by Ginger Booth
Cantora also looked fifteen to Ava, compared to Puño’s twenty-one.
As they left to find empty seats, Ava shook her head. “How old is she, Puño?”
“Sixteen.” He shrugged a smiling non-apology. “Almost. You know how it is. Girls get handed around if they don’t have somebody. We’re lucky to have each other.”
“You’re really married?” Yoda asked. A year younger than Ava, he looked weirded out at having a friend old enough to marry.
“Yeah, made it official at Halloween. Haven’t told the Army. Thought they might prefer somebody single, you know? More flexible.”
Marquis said, “Nah, man. They know about my wife. Means I’m mature, more stable.”
Puño countered, “Means you want Apple Garrison, instead of wherever they need you. I can go wherever they want. I’d like to bring Cantora. But she has her job here.”
Marquis shook his head. “Tell the Army, man. Something happens to you, your wife gets survivor benefits. Your bank balance, for one.”
A taller guy, who loped with a tiger’s gait, approached from behind Puño. “Who’s this?” he demanded. Yoda, Doc, and Fakhir froze. The guy’s demeanor screamed enforcer. He wasn’t thin in the slightest. He’d never gone hungry through the Starve, and wasn’t eating light now.
Ava disapproved of gang leadership who ate too much better than the rest. She and Marquis pointedly continued eating their lunches. The enforcer narrowed his eyes at them.
Puño’s eyebrows rose. But he turned to the intruder calmly enough. “Pomelo, hey. Meet my crew from West Point.” Pomelo continued to glide around the table, offensively eyeing them over. “Wanted to show off Chelsea Free. You know Doc and Fakhir? Rastafarian and Al Kebab gangs.”
Pomelo stopped behind Marquis and Ava. Marquis scowled and refused to turn to look at him. Ava leaned forward to sip her milk.
Pomelo growled, “Tell me something I don’t know, Puño.”
“That’s Marquis. Used to run a gang in LES. Brought the whole gang into the ville. And Panic. And Yoda, up from Tribeca.”
“This lesbo is Panic, huh? Get up, bitch. I think I’m gonna fuck your ass.”
In the cafeteria? At lunch? Ava thought. How rude.
“My guest, Pomelo,” Puño said softly.
Pomelo pulled a knife and held it to Ava’s neck. “I said up, bitch.”
Ava held her hands up in surrender and rose slowly. Idiots always fell for that. She was clearly submitting, so Pomelo withdrew his knife to allow her room to rise. She spun and, straight-fingered, stabbed into his eyes.
“You bitch!”
Pomelo lunged for her, but Ava hopped nimbly onto to the tiny table and kneed him in the nose. He grabbed for her legs, so she vaulted over his shoulder. She spun back to face him with a roundhouse kick to one kidney, then cross-punched to the other, before he could turn around. By then Marquis and Puño were on him, too. Pomelo probably could have taken any one of them, but not all three.
Marquis got in a knockout punch, and laid Pomelo out on the floor. The guy’s face was a bloody mess.
Still in a fighting crouch, adrenaline high, Ava surveyed the cafeteria. The place cleared out quickly. Puño’s wife Cantora fled with the rest. “Popular jerk, huh?” She was talking to Puño, but another guy replied.
“Finish him.” This guy was just as well fed and feline as Pomelo. He’d watched the fight with arms crossed, clearly not inspired to take sides. He tossed a knife at Puño’s feet.
Puño retrieved the knife, but offered it back to the guy, handle first. “I don’t want this, Elon. Just defending friends. Christ, these are my guests. Pomelo went off on her.”
“With intent to rape,” Elon replied. “We kill looters and rapists. Remember?”
Puño swallowed, but continued holding out the knife.
“Alright,” Elon said. “You, you, you!” He poked a finger toward some of the tougher looking young men who’d stuck around to enjoy the fight. “Secure Pomelo before he comes to. We’ll hand him over to Chet in Midtown. Still think you’re doing him a favor, Puño?”
Puño lowered his eyes, and shook his head. “Wasn’t trying. Pomelo’s an ass.”
“He’s a stupid ass,” Elon clarified. “We all got asses.” He paused and eyed them all, his gaze settling on Ava. “What do you think of Chelsea Free these days, Panic?”
