The Orange Houses Read online

  They trained down to the ferry, sipping cheap beer from a brown bag.

  Mik said and signed, “I feel bad, corrupting you.”

  “Do you think I am such a nerd?” Fatima signed the words letter by letter with her hand. “Correct?”

  “Yes to both.”

  A homeless man begged. They gave him NaNa’s sandwiches.

  “You think he’s okay?” Mik said.

  She knew Mik was speaking of Jimmi. “Yes. You?”

  “Yes. You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. You too?”

  “Yes.”

  They sipped the beer, but without laughter now.

  The ferry was nearly empty, the fog thick, the water rough. They ate concession-stand pizza. It was hot and delicious. They bought tourist T-shirts and silly foam hats, Liberty’s spiked crown. They took pictures of each other posing like Liberty with Mik’s phone. A tourist took a shot of them together, twin Liberties. A little drunk, they talked nonstop about happy things, the kids at the VA hospital, handsome boys—

  “That one is staring at you,” Mik said.

  Fatima turned. “I think he is staring at you.”

  “Am I red? Stop looking at them.”

  Fatima waved. “Hello.”

  Mik slapped down Fatima’s hand. “Look, here they come now.”

  The boy and his friend sat next to the girls. “What up?” the first boy said. He nudged Mik.

  Mik blushed. Fatima laughed.

  “We wondering what y’all hiding under that scarf,” the other said.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Fatima winked.

  “Fatima,” Mik said.

  “Where y’all headed?” the boy said. He tried to hold Fatima’s hand.

  “I believe you must know this boat only goes to the Statue of Liberty.” Fatima playfully slapped away the boy’s hand.

  Mik dragged Fatima into the bathroom. “Put a leash on you, girl.”

  “Do we have any more beer?” Fatima said.

  “No.” Mik undid her hair in the dented metal mirror and tied it back to pin her ears.

  Fatima washed her hands as she watched Mik. “I do not know why you hide them. Look at these ears, fantastic. They are so big. I would love to decorate them with shiny things.”

  “That’s only gonna make folks look at ’em more.”

  “Exactly.”

  An announcement came over the PA system: Due to the inclement weather, we will be forced to turn the boat around. This is as close as we get to Liberty today, folks. Take pictures while you can.

  “What did he say?” Mik said.

  The ferry turning broadside, Fatima and Mik ran to the boat railing to glimpse the Great Lady. She was far away. Fog covered all but her feet.

  Mik hung her arm on Fatima’s shoulder.

  “You have to laugh,” Fatima said. And she did.

  chapter 22

  TAMIKA

  The Bronx West strip, Monday, nine days before the hanging, 7:00 p.m. . . .

  Laughing arm in arm they skipped the strip across from the O Houses. The strip’s lights airbrushed the night red and green. A boy whistled at Fatima. “Two boys flirted with me today—a record. Why are they looking at me?”

  Mik pointed to Fatima’s reflection in a parked car’s glass. Fatima’s reflection smiled back at them. “Your eyes,” Mik said. “They’re crinkling.”

  “Yours too.”

  Mik nodded.

  A pack of girls shoved Fatima before they ran off. Their screams blew out Mik’s hearing aids. They said something about horror, or terror.

  “Did they just call you a—”

  “Terrorist.”

  “Yo!” Mik said. “Come back here and say that.”

  “Do not bait them,” Fatima said.

  “Folks are ignorant. You gotta lose the scarf.”

  “Impossible. It was my mother’s.” Fatima pulled the shawl higher to cover her scar.

  “They’re coming back,” Mik said.

  “Please do not even think about calling the police.”

  “Then let’s duck into a store.” They went into Jimmy Jazz’s, a HELP WANTED sign by the register. Mik asked for an application.

  The manager stole a peek at Mik’s hearing aids as he handed her the paper.

  “I gotta take it home to get my Moms to sign it, right?” Mik said.

  “Either way,” the dude said.

  Mik nodded. Yeah, she wasn’t getting this job.

