Preparation for the Next Life

by Atticus Lish

  There’s too many of them! he screamed, holding his can of Bud Light.

  Frankie, with his hair combed back wet, wearing a red tank top over his gut and gray sweatpants said, This nigga woke me up at five-thirty, beloved.

  It was early and the gates were down on some of the stores, except for the bodega that a Pakistani ran, which specialized in lotto. The casino bus waited by the bodega and the Chinese with their hands clasped behind their backs like Deng Xiaoping touring the brigade fields of the south waited to board it. The fourth guy stood in the middle of the sidewalk facing the procession of Chinese coming up the block towards the bus, carrying boxes, going to work.

  Here they come, he said. He took a fast swig of the beer, throwing his head back, throwing it at his own face, and stared at them again, wiping foam off his mouth.

  A woman from China in a lacy blouse and black skirt came up the street in heels with little bows on them.

  What’s up, sexy? Goin to work? Look, she’s dressed up, lookin nice.

  Gonna go whack guys off all day.

  Her husband’s a jerk.

  No more Similac. No more pampers. No more water. Somebody’s gotta tell’em.

  Tell’em what, beloved?

  Tell’em there’s too many of them.

  The guy who was oiled up tried to bum a cigarette off Jimmy, who said, It’s my last one.

  The fourth guy had tons of cigarettes. He had two packs—both of them Chinese brands in red boxes with gold—Jinlongmingpai Xiangyan—that he kept taking out of his pockets, opening and closing them, taking out cigarettes and putting them behind his ears, in his mouth, offering them to other guys.

  Take one. Take one. Take one, brother, he said. We’re all white men. Go ahead. Go on, the fourth guy said, handing him more loose cigarettes, which the sunbather took in his mineral oil-covered hands and laid next to him on the stained granite.

  Look at all he gave me!

  Give me one, Jimmy commanded him. Give Frank one too.

  Don’t take them all.

  Gimme a light. Hook me up with fire.

  They blew their smoke out, and the sunbather, holding his cigarette in his mouth, made the end bob up and down like an erection as he watched the women.

  Bravo! he called to one and clapped.

  The fourth guy picked his Bud Light up off the sidewalk and took another swig of it. We’re all white, American. I don’t play that shit. What’s mine is yours, brother. What’s mine is yours. Look at me. What’s mine is yours.

  Well, what’s mine ain’t yours, Jimmy told the fourth guy, who took this in stride, seeming not to hear. Because he was already screaming about the gas station again. He started really screaming, his neck turning red, really screaming, saying he couldn’t fight them all. He was wearing a number 25 brown jersey over a white shirt, khaki shorts with no belt that keep falling off, and he constantly had to roll the waistband over to make them tighter. There were slices all over his forearms. His hands were filthy. He was saying how he had kept slipping during the fight, which had been a punching, kicking, grappling fight, when they pushed him down, which he demonstrated, throwing himself down and jumping up again, momentarily knock-kneed like a little kid, and jumping up and kicking, his sneaker flashing within an inch of their faces. Jimmy yawned.

  They had been smoking crack all night, Frankie said. With blunts, beloved.

  Jimmy scratched the shamrock on his hand.

  But I kept slippin down! The floor, it’s too slippery for me to fight them.

  From the Armor-All, right? Frankie said. From the Armor-All on the floor.

  Yeah. I needed to get out here, the fourth guy said, backing up across the sidewalk to the curb where the planter was and the Chinese bus was waiting. I needed to get out here to have room. Once I got room, I don’t care if there’re ten of them. I don’t care. I don’t care, I’ll kill them. That’s when I’ll kill them.

  He poured beer in his mouth and bent over, still drinking out of the blue can, pouring it past his mouth, watering the planter with beer, letting the can drop, stamping on it with his sneaker, walking away from it, spreading his arms and yelling, I’ll fuckin kill’em.

  Chinese people turned their heads.

  They met people that they knew and people that they knew met them. A passenger hailed them from the cab of a graffiti-covered delivery truck with a gash in the peak, which had been inflicted by a low clearance, now taped up with garbage bags.

  Guado! they yelled across the intersection. The fourth guy ran out to him and climbed up on the step and talked to him through the window until the light changed and then ran back through the cars.

