He put on his Army Strong shirt, the black one. Flipped his hood over his head. He looked like a monk. The pills rattled when he dug in his jacket for his Velcro wallet. He clumped out of the locker room in his boots. Noticing that they weren’t tied, he took a knee on the corrugated rubber mat and did up his laces.
He went to the supplement counter where they sold protein shakes. Sweat was welling out of his bad skin. He was asked what he wanted. The mass builder, he pointed. He circled the weight room floor, drinking from the paper cup with the heavy chalky liquid in it.
He went to the preacher bench and set his shake down on the floor. It was the middle of the afternoon and there was hardly anyone in the gym except a Caribbean woman folding towels. He leaned forward for the bar and started doing curls. Between sets, he poured the mass builder in his mouth and swallowed.
A manager appeared across the steel and white room and came over to him. Skinner, who seemed to be watching several things at once, kept curling the weight. The manager was over six feet tall. He had muscular arms and wore his jeans pulled up in a way that divided his butt cheeks.
Excuse me, sir.
It was not clear whether the manager had his attention. The hooded sweatshirt concealed Skinner, draped him, radiating clammy heat, and the stink of sweat and metal, rubbed off the weights, came off him.
Excuse me, sir.
Air hissed out of Skinner’s teeth. He dropped the bar in the rack.
Yeah.
The manager, who outweighed him by perhaps sixty pounds, said:
We don’t allow boots on the exercise floor, sir.
I’m almost done.
Finish your next set, and then you have to change into sneaker attire.
I’ve got like five more, then I’m done.
But the manager insisted he change immediately. So he went into the locker room and pulled his boots off and tossed them in his locker. Then he went back out and worked out in his sock feet until he was spoken to again.
They were wrestling in a doorway. She pushed him off and pulled her sweatshirt down. Come on, come on. It’s cool. I won’t. He backed her into the door until she pushed him off. No wait no wait just trust me. It was cold. He tried to grind against her. She raised her knee. He jerked back. She put a finger in his face: I am you sister. I don’t have a sister. She held his wrists and when he broke her grip, she dodged away laughing. He hugged her and she took his hands off and forced them to his side. No touch. Just let me go like this. No. What’s wrong? They look at us. He turned to see who she meant, but there was no one there.
That’s funny. Come on. He leaned into her. He got his hand inside her sweatshirt and managed to touch her breast just barely as she struggled.
Stop! she ordered. She shoved him off and kicked him in the leg. He turned sideways and she punched him in the arm.
Let’s not fight.
She grabbed the fabric of his clothing as if to choke him with it or rend it. The strap of his assault pack got caught in her grip.
Wait up.
He stepped away and readjusted his pack behind him.
All right, game on.
No. You are bad boy.
Aw, come on. Come back.
No.
Seriously. Come back.
No. You are the wild boy. Out of control.
He followed after her as she went out onto the main avenue where there were people and lights. She acted as if she were browsing the markets, surveying this and that. She clasped her hands behind her back.
Look at this apple.
He had caught up with her.
Are you mad for real?
She looked at the crowd of people buying things.
Look at this peach. Pear. Melon. No.
They stood on the edge of the light from the bare bulbs that had been set up in the market so that people could see the produce, him in his pale loose camouflage gear, both of them unhooded, with their strong heads like two animals who had wandered in from the dark out of curiosity.
I carry maybe one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand of this melon, she said. Me and my mother.
She knocked one with her knuckles.
He rubbed it.
Feels like somethin to me.
Look at this fish, she pointed.
The fish were large and heavy. She read the cardboard sign planted in the ice. Six dollar. Hm, she said.
You into fish?
It’s expensive.
They wandered along the margin, shoppers streaming around them out into the night. He took a chance and put an arm around her. She said, No, like this, and took his arm in hers.
Wanna hit a bar?
But she said, No, we go up here.
At the top of the hill, there was a silver cart with a minaret spinning on top and smoke billowing out almost invisibly in the dark. You could smell the smoke. Painted on the side of the cart were the words Xinjiang Shaokao One Dollar. The vendor, who had a bag of charcoal by his cooler, wore a surgical mask and military fatigues. He was fanning the grill with a piece of cardboard. They watched the coals glow like red teeth. One by one the vendor turned the skewers over.
Liangge yang! Zou Lei sang out.
Two lamb, the vendor repeated in Chinese, from under his surgical mask.
What’d you tell him? Skinner asked.
I order the lamb kawap. I tell you before, I will invite you the real Chinese food.
Lade bulade?
Lade.
What’d he say?
He ask if he make it spice or not spice.
The vendor took a pinch of spice out of a cup and sprinkled it over the grill. When the meat was ready, he snipped the ends of the skewers off with meat scissors. Two lamb! He handed Zou Lei the skewers like a bouquet and took her money.
Your nanpengyou? the vendor asked.
You could say that.
American fellas have money, don’t they?
I wouldn’t know.
Everyone knows except you. Why don’t you have him pay?
You’re so concerned!
The vendor pulled down his surgical mask, revealing a lean face. He addressed himself to Skinner. You, he said, rubbing his fingers together. Money.
What? Skinner said.
The vendor went on with tending the fire and turning the meat and checking in his cooler.
You concern yourself with a lot, Zou Lei said.
Just looking out for you, sister.
Oh, that’s how it is.
That’s how it is.
Keep your eye on that fire. Don’t burn your little sticks, Skinner said.
The man made a tolerant sound, as if he were humming a lullaby, placating a child.
Zou Lei took Skinner’s arm and walked him down the block. There were condominiums and trees. They left the avenue behind. The concrete sparkled where it was not in shadow. They leaned on the scaffolding to eat.
What’s with him?
Maybe he is angry. The Chinese is poor people. Maybe he don’t have enough money to get the wife, the family.
He can’t afford a girl.
Or they cannot afford to live together. A lot of family is apart.
So he’s a hater.
Yes, maybe. Maybe he is jealousy.
I get it, Skinner said.
They were eating, their chins covered in grease.
You ever have this one before?
Yup, he said chewing. At like haji shops and stuff.
You like?
Hell yeah. It’s good. Messed me up a little.
How it mess you?
He chewed.
Like digestion or whatever.
You are not used to it. But if you can be used to it, it is very healthy. The people who eats this one grows up up up up.