Ecstatic

by Victor La Valle

  I knocked a woman’s hat off her head with my big shoulder.

  A teenager got so jostled as I passed that his whole damn magazine fell between his knees to the floor.

  – Sorry, I whispered. Sorry.

  Even the other fat people cursed me or rolled their eyes.

  The driver was a fifty-year-old lady with a face like a betel nut. She waited until I was almost in the seat properly then pedal down, pedal hard.

  There was dance hall music coming from the radio and the van’s CB spattered conversation or static. The driver’s name was Lorna Tintree and she picked up the microphone whenever her dispatcher called for her. They always used her full name. She yelled responses as she drove too fast.

  Her voice had a thick island accent. I could imagine mango trees, but not any particular island. Slow down was the only message I wished her dispatcher would send. Her hair was a big loose spray of black semi-curls emanating from her skull like the sound waves of her rollicking conversation.

  Each time she stopped talking there was a moment before the guy on the other end responded and the fuzz through the microphone sounded like a name:

  -ledric- -ledric-.

  Please understand how dangerous a van trip is. Lorna Tintree took curves doing fifty.

  When we hit bumps and dips in the road eleven people tossed in the air. Only our driver wore a seat belt.

  My sister might have thought I was going to help Mr. Mayo, but I was not. I’d go apply for a library card at the Jamaica branch, have some lunch and then come home. I’d tell her that I lost the address.

  But after each leap, as the van banged back to the ground, the gnash of chassis against roadway was a familiar proper noun: -ledric- -ledric-.

  My conscience sounded like my sister, her voice a guide in my head. Leading me past Rufus King Park. To Sutphin Boulevard and 88th Avenue where a certain fat bastard rented a room. Shit if I hadn’t been avoiding saving his life.

  23

  Ledric’s building was owned by a Nigerian woman who wouldn’t let me into her home until I said his name a couple times. When I did she looked at me closely, asked, – You are the brother?

  – Of course, I said. Let me see him?

  This was a private home that the woman owned. One of three on the block between a pair of six-story apartment buildings. – Go round the back, she said.

  The lady rented single-occupancy spaces out of her basement. Three rooms at $400 each. Probably covered the mortgage so that her own paycheck might afford the large-screen television I’d seen through her front window.

  When I knocked politely and heard no response she kicked the door to Ledric’s room so hard that it rumbled from the force of her boot. Eventually Ledric made a noise, but not for three minutes. In that time I watched the lady as she ran one finger across her gums then fed on a few remnant strands of beef.

  Ledric was able to pull open the door to his room without getting up because he was lying on the ground. – Hey Ant. Nabisase just called me to see if you came yet, he whispered.

  The Nigerian said, – I want money for getting Ledric’s vomit out of my carpet.

  I’m not a creature. There are human feelings in me. I got down, set my arms around his waist, and helped Ledric onto the bed. That wasn’t actually a good thing because the whole mattress was wet through the sheets.

  The Nigerian woman said, – And he’s going to have to pay for the mattress if it’s ruin.

  Ledric’s room was only big enough for a bed and desk. The window was open, which helped relieve the moist smell of yuke, but this was November and pretty cold.

  – You should keep the window shut, I said to him.

  The landlord covered her nose. – He shouldn’t.

  I helped him dress, but he couldn’t get his arms through shirt sleeves. – I’m seeing in two’s, he whispered.

  His desk had nothing on it but work materials: envelopes, preprinted labels and form letters from SunTrust, a bank in Washington, D.C. I went through them like they were my own. Offers for unsecured credit cards, all applicants considered.

  –This is your job? I asked.

  – I’ve got to complete a hundred-fifty more this week.

  – I’m not going to do it for you, I said.

  On any subway seat in Queens there are these little red cards with phone numbers and bold offers: Lose Weight— 30 Lbs in 30 Days. Make Money— Assemble Products in Your Home. I never thought anyone was foolish enough to call the swindlers back.

