FOR MANY MOMENTS, when the lights became bright and the music ended and the protectors began motioning for all the kufar to stand and leave, Bassam assumed the time for closing had come and he was relieved, for after leaving the small black room he could not summon the discipline to go, to walk from this den of Shaytan and drive east for Tariq and Imad.
No, again he was too weak.
He sat at a table in the far shadows against the wall so that he might watch more dancing for the mushrikoon, so that he may see again what the black whore showed to him and what he did not have the courage to ask April to see. He had never seen one so closely before and still he trembled from it, his hatred for these kufar rising with the knowledge of his own weakness.
He leans against the Neon leased by Amir. He smokes a cigarette and he must calm himself for the red truck keeping him in this place is only temporary.
He had watched the young ones dress, watched them step into undergarments which still showed their backsides. He watched them pull on their black or red or silver brassieres, pushing their nuhood into them without feeling. The lights were bright upon them, and he could see on one a red rash behind her knee, on another the flesh of her rear area was dimpled when in the darker light it was not, on another—the one from China or Cambodia who had touched his shoulders—there was a raised scar on her arm as if she’d been burned or removed an inked symbol from her skin.
They were so plainly of this earth and they were not what waited for him. No, do not forget this, weak Bassam, do not forget for you and your brothers there wait women more beautiful than could ever be made here, women picked by the Creator, the Merciful, the All-Knowing Sustainer and Provider, do not forget He has chosen for you women who have never lain with a man.
And is it not better to go to them pure himself?
At the bar two whores smoke cigarettes. He makes himself think of cutting their throats, how the short blade must be forced into the skin below the jaw. The artery there. He does not care if they feel pain, for anyway it will be brief, and he does not worry of their souls burning for they have brought it upon themselves.
But to kill bodies he has never lain with—this is what weakens him.
MAMA KEPT HER condo cold as a crypt. Said it helped her breathe better. Sleep better. AJ usually didn’t like it, but standing in the dark hallway, his keys in his good hand, the door closed behind him, it was like cool water in his face waking him up and clearing his head. He listened for Mama’s breathing in her bedroom. She’d never snored till her lungs started to go and now she had to wear that oxygen tube which day and night gave off a slight whistle that got louder when she slept. Or maybe it didn’t get louder, just seemed it when there were no other noises in the air. He heard her now, a rising whistle and falling wheeze that was the sound he’d almost grown used to these last few weeks.
He had to hurry. Couldn’t chance the child waking up only to get scared and start crying and he wished Mama’s place wasn’t in the rear with no windows facing the carport. There wasn’t an all-night coffee place anywhere near here. If he didn’t get some soon he wouldn’t make it till morning and goddamn if he was going to nod off and get in a wreck with that little kid in his truck.
He was just going to have to make it here. Get some ice for the pack too. He stepped into the darkened TV room where each night he slept on the foldout couch. If he went to the Puma she always set it up and made it for him. It was there now, and Mama had dragged the coffee table to the foot of it. He just wanted to stretch out and rest awhile. He dropped his keys on the mattress and sat on the low oak table Eddie’d built her not long before he died. It wasn’t her birthday or their anniversary or anything but he used to do that sometimes, build her some shelves or a birdhouse or planter and he’d sand it, urethane or paint it, then present it to her as shy and proud as a boy, his face red, his glazed eyes darting from her to what he’d made, then back to her.
AJ sat on it, his hand and arm pulsing fire through his bones. He kept it pressed across his chest and with one hand got his boots untied and off pretty easy. He put them up against the TV and stood, heard a cry. He held his breath and listened. The cry came again and he moved quickly down the hallway for the door, heard it spaced evenly from the last—too evenly. He stopped. It was coming from Mama’s room, just a variation of the whistle, that’s all. Still, he had to go check on the girl.
He opened the door and hurried over the carpeted hallway in his socks down the short stairwell to the window in the entry. Cotton curtains of stitched golf clubs hung over it and he parted them and looked out at the carport. From here he could just make out through his windshield her bare feet sticking out from under his T-shirt. They were so small and unmoving. He opened the front door and stuck his head out. There were the running fans in the AC units, the ringing night quiet. But no sweet little girl stirring.
Hurrying back into the cool darkness, he thought how she was sweet, and he pictured being able to keep her. A playmate for Cole. A living doll for Deena to love and raise. And at that age—what was she? two? three at the most?—you could take a kid to a new family and after a couple years they wouldn’t even remember the old one.
In the kitchenette AJ fumbled for the button on the stove’s hood and pressed it, dim fluorescent light spreading over the burners. He dropped a filter into the Mr. Coffee, flipped off the lid of Mama’s Eight O’Clock Colombian, and dumped in enough for a whole pot. He held his hot wrist to his chest and could see he’d have to put the glass pot in the sink because he couldn’t hold it and turn on the tap; just a few hours with one working hand and his mind was already adjusting to the new order. That’s what worried him about leaving Cole: kids got used to things faster than anyone, the cells of their brains and bodies multiplying and dividing all day and night, taking in new information and new food and growing up and over and through things like the wildflowers overrunning Dr. Braden’s ruins. When he saw Cole again, would he come running? Or would he be shy and not remember how much fun the two of them had always had, would he forget how sometimes after work AJ would carry him out to the tall wire grass and throw him up toward the sunset, his boy’s small face alight with fear and joy as AJ caught him under the armpits and let himself fall back into the high grass, the two of them laughing and wanting to get up and do it again? Would he have forgotten that?
