The Orange Houses (8 page)

Fatima watched her help the kid. “Mik, will you lead the class for us?”

Mik looked around the room, twenty kids, another twenty adults, eighty eyes on her. She signed to Fatima, I CAN'T DO IT.

“You can and you will,” Fatima said.

Mik signed, NO WAY.

“Where is my little Juliet? Yes, there you are. Will you show us how to make lions?”

 

They walked along the park. “The children loved you, Sister Mik. Did you know you were such a wonderful teacher?”

“One-on-one, I don't mind so much, but with a crowd—”

“Next time you will teach all the students.”

“Anybody ever tell you you're kind of bossy?”

“I have to be.”

The following Sunday morning Mik woke with an aching face. She smiled even as she remembered the cause of her pain—all that smiling this past week, helping Fatima at the hospital. She stretched in the sunlight warming her bedcovers.

The happy feeling didn't last.

Mom came in. “Y'all shower and dress for church.”

“Can't wait.”

“You can pray for Joe Knows, Mika.”

“That'll bring him back.”

“Who birthed you? Are you my child?”

Fatima woke two hours early to be sure she would sell out her papers in time to go to church with Mik, Mom, and NaNa.

Mik whispered, “Why would you come here willingly?”

“For fun.”

“For what?” Mik said.

“Girls, hush,” Mom said.

The music was wonderful. Everyone clapped and sang along. NaNa swayed and sang louder than anyone else. Fatima watched as Mik adjusted her hearing aids to hear the guitar player, her eyes on the guitarist's fingers plucking magic from the strings. Mik grimaced.

Fatima nudged Mik and pointed to the skylight.

Mik keyed her phone: ?

Fatima signed, PRETTY DAY. She thought,
I hope the weather will be this nice when we visit Liberty.

 

It wasn't. Fatima gave away the papers she couldn't sell this cold rainy Monday holiday honoring the American veterans. She was at Mik's by noon. They helped NaNa pack the sandwiches she made for their trip.

Mom walked in tired from work. “Hey.”

“Mom.” Fatima hugged Sandrine Sykes. The woman's arms were strong, like Fatima's mother's.

“Drine Sykes, you ever been to the Statue of Liberty?” NaNa said. “Me neither.”

“Y'all be back for dinner,” Mom said. “Teesha called in sick, I'm to cover her overnight, but NaNa got the chicken out for a good one here, okay? Hey girls, y'all don't go wandering now. Mika, you hear me? If you won't get the new aids, then at least keep the old ones on. Don't you
Tt
me, missy. Look at her, rolling her eyes. Y'all watch out for them tourists. They come over here acting all ignorant, trick you into showing 'em around, next thing you know they buying you dinner and drinks with drugs slipped in them, and you're back at their hotel,
no
idea how you got there or why half y'all's clothes are on the floor.”

NaNa threw her arms around the girls. “They be fine. Nobody-a mess with this Fatima woman. Y'all cut quite a figure. You too, Mika. Just look
mean
. Yes, like that. My girls are
fierce
.”

 

They trained down to the ferry, sipping cheap beer from a brown bag.

Mik said and signed, “I feel bad, corrupting you.”

“Do you think I am such a nerd?” Fatima signed the words letter by letter with her hand. “Correct?”

“Yes to both.”

A homeless man begged. They gave him NaNa's sandwiches.

“You think he's okay?” Mik said.

She knew Mik was speaking of Jimmi. “Yes. You?”

“Yes. You're lying to me, aren't you?”

“Yes. You too?”

“Yes.”

They sipped the beer, but without laughter now.

 

The ferry was nearly empty, the fog thick, the water rough. They ate concession-stand pizza. It was hot and delicious. They bought tourist T-shirts and silly foam hats, Liberty's spiked crown. They took pictures of each other posing like Liberty with Mik's phone. A tourist took a shot of them together, twin Liberties. A little drunk, they talked nonstop about happy things, the kids at the VA hospital, handsome boys—

“That one is staring at you,” Mik said.

Fatima turned. “I think he is staring at
you
.”

“Am I red? Stop looking at them.”

Fatima waved. “Hello.”

Mik slapped down Fatima's hand. “Look, here they come now.”

The boy and his friend sat next to the girls. “What up?” the first boy said. He nudged Mik.

Mik blushed. Fatima laughed.

“We wondering what y'all hiding under that scarf,” the other said.

“Wouldn't you like to know?” Fatima winked.

“Fa
ti
ma,” Mik said.

“Where y'all headed?” the boy said. He tried to hold Fatima's hand.

“I believe you must know this boat only goes to the Statue of Liberty.” Fatima playfully slapped away the boy's hand.

Mik dragged Fatima into the bathroom. “Put a leash on you, girl.”

“Do we have any more beer?” Fatima said.

“
No
.” Mik undid her hair in the dented metal mirror and tied it back to pin her ears.

Fatima washed her hands as she watched Mik. “I do not know why you hide them. Look at these ears, fantastic. They are so big. I would love to decorate them with shiny things.”

“That's only gonna make folks look at 'em more.”

“Exactly.”

An announcement came over the PA system:
Due to the inclement weather, we will be forced to turn the boat around. This is as close as we get to Liberty today, folks. Take pictures while you can.

“What did he say?” Mik said.

