No More Us for You (10 page)

The man scratched his beard and waved us off and staggered back to his house mumbling to himself. He cocked his arm, then tossed an invisible football at his home. When he reached his front yard, he sat on the grass and leaned on his elbows and looked up at the dark blue of the evening.

“Let's go before he comes back,” I said.

Heidi walked ahead of me. “Good idea.”

We hurried to the car and jumped in, keeping our eye on the drunk man. When we pulled away he was still
sitting on his lawn, looking skyward, perhaps talking to the moon. Before we turned down the street I looked back at the candles we'd left on the curb, shining brightly in each glass as if sunlight could be made into a drink.

In the parking lot outside the museum, I sat in my car with my hands on the steering wheel and watched a yellow butterfly fumble around for nearly a minute—this way, that way, spirals and loops. I listed every screwed-up thing that had happened over the past three weeks: Vanessa dying, Snake in a coma, Suji getting pregnant, Mira breaking up with me, and, lastly, the asshole who'd pissed on the museum floor on my first day at work. The butterfly bounced around like a piece of confetti caught above an air vent until it finally landed on the side of the
museum wall, opening and closing its wings like tiny hands clapping.

Someone rapped against the driver's-side window and I jumped in my seat. It was Nadine, the museum guard from the east wing. I caught my breath and rolled down the window.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” she said.

“It's okay,” I said.

“Is everything all right?”

“Oh yeah, I'm fine.” I realized that I was still holding on to the steering wheel and let go of it.

Nadine nodded like she didn't believe me. “Okay, I'll see you inside then.”

I stayed in my car and watched the butterfly for a few more minutes, its wings quivering with each passing breeze. I closed my eyes and listened to the traffic on Alamitos, to the whispering of tires over pavement, how they got louder and louder as they approached the museum, then faded away down the street, like the ocean's back-and-forth with the shore.

When I stepped inside the museum, Ms. Otto was
behind the front desk, talking on the phone and writing on a notepad at the same time. “I understand,” she said. “Yes, you're absolutely right.” She lifted her eyes and saw me and tapped her watch with the eraser-end of her pencil. “Let me call you back. I have someone here I need to talk to.”

As soon as she hung up I said, “Sorry I'm late.”

“That's okay. How are you holding up?”

“So-so.”

“How's your friend doing?”

“He's still in a coma.”

Ms. Otto slowly shook her head. “I'm sorry.” She put her palm to her forehead like she was checking if she had a fever. “I can't believe Vanessa is gone and I won't see her sweet face behind this counter again.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I'll be there. You?”

“I'm going to try to make it. I have a million things to do before next month's show. I haven't even sent out a mailing.”

“Let me know if you need any help.”

“Thanks, Carlos,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

The phone rang and Ms. Otto picked up. Her face stiffened and she slammed the phone down. “Another crank,” she said.

“Maybe it's that guy who peed in the museum?” I said.

“I wouldn't be surprised.” She stepped out from the front desk and headed back to her office, then quickly turned around and tore off the top sheet on the notepad beside the telephone. “Almost forgot,” she said.

As I walked to my post, Leonard was staring at me with his arms folded and his head cocked at an angle. “You're late,” he said flatly.

“I know, I know,” I said. “My bad.”

He let out a puff of air between his lips and stood up from his chair. “Some of us have shit to do. Some of us have places to be at.”

“Sorry, brutha.”

He laughed then, big and sarcastic.
“Sorry, brutha,”
he repeated, mocking me.
“My bad.”
He placed one hand on his belly and laughed through his teeth, a hissing sound
like an air pump filling a basketball.

I took Leonard's seat and felt my cheeks getting hot.

“I bet you live in a
real
nice neighborhood, in a
real
nice house,” he said. “Picket fences and shit.”

“We don't have fences.”

“Whatever,
dawg
.” He strolled away with that easy stride of his and stopped beside the rag doll Jesus. He bent down and lifted his head off the floor so the doll faced in my direction.
“My bad,”
Leonard said from the side of his mouth like a ventriloquist. He laughed some more through his teeth and walked out of the museum with his left arm swinging fluidly at his side.

