Frontier Mosaic Fiction Spring 2015 by Frontier Mosaic

Frontier Mosaic Fiction, Spring 2015

Cover Image: A Lot On My Mind by Emma Shore

Wasabi AMANDA BUENO

Jen ordered a Guinness because the choice was safe. Truthfully, she wanted something sugary and mixed, but under Armin’s scrutiny, real or imagined, she began to wonder if such an order would come off as inexperienced. Standing at the bar next to him, everything she said and did was first subject to an obsessive once-over. Despite the vigilance, she fumbled with her wallet, awkwardly trying to find the correct bill. He said he would get the drink, but she insisted otherwise, not because she had any statutes on the matter of which gender pays for what, but because she feared what easy acquiescence would say. She forked over a ten-dollar bill because wads of ones were getting in the way, and she didn’t want to embarrass herself by rummaging further. Armin led them to a secluded booth at the far end of the room that wasn’t immediately visible. She could see he came here often, observing how he wound confidently through the crowd; she followed closely behind, making sure not to hit anyone’s shoulders on the way. The bar was clearly a popular place in Manhattan, and everything about the venue seemed trendy to her, although she certainly wasn’t an expert on what was or wasn’t cool. They had already exchanged pleasantries at the door and now, sitting in a quieter area, looking at him, she was at a loss. He asked how Cleveland was. What was there to say? “It’s Cleveland,” she said. Whenever she told anyone where she was from, they said “Ohio?” but it wasn’t Ohio. Less than two days ago, Jen was in Cleveland, Oklahoma, a town of 3,200 and the only place she’d ever lived. She rarely went on trips and now, for the first time, she was in a big city. She felt like an American foreigner in America. When she was little, she talked all the time about going to China after watching Mulan for the first time. China has over a billion people with many dialects. If America was a relatively homogeneous country compared to China, then she was screwed for international travel. Here, just 1,400 miles away, she felt different and exposed. She thought, hoped, Armin understood, or at least felt the same way at some point. They grew up together, used to be close, but he got out almost ten years ago when he went to college. The truth was, sitting in front of her now, he seemed like a stranger. “Do I stick out like a sore thumb?” she asked. On the subway ride to meet him, an elderly couple asked if she needed directions. She wondered if everything about her

appeared unsophisticated. He said no and looked surprised, but she didn’t feel better. They were once peers, but now she felt nervous and inadequate. But more especially, she felt a barrier between them. “How’s work?” he asked. A shithole. “Fine, thanks.” She worked at the local Hallmark store. Her whole life was a vortex of platitudes and pleasantries. Often, she composed little derisive cards in her head, centered on herself and what she was doing, usually overly bitter to counteract the saccharine quality of the real cards. She was already working on one for tonight, imagining a large, floral cover. Congratulations You’ve escaped Podunk Hollow for the weekend We’re so proud of your accomplishments Try not to look like a complete idiot in front of Armin And inside the card would be a ten-dollar bill, for her one beer. Jen was aware that she should now ask how his work was, but she would rather choke on one of the pretzels sitting in a bowl at their table. Listening to him talk about his fabulous job as an architect at a successful firm, right after the mention of her own job, was humiliating. Now she wondered if he was humoring her by being there. Did she seem totally moronic? She did another mental check of her clothes. At Cleveland, even at work, sweats were acceptable everyday wear. And in the summer, everywhere you went you could hear the flip-flopping of flip-flops. Before coming on this trip, she browsed outfits on the Anthropologie website; she needed to see complete outfits because she was not confident in her ability to piece one together herself and not look like she just strolled down from the Appalachian Mountains. The real task after picking a picture was trying to put together a similar one from her choices at Super Wal-Mart. Jen didn’t know what to say, so she tried a pretzel, then really did choke on the snack. “Good god, what is this crap?” Armin laughed then, a full, familiar laugh that she never realized she’d missed. “They’re wasabi flavored, made in-house,” he said through lingering, deep chuckles. “Wasabi?” “The green stuff you eat with sushi.” Jen was thankful that he didn’t sound irritated or condescending. Her only real familiarity with ethnic food was Taco Bell, food

Armin’s Syrian mom would cook, and Josie’s Express, the one stop diner for American, Asian, and Mexican cuisine. Jen and Armin used to walk there sometimes on Friday nights after they caught a movie. “Do you remember Josie’s?” she asked. “I would never forget chicken fried steak tacos, extra gravy, after a Double C premiere.” Double C was what they called the Cleveland Cinemark. She felt warm with his remembrance. Before meeting him tonight, she wondered whether to even bring up middle school and high school. When Armin left, when anyone from their town left, the departure was tinged with a sense of desperation. And knowing that he’d visited his parents only a handful of times, never staying long, communicated to her that he wanted nothing to do with Cleveland. And maybe, he wanted nothing to do with her. They never talked. Now, thinking over these details, she realized Facebook did the talking for them. She knew where he worked, where he vacationed, restaurants where he liked to eat, and the faces of his friends, and yet, the information was nothing they shared personally. “I was a little surprised you called me,” Armin said. She felt embarrassed, and maybe sensing that, he quickly followed with, “but I’m glad you did. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time how much I’ve missed you.” Jen shoved more pretzels in her mouth. Too many. The wasabi burned, and the pain was a welcomed diversion. Did he miss her? For some years after he left, she would send him messages, occasionally call, but most would go unanswered, and after a while she quit trying. Now when she saw an update from him on Twitter or Instagram, there was a slight bitter twinge. As she sat there, throat cooking, Armin got her another Guinness. She thought of a card, this one small and humble, with a sweetly cursive font. Thinking of you on this special day I just wanted to remind you that I miss you But probably won’t ever speak to you again With Love He said he felt terrible. And she was a little glad. “Should I have come?” she asked, needing a subject change, and feeling emboldened and protected by a hint of self-righteous resentment. He looked at her for a moment. She noticed he kept his dark, messy curls longer than he used to; she used to love his hair. Finally, he responded.

“Do you remember that day the CBG threw a can at you?” he asked. She said of course. Most days after school, Jen and Armin would walk to the local library. Spending the afternoon leafing through YA novels and browsing the internet at the computers, they would stay until closing at 6 p.m. It was only a mile away from school, and that walk was her favorite part of the day. They would wind through the neighborhood, always ending up on Chester Street, where the prettiest houses were. They would pass the First Nazarene Church and make fun of the sign and its alternating sayings. In the wintertime they were known for simply putting up “How about that global warming?” She remembered that day it simply said “Happy new year from god.” That day in particular, sometime in their junior year of high school, it began to rain on their walk to the library. They started to make a run for it. Then the CBG came: The Cleveland Bike Gang. They were a group of middleschool students on squat bikes, and they rode around town terrorizing people, or at least trying to. Mostly their antics were typical juvenile stuff; they spray-painted crude and oversized depictions of male genitalia on buildings, or TP’ed houses. Occasionally they threw empty soda cans at people. And Armin’s brother Faheem was part of the group. Armin always said he didn’t mind Faheem being a CBGer. To high school students and adults, they were a harmless, bored group of boys just becoming enamored with their penises. But Armin considered the association a protective barrier for his little brother. As the only Middle Eastern family in Cleveland, and one of only two immigrant families, school was sometimes tough on them. Armin was bullied for years. But Faheem was born with a naturally light complexion, and Armin said lately his brother had started going by Fred and refusing to speak Arabic at home. That day the CBG rode past them in the rain, and one of them, not Faheem, threw a can at Jen. But this time the can was full, and the beverage hit her hard and heavy in the knee. This caused a chain reaction and she twisted her ankle, falling into the puddled pavement. Later, Armin would beat Faheem, but at that time, he attended to Jen. Her entire leg, from foot to thigh, angrily pulsed in pain, and she couldn’t step on that side. He carried her on his back to her house a half-mile away, both soaked with rain. They didn’t talk at all. When they got to her home, both her parents were still at work. Armin helped her onto the couch, propped her leg up onto a pile of cushions, and put bags of ice on both her swelling ankle and knee. Now, Jen asked why he brought the incident up. She didn’t see how it related. “I knew two things that day. I loved you, and I had to leave Cleveland,” Armin said. She felt with that sentence he was trying to explain everything, not only why he left but why they stopped being close. Jen heard what he didn’t say: “And you are a part of that place. That’s why we were never close again. You are Cleveland.”

Jen knew he had feelings for her throughout high school, though they were never explicitly revealed. Some people wondered why they were never a couple. Mostly because she was overwhelmingly in love with Craig Mueller and everyone knew it, including Craig. But another reason was petty and small. Part of her found Armin’s shyness and hesitancy off-putting. He knew and she knew how he felt, but he would never say. Now he was saying it, but the words exposed her deepest insecurity. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never leave,” she said. “But you’re here now.” That was true. Starting several years before, Jen began putting 10% of every paycheck into a special account, an account especially for travel. Often on the weekends, friends would try to convince her to use that money on beer. But she stayed strong, resolute that she would go somewhere. “I didn’t come because I had to see New York. I came because I wanted to want to see New York,” she said. She put more pretzels in her mouth. If she wasn’t crazy, they were starting to taste good. Part of her wanted him to hear what she wasn’t saying, that she wanted to feel what he felt about getting out, about becoming something, whatever that meant. She wanted him to know that she was proud of him for being nothing like her. Maybe that was why she came to see him; if he could teach her how to be more like him, maybe going back home would be harder. Maybe she wouldn’t long for the comfort of the colorful Hallmark aisles that she claimed to hate, wouldn’t miss safe afternoons spent at the Cleveland Public Library. Maybe she wouldn’t be satisfied with Craig’s tepid affections. Jen didn’t love Craig anymore (of course, she never truly did), and he wasn’t her boyfriend. She had a huge crush on him throughout high school, mostly because she thought he looked exactly like Orlando Bloom. But occasionally they hung out and hooked up. Relationships in Cleveland were like revolving doors, everything and everyone were too close together and you couldn’t help but run in circles with people. Nothing was new. Sometimes you were with someone just because you were bored (which would explain one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state). Jen was surprised when Armin stood up. “You used to say you wanted to go to China, right?” he said. When she nodded, confused, he held out his hand for her. They got in a cab and Armin said “East Broadway” to the driver. In minutes they stood outside Chinatown. It was only nine and a huge, brightly lit street buzzed with life, though some vendors were closing up shop. As Jen walked through the barrage of people, a cacophony of colors, music, and sights opened up around her, engulfing her. Signs lit the path and delicious scents seemed to roll in from every direction. For a moment, she forgot Armin was even there.

