Victor Lavalle - Lucretia and the Kroons

Loochie took off her mother’s wig. She walked to Sunny. Loochie set the wig, delicately, on Sunny’s small head. Sunny looked up at it, surprised.

“My mom will get worried if I don’t come back,” Loochie said.

Sunny nodded and it made the wig slip forward, almost over her eyes. Loochie was about to adjust it when Alice’s big hand pulled it back into place. Loochie looked up and smiled at Alice. Then she felt a throb of regret. She’d given Sunny her mother’s wig, but what had she given Alice? Alice who’d saved her half a dozen times in here. Alice who looked like a monster. Alice, who wasn’t a monster anymore. Loochie had nothing else to offer. So she waved for Alice to crouch. Alice did so a little warily. The last time she’d crouched in front of Loochie like this Loochie had bashed her with a tennis racket. Loochie brought her face right alongside Alice’s. From here she could smell Alice’s burnt plastic body and she couldn’t avoid the gaping emptiness below her upper jaw, but Loochie didn’t hesitate. She brought her lips to Alice’s upper cheek. Loochie gave Alice the only thing she could. She kissed her gently.

“Friends,” Loochie whispered, and Alice cooed in her ear.

In a flash, Alice lifted both girls, as easy as always. She turned to run, toward the stadium, but before Loochie could resist Sunny said, “She’s not going.”

Alice barked out a handful of desperate-sounding notes. She looked across the barrier, at Pit, who was doing worse than he first seemed. He struggled to rise, a feeble growl lost in his throat, then he stumbled backward again, flat on his back, still stunned.

“She says you have to find someplace to hide,” Sunny told her. “We’ll get Pit to chase us. We’ll draw him away.”

Alice set Loochie down. Loochie looked up at Sunny. Already, even from this close, it seemed harder to focus on her friend. To really see Sunny’s face. As if it were already being erased, little by little, from her memory if not her heart.

“Hide.” Sunny pointed to the barrier. “Lie flat.”

Loochie followed the order. On her back like that she was hidden. Alice howled at the top of her voice. It was like a taunt, a challenge.

Pit sat up again. Looking more like himself. Menacing and manically focused. He found his sister’s face. She stared at him and he glared at her. He scrambled to his feet. Just before Alice ran, Sunny kicked her feet wildly and her rain boots flopped off. They smacked the ground. Loochie had given her the wig. Sunny gave the boots in return.

Sunny shouted, “I love you, Loochie!”

Loochie couldn’t respond for fear of letting Pit know she was still there. But inside her head she could hear her own voice, loud as a siren: I love you, too, Sunny! I loved you!

Loochie lay flat and watched them go. Alice took off, carrying Sunny, horse and rider exploding down a track. And Pit chased after. Soon enough they were all just figures in the distance. Now there was no denying it. Loochie’s best friend, Zhao Hun Soong, was gone.

Loochie finally got the courage to sit up and look around. Even though she’d seen Pit trailing after Alice and Sunny, she hadn’t entirely believed it was true. After all, this place was a kind of nightmare and in nightmares the worst can always happen. She half-expected to find Pit standing on the other side of the murky pond when she sat up, an evil smile below his dented skull.

But he wasn’t there. The place was quiet enough that she could hear herself breathing and she listened to that. If she was breathing then she must still be alive. If she was alive she could move.

She stood. The concrete dug into her soles. Her socks were pretty much shredded. But she had a pair of rain boots. Loochie grabbed them and slid the first boot on. It felt so wonderful to have them between her feet and the concrete. Loochie stretched her foot and listened to the rubber stretch. The boots were purple with white polka dots and, right then, Loochie had never seen anything prettier in her whole life. She slid the other boot on but felt something against her heel. She took the boot off, turned it upside down, and out fell Sunny’s lighter.

Loochie weighed it in her open palm. Its body was made of red opaque plastic. She held it to her ear, shook it, and heard the faint swish of the remaining lighter fluid. The last cigarette was in one pocket so Loochie put the lighter in the other. She popped on the other rain boot.

Go home , she told herself. Get home .

But she didn’t move. She did not go home. It was as if her body wouldn’t follow orders.

After a time it seemed as though she was going to collapse. Loochie’s body began to melt. Her knees buckled. It seemed as though the faint was coming on again, but do you know what made her do otherwise? What made her turn instead and start to run? The ice-cream cake. It was sitting out on a plate in the middle of the kitchen. She imagined that by now all of it, except the wafer cookies, had turned into a soupy mix. That it had spilled over the plate and across the table and even run down to the kitchen floor. One hell of a mess. Her mother would be so angry! And, strangely, she wanted to hear her mother’s voice so much right then that even a month of yelling at Loochie was preferable to the silence, the isolation, surrounding her now. So she turned and made the long walk.

Following the concrete pathway until she reached the Playground for Lost Children, she saw no rats but still kept a good distance from the gates. She reached the first meadow and here she found the upside-down Unisphere. It looked like an enormous Christmas ornament that had fallen off its tree. Seeing it reminded her of Sunny, the two of them crouched on top and looking out across the park. How long ago had that been? Minutes? Why did it already feel, in her bones, like it had been weeks? Loochie walked the meadow, but she moved slowly. She wasn’t tired exactly, but sore. Deep down. Heartsore. It took great effort to lift her legs and her shoulders felt heavy. By the time she reached the double row of trees she could hardly stand. She had to sit beneath one of the great trees, on its gnarled roots. She could see the next meadow. She knew the kitchen, the open window, the fire escape weren’t far ahead, but she couldn’t get herself to stand. The overcast sky thundered and soon rain fell across the meadow. It fell on the tops of the trees and trickled down from limb to limb until the drops reached the dirt. The rain fell on Loochie. She had leaned forward because she was so tired, elbows on her knees. Her head and back were soon wet. Her T-shirt stuck to her skin. A quick run across the next meadow and she’d be away from all this. Just get up , she told herself. Just get up . But she couldn’t.

The rainstorm grew stronger. Quickly the meadow was drenched. Above Loochie the tree limbs sagged with the weight of the water. Loochie looked up and the rain doused her face. Had Sunny made it all the way to Gate C by now? Had she reached Shea? Maybe Loochie should have gone with her. Had she really been thinking of her mother’s worry when she decided not to go with Sunny, or was she just saving herself?

The storm became a torrent. Loochie couldn’t even see beyond the tree line anymore. The rain became like a great, gray wall. It came down with such force that the ground seemed to shake. Loochie had abandoned Sunny. Why didn’t Loochie fight harder to bring her back? The trees were no protection against the rain anymore. It came down so hard that it scoured Loochie’s skin. What kind of best friend was she?

Then Loochie heard an incredibly loud groan. Not a living thing. Loochie squinted back to the meadow she’d come from. The groan came again. Her curiosity was what finally made her stand. She walked to the edge of the tree line and what she saw she couldn’t quite understand.