  Frankie had been out a while. He had been in and out. This nigga got me locked up. Thirty days on the Island! He had been saved after his mother had died. Oh-nine oh-nine ninety-nine. Colon cancer, beloved. Dearly beloved. But he still lived down here, around the corner from the Punjabis in the low-rise projects on Blossom. His tattoos were 777. John 3:15. A tattoo of his skin being ripped by claws underneath as if a tiger were inside him. His hands were pink from scabs as if he had psoriasis, but it was from fighting. He had a black plastic bag on the ground by his foot, which he was stepping on. He bent down and took out a bottle of Arizona Ice Tea from it, spit on the cap, rubbed it. Took the cap off and drank from it. Offered it. It’s clean.

  So you been out all this time, Jimmy said as if that were a nice thing.

  I went down to the World Trade Center the day after 9/11 when it was still smoking, nigga. Ain’t nothin changing but the weather.

  The fourth guy started talking about the fight at the carwash again. Here’s what we do. We go over there. Over on Kissena by my house. Fuckin immigrants. You got papers? You legal? Okay, fine. Only this time I’ll have somethin on me. He demonstrated what had happened, what would happen next time, obviously a natural athlete despite what he had done to himself. Because these Mexicans were going to stick him. He darted in and pressed his fist to Jimmy’s belly. A real fast city guy. But that’s when I go for eyes, throats. I’ll kill somebody without a knife. With an elbow. He backed up and ran in swinging his fist and stopping short. Frankie and Jimmy barely noticed, laughed. He got into your face, head-to-head, insisting that you listen, saying look at me, look at me, look at me. This is what I’ll do. I’ll get me a pipe. A nice pipe. A tire iron! Frankie interjected. Yeah, one a them. You hit somebody in the head with a pipe, you know it. I’ll get up early in the morning and go down there and do it.

  Frankie called him Charlie. What’s your middle name? James, right? C-J! Your last name’s French, right? C-Rock! he laughed and winked at Jimmy, who was ignoring them both, inspecting the cigarette burning down to the shamrock between his battered knuckles.

  Charlie took out his two packs of Chinese cigarettes again. He would give you the shirt off his back. He put another cigarette behind his ear. When he demonstrated how he had been fighting, in the course of gesticulating, he dropped the cigarette he was smoking on the wet sidewalk at his feet, picked it up and kept puffing.

  I need to get outside. It was too small. I needed to get outside where I had room. My father would have whipped a can of chew at them and hit them right in the face. A can a Copenhagen. I wanna go back there today. I should ask for the owner of the carwash and just go up and hit him right in the face. With my fist. With a Belgian brick. That would be the logical thing to do. That would take care of it, wouldn’t it? Or maybe it wouldn’t. I don’t know.

  But you kicked one of their’s food, Frankie said.

  No. Yeah, I was mad. I kicked his food. Not him. A different one. This big one with gold all across his fuckin teeth. If I had a gun, I would of killed him. I would have killed seven of them. If I go back there, there’ll be seven dead guys. Fourteen of them. Then maybe I’ve got a chance. Self-defense is a right. But a white guy, a citizen? He beat the palms of his hands together for emphasis. What are the cops gonna do? Are they gonna listen to me, a white guy? A army vet?

  He had slightly cr
ooked teeth. Red neck. Hair in a graying high-and-tight.

  You mean over an immigrant?

  C’mon! Exactly. He put his hands together as if they were being handcuffed. He marched away from them and back. I’m gonna go to jail for a long time. A long time this time. The MS-13, the Mexicans’ll be there. The Chinese. I trust the blacks before I trust them. Maybe not so much. Not necessarily. I’m gonna go straight to the Aryans. Seig heil. I stand with them. Born and raised. Aryans. White power. I’ll be in jail with the fuckin MS-13—he imitated them making their devil horns, praying with their hands upside down to Jesus, Jesus save me—he imitated this with disgust. Get the fuck outta here… They don’t talk about this thing over here that happened, what they did to a girl, they shoved a pipe up her pussy, up her ass. They killed her, a poor Chinese girl. The Mexicans don’t talk about that. Oh no. Some people don’t deserve to live.

