Burn Baby Burn

by Meg Medina

  “What burned now?” Mr. Mac works two twenty-four-hour shifts in a row, and then he’s off.

  She waves me off impatiently. “Did you see the news about the Forest Hills murder?” she asks.

  I check down the street for the next bus. “Yep. I’m not going to wander around Continental for a while, that’s for sure.”

  She pulls me close.

  “It’s worse than that.” Her eyes have that look she gets when she’s hoarding a secret.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She looks over her shoulder at the other people waiting at the stop and pulls me off to the side. “You know how my parents have been acting overprotective and weird for weeks? There’s a reason. And it’s big.”

  I spot the bus in the distance. It’s pulled over at the stop a couple of blocks down, so I fish in my bag for my bus pass. “Bigger than a shooter?”

  She takes a breath. “The news said the cops found no connection between the two murders in Forest Hills, right?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “That’s bullshit. The cops just told the papers that because they don’t want people to panic.”

  I feel a flutter in my stomach that I don’t like. Around us, people start to line up as the bus idles at the light. “Panic about what?”

  She lowers her voice even more. “Dad said they’ve suspected for a couple of months now that we might have a serial killer.”

  “Kathleen,” I say uneasily. It wouldn’t be the first time her imagination went wild. “A serial killer?”

  She gives me an exasperated look. “Think back,” she says. “Not just the girl in January. Remember the couple that got shot at Halloween? The ones in the VW?”

  I’d almost forgotten. One of Mr. Mac’s friends is a detective at the 109th Precinct, on Union Place. Around Halloween, his daughter and her date were shot on Depot Road, not far from here.

  “And how about the girls in Bellerose?”

  Again my mind goes back. A man came up and asked for directions while they were sitting on their stoop. He opened fire, and now one of them is in a wheelchair.

  “Holy shit.”

  “And there’s probably more,” Kathleen says. “They’re checking for bullet matches.”

  The bus pulls over and throws open the door to let people board. For a second, neither one of us moves.

  “Well?” the bus driver says. “You getting on or what?”

  We climb up without another word, but I suddenly feel wary around all these strangers. The whole ride, I look around at the bored faces, wondering if one of them might have something to hide.

  I just can’t shake what Kathleen shared. Even climbing the stairs after school feels scary. I reach each landing and look around to make sure nobody is lurking in any dark corners. Then I run for the next set of stairs.

  “Nora.”

  Mima nearly gives me a heart attack.

  She’s sitting on the sofa, still wearing her work clothes. Her hands are folded in her lap, like she’s waiting for a bus or something. What’s she doing home?

  “¿Qué te pasa?” I ask. What’s wrong? I can feel something buzzing in the air, even though Hector isn’t home. “Are you sick?”

  Mima swallows and looks over at me with that expression that tells me she’ll be taking to her bed with one of her daylong headaches.

  “My hours were cut again,” she says. “I’m down to half time. Edna is going to try to put in a word for me, but it doesn’t look good.” She shrugs and stares into her lap. “Nobody is hiring,” she mutters.

  Then she points at the table, where the bigger trouble is waiting. I see the pink paper and know what it is right away. Manny has left us an overdue notice.

  Rent in the amount of $275 was due on March 1, 1977, for the period of: February 1–28, 1977 for unit 4E, which you are currently occupying.

  Please deliver your rent promptly to Mr. Emmanuel Barros, building superintendent. You may disregard this notice if payment has already been made.

  By the time I finish reading it, Mima is already heading to her room. She’s got dark circles under her eyes and a run in the back of her hose.

  “I’m going to lie down,” she mumbles.

  The last time I talked to Papi was Valentine’s Day. It’s easy to remember because Papi only calls on official holidays. He has a lousy memory for dates, which is why he almost never remembers our birthdays, and probably why he’s always confused about exactly how old we are or what grade we’re in. He makes up for it by calling on holidays that have big symbols on his calendar: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July.

  “What do you expect from a man who can’t even remember his own name?” Mima always says. What she means is that Papi’s given name was Federico. Everybody in the whole world once knew him as Fico, but all that changed when he married Linda. He goes by “Rick” now.