But he led her to a small food truck. For eighty-five cents each he bought something called cheung fun, apparently Cantonese rice noodle rolls. Folded noodles were nestled in a spicy ginger soy sauce and topped with ground pork, shrimp, and sliced scallions and it was the most delicious thing she’d ever had. Standing aside the foot traffic, they watched people go by as they ate. The night air was cool and a little breezy. “Some of these street food places will close soon. Do you want anything else?” Armin asked. So they had steamed pork and vegetable siopao from the same truck. Then they went to a kebab cart a few feet away and had cumin-lamb skewers, followed by Malaysian beef jerky across the road, and ended with salty sweet egg yolk buns. Truthfully, she ended up eating alone as he watched in amazement. But her appetite thrilled her; it wasn’t just the craving for food, but for something new. She wanted to try absolutely everything she could. By the end, she was so full that her stomach twisted in painful cramps. “I’m ruined for Josie’s,” she said, leaning her forehead against a cool brick wall. They still stood in the street. Before today she honestly thought Josie’s sesame chicken was good. “One more drink?” he suggested, laughing, apparently finding her gluttony amusing. But both his suggestion and his amusement excited her; this whole time she worried her company would disappoint him. She imagined all the interesting and smart people he must know in the city and knew she could never be a part of that. But here he was, wanting to spend more time with her. So even though doing so risked her vomiting an amalgam of Chinese sludge, he took her to a club. The room was dark and smoky, Mandarin dubstep playing loudly. People were dancing, but Jen and Armin sat at the bar and drank Korean soju and plum wine cocktails. She felt comfortable by then and wondered if she blended in yet, wondered if anyone could tell her dress came from Wal-Mart and she got her hair cut at ValueCuts. The tension had also disappeared between her and Armin, as they sat laughing and drinking. That was until he leaned over, grabbed her hand, and said seriously, perhaps drunkenly, one word. “Stay.” He didn’t explain further, just looked at her with hooded, dark eyes. Although he didn’t say stay at the bar, stay the night, stay at my place, stay longer, she understood him. He wasn’t even saying stay with me. He was saying don’t go back. Going back would be a mistake. It’s not escaping if you return to captivity. Do you really want to go back after being here? Could you be happy? Maybe he was saying everything she wanted him to, even more. Wasn’t she worried he would be indifferent? And yet,

inexplicably, she pulled back from him, something like fear coiling in her stomach. Just like that, his back straightened and the vulnerable moment was over. They silently finished their drinks and took another cab, first dropping her off at her hotel, and then Armin left.

Jen was rearranging the anniversary cards. There was a strange phenomenon in which people who look at a card and decide they don’t want it feel no need to put it back properly, as if the card doesn’t exist anymore, or is undeserving. Occasionally, as she corrected this phenomenon, she would glance at the contents. One in particular caught her attention, attention that had been increasingly wandering over the last few days since she’d returned from her trip. I can’t believe so many years have passed You have truly been my best friend, my confidant, my light How can I express my She closed the card. They all ended the same way. After work she stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items. When she returned home, Craig called, asking to come over. She could guess what he wanted and even though she wasn’t in the mood, she invited him over anyway. But when Jen answered the door, she found herself immediately pulling him in for a hard kiss, hard enough the pressure hurt her lips. He seemed to like it, guffawing a little when they pulled apart. “What’s up, baby? Did you have fun in California?” he asked. Jen looked him in the eyes, looking for something. She reached out and tousled his fine, blonde hair, looking for an image. Unsatisfied, she gave up, allowing him to undress her in record time, acquiescing easily. Later, when Craig turned on the TV, she went into the kitchen and pulled out the packages she bought at Wal-Mart: a tube of wasabi paste and a bag of Snyder’s pretzels. She tossed the ingredients together and baked them for ten minutes. When they were finished, Jen put the green dusted pretzels in a bowl and let Craig try them. “What is this shit?” he said. “They’re made with wasabi.” He spit the bite out into a napkin and set it on the coffee table, then said they should go to Josie’s later. She wasn’t offended. What he thought wasn’t important. Sitting down at the dining room table, she looked into the bowl. Part of her was afraid

to try them. She picked one up and ate the morsel, chewing carefully, closing her eyes. The pretzels were gross, like the ones at the bar were. And yet, they were still missing something.

Dust in the Blood SHAWN FINLEY

I am again crammed into the back of my parents’ van; the smell of electrical grease and the streaming sagebrush are not helping my mood. My favorite part of our yearly pilgrimage to Midland is leaving. “John, stop frowning. It won’t be that bad,” Mom says. “It’s always worse,” I say. “Do we really have to go see them every year?” “Yes. They’re family. Now, I expect you to be on your best behavior,” Mom says. “You too, Allen.” “We’ll be on ours as long as they are,” Allen says. “I know you don’t like them and they can sometimes be draining, but we’ll just have to deal with it,” Mom says. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” We had already passed the Red River and most of the signs selling pornography, much to my mother’s relief. She would always avert her eyes and tell us to do the same, like Allen and I had never seen porn before. Outside of Fort Worth, we passed the Arby’s where I lost a tooth every summer for three years. I wish Texas had claimed only my teeth and not a child’s wonder or my mother’s happiness. South of Midland, we pass forests of pump jacks and wagon wheel gates before pulling in front of George’s barn. We never park in the crescent drive with the green grass and shading pecan trees. The trees are fluttering with pigeons, doves, and grackles. The green is out of place in this blasted waste of sand, heat, and twanging accents. The water bill must be huge. We walk through the blistering shade and past the wrought iron gate with its dried lotus pods like wasps’ nests. George always takes his sweet time answering the door, and of course, he will not let anyone else do it either. All he ever does is complain about the heat, the dust, and that we never call. He never calls. George is approaching obesity from the other side, not through any hard work on his part, but through the cocktail of drugs he is on—all failing to stop his cancer. I think he is addicted to annoying me. He always asks questions like why I do not have a girlfriend or if my moustache makes me a pedo. “Maddi, James,” George says, opening the door. “You’re late.” “We’re a day early,” Dad says. “You know that.” “Panda, you glue a dead rat to your face?” George says. “Ha ha, very funny, Grandpa. I’ve never heard that one before. And please don’t call me panda.” I wore a shirt with a panda on it when I was nine, and he still calls me

panda nine years later. He called Mom bird turd until she was in kindergarten. “Hippie, why don’t you get a job?” George says. Allen ignores him. We walk into the house where my mother lived some thirty years ago. Not much has changed. The house is frigid as always; George keeps the temperature at sixty-two and mutters about the cold. Only the tinge of urine among the potpourri is new. Mom had said in the car that grandpa was suffering from incontinence, and now it seemed we would all suffer as well. Mom also said that George had refused rubber sheets as they would “flood the room.” Like a soggy, stinking mattress is any better. Allen and I take our bags to the sunroom, an enclosed patio filled with sunflowers: thousand piece puzzles, pictures, dried flowers, plastic petals, and the wallpaper to match. As usual, the floor is largely invisible underneath plastic tubs filled with worthless crap. My aunts and uncles broke anything of value long ago with their bickering. Allen and I move the tubs filled with broken toasters and boxes with big “As Seen on TV” logos. Grandpa must have done the Christmas shopping early. “Don’t we already have a Slap Chop?” Allen says, carrying a stack of boxes to the back. “Yeah, and enough ShamWows to make a quilt.” We take the air mattress and begin to inflate it in the clearing. The thing is a queen size and stands a foot and a half off the ground when full. It is too soft and any movements will continuously reverberate, but it beats the folding couch. The mattress inflates; we head back to the living room. George watches CNN and argues with the news casters. Tonight might not be that bad. The door from the garage opens and Aunt Michelle comes in, Mason trailing behind. Michelle is a few years younger than Mom, but with her smoking it is hard to tell. Michelle is so un-like Mom. She’s more like George, short and round with sunken brown eyes. Mom may have tattooed lip liner and soft eye shadow, but Michelle has “Chris” in curvy letters, flanked by butterflies on the small of her back; a “tramp stamp” of her ex-pro-wrestler ex-husband and Mason’s father. “Oh hey, I didn’t know y’all were coming down,” Michelle says. “We called you last week about it,” Mom says. “Yeah, but you didn’t tell me.” Allen and I look at each other before heading back into the sunroom. Mom can hold her own. Allen moves more boxes to clear a space in front of a small TV, one of those with the VCR built into it. TV time. The sound of footsteps on the plywood ramp pushes that idea away. Mason follows us into the sunroom. Mason is nine or ten, I do not really care which, and he looks more like his father than Michelle—lucky bastard. Mason goes over to the TV and turns it on, flipping through channels until it lands

on Comedy Central. The show is some stand up by Jeff Dunham, his endlessly reiterated routines and puppets blending seamlessly together in a swirl of stereotypes. “Hey, Mason, John and I were going to watch Adult Swim,” Allen says. “Too bad, this is my TV,” Mason says. “Don’t you have a TV in your room back at your house though?” I say. “So? You expect me to walk all the way back there?” “Yeah, like fifty yards is all that far,” Allen says. Spoiled brat. Allen takes out his Zune and starts watching a movie. I take out my laptop and let the opening of “Losing My Religion” wash away the inane laughter.

The day starts an hour before dawn as the grackles chatter in the backyard, their calls like the whistling Jupiter rockets we shot off one Fourth of July. I check my sandals for scorpions and head to one of the French style doors that open onto the back patio. Turning off the door alarm, I pull on the door that doesn’t stick as much. The air outside is already hot, but feels refreshing before the heat soaks into my skin. The back patio is paving stones; thin weeds sprouting between the cracks. Several chairs are arranged around a cracked glass table, every inch crusted in bird droppings. Two large pecan trees grow in the yard. The trees used to shade an above-ground pool when I was younger. When George got fed up with fishing pecans out, he had it removed. That was when I started hating Midland. I walk off to where Great-Grandpa’s house stood until a month ago. The house where George’s father lived had been set on fire and bulldozed, a series of actions intended to prevent another fight. A few years back, my parents salvaged GreatGrandpa’s weather-worn antique ice chest from the dilapidated home and, after asking if any one objected (there were no objections), took it back with us. Mom and Dad spent something like three months in the garage refinishing the ice chest and building a shadow box for the ice tongs, ticket, and pick, sending pictures of it when they were done. Michelle immediately accused Mom of stealing away the inheritance. In the early light, I pick over the foundation and twisted char, picking up old brown glass medicine bottles and wire insulators, the reflections of glass and ceramic giving them away. Something large glitters under splintered wood: a pineapple marmalade jar full of silver dollars. I guess Great-Grandpa never trusted banks. The jar is in fairly good shape. The label is even legible; one of the few benefits of living where it never rains. Setting the jar down carefully, I pore over the pile, my collection steadily growing: six brown bottles, a dozen or so small white ceramic insulators, a large blue-green

insulator, and an old fashioned RC bottle with a painted label. With so many treasures, I start sequestering them away. I stash the RC, marmalade jar, and large insulator in a rusted out combine harvester, one of many such monuments to tetanus that had belonged to Great-Grandpa. I carry the medicine bottles and the small insulators in my shirt to the back door. It is locked. I knock on the door with my elbow in an attempt to wake Allen and not summon George. I watch as Allen rolls over and looks to me. He swings his legs over and plods to the door. As he unlocks it, I jerk my head up to where the small beeper alarm is, no doubt turned on again by George. Allen turns it off and opens the door. “Bottles?” Allen says, his voice groggy. It is before noon after all. I nod yes and carefully unload the clinking bottles and insulators while Allen walks back to bed. I stash the treasures in a small Styrofoam cooler, one of dozens discarded back here when Grandpa gets his insulin. Using plastic bags, I cushion my prizes like eggs. The container hidden, I head to the kitchen, creeping carefully, watching for the scorpions that love to hide in the brown shag carpet of the living room. The kitchen pantry is loaded with cans of green beans, corn, pickles, applesauce, and out of date cereal. I pour myself a bowl of stale Crispix with one percent milk. I do not like white calcium water. Dad comes into the kitchen. “Wouldn’t you rather have an omelet?” “I would if the only eggs they have weren’t those Egg Beaters crap.” “Language.” Dad looks in the fridge for a moment. “How about we wake Allen and go get donuts?” I pour the milk down the sink, using my spoon to sieve out the soggy cereal.

