The Red Hunter

by Lisa Unger

  Another station where she might have gotten off came and went. She even shouldered her bag and slid forward in her seat. But then she sat back down. She stuffed her phone in the pocket of her hoodie and leaned her head against the window.

  It’s not like she was running away or anything. She’d stay in touch and be home when she was supposed to go home. It was just that she had an errand to run, one neither of her parents would understand.

  It was Ella who had given her the idea. The man who raped Claudia was dead. But he had a family—a family that might be hers, as well. What if you reached out to them, Ella suggested. Just, you know, to see if you have anything in common, if there’s a connection. It never occurred to Raven that Ella was anything but well meaning.

  His name was easy enough to find, since Raven’s own mother, in an effort to understand and forgive her rapist—had written extensively about him in an earlier blog. Melvin Cutter: abandoned by his mother to the system at age four, raised in foster care, arrested for the first time at fourteen, then three more times after that for various offenses from drug possession to assault. He held a job, a night watchman at a supermarket on Second Avenue. On the night he raped Claudia, he was twenty years old, illiterate, and high on meth. Police speculated that he’d likely broken into the apartment looking for something to steal and sell and ran into Raven’s mother instead.

  Cutter shouldn’t have been free that night; he’d been in custody just hours earlier, brought in on suspicion of another rape. But lack of evidence caused the police to let him go. Cutter had a son, the child of a teenage girlfriend, that was being raised by his maternal grandmother. Eventually, he was murdered in prison by another inmate over some slight. A wasted life, characterized by pain and misery, ending in tragedy, Claudia had written. He was a victim, too. Still, I find I can’t forgive him. My body won’t forgive him.

  Why would she want to forgive him? Raven marveled. What was the big deal about forgiveness? If it were Raven? She’d just want to kill him. In fact, she did want to kill him—even though he was already dead. She wished she could get in a time machine, Terminator style, and go back and kill him before he ever hurt her mother. But then, possibly, she would be killing herself, as well. That’s why she needed to know who she was. That was part of it. It was complicated, a red tangle of anger and fear inside of her.

  A little searching on Google and Raven found Andrew Cutter, who was twenty and a college student at CUNY. He was smart, a graduate of Bronx High School of Science. He had dark eyes like his father, and a mass of silky curls, but his features were fine where Melvin’s were thick. He didn’t have the vacant, disaffected look of his father. A thinker. A wonderer who wants to make a difference in this place we share. That was his Twitter bio, his tag: @angryyoungman.

  She followed him, and he followed her back. She wasn’t supposed to have a Twitter account, but she did: @butterflydreams. She had a selfie up on her profile, overexposed and filtered, so that her skin looked paper white and her eyes dark as space. She knew it was too sexy and that it made her look much older than she was. Her mom wouldn’t like it.

  I think we may have something in common @angryyoungman.

  Oh, yeah, @butterflydreams? I’d like to know what that is.

  She DM’d him then: Melvin Cutter.

  I’m sorry, came the curt reply. But I don’t have anything in common with him.

  Except that he’s your father and might be mine, too.

  He’d unfollowed her, then. It was kind of a slap in the face, one that smarted. But she could still see his posts in her newsfeed since she’d followed him. He was in a band called Trash and Angels, and they were playing this weekend at some dive bar on the Lower East Side. Raven and her forever best friend since kindergarten Troy were going. She wanted to see the boy who might be her half brother. She’d know right away, wouldn’t she? She’d feel the energy, that something, no matter how dark, connected them.

  I’m on my way, she texted to Troy.

  Are we totally sure about this?

  Yeah. Totally.

  She and Troy had been best friends since the first minute of the first day of kindergarten. They sat next to each other during circle time, and he reached for her hand because it was the first time he’d been away from his mom. Even though he was crying a little, he was still smiling. She took his hand because it was the first time she’d ever been away from her mom, and she knew just how he felt. He’d had a wild head of white-blond curls, in stark contrast to his dark skin, glasses, and a big toothless smile. Though his front teeth had since grown in, he didn’t look that different now. He was taller than she was, even though he’d always been the littlest kid in class. Somewhere during the summer between seventh and eighth grade, he shot up. He still giggled like a little kid. He called her Birdie. And she was pretty sure she didn’t have to tell him that she was not, in fact, totally sure about this or anything even when she pretended otherwise.

  Okay, he wrote. Let’s do it.

  The train came to a stop at another little station. She grabbed her bag and almost got off. But then, she didn’t. She sank back down and put her headphones on, David Bowie was singing about how there was a starman waiting in the sky. She watched the trees turn into a green-black blur, the train taking her toward what? She had no idea.

  eight

  Where is she?

  There’s no one else here.

  I saw her. Bring her to me.

  I can still hear those voices. Some memories never go away. They stay. They get buried, tamped down, but then resurface in dreams, when you’re tired, hungry, lonely. Or angry like I was today, practically vibrating with it. I was having a hard time keeping my composure, pulling that energetic curtain, my invisibility cloak, around me. I didn’t have time to breathe through my feelings. So I started my shift jittery and unsettled.

  It was the call from Seth that unstitched me. Someone’s moved into the house, he said.

