Miles from Nowhere

by Nami Mun

  In the waiting room, I came down enough to understand that it was not Easter and the egg people were protesters of some kind. Some guy wearing a tool belt was duct-taping the front door glass with cardboard. All the windows facing the street were shut. The blinds were shut. Once in a while I peeked outside. The protestors had a tall wastebasket filled with eggs. They handed them out to everyone on the street, except the homeless.

  I sat across from a TV and my eyes throbbed too much, trying to follow all the magic in I Dream of Jeannie . Jeannie was too happy. Who was she trying to fool? She was crossing her arms and blinking, making a puppy appear and disappear, over and over again, right when a black girl with tight shorts and loopy earrings walked in front of the television set and slipped into the bathroom. The sign above the TV read: NO FOOD. NO DRINK. NO RADIO. It said nothing about shooting up in the bathroom. I’d been waiting for too long and now I was coming down fast. I needed to be high for the abortion. Somebody had given me that advice but I couldn’t remember who. Was it the nun? Had I told her about the baby? I imagined the bathroom sink, sparkling clean with a wide counter and maybe a lounge chair, and the more I thought about it, the more my arm started to heat up. I flexed my hand, waited, tapped the gear in my jacket pocket to make sure it was there. I took the egg out, rolled it like dough between my palms while hoping for the black girl to exit the bathroom any second. She was taking too long. I couldn’t focus on the TV anymore or on anything but an itch that burned my arm. I counted, made predictions that the girl would come out by ten, and then twenty.

  On twenty-three, a redheaded girl in a lab coat burst into the waiting area and called out “Suzy.” Her voice was too loud for the size of the room. I hated her instantly, ignored her as best as I could and went back to my counting. She wouldn’t shut up, though—she called the name again. There was a couple holding hands in the corner, two white girls with headphones next to the brochure rack, and three Puerto Rican girls by the water fountain.

  “Suzy?” This time the girl said it looking right at me. “Suzy Q. Wong?”

  I jumped up. That was the name I’d put on my forms.

  The redhead took me through a door, down a hallway, and into a small green room decorated with posters of our insides. She sat with a folder on her lap. I sat facing her.

  “So. Your test came back positive. You are definitely pregnant.”

  “What test?”

  “You gave us a urine sample, remember?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to remember.

  She clicked her pen into action. “And now I see that you’re looking to get some information about an abortion?”

  “Actually, I just want one, if that’s okay.” I tried a smile.

  “Well, it’s not that simple.” She pushed her glasses up her freckled nose. “I have to ask you some questions.”

  I told myself to sit still. “Okay.”

  “First off, when was your last period? You left that blank.”

  It seemed like years ago. I told her I wasn’t sure.

  She held up a calendar, flipped back a month, and another, and I still couldn’t remember.

  “Were you using protection?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is that a yes or no?”

  “Yes, uh, could I use the bathroom?” I couldn’t breathe.

  “This won’t take long. Let’s just get through it, okay?” She turned to a new page in the folder. “Now, do you have insurance?”

  “Insurance?” I crossed my legs and kicked her shoe by accident.

  “Yes. You checked the box.” She showed me the square with my X.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have it,” I said.

  She made a big deal out of scratching out my mistake and circling the no box. “Are you working currently?”

  I nodded. I felt good about finally having the right answer. “I sell Avon,” I managed to say. “It’s a pretty good gig. There’s no interview. You just mail them money and they send you samples.”

  “That’s nice,” the girl said.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve. She handed me a Kleenex. “I can work whenever I want and the money’s pretty good.”

  “And how much would you say you make in a month?”

  I had no idea. I couldn’t think about numbers. “A few thousand, I guess. Easy.” I liked how I sounded. Honest, confident, sturdy. “You could, too, if you want. I could show you how.”

  She scribbled something, smiling at my folder, and pulled out a calculator. Without a word, she punched in numbers and the crunching of the keys made me grind my teeth, the sound reminding me of a place I couldn’t name. “Your sliding scale co-pay,” the girl said, “is two hundred dollars. Can you pay any portion of that today?”

  I studied the calculator, her crossed knees, the tip of her shoe bouncing impatiently. “I thought this was a free clinic.”

  “It is and it isn’t. It’s pay-what-you-can. The two hundred is based on your salary scale. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you weren’t being honest about your employment. I’d understand if you—”

  I shot up from my seat. “I’m honest. What, you don’t believe me?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m trying to help you.”

  “I thought this was a free clinic, that’s all.” Standing up quickly had been a bad idea. I zeroed in on her hand, her thumb slowly unclicking her pen. “I have to think about it,” I told her, and tried to find the door. “It’s not the money. I just, you know, have to think about the whole thing.”

  “I understand,” she said, but if she had really understood she would’ve taken me in her arms, mopped the sweat off my face, and told me I didn’t have to try anymore, that I wasn’t alone, that I could just lie down and be saved.

  “You go ahead and think about it,” she said, closing my folder. “You can always come back, as long as it’s not too late.”

