1/20
Two weeks before his first wet dream, Mike Zhang Cuthbertson escaped from the custody of his adoptive parents and became a briefly burning nightclub hero.
The idea had come to him through the television: a pretzel-plot sit-com chosen by his white sister India when her turn came up. On the periphery his black sister Bianca glowered and fretted, anxious to resume televisual control in order to pursue documentaries about things that explode.
On the screen a straitlaced teenager took the opportunity of a family vacation to sneak into the hotel discotheque, ending up drunk and gyrating on tabletop for a rowdy audience when her parents showed up for the third act's retrieval and retribution routine. "That is so not believable," snorted Bianca.
"Why?" asked India listlessly, lolling on the couch.
"Because nerds can't dance."
India considered this, the light of commercials flashing in her eyes. "Even when they're drunk?"
"Especially then," confirmed Bianca. "Now give me the remote."
"There's still more show."
"Just the credits."
"I want to hear the ending music. I like it."
Mike looked up from his homework and adjusted his glasses seriously. He was wondering whether or not he was a nerd, and therefore whether or not he possessed the ability -- or even the desire -- to gyrate on a tabletop. He absently pulled his feet out of the way as his sisters rolled across the rec room carpet, pulling each others' hair and screeching.
A seed had been planted in young Mike's sharp mind, and in those meanders it would find firm root.
2/20
Three months after Christmas Mike's white sister India won the district spelling bee championship and Mike's black sister Bianca was warned that she was in danger of failing English. It was decided that both sisters would attend the Grand Bee in the big city, the former to make an attempt for the cup and the latter to be kept close by and out of trouble. As a corollary it was hoped that Bianca's spelling might improve after sitting through two days of master beeing.
Mike's parents made a generous offer: "We've decided that you're responsible enough to stay home alone. Mom will freeze you a set of dinners."
"If it's all the same," replied Mike, "I'd like to come along."
His parents looked at one another. "But you'll miss the science fair, honey," said Mother.
Mike shrugged. "Somebody else can win this year."
She took his temperature. Father was also concerned. "This is your chance to get away from the girls for a few days, champ. Don't you want to give independence a whirl?"
Mike considered this, rolling the glass thermometer from one side of his mouth to the other. "I wanch 'o shee uh shitty."
"Stay still," said Mother.
"You want what?" asked Father, furrowing his brow.
Mike's mother withdrew the thermometer and examined the grade seriously. "Normal," she declared.
"I want to see the city, Pop."
Father sighed. "I suppose he can sleep on the floor of our room, can't he?" He was thinking about his credit card.
Mother seemed nervous. "I've already frozen a quiche."
Father shrugged in unconscious imitation of Mike's conscious imitation of him. "It'll keep."
3/20
Four blocks from the bus station to the hotel didn't sound far, but heaving baggage along and negotiating the girls' bickering made it a marathon. Though April was unfolding the warmth had not yet been sufficient to melt the snowbanks away, but had instead revealed their black, cigarette-butt stuffed cores, ledges of treacherous silty ice that snaked along the sidewalk borders like petrified boa constrictors coming off dumpster-diving benders. India tripped on one and blamed Bianca, whom she subsequently characterized as a bumbling bitch-goblin.
"No swearing," muttered Father wearily.
"She hip-checked me," whined India.
"Didn't," said Bianca.
They walked through Chinatown. There were squashed vegetables mashed into the ice crusts, and the air smelled like a fast-food grease-trap. The family wormed their way through dense, jostling crowds of shoppers pressed around make-shift market stalls filled with octopus tentacles and knock-off MP3 players. They were awash in a constant babble of Mandarin, and Mike experienced some regret that he understood none of it despite his heritage.
"I want to learn Chinese," he told his mother.
"Not now, honey" she said.
The Fairbrook Hotel rose from the corner of Dundas Street and a dingy side alley populated by oily-haired aboriginals arguing over a patch of grating through which bloomed warm farts of subway air. India drew up against Mike at the sound of their sharp, gravelly profanity. Bianca laughed at her.
The bellhops at the Fairbrook were dressed like movie-ushers. They wore little crooked cranberry caps and had stripes running down each pantleg like Han Solo. They bowed to people who looked like big tippers and ignored everyone else, including Mike and his family.
When one of the bellhops was dispatched by the desk clerk he reluctantly loaded the baggage onto a cart with a squeaky wheel and studied the wall with severe indifference while they all waited for the elevator. He swiped the card to admit them into the room and then piled the bags unceremoniously next to the closest bed.
On his way out the bellhop loitered at the jamb and held open his hand expectantly. Father slapped his palm and said, "Thanks, man."
Once they were settled Mother reviewed the itinerary, stepping through two days of round robin spelling and themed lunches culminating in a grand awards dinner of roast beef for finalists and parents only. Tentatively, half-jokingly, musingly, Mike set that final evening as the stage for his mission.
"Will you two be okay on your own?" asked Mother.
"Yes," said Mike.
"No," said Bianca.
"I don't like roast beef," said India.
4/20
Twenty minutes later Mike was on reconnaissance. He told his parents he would request from the front desk an additional reading lamp to do his schoolwork by, which he did upon reaching the lobby. Afterward, however, he parked himself in front of a wall-sized map of the hotel's innards and set to studying the layout.
A white woman in a fancy suit with a hotel crest on the lapel wandered over and asked Mike if was lost. "No," he said. She went away.
The Fairbrook Hotel housed many facilities including a sauna, a swimming pool, a sports bar, a karaoke bar, a business centre, a fitness centre, a luncheon cafeteria with both kosher and halal dishes, a teleconferencing room and a gift shop. Try as he might, Mike could find no listing for anything resembling a nightclub.
He looked around to find the lady with the crest on her lapel but she'd vanished. Instead he caught the eye of tired-looking black woman flopped out on one of the lobby's leather couches with her long, scabby legs sprawled out carelessly before her. "Hi," she said.
"Can you help me?"
She shrugged, chewing a lump of gum rhythmically. "You looking for a good time, honeypie?"
"Yes," said Mike, stepping closer. She smelled like rubbing alcohol, and when she crossed her legs he caught a bewildering whiff of tunafish. Mike pointed at the map. "I'm trying to find the nightclub."
"What nightclub?"
"Any nightclub. I thought there would be one in the hotel."
The woman stretched her bruised arms and cracked her thick knuckles. Her face was heavily painted, smeared around the lips. "You want to go dancing or something, baby?"
"Yes."
"What's your name, sugar?"
"Mike," said Mike.
"I'm Sapphire."
"It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Coriander's is down the block," she said, gesturing vaguely. "They got pretty girls in there, maybe you'll find yourself a girlfriend, Mike."
Mike blushed, and then two security guards with muttering walkie-talkies came and escorted Sapphire out of the lobby. Mike guessed that she must be an important person in order to warrant a security entourage. He waved and she waved back.
5/20
Three incidents marred Mike's enjoyment of the first day of the Grand Bee. The first incident occurred when Mike was caught unconsciously mouthing the spelling of the words each contestant on stage was challenged with, leading to a harshly whispered reprimand from a fat judge with creased jowls who had shuffled over from the wings to accuse Mike of trying to help somebody cheat. "If you're such a whiz-bang speller you should be up there yourself," said the fat judge. His shirt bore a trail of white debris from the powdered doughnut he wagged at Mike in warning.
The second incident occurred when Mike went to the washroom and two obnoxious boys in private school suits accused him of being a "shy pisser" because he took too long standing in the stall. Mike immediately lost the ability to urinate and spent the remainder of the morning session with crossed legs.
The third incident took place during lunch when one of the other parents chatting up Father asked him to point out his children, which Father dutifully did. The blonde, pink-faced man furrowed his brow and then smiled. "Oh I see, they're not your real children," he said.
"I'm sorry?" asked Father, ceasing to chew his pasta.
"That explains the complexions," added the blonde man.
The man hadn't meant to offend Father but Father was offended. He had been offended in this way before. There was, in fact, an invisible valise of stored up offense sitting unseen on Father's shoulder. Mother touched his arm and said his name quietly, but he shook her off. "What, pray tell, do you mean by that exactly?" Father wanted to know, stepping closer to the blonde man.
Mike didn't hear what the man stammered in his defense, but Father put him in a headlock. Father had been a wrestler in college. The fat judge jogged up in a tizzy but, evidently lacking experience with wrestling, attempted to prise Father's arm loose in entirely the wrong way, succeeding only in knocking himself to the floor when Father turned around to see who was pulling on him.
Violence upset Mike, so he ran away.
When Mother found him in the lobby hiding behind a magazine about Filipino pirates she stroked his dark hair and gave him the speech about Father being under a lot of stress lately due to difficulties in the adoption process of Baby Ruby and the threat of downsizing at the office. "When it's all too much for him he falls back on wrestling," she concluded lamely.
"I know," said Mike.
"He wishes you would get into wrestling. He could be your coach."
"I don't like wrestling."
"I know."
They sat in silence a while, mother and son, watching people pass by on the sidewalk outside through the tinted glass of the hotel's face. They saw a bellhop badly mistake the balance of his cargo and go sprawling to the floor, suitcases skidding away in a hissing ring of ejecta. Mike and Mother cracked up, and laughed more than may have been appropriate.
"Sometimes it's hard..." Mother began wistfully.
Mike was patient and he waited, but the sentence remained dangling. "Sometimes what's hard?"
Mother blinked the faraway look out of her eyes. "Sometimes it's just hard, is all." She hugged him. "Try to remember the burden your father carries. It isn't always easy."
"Okay," agreed Mike.
