Another Kind of Madness. Ed Pavlic
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ANOTHER KIND OF MADNESS
ANOTHER KIND OF MADNESS
A NOVEL
ED PAVLIĆ
MILKWEED EDITIONS
© 2019, Text by Ed Pavlić
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.
(800)520-6455
Published 2019 by Milkweed Editions
Printed in Canada
Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker
Cover photo by Michael Putland
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First Edition
Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Ballard Spahr Foundation; the Jerome Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from Wells Fargo. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit milkweed.org.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pavlic, Edward M. (Edward Michael), author.
Title: Another kind of madness : a novel / Ed Pavlic.
Description: First edition. | Minneapolis : MILKWEED EDITIONS, [2019]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018016849| ISBN 9781571311283 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781571319678 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3616.A9575 A83 2019 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016849
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Another Kind of Madness was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation.
For Stacey Cecile, Milan Edward, Sunčana Rain, and Mzée Yanour Shahiri—
CONTENTS
I need you. But that’s another kind of madness.
–CHAKA KHAN
ANOTHER KIND OF MADNESS
They came around the tip of Paté Island. The coastal channel gave way and she felt the rhythm of the sea begin. Ndiya tasted salt on her lips. Trade winds filled the sails and the boat lunged. Shame slept. After midnight, the clouds parted revealing diamonds, a milk of stars. Ndiya had checked the map. She figured six more hours, Kiwayu was midway between Lamu and Ras Kamboni. “At the coast,” the captain had confided to her, smiling and with a motion of his hands as if releasing invisible doves, “the border doesn’t exist at all.”
Malik had said something like that, “Take a dhow, go to Kiwayu, there are no borders there, you’ll find, between the sea and the sky. You always feel like you’re gliding.”
The mate had unrolled a mattress across the mangrove slats in the open boat. Ndiya watched Shame sleep under starlight. The open sea woke him. He sat up and she leaned against him, thinking. That thing about gliding. Malik must have meant during the daytime. The waves were soft and black to the east, the border was very clear. At the horizon, the stars turned red before, all at once, they ceased. Something about that horizon, something in the ceasing made her say,
–You know we have to go back.
Ndiya felt his head nod. The bandage on Shame’s arm against the dark, like exposed bone.
–How far?
–I mean all the way back.
–Chicago?
–No, I mean farther than that.
BOOK ONE: NEUTRAL CORNERS
Cold, endless summer days …
—CHAKA KHAN
And after how many speeches to herself about what not to do? Things not to do such as, first and foremost, meet anyone, much less someone, at a basement party? After all of that, Ndiya Grayson met Shame Luther at a basement party. It was the Fourth of July, a Sunday. Well, by the time they met it was early Monday morning. Over the next month she’d seen him twice. This night would be the third time. Ndiya promised herself to review the two previous occasions so she could make the third time turn out different. What does that mean, “turn out”? “At least give it a chance to happen,” she’d thought to herself. As for Shame, OK, she thought, “It’s some-kind-of-his-name.” That’s what it said on the flyer Yvette-at-work brought to show her on Tuesday, after Ndiya’s email about having met him at the party: Night Visions: Catch Shame Luther: Wednesday Nights @ the Cat Eye. The glossy card featured a yellow cat eye superimposed over a piano. She slid it across Ndiya’s desk without a pause in her step, “This your basement boy, girl? Watch yourself with musicians.” And no she didn’t just keep walking.
Musicians? Shame hadn’t mentioned the music part when they met. He said he was a laborer. He recited it as if standing at attention: “International Laborers’ Union, Local 269.” She had no idea what that meant. As they shook hands on the porch, she’d managed, “Yeah? Where’s that?” She noticed the callused skin of his palm and the thick, smooth feel of his fingers. His hand felt like it wore a glove of itself. “Well, the local’s in Chicago Heights. But for a few more weeks,” he said, “that, the work, is a wire mill out west up on Thirty-Eighth Street.” “Up on Thirty-Eighth?” she thought. He said the name, “Joycelan Steel.” She remembered the name because she didn’t know what a wire mill was and because the name, Joycelan Steel, sounded like a person she’d want to meet. Names: Shame Luther and Joycelan Steel. The union, the local, the work? None of it sounded real. On her guard that first night, she didn’t ask him anything more about what or where or why he did whatever he did. She didn’t ask. She was trying to keep it simple. She failed.
■
And at night, the city arched its back. Its eyes faded to slits, front limbs stretched out. The claws became invisible, likewise the scars. The heat eased as the day gave up. Motion ensued where everything except scars rests.