  Apart from our holiday chats, we don’t see each other much. He lives in the city with Linda and their kid, Pierre, who’s five. I wonder if the kids at school make fun of that stupid name. Anyway, the last time Hector and I visited them, Pierre was still in a stroller and wearing Cookie Monster slippers. It wasn’t exactly a great day, either. Hector fed Pierre all the plastic pieces from an Evel Knievel Colorforms set until the kid nearly choked. Linda rolled up the welcome mat after that.

  I take a deep breath and try to sound calm and pleasant. I was kind of grumpy last time we talked. I had my reasons, though. Valentine’s Day is tough for a loveless girl like me. I had just lived through the annual carnation sale at school that raises money for the prom, which I have no intention of attending. At least Kathleen got a carnation from Eddie and some from mystery admirers, plus the one I sent her. The only flower I got was from her. She wrote, From the foxy ghost of Freddie Prinze. I’ll always love you. Ricky, the Student Council president, delivered it to my homeroom. The smart-ass just looked at me with pity. “Sad,” he said.

  Anyway, Papi sounds a little surprised to hear from me when he picks up.

  “Hi, Papi,” I say. “It’s me. Nora.”

  “Nora! What a surprise,” Papi says. “I was just thinking about you. I was telling Linda that maybe you could come spend a Saturday with us. We could take you shopping at Bloomingdale’s. Buy you something nice.”

  “Sure,” I say, but I don’t let myself imagine all those pretty clothes or those shiny black counters. Papi has big ideas all the time, but that doesn’t mean anything. Disney, Great Adventure, a baseball game at Shea Stadium, he’s offered all of them at one time or another, but we’ve never actually gone on those trips, as Mima likes to point out. Something always wrecks the plan. Pierre gets sick. Papi gets called into work. Linda heard people are getting jumped at the Central Park Zoo. One way or another, the trip gets canned.

  I twirl the phone cord and zone out as Papi tells me about all the things Pierre has been learning in kindergarten this week.

  “Your little brother is so smart,” Papi says. “Especially at numbers.”

  At first I think he’s talking about Hector, but then I realize he still means Pierre. Could Little Pepé Le Pew really be smarter than Hector? Probably not. Hector is hard to beat, especially if you factor in the criminal-mastermind angle.

  I glance at Mima’s door, which isn’t closed all the way. She’s still napping, or maybe she’s just eavesdropping as I do her dirty work, as usual.

  “School is fine,” I tell Papi when he finally asks. I pile it on thick, like I’m somebody on The Partridge Family or something. Yes, spring semester of senior year is really fun. I love it. Yes, I’ve already put in my application to college. I should hear any day now.

  It’s all a lie. I am counting down the days to be done with high school so I can move out. No matter what Ms. Friedmor says, it will be easier than going to college. I’m just not into it, and why should I be? I’m not like Kathleen, who’s going to escape to a dorm decorated with a comforter and matching pillows. Even if I
get in, come September, the only change in my life will be getting a bus to Brooklyn. Being a commuter student isn’t the same. I’ll still be stuck with Mima and Hector. And that’s if I even figure out how to pay for it all. It used to be free to go to any of the colleges that were part of City University, but broke as the city is, now you have to pay to be tortured. Four hundred bucks a semester! I looked at the financial-aid papers a while back and nearly threw up. It will be a bitch trying to translate it all for Mima, so I’ll have to answer most of the questions myself. I’m not even sure whose name goes under “Head of Household.” Isn’t that supposed to be the person who calls the shots? That position is more or less empty around here.

  Still, if I don’t apply for aid, where am I going to get $800 a year, plus books? Papi? Ha! He’s busy paying Pierre’s private kindergarten for geniuses.

  Papi pauses on his end of the line, and I can tell he’s running out of things to say. “So, everybody’s good?” He always asks about this mysterious everybody. It’s everyone and no one at the same time. Neat trick.

