by Atticus Lish
The driver, who they could barely see, said he would take them to Queens Boulevard.
And we can’t go to your place, right? Skinner asked Zou Lei.
No, they could not do that, because she had roommates.
Good to go, Queens Boulevard.
But right when the driver put his foot on the gas, Skinner had to tell him to wait. Just hold it, thirty seconds. He jumped out and Zou Lei watched him run back into the KFC. Then he came out carrying something, and it was the assault pack with the pistol in it, which he had left forgotten under the seat where they were sitting.
The first time he had taken his shirt off in front of her—this was in the motel they went to in Rego Park—she had seen his yellowish gray torso in the lamplight, which cast a warmer color on him, giving his skin a life it didn’t have on its own. She had not been paying attention. But then her hand had moved from his shoulder and touched his back. She withdrew and they stopped kissing for a moment. She gave him a little push to turn him so she could examine him in the lamplight. He said oh that.
She hadn’t known what it was, had not connected it to the war. She had thought it was a birth defect or a contagious disease.
You can’t like catch anything from it.
She said okay. She touched it. The tissue felt cold.
It hurts?
Not really.
She laid her palm on the dented puckered slick bumpy knotted flesh.
You get in the war?
He said yeah.
She made a tsking sound.
They shoot you in the body?
Shrapnel, he said, his back to her in the lamplight.
She examined him for a moment longer. Sighed. She moved her hand up above the damage and smoothed her palm across the death wings spread across his shoulders.
9
HE FOUND A ROOM on Craigslist that was in her area, one stop further out on the Long Island Railroad. From Chinatown, he took the bus up Franklin and got off at 160th Street. They were all small houses under the power lines, with sneakers tossed over them. The curbs were worn-down, creating the illusion of pooled water sheeted over the ground, as after a rain. Through the trees, you could see the train tracks and the graffiti on the rocks.
One of the houses had its postage-stamp yard filled with statues and figurines—of elves, wise men, the crucifixion, leprechauns, animals, plastic flowers, a sleigh, a whirligig that spun in the wind. There were wind chimes on the porch and an American flag bumper sticker for 9/11 on the house. This was where he was going. Behind the lace curtains in the windows, the house had a dead appearance. There were angels too. In the upstairs window, the venetian blinds were broken.
Circumnavigating a pickup—there were no bumper stickers on the pickup—that had been left parked on the cracked sidewalk, he went to the side door and knocked.
When he didn’t hear anything, he pressed the bell, but maybe he shouldn’t have, because right then he heard somebody say, I’m coming.
The door was answered by a giant young woman in black, a head taller than he was.
There was an instant mood of cold dislike between them and they averted their eyes from each other. She did not greet him. All she said was, My mother’s in the kitchen, and turned her back on him, becoming nearly invisible in the dark doorway in her huge black shirt. She was there and then she wasn’t.
He heard thump-thump-thump and saw her cold bare white feet running up three steps, as if she were escaping from him, escaping to her apartment door with an outline of light around it. She pushed through it, giving him a glimpse of the interior before it swung shut: a yellow lamp, a wooden table. In his boots, he tramped up the stairs after her and followed her inside.
Sitting at the wooden table, there was a woman with a cigarette in her mouth.
That wasn’t the most polite thing in the world, that’s all I’m saying.
He’s fine, the giant girl said, not looking at Skinner.
You shut the door in his face.
No, I didn’t, the daughter said, skirting the big wooden table and the circle of yellow lamplight and disappearing down a hallway with old dark pictures on the walls, and, when she was no longer visible, uttering something else in that indifferent voice of hers, but it was impossible to hear what she said and was she even talking to them.
Yeah, right. The woman rolled her eyes. Come in, she told Skinner. Don’t be shy. Come in, come in.