  I was angry at him, but he could hardly breathe. I sat him up while I filled a gym bag with his least grimy clothes. The boy just wasn’t neat, even before the tapeworms I bet. Where was that jar?

  – I threw it out, Ledric said. I don’t know what I was thinking.

  I helped him to his feet, but that was a losing proposition. He was having a bad time standing, but when he leaned against me we managed a kind of run that was basically the two of us falling forward under the combined weight. Six hundred pounds. Okay seven.

  He was shorter than me and he had an enormous belly; the kind that suffocates genitals when the bearer sits down. But he had no tits at all and his legs were skinny.

  Before we could leave the Nigerian woman said, – He still owes me for the last week. Your brother pays me last Wednesday.

  – He’s sick, I said.

  – One ’undred.

  I paid her with the bills in my pocket. Ten ten-dollar bills and she counted them in front of me three times. I had no bank account only some paper money in my wallet and the rest hidden in one box of my books.

  Getting to Jamaica Avenue took half an hour, though it was just three blocks. Ledric had been slurring his words for twenty minutes and each time he opened his mouth a little drool played down his chin. It got so disgusting that I tied one of his T-shirts, bandit-style, around the lower half of his face to absorb the saliva.

  This made it harder to get a gypsy car; outfitted as he was and me with Ledric’s duffel bag on my shoulder taxi drivers probably thought we’d robbed a White Castle of its patties and buns.

  – Call your mother to pick us up, he begged.

  – She’s not with us anymore.

  – Is she alright?

  I didn’t feel like answering him. Eventually we were picked up. I gave the driver my address, and this is how Ledric Mayo came into my home.

  24

  I joined Clean Up that evening because even after bringing Ledric back, after explaining his predicament to Grandma then arguing with her over allowing him inside, after setting him on the living room couch and going to the grocery store for items Nabisase expected Ledric would need, I still wasn’t tired.

  Anyway, I couldn’t ask Nabisase to get a job. She’d already missed school one day and I wasn’t planning to let her pass another. Grandma had some savings, but we’d need income. I didn’t mind any of this. It’s not that I wanted to discover my manhood, I was going to invent it.

  Clean Up was a twilight shift that paid twice as much as day cleaning. It was clandestinely run by Sparkle’s assistant manager, Claire. She told me not to bring any identification when meeting her in front of the office at nine. Thought I’d be alone, but there were twenty people waiting. Carrying no green cards, visas, credit cards; we weren’t even allowed to use last names.

  At nine-thirty Claire drove up in her green van. It wasn’t even as nice as the gypsy vans, which have four rows of padded seats. She had two long benches soldered down in the cargo hold so some sat on them. When those filled we sat on the floor between the benches. Like all Queens drivers Claire stood on the accelerator and the rocking in the back made for bruised butts. I’m too educated for this, I thought each time my tailbone banged.

  The factory was only one floor, but very wide. We had crossed from the mall in Long Island back to Laurelton. Metal grates were closed over loading bays. A man in the shape of an ostrich egg was waiting at the only open door. He didn’t let us in until Claire returned from parking the van blocks away. On
ce she took us in he locked the door from outside.

  We were led through the staff offices, more cubicles than closed rooms. Through a rectangular area with table, tea bags, coffee machines. We couldn’t walk fast enough for Claire who had on hiking boots and baby-blue jeans. She didn’t speak with us except to yell, – Let’s go! Do you people know how much I’ve got to do tonight?

  Then we came to a room where boxes of furniture were in stages of being packed or unpacked. Lights hung from the ceiling. Seven red hand trucks against a wall. Claire took off her coat to reveal one of those thin upper bodies that is the opposite of good nutrition. Her arms were as stiff as the chicken wings I’ll bet she bought through bulletproof Chinese restaurant glass. She was running a nefarious, illegal labor scheme wearing a white Old Navy T-shirt.

  –The important thing for you to understand about Clean Up is that I’m always busier than you. While you’re clearing a room I’m doing four or five other jobs. So don’t bother me. If you see me smoking a cigarette don’t come asking for more hours, because I’m doing inventory in my head.