  “Yep.” I close the door to Mima’s bedroom just in case she’s faking it and listening in. I don’t like an audience when I grovel. “Mima’s at work, and Hector is staying after school with track.” (What a whopper!) I take a deep breath and try to sound casual. “So, Papi, I think something might have happened to the mail again, because Mima didn’t get your check.”

  There’s a rustling on his end and a long pause that I hate.

  “Really?” He sounds genuinely surprised, which is kind of impressive, considering how often this happens. “I’m almost positive I sent it. Are you sure?”

  “You know how the mail is,” I say vaguely.

  We actually have excellent mail. Our carrier is a lady named Sheila. She pushes her overloaded postal cart up and down the block at four p.m. like clockwork, and she always says hello.

  I think about Papi and Linda’s fancy digs in the city. They’ve got good mail in their building, too. It was Linda’s place before they lived together, up on First Avenue. The doorman is a Dominican guy who holds the door open for the tenants and accepts mail deliveries all day long. He calls Papi Mr. López, although I’ll bet he secretly wants to call him Fico, too.

  “Well, I’ll send it again,” Papi says. “No problem. Be watching for it.”

  I stand in the window staring up the block for the unmarked cop car, but it’s not there. Maybe they found who they’re looking for, or have decided that there’s a better place to look. That’s a good sign, right?

  Just then, I spot Hector coming up the block toward our stoop. He’s wearing his sweatshirt, hood up against the chill. It’s too short in the sleeves on him, and his shoulders are shrugged up against the wind. I almost forget how mad I was at him this morning for keeping me up late looking for him.

  Papi’s voice is loud in the receiver. “Well, I’ve got to get back to work. But I’ll call you next week about Bloomingdale’s,” he says.

  My throat squeezes tighter. He’ll call me on Easter, not a day sooner, but why point out his lie? It will make us both feel weird, and I don’t want him to hang up.

  “Hey . . .” Words swirl in my head, but I can’t pull them to my lips in the right order. I need . . . We need . . . I want to tell him that I’m a little scared of the shootings, that we still need him, but it gets jumbled inside.

  Papi waits. “Nora? Hello?”

  “I’m here.” I send him the rest of the message in my mind. Mima’s hours got cut and she needs your help with Hector, who’s jacked up worse than usual. Maybe you could talk to him? Yes, I know the arrangement. You pay rent and Mima covers everything else. But could you help, this once, maybe not tell Linda?

  But my mental connection doesn’t work.

  “Look, mija, I’ve got to go,” Papi says cheerfully. “Spring break is coming. Maybe I can get away and we’ll go to Florida. I’ll check into it when I get a minute.”

  The lobby buzzer sounds. Hector’s key, I notice, still hangs on the hook by the closet.

  “Nora? Are you still there?”

  Pierre’s high voice sounds in the background at Papi’s place. I’m remembering long ago, when Papi was still here, how he swung Hector high above his head, laughing. And then those later days when Hector was Pierre’s age, big brown eyes, no front teeth, kicking too hard or pinching when we played.

  “Listen, Nora,” Papi says, “I have to go. I’ll put the check in the mail as soon as I get off the phone. You watch that mailman, okay?”

  “Okay.” I wait to hear the click before slamming down the phone.

  Then, bracing myself, I let Hector in.

  There’s been drama in the building.

  Mrs. Murga’s apartment, 1A, was burglarized last night while we all slept. What a week. If it’s not scary enough to think about a killer lurking around, now we have this. It figures that those stupid undercover cops were gone when we really needed them.

  From the looks of the splintered frame, the crooks pried open a window and climbed in from the street. According to Stiller, the head of the tenant association — who already came by with a petition for security cameras and upgraded windows — they made off with Mrs. Murga’s color TV, a transistor radio, and the Social Security check she hadn’t taken to the bank yet. It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s pretty much everything that was worth anything in Mrs. Murga’s place. I’ve fed her cat a couple of times when she’s gone to visit relatives, so I know. The place is a museum of old-lady crapola: crocheted doilies on her sofa’s armrests, crystal bowls filled with stale candy, plastic roses.

  “¡Qué horrór!” Mima says. “They could have slashed la viejita’s throat if she woke up. They could have violated her! They could have killed any one of us in the hall, too!”

