by Gabriel Bump
My mind wandered back to Janice. The initial shock of seeing her had started to wear off. I wasn’t confused anymore, dumbfounded. I was happy she was so close. I had forgotten the ease I felt around her. Even if she was in desperate trouble and I didn’t know how to help, I knew that we would figure out a way. We always did. I had to get back to her. Did she want me to stay in the motel with her, in the same bed? Should I bring my shampoo and body wash back with me? What should we do with that bag? What was I going to tell Kenneth? Who cared what Kenneth thought? How long could Janice and I stay safe? What did we need to figure out? Why couldn’t we run away tonight? The gun. I remembered the gun and tightened.
Simone punched me in the ribs.
“What?” I asked, angry for my disturbed thoughts.
Simone tilted her head toward Connie Stove. Connie Stove’s arms were outstretched toward me, pleading.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“I’ll ask again,” Connie Stove said. “You, Claude, what do you want out of this world?”
I thought of Janice tucked under her motel covers, smiling in her sleep. I thought of myself next to her, awake, thinking of the ways I could make her happy.
I couldn’t tell Connie Stove that.
“I have to think about it,” I said.
“Well,” Connie Stove said, deflated, “think hard. And fast. Time doesn’t slow down for slow movers.”
“Okay,” I said. “I have to go.”
“Dismissed,” Connie Stove said.
Simone caught up to me on the stairwell. She grabbed my arm to slow me. Our differing momentums almost took us down.
“What the fuck was that?” Simone asked my back. I hadn’t turned around.
“I have to go,” I said.
“What’s your problem?” Simone asked, after jumping in front of me, blocking my way forward.
“Please,” I said.
“No,” Simone said. “That was fucked up.”
I blew past her; she followed at my heels, up the stairs, out the door, over fallen leaves, and across campus.
“Don’t you care?” Simone asked. “Don’t you care about anything?”
“Now is not a good time,” I said.
“Sure,” Simone said. “This project is fucked up. All these white people taking advantage of our blackness.”
We almost collided with a skateboarder.
“Sure,” Simone continued. “Whitney and Connie are crazy, in different ways, for different reasons. I hate it when people define me by my race.”
Simone kept up with me. I was jogging and didn’t realize until I hurdled a person, hunched over, picking up fallen papers, spilled backpack contents. Simone hurdled also.
“Sure,” Simone continued. “I hate it when people don’t care about my knowledge of South Asian history or pre–World War I politics. I’m a well-rounded person. I’m not just an expert on blackness. I don’t think I’m an expert on blackness. How can any one person be an expert on blackness? It’s not like there’s only one kind of blackness. There are differing levels of exposure, differences in environment, different people. Watch out!”
A car ran a stop sign. Simone stuck her arm across my chest, saved my life. I didn’t thank her. I kept jogging. She kept jogging.
“Sure,” Simone continued. “I’m not interested in journalism as a profession. I’d make a better lawyer, I hear. I’ve heard I’m too smart to make a career in journalism. You need a narrow focus to chase down leads and crack stories and survive on a beat. Or you need a broad, shallow focus to appeal to different readers from different walks of life. Like a syndicated columnist. You know?”
We both stopped in front of my dorm, faced each other, unsure how to finish, unsure how we got there. I’d thought Simone was angry with me. Looking at her face, underneath a streetlamp’s burgeoning orange glow, in the fresh dark—she was worried.
“Tell me,” Simone said. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Now’s not a good time.”
“Sure,” Simone said. “Maybe later.”
She looked at her watch, tried to decide how much time I deserved.
“Fuck,” Simone said. “I’m late for Biology.”
I wasn’t expecting her to hug me like that: big and deep. She shoved her head into my chest and left it there for a couple heartbeats; her hands shook against my back. She let go, sprinted away. I considered sprinting after her, catching up, walking her to biology, telling her she was right, of course she was right. I saw myself saying I wanted to talk more. I saw the two of us at graduation, laughing about freshman year. I saw us moving to Kansas City, working at The Star, filing stories about county fairs and junior proms, driving home together, kissing each other goodnight, waking up in our studio apartment, laughing over coffee and eggs. I saw us happy and realistic, pragmatic and normal. I saw us working through my past traumas. I saw her jaw-dropping when I told her about Janice, Chicago, the day Janice showed up in Missouri. I saw her appreciating my rational decisions.
I watched her disappear behind a bus.
Janice punched back into my mind.
I slid into the elevator at the dorm as it closed. A man and a dozen large plastic water jugs were waiting for me. The man apologized—he had to hit every floor, drop off two jugs, until he reached the top.
“Every month,” he said, “unless there’s an emergency.”
“People need free drinking water,” the man said. He spoke with conviction.
He started talking about his life, all the turns that brought him into an elevator with jugs of water. He started with his childhood in East Texas. I heard Simone’s voice still echoing around my brain.
What did I care about?
I thought of the first time I saw Janice, in her pigtails, sitting with me at the back of the auditorium.