  The dude eyed Fatima. “You probably want one too, huh?”

  Fatima looked around the store, smiled, shook no.

  They went out, the posse gone.

  “They play fun music in there,” Fatima said. “Maybe someday if I win a green card—”

  A dude cut in front of them with a German shepherd that looked like Joe’s Tranquilito. Mik went to pet it. The dog snapped at her. The dog’s owner pulled a badge on a necklace from his shirt. “We’re working here.”

  Mik nodded, backed up. Fatima was gone. Mik hunted the strip. Fatima had backpedaled into the shadows under the elevated train. “I must go,” she said.

  “What about dinner? NaNa’s expecting you.”

  “They are across the street too, the police, in front of your building.”

  “Girl, they’re not looking for you. Those are drug-sniffing dogs. Those guys are narcs. You got to stop being so paranoid.”

  Red and blue lights peppered the building behind Fatima. A siren chirped. An NYPD cruiser slow-rolled the strip. The cop in the shotgun seat spotted folks with a handheld searchlight.

  “Sister Mik, I have to bounce.”

  “Wait for me then.”

  “No, go home. NaNa—”

  Mik stuck her phone in Fatima’s hand. “Call her, tell her I’m sleeping over. Except we won’t be sleeping.”

  “Please explain.”

  “We better stop for coffee first. C’mon. We’ll get you to Liberty yet.”

  They hooked into the alley, then uphill into the dark park.

  Mik and Fatima studied the Liberty brochure in the flashlight. The statue’s official name was Liberty Enlightening the World.

  From Fatima’s cart they unloaded the buckets of old paint they had taken from the ghost house a week and a half earlier to paint Fatima’s yard. They lined them up in front of the abandoned NYPD garage door. “The cops never come here anymore,” Mik said. “I promise.”

  “I trust you,” Fatima said. “I do.”

  They set up the accordion ladder they found with the paint.

  The streetlights were dead. They took turns lighting the garage for each other with the flashlight. In the dim light and over the gang graffiti they painted the statue, adding six ultraviolet wings to Liberty as she looked over an expressionist cityscape. Then in every color they painted part of what Fatima said she wished she had seen more than anything else: the plaque inside Liberty’s pedestal, Emma Lazarus’s poem. Fatima had memorized it long before she came to America.

  Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

  A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

  Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

  Mother of Exiles

  They did not paint over one part of the wall, where years earlier Jimmi’s patchwork of hearts and clocks had come together to spell out LOVE KILLS TIME.

  Fatima put up her fist for a knuckle bump.

  Mik bumped her. “Like that.”

  Every Third had followed them here. The cat rubbed against Mik’s legs, hissing at her. They had picked up McDonald’s on the way but forgot to eat as the painting drew them in. The cat didn’t mind that the chicken sandwiches were five hours cold. He scratched at the bag. The girls pulled the meat from the fried breading and set it before Every Third. They stepped back to watch the rickety little cat eat at the feet of the great winged lady.

  chapter 23

  JIMMI

  The cave, Tuesday, eight days before the hanging, 3:00 a.m. . . .

  Jimmi didn’t believe in the next world. Why then did he have the feeling Joe was looking over his shoulder as he chiseled the cave floor with a bent screwdriver and a brick?

  ONE.

  LAST.

  TIME.

  He rested his forehead on the floor, whispered into the dust, “Tomorrow I’m back on the wagon, Joe. I swear.”

  He went to buy until he remembered he was broke. He waited in the alley.

  The low-level methamphetamine dealer rushed out of his tenement. He hopped into the Navigator he’d parked in front of a dead hydrant two minutes earlier.

  The car gunning out of sight, Jimmi slipped into the building, up to the second floor, the last crib on the left. He stuck an awl into the lock. One shot with the side of a cloth-covered hammer, thunk, twist, and he was in with a lot less noise than you’d think.

  He left the lights off and made his way by feel into the kitchen, to the cabinet where the dealer kept his stash.