  I thanked her but wanted to spit in her eyes.

  I went back to the building where the nun lady lived.

  “Forgive me, Sister, for it has been never since my last confession.”

  A song from The Sound of Music seeped into the hallway. I flipped my notepad to a page where I’d jotted down all my sins I could think of.

  “You still there?”

  “I am right by your side,” she said.

  “Okay. I just want to start off by saying that I’ve done some bad things in my life but I haven’t killed anyone.”

  “Of course not. You’re too good of a soul to do such a thing.”

  “I’ve done little things, like...” I looked at my list again. “Okay, a while ago, I lifted a soundtrack to Fame. But I’m going to cut that out.”

  “You wanted music. Who could punish you for that?”

  This was going good. “Okay, and yesterday, I saw this dead bird in the park. I wanted to give it a good burial but I was too scared to touch it. I should’ve done it, though. I’ve been feeling bad about it since. I mean, nobody deserves to go like that. Everyone should die with respect, right? Even the fuckups. Because you never know, they might’ve done one really good thing, and just because they turn out stupid or rotten doesn’t mean they’re bad, through and through, right? Everybody deserves to die with respect.”

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  I leaned against the doorjamb. “I guess I sometimes wonder how I’m gonna go. I’d probably want to go in my sleep, like Bruce Lee or Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Yes, she was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

  “I won’t lie. I’ve thought about killing myself. But I’d never do it because no one would care. But then that’s what makes me want to do it in the first place.”

  “One of life’s many ironies.”

  “And I guess I should come clean and tell you that I shoot up sometimes.”

  “With guns?”

  “No, like heroin. I shoot it into my arm.”

  “That can’t be good.”

  “Sometimes my ha
nd. Anyway . . . what I’m trying to say is that it’s nothing to worry about. I’m not addicted, like the people I live with. I have a job. I sell Avon. I got things under control. Except...” I leaned in closer. “I took one of those pregnancy tests, and it gave me a plus sign. And now I’m all turned around. I mean, I can’t have a baby now, right? I feel like I’m onto something with this Avon thing.” I paused there to give her a chance to speak. She didn’t say a word. Not even a sigh.

  “I don’t even know how I can get the”—I couldn’t say the word—“to get it taken care of but, I was wondering, if I do it, if I get it taken care of, can I get . . . pre-forgiven?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You forgive people after they do bad stuff but can I get forgiven before?”

  “Well,” she said, stretching the word. “I’m going to need a minute to think about that one.”

  I looked to the floor. Her silence made me bite my nails, then the calluses around my nails, and the longer I waited for her to say something, the more I hated the way I’d sounded. Too desperate. Too needy. I decided to end on a different note and added that I felt guilty for being scared of dwarves with their short arms. “Okay, that’s everything,” I said, and waited again. Without making a drop of noise I put my ear flat against the wood and concentrated. A muffled voice in the background, maybe from a radio or a TV. I crouched down to look for her pink fuzzy slippers, or any sign of her, when a woman, wearing a pantsuit, marched up the hallway stairs.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, pushing up her sleeves. Behind her was a man carrying a large ring of keys.

  I got up off the floor. “No, I was just . . .”

  The woman stepped in front of me and rattled the doorknob. “Mom, you have to open up, okay?”

  “Who’re you supposed to be?” the man asked, eyeing my sample case. “You read the sign out there? ‘No solicitors’ means ‘No solicitors.’”

  “I’m not selling anything.”

  “I have the super here, Mom, and he’s going to let me in.”

  “Oh, Susan,” the nun lady said. “That’s really kind of you, but really, I’m just fine. You don’t have to come in.”

  “This look like any of your business?” the super asked me, and I sidestepped toward the stairs as he tried out a few keys. Pretty soon he was turning the knob.

  “Please, Susan, you can’t,” the nun lady begged. The daughter entered anyway, swinging the door wide, giving me a glimpse of the nun’s balding carpet and a framed macramé hooked to the wall. It was of purple flowers, the words Love grows here hovering over them. I pulled the rosary from my pocket and flung it at the daughter. It bounced off the door frame instead, making the super turn around and hate me more. Before he could get a word in, I ran down the stairs and out of the building.

  Oh, please let’s have the baby, Wimpy whined. Think of all the things we can steal if we had a baby with us. No cop’s gonna nab a girl with a baby. A baby gets smiles. The baby’s our shield. It’ll protect us from evil. The baby’s our answer. Baby! Baby! Baby!

  I knocked on a door. Who knew where or when this was. I blinked my eyes and suddenly I was here, and then not here. There, and then not there. Time flew, my body shrank, my stomach grew to the size of a teakettle, and I kept on working even though nobody answered their door anymore. Except this guy.

  “Yeah?”

  He stood in front of me wearing a white tank top that showcased his tattooed arms but made his chest look like a stick of gum.

  “Hi. I’m the Avon Lady and—”

  “Fuck. Really? Shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Get in here,” pulling me in.

  The long hallway led us to a living room.

  “Sit down.” He pointed to a couch. “You want something to drink?”

