PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 Read online

  Her voice change now, though—low and trembling—when she say, “It had another shooting. Right outside the school. The snow cone vendor. They say he was a gang member.”

  “The boys see?” you ask, hoarse, because you frighten and you choking on it like stale bread.

  “Nah. They was in class, thank God. But still, Junior . . .”

  “I know, I know.”

  Jason and Kevin. You could send them all the money in America; that can’t block them from a Pleasantview bullet.

  WINTER COMING FAST. Your first. Your nose bleeding every time you step outside, your skin gray and itchy. You never been this fuckin’ cold. And you miss your sons so bad it come like a toothache that does fill up your head and get worse and worse every day.

  Soon, the bomber jacket not cutting it no more. Rufus lend you some stuff—coat, gloves, scarf, beanie—and you find some boots in the thrift store on Merrick Boulevard. Hand-me-downs, but fuck that! You stepping high these days, since Laparkan Shipping collect the barrel you was filling. Six weeks, they say—it’ll get to Trinidad in time for Christmas.

  Now, you have time, a li’l extra cash; now, you focusing on Becky.

  Four and a half months to go.

  You start lining up your day off with hers. Green Acres Mall every week. Is the closest thing to dating. But you’s the illegal and she’s the citizen, so she doing most of the spending: cologne, down jacket, Timberlands. Watch something too long and Becky buying it for you. Is a new feeling, a woman treating you so. It come like she’s Mr. H and you’s Gail. It too easy; you don’t trust this setup.

  So, you never slack off. Is work, work, work. Through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years. But your day off, that’s always for Becky.

  One freezing Sunday in January, you bouncing towards the food court, to get some General Tso’s chicken, when Becky say, “No. Let’s eat next door, at the Ponderosa.”

  “That place look pricey,” you say.

  Becky wink. “Today’s special. We’ve been friends now for exactly three months and five days. It’s like . . . our anniversary or something.”

  Becky grab your hand, pull you through the mall and across the street, to the all-you-can-eat restaurant. You real excited. They don’t have nothing like that back home.

  Becky taking a bit of this, a bit of that; li’l ants’ nests of food—plenty less than you woulda expect for her size. But you! You make a fuckin’ mountain.

  Back in the booth, she snuggle up—close, close—while you shovel food in your mouth.

  “I was thinking,” she say, pick-picking at her plate, “you could show me your place today. It’s near, right?”

  Like a dumb-ass, you blink a few times. You didn’t plan on making The Move today. You was easing up to it, thinking you needed a few more weeks. Then she woulda be ready to give you the punani. Nah, that’s a lie. You was stalling ’cause you not ready. To horn Judith for the first time. To sex Becky when you ain’t even attracted to her. And not just sex her—no—you have to fuck her, till she seeing stars and you getting stripes. Till she love you and want to keep you in America.

  Rufus in your head: opportunity knocking, boy. Respond.

  Fifteen minutes later, you and Becky on the bus heading to your place.

  Rufus cooking pelau and blasting old-time calypso. When you introduce Becky he switch on the Trini-charm: kiss-up her hand, bear-hug like they’s old friends. She blush and then “Feeling Hot Hot Hot” come on. She bawl, “Oh my God, I love this song!” and start doing a totally outta-time, white-girl conga while she sing, “Olé, olé! Olé, olé!” You and Rufus clap but you feeling shame for Becky. As you turn away and start leading her downstairs to the basement, Rufus slap you twice on the back.

  You turn on the TV; it have nowhere to sit but the bed. It creaking; will the li’l fold-out legs take you plus Becky? You not even sure how to do this: you may be a liar but your prick ain’t; it does always tell the truth.

  She say, “Brrrr! It’s chilly down here,” and latch on to your side.

  You lower your lashes, like you drawing the drapes, and give her a cock-lip smile. You make your voice velvet as you say, “Lemme warm you up.”

  You put a arm ’round Becky, kiss her. Soft, lips only, shy. You still listening for some reaction from your prick. Radio fuckin’ silence.

  Her kiss getting aggressive, she treating your face like chocolate. Still nothing. She dip down suddenly and squeeze your crotch. Still spongy.

