The Runner

It was warmer behind them. But who of the fifty seven residents from this 73rd street block would go back in now? They had already put on their boots, already opened the building door. They hesitated still, stepping into the outside as if approaching an old playground, for although it was all the same they were no longer quite welcome in it. Slowly, then, each trudged forward through frozen snow towards the middle of their one-way street where a white van and two women from the city waited. Some neighbors, seeing familiar faces, waved awkwardly but kindly in passing. Most just focused on their feet, feeling strangely unpracticed and childlike in their footsteps after remaining inside for so long.

Aldi, who at seventy-two had spent nearly half of his life on this block, faced the freezing wind directly. He knew he was too old for the Temporary Relief Delivery Program, but the job posting stated only that it preferred teenagers, not that older people shouldn’t apply. It was a legal, valid opportunity to go outside. No one could arrest him for trying. Aldi stepped forward carefully, conscience of the fact that the sidewalks hadn’t been salted all winter. He pinched his jacket collar closer to his neck — he always hated early March, when winter refused to leave, winds howling like a child’s tantrum.

Before he made it onto the sidewalk his downstairs neighbor, little Jordan, came out of their building. Well, he wasn’t so little anymore — he must be 14, 15 years old now, Aldi thought. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen him, as the young man hardly went out anymore, even before the shutdown. Seeing Jordan’s hesitation, Aldi moved to the side to give the teenager space to pass him. He smiled at Jordan before remembering his face mask, and then quickly waved. Jordan didn’t wave back, but Aldi figured the boy didn’t recognize him under his mask and bushy winter clothing. He followed behind him.

People stood on red Xs painted in the snow, forming two groups facing one another. Aldi found a spot near the back. The interview started immediately. One by one each person was asked their name, age, phone number, address, medications, family history, blood type, known health issues, if they were pregnant, and, finally, if they knew anyone who was sick or had died from the virus. The woman from the city raised her eyebrows at Aldi’s age but did not ask him to leave. When he was asked if anyone had died, Aldi said four fallen friends names aloud. The city worker counted with her fingers, naked in the wind, and then marked the amount before quickly moving on.

When they finished  the two women opened the back of the white van and pulled down a ramp. From it they slid down two separate dollies carrying boxes, which they then laid out in the opening between each group. Aldi couldn’t hear the woman’s instructions under the wind, but noticed the three, different sized boxes on the ground. The first person in their group stepped up to them. It was Jenni, who ran the tailoring shop. Her eyes, peeking between a fur-lined hoodie and a cloth mask, revealed the same practiced stealth honed for minute measurements and precise alterations. She had a daughter, but perhaps too young for this posting, Aldi thought. Jenni picked up the first box easily and then walked about ten yards ahead to another red line in the snow. Once she passed it she turned around and walked back. She repeated this routine with the second box, and then the third, which looked the heaviest. And that was it. Each person afterward copied her.

Then it was Jordan’s turn. If Jordan got the job, Aldi thought, surely there would be some perks for their building. At minimum they would finally get their things on time. Ever since the delivery workers had gone on strike no one was getting their stuff. The model B-26 invader airplane Aldi had ordered six weeks ago was just sitting in a warehouse, only one city away. Finally, he thought, the city was doing something about the backlog. And what a decent plan! A local solution. Plus, what an opportunity for a few young people to get outside and work. It surprised Aldi how slumped Jordan looked, standing before his boxes with his head down and hands stuffed inside his pockets. So far, Jordan was the only one here in the age range less vulnerable to the virus. The job was practically his.

Then, a girl from the second group walked up, wearing a short, puffed jacket. Her head was not covered. It was Taya, Aldi saw. She must be 15, 16 now, about the same age as Jordan. He remembered them as children. The two of them would chase each other up and down this very street, stumbling about awkwardly, like young dogs growing into their feet. Taya was always taller than Jordan, and she was taller than him still. That may give her an advantage, Aldi worried.

The two teenagers picked up their first box at about the same time. They walked to the other line, turned around and returned. Taya reached the starting line a few steps ahead of Jordan and plopped down the large box. She picked up the second. Jordan came right after her. Then, right before he dropped his box, Taya began moving faster than before. She started jogging. Jordan, seeing her, dropped the first box and then quickly picked up the second. He ran after her. Taya looked behind her shoulder and then also ran. She crossed the line first, pivoted and sprinted back. Jordan crossed the line, pivoted with equal ease and ran back after her, the medium-sized box bouncing in his arms.

