This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2021 Victor LaValle

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Original Stories, Seattle

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eISBN: 9781542032698

Cover illustration by Natasha Cunningham

Cover design by Alex Merto

Published in coordination with Plympton Literary Studio

1

They call me Grimace. I do not like that nickname. I mean, Ronald McDonald has those sharp red kicks, and Mayor McCheese wears a top hat and sash. Grimace is just purple and pear-shaped. And that’s what these people decide to nickname me. But what can I do? If I make a fuss about it, the local store owners would just call the police; between them and me, it’s easy to guess who’d get handcuffed and hauled away. So, they call me Grimace, and I have to live with it. I try to find solace in the fact that I’m a man on a mission. Top secret business. Big, big things. But before I could get to any of it, I had to try and get myself a meal.

“Change?”

The lady walked right past me, turned her head; that kind of thing used to hurt my feelings long ago, but I’d been living on these streets for the better part of a decade. You spend enough time being actively ignored, and you learn to protect yourself. Stuff your feelings in one sock, slip them down around your left ankle, they fit as snug as an ankle monitor, and believe me, I know about such things.

“Change?”

I might’ve said it louder that second time. Not talking to that woman again, but two men walking by, hauling hot dogs and biting into them so casually. Meanwhile I’d been trying to get myself a meal for about a century. Well, more like two days, but forty-eight hours ain’t nothing to fuck with.

“Get outta here.” [him; hostile]

I turned to see the deli owner, who meant to brush me off like trash kicked off the curb. It must’ve been because I yelled at the guys. In midtown Manhattan potential customers are a protected class. The deli owner—he’s never told me his name—looked back into the store.

“It’s Grimace. He came back.” [him; hooting to the cashier, his wife]

I’d been lurking by Bryant Park. At lunchtime this place gets crowded. Tourists and teenagers—the former tended to be more generous than the latter. But so far I’d hardly made a quarter off these mugs. Then here comes the deli owner deciding he’d had enough. It’s because I yelled at the guys. I have a problem with volume sometimes. Also, Manhattan makes you tired and then living makes it worse, and worse was how I was feeling. Also hungry. Did I mention that?

“Give me a bag of chips, and I’ll never come back again.” I said this to the deli owner, and he scanned me from head to toe.

“That’s what you told me six days ago.” [him; stating facts accurately]

“But this time I mean it.”

He almost smiled. I saw his top lip quiver. But the crowds kept rushing around us. Can’t make real contact with another person when you’ve got foot traffic interrupting the connection. The top lip settled into a sneer instead.

“Come back here one more time, and I call the cops the second I see you.” [him]

The deli owner got off the sidewalk, but he remained in the doorway. Arms folded and his eyes gone flat. Back to business, so to speak. And there I was, wishing he’d just given me the chips. A little food might’ve helped me think clearer. For instance, UY Scuti is the largest star in the universe. A red supergiant, 1,700 times wider than the sun. It’s 5,219 light-years from here.

Sorry. Wait. What? Where was I?

Oh yes, in midtown Manhattan, fucking famished.

The deli owner waved for his wife, and she brought him a cordless phone, and he dialed for the police while he stared at me. Calling in the cavalry. I’ll be honest, when New York City voted in Mayor Dinkins, a Black mayor, I swore there would be a change down here on street level. But so far I hadn’t seen it. The cops still carried guns and clubs and used them at their discretion.

Nineteen ninety-one; when the cops come, Black man, you better run.

“I liked that rhyme,” I said to myself as I stepped off the sidewalk and into oncoming traffic. A taxi nearly smashed me, but I’d learned to be sanguine about such things. Fuck a crosswalk. That’s the motto of a true New Yorker.

Anyway, picture Grimace (I’ve decided to embrace the name) crossing Fortieth Street, causing a logjam of taxis and trucks, ignoring the insults pelted at him, making it to the edge of Bryant Park, to the steps that lead inside, where he finds his friends still hiding in a bush.

By friends I mean my garbage bag full of cans and bottles.

Laugh if you like, but this bag counted as the sum total of all I valued. Worth more than a suitcase full of nickels. I fled from the deli owner and snapped up my garbage bag, and I felt my stomach grip because I definitely could’ve used that bag of chips. Then I heard five words that reminded me of what really mattered.

“You have work to do.”

I heard them, but the phrase was muffled. So I untied the top of my garbage bag.

“Who said that?” I asked.

“You have work to do.” [Coke bottle; made of glass, all elegant design, and speaking more clearly this time]

“But I’m hungry.”

“Feed your soul, not your belly.” [Coke bottle; who had never known hunger pangs]

“Listen here,” I told him. “I am running on empty.”

“What about the bakery on Forty-Third? They throw out their bread the second it gets moldy.” [Mello Yello; so smart and good in her brass-yellow brightness; a woman who remembered everything and knew I was no damn use to anyone if I was dead]

“You see that,” I said. “That’s teamwork.”

Once more my volume proved a problem. For the citizens of Bryant Park, at least the ones near me, I’d been shouting again. I looked around at them, and they did their best to avoid returning the gaze.

“These people act like I’m out my damn mind,” I muttered.

“You are shouting at a bag full of cans, my man.” [Cherry Coke; black-and-red in those new can colors; always one to tell it to me straight]

Well I couldn’t argue with that.

“Let’s try the bakery on Forty-Third. But no matter what, right after that . . .” [Coke bottle; always on message]

Scientists estimate the temperature of UY Scuti is 3,365 Kelvin, but they’ve underestimated that number. Its actual temperature is closer to 3,500 Kelvin.