  Then Becky push you backwards on the bed. The springs creak again as she wriggle off to kneel on the floor. When her lips wrap you up, a sigh leak through your teeth. You don’t have to worry again. In fact, you don’t have to do nothing but lie there, staring at the beams-and-them. Becky using her tongue like a magic wand. You don’t know where she pull out a rubbers from, but she rolling it on for you. Then she climb on. Slow. And you feel like you’s Moses rod and she’s the Red Sea. “Oh Gawwwd,” you moan. If this was Judith you woulda look—spread them knees and look, play with it li’l bit. But now, you squeeze your eyes tight, tight and wrap your hand in the sheet. You concentrate on the feeling. Not the person. And you tune in your ears to all the cussin’ and groanin’ and all the claims that you’s the biggest she ever had and she think she gonna tear and she in so much pain but it feeling so good to her. And the American accent. Man, you fucking a white chick! With your eyes closed this could be any white chick: Carmen Electra, Anna Nicole Smith—any-damn-body you want it to be.

  YOU AND BECKY been at it for weeks.

  You still sending money for Judith, you still calling. You filling a second barrel—Becky helping.

  It come like you have two lives, two parallel tracks that never cross. You keep hopping lanes but nobody noticing and everybody happy-like-pappy.

  Still, time ticking down. Rufus say you ain’t staying in the basement even one day past six months. “I ain’t harboring no illegal,” he say. “For INS to come kick down my fuckin’ door? Nuh-uh, nigga! I done told you: get that bitch married, or get her pregnant. Or go the fuck home.”

  Something have to happen soon. The tricky part, the part you spend whole nights studying, is how to mention marriage to Becky without looking like a asshole.

  One day, she find you in the aisle, labeling cereal boxes. She giggling so much she resemble the Jell-O heap by Ponderosa. She say she get a letter from her cousin, Naomi, down in Florida—a next ex-Amish chick. Naomi getting married—finally!—in June. Becky want you go to the wedding.

  Like a fuckin’ marksman, you see the shot and take it. “I can’t, babes. Remember, my visa up April 1?” You know she don’t “remember” ’cause you never said it before.

  “This April? Oh my God! That’s two months away,” Becky say. Her hands fly up like two frighten doves. They rest on her mouth.

  She back away from you a few feet, then turn and speed off. She glum and quiet, quiet whole day—nothing you say or do is funny.

  Late that night, you in the basement, watching Knight Rider reruns. Guiltiness resting, like a concrete block, on your conscience. You toying with the idea of calling Trinidad. You need to hear Judith voice; to make sure that the home-fires still burning, that if all else fail you still have her and the boys. You never once, ever cheat on her. This thing you trying with Becky shouldn’t count neither. Yes, you was unfaithful, but it have a bigger picture: you was fuckin’ for betterment. For the whole family.

  Somebody knock the basement door just as the line in Trinidad start ringing. “Vis-i-tor!” The way Rufus say it, you know is Becky.

  You barely hang up the phone before she walk in and slam the door. Face on fire. Huffing and puffing. She might blow the whole damn house down.

  “So that’s it? That was your plan? Fuck the fat girl for a few months, then leave? Go back to the Island? To your kids’ mom? Your wife? Or whatever. I don’t even know.”

  “You have it all wrong,” you say. “I tell you: she and me, we done, babes. T
hat’s why I in America. Look, I know you mad that I never say I leaving so soon. But, to be honest, I was hoping something woulda work out by now, so I wouldn’t have to go. I talk to Ahmed ’bout work permit—but he ain’t biting. It have some chick by Rufus job who willing to get married, but we gotta pay her, like, six thousand or something. I ain’t got that.”

  You doing good so far. Only one lie: about Judith.

  Becky stop shifting from side to side. She listening now, believing—you hope.

  “C’mere,” you say, in your new Yankee twang, as you slide to the edge. When she sit down, you hold her hands and say, “Babes, I wouldn’t play you. It hurting me that you thinking so. This here between us—this shit is real, yo. And I want it get realer. But I’mma run out of options soon. I don’t wanna be one of those guys, like Carlos, who overstay and then gotta spend his whole life dodging cops.”

