Husk

by Dave Zeltserman

  Friday morning I prepared an early meal as had become my habit, although I wasn’t sure Jill would join me given that her friend’s behavior had left her in such an unhappy mood. She did, though, and her demeanor was back to what I had grown accustomed to. When she kissed me before we separated for the day, it was as passionate as any of her other kisses, possibly even more so considering how dizzy it left me.

  For several minutes her kiss mostly took my mind off the cravings, which had been gnawing deeper inside me, making it difficult for me to be still. The cravings had become far more than a nuisance. They left me feeling twitchy and jumpy, and at some point during the twilight hours I started thinking about drinking more scotch, reckoning this might dull them. But deep inside I knew that whatever relief a drink of scotch might provide it would be fleeting at best, and I knew Chris would take away my job if he smelled scotch on my breath. As I walked to the restaurant, I gave up that thought, and became more resolved that this would be the day I’d finally find the thick-jawed man and learn his secret for dealing with the cravings.

  Work that morning progressed as it had every other morning. This changed, though, shortly before eleven o’clock. The stream of dirty dishes had slowed to a trickle, and the heavy black-skinned cook who Eduardo had warned me to be careful around spoke to me for the first time. Up till then I’d been aware of him glaring at my back numerous times each day as he stood at his position by the grill and I rinsed dishes or scrubbed pots at the sink – but no words were spoken between us and, save for the hostile looks he gave me, neither of us had bothered acknowledging the other.

  He wore shoes that allowed him to move about noiselessly, but I knew he had crept up behind me before asking me something in words so thickly mumbled I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I was going to ignore him but the cravings made it hard for me to do that, so without bothering to look at him I told him I didn’t understand what he’d said.

  His words were thick and seemed to get stuck in his mouth, but he spoke in less of a mumble and I understood him this time as he said, ‘Have a smoke with me.’

  I put down the pot I was scrubbing and turned to him. He was smiling in a friendly way, but none of that friendliness reached his eyes. ‘Why should I do that?’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘You never take breaks. You like a robot. Work, work, work. What’s the harm in taking a break? You entitled to one. So why not step outside with me and have a smoke? It’s good. It will get the smell of grease out of your nose. Besides, I’d like to ask you something.’

  The thought of not smelling grease for a few minutes appealed to me, so I followed him out of the back door, which led to the dumpster and the back alley. He stopped about twenty feet past the dumpster and took a small package from his back pants pocket, and from this he pulled out two cigarettes. I’d read about cigarettes, and during my past forays into their world I’d seen some of them smoking them and had caught occasional whiffs of their acrid odor. Since coming to New York, I’d seen many more of them smoking them and had little choice but to breathe in the smoke they exhaled. To me, the smoke had smelled dirty, worse than the foulest air that this city had, but I was curious whether it was different if you breathed it in directly. I also wanted to know whether it would get the smell of grease out of my nose, as the cook had promised. And so when the cook offered me a cigarette and a book of matches, I took both, lit the cigarette the same as he had done with his, and inhaled deeply on the cigarette as I saw him do.

  The taste and feel of the smoke in my lungs was worse than anything I’d previously smelled from others smoking, and I dropped the cigarette to the pavement after that one inhalation. I couldn’t fathom why this had become a custom among some of them. The cook had watched me while I tried his cigarette, and he smiled at my discomfort when I started coughing as a result of inhaling the smoke.

  ‘This your first cigarette? Too bad you threw it out. You smoke more, and you learn to like it.’

  ‘What did you want to ask me?’

  He inhaled deeply on his cigarette, then let the smoke out of the side of his mouth so only a small amount of it drifted to me.

  ‘You an impatient man,’ he said, nodding at me, his eyes narrowing. ‘You also a puzzle to me. You not a junkie, I know that. You also no college student. Also no illegal. So I keep asking myself why a strong, able man like you take this shit job? You don’t got no prison tats that I can see, but I’m thinking that must be it. Are you out of prison? Is that why you doing this shit work? Because if that’s it, I can help you.’