So Elon remembered her. She certainly remembered him. Ava jutted her chin and met his eye. “Needs improvement. Elon. People think girls are small, so they can beat on them. Pisses me off. You know?”
Elon laughed. He turned and sauntered out of the cafeteria with a backward wave, leaving his delegates to truss up Pomelo and deliver him to the sadistic militia chief of Midtown.
“Elon’s your gang boss?” Marquis inquired once the subject was out of earshot.
“Yeah,” Puño agreed with a gulp. “Look man, I am so sorry.” His eyes shifted to Ava in entreaty, though. “Didn’t expect those guys in here.”
“Testing,” Ava suggested.
“Maybe,” Puño allowed. He raised his voice to the smattering of gang rats who remained. “I don’t claim Pomelo’s rank. Got it? I don’t challenge nobody. I do trade deals. Bring in food, money. That’s all I want. Chelsea Free is home.”
A few nodded acknowledgment. Most kept their heads down.
“Let’s split,” Doc said. He cheerfully called out to the bystanders, “Lovely place you got here, Libre peeps! Keep clearing out the trash. Chelsea Free!”
A few half-heartedly pumped a fist and returned the cheer, “Chelsea Free!”
Puño just shoved him toward the door. “Sorry to interrupt your lunch!” he called over his shoulder.
20
Interesting fact: Nearly 40% of New York City’s residents were foreign born. White non-Hispanics accounted for 35%, Hispanics 28%, African descent 25%, Asians 12%. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans each comprised nearly 10%.
Ava paused in the middle of broad 23rd Street, to stare at home. Fakhir and Puño hung back, to give her time. With a smoothness Ava suspected was pre-arranged, Doc split off with Marquis and Yoda before they turned to visit White Supreme turf. Like Doc said, this block was living room and downtown to her old gang. The lookouts on 7th Avenue consulted HQ before passing them in.
Ava knew the guards, of course. There wasn’t a single unfamiliar face here. She’d lived, starved, and fought with these kids for years, as Frosty’s queen bee. Everyone stared. Some frowned at her, perplexed or angered to see her with non-whites, in army uniform. The older girls looked especially calculating. Most others held a hand up in greeting, but elected not to say anything. There were only a few dozen going about their business on the street, mostly in work coveralls under their winter coats and hats.
Everyone was age twelve and up. Ava missed the younger kids. But they’d been gone nearly a year now. Project Reunion took them away, to new homes outside the city.
Fairly confident that no one would jump her in front of the HQ – because that was up to Frosty, not initiative from the rank and file – Ava focused on the building. The street level plate glass storefronts held three large dojos. One of them was their dojo Before, their HQ. But they’d expanded into the next-door bank and adult gym. The day was bright, and the dojos unlit. The windows offered a mirror of the street instead of a view within.
Grey brick rose above, tiled with balconies inset into the building, five across. The apartments were compact, but each had this generous semi-private outdoor space, sheltered from wind and rain. Hers was third floor center – that one.
Not hers. Frosty’s. Nothing marked it as the home of the gang boss. Why paint a target on it? Guns were still mounted on other balcony rails, one up and to the left edge of the building, one down to the right. No one manned them at the moment.
He’d cleaned up her pots, of the jungle plantings of vegetables she left behind in August. Maz left winter-dead plants in the double-height balcony next door, a rotten red tomato still dangling from a black
vine. Frosty hated anything sloppy.
Her mind blanked every time she tried to imagine what she’d say to him. Sorry. Why didn’t you write back? How you been? Lame. She still didn’t have a clue. But, she had to come see him. With Puño and Fakhir for backup, today was as safe as that would ever get. This was the smart way.
She hoped he wouldn’t take it as an insult.
“Let’s do this,” she murmured, and led the way into the dark dojo. She paused halfway in the door, to take it in.
Maz, not Frosty, stood in the back, idly playing with free weights. His hair was darkening honey blond, to Frosty’s platinum blond, jaw-length and straight, kept out of the way by a red baseball cap worn backward. Maz wore black gi with their giant water tiger emblem. Four bars marked his black belt now. The dojo was otherwise deserted.
