nonexempt
May 2, 2008 at 8:31 am (stories) (contemporary, stories, water)
The metal watchband snagged a cluster of tiny hairs as he unclenched it. Philip winced, just slightly, then rubbed at a spot on his wrist, unable to determine which of the forest had been plucked free. Friends of the fallen few stayed silent, though he still felt the pinch of loss.
He set the watch atop his folded polo shirt. (Shop fold, sleek, display-ready… those snotty $10.25-an-hour store clerks at Macy’s could do no better.) The shirt atop the khakis, the khakis on the towel, the blue-webbed flip flops waiting on the sand at the edge.
***
“You have a minute, Phil?” It wasn’t a question. “We’re doing a little team chat. I need all the guys in my office in ten, ‘kay?”
Jerry came in from his smoke and glanced around the table. “Where’s Gene? Oh fuck, he’s out, right? Nevermind. He’ll catch up. So.”
His breath released captive smoke, filling the room with an oily cloud. Philip stared at his notebook, realizing it was merely a security blanket. He would take no notes. If he took notes, he’d never read those notes. Farcical marks, as costume as his polo shirt. He noticed all the others had also brought notebooks.
Jerry passed a chart. Single-sided. Printed from a Power Point document. Philip knew the curve and slouch of that clip art figure better than anything he’d ever seen at a museum. He hated himself. He hated Jerry. He hated Microsoft.
“Right.” Jerry sighed and stared out the window of his office. “So. I don’t think I have to tell you we need to tighten our belts. It’s a recession, right? Not officially, but at the end of the day, we’re looking for ways to do more with less. We’re getting creative. There’s… various pressures at work here.”
The slow coast down the trendline looked soothing. Placid. Cool. Philip couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone swimming.
“So. The good news: Nobody’s losing their job, okay? Well, to be honest, they’re outsourcing the cafeteria, but you won’t even notice that. So. Exempt, Non-Exempt… You’ve heard these words, right? Well, Network Admin is one of a few departments that’s going to be reclassifying this year…”
Philip couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything. Work. Eat. Sleep. Xbox. Netflix. Steve from Accounting said there was a lake. Really hidden. Nobody knew about it. It wasn’t far. He could drive there in no time at all.
“…Technically, as Non-Exempt employees, you’ll be eligible for overtime, so we can’t pay you as much as when you were otherwise classified… Yo, Phil. You listening to this? Fuck. Maybe you guys could tune in for like, five minutes or so? I don’t do this for my health.”
***
All that pale, hairy flesh disgusted him. The sag of his belly. The looseness in his arms.
Philip looked out across to the pines at the far side and stepped into the cold water. He felt the clench in his teeth, the squeeze in his anus, his contracting nuts, the levitating prickles of hairs across his forearms, his calves, his back, his belly.
He walked in smooth. No sound, no splash. No fish was startled by the movements of this pale ape. The grounds, the lake and the trees were his alone.
At waist-deep, he heard their bloated Tahoe boom-boom-boom into the lot along the beach. The calls of birds vanished into the afternoon Big Hitz Top-20. Philip watched the doors open just long enough to spit out two small, fat children, who meandered down to the sand clutching various brightly colored chunks of plastic to their naked chests.
Water kissing his nape, Philip slunk backward, hoping for powers of invisibility. He needn’t have worried. Men like Philip were invisible to that tribe.
Blond and bronze and big, they spread the contents of the Tahoe across the plot adjacent to his own. The linebacker raised up the tent. The cheerleader unpacked the cooler. The quarterback hauled an improbable pile of bags while his girlfriend bitched about shitty cell phone reception.
Philip submerged his head and floated on his back, drowning out KDON for an ancient gurgle and blub.
***
Fanning his firepit in the fading gloam, he glanced at his watch. They’d turn down their bullshit music soon. They’d quit laughing. At some point, the ranger would come around to take everyone’s license numbers and he’d tell them to knock it off. The kids would need to go to sleep.
They’d turn that shit down and Philip would hear the rustle of night, the settling of leaves, perhaps crickets… a host of natural noises he vaguely remembered from small-town boyhood. Those were good days. Libertine days. Endless days.
And what had his city life and loyalty gotten him? An hourly wage with a forced 40, just like dad. White collar. Blue collar. No difference. How long would it be before Jerry would start asking him to come in off the clock, “just for a while, just to keep everything humming along.” How long before they ran the numbers and outsourced? How long before the heart attack, just like dad?
A branch snapped behind him. He turned and scanned the tall grasses. Nothing. He stared, squinted.
A tiny voice screamed, “You’re… FAT!”
A giggle. He couldn’t see them, but he knew where they were. He turned again to his firepit, settling back onto his cooler.
“You’re… UGLY!”
Two giggles. There was a noise near the fire. A small rock hit his sleeve. Another flew past his head. He rose. Invisible gremlins screamed and ran.
He grabbed his flashlight and swung a beam across the park. Farther away, he heard one of the voices issue its parting taunt: “You’re not cute AT ALL!”
Philip gripped the flashlight and handful of wood chips, waiting to see if tiny tormentors might return. He waited and watched. Nothing stirred but drunken laughter and thumping music rising into the dark branches. The ranger was a no-show. Maybe there wasn’t a ranger at all. Philip plugged his ears with wax and sank into the must-scented sleeping bag.
***
At dawn’s first pinking, the damp air was still warm. After bites of cold pork & beans beside the smoldering coals, Philip returned to the lake, enjoying the chill on his skin as he stepped into shining ripples. He pushed through the water, testing out breast, back, side, butterfly. He floated, dead man in the water.
Not cute at all. He could sink and not a soul would care but the dredger. The dredger would be annoyed. Maybe he could move away. Maybe he could reinvent. He floated.
Toweling away goose pimples, he stepped up the gravel path, observing the party animals’ garbage heap. Vomit on the ground. Beer cans. Strewn cheese curls, clothing and pink-frosted animal crackers. Just like home, eh?
Near the smoking firepit, an infant nestled in its oversized plastic carrier. As Philip watched, it woke, raised a sippy cup to its mouth and sucked vigorously. After a moment, its eyes reduced to slivers, its grip loosened, and the sippy cup slumped into its armpit.
