The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015

by Adam Johnson

  Rhonda made an irritated snort, half laugh, half fart. It seemed to come from her mouth.

  Jack, confident he was at the peak of his charm, refused to be put off. “Can you just open the door, so that we can talk like humans, without the frickin’ mustache?”

  “The what?”

  “The . . .” J ack gestured swoopily toward the door. “The frickin’. . .”

  “Chain?” suggested Rhonda.

  “All I want is, like, hello, okay? Like hello, whatever, a glass of water.”

  The girl grimaced dramatically, egging on Jack’s own sense of tragedy.

  “I am literally dying, Rhonda.”

  Jack pressed his face into the door crack, letting the cool air caress his skin. His eyes, blinded from sunlight, barely took in the fact that the girl was gone. After a moment, he heard water running in the sink, the clink of a glass being pulled from a cupboard. He closed his eyes, felt a stirring between his legs. Rhonda had always been so kind.

  “I don’t need ice,” he called out.

  “Good. Here you go.”

  At first Jack wasn’t sure what it was. The water thrown in his face was cold. It dripped down his neck and into his shirt, slow trails across his belly. It lingered, drifted lower, like a kind of kiss. Jack licked his lips: the tap water salty, mixed with his sweat. Something was humming, too—the bones under his cheeks, near his eyes, vibrating like a tuning fork or an organ at the back of a church.

  “Don’t cry,” he said to Rhonda, who said she wasn’t.

  “Why would I be crying after a fucking year?”

  Jack said, “What year?”—to which Rhonda replied, “I thought you were dead.”

  She wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. Jack asked if she was going fast.

  “Are you insane?” said Rhonda. “Those were the worst two months of my life.”

  “Why don’t I come in and we’ll take a nap?” suggested Jack.

  “Listen to me,” the girl said. “You have to lose this address—do you hear me?”

  Jack ran a hand over his wet face.

  “Please,” begged Rhonda. “You have to go. Eric will be home soon.”

  Jack wondered if she meant Jack, since the names were so similar. “Do you mean me?” he asked in earnest. He tried to find the girl’s eyes—and when he did he saw that she wasn’t a girl at all. She was old, practically as old as Bertie. What was more astonishing, though, was the look on her face. There was no love in it whatsoever.

  “I don’t know you,” said Jack.

  “Good,” said Rhonda, shutting the door.

  He stood on some gravel, and felt terrible. Even the little plank of shadow beside the cement wall held no appeal. Were he to lie there, he’d only get the jits.

  Walking was what he needed, and to hell with the sun.

  That’s what people in his position did. They walked, they moved, they got things done. Sitting was no good. Talking was fine, if you had someone. Sex was primal. Jack’s body knew the rules. There were any number of ways to keep one’s brain from exploding.

  People going fast rearranged the furniture, or crawled around looking for carpet crumbs. Anything that used your hands, which, compelled by the imaginative fervor of your mind, became tools in a breathless campaign to change the shape of the world. It was art, essentially. Jack wondered why more people going fast didn’t do crafts. He suddenly wished for construction paper and Elmer’s glue; glitter, cotton, clay. Once, when he was little, he’d made a kick-ass giraffe from a walnut and some toilet-paper tubes. The legs, ingeniously, had been chopsticks.

  Bertie used to leave them for hours, on the days she attended her meetings. She’d always made sure there were coloring books and Play-Doh, carrot sticks and DVDs. Little notes saying Love and Be back soon. Jack and his sister had in no way been deprived.

  His sister? Fuck. His sister. She came back to him like sheet lightning. He hadn’t seen Lisa since she’d gone away. He clapped his hands, to banish the thought. It was almost funny how, at certain elevations, it was so easy to pretend you didn’t know things you could never forget. Jack dug for his phone, to see if he had Lisa’s number.

  But, being that there was no phone, he pulled up only lint—which he quickly dismissed, into the air, with a puff. He watched it float for a moment, fluttering with indecision, before it drifted down, in a slow sashay, and landed on his shoe.

  “Fine,” said Jack. “Fine!” He picked up the gray fluff, and stuffed it back in his pocket.