  I told him I did.

  “We got vodka, tequila, beer. I’m gonna light up. You want some pot?”

  I’d shoved off earlier and was coming down, so I said yes, without sounding too desperate. He disappeared into the kitchen, where stacks of albums and eight-tracks crowded the counter.

  When he came back, he dropped me a beer and gently lowered himself down on a rocking chair that was cushioned with an inflatable doughnut. After letting out a short breath, he gingerly placed his feet up on the coffee table, one foot at a time. Black military boots, laces tied tight. Hanging on the wall behind him was a humongous poster of kittens—tiny puffs of silver felines clawing at a dangling ball of yarn. Next to that, a picture of a spring garden. The place could’ve been decorated by a ten-year-old girl. Everything in the room went against him—the unicorn stickers on windows clashed with his skull tattoos, the ballet figurines didn’t go with the scar across his collarbone, and the fat, stuffed panda sitting next to me didn’t explain his pencil-thin mustache. He was more black than white, giving him a golden smooth face and a reddish Afro.

  He packed his pipe and lit up. “My wife’s coming out in a sec,” he said, holding in his hit. “You got makeup in that thing, right?”

  I told him I did and peeled back the tab on my beer.

  “Can I see?” he asked, passing me the pipe.

  “Sure.” First, I took a good hit. I liked him. He was already a great customer. After my second toke, I opened my sample case.

  “Yeah, my wife, she don’t usually wear makeup, but . . .” He pointed to the bottles. “What’s in there?”

  “Foundation.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It covers up blemishes and zits and smoothes out your face.” My eyelashes felt heavy. The pot was working fast. “I think it’s nice you’re getting makeup for your wife,” I said, and I sort of meant it.

  “Yeah, well, a little while back, I fell off a ladder,” he said, leaning back on his chair. “And this huge branch, as long as my arm, just shot up my ass.”

  I nodded, trying to act like I understood what he’d just said. I wasn’t sure how the branch had anything to do with his wife but I listened as he went on to tell me things I didn’t care to know.

  “The branch just skewered me clean. It missed all the important stuff, and stopped just two centimeters from my heart. The doctors sliced me up pretty good, from the neck down. Lifted up my rib cage like it was the hood of a car and hacksawed the branch into three parts. Pulled each piece out. Then they rinsed me clean. Poured buckets of water in me and sucked out all the wood chips.”

  I didn’t know what my face looked like but the guy nodded and said, “Yeah. Tell me about it. I got photos if you wanna see.”

  The pot had punched me between the eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was my turn to speak. “I should get going,” I said, trying to get up.

  “Wait. Why’re you leaving?”

  “Because you just told me something really crazy and I don’t know what to do with the feeling.”

  He pointed to the pipe in my hand.

  “Good point,” I said, and sat back down. I took another drag, a strong one. “Did it hurt?”

  “The operation?”

  “No. The tree.”

  “I couldn’t even scream it hurt so much. I had to whisper for help. I was up there, like, thirty minutes.”

  My head was heavy and light, an empty cookie jar. I passed the pipe back. “That’s a long time with a tree inside you.”

  “Gave me time to think.” He blew into the pipe until it whistled and then refilled it. “I thought a lot about pain. I have never been that focused in my life. Here,” he said, and gave back the pipe.

  “Are you okay now?” I tried not to look at his midsection.

  “I’m okay. I guess I’m still a little pissed,” he said, shaking his head.

  I took a drag and held it. “Jesus, I’d be pissed, too.”

  “What? Why would Jesus be pissed?”

  I freed the smoke. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just talking, that’s all.” I passed the pipe again, this time turning it so he could grab it by the handle.

  “I’m pissed
at my wife.” He took a long look at the door behind him.

  “What did she do?”

  “She used to be a cashier.”

  “No, I mean . . .” I could feel the giggles rising. “What did she do to piss you off?”

  “Oh, that. She had an affair.”

  “Okay,” I said, telling myself not to laugh because affairs weren’t funny.

  “With my brother. She was screwing him. In our bed.”

  I pinched the side of my thigh to stop the giggles, dug my nails so deep until my eyes filled with pain and sympathy. This was good pot. This was a good guy. He deserved better.

  “We were living in a house in Jersey. I went up the ladder to scare the shit out of them from the window and what do I do. I almost get killed.”

  The ceiling looked like icing, with too many nooks and crannies. “I bet you really freaked them out, though. Seeing someone with a branch in his body is pretty scary,” I said, feeling wise and old.

  “Yeah, well.” He glanced at the door again. “She didn’t look all that frightened.”

  “Trust me, she was, on the inside.” I grabbed the stuffed panda beside me and sniffed it. It smelled like fabric softener.

  “Maybe.” The guy inhaled enough to make him cough. The smoke fogged his face.

  “Your brother, too. He probably ran out of the house, like a little mouse.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, clearing his throat. “He took his time getting dressed. I looked up and saw him at the window, putting on his tie, looking down at me, a fucking shish kebab.”