Tiny Crimes Read online

  Misha RaiMisha Rai

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  birthmark on his right thigh had him leading robberies in long drawstring boxer shorts. On several occasions fabric from the shorts was found rippling on a doornail. Mika Singh was old and he couldn’t run to safety, tripping on a root in the garden breaking his kneecap. Jyoti Chowdhary waited for his brother. Silva Singh’s earring was torn out. Gogi Malik, his sacred thread. Nalli Singh broke his stick and stopped to collect the pieces.

  The Mustard-Oil Loincloth Gang made changes. We retired older members, giving them a share of our earnings in grain and jaggery and milk. We looked for men in whom anger built slowly. We divided ourselves to hit different houses at the same time, breaking up fathers and sons, and brothers from brothers, and friends from friends. We broke into our closed wrestling haunts, playing Kabbadi to keep our bodies fit. We shaved ourselves from head to toe. We oiled our bodies thoroughly, including our buttocks. We used one type of scented oil for a month at a time. We exchanged regular underwear for white loincloths. We never let our women wash the loincloths. We used a concoction of bleach and phosphorus to keep them sparkling white. Every few months we burnt them deep in a farmer’s field. We swaddled ourselves like babies fashioning the loincloths to resemble compact nappies. If anyone pulled off our loincloths we left them in their hands. We rid ourselves of all other items of dress.

  We never carry the same stick twice.

  What We Know

  227

  On entering a home we first locate its occupants and give their skulls a single bash. If they wake up during our looting, they are often confused. Swimming vision can result in multiple numbers of shiny midair nappies walking around. Some of our victims are convinced of being haunted and lose use of their limbs and control of their bowels. Some mumble around in shock, giving us time to collect whatever we can and escape. Others who wake up with functioning mental faculties are treated with a harder blow. Sometimes, a fatal stroke.

  The Galgotias fell into the latter category. Their house was a last-minute addition to our robbery route. This was to be our final bit of dacoity until the towns settled back to a stable rhythm. There were rumors of the Emergency ending and people were asking for accountability. So many arrested without clear cause and kept without trial. Faint murmurs had reached the army and police headquarters. There were rumors of new deployments to areas of unrest.

  The Galgotias were known to have gold and diamonds stashed, hidden inside the sewing machines Mrs. Galgotia used. Their gardener, before he went north, told his card-playing brothers about the small godown at the back of the garden, full of packaged maize and potatoes and instant milk mixes. We knew where the key to its door hung. Both of them, husband and wife, needed more than one hard blow and instead

  Misha Rai

  228

  of going feeble from internal hemorrhaging there was brain splatter. Mr. Galgotia, a light sleeper, woke up to the sound of the kitchen window being smashed. He tried to load his father’s old service gun but one of us pulped his skull in. Mrs. Galgotia’s body was left half off the bed, her hair sticking thick with blood, her sari riding up her varicose-veined thighs. Shit and piss soaking it, running down her legs.

  We didn’t know at the time that their older daughter had disappeared three days ago and that Mr. Galgotia created a scene in front of the old constabulary. Since the start of the Emergency no one could get face time with any officer. And when the rumors began, they were all busy preparing to abandon their current postings. Mr. Galgotia went to ask for help anyway.

  The duty constable first showed Mr. Galgotia the ledger for all the people who went missing at the start of the Emergency. He then opened another ledger with the names of the few people who had been found. After he closed both ledgers, he opened a book devoted to the conditions they were found in. We knew of this book. Inked in blue, at the end of each description were the initials of the police doctor. We were familiar with those descriptions. The duty constable tapped his index finger after each entry, leading Mr. Galgotia’s eyes down that column. He then took out a missing persons form and placed it on the desk between them. We didn’t fill out that form either. Mr. Galgotia spent

  What We Know

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  the rest of the day spitting on the outer walls of the constabulary until his wife dragged him home. When they were found on the evening after their murder everyone assumed it was the police who had paid them a visit.

  The next morning the constabulary walls were embedded with hundreds of hoes.

  Then today, mug shots of a white loincloth paper the town. We know now that a particular kind of unimagined buggery awaits us and hiding in our tunneled man-made holes is not going to be enough.

  Misha Rai

  230

  Final Rescue

  Kenneth Nichols

  My clients come to me when the idea of their own mortality is a ghostly light on the horizon, a vague inevitability. They’ve arranged for life insurance, but their bodies and minds are still strong. Let’s call this particular client Earle. His investment manager won’t go the extra mile, won’t feed the guard of his gated community a twenty-dollar bill and a story that I’ve always wanted to jog on the east side of Lake McGraw.

  Maybe you stepped out on your husband or wife a couple decades ago and you couldn’t bear to throw out the secret love letters that made your heart leap. I take care of it. No one will ever know you liked to cross-dress or what toys you hid under the bed. If anyone sees me tonight, they’ll just guess I’m a new neighbor.

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  I have the kind of face people forget: an asset in my business.

  We all have lines we won’t cross. I won’t hurt a child or a woman, and a man better truly deserve it. I won’t destroy property without good reason. We all hold ourselves to standards but are happy to adjust them under the right circumstances. I’m still not sure that Earle did enough to convince me to cross the line.

