This Must Be The Place

By Brandon Sharp

I’m not saying that there’s a convenient time for someone to die, but.  This takes the cakes baked from Brooklyn to Barstow.  I’m on schedule to the nanosecond this morning when my sister calls me and tells me Auntie died.  Just like that she tells me, no warning.  —Auntie Alma is no longer with us, she says.  —Your family needs you.  I know you’ll do the right thing, Reymondo.

—I didn’t do it, I says.  —I didn’t do anything.  I wasn’t there.  It wasn’t even my idea.

*click*  What is your name, sir?  *click*

Rey Reyes.  Thing is, an inconvenience like this compounds.  She died right before lunch.  My fasting pattern is eighteen to six, and my window was about to open.  That’s an eighteen-hour fast and a six-hour feed every twenty-four hours.  I eat between twelve PM and six PM.  Optimal, minimal, tactical. 

I found out at eleven-forty-two.  Not a good time, not ideal.  That started the glitching.  I can’t clean it up and I can’t get to my afternoon accounts.  And it was my sister told me.  More glitching on account of it was my sister.

My sister, she’s not like me.  She watches people on the train.  

—You belong in Astoria, Reymondo, she says.  –Don’t go playing the downtown real estate hotshot with me.  I know where you’re from.  

*click*  Do you live in Queens, Mr. Reyes?  *click*

I’m from Astoria.  You can search my place if you want.  The kitchen’s a mess.  Like I said, I was hungry and once I got the call I had to eat and leave like that.  My schedule, Auntie died and glitched it all out of level.  But look in my closet.  It’s like soldiers in there.  It’s like Arlington National.  Chip chop chip.  Blue suits, white shirts, brown shoes.  Look in my bathroom.  Sterile.  You could deliver twins on that tile floor.  You could die and not decompose.

My sister’s room isn’t like that.  She’s all burnt orange and moss green.  Tapestries, beads, incense.  Like an discount opium den.  Shag cushions and a dirty futon and I won’t sit down.  I can’t breathe.  I don’t go in there anymore.  

*click*  We’ve located the address.  Who else lives there?  *click* 

It’s a row house farther out.  My sister, the one with the beads, she lives upstairs.  Mom and Auntie live downstairs, sisters and best friends.  Bingo on Tuesday nights, maybe I would go if I didn’t have meetings or account calls.    

The one time I went.  Blue cigarette smoke in the church basement, I can’t.  I was invaded.  I couldn’t.  I made four numbers on a down row and four across and I had to run up to the sidewalk by the taxi stand and take off my shirt and perform jumping-jacks and sit-ups.  The smoke was in me.  I watched between the bars over the windows below the sidewalk when I got my breath.  Somebody else won.  I would’ve won but all the smoke. 

That glitched me for sure.  Back at the row house, I told them somebody owed me.  They didn’t like my blue suit and white shirt and brown shoes.  –You’re turning your back, they says.  

–That’s not it, I says.  –I’m getting crisp, getting peeled, tuning up.  

They’ll see it.  Would’ve seen it someday.  

*click*  Please state your aunt’s name, Mr. Reyes.  *click*

Alma.  Alma Reyes.

*click*  And your mother’s name is?  *click*

They called her Almita because she was the little sister.  She was Melinda.

*click*  WAS Melinda?  *click*

Is Melinda.  She goes by Almita.  The neighborhood kids, they call them both Alma.  They look alike. So much alike that when I got to the house, I thought my sister was wrong, I thought Mama died.  She was there on the brown carpet in her flowered house dress and pink apron.  She was lying there and looking at nothing.     

I glitched.  My schedule was upside down but I worked through my contingencies and I had the voice in my head.  —You should know what to do, she says.

*click*  We have an officer at that address now, Mr. Reyes.  Do you want to tell us why you’re here?  *click*

Who is that anyway?  Are you the voice on the other side of that mirror?  I can’t see anyone but me here, black hair, blue suit, white shirt.  You won’t find my sister.  She doesn’t live there.  She’s been gone.  Mama couldn’t find her for a while.  Someone else found her.

*click*  When was the last time you saw your sister, Mr. Reyes?  *click*

Teresita.  That was my sister’s name.  If she were here, she would know what to do.  She was a hugger, she was messy, she couldn’t get to places on time.  She was always wrapping her arms around us.  This would be a good time.  Uh, for her to still be around.  Teresita would know what to do today.

We had a service for her.  It was at the Catholic church there at thirty-first and thirty-fifth.  Prayers, the priest, suits and black dresses.  Not too many people.  Mostly her classmates.  

*click*  When were you last at the row house, Mr. Reyes?  *click*

If I don’t want to sit here, if I want to leave and get back on schedule, you can’t keep me.  I don’t see handcuffs on Rey’s wrists.  I can stand up and walk out, check on my accounts, do a deal.

*click*  You haven’t been charged with a crime, Mr. Reyes.  You entered this precinct freely and of your own volition.  Have you committed a crime?  *click*

The Phoenix market is hot.  North of Phoenix there’s no zoning, hotter than the devil’s hooves dancing on burning coals.  They keep building and building.  Those are the accounts for me.  It’s a honey hole.  No glitching, just go go go. 

What can I sell downtown?  Want me to sublet a pigeon coop?  There’s nothing.  What do I think will happen, somebody’ll build condos in Central Park and give me the action?  No, I gotta go to Phoenix.

I explained to Mama all about Phoenix.  She sat down.  She sat down on a kitchen chair and didn’t look at me.  —My child, she says.  —All I have left, abandoning his poor aging mother.  My sister is gone and your sister is gone and you’re what I have left.  You don’t feel your own sunshine, but it keeps me warm.  Without it, what’s the point?    

—Mama, I says.  —Mama, I have to have this, my schedule has to change, my accounts are drier than the Martian desert in July.  If I don’t go, there won’t be anything.  We’ve been through this.  I have a schedule.  I have accounts.  I’ll still shine on you.  Now those accounts will be in Phoenix is all.  

Not another word from Mama.  She sighed, more tired than I ever saw her.  Stood up, tied on her apron, started putting away the dishes.

*click*  Have you spoken to your mother since then?  *click* 

I need to talk to somebody.  Is there anyone here I can talk to?  

Brandon Sharp lives in Chapel Hill, NC with his wife Elizabeth, three kids, and two dogs.  A chef by trade, he owns and operates three Chapel Hill restaurants, and previously earned seven consecutive Michelin stars at Napa Valley’s Solbar.