I fester in the rearview mirror of a smashed interior and fumble my way out of a folded vehicle. My mother sprawled across torn leather. My father mangled up in rusted iron. My sister, tucked between creases, coughs, gags, seizes.
I stare, spit, cackle. My sister begs forgiveness. So many hours, days, weeks, months, years, wasted. All we are is all we have and all we have is this: a random consortium of strangers the agency calls a Family.
She said this would be better. She said this would be different. She said, in the end, it’s all the same anyways, so why not just get there a little bit quicker? There’s a whole lot worse than death, she said, so might as well make the best of a rotten situation. But here we are. There she is. A plan half-drunk and wholly stupid and she didn’t even bother to follow through with it.
Sirens blare, near. The glare of snow. The sun lost beyond a sagging horizon. The country road torn and ripped and falling apart. A field, barren, empty, except for me. Except for her. Except for the rotting corpses the agency declares to be parents.
My sister flees the twisted monstrosity, drops to the ground. A pool of blood gathers below her.
A rusted cruiser slows, stops. An Agent withdraws.
"Mighty fine blizzard we're havin, ain't it?” He mumbles. I nod. "Shame bout that F-150...your parents too, course. Just saying." He smiles. I shrug.
"What about..."
"Her?" he gestures, nodding to my sister now strapped to a gurney, women carrying her off to a place called nowhere.
I bob my head up and down, up and down, again and again, memory like syrup, dripping down and down and further and farther away. She said this would work. She said this time it’d be different. I pray that if I push my eyes to the ground maybe then the thought, the thoughts, the memories, of her, of them, of all of it, will seep away.
"Well, fars I can tell, she's gonna be pretty alright probably. Need some serious hospitaling. And some therapy too, also. Hell, with a head like that, be surprised if she'd ever be normal." That fucking smile. Those rotting teeth. That snow bleached hair. That jaundiced skin.
"And me?” I don’t bother meeting his mocking gaze, his eating eyes.
"Well I spose that's a bit different. You got somewhere to stay while they fix her up?"
I shake my head, toes go numb. Water seeps through cloth shoes.
Sirens fade. No one but me and him.
"Shame. That'd be mighty helpful right about now. How old you be, anyhow?"
”Sixteen, almost."
"Well here’s how it is. We can put you in one of them foster homes, seeing that you be one of ‘em orphans now. Or, if you're up to it, we fib a little, tell a lie or two. Say you just turned bout eighteen not too long ago. Get em off our backs for a little long while."
I was lucky. I’d never been. Assigned to a family as long as I can remember. My sister, though, she wasn’t so lucky. The stories, the tales, the whips, the tests, the experimental procedures. Better the devil you know.
“And if I don’t?"
He cackles. "There ain't much of a chance you'll make it through the night." His hand heavy on a holster, leather, brass button loosened.
“I’m marked.” Tattoos assigned by the agency. A set of lines unique to each.
"Now don't you none go worrying none about any of that Ms. Lady. I got it all taken care of. Old buddy that’s due for some time will be sure to fix that right up."
His body inches towards mine, his arms like fur, his callused hands caught in the threads of my shirt. I wince, grimace. He smirks.
"I don't mean to take no advantage Ms. That is to say, I ain't want no buggery."
Not for those haggard features. Not for those swollen eyes and chipped fingers. Not for those cauliflower ears or fleeing hair follicles. Not for that belly pregnant with desire nor that nose hooked like an anvil. Not for him. Not for anyone.
"Yes sir is what you be looking for.” His gun cocked, loaded, aimed at the ground, his foot, my foot, rising, rising. The fog of my breath masks his cheshire grin, his stained teeth.
Nothing but an empty field and an abandoned street and the echo of sirens long dispatched.
“Go ahead then.”
He smirks. “I don’t much spect on killing.”
“Then that’s a pretty useless weapon.”
He chuckles. “Ever been?”
“Where?”
“To one of dem places your sister goin to?”
I bite my cheek, shake my head.
“Ya done think the orphanage bad? Ain’t no nothin pared to that. Course, that thinking they get here good and fast, and seein as we be where we be. Well, that done good take a real long time. And don’t think I ain’t got ways of keeping busy.”
I roll my tongue across my teeth.