The group began murmuring and shifting about on their Xs. Someone whispered loudly, “Come on Taya!” Another laughed, “I bet on the little guy!”

The women with clipboards looked at each other but said nothing. This was their fourth round of interviews today, and they still had fifteen left to do in this area. Each block brought with it its own surprises.

At the starting line Taya dropped the second box, picked up the third heaviest one and trudged forward, passing Jordan on the way. “Come on Jordan!” Aldi whispered. Jordan passed the starting line, dropped the second box, picked up the third and followed after her.

They pushed ahead, grunting and heaving through the snow. The residents leaned in, eager. More began to whisper, and then shout. “Let’s go Jordan!” Aldi yelled. Taya passed the end mark, took a wide turn back and returned. When Jordan crossed the line, moments after, he too took a wide turn, but his footing did not hold and he tripped. Aldi moaned. Leaning back slightly with the box tucked under his chin he stomped forward. He looked as though he would catch her when, just a few feet forward, he fumbled again. The box slipped from Jordan’s fingers and fell onto the ground. He collapsed on top of it, panting.

Taya stood near the starting line with her box still in her arms, watching him.

Aldi wanted to go back inside now. He had seen enough. He also worried about injuring his irritable back. He wondered why they couldn’t just use the dollies, but he supposed the city needed some kind of test to determine who could handle the job regardless of the conditions. Leave it to the young people to fight it out for the measly stipend the city was offering, for a program that would probably end as soon as the strike ended. Surely they would give in to the warehouse and delivery workers demands. Enough people had died. Aldi left the group, eager to get back inside, back to the warmth. The city worker observed him leaving and crossed out his name.

As soon as Aldi stepped onto the curb he slipped. He fell sideways onto a parked car’s bumper and hit the ground, moaning. When the city worker saw his twisted leg she called for an ambulance, but there were none available. A police car came. Aldi screamed to be left alone. He just needed help inside, he said, where his wife was. He didn’t want to be taken to the hospital full of sickness.

He was put inside the police car anyway. The last thing Aldi heard from his block was the wind slicing through the skinny, leafless branches that lined his street. When they turned a corner Aldi asked the officer to roll his window up, hoping to mute the sirens that continually swirled about the city, screaming carriages carrying almost corpses to crowded, overrun hospitals, one of which would make room for Aldi, somehow.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Three times Jordan was fired at and three times he dodged bullets while his dad sang in the background. Instinctively, he sought high ground, ducking behind a trash can before climbing to a rooftop. He moved without thinking, able to unpack, in a flash, packages of minuscule muscle memory jerks that sustained his game play for hours – jump, crouch, shoot, run, stop, climb, slow down, turn, backup. Once on the roof he rested his thumbs. He knew he shouldn’t stay idle, but his palms were slippery with sweat.

It was August. Jordan couldn’t remember past summers ever being this hot. It was as if Nature, seeing this new, prolonged hibernation of humans, had chosen to reset the polluted air by exploding it. Jordan lifted the bottom of his shirt and wiped sweat off his forehead. They couldn’t afford an air conditioner for the living room, his mom had said, until the next unemployment check. Summer would be over by then, Jordan thought. Or would it? He didn’t really know, anymore, how time passed. He floated absentmindedly through each day like it was a container of lukewarm bathwater. And no one knew when it would end — the country would continue this strict lockdown, emulating other nations’ efforts, until a vaccine was discovered.

Jordan smelled eggs. He pulled down his headphones. His dad was singing in the kitchen, which shared a partial wall with the living room, where Jordan slept. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his dad.

“What are you doing?” Jordan heard his mom’s drowsy voice enter the kitchen. A bedroom door creaked lightly behind her. Always in socks, she shuffled across the floor. The metal trash lid pinged open against the wall. “Jordan!” she yelled. “You need to start taking out the trash please.” Jordan put his headphones back on and picked up his controller. His mom popped her head into the living room. “Hey!” He ignored her, staring deeply at the screen where his character moved about in a crouch, still hiding on a rooftop.

“He can’t take it outside,” his dad laughed. “We’re not allowed out that far yet, on the curb. Not until Thursday.”