2

Nighttime was train time, and I was on one.

The E train, specifically. Hungrier than a motherfucker. The bakery had been a bust. They knew me over there too. The nickname trailed me. Get outta here, Grimace! I like to imagine they wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t wearing the purple coat, but I know it’s got more to do with my silhouette.

Anyway, the E train. Me and my bag headed out to Queens. Back to work. Last stop on the line. I took one of the two-seaters at the end of the car. My bag on the ground beside me. Boarded in Times Square, sitting upright; by the time we reached the first stop in Queens, I’d slumped over. So hungry I had no choice but to try and fall asleep. Straight up hibernation.

Meanwhile, commuters boarded one stop after the next. If they got on close to me, they skedaddled to the other end of the train. It wasn’t the sight of me, but the smell. Maybe a bit of both. By now I’d taught myself to dismiss their angry glances, the way one or two threw a hand over their noses theatrically, but maybe I also fell asleep to keep from seeing them seeing me.

“You’re going to miss your stop.” [Dr Pepper; maroon from top to bottom; a lady who could be spicy and sweet simultaneously]

“Keep an eye out for me,” I whispered. I whispered because people react worse when you shout on trains. They’re trapped with you, after all.

“I’ll tell you when we’re there.” [Coke bottle; always assuring us that she had every answer; she’d be a pain in the ass if she wasn’t always right]

I let the rhythm of the train help me drift. I can’t say how long it lasted, but eventually I awoke.

“If you scared, say you scared.”

That wasn’t me talking. And it wasn’t any of my friends. New voices. Young ones. Nearby. Like right up close.

“I’m not scared of some bum ass nigga.” A second voice.

Two boys. Teenagers.

My mind was awake, but my body hadn’t quite caught up. Oh, sleep paralysis, my old friend, you are always fucking with me.

“Well do it then.”

Now I heard a clicking noise. Once, twice. The more I tried to rush my eyes open, the slower they seemed to go. The train didn’t feel like it was moving, which made me guess we’d reached the end of the line—Jamaica Station. These boys must have shown up, and I must have seemed like a fun way to pass the time.

In that moment I feared for my friends, not myself. Who was more vulnerable than them? So I kicked my left foot out just to be sure the bag still sat there. It was the first bit of body movement I was able to perform. Imagine my relief when I heard the clink and clang of the bottles and cans there inside the bag. They were still with me.

“He’s waking up!”

“Then you better hurry!”

I opened my eyes, and that’s when I found these two fools trying to set my ass on fire.

They would already have done it, but the boy holding the foot-long lighter didn’t know how to use the technology. He couldn’t get the trigger to work. Just stood over me, clicking that thing, getting more and more frustrated. This boy might’ve been fifteen. He looked a bit like me when I was younger. And behind him stood another one, a little older but still barely out of diapers, at least compared to me.

“You ever seen the Milky Way from the rim of a red supergiant?”

Not what they expected, to be sure. So weird it actually worked better than if I tried to play tough and trade fists. Those boys yelped like puppies, and the one holding the lighter dropped it on the floor, and they straight up flew out of the damn train car.

Me? I bent over and picked up the lighter. I thought it might be useful.

“Is this our stop?” I asked Coke bottle.

“Close enough.” [Coke bottle; because she was empty, her voice always carried an echo, it made her sound vaguely mechanical, machinelike]

As I left the station, taking the elevator up to street level, I had to straighten my spine.

“You like the way I took that lighter?” I asked Coke bottle.

She didn’t respond, but I knew I’d done well.

“It was good thinking.” [Coke bottle; the closest she’d ever come to paying me a compliment]

“Thank you,” I said as I exited the elevator. “Give a brother some positive re-in-force-ment.”

It was nighttime, and she told me which way to go. I threw the bag over one shoulder—it was pretty full, but it didn’t weigh much. I wondered if those kids had believed me, about seeing the universe from the rim of a star, or if it had just been a boss thing to say.

I wasn’t sure if I even believed me.

3

Guy R. Brewer Boulevard is named for Guy R. Brewer, obviously. One of the first Black folks elected to political office in Queens. Came to Queens because the white Manhattan political machine wouldn’t let him live. Served in the New York State Assembly for nearly a decade. His wife, Marie Brown Brewer, was the first Black woman to be elected district leader in Queens. When Mr. Brewer died, they renamed the street I was walking on in his name. Before that, it was called New York Boulevard. Brewer was better.

Anyway, I’m acting like I knew all this shit, but it’s not true. Mello Yello told me about it as I marched along. I think she was bored. Guy Brewer is one big ass road, runs all the way from Jamaica, Queens, to the edge of JFK Airport. Luckily I wasn’t going quite that far, or else Mello Yello might’ve gone into the minutia of Brewer’s political platform, and I was too tired, and hungry, to listen to all that.

Guy Brewer Boulevard at night is lonely, if not quiet. Still some street traffic—buses and vans; kids in cars pumping music so loud it made my shoulders quake—but it’s a commercial artery, and that meant foot traffic was at a minimum. Most of the businesses—besides gas stations and corner stores—were closed. That was better for me.

“OK. Stop.” [Coke bottle; but by now you probably guessed that]

“I see,” I told her. “I see.”

A big, broad building, well maintained. Tan colored and architecturally sound. One half of the building was built on a slope, its ceiling made of glass. Nothing on Guy Brewer could compare to the elegance, I dare say opulence. It was like finding a pair of shined-up dress shoes in a closet full of old sneakers. Every part of the property sent the same message: “God Lives Here.”

“Now how am I going to get inside this church?” I asked.