  Walked around the block to see if he could trick it. He’d done it before. Pull one over on time. Circle back and confuse it. Like one of those Aborigines. They were big walkers, too. Ugly fuckers, but the cool thing was they could walk a thousand miles, no problem—and they weren’t trying to get to China or some shit like that. What they wanted was to get back to their ancestors—way the fuck past Grandma and Grandpa, all the way back to the lizards and the snakes.

  Jack, of course, would have been satisfied with a smaller victory—finding his way back five, six years, to Bertie’s crumbling adobe. “Star Trek” and pizza with Lisa. Hell, he’d be fine with getting back to just last year, to the old Rhonda, the Rhonda of the bra-welted back and the cream-cheese thighs, the sad girl he’d met at The Wheel, and whom he’d made happy with snowflakes and black clouds.

  Had it really been a year? Jack felt nervous now, flicked his thumb even faster, sensed his shadow growing longer, trailing him like gum stuck to his shoe. Soon, he knew, the freak would come, the soul-suck, if he didn’t get one of two things: more crystal or a sound sleep—both of which would require money, because sleep, at this point, wouldn’t be free. It would cost a bottle of grain or a six-pack or a pill. Sometimes he wondered why a person couldn’t just hit himself over the head with a rock.

  He climbed on top of the gas meter and opened the window, as he’d done a million times before. A small, high window, facing the alley. Lisa’s window, which Bertie never locked.

  A tight fit, even for a skinny drink like Jack. Halfway through, he found himself stuck, but with a series of wriggling bitch-in-heat motions he managed to make it through, head first, onto the dusty shrine of his sister’s neatly made bed. The friction of passing through the small opening, though, had pulled down his pants, as well as given him an erection. When he stood to hoist his jeans, a young woman in yoga tights entered the room, dropped a pear, and screamed.

  Jack, thinking the pear was some sort of grenade, covered his head, leaving his erection exposed.

  The woman moved quickly to the bureau and grabbed a bead-encrusted candlestick that Lisa had made in sixth grade. Jack, watching the drama through smoke-scented fingers, calmed, seeing the familiar prop. Plus, the grenade, bearing teeth marks, was obviously a ruse.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” said Jack—a comment that, judging by the woman’s anguished face, failed to impart the cordiality he wished to convey. The woman squealed and fled the room.

  “I just want to see Bertie,” Jack called out, pulling up his pants. “I’m her son. I’m Jack.”

  The idea of having to explain his existence exhausted him. When he walked into the living room, the woman was still clutching the candlestick—a lathe-turned beauty, to which Lisa had glued hundreds of tiny red beads. Jack had lent her the epoxy himself, a leftover tube from one of his build-it-yourself dinosaur sets.

  “You can put that down,” said Jack.

  “Look,” said the woman, “Beatrice isn’t here. She won’t be back for a while.”

  “Who?”

  “You’re looking for your mother?”

  Jack felt a peculiar flutter in his gut.

  “I’m meeting her in a—in a bit,” stammered the woman. “I’ll just—I’ll let her know you were here.”

  “What did you call her?” asked Jack.

  The woman took a step back. “Nothing. What?”

  “Her name,” Jack stated as calmly as possible, “is Bertie.”

  “Well, that’s not how I know her
,” said the woman in yoga tights, who, even with the upraised candlestick, seemed to smile, a quick flash of arrogance.

  “I can see your vulva,” said Jack.

  The woman covered her crotch with the candlestick. “My God, do you even know what you’re saying?”

  “It’s inappropriate is all I’m saying,” replied Jack, strolling over to the yellow couch. He sat at the far right, where the air of the swamp cooler always hit you square in the face. As kids, he and Lisa used to fight over this spot. “Fifteen minutes each,” Bertie used to say, making them share the luxury equally. “Otherwise I’ll shut the damn thing off.” Frickin’ Solomon, that was his mother all right. A parttime Christian with a gutter mouth.

  Beatrice? For fucking real? How could Jack not have known this—or, more important, why had this information been kept from him? “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about,” he said to the woman.

