Lucretia and the Kroons

by Victor Lavalle

  And here’s the crazy part: Loochie didn’t hesitate. She grasped Alice’s wrists and felt her feet lift away from the security of the steel plate below her. She crawled through the gap and lay flat when she climbed out the other side. The wind had picked up and she shivered with a slight chill that felt like fear. She saw Sunny ahead of her. Sunny had walked all the way to the northern edge of Russia, the very top of the world on this tilted Unisphere. Loochie moved toward her friend on hands and knees, keeping low so she wouldn’t be blown off the side.

  Loochie reached Sunny. Sunny put out her hand. Loochie took it and rose to a crouch beside her friend. Loochie couldn’t look away from Sunny’s face. Loochie’s mother’s wig, still on her head, rose slightly as the wind snuck underneath it but it stayed on.

  They were facing the western end of the park. Another long, jagged run of concrete scrolled out before them. It was a parking lot as long as a football field. At the end of it was an enormous stadium. Citi Field, where the Mets played baseball. Where Louis had taken her. Though, of course, this wasn’t that Citi Field. It looked different, older. This stadium’s walls were blue and white while Citi Field’s were reddish brown.

  “That’s where I’m going,” Sunny said, pointing.

  “Why do you want to go there?” Loochie asked. It sure didn’t look nicer than Sunny’s apartment.

  “I know how it looks on the outside,” Sunny said. “But inside the stadium, it’s a very happy place. Alice will take me up to Gate C, the home plate entrance, and I’ll walk through. Everyone who makes it inside is at peace. It’s bright and warm all day. You can take a seat in the stands or run around with other kids down on the field. There’s no pain in there. No need for hospital visits. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

  Sunny didn’t look at Loochie as she spoke, and her voice seemed to float.

  Loochie looked down at her feet. “You make it sound like Heaven,” she said.

  “That’s how Alice described it,” Sunny said. “But she calls it Shea.”

  “What is Shea?” Loochie asked.

  Sunny shrugged. “Once Priya told me that in her family they say ‘Moksha’ instead of Heaven. And Shaz? From 3A? They’re Persian. She said they call it Paradise.”

  Loochie worked hard to choke down her feelings of jealousy at the idea that Sunny had been having conversations like that with Shaz or, worst of all, with Priya, when Loochie wasn’t around. When had that been? Where was Loochie when this was going on? Why hadn’t she been invited? But she didn’t ask any of those questions. Instead she got snappy about the conversation at hand. “That still doesn’t explain what the hell ‘Shea’ means.”

  “Maybe ‘Shea’ is how you say ‘Heaven’ in Queens,” Sunny offered.

  Alice had climbed out there as well, and sat cross-legged behind the girls. She looked out over their heads at the stadium, at Shea.

  Loochie leaned closer to Sunny. “How come you can understand those sounds she makes and I can’t?”

  Sunny’s eyebrows squeezed tight. “What do you mean? She’s talking. That’s how I understand her.”

  “She’s not talking,” Loochie said. “She’s always just grunting and stuff.”

  Sunny swayed, like she’d been pushed. She looked back at Alice. Then Sunny looked at Loochie again. “If I understand her and she understands me then maybe you’re the only one who’s in the wrong place.”

  “I’m with you,” Loochie said quietly. “That’s where I want to be.” Loochie’s vision became blurry with tears. Her nose turned stuffy and she heard herself sniffling but couldn’t stop.

  “I want to tell you what happened to me,” Sunny began. “So you can understand.” Sunny grabbed Loochie’s hand, and held it gently.

  “Right after I gave you those cigarettes I leaned out and watched you go into your apartment. You were moving so fast! Then my grandmother came and got me. I wasn’t feeling too good when I leaned back in, like I couldn’t really breathe, so gon-gon took me to my bedroom. She put me down in bed and went to call the ambulance.

  “I was on the bed and my chest started hurting, a lot. I knew you were waiting for downstairs so I tried to get up anyway but I all I did was roll off the bed. I fell right on my face, kind of hard, and I was there on the floor.

  “I still couldn’t really breathe and my eyes just seemed like they slammed shut. And when I woke up I was here, in the park. I’ve been here ever since. It feels like I’ve been here a couple months, but I’m not sure. I knew you were going to come. I felt it. And I felt like I had to see you before I could go. It was almost like I had to wait for you, or else I couldn’t go to Shea.”

