SALT: A HEIGHTS NOVEL

by Mara White

  Reminded Tiago of himself, young tough guy with no direction. He started chatting him up, watching to see who he hung out with, searching the stoops for any caregivers or parents.

  He’d always stop and talk to him, give him some cash for chips or a soda. The kid was all right and Tiago suddenly found himself in the role of mentor instead of someone your parents told you to stay the hell away from.

  It only took a couple of months for most of the faces on the corner to become strangers to him. Course there were the lifers, but the game was always changing and dealers came and went like the breeze. But Tiago knew how the game was played and he could tell the motherfuckers were grooming the kid.

  “Hey Alex, walk with me,” he told him. He’d gotten off the rush hour train and seen the kid hanging out on the corner with the wrong crowd. “Hungry? I was going to grab a pizza, but I can’t eat the whole pie alone.”

  Alex shrugged and looked to the older guys for approval. They gave Tiago threatening looks like they knew what he was up to. Too bad they couldn’t scare him for shit with their punk-ass hard looks. He’d been around the block more times than they could count and could run circles around their game if he wanted to.

  “Sure—yeah, I could eat,” Alex said apprehensively.

  Tiago brought the kid to a joint where they could sit down and shoot the shit. He had this idea that kept scratching at the back of his mind. If he could help some of these kids, steer them toward a different path, then maybe somehow he could make up for all the havoc he’d wreaked. Atone for dealing by getting other kids away from that shit.

  “You ever go over to the Boys and Girls Club? They got a nice gym at the church facility,” he told Alex. Tiago wiped his mouth on the cheap-ass scratchy napkins. He and the kid had demolished a large pie and were sitting in the back of the pizza shop, staring at the discarded crusts and sipping on soda through straws.

  “Naw, I heard that place was lame. I got my friends on the block.”

  “Your parents know you out there so much?”

  “My mom works two jobs. My dad isn’t around. Just my grandma at home, but she’s sick and doesn’t leave the house.”

  Tiago knew how easy it would be for Alex to get hooked. Easy money, street cred, status, things that were instantly appealing to an impressionable kid, but Tiago knew they were empty promises with no real worth.

  “You should stop by. I volunteer over there most days after work. We play ball. Talk. Help you with your homework. Eat pizza,” he said and gestured to the one they’d just finished.

  “You go there?” Alex looked at him skeptically.

  “Yeah, man. It’s fun. I’m not shitting you. Lots of cool people to hang out with. You learn stuff. They give you free shit all the time. I lived for those programs when I was your age.”

  Alex slurped up the remainder of his soda. Tiago threw down a twenty and they walked out of the restaurant together.

  “Sure, I guess I could check it out if you’re gonna be there.”

  “Alex.” Tiago stopped on the corner before they parted ways. “Those guys you’re always out there with—they aren’t your friends. I hope you can see that. Take it from a guy who knows, that ain’t the way you want to live your life. If you keep hanging out there, you gonna spend your whole life on that corner.”

  Alex nodded. He looked slightly defensive, but Tiago could tell he was listening to him.

  “Once you choose that, it ain’t easy to turn back. You want a good life. You deserve a good life. I’ll help you whenever I can.”

  They shook hands before walking away in opposite directions. Alex mumbled a thank you while Tiago slapped him on the back.

  Maybe what he was offering wasn’t as appealing as the lifestyle the dealers pretended to have with their flashy clothes and cars. But Tiago threw out a lifeline anyway, because no one had ever thrown him one. No one besides Salt.

  Chapter 22

  Salana

  She was dreaming about him, as she often did. Dreams that nearly always ended in great sex, sometimes wet dreams where she’d orgasm in her sleep. Dreams that when she awoke from them she found herself mortified, thinking Karen or Nosheen had been subjected to possible noises she was making or grinding on her bed.

  “Salana, wake up!” It was Nosheen hanging over her, shaking her awake. She sat up with a start, thinking it was a bombing or an air raid. “They need us at the hospital. A woman’s in labor with some complications.”