Jordan’s mom walked into the living room carrying the trash. She opened the front door and placed the bag right outside of it, into the hall. His dad entered the living room after her, holding a spatula. Jordan watched them from the corner of his eye.

“You’ll make the whole building smell,” his dad said.

Jordan’s mom slammed the door shut and walked back into the kitchen, into their bedroom.

“Jordan.” Jordan shifted his eyes quickly at his dad. His dark navy boxer shorts, the only clothing he had on, were soaked in sweat that poured down from his scalp and underarms. “You hungry?”

Jordan nodded.

“Yeah, you can hear us,” His dad laughed, and then went back into the kitchen, returning with two plates of scrambled eggs.

Jordan was about to exit the game when his dad stopped him, sitting on the couch. “No, play. I wanna watch.” Jordan unplugged his headphones so they could both hear and continued playing the game. On the screen, he stood up his character avatar and moved to the stairs.

In the building just next door, a ten year old girl was also playing. She’d been waiting for Jordan’s character to come down from the roof. She was about to chase someone else when, finally, he appeared. She shot and killed him. She squealed too loud and woke up her mother, lying next to her. “Put that away,” her mother said, softly. The girl frowned. “And do what?” Lacking the energy or a fair reason to deny her daughter anything, Jenni rolled away from her, onto her side, to stare at the wall and think.

“Someone got you!” Jordan’s dad laughed, egg falling from his mouth. “Now let me try.” Hegrabbed the controller.

Jordan picked up his plate of eggs, fluffy and smelling of garlic. His dad was a chef before the restaurants closed. Jordan took one bite and realized he was starving. He watched his dad play.

He didn’t know which was stranger, how his dad was running his character around in circles, or how much he moved his own body around, like his every limb needed to play. He got shot immediately. He reentered, died again, and reentered again. Then he died again. Jordan looked at his score at the upper left side of the screen.

“You’re messing up my score.”

He reached for the controller but his dad dodged him, swinging his hands above his head.

“Ha!”

“Give it to me!”

They wrestled on the couch, Jordan whining and his dad laughing. Jordan finally got his hands on the controller and was about to yank it free when his dad’s fist slammed into his gut, knocking him off the couch. Jordan curled up on the floor.

“Oh you’re alright,” his dad said, dropping the controller.

Slowly, Jordan rolled his body up but remained sitting on the floor, arms crossed tight across his chest.

“It’s an oven in here,” his dad said. He grabbed a towel hanging over a lamp and wiped the sweat around his face with it. There weren’t many clean towels left. Tired with the limited scheduling slots and exhausted by the strict process overall, they’d stopped going to the laundromat. Jordan watched his dad press the cloth under his armpits, one after another.

“Come on. Get up.” His dad said. Jordan remained on the ground, cupping his controller. “Alright. Hey, can you text Taya and make sure my order is coming today? It got all screwed up last week.”

Jordan looked up at his dad. He realized, then, why he hadn’t seen him lately. He knew his dad didn’t drink much, at least not enough to be noticed. But what was noticeable were the bouts when he drank nothing, when for days he lay in bed as if doomed to sink into it. Today, he had climbed out, singing and craving eggs.

“I don’t have her number,” Jordan said, which was true.

“You don’t? Weren’t you two a thing?”

“She was never my – ” Jordan hated how hot his face got, suddenly. “We were just friends.”

“You’re not friends now?” His dad smiled. “What, you breakup after she got the runner job?”

Jordan stood up. He hadn’t even wanted the delivery job — his dad forced him to try out after Jordan’s sister refused.

“We stopped being friends way before that.”

His dad rolled the towel up into a loose ball and lopped it onto Jordan’s head, where it unraveled, covering his face. Jordan cried out. “Ugh! Nasty!” When he yanked it off his dad was standing over him, six inches taller.

“See if one of your other friends has her number,” he said. Jordan flinched. His dad left then, taking the towel into the bathroom, where he shut the door and turned on the shower.

When did Jordan stop having friends? He dropped his controller and plopped down on the couch.

He knew, roughly. It happened Freshman year, when everything became strange. In middle school, they all used to play soccer at lunch. Now, all anybody did was sit around and talk about who they wanted to fuck, like they even did that sort of thing. And if you wanted to play sports you only played to compete. But Jordan didn’t want to play like that, like his future was wrapped in it.

