The kitchen beckoned Geno every day. He spent most of his unscheduled time down there, prepping and cleaning and cooking. After two weeks of low-grade nausea, he was nibbling his way back to an appetite. Betty, the head cook, was indulgent with his grazing. A piece of carrot here. A stick of celery there. An apple. A banana. Another banana. An oatmeal cookie. A third banana with some peanut butter on it. He could finally taste things. His stomach wanted to be full again.
The buzzing at the edges of his brain was driving him crazy. It was like being touched with a live wire, making his awareness fade out. Only for a split second, like the vacuum apex of a yawn. Once or twice wasn’t anything, but getting zapped all damn day was annoying as fuck. Still, between mini-shocks, his head felt a little clearer. A chink of light shone into the gloom and he was noticing things and people. Getting used to the facility and his place in it.
His first month, he’d be strictly monitored. His antidepressants were kept at the infirmary. If he wanted an Ambien, an aspirin or even two lousy Tums, he had to ask the nurses for it. He could only leave the facility to go to appointments with Dr. Bloom and Dr. Stein, and only with a staff member accompanying him. Vern could sign Geno out for an activity or meal, but curfew was nine-thirty and not a minute later.
Everyone at EP had to chip in with the running of the place. To build community, Geno guessed. Besides residents, the kitchen saw a slew of volunteers during the week, each with his or her regular days. Geno looked forward to Mondays and Fridays, when a woman named Stavroula cooked. She was a mature version of his soap and water type. Always looking a little tousled and windblown, like she stepped straight off a sailboat and into the kitchen.
She was a big woman, easily five-ten, with solid shoulders and an impressive butt. Glancing at her, Geno tried to find an appropriate adjective to capture her fleshy presence. She wasn’t fat. She had curves but the curves were long and vertical. Geno recalled his grandfather often using the term zaftig. He wondered if it meant women like Stav. Stacked and mighty, like the Commodores would say.
She’s a brick…house.
A guy named Javier volunteered on Mondays and Fridays, too. He was ridiculously good-looking and should’ve been an asshole. Instead, he was self-effacing. Quiet, but his silence was abstracted. He always looked occupied with something, brows furrowed as if working out a problem. Sometimes his lips moved like he was talking to himself, to the point where Geno wondered if maybe Jav had a few screws loose upstairs. Staff and residents teased him about talking to imaginary friends and he always laughed along.
“It gets worse as I get older,” he said.
Down in the kitchen, EP was a first name world, with the same stiff politeness as above stairs. Jav didn’t get in Geno’s space or ask personal questions. They often worked long, silent stretches side by side while listening to the radio, which was usually tuned to NPR.
“When I was a kid,” Jav said, “I thought little people lived inside the radio.”
Geno smiled. “My dad convinced me a little man lived inside the refrigerator who turned the light on and off.”
The exchange didn’t go any further. For some reason, Geno’s tongue got tied-up when he was around Jav. Constantly thinking up and rejecting things to say and not sure why he cared how he sounded to Jav’s ears.
If Pablo or Juan was working a kitchen shift, Jav spoke Spanish with them. It was half-conversation and half-competition to see who could speak the fastest. Jav always won.
“Fucking Dominicans,” Pablo said. “You talk like your tongue’s on fire.”
Jav laughed. “And I’m one of the slower ones.”
Juan glanced at Geno. “Sorry,” he said in English. “We’re being rude.”
“No you’re not,” Geno said in Spanish.
Pablo laughed and fired a carrot across the work table. It was a typical substitute for physical interaction around here. Instead of punching a guy’s shoulder or giving him a shove, you threw something at him.
“How’s a nice Jewish boy like you speak Spanish?” Pablo said.
“My mother was from Mexico. Her grandparents immigrated there from Lithuania.”
“¿En serio?” Jav said, eyebrows raised. “When?
“I don’t know, in the twenties, maybe? Whenever the U.S. started to make immigration quotas.”
“So technically, you’re not Latino,” Juan said.
“No, I am,” Geno said. “My maternal grandmother is Mexican. She converted.”
“How’d her family take it?” Jav asked.
Geno shrugged. “I didn’t hear that part of the story, but I imagine not too well.”
“Every family has their hang-up,” Jav said. For a moment, all the muscles in his face tightened like a fist, his eyebrows pulling together. Then he sighed and caught Geno staring. “¿Qué lo qué?” he said, smiling like a big brother. Shyness wrapped around Geno’s throat like a scarf and he didn’t answer.
Jav usually spent his breaks writing by hand in a little notebook. Sometimes like the pen was on fire, sometimes with a lot of heavy, frustrated exhales and staring into space.
“Are you writing a story?” Geno asked one day. “Or is that a journal?”
Jav looked up. “Stream of consciousness journal. Hopefully to be a book someday.”
“A book about what?”
“I don’t have the elevator pitch yet. Much to my agent’s annoyance.”
“You have an agent? So, you’re like a real writer?”
“Well, I often feel like a fraud. But yeah, I write for a living.”
“How many books do you have?”
“Three published. The fourth is being edited.” Jav fanned the pages. “This mess will be my fifth.”
“Huh. Would I know any of them?”
“I write under a pen name. Gil Rafael.” Jav told him the titles and Geno shook his head, not recognizing any.
“How’d you come up with Gil Rafael?” he asked.
Jav ran his palm in circles around the cover of the notebook. “Gil is a family name. Rafael is my dad.”
“What’s you dad do?”
“He died when I was seventeen but he owned a restaurant in Queens.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Geno hesitated. “My dad was a lawyer.” Another beat. “He died last summer. I was seventeen, too.”
“Lo siento.”
“Is your mom alive?”
“No,” Jav said. “I left home right after my dad passed and was estranged from my mother and sister. They’ve both passed away. My nephew and I are the last leaves on the family tree.”
“Why’d you leave home?”
Jav pushed his lips out a little, brow furrowed. “A cousin and I got into some trouble. And he let me take the fall. Threw me under the bus, if you want to be honest. Everyone turned on me. It got abusive and I left.”
Geno’s eyes seemed to blink in slow motion. “Do you ever see him?”
“No, he died too,” Jav said with a faint smile. “Because the tale wasn’t tragic enough.”
“Did you ever find out why he turned on you?”
“No. That will be a mystery until I reach the other side.” Jav’s broad shoulders shrugged. “And I’m not sure I need to know anymore. Somehow I have a feeling he was caught up in a tragedy of his own, and he did what he did to survive. Until he couldn’t do it anymore.” He picked up the notebook and whacked it lightly against his other palm. “I don’t know. I spent so many years embittered and angry. You reach a point where letting go and forgiving is so much easier. I mean, it still matters. It shaped my life and made me who I am. But all things considered…” His gaze went around the kitchen and came back to Geno. “It’s not such a bad thing.”
Geno nodded, lost in thought as he touched the edges where his story and Jav’s story overlapped. Sharp and keen with betrayal, dull with sadness. The space between where why lived.
Why? Why’d you do it? Tell me why.
Your hand poised to knock, to make a fist and bang on the door and demand why?
But you didn’t.
I’m not sure I need to know anymore.