Atticus Lish - Preparation for the Next Life

He dropped on the pavement without breaking an ankle, his heart rate soaring from going over the fence. Another street met this one in a T. He went the way she had gone, the sweat raining off his face, elbows, wrists, chin, nose — every ledge of himself.

Nearly out of balance, he careened onto a long ribbon of road rolling downhill and uphill through pools of shadow and peach-violet light. A pair of dots bouncing up and down: the heels of her running shoes. His brain deciphered the rest of the figure from the heels. A figure traveling steadily down the ribbon of road ahead of him.

He chased her into hypnosis. The road kept rolling through quiet houses with nothing to jerk him out of his run-dream. The scenery evolved in phases. The ghetto went away. The lawns got bigger. For a time, maybe a mile, maybe two, he saw high shaped dark hedges and mini mansions. There was no sidewalk. You weren’t supposed to come here from somewhere else. Later, the hedges went away and the lawns shrank back down to postage stamps. The graffiti came back — on the side of a groceria. Impressions bounced off him as if he were drunk. A pickup idling. A dude in a sleeveless shirt coming out of the groceria with a six-pack, noticing Skinner, connecting him to the girl who had just run by a second before, and wondering if he was some nut who was trying to hurt her.

Losing the will to keep running, Skinner was bargaining with himself. Twenty minutes since the park. Three miles. He put the pain away. The pain came back. Five more minutes. Five more minutes and come see me again. The pain came back every five steps. He put it away. Come on, he said. The pain was rising. She must be fuckin going faster. I’ll hang for another five minutes. He heard himself wheezing harder beneath the flogging rhythm of the run.

Just from here to there, he thought, picking a house in his viewfinder. Then forgetting which one. He was down to bargaining second-by-second, his pride slipping. Everything on him was slamming, every organ. Couldn’t keep track of anything. His shoulder whacked the side mirror of a parked van. If there had been an IED in front of him, he would have stepped on it. It would have hurt too much to change course. His legs were quitting. All he could do was run in a straight line and now he was losing even that.

At the end of the street, she turned the corner and this defeated him. He couldn’t run anymore, he had to limp. Try and keep moving. Stay with her. He tried to shuffle. He made himself jog to the corner.

There she was, hands on hips, face dripping, walking in a circle in the roadway.

Skinner walked towards her, and even this distance seemed like a long one to traverse and gave him time to wonder if she would be a stranger to him now because during the run she had been a distant figure without a face.

Hey, he said.

He hobbled towards her. Hey. Hey, he said. Can I talk to you? Twisted his shirt and a pint of water splattered on the pavement. I didn’t mean any of that.

Not any of it, he said.

I’m so stupid.

Baby?

She paused in her circling and bent to touch her toes. Tight jeans from behind, anatomical view. When she raised up, she flipped her wet hair back. It slapped like a rope. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what he had been angry about. He was alive, heart still beating.

Steam rising from them in the vapor light.

HE KEPT APOLOGIZING TO her. She didn’t say much of anything to him except that she was tired and needed water. They stopped at a bodega on 41 stRoad and she waited outside while he went in. Numb after her marathon, she wondered if she should leave him there, but she couldn’t.

He came out with a water, spilling it in his hurry to open it for her as if she were a casualty he was tending, and she took the bottle from him and drank the entire liter down, finding she wanted it more desperately the more she drank.

Will you come back with me?

Lead the way, she indicated.

They went back to his house, their slick sweat congealing, turning into a grit-sweat syrup, hamstrings stiffening, chaffed skin beginning to burn in their sogging clothes, which exuded a sharp ketone rankness. The adrenaline faded out of her. She asked him if she could use the shower when they were inside and he said of course.

From the shower, she heard him talking to the pizza man.

When she got out, Skinner gave her one of his t-shirts to wear and she sat on the edge of his mattress, her wet hair smelling like shampoo and her bare legs crossed, wearing his t-shirt like a woman in a short dress at a party, noncommittally observing her surroundings. The pizza came and Skinner opened the box for her and held it on his knees.

She told him to eat as well.

You ran my dick in the dirt.

Yeah?

I’m not gonna lie. You kicked my ass. I haven’t been running like I should. The smoking’s catching up with me.

You said many times you should quit.

Yeah, I did say that.

Yes. You said many things.

I meant them.

Of course, you meant them.

I stayed with you on the run no matter how bad it was, didn’t I?

Because you feel guilty maybe, because you yell at me.

Yeah, that’s exactly why. I do feel guilty. I didn’t want to do anything I did.

Maybe I didn’t want to go in jail, but I did it anyway. It’s many things I didn’t want to do. It’s life. I think number one thing for me, I get the job. It could be out-of-state. I get a job include the room, include the meal.

He put the pizza box aside and kneeled in front of her.

Wait a minute.

No, Skinner, I don’t hate you, but I have to make my life.

Zooey, listen.

She didn’t want to listen. He said she didn’t have to go. She didn’t understand: he would give her everything. When she said she wouldn’t take whatever this everything was that he was offering, he made her listen again, urging her to stop making refusals. He would not relent; he finally got her to listen. He gripped her hips and shook her slightly until she finally gazed down at him.

I’ll explain what everything means. I’ve got some money in the bank, Zooey. He put his wallet on the floor at her feet. It’s the rest of what they paid me. I’m giving it to you. These are my keys to this room. I can sleep in the field. I don’t give a fuck, but you can’t be out there. I’m giving this to you. That’s what I mean by everything. I mean everything. He put his keys next to his wallet on the floor at her feet. I mean all the pizza, the fridge, whatever’s in it, everything. My cigarettes, he said. My laptop. I want you to have everything I can give you. I have no other plans. I’ll get married tomorrow. We’ll go to the lawyer. That’s what I mean by everything. Look — He looked around the room for her Asics. He held them up in one hand like a shoe salesman. Lawyer. He set them by the wallet and keys. He picked up his desert boots. Marriage. He set them with the sneakers and told her to look down at this diagram of objects he was presenting her with.

There are things I can’t do, so let me at least do what I can.

Money, keys to a room, a legal arrangement of uncertain efficacy: a significant but short list. She didn’t know whether it was more right to refuse or to accept this everything that he was so ready to part with. And what was he keeping for himself? His drugs, the gun that was hidden somewhere among the camouflage gear in the corner? There was still a lot of unfilled space on the black tiled floor between her feet.

He touched the wallet again.

I’ve got several thousand dollars. I started with ten. I wish I had it all for you.

I can’t accept.

Yeah you can.

He took his bank card and started pushing it into her hand, repeating the PIN to her. She told him to stop, reaching down and touching his stubble on which his sweat had dried leaving behind salt.