Moving Kings

by Joshua Cohen

  Uri just let Yoav lead and was content to follow. That’s what Uri was doing here, following. Letting Yoav feel important. With his little bitch language and his little bitch phone. They were the green wobbly dot on its map. The directions were telling them to turn and they turned, onto a wider street that wouldn’t have been any busier on a nonholiday because all its businesses had gone insolvent and shuttered.

  Only the corner deli was open. Its plateglass had just been washed and dripped with soap. The interior was hung with a backlit photomenu and shook with synthy snakecharmer pop. Past the sneezeguarded steamtray, an orb of meat rotated within molten coils.

  Again. They were everywhere, it seemed. Arabs, Arabushim. Everywhere. On jobs, at the pumps, in the delis, at the rear of the delis down on their mats, and then up front behind their bulletproofed partitions wary, the third eyes of their prayer calluses keeping tabs on the aisles and mirrors and screens.

  This one stood lanky and hairnetted, with a precipitous cleft in his chin to retreat to if anything went awry. And a moustache, that lip garnish that serves as an expression of some inner ambivalence: even if someone with a moustache is smiling, he’s also always frowning—the mouth can turn up, but the hairs point down.

  Uri grabbed Red Bulls and asked in Arabic for a pack of Marlboro Reds and the proprietor guy asked back, “You are from Jordan?”

  “Palestine,” Uri said.

  “Hebron?”

  “Gaza,” Uri said, “but my friend is from Amman.”

  The proprietor guy nearly pounced across the register, pelting Yoav with entreaty: “When did you leave? Who’s your family?”

  Yoav stammered—a few gurgles to get a word, a few words to get the order, the effort coming to seem not like that of a man who spoke a child’s Arabic, but like that of a manchild who hadn’t spoken to anyone in a while, Arabic or not.

  Uri intervened: “My friend has shoes in his head,” which meant that Yoav was mentally disabled.

  The Marlboro Reds and Red Bulls were regular price but the sahlebs they got were hot and gratis.

  “Happy New Year” was the only English that was said.

  The neighborhood was brick. Then it reverted to a vinyl that mimicked wood. From houses that could’ve been in TV sitcoms by day to houses that could’ve been in horror films by night, their materials might’ve quarreled, but their styles jibed: horrible, provisional. They were united by their provisionality, with their frontyards just fenced receptacles for trash and the trashed empty lots between them cast in the shadows of future buildings: highrises partially risen and a few so low they were just pilings or hadn’t yet even broken ground.

  They passed the candles and roses of a makeshift memorial to someone who’d died.

  Capitolina Court was the street, a glorified driveway of a oneway one block deadend backing onto a defunct factory. One side of the street was a construction site’s hoarding, each board of which was branded BAM: Bower Asset Management. The opposite side was only half vacant but weedy with what might in another season have been a berry plot. Next to that and set back from the street was a house that showed no address but had to be the address: an immense battered box of moldy whitewashed wood, summited by a spired gable like the red pin that marked its location on Yoav’s phone. Except the gable was tilting and smothered in vines. The porch sagged bellylike from off its columns. A greasy Afric flag flapped from the letterslot like a doused rag to the cocktail Molotov. Nailed was the wishful sign, No Soliciting.

  It was just after noon on New Year’s Day, which meant doublepay. First of the month was first of the month, no exceptions, and the house had to be cleared before the developers snarled up for the workweek in their bulldozers.

  Tom Gall, without having to realign and regear but just with a single curbclearing steer, reversed a rolloff truck into Capitolina.

  There are few things in life more impressive to witness than a large vehicle being backed into a small spot—Uri, whether or not this had anything to do with the pill still in him, stood in the weeds wrapped in his shearling trying not to cry.

  Tom raised the bed and Yoav stumbled over to help roll off the dumpster: a yawning rapacious 30 yarder they winched down flush with the gutter. They maybe shouldn’t have been blocking the hydrant like that, but then maybe the streetlamps here should’ve been functional and the sidewalk slabs patched.