Rolling up his tent, Philip spanned the infant monster’s life. Cartoons, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s Playland, plastic action figures, ADHD, kickball, Disney. Doomed by environment. The innocent would bloom into a bimbo or a Rambo, a bully or a user.
He positioned the cooler and closed the trunk with a quiet firmness. Last check of the grounds. Philip picked up a tent stake and six cigarette butts that weren’t his. Better that way. Better than when he’d arrived. Leave only footprints.
On his way out of the campgrounds, Philip idled his car alongside the monsters’ lot. He surveyed their filth again. The baby dozed. The monsters snored and rattled.
Philip picked up the carrier and nestled it into the passenger seat. He pulled the seatbelt across the top, fastened it, and drove away.
Beat You Up
January 13, 2008 at 10:44 am (stories) (promises, stories, terror, threats, water)
Kismet Sanders lived three houses down Brownell Street, and she was no joke. Ask anyone.
At Marsha Pollard’s pool party three weeks into our 5th grade year, Kismet suddenly had cigarettes and black lacquered nails.
While a bunch of us were lining up to dive, slick like seals, off the low board to the deep end, she sat in a plastic chair at the edge of the pool. Skinny, lanky… effortlessly confident. I still find it hard to believe she was only eleven back then.
Marzy and Kellie had emptied their plastic cups and started dumping them on each other’s heads. That led to the splashing, so of course we all started splashing, but somehow Kismet blamed me when some ambitious wave came her way.
As the sky purpled and the party wound down, Cindy Pollard called out for us to pack up and head home.
Still queasy on buttercream frosting, I stepped barefoot past the sliding door and onto the patio, searching for my missing flip-flops. Kismet was there in the dark, quietly smoking and sipping some cup of something through a straw. The lights were off, so her skin looked as purple like the sky.
“I’m going to beat you up on the last day of school,” she said, “Have a great year.”
With that quick incantation, 5th grade was cursed with an anxiety that ebbed and flowed like moontide. I learned Kismet’s schedule and tracked her movements. My 5th grade progress reports take on a note of concern over my sudden silence in class.
I remember that Mrs. Bean pulled me aside after PE one day and asked if there was anything I’d like to talk about. She meant it, and I could see that, but I knew she couldn’t protect me. She didn’t see everything. I shook my head. “No. Nothing. Thank you.”
As the snow melted, I felt resigned to it. I was almost eager for it to happen. I imagined the blood. I wondered if there’d be broken bones… maybe even visible broken bones. I wondered what I should wear. Brown, so my clothes wouldn’t stain? White, so we could bleach them afterward?
The last day of school was Track and Field Day. I got a blue ribbon for the shuttle run and a green one for girls’ rope climb. Kellie and I were holding our ribbons up to watch the shine roll down the satin when Kismet tapped me on the shoulder.
When I recognized who it was, I almost puked with terror. “Hey,” she said, coolly. “We’re moving to Bayside. Sign my yearbook, okay?”
I still can’t remember what I wrote. It was probably something lame. Something like, “You’re so cool. Have a great summer. Don’t party too hard.”
A week later, the moving truck pulled away and their house was empty. I was whole. Unbloodied, unbludgeoned. That almost felt worse.
we sing with the fishes
January 12, 2008 at 11:14 am (fragments) (apocalypse, aquatic, fishes, flooding, poems, water)
I remember the trees
the rains washed away.
Arms waving, they drifted,
while we rose with the bubbles
when rivers kissed gardens
and doorways stuck stock still
On swimming the staircase,
our eyes wide like fishes
and thick skin slick slackened
we lived lives on glances
our humors turned aqueous
tongues swishing in silence.
Mother burbled with glee
when young brother Gil yawned
wide his tiny webbed toes.
We’re All Good Neighbors, part I
April 6, 2006 at 9:59 am (fragments, stories) (cults, death, dystopia, god, isolationism)
The short, quickly-written, very loosely edited stories continue.
Herein we discover that sometimes stories run wild. This one has, frustratingly, bolted its bounds and run on into two parts. I’m not even sure it’s theme-worthy this month. These are the risks one takes when one agrees to feed and house a stay story.
*******************
Fresh recruits stepped out of their cheesebox bus looking haggard and dehydrated. They smiled and waved gamely anyway. After all, the prefects and parents might’ve been watching the feed.
By the time the newbies made it to the Gate, they’d already been through weeks of the good Lord’s language lessons, ministries, pep talks and tests of fortitude. Even Vets like me could summon a pretty immediate kinship based on common experience. Plus, we knew what they were in for and they didn’t.
Brother Buckey and I were selected to hold the “Welcome to the Good Neighbors Gate®!! J.C. (hearts) Volunteers!” banner. He had a strong grip on the right-hand pole and was getting a little overzealous with the waving. We weren’t supposed to wave it, I’ll have you know. All we had to do was hold it up during the welcome cheer, but he kept pulling me off balance… the big fake. I wasn’t even a big-time believer, but I could tell a fake.
Brother Buckey thought he could compensate for daily blaspheming with a little extra enthusiasm in front of the webcams. That’s why his cheers were louder. His praises were extra-grateful. I think it just made him sound sarcastic (and, truth be told, he was). I always knew it’d just call attention, but he never listened to me anyway.
Anyway, as the love of my life made her way down the bus aisle, I was feeling pretty un-neighborly about Buckey’s bouncy zealotry. God’s honest truth: I was considering whether I could send Brother Buckey into the dirt if I yanked really hard on my side of the banner when he went for that high “c” in the welcome cheer. But then, you know how things work in your mind verses how they really work in your life. That’s when the bus backfired, and I totally forgot about Buckey. That’s when I looked up and saw Sister Mary Brit Sanderson set foot on Arizona’s dusty floor.
Mary Brit had peanut shell-colored curls rolling all around her pale, sun-burnable face. Plus, she had a ball-point nose, just like I hoped she would. I couldn’t quite see her eyes, but it didn’t matter. She had two. That was enough.
Immediately, of course, I was curious about her dreams, her preferences, her bookmarks… I wished there was a way to look at her ‘pod playlists without attracting any attention, but it was useless. I had to wait until dark to dial her up.
