Victor LaValle: Ecstatic

— You can always dry your feet, I said.

I pushed it closed and walked away. Not far— thirty feet— to one of the baseball diamonds. I stamped on the mound, but it was already gone. An indent instead of a hill. As I kicked around out there a military outfit shot from the trees.

Black boys on mopeds. Ten bikes and twenty kids. Friends shared the padded seats. Two even rode the handlebars, dangerous as that was. They drove quickly, dangerously, screaming Ishkabibble’s name.

When I let him out he owed me a favor.

I waited there, he went home and came back in fifteen minutes.

While he was gone I opened the door to the semitrailer again. I was wearing boots, not shoes, so I didn’t worry about the inch of water. I went in, shut it. The incline was pretty minor. There was grass and weeds growing in here. I couldn’t see them too well, but felt them against my pants. Some were as tall as my shins. A marsh inside the semitrailer; the semitrailer in a park; the park in my suburban neighborhood. I never understand what people mean when they say, getting back to nature. As if they ever left.

Ishkabibble came back, calling for me. When I stepped out he said, — I know you were praying for this.

I didn’t look at the book, just held it.

It was hardback, 184 pages. I wanted to hammer nails with it. That’s how strong I felt. I swung it around in one hand a few times just to know the weight. Page numbers were at the bottom, centered under the text. The paper was thin and there were some smudged pages, but I recognized every line. It had striking red endpapers. The first page listed my name, the publisher (Rahsaan Robinson Press; Tattleback, Connecticut) and the title, Killing Is My Business.

It didn’t have a dust jacket, but that was no problem to me. I always lose those plastic wraps anyway.

— What happened here?

— That was a printer’s error, Ishkabibble said. Sorry about that.

There was no title on the turquoise cover, only my name in gold. All capital letters. Anthony James.

I pointed at both words. — This is going to give people the wrong idea of what’s inside.

Still, how could I get angry? With this talisman in my hands.

Most pages had two entries, sometimes three. They were broken up like any dictionary. Alphabetical sections. A. G. J. There were even a few in Q. Quiet or He’ll Hear You, Quarrel with Fear, Quetzalcoatl Craves Blood.

— Why don’t we sit down for a minute? he asked me.

— You want to?

He laughed as we walked to a bench. I read to him when we sat. Just a few short ones. It Woke One Night. How She Bled. Eviscerate Steve.

He asked, — How did you turn out to be my best friend?

I had a book. And what did my sister win?

A book of coupons, 40 percent off at most of Lumpkin’s stores. One round-trip bus ticket to Lumpkin. And an appointment to pose for two color photos on the weekend of January 5th–7th next year. They’d appear in the Hoddman’s Sunday Circular soon after and pay $600 upon publication.

Uncle Arms benefited more. By 1997 prospective Goodness Girls came to compete from every county in Virginia.

But an encyclopedia was better than any of that. As soon as I had it I bounced around.

Soon as I got home from the park I asked Nabisase to go out with me to the movies. We both had accomplishments to celebrate. She refused and called Ledric at the hospital. Spoke with him the rest of the night.

I asked her again the next day, the 23rd, in the evening, after work. On Friday, the 24th, too. Nabisase adamantly opposed me until Saturday, around one o’clock. I was in Mom’s old room. Mine now.

— Ledric says I should be nicer.

I lay on the bed I’d brought up from the basement by myself. — Why did you ask him?

– ’Cause I talk to him every day, she said. He’s getting released tomorrow.

— Did his family ever send us that money they promised?

— I haven’t seen it yet.

It was the 25th of November. Nabisase and I walked instead of using the car. She was thirteen and I was twenty-three.

We crossed Brookville Park and entered Town, a three-block strip of shops: Key Food, two corner stores, a Korean market and four hair salons. There was a minor branch of the public library, used mostly for the free toilet. I pulled my sister across the street, pinched the fleshy lobes of her ears. — Let’s get these pierced, I said.

Nabisase clutched a parking meter. — You said we were just going to a movie.

— I figured that since we were out, we might as well. She wasn’t smiling, but I was. I had an encyclopedia of horror films, have I mentioned that?

Nabisase looked down the block. — I always thought I’d do this with Mom.

— How long do you plan to wait?

My sister rested her chin on the top of the parking meter. — I miss her.

I pulled Nabisase into this jewelry store that also sold pets. It was situated between a laundromat and a pizzeria. She was aghast because the place had no dignity.

— How about the Piercing Pagoda in Green Acres Mall? she asked.

— The mall is as far as the movies. That’s twenty minutes from here. This is where we are.

Nabisase tugged her ears hard like she wished they would come off. — I saw you let those people into Miss Innocence, she said.

— But look how things turned out.

— You going to try and take credit for Goodness Girls now?

They sold animals toward the front of the store and gold from a glass counter in the back. Why try to make money in only one way? If not for space limitations they’d have sold 50 cent bags of cookies too.

The woman who owned the store was in back, by the jewelry, her head wrapped in bright green cloth. Another woman was back there too, tall and as yet unimpressed by the jewelry choices. The customer switched her purse from one shoulder to the other, making no motion to unzip and spend. — You all right? she called suddenly.

I was going to answer, but a child’s voice came. — Yeah Momma, come look at fishes!

Against the walls of the store were cages of lizards and snakes, some green, some brown or black. Two rows of fish tanks, eight feet high and fifteen feet long, split the center of the store into aisles.

The sun was up, but we were still dressed heavy for winter. The store itself was humid. It smelled like wet, mossy stones. I stuck my gut out to see it stretch my shirt so far that the buttons might burst. I did that to make my sister laugh, but my imperfections had lost their funny side for her.

Nabisase and I looked into a tank of ten baby lizards. They tumbled over one another. They stood on one another’s heads. As a unit they turned and watched us.

That kid who’d demanded her mother come watch fish appeared wearing black jeans, a black sweatshirt, blue cap, no holes punched in her ears.

— That’s bearded dragons, she said.

I thumped my belly like the old man she’d say I was.

— Is that right? my sister asked.

— Snakes is better though. Lizards and fish are boring.

— Maybe they think you’re boring, I told the girl.

Nabisase said, — Shut up, Anthony!

— I’m sorry, but who is she to criticize them?

The girl smiled like I’d said something nice because I’d used a kind tone. Then she pointed her thumb.

— That’s your thumb, I said dismissively.

— And this is my pinky.

Her stern mother looked at us. — How you doing over there Samarra?

— Good, Momma.

The little girl looked at me as though she had done me a service, perhaps spared my life.

Sam took Pop-Rocks from her pants pocket, snapped the small pack in the air. Her little belly stuck out under her sweatshirt, over her jeans. — Pop-Rocks! she yelled.