Preparation for the Next Life (49 page)

He heard this with a disturbing lack of surprise, failing to remonstrate.

I don’t know what to do, if I can get married with you, if it put me in trouble, I don’t know. I try to figure it out, it’s okay, but it’s no one I can ask. Everything cost money—

You mean, this is about money?

No, it’s not about the money—

After all the times I took you out?

No, it’s not money! Money, it makes me worry, but it’s the small thing compared with somethings else.

In mid-sentence, she started crying, wiped her face and kept trying to talk.

Something else is more important, I know. I don’t want to ask nothing out of you, out of no one, I rather to be alone than take advantage from you. I’m worry for you all this time. I see you stay inside this room and I feel scared. What happens to you, I don’t know. So I try to bring you some things too. I can’t do much because of money. If I have a way, I would take you to the hospital, Skinner. I would give anything I have, because if I lose you, I feel like I’m losing everything.

She kept wiping the tears off her face so she could keep talking to him.

And you hurt me, Skinner. You hurt me so much. You throw me away, leave me in the street, you run away. And you don’t call me, not for two or three day. You don’t think about that! You never even say sorry to me. Why not? Because you don’t have to, because I’m Muslim people, immigrant? So you don’t respect? If it was your mother, you would leave her like that? I give myself to you. To you
maybe it’s just nothing, some girl like this dirty book you read, some garbage person. Is it true?

No! he said, That’s not true. I never thought of you like that. I never treated you like garbage.

You say, to get married, fine, it doesn’t matter whether we do or not, like you don’t care.

Treat you like garbage? he repeated, squinting at the basement wall. I never once treated you like garbage. Don’t go saying I did. You want to talk about garbage, I know a little something about that, and you haven’t been getting treated like garbage, not from me. I’ve seen a few people getting treated like garbage and it doesn’t look like this. It’s a little bit different from this. I’d say this is pretty good. There’s a long way down from here. And I’m sorry if I’m not perfect. I’m really sorry if I ruined your plans on Saturday when I took you out, yet again, for lunch. I’ve done a lot of things wrong. I guess that’s just another one. Have to add that in to all my other mistakes. Sorry you had to meet a fuckup. Sorry I’m not your idea of a perfect whatever. Yeah, I’m real sorry. As you sit there and tell me what you want from me. As you order me to marry you the proper way.

She rubbed her face in the crook of her elbow, muttered, I don’t talk to you.

Man, he said, whew. He bit his lip, shaking his head. I don’t know… No, you’re gonna talk to me. You’re not gonna call me a shitbag to my face. In my room. In my country. That I fought for. While you did what? Sneaked over the border? Yeah. I owe you. Here. Let me see what I got.

He took his wallet off the bedside table and threw it across the room. It hit her chest and fell on the floor. She stood up immediately to leave him.

Wait! he said, jumped up, and tried to stop her. She went crazy fighting him, kicking. He held her around the waist, pulling her back to the bed. No! she cried. They fell. Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry—he repeated, saying it in her ear, driving his weight into her on the mattress. She headbutted him sideways, twisted under him and punched him in the head. He got on top of her, tried to pin her arms. She kneed him in the back. He winced. She stared up at him through her hair all wild around her panicked desperate face, covered in sweat and tears. They looked at each other. She kneed him in the back again where she had hurt him the first time.

Go ahead. Get it out of your system.

She kneed him again.

He frowned.

I hope it hurt, you fucking asshole. You call me NAMES? she screamed. NAMES? Sini sikey kot ghuy. She bucked and swiped at his face again. You don’t know how scared you will be. I take your eye. I’m sorry, he said. She laughed at him and went wild trying to hit him.

Please don’t fight, he said.

I hate you.

That’s fine. I just don’t want anyone getting hurt.

I hate you. You had me but now you don’t. Now you will be alone. Get off me.

He got off her.

She got up off the bed and straightened up her shirt and pants, fixed her hair. He asked her what she was doing. She told him, it was finished—meaning they were.

Zooey, please don’t go.

She looked right through him to the door through which she would be leaving and told him to get out of her way. His begging didn’t move her. This was really it.

Skinner said, I can’t believe this. I didn’t know this would happen today. His voice had gotten quiet and shaky.

You get what you wanted.

It’s not what I wanted.

Since he couldn’t change her mind about leaving, there was one thing she should know before she left. He moved from the door. I’m not stopping you—you can go any time you want—I’m just showing you something.

She watched while he fetched his assault pack, sat down, unzipped the pouch, reached in and pulled his hand out holding a heavy military-issue handgun. It took her brain an extra second to see this.

Don’t be scared, he said, pointing the weapon at his head.

Skinner, don’t!

It’s okay. Don’t move. You’re fine right there. Just listen. I want you to know something. I’m—his face cringed and tears rivered over his cheeks. He paused. I’m no good. I’m no good. I’m no fucking good. I’m no fucking good. I want to die. No one knows. I’m sorry. I’m really. He paused again. I’m sorrier than I can tell you. You
deserve better. But never doubt you meant the world to me. You can go now. He closed his eyes and breathed.

Skinner, I’m coming toward you. Don’t do anything. Just take calm. I touch your arm. This my hand. I am friend.

With the lightest touch, as if she were holding a nightingale in one of her mother’s stories, she placed her hands on his arm and gently guided the weapon down from his head. She had to take his fingers off the handle one by one, lifted the firearm out of his grasp and set it as far away as she could in the corner.

