Preparation for the Next Life (54 page)

His alleged cousin took a drink and said, You don’t see that every day. Staying humble. Let me get some on that. His hand floated out like a manta ray on the end of his vein-wrapped arm until someone
shook it. But look, look, he said. Lemme tellya. Money and family don’t mix. He held up a pack of Dunhills so everyone could see. You see the kind a cigarettes I’m smoking, so you know I don’t tell nothing but the truth.

Skinner was doing pushups with his boots up on a ledge. When he was done, he had trouble standing up. He sat down and did nothing for quite a while, just sat at the bottom of a slide, his chin dripping, looking down at the sweat drips falling between his fingers.

When he looked up, he saw a pit bull, a beautiful powerful animal with tight glossy skin over striated muscles, towing its owner across the court. The owner walked leaning back, holding the thick leather leash wrapped around his fist. The animal turned its obscene head towards Skinner, who watched it curiously as it panted at him with its jaws open and pink things hanging out.

Time had gotten away from him in the heat. Skinner checked his phone, which had condensation under the screen, and frowned, confused. He hobbled down the ramp, squinting at the relentless cars going by, the low rooftops. The sun lit up everything and the concrete hurt your eyes.

You there? he said into the phone. Her voicemail had picked up. Hit me back, he told the recording.

He started walking up Sanford Avenue, passing graffiti that mentioned the streets he was passing and the people who lived there. Dek 142 St Love Trouble CSNR. In some of the yards, there were plastic toys and swings and rubbish, road cones, construction equipment parked, because the people ran their own landscaping company and this was where they lived. He thought he would hear from her within ten blocks. He heard hammers and a Skillsaw. A car went by playing R&B, coming from Nassau County. You could feel Saturday night starting in the afternoon.

Down a back street, he saw males crawling in and out of a dead house, doing a gut-out, throwing rotted wood in a van.

When she hadn’t called him back by the time he reached his street, he thought, She must be in the shower. The house looked the same as always, the three layers of roofs rolled out like dirty tongues separating each floor. From here, he saw the shed in back, the attic
window stuffed with yellow-gray insulation. He went around the yard’s faded Jesus and let himself in. Jogging down the stairs, he called out her name, Zou Lei.

Something made him stop and listen. No one answered. Zooey, he said again. But he could hear he was alone.

He went down the stairs and snapped the light on in the bathroom and looked inside and found it empty. Striding to the kitchen, he stuck his head around the corner and looked up-down-left-right. There was no one there, just the cabinets and sink and the refrigerator. The bedroom door was locked. Zooey? he said. He used his key and opened it. His room was empty—she was not there. He stood there staring at the bed, the last place he had seen her.

What the fuck? he thought. The room looked wrong to him. The bed was at an angle to the wall and the poncholiner was lying on the floor.

He went back up on the street and looked both ways, seeing nothing but the rows of houses and cars going off for miles. There could be a million reasons she was not here, he thought. It’ll be the thing you never thought of. He went back downstairs and dialed her on his phone, waiting leaning on the wall, his forehead pressed into his sweating bicep, waiting for it to ring.

The satellite connected and, a second later, he heard a cell phone ringing. It was in the basement with him. He followed the sound into his bedroom and looked around for it. It was coming from somewhere around his bedside table. He kneeled and looked under the table and saw her belly bag. The ringing was coming out of it. He snatched the bag and tore the zipper open and found her cell phone, his name flashing on her screen.

The bag contained all her things—her wallet, money, house key. He took them out and searched through them, something he had never done before, but they were hers. His hands were fluttery, but that was just his body acting up. He put them away again in the bag and tried to zip it shut. He could hear his fingers fumbling, the fine motor control gone. He could not shut the zipper. When he left the bag on the table, none of the things in it fit the way they should. They bulged out like bad conclusions.

She’s fine, he said. Control yourself. Ten seconds from now, she’s going to walk in that door.

He went back and started searching through the basement again, this time more thoroughly, prepared to pull everything apart, to rip apart the bedding and dump the drawers out.

He went back over the carpeting on the stairs, checking for anything that might have been dropped. He zipped his hand over the million machine-made stitches. There was nothing he could see. There were no notes or messages. Nothing cut his fingers, no broken glass. He went back into the bathroom and opened the frosted glass shower door and looked inside the shower compartment, even though he could tell there was no shadow of a folded body through the frosted glass. The toilet had not been used. He opened all the cupboards in the kitchen and checked inside the refrigerator pointlessly. He looked between the refrigerator and the wall, in that gap where dust balls gathered due to the electricity. In the bedroom, he pulled the closet door open and looked at the copper lines and the boiler dripping rust.

He turned around and looked at the bed again and the sight of it affected him in a way that no other part of the basement did. It looked like someone had kicked the bed. He pictured someone having a violent tantrum—not her, but someone else. But no one else had been here with her. His mind was prone to freakish thoughts, but he felt sick and weak.

Going closer, he clearly saw that the bed frame had been shifted at an angle to the wall.

He moved it back, realigning it. It was a single-sized mattress on a metal frame, the kind where the two halves slide together so you can adjust the size, and it was not hard to move. The wheels fell back into the dents in the linoleum where they had always been.

He got down and glanced under the bed. There was a balled-up sock and an old condom wrapper. The pizza box had been moved under the bed for some reason. When he pulled it out and examined it, it looked to him as if it had been stepped on in the center, a detail that troubled him because it didn’t seem like something she would do.

He picked up the poncholiner and felt it. Brought it to his face and smelled it. Shook it. Nothing fell out of it. He felt through every inch of it. His heart was beating and he did not know why. He stared at the mattress. Touched it with his hand. She had been lying here.
He kneeled there waiting for the next thing he would do. More than anything, he was perplexed.