  Go ahead, call the city and if you’re ever taken off hold, report it—report everything: the day, the hour, the make, model, plates—the hydraulic hiss and wideload beep, the obstructing metal cauldron pitted and pocked, crusted with barnacles like a sunk submarine.

  By morning its bottom would be dusted with frost.

  —

  Back under the Occupation, there had been shooting and here in America there was no shooting, or none aimed at them. Back under the Occupation, there had been sleepless stretches with nothing to eat and nothing to drink and here in America there were scheduled breaks and just a staggering range of fastfood options for both takeout and delivery. Also, in the IDF they’d been able to smash things. If they bumped into a Palestinian chair or desk or even human intact, they could smash it, they could call in a convoy of Doobi D9s to dismantle and raze, or a formation of F16s to fly in and cave the roofs and blast the walls into sand and sprinkle the foundations with phosphorous—but here in New York, they had to salvage.

  Otherwise, the work they were doing wasn’t too different.

  They were still going into a house and checking the rooms by the floor. Checking for people, checking for possessions. Clearing the people before clearing the possessions. The possessions would stay with them, the people were allowed to go wherever, provided it was always on the other side of the propertyline, which for this property meant anywhere past the skeletal hedge and remaining pickets of gateless fence.

  Yoav had just been getting used to the normal jobs, when Uri showed up and suddenly these new jobs, these eviction jobs, were being put on the docket—which meant they had to pack the people out to the street, but then had to be delicate packing up the possessions.

  They had to itemize everything, they had to swaddle it in soft news and bubblewrap and pad it all safe away with foam, because everything was profit—because all possessions not reclaimed King’s Moving would get to keep and, as Paul Gall always reminded, reclamation was as likely as identical snowflakes.

  Some houses they’d strike it rich, some would be busts—that was the gamble. That’s why there’d always be a guarantee of base fee from the landlord whose tenant they were tossing or the bank or whoever held the lien.

  Around Thanksgiving, they’d tossed two houses with nobody home. In another residence they’d gutted, everyone was giddy and civil because mentally feeble. Out in the Amboys, Tom had been saying something that Yoav had been Hebraicizing for Uri, something about how Uri’s pay would be docked if he ever broke another flatscreen, and as they were leaving the apartmentbuilding and passing the demonstrators with their banners, some woman, not an evictee but just some activist woman, waved a deadly length of lumber attached to a placard in their faces and chanted a slogan so passionately that she spit on them.

  Another woman had dandled her infant out a window and threatened to drop it if anyone came in. Another had dropped a vat of sofrito, which scalded “Serbian” Phil and “Felony” Fredo Castro so badly they didn’t work anymore, they wouldn’t have to after they sued. Some guy neglected to mention the python he kept in a pantry—and Tinks almost—Tinks always almost.

  In a tenement in Passaic, a woman had tried to bribe them, which hadn’t made sense, that a woman who wasn’t even making her rent was offering them cash to go away, but then what she was offering wasn’t cash, she was just putting a pillow beneath her kneeling as Tom unzipped.

  He finished in her mouth. “Swallow,” he said. “Now get the fuck out of your house.”

  Here, on Capitolina, Yoav got into the truck and Uri, who was still slightly higher and drunker, followed. Tom sat at the wheel
suiting up.

  This was how they usually waited: all wedged together in the truck, not because the outside intimidated, but because it was cold.

  Somewhere in Tom’s wallet, somewhere plasticsleeved among the Amex and Costco cards and his CDL and DOT parking permit and DOB elevator inspector’s certificate and the card that was always just a punch away from a free bagel, was a license that authorized him to seize property, including vehicles, and to perform evictions. Around his neck was a ballchain with tags and a bright novelty cop badge like a lemonlime airfreshener. He opened the glovebox and clapped on an FBI hat. Then he slammed his seat back and reached underneath and rummaged up a gun.

  It was only when the Raelis—which was what Tom called them now that there was a pair of them, of Raelis—were around a gun that they realized they didn’t have one.

  Yoav said, “Explain me why we need that?”

  Tom said, “You don’t know where we are, Yo. You don’t trifle with this neighborhood. Too many gangs, too many rival colors. I’ve had guys come at me with tirechains, guys with machetes.”

