A New Day in America (28 page)

“Is there a wheelchair?”

The old wheels creak through the sidewalks and bang against the winding cobblestone roads. Leila pushes him along as they inspect the face of every child as though they could morph into Naomi’s, if they stare hard enough. The sun peaks and falls into pink evening and their task feels desperate. The city is vast, the possibilities endless, their hope nearing an end. No Amber Alerts, no mentions in local news, no all-points bulletins, just two sets of random eyes asking random strangers random questions about some random little girl.

They go back to Nos’ hotel room. The proprietor hides before they get inside. Nos opens the door. The room is empty. No gun, no pack, no gear. No medicine. No syringes, no vials. No treatment.

“This was where we left her meds,” says Nos.

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

“How long does she have?”

“Wish I knew.”

Nos lets out a long exhale as though he wouldn’t be surprised if somehow that would be his last.

But he keeps on breathing.

Leila puts a hand on his shoulder. He’s shaking. Pain seethes from inside his ribs.

“We should talk to Jaz—have him get word around his network to keep their eyes out.”

***

Jaz is eating a bowl of spaghetti in his kitchen, monitoring his laptop closely. The wheelchair creaks atop his mother’s hardwood floors. “How you doing, grandpa?” Jaz asks Nos.

“Fine,” says Nos, thinking he’s anything but. “How are you?”

“Trying to be like you when I grow up,” answers Jaz.

“No luck with the girl,” says Leila.

“Figured.”

“You get the word out with the crew to look for her?”

“Already done.”

“You got a marker? Some paper?” asks Nos. “And a few rolls of tape?”

***

Nos spends the rest of the night drawing Naomi’s three wavy lines of the river on piles and piles of paper. The lines have arrows on each end indicating the direction of Jaz’s mother’s house. Might as well hope, even if you’ve already lost it.

If she’s gone, she’s gone. There’s no reason for any of it. The generator is pointless without a fuse to power. He can go be with Yvette already. Maybe in that life he won’t find her and Nay dead. Maybe it will be a dream and not the surreal kind where you spiral into hellish anxious nightmare fantasies, but what they mean in movies when they say ‘dream.’ What teachers and celebs mean when they say ‘follow your dreams,’ like that slim and rare corner of life when everything is right, with bellies full and laughing, easy eye contact, and all the hearts of loved ones beat in synch.

He wants to get out and put the signs up that night, but exhaustion and the painkillers overtake him. He’s in the wheelchair drawing, and the next thing he knows he’s in the bed, Leila sitting by his side. She isn’t looking at him and doesn’t know he’s awake. The room is dimly lit. There’s a sound like squeaking pipes.

Leila begins to convulse, her shoulders shudder, and she weeps like she never cries and doesn’t know how to do it. It’s ugly.

“No, sweetheart. Why?” asks Nos. He uses the voice he’s only used with Nay for so long. The soft soothing tone he uses to talk to Yvette in his sleep.

Leila shakes her head and can’t get any words out.

“Please, easy, sweetheart.”

“I went out,” she manages. “I hung some of the signs while you slept.”

“Thank you. I owe you.”

“It’s nothing. I mean, I told you what I’d do for you. For her.”

“I just don’t know what I did—what we did to deserve your devotion.”

“And would you do it for me?”

“I would.”

“Then that’s it. It doesn’t matter that we barely know each other. There’s nothing left.”

“There’s Jaz.”

“He…he’s been good to me.”

“And me.”

“When I was eighteen, I had a baby girl,” she says, composing herself. “Jessica. She was two, and I was pushing her stroller down the street. On 127
^th
and St. Nicholas. A car drove off the street. A Cadillac truck with spinners. It spun sideways and crushed my girl in her stroller. It slammed all the way into the building on St. Nicholas.”

Nos holds out his hand over the edge of the bed, and Leila grips him.