 

The ferry turning broadside, Fatima and Mik ran to the boat railing to glimpse the Great Lady. She was far away. Fog covered all but her feet.

Mik hung her arm on Fatima's shoulder.

“You have to laugh,” Fatima said. And she did.

Laughing arm in arm they skipped the strip across from the O Houses. The strip's lights airbrushed the night red and green. A boy whistled at Fatima. “Two boys flirted with me today—a record. Why are they looking at me?”

Mik pointed to Fatima's reflection in a parked car's glass. Fatima's reflection smiled back at them. “Your eyes,” Mik said. “They're crinkling.”

“Yours too.”

Mik nodded.

A pack of girls shoved Fatima before they ran off. Their screams blew out Mik's hearing aids. They said something about horror, or terror.

“Did they just call you a—”

“Terrorist.”

“Yo!” Mik said. “Come back here and say that.”

“Do not bait them,” Fatima said.

“Folks are ignorant. You gotta lose the scarf.”

“Impossible. It was my mother's.” Fatima pulled the shawl higher to cover her scar.

“They're coming back,” Mik said.

“Please do not even think about calling the police.”

“Then let's duck into a store.” They went into Jimmy Jazz's, a HELP WANTED sign by the register. Mik asked for an application.

The manager stole a peek at Mik's hearing aids as he handed her the paper.

“I gotta take it home to get my Moms to sign it, right?” Mik said.

“Either way,” the dude said.

Mik nodded. Yeah, she wasn't getting this job.

The dude eyed Fatima. “You probably want one too, huh?”

Fatima looked around the store, smiled, shook no.

They went out, the posse gone.

“They play fun music in there,” Fatima said. “Maybe someday if I win a green card—”

A dude cut in front of them with a German shepherd that looked like Joe's Tranquilito. Mik went to pet it. The dog snapped at her. The dog's owner pulled a badge on a necklace from his shirt. “We're working here.”

Mik nodded, backed up. Fatima was gone. Mik hunted the strip. Fatima had backpedaled into the shadows under the elevated train. “I must go,” she said.

“What about dinner? NaNa's expecting you.”

“They are across the street too, the police, in front of your building.”

“Girl, they're not looking for you. Those are drug-sniffing dogs. Those guys are narcs. You got to stop being so paranoid.”

Red and blue lights peppered the building behind Fatima. A siren chirped. An NYPD cruiser slow-rolled the strip. The cop in the shotgun seat spotted folks with a handheld searchlight.

“Sister Mik, I have to bounce.”

“Wait for me then.”

“No, go home. NaNa—”

Mik stuck her phone in Fatima's hand. “Call her, tell her I'm sleeping over. Except we won't be sleeping.”

“Please explain.”

“We better stop for coffee first. C'mon. We'll get you to Liberty yet.”

They hooked into the alley, then uphill into the dark park.

 

Mik and Fatima studied the Liberty brochure in the flashlight. The statue's official name was
Liberty Enlightening the World
.

From Fatima's cart they unloaded the buckets of old paint they had taken from the ghost house a week and a half earlier to paint Fatima's yard. They lined them up in front of the abandoned NYPD garage door. “The cops never come here anymore,” Mik said. “I promise.”

“I trust you,” Fatima said. “I do.”

They set up the accordion ladder they found with the paint.

The streetlights were dead. They took turns lighting the garage for each other with the flashlight. In the dim light and over the gang graffiti they painted the statue, adding six ultraviolet wings to Liberty as she looked over an expressionist cityscape. Then in every color they painted part of what Fatima said she wished she had seen more than anything else: the plaque inside Liberty's pedestal, Emma Lazarus's poem. Fatima had memorized it long before she came to America.

 

 

They did not paint over one part of the wall, where years earlier Jimmi's patchwork of hearts and clocks had come together to spell out LOVE KILLS TIME.

Fatima put up her fist for a knuckle bump.

Mik bumped her. “Like that.”

Every Third had followed them here. The cat rubbed against Mik's legs, hissing at her. They had picked up McDonald's on the way but forgot to eat as the painting drew them in. The cat didn't mind that the chicken sandwiches were five hours cold. He scratched at the bag. The girls pulled the meat from the fried breading and set it before Every Third. They stepped back to watch the rickety little cat eat at the feet of the great winged lady.

Jimmi didn't believe in the next world. Why then did he have the feeling Joe was looking over his shoulder as he chiseled the cave floor with a bent screwdriver and a brick?

He rested his forehead on the floor, whispered into the dust, “Tomorrow I'm back on the wagon, Joe. I swear.”

 

He went to buy until he remembered he was broke. He waited in the alley.

The low-level methamphetamine dealer rushed out of his tenement. He hopped into the Navigator he'd parked in front of a dead hydrant two minutes earlier.

The car gunning out of sight, Jimmi slipped into the building, up to the second floor, the last crib on the left. He stuck an awl into the lock. One shot with the side of a cloth-covered hammer,
thunk
, twist, and he was in with a lot less noise than you'd think.

He left the lights off and made his way by feel into the kitchen, to the cabinet where the dealer kept his stash.

The cabinet had no stash tonight. He was about to jet when something in the back of the cabinet caught his eye—a dim glint. The microwave clock light reflected off something peeking out from behind a fat bag of sugar. Jimmi shoved the sugar aside and found a Colt .45, old-school silver.