6/20
For a long moment after Mother, Father and India had set off to the awards banquet Bianca stood by the just closed door poised like a cat, eyes closed, listening. After half a minute Mike said her name and she gave him the finger. "Shut the f up," she mouthed silently.
Footfalls sounded in the corridor. Somebody was coming. Bass mumbling was interrupted by Mother's voice: "...Oh nevermind, it's right here in my purse."
Bianca looked at Mike and raised one eyebrow. Mike nodded mutely.
They froze again, listening to their family walk away from the suite a second time. At the edge of strained hearing Mike imagined he could detect the chime of the arriving elevator and the rumble of its doors. Bianca's eyes were closed again, fingers splayed out in space as if they were psychic antennae. Her brow creased briefly when a lone person passed through the corridor outside their room, but Mike knew the stride didn't belong to anyone he knew.
Bianca's eyes snapped open. She crossed the room briskly and tried to open the hermetically sealed window. "F it," she said, and then rummaged through her knapsack and extracted a neat faggot of cigarettes rolled inside the cardboard cover of a school notebook. She lit one with a hotel match and glared at Mike expectantly.
"What?" asked Mike, sitting on the bed, his homework on his lap.
"I'm just waiting for you to start up with what you're going to say about this, so you can get it out of your system or whatever." Bianca blew smoke out of her mouth and inhaled it into her nose in twin silvery streams. She kicked out her hip in that challenging way she used when lying about her chores.
"I'm not going to say anything," said Mike.
"Sure," scoffed Bianca.
"I'll even leave you alone."
"You're going to do your homework in the bathroom?"
"No, I'll leave the room. I'll just go."
"Why would I want you to go? I'm supposed to be in charge of you."
"Shut up."
"Excuse me?"
"We both know you want me to go. But you have to do something for me in return."
"Here it comes."
"If Mom and Dad call up to the room and ask you where I am, you just say 'he's right here,' okay?"
"He's right here?"
"He's right here. That's all you have to say. Can you promise? If you promise, I'll leave you alone all night. I just don't want to get in trouble for it. Okay?"
Bianca narrowed her eyes slyly and dragged on her cigarette. "What's in it for me?"
"You get what you want."
"So what's in it for you?"
Mike flushed. "Nothing."
"You're a liar."
"I'm sneaking into the business centre to use the computers."
"Shut up, Mike."
"I'm sneaking into the karaoke bar."
They stared at one another's brown eyes for a moment, pupil to pupil. Mike knew how to see the love between the flecks of resentment in Bianca's gaze, and it comforted him. Finally Bianca blinked and began to nod. "It's a deal. Now get the f out of here."
Mike snapped closed his textbook. "I'm already gone."
7/20
Once he hit the lobby Mike's pace slackened with doubt. The bloom of having bested his first obstacle, Bianca, paled as he recognized in his guts the challenge of the obstacles to come. Would they even let him, a minor, wander out of the hotel at night? Even if he did, would the nightclub have bouncers who would refuse all kids? Even if it didn't, would everyone inside laugh at him?
Mike felt the urge to pee but knew he couldn't. He had to stay on-mission.
He looked at his shoes as he passed the bellhops and swept out the wide doors, the bite of the evening air at first startling and then invigorating. It also exacerbated his need to pee. The street was colourful and loud, a jostling, veering, blinking blur that Mike found easier to ignore than to parse. He marched down the outer edge of the curb in the direction Sapphire had indicated, eyes locked along the sign-fronts hunting for any combination of spelling or logotype signifying Coriander.
"Coriander, Coriander..." whispered Mike. "Come on Coriander."
He crashed into something meaty and leapt back, gasping. "Heavens to Betsy Ross!" cried Sapphire, stumbling against a mailbox. "You almost ate my lunch there, kid."
They couldn't say anything to one another for a moment while a streetcar rumbled by. "Am I almost at Coriander's?" shouted Mike while Sapphire shouted, "What's your name again, sweetie?"
The streetcar screeched as it slowed and chuffed as its doors unfolded.
"Coriander's?" Mike repeated.
"Like the bar?" said Sapphire, frowning. "You're named after a bar?"
"My name is Mike."
"Shit, that's right," she agreed.
Mike was about to ask her to point him on to Coriander's when she held up a hand with long fingernails and then stepped into the road to chat with someone in a car. Mike wandered on, having caught sight of an illuminated letter C on a sign occulted by a Vietnamese delivery van in the reflection of a shop window across the street.
He tilted his head to reveal the reflected letters S R E D N A I R O C, and his purpose was renewed. The sign was wrought in neon which was just the way he'd imagined it. The R stammered an irregular buzzing tattoo.
Mike turned to see the nightclub and his triumph chilled: the mouth of the place was entwined in a snaking line of people in various combinations of black clothing advancing by impatient twos to have their wallets inspected by someone or something in the shadowy maw before passing on within. The snake of people cackled and murmured, tall and sophisticated and ribald and adult.
Frightened that they would catch him staring Mike put his hands behind his back and pretended to be studying something on the other side of the street. In the shop glass reflection he glimpsed hope: an alley running beside Coriander's. Could there be another way in?
Sapphire could not help him. She had climbed into her friend's car to go for a ride, waving to Mike as they passed by.
Mike steeled himself and turned to march into the alley, on-mission once again.
8/20
Three Inuit roadies worked in casual concert to ferry metal-edged boxes of sound equipment through the back door, joined on their final trip by Mike whose Asian features and humble height satisfied the bored Filipino bouncer as just Inuit enough to ignore. Nobody said anything until Mike and the Inuit on the other side of the box they were carrying between them looked at one another as they let go of the metal handles and straightened. "Hey, thanks," said the Inuit.
"No problem," said Mike.
The Inuit looked awkward. "Are you with Lorenzo?"
Mike interrupted him to ask where the washroom was. The chubbiest roadie explained something in a throaty, clicking mumble to the tallest roadie, who said in turn, "My brother says the way lies down, and then around a corner."
The chubby roadie pointed to a flight of concrete steps.
At the bottom of the steps Mike found an ill-lit corridor with walls stained in floral blobs and streaks of mould. He followed the corridor around a ninety-degree bend and came to three unmarked doors. Investigation revealed a broom closet and a boiler room with old condoms on the floor before Mike came upon a decrepit water closet with a yellow toilet filled with something that looked like corn flakes.
Seeing no alternative, Mike peed on the corn flakes.
In the wake of relief came a new sensitivity to his perceptions: as Mike repackaged his willy he became aware of the steady throb of music coming from upstairs. He had at first mistaken it for the hammering of his heart. He next became aware of the smell of the tiny, grimy washroom and realized that it was putrid.
He was trying to formulate the best way to advance his plan when he heard the sound of approaching Inuit voices. There was a closet in the washroom so Mike opened it, revealing cartons of toilet tissue and a metal ladder leading up through a darkened aperture. As the voices drew near he grabbed the rungs and hauled himself up into the shadows.
He found himself in a second closet, surrounded by bottles of soap interspersed with mousetraps. Through the aperture below he heard the Inuit roadies joking with one another while they took a turn peeing on the corn flakes. Mike carefully shuffled away from the ladder and approached the closed door of the vestibule, pressing his ear against the cool wood. Silence. Tentatively he pushed at the door and it swung open freely.
Mike emerged into a second washroom, more spacious than the first, illuminated principally by strips of buzzing purple neon under the counters. It smelled like cigarettes and skunk, which was a welcome change. The steady pulse of the music was louder here, more insistent. Mike quailed. The beat felt angry to him -- unwelcoming, challenging, bigger than Mike.
His nerve failed him again so he went into one of the stalls and sat on the closed toilet, wondering what to do. How deeply into the nightclub did he need to penetrate in order to feel that his mission had been fulfilled? Already he felt a certain triumph at his act of subterfuge in slipping in with the Inuit roadies, and already he felt a real apprehension to push his luck further. What if he were caught? Was what he was doing illegal? He had been thinking of the consequences in terms of being grounded, but now wondered whether the stakes were higher.
Under the looming throb of the angry music outside of the washroom, Mike felt pinned.
9/20
Six seconds later Mike heard the washroom door whine open and flap closed. Footfalls shuffled across the floor and a sink came on. Someone was snuffling, breathing raggedly. "Jesus, Jocelyn," said a woman.
"I know," said Jocelyn.
"Are you okay?" asked the first woman.
"Fuck," mumbled Jocelyn. She was crying.
With a terrible sinking sensation Mike realized that he had climbed from the basement directly into the ladies' room. Somehow this seemed to compound his crime geometrically, as if it were somehow possible to explain his underage presence in a nightclub but it defied all defense to justify why or how he would have the temerity to penetrate the sanctity of a ladies' room. He didn't want his mom to think he was a pervert.
Mike began to sweat. He locked the stall door.
"You can't take this shit from him. I mean, fuck. You just can't."
"I know," repeated Jocelyn wearily.
Mike jumped as the washroom door sang again and then banged as it smacked into the opposite wall, the music briefly blaring and then muffled again as the door swung shut. A deep voice bellowed, "Jocelyn what the fuck?"
"Jesus Christ!"
The women gasped. "Get the fuck out of here!" screeched Jocelyn, the imploring quaver in her voice making the hairs on Mike's arms stand on end.
"What the fuck, Jocelyn?" repeated the man, and then came the sound of scrambling feet, grunting, and the tearing of cloth.
"I'm going to get help," said the first woman, and the door swung open and closed again.
"Don't leave me!" cried Jocelyn.
"For once in your life why don't you shut the fuck up?" demanded the interloper. Jocelyn gasped again and there were more wildly shuffling feet. Mike felt the familiar knot harden in the pit of his stomach that developed whenever Father lost his temper and tried to start wrestling with somebody.