The truth also was that all of his friends were developing, while Jordan was not. He didn’t know which made him more uncomfortable, his own stunted body or his friend’s half-finished formations. They were morphing, without him, and he could smell them — pungent, moist odors hovering in stairwells and in the locker room. At lunch one day, he plucked a few long hairs from a friend’s chin. His friend, who had had a growth spurt over the summer, screamed at Jordan and shoved him to the ground, hard. They stopped talking after that.

He soon started hiding in the library. A classmate had sold him her gaming console for cheap and Jordan found a way to hook it up on a computer monitor. He got good at it, learning how to control his character’s large, muscular body around the arenas. He gamed at home. He played so much he barely noticed the lockdown. Even after his sister finished quarantining in their old bedroom, coming home after her college shut down, Jordan said that he was fine staying in the living room. It was no difference to him. Other people made it strange. He overheard his dad saying to his mom how Jordan “Wouldn’t have any privacy out there.” It made Jordan cringe. He didn’t like his parents thinking about his privacy, or any those soggy “p” words –  privates, puberty, pubes, a girl’s period. Words sour on his tongue. Jordan was fine on the couch, gaming all day. He was fine until that day he ran against Taya.

It was Taya that made it a competition. He hadn’t even noticed her until he saw her switching with someone else to align with his turn. He wasn’t sure why he chased after her, but he did. Muscle memory left over from when they were kids, maybe, jostled his legs forward. She ran and then he ran. But he liked it. In the snow that day, Jordan’s blood rushed. Taya was winning but that didn’t matter. He pushed and groped through the freezing wind, laughing silently.

But he didn’t get to finish. At that last turn he fell on top of the box and just as he was finally getting back up that old man Aldi fell and everything stopped. The city worker instructed Jordan to get back on his X.

The experience unsettled him. Back inside, he fidgeted. When he gamed he became impatient, bored. He tried playing through, thinking if he just tried harder he would find his previous, excited flow, but the more he pushed the more numb he felt. His head rocked, full of goo.

His only relief had been journeying up the rooftop, which he would do again today, in just a few moments.

He was about to sneak out when his sister, Monica, opened their bedroom door and came into the living room. She said nothing to Jordan, walking past him into the kitchen.

Monica banged on the bathroom door. Their dad yelled back. Dad-her-Jordan-mom, with gaps in between waiting for the hot water to return. Everyone always started showering in cold water, seeking relief from the heat, but eventually everyone wanted steam. It was the same every day.

When she reentered the living room Jordan was sitting up on the couch. She stopped.

“Hey,” she said, “Taya coming today?”

Jordan flinched. “How should I know? Check the app.”

Monica looked down at her younger brother. She knew Jordan knew. It wasn’t clear to her what he was doing up on the roof, but she knew it always coincided with Taya’s deliveries. Monica thought of all those years when she and Jordan shared a room. Her only privacy was a single curtain, which her mother bought and hung up when Monica’s breasts started forming. Even then, Monica would order Jordan to leave whenever she had to change, sensing her curious little brother’s peeking eyes even as he defensively projected disgust towards her. He wasn’t incestuous, she knew, but his secretive glances were nonetheless an examination that discomforted her, as his sibling. Now, perhaps, he was observing a potential girlfriend. Monica, smiling at the memory of a young Taya out of breath and wrestling with Jordan, hoped the glances were welcome.

When the bedroom door shut behind Monica, Jordan jumped up from the couch. He knew when Taya was running deliveries. He always knew. She would be running soon. He grabbed a mask from on top of the fridge and opened the front door.

He closed it quietly behind him. The hallway smelled like trash. He stepped around the bag. He had three flights of stairs to climb, passing two apartments per floor. He crept up the first flight softly, but the wooden stairs were so old that no matter how careful he stepped they creaked. His old neighbor on the second floor unlocked her door and slowly opened it.

“Hello?” She had a sweet voice that rattled. She wasn’t wearing a mask and was smiling.

When Jordan didn’t respond she opened the door more.

“Jordan. I need help with something here. I can’t reach.”

Jordan didn’t move. He didn’t know if he should talk and risk filling the air with his breath, even with his mouth covered. Almost a year in, still no one knew the virus’ parameters. All they knew were the stories they heard.

She stood there quietly, looking not quite at Jordan as much as looking through him, her eyes glazed and reaching.