I added this exchange with Leonard to my “Screwed-Up Things That Have Happened Over the Past Three Weeks” list.

I patted my coat pocket even though I knew I'd forgotten to bring my Red Vines. It wasn't long before I began chewing on my fingernails, one after the other, then spitting them out on the floor. I didn't care. I used to worry about little things like homework or zits or whether or not a person gets too close to the art pieces. Someone could've
kicked the pile of green sand in the corner for all I cared. I was tempted to do it myself.

A woman walked into the museum talking loudly on her cell phone, waving one arm and saying “I know” a thousand times, with different inflections—I
know
…
I
know…
I know
—like some actor rehearsing her one line in a movie. I scowled at her. She palmed the mouthpiece and lowered her voice and kept talking, probably still repeating the same two words.

“No cell phones in the museum,” I said even though I wasn't sure if that was a rule.

The woman covered the mouthpiece and turned to me. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. If you need to talk, please do it outside.”

“That's crazy.”

“I
know
,” I said, smirking.

She squinted at me and then made her way toward the front entrance, still chattering on the phone.

A man walked in shortly after with a smug look on his face. He reeked of cologne and wore a fancy suit and fancy shoes, a large ring with a black stone on his pinkie.
Car dealer, I thought. The Mafia.

“You call this art?” he asked me.

“It is what it is,” I said.

“Don't you have an opinion…” He leaned in close to read my name tag. “Carlos?”

“Please, step back,” I said, lifting my hand up. “Your cologne's making me nauseous.”

The man jerked back. His eyelids rose a fraction of an inch.

“What is that, anyway?” I said, slapping the air in front of me. “Gorilla Piss No. 5?”

The man spun around on his expensive shoes and headed toward the exit, his soles clicking fast on the hardwood floor.

Others came and went—men and women, teenagers and kids. I tried not to look angry or irritated or depressed, which made me feel even more angry, irritated, and depressed. A boy reached with his little hand toward the black painting of the war dead and his mother quickly grabbed his wrist. “You can't touch, sweetie,” she said.

“Listen to your mommy,” I told the boy.

The woman looked at me and pushed up a phony smile.

I showed her my teeth.

“I'm doing your job,” she said, laughing nervously.

I stopped smiling. “Parenting isn't my job.”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.”

She steered her child away from the painting and together they made their way toward the exit. I waved sarcastically, my hand swinging wildly above my head like I was hailing a cab.

I laughed and laughed.

Then I thought about Snake, the soda can that held on to his shoe when he'd stomped down on it. How he'd limped across the basketball courts. How his foot had clanked with every right step.

Then my face crumpled and I cried.

I dragged my sleeve over my face and took a deep breath and sat some more, but now with the added bonus of a headache throbbing between my eyes.

 

My shift was almost over when Nadine walked in from the east wing of the museum. “Who knew sitting in one spot could be so exhausting,” she said, yawning. “I need a coffee IV drip hooked up to my arm.”

I said nothing. My head was somewhere else.

Nadine stood before Richard's neon sign, her glasses reflecting the buzzing pink words. She pulled out her ponytail and held the rubber band in her mouth, then tipped her head back and shook her blond hair loose. It swept across her shoulders like velvet gold. By the time she pulled her hair back through the O of her rubber band, I was standing beside her.

“Hey,” she said.

I stared at a single blond strand swaying lazily next to her ear, above the blue shoulder of her coat.

“Your eyes look red. Have you been crying?”

“My friend's in a coma,” I said.

Nadine stepped forward and gave me a hug. “I know,” she said. “I'm so sorry.” Her hair brushed against my cheek and smelled of honey. My arms hung limp at my sides, dead weight. Then my hands rose to her waist and I
pulled her in, I tilted my head and moved my mouth over hers. Her body stiffened. She leaned back and brought her hands up to my chest, pushing me away. “What the hell are you doing?”

I looked at her shoes, the hardwood floor between them. “I wasn't…that wasn't…” I stammered.