  “But you wouldn’t have that problem if you stayed,” Becky say.

  “How you figure that?” you ask, faking dumb.

  “We could get married.”

  Boom! But still, you draw back and say, “Naw, babes I couldn’t ask you to . . .”

  “No, I want to. And you wouldn’t have to pay me or anything. ’Cause like you said, this shit is real and we’re heading there anyway. Right? This’ll just be a li’l sooner.”

  “Right,” you say, “but I never want you to feel I using you ’cause . . .”

  “I know you’re not,” Becky say, resting her finger on your lips. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have taken the time . . . been such a gentleman . . . with me.”

  You shrug and look bashful.

  “So, Luther Archibald Junior, will you marry me?”

  As you say yes, your pores and your cock raise the same time. Adrenaline. But you don’t know if is fright or excitement.

  You fuck, and afterwards you go up in the kitchen together and make scramble eggs. Becky spend the whole night this time. Y’all barely fit on the sofa bed but is okay; you don’t do much sleeping anyway. Becky talk and talk, ’bout the wedding, the future. You listen and nod, in a daze almost. You keep seeing Jason face: Christmas morning, two years back, when he rip off the gift-paper and see the remote control tractor he did wish for; and how he start to cry when you drive it and blow the horn—because it get too real, too sudden.

  By morning, though, everything settle; you and Becky raise a new plan, shiny like a foil balloon.

  You not going home April 1. You and Becky getting married in March—a few weeks away. You’ll get a apartment together. You’ll go to a immigration lawyer—it have one in the strip-mall across from the supermarket. Your papers should come through in two, three years. A year or so again for the boys’ papers. By that time, you’ll have a better job, a nicer place to live. They’ll come across.

  Becky, she super-excited. She getting a new, ready-made family for the old one in Pennsylania that cut her off.

  “I’ll love those boys like my own,” she say.

  You won’t actually need her by then, but it nice to hear Becky thinking so.

  And it have a next part to the plan you don’t tell her. After they come across, the boys will file for their mother. You will make sure it happen. Until then, you’ll send money for Judith every month and she will never, ever want for nothing as long as you alive. She might be cold, she might be hard, she might not love you—but she’s your children-mother.

  SUNDAY, YOU CALL home as usual. You tell Judith: Ahmed sponsoring the green card. METs in short, short supply in New York. With all the old machinery in the S-Town Supermarket chain, they need a man with your skills.

  Judith voice get high and girlish as she bawl, “Oh God, for true, Luther?”

  “Is not a now-for-now thing,” you warn. “And it mean I can’t come home in April, maybe not for years. Not until they organize the papers and the lawyer give the green light.”

  “That’s okay,” she quick to say. “We’ll manage. Ain’t we managing now? And the li’l sacrifice is for the boys. So I don’t mind. Do what you have to do, Luther.”

  Humph! Something drop in your belly and drag. You glad Judith making this so easy but, same time, you wishing she struggle—just a li’l bit—with not seeing you for so long. She sounding like you and she been simple business partners this whole time—and the boys is the business.

  Then Judith ask, “So after your papers go in, how long before we could get married?”

  Your blood turn icy-slush in your veins.

  “Ain’t we have to be man-and-wife for you to file for me? Besides, you don’t think is time? Seven years, remember?”

  “W’happen, girl? Like you feel I go leave you out or what? I can’t believe you thinking so low, Judy.”

  She back down. For now.

  MARCH 16, TEN days before your city hall wedding, you in work swiping can beets and trying to decide what color waistband to get with the tuxedo Becky renting. Ahmed peep out his office and shout down the lane, “Lu-ta! Phone call!”

  “Me?” you bawl, jumping up from the stool and dropping the pricing gun. On impact, the thing split in half—you’ll have to glue it together, for the third time.

  “Yes, you, mu-tha-foo-ka.”

  Ahmed watching you hard, hard. He barely move out the doorway to let you in.

  Breathless, you say, “Hello?”

  Then, the nicotine croak: Janice. “Junior? Is you, son?”

  “Yes, Mammy. Is me.” Your mind gone straight to Judith and the boys. Oh God, another shooting by the school!