“Four dan,” Ava greeted him. “You finally found someone to test you up. I’m still stuck at two.” Because Frosty and Maz were three dan, they couldn’t test her any higher than two.
“Got regular tournaments going again,” Maz agreed neutrally, guardedly. “City wide conference. Found a ten dan in South Jersey. Hosting a meet with him in January.”
“Sorry to miss that,” Puño said, sincerely. “Or, I hope we miss that. If we’re back, we didn’t get into Army Basic.”
“Puño. Fakhir,” Maz acknowledged them. Apparently they knew each other from Chelsea Free organizational meetings. Ava had missed a lot in four months. Though the dojo looked the same as always. Kept in perfect order, it smelled vaguely of teen sweat and cleaning fluids.
“Good luck with Basic. You look like you’re filling out.” Maz was filling out, too. He’d put on weight and muscle since Ava last saw him. He waved vaguely at the bank of heavy kicking bags. “Welcome to play while I talk to Ava. I won’t bite her.”
With a glance at her for confirmation, the guys took him up on the offer, starting to discard outerwear in a heap by the wall.
“Coat hooks by the door,” Ava murmured. Puño rolled his eyes, but they complied with local custom.
“Could test you and Puño for three dan right now, if you’re ready,” Maz offered her.
Ava nodded slowly. “Could do. Thanks. See how it goes with Frosty first.”
“He didn’t write you.” Maz pursed his lips and looked away. “Sorry, Ava. He’s gone. I run White Supreme now.”
Ava’s eyes flashed to outrage.
Maz laughed and held a hand out. “Not like that! Never that, between us. Frosty took a job Upstate. Haven’t heard from him for a few weeks. Said he’d be traveling.”
“White Rule?” Ava asked woodenly.
She’d never imagined this, that Frosty could disappear. She left him without saying good-bye. Now he’d done the same thing, only he’d gone out of reach. She always knew all she had to do was walk up here, and face the music. To have finally done it, come back to face him, only to have him gone, was a shock. The sound of Puño’s straight kicks to the bag felt like they hammered in the unwelcome news. Of course you lost him forever, fool.
Maz shrugged. “Can’t say. Good to see you, though.” He took in her uniform. “Man, you look so wide! Did you get taller?”
“Just wider,” she confirmed. “Need four more pounds to make it into Basic.”
“You’ll do it. Looks good on you.” Maz took her in head to toe, with a gaze that was purely fraternal. Nothing came between Maz and his best friend, least of all Ava. She wasn’t to his taste, anyway. Just Frosty’s girl.
“You look good, too, Maz,” she said softly. “Gang behaving for you?”
He nodded judiciously. “Different now. Half ville, half gang. Lot of changes. Good ones. Look, I don’t know what Frosty told you.”
“Nothing. Love you, miss you. And now gone.”
“He was real cut up when you left, Ava. Furious at you. Didn’t blame you.” Maz’s head bounced from side to side with the opposites. “Wanted a new queen bee. Didn’t want to touch a woman again as long as he lived. Wanted Chelsea Free. Then you got out, with the Army. That just tore it.”
Furious with herself, Ava blinked tears back in place. “Was just thinking the same thing about him.”
“Hard to know what to tell you. Best friend confidential and all that.”
“Yeah, I get it. Thank you, Maz. You’ve always been a great friend to him. I knew I left him in good hands.”
Maz fidgeted with the free weights in distaste. Best friend duty didn’t stretch to dealing with emotional ex-girlfriends. “You’re welcome to go upstairs. See if you left anything you want.”
“Surely he threw my stuff out when he picked a new queen bee.”
“Got a queen bee to run the girls. Not sleep with him. Frosty picked Butch to replace you. Your stuff is still up there.”
“Butch was a smart pick.” The tough lesbian was the last person Ava expected to be replaced by. If only because Maz despised her. Frosty considered her the second best female fighter in the gang, after Ava. The message was certainly loud and clear, and would be understood by all. Don’t try to wriggle into Frosty’s bed if what you’re looking for is power.
Maz favored one-nighters, or nooners, with girls from the lower half of the pecking order. Ava never got the feeling Maz liked girls, just sex. In any event, his girlfriend couldn’t become queen bee. He refused to commit to anyone.