"Let go of me, Nick! I fucking swear --"
There came a harsh, organic sound like a steak slapped down on a butcher's counter, then a few seconds of silence. Jocelyn was crying again. Nick was breathing like a bull. Mike was shivering like a leaf.
"Now," pronounced Nick at last, "maybe you're starting to understand how far you crossed over the line this time. It's time to fucking listen instead of talking, you got that, Jocelyn?"
"Please don't hit me again," whimpered Jocelyn.
But he did. Mike jumped as a weight crashed into the side of the stall he was hiding inside, the thin metal walls rattling and raining grains of rust from the brackets. Jocelyn slumped down to the floor, and in the gap beneath the wall Mike saw her pale leg and pointy shoe. He was sure Nick was going to kill Jocelyn, and then probably kill Mike for witnessing it. He had never been so scared in his life. He tasted bile as his belly hiccoughed.
"Get up," said Nick quietly.
"Fuck, Nick..." mumbled Jocelyn blearily.
"I said get the fuck up, bitch!"
This roar of rage spoke to something primordial inside of Mike, and he could no longer contain his fear. In a blind blast of frenetic energy Mike clawed at the stall door, forgetting that he had locked it. This kindled his fear into fully realized panic. Without thinking, he leaned back on the toilet and used both his legs to savagely kick out the door.
The lock snapped in two. The door flew opened with terrifying speed and then stopped dead at ninety degrees with a concussive bang.
Nick, whom had received the full force of the flying door with his forehead, tottered slowly backward on his heels and then tumbled into a garbage can of lipstick-blotted tissues and tampon packaging. An empty box of Tic Tacs spun across the tiles and came to rest under the still running sink.
Mike was frozen in the stall, staring at Nick's crumpled form. Jocelyn was frozen on the floor, red-rimmed eyes locked on Mike. They both took a moment to breathe.
"We should turn off the faucet," Mike said stupidly.
"Holy shit, kid," whispered Jocelyn.
"Is he dead?"
"I don't think so."
Mike thought about helping Jocelyn to her feet but was unable to will himself to move from the mouth of the stall. She was nearly as terrifying an apparition as Nick, her face pinched and white and moist, a rivulet of blood running freely from one nostril and dripping on her shoulder from which one green spaghetti-strap hung loosely. The other side was torn, her brassiere exposed.
They stared at one another.
The washroom door slammed open again and was pinned against the wall by a small crowd, framed by the throbbing bass and a speckling of multicoloured light. A slim black girl with obnoxious green boots was at the head of the posse, and it was she who ran to Jocelyn's side as the others filed in more cautiously, eyeing Nick's prone form. "What the fuck happened?" she asked Jocelyn.
Jocelyn wiped her bloody muzzle on her forearm. "He happened," she said, pointing to Mike. "This kid is a fucking ninja."
A man with an orange mohawk scratched the stubbly side of his head and adjusted his patched khaki skirt. "You're a ninja?" he asked Mike.
Mike didn't say anything.
"He saved me," explained Jocelyn.
"Jesus fuck," said the girl with green boots.
The man with the mohawk bowed gracefully to Mike who, in automatic response, bowed gracefully in turn. It was the most Asian Mike had ever felt. The mohawk man put his hand on Mike's shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. "My name's Duff," he said. "Let me be the first to buy you a drink, Little Ninja."
10/20
One by one the posse sublimated into a parade, a single-file serpent that wove from the washroom toward the bar. As they passed out of the safe, echoey womb where Nick continued to nap Mike felt a surge of apprehension; they broached the sea of tall shadows backlit by the chromatic radiance of swinging lights and Mike huddled himself up closer to the swaying skirt of the man with the orange mohawk, unwilling to risk being lost in the miasma.
The music was overwhelming, the stomp of its relentless hoofbeats cut by electronic zings and pops, the warbles of banshees, the click and hum of machinery, the sighs of ecstatic and unearthly choirs. The floor was black. As far as Mike could tell, he had no feet.
He was in the maw of the beast. He could no longer discern whether it was he who was shaking, or the world. "I did it," he whispered to himself nervously. "I'm really here."
The bar was encrusted by a spasmodically surging bank of adults, cycling through states of loitering, pressing inward, vying for attention, waiting to be served, retreating while defending against spillage. Over the din they yelled the names of drinks Mike had never heard of, even on TV. He clung to his station behind Duff's skirt, monitoring the other members of the party in his peripheral vision and attempting to keep them positioned between himself and the fray.
The woman in green boots leaned in close and shouted something into Mike's ear with hot, sharp smelling breath. Mike didn't understand her question so he just nodded agreeably. She smiled, her white teeth illuminated to a shocking purple by the bar's neon piping.
In time they struck out across the sea of humanity once again, each member of the parade save Mike decorated by outstretched arms guarding drinks from sloshing. They squeezed around the sides of a round table in a dark booth, and Mike found himself hemmed into the middle. A pint of beer was put down in front of him.
"To the Little Ninja!" cried Duff, raising his glass and draining it in a single swig.
"Cheers!" rang the others, and they drank.
Mike grasped the frosted handle of his mug uncertainly, enjoying the feel of the cool glass. He blew tentatively on the frosty head, causing it to dent. He realized they were all looking at him, so he raised the surprisingly heavy drink to his lips and took a cold, bittersweet pull. "Thanks," said Mike.
The cold draught traced a line down his gullet and then disappeared there. Mike took another sip. A light tingling sensation accompanied by a relaxing warmth began on the back of Mike's neck and then diffused over his entire body, culminating in the subtle but surprising loosening of his rectum. "Oh!" he exclaimed.
"Are you okay?" Duff shouted into his ear.
"I think I'm drunk!" replied Mike with a building sense of alarm.
"You've hardly had any," shouted a blue-haired girl with warm brown eyes, her lips close to Mike's other ear.
"But I can feel it," he shouted back, alternating uncertainly between shouting at Duff's ear and that of the blue-haired girl. "I can feel it doing something inside me. Isn't that enough?"
"Sometimes enough isn't enough," opined Duff.
"I'm on a mission of exploration," Mike explained. "I don't want to compromise my ability to fulfill the mission."
"You're so cute," the blue-haired girl said, resting her chin on her palm. "How old are you, anyway?"
Mike blushed. "I'm almost twelve."
He had said this very quietly so it had to be repeated more loudly for the others in the booth. Everyone laughed, though it wasn't cruel laughter. Mike was beginning to feel very well disposed toward his new friends. He did not fear they would expose him and have him turned out into the street or handed over to the police or his parents. Mike smiled, then belched. Everyone laughed harder.
"Let's dance!" declared Duff, slamming down his empty glass. He stood up on the seat, walked over the table, and jumped into the crowd, khaki skirt billowing.
By twos and threes the company bled off, Mike stiffening as he saw the defensive wall of meat fall away around him. The blue-haired girl noticed his anxiety and took his hand. "Come on," she said into his ear. "You can dance with me, Little Ninja."
"Okay," said Mike.
He allowed himself to be led into the thickest knot of adult bodies swaying, dipping and bobbing before the empty stage surrounded by pillars of stacked speakers whose grilles seemed to scintillate as they shook. The lights flashed and played, causing the blue-haired girl to become pink and then green, striped by flecks of light and then suddenly cast into darkness.
"I'm right here," she said, again her mouth by his ear.
"Okay," said Mike.
He could see her again -- purple now, then yellow. She was rolling her hips and nodding her head in time to the music, watching Mike with a smile. Watching her Mike found himself beginning to nod as well, and he let the movement descend through to his shoulders and finally to his hips. The music, so suffocating before, became a power beneath him, lifting his feet, guiding his rhythm, pushing him on to the next crescendo. Her lips moved inaudibly, "That's it."
"This is fun," Mike realized aloud, but nobody could hear him.
The blue-haired girl placed Mike's hands on her hips and then laced her arms around his shoulders. She was slight and not too tall, and Mike almost felt as if she were his size. Secured to her thusly he felt free to take his eyes off her, recognizing the faces of those who had been sitting in the booth with them flashing in and out of visibility in the mass of moving bodies on all sides. When he turned back he caught the girl watching him again. She leaned in and said, "You're just taking it all in, eh?"
He nodded.
"What's your name?" she asked next.
"Mike," said Mike. He had to repeat it, pushing closer to her ear. His balance seemed to get ahead of him and he leaned heavily into her shoulder. "I'm sorry!"
"It's okay," she said, laughing. "You're a good dancer, Mike."
"Thank you."
"I'm Courtney."
"Thank you, Courtney." Then, pausing with his nose an inch from her neck, he added, "You smell nice." Then he flushed and pulled away and apologized again.
"It's okay."
"I'm not trying to hit on you or anything," stammered Mike.
"It's okay," she repeated. "You're allowed to hit on me."
"You're nice," admitted Mike.
"So are you."
That's when the man with the orange mohawk rushed up and grabbed Mike's shoulder. For a moment Mike believed he was about to be beaten by a jealous boyfriend, but Duff's message was of even greater urgency: "Nick's awake!" he cried over the noise. "We should get scarce."
Courtney nodded. She took Mike's hand and pulled him through the gyrating crowd, split momentarily in Duff's wake. They flew headlong into what looked to Mike like a solid black wall until, at the last moment as he prepared to flinch for pain, he felt velvet curtains splash against him.
Trailing by the hand he allowed himself to be taken through the veil.
