Atticus Lish - Preparation for the Next Life

She opened his door, listened to the strange house and, hearing nothing, went across the shadowed basement to the bathroom and she switched the light on. The royal blue walls sprang up. She locked herself in and put her clothes in a little pile on top of her sneakers and used his shower. It was a pristine bathroom and there was no sign that anyone used it except for his crushed tube of Aquafresh in the sink. When she was done, she put everything back the way she found it, straightening the bath mat, wiping up her wet footprints, and hanging his towel on the bar on the frosted glass door of the shower compartment. She straightened his towel, matching up the corners, smoothing out the wrinkles. It said Camp Manhattan, Kuwait, in all capital black letters. She put on her tracksuit, snapped her bra in place, opened the door to let the steam out, combed her wet hair. Her legs were so sore it was hard to kneel to tie her sneakers. She said, Goodbye, boy, when she left for work but he didn’t answer; he was still riding in the steppe.

She called him in the afternoon. He did not answer. She left a message thanking him again. She was so sore, she could barely walk. I cannot hurry at my job. She said that she would see him.

She called again that night, but he was very depressed and all of his responses were wooden. Still, she persisted. I am in your bed last night, she told him. Something is wrong.

He said nothing.

You are crying very bad at night.

If you say so.

I am next to you and I hear it. I am there, so I know.

Okay. So?

So, I’m telling you, I know it’s bad. I want to do somethings about it. What’s going on?

I don’t know.

What is it?

He would not answer.

I want to help this thing, whatever’s happening.

You can’t help it.

It’s the war?

Yeah.

You need someone to help you, she said.

She rinsed the dried drips of Coca-Cola out of his Subway cup and filled it up with tap water and brought it to him so he could take his pills. There were four bottles of pills, but she had seen a fifth one. She saw the fifth bottle lying on the floor between the wheel on the foot of the bed and the wall and picked it up. He thanked her.

That’s the one I sleep with.

He took his blue hexagonal pill while she watched him. She was wearing her jeans and Hollister sweatshirt. The lacy black underwear she had stuffed in her back pocket. He swallowed and she took the cup out of his hand and set it in the kitchen.

Move over your body, she told him, so she could sit. He moved over and watched her examining each of his pill bottles under the bedside lamp, studying the chemical names — Zoloft, Ambien, Seroquel. She tried to read the dosages in English. Blue, pink, yellow, white, red, she repeated, memorizing.

That’s what they gave me. You know anything about that stuff?

We should keep it well. Not messy.

So I don’t take the wrong one by accident.

We keep it all in one place from now on. If you take one, put it back.

I will.

If he wanted to lie down, first he had to arrange his boots next to his bed and put his assault pack where he could reach it. Then she was allowed to climb over him to the inboard side of the bed and hug him from there, so he would know where she was.

She stroked his ear. You can tell me your dream, she said.

At her urging, he began to reveal his symptoms, if not his dreams.

Have you seen how I get distracted, how my eye goes like this? He had her watch his eyes. Look at the right one. See how it’s shaking?

She could not tell.

How I can’t stop looking over there?

That she saw. He kept looking over her head, weak side-strong side, to the entrance of the room, which led out into the world where cars were always coming, always getting closer, approaching him and his brother soldiers at sandbagged roadblocks.

Chronic anxiety was something she understood.

Headlights coming at me, crowds, whenever I hear the intercom radio on the subway, he said. Potholes in the street. Car doors. You know what a bullet sounds like? Have you ever had a wasp flying really close to your ear?

They entered the search words Sick + Soldier on his laptop. From the screen, a man in a v-neck sweater talked to them from in front of a bookcase in a well-lit office. Skinner lit a Marlboro and listened with her. The video ran out, it froze. Their feed was bad. He reached over and hit a key on the machine and his ashes fell on the keypad to join the sand. This fucking busted thing, he said. The video was loading, they had to wait. It restarted and she watched it. He got up and finished his cigarette in the other room.

Have you seen the way I get mad even when I’m trying to be nice?

Something has shook your mind. It could be some bruise inside the head.

WHENEVER SUNNIE NEEDED A break, Zou Lei had an arrangement with her that she would take her place on the line. Frequently, she simply told Sunnie, You need a break, sister. Sunnie would laugh uncertainly and say, I don’t really.

Yes, you do. You shouldn’t work too hard. Here’s a cup of soup.

Oh, my. But I’m full already. You want to practice the menu, don’t you?

Yes, I have to practice.

Well, okay. Are you sure you understand the order?

If I practice, I’ll get it. The turkey is separate.

Okay, I guess there’s no harm then, as long as Sassoon won’t mind.

She’s not here, Zou Lei said, taking the big spoon from her. I got it from here. If you want, you can just hang out right there by the tea pot and have your soup, and if there’s any emergency, I can ask you what to do, so nothing’ll go wrong. Very tranquil.

Well, okay.

You’re the coach, I’m the trainee. Strictly criticize my mistakes.

I’m nobody’s teacher, Sunnie smiled shyly, taking her place by the hot water cistern.

You’re helping me, Zou Lei said.

You’re industrious, Sunnie would say.

Angela, in front of whom all this was taking place, said, Does anybody know what you’re doing?

Sunnie stared at her in great anxiety. She had second thoughts, but Zou Lei held onto the dipper.

You manage your register, Zou Lei told Angela, We’ll manage this.

He called her at four in the morning and started talking, his voice like a loud ant coming out of the cell phone, and her neighbor sighed through the boards. Just minute, she whispered. She took her sweatshirt and found her sandals and went out on the stoop. The sky was a lighter shade of black than the park behind the gas station across the boulevard, the streetlights casting their peculiar glow on the pavement. He was saying he couldn’t sleep. She agreed to meet him at McDonald’s.

On her way to McDonald’s, the shuttered gates of businesses were covered in graffiti you never saw in daytime and she thought they resembled a thousand tattooed eyelids. The chairs were upside down on the tables so they could mop.

Skinner arrived ten minutes later, nearly invisible in his black hood. He behaved with an almost formal politeness, thanking her for coming, his eyes hidden.

I need a soda, if you don’t mind waiting a second.

It’s okay, she said.

He bought her a bacon egg and cheese biscuit, then started telling her about something and it became him telling her about Iraq and she stopped eating. He sat with his elbows on his knees, holding the drink cup under the table, talking in a low voice while she listened leaning towards him, twisted sidesaddle in her chair, her jacket riding up, showing her bare back. Every ten seconds his eyes scanned left and right and came back and rested on her face. He took a drink of his soda.

It was hard to fix his dry mouth, his headache, his memory of his friend exploding and the pieces of his body raining on his helmet.