Instead, I put all my earthly energy into a love ray and I beamed it out from my chest to hers. I’d never done that before, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I mean, what else are you going to do when you see the love of your life and she’s hopelessly yards away, right?
She later told me that the minute she got off the bus, her chest felt all itchy. See? It was totally God’s plan. Plus, she looked up at me. Right after I did the love ray, she looked up. Meant to be, I’m telling you.
After the welcome prayers, trust falls and a full round of shout-outs to J.C. and Joe Smith, we ate lunch (baloney-velveeta… again) and paired up, Vets to newbies. I, of course, made sure that Mary Brit just-so-happened to be my pairing, which took some doing, because Sister Britney Sarah, that chunky closeted goth from the far quad, was closing in on my lovely girl.
I cut off Brit Sarah with a disorienting bear hug (a huge sacrifice on my part, I’ll have you know) and pushed her into a some wisp of a dark-eyed boy. A pretty smooth move on my part, and as it turned out, this fateful act was also – clearly – God’s will. Those two losers fused immediately.
That’s when I turned away from the car-bomb going off behind me and locked my eyes to Mary Brit’s big brown beauties. “Hey,” she said. “You…”
It was totally an immediate recognition. I knew, even more than before, that this girl was my version of heaven on a cracker. We didn’t even need to swap playlists. We just knew.
After orientation, I didn’t see SMBS for a week. That killed me. It killed me so much I can’t even tell you, but it was standard practice. What could you do? The Volunteer Committee put all the newbies on the Fresh Start Fortnight rotation.
How it works is this: Newbies all do a new task sequence every day with heavy supervision. At the end of the fortnight, the camp prefects pick out who gets assigned to what, based on task strengths. I couldn’t risk my true love being placed somewhere else. I mean, the Good Neighbors Gate runs more than 700 miles long. She could be assigned all the way down in Baja when I’m all the way out here in Arizona. Couldn’t let that happen, you know? Sometimes it’s God’s will that you take matters in your own hands, truth be told.
Luckily at that first glorious meeting, while I was basking in the radiance of Sister Mary Brit, she somehow had the presence of mind to slip me her IM on the D-L. That night we started to text on the sly. I told her she had to do really well on the landscaping stuff so she could be put on God’s Garden group with me and Brother Buckey. She texted back, “No prob. Fam runs a greenhouse.” God totally rules, you know? I actually mean that.
That week, my trio was working on dumping drainage stones in the tree pits. Or rather, I was working on filling the tree pits. Brother Buckey and Brother Neal spent most of their time griping about the heat and the dust. Plus, they gossiped just about nonstop. Those two were the worst gossips ever.
We were on water break and trying to squeeze some shade out from the underside of a spindly row of soon-to-be-planted desert catalpas and palo verdes.
Brother Buckey was picking through the rock pile, pocketing stones based on some logic I couldn’t determine. Brother Neal was texting. When he looked up from a long series he’d just received, I knew straight off he was going to go on about his oldest brother, the gate patrol officer. He talked about his brother the way most guys talked about their girls. “My birth brother’s group just got moved to this side of the finished zone.”
I could tell he was waiting for someone to ask him the follow-up question so he could go on. It’s like he couldn’t just tell the story. He always had to go through this little routine to get somebody to ask him to tell the story. Like baiting a fish-hook, you know? You can probably guess I was always the fish.
“Oh yeah? How far down the fence from here?”
“He texted me that there’s been pilgrims gathering down there. They’re pushing prayers into the cracks.”
Brother Buckey was so surprised, he stopped digging. “No shit?”
I always winced when Brother Buck cursed. He knew we wouldn’t rat on him, but still…
“Would I lie to you, Brother? He said the patrol pushed them back at first, shooting over their heads and stuff. They were concerned about bombs. But the elders told ‘em to knock it off. ‘Cause, you know, if they hit someone, it could be an incident, plus, they kind of like the publicity with the pilgrims. So now they have to let the pilgrims pray at the gate and do echo sweeps for suspicious materials.”
“That sucks,” Buckey started whipping stones farther and farther over the Mexico side of the wall. “What if they make a paper bomb?”
“Hey, cool it with the rocks, Bro. You’ll get us reported.”
“Pardon my French, but what the heck’s gotten into you, Brother?” He stepped away from the rock pile. “Serious. You’re like a true believer this week.”
I sucked on the hose in my waterbag. The first sip tasted like hot black rubber. I spat it out into the tree pit and shrugged. “I donno. Maybe I am.”
“You guys… that’s not even the good part.”
Fish. I’m such a fish. “What’s the good part, Brother Neal?”
“There’s a body.”
”A body?”
“Yeah, a dead body. One of the newbies found it.”
Brother Buckey gestured to my waterbag. He never remembered to bring his. “Big deal. They found a body. They’ll send it back to Mexico.”
“Mexico won’t take it. They say it’s ours.”
“So they’ll send it to Tucson.”
“We’re not taking it, either. He doesn’t have a chip.”
“Then he’s Mexican.”
“Apparently not.”
“So what are they going to do with the body?”
“Nobody knows. It’s just sitting up on the wall and they’re interrogating the girl.”
That’s when I got a terrible notion. “What girl?”
“The girl that found the body.”
(T.B.C…)
Silence
February 2, 2006 at 11:29 am (stories) (children, endings, family, heat, music)
This is the fourth January story. It’s a bit late; however, it was conceived in January, even if not actually birthed until February.
After I finished this, I realized I need to write something happier soon. My January quartet sung in a minor key. I swear the next thing I post will be far more joyous.
It’s just not a month for mirth.
*******************
Orchestral music rose from the floor in waves. It was the same song every night. Gabe lay on top of his sheets, moist and itchy. He waited for the trombonist. This time he came in on cue, farting out a brassy melody out through the open windows, up through the floor, down the empty hallway. At 212 Grant street, if nowhere else, the trombone was king.
Across the hall, the twin girls were crying again. They cried. A lot. He wondered if crying was a phase for children, like teething or mine-mine-mine. He wondered if he should offer to do something neighborly. Like what? Run for ice cream? Was it neighborly to knock at the door and offer help? Or was that just creepy?