  It wasn’t big news. Or it shouldn’t have been. But the words landed like a gut punch, knocking the air out of my lungs. It was so much easier to think of that place rotting and empty, falling to pieces. I’d been there so many times, walking those echoing halls, looking. It didn’t seem as if lives could be lived there anymore.

  “Who?” I managed.

  “The old man’s daughter, I think. She’s renovating the place,” he said. He paused a moment. I could feel him measuring his words. “There’s a blog.”

  “A blog,” I repeated. “About the house?”

  “About the renovation,” he said. “About her, you know, journey—or whatever.”

  I couldn’t think of what to say.

  “I know,” said Seth. “It’s weird.”

  We were still back there, Seth and I, in our very different ways. I guess I didn’t think the house would be the first to move on.

  “There’s something else,” he continued. He was used to long, protracted silences from me.

  “What?”

  “Beckham’s back,” Seth said. Something roared in my ears. “He was released a few months back. He’s been drifting around. Finally found his way home.”

  A few months. He was supposed to be keeping tabs. This was important.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now,” he said. “Just—”

  “Just?”

  “Are you sure that this is what you want?”

  It was too late for questions like that. I’d started something, flipped some kind of karmic switch. I had no choice but to keep going.

  “Zoey.”

  “I’m here.”

  If he knew about Didion, he hadn’t said anything. Of course, he wouldn’t.

  “I have to think,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  He was saying something when I hung up. I didn’t hear.

  • • •

  “YOU OKAY?” THE VOICE SNAPPED me back into the moment.

  I wiped up the coffee that I’d spilled on the service count
er. I never make mistakes. Never. Almost never. So when I do, it’s like there’s a big neon arrow pointing right at me. Mistakes call attention—sympathy, judgment, annoyance. Preoccupation had made me careless, and I’d overfilled a mug. Sloppy, I heard Paul’s voice. Careless. Just like not noticing that camera. I thought I had a grip on the thing, the rage. Maybe not.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “I’m Erik.” I didn’t want to look at him, but I did and found myself gazing into a pair of sea-glass green eyes. My pulse jumped a little; I don’t like eyes on me.

  “Zoey,” I said, light, brisk, not rude but not inviting more talk.

  I gave him a quick nod, then moved away swiftly with my tray of coffee cups, cursing myself. That’s what happens when you let yourself feel something; you send off sparks of energy that attract the attentions of others. I took my break in the bathroom and did a quick meditation where I focus on my breathing, imagining myself as small and invisible, a wraith, someone who is there but isn’t there. And the rest of my shift passed without incident—until I was getting ready to go home.

  “Hey—Zoey?”

  I turned to see Erik from earlier. He had a look, something going on beneath the surface smile. I stared at him longer than I should have, trying to figure out what it was. He looked down at his toes after holding my gaze a moment.

  “So a bunch of us are going out for a drink.” He did a little rocking thing, up on his toes then back on his heels. “Would you like to join us maybe?”

  I shouldered my hoodie, put my backpack on. I tried for a regretful smile.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I have to be somewhere.”

  He had his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched in a little. His blond hair was a careful mess as he gave an understanding nod. “Maybe another time.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”

  Definitely not.

  I got out of there as fast as possible, didn’t stick around to see what kind of reaction he had to rejection. In my experience, men don’t do well with it. You’ll either see a flash of anger, maybe sadness, or maybe a mask will come down, something hard and protective. Few take it in stride.

  With the ding of the little bell on the door, the light and noise of the restaurant was gone in the dark and cold of the street. Avenue A is always hopping, especially at night. I pulled my hood up and moved fast through the walkers, stumblers, shriekers, laughers. They didn’t see me. I was invisible again. I wasn’t lying to Erik of the green eyes. I did have someplace I needed to be.

  • • •

  MIKE WAS ALREADY WAITING FOR me when I walked through the door, my breath slightly labored from the six-floor walkup, which I took two stairs at a time. I was a little late, and I could see that he’d used the time to warm up. A hundred sit-ups, a hundred push-ups, a hundred jumping jacks. His forehead glowed, and he looked loose, ready.

  “There’s an elevator, you know,” he said, as I bowed at the altar.

  “What’s the point of working out if you’re just going to take the elevator?”

  “To save your strength for the fight ahead.”

  The wood floors bounced a little beneath my feet, and I avoided my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors as I headed into the locker room. I stowed my stuff and stripped down to tank and sports bra. I pulled on my black pants and wrapped the fabric black belt around my waist. Then I exited to find him waiting in the middle of the floor, legs spread apart, arms folded.

  “Your energy is not right,” he said. “It’s wobbly.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you here?” he asked. “Are you all here? We bow at the door and leave our burdens at the altar. Have you done that?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “I have.”

  “We’ll see.”

  We faced each other, put our hands in prayer to our chests and bowed. He was right; I was wobbly. I was going to get my ass kicked.

  Mike Lopez was the man who taught me how to fight. I came to him a kitten, scared and skittish, hiding behind my uncle. He turned me into a dragon.