Allen and I sit in the sunroom, quietly eating apple fritters while watching Cartoon Network. Dad has taken the van and gone to his job site. A day of climbing around in the hot confined spaces of a substation transformer is like paradise compared to staying here. On TV, some annoying sailor fails to do anything entertaining. I go into the living room and open the entertainment center. Dozens of dusty VHS tapes are stacked here. Home recordings of A Goof Troop Christmas and Merlin are stacked alphabetically among others. I find a tape labeled “Popeye” and head back to the room. If I am going to watch a sailor, it will be funny. The sounds and smells of cooking come from the kitchen as Pop Eye fights Sinbad in Arabia. Allen has dozed off again and I go see if Mom needs any help. Mom is in the kitchen prepping breakfast: French toast for her and George.

“Grandpa has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to follow up on some blood work,” Mom says. “It would be nice if you helped out with the laundry today.” “It would be, wouldn’t it?” “John,” Mom says, looking at me while beating egg stuff with milk. “Fine,” I say, getting out plates and silverware. George comes into the kitchen. “You got my coffee yet Maddi?” George says. “Yes, your decaf is in the pot.” “I don’t want decaf,” George says. “I want coffee.” “You know you can’t have caffeine, George,” Mom says. “The doctor said it’s not good for your heart.” “I’ve been drinking coffee since I was twelve. It gives you grit.” George has enough grit to sand wood. “Okay, okay. I’ll brew you another pot.” Mom says. George does not know that I helped Mom put decaf in the regular canister.

Mom is vacuuming the living room and Allen is doing the dishes. George has gone out to the barn, probably to fiddle with the scroll saw. I walk down the hall to my grandparents’ room, the smell of urine growing stronger. The bed is a disheveled mess, a white humidifier and a breathing thing for sleep apnea sit atop the low dresser, the remaining space covered with pill calendars and prescription bottles. The stench and dampness make me gag as I pull off the sheets and carry them to the laundry room. I shove the filthy bundle into the washer. Shower time. The warm water and lavender soap are relaxing, the water running down my back and the smell driving away the lingering acrid scent of urine. A loud thud jars me from the moment. I rinse out the last of the shampoo and turn off the water. I pull a towel through the curtain as the drizzle stops. The water here sucks. The water softener makes me feel soapy. As I get dressed, someone knocks on the bathroom door. “Panda, get the mop. You’ve got a mess to clean up, boy,” George says. “The detergent fell.” “Just give me a minute,” I say as I dry off. “Now, young man.” In the laundry room I see the puddle of creeping blue soap and small blobs of the stuff all over the base board. George could not even be bothered to start cleaning. The strong smell of fertilizer in the garage makes my nose burn as I look for the mop

amongst cases of peach Fresca and freezers full of bitter pecans.

Allen and I sit in the sunroom watching Samurai Jack on Boomerang. I feel old; the show came out like only a decade ago. Mason comes into the sunroom, grabs the remote off the top of the TV and starts flicking through channels. “We were watching that,” Allen says. “That show is old.” “So? Jack is voiced by Phil LaMarr,” I say. “I’ve never heard of him. Anyway, the show’s on Boomerang and all they show is old crap,” Mason says, stopping the channel on Cartoon Network. “Now this is a good show.” The blurb in the bottom corner says Total Drama Island. “John, let’s go outside,” Allen says. I get up and follow Allen through the back door and outside again. “It’s like he does that on purpose.” “I’m pretty sure he does,” I say. “Remember how he always invites us to play video games only to sit there playing single player and never handing off the controller?” We walk along the dirt road next to the barn and follow the property line where the fences of a new housing development stand. We pass by the place where GreatGrandpa’s car was stuck in the sand and Dad, Allen, and I used shovels and paving stones to get it loose. A concrete retaining cistern sits next to the rusted housing of an irrigation pump. Allen and I climb up the low wall and sit on the edge, feet dangling inside. The outlet is clogged with sand and a couple of tumbleweeds stand to one side. Allen and I watch as a lizard scurries about in the bottom, unable to get any grip on the relative smoothness of the walls. “This cistern is kind of like that idea of the small world from that book I had to read,” Allen says. “A microcosm?” I say. “Yeah. That lizard is like Piggy, trapped in a kind of hell with no escape.” “I don’t really think so Allen. Piggy was trying to maintain order and goodness. That lizard is just stuck.” Allen drops down onto the sand and sets about catching the lizard. Moments later, Allen lifts the lizard in his cupped hands before releasing it into the desert. A lizard-less tail wiggles in Allen’s hand, flecks of dust in the blood.

I climb a small dune in the back lot. There used to be nothing behind Grandpa’s

house except flat heat from here to the horizon, not these endless cookie-cutter houses and stunted trees. Something hits my shin: a dirt clod. I look down to see Mason with another clod in his fist. “Don’t throw things at me. You could hurt someone,” I say. “You’re not special,” Mason says. “This is my back yard. You don’t live here.” “Neither do you,” Allen says, coming from behind the dune. “You live next door.” Mason throws his dirt clod at me; dirt explodes over my shirt. “I’ll get you for that,” I say, picking a clod. “He’s not worth it, Allen says.” I drop the clod; Allen is right. “I’m telling,” Mason shouts, turning to run to his house. Aunt Michelle comes out of the garage and launches into her tirade like one of the news reporters George watches. I catch something about knowing better and Mason is only a child. Michelle does not like me pointing out that Mason hit me with a dirt clod; I should not lie. Allen steps in, says he saw Mason hit me. Michelle ignores him. “Apologize,” Michelle says. “Fine.”

I’m sitting in the kitchen at the computer, checking my e-mail. Dishes of spaghetti and French bread with too much butter and salt stand uncovered on the island even though we finished dinner hours ago. Food poisoning waiting to happen. Michelle enters from the living room. “Does your Mom know you’re on the internet?” Michelle says. “Yes, Aunt Michelle.” Michelle goes into the living room. I hit the start button and begin shutting the computer down. I wish they had Wi-Fi so I could just connect with my laptop. I head to the sunroom. “Does John have permission to go on the internet?” Michelle calls to Mom. “Of course I do. I’m eighteen,” I say. “I asked your mom, and besides you could be looking at obscene material,” Michelle says. “Yes, because that’s the kind of thing I’d do in my grandparent’s kitchen,” I say. “Don’t sass me,” Michelle says. “I’m older. You have to respect me, I don’t care what shit Maddi filled you with.” “I’m sick of your fucking bullshit Aunt Michelle. While you go out and get smashed on box wine, Mom’s here cooking, cleaning, and taking care of your father.

And you feel entitled to my respect?” Michelle sneers and leaves through the garage; the house shakes with her exit. Mom comes into the kitchen and opens one of the canned strawberry margaritas Dad brought back the other night. Mom waves me over to the table. “Can I have one of those?” I say hesitatingly, trying to lighten my punishment for swearing, and at my aunt no less. “Sure,” Mom says, surprisingly. I open a can and take a sip, the sweetness cut a little by the alcohol. “It’s weird. I used to pray every night.” “For Grandpa’s health?” I say. “No. As a kid I didn’t get to spend time with friends or have a life really. I was always here taking care of the house,” Mom says, taking a drink. “James doesn’t understand. He didn’t miss out on going to prom just because he didn’t have a date. He didn’t have to be home by seven on weeknights or nine on weekends. He never fought with his brother. It was miserable. “I guess it still is. Dad’s cancer is getting worse. As a kid I used to pray that The Lord would take me away and end my suffering.” We sit quietly at the table. Mom crumples her can and puts it in the recycling bag. “You said yourself that the Lord works in mysterious ways.” I say, looking at my can on the table. “I don’t know what to do. James is distant when it comes to things like this. I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this.” “Probably the alcohol,” I say. Mom looks at me sharply. “And because I’m here. You have spent many nights up listening to my problems, like when Dad and I don’t get along or when I’m feeling down. Besides, what kind of family would we be if you couldn’t share a drunken confession with us? Everyone’s a product of their upbringing and you did a pretty good job with Allen and me.” “I guess you’re right. I don’t know what to do about Michelle though.” “I don’t either. We’ll just have to deal with it,” I say. Mom stands up and walks down the hall toward Grandpa’s room. I drink the rest of the margarita; my head feels fuzzy and not from underage drinking.

The van is packed, the bottles, insulators, RC, and marmalade jar securely wrapped in my duffel bag in the back with everyone else’s luggage, most of a case of strawberry margaritas, and a dozen Ziploc bags of pecans. Michelle is not standing in the driveway with Grandpa George; she went to drop off Mason for Chris’s weekend of custody. We pull out of the driveway, waving at Grandpa. “Be stranger,” Grandpa George says, waving at us.

We turn onto Rankin Highway, white wagon wheel gates standing brightly in the morning sun. Allen is snoring, his head on a pillow against the window. Dad is driving, a cup of decaf in his hand while Mom looks back at the house. I sit in the back of the van and watch the streaming sagebrush as we leave Midland.