  “So only you need that and what I have? What he have?”

  Tom said, “You’re the Raeli cavalry.”

  Uri slumped away toward the window and clutched at a biceps through his shearling and grinned.

  Tom shoved the gun into a pocket and turned up the heat and directed all the dash vents at himself. “Tell him, Yo, tell your habibi—this ain’t Stapleton, this ain’t even the Bronx, he can’t be sloppy.”

  Yoav nudged Uri, “Tom’s telling me to tell you to be careful.”

  Uri twisted around, “Careful of what—that SIG Sauer of his that’s not even loaded?”

  “It’s not?”

  “And if it’s so dangerous here, why are we parked in front of the house and not around the corner? If we’re raiding, wouldn’t it make sense to sneak up?”

  “It would. But we’re not in command here.”

  “I’m not and you’re not—he is, because your cousin doesn’t trust us. Why else would that foreskin be our boss and the only one who’s armed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is anything about this kosher?”

  “What do you think?”

  Tom said, “What the fuck’s he saying about kosher?”

  “Unless I was just promoted in the field,” Uri said to Yoav, “thinking’s way above my rank.”

  Tom said, “You’re going to stop hocking loogies and start talking English?”

  Yoav, swiveling between languages, said, “Hocking what?”

  “Fuck you and talk, what he was saying, your habibi.”

  “He saying he angry the others are late.”

  Tom checked his phone and rubbed at his sinuses. If only his employees—if only his evictees—would just do their jobs with the same dedication with which he did his, he wouldn’t still be doing this, he’d have his MBA by now.

  He’d spent New Year’s at a kegger in Weehawken losing at poker and not getting laid.

  Talc and Ronriguez honked their tractortrailer jacked halfway into Capitolina and Tom put the rolloff truck up on the curb to let them park.

  Over break Ronriguez had paunched enough to have to loosen his backbrace out to the next velcro pad. He’d had so much family over, so many turkeyass meals, it was a joy, just about, to return to work. Talc had been down by his Virginia kin, coveting their acreage. Back in Jersey he’d winterized his garage and shut himself inside reconditioning the used lawnmowers he’d purchased online.

  They jumped from the tractortrailer cab to the street, Talc sleighbelling this crude ring of keys, and Ronriguez said, “You tell them.”

  “Tell me what?” Tom said.

  “About this chica he with.”

  “Over break?”

  “Late 80s, early 90s,” Talc said, “and not a chica, this girl’s pure shorty black, living like a stop away from here. I’m coming from wherever to hit that ass when this mugger steps to me from behind clowning me for cash.”

  Tom said, “He got a blade on him?”

  “Damn fuck right a blade but I just be grabbing my ring like this, get the keys all up in my knuckles between them and spin around and puncture open his face.”

  Ronriguez said, “Híjole.”

  “Unlock the motherfucker’s face.”

  Up on the porch none of the keys fit the paddy that well and as Talc riffled through the ring again Ronriguez was hassling trying to size up the bittings.

  Yoav stomped alert atop the mats of soggy cash for gold ads, Any Condition Immediate Offer. Uri sounded out the weakest board and bounced.

  “Is always smart of Paul to label which,” Ronriguez said.

  “Don’t make no difference,” said Talc.

  Tom bounded back up from the rolloff truck with a crowbar and hooked its forktailed end under the paddy’s shackle and leaning, slipping, regaining, pried the door with his weight. Wood cracked like it was breathing, releasing the ghosts from its grain. The shackle gave. The door swung and gaped.

  Tom passed the crowbar to Ronriguez and, hand in his gunpocket, passed inside.

  “Mr. Luter?”

  Across a sodden carpeting of circulars, menus for El Infante II and New Fu Shun, all shoeprinted alike with sawlike serrations split at the heel.

  “Hola—la policía desahucio—Mr./Mrs. Luter?”