  “Okay,” Salana said, reaching for her glasses. They’d just finished a fourteen-hour shift and she’d crashed right after eating and a shower. She’d slept like the dead but she had no idea for how long.

  “Our car is outside. Just throw on your headscarf and I’ll grab some equipment from the storage room.”

  Salana and Nosheen had taken to collecting supplies from wherever they could, asking their own organization but even their friends and family from home. They’d built up a small reserve of medical supplies, gotten some anesthesia from Canada, a surplus of syringes from the States. They brought their own stores with them to work like many of the doctors did.

  Obstetrics and delivering babies ended up being their main calling at the hospital. There were so few female doctors and it was generally regarded as taboo for men to participate in labor and delivery. Many women gave birth at home with untrained family members assisting. Often, if there were complications the women would be brought in already in critical condition.

  Salana grabbed her stethoscope and a bag she kept by the bedside ready to go for emergencies. Although she was used to the pace and the urgency of the emergency room, she had never really experienced the nervousness she felt in Kabul—whether for her own safety or the safety of her patients, survival mode kicked in and she was always running on fear and adrenaline.

  Salana wanted Nosheen to tell the driver of their armored SUV to hurry, but her friend told her to stay quiet, not knowing whether the man worked for the embassy or if he wouldn’t take kindly to their demands. Salana often wondered what would happen to her if she didn’t have Nosheen there to temper her natural impulses. It took them nearly half an hour to reach the hospital. Salana felt like she’d never left and was running on only a few hours of sleep after a long shift. No breakfast and no shower after she woke up like she was accustomed to.

  But their emergency intervention came just minutes too late. The woman in labor had already passed.

  “Preeclampsia,” Nosheen translated for Salana after the attending female nurse told them.

  A male doctor had come over from the other side of the hospital to treat her, but he’d arrived seconds too late. A death that could have been avoided with timing, but too late was too late and the consequences were mortal. Salana and Nosheen held back, unsure of how to proceed since he was still in the room.

  “Ask him how long was the mother in labor for. When did she stop breathing?” Nosheen had to restrain Salana by the arm because she was pulling toward the examining table. She wanted to listen for a heartbeat. If the mother had just passed, they might still be able to save the infant. CPR. Keep her circulation going, perfuse blood to the uterus.

  The woman’s mother was on her knees, keening and weeping over the loss. Salana looked from her to the woman on the examination table. The younger woman was a replica of her mother. And the older woman was obviously devastated. Imagine expecting to welcome a new life in joy and instead losing them senselessly as the minutes ticked by. The two of them exchanged a grave look knowing how easily they could have saved her had they just made it there in time. Salana went to comfort the mother while Nosheen appeared to be arguing with the nurse. The husband was just outside the room in the hall. He was pacing and appeared to be praying, repeating one of the few phrases Salana recognized: “Insha ‘Allah.”

  It is God’s will.

  Not if I can help it, Salana thought.

  She turned from the mother when Nosheen began to raise her voice, arguing with the other nurse. When she scanned the ro
om, the male doctor had left and two attendants replaced him. They were quickly wrapping her body in white cloth to transfer the recently deceased to a gurney.

  “Tell them to stop! We can perform a perimortem cesarean. I’ve done one before. Why not save the child?” Salana shouted. She wasn’t sure of cultural norms but she thought she had a clear vision for human rights. Fuck the norms. She’d taken an oath, she’d vowed to save lives when she could. That was a full-term baby who could survive on their own. “Stop!” she shouted at the men flipping the body off of the table. “Ask the mother and the husband,” Salana demanded of Nosheen.

  Nosheen conferred with the nurse in Dari while Salana attempted to tame the impulses to jump into action that wouldn’t stop coursing through her. She had half a mind to tackle the attendants and wrestle the body from them so she could get at the woman’s belly with a stethoscope.

  “It’s over, Salana. I’m sorry,” Nosheen said quietly.

  Her heart hammered in her chest and she bit back her tongue to keep from proclaiming that she herself would take the baby.