I thought of Paul and Grandma explaining my future at the dinner table. I never felt my destiny like they did. I didn’t sense greatness lurking. I had come to understand my average place in the world. Simone—she was someone capable of rising into the stratosphere. I could see it then, in the elevator, paused at the fourth floor as the man lugged two jugs into the hallway—Simone was going to change the world. What was I going to do?
First, I had to get back to Janice.
The man told me about his first wife, or his second wife, or maybe a wife he only dreamed about. I wasn’t paying attention. I jumped out of the elevator a few floors beneath mine, sprinted up the stairs to my room, out of breath.
Kenneth was standing over a large American flag, the kind you see fluttering outside town halls and large museums.
“Good,” Kenneth said. “You can help me.”
“What is this?” I asked, as I walked across the wide stripes.
The flag extended from wall to wall. It covered both our beds and desks. Dead bugs made brown and green streaks across the frayed fabric.
I liked it there: decorated with filth, awkward, squeezed, wrinkled, improper. Here, I could walk across it and feel powerful. It was cloth. Cloth and ripped stiches. I walked in a small circle over the lower stripes, jogged in place, walked to the stars, bent down, flicked some. The flag was something I didn’t think about. When I saw it flying proud atop tall metal poles, it didn’t seem meant for me. It was always far away. Nobody flew flags in South Shore. Here, now, I could walk on it. It felt tangible, not a big deal.
“I found it,” Kenneth said. “I need help folding it.”
I lifted the flag off my bed. Janice’s duffel bag hadn’t been moved. I picked it up and walked back to the door. I took a heavy step and extended a small rip on the lower stripes.
“Watch it!” Kenneth yelled.
He rushed to the rip, dropped to his knees, and investigated.
I went into my closet, grabbed a few shirts, some underwear, socks, and pair of jeans. I tossed the armload of clothes into Janice’s duffel bag. I couldn’t get it closed on the first few tries.
“Where are you going?” Kenneth asked.
“I’m moving out,” I said.
“Who’s going to help me?” Kenneth, now standing upright, gestured at the ripped and strained flag underneath our feet. He was close to tears. I didn’t have time to console him. I didn’t think Kenneth was a bad person. I thought, maybe, that he wasn’t born in the right universe. He belonged in a world without time and emergencies. Kenneth’s proper world, I thought, was made of beanbag mountains and lava-lamp rivers.
I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Another day,” I said.
“Yes,” Kenneth said. “Another day. Yes.”
Kenneth was smiling at limitless space when I left him.
The man with the jugs was in the elevator again, jugless, exhausted. He leaned against the elevator’s back wall. I kept right in front of the door, so close that the motion sensors wouldn’t let the doors close. I took a step back, dropped my bag.
“You’re in a rush,” the man said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Love?” the man asked.
“I think so,” I said.
I kept my back to him.
“I’d do anything for my cats,” the man said. “Humans and me never worked out. Opening a can of tuna for my cats—that’s what makes me happy.”
The elevator opened and a couple stepped in, holding hands, whispering and giggling. I heard the man sigh behind me.
I ran toward Janice, careful with her bag.
Tacos and Hendrix
I was halfway across campus when Janice called me.
“Bring tacos,” she said.
She wanted Martin’s. Maybe, she said, he was just having a bad afternoon. She wanted everything on the menu. She was starving. Hurry, she said. Famished, she said.
“Okay,” I said.
“Not just tacos,” Janice said. “Enchiladas too. Let’s feast. Use my money.”
I headed toward Martin’s. The duffel bag swung against my leg. I kept telling myself to act casual, cool, don’t sweat. I couldn’t stop sweating. The bag was heavier than expected. That didn’t help the sweating. I didn’t want to go back to Martin’s. I wanted to get back to Janice. In that moment, I think, I learned something about love and devotion. If she wanted tacos and enchiladas, I was going to get her tacos and enchiladas and every type of salsa. Still, I would do it for Janice.
First, I had to look in the bag. I had to see. I had to hold the gun.
Martin’s was empty when I walked in. Martin was standing in the kitchen, staring at a wall behind the stove. He was following something with his eyes. I couldn’t tell what. I hit a bell on the counter. I hit it again and again and again. Martin finally acknowledged the sound.
“What’s that?” Martin asked the wall.
“I need some food,” I said.
“I can make that happen,” Martin said.
“Can I get one of everything?” I asked.
Martin moved his eyes to the stovetop.
“I can make that happen,” Martin said.
“Can I use your bathroom?” I asked.
“In this world,” Martin said, “we try to replicate Utopia.”
I found the bathroom to my right. I locked the door and, just in case, held the doorknob with one hand. With my free hand, I hoisted the duffel bag onto the sink, unzipped it, moved the clothes around, felt for hard metal, and found it, black like most guns I saw on T.V., a handgun. I gripped it. I looked at the barrel, saw numbers and letters, saw 9 mm. I wondered, if it came down to it, if I could pull the trigger in time. I wondered if I could save us.
