Ecstatic

by Victor La Valle

  – You’re not popular at all, I said.

  Ishkabibble was annoyed; when he sighed the breath was a kazoo toot as it filtered through his skewed incisor. – You’ve got a funny way of asking me for a favor.

  – Was I trying to get one?

  – You just haven’t realized it yet.

  I’d thought I was just babbling, but a good peddler hears the plea.

  We had breezes blowing gasoline fumes; across the street a harried man uncapped his yellow Freightliner truck, which was parked in the driveway of his home. One of his young daughters was using a hose on the headlights as he pulled a second, muddy girl from getting into the sleeper.

  – You want to make a monster movie, he said.

  – I don’t think that’s it.

  – Why else would you be talking so much about that. And with me?

  – No one in my family would listen.

  – Big Man, you are not about to act like we’re tight.

  – Well what kind of monster would it be? I asked.

  – Godzilla movies only cost as much as the rubber suit. I can get you some nice distribution if we make a tape and sell it through barbershops in Queens.

  –There’s a great one where Godzilla fights a robot Godzilla and at first you can’t figure out how there could be two, but it’s aliens who created the fake, I said. Some others aliens show up in another Godzilla film controlling Monster Zero, also known as King Ghidrah.

  – Anthony. No need to convince me. I believe in your dreams and I can help you finance them. It’s already underway. That’s my business.

  7

  The next day Mom rented a Dodge Neon for our trip to Maryland.

  Brand new. It was a thing. New York was settling into winter so a trip five states south was exciting. I didn’t know my geography as well as I should, so anyplace below New Jersey was Alabama to me.

  The trunk of the Dodge was bigger than our Oldsmobile Firenza’s; even when we’d stowed every suitcase there was room for more. This astonished us.

  –What else could we bring? Grandma asked as we stood together looking in.

  –Let’s pack more clothes, Mom offered.

  This makes us sound idiotic, I know, and maybe we were acting like senseless early hominids, but really it was no different than cooing over a baby; we enjoyed a wonderful invention.

  A telephone ring woke us from our daze as we stood with hands on varied parts of the car. Just touching. Nabisase went inside as Mom showed Grandma and I the demure -mumm- of the engine even when her foot was pressed to the gas. Nabisase called my name four times. But when I went inside she was talking on the phone and I was angry she called me away from the demonstration. I watched Mom pull out the driveway to take Grandma once around.

  Nabisase said to the phone. – I just told you my name. Now tell me yours.

  –Who is it? I whispered.

  –You just heard me ask didn’t you? No, she told the caller. That was Anthony.

  – He wants to talk to you, she said.

  – Ishkabibble?

  – If you don’t tell me your name I won’t let you talk to him.

  I tried to grab the receiver out of her hand. – Is it Lorraine? She has a deep voice, I said.

  My sister ignored me. –That’s a stupid name, she said to the caller. Ledric is just not normal.

  –No, she corrected him a moment later. Nabisase isn’t crazy, it’s African.

  After giving me the device I waited until she’d gone to her own room to finish packing.

  – Why didn’t you just ask for me?

  He heaved and sighed and spoke. – I heard a girl so I had to know who she was.

  – She’s my sister. She’s thirteen, too.

  –I only got her name.

  –That’s more than you needed.

  Mom and Grandma returned; the sound of the Neon’s doors shutting once they stepped out was a soft-shoe routine compared to our Oldsmobile, that rattletrap.

  – Is it working? I asked.

  –You sound more desperate than me! Ledric laughed.

  – Is it?

  –No.

  – How do you know?

  –I had a pizza yesterday and I’m still feeling stuffed today so I know them tapeworms didn’t eat the whole pie inside me.

  –That’s not how it works, I said.

  –You going to tell me about what you haven’t done?

  –You don’t sound good, I told him. He really didn’t, but even before the tapeworms Ledric had to be a heavy breather.

  –I got another jar of that fish so I’m going to try one more time, but you got to come over here if something happens to me.

