Victor LaValle - Ecstatic

— Four of you came in this morning? Candan asked. One, two, three, four?

— Damn Candan, the President said. I think the man can still count!

I looked at his son, at Candan, wondering how people had spoken about me in the weeks since I’d returned.

The President joked around instead of letting his son press. He pointed at me and the other Jell-O-fellow beside Candan. — You two look like the bookends at a cookie factory.

Guys giggled, even the other big boy, but the joke didn’t make sense to me.

— Why would a cookie factory have bookends? I asked.

But too late for that because the President noticed my work. He walked the length of the hedge while still in his yard then scratched his gray mustache. He wore a black leather baseball cap with an adjustable strap on the back. — You sure made a mess of this, he said.

I wondered why he had to accuse me, but remembered the big orange clipper in my hand.

The others waited for angrier words, but the nice thing about the President was that he was never going to get his gun from in the house. Most he’d do is crack an egg on your forehead.

— If I ever need a haircut I won’t call you, the President said.

Before there could be any more jokes Candan’s red dog came from their backyard and crouched at the President’s feet. A lithe Doberman, missing one of its ears. I thought it was playing with the older man, but it snarled at the President until Candan walked over, slapped its side and yelled, — Shut up!

— Get back! Candan yelled.

The President bowed his head, but I didn’t know if the gesture was in deference to his son or his son’s emissary, the Doberman.

After Candan commanded it the mutt popped up, trotted off, thin body bouncing so high above the ground it seemed about to float off like some long, useless balloon. It barked a few times, which caused a few other nearby dogs to rev up so then there were pockets of howling in the neighborhood for close to thirty minutes.

One day; so far; no mother; not bad.

When the President went inside their house Candan paced casually to the Lincoln then removed keys the President had forgotten in the driver’s side door. He shook them in front of us like Candan needed people to see that he was right to assume his father doddered, but we looked away, ashamed for him to show it.

When I walked back inside with bits of hedge drit still on my hair Grandma was in the living room with Nabisase. The younger was talking while combing the old woman’s hair into braids, but they stopped when I came in.

Fatigue twists the tongue until it turns blue. — I think you’re overreacting, I told them. Mom’s the one who cut out on you, not me.

For the first time in years I felt like a child. A horrible time compared with adulthood.

— Did you hear what I said?

Nabisase and Grandma continued to play Easter Island; in the living room I stood three feet from a civilization unwilling to answer me.

Stupidly, I went and tried Mom’s door. It was locked when we left so why would it be any different now. I got down on my knees and pressed my nose to the space at the bottom. Then my ear. I was waiting for a sign that she was back in there.

She wasn’t.

I went to get the mail and that’s when I realized I never sent Ahmed Abdel his note. It was in my jacket pocket, forgotten when I chased my sister and grandmother to Uncle Arms’s charade.

As I got the letter, walked to the door, my sister finally said something.

— Are you going to see about Ledric?

— How’d you know about that?

— I played the answering machine.

— I was only going to mail a letter.

Grandma didn’t look at me, but she said. — He sounds terrible and sick.

— You two have Ledric Mayo on the brain.

I tapped the letter to Ahmed Abdel against the door. They waited.

— I don’t have the energy, I complained. This is the only thing you all can talk to me about?

Nabisase stood up. — I called him already and got the address. I said we were going over.

— Why’d you do that?

— Because we’re going to.

I didn’t want to bring Nabisase with me to Jamaica and luckily it was four o’clock so my sister’s church was having its second Monday prayer meeting. She was willing to miss school, but not devotions. Christ had really impressed my sister with his Bible that you’ve heard so much about. The first morning back from Lumpkin she read Scripture while eating cereal.

But you know, I’m not even going to say Christ when I refer to Nabisase’s faith because I still didn’t believe she meant it. I’ll say Selwyn because Nabisase wouldn’t know the difference.

Nabisase walked with me, though not for the comraderie. I was on the sidewalk and she stayed at the lip of the street. She thought I’d betrayed her. On the drive up from Lumpkin I filled the car with gas and didn’t make one stop; she and Grandma didn’t speak.

Except when we were finally home and I got out, ran around to Nabisase’s side.

Then my sister said, — Don’t you hold any more doors open in front of me.

It’s harder to stay close when someone watches you betray them. She thought she understood me perfectly and I just couldn’t explain.

I smiled as we reached the corner of 229th Street and 147th Avenue. Nabisase went to hear sermons at the Apostolic Temple of Selwyn. A Church with Old Time Powers.

Watching her, I wondered how, exactly, a person finds religion.

After ten minutes a brown van stopped about a half-block past me. I waited for it to come back but the driver wouldn’t rewind so I had to walk over.

There are two kinds of vans used for this small-business public transportation. The difference is in the size of the passenger door. One has a great big hatch while the other’s got a portal the size of an airplane window. I will let you guess which this van had; it shouldn’t take long to figure. When I opened the tiny entrance the crowd inside muttered. I distinctly heard one man whisper, — Oh god damn, at the sight of me.

Ten passengers watched me struggle in. The inside of the cabin smelled like sweaty feet and cocoa butter. Each row of seats fit three people, but those were to capacity so I had to get past them, to the last back ass end where there was the longer seat that fits four.

I knocked a woman’s hat off her head with my big shoulder.

A teenager got so jostled as I passed that his whole damn magazine fell between his knees to the floor.

— Sorry, I whispered. Sorry.

Even the other fat people cursed me or rolled their eyes.

The driver was a fifty-year-old lady with a face like a betel nut. She waited until I was almost in the seat properly then pedal down, pedal hard.

There was dance hall music coming from the radio and the van’s CB spattered conversation or static. The driver’s name was Lorna Tintree and she picked up the microphone whenever her dispatcher called for her. They always used her full name. She yelled responses as she drove too fast.

Her voice had a thick island accent. I could imagine mango trees, but not any particular island. Slow down was the only message I wished her dispatcher would send. Her hair was a big loose spray of black semi-curls emanating from her skull like the sound waves of her rollicking conversation.

Each time she stopped talking there was a moment before the guy on the other end responded and the fuzz through the microphone sounded like a name:

— ledric- ledric-.

Please understand how dangerous a van trip is. Lorna Tintree took curves doing fifty.

When we hit bumps and dips in the road eleven people tossed in the air. Only our driver wore a seat belt.

My sister might have thought I was going to help Mr. Mayo, but I was not. I’d go apply for a library card at the Jamaica branch, have some lunch and then come home. I’d tell her that I lost the address.