  Loochie squeezed Sunny’s hand back, hard. “But I just saw you today! All that stuff on the fire escape was like two hours ago.”

  Sunny almost choked with shock. “Two hours?”

  She pulled her hand out of Loochie’s. She held her neck delicately. “It’s only been two hours,” she muttered to herself. Now it was Sunny’s turn to cry but she didn’t sound sad really, just exhausted. Loochie brushed Sunny’s face, wiping at her tears. She shivered when she felt the skin, which was already quite cold. “I’m not ready to let you go,” Loochie told her.

  Alice made a low, thoughtful sound, almost like a cow mooing. Sunny’s mouth dropped open slightly, then she smiled. “You think so?” Sunny asked.

  Alice repeated the sound.

  “What is it?” Loochie asked, looking at Alice and back to Sunny.

  Sunny hugged Loochie so tight. “Alice says you don’t have to let me go. You can come with me. You can go to Shea, too!”

  Loochie looked toward the end of the park quickly, at the blue and white stadium walls, and her heart sped up. She even smiled, just like Sunny was doing. But she wasn’t sure why.

  12

  From the moment Alice’s offer was made Sunny couldn’t stop talking. What was she talking about? Loochie couldn’t really say. It seemed like she was making plans. For what she and Loochie would do once they reached the stadium, once Alice got them to Gate C, once they entered Shea. Sunny guessed at what they would find in that Paradise. What they would do there. Together forever. Forever. At least that’s what Loochie thought Sunny was talking about. She couldn’t be sure because she couldn’t make herself focus, make herself really listen. She had this ringing sound playing right behind both ears and with each moment the ringing got louder.

  You can come with me.

  Alice crept over to the edge of Europe with her back to Sunny and Loochie, who followed behind. When they reached the end Alice looked over her shoulder and grunted at Sunny. Sunny came closer and climbed up on Alice’s back, wrapped her arms around Alice’s neck, then looked back at Loochie.

  “Climb on.”

  Loochie heard that, at least. She walked over and did exactly as Sunny had done. The two of them fit on Alice’s back perfectly. They both wrapped their arms around Alice’s throat. At this point Loochie didn’t even pay attention to the missing jaw, the moist skin of Alice’s neck. She was used to them by now. Compared to going through Gate C, it didn’t even seem that scary. And there was the truth of it—the thing Loochie couldn’t hide from herself—she didn’t want to go to Shea, at least not yet. Loochie didn’t want to die.

  Now Alice turned around so that her back faced the open air. Alice grabbed on to a pair of steel beams, two latitude lines, and braced her feet between the same bars lower down. Then she climbed down the outside of the Unisphere, with both girls on her back. Loochie and Sunny were basically dangling in midair, twelve stories up. A fall that wouldn’t just kill them; it would spread their insides across the concrete like strawberry jam.

  And yet Sunny continued to chatter happily. She’d seemed pretty practiced when she walked across the latitude line earlier, so maybe this wasn’t the first time Alice had climbed down the side of the Unisphere with Sunny on her back. But it sure as hell was a first for Loochie! The ringing in her ears, the thumping of her heart, the sweat moistening her locked fingers, t
hey were all aspects of her terror. She had to shut her eyes. Every second seemed like a century. And when she opened them again she whimpered because the descent was far from finished yet. They were still ten stories up. Still so much farther to go.

  “I bet I’ll get my hair back again too,” Sunny continued. “Don’t you think so? I mean I can’t be bald there, right? It’ll grow back and you’ll brush it for me. And I’ll comb yours and put it in braids. I want to let mine grow down to …”

  Still seven stories up. Much higher than Loochie’s apartment. Loochie looked out across the park just to keep from looking down.

  “They’re …!” Loochie suddenly shouted, cutting Sunny off.

  But Sunny wouldn’t be stopped. “… let mine grow down to like my ass.”

  “Alice,” Loochie said. “They’re coming back!”

  The males.

  Having made the circuit of the park, having gone as far as the stadium gates and finding no one, they had finally given up. They were backtracking, looking for the girls but also distractedly scanning the ground. The Kroons walked slowly, and close together this time. If the Twins found something on the ground this time they wouldn’t have a chance to smoke it alone. The Kroons weren’t barking or squealing but silent. They almost looked tired, worn-out. Maybe they were returning home to take their naps. They hadn’t seen the girls yet.