  –We’re going away for the weekend though. Wait till we get back.

  He cleared his throat. – Where you going? He sounded bewildered. As if he’d never realized I lived a life independent of his own.

  –Maryland, I said. A beauty pageant.

  – For your mother?

  –My sister, I whispered, because I didn’t want to admit this to him.

  –Your sister looks that good?

  –Don’t ask me that question again, I said.

  He forced a laugh, but I wasn’t convinced. –You’re nineteen and she’s thirteen, I reminded him.

  – Hey, come on. You’re my boy. I’m not thinking about her. By the time you get back Sunday I’ma be ready for my own modeling show, forget anyone else.

  Packing was easy for me; I just folded three suits, changes of underwear into a duffel bag. Moving my mother’s things into the car was even easier for me because she had a manservant.

  He walked through the front door as I got off the phone with Ledric. That skinny guy who lived next door.

  –Who’s this? I said when he walked inside.

  A second man walked in. Much bigger, overwhelmed by muscles. An upper-body so big it looked inconvenient.

  The slim one said, – I’m a friend of your mother’s.

  –You’re my age.

  – She’s young at heart.

  This could have been a big fight; what the skinny one said was already enough for me to break his jaw. Theoretically. The last thing I’d snapped was a KitKat bar. Worse than letting him sully my mother’s name though would’ve been to get beat down in my own living room.

  –How come you didn’t invite no men to your party last month? the big one asked.

  –I don’t even know your names.

  But I did know now and had then, it was Pinch. That’s what he was called, but fuck this third-rate Tony Atlas. He was the king of security guards at a high school in Brooklyn; drove an amplified Honda CrX. Sure, I recognized him.

  –I didn’t see you, I explained.

  My mother’s friend said, –You looked right at us! I waved at you from my stoop.

  The skinny guy, Candan, lived in the brick one-story house just to the right of ours. He stayed there with his mother and father. He did air-conditioner repair. Domestic and industrial. Finding a couple of generations at one address was normal; for Rosedale, as for much of the world, the worst thing a child could do was move away.

  –When did you meet my mother? I asked. Candan, Pinch and I were the only people here.

  Candan said, –We’ve been talking on and off since last year.

  –Talking about what?

  –We’ve talked about you, he said.

  Candan’s ears were as small as quarters. So little I bet he couldn’t wear sunglasses in the summertime. When I noticed them his dominance was subdivided. I even smiled.

  Pinch said, –I bet it’s going to be a long ride. You driving, Anthony?

  –Yeah. My mother can’t stay awake more than a couple hours at night.

  –Oh yes she does, Candan said.

  –That’s all! Pinch yelled.

  I was relieved to see the man could be tamed. Maybe not by me, but someone.

  Candan pointed beyond me, down the hall, to the back. –Anyway, she asked me to get her bags from her room.

 
; – She’s got a lock on the door.

  It was my first response; not why you? Or why did she ask you? Or even why the fuck did she fucking ask fucking you, fuck?

  –Your mother gave me the key.

  He walked by me. Pinch asked for a glass of water. I took him into the kitchen.

  Pinch wore a sweatshirt, but the fabric was stretched at the shoulders, along the arms, his back, oh everywhere. I wondered if he was one of those guys who had nothing else, no brains within, or maybe he’d been bullied as a child. I disparaged all physical discipline as the pastime of the witless. I certainly wasn’t going to admit that he looked nice.

  –Do you know what my mother told Candan about me? Anything?

  Pinch stared earnestly at the bottom of the glass as he drank.

  I heard the door to my mother’s room open. As soon as Pinch was done I washed his cup three times, until I heard Candan come out of Mom’s bedroom.

  I stepped into the hall and turned on the light so it’d be less gloomy. He locked the door. I heard him. When he turned around, with a small bag in his hand, I asked, –Can I see what she’s hiding in there?

  –Tell me why I should?

  –I’m her son, I said.