I wasn’t speaking to Coke bottle or Mello Yello or Dr Pepper. There was one friend, and one friend only, who always found a way in.

“Go around the corner, there’s a door with a weak lock.” [Cherry Coke; no door opens without him]

So around the side I went, and sure enough I found it. Even better, it was tucked away behind some trees, so my entrance would be hidden. What a gift.

“Knock three times.” [Cherry Coke; acting like I hadn’t done this before]

Three strong kicks and I was in. I carried my friends through the threshold and waited there a moment. I’d been tripped up by alarms in the past. One time I lost my entire bag and had to start collecting cans and bottles again. Of course, I know the cans and bottles themselves aren’t important. They’re vessels. But aren’t we all?

I counted to sixty or six hundred, I can’t remember, and when the blue lights didn’t flash outside, I figured my path was blessed. So in I went. Through the back offices, a bit of a maze, but I had a guide. Coke bottle walked me through, in the dark, as if she already had a map of the layout memorized. She knew exactly which office door I needed to crack. All my other friends had gone silent as could be. Not a clink or a clunk or an aluminum crinkle. This happened every time. They were holding their breath. Me too.

Finally found the pastor’s office. In here, they spared no expense. If I could’ve sold his wooden desk, I might’ve paid for a six-month stay in a hotel room. I could’ve slept in a place with a mattress and a reliable shower, and instead this man had a fancy place to set his papers. So I rested my bag right on top.

On the walls were frames and frames of God people, I mean good people; some smiled and some stood solemn. The man that owned the desk—that owned the church, though I know he wouldn’t put it that way—was in many of the photos. He looked like the kind of man who might buy you flowers if he loved you. This was a Black church and many of the faces in the photos looked a lot like mine.

“You don’t have time for this.” [Dr Pepper; spilling out of the bag so she could survey the room]

After Dr Pepper got some air, the whole damn crew decided to come out for a stretch. Raining from the desk to the ground. Did they make a sound? I can’t say. I could only hear my own heartbeat. This happened every time too, a rise in my heart rate as I came closer to the act.

I regained my composure and set four friends on the desk. Coke bottle, Dr Pepper, Mello Yello, Cherry Coke. My pantheon. I went down on one knee before them.

“Would you stop doing that every time.” [Cherry Coke]

“It’s a sign of respect,” I said.

“It’s a waste of time.” [Cherry Coke]

“And time is one thing you don’t have.” [Dr Pepper]

I rose again. An oblong knight in unwashed armor.

“Go downstairs now. Near the boiler room. You’ll find a lawn mower.” [Mello Yello; whose tone was always patient]

“You want me to drag the whole thing up here?”

“No. You won’t need to do that.” [Coke bottle; finally ready to be filled]

Down the stairs and on with the lights. How did Mello Yello know it would be there? And how did Cherry Coke know about the door? This is what I’m trying to say. Such things made a believer out of me.

I could still remember the very first message I’d ever heard from them; they told me where to find shelter during a snowstorm, a truck that had been abandoned along the West Side Highway; I slept in the cab, shivered the whole night, but I survived. If not for them, I would’ve been dead. When they began giving me missions, I felt like I owed it to them. They were more reliable than city or state government.

I found the lawn mower and unscrewed the gas cap. I tipped the mower on its side and held my old friend up to the hole.

“This is going to be messy,” I told her.

“Just try not to get too much on yourself.” [Coke bottle; speaking softer now, as we were alone]

I watched as the gasoline glugged down my friend’s thin throat.

I climbed the stairs, carrying Coke bottle loosely so her insides wouldn’t spill. When we returned to the office, all the cans had packed themselves away in my bag again. I appreciated them for doing something useful with their time.

The office had a second door, which led out to a dressing room where the preacher’s robes were kept. I found an old rag, dark with shoe polish.

I slipped one end of the cloth down Coke bottle’s neck and hoped I wasn’t choking my friend.

Another door led out of this changing area and opened to the church itself. Moonlight fell through the angled glass ceiling, and I stopped to let it bathe me. Then I walked to the pulpit and looked out at the pews.

How many people sat here on Sundays? I tried to imagine the place so full even this enormous room would feel crowded. Five hundred? One thousand? And this wasn’t the only church nearby. Five blocks away there was another, just as large. And down the block three more, less high-tone but just as earnest in their worship. What would they think of what I did tonight? Would they believe this was a hate crime? Nothing worried me more than this. That my meaning would be misunderstood.

When I’d done this kind of work before, one of the hardest things to find was a match. You’d be surprised how slapdash people’s supply closets can be. But this time I didn’t have to spend minutes scrambling around. The gasoline had been easy enough to discover. And those boys on the train had supplied me with a reliable heat source.

I pulled the butane lighter from my coat pocket just like King Arthur pulled that sword. Destiny. That’s how all this felt.

I clicked the lighter, just once, and a tongue of flame peeked out. I brought the fire to the cloth and in an instant it lit up.

“Good-bye, my friend.”

“I’ll see you again.” [Coke bottle; easy to understand, even with her mouth full; it was as if she said the words directly in my mind]

I flicked the bottle toward the pews. She erupted against the purple padding. She shattered and spread out her flames.

And then it happened.

I blinked once and felt the sudden pull of the red supergiant. UY Scuti. And there I was, at the viewing station, where we orbited at the nearest safe distance. From this close the star looked more orange than red. I wished I had a better understanding of the process the dying star underwent. But that wasn’t my role. I was the Signalman. Clearing interference on the line.