  ‘How can you help me?’

  ‘Easy.’ He grinned widely, showing teeth that had yellowed. ‘I can get you papers and new name. After that, you don’t got to tell no one you been to prison. They check on you and everything is clean.’

  ‘I haven’t been to prison.’

  That surprised him. ‘You got arrests on your record, is that it?’

  I shook my head and tried to hide my excitement as I said, ‘I need a social security number. Can you get me one of those?’

  ‘Why can’t you get one yourself?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘You illegal?’

  ‘No. I was born in New Hampshire, but I don’t have a birth certificate and I can’t get one.’

  ‘This is same as I was saying before. I can get you papers so you legal. A guy I know can do this. Two thousand dollars and you be legal and don’t have to do this shit work.’

  ‘I don’t have that much money.’

  ‘Then get it. It ain’t hard if you motivated. And don’t wait too long. No telling how long I’ll be here working for that shit Chris. And don’t think I get rich from your two thousand. My taste will be small, most of the money will go to the guy I know. I’m doing this for you as a favor.’ He showed that scowl I’d often seen on him and said, ‘I don’t like how Chris treats us like dirt.’

  His cigarette had burned down to a stub, and he flicked it away. He used his forefinger to tap on the side of his head, and said, ‘Be smart.’ And after that, he went back inside. I stood in the alley and thought about how long it would take me to get $2,000 so I could pay him. After paying one month’s rent on the apartment I was going to be subletting, I had less than $600 remaining. I still had to pay two additional months’ rent, but if I was frugal with the money I spent on food, and if I stopped buying newspapers and coffee, I might be able to save enough from the $250 I made each week to have that $2,000 in three months. That seemed like a long time to have to be spending my days cleaning dishes, but none of that’d matter if I didn’t find a way soon to deal with the cravings. If I found a way to make the cravings go away, those three months would go by fast.

  Eduardo had warned me not to trust him, and I wouldn’t. When I gave him the $2,000, I’d make sure he gave me what I was paying for. As I stood there, I thought of other ways I could more quickly get $2,000. But I also thought of how angry Jill had become when her friend hinted that I might’ve been a murderer, and I knew how much it would hurt her if I tried one of those other ways and got caught. I grimly accepted that I couldn’t take the chance of Jill suffering that kind of hurt.

  After work ended, I traveled again to East Flatbush and continued my searching. Even though I had resolved that today would be the day I found the thick-jawed man, my search turned out to be as fruitless as all my previous searches.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I’d agreed to meet Jill at eight o’clock that evening since she was planning to be done with work by then. I had considered going earlier to her apartment and preparing a dinner of rice, beans, and avocado, so it would be waiting for her, but before I left for work Jill had mentioned that she wanted us to try a vegan restaurant near her college. I felt uneasy about this now, knowing I needed to save $2,000 and aware how expensive these restaurants were, but I decided that if it took me a week or two longer before I was going to be able to give the cook his money I’d survive the extra time. Besides, more pressing on my mind was figuring out how I was going to survive the cravings.r />
  Jill’s spirits were running high that evening, and on seeing me enter her apartment she made a running jump into my arms, making me rock back half a step, and wrapped her arms around my neck. As I recovered my balance, she kissed me hard enough that my head was soon swimming. In the passion of our kiss, I hadn’t even realized that I had wrapped my arms tightly around her and was pressing her body against mine. Once our kiss ended and I realized what I’d done, I lowered her back to the floor, my face reddening in my embarrassment.

  ‘That was really nice.’ Jill showed me maybe the most beautiful smile I’d yet seen from her. ‘I’d been waiting hours to do that to you.’ Her smile became one of mischief. ‘Are you sure we have to wait any longer before we officially start dating?’

  ‘We do,’ I said, my voice rough and raspy as it rumbled out of my throat. ‘I gave you my word before, and it wouldn’t be right not to wait.’

