Atticus Lish - Preparation for the Next Life

Then Zou Lei had a stroke of luck on the street, on Junction Boulevard. She found clothes out front of a thrift store, everything on the rack three dollars. She bought a pair of jeans at the Colombiana. The label, which she could not read, said Euphoria, but they were good as new and cut her way. She did three hundred squats one night at home and put them on and they fit her nice and tight.

Polo was speaking to Sassoon.

Everyone has their own characteristic. You look: One, two, three, four… One the style of Taiwan, one the style of Hong Kong, another one Japan. Polo paused for reflection. Another one Thailand, another one Singapore, another one Korea. More and more, on and on. The more modern style.

But we, we, what are we? You think.

Sassoon waited for him to tell her.

We provide the modern flavors, he said. The front line. That is our characteristic. You look: Sa-cha. Thick soup. Oyster. Everything is leaning to Hong Kong-Taiwan. This is the front line. Not just smell. Flavor. Also culture. The big plate. Why a big plate? Because this is modern. Look, someone is eating — he pays money, he is eating, but the plate is small! Just like twenty years ago! Just like village! I feel so poor! Why do I pay? I am unsatisfied. I want a big plate. The big plate generates the atmosphere of freedom. The modern culture. Ah! Now I am so free, so magnanimous, so relaxed.

You understand this? He observed his listener, before going on.

You know sushi? Haha! He hooked his fingers towards his mouth. Sushi is advanced. This one — he pointed at another counter — provides sushi. You love to eat sushi? How do you know it? I am your senior and I just found out about it. I will invite you. You can taste it. What do you think? Hahaha.

You have to study the meaning. This meaning is very deep, this, this characteristic. If you understand this characteristic, you can advance, you can expand your market share. This is your capital. Otherwise no one will know you.

Little by little, you are learning. You must keep working. You will have your own business.

Too old, Sassoon said.

Maybe hair style? Maybe beauty? You will have your own business and be my competitor! He raised his pompadour and laughed hahaha.

Too old. I’m looking for a husband. A rich one. Let the husband work.

What will you do?

Bodyfit!

Bodyfit! What? The disco, aerobics… He smiled, raised his arms up, to the sides.

Lose my weight. I love to lose my weight, Sassoon said. She danced in her seat.

Ah, the boss said.

A boy from Cardozo spoke to Kay or Angela across the register. You scared about you image. There’s no girls here. Don’t be afraid. I protect you. I got to protect mines own image. Yeah, right. Yeah, right, he said. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. I told you first. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. They let you touch the money. Let me touch the money? Don’t even think about it. KC. K-sahp-C laaaaaa! They the one who crazy. Mou aaaaaaah! Talk less. You boyfriend in the gang. So why you talking? I know you take it. Speak about the thing you understand. You take the money. Shut up already. You at the register all day… so much temptation for girl like you. Let me get twenty. Let me get a hunnie. Lemme get a knot. Seriously, chill with that. I’m on camera. There are four camera on me all the time. X film. For real. XX film. Watch the porno of you. Mental illness. He must suspect you. This place does mad good. How much is mad good? Twenty dollar? Phat knots? Try like way more. You got stacks. Word? Bossie got mad dollars. He live in Jersey. What kind of car he drive? He push a Escalade. Escalade… The big black one. You likes the Escalade. Ahh yeah. She smirked and curled her tongue up over the front of her teeth. You on his shit. She hummed a little tune. Never know. No way. I could get behind the wheel. She put her fist up and steered, rocking her narrow body from side to side.

The men said, She is healthy.

The three of them were sitting at a table at the far end of the food court from the counter and they had a view of the women clearing trays in their orange hats and aprons.

You give her steak and she eats it, that kind of girl. Our Chinese girls are not like that. They have a modesty, that is their characteristic. When they show their flowers and branches it is different.

Miss, miss, don’t be angry. I sit on a chair, you sit on the ground. I eat watermelon, you eat meat.

It rhymed in their dialect from coal country. They had been discussing real estate, taxes, and how to beat a traffic ticket in American court.

She’d make a good bit of goods for Polo.

His blood isn’t red enough.

He’s a man of higher quality. He wouldn’t be interested, I’ll tell you.

If he did, you-know-who, the ghost-face one, would do away with herself.

He’s frightened of that leopard.

The former security man, whose name, Qing, meant Whisper in classical Chinese, told a story. There once was a labor organizer in our mine. He was connected to a clan, so we stayed clear of him. But he had a girlfriend we knew about, a fiancé. They weren’t married yet, you see. She was taken off the road, invited to a quiet place. We offered her a seat. Told her to get comfortable. We had made a hot fire. We helped her off with her coat and her pants. It’s too warm for that, we told her. Be careful of your health. We don’t want you to catch a fever. In our village, we grow beans, the product our village is famous for, besides coal. Now we prepared a funnel. This will remind you of your lover, we told her. Your tears are tears of impatience. A kilo of beans was heated till they were smoking hot in a brazier. They were put inside her using a funnel.

One of the men, whose name meant Bell or Clapper, wanted to know if that was a true story.

I don’t know, said Qing. Is it?

That’s why we don’t have 9/11, the third one said.

We have had 9/11. A nation as big as ours, we’ve had more than one 9/11, but you don’t hear about it. But that’s why we are catching up to America. Because we don’t allow backward people to slow us down. Here they have blacks, everywhere the blacks — taking drugs, playing with guns. If an iron fist were used with them the way we do back home, America would be a much stronger opponent.

An open country.

Too open. The women are open. Buy them a soda pop and they open their legs.

Some of our Asian girls are getting like that too.

Society is changing gradually, as the quality of life increases, the material level increases. People have levels. You can’t confuse a low-quality person with a civilized person. If people are not confused, then society will not be confused. But some people confuse society, telling lies, that kind of thing, and it holds the country back.

Skinner listened to her voice on the phone while he smoked a cigarette, sitting in his boxer shorts, his hard white legs apart and his bare foot bouncing up and down, listening to her, looking around, listening to her, nodding occasionally in his empty room.

Come over and kick it with me.

She talked in his ear, her voice saying she could not.

Aw, come on. Yes, you can — he laughed, his teeth yellow.

I have to work. After work I’ll come. She had to work. After she had said no again and said goodbye, he rolled a spliff and went out on the avenue and smoked it. He paced under the naked trees and power lines.

Ahead were the liquor stores and Chinese takeout counters on 162 ndStreet, Dutch-looking houses and shuttered storefronts and Mexican graffiti. Before he reached them, he turned back. He went back into the basement, the ripe smell of weed smoke clinging to his camouflage. He took a pill and sat there drifting.

Sassoon started throwing things and yelling and demanded that Zou Lei come with her. They went into the hallway with the dumpster and she screamed at her. The Fookienese men working in the adjacent kitchen opened doors and watched.