Mira Corpora (6 page)

It's the only way to get his attention. The fat kid is virtually a zombie. His eyes are dead, as if any spark of personality has been buried beneath an avalanche of bad fortune. He lets out a pathetic bleat and clambers up the fire escape, vanishing onto a nearby roof. Typically, the only edibles he's left in the dumpster are the remains of the oranges the restaurant serves with its fortune cookies. I collect several slices and stuff them into my pockets. I pat my sweatshirt to make sure the tape player and my cassette are still there. It's time to find some real food.

Walking the streets, on the lookout for any of the scattered Luchos, I spot several more silver tags. They materialize in out-of-the-way places: The lip of a mailbox, the back of a crosswalk sign, the inner curb of a sidewalk. At first, I figure they must be different from the graffiti on the wall. But the design is always the same. The crossed-out king's crown. The word “Seen.” Nobody else seems to pay much attention to this graffiti.

Now that they're on my radar, the tags appear everywhere. They blanket the row of abandoned buildings near the park. They're scrawled over kicked-in doorways, next to corroded fire escapes, across boarded-up windows. They bloom on ravaged walls and overflowing trash cans. An enormous silver crown glints off the bus shelter for the crosstown local. I run my fingers along its lines and trace the contours, trying to read some message in the tack and texture of the paint.

My body starts to shiver. There's a subterranean surge of excitement as I remove the tape case from my sweatshirt and place it next to the graffiti. After a careful comparison of the handwriting, there's no doubt: The person who painted these is the same one who left me the cassette.

I want to believe these tags are encrypted personal messages. They're puzzles to solve. They're an invitation whose time is running out. I need some space to deliberate, so I hop the nearby fence and wander through the park. I select an empty wooden bench near the playground. I suck on several orange rinds while I try to untangle my thoughts.

I find myself staring at a nearby lamppost. There's another tag but this one looks different. Maybe it's a trick of the light, but the image of the crossed-out crown seems to shimmer. I kneel on the asphalt to study it up close. My fingers trace the curves of the design. It has a slippery feel. The tag appears smeared and I can't figure out why until I look down at my hands. The paint is still wet.

The person must be nearby. I spring to my feet and begin to search the park. Everyone around me becomes a suspect: The dog-walker with three lunging hounds on a single leash; the heavy-lidded woman whose shopping bags encircle her feet; the bum with the rabbinical beard and newspaper shoes who greets passersby with kissing noises.

I exit the park and madly scan the streets. My mind buzzes like a burning beehive. I'm looking for anyone smuggling a can of spray paint. I scrutinize the shifty-eyed punk sprawled in a doorway with his shoplifted cans of warm beer. The Hispanic man perched in front of the bodega, massaging the batteries of his busted cell phone. The drag queen who touches up her rouge while waiting for the express bus. Their blank expressions don't give anything away. Maybe they're not part of this game.

I scour the neighborhood, methodically threading my way through the grid of streets and occasionally zigzagging headlong down one of the avenues, but I don't have any luck and eventually return to my base. When I reach the Chinese restaurant, a pony-tailed Asian waitress is stationed next to the nearby pay phone, chain-smoking a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. It looks like she's about to say something to me when the phone rings.
She places her hand over the receiver in a proprietary way but doesn't pick it up. While I wait for this curious drama to play out, I stare into the window of the restaurant. A trio of teenagers are huddled around a pot of tea and an order of steamed dumplings. Their fingers are coated in silver spray paint.

I peek my head inside. These two boys and the girl are the only customers in the dingy dining room. They seem lost in heady conversation. A cardboard stencil is propped next to the girl's tea cup. It's a king's crown with a line through it. As I ease myself inside, the metal prayer bell tied to the door handle gives a harsh jingle. The trio spins around.

I stumble a few steps toward them. My mind stammers. I'm dumbstruck, or terrified, or maybe just overexcited. No emotion stands still long enough to name. I have no idea how to explain myself, so I remove the plastic tape case from my sweatshirt and hold it out. By way of introduction.

The trio silently consults one another, then motions me over to their booth. None of them seems surprised by my presence. “We were wondering when we'd run into you,” the girl says.

