by Saints
A rough-edged platter patterned like bark, bearing wagyu beef shabu-shabu and green asparagus, with wild rice arrived. A round lacquer platter, orange like the sun, framing an artful dessert presentation of fresh nashi pear, grapes, persimmons, grapefruit, and pomegranate, with vanilla custard and quince jelly. A pot of tea that Matthew called “matcha.”
“So you worked a bit on a sculpture today?”
“A thing I’m doing with a bicycle wheel I found.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“We’ll see.”
“Does art run in your family?”
Anthony laughed.
“My mother was a dancer and a drug addict. My grandfather was a neurosurgeon and a gambler. All of those things are out, for me. I don’t know much about my father.”
“Is art what you want?”
Anthony thought for a moment.
“I don’t know that my wanting anything would help it happen, so maybe why bother?” he said.
“Awfully dark for twenty-one.”
“Matthew, I’m really sixteen.” A pause, and then: “By rights, I should be skateboarding under an elevated highway about now.”
Matthew took another sip of the daiginjo sake that had been poured for dessert.
“I know what you mean,” he said expansively. “So am I, in a way, sixteen—you know? We all are. It’s something to hang onto, if we can.”
Anthony sighed.
“Amen,” he said.
“I’m just saying you deserve the best,” said Matthew, turning toward Anthony. “And Vincent, if there’s anything I can do to help you get to the next level…if sculpture is your thing, I can introduce you to some people.”
“Thanks. We’ll see. I really appreciate it, Matthew. But fate is part of this, too, you know, and that shit is strong.”
“Absolutely. Without question. No judgment, Vincent, but I’ve seen guys like you go on to do great things. Sometimes you have to go a little backwards, in order to start going forward—even if you don’t know where the direction of forward is.”
“From where I stand it’s a little hard to see what’s forward and what’s backward.”
“Fair point.”
* * *
On Friday it didn’t rain and the school pageant was a big success. With the help of loudspeakers and recorded music, the sweep of the entire American revolutionary effort was summoned passionately by a very committed cast of five-to-twelve-year-olds. The event, which took place on one of the terraces below the Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument in Fort Greene Park, drew at least a hundred people—parents, family members, other school children, and passersby who happened to be in the park that day. And following the pageant’s sketches and tableaux was an informal potluck picnic.
Anthony wouldn’t have missed the day for the world—though he did have to turn down a date that would have brought him at least another $3000-4000. No worries, he thought. There were several things lined up for June, and Matthew was texting about the idea of flying him over to England to look at some gardens or something.
“You were awesome, buddy,” said Anthony, giving Joey a big hug when the boy ran over to him, a bottle of orange juice in hand.
“Thanks, Anth. Did you see the American prisoners?”
“I did. They looked like zombies.”
“Yeah, they were supposed to! My friend Martin’s dad works on Broadway and did the makeup.”
“Very convincing.” Towering above them was McKim, Mead, and White’s 150-foot-tall Doric column with a bronze urn on top—an eternal flame honoring the thousands of American Revolutionary soldiers whose remains are interred in a vault at the column’s base.
“Oh, and Anth—people want to thank you.” At which point Anthony noticed that all the students who had taken part in the pageant were gathered around.
“The kids wanted to say thank you for the wigs,” said Joey’s social studies teacher, Henry, whom Anthony had met at the beginning of the school year. “They really added a realistic touch and the kids had such a blast wearing them.”
“Thank you, Anthony,” came a chorus of happy little pageanteers, many of whom were wearing, under their three-cornered hats, the white and brown wigs Anthony had bought for them, with tight side curls and bowed queues in back.
“Thank you, Anthony,” said the fifth-grade Jamaican girl who’d played Admiral Howe.
“Oh, you’re very welcome,” said Anthony. “You guys did such an amazing job. Congratulations!”
“Really, we’re very grateful,” said Henry, as the gang ran off to their families and friends.
“It was a pleasure to be able to do it,” said Anthony.
“Joey’s a real star, you know.”
“Broadway calling?”
“That too, but I meant in school. We’ve all got our eye on him. He’s very special and has lots of potential. May I ask if you’ve thought about secondary schools for him?”
“Isn’t it…early for that?”
“Not at all. The reason I bring it up is that I’ve got connections at Lehman—they have a high school of American Studies there—and at Brooklyn Latin, which is closer.”
“Oh.”
“If you’d like, I could put in a word. Or we could discuss it further, at your convenience.”
“Thanks,” said Anthony. “Yeah, I guess we should. Appreciate it.”
“Good,” said Henry, “here’s my card.”
Anthony took the card and studied it, and Henry continued.
“You are his guardian, aren’t you?” he said.
“Oh, yes,” said Anthony. “I am.”
“Great, yeah. I mean…you seem a bit younger than most of our adults.”
“I know, I know.”
“And listen, don’t let the financial side worry you. I mean, maybe it’s not an issue, but if it is, there are great scholarship programs that were made for kids like Joey, no matter what their deal is.”
“Good to know,” said Anthony, “though that probably won’t be an issue.”
“I mean, there are even good places abroad. I know that Cambridge, for instance, has a terrific history program that’s open to American students.”
