by Gabriel Bump
“My girlfriend’s hungry,” I said. “I have to get back.”
“She won’t mind,” the cop said.
The cop leaned down to unzip the duffel bag. I was going to scream about my rights as an American citizen. If that failed, I was going to kick the cop in the ribs and bust out of there. Before I had the chance to do anything, however, Martin emitted a coyote-like shriek, a haunting laugh. The cop jolted up. Martin was at the counter, holding two large paper bags in his arms.
“I am a genius,” Martin said. “Enjoy my work.”
I took my paper bag; the cop didn’t take hers. She turned back to me, back to the duffel bag, back to me, back to the duffel bag.
Her mouth started to open.
Her knees started to bend toward the duffel bag.
Her hands reached down.
Her radio went off—some code I didn’t understand followed by a description of a suspect. Intoxicated and unwieldy, I heard.
“Not again,” the cop said. She snatched her paper bag from Martin, took off without glancing back at me. A gust twirled into me when she slammed the door. I collapsed onto the duffel bag. I was careful not to spill the food. Martin peeked over the counter, down at me.
“Time for a smoke,” Martin said. “Sixty dollars.”
Janice wasn’t in bed when I walked in. I called out for her. She called back from the bathroom. She told me to come in.
Her body was sunk in a bath, covered with bubbles. Her head rested on a folded towel; a washcloth rested on her eyes. I could only see her mouth, smiling. I sat on the toilet and had all my thoughts confirmed: I wanted to devote my life to running her errands. I dropped the duffel bag on the crusted tiles. Janice, startled by the thud, lifted up the washcloth.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said. “Are you still hungry?”
“You are my fucking hero,” Janice said.
She stood up and flicked bubbles off her naked body. I turned my head away. She put a wet hand on my shoulder. She put another hand on my head, twisted me toward her. Our faces were close. Small drops dripped from her eyelashes onto my cheeks. I leaned in. She hugged me into her naked stomach. I wrapped my arms around her waist. Her smooth and wet flesh against my cheek—I don’t know. It made me cry. I didn’t break down. Just, something about her skin against mine, something about the steam around us.
Something about our desperate situation, fear, pressing down on us. In that moment, it was too much. I didn’t want to let go. Still, we had to leave soon. We couldn’t stay in that bathroom forever. We had to eat, leave Missouri. At some point, we’d stop running; at some point, we’d stop treading unsettled water and move toward shore. I didn’t want to let her go.
She held me closer. I put my chin in her belly button. My red eyes met her red eyes. Her tears fell on my face. She rubbed my head, patted my shoulders, held my cheeks in her hands, wiped my eyes, wiped my nose. I kept my arms around her waist.
“What are we going to do?” Janice asked.
“We’re going to make it,” I said.
I meant it.
“I’m scared,” Janice said. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too,” I said. “Let’s eat.”
While she dried off, I unrolled a towel on the bed. One by one, I removed hot tinfoil balls from the paper bag. I arranged the salsas in a neat row—shades of green, red, orange, and champagne yellow. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and quesadillas, squished and imperfect, filled the room with hot spices.
Janice emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
We sat before our feast.
“I forgot,” Janice said. “Hold up.”
Janice bounced up, disturbed our dinner, and ran back into the bathroom. She emerged, for a second time, with a thin joint between her thumb and pointer.
“This will help,” Janice said. She pulled a lighter from her towel’s folds.
“Can we smoke in here?” I asked.
“From what I can tell,” Janice said, “we can do anything in here.”
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
“Some guy in the parking lot,” Janice said. “He said it’s from the Mongolian Steppe.”
“Is that good?” I asked.
Janice stood up on the bed, removed the smoke alarm’s batteries, lit the joint, remained standing, twisted her hips, blew smoke from her nose, blew me a sharp kiss, winked in my direction, closed her eyes, sat down, took my hand, placed the joint between my pointer and thumb.
“Let’s find something crazy to watch,” Janice said.
She was in denial, pretending. She kept smiling, laughing at nothing, touching my arms, legs, shoulders, and head. I smiled back, laughed with her, sank into her denial, enjoyed myself.
We ripped into the hot tinfoil balls. Smoke settled around our heads. There was a documentary about ancient Egypt on a fuzzy station. The gist, I think, was that black pharaohs don’t get enough credit. Janice booed at the British narrator.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Janice said over and over.
She snatched up the remote. Beans and lettuce spilled out of her shrimp burrito.
We settled for a moment on women’s college volleyball.
“If I had a body like that,” Janice said, “I’d kill every man with my bare hands.”
“What about me?” I asked.
Janice took a series of violent bites. She poured salsa into her burrito and considered my position in her alternate reality. I suckled on a barbeque chicken taco.
“I’d kill you last,” Janice decided. She broke into a suffocating laugh. I slapped her back to keep her from choking. She regained her composure, kept flipping channels.