  The hallway, the living room, the front door. Candan walked down the front steps, reached my mother and playfully stepped on the toe of her shoe. She brushed him on the shoulder and held him there. He propped the bag between them and they pressed against it from two sides.

  Pinch was as ashamed as anyone by the exhibit. He leaned on our gate, looked away, down the block. Nabisase sat in the driver’s seat with Grandma as her passenger. When Mom and Candan started playing my sister pulled the lever near her foot and popped the trunk. Harder to see the couple through the rearview mirror that way.

  I walked over and asked, –Did you tell this guy about me?

  – I don’t want you getting angry, Anthony, my mother said. She dropped Candan’s hand as if she’d remembered herself. Would you like if I got angry at you for the smallest things?

  –You going to answer her? Candan didn’t touch my mother, he touched me. A finger at my chest, pressing.

  – C.D.! What are you doing? You know you hear me!

  The security doors on all our homes make a pneumatic hiss when opening. The sound came after the call of Candan’s father, an artifact at their front door.

  – I told you to stay in the house! Candan yelled back.

  Candan’s father was known as the President, though if this was meant respectfully I can’t say; his own son might have started the nickname and Candan wouldn’t mean it kindly. The President and his wife had a tiny retirement fund; Candan was their sponsor. I’d learned this because my folks carried gossip just like all you others. My family thought an unflattering photo of Janet Jackson was the apex of investigative reporting.

  – I need you over to the backyard, the President said.

  Candan returned the silver key to my mother; she smiled and watched him walk out our yard into his own next door, then to the front door where his father waited.

  –What do you need so bad? Candan asked too loudly.

  –I don’t want you over there all on that woman, the President said.

  Through the leafless hedge separating their house from ours Mom, Pinch, Nabisase, Grandma and I saw Candan push his father back inside their home. One hand against his dad’s back and the other squeezing the President’s neck.

  Grandma stepped out the side door of our home carrying her handbag with two hands, so that the straps hung in front of her thighs and the pouch bumped against both knees. Nabisase followed with a duffel bag over one shoulder; her three gowns were already in the trunk. Mom stood next to the Dodge and tapped the roof with her free hand.

  Daylight flattered them. They were good-looking women.

  I went inside to get my wallet from my bed in the basement. Upstairs again I turned off the hallway light; the kitchen’s, too. Went to the living room to check if anyone had left the iron burning and Ishkabibble was sitting a foot away from me, on our couch.

  I screamed his name two times. With such volume that people heard me outside.

  – Shhhh! He slapped my leg hard. Shhh! he said again.

  –This is breaking and entering, I told him.

  –Until the mortgage is paid this house is mine.

  –What if it was my grandmother who found you instead of me? She would’ve died.

  He stood up. –Ma’am’s tougher than you think. I didn’t know you scared so easily.

  – Don’t make fun of me.

  Ishkabibble put both hands up, palms facing me. –I’m not trying to down you or nothing.

  –Did you climb through one of the windows? I thought the doors were shut.

  –I’m in every house on this block.

  – How’s your neck? I countered.

  – Skin’s still peeling, he said. Your movie is on.

  – I haven’t even had an idea yet.

  –Make something up over the weekend. When you come back I’ll have a package for you. Very reasonable rates, I swear.

  I walked closer to him; maybe my mother had been beeping the car horn a while or maybe it had just started. – It’s that easy?

  –As far as I’m concerned, the movie’s already made.

  We shook hands. We hugged. Someone was thumping against the side door.

  –I heard his name, Mom yelled.

  –I heard it too, Nabisase agreed.

  – Ishkabibble! My mother screamed.

  –You better turn into a bat and get away before my family sees you, I told him. They don’t like to pay you and they sure don’t want you inside.

  He smiled as though the threat was minimal, but clearly he’d never seen my sister throw a punch. There were other voices though. Pinch. Candan. The President, too. On the stairs at the side of our house. My mother’s keys unlocked the door.

  When Pinch and Candan came in through the side, Ishkabibble opened the front door. Those two were fast, I swore they had him.

