Christopher Sorrentino - Trance

“Well, Dan. You take care, now.”

“You too. Good luck.”

“Need any gas money to get back home?”

“Um, I’m all right.”

“’Kay. Let me have that blanket we used on you, will you? Just wrap the rifles up in it. Yeah. And give us about a half an hour, OK? Count to a million.”

“Jeez,” says Dan, a little affronted, “I won’t tell anybody.”

“I know you won’t. Bye, Dan.”

“Bye!” Dan waves out the window at Tania and Yolanda as Teko gets out of the van, carrying the bundled rifles, shopping bags, and other gear.

“You’re gonna have to scunch down, mister,” says Teko, getting into the backseat. “Hang on a sec. Did you check him out?”

Yolanda shrugs, and Tania shakes her head.

“Christ, for all you know the guy could be a pig.” Teko goes through the man’s pockets, finding a wallet. “Ray Fraley. What’s your line, Ray Fraley?”

“I’m a, I’m a contractor.”

“Like, buildings? Excellent. Useful, productive. Do you build good buildings?”

“I. Yes. I mean. How do you mean?”

Teko shakes his head. “Man, I’m not trying to trip you up with bullshit doublespeak. Do you build good buildings or do you build bad buildings?”

“Yes, they’re good, I’m proud of them.”

“Good. Good. OK, now, I’m hereby expropriating this here two hundred fifty dollars in your wallet in the name of the Symbionese Liberation Army. It will be put to good use. Now, scunch down. We’re going to put this blanket over you for your own protection. Don’t do anything weird or flaky or we’ll shoot you and you’ll be dead and that’s just not gonna be a good thing. OK?”

“OK.”

Teko drops the blanket over the man sprawled uncomfortably across the floor in the back of the car. He notices that the blanket is trembling; his mind articulates the phrase shaking like a leaf , which reminds him, inexplicably, of his mother. He asks the shaking blanket: “Are you OK under there? You don’t have a bad heart or anything, do you?”

The blanket shakes some more.

“I mean, we really don’t want you to get sick on us or anything. I’m asking are you OK?”

“I’m OK.”

“That’s good. ’Cause you’re just shit out of luck if you have a heart attack. I just need you to know that.”

1466 East Fifty-fourth Street

Sheila Mears wanted the lights down low while they sat quiet and listened to music in the front room, but she didn’t want Charles Gates getting the wrong idea. She could tell from the look on his face all night that he figured he was the wolf in the chicken coop with them all, and when the card game stopped and the wine kept coming she just knew, she read in his face that taking your pick look she’s seen before. And she didn’t feel like it, she knew Lillian didn’t if what she said was to be believed (which it wasn’t always), and she didn’t either think it was correct for a girl of Crystal’s age of seventeen years, not that she was all that innocent, but you know. And her own kids would be getting up pretty soon now for school; she didn’t want all that going on while they trying to get to the cornflakes.

She’d gotten up to go into the kitchen to get another nerve pill when there was a knock at the door. This wasn’t that unusual. People knew Sheila and Lillian liked to stay up and have company. Nothing duller than a quiet house. Her mother kept a quiet house. But four in the morning: kind of late. Other hand, here come the cavalry is how you want to look at it in regards to Charles Gates and his wolf-looking face. She opened the door. Lillian joined her at the entryway. Outside a good-looking stranger was standing at ease on the porch like the most natural thing.

“Hello, sisters,” he said. “My name is Cinque.”

“Sin Q?” repeated Lillian, giggling.

“Yes, sister. I need your help. I saw your lights. The police are looking for my friends and I, and we need a place to stay for several hours.”

He spoke formally; he was reaching. Sheila was impressed and amused at the same time.

“Why I’d want to hide you from the police?”

Cinque smiled. He was a fine-looking man. “We’re the SLA. Freedom fighters fighting on behalf of all the People. Maybe,” he added, “you’ve heard of us.”

“What’s going on out there?” yelled Crystal, who’d been left alone with Charles Gates in the front room.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Sheila.

“There’ll be no trouble, I promise you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out five twenties, which he fanned out so that Sheila and Lillian could see them all. They looked real. Sheila and Lillian put their heads together for a little chat.

“What we got in here,” said Lillian, phrasing the decisive argument, “they could take worth a hundred dollars?”

Charles Gates was drafted to help tote in supplies. Soon Sheila was surprised to see all manner of arms and ammunition coming in the front door and being carried through the house to the kitchen, along with suitcases, footlockers, and cardboard cartons. Plus white people. Sheila never had a white person in her house before. They come to the door to sell her Jesus. They read her meters and delivered her mail. But never inside. She kept waiting for another black face, as four white women and a white man came through the door, all partly hidden behind whatever they carried.

“Thank you, sister. You are helping the cause of freedom.” The fact that Cinque uttered this while holding a sloshing gasoline can put a vague fear in Sheila’s insides. The others followed suit as if cued, mechanically thanking Sheila.

“What about me?” said Lillian, jokingly.

They all dutifuly extended thanks to Lillian, who burst out laughing, breaking the tiniest of holes in the white ice. Cinque then explained that they needed to hide the vans somewhere. Charles Gates knew just the place. He said he’d take Cinque.

Outside, Charles Gates said, “You the ones took Alice Galton.”

“We have liberated her mind of fascist oppression,” said Cinque, still grandiloquent.

“Where she at?”

“She is with a combat unit, brother, on special assignment. And that is all I’m at liberty to say at present.”

The sky began to grow light. Darkness would never touch this home again. Lillian, Sheila, and Crystal remained in the front room while their guests occupied themselves in the kitchen.

“You see all that? What you get us into?”

“Me? You the one said let’s take the hundred dollars.”

“Damn, I didn’t know they was a whole army and shit.”

The front door opened, and Charles Gates and Cinque entered.

“Cinque say they need a place to stay about two weeks,” reported Charles Gates.

Sheila snapped her fingers; there was a place for rent around the corner, on Compton. Oh yeah, said Charles Gates, lightly striking himself in the forehead. And we was right there, too. They went out again.

“Hi.” It was two of the white girls, the teensy one and the pretty one. They didn’t know what to say but wanted to say something. This was white gratitude toward blacks: the idea was you were supposed to divine it from their sheer dumb presence. Lillian asked them why they were on the move.

“Long story short, pigs foun’ us,” said the teensy one. “Dey lucky we all left fo’ dey got there.”

Sheila wrinkled up her nose as if she had smelled a mouse lying dead behind the baseboard.

“I believe it,” said Lillian amiably. “You look like you ready for them.”

Gradually the kitchen emptied, and the hall filled with milling SLA members again, peering in at their black benefactors with that mutely abject appreciation. Sheila felt uncomfortable. And she wanted to see what was going on in her kitchen.