She was enormous. He figured three hundred easy. She was wearing a purple velvet housedress and she had beefy shoulders and puffy hands, and from all the way across the kitchen, he could hear the air going into her lungs and coming out as cigarette smoke. Her skin had been sand-blasted. It was pitted, gray, and rough. Her hair was styled close to the sides and rose above her head in a kind of pompadour which rotated like the keel of a ship when she turned, her eye half-shut against the smoke from a cigarette, watching him as he approached.
Uh, hey, he said.
Hey, she said. Then she gestured with her eyes. She was directing him to the place across from her where she wanted him to sit at her table.
He drew the chair out and dropped into it, slouching with his knees spread. He looked across the table at her.
She stared back at him.
How’s it goin? he asked.
It’s goin. She was holding her cigarette up by her cheek, resting her thick elbow on the table. You made it here okay then?
You mean like finding the house?
Coming here and finding the address, yes.
Yeah, obviously, he said. That was nothing.
Well, I ask because it sounded like it was going to be a problem. It’s a long way for some people.
Not that long.
Well, good. You’re here.
As long as I know where something is, I know eventually I can get there.
Well, like I said, you made it.
Not a problem.
Good.
Once you’ve humped twenty miles a few times, getting to Queens isn’t so hard.
Once what?
Humped. Humped a pack on your back for twenty miles. Army infantry?
Is that what you do?
That’s what I did, yeah.
You were in the army?
Yeah, I just got out of the army I want to say like three weeks ago.
You just got out.
Yeah, I just got out.
I saw the garb, your coat—I thought you were military, but I wasn’t sure if it was you or someone else I spoke with.
No, it was me.
Well, she said. Well, we owe you. That’s my belief.
I just came back from three tours in Iraq, he said.
Three tours?
Not one. Not two. Three.
She shook her head. Goodness. My word. She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the refrigerator. I’d give you a beer if I had one. If I was still tending bar.
They stop-lossed me.
Where they don’t let you go.
Yeah, they don’t let you go, even though you’re supposed to.
We’ve heard about that. It’s been on the news.
You might have a doctor saying you need to get out, a med board or whatever, or a baby on the way or some shit, and they don’t let you go even though, on your contract, they’re supposed to. Legally, they’re screwing you over. Legally, they’re just saying screw this piece of paper, you’re going back in.
They don’t have people for the war.
I was supposed to be out a hell of a lot sooner, but they kept putting me back in. I had to do thirty-six months of combat duty.
Well—
That’s supposed to be okay.
Well, you’re out, thank God.
He shook his head.
You’re out and in one piece, she said.
Yeah.
You served, thank God, and you’re in one piece, and now you’re out. She reached out and tapped her cigarette in the ashtray in the center of her table.
The woman said, We have a frie
nd, a friend of my daughter’s, the Gambias—down the block—they have a son in the army—the army or the marines, one of the two—and he’s going over, over to Iraq. He’s there already, come to think of it. It’s the 82nd wing, the 82nd something.
Airborne.
That could be it. They’re an elite, I know that much. It’s a special platoon that they only take the top. I couldn’t believe what these men do, when she told me. They have running and pushups and the usual, bad enough, but then she says they put rocks in the backpacks until the men start throwing up. The highest number of battles or wins, she was saying.
I wouldn’t know.
They’re famous outside the army, but I can’t remember the name. They have a saying. His mother wears the t-shirt when she comes. Barbara. In her glory. I guess you wouldn’t happen to know the saying? I wish I remembered it. She was telling me. I’d tell her to get me a shirt, but I don’t think it’d fit me.
He didn’t say anything.
Like I said, I’d offer you a beer. She raised her head to project her voice down the hallway and called out, Erin! and when there was no answer, she twisted her head around over the other shoulder, trying to turn herself towards the refrigerator. She pushed the table, which jolted on its legs, but her chair didn’t move. He heard her take a breath and prepare to turn her body. Her foot slid on the linoleum.
You wanna do me a favor? Check the fridge, I should have a beer in there, at least one.