  – Get that nigga! Candan yelled.

  –Anthony, hold that nigga! Pinch came through.

  Ishkabibble went down the front stairs and over my four-foot gate gliding. Then up 229th Street in the direction of 147th Avenue where he might get a bus headed toward Far Rockaway.

  Pinch pointed at me. –You shouldn’t be talking with him.

  –I can talk to whoever I want.

  I said it then regretted this. Pinch stood massive in front of me. His breath smelled like menthol cigarettes. That disappointed me. I mean, to work out so much and then be a smoker.

  –You’re cool with him now? Candan yelled over Pinch’s shoulder. Maybe you want to try and repossess my car for him?

  Pinch exhaled. He tapped my shoulder. – I’m just letting you know you don’t want to mess with him. He tries to take advantage and it really makes me mad when he does it to people who can’t really take care of themselves.

  –Who are you talking about? My grandmother?

  Pinch wouldn’t look at me. – Ishkabibble just comes in here and feeds off of us. That’s what I’m saying. He’s getting rich while we’re living like slaves.

  I nodded. Pinch and Candan ran out. They got in Candan’s car, a burgundy ’95 Toyota Camry that had a spoiler shaped like a shark’s fin on the hood. As the car moved there wasn’t that slow acceleration. Instead it had the gas turbine vim of a jet.

  8

  My sister was enrolled in a beauty pageant for virgins, a contest I thought she could win. She was cute enough, but also, how many teenage hymens were left in America anymore? Even the emu-faced girls had been initiated by twelve. Fewer contestants fueled better odds.

  –You might actually win, I told Nabisase.

  – I’m glad that this surprises you, she said.

  –Don’t take it like that. I drove away from our block and toward the Belt Parkway.

  – How come Ledric said he met you in prison? my sister asked.

  �
�� He was telling a joke, I said.

  – Where did you meet him really?

  – Halfway House.

  New Jersey plays the ass too much. There are so many jokes about the industrial cloud hovering inches above the state and it’s true along I-95, where there’s an odor of pancreatic tumor, but not the New Jersey of I-78.

  The interstate was bracketed by great umber concrete slats that defended our path between the throngs of elm and red oak, which pressed so close to the road that they leaned over the dividers and wailed terribly when strong winds shook them alive.

  I was content though. Mom had given the driving to me. With this vehicle I had possession over one of the four miracles of the modern age: automated destruction. Another was the unapologetic enjoyment of sweet sloppy cunnilingus.

  One hour out of New York we passed a farmhouse with a fenced lot holding two brown foals. They dropped their heads into the grass, but were too shaky on their legs to eat. Foal. I knew the word for an unweaned horse but had never seen one. To me horses were like tropical fruit; I thought they couldn’t be grown in the tristate area. It never registered that horses pull those carriages through Central Park; I’d thought those were mules. They might as well have been okapi for what I knew. Even in Ithaca I’d willfully ignored the world beyond my rented room.

  We passed a graveyard settled off the highway. Nabisase crossed herself at the four stations, but I didn’t believe in her new faith. It can’t just happen like that. One day she’s hitting our mother with a crockpot the next she’s receiving the Eucharist? This was just another way of aggravating the rest of us. She carried a plastic rosary, but the Apostolic Church of Christ wasn’t nearly Catholic. I’ll bet I knew a Hail Mary better.

  My sister and I turned out such heathens I’m surprised we didn’t bubble when baptized. I observed crossing signals with more orthodoxy than the laws God gave unto Moses. Still, if Nabisase knew about my skepticism she didn’t show it. From the front passenger seat she made the sign of the cross watching the bronze and granite grave markers reflect sunlight, a field of gem-stones glittering all day.

  On US-22 one sign read, Pennsylvania Welcomes You.

  Getting to it felt like an accomplishment. We tapped each other’s shoulders and knees, saying, –We’re in Pennsylvania. We’re in Pennsylvania.