11/20
Nine o'clock came and went. India was asleep in Father's arms as Mother fumbled through her purse for the keycard that would unlock their hotel room. Because India was asleep Father used the opportunity to express his frustration by way of some colourful metaphors which, unbeknownst to him, inspired a series of disturbing dreams for his daughter. In the morning the first words to her father would be, "What's a motherfuck?"
Eventually he handed the child to Mother and she passed him the purse, then, while attempting to rifle through its contents, Father ended up juggling her wallet and India's grand prize trophy. He chose to save the trophy so all of Mother's things went sprawling and bouncing out along the corridor. "Motherfuck!" bellowed Father.
"Jules!" hissed Mother. "Je-sus."
None of this was sufficient to fully rouse India or even partially rouse Bianca, who had passed out in a small pool of her own vomit on the bed. Mother confirmed that Bianca was still breathing while Father tucked India into the other bed and guided the trophy into a corner with his foot. Then Mother went back into the corridor to collect her debit card, lipstick and baby pictures.
"Where's Mike?" Father asked as she returned.
"What do you mean?"
Father popped his head into the washroom. "Mike?" Then he opened the closet. "Mike?"
"Where is he?" asked Mother.
"Exactly," said Father, checking the washroom again.
"Oh Jesus," said Mother.
They secured the room and rushed down to the lobby. Father dinged the little bell continuously until a tired-looking young man with a shock of rust-coloured hair wandered out from a back room and took his place at the counter, knuckling his eyes sleepily. He looked annoyed at being disturbed. "Can I help you?" he muttered.
"Have you been on duty all night?" asked Father.
"Yeah."
"Have you seen a little boy? About this tall -- black hair, glasses."
"I think he was wearing his blue shirt," added Mother.
"Maybe in a blue shirt," confirmed Father impatiently.
The desk-clerk scratched his stubbly jaw pensively. "You're looking for a kid with black hair?"
"He would've been unaccompanied by an adult," said Mother.
Something seemed to occur to the clerk. "Oriental kid?"
Father started to say something but Mother put her hand on his arm firmly and squeezed. "Yes, that's right," she replied. "His name is Michael."
"All by himself, yeah," said the clerk, nodding. "He came through about an hour ago, looking at his shoes. Headed outside."
"You just let him waltz out of here alone? A kid?" Father growled menacingly. Mother squeezed his arm again.
"Sir, I'm not a babysitter," said the clerk.
"Christ!" said Father. He began to look around wildly. "Where could he have gone?"
The clerk yawned. "Is he into Cherry Nuk-Nuk?"
"I'm sorry?"
"You know, Cherry Nuk-Nuk -- the singer. She's playing at Coriander's tonight. You have to know who I'm talking about. She's huge. Cherry Nuk-Nuk? C'mon."
Mother and Father exchanged blank looks. "I don't think he's into singers," said Mother. "He's more of an astronomy and math guy."
"Huh," grunted the clerk apathetically. "Yeah, my parents had no idea what I was into, either."
There was a pause. Mother looked imploringly at Father. Father stood with a grim expression fixed on his face, staring at the clerk with a faraway look. His reverie broke and he dug into his pocket and extracted a crisp ruby bill from his wallet. "Fifty bucks to help us find him."
"I, uh, can't leave the desk..."
Father unveiled a second bill. "We're from out of town. We need help. We need it now, er...?"
"Red."
"We need your help, Red. This is serious. This is about a kid."
Father's brown eyes bore into the clerk's blue ones until the latter blinked. He sneered briefly and then called over his shoulder, "Hey, Dennis! Get out here, will you? I need you to cover me for a while." The money disappeared and then he straightened his rumpled tie. To the anxious parents he mumbled, "Let's go."
12/20
To be frank Mike had lost all track of time, and the recognition of this fact caused him to break out in a cold sweat. The more he thought about it the more he became convinced that two or even three hours had passed without his having a grip on the slipping minutes, and he wondered whether it was past midnight. "What time is it?" he cried, sitting bolt upright.
"Ease up yourself, yo," chuckled Lefranc, a portly Jamaican in a woolen cap who was occupying two thirds of the sofa Mike shared. "It's still early yet, mon."
Mike and Lefranc were sitting in the VIP lounge at the back of the second storey of Coriander's, the artillery march of the music downstairs thrumming through the soles of their shoes. For the fourth or fifth time Mike refused the ill-formed hand-rolled cigarettes Lefranc was passing back and forth with his friends, waving away the dense smoke which was a funny mixture of sweet and acrid. "I don't smoke," Mike reminded Lefranc.
"Everybody smokes, mon," said Lefranc. "It's just that some people don't know it yet."
The lounge was small and intimate, peppered with sofas and easy-chairs and lava lamps. Mike found the globs of oil inside the lamps to be hypnotic in a way he had never experienced, despite seeing lava lamps in the past. As he watched the globs separate and combine in a slow samba he wondered when Courtney would come back to retrieve him, and then worried that something had gone wrong downstairs with Nick. Again Mike eyed the Filipino bouncer who had been eying him suspiciously since he arrived. "He's with us, he's cool," Courtney had told the bouncer.
Suddenly Mike remembered about the time again, and wondered how he'd forgotten to keep remembering it. "I've got to go!" he cried.
"Cherry doesn't go on for another hour, brother," said Lefranc as he drew on one of the aromatic cigarettes. "Quit your fretting about, mon."
"No, no," persisted Mike, squirming out from beside Lefranc. "You don't understand. I'm going to get in trouble. I have to go." He hit the floor with both feet and swayed a bit, his balance unpredictable. "Thanks for being so nice to me," he added.
"Peace," said Lefranc.
The lounge seemed bigger on the way out than it had on the way in, and it took Mike an enormous amount of time to cross the threadbare carpet to the heavy wooden door. He flicked his eyes up at the Filipino nervously. "I'm just going out," he murmured. The Filipino said nothing. Mike went through the door.
He was assaulted by a wall of noise. The second storey bar had no dance floor but rather a maze of dim tables separated by screens, the ways between them jammed with knots of standing adults smoking and drinking and shouting into one another's ears. Their talk and laughter melded into a uniform alien babble that was indistinguishable from the treble buzzing of the amplified rock music coming through the speakers. The air above their heads was a yellow blanket that swam and drifted seductively and strangely.
Without guides or friends Mike felt suddenly at a loss. He didn't even know which way to go to find the stairwell back to street level.
Also, for some reason he felt profoundly hungry.
As he was worming his way through the forest of people he was shoved sideways and he hit the ground hard. He felt his glasses leave his face. Raised voices sounded above him, all around him. The crowd was seizing and warping. Feet scuffled. A fist-fight had broken out, a bubble of vacuum opening up around the combatants.
He turned to see the bouncer coming out of the lounge, zeroing in on the fight, raising his hands and his voice for order.
Mike sought refuge under a table.
He sat paralyzed with indecision between two sets of large legs, pawing carefully around in the shadows for his glasses. He found them and sighed with relief as his fingers explored the intact surfaces of the lenses. He put them on and wondered what to do next. How does one choose the most auspicious moment to crawl out from under somebody's legs?
A new pair of legs walked up to the table. "I lost the kid," said a voice which Mike tentatively identified as the bouncer.
"You pucking idiot!" said one of the people at the table. "I gibe you one thing to do..."
"What's this about a kid, na?" asked the other person at the table. All three of the men wore heavy, dark boots. One of them had a long knife strapped to his leg. Mike caught a glimpse of a densely tattooed hand pawing for a cigarette and ducked his head to avoid its reach.
"I don't even know if he's a pucking kid or not," said the bouncer. "He's some kind of martial arts exfert or something, man. He pucking took out Nick."
"That just makes things easier for us, na?"
"Yeah man, but who is he? I don't want some pucking karate kid trying to be a hero when we do this shit, right man?"
"I get you."
"I'll take care of it," promised the bouncer.
They were talking about him! Mike gulped and then, as smoothly as he could, crawled along the floor to the space beneath the next table, carefully picking his way over the feet radiating in from its edges. As a man switched his crossed leg from left to right Mike was forced to dodge backward, his cheek coming to rest against the smooth skin of a woman's inner thigh. "Oh Lee, you're such a flirt," she said from above.
"Huh?" said Lee, again recrossing his legs the other way. "I think I broke the seal," he added; "gotta take a leak."
Lee pushed back from the table and Mike took the opportunity to worm through the hole he had left, scooting behind Lee's chair and diving behind a screen. He straightened up only to find himself standing at the edge of another table full of babbling adults. Mike froze, uncertain what to do. One of the adults pushed a glass at him without looking. "Gimmie another rye and ginger," he commanded.
Mike accepted the glass and squirmed away through the crowd.
13/20
For the fourth time Mother and Father met by the bank of pay telephones on the landing just below the second floor, acknowledging without words that their separate forays had returned no intelligence on the whereabouts of Mike. They hugged. "Oh my God, oh my God..." mumbled Mother into Father's shoulder. "I've been everywhere, Jules. He's not here. What are we going to do?"
"Relax, Kate," said Father. "Let's call the room. Maybe he's gone back by now. It's almost ten o'clock."
The two of them spent a few moments frisking down the pay telephones. "There's no slot!" cried Mother. "What kind of payphones are these? Where do we put the money?"
"Card," croaked a fallen-cheeked youth in black leather with a head of lank, oily hair striped with green. He was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, tapping his foot, piercings jiggling in time.
"Pardon?"
"You need a phone-card," croaked the youth again, eyes still closed.
Father swore. "What the hell is a phone-card?"
The youth opened his eyes -- glassy, dilated, alien. "A phone-card is the phone-company's way of delivering you to Big Brother, man. It's a device to separate your money from your transactions, man. To track you. To trap you. To fuck with you. A phone-card is just another brick in the wall, man."