Money Trees ALEX WEBB

Rob fished through the cup holder of his dinged-up, dirty-white, ‘98 Cavalier. He rummaged through fifty or so pennies looking for the glint of a quarter, nickel, or dime. He knew the pennies wouldn’t buy much, but he still didn’t like throwing out money. The end result was a cup holder full of mostly useless copper. He needed a little over a dollar to buy a two-liter, and he was pretty sure there was enough in the pile. He sat in his car counting out what he scrounged. It came to $1.35. He had about five dollars in his checking account, but he would need the money for gas to pick up Paul and head out to Steven’s friend’s house later that night. He wouldn’t have enough for the round trip, but Paul usually helped out on their way home. As he got out of his car, parked in the dark Walmart parking lot, he could see an old homeless man he’d nicknamed “Dinero” making a long arching path to his car. Dinero had been begging around Rob’s neighborhood for a couple of weeks now, and Rob recognized him immediately. He was meth-skinny and maybe five-foot-five. He had an angular jaw, but his skin retreated into his cheekbones leaving shadows that looked like empty space throughout his tanned, scarred face. Rob guessed Dinero probably had a few decades worth of good looks starved out of him. He wore the same yellowing crew length tube socks every day, and his pants were cut at an odd length that split the difference between shorts and capris. Around his mouth was a copper brown stain in his moldy, white beard. Dinero moved in a jerky half-skip with his chest out, almost like he was approaching to fight, pulling up his pants every few steps without stopping. “What’s up man, you got any money? My car ran out of gas a few miles away and I’m trying to get home to my wife and kids in Muskogee.” Either Dinero had spent the last few weeks begging around Tulsa in an Odyssean struggle to return home, or he was lying for beer money. Rob suspected the latter. In all other previous encounters, Rob pulled out his empty wallet and showed the man that he didn’t have anything to give, but tonight he had a fist full of change. There’s some moral code that dictates that you can’t turn down a beggar while carrying a handful of change, Rob thought, so he dumped his dollar thirty-five into the outstretched palm of the beggar. Not only was Rob pissed that he’d felt obligated to hand over twentyish percent of his liquid net worth, but he recognized Dinero while the old man counted the money and picked at scabs on his elbows. Rob could have been anyone to him. He treated Rob as if he were a faulty ATM. At least this guy

needs it more than I do, Rob thought. “The fuck, man? Come on. I know you’ve got more than that. Gas is expensive,” the old man said. He jutted his expectant hand out for more money — money that Rob didn’t have. “I gotta pay for gas too, asshole. I’m not Bill Gates,” Rob said. The old man saw another car pull up a few hundred feet away and skirted off to go beg at someone else. “You’re welcome, motherfucker!” Rob shouted after him. Rob walked into Walmart to find the Coke that would pair with Paul’s Jack Daniel’s. Paul and Rob had not been invited to Steven’s friend’s party, but Steven knew the people pretty well, and knew that by midnight either the house would be too crowded, or the people too drunk to be able to tell who was invited and who had wandered in. Steven’s philosophy was show up with whiskey for the guys and mixer for the girls, leaving everyone drunk and happy. Steven’s recently graduated private school friends acted like they lived for this time of year. Back from college for summer with rich parents who always seemed to be summering somewhere else. The parents left their massive houses and equally expansive liquor cabinets unattended. The parties got rowdy and anonymous, and Steven and Paul loved them. Rob hated the parties. His gratification came, not from booze or drugs or girls, but the small treasures he found in the houses. Rob nicked little things from the houses: a few rings, bracelets, and a pair of salt and pepper shakers once. He took anything that he could slip into his pocket. He liked to have the weight of the object in his hands. He felt empowered skimming the excess off the over-privileged. As far as Rob knew no one noticed other than Paul. Paul never joined in, but was usually sober enough to catch on. Rob was certain that Steven never noticed. Steven usually drank until he blacked-out. Rob didn’t think the owners would miss what he took, but even if they did, they could always buy another of whatever it was that Rob made disappear. Rob swiped his card, nearly emptying his checking account for a two-liter of Coke he probably wouldn’t even drink. The “check engine” light blinked on as Rob pulled up to Paul’s Mom’s decaying house. A massive overgrown leafless tree in the front yard obscured most of the porch. Under the streetlight, the parts of the house visible through the branches looked like they had originally been painted white, but had degraded to an off-green. Compared to the sterile hallways of Rob’s ticky-tacky apartment complex, Paul’s house looked as if it were decomposing into the ground upon which it was built. Rob parked the car and unhooked the loose latch on Paul’s rusty front gate. A thickheaded pit bull from the yard next door sprinted out, snarling and barking, teeth bared. The thick shouldered dog pressed its wide face into the slack of the leaning

chain link fence. Ducking under branches and pushing tall weeds aside, Rob climbed the steps to Paul’s porch and knocked on the door. Paul emerged carrying a three-quarters full bottle of Jack Daniel’s that he’d bought a few weeks ago but hadn’t drunk yet. “How broke are you today?” Rob asked. “I had ramen for breakfast.” Paul stepped out of his house and handed his friend the bottle. “You got the Coke, right?” “Better believe it. Can you pitch in for some gas coming home?” Rob asked. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back to my place.” Paul nodded. Paul led the way, pushing back the dead branches that grabbed at him like bony fingers through the front yard forest, returning to the driveway where Rob’s car was parked. They rode together, Paul’s favorite heavy metal blaring. Rob tolerated the music. Rob pulled into a gas station and turned off the car. He filled his tank up with what was left in his checking account. He climbed back into the car. “I saw Dinero tonight. That methy bastard got my savings account.” “You emptied your cup holder for him?” Paul asked. “What could have moved you to such a charitable act?” “Well, shit, man, I don’t know. I had a hand full of change. I couldn’t say I didn’t have any,” Rob said. “But no one made you hand it over. He didn’t threaten you, did he?” “I mean he needed it more than I did, right? Poor people gotta look out for each other, right?” Paul turned the music back on and cancelled out Rob’s voice. Rob realized he wasn’t even sure why he’d given Dinero the money. He’d told himself that he was obligated to hand it over morally or socially, but, Paul was right, he did have a choice. Dinero didn’t pull out a switchblade. He wasn’t starving on the side of the road. Rob thought he really hadn’t helped or hurt the old man in any real way. If he’d rejected him, the result would be the same—he’d still be out there panhandling. Maybe the old man bought another beer; maybe he was actually stranded and no one believed him. But, even if he were lost and trying to find his way home, the gas he could have bought with $1.35 wouldn’t have gotten him more than a few feet down the road. Rob and Paul pulled up to the house. They assumed this was the right place because the street was littered with Mercedes and Lexus. The house looked like the capital building of a small wealthy nation. A collage of stone made a meandering path which led from the mail box to the porch steps. The grass was thick and clipped evenly at a uniform height. They could see flashing lights through the windows and

heard vague rumbles of bass as they stepped out of Rob’s parked car. Paul carried the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and the two-liter of Coke. Rob called Steven to make sure they weren’t about to crash the wrong party. The phone rang and went straight to voicemail. They called again. Steven spilled out the front door stumbling as he yelled “Where are you?” into the phone. “Where have you been man? It’s crazy in there,” Steven said as he steadied himself against one of the columns on the portico. “The girls in there are unbelievable. I’m talking to this girl right now who said she’s a model. A fuckin’ model, man!” The doors opened to a rolling smell of stale flowers and tobacco. Heat poured out of the room as if it was chemically bonded to the waves of bass. Sweat evaporated off bare perfumed skin carrying the small vaporous drops of erotic scents through the air, diffusing into the hazy cloud of tobacco smoke that hovered above the perspiring bodies packed too tightly across the makeshift living room dance floor. The lamps in the room were augmented with black-light bulbs. From the entrance to the dim white light outline of what looked like a sliding door across the expansive living room, there was a pulsating neon mass of bodies. Paul handed Rob the bottles of Jack and the two-liter Coke and dissipated into the crowd. Steven pointed across the dance floor. “Put the drinks in the kitchen over there,” Steven yelled. Rob moved toward the kitchen sliding through the mass of moist bodies. Under the black light, the skin of the partygoers looked dim and purple with their eyes and teeth illuminated. Inside the undulating mass, the group looked like disembodied eyes and mouths bouncing through the sweaty perfumed haze. As Rob shuffled through the bodies, a girl in a neon pink striped top grabbed the bottle of whiskey from him, unscrewed the top and took a shot directly from the bottle. She wrapped her arms around him, dropping the bottle cap on the floor and sloshing whiskey onto the back of Rob’s shirt. She yelled into his ear, “I fuckin’ love you! Jack is my favorite!” She grabbed the back of Rob’s head with her free hand and leaned in to kiss him, but in the claustrophobic mess she missed his lips and landed on the corner of his mouth. Rob put the two-liter under his arm and unwrapped her from his body. He took back the bottle of whiskey and the girl melted back into the crowd. As Rob entered the comforting white light of the kitchen through a sliding door, he wiped the girl’s whiskey spit from the corner of his mouth. There were a lot of people in the kitchen, but the music wasn’t quite as deafening and the people at least looked human under the white lighting. The heavy granite island was packed with bottles of liquor. Rob put the cap-less bottle of Jack with the other bottles of Jack and opened the chrome refrigerator to place the sealed two-liter of Coke with the rest of the mixers and chasers. He felt like he’d brought a pocket full of sand to the beach.

Rob stayed away from the dance floor and drank by himself in the kitchen, wondering what treasures he might find in the house. Steven rematerialized from the crowd and lurched into the kitchen. “Have you seen her?” Steven asked as he wiped sweat from his face. Rob didn’t know who he was talking about and responded with a derisive “who?” He hated talking to Steven when Steven was this wasted. “Dude, the model. The fuckin’ model. The fucking model. By far the hottest girl here. You can’t tell me you haven’t seen her.” Rob hadn’t really talked to anyone and the people seemed pretty interchangeable. Steven’s eyes didn’t open all the way anymore which meant he was not only faded, but had been pretty far gone for a while now. Rob tried to change the subject to relocating Paul. “I don’t know where she is man, but have you seen Paul?” Rob asked. “No, I’m looking for a model. A girl model. Not Paul. Paul’s not a girl model at all.” Rob didn’t want to talk to Steven anymore, or even be at the party. He wanted to take something, find Paul and get out. He mentioned seeing the model somewhere out on the dance floor to get rid of Steven. Steven dove back into the black light to find her. Rob wandered through the house trying to get as far away from the mob as possible. The house looked large from the street and was even larger inside. Though he knew the house was home for an entire family, he couldn’t help comparing the vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors to his studio efficiency apartment where the front door opened into the bedroom/kitchen. On the far side of the house, Rob found the master bedroom. He lay down on the king size bed. The mattress stretched out further than his arm’s length and he sank into the thick down comforter. Rob got off the bed. Soon he was rummaging through the drawers of the dresser. He wanted to touch everything. He wanted to have everything. He thought about how unfair it was that Paul couldn’t have the things that Steven’s friend’s parents had. They had such a nice house with so many nice things, why couldn’t they share? Rob remembered Dinero and knew why he gave him his money. Dinero wanted the money, and Rob had the money. That’s what good people do, Rob thought. Good people share what they have with others. I’m a good person, Rob thought, I deserve whatever I can find. As he searched through the room, ignoring the banalities of socks and white undershirts, Rob found a silver money clip. The money clip was still in its packaging—a plastic sleeve wrapped in dark blue tissue paper and placed in a small gift box. The silver was engraved with “CS.” It was a perfect find. Valuable and small

enough to slip into his pocket. He tucked it away and headed back to the party to find Paul. Rob found Paul in the backyard sharing a joint with a few of Steven’s friends. He pulled Paul away to show him the money clip he just pinched. Rob snuck the clip out of his pocket trying to act smooth while showing off his loot. “Did you fucking steal that?” Paul asked. “Shit, man. Calm down. No one saw me take it,” Rob said. “Do you even know whose house this is? His name is Cameron Schwab and he’s five feet behind me,” Paul said. Paul motioned to one of the guys he was smoking with outside. Cameron had smoked enough that his eyes looked like marble. Rob darted his hand with the clip back into his pocket. “What’ll he care? You think his Dad can’t afford a new way to hold all his money?” Who can afford a gardener, but can’t buy another money clip? Rob thought. “Who cares if his Dad can afford another? It’s not yours,” Paul said. Paul stopped talking in hushed tones. “Give it back.” Rob could see Cameron and the group of Steven’s friends take notice behind them. Paul never joined in, but he’d seen Rob steal enough that Rob assumed Paul understood, or at least didn’t mind, the theft. “Well it’s good that someone’s looking out for all these rich assholes,” Rob said. “Paul, who’s that? He with you?” Cameron called from over Paul’s shoulder. “Give what back?” Cameron asked. Paul turned toward Cameron, while Rob slipped back into the party to try and escape through the crowd. Looking back, he saw Paul talking to Cameron. Rob pushed his way through the crowded living room dance floor. The dubstep screeching out of the speakers pounded heavy bass hits with the sound of an air raid siren in a rhythmic scream over the top of the synth. The glowing eyes and teeth all seemed to turn to him while he pushed through the dark purple bodies. Making a beeline to the door he bumped into the girl with the pink striped top, knocking the drink out of her hand. “Who the fuck are you?” she tried to yell over the music. She pushed him in the chest knocking him into another person. The guy he hit pushed Rob back hard, making him collide with the body in front of him in a wild flail. The group erupted into a tightly packed mosh pit. Rob fell out of the mass onto a coffee table that had been pushed to the edge of the makeshift dance floor. A sharp corner snagged on his shirt and ripped part of the sleeve. Rob couldn’t quite tell, but it looked like Cameron and Paul were coming back in from outside. Closer to freedom, Rob bolted out the door. Steven was hunched over on the porch puking into the bushes. Rob bent over next to him.

