The Orange Houses Page 2

  The VA set him up with a spot at the halfway house, a part-time sweep job at the hospital, benefit checks he forgot to cash and all the happy drugs he could stand. To those he added the occasional hit of crack cocaine. But now, eight months later, he was tired of being either jazzed or numb. He wrote on the mirror:

  TIME TO FEEL AGAIN,

  KNOW THE TRIBE OF MAN

  FOR ALL ITS JOY AND HURT.

  He dumped his many antipsychotic meds into the toilet, grabbed his oversized skateboard and poetry slam notebooks and did a swan dive out the second-story window. A forward flip later he landed in a Dumpster soupy with wet cardboard and kitchen garbage. He was filthy but all right. He hopped his board and slalomed the back alley trash into the street and the thickening gray of the afternoon rain. “Hallelujah,” he said, opening himself to the thunderstorm.

  Jimmi Sixes was on a mission. He had to know: Was life worth living?

  chapter 5

  FATIMA

  A noisy Bronx West side street, Monday, twenty-three days before the hanging, 2:00 p.m. . . .

  In Mexico they call the one who smuggles you into Texas the coyote, but the one who takes you from the refugee camps in Africa, across the ocean to New York, is the shark.

  Fatima’s shark sent her to a man who sold newspapers. He worked from a cluttered old house in what most considered a rough patch of Bronx. “You think this is rough?” Fatima said.

  The man smiled. He had escaped a horrendous refugee situation a few years before. He was known to help illegals with connections to work and housing—for a price. “Do you have the money?”

  Fatima gave the man half of what she had left after the boat ride: five hundred dollars.

  The man counted the money. “Good. Be here by four a.m. to pick up your papers. After that I sell them to someone else.” He scratched an address onto a paper scrap. “This woman will rent you a room for fifty dollars a week. Now sit, I have advice for you.” All of it began with Never, ending with: “Never let the police see you. The laws are changing. In this neighborhood you are all right. The police do not come here much. They would have to arrest everyone if they did. Where I am sending you to sell your papers is also safe. You will work by the highway, just east of the Orange Houses. Many people shortcut to the subway there. If you work hard, you will save two hundred dollars each week. What will you do with all this cash?”

  “In six months I will have enough to bring my sister here. Six months after that, we will bring two more.”

  “I believe you will. You are strong. Your English is excellent. You will make a good life here—if you keep your wits about you. Focus on but one thing: money. Keep to yourself.” He gave her a newspaper. “Here. Learn about this crazy wonderful country. Do you have any questions?”

  “How do I get to the Statue of Liberty?”

  “Do not go there. It is a tourist trap.”

  Fatima paid four weeks rent to the old woman who showed her the small basement apartment. “I am sorry it is so bare and dark,” the woman said.

  “It is wonderful.” Fatima meant what she said, always.

  “On garbage days people on the nicer block just uphill leave out treasures. Perhaps you will find some furniture. Where are your suitcases?”

  Fatima tapped her backpack.

  Her newspaper tucked under her arm, she explored her new neighborhood. She found a small park facing the veterans’ hospital, whose buildings occupied much of the district’s acreage. She sat at a concrete checkers table with a cup of cart coffee, the most wonderful she’d tasted, loaded with sugar. In the crisp clear afternoon air she wept.

  A little girl approached. “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I am happy.”

  “Then you got to be smiling. What happened to your face?” The girl pointed to a slash scar crossing Fatima’s cheek.

  Fatima smiled. “Sit. I must show you something.” She waved to the girl’s mother, watching from a distance. The mother waved back, gabbing into her phone. “Do you like angels?” Fatima asked the girl.

  “Angels aren’t real.”

  “Until you make one.” Fatima pulled two sheets of newspaper from her daily and put one in front of the girl. “Do as I do.” She folded the paper longwise, then in a series of crimps and tucks leading toward an angel.

  The girl followed along. She eyed Fatima’s left hand. “What happened to your fingers?”

  Fatima smiled. Her pinky and ring finger were gone. If she held up the hand, say to block a machete blade, the angle of the slash through her palm would match that of the slash crossing her cheek. “You are a great angel maker.” Fatima gave her own paper angel to the girl. “For your mother.”