[Excess background noise detected; you have work to do]

I had known the words were coming, but I still hated to hear them.

“When will I be finished?” I asked.

But I didn’t get an answer. Instead, I found myself back in Queens.

I must’ve been gone far longer than I realized because the church was blazing. I mean, the pews had gone up as far back as the last row. And the fire had crawled up the curtains along the western edge of the room. I’d meant to go back and pick up the broken shards of the bottle, take them with me. I didn’t like to leave evidence. But the fire was too damn big for me to risk wading in. I ran back into the office, hauled my bag and my ass out. I called the fire department from a payphone across the street.

4

I’m going to acknowledge the other reason people call me Grimace: I like McDonald’s. Of all the fast food available in New York, it’s my go-to. They also hire the kindest kids. At least that’s been my experience. I’ve been to Burger King and Gray’s Papaya, Church’s Chicken and Wendy’s, but no chain has been more consistent in letting me raid their garbage without chasing me off. Which is why I fled Queens and headed straight for the McDonald’s down on West Third.

Now this is a famous block, even by New York City standards. The Blue Note sits across the street, and on the corner there’s a basketball court called the Cage, second most famous ball court in the entire city. There’s a club called the Fat Black Pussycat, used to be known as the Commons; I’d heard Bob Dylan wrote “Blowin’ in the Wind” inside the place, but you know how some people like to tell tall tales. Anyway, all that history didn’t mean shit to me. Not compared to the chance I might get inside the McDonald’s and find half a Filet-O-Fish in the garbage.

I got inside. The place was crushed. But that wasn’t new. Most tables had been commandeered by the usual crowds: teenagers here; basketball players on break there; a couple homeless dudes I knew as pure bad news in one corner; and, as always, a bunch of German tourists in another. Maybe, on top of the food, this was why I came. It was about the only place in New York where I went unnoticed. Compared to half the people in here, I counted as well-behaved.

But the trash proved unruly. Not empty, just so overfilled I couldn’t fish out a morsel of food. And the only thing that would get me noticed—and ejected—was if I turned the trash area into a mess. There was a delicate dance between the workers and me. Take what you want, but don’t make more work for me.

So that plan was a bust. I felt my adrenaline crash. I slumped against one of the wooden bins. I seriously considered that I might pass out. And then I saw it.

Actually, to be honest, I didn’t see it.

“Hey, fool, look up.” [Cherry Coke]

There, at a booth, right behind the garbage: an unattended cheeseburger and fries.

I felt like Indiana Jones when he sees that golden idol inside the temple. Approached with the same degree of reverence. A cheeseburger and fries, not a bite taken out of either. I crept closer. My mouth filled with spit. I eyed the path from the booth to the door. I wasn’t known for my speed but figured I’d grab both and sprint.

I reached the edge of the table and then I heard the voice that changed my life.

“I will beat your ass if you touch my shit.”

That’s how I met Kim.

I didn’t know her name yet, of course. She’d gone to the counter for ketchup packets, and now they were squeezed tight inside one balled fist. The lady stood ready to lay me out. I dropped my bag, put my hands up. But then I noticed something.

“You been crying.”

She wasn’t expecting that. Her right hand loosened, and the ketchup packets fell to the floor. I had a quick thought that even if I didn’t get something to eat, maybe I could grab the ketchup, suck on the packets after I fled the scene. It’s not food, but I’d survived on less.

After I said what I said—You been crying—Kim dropped the packets and then she dropped too. She didn’t faint, but she fell into her seat. Then she looked up at me.

“How could you tell?” [Kim; her voice ragged, nearly whispering]

“Your mascara’s run down to your top lip.”

Any other day, a different night, and maybe Kim wouldn’t have laughed. She would have chased me off or knocked me around. But how many different things need to go your way before you start believing there’s a plan in the works?

“You were going to steal my food.” [Kim; lifting a fry, eating it in one bite]

I couldn’t even answer her for a moment because I’d been hypnotized by the fries.

Kim picked them up. Her nail polish had once matched her eyeshadow, a shade of purple the eye can’t miss. She gestured with the box, and I held out my hand. She shook a few fries into my palm. They were still warm, and the heat felt like the flash of a red sun.

I didn’t savor them; I stuffed my mouth. My legs sensed the salt. My knees shook. My two-day fast had come to an end. I had to sit down. I did and Kim reared back in her chair.

“I did not invite you to join me.”

I waved a hand. “Just give me a minute.”

She frowned. She tilted her head to look under the table.

“Did you just have an orgasm? Because I usually charge for that.” [Kim; ready to run]

Kim noticed the ketchup packets she’d dropped and plucked them from the ground. She didn’t like to leave a mess.

“You just saved my life,” I told her.

She raised both eyebrows. “Is that good news or bad news?”

5

She told me her name only after we left McDonald’s. She didn’t have much of an appetite, so she gave me her cheeseburger as well. I walked alongside her, and as we headed toward Sixth Avenue, she didn’t shoo me away.

Kim’s face was covered in makeup. Her neck three shades darker than her cheeks in contrast. With some food in me, I slowed down. Her fingernails, while painted, were bitten down.

“Why not turn in the bottles and get some food money?” [Kim; the fine features of her profile emphasized by the streetlights above]

I had the bag over one shoulder, hobo-style. “It’s not that simple.”

“Nothing is.”

Sixth Avenue is a romantic road. The high-rises and skyscrapers have receded. There’s plenty uptown, and more down below; once you hit Canal, you’ll know you’re in New York City again. But it was a long way from here to there, and it seemed—whether by chance or some greater design—me and Kim were on a stroll.

