird feather.

Just as the raw feeling starts to worm its way through my insides, Flyer says, "Come on, soldier.  I'm starving."