"Yes sir."
"What's that? I can't good none hear ya.”
My throat tightens, hands clench, breath hot. "Yes sir"
"Good. Great. Now you go get in that there car there." He points to his cruiser, letters peeling, siren cracked, tires flat, doors welded on with a lackluster indifference.
I fumble towards the car, hesitate, hand clutching steel, metal.
"Yesm, up front if you please. And you just go and get yourself good and comfortable now. I’ll be with ya shortly. Homes not more than a minute back."
I nod, fumble, push, pull, sit, sniffle, shiver.
The man, the pig, the officer, cracks a grin, approaches, knocks upon frosted glass with the butt of a gun, points, gestures. I shake my head. He sighs, lumbers around the car, opens the door. The suffocating smell of decaying skin.
The cold makes me shiver.
"How old she be, anyhow? Older, maybe?" He nods to the clusterfuck of metal.
I shake my head, swallow, stare at the mashed iron.
"Younger, huh. Not much though, no?"
I shake my head.
"Well lets just get you good and on home now. Say we go see her in the morning. How does that sound? Good?"
I grip, grab, pull the door handle. The officer smiles, shakes his head, winks, starts the engine. The world passes by in a fuzzy haze.
Boxes everywhere. Dirt dusting a single cracked window. A light flickers, exposing three rooms. One for living. One for sleeping. One for eating.
"What about me?" I ask, searching the room, slowly suffocating from a probable gas leak.
"What about you?" he chuckles, talons on my shoulder. Dark, black, brown, red. What’s that under his nails?
"Where am I gonna..."
"Sleep?"
I nod, studying the frayed recliner, the lawn chairs which encompass the plastic table, the bed, the bed, the hospital corners.
"The bed. Where else?"
"And you?"
He guffaws, stumbles off into the kitchen, removes his belt, his badge, his gun. I hesitate, feet swollen, aching.
"What are you..."
"Doing?" he mumbles, shuffling through a dirt-drenched kitchen, searching through one drawer and then another and another.
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?" he pleads, eyes scrunched so far into his skull that skin overlaps skin like layers of fat.
"That. That thing you keep doing. As if you have any idea what I'm thinking."
"Did I say that I did?" he asks, turning towards me, eyes open wide. Blue, like my sister’s.
"Well no, not exactly." I bite my lip, draw blood. Wet, salty, sweet, dripping down my chin, staining soiled carpet
"It's just...you just keep doing that."
"Doing what?" He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"That thing you keep doing. The pretending to have any goddamn idea what I'm thinking"
He grimaces, snickers. "If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to get to it."
"Get to what?"
He shrugs. "Whatever it is that you womenfolk do.”
"What are you..."
"Looking for?"
"Goddamn't! Will you just stop it! Stop it! Okay? Just stop it!” Sweat blurs hazy vision.
“And what would I good do that for? You ain’t even hardly paid.”
“I don’t have no money.”
“Who said anything about money?”
I stare at the gun, his hand, his holster, swallow thick phlegm.
He sighs.
"A tit for tat. Ain't that what they say? Rent ain't free. Not around these parts. I work for what I got, and I spect you do just the same."
"I don't need this. You. Any of it.” I turn, reach for the door handle
He pounces, grabs, grips, drags, his breath toxic with menthol and nicotine, my back pressed up against a wooden door. "Then don't. Get to it. See if they can catch ya before I do."
I throw my knee into his stomach. He tumbles, rolls, moans, crawls towards the gun. I spit, kick. He grabs my foot, drags me down.
We roll across the floor. First one on top, then the other. He gains the advantage, straddles, punches. Again. Again. Again.
Blood splatters. Darkness rises. I struggle. I strain. I reach. I grab. A leg of a table.
I pull.
The gun crashes to the floor, misfires. Hands liberate legs, thrown upon eardrums, temples.
I grab the gun, cock it, aim. The Agent giggles. I fire.
Blood pools below him. I climb to my feet and tuck the gun into my back pocket.
I step towards the door, stop, turn back around, search the kitchen, withdraw a box of matches.
I stare at the bloated demon, poke, prod. No sign of breathing.
A knock at the door.
"Louie? You in there. I heard some sort of shootin. Wasn't sure if it was just one of them lady friends of yours."