Father frowned. "Where do I get one?"
"Take mine."
When Father reached for the proffered card the youth hesitated. "Local call?" he asked.
"Er, yes."
"Alright."
After a seemingly interminable series of rings the room phone was answered like an obscene call -- heavy breathing, smacking lips. Bianca blinked at the handset in the feeble light of a clock-radio's LEDs and tried to remember where she was and why she smelled like puke. An insistent voice was shouting out of the receiver atop a background of overlapping murmurs and pounding music. "What?" coughed Bianca.
"Bianca!" yelled Father.
"Oh, Dad, hi," she mumbled. "How's the banquet?"
"Is Mike there?"
Bianca pinched the bridge of her nose. Her head felt like it was in a vicegrip. "What?"
"Bianca, this is very important. Is Mike there, in the room with you?"
Bianca looked around, taking in India snoring in the next bed and the trophy on the floor. Her eyes threatened to close and bile rose in her throat. She knew there was something she was supposed to remember...
"Bianca!" shouted Father. "Is Mike there or isn't he?"
Bianca blinked and it all came back to her. "Mike's here," she said. "Mike's right here now. He's here." Then, discharged of her mission, she passed out with her face smooshed against the clock-radio and dropped the telephone.
Father passed this on to Mother and they hugged again. "Let's get out of here," she said breathlessly.
"I need a drink," said Father, wiping his hand down his face. "Let's have just one."
Mother smiled. "We haven't been out for a drink in ages."
"Exactly," said Father.
"I look awful."
"No you don't."
Mother shot her cuff and checked her watch. "Okay, okay. We'll have just one drink. I'm going to nip off to ladies' room to clean myself up a bit and I'll meet you at the bar in five."
"It's a date," said Father with a grin.
They kissed, first quickly and then longer, then Mother waded into the second floor in search of a washroom and Father skipped down the stairs to the first floor. The young man in black leather leaned back against the wall in the landing and was about to take up bobbing his head in time to the music again when he spotted a figure flattened against the wall in the shadows. The figure tentatively stuck a head out to watch Father disappear.
"You must be Mike," guessed the young man.
"What?" said Mike, startled.
"They're looking for you, man. The net is tightening, man. They used my phone-card, so now even the government knows you're AWOL."
"They think I'm back at the hotel," said Mike.
"But you're not, are you?"
"No."
"Better run like Bueller, man. Better get back before they do. The clock is ticking."
Mike looked around desperately. "But how can I get out without going past them?"
The young man inclined his head at the darkness beyond the pay-phones. "When you can't get any lower, man, the only direction to go is up."
Sending out fingers out into the inky blackness as probes, Mike encountered a door. Beyond it was a narrow flight of steps rising to a third storey. He looked back at the black and green haired youth for reassurance, but he had returned to the world of music behind his eyelids, piercings tinkling like tiny tambourines as he nodded and swayed.
A split second before Mother crossed the landing on her way out of the washroom Mike pushed through the door and proceeded up the steep risers to the next level.
14/20
Fifteen minutes of waiting at the downstairs bar cost Father two highballs and a shouted but friendly conversation about which nationality naturally bred the best football players, with Father coming down on the side of Ghana and his new friend voting for Serbia. His new friend was Serbian.
"Do you enjoy dancing?" he asked Father. Their elbows were touching on the bar as they watched the TV screen behind the bartender. The bartender was a skinny Goan in a yellow toque. The Goan hated football. He was purposefully slow to serve anyone who looked like they were interested in the TV. He was watching Father and the Serb out of the corner of his eye.
"I'm waiting for my wife," explained Father.
The Serb cocked his head. "We'll be right over there. She'll see you easy."
"Let's have one more drink," suggested Father.
Suddenly the bartender was no longer looking at them but instead at the space over their heads, and Father had to wave broadly to recapture his attention. He made a sign for "two more" and then turned back to his new friend. The Serb was looking at Father look at him, a little smile playing over his thin lips. "You're in good shape," he said.
"Nah," said Father.
"You were a bodybuilder?"
"I used to wrestle in college."
"Isn't that interesting? I was also wrestling in school."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yes, but not for many years. Ten, fifteen years ago. In Belgrade. Do you still work out?"
"When I can."
"It's important to take care of the body."
"It is," agreed Father earnestly.
The Serb asked the bartender what the hold up was and then the men received their fresh drinks. Then they started talking about wrestling moves, and somewhere in there Father ended up in a headlock. "You're fast!" he panted, his face squished into the Serb's ribs.
"Yes," agreed the Serb, releasing him.
"Another round," called Father, tasting the Serb's sweat on his lips.
15/20
Nine drops of sweat beaded on Mike's forehead as he stared into the morbid singularity at the end of the gun, his bowels creaking ominously in anticipation of a bullet. He dared not breathe or blink.
"Jesus, Ed! Put that away. He's just a kid."
With deliberate hesitation Ed lowered the weapon but kept his gaze riveted on Mike, his eyes so steady they seemed to be made of glass. His face was criss-crossed in a netting of fine scars, his head shaven, his nicked mouth a hard line. After another beat he turned abruptly away and took two steps back, replacing the hand-gun in a holster strapped under his armpit. He pulled his jacket back around his front to conceal the weapon and sat back down.
"I'm sorry!" squeaked Mike.
The third storey of Coriander's was an apartment. It was dimly lit, which was why Mike had wandered so far in before he'd been able to discern the three figures bent over the coffee table which was a transparent plastic box filled with old vinyl records and spools of tape. On top of the coffee table was a little mirror, a razorblade and two neat lines of white powder.
On the couch was a copper-skinned man, also with a shaven head, whose green eyes sparkled with a kind of detached contentment. He clasped his hands before him in an attitude of prayer, and wore a long purple chemise and a pair of battered leather sandals. Beside him was a voluptuous girl with long, straight black hair and neat almond eyes. She wore an outlandish costume of fur and beads that revealed more of her curvaceous secondary sexual characteristics than it concealed.
Ed saw Mike looking at her and pronounced in a gravelly baritone: "No autographs."
The copper-skinned man smiled and then spoke with a melodious Spanish accent. "Now Ed, let's not make our new guest feel unwelcome. Don't be shy, mang. What's jour name?"
"Mike," said Mike.
"May I ask jou something, Mike?" Mike nodded. The man went on, "What are jou doing in my apartment?"
"Hiding," said Mike. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what was up here."
"And from whom or what are you hiding jourself, little mang?"
"A guy named Nick," Mike lied, and then, feeling guilty, added, "And from my parents."
The man raised a thick eyebrow. "Are jou, by any chance, the little friend of Courtney?"
Mike nodded.
The man thrust out his hand, and Mike shook it. "Welcome to Coriander's, Mike. My name is Lorenzo. This is my club."
"Are you going to call the police on me?"
"No, no, no. I've been hearing about jou. Jou're some kind of fugging hero, mang. Why don't jou sit down? Jou're shaking. Take a load off, mang. My friend here was just pepping up before her show, you know?"
He gestured toward the fur-clad girl and smiled. Mike had trouble meeting her eyes. She was very, very pretty. "Hello," he mumbled.
"Hi Mike," she said. "Did you really kick some guy's ass in the washroom for hitting his girlfriend?"
Mike nodded. "Sort of."
Lorenzo scooched over on the couch and patted the cushion beside him. Mike dutifully sat down, eyes glued to the white powder on the coffee table between them. Ed observed Mike dispassionately, never blinking. "So tell me, joung Mike, what brings jou to my club tonight?" asked Lorenzo.
"I was just curious. I just wanted to know what it's like."
"So, do jou like what jou see, mang?"
Mike shrugged uncomfortably. "Some parts of it are kind of scary."
"I agree," said Lorenzo, smiling. He watched the fur-clad girl lean over the coffee table and inhale a line of powder, her barely restrained breasts swaying over the glass quadruply -- two from above and two in the reflection. "Adults sometimes do some fugging strange things, don't they Mike?"
"Yes."
The girl straightened and spent a moment adjusting her narrow nostrils. "Have you come to see me perform?" she asked coyly.
"I'm -- I'm not actually sure who you are," said Mike.
Lorenzo laughed loudly and clapped his hands together. "Mike, let me have the special privilege of introducing to jou the world's most famous Eskimo pop singer: Cherry Nuk-Nuk."
"Inuit," corrected Cherry.
"My apologies," amended Lorenzo happily. "This is her personal bodyguard, Mr. Ed Hulver, whom jou've already met. We were yust having a chat about India."
Off kilter, Mike at first thought Lorenzo meant he was discussing Mike's sister. "India?" he echoed dumbly.
Lorenzo gestured to the walls around them, which Mike now recognized as covered in images of Siddhartha Gautama, the smiling Buddha. Lorenzo explained, "I have yust returned from an extended stay in India, and I am considering selling this club. Cherry, dear that she is, is trying to fugging talk me out of it."
"You were born to run this place," opined Cherry Nuk-Nuk. "You gave me my first break, Lo."
"Jes, but what we might have been born to do can require reanalysis in light of India," said Lorenzo. "It is a perspective that can be hard to shake, mang. Just ask Ed. Did India change your life, mang?"
Ed nodded but did not elaborate.
"See?" said Lorenzo. "Jou can't go back, mang. Jou visit a world so different jou're forced to reconsider the familiar, because what was normal to jou now seems all fugged up. That's what I learned from the monks: to see how really fugged up everything is, mang."
"I think I understand," said Mike soberly, gaze wandering from a statue of the famous jolly fat man to a tapestry of the same emblazoned on a background of eightfold symmetry.