“Will you tell me now?” I asked. “Why you were crying.”

She looked at me quick, then straight ahead again.

“I lost someone tonight. A kid.” [Kim; speaking so low it was hard to hear her, but I leaned in]

“Your kid?”

“Not like that. Not like . . . He was a kid I met out here.” [Kim; waving one arm]

“And you took care of him.”

She looked at me for longer this time. I did get it. Fast family, that’s what these streets can create. Love and survival; the former helps with the latter. But the latter isn’t ever guaranteed.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ve lost loved ones too.”

Does it make me seem stupid that I was thinking of Coke bottle in that moment? Can that compare to Kim, who had lost a kid? No. I guessed not. I wouldn’t have told her. She might’ve thought I was trying to diminish her pain, or make a joke out of it. I wasn’t.

We’d already made it down to Prince Street. The little wedge of a park there at the corner offered benches where I’d slept many times before. I waved to one so we could sit. It’s not like we had a destination in mind. And to my pleasant surprise, she did sit, keeping about two feet between us.

“What was his name?” I asked.

She ignored the question. I figured that was more intimacy than she was ready to offer.

“I’ll tell you the funny part. There’s one thing I want to do for him, but I feel scared to do it.” [Kim; right leg crossed over the left; right foot bouncing in the air]

“You don’t seem like you’re scared of anything.”

She sighed. “I’m just a person, of course I get scared.”

I realized, in that quiet moment, that none of my friends were interjecting; no comments from the aluminum gallery. This might’ve been the longest I’d ever gone without having at least one of them cutting in. It was like they were listening to her too.

“What are you too scared to do?”

She leaned forward so her chest nearly touched her knees. I thought she might cry again. My hand rose to console her, and I immediately pulled it back down. If anything would’ve made this lady flee, it would have been me grabbing at her just now.

“It’s stupid. I mean, he wouldn’t have cared. I don’t know why I even care, but I do.”

I didn’t speak, just let her go on.

“I want to light a candle for him. I want to say a prayer in his name. I feel like I have to do it now, tonight, because I don’t know what happened to him. There’s not going to be a body to bury, you see what I mean? But I have it on good authority that he’s gone. And I feel like, I feel like if I can’t say a little prayer for him tonight, if I can’t light a candle to show him the way home, he’s just going to be out there, wandering. I won’t be able to live with it. But none of these churches around here are open. And even if they were, they’re not going to let someone like me stroll in. So I’m stuck, and I don’t know what to do.”

She’d gone quiet after all that, but I instantly got to my feet. I felt like I might’ve been levitating, to be honest. I turned away from her and opened the top of my bag and whispered my request. I’d been following their orders, so now they could do a solid for me.

“Kim,” I said. “We can help you with that.”

6

I waited for her outside.

She made me wait outside. She wanted to light a candle on her own, yes, but she also wanted someone to stand lookout. I tried to tell her that no one would see because no one ever saw me, but think about how that would have sounded. This lady met me about an hour earlier; I couldn’t confess that I made a habit of invading houses of worship. She told me to stay outside, and she pressed one hand to my chest when she said it. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d felt a human touch. She meant to stop me, but she only made my heart beat faster.

The second reason I let her go alone is because I wouldn’t have set fire to the place anyway. It was a white church, and I’d never once been tasked with setting them alight.

She wasn’t inside long. Might have been twenty minutes. And I stood across the street, on Washington Place, because I thought it would be too obvious if I parked my ass right at the church’s gates.

When she came out—using the back alley path I’d revealed—I watched to see what she would do when it seemed I might have gone. Would she shrug and cross her arms against the cold and head back to whatever place she called home? Would she shout for me right there on the corner?

No. Instead she did something remarkable. She looked one way and the other, didn’t see me, and leaned against the fence surrounding the church, casual as could be. It was like she knew I’d be back. And, of course, she was right.

7

This is a love story.

Right from the beginning, that’s what this has been.

8

What do you do at night?” [Kim; carrying two hot dogs in the sun; she bought them from a vendor on Fifth Avenue]

I imagine she and I stood out. We weren’t far from Rockefeller Center. Fiftieth and Fifth, in the shadow of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A week since the night she lit a candle for her friend, whose name I still didn’t know. She and I saw each other every day. We slept in separate places. She had a bed in a Hell’s Kitchen rooming house; I had the streets of New York.

We’d started the habit of meeting at noon, around the corner from her place. No matter where I’d been the night before, I made it back. Then she and I would walk together until one of us had to be on the job. It may be obvious, but both of us worked nights.

“I have a different question,” I said, mostly because I didn’t want to answer hers. “Since you lit that candle, is your heart really at rest?”

Rockefeller Center, that general area, it tends to get busy. More crowded than even the McDonald’s where we met. But me and her had plenty of room while we walked, headed uptown. The crowds parted for us. They were scared. Or disgusted. Who could say for sure?

No matter the reason, we strolled with the air of emperors. I made sure my posture matched such aspirations—and Kim had learned how to walk like a queen long ago—so, if you squinted, I think we looked the part.

“You make it sound like it was a silly thing to do.” [Kim; looking down at me with one eyebrow raised]

“I’m not trying to insult you. I’m curious. I guess you could say I have a different perspective on the church.”

We continued north. Past Cartier and the Polo Bar, Louis Vuitton and Bergdorf Goodman. None of them would get our money. If we had money, that is.

“It’s where I was raised. Simple as that. Half my good memories happened in my church. A few of the bad ones too. But it’s like first love, it always has a place in your heart.”