I swallow vomit.
"Now Louie, I ain't one for gossipin, we all got our vices, but you know my wifeys gotta interview with the Agency in the mornin. She can't be kept up all night by your lady's shooting. So just be kind now, will ya? Some of us have things to do that ain't just shooting.”
I hold my breath, close my eyes.
"Say, Louie, while I got ya. You don't happen to have some coke, do ya? Mines been goin missing. Won’t keep put, if you get what I'm sayin."
I grip the gun tucked into my pocket, withdraw the barrel, cock it.
"Now Louie, don't be stingy. I know you been hoggin. I ain't askin for much now. Nothin really. All I need is a little to get goin. If you can't be civil, I’ll get someone who will good done make ya."
I aim the gun at the door
"Alirghty then."
I pull the trigger.
No ammunition.
I lurch, leap, throw the door open, tuck the gun into a back pocket.
"Hey, ummm, you lookin for Louie?”
He looks me over, chuckles. "You girls gettin younger and younger each and every day now, ain't ya?" He steps close, I pull the door closer.
"Louie in there? Or you just makin yourself comfortable?" Eyes bulge out of shallow sockets.
"He just went out."
He chuckles. "Ah. That’s the game you been playin"
I force a false smile.
"He gets the coke and you get the...well..alrighty then. Mind if I stick around? Just till he gets back? Got some business to discuss. You women folk wouldn't much know much about it."
“No. Yes. I mean, I do, mind, that is. I'm supposed to surprise him, with, you know…" I do that thing people do, with their eyes and their mouths and their tongues.
He snickers. "I gotya. Don't mean to none intrude. You just tell him, when it's done and over, you get him on over, I really need that uhhh, well, you know."
"Yea. Sure. Course. As soon as I get to it." I push the door closed, stopped, his foot between the door and the doorway.
"I mean it, lady. Don't none be takin it too lightly. Hour, tops, then I'm callin those who deal with this sort of thing."
"Hour. Sure. Got it." I push the door harder. He smiles, chuckles.
"Say, while you're waiting, why don't you and I..." his eyes do that thing men’s always do. His lips part, saliva oozes. His breath is tinged with Jim Beam and Wild Turkey.
His hand, wet, cold, slimy, crawls up my arm, shoulder, under a sleeve. Closer. Closer. Closer. I crush his foot with my own. He howls, jumps. I slam the door shut.
"Bitch!" He kicks the door, stomps off.
I look past the curtain, through the window. The man limps down the stairs, across the lot, and to a door. He hits, bangs, slams. A decrepit, bearded man answers, frowns, spits, nods, follows the other across the lot, towards me, towards him, towards us, towards that dead body bloated and reeking.
I sprint through the hovel. The living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, the nook, the cranny, the closet.
Nothing. Nothing.
The rattle of a door. A battering ram. Screaming. Yelling. Howling. Keys jangle. I reach for the one door left unopened, climb in, and slam the door shut behind me.
The creak of hinges turning. Mumbling. Heavy breathing. Silence.
A shabby bathroom. A window.
Push. Pull. Jammed. Stuck. Footsteps gather, approach.
The window opens. Two inches. A rat couldn't fit through it.
The door flutters. Wood splinters.
"Now I know you in there girl, no use in fighting. Me and my friend here just wanna talk nicely. Ain’t no need to get scared nor nothin. Just come on out now, we can have a good little talk now."
I clench a mildewed curtain, rip. Long, narrow pieces. I wrap them around busted knuckles.
"Now this is your last warning. I ain't none asking again. You come on out now fore the Agency good and get here or I'm gonna done tell em you locked, loaded, and dangerous. Now I ain't no scientist or nuffin but I tell you what, you get a buck shot like that goin through a door like this and I imagine there won’t be much left of that womanly figure."
I smash my wrapped hand through the glass window, wince. Glass shatters. Voices anger. The door bulges. Jutted teeth too small to clear. I grit my own, drag myself through, blood like breadcrumbs, thick and molding.
Grabbed, gripped, dragged, pulled. Nails dig into skin.
I bite my tongue, grind my teeth, clench the metal fire escape.
One hand becomes two. Two becomes four. Hands begin to give. Fingers go numb.
