Just One Day 02: Just One Year Read Free Page A

says, “You are a long way from double happiness.”
    I am about to ask what he means, where it is, but then I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window, my eye swelling purple, the bandage on my face seeping blood. I understand he isn’t talking about a place.
    But then I do glimpse familiar letters. Not the double happiness character, but the SOS letters from the mysterious T-shirt I was wearing earlier at the hospital. I see it now on another T-shirt, worn by a guy my age with jagged hair and an armful of metal cuffs. Maybe he’s connected to double happiness somehow.
    It winds me to catch up with him, a half block away. When I tap him on the shoulder, he turns around and steps back. I point to his shirt. I’m about to ask him what it means when he asks me in French, “What happened to you?”
    “Skinheads,” I reply in English. It’s the same word all over. I explain in French that I was wearing a T-shirt like his before.
    “Ahh,” he says, nodding. “The racists hate Sous ou Sur. They are very anti-fascist.”
    I nod, though I remember now why they beat me up, and I’m pretty certain it had little to do with my T-shirt.
    “Can you help me?” I ask.
    “I think you need a doctor, my friend.”
    I shake my head. That’s not what I need.
    “What do you want?” the guy asks me.
    “I’m looking for a place around here with a sign like this.”
    “What is it?”
    “Double happiness.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “What is it you’re looking for?”
    “Maybe a store. Restaurant. Club. I don’t know, really.”
    “You don’t know shit, do you?”
    “I know that I don’t know shit. That counts for something.” I point to the egg on my head. “Things got scrambled.”
    He peers at my head. “You should have that looked at.”
    “I already did.” I point to the bandage covering the stitches on my cheek.
    “Shouldn’t you be resting or something?”
    “Later. After I find it. The double happiness.”
    “What’s so important about this double happiness?”
    I see her then, not just see her, but
feel
her, soft breath against my cheek as she whispered something to me just as I was falling asleep last night. I didn’t hear what she said. I only remember I was happy. To be in that white room. “Lulu,” I say.
    “Oh. A girl. I’m on my way to see
my
girl.” He pulls out his phone and texts something. “But she can wait; they always do!” He grins at me, showing off a set of defiantly crooked teeth.
    He’s right. They do. Even when I didn’t know they would, even when I’d been gone a long time, the girls, they waited. I never cared one way or another.
    We take off, walking up and down the narrow blocks, the air thick with the smell of stewed organs. I feel like I’m running to keep up with him, and the exertion sets my stomach churning again.
    “You don’t look so pretty, friend,” he tells me right as I retch bile into the gutter. He looks vaguely alarmed. “Are you sure you don’t want a doctor?”
    I shake my head, wipe my mouth, my eyes.
    “Okay. I think maybe I should take you to meet my girl, Toshi. She works in this area, so she might know this double happiness place.”
    I follow him a few blocks. I’m still trying to find the double happiness sign, but it’s even harder now because I got some sick on my address book and the ink’s smeared. Also, there are black spots dancing before my eyes making it hard to see where the pavement really is.
    When we finally stop, I almost cry in relief. Because we’ve found it, the double happiness place. Everything is familiar. The steel door, the red scaffolding, the distorted portraits, even the faded name on the facade, Ganterie
,
after the glove factory it must have once been. This is the place.
    Toshi comes to the door, a tiny black girl with tight dreadlocks, and I want to hug her for delivering me to the white room. I want to march straight to the white room and lie down next to Lulu, to have everything