  Alice tried to move more quickly. This meant the ride down was even bumpier for Loochie and Sunny. The girls did their best to keep from hollering when their grips loosened but the situation felt impossible. It was doubtful all three of them could just dangle there and let the males pass. Alice looked toward Sunny and huffed out one long groan. A communication that meant nothing to Loochie but Sunny said, “Hold on tight.”

  They were still twenty feet up.

  A moment later all three of them fell through the sky. Loochie and Sunny cried out.

  The males heard them but were so shocked that they were caught stiff, standing frozen, on the other side of the sphere. All five gawked at their sister, Alice, through the grillwork of the globe.

  The only one who didn’t hesitate was Alice. She landed and the girls fell off but she didn’t even look back to check on them. There wasn’t any time. She sped forward, stepping onto the concrete barrier and leaping across the pond of muck. She landed on the base of the Unisphere and braced herself against its bottom. She slammed her right shoulder forward and strained against the steel sculpture. A long, high cry played from Alice’s throat. Loochie clutched at her own neck when she heard the sound. Then there was a terrific cracking, an echoing snap, and the Unisphere rose, just slightly, into the air. It came off its cocked axis. On the other side the male Kroons looked up in quiet fascination. Alice had hurled the world at them.

  The Unisphere plowed through the Kroons. The 700,000-pound steel globe hit the Twins and Chuck directly. It crushed them. Loochie heard their bones crack even from where she still lay. All three bodies were pulverized; what was left was liquid. The earth kept moving. The globe now caught one of Lefty’s legs and his pelvis. The Unisphere rolled over it, turning both to powder. Lefty lay there howling, almost blind with pain. His right leg was gone. He flailed on the ground. He spat. He bled out. Loochie had raised herself to a seated position and watched it all, horrified and dimly elated. Confused. Was it okay to cheer when a devil dies?

  The only male left was Pit, who hadn’t been hit directly. He was knocked on his back, dazed, but that was all. Already he sat up. He watched with amazement as the Unisphere kept rolling, clanging loudly as concrete crunched beneath it. That sphere didn’t stop until it reached the closer meadow, where it settled into the dirt and grass. It stopped after a moment.

  “Holy shit!” Sunny shouted, pointing at Alice, who was already climbing back over the concrete barrier to get the girls.

  “Holy shit,” she repeated.

  Sunny couldn’t stop marveling over Alice’s triumph, but Loochie couldn’t stop staring at her friend, possibly the best friend she would ever know. Loochie stared as if she were focusing for a snapshot of Sunny. Something to remember the girl by. Loochie hadn’t realized she’d made a choice, a decision, about what to do next, until right then.

  Loochie took off her mother’s wig. She walked to Sunny. Loochie set the wig, delicately, on Sunny’s small head. Sunny looked up at it, surprised.

  “My mom will get worried if I don’t come back,” Loochie said.

  Sunny nodded and it made the wig slip forward, almost over her eyes. Loochie was about to adjust it when Alice’s big hand pulled it back into place. Loochie looked up and smiled at Alice. Then she felt a throb of regret. She’d given Sunny her mother’s wig, but what had she given Alice? Alice who’d saved her half a dozen times in here. Alice who looked like a monster. Alice, who wasn’t a monster anymore. Loochie had nothing else to offer. So she waved for Alice to crouch. Alice did so a little warily. The last time she’d crouched in front of Loochie like this Loochie had bashed her with a tennis racket. Loochie brought her face right alongside Alice’s. From here she could smell Alice’s burnt plastic body and she couldn’t avoid the gaping emptiness below her upper jaw, but Loochie didn’t hesitate. She brought her lips to Alice’s upper cheek. Loochie gave Alice the only thing she could. She kissed her gently.

  “Friends,” Loochie whispered, and Alice cooed in her ear.

  In a flash, Alice lifted both girls, as easy as always. She turned to run, toward the stadium, but before Loochie could resist Sunny said, “She’s not going.”

  Alice barked out a handful of desperate-sounding notes. She looked across the barrier, at Pit, who was doing worse than he first seemed. He struggled to rise, a feeble growl lost in his throat, then he stumbled backward again, flat on his back, still stunned.

  “She says you have to find someplace to hide,” Sunny told her. “We’ll get Pit to chase us. We’ll draw him away.”