“I’d lost everything. I didn’t want to live. For years, I did all the drugs I could find. I was admitted into five institutions. I wanted to die but didn’t have the courage to kill myself. So I did it more slowly. I came out West. Who knows why, I had money from the accident so it never mattered where I went, or with who. It was all a fog anyway of blow and speed and weed and drinking all night and fighting and tricking, even though I didn’t need any money. I came to Jaz’s tattoo shop. People came from all over to get tattooed by him. I asked him for a Phoenix, because I believed I’d risen from the ashes of my former life. But I was so wrong. And he didn’t let me get it. He took one look at the image that I’d found on the internet and said it was corny. And he just talked to me. Not like he was trying to get in my pants—he had chicks from all over the country texting him naked pictures. I told him about my little girl. I’d never told anyone about her. None of my fake friends or dudes knew anything. But I told him how I was whole with her and fractured ever since. How she would cling to my breast and place her little hand on my chest. And he gave me this,” Leila says, standing to take off her shirt.

And her bra.

The image of a suckling infant is tattooed from her ribcage to her breast, tiny mouth on Leila’s nipple and a hand flat on her chest, just the way she described. The little girl is done in black and white and shaded so perfectly that she is remarkably real. Nos is stunned at the picture of the scarred, brokenhearted mother. Yet there’s something disturbing in those black markings. The baby’s face is turned toward Leila’s nipple, so her eyes are just out of sight. Nos thinks of the girl back in New York who died against the fire drum, the pictures of Clair’s stillborn baby, and the terrible rash on Naomi’s neck. With that tattoo, how could Leila hope to get over it?
Maybe you can’t, you don’t. Maybe the tattoo is to remind her to accept that she won’t ever be over it
.

Yet in all her sadness, her naked body is sexy. He can’t help it—cravings he should be dead to. He wants to give her another. In that instant, he wants to make another.
Good thing my body doesn’t work, or I’d try
.

“She had the same beautiful skin,” Leila says, tears filling her face again. “She had those eyes that slanted outward. Long lashes women pay for. And she would be Naomi’s age. She would be six. Six, last week.”

***

The rash is worse than ever. Nay can feel it growing. She feels it when she sleeps and dreams about it. It’s pink and big and bubbles down her chest. She wakes up in the sick dawn and looks down her shirt. Before, she couldn’t even see it and would feel Pa worry and touch her shoulder, fingers walking the rash like a trail. Now the bumps form a shape on her flesh like a raised continent on a globe at school
.

She misses the needles even though she hated them. The needles would pinch her, but she got used to it. She knows that he was only taking care of her. Now she’s hot like a fever. When she used to have a fever she could stay home from school and watch cartoons. She would put the thermometer up against a lamp bulb when Mommy wasn’t looking. This fever had no comfort. Last night she was cold but sweating. She would wake up wet and shivering. She didn’t understand how she could be cold but also sweating. Confusing and scary when your body stops making sense
.

Now she’s delirious in the morning. The streets seem to sway. The ground moves like she’s back on the river. She wishes she was back on the river
.

The lady wakes up worse than ever. Last night’s food is still on her face. It is difficult to look at her. Nay knows the instant she’s awake because she’s already talking. Everything’s nonsense. She doesn’t call herself Galadriel anymore. She calls herself Anne Meara. She rants horrible words like ‘cocksuckers’ that Naomi doesn’t understand, but she knows from the way the words cut her ears that they’re violent and ugly, and the lady’s mouth makes everything more and more gross
.

Naomi pulls up her hood and zips her zipper all the way so no one can see the rash or her sweat or whatever else. It’s hot in the hood, but she keeps it up anyway. Pa would want her hood up. It’s bad to let people see you or know anything about you. No one is ever allowed to see the rash
.

She hears voices from outside of the dark, hollowed building where they slept. A phone rings. The only people who have phones are them. Them. The tan soldiers with the flame and circle. They talk in harsh accents like the men from back at the amusement park
.

The lady stumbles out toward the voices. She’s already in a rage. She leaves the shopping cart behind. She never saw that Naomi was sweating
.

“Putrid devils!” she screams. Naomi peeks out the opening. The sun is not yet bright. The tan men in tall black boots talk into a phone and are stunned at the gruesome sight of this haggard woman. They smile. At first
.

“It’s me you worship!”

Their faces turn to frowns
.

“Shut it, old woman.”

“It’s me, Anne Meara. You’re all too stupid to know. It’s me you worship. I give life to the savior. I was raped! I was, by you putrid filth devil mutants. I was raped, and I gave birth to the savior. No thing immaculate. No magic! Rape! Rape!”