  Bad is never enough for Mima. We must go to gruesome. But now that we might have a serial killer roaming around, maybe her worries aren’t so crazy.

  Mima’s words worm inside me all night. What makes someone a burglar and someone else a killer? I wonder. Where’s the switch that lets someone look you in the eye and pull the trigger anyway?

  I toss and turn as I try to fall asleep, but I keep imagining sounds outside my window. Is it the wind, or is someone climbing the rusted rungs of the fire escape? The blinds move, but it could be a draft. I don’t dare get up to check. Instead, I back against the wall and stare at the blinds, waiting for the sound of a crowbar splintering wood. When I finally drift to sleep, a stranger follows me into my dreams.

  He’s not a burglar. It’s the serial killer.

  Click! Bang! Blood splatters the wall like it did in Carrie. I try to scream, but no one hears me at all.

  The very next day, Mrs. Murga is gone. Just like that, her son has packed up her museum and moved her out to Levittown. When I get home at noon, the U-Haul is pulling away.

  Manny has wasted no time, of course, in making plans to rent the place again. The painters are already sitting in their van, parked out front, eating lunch while they wait for the coast to be clear. Vultures.

  The men stop eating and watch me go by in that way that always makes me want to gouge out their eyes. What is it with horny men? Are there no women their own age? And why are they everywhere in this city? Construction sites, the schoolyard, even dressed up in business suits at the bus stop (but only if they think no one else is listening). Hey, Mami. What’s up, beautiful? When I complain to Mima, she tells me to ignore them. “Besides, you’ll miss the attention one day when you’re old and shriveled.”

  Sometimes I want to send some of Mima’s advice straight to the No Comment column at Ms. magazine. It would fit right in with the other sexist ads readers spot and submit each month. The reigning champ so far is a bowling ad: BEAT YOUR WIFE TONIGHT.

  “Good day at school?” one of them calls. He’s practically Papi’s age and has the bloated face of a boozer, clearly not the type of man with a healthy interest in the quality of my academic experience. Normally, I pretend to go deaf
and ignore guys like this, but this time I pause at the lobby doors. What if the serial killer is a sleazy painter who gets back at girls who ignore him? I could be an eyewitness that helps lock him up.

  I turn around and study his face for a second. He licks his fat lips and waves hopefully as I register his features. Then, to his obvious disappointment, I let myself into the lobby to get the mail.

  I scan the envelopes for Papi’s handwriting. Nothing yet. If Manny knocks on our door, I’ll have to pretend no one is home, watch TV with no sound.

  I take the first flight of stairs but stop at Mrs. Murga’s open door. It’s kind of sad to see how fast nothing of her remains except a few rumpled tissues and dust bunnies on the floor.

  “Hello?” I walk all the way in to get a better look.

  It’s a studio, so the kitchen, living room, and bedroom are all in one. This wouldn’t be a bad place to live if I fixed it up nice. Small, sure, but I’d buy shag carpet and beaded curtains to make a bedroom. I’d burn incense, too, and leave a big space in the middle to practice dancing.

  It’s all a dream, though, unless I can get the cash together to make it happen, which means, unfortunately, that I have to get to work, pronto. I’m scheduled today from 1:30 p.m. until closing.

  Thumping music sounds through the walls. At first I think it might be coming from a car driving by, but no. I recognize the Ramones. Hector is upstairs blaring “I Don’t Wanna Go Down to the Basement” through my stereo. Any minute, somebody will complain. I turn to go, but I don’t get far. Someone has followed me inside.

  “Nooooora!” Sergio is holding a toolbox in one hand and a new toilet seat in the other. He checks me out from the doorway, lingering at my chest, and grins. “You looking for me, babe?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Even from here, I can smell him. His blue work jumpsuit reeks of cigarettes and BO, same as always.

  “Come on, don’t be like that.”

  “Like what? I’m late for work, Sergio.” I head for the door, but he puts his arm out to block me. “Move,” I say.

  He doesn’t budge. Instead, he leans toward me and croons along with the Ramones.