  She expected some reaction, maybe an ovation.

  She said, – I’d give anything for one American. Then she yelled, If any one of you spoke English I’d pay $100 an hour.

  – I speak it pretty well, I said.

  She was surprised. – How did you get in here?

  – You called me. We spoke on the phone.

  Claire had a notepad in her back pocket and opened it. – You’re not Esmeralda. Anthony?

  – Yes.

  – Anthony, I’m a very busy woman. I don’t want you interrupting me again.

  With that Claire led us to our workroom. I’d thought this was just going to be a bigger sweeping job. Gather factory dust, shine flanges and get twice my daytime Sparkle rate. You’ve got to realize how much energy I had; the coming work didn’t daunt. I’d just driven for seven hours that morning, we’d been in Virginia twenty-four hours ago. I’d saved Ledric from his landlady and took him home to recuperate. Now what else, Clean Up? That’s nothing. Six hours of work. I had the fuel.

  We left the main floor by going through a thick door with four locks. There was an open dark stairway and I forgot where I was. For eleven seconds I had a waking dream that we were being taken to the basement so they could shoot us in the head and keep the blood. I know that seems stupid but besides me the other twenty women looked El Salvadorian so what child of the eighties wouldn’t think of death squads? A feeling of nauseous exhilaration was in my sternum because I thought I was going to be killed, but then reality returned as I gripped the handrail and we were led downstairs by Claire.

  The basement was twice as long as the factory space upstairs, but only half as high, eight feet maybe. Sometimes Claire covered her mouth down here. Like whenever she breathed.

  She had a King Kullen bag full of white mouth guards. We put them on, but the rubber wire of the face masks scratched our cheeks so badly they left scuff marks. Claire walked to the top of the stairs leading to the first floor then addressed us.

  – You grab those big pink sheets then put them in the barrels. When one is full you cover it tight. Jam those sheets down hard to fit plenty. If any dust comes up put on your air filtration units.

  She shut the door then we listened to four locks click. I swung the surgeon’s mask, was this the air filtrator? I’d seen sturdier toilet paper.

  We rolled the long pink dry sheets; this worked for the top layer. Half the basement floor had stacks of these pink mats laid out.

  Once we had mastered the right speed, one that kept the asbestos dust out of our air, the curling up was easy. We stacked the rolls on their sides next to the barrels.

  A woman said, – We stop. We done too fast.

  Two of the twenty women were sisters. They wore clean white sneakers that they’d been brushing with their open hands whenever a smudge appeared. Now on break they sat and took the shoes off, blew on them then used the bottoms of their shirts to wipe the heels. Pay Less sneakers probably, cheap, but I admired anyone who worked hard on her wardrobe. I rubbed at the dust stains on my purple suit.

  Turning their shoes over both women cleared grains from the soles by running pens in the grooves. The green ink made the bottoms of their sneakers the dull color of an unripe olive. We rested for half an hour and watched the sisters maintain their beauty.

  What a disappointment to find out later that this basement had flooded recently. It was obvious because the next layer of pink sheets were stiff but wrinkled like dried washcloth. These sections broke apart while being rolled so there was no way to avoid the dust. Below that was a layer still so wet it couldn’t be curled. I paced the room looking for tin or flat steel to use as a shovel.

  I found the lower end of a broom so I tried to sweep portions toward the barrels, but the pink molasses came apart under the bristles. Soon the whole room was a tableau of crouched figures scooping wads of asbestos into their arms, balancing the bundles as they walked across the long room to drop them into bins.

  Every twenty minutes half a dozen people stopped to stretch their lumbar regions in the corner of the room not beset with pink dust devils. When the floor was clearer we tracked through puddles of grainy water as yet undried on the concrete floor.

  The soles of those sisters’ sneakers leaked ink into the puddles when they got wet. The pools were already cloudy, but they turned faintly green.

  One woman pointed, saying, – It is the color of dollars bills.