We landed on a show about inept criminals. A beige sedan sped down a California highway, or was it Texas? Wherever it was, the highway was wide and sun-splashed. We watched from a helicopter’s point of view. Close behind the speeding beige sedan, a herd of cop cars blared and swerved. A gravel-voiced narrator told us the beige sedan was filled with stolen cash. The beige sedan collided with a pickup truck and kept going. The cops followed the beige sedan off the expressway into a tree-lined neighborhood. The neighborhood, from above, reminded me of home. Janice and I watched as the driver crashed into a telephone pole and was surrounded, within seconds, by angry cops with their guns pulled. Janice changed the station. Her breaths were hard. Her eyes bulged.
“Holy shit,” Janice said. “That’s us.”
I took stock of our situation: smoke around our heads, destroyed takeout on our bed, cars speeding down a nearby highway, distant moaning through the walls. Except, I didn’t think our story would end with a chase and a crash and aerial footage.
“We’ll get out of this,” I said.
“How?” Janice asked.
I didn’t know.
“We’ll find a way,” I said.
“I hope so,” Janice said. “Otherwise, we’re dead.”
She put her burrito on the towel and the salsa-soaked contents spilled out. She turned away from me, curled into a ball, sighed, and pretended to sleep.
Sociology #2
I fake-slept next to Janice for hours, stared at the digital clock on the nightstand, thought about our options. Running wasn’t our only choice. We could call the cops, ask them to protect us, hope Missouri cops would be different from Chicago cops. During the riot, the last time I had asked the cops for protection, they’d pushed me away. I heard their bullhorns shaking my brain; I saw their riot shields aligned and impenetrable.
Eleven turned into midnight.
I turned over and faced Janice’s back. I drew tiny animals on her shoulder with my fingertip: a giraffe over a crocodile over a flamingo over an elephant over a hawk or falcon or eagle or vulture. I pressed my palm against her shoulder. Her breaths were deep and slow. I kept my hand there and closed my eyes, tried to fall into her rhythm. I moved closer, put my arm around her stomach, my chin on her neck. I wanted to whisper something soothing into her dreams. I pu
shed my legs against hers. I wanted to feel like one person.
Her stomach moved, an intense bubbling. Stress, I thought. Fear, probably.
“It’s okay,” I whispered into her neck.
I felt her jaw move. Her stomach kept turning.
“I’m here,” I said. “It’s okay.”
I held her closer.
“Janice,” I said. “I love you.”
First, the bubbling in her stomach traveled up her throat and escaped in a stream of pungent gas. I put a hand over my nose. Then, in a second wave, the bubbling vibrated against my crotch. I rolled away, dug my face into a pillow. The pillow didn’t help. I decided to get some fresh air, something to drink. With disdain, I looked at the ravaged fare in our trash can, a disheveled mixture of beans, meat, cheese, and tortillas.
I kissed Janice on the cheek, found cash in her wallet, and locked the door behind me.
The parking lot was full and alive. Couples moved between motel rooms and backseats, smoking cigarettes, laughing in hushed tones. Most of the men were old and worn down. Their companions wore dresses and heels too unstable for the uneven pavement. Everyone was having a separate party. There was no greater sense of community. I stood in front of our door and watched until an old man with tropical birds on his shirt told me to stop staring at his lady, who was bored and strong enough to toss him into their room. The tall streetlamps over the parking lot flickered over the haunting scene.
I approached a tall woman cradling a sleeping short man on the curb.
“Excuse me,” I said. “What are cops like down here?”
“I’m not doing anything illegal,” the tall woman whispered.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said.
“If you call the cops,” the tall woman whispered, “they’ll come and shoot you.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“You’re black,” the tall woman whispered. “They’re cops.”
“I won’t call the cops,” I said.
The tall woman shushed me and pointed to the short man, shifting in his dreams.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“He’s a soft heart,” the tall woman said. “He’s a big dreamer.”
“Sorry,” I said again.
I headed to the main office.
Juna and her father were sitting in foldout chairs in front of a small TV with long cracks forming an X on the screen. They had a bucket of popcorn between them, big sodas in their laps.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Hourly?” Juna asked, without turning around.
“I already have a room,” I said.
“No refunds,” the father said.
“I’m looking for a gas station,” I said, “or something open late.”
Something happened on the screen that made Juna jump out of her chair and clap in a short and furious burst. She turned around and noticed me.
“You need something?” Juna asked.
“Just a place that’s open late,” I repeated. “A place to buy some stuff.”
“All the liquor stores are closed,” the father said.
“You can get a drink at the strip club,” Juna said.
“Not like that,” I said. I craned my head around Juna, tried to make out the moving images in front of her.
“What are you watching?” I asked.
“Cricket,” the father said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Are you serious?” Juna asked me.
“Americans only watch football,” the father said to his daughter. “Americans only like violence.”
“I only watch basketball,” I said.
“That’s because you’ve never seen cricket,” Juna said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“If I explained it,” the father said, “you wouldn’t understand.”
“You want to watch?” Juna asked.
Somewhere outside, a car alarm exploded in the night. The father jumped up, ran outside, shouted loud threats about respecting other people and maintaining civility. He came back inside and sat down.
