by Atticus Lish
He was all for it. Good to go. Let’s go now. You never knew what might happen tomorrow.
She pointed out they couldn’t go now, the office would be closed.
Then we’ll go tomorrow. You never knew what was gonna happen the day after tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. They had to do it soon. He had a plan too. You wanna hear? I’ve decided I’m going back!
Back to where?
Where else? The Sand Box. I’m done here. Making all these thinking errors. All the problems. I used to be a highly locked-on soldier. I need to get back in there. And I know when I do, it’s going to be the best thing for everyone, instead of stewing over it from three thousand miles away.
He told her that in his first firefight he had been more excited than at any point in his life, before or since.
He told her he wanted to go back as a contractor. He would make one hundred forty thousand dollars in one year. Their problems would be over, he said.
Then the next day, Sassoon was back at work and Zou Lei was consigned to dishwashing duty again. As ever, she was reviewing her situation. Today was Friday. She would take action and go to the marriage office with Skinner first thing on Monday even if she had to miss a day of work. That was the first priority. The marriage registration fee was forty dollars. Her rent, a hundred dollars for the week, was due every Monday; so she needed one hundred forty dollars on Monday, plus another twenty dollars to eat. Payday was the following Friday. She didn’t know what they would be paying her exactly—she expected to be shortchanged—but as long as she had enough to live on with enough left over to pay the lawyer to open her case, she could then work on getting another job. Other jobs might be out-of-state—you had to go where the work was. Could she travel back and forth to see her lawyer and for court? No, she thought. She had to stay here. She’d look for another restaurant job in the city. Money wouldn’t be a problem if Skinner made one hundred forty thousand dollars, but that wasn’t going to happen. He had been on cocaine or amphetamines, she thought. Maybe she could get him to invest in a vendor cart and they could work together selling shaokao right here in Flushing. The investment for a cart was ten thousand dollars. They could get the license in his name. She saw them working together at the top of the hill, living in their own apartment with a refrigerator and TV. How clean she’d keep it! Together they would go to the gym.
Zhang Zhuojin came over to Zou Lei at eleven-thirty and said: You better talk to someone. That boy is squeezing you out.
She went to check the schedule. All her days were gone.
At lunch, the illegal women talked about it.
Better ask for justice from the boss.
Speak a sentence of justice to him.
Speak to him. She should, shouldn’t she?
She still has hope. The boss likes her.
The boss likes her and Sassoon likes the boy.
An old leopard ensnaring a young lynx.
Talk to Polo. Shake your flowers and branches at him.
Zou Lei went up front to talk to Sassoon. The high school kid was standing right there laughing with Angela. What you want? Sassoon said, and the others turned to listen. Zou Lei said, Nothing. I forget.
She stole a piece of steak and ate it surreptitiously in the back corridor where the deliveries came in and the Mexicans were cutting vegetables.
Chinita! Cuál es tu comida preferida?
Adiós, she told them, and went to shake their hands after she was done eating and had wiped her hands off with the napkin she had held the steak in.
Welbe put down his knife and held her hand. Where are you going? he asked in Spanish. In English: Where? He smiled off at possible places beyond the walls—an engraved cross on his front tooth. She noticed she was a hair taller than he was.
I find out, she said.
He was in his basement dreaming. He was aware of the presence of life even though it was not directly audible through the structures of buildings. His mind was aware. On the other side of the shingles, tiles and sheathing, the reinforced block, gypsum, Douglas fir and paper, there were people breathing, watching TV, wanting to live. They had vital signs, blood pressure, pulse. Shine a light in their eyes and their pupils would contract unless they had a brain injury or were in shock.
They were locked up tight right now, but if a firefight exploded on this street right now—and Skinner could see the tracers leaping overhead, that furious popping, popping up like burning golf balls, stapling through autobodies, glass exploding—you would hear them screaming for it to stop. In the morning you would see the blood on the splintered walls. You would see them come outside blinking, coming together, picking through the sharp things, wood and metal, talking about what to do. Standing in groups, they haven’t slept.
His dream evolved. The firing had stopped. He was walking through the wreckage of a street, glass crunching beneath his boots. Blood was mixed in the glass, sometimes bright and shining red, almost orange in the air. He saw the inside of a car splashed and splattered with flesh. There was nothing human left. What had been done to the bodies was not possible to reconstruct. They had been wrenched by giant hands, smashed, severed, filled with gas, perforated, burned, flung across space. A limb lay on a seat—arm or leg, no telling. He saw clothing. A pile of organs, a liver in the red clothes. A vertebra in the driver’s seat. Everything had been blasted free of its identity—shirt, pants, or robe—male or female—you couldn’t tell from clumped wet hair.
The vehicles were transformed as well, the heat having created rainbows in the body paint. Past the cars, he saw holes in the buildings, in the storefronts, tunnels leading in, glass blown out, brand-new sneakers in the street.
He was not alone. There was a crater in the sidewalk. He lay down and put his arm inside and clasped hands with the occupant of the pit and pulled him out. His body lifted easily—Skinner had the necessary strength. It was his friend at last. They shared a cigarette.
