Gunter looks up at the ceiling, licks his thumb, and wipes away a smudge of dirt, and the skulls on his arm seem to stare down at Excel. Below, two small boys enter the game room, divvying up a handful of gold tokens.
“You can have your job back,” Gunter finally says. “Same pay as before.”
Excel squeezes the sides of the ladder, a mix of relief and a sudden fear of heights. “Really?”
“Yeah. But it’s like probation.”
“Understood.”
“And no overtime.”
“Not a problem.”
“And any tips, you split with me.”
“Will do.”
“You’re gonna work weekends.”
“Of course.”
“And I get to hit you.”
There’s no smile on Gunter’s face, just a look that says take it or leave it.
“Just one time,” Gunter says. “In the gut. That shit you said the day you left, nobody ever talked like that to me. Nobody. Kinda knocked the wind out of me, tell you the truth. Seems like justice that I get to knock the wind out of you.” He moves three rungs down, skips the rest and jumps to the ground, the thud of his landing reverberating through the ladder.
“Come on down,” Gunter says. “Let’s get this over with.” He cracks his knuckles, and Excel thinks of his $10,000 debt to Hello City, figures this is the start of paying them back.
He begins his descent. Below, the two boys each drop a token into the Skee-Ball game. One looks Excel’s way quickly, then gets back to the game. Excel has been hit before—he thinks of Maxima’s spankings when he was growing up, the occasional smack to the head the times he got mouthy. But a punch to the gut, the fast full force of it—Excel has no idea what could happen. Maybe his breath—one single body-filling breath—will gush out, leaving him hollow, full of nothing but pain. Or maybe Gunter’s fist goes so deep that Excel’s organs—just for a moment—collide and squish together, all that cushioning blood and air between lost. Maybe he’ll puke or bleed or both, hurt so much he’ll weep. But all those scenarios are in the future; for now, Gunter has him against the wall as he pulls back his arm, making a fist, and there’s nothing Excel can do besides stand there and take it, so he repeats to himself a thing he used to say in a moment such as this, a sad truth of life that might, for the time being, mean an escape from it. “Not here,” he says, so softly he can barely hear himself. “I’m not here. I’m not really here.”
6
Excel’s tenth birthday began as all the ones before it: he blinked awake and found Maxima standing over him. “You’re older,” she said.
He knew the celebration ahead: A picnic by the sphinxes at Evergreen Lawn Cemetery. Subway sandwiches and Doritos. A single candle sunk halfway into a Hostess cupcake. He got up from the couch. “What time are we going to the cemetery?” he asked.
“No cemetery. Not this year.”
He thought he was in trouble, that he’d done something wrong. “Then where?”
“San Francisco,” she said.
Just ten miles from Colma, and Excel had been there only once. He must have been five or six, and despite a promise to ride the cable car, he ended up sitting all morning by a watercooler in the waiting room of some downtown office, while Maxima and Joker met with someone—they didn’t say who or why—in another room. When the meeting ended, they went straight to the BART station and went back home, Maxima’s face like a stone the whole ride over, and for days after that.
“Eat breakfast,” she said, “then get dressed. Wear nice clothes, okay?” She patted his head, then walked over to the window, stared out.
He toasted a pan de sal and ate it with margarine and sugar, then went to Maxima’s room and changed into a white polo shirt and blue corduroys, the best clothes he owned. He went to the bathroom and as he brushed his teeth he heard what sounded like Joker scolding Maxima in Tagalog so fast that Excel could follow only one phrase, which Joker said over and over. Ang bata, ang bata. The child, the child.
They stopped talking when Excel returned to the living room. Maxima was by the door, dressed in a black sweater and jeans, hair up in a small, tight bun, the red strap of her purse like a line across her body. She looked serious, like today was about business, but Joker was still in his pajamas and slippers. “You’re not coming, Grandmaster?” Excel asked. Joker shook his head, then handed him a ten-dollar bill and a dollar coin, his usual birthday gift. Before Excel could thank him, Joker took hold of his shoulders, squeezed hard, and pulled up slightly, like he was trying to make Excel taller. He said something in Tagalog, looked at Maxima, then let him go.
They took BART to San Francisco and got off at the Powell Street station, took a long escalator up to street level, where dozens of tourists were already lined up for the cable car. “Can we?” Excel asked, pointing to the ticket booth, and Maxima said, “It’s your birthday. Of course.” They bought the tickets, waited in line for nearly an hour, then finally boarded a cable car so packed there was room for only Excel to sit; Maxima held on to a pole and stood on the edge.
The ride began slowly, flatly, but Maxima looked anxious, her lips moving, just barely; Excel guessed she was whispering an orasyon to herself, which made him think there was some kind of trouble ahead. Stop looking like that, he thought, and nearly said it, until the cable car suddenly jolted, and Excel could see how steep and high they were; if the brakes gave out, they would all slide backward downhill to their deaths.
The cable car climbed on, the whole city tilting and askew behind the straight line of Maxima. “Don’t let go,” he told her, holding the red strap of her purse, and she gave him a look that said, Me? Let go? Puwede ba?
THE END OF THE LINE WAS FISHERMAN’S WHARF, AND THEY WERE the first to step off. The main drag was monotonous with souvenir shops and seafood restaurants, and Excel stopped only to look at the outdoor tanks crammed with lobsters and crabs, their claws bound in thick yellow rubber bands. For his birthday lunch, Maxima bought them two clam chowders served in bowls made of actual bread, a thing Excel had never seen. They ate on the curb, watched a man disguised as a bush reach out to scare unwitting passersby, as tourists laughed and took pictures. “Idiots,” Maxima said. “You can see his feet under the leaves. How can anybody fall for that?” But Excel laughed at all the people who did, and Maxima even let him drop a quarter into the man’s tip jar.
The chowder was fine but the bread bowls were soggy; they tossed them in the trash and moved on to Pier 39, pushed through crowds to get to the center, where a double-decker carousel started up, organ music loud and lights blinking. Excel noticed some of the horses had fish tails from the waist down. “I want to ride,” he said.
“Later,” she said, “first, we need to talk.”
The feeling returned, that he’d done something wrong. “It’s my birthday,” he said, “I don’t want to talk,” but she took his wrist and led him to the other side of the pier, to an empty spot on the far end, overlooking floating platforms packed with sleeping sea lions.
They stood side by side against the metal rail. “You’re ten years old now, so I’m going to tell you something,” Maxima said. “And I don’t want you to complain or whine or cry. Understand?”