Looking at them sitting here, next to a fish tank filled with stunted carp and surrounded by strains of pinched Eastern folk music, something occurs to me. The obviousness and enormity of it buckles my knees. In a hushed and imploring voice, I ask: “Did you make the music on this tape?”

It's impossible to read the contorted shapes their faces make, the cryptic crisscrosses of furrowed brows and creased lips. They look like I've just complimented their dead mother's ass. The girl finally speaks up. “That's not us,” she says. “The singer on that tape is Kin Mersey.”

The trio introduce themselves. The girl calls herself Lena. Her hair is a tangle of red, yellow, and black ringlets, the roots of previous dye jobs aggressively on display. The ratty locks almost seem like an apology for her delicate and classically beautiful features. The boy caressing the back of her neck is Hank. He
flashes a high-wattage grin. His bare arms are covered in elaborately primitive designs, but these interlocking totems resemble magic marker scrawls more than actual tattoos. I try not to stare at the other boy whose disfigured profile seems to be the result of a terrible burn. Markus has sparkling eyes that belie his taciturn expression. He slides over to make room for me in their booth.

Lena takes out a wallet constructed of black duct tape and extracts a photograph that's been folded into eight equal-sized squares. She arranges the image in front of me. “This is Kin,” she explains.

It's a grainy shot of a small rock club. There are low ceilings, black curtains tacked against the walls, a set of speakers dangling above the wooden stage. Several pasty guys play an assortment of drums, trumpets, dismantled synthesizers, and cable patches. But the focus is on the lead singer with his frizzy blond curls and a red scarf wrapped around his squat neck. This has to be Kin Mersey—his mouth open wide and his teeth bared. He's captured mid-yawp. He coddles a battered acoustic guitar in the crook of his arms like a sleeping infant and appears utterly lost in the undertow of the song.

“This is from his final show,” Markus says. “It's the last confirmed picture of him.”

“He quit in the middle of the tour,” Hank adds. “He sold all his instruments on a street corner and vanished. Nobody has seen him in years.”

I examine the photo more closely, as if it's one of those optical paintings where you adjust your focus and an embedded image suddenly emerges. There is something unsettling about the way Kin seems so absorbed in the moment, his eyes as white as boiled eggs, rolled back into their sockets.

“Why'd he quit?” I ask.

“Nobody knows,” Lena says. She takes a long sip of tea and
swallows hard. I notice the dusting of silver spray paint on her knuckles and the base of the cup.

“I saw the graffiti,” I say. “I wasn't sure what it meant.”

Lena flips over the photograph of Kin Mersey. On the backside, there's a smaller image of Kin sitting on a stoop wearing a paper crown on his head. It's rakishly askew. He probably got it from a fast food restaurant but it still manages to look defiantly regal. “The crown is his symbol,” she explains. “It started as some inside joke, but the image stuck.” As she talks, her hand obsessively traces and retraces the image. “There are rumors Kin is hiding out in one of the nearby projects. We did the tags to get his attention. To coax him out into the open.” She straightens the collar of her immaculately tattered raincoat. “That's also why I gave you the tape.”

“But why me?”

“You're on the street,” Lena says. “You know what's really happening.” She sweeps aside her multi-colored tresses so there's nothing obscuring her eyes. “You must have heard some stories about Kin. You have to know something.”

Her challenging tone and imploring look make this feel like a test. Though it's pretty obvious I don't know a thing, there still seems to be a correct response. I close my eyes and recall Kin's unearthly voice.

“Maybe he hasn't quit,” I say. “Maybe he's making music in secret. Maybe he's waiting for people to catch up to his new sounds.”

There's a stretch of silence where the only sounds are the clank of utensils in the kitchen and the murmur of foreign dialects. Then Lena smiles. She says to her friends: “I told you he was all right.”

Lena pours some tea into a chipped china cup and hands it to me. It's a clear liquid that turns out to be pure grain alcohol. I cough after the first burning swallow.

Markus laughs and pats me on the back. “We love the tea
here,” he says. “It's their specialty. You'll get a taste for it pretty quick.”

