sees. It is impossible to calculate our loss. Everything we own.
They ravaged it. Went through. Decimated it. There hadn’t
been much until it was gone. I barely saw the damage the
first time. Barely saw what was gone. Barely remembered what
had been there. We have nothing left, except some T-shirts.
They have even taken underwear and blue jeans. They have
taken belts. They have taken everything.
The next morning our neighbors all greet us with smiles.
The next morning the boys across the street ask us how things
are going.
The next morning the head of the pack smiles and says hi
girls, next time we gonna come for you.
*
We are sleeping on the narrow mattress in the day. Next door
there is a thunderous sound. The thunderous sound moves
from one end of the apartment to the other and back again.
There are screams and laughs and things crash and break. The
feet are loud and fast, running back and forth. There is only a
thin wooden door between us and the next apartment. The
sound is very loud. It is not precisely human, not identifiably
human: it could be anything: like what? a herd of buffalo: we
are drifting off back to sleep: we dismiss it: it can’t be anything:
it is broad daylight: the sound is thunderous, back and forth,
back and forth: we sleep. Later, we go in. They have been
there, while we slept, in broad daylight. Everything is gone
except for what they left broken so we could see it good. They
didn’t take the TV that was in there. Instead they smashed it.
Hey girls we coming for you.
A knock on our door: head of the pack: hey we gonna pay
66
you girls a visit soon. You ready for us. We gonna have a goodtime. He leans against the door. He smiles. I start to close the door. He stops me, still leaning. Hey girl that ain’t gonna help.
Ain’t nothin gonna help. We coming right in. When we ready.
*
lt is having been asleep, hearing them, hearing the smashing,
hearing the plundering, hearing the raucous laughs: hearing:
while out cold: in a coma of sleep: having seen their knives:
knowing them: sleeping through it but hearing it all the same.
They will come: when they ready.
*
I beg N not to go out but she has a date with R. I don’t really
beg, it isn’t in our code, but I ask, unlikely enough. I ask once.
To my way of thinking, it is begging, don’t leave me here
alone. She wants to go, to get out, to get away, with safe little
R in her safe little apartment. She is afraid. Don’t go.
*
I bolt the door behind them, thinking where I can go. The
banging starts. Knocking first. Then banging. The front door.