  The planking and wainscoting flowed into the parlor under stainedglass panes of myriad greens, their tracery bent into leafshapes blown through by moted light. Growing up from out of the dimness was a miniature pine forest. A stand of miniature trees bristled against the holly patterning the wallpaper. A few others were leaned against the furniture, which wasn’t pine but finer oak. The rest of the trees were laid by the hearth atop a wreathlike marquetry of cherry and maple. Beneath the raw tart pine scent were harsh stabs of mildew and camphor and beancurd rot. Tom picked up a pinecone and chucked it and wiped his hands of sap on a backpocket bandana.

  They split at the stairs, Talc and Ronriguez going through to the kitchen and the basement below, Tom and the Raelis taking the top—Tom flicking at switches on his way up, though none of the tarnished sconces had bulbs. Down the gross shag hall, the rooms were like walk-in, live-in filingcabinets or bookshelves, clogged with yellowed paper.

  Tom had the Raelis open each of the doors and then he came in behind them to open the shutters. The only upstairs room that seemed inhabited was the bedroom, which only seemed that from the twin mattress sheetless on the floor.

  Otherwise it was as empty as the pillbottles, no labels.

  The bathroom was wadded with napkins and cardboard toiletpaper tubes. Uri skimmed the showercurtain and yelled, “Incoming.”

  Tom hurried down the hall, “What?”

  Uri yelled, “Radio clipped out, didn’t copy—they’re taking hostages, don’t come in live but dry.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Uri stood over the toilet pissing. Yoav was laughing.

  Tom flipped them both the finger. Uri flushed but the water was off.

  Reports scrambled up from the basement: there was a bassinet (condition: Acceptable) and a pinball machine (condition: Poor). A black Virgin Mary garden gnome and a jumble of trunks swarmed with mice.

  They all met up back in the parlor, under a pendant chandelier that hung like a churchlady’s purse.

  The parlor furniture was the stolidest stuff, of the same stately wood that varnishes courthouses and the lobbies of banks to instill the public’s confidence.

  Tom stood at the head of the dinette set and raised a halfpint of Hennessy in honor of whatever name resided on the paperwork—he’d forgotten it already. He passed the flask to Uri, who drank and passed it to Yoav, who after the others refused it just set it on the floor, because he wasn’t sure whether Tom had brought it or just found it here.

  “It’s going to be a motherfucker,” Tom was saying, “trying to get all this goddamned sap off the upholstery,” and he went over to the pinepiled divan, tu
gged it back from the hearth. Trees fell away from the mantel. Roaches scuttled out of a carton of noodles. Charred logs toppled from the andirons. A hatchet gleamed from the ash. Black pleather orthopedic shoes with their sides cut to accommodate the swelling stuck out from under a quilt of Key Food bags and needles.

  A syringe, crooked into the vitals of an elbow, fell out. The guy’s face had been excoriated of shame.

  Tom shook him by the shoulders but he wouldn’t wake up or it was like he was refusing to be asleep or dead or anything at all but his refusing, and then Uri was down on the floor and putting an ear to his mouth and chest and picking up his eyelids and Yoav was down too with a hand on his wrist and uncertain whether the flurrying heart he was feeling was the guy’s or his own or just Tom shoving in to rustle through the pockets. For the guy’s no ID, for his no cash—Tom rolled him onto his side.

  Tom told Yoav to get the arms, but Uri already had them and was lifting. Yoav picked up the hatchet and tucked it into the guy’s blue uniform pants and covered its blade with the blue uniform shirt and Uri with his hands engaged could only judge, he could only scowl and oblige, give the guy if he were alive a fighting chance.

  Yoav then hoisted the guy’s legs and they ported him together out onto the porch and down the stairs with Yoav leading and so staking out the lower, the heavier, position. He found himself stopping, shuffling backward and stopping, to better his grip or let Uri better his, or just to give Tom the chance to reconsider: stopping at the roots that rived the walkway, stopping at the intermittency of fence, and Tom went on ahead.

  The Raelis followed—taking the guy around the deadend’s guardrail, thrashing through the grasses and out over the ice that reared the dilapidated factory.

  They left the guy lying in the scant shelter of a loadingdock. Tom ran around to the front to get an address or name and had Yoav make the call on his Israeli phone, whose omnidigited number would barely register: “Just say you found a guy, back of Viamaris Bros., Spice Street at Nard.”