  “Learn to fight and you’ll never be afraid again,” he told me that first night while my uncle watched. “Learn to fight and you’ll know yourself and understand your own power.”

  I was skinny and fourteen, newly orphaned, and in the throes of trauma. Maybe without my uncle and sifu (teacher), as I have come to think of Mike, I would have turned to drugs, or become a lifelong victim, broadcasting a signal of fear and weakness, drawing predators to me like an injured bird. Instead, he turned me into a warrior. I have never left fear behind me, nor should we, but I have conquered it.

  We started small back then with stances (make it strong or always be off balance), basic punches (fast, loose, as if your fist is a rock on a chain), and blocks (twist your arm to deflect with the flesh not the bone), and we built from there into sequences of moves called Tao Lu. My uncle took me three days a week to the studio on Twenty-Seventh Street from six-thirty until eight-thirty in the morning, after which I went on to school. I hated it until I realized that when I left the temple after two hours of intense exercise and learning, I had no energy for misery. As my body grew stronger, so did I. More than therapy, of which there was plenty, kung fu healed me. Sort of.

  Mike Lopez was a big man, so he always came in hard like a freight train. That’s his advantage: size, strength, and a surprising speed for someone the approximate girth of a semi. But I am a cat, slipping away and behind, or coming in close, delivering blows to the kidneys or the abdomen. The trick, when you’re a small fighter with a big opponent, is to get away fast, to dance, to never let it be a match of strength, never let the big hand close around your wrist, never take the full brunt of the blow.

  We wrangled around for a while; he threw me, and I landed (that wood floor bounced for a reason) in a roll, hopping quickly back to my feet. I caught his slow but devastatingly heavy roundhouse kick and forced him to the ground. Side kick, forearm block, duck below his leg again, pull my upper cut to his chin, just touch him there. He tapped my temple, to indicate that he could have struck me there—a fight ender, possibly worse.

  I am not better than he is; I won’t ever be. But I can hold my own. He has admitted as much. At that point, we trained together mostly; sparring was play. But I will always consider him my teacher. That is the condition of even the most advanced martial artist—student. There is always something to learn, even though now I was a teacher myself. I taught the Sunday morning girls’ class, the ten- to twelve-year-olds. Most of them are just coming to terms with their own bodies, finding their confidence and power. How I have loved watching them turn from kittens into dragons. I think that’s what I’ll miss the most.

  When we were done, we sat on the floor, leaning against the mirrors, and drank from big jugs of water, scarfed down protein bars.

  “What’s eating you?” he asked.

  He had put on his glasses, gold-rimmed circular specs that made him look like a scholar, even with his bald head, tattoos, and giant muscles. He was as old as Paul, maybe older, but he seemed much younger. His body pulsed with health, and his energy was strong. There is an intimacy with people you fight regularly; they know your body better than lovers do.

  “Nothing,” I lie.

  “Paul,” he said. “He called. He’s worried about you.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Is it a real question?” I ask. “Or is it a question to which you already think you have the answer? Because that’s annoying.”

  Mike has a belly laugh, a kind of funny shake he does, covering his mouth like a girl as he issues a sound that’s more like a cough. When it passed, he grew serious again. The laughing Buddha.

  “What is the difference between justice and revenge?” he asked.

  It was a good question, one I’ve asked myself a number of times. Probably most victims of violent crime have reason to ask themselves this quest
ion. As a society, we have reason to ask when we try to convict criminals, send them away for life without parole, or, in the extreme, sentence them to death. Who has the right to judge? Who says what is the appropriate punishment for wrong? Juries and judges make the call most often. But what if the people who do wrong are not caught? What if there is no arrest, no trial, no sentence, no judgment day? What if the men who murdered your parents while you watched went free?

  “Must there be a difference?” I asked.

  He took a swig of water, ran a big hand over his crown. It sounded like sandpaper.

  “There should be,” he said. “What’s the first rule of kung fu, as I have taught it to you.”

  “Walk away unless they won’t let you. Then, stand your ground to defend yourself, no more.”

  He gave an assenting nod. “Better said: never do more harm than is necessary to walk away.”

  I stood up, stretched my hands high, catching sight of myself in the mirror, then quickly turned away. It’s an uncomfortable position, to have parted company with your mentors. Mike always tells this story about the Buddhist monks who prayed for their killers while they were being slaughtered. It might be a myth, because I looked it up on the internet and couldn’t find any articles about it. He speaks of them with awe and admiration; but the story always angered me. How could you pray for someone who hated you and wanted to kill you? I don’t know if I have Mike’s pacifist heart. What is the difference between pacifism and weakness?

  “And if those people, the ones you walk away from, go on to hurt others,” I said. “What then? Are you not at least somewhat responsible?”

  He put a hand on my arm, and his skin was bark against the sand of mine. His mother was Jamaican, his father Puerto Rican. She was a singer; he was an electrical engineer. He was a harsh disciplinarian; she used to take Mike out of school so they could play hooky at Rockaway Beach. Mike’s fighting style is a curious mix of precision and fluidity, almost predictable until it isn’t. It’s funny how two people meet and come together, and through their differences form someone unique with a whole new set of gifts and quirks.