Dave Eggers - What Is The What

I tell him it has been almost a full day. He helps me stand.

'Let's go to the hospital.'

'I'm not injured,' I say, though I have no way of knowing.

We walk to the bathroom, where Achor Achor inspects the cut under the bright lights. He cleans the cut carefully with a towel soaked in warm water. As he does, he takes in a quick breath, then corrects himself.

'Maybe a few stitches. Let's go.'

I insist on calling the police first. I want them to be able to begin the case; I'm certain they will want the warmest trail to follow. The assailants could not be far.

'You pissed your pants.'

'I've been here for a day. What time is it? Is it past noon?'

'One-fifteen.'

'Why are you home?'

'I came to get money for tonight. I was going to Michelle's after work. I'm supposed to be back at the store in ten minutes.'

Achor Achor looks as concerned about getting back to work as he does about me. I go to my closet for a change of clothes. I use the bathroom, showering and changing, spending too long on basic tasks.

Achor Achor knocks. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm so hungry. Do you have food?'

'No. I'll go get some.'

'No!' I say, almost leaping off the toilet. 'Don't go. I'll eat whatever we have here. Don't leave.'

I look in the mirror. The blood has dried on my temple, on my mouth. I finish in the bathroom and Achor Achor gives me half a ham sandwich he has retrieved from the freezer and microwaved. We sit on the couch.

'You were at Michelle's?'

'I'm so sorry, Achak. Who were they?'

'No one we know.'

'If I had been here it wouldn't have happened.'

'I think it would. Look at us. What would we have done?'

We discuss calling the police. We have to quickly review anything that could go wrong if we do. Are our immigration papers in order? They are. Do we have outstanding parking tickets? I have three, Achor Achor two. We calculate whether or not we have enough in checking accounts to pay the tickets if the police demand it. We decide that we do.

Achor Achor makes the call. He tells the dispatcher what has happened, that I was attacked and we were robbed. He neglects to mention that the man had a gun, but I figure it will not matter for now. When the police cars arrive I will have plenty of time to describe the events. I will be taken to the station to look at pictures of criminals who resemble those who assaulted me. I briefly imagine myself testifying against Tonya and Powder, pointing at them across an outraged courtroom. I realize I will know their full names, and they will know mine. Making them pay for this will be satisfying, but I will have to move from here, because their friends will also know my address. In Sudan a crime against one person can pit families against each other, entire clans, until the matter is thoroughly resolved.

Achor Achor and I sit on the couch and it grows quiet between us. Having the police in this apartment causes growing anxiety. I have little luck with cars or police. I have owned a car for three years and have been in six accidents. On January 16, 2004, I was in three accidents in one twenty-four-hour period. All of the incidents were small, at stoplights and driveways and parking lots, but I had to wonder if I was being toyed with. Now, this year, has begun the ordeal of near-constant towing. I have been towed for parking tickets, have been towed for an out-of-date car registration. This happened two weeks ago and began when I passed a police car leaving a Kentucky Fried Chicken. He followed me, turned on his lights, and I pulled over immediately. The man, very tall and white, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, quickly told me that he might take me into jail. 'You want go to jail?' he asked me, suddenly, loudly. I tried to speak. 'Do you?' he interrupted. 'Do you?' I said I did not want to go to jail, and asked why I would be going. 'Wait here,' he said, and I waited in my car as he returned to his. Soon enough I learned that he had pulled me over because the sticker on my license plate had expired; I needed a new, different-colored sticker. For this he saved me-he used the words 'I'm gonna stick my neck out and save you here, kid'-from jail, instead simply forcing me to leave the car on the highway, from which it was towed.

'I think I have to go back to work,' Achor Achor says.

I say nothing. I know he is just thinking through his options. I know he will come with me to the hospital but needs first to assess how difficult it will be to call his supervisor. He feels he could be fired any day for any reason, and taking an afternoon off is not a decision easily arrived upon.

'I could tell them what happened,' he says.

'There's no need,' I say.

'No, I'll call them. Maybe they'll let me work the weekend to make it up.'

He makes the call, though it does not go well. Achor Achor, and most of us, have learned various and conflicting rules of employment here. There is a strictness that is new, but it also seems shifting and inequitable. At my fabric-filing job, my coworker seemed to operate under vastly different rules than I. She arrived late each day and lied about her hours. She did not seem to work at all while I was present, allowing me-she called me her assistant, though I was no such thing-to do all the day's work. Short of reporting her poor work ethic, I had no recourse but to work twice as hard as she, for two-thirds her pay.

'I wonder if they turn on the sirens for something like this,' Achor Achor mused.

'I think so.'

'Do you think they catch people like them?'

'I bet they will. These two seemed like criminals. I'm sure the police have pictures of them.'

Thoughts of Tonya and Powder being pursued, being caught, fill me with great satisfaction. This country, I am sure, does not tolerate things like this. It occurs to me that this is the first time an officer will act on my behalf. The thought gives me a giddy strength.

Ten minutes pass, then twenty. We've made a list of the major items, but now, with more time than we expected to have, Achor Achor and I begin to catalog the lesser things stolen. We gather all of the user manuals for the missing appliances, in case the police need the model numbers. The information will likely help them recover the stolen items, and the insurance companies, too, will expect this information.

'You'll have to reprogram all the birthdays into your phone,' Achor Achor notes.

He is one of my few friends who did not laugh when he knew I was recording the birthdays of everyone I knew. To him it seemed logical enough, providing as it did a string of stopping points along the path of a year, sites where you could appreciate who you knew, how many people called you friend.

Achor Achor is now righting the apartment-the table, the lamp, the couch cushions that are still on the floor. Achor Achor is exceedingly practical, and effortlessly organized. He finishes his homework one day before it's due, because when he does, it affords him that extra day to recheck it. He brings his car in for an oil change every twenty-five hundred miles and drives as if his DMV tester were with him at all times. In the kitchen, he uses the proper equipment for each task. Anne and Gerald Newton, who spend a good deal of time cooking, watching television shows, and reading books about cooking, gave us a vast array of utensils and potholders and other kitchen objects. Achor Achor knows what each is for, keeps them well organized, and tries very hard to find occasion to use each one. Last week I found him cutting onions while wearing goggles, the strap of which said ONIONS ARE FOR WEEPERS.

After half an hour, Achor Achor has the idea that the police might have written the address down incorrectly. He opens the door to see if there is a squad car in the lot; perhaps an officer is checking the other apartments. I tell him about the officer that was there for forty minutes the day before, though I can tell that it is too strange a concept for him to begin to understand. Instead, Achor Achor calls the police again. The response is perfunctory; they tell him a car is on its way.