America: What Time is Love?

Abstract

America:What Time is Love? Satori Good (bio) Dude she's spawning. Hide the spade!" "Which one?" "Hurry she's right behind—" "Which one!" I yell, spamming A. The Skeleton King's spine morphs into a serpent that wraps around Stalker24's throat. "Alecto!" Shit. I scroll through my inventory and chuck the spade, but it's too late. Alecto, with her owl eyes and snake arms, is impossible to beat. She possesses the king's body, hoists the spade with ease, and whacks me over the head. ERINYES WIN. I shove my desk in frustration. A mixture of apple cider vinegar, dish soap, and dead gnats splashes on the floor. I soak it up with a pair of boxers. "I told you to hide the spade," says Stalker24 when I reenter the chat. "We were so close—" "Another round?" It's 2:45. "I should shower before work." "Marcel, you're so boring," he says. Stalker24 likes my name, and never forgets it either. His is something Jag. Jaguar. "Jagdish, not everyone owns a crypto empire." "Offer still stands. You move to Delhi, and we play Fight of Furies every day. No work!" "Cap." "No cap." I shut the laptop because he gets on my last nerve, lounging in his Sultanpur luxury farmhouse while I can barely afford boots that adhere to the TSA Personal Appearance Standard. [End Page 59] He's sweet though, Stalker24. I strip off my hoodie and start the shower. If I wanted to abandon my bleary-eyed life in this shitty suburban condo, Jagdish's farmhouse would be my first stop. We'd hang Halloween fairy lights around his hot tub. Mix Fireball with Angry Orchards and watch the Survivor fiftieth anniversary special. Talk about our favorite band, the Kopyright Liberation Front, and their money-burning and sheep-killing stunts in the name of anarchy and art. But Jagdish built his life online. I built mine with food stamps and job interviews. I'm no sugar baby. _______ As a kid I had nine career plans. Environmental biologist for the EPA. Architectural engineer. Truck driver. Bar bouncer. Anthropologist, sociologist, Buffalo Wild Wings manager. Museum curator. Professor in African American Studies, which I went to school for, until there were no job openings and my cousin who worked concessions at the Charlotte Douglas Airport suggested I do transportation security. I keep the job for Macy's college fund. Macy is the best mistake I ever made. On weekends when I have custody, we attend a sailing club where she teaches me TikTok dances and different types of knots. She knows over fifty dances. Fourteen knots! On my way to work, I text her good morning and stop at Shell for coffee and a piss. The bathroom lock gets jammed and the front desker has to navigate being faded and using power tools to release a blue-poloed Black dude from Windex-flavored prison. I'm fifteen minutes late. Val glares at me from the metal detectors, and I half jog to the X-ray machine. "We're low on bins," says Poppy, a marine vet. "Who's stealing them?" I shrug and spray sanitizer on the belt. "You watch the news?" she says. "Nah." "It's gonna be crowded today," says Poppy. "Cr-ow-ded. Almost called in." "You and everyone else." [End Page 60] We're missing five people. The other checkpoint agents, Denzel and Maria and Kaleb, huddle near Val's desk. I intend to ask more questions, but the trickle of passengers becomes a line for the 5 a.m. flights. I get in X-ray flow, analyzing the sunset-orange images of bags and shoes and laptops. I love it. We break life down to its bare essentials, the few things we need to survive. My scans are rarely interrupted, apart from the occasional too-big sunscreen bottles and biscuit packages from forgotten flights. "Hold up." The words escape before I can think. "What?" Poppy says. We stare at the backpack scan. A Hydroflask, a wallet, several transparent wads of cloth. And a human skull. It's too early for Halloween. "What's this?" I say, but Poppy's...