The Starving Years

by Jordan Castillo Price

  “Are you okay?” Marianne said.

  He didn’t answer. He suspected that maybe he wasn’t.

  “Nelson?”

  For all that most people might consider him a failure, Nelson had always seen himself instead as someone who had not succeeded. Yet. It wasn’t quite optimism, though there was some element of optimism to the attitude. Sure, Edison had invented the stock ticker, a half-dozen types of telegraphs, and, heck, even wax paper by the time he was thirty…but that didn’t mean Nelson was a failure. It just meant he hadn’t found his stride.

  So he’d thought. Until now. Because what if there was no stride? Or, worse…what if there was? And what if Nelson wasn’t man enough to walk it?

  “Nelson!”

  Marianne shook him. He felt numb. Disconnected. Leaden.

  “Oh my God, it’s not your head, is it? Please say it’s not your head.”

  What good were all the brains in the world if you never did anything meaningful with them?

  What good was it to love someone if you couldn’t protect them when they needed you the most?

  “Do you need a pill? Maybe we can find a drug store. I think there’s a drug store around the corner.”

  Despite the futility, despite the grief, before he could check himself, Nelson laughed. The sound was so atrophied with bitterness, it didn’t even sound like him. “How would we pay for it? By selling a kidney?” He closed his eyes against the weight of the world as if that would stop it from crushing him, but all it did was make him feel the pain of his own helplessness more acutely. “Never mind,” he said quietly. “I don’t need a pill.”

  “Are you going to throw up? Should I find you some water?”

  Marianne reminded him of Tuyet—of how she might be without her accent, anyway. Persistent. Loud. And thinking about Tuyet led to thinking about Bobby, and how maybe both of them would have been better off in Hanoi, markless or not, if this was all the good Nelson could do them when they needed him the most.

  “Come on.” Marianne grabbed him by the arm and slung it around her shoulders. Hell, she even felt like Tuyet, same height, same stature. She heaved, and Nelson felt himself reluctantly rise, and steel himself to keep going. “We’re almost there.”

  ***

  The sidewalk seemed unusually crowded. Javier wasn’t certain whether people were trying to get to work, or maybe checking on their loved ones, or if they were just out looking for something to steal. Whatever they were up to, most of them knew better than to trust the buses or the subways, which were running on huge delays…if they were even running at all. He watched from his front stoop as a gap opened in the crowd and he caught sight of Nelson’s hair. He walked with his arm around Marianne—poor Marianne, with her feet, and her hormones—and at first Javier assumed Nelson was helping her walk. But then it became clear that his skin was the color of chalk, and it was she who was propping him up.

  Javier sighed and slipped out from the shadow of the doorway to usher them both into his shabby building, and his shabbier room.

  He was still disappointed with Nelson. Livid, was more like it. The only reason he’d even spoken to Nelson was his desire to see Canaan Products held accountable for what they’d done. Now, though, seeing Nelson like this, struggling to even make it down the street…Javier felt a pang of sympathy even as he kept himself from demanding how Nelson planned to live with himself after turning on someone as decent, as trusting, as Tim. “You’re still sick?” was what he said, instead.

  “No, I’m….” Nelson brushed off both Marianne’s assistance and Javier’s halfhearted attempt. “I’ll be fine. Just tell me what it is about this manna mess you need me to prove to you.”

  “It’s not me you’re going to prove it to. It’s the world.”

  Chapter 30

  Javier’s room was spartan, like something from a 40’s noir film, minus the lit cigarettes and the bleached blonde secretaries. Once upon a time, Nelson would have found that observation interesting. Now, it was hardly even a blip on his radar.

  “What I don’t get,” Marianne said, “is why you’d get him booked on a show like Manhattan Minute? Isn’t that kind of conservative?”

  “I had a connection there,” Javier said. “That’s all.”

  “But if Nelson can prove that Canaan Products has been messing around with the food supply, wouldn’t every news outlet be dying to snap up the story?”

  “If we could get through to them. If they would take the time to check my credentials. If they weren’t being flooded with conspiracy theories from every crackpot in the city.”

