Read Online Love Is the Law by Nick Mamatas - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nick Mamatas
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non-Jew,” I said. “Okay, why did the friend who wasn ’ t Jewish buy the house?” There had to be an easy way to find out who owned the house now. The county clerk ’ s office or something.
Grandma shrugged. “It was going cheap, wasn ’ t it? We ’ d been foreclosed on. Billy forgot to pay the mortgage, you see . . .” Then she forgot what she was going to say. “Let ’ s have toast with peanut butter this morning,” she said, remembering what she had every morning but not that she had it every morning.
I didn ’ t have much to actually do, except make Grandma her breakfast and then do a little laundry. I had no job and no real desire to get one. If I needed money, I ’ d think of something, but my thoughts were scattered and I had nobody to talk to again. The social world of Long Island is built around institutions—schools and workplaces. Without membership in either, there ’ s nowhere to go, nothing to do, except maybe mill around a shopping mall or go downtown.
Downtown had the advantage of being where most of the Hispanics in town lived. Old Raymundo was an exception, probably because he had a high-paying defense job. Maybe I ’ d run into the Hispanic kid from last night, if my luck held out, and if he even lived in Port Jefferson. He may well have been an invader from Coram.
Port Jefferson ’ s downtown is a “nice place,” with the usual mix of dumb little shops: T-shirts, crystals, restaurants that claim that their seafood comes right out of the titular port though it rarely ever does, ice cream and fudge, a mediocre record store and a decent comic book shop, and the excellent Good Read Book Stop off on a side road, away from the day-trippers from Connecticut and the city. The Long Island Rail Road tracks run right through the town, splitting it into the tony Village with its colonial bullshit and its fancy high school, and the tedious Station where I lived and went to school with the heavy-metal dirtbags and unsubtle date rapists. The small Hispanic community tended to be bunched up around the tracks, sprinkled across either side. Of course, he could have been anywhere.
The walk was pleasant except for the usual catcalls and bullshit. I didn’t dare wear my headphones. There were too many coincidences swirling about, too many encounters. My Will was diffuse, useless, and I found myself on automatic pilot, heading to the places I usually went to on a stroll. First a peek inside Infant Jesus, where the ex-hippie priest let drug addicts sweep the floors and such for obscure therapeutic reasons. The church and community center were both empty, and the van was gone. Errands, or stolen by a delinquent again? Then I took a left and checked out Barnum Street, which is chock full of nineteenth-century mansions, except for one hideous box with vinyl siding that I absolutely loved because the old Greek widow—her black wardrobe was the tell—with gold teeth kept fifteen cats on the porch and in the weed-choked driveway. Her car wasn ’ t in the drive, and the cats swarmed up to greet me, all tick bitten and one eyeless. I never could hide myself from animals and as Grandma and my father were both allergic to cats, I didn ’ t want to anyway.
Then I cut up through the parking lot and past Rocket Park, which was empty except for a few toddlers and their mothers. Long Island at midday always felt like a neutron bomb hit the place. Most people are gone, but the buildings remain. Rocket Park was so named because of a retrofuturistic and rusted slide shaped like a 1950s missile. The Big One had landed.
I popped into Farpoint Comics, and smiled when all the boys inside gasped. It was an undersmile, really—my lips stayed tight and closed. It was as though my teeth and tongue did the grinning. The “girl in the comic shop” was a role I was long used to, but it never stopped being funny. Nerds were too cowardly to try to pick me up, and almost nobody read Love and Rockets . Friggin ’ Teenage
Grandma shrugged. “It was going cheap, wasn ’ t it? We ’ d been foreclosed on. Billy forgot to pay the mortgage, you see . . .” Then she forgot what she was going to say. “Let ’ s have toast with peanut butter this morning,” she said, remembering what she had every morning but not that she had it every morning.
I didn ’ t have much to actually do, except make Grandma her breakfast and then do a little laundry. I had no job and no real desire to get one. If I needed money, I ’ d think of something, but my thoughts were scattered and I had nobody to talk to again. The social world of Long Island is built around institutions—schools and workplaces. Without membership in either, there ’ s nowhere to go, nothing to do, except maybe mill around a shopping mall or go downtown.
Downtown had the advantage of being where most of the Hispanics in town lived. Old Raymundo was an exception, probably because he had a high-paying defense job. Maybe I ’ d run into the Hispanic kid from last night, if my luck held out, and if he even lived in Port Jefferson. He may well have been an invader from Coram.
Port Jefferson ’ s downtown is a “nice place,” with the usual mix of dumb little shops: T-shirts, crystals, restaurants that claim that their seafood comes right out of the titular port though it rarely ever does, ice cream and fudge, a mediocre record store and a decent comic book shop, and the excellent Good Read Book Stop off on a side road, away from the day-trippers from Connecticut and the city. The Long Island Rail Road tracks run right through the town, splitting it into the tony Village with its colonial bullshit and its fancy high school, and the tedious Station where I lived and went to school with the heavy-metal dirtbags and unsubtle date rapists. The small Hispanic community tended to be bunched up around the tracks, sprinkled across either side. Of course, he could have been anywhere.
The walk was pleasant except for the usual catcalls and bullshit. I didn’t dare wear my headphones. There were too many coincidences swirling about, too many encounters. My Will was diffuse, useless, and I found myself on automatic pilot, heading to the places I usually went to on a stroll. First a peek inside Infant Jesus, where the ex-hippie priest let drug addicts sweep the floors and such for obscure therapeutic reasons. The church and community center were both empty, and the van was gone. Errands, or stolen by a delinquent again? Then I took a left and checked out Barnum Street, which is chock full of nineteenth-century mansions, except for one hideous box with vinyl siding that I absolutely loved because the old Greek widow—her black wardrobe was the tell—with gold teeth kept fifteen cats on the porch and in the weed-choked driveway. Her car wasn ’ t in the drive, and the cats swarmed up to greet me, all tick bitten and one eyeless. I never could hide myself from animals and as Grandma and my father were both allergic to cats, I didn ’ t want to anyway.
Then I cut up through the parking lot and past Rocket Park, which was empty except for a few toddlers and their mothers. Long Island at midday always felt like a neutron bomb hit the place. Most people are gone, but the buildings remain. Rocket Park was so named because of a retrofuturistic and rusted slide shaped like a 1950s missile. The Big One had landed.
I popped into Farpoint Comics, and smiled when all the boys inside gasped. It was an undersmile, really—my lips stayed tight and closed. It was as though my teeth and tongue did the grinning. The “girl in the comic shop” was a role I was long used to, but it never stopped being funny. Nerds were too cowardly to try to pick me up, and almost nobody read Love and Rockets . Friggin ’ Teenage
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