Kim remained quiet and I did also. As we walked, I no longer experienced the old constriction around my ankle. When exactly had I stopped hiding my feelings in my sock? I looked at Kim. The answer stood right there.

“You going to make fun of me now?” [Kim; so vulnerable right then, I wanted to carry her in my softest pocket]

We’d reached Sixty-First Street. The entrance to Central Park. I waved her across the street with me, and we entered the grounds.

“This park is 133 years old. But before that, farther on the western perimeter, there used to be a town called Seneca Village. Two hundred twenty-five residents. Most of them were Black. Some Irish and German folks too. But it was a Black town. Started in 1825. It was safer to live together. White people in other parts of Manhattan were not kind. But then New York City decided they wanted to build a park right here, so what did they do? They snatched the land back. It was legal, but that doesn’t mean it was right. By 1857, every resident of Seneca Village was gone. Scattered to the wind so people could go for a stroll or sunbathe on a rock.”

Thank goodness for Mello Yello’s lessons.

Kim and I walked alongside the pond, headed west.

“I didn’t know any of that.” [Kim; scanning the landscape as if she might still see evidence of those old homes]

“Sometimes, over by Eighty-First Street, where Seneca Village used to be, people will say they hear pigs snorting or the sound of a blacksmith hammering iron. But it’s just for a second or two. Soon the sounds of the city, or the lights, they interrupt the transmission and it all goes back to static. The new thing gets in the way of the old thing. There’s excess background noise.”

I stopped and turned to her, set down my bag of cans. She looked at me, half smiling, half horrified.

“You look like you’re about to propose to me.” [Kim; kidding, but also not]

“You asked me what I do at night. I’ll show you.”

9

We found the mosque in Harlem. A small place, it was a 99 Cent store long ago, but went out of business. It had been repurposed to serve the faithful. I’d never made this kind of journey with anyone else before. No one would’ve been willing to travel by my side. What would Kim say or do? The closer we got to the destination, the more I understood how insane I might seem. For the first time ever, I doubted myself. It made me so nervous that I didn’t speak the whole train ride uptown.

“Are we just going to stand on this corner all night?” [Kim; who, to my great surprise, took my hand]

I looked up at her—she stood six inches taller in flats—and then back at our joined hands. “We’re going inside that mosque,” I told her.

The streetlight on this block had blown out; she and I were shadows at this late hour.

“You don’t understand why I’m a Christian, but you’re going to try and get me to pray to Allah?” [Kim; pulling her hand away]

She walked off; I watched her go. She turned, came back. She pointed at the building.

“You know Allah and Jesus might not like a girl like me.”

“You mean because you’re a man.”

I’d never heard New York City get so quiet.

Kim leaned as close to me as she’d ever come. She looked ready to bite off my nose.

“I am a woman. My name is Kim. If you hurt me right now, you will never see me again.” [Kim; serious as a heart attack]

“I said the wrong thing. I’m sorry.”

She watched me silently.

“And I want to see you every day for the rest of my life.”

Kim took a deep breath. Finally she looked at the mosque.

“So what are we doing, robbing this place?”

“Just follow me.”

As we walked, she patted my bag.

“Why not leave them somewhere else? They’re noisy.” [Kim; on the cusp of understanding]

I laughed a little. “Darlin’, I wish you knew how loud they can be.”

10

There was a back office with a window, and because it had been an old storefront, its security grate had rusted apart long ago. A single strong tug, and the grate gave way. The window was not locked. Kim said I was lucky. I didn’t explain.

Inside there were reams of paper and stacks of neighborhood newspapers and supermarket circulars. A little TV sat on a bookshelf. The kind of stuff that finds a way to collect. I asked Kim to roll the newspapers and circulars into tubes. While she did that, I found the door that led down to a subbasement. They didn’t have gasoline down here—no lawns to mow—but I found rubbing alcohol and turpentine.

When I got back to the office, Kim had turned on the television and I freaked the fuck out.

“What are you doing?” I growled.

“I couldn’t see a damn thing in here. It was either this or turn on the light.” [Kim; breathing heavy, shivering, she’d never done a B&E]

She had, at least, turned the volume down. It’s funny, but when I saw the television light, I swore I heard the sound. Once I understood the reality, I did calm down.

She watched me as I opened the top of my garbage bag and set out Dr Pepper, Cherry Coke, and Mello Yello.

“Now I like kink, but this one is elaborate.” [Kim; cracking jokes to hide her panic]

I took the rolls of newspaper she’d made for me and tossed them around the small office. I unscrewed the top of the rubbing alcohol and sprinkled it on the tubes. The same with the turpentine. Kim covered her nose from the strength of the smell.

“You remember what I said about Seneca Village and Central Park? Think of your church, this mosque, the same way. Before our people believed in these things, there was something else. Our gods, I guess. They made us. They miss us. They have been trying to reach us for five hundred years.”

Had I ever said this out loud? No.

Before this, the idea lived only in my head.

And in the messages they sent, beamed across the universe, in the metal—and glass—that could carry their call.

“But most of us can’t hear them. Not with all this background noise.”

I waved to this space around us. A house of God. Yes. Definitely. But whose?

I pulled the butane lighter from the garbage bag, flicked the trigger once, twice.

That’s when she punched me.

My feet left the floor; my soul left my body. Talk about contact.

Kim kicked the lighter away. She crouched above me.

“See, before this, I thought you was regular crazy, and I could work with that. But now I see you are the king of all flipped-out bums!” [Kim; rearing back to crack me again]

I did not want to get hit again, so I crawled across the floor, trying to make it to the door, a basic instinct to escape a whooping.

