Goals for the Day
1. Make more eye contact with folks.
2. Smile more when you see folks.
3. Ask a personal question when someone asks you one.
4. Don’t overshare about stuff that bugs you.
5. Be yourself, ’cuz who else can you be!
Evan found that he’d been staring at the pad too long, and he looked away, reminded himself of the Fourth Commandment: Never make it personal.
He cleared his throat, a rare nonverbal tell. “If the cops ask about the scrape on your cheek, tell them you got it moving a crate at the office.”
“Moving a crate at the office.”
“That’s right. And you’re gonna get up in the morning and go to work as if nothing’s happened.”
Trevon’s upper teeth pinched his lower lip, and Evan could see he was biting down very, very hard. Yet he nodded.
“Do not mention me,” Evan said. “That’s a rule. A very important rule. Understand? No matter what.”
“Mention who?”
“Me.”
“I was making a joke,” Trevon said.
“Oh.”
Evan did his best not to look at the list on the bureau, at the frog stuffed animal lovingly tucked in. He had to treat this mission like any other. Which meant treating Trevon like any other client.
“I have to figure out where to find the men who did this to you,” Evan said. “You didn’t overhear any names?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you tell me anything distinctive about the men?”
“Well, one had hair that was brown like chocolate brown and it was cut about two and a half inches—”
“I mean really distinctive. Piercings, tattoos, scars.”
“Muscley One had these tattoos on his inner forearms that were, like, each a half skull so when you put them together like this”—a quick demonstration—“they’d make a whole skull. But I didn’t get to see him do it.”
“That’s good,” Evan said. “That’s helpful.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t know the location of the compound where they brought you?”
“No, sir. My head was covered and I lost count after we turned left, left, right—”
“Did you see the license plate of the truck?”
“It was a new truck with plates like from the dealer but they were dark so I couldn’t read them. If it was new, I don’t know why he added new-car smell ’cuz wouldn’t it have that already and also he was worried I’d get puke on the new seats and so he made me wipe my mouth with a towel.”
“The towel you held on to,” Evan said. “Like Blankie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you still have the towel?”
Trevon stood up, but then his knees seemed to go weak, because he sat back down and leaned forward with his hands on his thighs, the mattress squeaking. Then he stood up again, and Evan followed him into the cramped front room of the apartment. Trevon went over to the yellow tile counter that passed for a kitchen, knelt, and pulled from the trash can what looked like a hand towel.
He handed it to Evan, the microfiber crusted with dried vomit, a ripe odor wafting off it.
Evan turned the white towel over, spotted the stitched decal on the other side: 24 HOUR FITNESS. He tore off the white tag, pocketed it, and handed the towel back to Trevon.
Trevon clutched it to his chest, his eyes starting to water. He squeezed them shut and muttered something to himself under his breath, repeating it in a loop, adjusting his eyeglasses again and again until the earpieces turned the skin above his ears raw.
“Trevon. Trevon.”
Trevon opened his eyes, sniffed hard. Then he leaned on the table as if he were dizzy.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
Trevon thought for a moment. “Yesterday at 12:05.”
“You’re no good to us if you can’t focus.”
“I’m sorry.”
Evan opened the refrigerator. It was filled with pineapple, cantaloupe, lemon chicken, apricot jam, squash soup, sweet potato, carrots, and oranges. On the counter were Cap’n Crunch’s Orange Creampop Crunch, Cheerios, bananas, and a dozen boxes of mac and cheese.
Evan looked at him.
Trevon gave a faint cough, a nervous tic, then did it again. “I only … I only eat food that’s yellow or orange.”
“I understand,” Evan said. “I only drink vodka.”
“Really?”
“And water.” Evan tossed him a banana. “You need calories.”
Trevon peeled it, took a bite, then set it on the table. They were both still standing. “I didn’t ask not to be normal,” he said, with sudden anger.
“No,” Evan said.
“Even if I don’t fit in, I’m still special. I still matter.”
Evan said, “That’s true.”
“I always mattered as much as anyone else to my family. Uncle Joe-Joe said blood’s thicker than water. Now I don’t have anyone to see me like that.”
Evan studied the angry twist of skin between Trevon’s brows. “It’ll be hard.”
“You don’t know!” Trevon shouted. “You don’t know how it feels to have someone try’n wipe you off the face of the whole entire planet like you were never even there!”
Evan thought of taping the surveillance photos to the wall of Apartment 705 in D.C., all those other Orphans, their faces crossed out by Magic Marker, their lives redacted by the sitting president of the United States.
He didn’t say anything, because there was nothing to say that would be useful.
Trevon raised a stiff hand and pressed his palm to the side of his head. This seemed to calm him. Finally he said, “I wish Kiara was here.”
“Your sister. Can we reach her?”
“No,” Trevon said. “Look.”
He went around the table to a tiny computer desk and came back with a glossy pamphlet. Evan scanned it. It detailed a three-month church mission designed to help provide potable water to Mayan Indians living in two hundred remote villages scattered through the jungles and mountains above the Río Dulce in Guatemala.
“There’s no phones,” Trevon said. “And she doesn’t barely ever check e-mail. She doesn’t even know what happened to Uncle Joe-Joe and Aisha and Mama.…” He paused, drew a few breaths. “Mama,” he repeated, and the grief in his voice was palpable enough to put a hitch in Evan’s next breath.
“Your sister,” Evan said, getting them both back on track.
“There’s no way to reach her.”
“That’s good news, too,” Evan said. “Because it means no one else can reach her either.”
Trevon chewed his lip and thought about that, and then his eyes changed. “Right,” he said. “Right.”
He took another bite of the banana and then set it down again. “I have to feed Cat-Cat,” he said, rushing to fill a plastic bowl with kibble. At the noise a slender tabby materialized from its hiding place behind the curtain. “Mama bought me Cat-Cat. I’m responsible to him and he’s responsible to me.”
“She sounds like she was a good mom.”
Trevon closed his eyes again, fiddled with his eyeglasses, and made the noises he’d made before below his breath. Some kind of mantra? At his feet Cat-Cat dined obliviously, crunching away.
“Trevon. What are you saying?”
He opened his eyes. “We don’t cry and we don’t feel sorry for ourself.”
Evan took a moment to find words again. “It’s okay,” he said. “You can cry.”
“No,” Trevon said. And then, more forcefully, “No.”
“All right.”
Trevon sank into the chair. That’s all there was at the little breakfast table. One chair.
He looked up at Evan. “Do you cry?”
“I didn’t go through what you went through.”