I let go.
We fall to the bathroom floor. Just two old men and a little girl, a dangerous thing in this world. I lurch past the bedroom, through the kitchen, out the door, and onto pavement.
The men holler, yell, scream. Not a single voice answers their call. People don't mind other people’s business. Less witnesses.
I bound to a car. Another. Another.
Locked. Locked. Locked.
I fumble to the torn up highway, lit by flickering street lamps, the old men hobbling behind me.
I stop in the middle of the road. There a lot of things worse than death.
A car. A horn. The scent of gasoline. I close my eyes. Breathe.
Nothing.
The car sits before me.
A middle-aged woman, a Mother, leaps out of the vehicle. “What in hell do you think you be doin?”
”Sorry to bother you miss, but those men are trying to kill me."
“I ain’t no Agency.”
“Got a car, don’t ya?"
Frown lines furrow. Crows eyes meet mine. The men. Heaving. Hawing.
The woman sighs, nods, drops back into the driver's seat.
I lunge, pull at the passenger door. Locked.
I pound on the window. The engine roars. The car squeals, takes off.
Grabbed by the hand, gripped by the arm, the two men with fingers filled with grime.
I struggle, strain.
An old man hobbles out of a station across the highway.
"You need some help Ms Lady?"
I steady my breath. ”They're trying to kill me.”
"That so?"
"Hey gramps, why don't you mind your own damn business."
"Oh, I don't mean no bother. But that girl there look mighty frightened."
"Her?" The bearded man cackles. "You think she's innocent? Well let me tell you something Mr, that ain't never been the case. You ain't never gonna none believe it, but she just murdered poor old Louie."
"Never liked the fella, personally."
"Well no, ain't nobody never liked him. But he was good people, wasn't he?"
"Ain't no good to me. And I spose ain't none to her none neither." The old man nods, still across the street.
"Well you just get on back now to your own damn business, you hear" The bearded man growls. "We got the Agency on our side, and that's just how we spect to handle this."
"Agency? Shit. Ain't no pig but Louie ever been for you. Why don't you done just let her alone."
"Whats it to you, gramps?"
"Me? Oh, nothing much. Just been looking for a new girl is all."
"This look like one of dem interviews?".
"Ain't look like nothin but a couple of men trying to take advantage of a troubled situation. Now when it comes to those ladies, the ones that come not never in the day, I don't say nothin. Sure bad for business, but I keep to myself, mostly. But this young girl ain't nowhere near no age of consent, and I know for certain that if you go calling them pigs the first thing they gonna ask is that age of hers and something tells me ain't nothin gonna be with you. Now alirght, that's fine, you go on to one of dem places they go and do their testing and mutilatin. But when they go and find out I be working cross from them and ain't even do nothin, well what do you spect then? That loan them agents given ain’t nothin then. Closed in a week, and that's bein op-tee-mistic. Sure nuff they gonna take good about everything once they’re done with you. So just let her go now, will ya? I'll take care of the rest. You handle you and I’ll handle her.”
"Yea, well, how bout this? You shut your damn trap and we don't blow your place to bits."
A shrieking growl. A truck draws near. Tires squeal. A horn blares. The suffocating stench of exhaust fills the air. I lurch, jump, clench.
The men hold me tight. The truck drives on by.
"Now I ain't none asking again. You let her go now or this done it." The old man threatens a gun glinting in moonlight. The men hesitate, look to each other, push me to the ground.
"Alright now Ms. Lady, you get on over." I hock, spit, climb to my feet, turn towards the road. The landlord grabs me by the arm, looks at me hard.
"Spose you spect he plannin on missing. I wouldn't much count on that if I were you missy. That man can shoot a penny on top of a bull in the middle of a goddamn blizzard. I spect if you wanna go on living, you better get on over.”
"What's another life to him?”
The bearded man giggles. “Spect he ain’t too much concerned bout you dying.”
“No worse than living”
“You ain’t get it. He ain’t gonna kill ya. He gonna shoot ya.”
“Whats the difference?”
“Difference is, you’ll wind up in Hell.”
“At least I’ll be warm.”
“You ain’t getting it. I ain’t mean for real. I mean here. On this planet. That big building in the city. Where them doctors work.”
