Veneer by Daniel Verastiqui Page A

the very picture of a man who belonged downtown. The only pieces that remained Jalay were his eyes; they were as devious and dim as ever. He stood at the edge of the cafeteria until he spotted Russo by the windows, at which point he moved nimbly through the maze of tables to join him.
    “Look who took a shower,” said Russo, spinning the egg again.
    “My dad made me go to church,” he explained. After an unimpressed look from Russo, he added, “There were some girls there. In dresses.”
    “You must have pissed yourself.”
    Jalay pulled his chair closer to the table and set his palette on it. As he waited for his sites to load, he asked, “What have you been doing all night?”
    Russo motioned to the police department with his head. Two cops were struggling with a rowdy drunk who had managed to pull down his pants.
    “You see him yet?”
    Shaking his head, he replied, “I wonder if it has a room. Or a closet.”
    “Closet?” Jalay tapped into his desktop, filling the palette with a browser, a notepad, and a little picture frame that shuffled through various genres of pornography.
    Snatching up the egg, Russo said conspiratorially, “I think Eric might be a cyborg.”
    “Where’d you get that?”
    “Drag,” replied Russo. “This old lady wanted twenty bucks for it.”
    “That’s a bit steep,” said Jalay, distracted. His portal was displaying three photo streams at once, images culled from an array of mixed-media blogs. When one of the pictures caught his interest, he dragged his finger upwards, reversed the stream, and enlarged the photo. A young Asian girl appeared, naked, sitting on the floor with her legs tucked under her. She was looking up, somewhere off camera. Jalay dragged the image to a folder on the left, saving it.
    Russo looked away, outside again to a small group of uniforms coming out of the building. It was getting close to ten, which was start time for the third shift. He had learned a lot about the way the police force operated over the last three weeks, from when shifts began to what uniforms looked like before they hit the street. There was some kind of auto-reconciliation happening when police boots came into contact with the sidewalks. The group of uniforms making their way down the steps looked like they were off-duty, but their bluish gray clothes suddenly became black after that last step. Then the standard attire took over, making them appear more menacing to the public.
    “You weren’t in school yesterday,” said Jalay. He dragged another Asian into his save folder.
    “Fuck school,” Russo replied. “If I can learn to do what Eric does, I won’t need high school at all.”
    Jalay chuckled. “Oh, I thought you skipped because of Deron.”
    “The fuck does that mean?”
    “He...” Jalay started, but then paused as Russo’s face turned serious. “They let him out of the hospital. People say he’s probably going to press charges.”
    “The hell he is!” Russo turned away. “I should have ended him.”
    “Sure, why not?” asked Jalay, bobbing his head sarcastically. “Let’s just murder anyone who gets in your way. Don’t be retarded.”
    Russo’s fist shot out and caught Jalay on the shoulder. “I tell you what to do, not the other way around.”
    “Whatever,” he replied, rubbing his arm.
    Jalay had been acting strange for weeks. He was never around when Russo needed him and even though he had shown up in detention a few times, they couldn’t talk. Most likely, the principal had gotten to him, given him one of those signature lectures about hanging out with the wrong element.
    The wrong element.
    Russo thought about what that meant, tried to see himself as everyone else did: a bully, an asshole, and an attempted murderer.
    “So he lived.”
    “He lived,” parroted Jalay. “They say he was in a coma for the first week, but it’s not like he’s brain damaged.” A chuckle. “Well, no worse than before.”
    “Why didn’t he tell the cops when he woke