Victor LaValle - Ecstatic

— I speak it pretty well, I said.

She was surprised. — How did you get in here?

— You called me. We spoke on the phone.

Claire had a notepad in her back pocket and opened it. — You’re not Esmeralda. Anthony?

— Yes.

— Anthony, I’m a very busy woman. I don’t want you interrupting me again.

With that Claire led us to our workroom. I’d thought this was just going to be a bigger sweeping job. Gather factory dust, shine flanges and get twice my daytime Sparkle rate. You’ve got to realize how much energy I had; the coming work didn’t daunt. I’d just driven for seven hours that morning, we’d been in Virginia twenty-four hours ago. I’d saved Ledric from his landlady and took him home to recuperate. Now what else, Clean Up? That’s nothing. Six hours of work. I had the fuel.

We left the main floor by going through a thick door with four locks. There was an open dark stairway and I forgot where I was. For eleven seconds I had a waking dream that we were being taken to the basement so they could shoot us in the head and keep the blood. I know that seems stupid but besides me the other twenty women looked El Salvadorian so what child of the eighties wouldn’t think of death squads? A feeling of nauseous exhilaration was in my sternum because I thought I was going to be killed, but then reality returned as I gripped the handrail and we were led downstairs by Claire.

The basement was twice as long as the factory space upstairs, but only half as high, eight feet maybe. Sometimes Claire covered her mouth down here. Like whenever she breathed.

She had a King Kullen bag full of white mouth guards. We put them on, but the rubber wire of the face masks scratched our cheeks so badly they left scuff marks. Claire walked to the top of the stairs leading to the first floor then addressed us.

— You grab those big pink sheets then put them in the barrels. When one is full you cover it tight. Jam those sheets down hard to fit plenty. If any dust comes up put on your air filtration units.

She shut the door then we listened to four locks click. I swung the surgeon’s mask, was this the air filtrator? I’d seen sturdier toilet paper.

We rolled the long pink dry sheets; this worked for the top layer. Half the basement floor had stacks of these pink mats laid out.

Once we had mastered the right speed, one that kept the asbestos dust out of our air, the curling up was easy. We stacked the rolls on their sides next to the barrels.

A woman said, — We stop. We done too fast.

Two of the twenty women were sisters. They wore clean white sneakers that they’d been brushing with their open hands whenever a smudge appeared. Now on break they sat and took the shoes off, blew on them then used the bottoms of their shirts to wipe the heels. Pay Less sneakers probably, cheap, but I admired anyone who worked hard on her wardrobe. I rubbed at the dust stains on my purple suit.

Turning their shoes over both women cleared grains from the soles by running pens in the grooves. The green ink made the bottoms of their sneakers the dull color of an unripe olive. We rested for half an hour and watched the sisters maintain their beauty.

What a disappointment to find out later that this basement had flooded recently. It was obvious because the next layer of pink sheets were stiff but wrinkled like dried washcloth. These sections broke apart while being rolled so there was no way to avoid the dust. Below that was a layer still so wet it couldn’t be curled. I paced the room looking for tin or flat steel to use as a shovel.

I found the lower end of a broom so I tried to sweep portions toward the barrels, but the pink molasses came apart under the bristles. Soon the whole room was a tableau of crouched figures scooping wads of asbestos into their arms, balancing the bundles as they walked across the long room to drop them into bins.

Every twenty minutes half a dozen people stopped to stretch their lumbar regions in the corner of the room not beset with pink dust devils. When the floor was clearer we tracked through puddles of grainy water as yet undried on the concrete floor.

The soles of those sisters’ sneakers leaked ink into the puddles when they got wet. The pools were already cloudy, but they turned faintly green.

One woman pointed, saying, — It is the color of dollars bills.

We were punch drunk. We were half twisted off.

We’d been down there four hours so excuse our grogginess.

The general state was so bad that one of the sisters rashly splashed through the green puddle just because it was like money.

I did because it was like money.

The other ladies splashed in it and for a good reason, it was money.

The second sister even went through eventually, but only because she was a big follower.

We doused our shoes in the water more than twice because it was like money.

What a peppy crowd we became. Making friends and praising peace. Our pants stained with prosperity.

My long Monday finally ended at three AM Tuesday morning, November 14th, 1995.

The Clean Up shift was close enough to my home that Claire agreed to drop me at the corner, though the other women were only getting a ride to the 7 train.

She left me out on the corner of 229th and 145th Avenue where I had to hide behind a parked car because four loose mutts wrestled, yipped and yawned in front of Candan’s home. His red Doberman barked then the four on the sidewalk whimpered. I was afraid of being snapped at like Ishkabibble at my cookout so I gave the dogs a few minutes to socialize. Soon, the quartet ran off, I thought they were done. But Candan’s red dog was still there, nose pressed against its gate, watching me open mine.

Grandma hopped in from the living room as I took off my coat in the kitchen. Before I could ask why she was awake Grandma whispered, — He can’t breathe. That boy.

I said, — Let him rest.

— Your sister sits with him the whole night.

I opened the basement door, but the lights were off. — They’re down there now?

Grandma said, — We couldn’t manage him down the stairs. He is as big as you. He is still in the living room.

He was in a sleeping bag on the ground with some couch cushions to prop him up. Between the sectional couch and the entertainment unit; his boots stood neatly with the other shoes in the kitchen.

Three in the morning and my sister was still awake kneeling by his side. She wasn’t saying prayers, but playing Tetris on her Game Boy. She wore a long yellow nightdress that went down to her ankles. Her bare feet tucked under her butt so that the toes were pointing toward me in the hallway. There was a bowl of water with a face cloth soaking in it, and another wet one resting on Ledric’s collarbone.

— What you’ll need to do is take hot baths, Nabisase told him.

He responded slowly.

— I wish I met you someplace else, he said. I look kind of nice when I’m dressed up.

She was thirteen and he was nineteen, a huge age gap only to parents of teenagers. Those adults should shut their eyes, firmly, at malls.

— I don’t care about that stuff, Nabisase said. Fat’s not the worst thing you could be.

— Your brother tell you how I got sick?

— He said it was bad fish.

— I just got desperate. I don’t want to look like this anymore.

She exchanged one wet cloth for the other; rubbing it on his face, his neck, his arms.

I didn’t interrupt them. I went back to the kitchen’s security door and slammed it as if this was my first time coming in. With that noise my sister rose and went right to bed. Ledric shut his eyes.

Grandma sat in the kitchen, waiting for me to carry her. — You need the hospital even more than he does, I said.