“I wish Aldi could help me. I wish he hadn’t gone outside.” She frowned then. Without saying goodbye she turned around and shut the door.

When Jordan made it to the fourth floor he climbed a ladder that led to a panel in the ceiling. He pushed it open and lifted his body through. He was immediately nauseous. The brightness of the sun plus the sheer magnitude of space overhead overwhelmed him. He had to steady himself for a moment before climbing all the way up.

A small wall about 3 feet high surrounded the edges of the building. Jordan hunched down and crawled to it, careful with the hot, black tar that covered the entire roof.

He found her immediately. She was the only person outside. Taya sat on the curb across the street a ways. She wore the same outfit she’d been using all summer — cut off jean shorts and a yellow tank top, a dark purple backpack resting beside her. She swung the city badge she usually wore around her neck.

The truck came quickly, honking long and loud. Taya jumped up. All around the block, windows opened and heads poked out. The horn meant distractions and necessities – food, alcohol, toilet paper, shampoo, a vacuum cleaner, books, toys, cat litter, diapers, fake flowers, extensions cords, candles — a thousand magical little essentials and nothings to use up and then throw out, and then order again. The residents leaned out of their windows.

Taya was masked up at the truck. Someone from within had already started passing boxes of all sizes to her. One by one, Taya grabbed them and laid them out on the sidewalk. They moved quickly. When the hand off ended there were about sixty packages laid out on the street. The truck left, driving around the corner, honking its horn to prep the next block. Jordan, still crouched behind the wall, watched it all.

Taya started from the far left of the pile. With her phone she scanned a few packages before piling them and some smaller ones into her stretchy backpack. The larger boxes she scooped up and pressed against her chest. Then she started her run.

In the beginning, she glided to each building, toes pointed strong and elegant, like a dancer. She didn’t have to run but she always did, knowing how the people ached for their things. They leaned out their windows hollering at her, rooting her forward. “Yeah runner girl!” “Let’s go Taya!” She soared down the street free and full of breath. Around about the seventh load she slowed down, her strides becoming hard, heels landing heavy on the ground. Then, at about the fifteenth pickup, she began a steady jog, feet shuffling and elbows light. It wasn’t until the final round of packages were dropped that Taya walked.

She was soaking in sweat when she finished. She dropped her backpack on the sidewalk. She looked around and, with no one leaning outside their windows, pulled off her shirt, revealing a camouflage sports bra underneath. She wiped down her head and armpits with the shirt. Then Taya reached her arms to the sky, arched her back and howled, her voice echoing through the empty neighborhood. From the other streets, other Runners echoed back, like far-off wolves.

It would be thirty minutes before the next delivery, the refrigerated truck, came. Jordan would go back down before that.

They were best friends once. They used to play games down on that sidewalk almost every day. When they got older they went to the park, where they’d play basketball or soccer until the street lights came on. Then they’d run home, playing tag and chasing each other the whole way. And then one day she became strange to him. He’d gone out looking for her to play basketball and found her sitting on a stoop with a guy he didn’t know.

She was holding a cigarette, which he’d never seen her do. She waved at him with it. The guy she was with turned around and scanned Jordan.

“You gonna play with the ball?” he said, taking out a phone.

“Maybe,” Taya said. And she smiled. Then she took a small, cautious puff of her cigarette, coughing a little. The guy poked her cheek with his index finger. He said her cough was cute, and she smiled back at him.

Jordan tightened his grip on the basketball ball. He’d never seen Taya smoke, nor cross her legs like that, like his mom and older sister did.

“How old are you bro?” the guy asked him.

“The same age as her,” Jordan said, and pointed at Taya.

The guy laughed and took a drag. “No fucking way.”

Taya undid her legs and leaned forward towards Jordan, fingering the lit cigarette. “You wanna go to the park?”

Jordan didn’t like the way she asked him. It was like everything she was doing, she was doing on purpose.

“You look like a whore,” Jordan heard himself say, staring at the smoking cigarette stick between her legs.

Taya sat up straighter. The guy with her went “Oooh!” and snapped his fingers. Jordan ran away, not wanting to hear her response.

The next time he saw Taya she was with the same guy and some other, older kids. They were sitting at a park bench off the main boulevard. Everyone was on their phones. As if sensing him, Taya looked up. Jordan started walking to her but then stopped. It was the way she stared at him, daring and unblinking, that held him back. He knew that look — it was the same one she wore whenever they went up against each other on opposite teams. She was challenging him, but it was out of context, here.