  Nelson didn’t give a damn if he was going to appear on Manhattan Minute or the Mickey Mouse Club. He’d told Javier he could explain the Canaan Products reformulation, so he’d damn well do it. Because explaining science was something he could do. Unlike marching down to Chinatown and figuring out where his kid was. He would have liked to think he was entrusting Tim with that job because Tim sounded like he had it under control. Really, though, he suspected he was leaving it to Tim because he couldn’t physically do it. In fact, he didn’t suspect it…he was sure of it. His legs were shaking with constant tremors now and everything looked slightly green, and much too bright. His logic told him he was better off to let someone with functional brain chemistry—and a vehicle—handle the situation.

  But despite all the reasons his logical brain could provide for focusing his effort on the task he had some chance of accomplishing…he still felt like a shitty excuse for a dad.

  Javier crossed his arms, looked at Marianne, and said, “Do you know how to cut hair?”

  “You want to cut off his hair?”

  “Appearance is everything on television news. He needs to look credible. He needs to look like a scientist.”

  “Yeah? Well, he’ll look like a joke if he gets a haircut from me.”

  “We’ll put it in a ponytail,” Nelson said, not because he gave a damn whether they hacked it off or not, but because he felt profoundly sick, not just in body, but in spirit. “It’ll be fine.”

  Javier pulled a gray suit out of his closet, held it up in front of Nelson, and said, “It will do.” Marianne peered around Javier into the closet. “Do you have any sneakers or anything? The duct tape shoes aren’t exactly cutting it.”

  “They’ll be too big, and that might rub and make things worse.” Javier turned to his dresser and pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill. “Why don’t you see if the woman across the hall will sell you a pair of her slippers?”

  “Okay. What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know. I never introduced myself.”

  Marianne shot Javier a hard look. “You’re not making this very easy, you know.” She took the money and stepped into the hall, and a moment later, Nelson heard knocking, and muffled voices.

  Javier pointed at a narrow, chipped sink in the corner of the room with an unadorned mirror hanging over it, and said, “Shave.”

  Nelson turned to the basin, ran the water, and lathered his face—but it wasn’t until he put the razor to his cheek that he realized how badly his hand was trembling. He tensed and relaxed the arm a few times to try to make it act normal, but it was no use. The razor shook as if he was attempting to shave on the J Train.

  “Here.” Javier took Nelson by the wrist before he sliced off his own nose, pried the razor from his fingers, and turned him around. The patented Javier-scowl was firmly in place as he took Nelson by the chin and dragged the razor down his cheek. Nelson would have found the thought of Javier shaving him profoundly hot…in another life. But not now. From where Nelson stood, he’d be surprised if anything got a rise out of him ever again.

  Javier didn’t linger or fuss. He shaved Nelson with long, sure strokes, only pausing at the lower lip to ensure he’d subdued every errant whisker. When he finished, he indicated the sink with a curt jerk of his head, and said, “Rinse.”

  Once Nelson had rinsed and blotted, Javier shoved a white dress shirt on a hanger at him. Nelson handed it
back so he could take off his own shirt. “I’m going as fast as I can,” he snapped.

  Javier pressed his lips together and said nothing as Nelson slipped into the borrowed shirt. He glared as Nelson struggled with the buttons, then knocked Nelson’s hands away and began buttoning it himself. Nelson started to work on a different button, but his hands shook so badly they only got in the way. Javier buttoned all the buttons leading up to the one with the seemingly impossible hole, then brushed Nelson’s hands aside again and buttoned it.

  “I get it,” Nelson said. “I’m slowing you down. But do you have to be such a prick about it?”

  Javier paused, said nothing, then buttoned the final two buttons and turned to the closet again.

  “Not that I want—or expect—you to hold my hand and feed me some bullshit about how everything’s gonna be hunkey-dorey, but come on, after all we’ve been through…why’re you being so attitudinal?”

  Javier turned back with a tie in his hand, muted blues and greens, subtly patterned. A hell of a lot nicer than the one Nelson had traveled to the morgue to borrow from Kevin for his big job interview with Canaan. Javier stroked it absently, looked at Nelson hard with his uncovered eye, and said, “I know.”