  We were punch drunk. We were half twisted off.

  We’d been down there four hours so excuse our grogginess.

  The general state was so bad that one of the sisters rashly splashed through the green puddle just because it was like money.

  I did because it was like money.

  The other ladies splashed in it and for a good reason, it was money.

  The second sister even went through eventually, but only because she was a big follower.

  We doused our shoes in the water more than twice because it was like money.

  What a peppy crowd we became. Making friends and praising peace. Our pants stained with prosperity.

  25

  My long Monday finally ended at three AM Tuesday morning, November 14th, 1995.

  The Clean Up shift was close enough to my home that Claire agreed to drop me at the corner, though the other women were only getting a ride to the 7 train.

  She left me out on the corner of 229th and 145th Avenue where I had to hide behind a parked car because four loose mutts wrestled, yipped and yawned in front of Candan’s home. His red Doberman barked then the four on the sidewalk whimpered. I was afraid of being snapped at like Ishkabibble at my cookout so I gave the dogs a few minutes to socialize. Soon, the quartet ran off, I thought they were done. But Candan’s red dog was still there, nose pressed against its gate, watching me open mine.

  Grandma hopped in from the living room as I took off my coat in the kitchen. Before I could ask why she was awake Grandma whispered, – He can’t breathe. That boy.

  I said, – Let him rest.

  – Your sister sits with him the whole night.

  I opened the basement door, but the lights were off. –They’re down there now?

  Grandma said, – We couldn’t manage him down the stairs. He is as big as you. He is still in the living room.

  He was in a sleeping bag on the ground with some couch cushions to prop him up. Between the sectional couch and the entertainment unit; his boots stood neatly with the other shoes in the kitchen.

  Three in the morning and my sister was still awake kneeling by his side. She wasn’t saying prayers, but playing Tetris on her Game Boy. She wore a long yellow nightdress that went down to her ankles. Her bare feet tucked under her butt so that the toes were pointing toward me in the hallway. There was a bowl of water with a face cloth soaking in it, and another wet one resting on Ledric’s collarbone.

  – What you’ll need to do is take hot baths, Nabisase told h
im.

  He responded slowly.

  – I wish I met you someplace else, he said. I look kind of nice when I’m dressed up.

  She was thirteen and he was nineteen, a huge age gap only to parents of teenagers. Those adults should shut their eyes, firmly, at malls.

  – I don’t care about that stuff, Nabisase said. Fat’s not the worst thing you could be.

  – Your brother tell you how I got sick?

  – He said it was bad fish.

  – I just got desperate. I don’t want to look like this anymore.

  She exchanged one wet cloth for the other; rubbing it on his face, his neck, his arms.

  I didn’t interrupt them. I went back to the kitchen’s security door and slammed it as if this was my first time coming in. With that noise my sister rose and went right to bed. Ledric shut his eyes.

  Grandma sat in the kitchen, waiting for me to carry her. – You need the hospital even more than he does, I said.

  She told me, – I am fine.

  This left the basement or my mother’s locked room for my first sleep since Lumpkin. But I refused either.

  I crept to Ledric’s side and listened to him wheeze.

  He slept for three hours while I never closed my eyes. I should have been exhausted.

  At six I poked his ribs. – Get up, I said.

  – Where?

  – I guess we’re going to Queens General, I said. If you’re that sick.

  Ledric whispered, – I’m not going to no hospital. His arms were above the covers, but he couldn’t lift them. Only his puffy hands shifting proved his agitation.

  – Listen to you. You can’t inhale.

  – No hospital.

  – You still seeing double?

  – I just won’t open my eyes. To prove it he closed them, but couldn’t even rally the energy to squeeze them theatrically. His big cheeks puffed out and he exhaled.

  – My sister can’t take care of you with aspirin and soup.

  – No hospital, he stressed. They’ll give me a disease.

  His sentences were coming out between wheezes, murmurs really. I had to lean down close while on my knees. – I think you’ve got one already, I said.