It was the same look she gave him that day at the interview, on that second box, right before she raced him.

The roof was too hot. The tarp burned Jordan’s feet through his sneakers. He stood to leave, and, taking once last look, realized Taya was looking in his direction. He ducked. When he peaked over the edge again she was on her phone. She hadn’t seen him, he thought. She would have kept looking.

Back downstairs, Jordan went directly into the kitchen. His dad came out of the bedroom wearing a towel. “You text your friend?”

Jordan filled up a glass of water in the sink. “She’ll be here any minute.”

His dad rubbed Jordan’s head, “Alright!”

Jordan’s mom came out of their bedroom then, flushed, sweating and smiling.

“Who will be here?” she asked.

“No one,” his dad said. He took Jordan’s water from his hands and drank all of it. Then he filled it up again and drank another.

Jordan’s mom watched him swallow it all. She stopped smiling, and turned to Jordan. “Is today delivery day?”

Jordan nodded.

Jordan’s mom looked at her husband. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and placed the empty glass in the sink. She closed her eyes and asked, “How much did you order this time?”

Jordan escaped into the bathroom as they began arguing. He locked the door and turned on the shower. He rinsed off all of the sweat and grime. A dish smashed in the kitchen and he scrubbed under his feet. Then he washed his hair. With no towel Jordan had to air dry, naked, near impossible with the humidity. He shook his body around, avoiding his skinny frame in the mirror. When he came out, dressed in the same clothes as before, his mom thanked him quietly and glided past him. It was her turn, now.

Jordan went to the living room. He turned on the TV and console, plugged in his headphones and was about to game when he heard something hit the half open window behind him. It sounded like a small rock hitting the glass. He froze.

Another rock. This time missing the glass and coming right through.

His stomach fluttered.

“Jordan?” A whisper.

He jumped up from the couch.

Taya was on the grass, a few feet below him.

“Hey,” she said.

He had forgotten her face. He wished she wasn’t wearing her mask, so he could see more.  He was staring, he realized, and quickly looked past her at a group of squirrels standing on the sidewalk. Taya, noticing his shift, turned to check the source.

“The squirrels aren’t afraid of humans anymore,” she said. He could tell she was smiling, by her eyes. “All the rodents and birds took over the street. They do whatever they want.”

“Are you allow – ” he stopped. His voice cracked. It shocked him.

Taya jutted her head forward. “Am I… allowed to be here?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“Not really.” She paused, and then asked, politely. “Do you have a mask?”

Jordan spun around, grabbed the one from before, and put it on.

“I heard yelling,” Taya said. “Everything ok?”

Jordan knew people in the building could hear his parents fighting. He never thought anyone could hear it from the street. But he felt relieved. It was that, and not seeing him on the roof, that brought her here.

“Yeah. It’s all good. You running?”

“Yeah. Just waiting for refrigeration.” She nodded at the headphones around his neck. “You a gamer now?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

They stood in silence. Other neighbors’ air conditioner units hummed in the background. He tugged at the headphones around his neck.

He realized something. “How did you know I was in the living room?”

“Your sister moved back in, right? She’s staying in the bedroom you used to share?” She gestured wide with her arms and opened her eyes dramatically. “I see all, out here.”

Jordan laughed, nervously.

“Did you see my dad’s order?” The question fell out of him.

“No.” She hesitated, as if about to say something more, but didn’t.

Again, they stood in silence. Jordan was about to make up an excuse to go back in when music blasted out onto the street.

In the building across from them a shirtless man opened his balcony door and shoved out a large, hairy, whimpering dog. The dog’s name was Pupa. The man went back in and slid closed the door. The dog scratched at the glass door. The man opened the door, kicked Pupa in the head, and then shut it. Pupa collapsed on its side, panting in the heat.

Jordan and Taya didn’t say anything. The moment hung between them. Finally, Taya turned around. She seemed miles away from him when she said, “Be happy it’s just a dog.”

Looking down at her, Jordan could see how large her arms and legs were now. He’d never thought about all the weight she carried outside on the street. Compared to her, he felt more stunted than ever before.

“Someone got caught last week,” Taya said, suddenly.

