Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2015

by Nino Cipri

  “The fuck?” I say before I can stop myself.

  The patient shrugs. “I know, right?”

  Victor shrugs too and then both radios in the room burst into frantic, static-laced growls.

  Unit with a message, please repeat your assigned number and location. Unit with a message, please re— Another desperate scramble of static and yelling cuts off the dispatcher. Victor and Del both furrow their brows and turn up their radios at the same time.

  I hear the words forthwith and imminent arrest come in, and then more static. The dispatcher releases an angry tone over the airwaves and yells at the units to stop stepping over each other.

  I stand up. “What is it?”

  Victor shakes his head. “Sounds like they’re calling for help.”

  Marcy and Greene! Marcy and Greene! the radio screams. Forthwith! We have an imminent cardiac arrest. I need medics, I need backup, we about to roll.

  Victor and I lock eyes. “The park,” I say.

  He nods. “Go. We gotta wrap this up.”

  * * *

  At full speed, I move with ease. You don’t realize my left leg drags; this cane compensates just so, the full complex machinery of me lunging forward like a wave. It took practice, believe me. But I’ve had time. It’s been more than four years since I died in some unspeakably violent way at the foot of the ornate archway at Grand Army Plaza and then woke up days later in a phantom safe house on Franklin Ave, body broken and every memory shredded. I find new life in each moment like this: the midnight brownstones breezing past me, the siren song of something foul dragging me forward. This is life, and really, anything is better than the sheer emptiness of so many lost memories.

  “The streets is hungry,” a little old lady mutters when I roll up, sweat-soaked and out of breath, at the southwest corner of Von King Park. She has a rusted old cart in front of her and a head scarf tied around her wrinkled brown face. “Streets be feedin’ when they hungry.”

  A bloodstain the size of a trench coat shines up from the dark concrete at me. It catches the sickly orange glow of street lamps and pulsing blue emergency lights. They’ve already decorated the spot with police tape. The ambulance must’ve screeched off just before I got there; I hear its wail receding into the night. A few feet away from the bloodstain, a motor scooter lies in heap, like someone just crinkled it up and tossed it there.

  The cop nearest to me has icy blue eyes and looks young and entirely unimpressed. I ask him what happened and he just shrugs and looks away. I turn to the old lady, still standing beside me and chewing her mouth up and down like she has the mushiest piece of steak in there she don’t wanna let go of.

  “One’a them Chinese delivery boys,” she responds to my unanswered question.

  “What hit him?”

  She nods up the block some, to where a Daily News truck idles with its hazard lights on. A guy with a baseball cap and goatee stands outside, talking on his cell phone, eyes barely holding back tears. An ugly, human-sized dent marks the side of the truck.

  I shake my head. “Damn.”

  “Streets is hungry,” the old lady says again.

  “You see anything right before? Anything weird?”

  She turns her attention from the street; those ancient cataract-fogged eyes squint up at me. “Was just a small one, eh.”

  “A small … what?”

  She flinches, eyes back on the street, far away. “Don’t play stupid now.”

  “A small ghost.”

  “Aye.”

  “You see it clear?”

  She shakes her head. “Just fleeting, like. Came and went, came and went.” She chuckles softly. “‘He’ll be back though, eh. He’ll be back, yes.”

  Kia

  Karina’s right: the new Capoeira teacher is fine as hell. The dude’s not even my type; I usually go for really overweight, darkskin dudes. He sits on a folding chair facing us in the big meeting room, his muscular arms crossed over his muscular chest. There’s a shiny bruise on his left cheek, but otherwise, his face is maybe perfectly symmetrical. Like, he might be an android, and right now his left eyebrow is raised slightly, making him look just the right combination of arrogant and thoughtful. He’s got big lips and a carefully trimmed goatee. Golden brown shoulders bulge out of that sleeveless shirt in a way that’s almost profane, like, just sitting there. Being all burly and shoulderful in front of a group of teenagers seems somehow inappropriate.

  And I’m here for it. We all are.