He glanced at the digital glow at the end of his bed. Eight thirty two. The baby elephant upstairs began the nightly laps up and down the apartment. He wasn’t keeping time with the trombonist.
Gabe had seen the upstairs boy once in the hallway. He looked like a perfectly standard two-year-old – plump, pink and tacky to the touch. Still, the nightly stampede across the ceiling only conjured visions of blunt, flesh-colored tree stumps impacting on the floorboards.
The trombonist hit a sour note. Eight thirty-eight. He’d practice until nine. He never went past nine. A trickle of sweat crawled down his hairline. Gabe sighed with restless frustration and scratched at the damp nest in his crotch. He considered pinholes in the wall to the soundtrack of the downstairs soloist. The sky in the living room window went yellow-orange-red.
–
Ginny tumbled through the doorway, breaking dreams apart with heavy footfall and cursing. Gabe hadn’t realized he’d been asleep. Three seventeen. Gin thumped through the apartment on her bare heels. Clang of glass in the cupboard. Cold scratch of ice in the freezer. Deep rumble of water through the pipes.
She stepped into the room. Gabe lay still, trying to make his breathing sound natural, even, peaceful. He heard her watching. Feet away, her skin smelled like sweat and scotch and jasmine. It reminded him of his mother. She sighed and sat heavily at the foot of the futon. Gabe cracked an eye open and watched as she stroked her skin with a cool washcloth. The water on her arm shimmered in the red glow.
–
Five twenty-seven was pink and muggy from the window in the livingroom. Gabe never set an alarm anymore. It pissed off Gin, and he didn’t need it anyway. He stood naked before the bug screen and drank the warm water left in Ginny’s glass at the bedside. It tasted like liquid freezerburn.
He wanted so much to feel a breeze flow through the screen. Even the thought of clothing was unbearable. His own skin was unbearable. The heat was one thing, but the dampness…
He glanced at the air conditioner on the floor and wondered if the heat would break before Tuesday. Gin was supposed to have taken it in a week ago. She was the one with days off. She was the one with the car. If Tuesday came, and the scorch continued, he’d pick it up and take it down there himself.
There was something. A noise. A scrape. A thump. The twins across the hall were crying again. Or were they laughing? He pressed his ear on the screen, straining to hear their open window. No, definitely crying. He listened for the sharp noise of a slap, screaming, cursing… something to serve as a warning. There was nothing. Just sobbing. Perfectly normal sobbing.
He wandered to the refrigerator for milk and cool comfort. He parked a bag of frozen peas on his head and rooted for the carton in the fridge. He found it on the bottom shelf, empty. A damp note was taped to the side. “Need more milk.”
–
Breakfast was a slog. A slow-motion slog. Nobody wanted anything but toast and iced coffee. He sat on the concrete slab in the back, smoking a cigarette. He watched the yellow morning sun bake the sidewalk while Becky and Toni brewed coffee and passed out muffins.
He thought about the twins across the hall again. Is that normal, he wondered, all that crying? He never heard any screaming. He never really heard the mother at all. Two kids the same age… they probably set each other off. You’re just paranoid. Most families aren’t like that.
Becky swung back the screen door and sat next to him on the slab. She passed him her coffee. He passed her his cigarette.
“Must be nice,” she said, wiping her brow with a faded blue side towel.
“Hey, sometimes it’s all you, sometimes it’s all me. You know that.”
“Yeah, well it’s always coffee in the morning. You know, you could probably just come in late while the heat’s up like this. Sleep in a little. Make breakfast for Ginny. Whatever. You know it’s just going to be dead on the grill until we get a cold front.”
Gabe nibbled the rim of the paper cup and tried to remember the last time he and Ginny had shared a meal. Or a conversation.
–
On the way home, he stopped at the corner bodega for milk. Millie looked up from her crossword book and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the dispenser above the counter. She bagged the milk and passed him the cigarettes. He’d stopped asking her not to bag the milk. She passed him a sprinkling of change and half-heartedly asked, “Hot enough for you?”
“Hell no, Mill. I told you. It’s like this year-round in Scottsdale.”
She leaned across the counter. Sotto voce, she said, “You hear about the lady in B2?”
“With the little girls?”
She nodded.
“No, what?”
Millie shook her head. “Mr. Philips — he hired a guard for tonight. Just in case she comes back, he said. Those social workers came for the kids today. He evicted the lady, but just in case she comes back, Mr. Philips hired that security guy. She had a stream of guys coming through there. Heroin, I heard.”
Gabe fumbled for the wad of dollars in his pocket. “The, uh… a roll of Tums, too, please?”
–
On the way up the stairs, he chewed up half the roll. It frothed, sweet and chalky. Standing at the landing, he stared at B2. Everything… painfully quiet. He strained to hear anything. The pressure of nothing hurt his ears. He stomped his feet and jangled his keychain to break a crack in the air.
Inside, the air conditioner was gone. The curtains were gone. The plants were gone. Four fifteen. The thin, pale envelope on the table was the loudest thing in the room.
the arrangee
January 22, 2006 at 8:29 am (stories) (children, family, fraud, nigeria, work)
This week’s topic, inspired by recent chicanery in the literary world, was Fraud. I went a bit over 1000 words (pretty close to 1500, methinks), but I didn’t want to cut Bisi, so I had to go a bit on the hefty side.
I rearranged and appropriated Nigeria Blog circumcision interviews for the radio debate dialogue. Link included herein, in case you’d like to learn more.
*******************
Ezeji set his schoolbook on the table beside the bulky computer monitor and plugged his radio into the wall. He rolled the tuning knob until a voice emerged from the acoustic vapor.
He knew the talk shows would be on. It was still early. He’d have to wait until all the shouting was over. Every day at 16:00, Old Man DJ’s gentle everyday voice worked stories of bygone days. In youth, Old Man was a well-known guitarist and singer.
Ezeji’s ears craved Old Man’s collection of American blues and old East African palm wine and highlife records. He had all the stories memorized. He’d come to think of Old Man as the uncle who never came for dinner.
Uncle Bisi didn’t like Ezeji’s radio so much. “Pure rubbish!” He said, entering the office to check on the boy. “Listen to your radio when the work is done.”
“But Uncle, I can work and listen at the same time. You know my letters are good and fast.”