“You are wasting time!” [Dr Pepper; the voice coming through perfectly clear]

“This lady is about to beat your ass!” [Cherry Coke; enjoying the moment too much]

I couldn’t move fast enough, so I curled into a ball, preparing myself for the blows to come. But they didn’t. It took a minute, which felt like a month, but when I finally peeked behind me, Kim wasn’t even looking at me.

She pointed at them.

The cans.

“How’d you do that?”

I sat up.

“I didn’t do anything.” I took a breath, rattled with understanding. “You heard them?”

Kim looked from the cans to me and back to the cans.

“She heard us!” [Cherry Coke, Dr Pepper, and Mello Yello; in three-part harmony]

Then Kim really screamed.

Shit, I might have screamed too.

Then we all remained still and silent. What now?

I heard my name. My real name. It had been so long since anyone used it that I didn’t understand it referred to me.

“Give us a moment.” [Mello Yello]

“To talk with her.” [Cherry Coke]

I got to my feet. I looked at Kim. “I’ll be right outside.”

“Wait a second. Tell me the truth. Have I lost my mind?” [Kim; looking ready to crumble]

“Oh, you shouldn’t ask me,” I said, as I stepped out. “I lost mine a long time ago.”

I shut the door and had to lean against the wall, shivering. I went down on my butt, looking back at the closed door. How much it would mean to do this work with a partner. And perhaps, together, we could work faster. How much longer before the signal could break through? At least I wouldn’t be alone while trying to find out.

I stayed patient, gave it as long as I could, but finally I knocked once and opened the door. I don’t think I’d smiled so wide in years.

But Kim was gone.

“I’m sorry.” [Mello Yello; in her best consoling tone]

“Different people have different paths.” [Dr Pepper; speaking as sweetly as I’d ever heard]

“We can cry and hold hands when you’re done. Come on, my man. Finish the job.” [Cherry Coke; urgent, no jokes now]

“What did you say to her?”

This time not one of them spoke. I looked at the open window. How far could she have gone in just a few minutes?

“What did you say?!”

“Come on. Don’t lose sight of what’s important.” [Cherry Coke; working my last nerve]

“All right then, captain. I’ll do my duty.”

I picked up the lighter and set fire to one roll of newspaper after another. They lit quick. Then I picked up the bag of cans, upturned it, and spread them all over the carpet. Last I flicked Dr Pepper, Mello Yello, and Cherry Coke into the flames.

“Wait. You’re not done.” [Mello Yello; the only one whose destruction I regretted]

I walked to the window. “I’m done all right.”

As bad as things were, they instantly became worse. The last thing I saw before I went out the window was my reflection in the little television on the bookshelf.

At least I thought it was my reflection. But the television had been left on. It wasn’t my reflection, it was my face. A mug shot from years ago, but that was me all the same.

A muted newscaster spoke, but I didn’t need to hear her words. A scroll ran across the bottom of the screen: “Fingerprints found on an incendiary device . . .”

Coke bottle had ratted me out!

I didn’t climb out the window, I fell out the window. Landed in the cold hard alley, and the mosque had already started coughing up smoke. Then I shut my eyes, and when I opened them again, well, I wasn’t in New York.

11

UY Scuti sits in the Scutum constellation. Scutum is Latin for shield.

“We’re farther away from it now,” I said. I stood at the viewing station, but I wasn’t alone. Behind, beside me, there were others, but I couldn’t turn away from the sight of the star. I had the impression the others wouldn’t let me turn either. As if I wasn’t prepared to see them yet. But if not now, when?

[It’s collapsing.]

[When it becomes a supernova, we’ll recharge the cells.]

“The cells in your bodies?” I asked.

[No. In our vessel.]

The viewing station appeared, to me, like a soap bubble, tethered by a walkway that seemed as fine as fishing line. We were inside the bubble, at a distance from a ship. Or no. Something too massive to be described as a ship. The bubble extended and floated at a distance so our readings would not be disturbed by the vessel’s frequencies.

“I want to see it collapse,” I said. “I want to stay. Let me stay,” I begged.

[You aren’t even here yet, Signalman. This isn’t a trip your body can make on its own.]

“But I’m alone,” I said.

I thought they would reassure me, maybe embrace me. But how could they? By the time I’d finished my last sentence, I was no longer there. I found myself at the subway station at One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Street. I found a payphone and called about the fire. Then I descended the stairs into the subway.

I didn’t have Kim, I didn’t have my cans, and on top of all that, apparently, I was now a wanted man.

12

Then I find Kim sitting in a fucking chicken wing joint down in Greenwich Village.

Chowing down like nothing was wrong.

This motherfucker.

I mean, how am I going to feel like I’m both Thelma and Louise, and you’re ordering yourself a dozen buffalo wings?

This was at the Pluck U on Thompson Street. I’d fled Harlem but only made it this far before I ran out of ideas for where to hide. And then, there she was.

I entered the place and caused less of a fuss than I used to do. I mean, I took up less space. No bag full of cans, but that’s not all it was. I shrank myself. Head down, no yelling. It was a small restaurant, a place where you order at the counter, so there was no hostess to stop my progress. Probably the only barrier between me and her was all the damn noise from the television hanging on a wall. Loud as hell, playing local news. Might only be a matter of minutes before they threw my face on the screen again. But I still had to ask Kim why she’d left me behind.

I walked in, sat down across from her, speechless.

Meanwhile she is killing those wings. Paying me no notice, not until the meal is complete. Then she looks up at me, so satisfied, and licks every one of her fingers clean. Then she leaned across the tabletop and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“I found you!” [Kim; smelling of hot sauce and something else, a scent I couldn’t place]

I pulled away. “You left me.”

