saw the bright grillwork of the old Chevy, Luis came out of the back, swinging the bag. The Chevy approached, a few cars back from the light at Midvale. Jimmy’s eyes went back and forth, back and forth, while the car inched along and Luis took his fucking time getting to the front table.
Jimmy crabwalked along the front of the Gardens, his head on a swivel. Luis seemed to be looking out the front door, and Jimmy was ready to drop to his shaking knees if Luis swung his head around. The Chevy was there, three cars back from the intersection, and Luis was still standing at the door. Jimmy could see the Asian kid in the front seat, his cap bright red. Jimmy was breathing hard and mumbling under his breath,
The light changed, going yellow and then red, and the Chevy stopped hard. Luis opened his hand and dropped the bag, turning to the counter. Jimmy took two steps, three and stuck his head in the door. Luis was close, his back turned. There was a line of sweat baked through his massive white T-shirt and he smelled like starch and fried food. Jimmy put his hand out and touched the bag, his hand formed into a hard L shape that scooped it off the table. Luis said, “Hey,” and Jimmy looked up to see who he was talking to and it was Grace, who cocked her head as Jimmy stepped backward out the door, the bag up at his chest, and they looked at each other and she saw Jimmy plain with the bag, and her eyebrows went up but he was gone.
He walked past the bar next door and Major Wing Lee’s at the corner looking straight ahead. The Chevy must have gone by but he didn’t see it. He felt naked and cold walking down the street, the plastic bag feeling like it was melting his hands, something inside folded up the size of maybe a sandwich. The money, or the dope. He wanted to look, but he just made the turn up Midvale and then took a clumsy skip step that became an uneven lope and then he was jogging past Buckets and the little storefronts until he hit Frederick, cut left, and ran hard.
He made his way uphill to Stanton, out of breath after thirty yards. Where the road turned to the left, he jumped the low wall and tumbled down the incline to the tracks, ran half a block to the base of a high-tension tower. He dropped down onto the gravel by the tracks, spit up some peach brandy, and sat wheezing, his heart going, wiping at the sweat leeching out of his hair. He wanted to look in the bag, but instead he stuck it in his jacket and forced himself up again.
For some reason he expected sirens, though he knew that was stupid. He ran a few steps, then slowed to a jog, then walked, one hand pressed against his chest like an old man. He kept moving east, sticking to the tracks, watching cars move on the nearby streets, looking for the green Chevy. When he had a gone a few more blocks, he threw himself over a fence into some weeds and lay down, overwhelmed for a minute by the luxuriant smell of leaves and long grass. The sun was going down, and lights snapped on at the familiar-looking highrise he could see over the tops of the trees ahead. After a minute, he realized he was back on the grounds of the Youth Study Center. He bolted up, threw himself over the fence, and ran back west, laughing.
He walked slower and slower the closer he got to Ridge, dropping down the narrow, canted streets, stopping to glance back up the hill behind him and keeping his head down. There were people out on the stoops, kids coming out after dinner to play until they couldn’t see anymore. He remembered that, stubbornly standing in the street in the dark with a hockey mask on, chasing up and down until it got so black they’d lose the puck.
It was full on dark when he stopped at the last driveway on Eveline and made his way behind the stores and restaurants that fronted Ridge. The first two buildings were unoccupied, and he could see through the empty first floors to the street in front of the Imperial. There was an ambulance in the driveway of the firehouse, its strobe lights flashing crazily and turning the street red and blue and white. There were cops in uniform stringing that yellow tape they always show on TV and guys in suits with badges hanging from their pockets. Everyone was pointing, making notes on clipboards, or talking into radios. Stunned by the sight of it, Jimmy forgot for a minute why he was there and wondered what had happened, figuring there must have been an accident.
When one of the cops shined a flashlight into the store, he dropped like he’d been shot and scuttled along the gravel to the end of the building, then ducked into the alley that led to his fire escape and pulled it down, wincing at every metallic groan and breathing through his mouth, his face hot, his hands slick with sweat.
Upstairs, he dropped onto his bed, breathless, and watched the lights from the cop cars and ambulances flash onto his ceiling. He got up slowly, keeping his head down, slid along the floor to the bathroom, and closed the door before turning on the light. He splashed water on his streaked face. He looked in the mirror, angling to see his T- shirt, now gray with dust. Inventoried his scrapes and bruises, the open cut over one knuckle, and his torn jeans. He patted at his face and hands with a dirty towel, shut the light off, and stepped out into the dark room. Strange, plasma-like shapes floated in his eyes and seemed to climb the walls. A moment later he saw someone near the bed. Grace Lei.
She was standing over the bed, motionless. The lights from the street played over her white shirt and pale face and the bag. She looked like the robots in his dope dreams, catching the pulsing light, breasts swelling as she breathed. She peered at him, and then the bag, and then him again.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The door was open.”
“It’s okay.” He pointed toward the street. “What happened?”
“Luis got stabbed. Tiger stabbed him.”
“Jesus, because…?” He pointed at the bag.
“Maybe. Who knows what it was about? There was so much blood.” She put her hands over her face. “Tiger came in and said something to Luis, and Luis said something back. And then he pushed Tiger, and Tiger just stuck him. It was fast. I never even saw him get the knife out, he just…” She made a motion with her hand, the knife going in and out, in and out. “Boys like Luis? Tiger? They’re so angry all the time, who knows? You can’t talk to them.”
Jimmy walked over to the bed and they looked down at the bag.
“He said something stupid,” Grace continued, “and Tiger just stuck him. So Luis took off running into the street and Tiger went after him, and this pickup came zooming through and just, you know.” She swallowed. “Just
“Did you say anything? About, you know, me? And the bag?”
“No, I didn’t even think about it, really. Until I was in the room just now.” She looked at him, or seemed to. It was tough to tell in the dark. “I knew you’d be all right to talk to. That you aren’t like Tiger, or Luis.”
They both stood, not saying anything for a while. The bag was dotted with grit from the gravel bed and smeared with Jimmy’s fingerprints. They could hear the police talking to each other in the street, doors slamming.
Finally, Grace squared her shoulders and reached for the bag. Jimmy smiled and she stopped and stared at him, her body taut, arched like the picture he had seen at his aunt’s house, and he thought, yeah, he was the wrong kind of Kelly, but maybe she was the right kind of Grace.
Her slender fingers closed on the bag and he smiled wider, so she said, “What?”
He said, “What if it’s sesame chicken?”
She smiled back, and for the first time he saw her teeth, white and even. “Then,” she said, “we’ll eat.”
A CUT ABOVE BY LAURA SPAGNOLI
Beth pinched the skin between her thumb and index finger almost hard enough to draw blood. She took every step to the beat of a mantra-
What an actor. Literally. And Beth had to see him again to rehearse their final scene. She’d signed up for an acting class at the suggestion of therapists and friends alike, who urged her to find an artistic outlet for her