“You keep the Lord’s name out of your mouth, now,” says one
.

“Rape! Rape!”

The other smacks her hard across the face
.

“You keep talking crazy, lady, we’ll shut it for you.”

“God’s honest truth.”

“Rapist! Rapists! You rape me, how you rape me!” she’s crying now and lurching toward the men. Naomi cannot tell if she wants to attack them or hug them, like she wants them to hold her up. But the moment she touches one, he steps back and pushes her up against the wall
.

“Rape Rape!”

The other smacks her, and she gets his hand and jumps and bites into it. The man screams. The other tries to pull her off, but she’s in deep. Her teeth draw blood. Finally he gets her off and pushes her away and pulls out a huge gun. It has two long barrels. As she stumbles back he fires. The blast is too too loud, and she flies away as if the sound alone is too much
.

The man holds his bleeding hand
.

“Fucking crazy bitch.”

“Coulda gave you rabies.”

“Fuck rabies—AIDS.”

“Keep that unholy blood away from me.”

“Aw, fuck you.”

“Should we clean her up?”

“Fuck that, I’m bleeding here! I need medical.”

“Punk.”

“They want us to scout? Then they can clean up after us. Calvary’ll be here, matter of moments anyways, and clean up this whole diseased excuse for a city.”

They linger. One spits. Maybe on the lady, Nay can’t see her where she lays. They move on
.

The morning is getting brighter. It’s quiet again. The lady doesn’t talk. Now Nay misses her babbling. She knows she has to move. Keep moving, like she did with Pa. Like the river. She steps out into the sun and walks. She doesn’t want to see the lady. She isn’t curious. She’s seen enough death. She’s sweating. The salty moisture is in her mouth. She doesn’t know where the sweat ends and the tears begin
.

Leila and Nos tour the city once again. Nos walks this time. They take the dogs and a shopping cart. They find the scuba gear and the guns stashed under the pier where Nos left them. Should work as payment for Jaz and the doctor.

Hours pass and the sun begins to set and still no sign of the girl. They are back at Jaz’s place. The city is littered with signs of the three waves of water. Jaz told them not to put up the signs. Anyone could follow them to find him. Nos and Leila put them up anyway.

Four Decepticons wait on Jaz’ porch, smoking blunts. Their glassy eyes follow Nos and Leila and the dogs inside, short on welcome.

“I’ve overstayed,” Nos observes when they get inside.

Leila says nothing.

“
Nostradamus
,” says Jaz, appearing in the kitchen. He stares for a second.

“Jaz.” He nods.

“Leila,” he says, reaching out and drawing her close to him. He kisses her on the mouth. “What’d I tell you about putting those signs up?”

“Had to be done,” says Nos. “There’s only one person in San Francisco those signs will mean anything to.”

“Hmm,” growls Jaz, unconvinced. “Well, come this way,” he says.

Jaz opens a door behind the kitchen and descends the steps to the basement. Nos glances as Leila.
This a setup?

Jaz turns on the lights.

A pale young man is gagged and tied up to a chair. His eyes are bruised and his mouth is caked with blood. He has track marks all over his skin, new and old, and some in his legs. His arm is tied to the arm of the chair, and a metal wire is tied around his ring finger. The wire has been twisted deep into his flesh. The young man shakes like a terrified puppy. His body seems disproportionate, fat and bloated in some places and lean in others.
Like a heroin addict
.

“Who’s this?” Nos asks.

“You don’t know?” Jaz responds, twisting the wire deeper into the young man’s finger so he groans through his gag. “This is
the Chef
.”

“I knew some of my crew was dealing the Cure, so I followed the line of supply and found this miserable piece of shit. Had him followed. Turns out, you were right about him. He’s worth a fuckin’
fortune
. Dough, but more than that he’s got a fuckload of drugs. Shit he makes himself. White boy drugs I never even heard of.”

The boy struggles against his gag.

“I think he’s trying to speak.”

“I’ll let him speak when I’m ready,” says Jaz, tightening the wire again. “I come down here and tighten that wire every hour. Eventually, it’ll tear right through his finger. How long you think that’s going to take, Chef?”