They lay holding each other on his bed for a long time.

I say a prayer to God for us.

Thank you. Tell him I said hi.

Later he asked if she still wanted to leave him, and she shook her head.

There must be a God.

I don’t know you have a gun.

I know.

Maybe we can take the bullets out.

He got up and unloaded it and put it away.

Maybe we ought to eat something.

I don’t want you to buy the dinner for me again. It’s not fair to you.

I didn’t mean that, Zooey. Would you please share my dinner with me?

Maybe we should do something else.

Oh. Okay. You sure?

Yes. She extended her arms to him. But when they tried to make love, he had difficulty; he kept falling out of her.

It’s okay. It’s okay.

No it isn’t.

Yes it’s okay. I help you.

Finally, he was able. When he was done, they were both hot and sweaty and dirt from the mattress was embedded in their knees. He was relieved that it had worked in the end, but it had taken him a long time. He asked if she was okay, and she said that she was fine. She was going to take a shower. Night had come down on them
while they had been working on the bed. The room felt filled with smoke. It was just his eyes, a loneliness. A place on earth without a power grid. A wilderness of rubble. He turned the bedside lamp on as an orange campfire against the wild. The harem-purple walls came up and he was back in Queens where the colors had been chosen by the people from whom he rented.

One thing, you better wear your clothes out there. There could be someone out there.

Someone’s in the basement?

This dude comes down. You never know.

Okay.

Used to treating everything outside the immediate confines of the sleeping area as a public space, she thought nothing of this and acted accordingly, exiting the room fully dressed, taking along his Camp Manhattan towel.

After she had showered, dressed, and brushed her wet hair, he took her to Fratelli’s for pizza. While they ate, he reached across the orange table, trying to reach for something of hers. It felt like a particularly dark night. He settled for her elbow. She was using both hands to hold up the triangular pizza slice, which kept buckling in the middle, like a corpse being carried to a helicopter. He held her elbow, watched her chest move as she performed the functions of life—breathing, eating.

It’s just the pills.

I know. You are a young strong man.

Today everything was weird.

The sweet sharp pain that foreshadows weeping visited him again in the throat and eyes. He put his head down, glanced sideways at his reflection in the vertical mirrored strips that covered the wall of the pizza parlor. His eyes looked like someone had sprayed roach spray in them, an allergic response. He thought of chafed, reddened mucous membranes after the friction of sex.

Did you notice anything when we were… ?

Just you are tired.

No, I mean, did you notice anything? Did you hear anything?

Just I hear the sound we making.

Nothing else?

What else?

Like something outside the room.

She looked up at the ceiling, at the ceiling fan, remembering.

I heard some sound. I think like somethings falling on the ground. You think someone is there?

Apparently he did think so. She asked who he thought could have done such a thing. Skinner asked if she remembered how he had been having things disappear—a magazine, some medication, his six-pack of beer? He thought the guy who was stealing from him was spying on them as well. Skinner knew he came down in the basement because he had seen him under the sink.

He’s been in my room to fix the boiler. Right after that, Mrs. Murphy complains about my room to me. Remember how I cleaned it up? That was him. So I know he’s down there, he’s seen everything. When I go out, when I come back, there’s always something moved like he was down there. And none of this ever happened before him. This all started happening after he showed up. The other day, I saw him out here and it’s like there’s something on between us. Like something’s gonna happen.

Why he does this things to you?

I don’t know what his problem is. You ever see this guy? He’s like this pretty big dude, real tall, walks up and down like he’s going boing-boing on springs, like he wants to kill somebody. He’s got a little beard right here.

Yes, she said. I know him.

You do?

One day I come to find you and you aren’t here. He open the door. I think it’s him.

Really? You serious? You know it was him?

She said she thought so.

What’d he say to you?

He try to invite me inside.

What’d you do?

I say no. I go away. But he try to convince me.

He came onto you?

Maybe, yes, I think so. Skinner’s face contorted. But, she told Skinner, it didn’t mean anything to her. It wasn’t the only time a man had tried to talk to her in Flushing. A lot of man try to trick the woman.

Like who?

This one boy, he call me Ma. It’s very funny. I think, You call to your mother?

What was he, a black dude?

He is black. Hey, Ma! he say.

What’d you say?

I have to go.

What was that, on Main Street?

Yes, in Chinatown. Nothing happen. I think he just look at me as I walk away. Say some things, Ma! like he call his mother.

I mean, I can understand that. That’s normal cause of how you look and everything.

She asked him if he felt all right, and he said he just felt tired.

When they got home, they were teetering on the edge of sadness again. He asked her if they could lie down on the bed together and hug each other until she had to go. They held each other for quite a while, keeping the bedside light on for comfort. Do you love me? he asked. She said she wouldn’t be lying in his bed with him if she didn’t love him. His jaw flexed, his eyes squeezed and a pulse of tears ran down his nose, a thin stream that dried sixty seconds later. She held his head, rubbing the back of his neck where his haircut ended.

I love you, he said.

She did not respond and he wondered if the words sounded as empty to her as they had to him. He stroked her back and hip. There was nothing he could say that was equal to the curve of her hip.

No man can touch me except you.

That’s right, he said.

At eleven o’clock, he sat up suddenly and said wait a minute. Went and grabbed his boots, told her not to move. Stay right here, I want to see something. Before he left, he got the gun and then he ran upstairs, leaving her distressed and confused.