  “We’re not even going to examine her?” Salana asked Nosheen with little hope in her voice.

  “They want a burial before sundown. We have to respect the family’s wishes as well as their rights.”

  Salana tore her veil off and stormed to the bathroom where she could cry it off in private. They had Pitocin with them, and also carried magnesium sulfate. Two lives could have been saved and she felt immense frustration along with guilt and shame. It was impossible to do her job and she’d never felt so ineffectual and helpless in her life. She sobbed into her palms and kicked the wall until her feet hurt.

  Five hours later she was back in bed, unaware of not only the time of day but the date. Her job was surreal. She couldn’t erase the vision of that anguished mother’s pain from her mind’s eye. Five minutes was all it would have taken to change their fate. Five minutes and a full overhaul of deeply seated beliefs about how women should be treated.

  She took out one of Tiago’s letters and read it to herself over and over like a prayer. His voice in her head soothed her frayed nerves and fortified her broken heart. When she was with him she felt strong and unstoppable; when she was this far away, she wondered if she’d imagined it all. Or if their differences were akin to the ones she herself was up against in Kabul—too strong to penetrate and always getting in the way right when concordance was all that really mattered. Maybe the power of divergence was really more powerful than she thought.

  Salt,

  Guess what? You’re looking at a full-time employee of Midtown Security Corp. I wear a uniform that Ma says I look “buenmozo” in. The hourly wage is good and the benefits are even better. I can take the test for supervisor after just one year of employment. I also got a shift at the Boys and Girls Club volunteering on the days I work early. Those hours with the kids mean even more to me than the job. It’s like they already look up to me and I’m trying hard to be worthy of their regard.

  I got my own place too—a shithole, but it’s mine. I planned on moving Ma back in with me but the doctors are saying she’s too sick to come home at this point. I spend all my weekends at her place holding her hand. Sometimes she’s awake and recognizes me. Other times she talks a lot of nonsense and tells me to call my mother or go down the block to look for my dad.

  I’ve been cooking for her and bringing in her favorites. She doesn’t eat much, but it’s better than what they got in that depressing place.

  Been hanging out too with this kid named Alex. He reminds me of myself and we sort of bonded. I got him into the program and now he’s shooting hoops after school and getting counseling instead of running favors for those fuckers.

  I hope you’re okay, Salt.

  I hope you’re happy.

  I hope you come home soon.

  Don’t forget me,

  Tiago

  TIAGO

  Well, what could he say? He got a job. A motherfucking job. And wouldn’t they all be so proud of him if there was anyone to tell? His grandmother was losing cognition like a boat taking on water. Salt was halfway around the world taking care of strangers who didn’t speak her language. But he was proud of his security badge and he got to work every day early. Brought the supervisor a goddamned bagel because he wasn’t getting on anybody’s bad side. Going back out on the streets wasn’t an option. It was only up from here on out. Ambition tasted like a sugar cube melting on his tongue. If he buckled down enough and stuck to his guns, Tiago told himself he’d get the girl. Alls he had to do was prove that he could do stability and work his way up in the real world.

  You can’t ever work with kids if you got a felony conviction and Tiago gave thanks to God that that fuckface Eric decided to go easy on him. His plan was to volunteer after work, every day if he had to. Getting greeted by a roomful of happy and rowdy kids was reward enough to balance out the free hours he gave them. He coached basketball and helped with homework. He passed out goldfish and juice, applied Neosporin and Band-Aids, gave out hugs and high fives to those down in the dumps. He did things he wasn’t supposed to do too, like hand out cab fare to kids who’d come into the city all the way from Brooklyn, or give a young punk his phone number to text him when he needed out of a situation. He had a hard time saying no to the kids who he could tell were traveling down the exact same path he’d already traveled, and like him, a lot of them lacked strong support systems to help them make the right decisions when it came to their safety and their future.

  “Butter and jelly?” Tiago said as he handed foil-wrapped hot bagels over the counter to the other two security officers working the desk in midtown.