Tired, hungry and annoyed, Bisi ached to get home, strip off constricting clothes and settle into a bowl of Modupe’s groundnut stew. His business was done. But the boy… this one was smart with him. This one kept his eyes turned on.
Bisi shrugged “Nko? You work faster with no radio,” he shifted in his sweaty collar. Collared shirts made him grumpy. “More work is more money. More money… better life for your family. Turn it off.”
Ezeji rolled the knob down. Spare voices left the room.
“Put it away.”
The boy unplugged the radio. He put it in his cloth sack, keeping eyes fastened to Bisi as he shifted.
“If I hear you listening to it while you work, I will take it away and dock pay. Look how much time is already wasted! Now… back to work, Ezeji.”
Bisi felt a drop of sweat scamper down the back of his neck. He tugged his collar. Just before he passed the doorway, he remembered the near-fiasco last week – a client both greedy and foolish that Ezeji almost let go.
A grave apology and an anti-terrorism authentication form had to be faxed on Saturday near midnight. It had cost him extra to open the office and send the documents, but it seemed as if that fish was back on the line.
“If the client sounds angry, like that one you had last week, forward him to Taiwo. He works best with angry clients.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Remember: transaction fees first, then bank board permissions, then official bribes. Bring in antiterrorism fees if you have to distract him. After that, you can set up the personal visit with the bank president. If you get that far, call Taiwo, and he’ll arrange the security detail.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
How long since one of the boys had brought one into the country for a mago-mago? Six months? The last one was profitable – and safe. A single night in the “embassy” was enough to convince the greedy wad to pay his exit fees.
Even so… every promise of riches packed risk in the carry-on luggage. Three years ago, the meeting turned very bad. They had to leave Lagos under moonlight. Memories woke still woke him. His bowel still slithered inside his abdomen like an altered organ. The day would soon come when he’d need to bring Ezeji into the details.
Bisi considered pulling up a chair and supervising a few correspondence items, but his pinching belly reminded him of the groundnut soup waiting at home. Modupe was a bitter woman, certainly, but at least she could cook.
Ezeji could smell Bisi’s metallic sweat in the air long minutes after the door swung shut. He waited to hear the purr of his uncle’s ancient Datsun die away before plugging the radio back into the socket.
“A woman who is not circumcised is not complete. Our forefathers understood why they started to do it and that’s why most Africans do it still. But it should be done when the child is very young. The ones who are not circumcised are sexually promiscuous. You notice it from their behavior. Just watch! In the old days of our mothers, circumcision was fashionable, and women were virtuous.”
“Mrs. Obi? May we have your thoughts?”
“It is no longer relevant in our present generation, and the notion that uncircumcised ladies are prone to promiscuity is not true. After all, I am not circumcised and I am not promiscuous. My husband can attest to this. Even my daughters will not do it. Circumcision is now useless…”
He glanced at the clock on his monitor. Still another half-hour until Old Man DJ. He turned the sound low and scanned his in-box for a reply from pinion777. He found “Lowest Ever Mortgage Rates!” “Does It Dribble When You Want It To Shoot?” and “Urgent Message From the Minister of Finance in South Africa,” but nothing from Mr. Pine.
His insides fell. Perhaps pinion777 had his eyes come down sad. The letters to Mr. Pine, he felt, held wonderful words. He’d crafted sentences full of heart and old-world style. Like a novelist, he included detail, filling the correspondence with stories about his (or rather, Mr. Fani-Kayode’s) life in exile.
Ezeji’s work for the family business had brought in fees from 11 clients using variations on Taiwo’s misspelled form letters. His Auntie was proud. She bragged at Taiwo’s wedding, clenching his shoulders. His mother was wary, but quiet. She took the money from Uncle Bisi with her eyes on the ground.
All the exchanges with Mr. Pine had been his own work. Each new email filled him with tension and excitement.
He replenished his inbox and spotted a fresh note from pinion777: “Important message for Mr. Fred Fani-Kayode.” Ezeji hurdled from his chair. He peered down the hallway and locked the door.
“Dear Mr. Fred Fani-Kayode, (Although I realize this is probably not your name, unfortunately, I’ve been given no other moniker with which to address you.)
I want to let you know that I don’t believe a word of the money laundering deal you’ve offered me in our email exchanges. I know all about these 419 scams out of Nigeria. That said, I’ve enjoyed your fictions immensely. I hope you’ll read this email and think about it very seriously, Fred.
You’ll notice I’ve not sent along my bank account information or the transaction fee for the 1.5 million Euros you so politely requested in your last note. The truth is, I already have more money than I’ll be able to use. I live simply and am content with shuffling between my grocery store, my library and my church.
After researching Nigerian money scams on the internet, I’ve come to believe you’re probably just an underprivileged young man doing a job that pays pretty well. In essence, I imagine you as a kind of Nigerian Robin Hood, stealing from my ignorant countrymen and redistributing the wealth within your own economy.
I’m an old man now, and I realize I haven’t left much of a legacy. I’d like to offer you the chance to achieve your goals a bit differently. If you choose to give up your life as a scammer, confess your sins and get a college education, my church has agreed to sponsor you. Gainesville, Florida, as you may well know, is a college town with a beautiful climate, save for the occasional hurricane. It’s a costal community much like the one you’ve described there.
I’m a retired school administrator, and I feel you could make a better life for yourself, your family (if, indeed you have one), and your nation if you went to school here and returned to Nigeria (if you choose to do so) with a robust education. You seem like a very bright individual, and I feel we can have you up to entrance standards in no time.
I must insist that you don’t share this offer with anyone else, as my church can only afford to sponsor one individual at a time.
Please reply with your decision as quickly as you can. I’ll arrange the airplane ticket and the necessary paperwork.
Best regards,
Mr. Edward Lee Pine”
Ezeji stared at his blinking cursor in the reply box. Florida. Mr. Pine had just sent the note. He was probably still there, in Florida, miles and hours away, sitting before a screen similar to his own. Ezeji looked at the letters on his keypad, haloed in sweat, dust and oil – smooth, shining surfaces on the disappearing ASDF JKL; keys.
He couldn’t say yes. Could he? It had to be a counter-scam of some kind.