  Jill laughed in a soft, gentle manner that warmed me as much as her kiss. ‘OK, OK. I don’t want to corrupt you with my wicked city ways.’ She took hold of my hand and led me further into her apartment. Before we went more than a few steps, she picked up an envelope from the table that her television set sat on and handed it to me.

  ‘This is from Brittany,’ she said.

  I opened the envelope and took a card from it that showed a drawing of a plump young girl with overly rosy cheeks and yellow hair tied in pigtails. This girl was drawn so that she looked both contrite and guilt-ridden as she stood next to a vase that lay shattered on the floor. Inside the card were printed the words ‘I am so, so sorry!’, and underneath that an indecipherable scribble which I guessed was Brittany’s signature.

  ‘It appears that she’s sorry,’ I said, not convinced.

  ‘Yes it does.’ Jill’s own beaming smile turned apologetic. ‘She came by the college and dropped that off. She also talked me into having a girl’s night tomorrow night. Me, Brit, and three friends of ours. I’ll be out late, and depending how much Brit coaxes me into drinking, I might not be back until Sunday morning.’ She hesitated, her smile weakening. ‘Given how hard both of us have been working this week, I was looking forward to us having fun tomorrow night. But Ethan was so damned possessive I think it would be good for me to reconnect with friends I lost touch with over the last two years. I’m sorry that I’ll be abandoning you tomorrow.’

  ‘There’s nothing for you to apologize about.’ I forced a smile (what I learned after almost a week of living among them is that smiling doesn’t come naturally to me or my kind, at least not as it does with them, and I have to keep reminding myself to smile when it’s expected) and joked, ‘First, we’re not dating yet.’ Then more seriously, ‘And second, I will never hold any claim over you. Even if I am lucky enough for us to one day marry, I will never expect or wish for you to do anything other than what you want to do, and I will consider myself fortunate for any moments that you are willing to share with me.’

  Jill took hold of my neck so that she could lower my head and kiss me again. This one lasted longer and was even more passionate than her earlier kiss.

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I think you’re so great,’ she said. ‘I know you’re not bullshitting me and really mean that.’

  I nodded, because I did. I might’ve lied to her dozens of times since we met, but in this I was talking truthfully.

  We stood for a long moment with my hands lightly touching her hips and hers reaching up to my shoulders. If she had asked me again about us not waiting any longer to date, I might’ve weakened. But she didn’t ask me that, and instead suggested we head out for dinner.

  Later, as Jill led me down streets where I hadn’t been before, we passed a restaurant named The Cultured Cannibal. Somehow I didn’t stop in my tracks, or even noticeably slow down, though every instinct I had was screaming at me to investigate this restaurant right away. I knew restaurants and bars like to use clever names, and most likely the owner of this one thought the name funny, but I still couldn’t help wondering whether the restaurant actually lived up to its name. Was such a thing possible? Perhaps they’d named it as such so ordinary passersby would think it a joke, but wayward people of my kind would be drawn to it to find the food they desperately need. Maybe the restaurant even had two different menus – one for them and one for us. After all, didn’t Jill once tell me you could get anything in this city? I started thinking that maybe this was how the thick-jawed man was surviving in New York – that he ate there just often enough to keep his cravings satisfied. The thought that this restaurant might actually serve meat that came from the slaughtering ritual, and had been prepared according to custom, caused saliva to leak from my mouth. I quickly wiped it away with my sleeve before Jill could notice.

  Even though the cravings were keeping me from thinking straight, I kept these thoughts to myself and didn’t mention them to Jill. Nor did I comment to her about the odd name of the restaurant.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I had two of them speak to me Saturday morning while I was washing dishes. First, Chris came over to tell me I would be paid at the end of the day and should find him before leaving work at four o’clock. Then, a short time later the cook again asked me to join him for a smoke. I wasn’t going to answer him, but the cravings made it hard for me to simply ignore him, so I told him I didn’t much care for the cigarette I had tried and would rather smell of grease than cigarette smoke.