“You can't
do
that,” she said.

“I'm sorry.”

“I know you're upset about your friend and all, but still.”

“It's not just him,” I said. “It's everything.”

Nadine folded her arms. “Whatever it is, it doesn't give you license to kiss me.”

“I promise it won't happen again.”

“That's for damn sure.” Nadine wiped her mouth and headed back to her post.

I sat back down and tried to erase what had just happened from my mind.

I patted my coat pocket again.

I chewed on my fingernails even though there wasn't much left to chew.

Soon it was seven o'clock and the sun angled its spotlight through the glass doors of the museum, illuminating the front desk. I walked through the sunlight's particles of dust, out the glass doors, into my car, and headed home—up Alamitos and down 7th, past the golf course and the Daily Grind with its large pink doughnut propped above the roof like a life preserver floating in the sky. At home I shucked off my uniform and threw on a T-shirt and jeans. I ate spaghetti and meatballs with my parents and answered their questions.
I'm okay. The funeral's tomorrow. No, I don't have to work. Yes. I haven't decided yet. They won't let me see Snake, I told you already. No, I haven't talked to her. Stop bringing her up. No thanks, I'm full.
I rinsed my plate in the sink and watched television in my room and fell asleep in the middle of
America's Most Wanted
.

I was in Ms. Wagner's health class again, sitting in the back row with Snake. The lights went out and the video came on. I turned to Snake and said,
Don't watch this
. He grinned in the blue shine of the TV. I tried to move my arms, but they were like two sandbags lying on my desk. On the screen, a man's lower leg ballooned, the skin
stretched and blushed to purple.
Snake
, I said.
Please don't watch
. A scalpel went through the man's leg and it popped, the skin flapped open and the bone showed itself, white as chalk. Snake toppled over, his body slammed onto the floor, the lights came on. I stood with the other students around him while Ms. Wagner caressed his forehead, then she lightly slapped his cheek, then threw a glass of water in his face, then screamed at him, then punched him in the mouth, then brought her leg back and kicked his head violently.
I guess he doesn't want to wake up
, she said.
Class dismissed
. Once we were all outside, Ms. Wagner locked the classroom door and squirted ketchup on her key and swallowed it. Minutes passed, maybe hours, maybe days. I stood at the classroom window and framed my hands around my eyes and peered in. Snake was still on the floor, but older now, with short hair and a beard and a gut, sleeping with his head on a pillow.

I woke up with the television murmuring, a snail trail of drool on my chin. According to the digital clock it was a quarter past midnight. I flipped on my computer and saw that Mira was online. My hands hovered over
the keyboard and mouse for a while before I decided to send her an IM:

 

CarlosD: cant sleep?

 

I turned on my stereo and tapped the volume low and leaned back in my swivel chair, my fingers threaded behind my head, waiting for her response.

 

MiraGirl89: Hey, I was just thinking about you. How are you?

CarlosD: just woke up from a nightmare

MiraGirl89: I'm sorry.

CarlosD: about snake

MiraGirl89: I feel so bad for you. I know he was one of your best friends.

CarlosD: is

CarlosD: he still IS one of my best friends

MiraGirl89: That was dumb of me. I can't believe I typed that.

CarlosD: forget it

CarlosD: so how are you doing?

MiraGirl89: Okay, I guess.

MiraGirl89: Actually, not okay.

CarlosD: whats going on?

MiraGirl89: Steve made a comment about my tits being small.

CarlosD: he is already on my shit list

MiraGirl89: Like I needed to be reminded how small they are.

MiraGirl89: But that's all trivial compared to what happened this week…with Snake and everything.

MiraGirl89: You still there?

CarlosD: im here

MiraGirl89: How are your parents?

CarlosD: they're good. my mom asks about you every now and then

MiraGirl89: She's sweet. Tell her I said Hello. And your dad.

MiraGirl89: Hello?

CarlosD: i miss you

MiraGirl89: I miss you too.

MiraGirl89: I think about you all the time.

CarlosD: can i swing by?