  The girl ran off. “Ma, check it out.”

  Fatima started in on another angel.

  “I saw what you did.” Behind her was a tall, handsome young man, his skateboard tucked under his arm, his face a battered god’s.

  “Why are you crying?” Fatima said.

  “Just mad happy is all,” the man said.

  “You are mad and happy at the same time?”

  “Who’s the third angel for?”

  “I like always to have one in my pocket.”

  “For good luck.”

  “To give away.” Fatima finished the angel with fast hands. She pulled a tab, and the angel collapsed. Another tab righted the angel, its wings a starburst. She gave it to the young man.

  He studied it. He gently pressed it to his heart. “Yo, I’m Jimmi. Want you to meet a friend of mine. C’mon, just across the way there, the hoop courts.”

  Fatima studied the man, his smile, and knew he was a good man. She followed cautiously as this Jimmi led her across the street to the hospital yard.

  “What’s y’all’s tag?” Jimmi said.

  Fatima checked the side seam of her ratty sweatshirt. “Champion.”

  Jimmi’s laugh was quiet and true. “Your name?”

  “Fatima.”

  Veterans in wheelchairs played a ferocious game of basketball. Jimmi waved to the referee, a dour man.

  Seeing Jimmi, the referee blew his whistle and barked, “Take five.” He jogged to the chain-link fence. “Got a call from the halfway, James. Went AWOL, huh? I called your supe, dude said you missed work last two days.”

  “Been sick.”

  “Brother, are you jonesing?”

  “Job brings me down, man. Was forcing myself over there when I met this young lady here.”

  “Where y’all holing up, James?”

  “Fatima, George heads up volunteer activities for the hospital. George, Fatima is an artist.”

  George sighed. He turned from Jimmi to Fatima and sized her up with suspicious eyes. “Any teaching experience?”

  Back in the refugee camp Fatima taught English to the younger girls. She lived to teach. She nodded.

  “You looking for a job?” the sad George said.

  Fatima squinted. “What are you paying?”

  “Goodwill.”

  chapter 6

  TAMIKA

  A bodega, Tuesday, twenty-two days before the hanging, 5:00 p.m. . . .

  Mik helped out part-time after school. She was doing inventory when the matted, panicked German shepherd nipped at her jeans. She followed him to the next aisle, where old Joe Knows sat slumped on a flipped crate. He’d fallen asleep with a lit cigarette in his mouth again. Mik pinched the cigarette and helped the narcoleptic limp to the back office, where he slumped into a folding chair surrounded by cases of expired Goya cans.

  Here’s why he was Joe Knows: You come in feeling like trash, eyes and nose runny with flu, Joe says, “Under the weather?” You want to hot key your phone DUH, but instead you nod politely. Joe taps his temple, says, “See? Old Joe knows.” He loved Mik, thought she should run for President of Everything. He paid her more than he had to, eight bucks an hour OTB. He knew Mik and Mom were saving for the surgery, the one Mik wasn’t sure she wanted. She felt bad keeping Joe and Mom in the dark about her ho
mework business money. But how else could she buy art supplies, paper, ink, that pen?

  A flare outside the window itched Mik’s eye. The magic man was cutting a curb rail on his double wide silver long-board. Jimmi Sixes did tricks on that plank to make a dull day gleam. He strode tall through the bodega door, put up his fist for a pound. “How you be, kid?” he said.

  Mik winked.

  A woman with a baby in her arms lugged a milk gallon to the counter. She hunted her purse for coins, didn’t have enough. She grabbed the milk and started back for the fridge.

  Jimmi stopped her with a five spot gently slapped to the counter. “On me.”

  “I couldn’t,” the woman said.

  “How old your girl? She a girl, yeah?”

  The woman nodded. “She about to make a year.”

  Jimmi bagged the milk for the woman and got the door for her.

  “God bless you,” the woman said.

  “He does every day I’m aboveground,” Jimmi said. “I reckon.” He let the child squeeze his finger as the woman went. He nodded to Mik. “Think old Joe let you skip early?”

  Key the phone: Y

  “I’m-a hook you up with a friend of mine. Chick turns newspaper into seraphim.”

