Angels of Detroit by Christopher Hebert

understanding. The distance between them lately—it was all unnecessary.
    “We’ve been aiming too low,” she said. “Picket signs—what’s the point?”
    Myles propped himself up on his elbow, letting his hand come to a rest on her hip.
    A strand of hair was caught on a link of the silver chain draped across her throat.
    He reached around and found the thick, cold zipper of her coat. He gave it a tentative tug.
    She didn’t resist.
    He said, “Just tell me what you want to do.”

Six
    The house had been his grandmother’s. When she died, he didn’t know what else to do with it. There were already dozens of empty houses in the neighborhood that nobody wanted. Her place was small, a stuffy bungalow with a cracked foundation and paint peeling off the sides in spotted-cow-like patches. But it was free, so Michael Boni moved in. He loaded his tools into his truck, his table saw and miter saw and router table. Everything in his workshop. The few other things he owned fit into the gaps left over. Priscilla rode beside him in the passenger’s seat.
    The best thing about the house was the garage. It was big and airy, with plenty of space for working. The only thing in it was his grandmother’s dead Mercury, which Michael Boni rolled into the yard, mowing a path through the weeds.
    He left the rest of the house almost exactly as it was. His grandmother’s furniture, her drapes, her cups and plates and tasseled lamps. He cleared the bottom drawer in the dresser for his pants and socksand underwear. He pushed her dresses in the closet a few inches to the side to make room for his shirts.
    His grandmother’s stuff was nicer than his anyway. She had an old walnut bedroom set and a dining room table of solid maple. The buffet was beautifully lathed. Looking at the neighborhood now, it was hard to believe people had once lived here who could afford pieces like these.
    Michael Boni had never bothered to make anything decent for himself. It was all thrift-store crap—particleboard pasted with half-assed laminate, grains not found anywhere in nature. Priscilla couldn’t tell the difference, and there was no one else Michael Boni felt any need to impress.
    For the move to his grandmother’s, he left all the junk behind for his landlord. George was an asshole anyway. He had no appreciation for Priscilla, claimed he could hear her squawking from two floors down. Two floors of brick and cement. Not to mention Priscilla was a caique, not a macaw. She’d never squawked in her life. The only time she made any noise at all was when the cops raced by. She answered their sirens with one of her own, an uncanny impression. Laced, Michael Boni liked to think, with more than a touch of mockery. But George was too dumb to appreciate the subtlety of birds. He had one of those shitty little dogs whose bark was like a finger in the eye. All night, all morning, all day, his yaps sounding to Michael Boni like a challenge. Break break break my neck break break break break my neck .
    Let that asshole throw the shitty furniture away.
    Michael Boni got by on his grandmother’s food, too. Her pantry looked like a munitions depot. There were stockpiles of beans and tomatoes and corn and everything and anything that could be found en escabeche . But most of all there was pozole . Case after case after case of the stuff. Until he found her supply, he’d had no idea pozole even came by the can. He was no purist, but he couldn’t picture his abuela pouring anything into a bowl and calling it dinner, the gurgle and suck and greasy splash. His grandfather had brought her here fromMichoacán. Michoacán to Michigan. Maybe the name had persuaded her it wouldn’t be so different from home. Grandpa had heard there was good money to be made up north assembling chassis and stamping fenders. He was right about the money, but he’d underestimated the cold. Abuela never forgave him for that. Shortly before Michael Boni’s mother died, she admitted Grandma had