He put the poncholiner back on the bed, an unconscious cleaning-up gesture preparatory to getting to his feet, and this was how he discovered her shoes. When he moved the green military blanket, it was like moving a curtain, and underneath it was a surprise. His brain had been expecting bare linoleum. He found himself looking at a brand-new pair of women’s Asics in phosphorescent peach trim. They were hers and, for a fraction of a second, it was like finding an Easter egg. He had a flash of success. Then the implications started spreading.

Why am I looking at someone’s shoes and the person who belongs in them is gone?

There was no one here to say, It’s just war, that’s what happens.

He took a long struggling breath in through his nose, lifting his chest like an asthmatic trying to prevent an attack.

Immigration? Jimmy? Either way, that motherfucker.

He had started dialing 9-1-1 while storming around the room, throwing things around, getting out his gear, his sheath knife, his lips white—throwing glances at the ceiling. Afraid of what the cops might make him say, he never made the call. He wanted to call Jake and say, I’m sitting in my basement with my gun in my hand and I’m going to go upstairs and do the guy above me. Tell me what to do.

I do not know. I do not know. This cannot be.

His hands were wet. He told himself to chill. He started hiding his weapons from himself. He did not trust himself to make the right decision, so he left his room and actually locked his door, locking himself away from the firearm. And then he climbed the stairs to the Murphy’s apartment and knocked.

There were voices on the other side and they stopped talking. He waited in the shadowed alcove for someone to answer him. His landlady spoke.

Who is it? Is that you, Skinner? Come in, it’s open.

She was sitting where she always sat, wearing her same house-dress, an unlit Slim in one fist and a Bic lighter in the other. She was in the middle of saying:

From day one, I told her they’ll never give you the entire place. The men have it all week and they’re not gonna give it up. I says do it at your place.

On the other side of the kitchen, all in black, Erin did not acknowledge Skinner. To her mother, she said:

Her house isn’t big enough.

Yes, it is with the yard. It better be. Because I’ll tell you now, she ain’t getting the hall. Hello, Skinner.

Until she spoke, he had not known what he was going to say. His voice cracked, his throat making a strange music: Is your son at home?

Is my son at home? Jimmy?

Is he here?

He might be, Mrs. Murphy said. Concerning what do you need him?

I need to talk to him.

What do you need to talk to him about?

I just need to talk to him.

You need to talk to him.

Yeah. I need to talk to him. I need to talk to him now.

Erin made a scoffing sound.

You want to tell me what this is about, pray tell?

I don’t know. I was gonna ask you the same thing, Mrs. Murphy. I don’t know if he’s got something to tell me or if you’ve got something to tell me. Did anything happen here today while I was gone?

Did what happen?

I don’t know. I want someone to tell me.

They stared at each other. She was about to tell him to get out of her house.

Jim-my! Erin yelled.

Don’t, Mrs. Murphy said.

Let him handle it. He wants to talk to him so badly, let him talk to him, Erin said.

Jimmy, don’t come down here! Mrs. Murphy yelled.

What’s the problem? Erin said. Let him. He wants him. You want to talk to him, right? Here he is.

Jimmy entered the kitchen coming out of the bluish hallway lined with old framed pictures. He walked in lackadaisically, swinging his arm. At the end of his arm were the rings on his fingers and they appeared to be heavy. He was sizing up the room.

What? Jimmy asked with his bearded chin raised.

Skinner looked at him with abhorrence.

What’d you do to her?

What? Jimmy demanded.

One of them—maybe both of them—took a step forward, and the next instant they were fighting.

Jimmy! Mrs. Murphy barked.

There was no sense of being hit. Skinner fell on the floor and scrambled up. It was mayhem and he heard silverware. He was in terror. They pitched over together. They were fighting on the floor and the family was screaming and he was being crushed and couldn’t breathe. A hand got free and he got punched in the head. His head hit the floor and silverware jumped. He got punched again. Jimmy was grinding him with a forearm trying to break his nose. The man’s skin in his face. They slid across the floor leaving his nose blood on the floor and wiping it with their legs. His shirt was being used to choke him. He sat up, got punched and blinked. He freed his legs and started kicking. His shirt ripped. They stood and something fell and broke. He was gasping, no strength in him for anything, and tried to swing his fist. Got hit in the face. Goddamn prick, Jimmy snarled, hitting him, Skinner bending over. They careened backward and Skinner stepped on a broken wooden drawer and slipped and a fork shot across the floor from under his foot.

Kick his stupid ass! the daughter screamed in her high voice.

Do not destroy my goddamn kitchen! Take him outside!

They fell and clutched on the floor, clawing at faces, Skinner pushing Jimmy’s chin away. Against his cheek, he felt Jimmy’s heart pounding under his fat heated chest. Headlocking each other, they breathed, ribcages flexing up and down, resting. Skinner taking long ragged hill-running breaths, trying to get to his feet again. His shorts had come halfway down and his jockstrap was visible.

Mrs. Murphy was on the phone, waiting to be connected. That’s it! she said. They’re taking this little fucking shithead to jail.

Yes, I need the cops here, she said. There’s a man trying to attack my son.

The fight went on and then it broke apart with Skinner not eager to continue. He had been shoved outside and now he was pacing back and forth in the driveway, his Army Strong shirt ripped down and red marks around his neck and blood welling out of his nose and smeared on his wrist where he had been wiping it. His eyes were on
the ground. Jimmy turned his back on him and went back inside the house. Skinner pulled his shorts up.

Erin had come to the doorway to watch him. I got him, she said into the house. If he tries anything my brother’ll put him in the hospital.