  Alice set Loochie down. Loochie looked up at Sunny. Already, even from this close, it seemed harder to focus on her friend. To really see Sunny’s face. As if it were already being erased, little by little, from her memory if not her heart.

  “Hide.” Sunny pointed to the barrier. “Lie flat.”

  Loochie followed the order. On her back like that she was hidden. Alice howled at the top of her voice. It was like a taunt, a challenge.

  Pit sat up again. Looking more like himself. Menacing and manically focused. He found his sister’s face. She stared at him and he glared at her. He scrambled to his feet. Just before Alice ran, Sunny kicked her feet wildly and her rain boots flopped off. They smacked the ground. Loochie had given her the wig. Sunny gave the boots in return.

  Sunny shouted, “I love you, Loochie!”

  Loochie couldn’t respond for fear of letting Pit know she was still there. But inside her head she could hear her own voice, loud as a siren: I love you, too, Sunny! I loved you!

  Loochie lay flat and watched them go. Alice took off, carrying Sunny, horse and rider exploding down a track. And Pit chased after. Soon enough they were all just figures in the distance. Now there was no denying it. Loochie’s best friend, Zhao Hun Soong, was gone.

  13

  Loochie finally got the courage to sit up and look around. Even though she’d seen Pit trailing after Alice and Sunny, she hadn’t entirely believed it was true. After all, this place was a kind of nightmare and in nightmares the worst can always happen. She half-expected to find Pit standing on the other side of the murky pond when she sat up, an evil smile below his dented skull.

  But he wasn’t there. The place was quiet enough that she could hear herself breathing and she listened to that. If she was breathing then she must still be alive. If she was alive she could move.

  She stood. The concrete dug into her soles. Her socks were pretty much shredded. But she had a pair of rain boots. Loochie grabbed them and slid the first boot on. It felt so wonderful to have them between her feet and the concrete. Loochie stretched her foot and listened to the rubber
stretch. The boots were purple with white polka dots and, right then, Loochie had never seen anything prettier in her whole life. She slid the other boot on but felt something against her heel. She took the boot off, turned it upside down, and out fell Sunny’s lighter.

  Loochie weighed it in her open palm. Its body was made of red opaque plastic. She held it to her ear, shook it, and heard the faint swish of the remaining lighter fluid. The last cigarette was in one pocket so Loochie put the lighter in the other. She popped on the other rain boot.

  Go home, she told herself. Get home.

  But she didn’t move. She did not go home. It was as if her body wouldn’t follow orders.

  After a time it seemed as though she was going to collapse. Loochie’s body began to melt. Her knees buckled. It seemed as though the faint was coming on again, but do you know what made her do otherwise? What made her turn instead and start to run? The ice-cream cake. It was sitting out on a plate in the middle of the kitchen. She imagined that by now all of it, except the wafer cookies, had turned into a soupy mix. That it had spilled over the plate and across the table and even run down to the kitchen floor. One hell of a mess. Her mother would be so angry! And, strangely, she wanted to hear her mother’s voice so much right then that even a month of yelling at Loochie was preferable to the silence, the isolation, surrounding her now. So she turned and made the long walk.

  Following the concrete pathway until she reached the Playground for Lost Children, she saw no rats but still kept a good distance from the gates. She reached the first meadow and here she found the upside-down Unisphere. It looked like an enormous Christmas ornament that had fallen off its tree. Seeing it reminded her of Sunny, the two of them crouched on top and looking out across the park. How long ago had that been? Minutes? Why did it already feel, in her bones, like it had been weeks? Loochie walked the meadow, but she moved slowly. She wasn’t tired exactly, but sore. Deep down. Heartsore. It took great effort to lift her legs and her shoulders felt heavy. By the time she reached the double row of trees she could hardly stand. She had to sit beneath one of the great trees, on its gnarled roots. She could see the next meadow. She knew the kitchen, the open window, the fire escape weren’t far ahead, but she couldn’t get herself to stand. The overcast sky thundered and soon rain fell across the meadow. It fell on the tops of the trees and trickled down from limb to limb until the drops reached the dirt. The rain fell on Loochie. She had leaned forward because she was so tired, elbows on her knees. Her head and back were soon wet. Her T-shirt stuck to her skin. A quick run across the next meadow and she’d be away from all this. Just get up, she told herself. Just get up. But she couldn’t.