"Of course jou do," nodded Lorenzo. "Jou're an explorer, mang. This is your India, mang. Will jou ever be the same?"
"I don't know," admitted Mike.
"Good answer," said Cherry Nuk-Nuk before leaning down over the final line of powder. She hesitated. "Lo?"
"Thank jou no, sweetheart," said Lorenzo with an indulgent smile. "My body is a fugging temple now. I don't touch that shit anymore. I'm keeping myself fugging pure, jou know?"
"Totally," agreed Cherry after she snortled away the line. She pinched her nostrils and inhaled sharply a couple of times, then blinked and smiled. "Wooo!"
Mike touched Lorenzo's arm. "Mr. Coriander, I've had a really interesting time tonight but if I don't get back to the hotel before my parents do I'm going to be in very serious trouble. I need to know how to get out of here. Can you help me?"
"Mike," said Lorenzo, leaning back and holding his hands together serenely, "it would be a crime if I let jou leaf without seeing this amazing woman sing."
"But I really can't --"
"Nonsense," said Lorenzo firmly. "Jou will be my special guest."
"There's something else," said Mike. "I overheard some guys talking, and...I think they're up to something. They were saying that I took Nick out of the way for them."
"Pah," chuckled Lorenzo dismissively. "That guy is fugging dick. Somebody always wants to kick his ass, jou know? And besides, I've hired extra security yust for Cherry. My bouncer brought in all his Filipino buddies. This place is like Fort fugging Knox tonight, my friend."
Meanwhile Cherry has raised herself from the couch and begun engaging in a series of stretches and yelps. "Woooooo!" she cried, flexing her legs and pumping out her arms. "Yeeeeeeah!" she called, boxing in the air and jumping on the spot.
Mike found himself hypnotized by the rhythm of motion cascading across her body, the rise and fall of her breasts, her belly, her thighs, her round brown bum. It would be this image that he would dream during his first nocturnal emission two weeks hence: the undulations of Cherry Nuk-Nuk as she infused herself with the frenetic spirit of performance, flexing her lips, cocking her head, stretching her back.
"Fug, Cherry!" laughed Lorenzo. "Jou're giving my Buddhas a boner."
Mike crossed his legs uncomfortably.
16/20
Three trips between the two bars were all the patience Mother had for finding Father so she gave up in favour of communing with a frosty glass of white wine. She felt like a loser. Everyone around her seemed to be mingling in groups or couples, and she sat alone on a high stool and tried not to look at herself in the mirror behind the bar.
She had gussied herself up for Jules and now he was nowhere to be found. Irritated and suddenly self-conscious she did up another button on her blouse and wondered whether even her husband could be excited by such a brazen view of her aging bosom where the once smooth skin of her cleavage had been replaced gradually by a series of fold-lines like a geographic contour map.
Without really thinking about it she allowed her glass to be refilled when it had been drained. Without really feeling anything she bummed a cigarette from a sad drag queen, and lit it with a cardboard bar match.
Smoking a cigarette made her feel seventeen: the warm, woody smell in her nostrils, the poses she unconsciously struck. She downed another glass of white wine and felt herself smile a bit despite everything.
Twice she almost got off her stool to again search the upstairs bar for Jules. On the third attempt she slipped off and found herself wandering to the dance floor instead, her hips already knocking sideways playfully in time to the pounding beat. "Just one song," she told herself.
Three songs later she had unbuttoned her blouse again and by the fifth song she had a dance partner -- a lithe Somali with fluffy hair and an unrepentantly sexual intensity burning in his cocoa eyes. He moved like an athlete, pushing himself closer to her by degrees, and then she was in his surprisingly strong arms.
"I can see you need to dance," he said into her ear, lips brushing the lobe.
"I do, I do," she agreed.
"What's your name, beautiful lady?"
"Kate," said Kate.
"My name is Asad," said the Somali. "You move like a bird, Kate."
"A pigeon," countered Kate.
"A swan," smiled Asad.
She had barely acknowledged the urge to touch his thin, graceful neck before she found herself doing so, tracing her fingers down a rivulet of sweat past his adam's apple and along his clavicle. She smiled up at him nervously and he grinned, then traced his own finger down her neck and drew a line of heat to her exposed sternum. Before she could gasp he slipped his hand beneath her brassiere and cupped her left breast gently, the nipple hardening instantly against his skin.
"Oh!" she said in a small voice.
"Ha," he agreed languorously.
Kate considered various forms of resistance: flight, combat, argument -- then decisively took Asad's left hand and put it down her pants. She shifted her pelvis to help his finger find a suitably moist angle of attack. Asad took a turn at surprise. Kate laughed at his expression and coaxed him onward, pressing against him as they swayed in time to the thumping rhythm.
Kate thought it was a really good song.
Her anxieties dissolved away with a flighty lurch in her belly -- bills, work, the household, the gulf of physical intimacy with her husband -- and she found herself feeling unbounded. In a feat of uncharacteristic immodesty she remembered distinctly thinking that she had no qualms about the possibility of the other people on the dancefloor catching sight of her pubic hair peeking above her open fly. In fact, she reveled in the display.
As the song climaxed so did she. She closed her eyes and saw a white energy radiating up through her body, out through her head and into space, leaving her numbed and buoyant. When she opened her eyes again she was dazzled by multicoloured lights and she sighed gratefully. She was unbreakable.
"Ho my," breathed Asad, a sheen of sweat on his brow.
"Thanks for the dance," said Kate.
17/20
One by one the upstairs tables began to empty as their denizens headed down below in anticipation of Cherry Nuk-Nuk taking the stage.
Father and his Serbian friend made out on the largely abandoned dancefloor and then retired to the bar to discuss how neither of them were homosexual. The Serb explained how he had always felt a great affection for his male friends and that, being European, he was less hesitant than most North Americans to express that affection. Father, for his part, confessed that he had been plagued throughout his life by a feeling that he was not sufficiently manly and he therefore sought a kind of masculine affirmation from his fellow men.
"Why should you feel unmasculine?" asked the Serb, waving for the Goan bartender's attention.
"I'm infertile," said Father -- simple words never uttered outside of a doctor's office or the marital bed. To speak them gave him a weird thrill. "I contracted mumps as a teenager and my testicles were damaged," he went on to explain. "I had to take hormone supplements in order to finish growing properly. But I always felt scrawny. I always felt like a boy."
"You're not scrawny now," the Serb pointed out.
The surly Goan brought them two more highballs. "I work hard on my body," said Father.
"It can be hard to know how to be a man in today's world," philosophized the Serb.
"I want to be somebody my kids can look up to," said Father.
"You're a good man."
"I'm trying to be."
"You're very sensitive."
"I owe it to my kids to care."
"Let's make the next round doubles."
"These are doubles."
"Let's get two at once, then."
"Yeah, alright."
Later on Father tried to get up to go the washroom but stumbled against the bar. The Serb propped him up against his shoulder and escorted him around the corner and into the men's room. They spilled into one another and ended up squeezed between two sinks. They kissed a bit, stubble against stubble, and then asked each other's names. "I'm Drago," said the Serb.
"Jules," said Jules.
Two white boys with rural hair sallied into the washroom then and, after taking one look at Drago and Jules in one another's arms, began talking loudly about how nobody had apprised of them of the fact that Coriander's catered to gays. "Fucking faggots'r gettin' faggot germs on the sink, bra!" exclaimed one to the other theatrically.
"That's fuckin' unsanitary, you cocksucking bitches," noted the second fellow. "I don't want no AIDS on my soap."
"Why don't you leave us alone?" said Drago quietly.
"Why don't you fuck a pussy you fuckin' degenerate?"
"Fuck you," said Jules.
"Excuse me, queer?"
Jules clarified his position by putting the boy into a Half Nelson, spinning him into a Majistral Cradle, and then pounding his body against the tiled wall a couple of times. Without missing a beat his partner was twisted into a very slick Blizzard Suplex by Drago and then forced to the floor. Some pressure was applied to the boys limbs until their eyes watered and one of them began to moan plaintively.
"Get," commanded Jules crisply; "The fuck. Out of here."
The boys fled, the door flapping violently back and forth in their wake. Jules and Drago cracked up laughing. They sat on the floor and howled. They gasped for breath and tried to recover but then made the mistake of looking at one another again and set off into fresh peals.
Then the door banged open again and one of the boys ran inside. He was carrying a beer bottle, and he struck Jules across the back of the head with every ounce of his farmboy strength. He ran away before Jules collapsed with a look of stunned curiosity half-bloomed on his slackening features.
He was bleeding, but not badly. It was suddenly very quiet.
Drago checked his companion's pulse and breathing, and then dragged him over to one side of the washroom rather than having him sprawled out in the middle of the grimy floor. He propped him up against the wall and dabbed at the wound at the back of his scalp with a folded compress of moist paper towel.
Then Drago checked his watch, stole Jules' wallet, and left.
18/20
Two lone figures loitered outside on Dundas Street.
The snake outside of Coriander's had eaten its own tail and disappeared, leaving only cigarette butts and bits of plastic skittering in the wind. A young couple with their bums showing at the top of their low-slung jeans tried to waltz in but the Filipino bouncer stopped them with an upraised hand.
"Pilled to cafacity," he said.
"Aw, c'mon," said the young man. "We gotta see Cherry. We'll double the cover."
The stalky Filipino shook his head. "Sorry. Pire code."
As the couple sadly walked away Red and the bouncer were connected for a brief moment by their mutual appreciation of the girl's departing bum peeking and nodding from her jeans. Red pulled his hotel blazer tighter around his shoulders and rubbed his hands together. "You don't have a cigarette, do you?" he asked the bouncer.