He shook his head. “What do you mean?” He looked past her. The squirrels were standing still as stones, watching them.

“Being outside. It was some woman who said she couldn’t find her cat, she said it went out the window.”

“What happened to her?”

“Somebody called the cops.”

“No, I meant,” he stopped. “I mean what happened to her.”

Taya looked down. “I, I don’t know.”

The squirrels, all at once, ran in different directions. It startled Jordan, and he gasped. He felt foolish. And then a distant, muffled roar was heard – that familiar but lately uncommon sound of a massive engine pushing through high altitudes. It was a plane.

It had been so long since he’d heard a real one. He couldn’t see it. He leaned further out the window and cranked his neck but saw only blue sky. He shoved his torso out and balanced on his stomach, twisting, but still he couldn’t see it. It was behind his building. He gave up. As he shimmied his body back inside the headphones around his neck hit the base of the window and slid off. He tried grabbing the cord but it slipped through his fingers and landed on the grass, five feet beneath him.

Taya was out on the street. She was taking a video of the plane. He watched her watch it. When she was done she ran back to him, excited.

“That was passenger for sure!” She shook her head. “Way too small to be carrying just packages. I mean, like, it had all the little windows.”

With the plane gone the street was mostly quiet again, minus the humming air conditioners around them. Jordan looked down at his headphones. He wouldn’t be able to reach them.

“Oh,” Taya said, seeing them.

She slipped off her backpack. She took out a ziplock bag filled with blue rubber gloves and carefully pulled out a pair.

She looked up at him. “Back up.”

Jordan hesitated but then took a step back into his living room. He waited. When nothing was thrown through the window he returned to find Taya below him, cleaning his headphones with a disinfectant wipe.

He should step back, he thought, they were too close. But for the first time since the interview Jordan’s blood was hot. He felt like reaching out and tagging her. He leaned forward.

Taya looked up at Jordan.

“Woa!” She shouted, and jumped back.

Jordan smiled. He knew he had done something wrong, but he didn’t care.

Taya continued wiping down the headphones.

“Let me borrow these,” she said.

“What?”

“Just for a few days.”

“No way!”

Taya fitted them around her neck. “Just for today then. I’ll drop them off after my shift.”

“No!” His voice cracked, but he didn’t care. It was funny, he realized. He laughed, and then so did Taya. He leaned out the window, reaching and whining. “Give them back.”

She tilted her head to the side, smiling. “You’ll have to chase me.”

A horn honked three times up the block.

Taya swung her backpack over her shoulder. “I gotta go! Don’t worry, I’ll clean them off and throw them through the window in like an hour.” And then, right before she ran off, she stared at him with bold, demanding eyes. “Go back up and watch me. See how fast I go with music.” And she was gone.

Jordan’s insides twisted. He hit his head on the window reentering the room. His laugh came out like a cry, full of joy and pain. Whatever this was, he wanted to feel it more.

Jordan ran up the stairs. He didn’t care that Aldi’s wife was leaning out of her door. He brushed past her, rushing to get to the roof. He needed high ground. He would stand there, tall, without hiding. But then, as Jordan climbed the ladder, he realized it wouldn’t be enough.

The refrigeration truck had come and gone quickly. Taya began sorting the crates. She tried to deliver the ones with dairy first, before they spoiled in the heat. Yet now, staring at containers sweating in the heat, all she thought about was Jordan. Her stomach danced. She felt mischievous and light, like a child. She looked up at the rooftop but didn’t see him, yet. She put on the headphones, covering the quiet of the neighborhood with music.

Taya did not hear Jordan burst out of his building door. Nor did she see him leap off from the curb into the street. When she finally turned around and saw Jordan just feet away from her, staring, she gasped.

He flew after her. They ran down the street. Pupa, excited, lifted its paws over the balcony and barked at the sprinting teenagers.

Jordan never caught her. He had to stop multiple times to catch his breath but he kept going. The whole while Taya looked back at him with wild, confused eyes. But she was smiling. And then she was laughing. And Jordan laughed, too. He ran and panted and laughed even as the police arrived, held him down and handcuffed him.

Pupa never stopped barking. Other dogs on other blocks joined in. Even after the police took Taya’s statement and drove off, they kept going. Taya hoped the shirtless man wouldn’t come out and stop Pupa. She wanted the dogs to keep howling.