The bathroom spun; neon stickers and newspaper clippings about Woodstock twirled in a delirious hurricane. Richard Nixon’s face hung in the urinal. I puked a clear and nervous liquid on his bulbous nose.
Martin wasn’t cooking when I crept out of the bathroom. He stared into an open cooler.
“Excuse me,” I said.
He didn’t twitch.
“Hey,” I said again. “Yo!” I yelled.
Startled, Martin looked up.
“No need for that,” Martin said.
“I’m in a hurry,” I said.
“The world isn’t going to spin faster,” Martin said.
“Listen,” I said. “My girlfriend is starving. She wants your fucking tacos. And your fucking enchiladas. I am in a hurry.”
“I can’t rush the process,” Martin said.
“Are you insane!?” I yelled.
The door opened behind me.
“Everything alright in here?” a voice asked.
I turned around and saw a cop, hands on her waist. The duffel bag fell out of my hands with a thud.
Martin pointed a crooked finger at me.
“This righteous-brother fascist is rushing my process,” Martin said.
“I don’t know what that means,” the cop said. She moved next to the duffel bag. She stared at the sweat on my forehead and nose.
“I just want food,” I said, “and he won’t make it.”
“This is art,” Martin said. “I’m not some machine.”
“Martin,” the cop said. “We’ve talked about this.”
Martin turned sheepish.
“It’s not fair,” Martin said.
“The customers come first,” the cop said.
“Da Vinci didn’t think of his customers,” Martin protested.
“Yes, he did,” the cop said.
Martin grumbled and went about arranging pots and pans over open flames. He removed slabs of chicken, beef, and pork from the cooler.
“What did you order?” the cop asked me while looking at Martin work. He was good, maybe an artist.
“My girlfriend is hungry,” I said.
“Hey, Martin,” the cop said, “I’ll have what he’s having.”
Martin grunted into a sizzling pan. The three of us listened to hot and popping oil. The cop drummed her fingers on the counter. She nodded to her off-tempo beat. I kept my eyes on her belt—pepper spray, gun, and handcuffs. I wondered which she would use first if I obeyed my gut and made a run for it. Quick mental math convinced me otherwise: distance from the door plus weight of the bag plus my suspicious appearance equaled no escape. I heard Paul’s voice over Martin’s cooking: “Never run from cops; they’ll kill your ass.”
“Just arrive?” the cop asked me while looking at the duffel bag.
“Huh?” I asked.
“New in town?” The cop tried again.
“I’m a student,” I said. “My girlfriend’s hungry.”
“Good for you,” the cop said. “It’s nice to meet someone so early on.”
“We knew each other in Chicago,” I said. “She’s like my sister.”
The cop noticed something about me, something that made her eyes go slant, made her brow furrow. I wiped the sweat from my forehead.
“Chicago?” the cop asked. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I write for the paper,” I said. “I want to be a journalist.”
When I said it out loud—journalist—it felt false. But that falseness felt good, freeing. If I didn’t want to be a journalist, what did I want?
“Cops are like journalists,” the cop interrupted. “Most people can’t stand them.”
“I love cops,” I blurted.
She narrowed her eyes. I couldn’t see her eyeballs through her squinting. Or my brain was shrinking out of fear, not working like it should. She nudged the duffel bag with her shoe.
“What you got in there?” the cop asked.
“Clothes,” I blurted. I tried to control my blurting and sweating and shaking.
“Feels like bricks,” the cop said.
I kept my eyes on her belt.
“Shoes.” I tried not to blurt. I didn’t want to faint. I held onto the counter. It was sticky and warm. I tried my math again—could I make it out before she gunned me down? Would I have to get the gun out and fire back? Could I make it to Janice, have a chance to express my love, before I bled out?
“This is your girlfriend�
��s bag,” the cop said, “isn’t it?”
Would I end up in prison for a gun that wasn’t mine? Would they go easy on me if I confessed? I could take the blame. I’d go down for Janice. I’d write her letters from my cell. Some prison gang would take me in, show me the ropes, keep the white supremacists away, help me in the weight room. Paul and Grandma would visit me. Janice would send me photos of herself in a bathrobe, lounging on a long chair next to a pool. Tasteful lingerie pictures would cover my prison-cell walls.
The cop kicked my duffel bag again.
“Books?” she asked.
“Shoes,” I said, again, with force.
“It doesn’t feel like shoes.” The cop placed her hands on her belt. One hand next to the gun; one set of fingertips on the pepper spray.
“They’re shoes,” I said. Sweat ran down my legs, into my socks.
“Can I see?” the cop asked. “I bet they’re cool-looking shoes. Fashion stuff.”
“She’s protective,” I said.
“She won’t mind,” the cop said.
Deceit is a skill, I learned. And it was a skill I didn’t have. Somewhere in the criminal world, there existed an expert that could direct an inquisitive cop away from a mysterious bag. I was no expert criminal. I was, without a doubt, fucked and scared shitless.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Sure you can,” the cop said.
“I won’t,” I said.
“Why not?” the cop asked.