  Nelson waited for an explanation. Instead, Javier handed him the tie and turned away.

  He knew…what? About that thing in the bathroom? If Javier thought Nelson was going to ask for permission first before he put the moves on Tim, he had another thing coming. “That’s what the whole ‘watch yourself’ thing was about, back in the truck, wasn’t it? You acted like you were worried I’d string Tim along and hurt his feelings, when what you really meant was that you wanted him all for yourself.”

  “Not at all.” Javier reached toward Nelson, flicked up the collar of the pristine white shirt, and looped the tie around Nelson’s neck.

  Nelson planted his hands on his hips and didn’t even attempt the half-windsor that Javier seemed perfectly capable of tying, even backwards. “That’s fine. Admit it. You’re jealous. ’Cos you thought you could serve it up to him and he’d be putty in your hands. But you know what? Just ’cos your kink and his kink happen to click doesn’t mean he should ride off into the sunset with you.”

  “Drop it, already. I know.”

  “You know what? Here’s what you should know: I would’ve been happy to see where the whole three-way was going to take us, but you’re the one who’s making him choose—and you know what else? He’ll probably pick me.”

  Javier tightened the knot, then slid it up until his knuckles pressed into Nelson’s windpipe. Hard. “Do you think it even matters, who’s fucking whom? Here’s what I know: you’re the one who turned him in.”

  In another absurdly appropriate kung fu move Nelson had only ever tried, laughing and not very forcefully, with Bao, he slipped a hand around Javier’s fist and knocked it away from his throat. If he weren’t trembling with serotonin, he might have even given Javier’s arm a twist for good measure. “I was beginning to wonder if you’re a head-case, but now I’m positive. What possible reason could I have to throw Tim under the bus?”

  “Whatever they offered you. Opportunity. Prestige. Money.”

  Nelson took Javier by the shoulders—mostly wanting to shake him. But instead he squeezed, digging his thumbs in hard, as if the pain might force his words through Javier’s thick skull. “I know you’re half-blind, but even so, do I seriously look like I give two shits about money?” He pushed his face in so close their noses brushed. “I fucking hate money. Get it?”

  The tension between them dragged at Nelson, palpably, a gravitational pull that drew him toward Javier even as he wanted to wipe that fucking accusatory scowl off his face. And even though Tim was off somewhere trying to save Nelson’s kid, even still, Tim was there, in the joyless apartment, with them. It wasn’t just about Nelson and Javier. It was about Tim. Because as hard as Nelson tried, he couldn’t stay angry about Javier figuring him for a sell-out…not if Javier was only doing it to protect Tim.

  “It wasn’t me.”

  Javier shifted, and looked at Nelson harder.

  “Come on,” Nelson said. “Think. You know me better than that. Why would I? Seriously. Why would I?”

  Javier’s shoulders sagged as the anger drained out of him, the fronts of their thighs brushed together, and the heat of his body made the tiny hairs on Nelson’s forearms stand on end. They were so close they could have kissed, but somehow a kiss couldn’t begin to encompass the relief of their sudden synchronicity, the energy that flowed between them when each met the other partway, enough to allow them to mesh.

  It was Javier who leaned in, closer still, dropped his gaze to Nelson’s mouth, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  The words rocked Nelson like a current. He was surprised Javier even knew them.

  They did kiss, then. A mere brush of the lips, and still, the contact raged through Nelson, so intense that even his fingers and toes tingled. Javier drew back reluctantly, and said, “Someone turned him in. But you were the only one who knew about the site. Who else could it be? Randy?”

  “He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy—”

  “You give away your trust like it’s nothing.”

  “Fine, whatever—even if I’m the world’s shittiest judge of character, I’m positive Randy had zero clue that Tim’s the Voice of Reason.”

  A crash startled both of them. They jumped apart, and there, in the doorway, stood Marianne. She wore a tattered leopard print coat, a pair of red sequined house slippers, and a chartreuse knit hat with a white pom-pom on top. At her sparkly feet, a tray of manna and canned peaches lay splattered where, in her shock, she’d dropped it. The scent of syrup and faux coconut filled the small room. She gaped at both of them, eyes showing whites all around, and then repeated, “Tim is the Voice of Reason?”