  “Thank you all for coming today, kids!” Sally says. Sally’s the white lady who runs things. She’s barely taller than the new Capoeira teacher and he’s sitting down. She looks like a sack of mediocre potatoes next to his glowing golden perfection. Shit, we all do. “I’m really excited to introduce you to Rigoberto, our new Capoeira instructor.”

  “What happened to Gilberto?” Devon asks.

  “You scared him off with ya loud-ass farting last week,” Karina tells him.

  Devon flips her off. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “You guys,” Sally says. “Let’s not do this, okay? Gilberto unfortunately had an altercation in a bar the other night and won’t be able to…”

  “Somebody faded Gil?” Devon translates helpfully. “Shit.”

  Tarik jumps up. “Wait! Gil gets faded at a bar and the new homey got a shiner? Y’all ain’t seeing what I’m seeing?”

  A general murmur ensues. Sally looks vexed. “Guys, it’s Rigoberto’s first day here and—”

  Mikey B. raises his hand. “Rigoberto a Dominican name right?”

  Rigoberto smiles. Teeth: perfect. At least four audible sighs ring out. “Actually, I am from Brazil, like your last teacher.”

  “You speak Spanish, man?” someone yells.

  “Actually, in Brazil we…”

  “Dumbass, he speak Brazilian.”

  “Y’all so stupid,” Karina says. “He speaks Portuguese; now how ’bout we let the man talk and stop showing off how ignorant y’all are, ’kay?”

  Laughter breaks out and then people settle down and look at Rigoberto. Sally smiles a little too broadly. “I’ll just let you talk to the kids now, Rigoberto. Thank you!” She skitters out of the room.

  Rigoberto stands up. Dude must be six foot three, at least. He’s perfectly proportioned—each piece fits into the next just right, arms hang just right, his loose white pants fit just right. It’s almost sickening. “Hello, guys and girls,” he says with a doofy wave. “You can call me Rigo.”

  “Do we have bulge?” Karina whispers, peering over Devon’s baseball cap.

  We do. “We appear to have bulge,” I report.

  Karina nods. “Confirmed bulge.”

  “Rigo, you married, boo?” Kelly yells out. Everybody groans. I want to punch her in the face.

  Rigo chuckles. It sounds a little forced. “Today we’re going to talk about Capoeira, yes? Not Rigo’s personal life.”

  “Fat chance,” Karina mutters.

  “Let’s begin by seeing what we know so far, okay? Because I don’t know this other teacher, Gilberto, yes? But he may be, how do you say … incompetent? Why don’t we have demonstration? Which one of you is Kia?”

  My heart lurches into overdrive. I suck at Capoeira. And I hate standing in front of people. And. And. And. People are snickering and turning back to stare at me. Karina shoves my shoulder. Rigo searches our faces ’til his eyes lock with mine. He smiles that eerily perfect smile and says, “Ah, you are Kia? Kia Summers?”

  I nod, praying he’ll change his mind, knowing he won’t. Why would he call me by name anyway? What kind of …

  “Go!” Karina hisses in my ear. The moment has grown long, awkward. I stand, somewhat shakily, and make my way through the group to the front.

  Rigo wears altogether too much cologne. It’s something synthetic and overbearing and it makes me dizzy. “You remember how to do a basic ginga?” He asks, smiling down at me.

  I shrug. “I mean, kinda.”

  “The ginga is the basic s
tep of Capoeira, yes? Everyone has their own ginga. It is as personal as a signature. Just like everyone has their own rhythm.”

  “Devon doesn’t!” Karina yells.

  “When you understand the ginga, when you find your own…”—Rigo swings one leg back and raises his forearm toward me, then switches sides, moving so smooth it’s like he’s gliding a few inches above the wood-paneled floor—“it becomes like just walking down the street! You see? Natural. Come, we do it together.” I try to mimic him, sliding my left leg back and then shifting my weight to the right. I feel like a broken mannequin.

  “Clap, kids, yes? For the beat?” He lifts his hands over his head and those thick triceps glare at me. I lose my entire sense of rhythm and have to start over. “Clap, clap!” Rigo yells, breaking into a syncopated beat in time with his hovering step.

  The group claps more or less in time and I work my way back into a steady ginga.