  But she wasn’t listening. She was on the telephone, giving an address Jack recognized. He made a blah-blah-blah gesture with his hand, as the woman prattled into the phone.

  Why did no one wish to have a legitimate exchange with him? He was a good person, a personable person, a person with a heart the size of a fucking bullfrog. Couldn’t the woman in yoga tights understand that there was no need to involve the police?

  “I live here,” said Jack.

  The woman said, “Thank you,” and hung up the phone. “I’ve called the—”

  “I know,” interrupted Jack. He crossed his legs, willing himself to stay calm. Anyway, it would take them at least ten minutes to get here. This wasn’t a Zip Code anyone rushed to, especially the cops.

  “Do you want to get arrested?” the woman asked. “I mean, do you want to be like this?”

  “Like what?” asked Jack.

  “Do you realize how much pain you’ve caused Beatrice?”

  “Who are you, exactly?” Jack had the thought to have Yoga Tights arrested when the police arrived. “How do you even know my mother?”

  “We’re roommates,” the woman articulated with unnecessary aggression.

  Jack had a vision of pillow fights, s’mores, backrubs.

  “Disgusting,” he said.

  “What’s disgusting?”

  Jack didn’t reply—glass houses and all. He might as well be talking about himself and Jamie. He stood, annoyed, and walked over to the mirrored cabinet in the corner of the room. It seemed distinctly smaller than it had when he was little, like a toy version of the real thing. He knelt before it, turned the silver latch, opened the doors. He stared inside, uncomprehendingly (What the fuck?), pushed around envelopes and stamps, a pile of old phone bills. He shoved his hands to the far back. Not even a bottle of Tio Pepe or crème de menthe.

  “We don’t keep any in the house,” the woman said.

  Jack scowled. He knew Bertie better than that.

  “In case you care to know, your mother is doing really well.”

  Wonderful! thought Jack. Applause!

  He stood, dusted himself off regally, as if he might dismiss the in-creeping panic. “I just need to get a few bottles of water.”

  In the kitchen, in the pantry, he pulled the cord, turned on the light. Well stocked, as usual. For Judgment Day, Bertie had always been prepared. With food, if not with mercy. “I can’t be held responsible,” Bertie liked to say. In a more generous mood, everything was God’s plan, God’s doing. Jack took six bottles of water and ten granola bars, stuffed them into his pack.

  “Help yourself, why don’t you?” the woman said.

  Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. Jack turned to her. She was standing in the doorway, still holding the candlestick.

  “Do you even know who that belongs to? Do you even know who made that?”

  But the woman had no interest in discussing the relics of Jack’s childhood. “Just take what you want and go,” she said. “Beatrice would probably be pissed anyway, if I got you arrested. I don’t know why she should be, though. You’ve been a very toxic influence on her.” She shook her head, puffing air bullishly from her nose. “Everyone at Fellowship thinks so, too, but your mother is, like, deluded.”

  The woman moved the candlestick from one hand to the other. Jack looked at her hard, just to make sure she wasn’t Lisa. No one really knew what Lisa looked like these days.

  You could always tell by the eyes, though—and when Jack looked at those he knew that Yoga Tights was not his sister.

  “You’re not even a very good replacement,” he said.

  “Replacement for what?” she asked.

  But Jack did not deign to answer. He zipped his pack and, without even bothering to take the loose change visible on the counter, scurried out the back door.

  He cut through neighbors’ yards to avoid running into the cops. He leaped over stones, over crevices, over brown lawns and tiny quicksilver lizards. His speed exhilarated him, and then made him feel distinctly ill. When he finally heard the sirens, he was three blocks away, in an alley frilly with trash. He lurched to a stop, sending up clouds of dust. A dry wind blew grit into his eye.

  Fuck. He needed an improvement in his itinerary, like immediately. But he had no leverage. Not even two bucks for the bus. He should have taken the coins from Bertie’s kitchen. Probably no more than a dollar, but a dollar was enough to get started. Four quarters in a newspaper lockbox and you could steal the lot, sell them from some busy intersection. Old-school, but it worked—even if, sometimes, it took five hours to make five bucks.

