Richard Lange - Sweet Nothing

If I refuse, things might turn even uglier. That’s my thinking as I leave the car and follow David and Mr. Lee to the side of the building and up a rickety staircase that leads to the entrance to the second-floor unit. At least if I’m there, I can get between them.

Mr. Lee unlocks the door to the apartment, and we walk into the kitchen. The cabinets are all wide open, and flies buzz around a dirty rice cooker sitting on the counter. The place smells like garlic and rose-scented air freshener.

“Wait here,” David says to me. He and Mr. Lee go down the hall, turn into another room, and close the door.

I flip through a calendar that’s stuck to the refrigerator. Each month has a different photo of Korea: a neon-drenched cityscape, a stone temple, a group of women in colorful robes. I imagine Mr. Lee, homesick while he waits for his rice to get done, sitting with his head in his hands at the little kitchen table and wishing he hadn’t given up on Seoul. A picture of Jesus hangs on the fridge too, and a Pollo Loco coupon.

The sounds of a scuffle drown out the shouts of the kids playing in the yard. Someone is slammed against a wall once, twice, three times, and the apartment shakes like it’s about to come down on us. The door in the hallway opens, and David steps out. He storms back into the kitchen, red-faced and breathing hard.

“Go in there and tell him this is his last chance,” he whispers. “Say that you’re afraid of what’ll happen if he doesn’t give me the money.”

“What money?” I say.

“He owes me for a stone.”

“David—” I begin.

“Look,” he says. “This is it. If you can’t get him to pay, the matter moves up the chain, and next week the poor bastard will have a squad of ex-Mossad on his ass.”

I close my eyes and shake my head. David could be lying, or he could be telling the truth. Right now, I don’t care; I just want to get out of here. I leave the kitchen without another word and walk down the hall.

Mr. Lee is sitting on the edge of an unmade bed, smoking a cigarette. The room is a mess. The dresser has been tossed; so has the closet. Clothes are everywhere, papers, pillows.

I gesture at Mr. Lee’s cigarette and say, “Can I have one?”

He nods toward a pack of Kools lying on the floor. I pick it up, pull one out, light it with the book of matches tucked into the pack’s cellophane. I deliver David’s message pretty much as he told me to, and I’m not fibbing when I say that I don’t know what he’ll do if he doesn’t get what he wants.

Mr. Lee stares down at the worn carpet between his feet. He’s trying his damnedest not to cry. A tear gets away from him and slides down his cheek. He finally points without looking to a heater vent on the wall.

WE’VE DROPPED MR. Lee back at the shoe store, and David is a happy man. He switches the radio from news to classic rock and bobs his head in time to the music. A big grin spreads across his face. He lifts the collar of his shirt to his nose, hoots loudly, and says, “Wow, I stink.”

I stare out the window, watching the buses and the wheelchair bums and the blowing trash with new appreciation. The Earth is flat, and I wandered too close to the edge. I’m glad to be back on the map.

“I’m sorry you had to see how the sausage gets made,” David says.

“Does Marjorie know you beat people?” I ask. “Does Claire?”

David’s smile disappears. “I don’t beat people,” he says. “That wasn’t a beating.”

At a red light he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of money. He peels off three hundred-dollar bills and holds them out to me.

“Keep it,” I say.

“What, you like it better when it comes in a check every month?” he says.

He thinks he’s got me there. A real Big Daddy moment, a real life lesson. But hypocrisy is the least of my worries. I have plenty of other good stuff to hate myself for.

See, you can’t teach anybody anything, David. That’s the one conclusion I’ve come to as a substitute. All you can do is present the information, and the student has to make the choice to learn. And what you’re laying down, I already know. Yes, we’re all con men at heart, and, yes, the world is a swamp of misery and avarice. But what I’m searching for, David, what I need, is someone to show me how to live in it.

THAT NIGHT AT the Bowl, Marjorie hands me her phone and tells me to take a photo of her, David, and Claire with the orchestra onstage behind them. She and David each place a hand on Claire’s belly for the picture. Our seats are right in front, close enough to see the musicians’ brows furrow when they play difficult passages, close enough to watch them flex their fingers during pauses. But still, the pounding of my heart drowns out the music.

Everybody in the boxes around us is drinking champagne, everybody’s having fun. I hand the phone back and turn to gaze at the upper tiers where I sat last time. I remember looking down here and wondering, Who the hell are those people?

I excuse myself and walk to the refreshment stand, where I use one of David’s hundreds to buy two shots of Jack Daniel’s. I down them quickly, then move to another window and order two more. The fist inside my chest unclenches a bit, and I notice stars overhead, lots of them, shining hard in the dingy purple sky.

Claire smells the booze on me when I get back. Worry clouds her pretty face. “What’s going on?” she whispers.

She’s gotten used to me tiptoeing these last few months. She’s forgotten what kind of person I really am. I put my arm around her and squeeze her shoulders.

David, watching from the other side of the box, interprets this as a romantic gesture. He nods approvingly and raises his Korbel in tribute to young love. Anger dries my mouth and stiffens my spine. I want to twist him as much as he twisted me today. I lean forward so that only he can hear me, and, gesturing at Claire and myself, I say, “This is where I fuck this up.”

His eyes narrow to slits.

“What?” he barks.

I reload and get ready to repeat myself, but just then the fireworks go off, making us all jump. The orchestra surges, every instrument roaring at once, and the music finally explodes inside me and whips the tatters of my sick, sick soul. Yes! What a riot.

PUPPET SHOOTING THAT BABY comes into my head again, like a match flaring in the dark, this time while I’m wiping down the steam tables after the breakfast rush at the hospital.

Julio steps up behind me with a vat of scrambled eggs, and I flinch like he’s some kind of monster.

“¿Qué pasa?” he asks as he squeezes by me to drop the vat into its slot.

“Nothing, guapo . You startled me is all.”

I was coming back from the park yesterday and saw it happen. Someone yelled something stupid from a passing car; Puppet pulled a gun and fired. The bullet missed the car and hit little Antonio instead, two years old, playing on the steps of the apartment building where he lived with his parents. Puppet tossed the gun to one of his homeys, Cheeks, and took off running. He shot that baby, and now he’s going to get away with it, you watch.

Dr. Wu slides her tray over and asks for pancakes. She looks at me funny through her thick glasses. These days everybody can tell what I’m thinking. My heart is pounding, and my hand is cold when I raise it to my forehead.

“How’s your family, Blanca?” Dr. Wu asks.

“Fine, Doctor, fine,” I say. I straighten up and wipe my face with a towel, give her a big smile. “Angela graduated from Northridge in June and is working at an insurance company, Manuel is still selling cars, and Lorena is staying with me for a while, her and her daughter, Brianna. We’re all doing great.”