  The cabinet had no stash tonight. He was about to jet when something in the back of the cabinet caught his eye—a dim glint. The microwave clock light reflected off something peeking out from behind a fat bag of sugar. Jimmi shoved the sugar aside and found a Colt .45, old-school silver.

  Interesting.

  You come looking for drugs and you find a pistola.

  He hadn’t held one since his time in the desert. He hadn’t wanted to use it, but he did. He told Joe about that night, the botched raid. Joe understood. Joe’d had to bust a few caps in his day. Joe did know. Not anymore though.

  Now there was nobody to talk to.

  Maybe this was God’s way of telling Jimmi the time had come to end this life filled with too many lousy surprises.

  He checked the safety, then the wheel, chock-full o’ bullies. He tipped the cylinder, letting the slugs backslide out of their chambers. The .45 caliber bullet was a showstop per all right. He pocketed the slugs and tucked the gun into his waistband.

  Creaking behind him, the bedroom door opened. The lights popped on. The dealer’s big dude brother, tall as Jimmi and twice as thick, said, “Kill you, junkie.”

  Jimmi swung past the dude for the back bedroom, kicked the door shut behind him, jumped the sill as the door blew in. Clear of the window he rolled hard onto the fire escape. He dropped down to the back courtyard and sprinted into the alley. The dealer’s brother chased, a nine in hand.

  Out on the street, kids were playing punchball in the dawn light. A five-year-old—maybe—ran hard into the street to catch a fly.

  Jimmi doubled back and pushed the little kid clear of a cab skidding sideways. The cab clipped Jimmi. He rolled up the hood, over the shield, dropped off the back. He would ache everywhere tomorrow. He looked at the kid. “Tell me you all right.”

  The kid’s shock gave way to tears of embarrassment. He was clean.

  Jimmi scrambled for the dropped gun. He ducked into the highway traffic to lose the dealer’s brother. Out of breath the dude stopped chasing. He yelled, “Crazy Jimmi, you a dead man.”

  The morning sun took a bite out of the tenement cliff. Jimmi disappeared in the glare. He limped into the underpass and dropped into the gutter alongside the Amtrak rails. He whistled “Amazing Grace” as he studied the Colt. He cocked the hammer, ka-click. “How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”

  chapter 24

  TAMIKA

  School, Mik’s lunch spot under the stairs, Tuesday, eight days before the hanging . . .

  She stared at the bank check Mom put in her hand that morning. The audiologist had called. The new hearing aids were ready for pickup. She calculated how much of Joe Knows’s money would be left after she paid the doctor and wondered if that plus her savings from her homework business would be enough for the immigration lawyer. No. She’d need help from Mom and then some.

  A velvet box floated into her lap. She followed the string up to Gale. He winked to her from the stairwell landing. She had been hiding from him, but now she tapped a spot of bench next to her. He sat.

  Mik eyed the book-size box. “Big engagement ring,” she said.

  “Better than that,” he said.

  She opened the box: a pen. It was not the one she wanted. It was nicer. She fought a want to cut her lip on his braces again. “I can’t accept this.”

  “Why?”

  “Homeboy, you can’t buy your way into making somebody love you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Gale, I can’t commit to a, you know, whachamacallit.”

  “Relationship?”

  “Can y’all settle for us being friends?”

  “I still love you, though.

  “Lemme see your homework.”

  “Please keep the pen?”

  She mussed his fledgling braids. “You got a lot of free math coming your way.”

  Life was getting complicated. Now she had three friends to worry about. She gave him half her PBJ. They ate in silence.

  Fatima waited right out front. So did a girl from Shanelle’s posse. The chick waved to Mik, the wave turning into a salute, middle finger only.

  “The universal sign,” Fatima said.

  “You don’t want to try them on here?” the doctor said.

  Mik shook no.

  “But we should calibrate them.”

  I’LL FIGURE IT OUT. I WANT TO BE HOME THE FIRST TIME, Mik signed.

