Victor LaValle - Ecstatic

I had to drive Nabisase to school because she’d skipped on Thursday to visit Ledric in the hospital. I found out because the school called me. He could speak well enough already to give my sister a phone number for his parents in Chicago. They said they were going to send some money; it was that or have them visit. I vetoed a plane trip because I’d be the one getting them at Kennedy Airport, driving them to Queens General and back. And I didn’t even like this guy! My sister was his sympathetic bet.

After I watched Nabisase walk inside her school I came back for Grandma.

— Bring the mail, she said as she dressed. We’ll be waiting a while.

From the clinic’s parking lot there was a view of Brookville Park; a parcel of spare woodland that divided Rosedale into halves, one mostly white and the other mostly black.

I’d wheeled Ledric through the service entrance, but I carried Grandma to the front. The clinic’s waiting room was still small, but it serviced a tiny clientele. Immigrants fed this practice. Carribean, West African, East Indian and some Irish. Black Americans, yes, and Chinese from Valley Stream. If a job or Medicare wasn’t covering hospital charges, then you went here.

The waiting area was occupied by rows of chairs that were soldered down in groups of seven; they were orange. Twenty people sat around already. I took a number from a red dispenser that looked like a canteen. Our number, A44, was called so quickly I expected to be home fast.

This first walk to the receptionist was only to register, though. We were allowed to request a doctor so I chose the apparatchik. Now the disinterested woman behind the Plexiglas gave me another ticket, a new number, and told me to sit some more.

— One is yours, Grandma said when I sat again. She pushed the piece of mail into my chest.

I would have liked to peel the stamp off as a souvenir, but there wasn’t one. Only that faded red punch of machine postage. The left-hand corner of the envelope showed the group’s name and return address in Boston.

Free Ahmed Foundation.

Dear Conscientious Supporter (this was printed on the page, the rest he wrote by hand),

Thank you for the letter. You will be added to our growing mailing list.

You are correct, I do have a lot of friends. The number grows more each day as my case gains more attention. God is good.

I did quote a comic book in my interview. Would you have respected me more if it was Diderot? They are both just entertainments in the end, don’t you agree?

Many people have asked about my name, but I do not understand their confusion. I have found friends in here who introduced me to the virtues of Islam. Faith is important in prison. I think you see religion as a child’s toy, but it’s a weapon. The schemes of powerful, treacherous men fall before it.

In your letter you seemed quite angry. I hope I am incorrect and that you rest at peace. You ask if I wish that I was black. I do not. I am not crazy. Have you ever wished to be a woman?

Some people write asking that I tell them how to be productive. Often they sound like you. Misguided. Let me sign off by telling you what I’ve told many of them. Be active. Activate!

Ahmed Abdel

At two-thirty they called Grandma’s name.

I carried her to an examination room then propped her on an examination table. I stayed in there with her, watching the clock go. The windows were opaque so the sunlight that came in turned a buttery yellow.

Grandma said, — Thank you for bringing me.

— Do you have to say it like we’re strangers?

She turned her head away. — Why did you let those people in? Your sister might have won.

— Miss Innocence? What was her talent going to be? Punching out the MC?

— But you even stopped her fun.

The Russian shook my hand quickly when he walked in, but no more. He hardly looked up. Just said, — Hello. Hello. I’m going to close this curtain so she and I have privacy.

I was actually hurt that he didn’t recognize me as the botulism brother.

From outside the beige plastic curtain shell I heard Grandma undress as the doctor put on rubber gloves. I recognized the snap as he pulled them down to his wrists from the times I’d used those same gloves to clean ovens.

— We will x-ray the hip, the doctor said to me when he eventually stepped out.

— Do I take her?

— We have a wheelchair. Come back in ten minutes.

— What about her purse?

— Take it with you if you’re worried.

Being outside in the cold was nice until I noticed that I’d become a focus of the waiting room audience. The television was broken and I was there in the large window. Just another screen.

I didn’t want to stand there carrying Grandma’s handbag while people watched me so I patted my suit jacket and pants as if I’d bought cigarettes, but couldn’t find them. I tapped myself harder. I almost hurt myself because the more I acted this way the more people inside the clinic looked at me. That only made me more frantic to seem normal as I slapped myself around looking for a cigarette I never even had in the first place.

I thought of going to the park for a walk to get away a minute, but with my good fortune Grandma would finish up with the doctor, come out to try and find me, wander into the street and get hit by garbage truck.

A woman in white pants and nurse’s shoes came outside. — Why you jumping around out here?

— I was looking for a cigarette.

She had one. A plastic aquamarine lighter too. Coming out to check on me was a good excuse to have some herself.

I didn’t actually know how to use a cigarette.

When I put it in my mouth I put it in too far, choked up on it and got half the thing wet. Then the lady had to give me another. The next one I left hanging so far off my lips that the wind snatched it from me and carried down the block.

— This is the last one, she said.

She brought the lighter close. She had big hands. We were standing outside the clinic on the wheelchair ramp.

— Activate, I said.

I tried hard and pulled properly. A successful blaze. Since this was only my fourth cigarette in twenty-three years I didn’t inhale correctly, but the action itself was well carried out. The woman stubbed out her own cigarette against the railing I leaned on.

I must have looked awful because she treated me so nicely.

She said, — I’m going to tell you, okay? Because I bet you’ll need to know. Don’t ever go to St. Luke’s. If you’re in Manhattan and they pick you up one day. Not St. Luke’s. They’ll strap you down for three days in their psych ward and never let you stand even for a shit.

I was surprised and couldn’t hide it.

— What do I look like to you?

She said, — Sympathy.

While I smoked and coughed with her, five dogs trotted out from the park then ran along 147th Avenue ignoring cars, buses and vans. Their mouths were open. A smug furry procession.

After passing by the nurse and I, the dogs ran across the busy intersection at the corner of Brookville Boulevard. Every driver managed to use the brakes. Lots of people witnessed this, not just me. When the hounds had crossed against the light safely, stopping traffic, they howled. Then went farther down 147th Avenue untethered.

Soft in the middle, queasy from the cigarettes, I walked inside the clinic holding my belly. The people sitting and waiting tried to smile at me, but stared. If you’re ever trying not to seem mentally unstable, avoid carrying an old woman’s large pocketbook while taking your first tobacco hit in front of a jury.

I had to knock at the Russian doctor’s office door because it was locked when I got there.