Atticus Lish - Preparation for the Next Life

A curly haired young man with an earnest, devoted, sacrificial manner stood very erect behind the counter serving the cabdrivers. He had a slender neck and hair on his throat and large brown eyes. After each of the drivers paid, he said a sincere bimsallah. She asked him if she could have a cup of water.

Take it, please, he said. I will show you.

He came out from the glass enclosed area and opened the cupboards for her, gave her a paper cup. Here is the hot one — he pointed out the red lever on the coffee maker. She was so tired her fatigue was overrunning her in waves. She thought she was dreaming. I don’t have money, she said out loud. It seemed he didn’t hear her. When he went back to the register, she shielded what she was doing from him with her body and poured herself a milk and coffee. She tore sugars in it, drank it down to the brown silt of sugar at the bottom, and filled her cup again. She kept her back to him as she drank. Behind her, she heard him ring a sale. She examined a pack of Twinkies, looked up at the mirror, and put them down. Another cab driver came in. She went back and picked the Twinkies up and began to leave. The young man watched her leaving.

I will get money, she said. It’s okay?

Okay, he said, lowering his eyelids.

She took the food outside and ate it right outside and fell asleep sitting slumped on the curb for several minutes.

Immediately, she dreamed. She had sensations of color, turmoil, voice, but saw none of the usual scenes or human beings who exist in ordinary waking life. Her mind felt drenched in wet images and thrashing. She thought her head was tumbling in a sack that had been pitched off a mountain and she was hitting fir trees.

She lay there, half-slumped over on the curb under the amber lights on the edge of the eight-lane avenue with her feet extended out in front of her. Her feet and ankles were black from dirt. The soles of her feet were stuck to her shower shoes. The calluses on her feet were yellow and black. She was forming blisters underneath the skin. Her mouth hung open. She began to fall sideways and she jerked awake.

She couldn’t focus her eyes or remember where she was. When she looked around, all she saw was fields of black and purple streaked with lights, and she heard the oceanic sounds of traffic in the distance. She fell asleep again and jerked her head awake again, scared she was going to see a cop coming up to her. This time she forced herself to keep her eyes open. She could not think. All she knew was that she had to keep moving until daytime. She made herself stand up, and it was hard. As soon as her weight came on her feet, she winced. She stood there tottering, sweaty and dirty, looking down at her feet. Her heels were bruised from walking without padding. Grit beneath her heel made her suck her breath in in pain when she stepped on it. She hobbled over to a curb by the compressed air machine and sat back down and looked at herself. She took her sandal off and brushed the sand off her foot. The sole of her foot felt sticky like glue, as if the rubber of the shoes had been melted by friction. The straps had sawed into her skin, she discovered. Between her toes, there was a red raw circle where she’d been cut by the toe piece. Touching her foot made her hands feel dirty. The shoes themselves were coming apart. The treads were completely flat. She did one foot, then the other, placed her feet gingerly back in the sandals, and stood up again.

She adjusted herself, pulled her shorts down. Getting her bearings, she figured out which way she had been going before she stopped and then she turned herself that way and slowly, stiffly, started moving on.

For some time thereafter, she walked in a state of half-awakeness past things she half-perceived. Francis Lewis Boulevard. The Belle Aire playground. A black woman thin as an African with dyed blond hair prowling on a traffic island. A sprinkler was whisking in the grass. The public restroom door was open and you could see the sink and stall. Two cars drove by booming rap. She passed the on-ramp for the Grand Central Parkway. She passed the Satya Sanatan Dharma Mandir, a place of worship. A spiked iron fence. The Creedmoor Psychiatric Facility — the buildings set at random angles, an iron gate left open. She could see weeds in the asphalt like rice paddy squares. It looked abandoned. Ambulances parked in a fleet. A section of the fence hit by a car. Beneath the mercury lights, she saw a shadow that didn’t belong to her and looked around to see who was following her, but there was no one there.

For what seemed like miles, she journeyed past old apartment houses with lawns and rusted placards for Fallout Shelters. Girish Bulsara, MD. Bala Ji Grocery. Apna Baza Cash & Carry. Patel Halal Meat. Great long stretches between anything. A Mexican taco truck serving two laborers. Graffiti on a traffic light box: NW$. The Cross Island Parkway.

The landscape changed. The road divided and angled north. She passed a clean suburban high school. They had a black field of neatly mowed grass and football goal posts. She saw pine cones on the asphalt. The road was wide and flat and clean and there was nearly absolute stillness. It was cool and pleasant. She heard crickets.

She had been walking for a long time now, and somewhere along the way, she had completely waked up. Thinking it was dawn, she looked at the sky, but there was no sign of it: It was still night, the sky was indigo-black and she could see the clouds. Whatever time it was, her mind felt fresh and clear and the rest of her was comfortable. Her legs were warmed up and she didn’t feel them. Her feet had stopped hurting her. She just felt pressure when she put them down, no pain, and the rhythm of walking. Passing someone’s house with a stake bed truck parked in front of it, she looked to her left and saw a wall of forest. She could go for miles like this, which meant she knew she was going to make it through to morning.

She would hear cars coming before she could see them. The sound would build and build and then the car would break past her and she’d see the taillights going away. She started wondering what if someone was coming to find her. Each time a car came, the rising pitch of the sound created a feeling of suspense, which lingered in the silence after it was gone, during which she waited to hear the next one coming.

What if the next one you hear is Skinner coming?

A white Malibu sped by her without stopping and went on in a pool of light moving up the black road between the houses towards the night sky.

No, no, of course that wasn’t him. He’s not out here, she said to herself. He doesn’t have a car. She would meet him further on. She would have to last the entire night. In the morning, when the sun comes up — that was when she would see him. She would have to walk a very long way, but if she did everything correctly and didn’t give in, then she would be rewarded. But for this to work, she would really have to push herself. She would have to keep going a long, long way. You’ll have to really move your legs this time, she said. It won’t be easy. He won’t just appear. She would have to go all the way to the mountains. That, finally, would make him appear.

She started to form a plan of what she would do to make the distance long enough. She would keep pushing east until the time was right, and then she would go north when it was possible and then go back. She would go on foot all the way to his house, and when the door opened, Skinner would be standing there. He would open the door with his eyes worried and when he saw her, his eyes would relax in that instant and the weight would fall off his heart. She imagined the relief and joy of embracing him in his doorway. This made her long to be with him right now. It will happen soon, she said. And she had to keep her heart down as if it had wings in it and was going to fly out of her chest.