“Do they?”
“Positioning Joey for that would be very possible.”
“Hmm,” said Anthony. “Well, then we should talk about that, too. I, uh, happen to have some business that takes me to England now and then…”
Runner-up
Salvage
Karelia Stetz-Waters
They are just girls really, these newly enfranchised conscripts in my shop. Seventeen maybe. Not demanded conscripts, I’m guessing. They were born after the war. At least as children they raced past sagging fences made of stretchers and the hulls of drones, yelling out their own dreams. Then they chose this life, the one they wear now as clearly as if they were still in uniform. I can see them eyeing me, lingering in the doorway. Their hair is cropped close as is required by their order.
The boldest comes toward me.
“We turn toward the rising sun,” she says.
It’s a challenge she doesn’t have a right to make here.
“I honor the sun with my pure heart,” I say, covering my heart with my hand.
I know men who have lost an arm for not repeating this liturgy.
The girl taps her fist to her heart. “Self-conscript, eleven.”
Self-conscript. She does not see the paradox. Perhaps there is no paradox for her.
“Brother, demanded conscription. Sister self-conscript, nine. Father first-demanded-conscript, three years.”
She continues with the litany: age of entry for the living, years of service for the dead. Her family has affirmed their dedication. She finishes and looks at me. She knows I am salvage. On the street corner, this would give her the right to spit at me, but not in my shop while her friends are scanning the window for patrolmen, the wall for the images they want. They feel it: that age-old yearning to decorate the body, to alter, to amend.
I will not tattoo them. I could lose my shop or worse, but I enjoy watching their struggle. I liked the conscripts better during the war. They were vicious, but they had more integrity.
The images are hung on little plaques hooked to the wall, and the boldest girl turns toward the wall and picks a half-sun rising over a black line. Of course she does. It’s not enough that the image is emblazoned on the uniform I know she should be wearing. I consider pulling down the metal grate that separates my work area and bed from the storefront, but I don’t.
“How much, salvage?” the bold girl asks.
She hates me for I contribute nothing to the Front. I own: my body, my tools, my shop, myself. There are many ways to become salvage. I defected before the Front could shove a weapon in my hand. I thought if I slept on a grate beneath the city streets, I could escape the war. Not even the feral dogs that feed on dust and sunlight escaped the war.
Through the hot, dirty windows I see a figure moving purposefully across the street, coming toward the door. She is a conscript too, but high ranking, for her hair is pulled back in a braid. She opens the door. I wait for the girls to notice her, but she enters without a sound, without a shadow. She is about my age, I guess, but she looks younger, with the aggressive cleanliness of the Enlightened Liberation Front. A perfect seed-bearer. I am salvage; I’m not blind. I look away.
I should be afraid. If the woman thinks that I am delaying for her benefit alone, that I will catch the girls’ eyes and later they will come back with tanks of gas and bullets to trade, she has the right, by law, to execute me. That does not happen here in the north where salvage outnumber the conscripts, and the Front needs so many men to decommission the great war-tankers. It is like carving up a city. I know some who have spent their whole life on one ship, climbing its gutted flank, searing off pieces with a blue flame. They sleep with their acetylene tanks. Still there is more metal than there are men.
“I honor your sacrifice,” I say to the bold girl. “I cannot defile the body of the rising sun.”
The girl steps closer to my counter.
“You don’t get to refuse me, salvage. And we’re not paying.” She tosses her shoulder, almost coquettish. “You owe us your life.”
The world is safer now, after the war. Perhaps I owe my life to the Front, not to this child but to others. There were those who welcomed the first conscripts, waving the Front’s flag as the conscripts marched down the flowering lanes. I think we all know now. There is one regime, then there is another. In between is the war.
The woman behind the girls—I guess she is their sergeant-—is seething, but her anger only moves in her eyes.
“You have already committed your life to the rising sun. You do not need this,” I say to the bold girl. I hold up the card with the rising sun. “Take it. A souvenir.”
Another girl puts her card down on the counter: an image of an octopus drinking from a bottle. A few drunken bubbles rise from its lips. I think she must have pulled it from the wall without looking. She is nervous. I tilt the plaque upward slightly so the sergeant can see. She looks from me to the girls to the card.
“Really?” I ask the girl. “Conscript, why?”
I think I see a smile flicker behind the sergeant’s rage.
“I…” the girl stammers.
The stern, clean lines of the sergeant’s face soften. She shakes her head.
“Perhaps your friend would like to comment on this choice,” I say, nodding toward the sergeant.
The girls turn. The sergeant’s eyes meet mine. I think the girls know we have been watching each other.
The sergeant’s tirade is stern and by-the-books. Purity. Integrity. Transparency. To defile the body of a conscript is to cut the flesh of the people, to defile our peace and our redemption. The girls blush hot red, and one starts to cry. I don’t move. I am no longer afraid. I am not old, but the war stays with you. I can see that in the sergeant’s eyes. She will not demote the young conscripts or send them to the mines. She loves them, and she’s tired. I can see that too.