  “What’s that?” Jack said to his stomach, which was mumbling something vague but insistent. He fed it a granola bar, and immediately vomited. Drank some water. Vomited again.

  Dirt, weeds, a huge prickly pear like a coral reef. Jack covered his burning head with his T-shirt, exposing his belly. Why hadn’t the Founding Fathers planted more shade trees out here? Probably because the bastards had never made it this far west. The only people who’d ventured this far, back then, were derelicts and thieves. Uprooted types, not prone to plant things.

  Jack was leaning philosophically against a fence for several minutes before he spotted the dog, sleeping on the other side. Not a pit, just some big floppy collie. Still, it reminded him of Lisa.

  How could an animal sleep in this heat with all that fur? Jack knelt in the alley, winding his fingers through the chain-link. “Psst.” Rattled the fence. “Hey! Buster!”

  The dog opened one eye, too stunned to get up. Shook a leg epileptically.

  “You’re just gonna lie there?” Piles of dried shit everywhere, like a miniature wigwam village. Again Jack rattled the fence.

  “What are you doing? Why are you bothering him?” A little man with a lopsided beard, like a paintbrush that had dried crooked, appeared at a window.

  “I’m not bothering him,” said Jack. “I thought he was someone else.”

  “He’s a dog,” said the man. “He ain’t got nothing to do with you.”

  Jack, riled, was ready to argue the point, but then let it go. He could see that the man was old, and so was the dog. Besides, his mouth was dry, and as he tried to get up his legs buckled.

  The man snapped his fingers in Jack’s direction. “No funny business!”

  Jack nodded and backed away. “I’m going.”

  He walked about ten feet before he stopped, opened his backpack, and pulled out another granola bar—which he quickly unwrapped and tossed over the fence. “Get up for that, I bet.”

  The dog didn’t hesitate. “I thought so,” said Jack.

  Instantly, though, the old man shot from the back door and pulled the food from the dog’s mouth.

  “It’s not poison!” shouted Jack. “It’s granola!”

  A firecracker went off in the distance, and Jack turned. Next time, he thought, I’ll do that—stick a firecracker in the damn granola.

  For years, he’d hated every dog, and experienced a paralyzing weakness in their presence. Now, despite the occasional flash of cruel intention, Jack’s a
nger had mostly turned into something else. A dog, any dog, was like the relentless sunshine: mind-alteringly sad. Jack sat on the curb, touched his hand to blazing macadam.

  Sometimes it could be burned out of you—the pain.

  But no, the past was here, before him now like a mirage, wavering with tiny figures, holograms he recognized.

  Resistance is futile, the Borg say.

  Because not only had he run into a dog; he’d run out of his stash as well—and running out of crystal was like running out of time, sinking back into the mud that was your life. No dusting of white snow to prettify the view. With a mad, flea-scratching intensity, Jack scraped out the stem of his pookie, but what fell from it was worthless: a few flakes of irredeemable tar. The holograms grew to full size, and came closer.

  “Grrr,” said Jack, hoping he didn’t sound like an animal.

  Jack had been with his sister that day—a summer morning, playing Frisbee in a field. The Frisbee had gone over a fence.

  The dog was black, not huge, the size of a twenty-gallon ice chest.

  After the attack, Jack wondered if they’d really killed it. The police had used the words put to sleep, but Jack had worried that the owners might have somehow woken the animal up, and were hiding it inside their house. Lisa’s fears, no doubt, had been far worse—but Jack had known better than to ask her.

  Anyway, Lisa couldn’t really talk after it happened. She had a lot of problems with her jaw. With everything, really. Her right hand was so nerve-damaged that she had to use her left, which she never got very good at. She shook a lot, refused to eat, mostly drank smoothies. Her pinkie was missing.

  Her face, though, was the worst. Even after two surgeries, it looked like something badly made, lumpy—as if a child had made it out of clay. It was less a face than the idea of one, preliminary, a sketch—but careless, with terrible proportions, and slightly skewed; primitive—a face that might be touching in art, but in life was hideous.

  “Look at that!” Bertie had shouted at the lawyer, showing him pictures of what Lisa had looked like before. “Beautiful. And this is what they’re saying she’s worth?”