  “Yes, yes, very good!” Rigo yells over the clapping. “Now what happens when I go with one of these?” He spins; one foot anchors back and the other flies up toward me. I know this part—I’m supposed to dodge-bend backward like in The Matrix and then spin into some impossible acrobatic shit and kick. I arch back and throw myself off balance, hurl sideways and catch Rigo’s sneaker in the face.

  Everyone in the room yells, “Oh!” as I stumble backward. I hear Rigo mutter, “porra!” and then feel a whoosh of wind brush past. Arms wrap around me. Thick arms. Rigo somehow evaporated and reappeared behind me. Again, audible swoons erupt, not all of them from the girls.

  My hands are over my eye and Rigo’s hands are on my wrists. “Let me see,” he says softly. “Let me see. I’m so sorry, Kia. Let me see what I did.”

  I shake my head. I probably look like one of those deep sea monstrosities right now, the hell Imma let Brazilian Ken gape at me.

  “We probably need to ice it. Can you see? Kia?”

  I relent. The collective gasp is all I need to tell me what an instant freak show I’ve become. Rigo scrunches up his face. “Is not so bad, minha. Let’s get some ice, okay?”

  “I’ll take her!” Karina yells.

  Thank God.

  * * *

  In the rec center health room, Karina informs me that I have a boyfriend.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I say. The ice pack pulses a numbing void against my forehead. From the wall, a cartoon condom explains, with the winningest of grins, that he’s not reusable.

  “I’m just saying,” Karina says. “He called that ass out by name. He was like…” she drops her voice to an absurd baritone and affects something like a Polish accent. “Kia Summers! Please for to come to ze front of ze el roomio.”

  “Karina.”

  “You in love, girl, that’s okay. We all are. Homeboy is eight feet tall and fine as fuck. And he’s packin’. I’m just mad it’s you not me, but I support you, Kia. I got ya back, all the way. And when it come crashing down because he’s too old for you, I’ll step in on that distraught friend tip and get me some too.”

  “How that even make sense? You the same age as me.”

  “I’m more mature though. And I’m Jamaican, so…”

  “What that even … Just be quiet, woman. You’re giving me a headache.”

  “That headache is called Love. A love-ache.”

  All I can do is roll my eyes, but even that hurts. “You going to the park after class?”

  Karina scoffs. “It’s Saturday ain’t it? You know I got all those baby beckys to take care of.”

  A bunch of the new white folks in the neighborhood linked up on some social media site and now they have regular Saturday evening dinner parties where they plot, I’m sure, how to make the perfect vegan cupcake and take over the world. Karina got the gig watching their rugrats and she usually just lets ’em loose in Von King.

  “They ain’t scared by all the shit been going on there?”

  “Pshaw! It’s added flavor and excitement to the urban adventure.”

  “Imma come with,” I say.

  Karina sits up real straight and wipes off her stupid grin. “If Renny there, I got ya back.”

  I sigh. “It’s not like that, Karina. It’s cool. I’m cool.”

  Rennard Deshawn White, of all the old-man-ass names for a teenage boy, is this kid I used to talk to. He’s big and black and beautiful, all those loving folds of flesh to get lost in, and he got a quiet, easy way about him like I do when Karina’s dumb ass isn’t around riling me up. We used to walk the length of the park after school just talking. I mean, he talked most of the time and I just let him; he talked about his favorite video games and his moms and his little sister and how he wanted to be an engineer and, okay, yeah, it seems pretty boring if you not in it, if you don’t give a crap about Renny, but I devoured every word and then waited in the silences for him to look over at me and then wrap around me and I could disappear into him and and and …

  And in February he started dating Maritza Lavoe. And then they started walking the park, same path we took, same leisurely loving pace, and I sat hugging myself next to Karina while all those little white kids ran screaming around us and wondered if Maritza made him laugh more or if she listened better, if they’d made out yet and if they kissed when they had sex. Dumb shit, I know, but that’s where my off-kilter mind went and that’s where it stayed. Me and Renny didn’t even put our lips against each other’s but I felt like I could go through things with him and come out on the other side a better person. I put my headphones on and with the best King Impervious break up rhymes on the player and I walked out of Von King Park one night and haven’t been back since.