  I met Earle five years ago in the same manner as the rest of my clients. Talk turns serious in the clubhouse after the eighteenth hole, during the yearly sales convention, at the rivalry game alumni gathering. You and yours are all set if something happens to you, right? My client senses their friend is in need of something more. I know a guy . . .

  In spite of the decades he had on me, Earle was in much better shape than I was. His handshake was that of a steelworker, not a Master of the Universe who made ungodly sums of money by moving numbers around on pieces of paper.

  After some curt and guarded pleasantries, Earle told me he had a dog. “Bounder. A basset hound. My mother died last year. I was miserable for six months. Didn’t leave the house. My business was suffering because I couldn’t focus on anything. Then my son came home with this wrinkled lump of brown and white fur with floppy black ears that doesn’t know how ridiculous it looks while running up to you on its stubby little legs. He found it at the dog pound, said it looked as lost as I was.”

  Kenneth Nichols

  232

  “You want me to ensure that the dog is cared for,” I said. “A common request.” I jotted “Dog—Bounder—Basset hound” into my notebook.

  “Not quite,” Earle said. “I want you to put him down.”

  I stopped taking notes. “Beg pardon?”

  “Look, I’m healthy as a horse right now. My doctor says I’ll outlive him. But every time I look into that goddamn dog’s eyes, I can tell it loves me more than bacon. He’s grateful I saved it from the gas chamber, gave it all my love. A couple weeks ago, I went on a business trip to Geneva; my housekeeper said that Bounder wouldn’t budge from the corner of the yard.”

  I don’t generally reveal personal information, but what I said seemed generic enough to share. “My mother had a Shar-Pei that followed her everywhere, like a duckling following its flock. When she died, that dog howled at the moon every night—something she had never done before. We knew she was calling for my mother. But we never thought of putt
ing her down.”

  “I can afford your services because I have ideas that don’t occur to other people. Will you show my dog mercy or not?”

  I’m still not sure what I’ll do at this moment, as I walk past Earle’s stately pleasure dome. One of the rooms is lit; I imagine his widow is spending the early evening catching up on writing thank-you notes to those who sent flowers.

  Final Rescue

  233

  Earle wasn’t lying; Bounder is a round lump of a dog. Earle was also prescient; Bounder is pressed into the corner of the chain-link fence thirty feet away from me, expecting Earle’s car to arrive at any time. A security light detects my movement and flicks to life.

  Basset hounds always look sad. This one was clearly in grief. The immutable equation: When does our grief outweigh potential joy? What do we do when we realize we can’t be rescued again?

  I take the chewy, bacon-flavored dog treat from my right coat pocket, the capsule from my left and press them together. The pill makes humans nauseated, makes them crawl to bed for a nap. The pill will make an old dog go to sleep and never wake up.

  I fling the treat in one crisp, practiced motion. It lands five feet away from Bounder’s powerful nose.

  I never break my pace. I don’t hear the rustle of those meaty, wrinkled legs moving his mouth to the food. I look back a couple times. Even with his face in shadow, I can see that Bounder is smart. He knows. He’s not taking the bait.

  Though I’m tempted to consider the job finished, I have another rule: I get confirmation whenever possible.

  I return the next night, bribing the same guard the same twenty dollars for the same access to the jogging trail. What threat do I pose, a middle-aged guy in workout clothes?

  Tonight, the house lights are out; I watched as

  Kenneth Nichols

  234

  Earle’s widow drove past the guardhouse. She doesn’t need to be gone for long.

  I’m not surprised to see Bounder pressed into his same corner. He knew I was coming. He knows what I’m doing. Still, I prepare his treat—two pills this time—and watch it thump to the grass beside him.

  Bounder’s head doesn’t move. He stares at me, seeing more of the night than I do. Before I’m out of range, I look back and see Bounder still waiting, waiting for Earle to come home, to ruffle the folds of skin behind his floppy ears.

  I return on the third night out of a sense of duty. This time, nearly every window of Earle’s house is lit and a dozen cars line the long driveway. I see a number of figures in the windows; they’re holding drinks and are clumped in small groups, likely trading sanitized stories about Earle and how flawless he was. Under normal circumstances, I might have called off the run, but that impulse dissipates when I see that Bounder is in the same place he was last night and the one before it.

  Propelled by instinct, I keep my constant pace and fling the dog treat. It lands right in front of Bounder’s snout.

  Bounder slowly raises his chubby head and looks toward the house, where all of Earle’s friends have gathered, no Earle to be found. He turns to look at the street Earle had used to come home to him thousands of times. Then he looks at me.

  And eats the treat.

  Final Rescue

  235

  [Purple Pills]

  Rion Amilcar Scott

  Dearest Slumlord,

  A cloudburst rained down upon me this morning, a shower of purple pills as I stood on my balcony. I opened my arms and twirled in the hard chemical shower.

  Fuck! a voice from up in the clouds called out.