"No."
"I can set you up, honey," called a bleary-eyed prostitute leaning against a flyer-swathed pole. "Can you make it worth my while?"
"I have to wait here," said Red.
The prostitute sauntered over, tossed her black hair. "What are you? The bouncer's butler?"
"I work at the Fairbrook." Red gestured vaguely down the block.
"Whatcha doing hanging around here then?"
Red shrugged. "Some people lost their kid. They think he's in here. I'm covering the door, like in case he comes out."
"Oh, you gotta mean Mike."
Red furrowed his brow. "You know the kid?"
"Sure. I told him where this place is." She drew a crumpled pack of Marlboros out of a tiny cigarette-pack sized purse and knocked out two smokes, passing one to Red. "I'm Sapphire."
"Thanks, Sapphire," said Red, jamming the smoke into his mouth and patting his pockets until he found a lighter. He struggled with it in the wind until Sapphire took it from him and expertly bit off the child-proof mechanism with her teeth. "Thanks again," said Red, then he blinked. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You used to be somebody, didn't you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Shit -- you're Red Vicious, the punk rocker. Go on, deny it sugar -- I can already see the look on your face, huh, but I know it's bullshit 'cause I used to see you play at the Horseshoe."
Red spread his arms helplessly. "Tried and convicted."
"Small world," said Sapphire, her cheeks deflating as she dragged hard on her cigarette. "Small city, too. So you're telling me that Mike's parents are in there now?"
Red nodded. "It's been almost two hours."
"And you're still hanging out here shivering, for what?"
Red shifted uncomfortably and looked at his shoes. "I'm working for tips."
"Half now, half later?"
"Something like that."
Sapphire smiled. "So you've got some money in your pocket, huh? Why don't you let me warm you up a little, Red honey?"
Red blushed. "I can't. Like I said, I have to stay --"
She rolled her eyes and took his hand. "Don't trouble your mind, sugar. I know a little place we can go out back; then, after, we can go inside and find Mike together. He trusts me. It'll be cool. His folks'll think you're a hero."
Red attempted to consider this proposal objectively as his penis hardened.
"Okay. Let's go," he decided.
Sapphire led the way into the alley beside Coriander's. The bouncer's narrow eyes followed them. As they turned the corner he withdrew a telephone from his pocket and unfolded it against his cauliflowered left ear.
19/20
To protect his hearing Mike shoved two scrunched up bits of napkin into his ears, the hard-edged wads doing an equally effective job of abrading his skin and mitigating the blazingly loud phantasmagoria of sound pouring from the giant speakers on all sides. The crowd was also deafening, a sea of howls and stomps and cheers.
There came a brief pause as Cherry Nuk-Nuk shook a shower of sweat from her face and then spent a moment screaming incoherently at the audience, who screamed back delightedly. "Hell yeah!" she hollered and the mass hollered her words back to her mushily.
She struck a new pose in front of the microphone, her furs backlit and her muscled thighs glistening tautly. "This one's called Huffer Boy," she said and then gave a nod to the band, cuing them into releasing a fresh volley of aural slurry that Mike could feel in his teeth. As if marionnetted by the music Cherry's body instantly began to shake and sway, cavorting her back and forth before the players.
Standing beside Mike in the offstage wing was Lorenzo, his head bobbing in time and a placid smile spread across his fleshy lips. "What did I tell jou?" he shouted over the din; "is she the world's fugging best Eskimo pop singer or what?"
Mike nodded that this was indeed the case.
Cherry's bodyguard, Ed, stood in the opposite wing and scanned the crowd humourlessly. The music did not appear to affect him. While Mike could not help but move in sympathy to the driving rhythm, Ed was a statue.
In the break between sets Cherry swept past Lorenzo into the backstage anteroom and upended two bottles of spring water down her throat in rapid succession, then poured a third over her chest and back. She was joined by the guitarist, an amicable white guy with bristle-short hair and little goatee. His name was Danny Marks and it was he who had advised Mike to plug his ears. "How're the ears, fella?" he asked as he reached for a bottle of water.
"Great!" said Mike a trifle too loudly on account of his earplugs.
The bassist, a big man with Elvis-like lambchop sideburns, lit two cigarettes and passed one to Cherry. "Thanks Wade," she said. "You enjoying the show, Mike?"
Mike said he was enjoying it very much. "It must be tiring, though. You go crazy when you sing."
"I'll sleep when I'm dead," claimed Cherry.
Danny snorted. "You'll sleep on the plane all the way to New York."
"On a plane -- dead -- same difference. When do we have to be at the airport?"
Danny checked his watch. "Two hours."
"Shit," said Cherry. "Better get out there and finish this up, eh? Hey, where are the roadies?"
"Fucking off somewhere as usual," growled Wade. "Ten to one: drunk."
"Those are my cousins, asshole. Watch your tone."
"Sorry Cherry."
Cherry hopped up and down a few times and then flexed her neck and her mouth athletically. She tucked one errant breast back into her beaded top and smoothed down her hair. The musicians nodded at one another to time their entrance and then barreled back onstage, received by an eruption of cheers. "Cher-ry! Cher-ry! Cher-ry!"
Mike was struck dumb by the next announcement he heard echoing from the microphone: "Before we get going again I want to introduce everybody to a new friend of mine who's been doing some ninja ass-kicking here at Coriander's tonight. Mike -- come out here. Come on, Mike!"
Mike felt frozen, but he was propelled onstage by Lorenzo's firm hand. He stumbled out of the wing and found himself blinded by lights, the crowd an amorphous blur of shadow and glinting reflections. "Mike! Mike! Mike!" they chanted.
Cherry grabbed Mike and pulled him into a hug, his face plastered into her ample bosom for one exhilarating but suffocating instant. Then she held up his arm like a champion boxer or a wrestler. "This next one's for you, Mike! It's called Bison Heart. One-two-three-four --"
The band played. The crowd roared. Cherry sang. Through his fogged glasses Mike took it all in with surreal soft-focus, embarrassed at being so near the centre of attention but thrilled at the honour. He jumped around the stage a bit and the crowd responded enthusiastically. Mike grinned.
A member of the audience climbed up on the stage, turned to face the band, and then jumped backward into the crowd. He was caught and lifted, carried away on a surge of arms, disappearing into the light and shadows once more.
Mike paused then, startled by the fact that Ed's post in the far wing was empty. He pivoted to look into the other wing and saw only Lorenzo smiling beatifically. "Mike!" someone was shouting. Mike looked out into the crowd, squinting through the beaded water on his lenses.
Courtney and Duff were gesturing at him, imploring him forward. "Jump!" they hooted in unison when they saw they had his attention. "Jump, Mike!"
The crowd in their vicinity took up the call: "Jump, Mike! Jump, Mike!"
He jumped.
Supported by a dozen hands Mike was floated and gently tossed away from the stage and then eventually deposited in the middle of the audience. People slapped his hand and touched his shoulder and hooted happily. Caught in the buzzing ambience of togetherness, Mike guffawed out loud -- never had he felt such an energy before.
He drifted to the lee of a pillar where he could collect himself and wipe his glasses. Suffused with contentment and a kind of savage pride at realizing his mission beyond his wildest expectations, he decided that it was time for him to leave. He took one last look at Cherry thrashing around maniacally behind a fan of silhouetted hands with lit lighters, sighed, then picked out a path toward the back exit.
He pushed through a fire-door into the staff parking lot connected to the side alley, trailing his hand along the railing that led to the steps down which he had helped the Inuit roadies carry Cherry Nuk-Nuk's gear. The air was crisp and cool, invigorating after the close, damp atmosphere of the nightclub.
It was quiet. His ears rang. He pulled the bits of napkin out of them.
Someone was coughing. Mike wandered forward and saw a girl leaning on the hood of a car, vomiting a spectacular Rorschach of curdled beer onto the pavement. Uncertain about how to help but emboldened by his adventures he drew up beside her and held her long, dirty blonde hair out of the way of the stream of bile hanging from her lips. After another spasm of coughing she spat, swallowed, and closed her eyes.
"Are you okay?" asked Mike.
"Fine," she said. And then, "Thanks."
Recognizing there was nothing to say but buoyed by an unshakeable sense of giddiness Mike couldn't help but go on. "My name's Mike."
"Dalia," muttered the girl, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. She opened her eyes and frowned. "Damn. What are you? Like, ten?"
"Almost twelve."
"Huh. What the fuck? Go to bed, kid."
"I just wanted to make sure you're okay."
"Yeah? Tell that to the guy who punched me in the gut."
"Why did somebody punch you in the gut?"
She shrugged. "I was trying to bum a smoke."
"From who?"
She pointed to a black van parked in the middle of the lot. "From them."
The van was jostling. It rocked to and fro and then something banged hard against it from inside. Curious, Mike found himself stepping closer, squinting. He jumped back as one of the rear doors flew open with startling velocity, rebounded and started to whine close. It was stopped by a foot in an untied steel-toed workboot.
Mike craned his head further.
The three Inuit roadies were lying inside, their arms bound behind them and strips of silver duct-tape across their mouths -- that is except for the tallest, the one who had directed Mike to the washroom, whose tape was squinched into a twisted strap around his chin. Seeing Mike see him he lifted his head and yelled, "They're gonna kidnap Cherry!"
The fat Inuit nodded vigorously, almond eyes wide.
Somebody inside the van hit the tall roadie across the face but Mike did not have time to further decipher the action as he was roughly grabbed from behind a split second after Dalia meeped a muffled warning.
Taken off-balance, Mike stumbled sideways against his captor and they both shuffled backward quickly in an effort to find an even keel. They crashed into a rusted dumpster and spilled to the asphalt with twin grunts.