  Janice start crying and you can’t make out a word. Judith come on. The boys fine, she say.

  “So why allyuh calling me here? I can’t talk.”

  “Listen, you have to come home. Police lock up Gail. And Janice, like she going crazy here.”

  “What?” you say, a li’l too loud. Ahmed step back in the office. But God help him if he try take this phone out your hand now!

  “Yeah, they say she shoot the old man,” Judith explain.

  “Mr. H? What happen?”

  “The story still hazy. But it look like she was pregnant and she find him with a next woman. He beat she and she loss the child. She did move back in by Janice last week. Then, next thing we know—pow!—she shoot the man.”

  “Fuck!”

  You walk back to your stool but you don’t sit. You just stand up there, middle of the canned foods aisle, staring down at the pricing gun—how it skin-open on the floor, orange stickers spilling out like guts.

  You, is you to blame, Luther.

  You shoulda do what you really wanted to do when you first hear ’bout Gail and Mr. H. You shoulda walk up in his cloth-store, ask to see him in his office, close the door, lean over his desk, point in his face, and threaten his Syrian ass. You shoulda warn him that Gail not alone in this world, that she have a big brother. A brother who know every Pleasantview backstreet inside out, who have friends in Lost Boyz gang, Red Kings gang, and other low places. And that he need to get the fuck outta Gail life.

  But then, how she woulda eat? You wasn’t helping.

  Okay. Then why you never talk to Gail sheself? Why you never tell her what you, as a man, know ’bout men like Mr. H? That he was planning to suck her dry like a plum seed, then move on to the next ripe one. Why you never warn her? That when you fucking for betterment is okay to let them keep you, but you must never let them own you. Control your damn feelings. And don’t plan no long future with them—get what you need and get out.

  But no, you didn’t do none of that. Ain’t, Luther?

  You pick up the pricing gun and reroll the tape. With some slapping and squeezing, you reattach the two halves. A few practice clicks and it working again. You crouch to the bottom shelf and start shooting cans, shooting fast.

  Fast like how your heart beating.

  Fast like how you thinking.

  What if it was one of your boys in this mess? What if it was li’l Kevin in trouble, and Jason didn�
�t show up? Or the other way around?

  Nah, that’s not how you raising them, Luther. They does stick together.

  Well, they getting older, smarter. What if you don’t go back for Gail, and one day those same boys watch you and say, “Why, Daddy? Ain’t you’s she big brother?”

  HALF HOUR PASS. You done price-out everything.

  You slide off the stool, to the cold floor. Arms across knees, you make a hammock for your head—it heavy. With your own disappointment. And, you steeling yourself to tell Becky that your sister get lock-up and you have to go home tomorrow. And if you survive that, you have to gear up to comfort your mother, to meet Gail lawyer, to walk in the jail. You excited to see the boys again but you ’fraid to see Judith, to lie next to her, lie to her face.

  Judith and Becky. Becky and Judith. You been feeding them so much stories: candy soak in cocaine—they eating out your hands, licking your sticky palms, begging for more. Now, you got to keep everything straight in your head, Luther—at least for the next thirty days—till you make it back to America, till they stamp you for a next six months. Is a rare thing: two back-to-back stamps. But you been lucky so far. Don’t be lucky and coward, Luther. Go brave. If you could do that, nobody getting hurt; everybody staying hopeful. Even you.

  Celeste Mohammed is a lawyer and mother. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lives on the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  Megan Tucker’s “Candidates” was one of the shortest fiction pieces in our fall 2017 issue and also one of the most ambitious. Two sisters tell this story together, and it’s through their unique voice that we hear about this one night in California in 1988. On the surface, there’s a mother selling a crib, but underneath there’s the death of the narrators’ unborn brother, their father’s absence, their immigration to the United States, the election.

  We had read more than three hundred unsolicited submissions by the time we came across this one. I was immediately impressed by the narrative control. There’s so much going on in this deceptively simple and tender story, which means there’s also so much that could have gone wrong in the hands of a less talented writer: the first-person-plural point of view, the political undertones, the sweetness of childhood. But here, no choice is gratuitous, every single piece adds to the whole—a triumphant debut.