  Someone coming by on the street, coming out of the bodega, scratching a lotto card, caught his attention, because he thought he was Mexican. But he corrected himself and said, Oh no, he’s Turkish. Charlie got right up in Jimmy’s face and said, Let me tell you about a Turkish guy. A Turkish guy, if he fixes your car, you’ll be back again a day later. He’ll do something to it. An Indian’ll just rob you…

  Frankie said, The only cars I ever owned was a minivan and a 91 Nissan Maxima. I still got it.

  I’m outnumbered! There’s too many of them. Here they come.

  Falungong ladies in white and red tracksuits were coming up the street from the park where they turned the dharmic wheel, a practice for which they would have been persecuted in China. Charlie blocked the path of a shrunken Buddhist grandmother in her early seventies. When she moved, he moved. He started dancing and danced up on her, wiggling his pelvis. She was laughing. All right, he said and let her by.

  Look at this nigga.

  Jimmy spat on the sidewalk.

  He’s fuckin whacked. The sunbather with the stabbed-up chest turned up his music player.

  Dance, nigga! Frankie called.

  Charlie danced up behind a Chinese guy coming out of the bodega, a hollow-chested slump-shouldered man in glasses who, sensing what was going on behind him, turned around and, laughing, exposing terrible teeth, pointed up and away with a doughy white arm, as if telling Charlie where to go. As if telling him to take the bus. They had a grinning stand-off and Charlie high-fived him. People were smiling. When this was over, the slumped man scuffed over to the other Chinese, who carried money satchels, collecting fees for the bus, and began conversing with them.

  Charlie came back to the guys and asked when the liquor store was opening. Frankie told him it was opening in five minutes. Charlie said, That’s what you said twenty minutes ago. He helped a Chinese guy carry a box down the block, asking him, Is that heavy? then picking it up and saying, That’s not too bad. Then running away with it, calling back, See ya! Then bringing it back to him and saying, I wouldn’t of done that.

  He’s got ADHD disorder, Frankie said. He’s got too much energy in his brain or somethin. He was in the army in Afghanistan. That’s how he wound up in jail. His wife was fuckin around. He fucked them both up, threw them through a glass window. He did two years.

  I did eight years in the army. No, two years eight months and fifteen days. I did three years in jail.

  You did two years, nigga.

  That’s right, two years. I been stabbed. Been shot. Been there, done that. But then I got locked up again.

  You got me locked up last time, nigga.

  Frankie shook his large skull from side to side hitting his shoulders with his skull on either side like a boxer loosening up his neck before sparring.

  Charlie pulled up the sleeve of his jersey and flexed his white arm, showing his army tattoo to Jimmy. He had been a combat medic in Iraq. Frankie said, Show him your thing, nigga. Charlie pulled up his shirt in front and pushed down his khaki shorts down off his hipbone exposing his pubic hair, showing the scar that was on his hipbone.

  You got a magnet? All I want is to get this metal out of me.

  Watch this, Frankie said. Hey, Charlie, what’s that from? You get shot or what?

  I need a magnet to get this out.

  What’s it from, nigga?

  An IED.

  In Iraq, right?

  When Iraq was mentioned, Charlie jumped away. He wouldn’t let anyone touch him. Frankie put a hand on his shoulder and Charlie looked at his shoulder where you touched him as if he felt defiled by your sympathy.

  What’s wrong? C-Rock?

  He turned around and marched away, hurrying down the block, as if something awful had happened.

  Frankie winked at Jimmy, who smirked.

  The liquor store was opening and they went down to it, leaving the sunbather, who nodded at them, nodding to his music, which sounded as if it had a scratchy connection. He had an unfilled-in tattoo, just an outline of an animal drawn during a period of institutionalization on his shining oiled white arm.

  Charlie was coming back up the street walking with the young attractive short-haired Chinese-American woman who ran the liquor store. He was offering to help her open the gate and she was saying, That’s okay. He started yanking on the handle before she had the lock off. Wait, she said. After they got the gate up, he made a sound of dismay and showed her his hands, which were black with dirt now. You can wash them in there, she said, pointing back at the bodega.