The next store was a Dunkin Donuts. They went inside, cleared away the glass with their boots, picked their way around the dead woman who was stuffed behind the counter and started taking donuts out of the tray.
They were starved and hungry.
Careful, dog.
Sconyers picked glass off Skinner’s donut before he bit it.
Is there coffee?
They found chocolate milk in the drink case. They found a booth to sit in at the back and lay their weapons on the table.
Goddamn this is a score.
Hell yeah, doggie.
Skinner put his boots up and crossed his ankles. His boot toes were brown with dried gore. He tapped them together.
I’m glad you didn’t die, man. Everything’s good in my world now, he said.
Skinner’s friend had changed since he had seen him last. In the dream, the colorful tattoos that had always decorated Sconyers’ arms had apparently spread, now flowing up his throat and covering his face in black spirals, scorpions, and thorns.
After she left the mall, she went to Footlocker and asked for a pair of Asics. The sales associate who helped her was so silent and unspeaking that she almost thought he didn’t speak English, or that he spoke a different dialect. It turned out he only talked to a narrow group of people—other blacks with whom he was friends. He looked right through her when she asked if they had a smaller size. Then his face came alive when someone came out of the stockroom and whooped. He hollered back, laughing and joking and full of comprehension. He told her to hold on, and went away.
She tried the shoes on and bounced on her toes. They made her feet feel spring-loaded. She stomped lightly on the carpeted floor.
The sales associate came back. Whenever she said anything, he pretended to be confused. What happened? he asked, meaning, What did you say?
How much the discount?
He wasn’t sure.
She tried to ask if you needed to have a social to work here.
Yeah, he said, and took the sneaker box up to the register.
&n
bsp; She paid in cash, giving the young woman at the register a one hundred dollar bill. Zou Lei’s pay was issued in cash, usually in hundreds and fifties. The young woman, who had very dark skin, bumps on her cheeks, and a weave made of glossy black Chinese hair, took the bill. Then she seemed to forget what she was doing. She didn’t know how to ring the sale. She called out, How much do you take off on these? No one answered her. She made a snapping noise with her mouth. Her white eyes rolling at the boys, she murmured, They stupid.
A less-shy girl yelled, Yo! Malik!
What?
She asking you something. Tell her.
Malik said, No idea.
This whole time, the hundred dollar bill was in the woman’s hand and Zou Lei was watching it.
A manager came—a bigger man than all of them—an overweight unshaven man with a sloping head and sloping shoulders as if his entire body had melted down to his waist, and even his features had been affected, his eyes angling down, the sides of his mouth angling down like a picture of glumness—and then he spoke with this mouth in a businesslike and professionally courteous, corporate way. He told the woman what to do. The hundred dollars went into the drawer. The woman put the change on the counter. Zou Lei counted it. The woman said, Next.
Zou Lei wore the sneakers outside. They felt wonderful, comfortable and weightless, and as soon as she walked out of the store, she wanted to go back and ask for her money back.
You are stupid. You are so stupid.
48
SHE THOUGHT HE WAS taking her for something to eat and at that moment she believed she had never been so relieved to see him. They passed the Sheraton LaGuardia, the parking lot, a nightclub called the Ends of the Earth KTV, a play on words in Chinese, a pun on: the earth is wide.
She wanted to know where they were going, but he didn’t say.
They came to a block of three-story buildings and black iron fire escapes. There was an escort service on the top floor. One of the units had been sealed by the city marshal. In the basement, immigrants met to play mahjong for friendship and association, for business planning. They put spirit money in a brazier. They burned a car—a purple BMW the size of a shoebox that they bought from a Taoist temple. The temple specialized in helping you get what you wanted in the next life. They poked the ashes of the BMW with a metal rod to read the future.
Skinner opened a dark-stained wooden door.
Go on.
She went into the social club with her arms crossed.
Have a drink.
I don’t drink.
Why not?
I don’t need it. I think I have to make some decision.
You can have a drink. Since when does that interfere with a decision?
She was sitting on the stool like a statue. A bad feeling had developed between them. She got down from the bar stool and left.
Skinner caught up with her on Main Street, catching her by the elbow and turning her around.
What are you doing?
He was making an effort to contain his anger.
I am leaving.
What for?
You don’t need me.
What do you mean I don’t need you?
She crossed her arms and stared away from him and wouldn’t talk. Night was falling. He asked her what he did wrong. She didn’t say anything. He was left looking at the side of her face. Her jaw was set. He had been angry to begin with. Her silence had an effect on him and he started goading her, insulting her on the street. Tell me what your problem is. He started breathing, waiting for her to speak. He had become enraged. You’re so goddamn perfect. Tell me one reason why your opinion matters.
His voice rose.
Tell me what you’ve done. Why I should care.
Zou Lei blinked but didn’t speak.
A Chinese man noticed them fighting and watched.
You too good to talk to me now?
Skinner took a step back to protect her. He was afraid to be near her when he lost it. He waited for her to say something—stop me, he thought—but she didn’t and he ignited.
Hey! he bellowed. Hey! You motherfucking look at me! He had his face an inch from her face. I treated you like a human being!
She flinched. All over the street, people started looking.