The cursor blinked. Blinked. Blinked. Old Man DJ murmured low on the radio.
But… Florida. College. American blues. What if it were true?
Ezeji heard a noise in the hallway and jumped. He killed the browser window, grabbed his bag and rushed passed Taiwo in the hallway.
“Yam!” Taiwo nearly shouted, startled. “You’re leaving?”
Ezeji held his stomach with his hands as he pressed the door open with his back, “I’m not well… I have to go home.”
As he ran away, Taiwo shouted at the open door, “Grab a potato at the market! You can plug your leak with it!”
He shook his head and glanced at Ezeji’s radio and schoolbook, abandoned on the desk. Years later, after they’d given up hope of ever finding Ezeji, Taiwo felt sad that those had been the last words he’d given his cousin.
Our Joyous Opportunity
January 13, 2006 at 10:21 am (stories) (cannibalism, family, hunger, sacrifice)
Week 2: Our assigned topic? Cannibalism.
I’m closer to 1000 words this week.
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If you must know, I’ll tell you. Keep this in your mind as I speak: my memories come from a different time and place. You’ve grown up within protected walls, preserved in a fortunate province. With luck, you’ll never see the hungers that hound the poor.
I was eight and a half years old when the messenger came. We’d never had one before, so I remember everything with great precision. He was young. He was well-scrubbed and neat. He came from a lucky family. Turning the vision over in my mind now, with these older eyes, I can read the details invisible to me back then.
Mother saw him coming a long way off. She always kept a careful watch on the perimeter. I remember the way her whole posture changed, the way her face lifted and her eyes lit.
I was playing with my domino set on the floor. When our things wore out, mother always tried to fix them. Things she couldn’t fix, she’d pass on to our down-the-road neighbor, Sammy, who always gave us a good trade. He the best I ever saw at DIY. If he couldn’t fix a thing, he’d make it into something else, something unexpected.
Sammy made my domino set out of smooth stones he harvested down by the riverbank. He made sure the tiny dots on every tile were indented so they’d last. Ash and pigment always rubbed away. I still I don’t know how he carved in the dots. Sammy did magic things.
Despite our mean existence, our hovel of a home, and the constant work, my mother was so beautiful. She had ice-blue eyes, arcing eyebrows, smooth skin and a mouth lined with straight, white teeth. Lucky genetics. She could have profited by her beauty, but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t, maybe.
On the day the messenger came, I remember she had a bristle-brush head. She’d gone to the wig harvest that month. That’s how she’d been able to serve a small quantity of milk with our porridge that night.
I still remember how those few sips tasted – every droplet so fatty and silky. The flavor may seem common to you, having come from a lucky home, but we rarely ate anything so rich. She said it was a treat for our joyous opportunity. I didn’t realize at the time it was a kind of last supper for her.
The messenger had clean, smooth clothing, a good coat and brushed hair that was short but stylish. He passed my mother the envelope, and she gave him a pouch of our dried berries.
Seeing them in her hand, I ached with hunger. No one had enough. There was never enough after the plagues came. She must have kept that pouch hidden well. His tip was extravagant, but he was too wealthy to appreciate it.
“The masses are incapable of grasping respectable etiquette,” he huffed. My mother looked at her shoes, soled, resoled, oversized and soiled until he slammed our door. He took the berries with him.
I had to help her unfold the note. She’d given up her arm when my appendix became infected. She read the words with eager eyes, nodded with great satisfaction and passed the paper to me. “Read it, little frog,” she signed. “Read it out loud.”
I revealed the words slowly. They were Mandarin. Unlike the few books and papers in our house and Sammy’s house, all of which I’d already read and read and read, these sentences were new to me.
Mother patiently coached me along, supplementing the words I couldn’t read. “We are happy to inform you that Xiangdong has qualified for our waiting list. Chances are good that Xiangdong will be placed with a blessed home in the 2098 spring. Please remit payment immediately to ensure this joyous opportunity will be reserved for your child.”
I must have frowned when I read it. Mother grabbed one of my shoulders with her arm and jostled me crossly. “Why that look? This is everything we’ve hoped for!” Before the operation, she always used her voice when she was angry.
I quickly adjusted my expression, ashamed because I knew better. It was careless. My mother had endeavored to teach me better. Something as simple as a hasty look contains the power to spoil a carefully constructed career.
I poked a finger at the note and signed, “They spelled my name wrong.” Funny how trivial things concern the tender among us.
She squinted at the words and sighed. “Well, then. Your name is Xiangdong from here on out.” She looked in my eyes and summoned firmness in her voice. “Tell me your name, little frog.”
I looked at her and swallowed. “Xiangdong.”
It made me want to cry. I didn’t. I didn’t even bite my lip. I looked up at my mother and nodded. I knew she was proud.
I read and re-read the letter. I read it in my mouth voice, and I read it in my head voice. I rubbed my fingers across its smooth, ivory surface. Nothing in our home was ivory. At the time, I thought perhaps the color itself imbued objects with silkiness. Mother let me keep it, gently folded, in my pocket.
Mother dispensed with stoicism that day. She spoke with a rapid tongue and flying hand, relating memories, spinning stories, prying stray visions out of the folds of her mind. Some stories were second-hand, the ones her mother had remembered and told on nights beside the furnacefire. I never met Grandmother, but her stories were green and strange and full of luck and magic. They happened before the long winter.
After dinner, we traded riddles and went bizarrely punch-drunk over “Why did the mushroom go to the party? (He was a fun-guy!),” which struck us, for some reason, as hilarious.
We gasped for air. Our stomachs ached. I got up and did my hopping frog impression. A surefire way to make my mother laugh – but this time she didn’t laugh.
“Sit down and look at me,” she said. “I need you to listen now. Eyes here, please.”
“Little frog, tomorrow morning, you’re skipping school, and we’re going to walk to the city. I’m going to have my taken tongue out, and that way, we’ll have the funds to reserve your waiting space. Look at me now. Don’t be afraid. After you get to Chóngqìng, you’ll be trained to work. You’ll have a better life.”
She touched my hand with hers and we snuggled cross-legged under our long leather house coats.
