Atticus Lish - Preparation for the Next Life

The red-haired bartender acted reserved when Skinner came in. After Skinner drank in front of him, he loosened-up, almost as if he were the one drinking. On Skinner’s second tumbler of Parrot Bay, the bartender came over and, suddenly lively, began telling him about his trouble with women.

I made the mistake of telling her my real name. Check the phone-book. There’re a lot of Chins and Kims, but there ain’t too many McIntyres in Flushing anymore. You know how many there are? One. That’s right, me. So there you have it, she calls me up. Is this the residence of John McIntyre, the dirty so-and-such and so forth?!

He pretended to hold a receiver away from his ear, bugging his eyes.

Never use your real name. Number one rule with women.

My girlfriend’s Chinese too, Skinner said.

Well then you better tell her your last name’s Kim or God help you.

She’s gonna get deported.

Well then you don’t have to worry, assuming you’re having trouble with her.

There’s no trouble. I want her to stay. It’s the government trying to take her away.

Have they started proceedings?

I don’t know what all they’re doing.

There’s a thing called detention and removal. I’m an immigrant myself, so I know all about it. They’ll detain somebody and then they’ll start the removal proceedings. First she’ll be arrested by Immigration or, now, it’s Homeland that’ll get her.

If they do that shit, Skinner muttered, I’ll burn the fucking flag of this fucking country and wipe my ass with the ashes.

So you like her and you want her to stay? Do you like her enough to marry her?

Skinner looked in his glass and said, Yeah.

Well then why don’t you marry her? You’re an American citizen, aren’t you? Because, you never know, there are some guys in the army who aren’t even citizens, but you are, right? If a citizen marries someone from another country, you can bring her over and she can stay here. Haven’t you ever heard of mail-order brides from Russia? Just ask her, if you want to do it. Of course, I’m not saying you do want to get married. I could never get married myself. I like to go from one to the next. I get tired of them and I can’t stay still. But if you want to keep yours here and you don’t mind it, just marry her. Though Homeland will make you jump through hoops, I imagine. But it’ll slow them down from getting rid of her.

The door to the back alley was open and the old navy man who should have been dead was half-visible in the doorway, putting the trash out. Along with the sound of garbage cans scraping concrete, his voice could be heard talking unintelligibly. John McIntyre, who could somehow tell what he was saying, replied to him.

Meanwhile, Skinner went over to the Flushing Mall, his phone to his ear, and called Zou Lei.

When she came outside in the purple dusk at quitting time, he was waiting. They ate pizza slices while the streetlights came on, went down past the gas station and walked along the river.

She was so moved she didn’t talk for nearly a mile.

What are you thinking?

You have a great heart, Skinner!

He liked it that she was happy.

Just you say you will marry to me, it’s incredible.

They were headed north in the direction of College Point and the river was getting wider and the buildings were getting smaller and sparser. Ahead, there was an elevated highway standing by itself above a wasteground. The wind picked up.

Today I know what is a real American, she said.

She breathed deep, took in the space, the distant lights across the black water. She could not believe her fortune. How life surprised her. She looked at him with new recognition in the dark.

I’m gonna quit smoking, he told her.

In the front of the house, the windows were covered by white shutters and lace curtains. In the back, there was lumber decaying in the yard next to a rusted can of flashing cement. The house had several stories, maybe three. There were too many windows to see them all. The ones on the upstairs floors were open gray squares reflecting the gray of the sky and the asphalt. The roofs rolled out like tongues, missing squares, tar showing. Rained-on yellow insulation and silver sheathing bulged out of an attic window.

When she went around the side of the house, there were windows above her. Her angle to them was oblique, so she couldn’t see anything through them. At night, sometimes they would one or two be lit. The window immediately to her right when she stood at the door was an aperture into their kitchen. She would hear low voices coming from this window, and sometimes when she knocked on the door the voices would stop, resuming when Skinner’s footsteps would come up from the basement to let her in. Often, rather than knocking, she would call him on her phone to alert him that she was outside. She had never rung the bell. She had to assume that they heard him answering the door and leading a visitor downstairs.

All through the winter, she had avoided being seen. She had not once come face to face with anyone who lived there. Visiting him had become routine; she took for granted that she could come and go.

The whole house gradually took on only one meaning for her, the meaning of him. To lay eyes on it was to see him directly, and she would react to the sight of it based on how things were going between them: if they were getting along, she felt happy, and if they were fighting, she got depressed. While she avoided the Americans, she had never been afraid to enter their house.

One afternoon that spring, when she was standing at the door after knocking, she thought she heard someone come to the kitchen window and look at her and then say something about her to whoever else was in the kitchen.

Who’s outside?

I’ll look. Some dink. Did you order Chinese?

Not us. Must be the tenant.

GETTING MARRIED WAS A wonderful idea, she said, but it would not be simple or easy. There might be costs, from seeing a lawyer to buying a ring. And marrying him might not be enough in itself to allow her to stay in the country legally. They might face many more legal and practical obstacles. That was why she urged him to think twice before he did this. In addition, she said, he was a young man and he might regret this later. She didn’t want to take advantage of him…

I don’t see why it can’t work out, he said.

She was just afraid it would be a lot of struggle for him and he already had a struggle on his own. What if I add my burdens to yours? Maybe we should wait.

Waiting didn’t make any sense, he said. If there was something you wanted to do, you better do it today, because you didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow.

On a Sunday morning, she and Skinner walked up Main Street in the direction of Franklin Avenue, passing produce markets. When they were almost to the top of the hill, the produce line ended and Zou Lei’s eye was caught by a set of tubs. The tubs were in front of a store whose sign was invisible. She told Skinner she wanted to see something and she went closer and saw the tubs contained dried prune-like things. On the cardboard, in Chinese, had been written: Six kinds of dates. Temporary shelves laid across cinder blocks held lily flower, lotus seeds, boiled peanuts, bars of Darlie Double Action Two Mint Powers, and Fan Medicated Soap.

What are you looking at? he asked, coming over. She was visoring her eyes and looking through the glass.

I think it’s the Chinese medicine.

Chinese medicine?

Yes. That’s what it is.

She turned to him. Skinner, I think we can go inside. We can look for something that can help you. It can cure many things that the Western medicine feels helpless.

She reached for his elbow.