The Entropy of Bones Read online

  “What are you?” Had he been using his mouth, no doubt spit would have been flying from it as he spoke.

  The one that will end you if you don’t sit . . .

  He hit me. A right-handed slap across the face, starting from his left shoulder. It was old school and theatrical, the way an actor would strike a stage harlot. I saw it coming but I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t delay the blow. No. I could have. I knew the defense and how to implement it. I just didn’t. I knew the counter, right foot Dragon stumble to left side to change levels followed by Phoenix Ruffle—vertical elbow blows to the body with right leg bent slightly more than the left to confuse defensive blows. But I couldn’t think of it fast enough. No. My body wouldn’t react fast enough. I was on the ground, slapped, one tooth loose as a result.

  The warmth on my back grew white-hot. Every suppressed grunt, shout, and vitriol I’d ever managed to contain lobbied its jailor and demanded freedom. While Shotgun sat stupefied, Rice shielded his head with pity, and the other pretty people laughed, I stood up. The slapper saw me but didn’t care. His mistake.

  I full-body struck him, using the dubstep track to find the entropy of the man’s bones. The agony in my back lessened after I’d struck the slapper eighty-five times in fourteen seconds. Each blow was like jamming a finger into a concrete block. But Narayana had me do that when I was fifteen. The sight of the confident slapper falling back in horror and pain was worth it. I’d never found the entropy of a living person’s bones before. Somehow it felt less world-shattering than I thought it would have.

  Then I passed out.

  Chapter Seven: Alter

  It was all coming together for me as the year went along. Narayana left me to maintain my training, throwing the occasional challenge at me just to remind me he was always watching. He had me swim from San Francisco to Oakland at four in the morning, for example. He’d only told me about it forty-five minutes before. The whole way over Raj rowed his little dinghy nearby demanding I swim like a fish or at least a sea lion. My reward, of course, was worth it. “Good girl,” he told me when we reached Jack London Square.

  Grow up without a father or anything other than a moderately depressed alcoholic mother trapped in a dead-end job and you’ll never understand why the captain’s “good girl” meant so much to me. No one else saw the work I did with him. We both took my training with such seriousness that other eyes on that relationship felt like an invasion. His rewards, while few and far between, had the comfort of being well earned.

  One time the prize also included breakfast at a vegan soul food joint. The restaurant had diminutive triangle tables off on its side street so we could people-watch as the Captain ate soy sausages and hash browns like they were made of crack. My only concern was warming myself with the thick wool sweater and down blanket the old man provided. It was 10:30 in the a.m and I was thankful for the sun.

  “Soon you find entropy without music,” he told me in between impossibly large bites.

  Because entropy is everywhere. I tried to not shiver and speak as though I knew why it was important. It’s hard to find specific entropy.

  “You have sex yet?” he asked as cars began to risk themselves against lights and peers.

  With what free time? I asked instantly flushed.

  “Still woman. No matter what, still woman. Women must have sex. Know where life begins, know how to end it. All healers are poisoners. Remember that.”

  I was about to stutter some protest when a nearby Camaro, driven by a hyphy boy with shoulder-length dreads, lost its front axle as it crossed the street. The car dipped fully to the right side, scraping concrete against metal, making an awful sound. The rear of the car fishtailed into the side of an absolutely beautiful, slightly graying middle-aged white guy. Even as the car crumpled around the man like he was made of metal and not flesh, I couldn’t stop staring at the man’s chest. I felt remorse for his ash gray silk suit as oil and hyphy child blood stained it. Even the thoroughly unnatural sound of metal meeting whatever substance that man was made of couldn’t detract me from the glory of his two-day stubble. I reached out for Narayana’s hand, fearful of the trance I was falling into. His absence shocked me back to reality. I looked around and saw nothing, but as I was about to call out for him, I felt three of his fingers on my back directly behind me.

  “Be still. Be quiet.” And I felt fear. Not just from his words but also from the attention the beautiful man almost gave to us. He was in the middle of yanking the hyphy boy out of his car when Raj spoke in a voice that mirrored my own true Voice. And though the supposed victim of the crash continued to move efficiently, smashing what remained of the windshield with one hand and tossing the boy across the street like a bowling ball, the cock of his head proved his attention was truly toward us.