Hands go cold. Palms go wet. I try to swallow the tumor in my throat. It only grows bigger. Bigger. I can hardly breathe.
Wind snips at my cheeks.
"Well don't just stand there, get on over!" The old man nods to the shop behind him.
I lift one foot, another. Step after step. Further. Farther. Faster. Faster.
I stand before him.
The old man chuckles, limps to a door. I look back to the two men fumbling away, follow the old man.
Brass, metal, rust, iron. Dirt clings to plastic packaged food stuffs. Green meat, never spoiled. Three aisles, waist high, unorganized. An archaic machine that counts paper, metal, atop a counter spotted with rat-chewed holes.
“Hungry?” The old man limps across stained linoleum.
I shake my head.
“Suit yourself” The old man struggles with a wrapper, crinkles plastic, sets the foodstuff aside, atop the counter, and folds the plastic. He tucks the plastic into his pocket, the food into his mouth. A single, vicious bite.
I search the room. The door, the window, a tattered photo of a boy, a generator. The old man’s gaze fixes upon mine. I look away.
“You don’t say much, do ya? More of one of them thinking girls.” His eyes go up and down, up and down, searching my body.
“What’s wrong with that?” I look near him, over him, through him. Look a man in the eyes with a gun in his hand and you’re as good as half-dead. She always said that.
“Wrong? Nothins wrong with nothing. I ain’t never said there much was. Just wanna know what kind of girl I’m gettin in with.” His eyes search for mine.
“In?” I cough the word like phlegm.
“What I means to say is, this shop takes upkeep. I ain’t want someone that ain’t got something”
“And what is it, exactly, that I have.”
“Well that’s for you to tell and me to listen.” The old man shuffles across linoleum, closer, closer, closer. Nails dig into skin. Handfuls of blood. I hold my breath, bend my knees.
The old man shuffles past. I turn. Better to get shot facing your shooter. Kills you faster.
The old man hobbles further, farther, around a plastered counter. Holes the size of weasels, mold like country borders. The old man leans over, lost behind the counter, his wrinkled hands upon his arched back, his face a portrait in the counter. He grabs something, steel, metal.
Nothing worse than dying slowly in the ICU. The tests, the drugs, the agency. A lifetime supply of unwilling guinea pigs. She always made it sound so easy.
The old man straightens. A shrill, screeching sound as he drags the object across the floor. He grunts, wipes his blackened brow.
I stumble back. One step. Another. Another.
A tile shattered. A nauseous ring. The black residue of gun fire just behind me.
“I spect you spect on gettin fore we get good and talking.” He pulls the metal object from behind the counter. A chair, folded. He unravels it. “I ain’t much for looks, and I been getting pretty old lately. But that shot ain’t never miss, and don’t you none forget it.”
I swallow blood.
“Now what we done talking bout? Something bout looking” He searches the room, the windows, the walls.
“What it is, exactly, I’m supposed to be doing.”
“That’s right. We be looking at you” A toothless grin.
“You’ll have to sleep sometime.”
“All do”
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
“I ain’t never wanna keep nobody. Just offering work, if you done want it.”
I look to the locked door, the barred windows, the apartments just across the way.
“Disciplines what they need. Them boys after you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Ain’t none said you done did. And if you did, what spose you to think I none give a shit?”
“I thought”
“There you go thinking again. Let me tell you something. People like you, people like me, we ain’t made for this world. Never were. Not since 45. But that’s not here nor there nor nowhere for much matter. What I means to say is, we gotta get by someway, and that ain’t come alone..”
Teeth crunch under the weight of my own jaw.
“And who’s to say I don’t already?”
“Them boys be saying otherwise.”
“They don’t know anything.”
“Much of anything, no. But they know something about something when it comes to you womenfolk. They like animals. They can sense it, feel it. Loneliness is a dangerous game in this world.”
“I’m not alone”
“Then where they be?”
I part my lips, try to speak..
“Well? I ain’t got all day.” He shuffles, leans back, head high, eyes closed.
“They took her.”
“Who? Them boys?”
“No. Doctors.”
The old man opens his eyes, sighs, leans forward, elbows on knees. “You shudda done said that.”
“Said what?”