“What did I miss?” the father asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll watch for a little bit.”
Juna went into the backroom and came back with a stool for me. I took a seat between them. I didn’t know what I was watching. There were two people with bats and helmets. One person, on another team it seemed, ran and threw a ball at one of the batters, who hit the ball. The two batters switched places. The camera showed a cheering crowd going mad, jumping up and waving flags.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“If I explained it,” the father said, “you wouldn’t understand.”
“India against England,” Juna said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re from India?” I asked.
“I’m from St. Louis,” Juna said.
“No you’re not,” the father said. “You’re from Mumbai.”
“I’ve never been to Mumbai,” Juna said.
The father rolled his eyes at her, put his hand on my shoulder.
“Where are you from?” the father asked me.
“Chicago,” I said.
“No,” the father said. “You’re from Africa.”
“Dad!” Juna reached across me and punched her father in the shoulder, hard and with genuine intent to hurt.
“What?” the father asked. “It’s true.”
“I’ve never been to Africa,” I said.
“We are Indian,” the father said. “And you are African.”
“I’m sorry,” Juna said to me. “He’s old.”
“Old has nothing to do with it,” the father said. “I am proud. You are not.”
“I don’t want to go back,” I said.
“I hear Africa is beautiful,” the father said.
“I can’t believe this.” Juna had her head between her legs.
“Not Africa,” I said. “Chicago. I don’t want to go back to Chicago.”
“You want to stay here?” Juna asked, with disbelief. A car alarm rattled outside We didn’t move. The noise continued at a disturbing rhythm. It was unlike any car alarm I had heard—frail, desperate, hopeless, hanging in there. After a few gasping cycles, someone put it down.
“Not here,” I said.
“What’s wrong with here?” the father asked.
“Some nights,” Juna said, “I am convinced this is hell on earth.”
“This is our family,” the father said, wounded.
“Our rooms are filled with illicit sex,” Juna said. “Our parking lot is a freak show.”
“I’m not having illicit sex,” I said.
Juna and her father sucked their teeth, shook their heads, rolled their eyes, just about fell out of their chairs; the father choked on popcorn and soda; Juna couldn’t look me in the eyes.
“Anyway,” Juna said, “this isn’t paradise.”
“Where do you want to go?” I asked.
“How about Chicago?” Juna asked herself.
“What about India?” the father asked. “Or Africa? Why not Mars?”
“You’re angry,” Juna said.
“I’m disappointed,” the father said.
“If you keep getting angry,” Juna said, “your heart will dissolve.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” the father said.
“You know what I mean,” Juna said.
“This place is my life,” the father said. He was standing now, waving his hands in all directions. I was standing too, except I was by the door, waiting to escape.
“We could make a new life,” Juna said.
“You sound like your mother,” the father said.
“Is that a bad thing?” Juna asked.
Something happened on the TV and they both gasped. Then they cheered. The father leaped to his feet; Juna remained in her chair, arms stretched upward, fingers wiggling.
“No,” the father said. “It’s not a bad thing.”
&nbs
p; A new scene unfolded. Father and daughter were back on the same page: consumed by a game I didn’t understand. They looked back at me, ashamed, I think, a little, for letting a stranger eavesdrop on their familial secrets. I wanted to tell them that I didn’t care, that I appreciated their honesty. I needed honesty in big refreshing quantities. I wanted to thank them.
I didn’t have the chance.
“Those assholes,” the father said. He was up and in the backroom before I could turn around.
“You should go,” Juna said. She crouched behind the desk. She screamed something in Hindi, I think, back at her father. He screamed something back. She nodded.
I didn’t have the chance.
White Boys
They came as a stumbling human chain, eyes glazed. Six of them filed through the door as I tried to exit. They wore matching red shirts with handsome bald eagle portraits printed on the front. Across their backs, in big yellow letters: DON’T TREAD ON ME. I moved behind the front desk and stood next to Juna. She gave me an apologetic glance. Once they were assembled in front of us, whiskey and cigarette smoke leaking from their mouths and pores, someone asked for a room.
“We need a place to party!”
“I need to break something!”
“I feel alive!”
“I’m sorry,” Juna told them. “We don’t have any rooms available.”
“We are good Americans!”
“We are true Americans!”
“We deserve a true American homestead for the night!”
“We need a home base!”
“I apologize,” Juna said. “We don’t have any rooms available.”
“Do you work for Obama?”
“Are you anti-freedom?”
“Is this the Middle East?”
“Are we at war with you?”
“Is this a desert shithole?”
“You do work for Obama!”
“I work for myself,” Juna said. “And we don’t have any rooms available.”
Unable to break Juna’s resolve, they turned their drunken attention on me.
“Brother,” a bearded one said to me, “can’t you help us party?”
He was pathetic. He was sad, on the verge of tears. If he didn’t party soon—what was he going to do? He was lost and scared, empty, hopeless. I imagined him in a library, or any quiet setting; I imagined him struggling with his own thoughts.