  Raj drew characters on my back that I instantly knew how to speak, though their home language was obscured. The beautiful one looked annoyed then, like the sun was in his eyes. As always, I did what Narayana told me to do and was quiet. One second more and the beautiful man was gone down Broadway to the train tracks that ran parallel to the Bay. I saw him survey one more time, then he was gone, hidden by an Amtrak I didn’t see coming. When he left, so did the words written on my back.

  What the fuck was that? I turned hard to face Narayana.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said in an accent so foreign I thought he might be stroking out or something. “You will forget soon enough.”

  Like hell!

  “Remember only his grace,” the Captain said as though he hadn’t heard me. “The elegance of his movement, the tempo of his strike. That one is true with his form. Strive to be like him in that way alone.”

  “Oh my god, what happened?” Our waitress came running out of the restaurant as if she’d just heard the crash.

  “Some dumbass kid done crashed his car. Sent himself through the windshield, Lord have mercy,” an old black homeless man on the street informed her. Just as I was about to correct him, Narayana spoke.

  “Back to the boat.” I obeyed but listened for trace elements of what I thought I’d heard in his voice. Fear. It was an impossibility I needed verified. I listened for it as we went back to the dock, on his boat, and back to Sausalito. But the farther we went from Oakland, the harder it was to remember what I was looking for and why. In the end, all I had to hold on to was the memory of the efficiency of human motion in action.

  I usually woke up in a second. I’d be asleep then I was awake and could tell you how long I’ve been out, what time it was, and who was in the room with me. I was like that before Narayana and he only made that sense more acute. So understand the mid-level panic I felt when I woke up slow.

  It took me a good minute to figure out where I was. It was an extreme source of shame to have to use my eyes to scan for clues, but when they fell on the black business card with the silver snake coiled around the globe, the previous night came flooding back to me. I was in the Naga Luxury Suites.

  Without hearing a sound I knew the pretty boy Rice was on the thirteenth floor. He wanted to see me, I knew that as well. I didn’t know. That’s too strong a word. I felt it. And I didn’t like feeling without knowing.

  I’d been laid out on an obelisk of a bed with black sheets. I was still dressed. A quick thought of rape ran through my head, but my privates seemed unmolested. My boots were placed together at the foot of the bed, but other than that there was no evidence that anyone had been in the room since it was furnished. No note from whoever deposited me. No signs of life. It creeped me out. In the hallway I almost banged on a random door just to get a sense of another person being alive. Everything was too perfect, not a hint of dust anywhere, small tables with courtesy phones and candies were laid out as though no one had ever touched them. Not a thread was out of place on the double-knit silk red-and-silver Turkish rugs or the practical rugs underneath. Everything was so quiet. I couldn’t hear TVs from other rooms, the traffic from outside. I put myself in combat mode. When the elevator chimed,
as they do when you call for them, I nearly roundhoused it. Instead I stepped inside. My body went to press the sigil for the lobby. But the curious side of me stopped my arm at the sigil for the thirteenth floor.

  The floor I’d been on had fifteen different rooms. And while the elevator had glyphs, the rooms had numbers. Except on the thirteenth floor. And it only had five doors. I walked by the door with what looked like seven smaller circles all connected by a single squiggly line to a larger one with black small pointed triangles, almost like teeth, in the middle of it. I heard a familiar voice using an unfamiliar tone. It was Shotgun and he was apologizing. Not like a kid caught doing something wrong, but like an accused man who didn’t know what he’d done was a crime.

  Just as I was about to launch myself at the door, it opened.

  “Relax, he’s fine.” It was Poppy in a white bathrobe, which she let reveal her red bra and panties. Anyone else would have caught a Rising Rooster to the jaw, but that would let her know she spooked me and I couldn’t have that.

  You got him tied to a bedpost or something or can he come out to play? I asked as casually as I could.