Hank remains silent. He still seems to be evaluating me. His arms are crossed and his thumb circles one of the black totems on his bicep. His gaze remains trained on me. “Before we get all cozy,” he says, “we need you to do something for us.”

Hank looks pointedly at Lena. She nods and fishes in the inner pocket of her overcoat. She places a runny can of silver spray paint on the table, then slides the cardboard stencil next to it. Lastly, she produces a cassette from her bag that looks strikingly similar to mine. She gives me a shrug that seems apologetic, almost.

Hank says: “Paint some tags around the neighborhood to help us spread the word.”

He says: “Give the tape to someone who might have information about Kin and see what you can find out.”

He says: “Once you've done that, come find us.”

Hank rolls up the sleeve of my sweatshirt and writes a street address on my forearm in black felt-tip marker. Then he throws a few crumpled bills on the table and leads the others out of the restaurant. Lena waves to me over her shoulder. “Hope to see you soon,” she says. I watch as the door swings shut behind them. The bell tied to the handle clangs several times and the sound echoes through the empty dining room, rippling in waves that take a long time to dissipate.

I sit alone in the booth, scarfing down the leftover dumplings and emptying the teapot. My mind slowly grapples with the tasks I've been assigned. I absently scrape the silver paint from the nozzle of the spray can while strategizing the most effective placement for graffiti and ideal candidates for the cassette. There are so many variables that my head spins. Eventually I decide the best solution is to complete my charge as soon as possible. Spray a few desultory tags across the neighborhood. Give the tape to the first person I see.

When I leave the restaurant, my sweatshirt bulges with the tools of my mission. Almost immediately, I spot the Asian waitress. She's now talking on the pay phone, the plastic receiver cupped in the crook of her neck. She speaks in a terse code punctuated by stabbing and balletic hand gestures. It doesn't sound like English and given the hushed quality of her voice, it could just as easily be an invented private language.

I decide to wait for her and duck into the alleyway. I kill time by experimenting with the stencil and spraying the design onto the back of a nearby air conditioning unit. It takes several tries to get it right. I freestyle the last part and underneath write the word “Unseen.” I'm admiring my handiwork when there's a scuttle of overturning trash and toppling boxes. At first, it sounds like a pack of ravenous rats. But then I realize it's the perfect solution.

I walk silently toward the metal dumpster on the balls of my feet. I switch the cassette excitedly from hand to hand. It feels heavier than usual. I recall its potential to open up new vistas and alter the fabric of the recipient's dreams. And here is someone who truly needs it.

The fat kid's head pops over the rim of the dumpster. He must recognize me but the unformed expression on his face doesn't give anything away. His eyes are mere holes. His blotchy skin is pasty and puffy. His cheeks are full of food that he mechanically continues to chew.

I hold out the cassette in the palm of my hand. I smile and inch closer, moving with calm deliberation, the way you'd approach a skittish doe, trying not to spook him. The slightest ember of light glints behind his dead eyes. He seems intrigued. “Don't be scared,” I coax. “This is a gift.”

I have faith this simple gesture will be understood. The traffic behind me sounds like a guitar being tuned up, a discordant series of notes that's preparing to resolve into something glorious.
I move a few steps closer. I keep my palm perfectly flat. “It's a tape,” I say. “It's for you.”

He seems to comprehend. He tentatively reaches out his stubby fingers and snatches it from me. He sniffs the edges of the plastic case and kneads it with his hands. Then he removes the cassette and raises its shiny black shell to the sunlight for closer inspection. He stares at it with a sense of wonder, as if he spies another world in there among all that tape. Maybe he's more like me than I thought. This is how I must have looked when I first received this music. “Thank you,” he says in a slurred voice.

I remove the walkman from the folds of my sweatshirt. But before I can hand it to him, he pops the cassette into his mouth and cracks it between his teeth. As he begins to chew, bits of unspooled magnetic tape curl between his lips, but somehow he manages to swallow. He pats his stomach. His beaming cheeks form a grin. His shiny eyes well up with tears of gratitude.