He got up and went to her refrigerator, which had the look of when a lot of people share it. It smelled like mayo turning hard. There was a cardboard case of Michelob, a twenty-four pack, dominating an entire shelf. He stuck his hand in the ragged hole in the cardboard and felt nothing in there until he had his arm all the way in and felt a single cold can all the way on the inside.
He cracked the can open, fell into his chair, mumbled thank you, slung his head back and drank off half of it. Wiped his chin. A belch snuck up on him—a loud one.
Better?
Whoops.
Don’t mention it. I’ve raised two sons and a husband. You’d think it was prehistoric times.
Yeah, he said.
Believe me, they think it’s Conan the Barbarian.
She grinned. A missing canine tooth.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re good Irish men, she said gravely.
He lifted his beer can six inches off the table and set it down. I hear ya.
Anyway! she said and stubbed her cigarette out. You’re here for the room. She began to describe it in her strong, hoarse voice. It was clean, she told him. The paint was new. The neighborhood used to be Irish. Now it was take-your-pick.
He swallowed the rest of the beer, which mixed with the medication in his bloodstream, creating a tightening effect at the base of his skull.
Chinese, he said.
When she told him to go take a look at it, he said he didn’t need to.
I’d prefer if you did.
Hey, if it’s got four walls, that’s all I need. Is it a room?
Just go and look at it already. See what you think.
So he said yes ma’am and got to his feet and went down the stairs in the pitch dark to the basement, palm stroking the wall until he felt the switch.
There was a flat click and the lights came on, recessed inside acoustic ceiling tiles. He smelled Pine Sol. It was so quiet he could hear the refrigerator, the boiler ticking. His footfalls. The dried white Ajax in the metal sink next to the stove with the four electric coils. He opened the bedroom door and his shadow stretched out across the floor and touched the patterned sheets. The space was neat and empty. There was a plastic broom and dustpan in a corner.
Still carrying his beer can, he climbed back upstairs.
The woman acknowledged his return by reaching for her Slims and taking another one out.
Okay, so what’s the story? You’ve seen it, what are we doin here?
It’s good to go.
Is that a yes? Okay. Put your can down, for goodness sakes. Put it there—the trash is there. Siddown. Take a seat. She lit her smoke and tossed the Bic lighter on the table like a poker chip. Looked at him. Told him what the room was going for. He already knew. I know you know, I’m just going over it. When we get your money, you get the key.
He was like, no problem.
The smoke ribboned up from her cigarette. He noticed it was night outside the window.
She went over a few things. This was a family house. She didn’t get involved in people’s business. I don’t expect men to be angels. That’s not what I’m looking for, but there are limits. I’ll put a man out—not that I would, unless it was an unusual situation.
Skinner said, I respect that.
She said good, and he was like no problem, whatever you say, to everything she said.
10
HE WOULD COME TO her job and wait until she was done and take her back in a gypsy cab because the bus took too long. She made her way down the carpeted stairs into the basement, Skinner behind her, saying Go on. She saw the bare walls in gray shadow, the empty kitchen. They went into his room and he turned on the light for her. The boiler smelled like copper in the closet. She went to the bed and sat and crossed her legs and leaned back on her hands, watching him kicking off his boots and tearing off his camouflage.
Here comes a wolf. I am afraid.
Much later in the night, they would open his room door and let out the heat that had been generated. Wearing only her t-shirt, she followed him out to the kitchen where it seemed cold by contrast. The light felt blinding and a reflection of the room covered the black rectangle of the window above the sink. He checked the empty cabinets for food. Negative, he said, perspiration shining at his temples. She drank water from the sink. We will eat water, she smiled and wiped her chin. No, we’re not down to that yet. He ordered pizza and they ate it sitting at the small round table next to the fridge. I was starving, weren’t you? She let him feed her. She licked his hand. They ate it all and he leaned back in his boxers and lit a cigarette, his hard white knee against her thigh.