She said, “I want to teach you this song now. It’s my favorite from your grandmother. I’ll only sign the words with you after tomorrow, but I want you to listen tonight and remember what my voice sounds like.”
Mother cleared her throat and sat up straight. With a soft, quivering voice, she looked in my eyes and sang, “Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive.”
I’ve always believed there’s nothing so naked as a hesitant melody, trembling in the dark.
I remember her voice. I can hear those words. I’ll never forget her white-blue eyes, rimmed with red. They must have offered a lot for her eyes.
January & Svarthol Psychology
January 8, 2006 at 6:12 pm (stories) (americana, fantasy, iceland, language, myth, retail, stories)
January. This is the month in which I will join writer friends in their annual writing challenge. For this month, we will produce a short story every week. This is week one.
I wrote too much while thinking I was writing too little. I fear everyone else will have something pretty and polished and closer to 1000 words. My piece is twice that and was composed in a mad dash.
I’ve not had time to give this any editing, and it’s already overdue. I reckon it’s pock-marked. Error here. Flow issue there. Raw, red flaw glaring out from over there. Still, I hope there will be something small and shiny within it that’s worth your time.
Svarthol Psychology
“You can call me Guðmundur,” Thom said, punctuating the statement with what he felt must be a dashing smile. He shifted his head to the side, brushing the brown swish of bangs from his eyes.
The new girl at the Kyrie Pita was short and slightly soft all over. She wore a pair of wide-set eyes and a tiny nose-mouth set that reminded him of an overweight version of one of those gentle plastic deer with the oversized heads that lived in the display window at Spencer Gifts.
Thom passed the wee deer mutants twice every day as he retrieved and returned the mop bucket. Six impossibly large aqua irises followed him every morning and every night, mute with longing (or was that terror?) subsumed by a forest of pink rubber penises. These obscene trees jerked manic zombie jigs when the battery-juiced sensors detected even slight noise, such as the heavy thump and slosh of a mop bucket dragging across the tile floor of the mall.
What was her name? Kelley.
Kelley cocked her head and folded her tiny lips into an excessively small package somehow southwest of the location her mouth had occupied seconds before. One might imagine this gesture, combined with the forest-creature looks, would come off as cute. It wasn’t. Especially when she followed it up with a nasal, “That’s a weird name.”
“It’s Icelandic,” Thom said. It was the first time he’d said this aloud. Way off across the food court, before he’d even considered walking up to her counter, Thom thought he’d use only lies of omission. That was when he could still imagine her in the handicapped stall of the backway bathroom, white digits gripping the safety railings and a soft, folded belly bent awkwardly across the toilet. She was well on the road to ruining her chances.
“Oh.” She said, glassy eyes turning up in thought. Her lips hung open for a moment while those eyes searched the air for whatever tiny phrase or image she’d attached to the concept “Iceland.” Yes, she looked like prey with those side-set eyes of hers.Thom considered her lips. Fleshy. Moist. Pink. Her brains seemed to catch on something. She looked him in the eyes with new confidence. “That’s cool. So… Iceland’s really cold, right?”
She’d do. Anyway, there was no sense in delaying. He had to get to her before Zitface caught a whiff of fresh blood deep within his dark den inside the arcade. “You know, you seem like a really nice girl. He leaned in conspiratorially close and whispered, “Has anyone warned you about Jason Newsome yet?”
The head cocked, the eyes went back up and to the right. “Umm… is he the guy with red hair and freckles?”
Freckles my ass. He nodded, concentrating on maintaining an expression that might be construed as concern.
“He came by earlier today and got an order of the… uh… I think he got the Lamb Burger and Glory Fries. Oh! Hold on. Your Host Dog is up.” She spun around to the metal shoot behind her and retrieved the white package that had just settled into the bottom slot. “You want some ketchup with that?”
“Yeah. Three packets. Thanks.” He considered tossing a sizable tip in the “blessed are they who give tips” cup. His generosity might pay off in poon later on. He looked her over again. She worked her tiny mouth into stupid half-moon grin.
“Merry Christmas!” chirped the mouth. The eyes blinked, waiting for him to take his tray.
Never mind. Not worth it. He’d save his pennies.
The doors of the mall were pressing open with a steady flow of bodies now. They bumped in through the doorway like a flow of blood cells, shunted through the ventricle, flowing down the corridor. Thom could feel them pouring in with their chatter and large coats, breathing pulse into the stiff skeleton. Somewhere in the bowels, a manager fingered the volume on the satellite feed that seeped through the speakers. Most people wouldn’t have noticed this. Thom heard the hum and whine of the speakers for 40 to 50 hours a week. He noticed.
Their lives here were controlled. The music, the layout, the color scheme, the fibers, the flavors, the flow… all of it controlled by the findings of buying psychology. Every one of these particulate people in their bulky coats and their bulky bodies with their boots and strollers and children and voices was controlled by anonymous psychology.
Thom could picture hundreds of psychologists sucking of the payroll of the IPEX mall corporation, the Coke corporation (who, of course, had a lock on the food court) and all the individual marketing psychologists behind all the stores and all the products across the entire building. He imagined them with their cheap clipboards and expensive pens. They chuckled with righteous glee as they watched the masses buy buy buy.
Thom didn’t laugh along with the invisible vultures. He put on his coolly scientific smile as he chewed his Host Dog and surveyed the various clots of humanity pushing past. Idiots. Philistines. Sheep. Just look at them.
Today’s KP wrapper encouraged Thom to consider the blessed meek, who would one day inherit the earth. Goodie-goodie for them, he thought. They can have it. It’s used up, chewed up, anyhow. As soon as he had enough saved up, he’d fly to Reykjavik. He’d find a job. He’d find a place. He’d find her. Tickets from Minneapolis were only $399 in the winter months. As soon as he had enough, he’d pack his bag, drive to Minneapolis, abandon his car and just fly away.
Strangely, the blessed meek was an adage he hadn’t seen on their wrappers. He wondered if they’d received a fresh delivery. Seemed like company HQ switched to a new set of proverbs every month or so. Smart thinking. Did no good to bore people with the same, tired quotations every visit. Kyrie Pita must have a staff of psychologists on the payroll, he decided. Smart. If he had money, he’d invest in KP. That’d be a hot stock for sure. He unfolded the white sheet, smoothed out its barely blemished surface, and aligned the tiny golden haloes in a horizontal formation.