  “Matthew, darling. Your eye candy wants you.” Ever seen someone who just had his heart broken? Like that second? There’s a desperation mixed with a terror that takes over the eyes. The mouth can’t decide between screaming, laughing, or crying. I once saw Little Kid right after he asked some pink-and-gold-clad Latina to a dance. I didn’t catch the words but I could tell he’d need some super strong glue to put his heart back together. When Shotgun materialized, he had that same look on his face. Only his voice tried to convince me otherwise.

  “Oh, Chabi. I’m so glad you’re ok.” He hugged me. Like a sincere hug. He was flush.

  Fuck is wrong with you? I asked forcefully, pushing him off me.

  “Nothing. I was . . . Me and Poppy were talking. Just so you know, she said a lot of things that make sense.”

  I let my eyes flash over to Poppy for a quarter of a second and somehow she managed to display her million-teethed mouth in the form of a smile. She was the skinny white bitch that all normal looking women despised. Her wiry jaw and atrophied arm and leg muscles screamed weak just as her attitude displayed insane confidence. Her hip bone sticking out above her panty line infuriated me for some reason.

  “And look!” Shotgun yelped as he reached around the corner and pulled out a briefcase. “Seven hundred thousand dollars. All of it.” He was gleeful. Then a second later, repentant. “Oh, Poppy, are you sure? I . . . I don’t want money to fuck with you and me.”

  “Baby, it’s like I keep telling you.” Poppy moved her pelvis on to his thigh then her hand to his ass before I could gag. “It’s only money. And you have so much more to offer.” Something about the way she kissed him, her jaw undulating like that or the fierce grip she had on the back of his head made it look like she was devouring him.

  I wanted to do something or say something at least. But what? “Hey, stop kissing the super hot half-naked chick because every now and then she’s got a million baby rat teeth in her mouth?” Right before I was going to make up a more suitable excuse, Poppy stopped sucking him dry. Shotgun barely moved from her.

  “Rice is over there. He’s dying to speak with you.” I followed her bony finger to the door diagonal from hers. When I turned back, Poppy’s door was closed.

  I knocked on Rice’s door determined not to kiss him. The door opened on its own and let a serious amount of noise out. Rice sat on a steel gray couch in front of a seventy-five-inch screen with a video controller in his hand. The game on the screen seemed to toggle between first person shooter and mêlée martial arts at will. Rice was engrossed.

  “Just give me two minutes, Chabi. I’m about to rape this game,” Rice begged me. I watched as he conquered the challenge on screen. In the animated victory short of the game, a silver glove that the main character wears transforms into a giant silver snake and wraps itself around the main character’s body, a customizable character obviously, because it looked a lot like Rice. Close-ups showed the bulging feet, hands, and mouth of the character. Then an explosive flash of light and the main character is transformed. He wears a suit of armor that looks like skin. The words “You are the Silver snake!” appeared over the character’s head in a cheesy font.

  “Cool, huh?” Rice finally asked. Somehow that gave me permission to look around the rest of the suite. It was easily five times the size of the room I woke up in. The ceilings were twice as high. No wall separated the front living room we were standing in from the gourmet level double-sink kitchen. There was a second floor above us with two doors and seemingly connected bedrooms. The opposite wall from the entrance door was one great window. Outside, a glass patio jutted out like a splinter from a tinted highly soundproof sliding door. This was no hotel room or even luxury suite. This was a throne room.

  Why not the penthouse? I asked out of nowhere. Nothing was comfortable. Not standing, sitting, speaking, leaning. I felt fundamentally discombobulated in my body. Which never happens.

  “Fucking passé wannabe elite bullshit,” Rice announced with a smile as he flipped back over his couch and made his way to the kitchen. “You want to control something, you dominate the middle of it, not the top.”

  You control this hotel? I asked, watching my feet follow him. Rice pulled out two Japanese beers from the fridge and tossed me one. I caught it more on instinct than thought.

  “I better. My dad owns it. Twelve others as well. All over the world.” He raised his coal black eye at me, searching for an impression he failed to make. What did I know about hotel owners and suites all over the world? He could’ve said he was a world-famous physicist and it would have meant just as much to me. He read my indifference as a challenge, and for a second I tensed. But then he opened his beer and started talking again.