  The doctor frowned, looked to Fatima.

  Fatima shrugged.

  THANK YOU, Mik signed. She put the new aids in her pocket and left.

  Back in the O Houses, they hung in Mik’s room. She slid the new aids out of their case. A quarter of the size of her old bud-style aids, they were two thin tubes that left her ear canals wide open.

  “You should wait for Mom, no?” Fatima said.

  Mik clicked on the aids. If sound were color, everything was too bright. If it were a hand, it scratched the backs of Mik’s eyes with sharpened nails. The metallic sizzle in her throat reminded her of the time that girl in second grade tricked her into licking the top of a nine-volt battery.

  Someone was clinking dishes as she washed them in the apartment across the breezeway. Mik felt as if the woman were smashing the plates over Mik’s head.

  A baby screeched from another apartment. He might as well have been screaming in Mik’s ear.

  Every sound in the world demanded Mik’s full attention. Hundreds, thousands of fingers poked her, Hey, Yo, Check me out, Yo I said, Listen to me, Hey—

  Everything was “too real.”

  She clicked off the aids. Her ear canals open, the sound didn’t cut out.

  No more silky silence.

  Everything far away but not far away enough. Unclear.

  She felt naked. She cupped her ears.

  Fatima nudged her. “No?”

  Mik put her old aids back in. “Why’d she make me do this? Wasting all that money.”

  “Maybe you will try again later.”

  “Maybe not.”

  Fatima nodded. “Regardless of whether you wear the new aids or don’t?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Love Mom.”

  DOC LIED, Mik signed. THEY’RE UNCOMFORTABLE.

  “What?” Mom said.

  Mik hung the dishtowel and went into her room. She pulled out her sketchbook and the new pen. She didn’t care that Mom followed and watched her from the door.

  “Mika, you just have to get used to them. Can you at least take the old ones out of your ears?”

  “Mom, just . . . Can you leave me alone? Please, okay?”

  Mom nodded. “I just want you to know, you hurt me, girlfriend.”

  “It has to be my decision—”

  “Not that. Y’all do what you want with the aids. But the fact that you didn’t wait for me to be here with you when you turned them on? After all that time, the two of us working to get you to this point? All those hours I’m double-shifting, Mika? The years? How could you do that to me?” Mom left.

  Mik followed her to her bedroom, knocked. She tried the door, locked.

  chapter 25

  JIMMI

  Jimmi’s cave, Tuesday, eight days before the hanging, 11:00 p.m. . . .

  He was having a full-blown conversation with himself. “You won’t. I will. You ain’t got the heart. I won’t in a second.”

  He put the gun to his heart, pulled the trigger, click.

  He’d been doing this on and off for the last day, rehearsal for the real deal.

  He’d seen friends and enemies do it overseas. The rope and knife left grimaces on the corpses. The gun left no sign of regret. He slipped a bullet into the chamber and put the gun to his temple. He asked God to send him a sign about whether or not to snap the trigger. None came.

  He cocked the hammer, clamped his eyes, said, “If a better world than this.” He tried to see that world. He couldn’t. Instead he sensed what a blindworm must feel when it digs too deep: gritty dark.

  In that dark came a flash of Joe Knows, a scrap of memory: Joe laughing the time Jimmi brought him a cake for his birthday.

  Jimmi put the gun down. He had to do one last thing for Joe.

  chapter 26

  FATIMA

  McDonald’s, Wednesday, seven days before the hanging, 4:00 p.m. . . .

  While Mik was in the bathroom Fatima studied a free Spanish paper. Articles were translated into English on the opposite page. Fatima taught herself the language as she hunted for news from the east. Word of Africa’s troubles had dropped from print for the most part, at least from the rag Fatima sold, but sometimes El Día covered world events.

  Not today.

  Mik came back. Fatima showed her how to make a dog out of a burger wrapper. This would be today’s lesson at the VA. YOU WILL LEAD THE CLASS? Fatima signed.