  Mik cocked her head, put up six fingers, mimed fluttering wings.

  “Yup,” Jimmi said. “Six-winged angels.”

  His board skated the gentle grade downhill in slow arcs, the front wheels parting the rainwater. They rode as one, Mik in front. He had his hands on her shoulders. She wished he would put them on her hips. He was eighteen, but dreaming was free.

  Mik was crushing on near every boy these days, but Jimmi was different. He was so perfect she didn’t want to sex it up with him. She wanted to skip straight to what she dreamed came after, the holding, staring into his sad black eyes.

  Jimmi wasn’t like that, though. He was big bro to her since she was a little kid. His lady, Alyssa was her name—no, Julyssa, was older than Jimmi before she killed herself. Jimmi always dated up and dated pretty, much prettier than flag-eared Meek-a Sykes.

  He steered the board down a side street past an abandoned warehouse where the police used to keep impounded vehicles. The side of the building was forever fresh-tagged with hatred, Crip-Blood battles, the Latin Kings and MS- 13. Four years back Jimmi pitched the precinct captain that he could round up kids to paint over the graffiti with scenes from the neighborhood. He would set the paint to rhyme. The captain loved it. Mik’s contribution was the reservoir on a summer day, no people, no birds, just a clear lake reflecting empty sky—now buried after four years of taggers and bombers spanking the derelict garage. But one of Jimmi’s lines still shouted out through the scrawl: LOVE KILLS TIME. From far away the letters seemed to come together from speckles of red and white paint, but when you got close you saw fist-sized hearts and clock faces with their hands stopped at midnight.

  She heard him in her ear, a low, distant rumble, soothing but indecipherable. She clicked on her aids. “Say again,” she said. She could talk a little in front of Jimmi. He never would make fun of anybody.

  “You know the If trick?” Even her lousy aids couldn’t ruin his deep, gentle voice.

  She shook no.

  “Learned it overseas. Think of a place you wanna go.”

  “Anywhere but here. Train ride.”

  “Okay, now put If in front of it, and y’all are there.” He spoke slowly, enunciating each syllable, somehow managing not to sound patronizing. “Close y’all’s eyes.”

  She did, trusting him to keep her from falling from the skateboard, letting him balance her, swaying with him, squeezing his hands.

  “That’s right, Mik. Now, If a train.”

  “If a train.”

  “See yourself standing on top of that train, girl. Let it get moving. You feel it now grooving? Clicka-clicka, wheels on tracks be soothing. Spread your wings, catch the wind of kings, lift yourself to the heart of things, swing moons and stars and galactic rings.”

  She almost saw it: Tamika Sykes standing on a train, stepping onto a cloud, reaching up . . .

  “Open your eyes, kid.”

  The board stopped. They were by the highway overpass. In front of Mik and between a mound of garbage and a torched car was a stack of newspapers on an upturned milk crate. Behind the stack was a tall beautiful girl, her head wrapped in a shawl. She wore a curious smile. A scar on her cheek peeked out from the head-wrap. Her eyes were big and light brown against her dark skin. She wore a dirty hand-me-down coat too small for her, threadbare jeans and hole-shot sneakers. Despite the cold, damp day she wore no socks.

  Jimmi took the girl’s hand and brought it to Mik’s.

  The girl’s hand was rough like the sackcloth the root vegetables came in on delivery day at Joe Knows’s place. Her fingers were warm, strong.

  Confused, the women turned to Jimmi.

  Jimmi nodded. “Here’s what I see: two artists. Y’all are gonna create the most beautiful thing in the world.”

  And what’s that? Mik thought as her phone vibrated. She drew back her hand to pull the phone from her pocket. Caller ID said MOM, who always texted, never called. Mik turned away, cupped her hand to hide her voice as she said, “Yeah?”

  Mom was screaming, her words wicked static in the cheap phone. Mik crushed the receiver to her ear, still couldn’t put together what Mom was saying. Panicked, she hit speaker, yelled, “You okay? Where are you?”

  “RIGHT BEHIND YOU,” blasted from the phone. “I SAID, Y’ALL GET AWAY FROM THAT CRAZY JIMMI. CRACKHEAD GONNA—”

  Mik snapped the phone, spotted Mom running along the Target sidewalk toward her.