He wheeled and walked into a turbaned construction worker dead-on, shoulder-butting him. The man fell back a step.
Hey, buddy!
Is there a problem? Is there? Is there?
The Sikh swore and threw his Sawzall in his truck.
Black kids pointed out the scene to their friends, smiling silently.
Skinner on his way to nowhere, sailing down Roosevelt, kicked a sheet of plywood that leaned against the parking lot fence and it made a deep reverberating echo in the street.
He would probably have broken a window and got himself arrested.
A force flew by—Zou Lei—she stopped and blocked his path. The sight of her gaze hurt his eyes. She was nearly choking. The words came spitting and wrenching out of her. He understood nothing, and he realized she was speaking in another language.
I don’t know what you’re saying.
Don’t know what you’re saying, she mocked.
Then he blinked and she was halfway across the street.
Wait a minute, Skinner said, and took off after her.
She broke into a run.
Skinner ran after her, thinking he would catch her inside ten yards.
But instead of letting him catch her, she started accelerating, and within seconds, they were in a dead heat with her in the lead. She was leading them towards the projects, the derricks, and the water. There were a scattering of people coming the other way, and they moved aside from the force of the two runners, Zou Lei light and spring-loaded and Skinner on her tail, his desert boots whopping the pavement.
She made the corner and took them between the projects on the left and the unseen water on the right. She took them under a high stone bridge that crossed the avenue and led them uphill, the projects left behind, and the blackness of the canal no longer visible. To their right, across the wide boulevard, there was now a line of two-story houses and then, spotlit in snow-white sodium lights, were warehouses in sheet-metal buildings the size of airplane hangars. The cash and carry. On the left, they were running by store windows, some of them lit, some of them dark. Zou Lei fled through squares of light and dark and Skinner followed.
The pace of the run was now starting to tell on him. All the symptoms started. His breathing was coming hard, his legs were getting heavy, his blood was thickening, caramelizing like sugar in a hot pan and turning to acid. The feeling of slow-drowning beset him, the knowing you’re not going to catch her. He could hear his boots hitting the sidewalk as he hung on.
He looked ahead at Zou Lei to see if she was fatiguing. Through his sweat-burning eyes, his viewfinder bouncing up and down, he could see her running light and whiplike.
The warehouses were back there somewhere. The terrain was changing. She took him across a parking lot in front of a diner. He caught a blurred glimpse of Steaks – Chops – Seafood and the words stayed with him in a dumb chant until he forgot them in his battle to keep pace. Beyond the diner, there were areas of a greater, bluer darkness that he could not interpret and he tried to guess where she was taking him, but he couldn’t think and he stopped trying.
She’s fucking fast, he thought.
They were crossing an area where the asphalt had been stripped off the boulevard and he was thinking: be careful not to step in a hole—but not acting on the thought, unable to do anything but keep going, balanced on the edge of pain he could barely make himself tolerate, and just lucky he didn’t step wrong and pop his ankle.
Now they were running under a scaffolding framed out of two-by-fours and plywood. She cleared the end of the wooden tunnel before he did and he lost sight of her for several seconds and then cleared the tunnel himself and picked her up again, perceiving the running woman as a shadow on the greater field o
f darkness.
They were far from the lights of stores. They were in a concrete expanse of road, a highway rising from the darkness, headlights shooting up the ramp in bursts like tracer rounds. She tromped over the caved-in sidewalk and veered out into the deserted roadway. Skinner made out trees, the small pale flags of littered paper blown against a fence, a field. A board rattled underfoot, then he had crossed the roadway, and he felt his boots thudding on dirt.
Now there was the chance of losing her because the field was blackness all around. As he ran, he panned his eyes for silhouette or movement and, seeing nothing, kept running blind. He felt his legs slowing because he could not see her and he was lost. But he kept milling onward, now hoping not to catch her but just not to lose her—to stay with her and follow her and meet up with her at the end, wherever that would be.
His night vision began accumulating enough to see the ever-shifting patch of ground in front of him where his boot was landing, dry grass over dirt. He sank into the mindless drone of dropping one boot in front of the other and striving for nothing more than staying with his team. When his legs slowed, he sped them up again. Still he couldn’t see her.
From time to time, he raised his head. Saturated with dark energy, the sky glowed like a television screen after the power gets turned off. On either wing, he saw distant lights and buildings. He was running in an endless field. He tripped but didn’t fall. It cost too much to swear. Even to think what he would say. His horrendous breathing was disconnected from him. The next time he raised his head, he saw amber vapor lights coming through the trees. He now caught sight of a silhouette the size of a front sight post migrating laterally against the amber glow and knew it was her. He huffed the sweat off his lip. The front sight post disappeared and emerged again, separating from the ink blot of a tree, light shimmering like mercury around the branches.
Houses came in view between the trees, a street bathed in the spectrum of the lights. He could not see a fence but learned that there was one when he saw her figure rise and hang above the dark earth. Then he blinked and she was in the street among the houses. Not wanting to lose her, he pounded after her until the fence appeared like something being brought to the surface of water. He hit the fence and was climbing over it, the wire clashing and rattling.