  “Fuck me, though. Check you out. Pulverizing the bones of one of the old-timers before he even had a chance to react. I love the way you took the first hit to justify your reaction. Fucking clean!”

  Just before I took a sip of beer, the ass-kicking came back into perfect view. It staggered me, but also brought me back to my senses. I put the beer down and assumed the Ember Stance—right leg before left. Left foot pointing out for maximum balance, knees bent, shoulders loose, chin down, hands open, ready.

  I don’t drink, I said, scanning all the doors, waiting for cops or security to rush in.

  “Oh, relax, why don’t you?” Rice said taking a drink. “You’re under my protection . . . Ok, my father’s, but still. Even if Samovar, that’s who you broke by the way, Samovar Khan. Even if he could stand, he wouldn’t dare do it here, now. He’ll come for you to be sure. But not here and not now.”

  Why not? I asked, surprised the man was even still alive.

  “It would reek of desperation, of need. Let me tell you something about Salmy, as his name doesn’t appear to mean anything to you. Mr. Khan is a corporate raider on a global scale. He dismantles companies for parts, puts small towns on the map and dissolves LLCs before they even know they’ve joined. He’s a major player. But before he does any major deal Salmy goes to this resort in the hills of Ecuador. A thousand dollars to have volcanic ash shot up your ass type stuff. So Salmy is wrapped in ancient seaweed, which is keeping some special mud tight to his pores or something. Important thing is he’s bound; super tight, no wiggle room. Get the picture?”

  I nod, fascinated by the glee with which he’s telling the tale.

  “Ok, so on the other side of a town a guy who doesn’t want whatever deal to go through hires five gun thugs from Guayaquil to make sure the deal doesn’t happen. And these guys are not street level. We’re talking hitters, salt and peppered in the game. Smart enough to know to wait until Samovar is wrapped in the seaweed and having his alone time. Ok, so naturally no one knows what actually happened in the room, but Poppy got a copy of the medical reports for each of them. One’s floating rib punctured his lung. Another’s fifth vertebrae went missing
. Not shattered, not broken, just gone. No surgical scars either. One just couldn’t stop screaming. No injuries, he just couldn’t stop screaming his head off. Another’s testicles ended up in his mouth. And let’s be clear, not his scrotum, just his testicles ended up on his tongue. And the last guy. His sole injury was a permanently prolapsed anus. And that’s not the best part.”

  He was in genuine hysterics at this point so I didn’t bother speaking. But in my mind I was glad I’d broken the man’s bones. The wounds he produced were sadistic. Not meant to defend but humiliate.

  “The best part,” Rice continued, “is that when those poor Ecuadorian women came back in the room, Samovar was still wrapped in the seaweed.”

  And that’s the man I . . . incapacitated last night?

  “Yeah, how about that?” Rice stepped from behind the counter in the kitchen and took a seat on the stool closest to me. “Those were some nice moves you had there. Where’d you pick them up?”

  Here and there. No lie had ever come so easily to me. For all of Rice’s considerable charm, I could tell we were finally getting to the thing he wanted to know.

  “Wow, that’s weird ’cause I’ve been here and I’ve been there and I’ve never seen anybody like you.” He tried to meet my dead eye. I was surprised by the seriousness of his face, but it still didn’t match mine. I felt my back get hot again and saw an instant response in Rice. “Don’t mistake me for an enemy, darling. I am no combat man. I’m a lover, not a fighter. All I’m saying is I could use some more fighters around. You interested?”

  Last night was a mistake. That’s not what I do. If that’s what you’re looking for . . .

  “Satisfying as it was to watch one of my dad’s generation overplay his cards and get schooled for it, that’s not a business I’d invest in and expect consistent returns. No, look, we’re just starting this whole monthly big bash thing in San Francisco. That’s new dealers, new drugs, new crowds, new everything. I don’t know who to trust and who to let loose. I’ll figure it out soon enough, but in the meantime, if I let the wrong folks get too close, I might need you to escort them out the front door.”