Mike rolled away and jumped to his feet, but not quickly enough to escape. The heavy-set Filipino in black clamped a giant fist around Mike's ankle and pulled him to the ground again, using the moment to find his own footing and stand up. He drew back his boot in preparation to kick Mike in the ribs. Mike froze and winced, his hands instinctively flying to cover his face.
A strange and haunting moan emitted from the dumpster.
The Filipino hesitated, broad brow furrowed. And then Sapphire stood up out of the dumpster and, with barely a pause to assess the situation, jetted a mouthful of stringy jissom from her pursed lips into the Filipino's eyes. "Puck!" he roared, rolling his knuckles into his face and blinking.
Mike scampered backward like a crab. Dalia twisted out of the grasp of the equally burly Filipino behind her and dove over the hood of a yellow Mini Cooper with surprising dexterity. A red-headed man in a blazer from the Fairbrook Hotel jumped out of the dumpster and made a mad dash for the mouth of the alley, his progress erratic as he tried to do up his pants. He stopped short in the face of the bouncer from out front, blocking the alley and speaking quickly into a glowing telephone pressed to his ear.
"I'm not even a part of this -- I don't even want to know," stammered Red, now walking backwards and glancing over his shoulder as the bouncer advanced. "I don't have any problem with you guys," he added desperately.
The bouncer's eyes widened as he saw past Red. "He's here -- the pucking ninja kid is here!" he shouted into the telephone.
And so Mike, Sapphire and Red found themselves at the centre of a shrinking circle of Filipino toughs, the tattoos on their arms seeming to come alive as they flexed their muscles and cleared their knuckles of bubbles at the joints, crackling wetly.
"Oh shit oh shit oh shit," whispered Red.
Two more Filipinos stepped out of the back door of Coriander's, folding their telephones away and narrowing their dark eyes.
Bereft of any solid plan and seeing no way to escape, Mike chose to put aside fear in favour of dignity. He stepped up to the front of his cowering companions and assumed his best approximation of a fighting stance, feet shoulder-width apart, chest inflated, eyes locked on the approaching opponents. He took a deep breath in and then let it escape slowly. Then he nodded sedately and flexed his outstretched fingers to beckon the Filipinos to combat, as if he were Keanu Reeves.
The Filipinos hesitated, a contagious apprehension inspired by Mike's confident pose spreading like a smell.
"Get him," growled the tallest Filipino.
"But he's a pucking ninja," protested the bouncer.
And that's when the fire alarm sounded. The heavy door at the back of Coriander's flew open, disgorging a rabid mob with Dalia at its head. Behind her came Duff and Courtney and Lorenzo, then Cherry and Danny and Wade still carrying their instruments. They were shoved forward as denizens of the club poured into the parking lot, all talk suddenly ceasing as they took in the situation.
"What the fug is going on here?" shouted Lorenzo over the shrilly ringing alarm.
The Filipinos were suddenly armed with long knives. A cluster of Cherry fans from the Korean Mafia crowded up before them and withdrew hand-guns from the waists of their loose trousers, training the muzzles on the pirates. All movement stopped. No one dared breathe.
"Hey hey! No no!" cried Cherry, flustered.
"No fugging guns!"
Courtney yelled, "Mike!"
As Mike turned toward her the bouncer regained his courage. Mike had a brief glimpse of a brown fist before it connected with the side of his head, his vision exploding with sparks, pain reverberating through his skull. He spun and hit the ground hard.
Tasting gravel, Mike groaned and tried to raise his pounding head. A sound he had at first taken to be a roaring in his own ears turned out to be the roaring of the crowd. Every ounce of paralysis had left them as an incendiary rage at seeing Mike struck down ignited through their numbers.
Before anyone could blink they surged forward, encompassing the knife-wielding Filipinos like spume. Wade swung his bass like a club, bringing it down hard on top of the tallest Filipino, causing him to fold and disappear with a discordant twang of broken strings. Duff leapt off the front bumper of a car and tackled the bouncer, knocking the knife free. The third and fourth Filipinos held up their hands in an attitude of terrified supplication an instant before they were consumed by the crowd.
One of the Korean Mafia boys tucked his gun away and picked Mike up, then muscled backward out of the fray. Courtney ran to his side. "Are you okay?" she cried breathlessly.
"Yup," reported Mike, which was close enough to the truth to fit the circumstances.
Lorenzo then appeared at the heart of the mob, separating combatants and verifying that the would-be kidnappers were secured by panting volunteers. The last act of violence occurred when Cherry waded up to him and kicked the bouncer in the balls with a grunt of athletic effort. The bouncer, pink eyes still stinging from flying jissom, collapsed and moaned.
"Nobody hits my friends," the beautiful Inuit pronounced coldly.
Lorenzo mopped his glistening brow and sighed. "Shit," he said. "Does anybody have a fugging cigarette?"
20/20
Four firetrucks rumbled to a halt on Dundas Street, followed by two squad cars with flashing bubble lights. Lorenzo jogged over to bring them up to speed on the situation and to direct the police to the captive kidnappers. A majority of the crowd melted away instantly in defense of their various contraband, leaving only a few tired or injured members behind. Dazed and aching, Mike took in very little of it all until Danny and Wade re-appeared carrying two prone forms from inside Coriander's: they were Mike's parents.
Red turned up with a large luggage cart from the Fairbrook and Duff helped the musicians load the unconscious bodies on the carpeted platform. "Are they okay?" Mike asked anxiously.
"They seem to be okay," confirmed Duff. "I think they're just drunk."
"My parents? Drunk?" echoed Mike dumbly.
"Sometimes enough just isn't enough."
The Inuit roadies were untied and given free drinks, and Lorenzo gave Dalia a pass for lifetime free admittance to Coriander's. Danny got on his phone to change the flight reservation and Wade got on his phone to see about borrowing a friend's bass for the New York gig.
It was the police who found Ed, Cherry's bodyguard, still engaged in a protracted life or death hand to hand struggle with a fifth Filipino thug in the nightclub's walk-in refrigerator. Spilled condiments were everywhere -- the floor slick with relish, the walls garish with teriyaki. They had been going at it for more than twenty minutes by that point, and both men were secretly relieved to be spared the burden of seeing the duel through to the end. They had, in fact, developed a certain brand of camaraderie during their intimate tussling and they nodded to each other in breathless salute before consenting to be separated.
As the paramedics arrived in the rear parking lot to assess the situation there Lorenzo motioned urgently for Mike to move along, and so he and Red and Sapphire pushed the luggage cart into the shadowed alley running the length of the block to head back to the Fairbrook Hotel.
Duff, Courtney and Cherry ran up to say their goodbyes. They exchanged e-mail addresses and Cherry promised that her manager would arrange free tickets for any performance Mike could get himself to. "Thanks for saving me from being kidnapped by pirates," she said, and kissed Mike on each cheek.
"Anytime," mumbled Mike, blushing.
As they made their way down the dark alley Sapphire lit up a pair of Marlies for herself and Red to chase away the smell of refuse. Red tried to give her some money. Sapphire refused theatrically and then took the rumpled bills and tucked them into her top. "Thanks," she said, and a moment later the load became heavier: without further warning, Sapphire had slipped away into the night.
At Red's direction they trundled the baggage cart up the hotel's rear loading dock and then through a series of concrete service corridors. They rode up in an extra-wide elevator car that smelled like lemons. Mike yawned.
They found the keycard for the room in Mother's purse, and once they had managed to arrange their snoring cargo on the unoccupied bed Red and Mike sat outside in the corridor and ate cheeseburgers and chips from room service. "How shall I bill this?" asked the girl from the kitchen.
"My tab," grunted Red through a mouthful of chips.
Mike tried to give Red some money from Mother's purse but Red insisted that saving his life from the knives of mad Filipinos was payment enough for his trouble. "It was Dalia who pulled the alarm," argued Mike. "I didn't really do anything but get hit."
"Yeah, well, whatever," said Red. "You're good people, kid."
When the food was gone they shook hands and yawned at one another. They were too tired for further ritual. Nodding vaguely at Mike's thanks Red hauled himself to his feet and nearly tripped over the tray as he shuffled toward the elevator. With a chime and a rumble he was gone.
"Goodnight," said Mike to the empty corridor.
No one had bothered to draw the blinds so when morning came the room was suffused by an unforgiving pall of bright sunlight. At seven o'clock Mother's eyes snapped open in a dreamy panic, quelled instantly when her barely conscious brain was able to count one, two, three children in the room with her: Bianca a lump of tangled covers on the next bed; India placidly watching cartoons on TV; Mike sitting at the small desk poring over a textbook.
"Whatcha doing, Mike?" murmured Mother, her throat pasty and head heavy.
Mike shrugged. "Homework."
"Make sure your sisters don't fight," Mother told him. Mike nodded and she fell back to sleep. She dreamed of Somalia, where it was too hot to wear any clothes.
For his part, Father dreamed of wrestling, a line of fermented drool soaking into his pillow. He shifted on the bed and farted ponderously.
India and Mike looked at each other and then fought to stifle their giggles. Mike pushed aside his school binder and rocked back on the wooden chair carelessly. "What are you watching?" he asked.
"Spongebob Squarepants," said India.
"What's happening?"
"Just whatever," she reported, playing with her fingers. "Patrick and Spongebob stole Squidward's car, and now they're joyriding around the ocean."
Mike raised one brow. "They stole a car?" He rocked back in his chair again, watching the skyline of reaching grey skyscrapers outside the window veer as his perspective changed. "Interesting..." he said thoughtfully.
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