“We gotta roll out of here right now,” Rob said. He didn’t want to explain why he needed to leave so fast, but he figured Steven was too drunk to notice. “Naw, I’m already home,” Steven said. He lay down in the grass. Rob left without argument and sped out of the neighborhood. When the “check gauges” light lit up on his dashboard, Rob remembered he’d planned to have Paul pay for gas on the return trip. He didn’t have enough in the tank to make it home, but he did have enough to drive to Paul’s Mom’s house. He pulled up to the house with the massive dead tree hanging over the entrance. How could Paul side with those jerks? Rob thought. He pulled out the money clip that was still in his pocket and ran his fingers across the “CS” etched in the silver. Rob didn’t know what Cameron’s father’s name was, but he guessed that the clip was a gift for his son—a one-percenter handing down the tools of their class to his overprivileged progeny. There was a cold karma to the silver and Rob enjoyed the feel of the gift in his hands. Without exploited silver miners, the materials would still be underground anyway, Rob thought. At least now the clip was in the hands of someone who could really appreciate it. Rob worked his way through the branches and weeds and sat outside on Paul’s Mom’s porch waiting for Paul to get home. He knew Steven would be too drunk to drive and that Paul would drive Steven’s Lexus back to his Mom’s house where they’d both crash for the night. Soon, Rob spotted Steven’s silver Lexus. The underbelly of the car scratched against the incline of the driveway as Paul pulled in. “Thanks for bailing on me,” Paul yelled. “You heard them. They were coming after me. What was I supposed to do?” Rob said. “Asshole, I covered for you. Cameron didn’t hear what you were trying to steal,” Paul explained. “I told him you were trying to take your whiskey home, but I thought it was rude to leave with the gift you brought.” Paul stepped out of the car. “Not only did Cameron give you your fucked up cap-less bottle back,” Paul said, “but he gave you a new bottle too because he felt bad that you had to leave so early.” Paul pulled an unopened bottle of Jack out of the Lexus. “What’s it matter to him anyway, he can just go buy another one,” Rob said. Rob had seen Paul upset before, but usually when they’d fight Paul would look angrily at the ground. Now Paul made direct, hard eye contact. “Why’s it always about money with you? I know you look at Steven as ‘your rich friend.’ Does that make me your poor friend?” The front yard was silent except for Steven dry-heaving in his Lexus. Rob and Paul sprinted back to the car to pull Steven out before he threw up on his leather seats.

They carried his limp body to the porch. Paul grabbed a trash can from the curb and positioned Steven over the stinking bin. Steven cringed and pulled back. He heaved an alcoholic splattering onto Paul’s shoes. “Drunk motherfucker,” Rob said. “They just don’t give a shit about us Paul. Even Steven. Rich people don’t hate us, or plot against us, they just don’t give a shit about us.” “Who’s rich, though?” Paul asked. “What?” Rob said. “Who’s rich? To me, you’re pretty rich. You have a car. You have an apartment. I’m living with my Mom and eating microwave noodles every day. But compared to people like Dinero, begging in Wal-Mart parking lots, I’m living large.” Paul slid his shoes and socks off leaving them by the front door so he didn’t track puke through his house. “And what about Bill Gates or whoever runs Apple now that Steve Jobs died. You don’t think they look at Steven like he’s living in poverty?” Steven gurgled next to Rob, but didn’t throw up this time. “We’re not rich, and we’re not poor. Everybody wants more than what they’ve got.” Paul went inside and came back with a few dollars in coins from an old cracked jar his mom collected change in. She took the jar to the grocery store once a week to convert the coins to whatever small amount of bills they were worth. “That should be enough to get you home,” Paul said. “Steven’ll wander inside when he sobers up enough to stop puking. I’m done for the night.” Paul locked the door behind him. Rob sat on the porch looking out across the street through the branches of the dead tree wrapped around Paul’s house. The branches crisscrossed each other at odd unpredictable angles making Rob feel claustrophobic. Rob thought about how Paul walks through the branches every morning. He just pushes them aside like the flimsy switches that they are, but when Rob tries to navigate them, he ends up scratched like his sleeve caught on the coffee table. Rob felt the money clip in his pocket. The silver felt worthless. The justice he felt from taking the clip crumpled up and blew down the street like the last leaves off Paul’s dead tree. Rob pulled a branch aside to get a clearer view of the street, but the branch snapped back. Rob took the money clip and clipped together the two offending branches opening a small window through which he could watch the cars drive by. Rob sat staring through his makeshift window for a long while, and when he left, he left the clip clamped down on the branches. It didn’t really make much of a difference, but it was one less thicket to navigate through for Paul when he left in the morning.

American Waste JASON CHRISTIAN

I had decided it was time to grow up, whatever that meant, so I cut off my dreadlocks and talked to this guy about a job. The guy went by the name of Hippie. He was an acquaintance of another guy I used to sell speed to, someone who owed me a favor. Hippie worked with a crew of framers that built houses all over the suburbs. He said the boss was looking for a new hand. That’s how he put it, a hand, somebody to carry boards to the other guys and clean up the jobsite. Piddly shit. I said okay. I needed the money and it would come weekly and under the table: seven bucks an hour, which was good in 2002. The first day I showed up to the jobsite in my friend Ernie’s puke-brown car. The place was way in the outskirts down west I-40, where some rich man was building a house in the middle of a fresh clearing surrounded by scrubby woods and flanked by two large piles of bulldozed trees, just asking to become bonfires. Stacks of lumber pushed into sand damp from a rare July rain. Tire ruts crisscrossed the inevitable red clay. Trash lay everywhere in sight. The other guys’ trucks—all of them had trucks—were parked in a crooked line off the main driveway, wedged haphazardly between pathetic stunted trees that constituted our woods. The clearing was large enough for the mansion we were building and a yard that somebody would roll out after we were gone. As I parked I killed the radio and saw through the cracked glass a short stocky man walking straight at me as though ready for a fistfight. He began speaking even before I left the car. “You the new guy?” he said. “Yeah,” I said. “My name’s Rice.” “What kinda fucking name is that? I won’t remember that.” This must be the boss. He turned toward the others who were moving quickly, carrying tools, unrolling cords and hoses, setting up for the day. I looked at my watch: five minutes early. The boss looked back at me and spat tobacco on the ground beside my boots. “Got any tools?” he said. “I brought a hammer, a tool bag, a tape measure, and a square. That’s what Hippie told me to bring.” I was hoping Hippie used that name around the boss. I was also thinking that I was lucky that I had a friend to borrow tools from. Of course I didn’t know how to use them, but that I wouldn’t admit. I was used to being judged by my

exterior: black clothes, tattoos, and bright-colored hair invited stares. Anyway, I figured he’d act somewhat friendly since he’d gone to the trouble of recruiting a new worker. Besides, I’d cleaned up my appearance for his sake, for the job’s sake. But I kept quiet and played it cool. I had no doubt construction sites were unforgiving. “Pick up all the trash,” the boss said. “Anybody yells, do what he asks.” He turned around and walked toward his dented gray Dodge dually with red mud smeared all the way to the windows. I began picking up trash. The rest of the crew finished unloading tools, setting up saws and compressors and other contraptions I had no idea of their use. It was eight a.m. and the other guys were already laughing and chitchatting about women. Despite my best intentions, I was anxious and someone noticed. He said his name was Kurt, and he wore nothing but frayed cut-off jean shorts that barely reached mid-thigh, and a tool belt that seemed to enhance his round over-sunned belly. His skin was dark brown and leathery like an old catcher’s mitt, his feet shod with formerly white Wal-Mart-looking shoes. Somehow, despite the belly, he ran across the top of the two-by-four walls as graceful as a ballerina. Real precision. Kurt said I looked as nervous as a whore in church. I asked him what I should be doing. “Boss already said pick up all the cut ends and make a pile. There’s the dumpster for the shorties.” He pointed to the green roll-off dumpster across the yard. The side of the dumpster had the words “American Waste” stamped on it. I thought of that Black Flag song I used to like in my younger, idealistic days. “Yeah, but after that,” I said. “You know how to cut straight?” Kurt said. “Lost our cut-man. Quit last week.” He turned away from me and flipped off the sky as if everything was God’s fault. I noticed he had a blurred tattoo of Wile E. Coyote on his right shoulder. “I learn fast if somebody wants to show me,” I said to Kurt. “New guy!” the boss roared from behind me. I spun around. “What the fuck are you talking for,” he said. “I thought you were working. You’re just standing there with your goddamn teeth in your mouth.” I said nothing. “Cut that stack down to ninety-two and five eighths. We got the wrong order.” I had worked jobs where men barked orders but this was “slaves building pyramids” work. It was one thing to be told to wash a pile of dishes or pick up trash or shovel dirt all day, but another to quickly do skilled labor under a tyrant’s watch. It’s hard to explain why, but I needed the job to last, it was important for me to finish something that I had started for once, so I tried. I wrote the dimensions the boss gave me down on a scrap of wood, while he stood beside me staring, his nostrils flaring as he breathed. I couldn’t tell if he was older or

younger than Hippie, who I had guessed to be about forty-five. “I think I can do it,” I said. “Goddammit new guy, you better fucking know.” “Okay,” I said. “No problem.” I skittered over to the stack of lumber and noticed Hippie gazing at me from the second story floor where he was building walls. He had a guilty look on his face, probably realizing I was scared and trying to hide it. “Hippie, come down here and show this new guy how to do it,” the boss said, still planted in the same place “Tell by looking at him he don’t know shit.” He was pointing at me with the wooden handle of a framing hammer, nearly as big as an ax handle. “All right, Junior,” Hippie said. Now I knew the boss’s name. I let him help me, did the job, and then they left me alone. Every instinct in me told me to flee. I struggled against the urge to drive away until lunchtime came. All six guys, besides the boss, smoked weed, ate gas station food, and joked around. Lunch break was more than a break, it was a relief. At some point in the afternoon, boss left for some errands and never returned. I finished out the day with less worries, even allowing myself to stop to pet Hippie’s young brindle pit bull that lay all day in the shade of Hippie’s beat up Toyota. Hippie said he always brought the dog to work. He called him Brutus.