“Glad you approve,” Maz said sourly. “She keeps the ducklings in line.” He worked a key off his chain and handed it to her. “Ava, I won’t say he didn’t play the field. He was pissed at you. Doubt anyone spent the night, though.” That far he would go, and no farther.
The key was a dismissal. Maz took up a bag next to the guys. Ava considered giving the key back to him. She should leave.
Maz called out, “Frosty told me to let you in, Panic.” Jab, cross to the bag. “If you came by.” Round-house kick.
“OK. Thanks.”
The place was pristine as ever. For this building, Ava assigned chambermaids to clean the halls and apartments, even during the Starve. They carried water up, too, to operate the toilets, or they’d be stuck cleaning chamber pot bowls. The maids didn’t forget the water twice. The halls smelled better now, though, maybe an apple-scented cleaner, probably better-washed residents.
She let herself in by the deadbolt, the only lock they used, and drifted in. The place certainly wasn’t the same as the day she left it. That was August. Tomatoes and cucumbers and green beans overflowed the balcony, the slider open for months to catch any whiff of a breeze. The kitchenette, by the door, was different. She realized it was the faucet that was new, and tried it. Yes, the little studio apartment had running water now. Cold water only. Frosty had a small hot-plate on the counter. So electricity, too. Characteristically, everything else in the kitchen was stowed neatly away.
She drifted into the living room quadrant, likewise impeccably neat. The young couple who died here before them had nice taste, or the landlord did. Their death liquids ruined the rugs and linens. But those were easily replaced, and the light gray leather sofa cleaned up well. One of them was a programmer. The guy was from Latvia, here on a critical skills visa like Ava’s parents. He wore sober grey suits to work. The woman had family in Pennsylvania. The first time Ava met Samantha, the Soho Village librarian urged her to submit known deaths in the missing persons database. Ava reported the couple, by address since she didn’t recall their names. Maybe that gave someone ease, somewhere. Samantha was disappointed that Ava refused to enter anyone else, known dead or alive.
Ava and Frosty never spent much time in the living room, unless deathly ill. As king and queen of the gang, they mostly reigned from the dojo. The apartment was their private retreat.
She opened the drapes for light. They usually plastered the bottom of this window with solar collectors, to power a few lights and meshnet phones. A bare corner spoke of the chargers Frosty took with him when he left. She tested the lamp that sat on the compact vertically-stacked desk by the window. The lamp was still chargi
ng, ready to give back its sunlight at night.
A few picture frames stood at eye level on the desk. The one of Frosty and Ava at a Halloween party lay face-down. A selfie of a double-date with Maz still showed. The four of them went ice-skating at Rockefeller Center that Thanksgiving weekend, just weeks before Ebola broke out. They looked so happy, wholesome and innocent, plump in their warm winterwear. Ava assumed the other girl was dead now. Most were.
The third picture looked anything but innocent. Frosty and Maz, about thirteen at the time, drinking beers and trying to look tough, at some extreme-right militia camp in New Hampshire. Maz wore that stupid backwards baseball cap even then. They wore militia camouflage like Ava wore today. Around that age, the friends announced they were a package deal for summer vacation custody. They spent half the summer with each dad, two men who couldn’t be more different. The militia fanatic was Maz’ dad. Frosty’s took them on adventure tours to Costa Rica or northern Canada. Minus the guns and beer cans, but the boys did insist on outdoor action in summer, out of the city.
Frosty’s dad remarried and had a step-daughter and son by his new wife, in the Jersey suburbs. But his new family had him the other eleven months of the year. August he dedicated to Frosty. Cade.
Strange that she’d forgotten that picture, and how far back Frosty and Maz went. They’d gone through everything together, to hell and back. She never would have thought Frosty would leave him.
Sighing, she passed the Japanese standing screens into the bed ‘room.’ The whole studio apartment was one room, carefully furnished, plus a compact but nicely appointed bath. They could have chosen something bigger. Maz did, next door, with a second-floor loft bedroom. But Ava and Frosty liked this one. The third story was high enough for security and sunlight, without an exhausting climb. And they didn’t need more space.
No surprise, the bed was piled with down comforters. Frosty had picked a new duvet cover for the top one, a satiny dark red with vines. There was no four-poster bed frame, as in her dream – the space was too small for that.