Angels. Pure. White. Like his wide-eyed Icelandic Isis. His vixen pixie queen. Someday we’ll dance on beaches. We’ll strip our bodies clean.
With a jarring shuffle-clack, a gaggle of girls perched at the table cluster next to his. They moved with awkward bulk as they peeled off coats and set down sodas (diet, he guessed). Soon they were masticating a matching set of tortilla salads from the Taco-Chulo. One of them sat taller, talked louder and interrupted more often than the rest. He tagged her the alpha. She had long, red-dyed hair, overarching eyebrows and a gaping mouth that he suspected might open wide enough to swallow one out of her three friends in an accidental hiccup. Her nails were lacquered black and swirled with the kind of gratuitous pinstriping Thom found tacky on cars and tawdry on women.
These false beauties weren’t even in the same species as the pale, glowing nymph he adored. Thom’s lover glowed with an iridescent sheen and sang in leaping, yelping, hiccupping scales. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.
He sighed, and tipped his head back, weary of the daily parade of ignorance and grotty consumerism that framed his universe. Above him hung strings of polished red and gold garland woven up with gold tinsel ropes. He sighed again, realizing it was the day before Christmas Eve. He’d need to give up his Monday night to help Bob take down all the Christmas regalia.
From the back pocket of his slate jumpsuit, he pulled a folded square of paper and ran his fingers along the folds.
Stjornufraedi (Vocabulary for Lesson 4) Words related to space and astronomy
Stjarnedlisfraedi – astrophysics
Stjornufraedi – astronomy
Dulstirni – quasar
Fljugandi furduhlutur – Unidentified Flying Object
Fylgihnottur – satellite
Fylgitungl – planetary moon
Gervitungl – manmade satellite
Geimfari – space traveler
Geimpoka – nebula
Halastjarna – comet
Reikistjarna – planet
Smastirni – asteroid
Sol – sun
Stjarna – star
Svarthol – black hole
Tungl – the moon
Utanjardingur – alien
Vetrarbraut –galaxy
Pyngd – gravity
Pure beauty. Halastjarna! Geimfari! Splendor! Thom read over his list three times, cupping every word with a hungry tongue. These were words of kings. This was a language of gods and heroes. Gossamer goddess drifting across rocky black hillsides.
At the next table, Alpha was in the middle of a vulgar rendition of her former-best-friend Marcy Hanes’ drunken seduction routine. Caught in the thrall of the tale, she snapped her hand back abruptly, hurling a well-sauced chunk of tomato squarely into Thom’s printout. Smastirni through Utanjardingur smeared illegibly. He looked up with seething eyes. The stupid cow hadn’t even noticed. A janitor’s attire made one strangely invisible to the mall livestock. It was generally a benefit.
He moved the tomato to a corner of the KP wrapper, dabbed away the sauce and endeavored to make out what was once a star. Barbarian. He folded away his lesson and slipped it in his coveralls. Geimfari. Call me Geimfari.
He put up the yellow plastic “Caution! Wet floor!” tripod in a visible place. He’d recently started moving it around the mall during the day to make it look like he was working harder. Apparently, this worked. IPEX Mall Supervisor Janice smiled at him more when he went into the office to pick up his paychecks. Last time, she’d sealed the envelope with a “Thumbs Up!” sticker. It was illustrated with a shining thumb. His check was stapled to a movie ticket for the mall cinema.
Thom walked to the tiny handicapped bathroom down the remote hallway. It was supposed to have housed another anchor store for the mall. He’d heard it was Sears. Janice said they’d backed out just before construction. The empty corridor now led to a set of locked glass doors overlooking a muddy field of random construction waste.
Settling in on the stool, he noticed a Milky Way wrapper balled up behind the doorway. This interloper disturbed Thom. He’d come to think of the place as his alone. He clenched, attempting to envision the intruder. A stray mall walker? Usually the geezers avoided this wing.
He tugged on end the toilet paper emergent beneath the gleaming chrome flap. A single square tore off in his fingers. The roll wouldn’t roll. He lifted the flap and poked his fingers inside the tube, hoping he wouldn’t touch something soft and sticky. The stopper felt like stiff paper. He took the roll off the spindle, extracting a wad of cash. Twenties.
His stomach clenched. He bunched them in a sweaty palm and looked up and down the walls, searching for a camera, a seeing eye, a watcher. He looked under the sink. Inside the drain. Nothing. Nothing but the Milky Way. He pulled up his pants and zipped his jumpsuit, stuffing the wad in a hip pocket. He washed his hands and searched the mirror for signs of tampering. A drug drop? He peered inside the waste bin. Just one paper towel. He deposited one more.
The wad was lead in his pocket. He peered down the empty hallway, wild-eyed watching. He walked casually, quickly, the wad bouncing slightly on his thigh. He’d go. He’d go now. Fuck the job. He could go now. Wait. His coat. He wouldn’t even take it. Just walk straight out to the car. Invisible. Just walk out, turn on the car and drive away. Keys. The utility closet. His car keys sat in his coat pocket. He’d take the outdoor trash picker and his coat. He’d look legit. He maneuvered toward the mop closet.
Iceland! He could be there tomorrow. Bump, bump, bump on his thigh. Just feet from the utility closet, he caught his reflection in the window at Spencer’s. The penises bobbed and nodded beyond the glass. One had died. It stood stiff amid the frantic forest. Below, the fawns stared, mortified.
Thom gawked at his own patchy face in the window. Dumpy. Skinny. Oily. Scared. Not rare or beautiful. He would never shine. He was not radiant. Not like her.
Laughing, chatting, fighting, shoppers pressed past, armored at the wrists in layers of shopping bags. Invisible, Thom pressed a finger to the lump at his thigh. Some kind of loyalty test, maybe. Mall psychology. Janice planted it there to see if he’d turn it in. Maybe there’d be a reward.
Thom took the window spray and a side towel from a hook inside the utility closet and walked toward the food court.
On the way, he stopped at the trash bin beside the large planter. He shredded Lesson 4 into the dark hole while the speakers streamed a soothing synthesizer mix of “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow.”