Day two was easier. By easier I mean the boss wasn’t there most of the day. The work itself was backbreaking. They made me carry about a hundred four-by-eightfoot pieces of plywood up a rickety wooden chickenwalk to the second floor. One after another, all day long, each feeling heavier than the last. At lunch, like the day before, we all piled into somebody’s truck and drove to the gas station at the interchange down the road. They had a hot box full of chicken strips, potato wedges, fried chicken, onion rings and other fried foods, the kind of food that won’t kill you but you don’t want to live on. I didn’t complain and, of course, no one else did either. We each bought our lunch and a 32 oz. soda pop. Then we went back for what they called “lunchtime entertainment.” “What’s that?” I asked Hippie in the truck on the way back, thinking that he was somehow closer to me than them. He said nothing. I didn’t want to repeat myself so I let it go. When we got back to the jobsite, everyone exited the truck and began setting his own personal lawn chairs into a straight line facing away from the house. I didn’t have a chair. I thought I’d just stand to eat or stack boards to make a seat. The heat was sweltering and the humidity was high. There was a dead quality to the air, that

deadness you find in Oklahoma summers. “Got a coon for Brutus today,” Hippie said to no one in particular. “Missed one yesterday, but caught one last night.” Everyone laughed or began chattering in a knowing way. I still didn’t understand what was happening until he picked up a steel box from the back of his truck. It had been there all along. Inside the box an animal frantically clawed and shuffled from side to side. Brutus stood on two legs, whining, licking at the box. Hippie set the box on the dirt. Brutus began clawing at it and barking. The barks were shrill. He was still young. “What is this?” I said. “This fucking dog will learn to run off varmints, yet,” Hippie said. “I live fifty mile south of here in the country. I need a good coon killer. Those sonsabitches get into my food all the goddamn time.” “Let that sumbitch go, Hippie,” one of them said. “Tear up the walls of my trailer,” Hippie continued. “Last week they ripped out all the insulation. Decorated my house like a goddamn Christmas tree.” He released a little metal door, a full-sized raccoon burst from the cage like a bull from a rodeo chute. The dog and raccoon instantly began fighting in a death-like dance—rolling, scratching, biting. The growl of the dog was familiar, but the raccoon sounded like an angry tomcat slowed down and deepened in pitch, something like an otherworldly lion’s roar, or maybe a lion in heat, sounds of rage, rabid sounds. The raccoon was vicious, ruthless. After a minute it managed to break away from the dog and run toward the trees, but the dog caught up quick and the dance began anew. Behind me the crew cheered, made a commotion. It felt like being at a bar, watching a featherweight championship on HBO. The dirt was torn up where the animals had been. Spots of blood here and there marked the animals’ paths. Eventually the raccoon broke away yet again and ran fast enough to lunge up a tree. Brutus went hysterical, barking and yipping and whining at the base of the tree, trying to jump into it and climb it, circling like a shark. Hippie skipped over to him, grabbed him by the collar and lifted him in the air, then walked back to the jobsite while Brutus looked back hard over Hippie’s shoulder toward the raccoon in the tree. “That’s a good boy, Brutus,” Hippie said. “Kill that fucking beast.” “Man, that bastard was tearing him up good,” someone yelled. I didn’t look to see who it was. So far, only one or two of them were separate people. “Varmint’s tougher than the damn dog,” another said. I didn’t look up that time either. Like Brutus, I stared at the raccoon in the tree. “Bullshit,” Hippie said. “Coon just got lucky. Dog’s still a pup, you know.”

We went back to work. I finished lugging the stack of plywood, one board at a time, fifty pounds each, fifty-seven more trips up the chickenwalk—I counted. I almost fell a couple of times. I tried not to think of anything but holding on to the board stretched across my shoulders. I was drenched in sweat and muttered under my breath like a mad man as I hunched up the chickenwalk over and over until five o’clock finally came.

That night at the house my friends were indignant. “You gotta quit that job,” Ernie said. “Fuck those rednecks!” He was vegan then, and had a dog of his own that he found in a dumpster one night while out looking for food behind the Homeland grocery store. It was a tiny puppy someone had wrapped up in a black trash bag and thrown away. He called it Yelp because it was yelping through the plastic when he found it. Then Dee chimed in: “You should sabotage their shit first. Slash their tires, or something. Or steal their tools and pawn them.” “Man, they know my name,” I said. “That would be really stupid.” We were drinking Side Pocket forties. Drunk for a buck, we used to say. Except I was trying to pull my life together, so I just poured myself a cup. “You want a bump?” Ernie said. His hair was spiky on top and dyed black. The sides were shaved revealing a tattoo of a screaming skull. “Man, I’ve gotta work in the morning.” “All right. Be boring,” Ernie said. “Just don’t forget whose car you’re using.” His eyes darted everywhere as though following a fly around the room. “Turn up the music,” Dee said. All conversation was shut down by Napalm Death or something in that vein. Heavy, dark, violent music, an assault on our ears. Not the political punk that got us into this lifestyle in the first place. This was normal. We talked sometimes, but music and drinking was usually better. If I wanted intellectual stimulation I could go to my room and read. I had lived in that house off and on for three years. The house was Ernie’s, technically, though everyone thought of it as our own. Ernie inherited the house from his dad, who passed out one night drunk and fell into the swimming pool of some lady he was fucking, and drowned. He was the lady’s lawn man and somehow had breached her glittery world. Her rich husband was out of town when the accident happened. It was some kind of scandal on the news. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. We called the house “The Crack House,” which was supposed to be ironic but the front windows were boarded up from a party that had gotten out of hand, and we

had definitely smoked crack there more than a couple of times. I had moved back in when my girlfriend Abby kicked me out. Ernie was happy to have me there, liked to tell me about every five minutes Abby was a stupid stuck-up college girl. “Out of your league, man,” he’d say. “Probably be a lawyer or something, someday.” I deflected this talk or sometimes turned it back at him. “Maybe, if you’re lucky, she’ll save your ass from prison.”

The next morning was hell. I was so sore I could barely move. Somehow I had ended up drinking a Side Pocket after all, and then some whiskey, staying up half the night. By some miracle I managed to roll out of bed and make it out the door on time. I bought a barrel full of coffee on the way to our half-built mansion. That day was like the one before: same rednecks, same yelling boss, same dograccoon fight at lunch. We worked fast, the hot summer air echoed with rapid-fire nail gun sounds, hammering, men’s murmuring and swearing voices. It sounded like war. Everyone was in a hurry and the boss yelled “hurry up, ladies” about once an hour. I was told to cut some boards and given a list of dimensions so somebody could make some headers. As I cut the boards my mind was somewhere else, thinking about how I shouldn’t have drunk so much last night, wondering why I was working at a place where I belonged even less than my normal jobs, when I cut right through the air-hose. The hose wiggled and flopped in the air and I couldn’t catch it. The boss screamed at me, but somebody quickly fixed the problem and put me back on cleaning up and running boards to whoever yelled “new guy.” The week passed and the dog and raccoon scrapped every day. On Friday two raccoons were caught and, though they were on the small side, I thought they might get the upper hand on Hippie’s pit bull. On that day more blood splashed than usual. I wondered how much longer the carnage would last. My second week of work, on Monday, Brutus finally triumphed. Hippie had trapped a young raccoon the night before, and that day at lunch it fought just as hard for its life as the rest of them, but it wasn’t quite tough enough to hold its own. The raccoon nearly reached the trees, and I was secretly rooting for it even when Brutus clamped down on its neck and wouldn’t let go. He thrashed it in every direction, in spasms, whipping it like a Teddy bear around and around. Then he carried it to his master and dropped it at his feet. It lay there soaked in dirty saliva and blood, a ruddy ring around its neck, its fur spiked out with moisture. Its coat had a sheen to it, kind of like punk hair. The men slapped Hippie’s back and pet Brutus, who was prancing and wiggling his butt as though he’d won a prize. “All right, ladies, you’ve had your fun,” the boss yelled, as he came out of the port-

a-john. I hadn’t known he was there. “Let’s get back to it. Throw that motherfucker in the woods before the customer shows up.” Hippie picked up the raccoon by the tail and walked to the edge of the woods and tossed it onto the tangled underbrush of briars. It lay there atop springy vines, several feet from the ground, swaying in the wind. I watched Hippie as he strolled back toward us, seemingly following the thread-like trail of blood. It was all I could do to keep quiet. “What the fuck are you staring at, new guy?” the boss screamed from behind my ear. “Huh?” I said, without thinking. “Goddammit! Only faggots say huh. Are you a faggot, new guy?” The day was warm, but my neck was a volcano. I was powerless. I was enraged. I wanted to take a hammer and bury the claw in his forehead. But of course I did nothing. There was nothing to do. “No.” I said. “Good, cause I wouldn’t have one on my crew. Bring those studs upstairs, stud.” He pointed with a nod of his square sunbaked head. I hated him, hated his kind. I pictured his thrashed bloody body lying next to the raccoon’s on the briars, his tongue hanging out, his clothes in tatters. It wouldn’t do me any good to dwell though, so I put everything out of my mind and did what the boss wanted. For hours I hauled a pile of boards upstairs and stacked them for the walls the others would make. The whole place looked like a multi-tiered jungle gym with diagonal braces going every which way, holding the walls in place until we could put a roof over all of it. It looked strong, but I knew it was still vulnerable without the braces. A strong wind might topple the whole thing over.

“Oh my god. Somebody should call animal welfare on those fuckers,” Ernie said that night at home. “I don’t think they give a shit about raccoons,” Dee said. “I was talking about the dog,” Ernie said. “That’s animal abuse.” “Yeah, but we don’t call the cops, remember?” I said. It was true. We always said calling the cops was cooperating with the state, and the state was a bunch of murderers. I remember being shit-faced one time and arguing about it with some liberal college girl who was dating a friend of mine. I was out of my mind on speed, chewing my face off, not backing down in the argument. “What if there was a dead body in your house,” she had said at the end of our drawn out debate, as though saving it as her final trump card.

“We’d compost the bastard,” I said. I knew that was a lie, but I said it anyway. The girl wouldn’t let my answer suffice, so I finally admitted we’d probably take the body and drop it off at the morgue or something. All of it was a moot point anyway because there wasn’t going to be a dead body. “Animal welfare isn’t the cops, dumbass,” Ernie said. “I think we should ambush that fucker and kick his teeth in and steal his dog. I’ll volunteer to take care of him,” he said. “The dog, I mean.” “I can’t do that, besides the boss is a bigger problem. I haven’t told you what he said to me.” “Why are you working there, man?” Ernie said. “Are you that desperate?” “Dude, get a job at a coffee shop or something,” said Dee. “Or sell weed again. It’s not like it’s speed.” “Sell your plasma till something better comes along,” Ernie said. I knew he was just trying to help. What they didn’t understand is that I was growing weary with all of this, the all-night drinking, the filthy, squalid living, the gratuitous bumps of speed, not knowing where my next dollar would come from. “I feel like I need to learn a skill,” I said. “I’m twenty-five-years-old. I should be trying to figure shit out, right?”

