can hear Martha’s voice offering advice, as usual. “Keep your mouth shut,” she tells me. “And get the hell out of there. Begging will do you no good.”
But I can’t stop myself. “I know it looks bad, Doctor. I mean Eleni and what she did. But we’ve been reintegrating for years. Jackson, Logan, Riley, Aria, and Chloe? They’re gone, Doctor, banished. Others are on their way out. It’s a hard path we’re on, but we’re moving. If you can help us, all the better. We want to unify.”
“Each of you? Every one?”
A gotcha question, but I’m ready this time. “Those who don’t will be eliminated. They’ll be the first to go.”
CHAPTER TWO
MARTHA
As I come out of the shower, I stop before a full-length mirror to examine our thirty-seven-year-old body. It’s an attractive body we share. Sexy enough for Eleni’s purposes anyway. But arousal’s not on my schedule. No, I’m fascinated by the scars—our legacy—the perfectly round cigarette burns on our abdomen. A spider’s web of thin white lines that could only have been made by a razor-sharp blade. There are other scars, too, but they only show up on X-rays.
I have no memory of my father, now in prison, or of his sadistic friends. Nor do I remember Benny Aceveda and his wife, the foster parents who rented us out by the hour. I can’t picture these assholes. I wouldn’t recognize them if they walked into the room and farted. That’s not my job. That task belongs to our rememberer-in-chief, Tina. It’s not fair to put this on a girl who will remain nine years old forever. But we’re not some academic paper on functional psychology. We’re not some bullshit theory. We’re real and the proof is Tina, herself. That she exists. That she suffers. That despite everything, she hopes to survive.
Our past is imprinted somewhere inside the brain we share, but Tina alone has access. If that saves the rest of us a lot of pain, the arrangement has a serious downside. Tina’s attempted to kill herself twice. The last time, only six months ago, she came very close to solving our problems once and for all. Fortunately, we woke up in our own bed. No cops, no hospital, no doctor. All in the family.
I’m not much interested in our past this morning and my inspection of our body is cursory. I’m Martha, family functioner. Without me, the rest of the assholes wouldn’t have food on the table, clothes on their backs, a roof over their heads. They wouldn’t have electricity or a telephone or toilet paper.
Victoria, if you talk to her, will claim that she’s the one who got us on disability, food stamps, Medicaid, and a Section 8 rent subsidy. The four engines of our economic survival. The only problem is that she’s full of shit. Yeah, she went to the interviews (and did a good job), but I filled out every form and there were hundreds. I also made the necessary calls when things went wrong, as they usually did. And I kept track of the bureaucrats, their names, their phone numbers. And I wrote the goddamned appeals and deposited the checks and created our tight, tight budget. And I’m still the one who pushes a shopping cart over to the food bank when no amount of budgeting can turn our monthly fifteen hundred dollars into a living income.
What I am, when I think about it, is a nasty old lady trapped in a young woman’s body. (Not the worst, really. My brother, Kirk, is a heterosexual male trapped in a woman’s body. His few friends think he’s a dyke.) Still, bottom line, joy is not part of my game plan. I’m a drudge, by necessity and inclination. This is my value, toilet paper on the roll in the bathroom, a clean towel hanging on the rack, a shiny white sink. I know it—we all know it—but at least I’m not a pompous asshole. Like Victoria.
Today is laundry day at the Grand residence, a tiny apartment in a crumbling Fort Greene tenement. I grab the laundry basket, empty the hamper, change the sheets in the bedroom. The same routine tasks that none of the others will do. Instead, they toss their clothes on the floor and leave dishes in every room. If I didn’t clean up and go heavy on the Combat, it’d be cockroach heaven up here. As it is, I trap a mouse in the apartment at least once a week.
Changing the sheets on our bed isn’t as simple as it seems because the room is barely wide enough for the bed frame. There’s not even space for a night table and I have to wiggle my way down to the head of the bed, my ass jammed against the wall. I’m about halfway down when someone knocks on the door in the other room.
I think I know who it is. Our deal with Section 8 requires us to pay $200 a month toward the rent, our $1,500 income ($1,400 from disability and $100 in food stamps) too grand for a total subsidy. In New York City, housing crisis capital of the goddamned world.
Our check from disability is direct deposited into our checking account on the first Wednesday of each month. That can be as late as the sixth when the rent’s due on the first. My landlord is aware of this, but he always sends Doyle, his scumbag super, to break balls. Doyle instinctively realizes there’s something wrong with us. He’s been at the door too many times, met too many of us. That includes Eleni, who blew him off for the pitiful jerk he is.
I open the door, but it’s not Doyle. It’s a black woman about my age extending an ID from the Human Resources Administration.
“Ms. Portman,” she announces. “From Adult Protective Services.”
My hand, the one on the door, twitches. That’s how much I want to slam the door in her face. I pretty much dislike everyone—Victoria insists that I’m not fit for human company—but I actually hate bureaucrats. We come to them as beggars and they never let us forget it. Or lose an opportunity to display their power over us.
I make it as simple as possible: “What do you want?”
“To inspect your apartment.”
“Just like that?”
Portman shakes her head. She’s tall and thin, wearing a midnight-blue pants suit over a lavender blouse. An expensive leather briefcase hangs from a shoulder strap. When she speaks, her tone is sympathetic yet firm. So sorry, but step aside.
“The inspection is court mandated,” she tells me.
“And that gives you the right to come here without calling ahead?”
Her lips move, but she doesn’t speak for a moment. I know she’s choosing her words, but, again, her tone is not unkind.
“I’m not your enemy,” she claims. “Our mission at Protective Services is to protect. That means evaluating your everyday living conditions, which doesn’t work if I call you in advance.”
“What if there was no one ho—” I have to close my eyes for a moment as Doyle appears at the head of the stairs. The moron’s wearing his customary T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans belted across fifty pounds of quivering blubber. He’s flashing his customary smirk, too. Displaying a row of large, nicotine-yellow teeth behind a pair of wet lips.
“What the hell is that?” Portman asks.
I glance at her, noting the faint smile on her face. “That’s Doyle, the super. He’s after the rent.”
“You’ve fallen behind?”
“Yeah, four days.”
The farce intensifies when the door across the hall opens to reveal Marshal, my neighbor. He steps into the hallway, closely followed by a cloud of marijuana smoke. Marshal’s apartment
