How to Lead a Life of Crime - By Kirsten Miller Page 0,4

plays hard to get.

I follow her downstairs, peeling off my coat as we enter the sweltering heat. In the basement, a winding tunnel leads us past a warren of cramped rooms. The floor of each chamber is strewn with sleeping bags filled with thin bodies—some still little, others growing longer and leaner each day. There’s plenty of space for everyone, yet they always end up clustered together. Dirty arms circle filthy torsos. Breath exhaled by one set of lungs is immediately inhaled by another. My tenth-grade history book had pictures of similar scenes—photos that could have been taken in this very basement. For the past two hundred years, the Lower East Side has been home to the children that no one else wants.

A sinister mechanical hum grows louder as Joi and I near the end of the tunnel. So does the heat. We pass a locked door that guards the building’s ancient boiler. The heart of Joi’s colony is just a few feet away. It served as a laundry room until the machines died of old age. At some point in the future, the boiler in the room next door is bound to blow. When it does, the colony kids won’t stand a chance. I tried to warn Joi once, but all she did was laugh. Someday the sun’s going to explode too, she informed me. But until it kills us, we should just be grateful it keeps us alive.

A row of rusting machines lines one wall of the laundry room. A few of the older kids are perched on top. Someone must have struck it rich tonight because Joi’s urchins are all guzzling imported beer. None of them are old enough to watch R-rated movies, but most have seen things in their own lives that would never make it past any censor. As long as they don’t get drunk and rowdy, Joi lets them do as they like.

“Yo, Flick,” says a kid named Dartagnan. “Merry Christmas.” He’s thirteen. He’ll be thirty by the time his mother finishes her sentence for drug possession with intent to distribute. Some days he swears his dad is Lil Wayne. Other days he claims it’s one of the anchors on CNN. Either way, someone owes a shitload of child support. Joi found the fourth musketeer begging for change outside of Bloomingdale’s.

“Happy Winter Solstice,” I respond. “I’m a pagan.”

The kids are all gawking at me, and it isn’t because they’ve never met a pagan. They want to know what happened to my face—but they won’t break one of Joi’s cardinal rules. Always listen, never ask.

“Want a beer?” The blond girl is Tina or Trina. It doesn’t matter which. She’ll disappear before New Year’s. They say her father lost his job, the house, his marbles, then his life. The girl’s little brother and sister are staying with an aunt who had no room in her home for a troublesome teenager. A few months back, Joi saved Tina/Trina from a neighborhood pimp, but the girl has started slipping out after dark. I seem to be the only one who’s figured out where she’s going. My guess is she bought the booze.

“Flick needs something stronger than beer tonight,” says Joi. She unlocks an old trunk in which she stores a remarkable range of supplies and pulls out a bottle of tequila.

“I hate tequila,” I tell her.

“It’s all I have. I’ll just give you enough to make you nice and numb.”

“I’ll take the pain. You know I don’t drink.”

“You will tonight. Doctor’s orders.” She points to a chair and fills a paper coffee cup to the halfway mark. “Bottoms up.” Joi watches to make sure I obey. When the first gulp is down, she leaves to gather her supplies and start preparing the operating room.

The kids are still gawking at me. I keep my eyes on the liquid I’m swirling with my index finger. There’s not enough tequila to form a whirlpool. Only a third of what Joi poured me is still left in the cup. The rest is already burning its way through my brain. I don’t want to look up at them. I don’t want to know them. I don’t have any pity to spare. I’m nothing like Joi. And I don’t believe in her little pet project. She picks up these strays all over the city and brings them home, knowing they never stay for good. But the longer they’re with her, the weaker they’ll be when they’re back on their own. She makes sure they’re