  A black guy with his hand in a brace came over to the liquor store and bumped fists, using his good fist, with Frankie. He had a scar over his left eye, through the eyelid, wore a blue horizontally striped shirt, was over two hundred pounds, about 45 – 50 something. Charley went over to him to clasp hands with him and the guy said, Ow, not my bad hand, motherfucker.

  They were drinking a clear plastic flask of Georgi vodka now, and Charlie started talking about the gas station fight again.

  Am I gonna hear about this all goddamn day? asked Frankie. The two of them had never been locked up together, thank God. Charlie had been in jail in Long Island. His wife was a cunt. Renee. You threw that bitch through a glass window, didn’t you?

  Where were you? Charlie asked. He appealed to Jimmy. This guy was nowhere to be found. I was outnumbered and he wasn’t there.

  Sometimes you take a loss, Jimmy said.

  Frankie covered his mouth laughing.

  Yeah, I just took one, Charlie said, and began on another story. I fought in the World’s Fair. I was fifteen! I was fifteen. I fought Ramirez. You know who that is? I never lost. I had one hundred-twenty, two hundred fights. The first round I knocked him down. The second round there was a standing eight count. The third round, he got knocked down. His name was Ramirez. You know what the judge’s name was? Ramirez. They called it a draw.

  And you’re still talking about it?

  I can’t get a break. My father didn’t come to any of my fights—

  Oh, my father! Frankie mocked.

  —Now look at me, Charlie said. I’m a loser. He hit himself in the head with the plastic Georgi bottle.

  Tell him he’s a loser for hitting himself with a bottle.

  For a few minutes, Charlie went and stood by a mailbox on the corner.

  Look at him. He’s runnin outta steam. Up all night smoking… You runnin outta steam, nigga?

  It was getting hotter, the sun was shining. Charlie shook his head at them, apparently tired, or simply unable to speak. He took his jersey off, wearing his white t-shirt underneath, and looked as if he was resting. A few minutes later, he came back, drinking from the flask and getting revved up again. They looked at each other and examined each other, finding things to talk about. Frankie had a scar on his face.

  My father had HIV. I went to see him in the hospital and these niggers said don’t touch him, you’ll get AIDS. I said, You ignorant fuckin niggers. I fought them. One of them had a razor and I got sliced.

  Frankie snatched the vodka away from Charlie and drank the rest and threw the plastic bottle
bouncing on the ground. He shook his head between his shoulders as if he were going to spar again.

  You don’t wanna gas me up, nigga! he bellowed. Howbout my man Kenny the Flushing Flash who’s my neighbor down the block?

  It’s about respect, Charlie insisted.

  Whatever, Jimmy said.

  Charlie insisted, Look at me. He got head-to-head with Jimmy, who pushed him away. He staggered back and came back in. It’s about simple respect, he said. He stank of vodka and cigarettes through his mouth, face, skin, his red throat. He described how the cops had come into his house and asked to hear his wife play the violin. She was known throughout the neighborhood. They followed me all the way through that park to those two buildings there, you see them two? and as soon as I stepped across the line, they arrested me. Can you believe that? Fourteen cops came into my house, and before they left, they asked to hear her play the piano. The cop was putting his hand on her back and going like this: It’s gonna be okay. There, there. Charlie stared in Jimmy’s eyes, waiting for a response. The piano, he said. After they all had coffee in my house. My wife was wearing a nightgown. They’re not supposed to do that.

  He was in my house! My house! Charlie screamed. His throat expanded.

  That’s interesting, Jimmy said.

  Your wife’s nice, the cop told me. How does her pussy smell? I was handcuffed. I headbutted him. Right there. They beat me down outside. I was in a wheelchair.

  They fucked you up bad, bro, Frankie said.

  My mother was crying. I couldn’t see.

  He hit his head on a wall, while the other two observed.

  Harder, Frankie told him. Charlie knocked his forehead against the granite again, making a coconut sound. You got any meth? Any shrooms? Any mescaline? Any angel dust? so I can put my head right through this fuckin wall?

  I got weed.

  Na, weed’s no good.

  They went across the avenue and sat by the Punjabi grocery, near the rail fence in the sun.

  We’re just three white men. You’re white, right? We’re dinosaurs, son. They don’t make’em like they used to, beloved.