AJ poured water into the coffeemaker, slid the glass pot under the filter and flicked the switch. It might take a while to sue Caporelli and then collect. Months probably. But he’d be on workers’ comp and unemployment. He’d go to that anger class for Deena, then move back home. He wondered how she’d take the news of the windfall heading their way. Would she like the idea of adding that second-floor master bedroom and deck? Or would she just want to sell and go buy some place bigger and better? Maybe a house closer to the water, a stuccoed one-story out on one of the keys. He might get enough for that. Wasn’t going to get much done on his place till his bones healed anyway and it’d be just the three of them all day long together. They could get in the truck and drive up and down the coast looking at places. They could go out for lunches at waterfront restaurants. They could play with Cole on the beach, watch the sun slide into the Gulf. It’d be a whole new beginning for them. How could Deena not be happy then?
AJ began unbuttoning his shirt with two fingers, a task he was glad to see he didn’t need two hands for. He went back into the dark hallway and as quietly as he could slid open the bifold door to the closet Mama’d emptied for his clothes. He tried to slip out of his shirt without lowering his hurt arm, but the collar got held up at his shoulders so he had to drop both hands and clench his teeth and let the shirt fall behind him.
But the pants were the hardest yet. They were his cotton Dockers Deena’d bought for him, a silver clasp holding them closed above the zipper. If it was a simple button or snap, he could get it loose with a couple of fingers, which he tried, but it was no good; the left side had to be held still for the right to be pushed to the left, the
n out. That would put pressure on his wrist just where that big prick had broken it.
For a half second he thought of leaving them on, put on a work shirt and his steel-toed boots and hope Cap Jr. didn’t notice. But no. This one had nice pleats in it, which is why he saved them for the Puma. If he left those pants on, he may as well shitcan his plan. Could he ask Mama? Get her to help him? No, it wasn’t quite three and she needed her sleep.
He was alone. It’s what he was used to anyway, wasn’t he? He gripped his pants between his pulsing thumb and forefinger, squeezed his eyes shut, took a breath, clenched his teeth, and pushed what felt like a molten sword up his arm into his brain and the air around his head. He let out a cry, he must have, because the room seemed to be in echo and his head felt too light. The smell of fresh coffee filled his nose like a reprieve from God himself.
“Alan? That you?” Her voice was muffled, then clear, like she’d talked into her pillow, then lifted her head.
He waited. Maybe she’d think she dreamt the sound he had to’ve made. But he was sure she could see the stove light now, and smell the coffee too.
“Alan?”
He heard the squeeze and release of her bedsprings. With his good hand he held his pants up and hurried over to the open doorway. “It’s me, Mama. Go back to sleep.” Her room smelled like cigarette smoke—old, new, and future.
“What’s wrong, honey? Were you hollering?”
“No.” His arm hurt more now than it had all night. He pictured the fracture in the bone opened wider by what he’d just done. “You must’ve dreamed it.”
A pale light from one of the security lights outside shone through the curtains. In it Mama looked small and old. Her head was bent low, and the oxygen tube ran from her face down into the darkness of the floor and the air-on-wheels tank.
“Why you making coffee? It’s three in the morning, hon.”
“Pipeline broke over in Sarasota. I got called in for overtime.”
“Oh.” She reached for her cigarettes, shook one out, and lit up with her lighter. It was a motion he’d seen her perform ten thousand times, as much a part of her as her voice and hair, her eyes and smell. Still, he never liked seeing that open flame around the oxygen.
“I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
“My cell phone, Mama.” He reached for her doorknob. “Want me to shut this so you can sleep?”
She exhaled a blue stream in the dark air in front of her. She shook her head and stubbed out her cigarette. “No, I’ll make you something to eat.”
“No time, Mama. I’ll get something later. Go back to sleep.” He walked into her room over the vacuumed wall-to-wall, holding his pants up and letting his hurt arm down like there was nothing wrong with it. He kissed the top of her head, her once-black hair gray and white now, thin and dry. “Go on back to sleep.”
“You be careful.”
“G’night, Mama.”
“That wife of yours know how hard you work?”
“She does.”
She slid back under the covers, her oxygen tube slapping the bedside table. “I hope so, son. I hope so.”
JEAN SAT IN the dark under the mango sipping Shiraz. She’d gulped the first glass and half of the second, and this and the high walls around her garden and the garden itself—its night-blooming fragrances, its dim tangle of beauty laid out before her, calmed her enough that she could breathe more easily now, the weight momentarily lifted from her chest. But she kept seeing the face of the man on the motorcycle, his whiskers and vacant eyes, and she shuddered at the thought of being naked on a stage in front of such men. How did April do it?