  ***

  It was hopeless. Tim would dredge up the memory of exactly what Bao looked like in his mind’s eye—he’d fix on some detail, the length of his hair, the way his T-shirt hung from bony shoulders, the panic on his face with Nelson called the morgue—but when Tim actually searched for him, the only thing he saw was a bunch of Asian kids.

  But he wasn’t entirely Asian. He was half-Caucasian. And that would differentiate him. It had to. Because as much as Tim felt the contagion settling in his pores and entering his body through the moisture of his eyeballs and the very air he breathed, he couldn’t exactly grab a random kid and say, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Bao,” Randy bellowed, “where are you?” He crowded out the guard who’d been flinging manna like slops and strode up the center of the aisle where the grasping arms couldn’t touch him. “Bao, c’mon, stop fucking around.”

  “You’ll scare him,” Tim said, but the wailing drowned him out.

  “Come on, Bobby, we’re gonna get you out of here.”

  For all Tim knew, Bao was jumping up and down and waving his hand. Between the bars and the shifting shadows and the teeming mass of kids, it was impossible to say.

  “Pham Duc Bao,” Tim called—he’d never been clear on the Asian equivalent of first and last names either, he realized. His voice hardly carried.

  “There’s not enough room for both of you in here,” the guard said. “If you don’t find the kid—”

  “Bobby,” Tim called, panicked. If they didn’t find him, they’d get thrown out after spending all day in line, and they wouldn’t get a second chance. “Bobbyyyy!” The cries of the children drowned him out.

  “Okay,” the guard said, “that’s it.” He grabbed Randy by the arm and hauled him toward the door. Randy struggled. They skidded on the manna-slicked floor. The guard reached for his gun.

  “Come on, Bobby!” Tim’s voice broke. “We’re taking you back to Nelson.”

  Among all the crying, grasping, desperate kids straining toward the bars in hopes of getting out, as Tim spoke Nelson’s name, one child met his gaze with a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. One terrified child, pr
essed against the cell wall, who didn’t say a word. One child who shifted anxiously from foot to foot.

  Exactly like Nelson did when he was nervous.

  “Out!” the guard yelled. “Now!”

  Randy yelled right back. “What’re you gonna do? Shoot me?”

  “Don’t make me pull my gun!”

  “Wait,” Tim hollered at the top of his lungs, “there he is. Right there.” Randy and the guard both stopped struggling and looked at Tim, who’d never realized he was capable of such loudness. He pointed again, and bellowed, “Right there.”

  The guard’s expression closed down as if he might throw both of them out anyway, but Randy shoved the paperwork at him and said, “The less kids you need to deal with, the better. Right?”

  With a resigned shake of his head, the guard approached the cell, drew his gun, and pointed to Bobby. “You,” he barked, and the children’s wails ebbed. Many of them flinched into cowed silence. “Stand here.” Bobby froze. “The rest of you, get back. Against the wall.” The mass of children shifted. “Now,” the guard barked, and they clumsily sorted themselves out, mostly obeying, except for the girl on the floor in the throes of a temper tantrum to whom the other children were giving a wide berth, in case she drew more trouble to herself than she was in already, and they along with her. The guard indicated Bobby with his gun. “Now get over here.”

  Bobby crept up like he couldn’t tell whether he’d be released, or shot. Once he was within range, the guard slid open the barred door only far enough to grab him by the arm and wrench him out of the cell. Now, with no bars between them, the reality that this was Nelson’s son hit home. His eyes latched on to Tim’s like he was tumbling off a cliff, and Tim was the one who’d reached out a hand and caught him by the wrist. Thoughts of bacteria and viruses and parasites fell away as Bobby flung himself at Tim and threw his arms around Tim’s waist—so incredibly fragile-feeling—and Tim wrapped his arms around Bobby’s thin shoulders, and held him—and suddenly it felt like the eye of calm in the center of a whirlpool, where some way, somehow, everything was going to turn out all right.