Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

There are a half-dozen kindergartens, day care centers, public and private schools, and three or four public playgrounds inside the circle. There are kids’ ballet studios, martial arts studios, art classes, music classes, and SAT preparation classes located inside the circle. Inside the circle everywhere you look the children are already gathering.

He makes an appointment anyhow to come by and check out the room as soon as he gets off work at the Mirador and she says fine. He takes a box of Marlboro Gold from his backpack, knocks a cigarette loose, and lights it. He asks about pets and she says no dogs or cats.

He says, Oh, followed by a longish pause. How about a pet iguana?

She knows what an iguana is. She asks how big is it.

Not big, he lies. It sleeps all day and can live in a box under the bed. It doesn’t make any noise and won’t damage anything.

She says she’ll have to see it first and then decide.

He’s okay with that. He says he was thinking of giving him away anyhow. To a friend, he lies again.

Then she asks his name. As usual he wants to tell her Kid. But no way he can get away with it. End of interview. He knows what she’ll do with the information as soon as he gets off the phone. He says his real name anyhow. He has to.

They say good-bye and he clicks off. He imagines her going straight to the Internet to run his name. He’s been through all this before — how many times? Fifty? A hundred? It’s a total waste of time, energy, and hope and he knows he won’t bother to show up at the appointed time and place. Even so he’ll make a call to a second agent. And a third. And probably a fourth. Before finally once again he’ll give up the search for a home.

It’s an hour before the Kid has to be a busboy again and pedestrian traffic has thickened somewhat with tourists, brunchers, and dog walkers strolling past the café and grabbing seats nearby in increasing numbers until all the tables are taken and the Kid has noticed a clutch of people gathered by the headwaiter’s stand staring pointedly in his direction. He folds up his map and is about to leave the café and does not see the two bottle-blond girls in bikinis Rollerblading his way until they circle his table eyeing him like a pair of hawks riding a rising thermal high above a distracted mouse. As their shadows cross him he looks up and instinctively ducks. He wishes he had a hole to dive into. One bikini is pink polka-dotted, the other is tiger striped. Both girls wear carefully tousled honey-colored manes, black fingernail polish, lovingly applied makeup, and the usual navel rings. Polka-dot snaps one of his ears with her thumb and forefinger and keeps circling. Rolling along behind her Tiger-stripe does the same to his other ear.

Ow-w! Cut that shit out, man!

They flash their gleaming teeth and make a second loop. They are both genetic wonders, their smooth tight bodies evenly toasted a golden brown, flesh firm as an unripe Bosc pear, symmetrical faces with pertly sculpted noses and chins. They’re not quite twins, probably not even sisters — Polka’s cheekbones are a little higher than Tiger’s and she’s maybe two inches taller — but have been manufactured from the same prototype by a bored God for no better reason than to satisfy His private eyes.

But for the Kid as the girls skate arabesques around his table everything mingles and blurs. Gold bracelets and earrings glint in the late-morning sun. Flocks of screeching green parrots watch like an aroused audience from the palms and tamarind trees that crowd the center of the mall.

The Kid wants the girls to go away, please go away, and he wants them to stay and stay, please stay. He glances at each girl’s plum-shaped breasts as she passes, her taut belly, the sweet little pouch between her legs and he looks quickly off and up to her mischievously smiling face and as she swirls past and disappears in back of him he switches to the other girl’s face and down to breasts, belly, and pouch and then off her body at once bang and when she disappears behind him his gaze swings back to the face of the first girl again. He mustn’t linger on her body anywhere he mustn’t and tries fixing on her face but can’t keep himself located there for more than a second. His head nods up and down like a stringed puppet’s saying yes yes yes and flops side to side from one girl to the other saying no no no until finally they stop circling over him and Polka dives for the chair next to his and plants her elbows on the table and cups her head in her hands and gazes through half-lidded jade green contacts into his blinking eyes. All her moves very exact, very studied, very likely practiced in front of a mirror. Tiger comes to a stop too but stands next to him and watches as if holding a tray waiting her turn at a cafeteria counter. He feels his throat start to close and his blood thickens all through his body and he swallows hard but then suddenly realizes that seen up close like this the girls are not what they seem, they’re not grown women, eighteen- or twenty-year-old women. They’re girls. Teenage girls. A glistening pearl of sweat slips from Polka’s throat across her chest and slides between her breasts. Thirteen- or at best fourteen-year-old girls.

You guys… you guys oughta get the fuck outa here.

Aw, c’mon, little dude, we’re only trying to turn you on.

Yeah? Well, I ain’t turned on so forget about it, man. I got places to go, things to do.

You look so sad and cute sitting here all by yourself we figured you wanted company. We’re like cheerleaders. You know, like for cheering people up. Doncha wanna get cheered up?

The Kid sits back in his chair, folds his arms over his chest, and crosses one leg over the other trying to look gruff and casual at the same time. A grown man. Ex-military.

Tiger reaches down, pats his ankle through his jeans, and tugs his cuff back a few inches. What’s that thing?

Whaddaya mean? Nothin’.

No, what is it? It’s cool-looking.

Polka leans across the table for a look-see and the Kid quickly yanks his cuff back to his sneaker but can’t help peering down Polka’s bikini top. He can see between her breasts all the way to her dangling navel ring. Her glistening tanned skin is wet with sweat down there. And guaranteed warm to the touch.

Polka says, Show me. What is it?

Tiger says, Is it some kind of camera? Or a secret recorder? Are you a spy, little dude? You must be a secret spy working for the government, like in the CIA.

It’s nothin’.

I bet you’re spying on people. I can tell. Okay? You’re like sitting here pretending to read the paper and stuff only you’re really like a private detective checking on somebody’s wife meeting her boyfriend for sex.

Polka says, Cool! and yanks his cuff halfway up his calf. The Kid uncrosses his legs and plants both feet on the pavement under the table and shakes his cuff down.

No! It’s only… it’s like a kind of monitor. I got a heart condition and it monitors my heartbeat.

Awesome! Let’s see it work then. Let’s check your heartbeat. See if we can get it racing. See if we can give you a heart attack. That’d be really cool. Get you excited enough to have a heart attack. What’s your name?

Kid.

Awesome! I’m Stephanie and she’s Latisha. You want to play with us, Kid?

What do you mean, play with you?

Whatever you like. You got any money?

No.

Okay. You got a ATM card? I see you got a map there. We can show you some fun places if you want. You got a car? Where’s your hotel?