I got about seven hundred words into another story before starting this one. The first story just wasn't going anywhere. It's like I'm forgetting how to write. Then, when I get started, I don't want to let the story go, and boom, it's 3am and I have nearly two thousand words.
Jackie
The man in the blue suit does not seem to notice when Jackie rubs against him. Crowded train, after all. But now Jackie has the man's ID, his transit history, his credit history, blah blah blah, the works. Got the NFC, One Two Three.
Train pings and Jackie slips out the door, Fubatzo thump rocking his ears. He takes the stairs two at a time, out the turnstile, knocking into people in a rude but not calling the police kind of a way: guy in glasses, woman in trench coat, some sexy piece of ass in a pencil skirt. Whatever.
Two doors down from the subway entrance. Jackie slips into Hiky Brown perfume shop, down the narrow single aisle, around the register, kissing Hiky on the cheek, into the back. Fingers on the secret panel, tap tap, “Who is it?” from behind (or something, Jackie still listening to Fubatzo on high). Jackie whistles the wake-up tones from his old flip phone.
Secret panel slides back and in goes Jackie. Panel closes behind him. Ring of LED around the camera, Jackie makes lips, his face bathed in infrared. Solenoid-operated bolt goes Chunk, Jackie can feel it through his feet, and the second panel opens. Jackie rattles down the stairs.
Professor Tam waiting for him at the cramped table full of computers, blank fare cards, must be about twenty phones, soldering iron. Tam curled like a comma, shuffling from the table to greet him. Tam's face wide and flat, swimming behind those super-powered spectacles, Jackie digs the old school epicanthic fold. Jackie himself got the double eyelid surgery last year and is saving up for his Michael Jackson nose--not the scary old Michael, just the first cut, 1985, before anyone twigged just how weird that boy was.
Jackie slips his phone over to the Professor and waits. A flat panel shows futbol. Man United is on, a repeat, them against the Blackburn Rovers. Whatever.
Tam said something. Jackie pulls out his ear buds, Fubatzo all tinny now that the buds are around his neck and not his ears. How did they do that, make so much bass when they in your ears but soon as you take them away, it's like a mouse farting? Sometimes when Jackie has the ear buds in, he puts a finger over that little hole on the outside of the ear bud. Same thing. Goes all tinny. Take it away, hear the bass again. Miracle of modern physics.
Tam spoke again. “Where did you get this?”
He points at a spot on the screen. Jackie looks. A line, highlighted, reads:
ESN 0a003ef53bea MANU VZQ 13121920234 DaltonEdwa SN 210E84192
Jackie scrunches his forehead and smoothes it out again. “How do I know? I bump up against fifty people today.”
Tam shakes his head, making like old school sagacious scholar. Jackie has no time for this, “Can I go now?” And Tam says, “All right,” and counts out some bills, which Jackie scoops up and puts most of in the envelope he keeps inside his track suit jacket.
Outside on the street again, people flowing past, Jackie finds the two spare bills in his track suit pants pocket are burning a hole there. Before anyone tweeks the smoke from the extra cash, Jackie gets moving. Down into the train, through another two hundred people, flat noses and sharp honky beaks, blue eyes and brown eyes and green. Jackie admires a few more rounded asses. Sees a sharp Armani suit he'll have to find for himself, right after the surgery.
Train arrives with a crash and Jackie boards, slipping ahead of a couple of tourists with straight blond hair and neon graphical backpacks. Wanting to chill, Jackie switches from Fubatzo to Tanaii, breathing in the sonorous loops of piano and fuzzy guitar.
Off the train at 8th and hike over to Avenue C. Buzz Randi's number, she lets him in. Two floors and at the back, her door is ajar, he slips in.
Randi watches all sorts of stuff online, Jeremy Kyle and Oliver Geissen and those guys. That's what she's doing right now, some guy is throwing an envelope at Jeremy Kyle's head and she watches it over and over and laughs.
Jackie says hi and sits on the futon watching Randi watch stuff online. She's got blond hair in fine ringlets all over her head, lip gloss, grey T and black and white tiger stripe tank over that, pink mini, bare legs, bare feet.
She finishes and comes over to straddle Jackie and kiss his eyelids and they get into it.
Downstairs after that, Jackie's buying her ice cream and earrings. Randi digs lychee ice cream and Jackie will always order chocolate because it is a true classic. The large hoopy earrings bang against Randi's neck when she moves her head to lick her ice cream cone and Jackie wants to go back upstairs with her. But there are no more bills burning a hole in his pocket, so he heads back west.
Jackie takes care of his money like this: Put the bills to spend in his pocket. Put the bills to save in the envelope with Michael's picture in it. When the bills in the pocket disappear, it's time to make some more.