Of course it might be easier if you weren’t ashamed of your body—as Jean was, as she’d always been—then it wouldn’t be so hard to flaunt. But still, they had to show everything, didn’t they? Their breasts and bottom, their crotch? She’d never done that even for Harry, and it had pained her whenever they made love in daylight and he would peek down there as he positioned himself between her legs. The shame she’d always felt. Why? But she shoved the question away as if it were an errant fly: she didn’t deserve the right to this kind of introspection; she’d set out to bring Franny home and failed. Jean knew April liked her money, that she had nice outfits and plans for a home, but she couldn’t have called in sick just this once?
Jean’s heart was beating dull and quick in her chest. She made herself lean back and breathe deeply through her nose. She tried to relax her shoulders and upper back. Her arm was sore from where the IV had gone, and while she knew she hadn’t had a heart attack today she did have two of the other kind and how many more could her old heart take?
Though for all her fears, the ease with which she slipped into a panic, death itself did not frighten her so much; when she was ten or eleven years old in Kansas City, Papa would let her ride out with him to the plains where he went to deliver the babies of farm women. All those fields of wheat, the big barns and farm machinery, some of it horse-drawn, the unpainted clapboard houses under the trees, the smells of pig manure and the chicken houses, her father’s sweet pipe tobacco smoke as she followed him in her pride and happiness up porch steps to wait while he climbed to the room where the women were.
And sometimes the babies were born dead. On the way home he drove quietly, reaching over now and then to squeeze her knee or pat her shoulder; he’d speak about nature, and Jean could feel his failure inside the car like thick air and she’d be grateful she hadn’t died coming into this world. He’d tell her how pioneer women used to have many children, partly because they knew some would die and so it was a constant cycle of hope and loss, hope and loss, though these were not the words he used.
For days or weeks after each stillborn, Jean would move through her afternoons in a state of wonder and gratitude. She’d look across her sliced pork roast and snap peas at her two brothers, both older, both heavy and obnoxious, and she’d be thankful that the worst for her was simply having to put up with them, their calling her Jean the Jelly Bean, the way they both treated her as if she were some kind of mistake, nearly worthless. But she knew better: she had survived being born when so many did not. She had lived and, therefore, if for no other reason, she was special in a way, was meant for something in this world.
Now, decades later, pouring herself the last of the Shiraz under her own mango tree, the invisible bully’s weight temporarily off her, she had no idea what her purpose had been—raising money for parks and museums? being Harry Hanson’s companion and lover all those years? tending this garden and looking after Franny Connors? These were not silly pursuits really, especially the last—if it weren’t for that child, Jean believed she’d be almost ready to go. Before Franny there were really only objects to leave behind—her house and car, her investment portfolio, her lovely garden.
Even now, in the darkness, what she could see and smell was a feast for her; all along the wall were dozens of white flowers of her frangipani; at her feet, in cedar boxes, were the yellow hibiscus and trumpet-shaped allamanda, and beyond them, hanging from the palm trunk, were the dim orange flowers of the bougainvillea vine, the jacaranda. Before Franny Connors this was all she worried about leaving behind: Who would care for them? Would the new owners keep them or tear them up to put in a pool or lawn, toss them—roots and all—into a Dumpster somewhere? Just thinking this could bring on the fears, and for the past few months, as they got worse, she assumed it was partly because her garden had gotten more lush and breathtaking, that witnessing its zenith was already triggering in her the expectation of its demise.
The night was quiet now. Jean squinted at her watch, a useless exercise in the dark. Still, it had to be very late, close to two probably. Within an hour April would be home, lifting Franny from the car and carrying her up the back steps. Jean’s mornings with her—it was as if her body at this late stage had just discovered an organ it didn’t know it had, one that made her feel more alive and necessary than before. It was a feeling she’d never completely had for anyone else: her
father, her husband—love wasn’t a big enough word.
Far off on the Gulf came the low echoed blast of a freighter’s horn. Jean sipped her wine, its warmth spreading out in her chest, and she knew that if Franny’s life would be long and joyous if she, Jean, were to die in her dark aromatic garden right now, then let it come. Let Death come and find her happy to go. Happy to.
AJ HAD PICKED out a pair of Wranglers he could snap with one hand. Untying his work boots had been one thing, but tying them back up would be another. Maybe after he’d iced his wrist awhile he’d be able to use it, though he doubted it. It hurt worse now than it had since Deena put her considerable weight on it. As soon as he got to the hospital he’d insist on some pain pills, the kind the pharmacist at Walgreen’s kept locked up.
He poured himself some coffee into one of Mama’s mugs. She had a collection from all the hotels and inns she’d ever worked. This one had an etching on it of an alligator, sailboat, and two crossed tennis rackets. He blew on the coffee and sipped it, strong and bitter the way he liked. The T-shirt he wore was clean and he decided to just leave it on and wear that with his jeans and boots he wasn’t going to bother trying to lace up just yet. He opened Mama’s front door, made sure it was unlocked, then carried his coffee down the hallway and front stairs and outside to check on the girl, his bootlaces slapping along.