Three days since the review board cut us loose and we’ve descended into chaos. Driven there by memories better left forgotten. Memories that I had forgotten. No more. Now I feel every pain, every degradation. They come at me in bits and pieces, all the more powerful for being long suppressed. At times, I can hear Carolyn Grand screaming.
So, it’s not just Tina. It’s all of us as we come and go, as we’re shoved into the front ranks. Until we prefer oblivion to existence.
Who’s to understand this? Who’s to fix what’s wrong with us? Who’s to protect us? Halberstam? There’s no one to call. No lover to offer a comforting hand, no parent or friend, not even each other. Because when it hurts bad enough you think only of escaping your own pain. Better them than you.
I must be exaggerating because a casual observer would have to conclude that we’ve drawn closer together. The memos on the table prove it. Before Eleni propositioned the cop and our father was released, before Halberstam and Kings County Hospital, before Judge Jefferson and his review board, we almost never cooperated. We schemed instead, our dysfunctional family dedicated to assassination. We plotted to kill each other off.
We’re past that now and our alliances have shifted. When I’m not around, I want Kirk or Eleni to run the body. I want someone tough in place, ready to go. The threat might come from the cops or from the man who followed Kirk. He’s taken up his station by the streetlight for the past two days. Chain-smoking cigarettes and spitting into the street. Yesterday, he showed up in a sleeveless T-shirt, his tattoo-covered arms fully revealed. I couldn’t make out the tattoos, but I imagined them to be devils and skulls and broken women. The markings of a dangerous moron.
I walk over to the window and peer out across the street. He’s not there, but I suddenly realize that he reminds me of someone.
The Acevedas had three foster children, including me. They were all girls and old enough by then to make a run for it if they got a chance. Where they’d go—except onto the street where life would be even harder—was anyone’s guess. But our foster parents took precautions anyway. When they were off to some family function, they’d leave Uncle Esteban to mind the store. Uncle Esteban was short and very thick. He was a man not of few words but of no words. He never touched us, although I can’t imagine Benny or Angela objecting. He didn’t talk to us, either, and his routine never varied. The first thing he’d do was angle the television. Then he’d fetch a chair from the kitchen and set it against the door. Finally, he’d wait, expressionless, for his patrons to come home.
When Carolyn Grand first entered the Acevedas’ apartment in the Bronx, there was one of her. When she left, four years later, there were nine and the family was growing. And nothing she discovered in her assigned group home, or at school when she was finally allowed to go again, slowed that process.
The knock on the door comes at 10:30 a.m., as I’m scrubbing the bathtub. I’m hoping it’s Marshal or even Doyle, but it’s the two detectives, Greco and Ortega. They’re accompanied by three uniformed cops with CSU patches on their shirts, one a female. All five wear blue latex gloves, including Greco, who hands me several printed pages.
“Search warrant,” he announces. “Step back.”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond. He pushes past me, starting a little parade. The three uniformed cops first, then Ortega. I’m seriously pissed and I make sure I get a good look at Ortega’s face. His mouth is tight, his nostrils flaring as he draws breath. I think he wants to say something, but he doesn’t meet my eyes as he passes. I understand. Yeah, he read Hank Grand’s file. Sure, he knows what Daddy did to us. But he’ll do his job anyway.
I back into the apartment and close the door. The uniformed cops are already at work, Ortega, too. Only Greco remains idle. He’s standing in the center of our living room, staring at me with tiny blue eyes so bright they seem to glow. I don’t know what he wants and I really don’t give a shit. One of the uniformed cops tosses the cushions off the couch. Now he’s running his fingers between the back and the seat, looking, perhaps, for lost change.
“Miss Grand?” Greco says when it’s obvious I won’t be the first to speak.
I’m still not answering. Mostly because I’m afraid of what might come out of my mouth. A few feet away, my couch is tipped onto its knees and the backing ripped off the underside. This furniture, crappy as it may be, is all we have. I want to smash the cops. I want to smash all of them. But they’re grown men, large men at that, with guns at their sides.
I feel myself shrinking. As if we weren’t small enough already. As if we weren’t already helpless.
“Miss Grand?”
“What?”
“The warrant includes your cell phone. If you’ll show me where it is …”
“We don’t have a cell phone. We used up the minutes on the last one and I tossed it about a week ago.”
Greco looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t know what it is. If we had a cell phone, of course, he could use its GPS to track our movements. But our cell went the way of our many burner phones shortly after my visit to the morgue. We’ll replace it when we have the money. For now, the house phone will have to do.
Behind Greco, I watch Ortega approach the cop who turned over our couch. He taps him on the shoulder and says, “Keep it neat.” Ortega’s voice is low, nearly muffled, as if he were speaking against some restraint. The cop looks up at Ortega in apparent surprise.
“Por favor, Carlos. Tell your buddies.”
My first thought, given my trip to the morgue, is good cop/bad cop. Greco plays the bully; Ortega plays the pal. He plays the concerned parent we never had. Nevertheless, I’m pleased when Carlos rises to feet and trots into the kitchen.
“When was the last time you had a cell phone?” Greco asks.
I finally look down at the papers in my hand. What I have is a search warrant not an arrest warrant. There’s even a list of items to be recovered: knives, stained clothing, cell phones, computers and a DNA sample.
“I asked you a question. When did you last have a cell phone?”
I watch Ortega rifle through the memos on our table. The note from our father, the one with the address of the hotel is long gone, of course. Finally, I make myself clear. “Fuck off, detective. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
Greco shakes his head and smiles. “That’s not nice, Miss Grand. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say you weren’t raised right.”
Forty-five minutes later, they’re gone. Leaving me with a sore cheek on the inside where the female cop dragged the DNA swab, and a list of the items they’ve seized. The list includes our barely functioning computer, our memos (already copied by Marshal), our one decent chef’s knife, and a dozen bags containing various garments. Still, they’ve been neat and I suppose I should be grateful. They’ve emptied the cupboards and the closets, piling pots, pans, cutlery, and food on any available surface. Nothing on the floor. Very considerate.
I can’t stand mess and I go to work right after I lock the door. As I rearrange the shelves in the kitchen, I’m again seized by the poverty of our life. Then a memory rises. My father is sitting in the living room, eyes glued to the television. He has a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of orange soda in the other. I’m crossing the room, headed for the kitchen and a glass of water. As I pass the side of the chair, his hand shoots out, quick as a snake, and he grinds the cigarette into my belly. Why? Because Carolyn Grand has a urinary tract infection and can’t fuck Cousin Mike.
This is how we marked the days of our lives.
This is how we marked the days of our lives and still we survive.