Next to the magazine store on the corner with the words GEM SPA over the awning, Jackie sees a lean Rajasthani boy named Tim. Tim wears a Members Only jacket and acid washed jeans and on his wrist a promise bracelet. Jackie asked Tim once: “Why you wear a promise bracelet if you gay? What's the point?” Tim explained like Jackie was an idiot: “Just because you commit one sin does not mean you have to commit them all.” All Jackie could say was “awright bro.”
Jackie says hi, Tim says hey. They watch the college students for a while. Tim says his parents trying to arrange a marriage with some girl from Jaipur. She's from this hella rich Christian software developer family, want to get their little girl out of Rajasthan before it gets too crazy. Jackie says “that sucks bro.” Then Jackie gets nervous to be earning some more money and says goodbye to Tim and heads up to Times Square.
He turns on the NFC on the train. Looks at all the other geeks pushing their fingers around on the glass fronts of their phones, pads, whatever. Just like him. Only he's making bank with Professor Tam.
There exist many good places to meet people and the devices that contain their personal information. Port Authority. Grand Central. Penn Station. Upper East Side (anywhere along the 6 train, really). World Trade Center. Chinatown. Times Square.
Jackie likes to mix it up. He hasn't been made yet. Doesn't want to go to jail, ever. He's heard stories.
Into the throngs of tourists. 7:45pm, good hunting time. Cooled off, jackets and maybe a few sweaters, people don't notice when you brush against them a little bit, just don't be suspicious. Usually Jackie brings somebody like Tim but Tim is all sad about this marriage thing and would be nothing but weight while Jackie is trying to work. Whatever. Just get to work, remain calm.
Familiar face in the crowd. Not so rare, seeing a familiar face, but this guy is looking right at Jackie and Jackie can't place where he knows this guy. The guy's look makes his stomach contract. Jackie flicks his eyes away and casually crosses the street. No point in lingering
Now some other guy makes eye contact and Jackie does not know this face at all. The stomach gets tighter. People everywhere, should be no problem at all to disappear. Jackie heads down toward 42nd, subway entrance is full of people moving fast, he can get in with them and slip onto the train.
A burly arm goes around his shoulder and the guy says “come this way, please,” and Jackie looks over and sees that the guy is holding a badge, the badge flashing in the reflected neon of the Square.
Burly brings him to a white step van on a side street. Guys in blue poplin jackets but no insignia. Jackie steps up into the van because he is told to and it's full of electronics inside and it's got a non-slip steel floor. The man in the blue suit is there. That was the familiar face from five minutes ago, before Jackie's stomach seized up.
Burly is behind him pulling on nitrile gloves and asks Jackie to raise his arms. Burly explains in what fashion he is going to touch Jackie, and why, and asks if he understands. Jackie nods and tries not to get an erection when the guy gets to the part where he runs his hand up inside Jackie's thigh.
Meanwhile the man in the blue suit asks Jackie a lot of questions. The man is very interested in where Jackie goes with the NFC turned on. He seems to know everything about Professor Tam but doesn't seem to care.
At the end Burly hands Jackie's phone to the man in the blue suit. The man in the blue suit says he'll give Jackie a receipt, but what he hands to Jackie is a card with nothing on it, just an address:
26 Federal Plaza, 18th Floor, Suite 1821, Office D.
Then Jackie is asked to step out of the van. The guys in the blue poplin look at him like he'd better move along, so he goes back to the train and transfers once so he can go uptown on the East Side.
Fewer people walk back in forth in front of Hiky Brown at night than at day, but right now there is a crowd half way down the street, surrounding Jackie as he emerges from the subway. Flashing lights--cop lights.
Jackie knows he should go home now but he hates Flushing any time of the day and his stomach is only going to get tighter staring at the fish tank over his brother's bed. So he pushes through the crowd toward the cop lights and Hiky Brown.
There's a bag on the stretcher. The bag is shaped like Professor Tam. The bag and the stretcher go into the ambulance. The ambulance has the cop lights on top.
Hiky stands next to a guy in a pinstripe suit. Pinstripe has messy white hair and his tie a little bit undone, but he's comforting Hiky not the other way around. Hiky looks so put together even when things go wrong.
The man in the blue suit is asking Hiky questions and nodding sympathetically. Then he walks up to Jackie. No, it's a different man in a blue suit, but it could be the other guy's twin. He says “go home, Jackie” and Jackie doesn't need to be told twice, he doesn't need to know who these guys are in the blue suits, he doesn't need to know who killed the Professor or why or even if there's a job for him tomorrow or next month when Hiky gets the place repaired. He's going home like he's been told.
Except on the train he decides to go back to Randi's place. He pulls a bunch of bills out of the envelope he keeps inside of his track suit jacket. Jackie is glad he took the express, so people don't have as much time to see the smoke rising out of his pocket from the multitude of bills burning a hole there.
At the corner by Randi's place, Jackie pulls the picture out of the envelope and throws it in the trash can.
Fuck having Michael Jackson's nose.
(c) 2011 Michael Bernstein
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