“Your language is nice sounding,” Zorka said.
“Thank you, honey, that’s a nice thing to say,” Perla replied.
“Rico, why you never speak your language?”
“Rico doesn’t really speak Tagalog,” JJ said.
Rico pinched his lips. “Wish I did… I mean I understand it. I just can’t really reply in it.”
“You know when we came to America, Rico was baby,” Bruce said. “Two years old. I was veteran and Perla work nursing… Well, we were too busy. We didn’t take time for Rico. We try to make life here as quickly as we can. By the time JJ come, we were settled. JJ go to Sunday school, and we take time with him. That’s how it was.”
“Oh, honeyboy looking so handsome!” Perla said, admiring Rico from across the table.
Rico’s insurance wouldn’t pay for his hormones or top surgery, but his family passed around the hat, so to speak, and two Christmases ago, his present was a thin envelope wrapped in forest green paper with gold stars, and a big sparkling blue ribbon. When he opened it, it was a cheque.
“You still playing Pac-Man?” Rico asked.
JJ pushed Rico on the shoulder.
“That was like 1,000 years ago!”
JJ showed Rico and Zorka the new Grand Theft Auto on the widescreen.
“It’s a game where you steal cars and drive them…” Rico explained to Zorka.
“That legal?” Zorka asked.
“Only in video game,” Bruce interjected looking at JJ.
While Rico and JJ played Grand Theft Auto together, Zorka walked around the wall of photos and stopped in front of a middle-school photo, Rico had to be nine years old, he had sleek black hair in two long plaits, and a boat-neck purple shirt with a purple bow on the shoulder, and wide lip-gloss-covered smile. There was a banner on the bottom of the photo that read “Erica Joy Yee”.
“Oh, that’s a funny photo,” Perla said behind Zorka. “Rico wanted to wear his favourite blue T-shirt and big red shorts, but I kept saying wear this dress, please, you look so beautiful in it, please – so he do it for me and he let me brush his hair out and braid it nice and neat like this. I just wanted him to look so beautiful for his school photo, you know. That was, of course, when we all call Rico “she”, when we not yet understand, you know…
“Anyway, he did it to make mama happy, and mama was happy…! But then I see Rico come home and he take off his backpack and he undo the braids and he change real quick into his blue T-shirt and his big shorts and he run around like a cloud, so free and light. I tell you, I took my two hands and I put them to my face and I say, ‘Perla Perla Perla, are you blind?’ Rico was happy in his blue T-shirt and his wild hair. Why I want him otherwise, I ask myself. I want Rico like this all time, running around so happy and comfortable and proud.”
“My ma is fuck-up,” Zorka said. “And my Pa is dead.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Perla patted Zorka’s back.
Zorka shrugged, then looked away as if waiting for Perla to take her hand off.
“I want for you to be like a cloud also, Zorka,” Perla continued, her hand still on Zorka, “for you to be happy and comfortable, and proud.”
Perla hugged Zorka and Zorka let herself be taken and held and her eyes looked around the room not knowing where to rest. As Perla held her, Zorka looked at that middle-school photo of Rico in his purple dress and long braids, then she saw Ray-Ray running in the background like the Messiah, and behind them a clearing, and in the clearing a circle of poles with carved wooden horses stuck in mid-air, then a voice so devoted and reaching that it used to scare Zorka, the voice beneath the earth, behind the door, from the sky, whispering, “Zorka… it’s me…!”
Before they left, Bruce said, “Hold on,” and Perla came down the stairs in a rush, holding a twenty-dollar bill.
“Honeyboy,” she handed the bill to Rico. “Treat yourself.”
Whenever Rico came home, his parents always gave him a twenty as a parting gift. Rico took the bill and kissed his mother, then his father, then gave them a hug each.
“See ya, Rico!” JJ yelled from upstairs, then ran downstairs and stood in front of Zorka.
“See ya, Zorka.”
Zorka lifted her hand to her chest and awkwardly waved to the boy. Just as she was getting ready to put her hand back in her jean pocket, Perla held out a twenty-dollar bill towards her.
“You too, honeygirl,” Perla said. “Treat yourself.”
Rico got accepted to Yale for a graduate programme and Paul and Ben threw the biggest party they’d ever thrown. Zorka drank too much of the grainy rum punch and kept hugging Rico saying “Don’t go!,” then running back and saying “Go, go!” She made out with the French Girl, and they fondled each other a bit on the porch until Ben snuck up on them and took a photo, then Zorka chased him around and pinned him to the ground and said, “Next time I wax your pussy, by the way, this is no joke, Bennie!” But when things calmed down, Zorka slept in Rico’s bed, pressing her forehead into his back, with her arms wrapped around his resting body.
The day after Rico left, Zorka went into the empty room and sat down in the middle, mindlessly tracing the wooden grading in the floorboards with the tip of the switch-blade she had stolen from Slavek’s papka back in the day, with the thin snake coiling across the metal handle.
She gave her two weeks’ notice and announced that she was taking her savings and moving to Paris with the French Girl, who said she’d get them jobs waxing somewhere and Zorka could work on her French.
Paul drove them to the airport and said, “You family now, so don’t do nothing stupid to each other and if you do, just say you’re sorry. Take care of each other.”
The Truth the Dead Know
Malá Narcis
Jana was keeping count of the days, ninety-two since Zorka had set fire to Mr Bolshakov’s boots, stolen his cash and peaced out, then snuck back and left the burning fox-fur in the hallway as her salute. The fire had left the whole floor charred and the occupants like wolves against her mamka, who discretely packed up and left in the early morning a couple of days later. Still the girl continued to be the central topic of discussion, the neighbours exchanged their opinions, inserted their expertise, summoned up examples from literature, hearsay, history, and deliberated on the appropriate form of punishment, until the topic of Zorka became the communal means of speaking about integrity in this day and age and the protection of our vulnerable youth.
“She should have been put in a youth detention facility long ago.”
“She belongs in jail, end of story.”
“I’d drag that girl by her hair into a cell and turn the key myself!”
“I’d lock her up by her ankle with a thick metal chain.”
“Like in a dungeon?”
“No, inside the house.”
“It’s a shame when girls choose to become criminals instead of women.”
… She’s sitting on the floor, in the corner, with the heavy chain on her ankle, in her flaming red dress, the one I gave her, and she looks absolutely beautiful…
“Well, it is not easy to give our young people democracy.”
“Unlock me!” she screams, her fingers scratching at the metal ankle brace.