  ‘You smoke a few more, you grow to like it. But that’s not why I want you to join me. My reason is so we can talk more about what we spoke about yesterday.’

  Work had slowed at this point, so I followed him out the back door and into the alley. The cravings had made me edgier and jumpier, and as he watched me he must’ve noticed.

  ‘What you craving?’ he asked. ‘H? Meth? Oxy? ’Cause I can hook you up, brother.’

  I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I didn’t answer him.

  He shrugged. ‘Whatever, bro. You change your mind, you tell me.’ He took his pack of cigarettes from his back pants pocket and tapped one out and stuck it between his lips, then offered the pack to me. ‘You should smoke one,’ he said. ‘It will help calm that wild look in your eyes.’

  ‘What did you want to ask me? I said.

  He shook his head over my not accepting one of his offered cigarettes, put the pack away, and then lit the one he had in his lips. After sucking on it deeply and blowing out twin streams of smoke from his nostrils, he said, ‘What we were talking about yesterday. You going to take me up on my help so you can get a decent job and tell Chris to kiss your ass?’

  ‘Will I get a birth certificate and a social security number?’

  He looked annoyed by my question and snorted out more smoke from his nostrils. ‘You get whatever you need so you can work legal,’ he replied, his words thickening with annoyance.

  ‘Find out what I’ll get,’ I said. ‘If your friend can get me a birth certificate and a social security number, I’ll give you two thousand dollars after I’ve saved it up.’

  He muttered what sounded like profanities under his breath, then tossed his half-smoked cigarette away. It looked as if he was going to walk back into the restaurant without saying another word. But instead he shifted his stare back to me, his thick scowl once again folding his face.

  ‘I will ask him,’ he said. ‘When you going to have the money ready?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘What do you mean by “soon”?’

  ‘As soon as I can.’

  He shook a finger at me. ‘Don’t wait too long. No telling how long I stay at this shit job working for a fucker like Chris. If you wait too long you might find yourself stuck here without me around to help you.’

  Then he went back inside. I stood for a long moment thinking about how he’d seen the cravings in me. He’d have thought it was something else, but he still saw what he called a ‘wild look’ in my eyes. And if he saw it, then Jill must’ve seen it this morning, too. Or maybe not. Early on, I’d tried t
o breathe in only through my mouth, but recently I’d been getting careless. It was possible that a morning of smelling the nauseating odors from the grease and burnt animal flesh had made the cravings worse. I couldn’t help thinking that if I was spending my days building houses and doing carpentry, the cravings wouldn’t be progressing in me so quickly. That kind of hard labor in the open air – even if it was this dirty city air – would still the cravings somewhat and give me more time to find the thick-jawed man who I knew could help me. But as things were, I wasn’t going to be able to survive three weeks, as my clan did during that dark time. If I wasn’t doing so already, soon I’d be showing Jill glimpses of the madness that the cravings brought on, just as I had to the cook, and I couldn’t let that happen.

  My thoughts turned to the restaurant I spotted last night while walking with Jill: The Cultured Cannibal. In the light of day, the idea that they might serve the kind of meat I needed seemed fantastical. But then again, so much in this city and in their world at times seemed fantastical to me. In any case, I couldn’t shake the thought that it just might be so, and that the restaurant’s name wasn’t meant to be a joke but a beacon for my kind. I decided that after I was done working today I would investigate The Cultured Cannibal, and if the name turned out to merely be something the owner thought was clever, I would head back to East Flatbush and continue my search. Since Jill was planning to be out late with her friends, I’d have all night to finally find the thick-jawed man, if I still needed to.

  I glanced up at the position of the sun and saw that I’d been on break for almost fifteen minutes, so I headed back inside.

  When I found Chris at four o’clock, he counted out $140 and thirty-three cents and handed it to me. I stared confused at the money he’d placed in my open hand. When I could find my voice, I pointed out that we’d agreed $250 a week.