The next day I came to work prepared. I had plotted during the night. I bought a summer sausage and stabbed holes all over its surface and pushed rat poison into each hole. It would be a toxic weapon. At lunch Brutus had his daily fight for Hippie’s pride and honor. The raccoon was normal sized and fought like the rest of them, and survived, which was a comfort. I didn’t want to kill the dog but I didn’t see any other way. Wasn’t it okay to kill something to stop further bloodshed? When the fight was over the guys went back to wall building and I cleaned up the yard until I had a load to throw in the dumpster. I had cut up the summer sausage into four pieces, each exposing green pellets that resembled broken jagged Pez candy, the color of chalkboard. I squatted on the other side of the dumpster, the sausage stuffed down in my tool bag, waiting for the dog to approach. While I waited I thought of Abby. She loved animals and would be horrified if she knew what I was planning to do. She’d want me to call the cops on Hippie, but that fucker would sell me out in a second. He’d tell them I sold speed. It didn’t matter that I had quit. A house raid was a house raid. They’d find something there to put us all away. I couldn’t explain any of this to Abby. I wanted to call her again; it had been two months since she kicked me out. I

wanted to tell her that I was making changes, that I was working toward goals and learning things, that this job wasn’t much, but it might lead to better opportunities. Only now, as I write this, do I know how far from the truth I was in those longing moments. I thought I might call her that night and see if we could talk sometime soon. Have a coffee or something. Maybe work something out between us. She would be back from her parents’ house soon to get ready for school to start. I peeked from behind the dumpster and noticed the dog lying on the dirt in his usual spot beside Hippie’s truck. I pictured him poisoned, walking in circles, licking the air, foaming at the mouth. I pictured him bloated and whimpering at his master. I knew then that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill an innocent, even a dog. Especially a dog. I might have killed Hippie in that moment, or the boss, but I didn’t do that either. I did nothing. I threw the sausage in the dumpster and stared at the trees for a while until I was yelled at to pick up the trash around the yard.

I didn’t go back to work after that day. Seven days wasn’t much, but it was the longest I’d worked in a while. I called Hippie a week later to tell him where to have the boss mail my check. At first he was irritated that I hadn’t shown up, but then perked up and told me Brutus finally killed a full-grown raccoon. He planned to buy another dog, too, to train him to fight. He said he’d keep a weight around his neck so he could beef up and kill other dogs. I hung up the phone before I could give him my address. I went back to selling weed for a while, just to get on my feet. I never talked about Brutus or the job again to Ernie or Dee. It was easier that way, to let the memory disappear into oblivion. The summer clapped to a close with me drunk every night, staying away from speed but still not winning any awards for success. I tried calling Abby a few times when I knew for sure she’d be back in town. I don’t know what happened, but she never picked up the phone.

喪家 (Homeless) KRISTEN VALENSKI

It was 2:13 a.m., four minutes before the next train on the Yamenote Line would screech into the station, when she saw the woman on the tracks. Elvis always told her to never talk to the crazies. He'd say, "livin’ on the street, we don't got time for them loose folk, gotta slip by, move on. All they do is steal them bags of cans you got to make them weird aluminum caps to contact their mothership or smooch pity from your coin purse." It was obvious to Kai the woman was a bit off the second she noticed the cap of tussled, greasy hair bobbing across the platform on the tracks. No one was at this platform at Shinjuku Station this early, but Kai carried her sack anyway. In her sack she had stuffed a freshly dug hoard of shiny energy drinks she discovered behind the convenience store on 83rd along with an unsealed bento box and thermos cup. She was able to snag them while Haru, the manager, wasn't looking. She knew he knew her well enough to recognize when her fingerless gloved hands were itching for a meal by the way her haggard appearance would slump further forward. She had caught glimpses of her reflection before in front of store windows in Harajuku Station when she hadn't eaten a true meal for over three days. Haru told her one evening, the first week the convenience store he owned became a regular stop for her along her dumpster diving rounds, her pale pink lips reminded him of the sakura blossoms that had been late to bloom that spring. Kai had found this strangely sweet and a little disturbing, so she snatched a bag of chips, two bottles of Ramune and a pack of cigarettes before returning to her large battered bag outside. She stopped at the marked safety line at the edge of the platform, setting the bag beside her and peering to her right. She spotted a pale figure flitting back and forth between the metal beams separating the subway lanes. The woman was humming softly into her arms which were wrapped around a blanketed bundle. The small chirps that faintly echoed from the direction of the unbalanced woman reminded Kai of the tiny kitten she used to own as a child. Kai's chest grew heavy at the thought of the woman carrying such a small creature while on the tracks, endangering its life. She squatted down and called out to the woman, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Oiiii, Okaa-san! Get off the tracks. You're not allowed down there." The woman tripped over a buckled metal plank and stubbed her toe underneath it. She crumpled forward, clutching the bundle to her chest. Kai cried out, startled as the crying from the bundle erupted into boisterous wails. What is that woman carrying,

she wondered. Kai hopped off the ledge and stumbled over towards the woman, her lanky legs getting caught around her massive cargo pants that were five sizes too large. She stopped beside the woman not touching her still body as she quietly panicked. If word got out this woman had died the cops may blame her, she was a runaway, souka, a homeless person. Going to jail and disappearing off the streets is all they wanted. Kai focused back on the woman as she groaned softly and nudged her elbow at Kai’s knee. “Akachan,” the woman whispered, worming her way towards Kai along the rusty tracks and dirt. Kai helped the woman to her feet and began to guide her towards the edge of the platform. The crying had ceased from the dirty bundle stained from landing in a rusty cesspool of old engine oil. Kai peered at the blanket and noticed tiny star and rabbit patterns swirling along the soft fabric. Kai leapt onto the ledge, checking the safety of her bag of valuables before she reached for the woman below. She yanked the hem of Kai’s coat until a tear erupted at the seams. Kai clutched at the woman’s firm grip as the blanket roll was thrust at her chest. The woman stared up at Kai fiercely as the reverberating tremors from an oncoming train began to shake the tracks. “For me, take care. Please.” Kai opened up the bundle, the woman’s grip still tight on her arm, keeping her in place at the edge of the platform. A set of rich brown eyes opened up, the baby awakened from its shallow sleep. The woman released Kai from her grasp. Kai stumbled to the ground cradling the squirming baby. “What do you expect me to do with this? Watashi wa kore de nani—” Kai called after the woman and stopped as the rumbling from the tunnel crescendoed, the train’s lights flooding the tunnel and the woman still on the tracks. She stared at the oncoming train erupting from the tunnel’s mouth as she darted along the tracks and out of view. The subway’s brakes shrieked against the tracks. Kai sat on the ground and watched as the doors slid open and the cool yellow fluorescent lights shone on her and her new kicking parcel. The automated voice from the train informed her the upcoming station would soon be Harajuku, her stop, but she barely noticed. Kai stared down at the baby. Its blubbering mouth and silky black tufts of hair peeked out from under the blanket. The voice called out one last time. Kai hurled her bag into the car and stumbled aboard.

Kai had never been a woman that attained a fondness for babies, but here she was clutching the swaddled cooing bundle against her chest like it was her own. She hid at

the back of the subway car traveling to Harajuku Station and Meiji's pent. The tiny face was round, plump from its mother's milk and its small dark eyes watched Kai. The train shuddered over a new set of tracks and launched Kai into the air several inches. The baby cried out excitedly and Kai shushed the baby with her finger, feeling its smooth skin. She poked its cheek, the baby giggling at her touch. Its round cheek bounced back, a small patch of pink and a sooty fingerprint from Kai's index finger imprinted on the baby's face. "Pushy," Kai cooed to the baby, "pushy, pushy, pushy." She tickled its other cheek and the baby's arms unwrapped themselves from underneath the fleece blanket it had been cocooned in. "Pusheen-chan," Kai whispered, holding the baby closer to her chest. Its lips smacked together, spittle wetting them. Its fleshy fingers pulled at her right breast. "Eh! Eh! No, Pushy," Kai commanded. The baby ignored her, demanding food. Kai would have to talk to Elvis about this. It’s not every day a stranger hands a souka an infant instead of the police. The police, Kai thought. If they found out they could charge her with kidnapping. Would it really be considered kidnapping if it was given to her though? How is a souka supposed to take care of a child anyway? The train barreled into Harajuku Station’s tunnel, then eased to a complete stop. Kai hoisted the bag over her shoulder and tucked Pusheen-chan underneath her coat, careful to use the one button still hanging on her coat flap to shield the baby from suspicious onlookers. Kai had been living in an abandoned apartment stationed over a small local noodle shop beyond the busy shopping streets in Harajuku. A letter of condemnation had been sealed over the rotting door, describing the residence as a safety issue for the citizens of Japan. The perfect place for three cold and tired souka to crash. Kai skipped up the steps. She kept away from the light leaking out from the noodle shop, away from the owner’s eyes. She slipped through the half broken doorframe into their pent. Elvis’s back was to her and his hips were shaking back and forth violently. His deep voice rumbled in his chest as he hummed “Jailhouse Rock.” Kai lowered the bag to the ground carefully in hopes it wouldn’t make too much noise, but the cans rattled. Elvis stopped his gyrations. “Kai, it’s late. Where you been? What’s under coat?” Elvis pointed to the large swollen lump that was the baby underneath her coat. Kai, still hiding the baby, hoped if she didn’t talk about it maybe there wasn’t something strange about a homeless person raising a child. The baby hiccupped and giggled; its arms waved out from the top of her coat. “You stole a baby?” Elvis asked as he kicked up the duct taped mic stand with his

cheap flashy white boots. He gyrated his hips. “Iie, no. Okaa-san gave Pusheen-chan to me.” “Pusheen? Akachan has a name?” Elvis asked, wiggling his grimy fingers into his thick black beard, scratching at an unknown source around his chin. “Oba, you hear Kai? She got a baby,” Elvis yelled into the dark the room. Kai hoped Oba would be out when she got back. He was not as relaxed when it came to their living situation as Elvis. Oba refused to sleep in the parks or huddle in cardboard boxes like an animal—he was too old for that. Abandoned buildings filled with asbestos and mold were the next best thing. A small glimmer flickered from across the room and the wick of a candle lit, illuminating the face of an elderly man whose cheeks had begun to sag like the forgotten drapes hanging around the pent. He ignored the two of them, stomping over towards the broken basin they used as their sink, fidgeting with some of the old pots and metal scraps flooding the broken porcelain’s rim. “Oi, Oba you see new baby or not?” Elvis called again. “There is no baby,” Oba muttered to the ground. Elvis worked his greasy hands some more underneath his beard, saying, “Baby right here Oba, what do you mean?” He spun around, hand gripping the edge of the sink, the thin robe draped around his skinny body twirling from a sudden breeze blasting from underneath the doorway. Kai took the green tarp from the ground and wrapped it around her back as she stationed herself in front of the drafty door, blocking the wind from entering. “You want to be souka, there is no baby,” Oba said to Elvis, ignoring Kai. “We can’t just leave her, Oba,” Kai said, gently rocking her back and forth. She remembered from back home how her mother had done that with her brother as an infant to help him sleep. “You try to fit in with us,” Oba called from the sink, scrubbing at an old rusty pot he had been soaking with rainwater from the night before with a broken brush, “but you speak too much English. Too much, too much, everyone know you not Japanese.” Kai sat curled up in the tarp, blocking the draft that leaked through the bottom of the rotting door. She found herself absentmindedly caressing the temple of Pusheenchan calming both of their restlessness. Kai knew she couldn’t provide for Pusheenchan, not in conditions like these, but bringing her to the police could get her involved in ways she’d rather not be. Oba and Elvis began to banter back and forth about the ethics of homelessness etiquette and Elvis’s lack of participation in finding a new building to crash for the upcoming month. Pusheen-chan’s hand wrapped around Kai’s finger, pulling it

towards her face where she nuzzled the finger before closing her eyes. Kai couldn’t help but smile. There had never been a fondness for children within her before; perhaps that was changing. A swift slap on the back of Kai’s head knocked her to the side, bringing her attention back to Oba and Elvis. “You can’t keep baby. You make no money. We are homeless, souka. Unless you work for gang or Hajime no way we can help her,” Oba said. He crossed his arms, the dripping broken brush in one hand. “We can’t just give her up, Oba. She has no mother.” “Like you can be her new Okaa-san. You are souka. You choose how you are to live. Give up your life or get job, work for gang or Hajime. You want out of souka, here is chance.”