  I took a pill in my hand. I twirled it between my fingers. I went inside to get a glass of water and I swallowed the purple salvation, letting it dance inside of me.

  When I returned to the balcony, seven large black birds with long yellow beaks sat there snapping up my pills. They had eaten quite a few by this time. I yelled, cursed as the cloud had cursed. The birds fled, the cowards, and I contemplated taking another. Aren’t pills always taken in pairs? I don’t know. I took a second pill

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  from the balcony floor and ushered it down my throat with a sip of water. I imagined a baby in a Moses basket drifting joyously on a rolling river. I took a third.

  I went inside and sat. I peered ahead of me. The wall that always looked somewhat melted, it smoothed. I heard more cursing from above and it sounded less watery. Less like a wraithy-cloud, more like a woman. Yes, it was a woman.

  I touched my face. The spinning world, always so slightly tilted found its kilter.

  I took a deep breath and could no longer see the faces in the wind that always ambushed me and entered my nose whenever a strong breeze blew.

  I could never even scarcely afford such sanity. And to have it rain down upon me . . .

  A knocking sounded at my door. The bell trilled. When I pulled the door open, a wraith with long black hair—threaded with stray strands of silver—smiled upon me.

  You must be the cloud, I said.

  I dropped some blue pills, she replied. Panofil. I really, really need them back. I’m really sorry to bother you.

  I pointed to the balcony and the cloud-woman passed through my living room. I said, But they’re purple, my dear. She picked up the purple dots one by one and plinked them into an amber container.

  Hey, she said. I dropped about twenty. There are only three here.

  Rion Amilcar Scott

  238

  The birds, I said.

  Fuck. Joker and Ernst are going to— Look, I’m sorry to disrupt you.

  And the cloud was gone.

  And I was here, for another several hours, I was here.

  I strode to the balcony the next day hoping for another hard chemical shower. Thoughts were already piling up again in my head. More thoughts than the entire capacity of my skull. The faces in the wind had returned, and they brought with them their taunting. I knew now that I wasn’t required to befriend them and this knowledge was like a good meal inside my stomach. It satisfied me, my love. Made me feel a warmth and a comfort, but it was also slowly turning to shit as I stood and I waited and I knew that after the satisfaction would come emptiness. And then, my slumlord, after falling empty I’d grow ravenous.

  I stood in the autumn air. I opened my arms, and then I heard a voice from the sky. At first I thought it was one of the faces in the wind, but no it was the wraith, the cloud.

  No, Kat, she said. No. They give me the pills on consignment. I have no clue how I’m going to make up the difference. She paused. Why the fuck do I even call y— You know what, Kat. I’ll figure it out. She paused again. Why would you bring that up? I can’t worry about shit

  [Purple Pills]

  239

  down the fucking line right now. A pause. I am a felon, Kat. An F-E-L-O— Yes. I do blame you. My right thing and your right thing aren’t the same, Kat. You know how much this shit costs at the pharmacy? So, yes, I am doing something good with my life. I’m like Robin Hood and you’re standing in your fucking condo passing judgment. A pause, shorter than the rest. Are you going to help me out or not? Uh-huh. Fuck you, Kat. You owe me. Who said I should turn myself in and tell on Chappy, huh? That’s how I got he— Hello? Hello? Fuck.

  Just then I heard the wraith’s feet thud above me, stomping inside her apartment. One of the birds from the previous day, one of the bastards who stole my pills from me, flew by singing a taunting song. I needed birdseed to dust my balcony floor with in order to lure back those thieving birds. I’d catch them and then use their long beaks to split open their stomachs to remove the purple pills in order to silence the faces of the winds.

  You know that man who was murdered here months before me and my family moved in? Would you believe me when I tell you I see him late at night? That we shoot the breeze and sometimes he writes me letters? It’s true, my slumlove. His pistol is here, stashed behind the water heater. He told me about it in one of his letters, an email. Initially, I
planned to use the ghost gun to pick off those

  Rion Amilcar Scott

  240

  feathered fuckers one by one when they came to chomp on my birdseed, but when I went out to buy the seed I noticed the wraith’s door was cracked and I figured, well, shit, I got this pistol. Stealing from the cloud-woman would be easier than stealing from the birds.

  After I got my gun, I eased up the staircase, holding the silver pistol in front of me like they do in movies. I pushed the door slowly and stepped softly into the apartment. The place was a holy horror. The chairs and tables flipped, clothes and books and DVDs strewn about, porcelain lamps smashed to jagged shards against the floor. So much broken and torn down. No sign of the wraith living or dead. And who could have done this? Joker? Chappy? Ernst? Who knows? All I know is that whomever it was neglected to look behind the whistling water heater—that’s where ghosts keep their pistols and cloud-wraith-women keep their drugs. And the cloud, the wraith? I don’t know. I don’t care, I suppose. I just want to be halfway sane for you, baby. This is why I eat these purple things now by the handful. Though I did some asking about the wraith. I heard a lot of things, some are harsh so I won’t repeat them for your beautiful ears. What I choose to believe though is that the cloud-woman is safe, just on the run, in the wind like the faces who no longer bother me.