  “You sure you cool?” Karina eyes my faraway look and I snap out of it, flash a smile.

  “Girl, fuck Renny and his video-game-playin’ ass.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”

  We dap and then I say, “For real, though, he still roll through there with Maritza?”

  Karina shoves me and I almost fall over the desk I’m sitting on. We’re both laughing so hard we don’t notice that Sally’s standing in there doorway, arms akimbo, until she says, “Young ladies,” and then all we can do is bust out laughing again.

  Carlos

  New York weather doesn’t give a fuck about any of us. It wants us confused and off balance and if it has to become absurdly warm after the sun sets on a brittle icy day in a brittle icy week, so be it. Folks are shedding jackets and sweaters, unraveling scarves, looking around dumbfounded and annoyed. Old people step out on their stoops and stretch muscles crimped and tight from flinching against a long hard winter.

  They smile as I pass, turn to each other and wonder who gonna get it tonight and how, what unaccountable tragedy will strike which corner of the park, and why … They shake their old heads, jowls dangling, eyes squinting in the streetlights, and wonder.

  I stand in the center of Von King Park and let the whole universe of it spiral around me. Little kids swarm the brightly lit playground in the southeast corner. Dog walkers stroll along in small clumps. In the field behind me, a baseball game wraps up. I’ll say this for the community: The recurring traumas have not deterred people’s impulse to commune. Who can resist the first night of spring? The thaw has come early, and knowing New York’s tempestuous, temptress ways, tomorrow will see another frost.

  “Mass random disasters be damned, huh?” my partner Riley says, appearing next to me. The fully dead have an annoying way of creeping up on a man.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “The people gonna have their park.”

  “Ain’t mad. It’s a beautiful night.” I’m sweating in this damn overcoat.

  “Game plan?”

  “Bell’s at the southwest entrance.” I nod towards the Marcy Ave gate at the far end of the field. “Posted some’a her soulcatchers at the northeast corner, the rest are scattered along the edges. You take the northwest.”

  “Where the little doggy park is? Man, fuck dogs.”

>   “You have no soul.”

  “All I am is soul, brother.”

  “Imma be over at southeast. Kia got a friend who watches some kids there, gonna see if I can rustle up any information.”

  “Kia as in Baba Eddie’s little botánica badass?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Alright, man. You worried? You look worried.”

  “That’s my face, man.”

  Riley shakes his head and moves out to the edge of the park with long ghostly strides.

  * * *

  Am I worried? No. Not worried, but a growing unease rumbles through my core. I don’t have a name for it, can’t trace its roots. It’s been there for the past couple days, I realize, unnamed and rising. I’m just getting myself together so I can ignore the unease when I see Kia sitting next to her friend on the bench. Then I see her black eye. The unease erupts into a full-blown swath of rage.

  “What the fuck happened?” I say, quickening my pace as I cross the playground. “Who I gotta kill?”

  Before Kia can answer, her friend is up in my face. “The fuck are you, homeboy?”

  “I…”

  “You gonna back up off my friend ’fore I—”

  Kia’s hand lands on her shoulder. “Karina, it’s cool, girl. That’s Carlos, he’s my people.”

  Karina glares up at me for a solid three seconds before backing off. I smile—not to seem condescending, I’m just relieved Kia has someone else around, someone her age, who will throw herself in the line of fire to protect her. I know I would.

  “Karina, Carlos. Carlos, Karina.”

  I nod at the girl and she appraises me with a squint and an eye roll. “What happened?” I ask, controlling my breath and the urge to incinerate something.

  “It’s fine, it was an accident is all.”

  Did the disaster ghost strike already? Seems there are no accidents these days … “Here?”

  “Nah, man. At the rec center. Capoeira-related injury.”

  “What is this Capoeira of which you keep speaking?” I ask.

  “It’s a fighting style or a dance or both, depending on who you ask. Roots in Africa, flourished in Brazil. They came up with it during slavery when they had to disguise their combat training as dance. I suck at it.”