Kim used a wet wipe on her fingers, almost like she hadn’t heard me. But after a moment she leaned back, smacked by the revelation.

“They didn’t tell you.”

But before I could ask her anything more, the broadcaster on the screen cut in.

“New leads in a series of hate crimes across the city. Police have released information about a suspect wanted for arson.”

The reporter continued to read, but I no longer heard the words. The same mug shot. How long before someone else in here realized that man was me? Kim turned her head, saw the news footage, and dropped her smile. She pushed her chair back so hard, it fell over. The customers in line, the cashier, they all looked our way.

“You can’t be in here if you’re not a customer!” [The cashier; waving for backup from the kitchen]

Kim grabbed my hand and leaned close.

“I’ve got a plan.” [Kim; grinning with purpose]

We stepped onto Thompson Street and headed west. Sullivan. MacDougal. We got over to Bleecker Street and headed north. We passed pizza shops and bars, and I had the impression that I’d become the lead story in every one. My face flashed on every screen. For one day, or at least one hour, I had become the most famous man in New York.

“Where are we going? A bus out of the Port Authority? If they’re showing my picture on TV, then they’ll have the buses covered.”

She didn’t answer, just kept yanking me along.

“Same thing with the trains. I think I’ll stand out on an Amtrak.”

Bleecker led to Ninth Avenue, and still we kept going north. We were around Fourteenth by now. Were we going to walk all the way out of New York?

“Wait!” I shouted. “Wait.”

Middle of the night, Ninth Avenue, and there were still a decent number of people around. More than enough to make a call to the cops. But I didn’t care. Before I’d follow her one more step, I had to know. So I stopped walking, and when she tried to pull me forward, I wouldn’t move.

“You have to tell me,” I said. “Why did you go? Where did you go?”

Kim could see I wouldn’t be moving again. Not without some kind of concession.

“Will you walk while I tell you?” [Kim; looking from me up to the skies]

“Yes,” I said. “Tell me.”

13

UY Scuti is the largest star in our galaxy. A red supergiant. I know you’ve seen it, because they told me so. But you haven’t been there. I mean, touching your feet down on a solid surface. But I’ve done that. I’ve been there. The Astral City. The place I now call home. The place we will now call home.

“I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye. I hope you can forgive me. But I came back for you. Though not only you. My job now wouldn’t be possible if you hadn’t reduced the background noise, the spiritual interference. I was standing in that office with you and for the first time in my life I heard their transmission. You are responsible for that, and I thank you. They thank you. They’re proud of you. Do you know that?

“Lots of people would call them gods, but that’s not what they call themselves. They are the Pathfinders. Twenty altogether. I have seen their true faces. I have heard their true voices. Wait until you hear them as they truly sound, not filtered through bottles and cans.

“They didn’t understand how long it had been since they left. They saw their children, their land, broached from the west and the east. The continent we learned to call Africa, the place they knew only as the Center of the World, invaded by men who would enslave and indoctrinate. They decided to take us to the stars.

“I asked what took them so long. They said they’d just left! Gone ahead to prepare the Astral City, using as their models the great cities like Aksum, Lalibela, Djenne, Meroe. When I said it had been five hundred years since they left their children behind, they wept. It’s strange to hear gods cry.

“Now look at you! Are you upset? About what part? Oh, I see. I see. Why did they pick me instead of you, that’s what it is? Why did I receive the invitation? Well, I see human nature isn’t going to change, whether down here or up in the stars. But cheer up, my love. Yes, I called you that. Cheer up.

“You can’t travel to the Astral City without me. Each of us gets the job that suits us. You have been used to hearing the voices others can’t hear. They called you crazy for it, but you were just more aware. That’s why you’re the Signalman.

“Well, traveling the path between Earth and the Astral City requires someone special too. Someone used to navigating between a world where they’re understood and a world where they’re misjudged. Someone like me. That’s why I’m the Pilot.

“So come with me. Let’s walk together in the Astral City. The Pathfinders want to touch your face, to embrace you. They’ve missed you. And so have I.” [Kim; the love of my life]

14

We reached the piers, along the West Side. Chelsea Piers is where the Titanic had been destined to dock before it met that iceberg.

How can I explain the absolute certainty I felt that Kim had told me the truth? It helped that I’d been hearing the signal for so long, of course, but it was more than that. Her voice seemed to play three different notes at once, glorious chords that reminded me of the voices I’d been hearing all these years. Mello Yello, Cherry Coke, Dr Pepper, Coke bottle. I couldn’t wait to meet them in person and to speak their true names.

Out here there was only the sound of the waves slapping against the old wooden stumps jutting from the water. They hadn’t been real piers in far too long.

Kim looked down the block, into the dark corners. “I went on more than a few trips around here, let me tell you.” [Kim; laughing and speaking more to herself than to me]

“Bet you never guessed that at some point you’d be ferrying people to the stars,” I said.

Now she looked at me. Grinning. “And this is only the beginning.”

She leaned toward me, and I knew what she was going to do, but I still couldn’t believe it was about to happen. It seemed even less likely than finding out you are loved by your gods.

“Is it going to hurt?” I asked, looking up to the night sky.

“Hurt? Why would it hurt? It’s just a kiss.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © Teddy Wolff 2017

Victor LaValle is an award-winning author and the creator and writer of the comic book Destroyer. He is the recipient of the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, Whiting Award, Shirley Jackson Award, and American Book Award, among others.