When she went back into his room to get her jeans, she saw what they had done to the bed, the mauled sheet. His camouflage gear and clothes were all over the floor. He slept in his poncholiner. On the bedside table were his pills and his lifter’s magazine and a strip of four condoms with blue wrappers. The room smelled like him and her, their sweat, latex, and tobacco. All about the room were empty beer cans he used as ashtrays. Under the bed, there was a used yellow wet latex condom. Another one was twisted in the poncholiner. Her eyes scanned over his cigarettes, his jeans. His boots were lying where he had kicked them off. A pair of blue faded cotton panties had fallen on them, hers.
He came up behind her and put an arm around her waist and put his face in her neck. She held his hand. His face smelled like tobacco. They rocked back and forth like that.
Oh, it makes me want to sleep, she said.
But she made herself put on her jeans, her hoodie and her denim jacket, tie her hair back with an elastic band, and tie up her worn-out sneakers. She checked the time on her cell phone and stuck it in her back pocket where it was outlined against her muscle.
Okay, I go.
I’m coming with you, he said. Wait up.
They went out into the quiet night and started hiking down Franklin Avenue until the small American houses gave way to ghetto buildings and then the huge cathedral of Chinatown, over the hill through the dark trees and down the long block that extended out to the freeway like a jetty.
Now you have to go all the way back, she said.
That don’t matter. I can’t sleep anyway.
She told him to be careful. They told each other I’ll see you tomorrow. He stood guard until she was inside and the bolt clicked.
Then she crept upstairs, convinced that the other tenants were awake and monitoring her arrival. If she lost her balance taking off her sneakers in the dark, they would think she was drunk. As quietly as she could, she opened her acco
rdion door. The sheds were built open at the top like changing rooms, and when she pulled the chain, her light disturbed her neighbor, who muttered behind the plywood. She switched the light off and kneeled down on her broken mattress, on her coverlet bought in Chinatown, showing teddy bears in bow-ties. By feel, she plugged her cell phone into the charger, her link to him, and the screen lit up indigo in her hands for several moments shining through her fingers.
hi mom im fine here in NY as planned. nothing going on/wrong remember fox news been wrong before I know your right about school, gi bill etc. i have enough maturity to know when your right just not mature enough to do it yet. my time well spent - one thing i learned in the army
brad
You has the dish? The cooking pot?
Wearing only her t-shirt, she opened the cabinet beneath the sink. The only thing in the cabinet was a container of Ajax. She opened the refrigerator, seeing nothing but their pizza box, and closed it.
The bathroom door was open and he was standing with his back to her, his legs apart, the cigarette in his mouth moving as he talked. He was urinating loudly and she couldn’t hear what he was saying. When he was done, he shook himself and turned around, still shaking himself and flipped himself back inside his boxers as he came walking out to her.
Pots and pans?
I check but I don’t find nothing.
He went through the kitchen opening and closing the cupboards one after the other and banging them shut.
She stood up on her toes to look inside the cupboards, her full bare calves flexing. Her t-shirt, which said I’m Fallin’ for Juicy, rode up to the edge of her rear.
Does that answer your question?
She tsked and folded her arms.
The typical boy. No dish. What you will eat? Maybe I will buy for you. Pot, dish, bowl.
During the day, he bought beer and condoms at a gas station on Northern Boulevard and they drank together at the round table in his kitchen. He did not buy groceries. She got drunk and rubbed his hair. So cute. She pointed at the empty shelves. No cooking pot. No nothing. You are just like man. Make your muscle. He flexed his arm and she felt it. Like my father. How’s that? Acts like man. She leaned in and stared fixedly at him, her eyes thick with liquid. Good man. Skinner agreed the way you do with someone drinking. He give everything to me. To us. To my mother. Everything he will do for us, even he has nothing. He is poor man. She told Skinner one of her small stories about things her dad had done. There were just a few to share because he hadn’t stayed with them very much.