* * *
I pull down the grate after they leave. I leave the front door unlocked. I am not surprised when the sergeant returns, dressed in a narrow suit that is all angles and lines, the kind women wore in movies before the war. She has painted her lips a dark red. I can still see the sun rising, but it is a good disguise. On the street, she would look like salvage, one of the few who has made a fortune off the decommissionings. Most salvage die with nothing but their tattoos. But I am proof there is still room among our ranks for a few to rise, to bargain, to keep something of our own. We are worthless, but, in some ways, we are freer than the conscripts with their rations and their clean hair.
I am sitting behind the counter reading. It is summer. It is always summer now. It’s hot, and I’ve taken off my shirt like the men do. It doesn’t matter. My breasts are as lean as a boy’s chest, and anyway, decorum is for the conscripted. She looks at the lines that cover my body, from the fine lace on my hands, up over my first tattoo: the lamb. My ribs bear an anatomical representation of the bones within. Many of the drawings I have inked myself for practice. Some were drawn by my lovers. The effect is not beautiful. It is not meant to be. We left beauty behind with the war.
The sergeant moves into the space with the quick efficiency of a patrolman securing a corner.
“Lock the door, would you?” I say, carefully placing a slip of paper between the pages of my book.
She moves the metal bar across the door and presses the alarm. A red light blinks to life outside, but that is all it does. Who would come if an alarm sounded? I lift the grate so she can step under. It is like lifting the sheet of a bed.
“We turn toward the rising sun,” I say.
She says nothing.
“Your conscripts…” I say. “I assure you. They were not defiled.”
She dismisses my assurance with a wave of her hand. Her nails are perfect seashells. Her skin is smooth.
“How long have you been here?” she asks. “In this shop?”
I remember this street when it was lined with cafes twinkling under strings of lights. Could we have passed each other on one of those nights when the wind carried the smell of anise and the sound of guitars?
“Ten years,” I say.
She asks me about my art. I shake my head. There is no art after the war. We circle around this and other truths.
Finally, she says, “Is there anywhere where you can…where no one would know?”
If she has followed the edicts of the Front, she knows less about her body than she should. Pure of purpose. Pure of body. Pure of heart.
“It would be almost inside you,” I say. “Only your medic would see, and I can make it look like a birth mark or cancer. I can’t make an image. They could find an image.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she says.
I know men who have lost an arm for not repeating the pledge. We turn toward the rising sun. I would not make that sacrifice, but I understand. I say the pledge when it benefits me. Words are words. But I cannot resist this woman’s rebellion and her fatigue, although I could lose more than an arm for what I am about to do. I release the heavy burlap curtain that screens the space behind the grate from the shop’s dusty windows. I light a small lamp. I wipe down the chair in which so many salvage have lain.
“You’ll need to…”
Her skirt is so narrow, the fabric so unyielding she cannot lift it over her hips. I take her hand. Gently, I unzip the back of the skirt, encircling her waist, so close I could touch my lips to her face. It has been years since I undressed a woman. Something deep inside me stirs like it does when I walk down to the port and listen to the free sailors whisper stories of a city in the south where a just man rules, and there is no salvage, only men and women farming yarrow in sunny gardens, and at night there are cafes.
I fold the sergeant’s skirt and set it aside. She is still wearing the tight, corset-like undergarment the Front calls her “gow
n.” The stiff fabric leaves red impressions in her skin. I draw my thumb across one of the marks, soothing her skin back to its natural smoothness. I think she’s trembling. I settle her back in the chair.
Carefully I prepare my instruments, narrating as I go. How I clean the gun. How I take the sterilized needed from the jar of thimerosal and chlorine. How I boil the ink over a small flame and then cool it. Before the war I used a new needle for every customer.
“Will it hurt?” she asks.
If she was conscripted during the war, she has suffered more than even I can imagine, but I say, “Yes. It will hurt.”
I take out a piece of cotton and soak it in the disinfectant.
“Open your legs,” I say.
Her body smells of clean salt, nothing like the death’s head oysters the men pull up from beneath the tankers.
I am surprised the Front has not required the removal of her hair. Fine, curly hairs cover her pubis, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. Except for washing and elimination, her body is sealed inside the plastic-fiber casing of her inner garments. I look at her. Her labia are curled inward, compressed by the garment, like a moth still in its chrysalis. It seems wrong to stick my fingers into that privacy, to wipe her down with the disinfectant and startle that shy, soft part of her body with the sting of a needle. She reminds me of a beautiful creature curled in on itself to sleep in darkness.
I don’t think anyone really sleeps anymore.
I stroke her very gently with the tip of my finger, watching her face as I do. I know where her clitoris is buried although I cannot see it. I want to touch her there, to massage her, to coax pleasure out of her slumber.
“Here.” I part her labia and open her. “I will make a small mark. It will look like a freckle. Sometimes women have marks like that.”
I am holding her labia between my thumb and forefinger. I can see a sheen of moisture at her center. I can feel her body stiffen, but I don’t know how to speak the question our bodies are asking. I take my tattoo gun and the good clean, cool ink and the newest needle. The familiar buzz of the gun inks a tiny spot of black onto her inner labia. I know it doesn’t hurt—not like that—but she gasps.