  “Breakfast man,” the supervisor said. He greeted Tiago in an elaborate handshake. Somehow, in the course of a year, he’d gone from neighborhood badass to the cleanest guy around. First in line to step up for piss tests or take extra shifts for those who were slacking.

  “How them kids treating you? Still putting in fourteen-hour days?” Roland asked him. He wiped the gleam of melted butter off his upper lip.

  “A handful, but at the same time some of the most fun I ever had in my life. Those kids are funny and smart. Some of them are really fucking good at basketball.”

  They sipped their steaming coffees in the minutes before the rush hour office crowd arrived. Then they’d be busy scanning badges for around an hour and a half.

  “Why don’t you have a kid if you like the little shits so much?”

  “Plan to,” Tiago said. He smiled in spite of himself.

  “You got a girl?” Roland asked him. The man was big and he’d stuffed nearly the whole second half of the bagel right into his mouth. Tiago smiled again and nodded, chewing his bacon and egg breakfast sandwich before gulping down more coffee. “What she do?” Roland quickly prodded. He crushed up the garbage from his breakfast and made a basket when he tossed it into the garbage.

  “She’s in Afghanistan,” Tiago mumbled. Roland’s eyebrows shot up.

  “No shit? Military? My father was a serviceman.”

  “Salana’s a doctor,” Tiago told him. He’d yet to tell anyone at work. He couldn’t help but grin with great pride and affection when he said those words. The woman he was in love with was a doctor. Who woulda thought?

  “She Arab?” Roland asked. Now Jorge, Tiago’s counterpart, had been roped into the conversation.

  “Naw. You ever heard of that organization called Doctors Without Borders? Salana joined up with them about a year ago.”

  “Sure enough, I heard of them. Well, good for her, I guess. Now how long you all been together?”

  “Known her since I was sixteen, but together together, like a year before she left.”

  “Isn’t that… interesting?” Roland said, looking perplexed. Salana wasn’t his type, he wasn’t her type; they would probably always encounter this—the skepticism, the confusion of their pairing. What’s a doctor doing with a loser like you? Who in their right mind goes to Afghanistan because the
y want to?

  “It was her dream even before we got together. She wanted to go where she was really needed. Make a difference. All that good stuff.” He felt a little uncomfortable. Trashed the rest of his breakfast and guzzled his bottle of orange juice. Both of his co-workers were staring at him dumbfounded. Just wait until he told them that they hadn’t spoken for nearly a year to the day. Except for a handful of unanswered letters that maybe got dropped in an empty desert or were pending return to sender in some country he’d never even heard of.

  “For some reason I’m shocked as shit that you’re dating a doctor,” Jorge told him candidly. He’d told both of them more or less about his days putting in work on the corner. His past wasn’t a clean slate and he liked to be upfront about who he was.

  “Yeah,” Tiago said. He scratched the stubble growth on his chin. Maybe they were right. He and Salana were an odd couple that would never work out in the long run. “She and I, we—” He scrubbed his hands over his face, not knowing what the fuck to say. Were they over? Did unanswered letters mean she’d dumped him? Taken up with another doctor a million miles away from him?

  “I love her, man. I am so fucking in love with her.” Well, now he’d bared his soul and he’d do his best not to cry in front of his coworkers.

  Jorge and Roland nodded, looking both sympathetic and confused.

  “I’m fucked.” He shook his head sadly.

  This probably wasn’t the conversation they’d expected this morning. The three of them usually discussed sports or the weather, or how shitty the morning’s commute had been.

  “Well, then you gotta go all in, Santiago, get the girl. Live the dream, have the kids. Shit, on her salary, have a handful of ‘em. You can win her over! You’re a good guy.”

  “When’s she back?” Jorge asked. He’d recovered enough to resume eating his bagel sandwich.

  “Might already be.” Tiago took the folded piece of paper from the back pocket of his uniform. It was a flyer that Chico had yanked from the bulletin board of a local coffee shop in the neighborhood. It advertised a talk at the hospital of physicians and surgeons in about two weeks’ time. He unfolded the already-worn paper and handed it over to his coworkers.