The baby went through the milk and diapers Kai had stolen faster than she anticipated. It had been several days and she had been unable to leave the pent to help Elvis and Oba scour dumpsters, lift from tourist’s pockets, or find a new place to sleep. Oba stopped talking to her after he had singed the tip of his long thin beard over the open flame on the stove while cooking noodles Elvis had borrowed from downstairs. He did not admit it, but she had seen him staring at her and Pusheen-chan from across the room, watching them angrily and it was this distraction that caused him to lose two inches of his beloved beard. Elvis had quit singing his “Hound Dog” cover since Pusheen-chan grew overly excited, squealing at his thick drawls mixed in with a strong Japanese accent. Kai left the pent later that night after Oba had disappeared for the tunnels and Elvis had fallen asleep along the green tarp next to Pusheen-chan’s cardboard box crib. She wound her way through the alleys until she hit the main vein in Harajuku Station, Takeshita Street. The neon strobe lights were still flickering, beckoning tourists and fashion addicts to enter their store and sort through their wares. Beyond the hair salon and gothic Lolita store was a small convenience shop that sold minimal necessities. Kai skirted the end of the aisles, her head lowered away from the cashier. She ducked into the row she needed and scooped several boxes of baby formula. The young girl was too busy flipping through a teen magazine to notice Kai slip back outside with the baby food. She was lucky it was not the girl’s mother there that night or she wouldn’t have been able to set foot in the shop. Tucking the boxes beneath her coat, Kai turned the corner of the street to make her way back to the pent house when a man violently bumped into her. The boxes exploded from underneath her coat, landing around their feet. “I didn’t know you had a kid, Kai. Congratulations,” Hajime said, grinning as he

removed his sleek sunglasses from around his tan, slender face. This was the last person Kai had wanted to see. “She’s not mine, I’m just taking care of her.” Kai dropped down to the ground, grabbing the boxes hurriedly, hoping Hajime had somewhere else to be. “That’s good. Wouldn’t want to ruin that cute figure of yours.” Kai could imagine Hajime’s face at the moment, smirking down at her, imagining her in one of those outfits his girls wear every night. She could never sink low enough to sell herself like that; she’d rather be a souka the rest of her life. Hajime’s hand lightly touched the top of Kai’s as he passed a box of the formula to her. His eyes reminded her of Pusheen-chan’s, soft brown, like the chocolate she used to eat before she ran away. She did not like thinking of her baby as being similar to Hajime. She lowered her eyes to the ground, searching for more stray boxes she had dropped. “You know I can make sure you make enough money to support that kid of yours,” Hajime said, taking the last box of formula from the ground and holding it just out of Kai’s reach. She stood up from her knees, keeping her eyes to the ground and avoiding Hajime’s. Maybe if she ignored him long enough he’d leave her alone so she could get back to Pusheen-chan. Hajime fingered the end of some of Kai’s hair, rubbing the course texture between his fingertips like he was testing its purity or potential for future cash. “There is no point in dying your hair black to fit in, Hakujin. We all know you’re a Gaijin, an outsider here. Your English is too good, your figure and face too shallow and lean, and your hair too light. Why not use what makes you different,” Hajime took a step closer to Kai, pressing the box to her chest gently, “to make some money?” Kai had known it would be pointless to disappear in a place so foreign to her and be treated like everyone else. But that did not mean she would be one of Hajime’s girls. As if sensing Kai’s desperation to leave and her sudden possibility of flight, he slid his arm around hers, leading her away from the direction of their pent and Pusheenchan and further down Takeshita Street. “Why don’t I show you the place, it’s much nicer than you think. We treat all of our women with the greatest respect.” Kai was sure that the women would disagree but she did not pull away from him. Some part of her wanted to see what it was like to be a dancer. A car was parked in front of a cigarette dispenser, the driver smoking, waiting for Hajime’s return. He opened the door for them and drove out of Harajuku towards Shinjuku district.

In the cramped vehicle, Kai caught whiffs of herself. She wondered how Hajime could stand her stench of garbage and baby formula or her greasy hair and frumpy clothes. He put his sunglasses back on, even though it was nighttime, and stared ahead. Kai hadn’t noticed the slim fitting suit he had been wearing and the sleek black shoes adorning his feet. They both cost more than the rent would have been at the pent house for over a year. But she didn’t want money from a business such as his, she reminded herself. The car slowed to a halt in front of a black store, red lights flooding the street. A large red cushioned door opened for Hajime and Kai and a thick man greeted them, giving them permission to enter. The inside was dimly lit, small candles lighting the tables speckled across the room. Several women walked back and forth between tables before settling at one to join in conversation with elderly businessmen, their slinky dresses revealing just enough. But center stage was where the money was being made. “Her name is Pixie for her haircut. She’s one of our most popular girls,” Hajime told Kai next to the bar. He ordered a small clear drink and watched her perform on stage, dancing underneath the smoky lighting, the layers of her red and black dress gradually being shed. “Pixie makes over 50,000 yen a night, and has a family,” Hajime continued. Kai had been sitting at one of the stools in front of the bar but slid off, walking away from the dancing woman and Hajime. Hajime opened up Kai’s coat and took the baby formula boxes out, lining them up on the counter in front of her. He caught her arm, pulling her over to him. “I know this isn’t the line of work you want. It’s not what any of these girls want, not really. But it gets them by for now.” He released her and brushed some dirt away from her coat. “If you’re going to take care of that baby you need to start thinking of it before you. The souka life is no life for a child, here you can provide for it. Even if it’s temporary.” Kai wondered how Hajime had been able to drop his Japanese accent. He spoke in clear English then switched to Japanese and ordered one of the men to bring something from the back. “Think about it. You don’t have to dance right away if you don’t want to. But it makes the most money and you’ll need cash to make a deposit if you’re gonna find a place to live. I can help you with that too.” He reached inside his suit pocket and handed her a personal business card. The name of his business was not etched in it, but had his home address along with his cellphone number scrawled in a romantic font. Kai couldn’t help but blush. She wondered why he would give her something as personal as his phone number and home address when he had only ever been interested in her working for him. The man appeared from the back with a small shopping bag filled with tissue.

Hajime slid the formula boxes into the already stuffed bag and handed it to Kai saying, “Here’s something in case you change your mind. You know how to contact me. If you or your baby ever needs anything, give me a call.” Hajime escorted Kai back outside to the car. He opened her door once more and helped her inside. He did not join her in the ride back and she was grateful. She needed some time to think about what Hajime had said. She knew she could not raise Pusheen-chan alone, and homeless. There was no way to provide shelter, food and an education for her. But dancing for money? Kai thought. There must be something about her that made Hajime so desperate to have her work for him, and that would mean even more money, more than 50,000 yen a night— maybe enough to raise Pusheen-chan. Kai shook the idea from her head. She was a souka, homeless, and there was no way out of her life. She chose it and now she had to figure something else out. She wouldn’t be able to make that much money a night anyway; she didn’t even know how to dance. At least she had Elvis and Oba, she wasn’t completely alone. The car pulled in front of the noodle shop, its doors closed and barred for the night. Kai waved the man away, nervous as to how he knew where she was staying. Kai sluggishly climbed the steps thinking of how she should have ordered food while she was with Hajime, she hadn’t eaten anything since finding Pusheen-chan. Kai stopped her ascent as she heard shrill cries escaping from her pent. She dashed up the rest of the stairs, slamming the already open door to the side. The condemned room was torn to pieces. The green tarp and Elvis’s belongings were gone. Oba’s pots and candles and slippers no longer occupied the kitchen. Pusheen-chan’s cardboard box was upturned. The baby lay on the cold dirty ground for who knows how long. Kai picked up the baby, shushing her quietly, bouncing her up and down as she searched the apartment for Oba and Elvis. They were gone and so was her bag. They had left to find a new place to sleep while she had been with Hajime. Kai could feel her chest tighten. Her heart grew heavy as she sat down on the broken couch. A plume of dust and dirt leaked out from where she sat and Pusheenchan coughed, calming down as Kai continued to rock her. She had forgotten to get diapers. She was out of diapers. Kai looked towards the name brand shopping bag Hajime had given to her. She lowered the baby onto the couch and removed the tissues and formula boxes to the ground. She pulled out another box, this one with a Japanese woman on the front and sleek light hair, and a piece of clothing that was deep red and much too short for her figure. She threw them back in the bag and paced the room, staring at Hajime’s business card.

It wasn’t safe for her to be here alone, not without Oba and Elvis, and she was not going to a shelter. Pusheen-chan sighed as she drifted back to sleep. You have to think about the baby before yourself. But did she have to? She had lived on her own for a long time and had learned she was the most important person out there. Did a baby have to change that? Kai looked back towards the shopping bag, reading the instructions on the back of the hair dye box she found tucked underneath the tissue.

Kai shifted the shopping bag uneasily in her hand, balancing the heavy baby in her other arm. She felt the smooth tips of her blonde hair, the natural color shining bright underneath the subway station’s lights. She had tucked it underneath a cap she had picked up from a newspaper stand, trying to keep attention away from the homeless girl with a baby and a designer shopping bag. She waited impatiently for the train to appear at Yamenote Station as Pusheen-chan slept underneath her coat. She pulled the business card out from her pocket again, memorizing Hajime’s address. He lived only a couple of stations away from Harajuku. Kai flicked the card with her fingers down into the tunnel and looked ahead at the tracks imagining the cap of a woman’s head bobbing up and down along the tracks as she waited for the train to approach. She waited for the train to decide which stop would be her new home.