  Jimmi made double peace signs, one for Mik, one for the paper girl, and sailed off on his board, no rush. “Don’t sweat yourself, kid. Mind y’all’s Moms.”

  The paper girl stepped back, putting the stack of news between herself and trouble. She stared at Mik.

  Mom spun Mik with a shoulder grab. “How many times I got to tell you, Mika? Y’all know how them vets are, coming back all whacked and jacked on drugs. Look at that poor boy. He got the itch all right. You don’t know what they’re liable to do, child. Just because he sick don’t mean you got to share his ills.” Mom eyed the newspaper girl. “What happened to the little old Mexican man used to work this spot?”

  The girl gulped.

  Mom spun for the O Houses, shouting something.

  Mik couldn’t make out the words in the wind playing hell with her aids. She signed, WHAT?

  Mom signed back stiffly, I SAID GET OVER HERE, NOW.

  Mik signed, YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET ALL FREAKED OUT. RELAX.

  Mom, coming back for Mik now: “I caught about half of that.”

  The paper girl tucked a note into Mik’s hand.

  Mom grabbed Mik’s arm. “Mika, come.”

  Girls on the corner laughed at Mik as Mom towed her home. Two boys eyed Mom, early thirties and eye candy, even in her Target uniform. One boy put a peace sign to his lips, his tongue between his fingers. The other hollered, “Yo baby, my boy lick y’all’s—”

  Mik clicked off her aids. The boys’ howling hushed. Mom’s anger could not reach her. The nastiness evaporated.

  Everything.

  Just.

  Faded away.

  Taking shelter in the near silence, Mik looked back at the papergirl. She was waving. No, she was signing, HELLO, GOOD-BYE, I LOVE YOU.

  I love you?

  Mik looked down at what the girl tucked into her hand: a paper angel with six wings.

  Mom jerked Mik forward. The angel fell from Mik’s palm into the rain stream washing toward the sewer.

  “Mika, I’m sorry. What else do you want me to say?” Mom popped a Relpax.

  NaNa stroked Mom’s hand. “Sandrine, my hairdresser, she got the migraines too, she goes to the acupuncture, headache gone, girl.”

  “My junk insurance doesn’t cover the acupuncture, sweetheart.” Then to Mik: “You hear what I’m telling you, right?
I know it isn’t Jimmi’s fault, but he is what he has become, dig? Are your aids on? Turn, them, on. Now. Those boys see things over there . . . I don’t know. Crazy Jimmi Sixes means himself every flavor of harm. You don’t want to be there when he snaps.”

  Mik spooned chili onto three plates. “He’s nice to me.”

  “The devil’s sugar will rot your soul,” Mom said.

  “Now-now, Drine Sykes, I wouldn’t pin the devil on Jimmi,” NaNa said. “Confusion yes, Satan no. I sat that child how many nights when he wasn’t in foster care, his poor mother scrambling all over God’s world. Jimmi is sweet and he is good.”

  Mom rolled her eyes.

  Mik signed, WE OWE THAT PAPER GAL AN APOLOGY.

  Mom massaged her left eye. “I don’t know what she said,” she said to NaNa.

  “Speak, child,” NaNa said.

  Mik cleared her throat. “I think we should have that newspaper girl over for dinner.”

  Mom squinted, cocked her head.

  Mik avoided Mom’s look. Exactly why was she drawn to this paper girl? Must be something in her eyes. Something nobody else has. That newspaper angel was pretty hype too. More than that, the chick signed, but she wasn’t deaf. Her hands were slower and clumsier than Mom’s even. Mom was mediocre on a good day despite Mik’s constant teaching. Why would the girl know hand language?

  “Imagine that.” NaNa picked her teeth with a postcard from the junk mail left out on the kitchen table. “I do believe at long last Mika’s getting lonesome.”

  “Tt, chili’s getting cold,” Mik said.

  chapter 7

  FATIMA

  A diner, Tuesday, twenty-two days before the hanging, 8:00 p.m. . . .

  The food was inexpensive and delicious. Fatima savored each french fry as she wrote her sister a letter that ended with Good-bye, I love you—