“Spose we better get goin then.” The old man hobbles out of the chair and to a door.
“Where…”
“Spect you don’t none spect of gettin her from here, do ya?”
The car is cold, electric. The heat doesn’t work. The windows crack. The doors are perpetually locked, opened only with a key, only from the outside. The world passes by in a fuzzy haze.
“Spect you spect on good and getting once we get good and going”
“There is no escaping, except in nothing. The endless, inevitable nothing that we all keep running from, as if there’s some terminal velocity to nothing. There isn’t. There never was. There never will be. Nothing is always everything.”
“Bit of a downer, ain’t ya?”
“What else?”
“Don’t know. Spose it ain’t all so bad.”
“Like what?”
The old man shrugs. “Ain’t dead.”
“How is this any better?”
“Why don’t ya go and find out?”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
The old man sighs, nods, taps on the wheel.
“Don’t spect you got much of a plan, do ya?”
I shake my head, rocking back and forth, back and forth, leather gripping sweat soaked hands.
“Shame, cus I ain’t never been much for plans.”
“I don’t even know where she is.”
The bitter laugh of a man far younger. “Well, spose I did.”
Nails dig into scarred flesh. I grab at whatever I can, pull at the scuffed up glove compartment, polaroids plummet to the floor. Momentum throws me forward, children’s faces flying. Wheels squeal. The old man throws the car into park, withdraws his gun, presses it deep into my belly.
“What the fuck do you think you done doin?”
“I just…I…I don’t know. I was just looking.”
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get. Out.”
“Its just a bunch of stupid pictures. What does it matter?”
“What it matter ain’t none of your business. Now get out fore I good and done shoot ya.”
I swallow phlegm. “No”
“I ain’t askin.”
“Those picture, they’re polaroids.”
“Whats it be to you.”
“Them not allowed for a real long time now. You know that just as well as I do.”
“You one of them now?”
“Not yet.”
“And what if I just done kill ya?”
I shrug. “Agent dead back there, by your shop. And almost two more if you ask them. Who ya think they gonna get to first?”
“You ain’t none said nothin bout no killing.”
“Have now.”
The old man bites his cheek, breaths heavily, tucks away the gun. “Just don’t be none lookin at them, ya hear?”
I nod, gather fading polaroids. A baby, a boy, an infant, a toddler. The outside world moves away.
“Where we going?”
“Round 63, this man came by buying up land. Ain’t never been worth nothin, so nobody pay too much mind. Then he start building things. Not much at first, but then lots. Eventually built one of them places you sister probably be.”
“That can’t be the only one.”
His knuckles go white as he grips the wheel.
“Not around these parts. Not with that man. Only the one and the one only. Better business that way I spose.”
I wipe my running nose, my sprinting tears. People like that get locked up real quick.
“But that ain’t much of the problem here. Question is, how we get her here?”
I shift my jaw left, right. Bad habit, grinding teeth. Better to slit the teeth with the tongue, till you start to draw blood.
“Spose you spect some sort of handout. Some sort of pity party. Some sort of boohoo cus you ain’t like the rest of us. Well let me tell you what missy, we all got nothing. Less than that, most of us, so don’t go thinking you got more of it.”
Blood trickles down my chin. I let it drip.
The blood stains my shirt, seeps through skin. I wipe the blood from my chin. I spit on the floor, a sour mix of phlegm and blood. The old man grunts, shakes his head.
“What?”
“Nothin. Spose the days of manners are long gone.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Takin ya, ain’t I?”
“Just another pair of hands to you.”
The old man shrugs, looks me over, smiles. “Spose my intentions don’t really much matter.”
I shrug, look away.
Snow covers failed crops, abandoned cars, forgotten industries. Roads curved and carved by layers of ice. The city rises upon the horizon. Brown, beige, white, concrete. A single mirrored building stands at its center, refracting the rising sun, a lighthouse to all those who dare to enter.
“Them men back there. Dem boys. Ain’t you know what they did, what they do?”
“No.”
“Spose ain’t nobody that stupid…But then again, if you so smart, always goin about thinking, what you doin picking up with them in the first place, if you ain’t none even know them.”
“It was that or the orphanage.”
The old man groans. “Spect you never been to one of them places nohow.”
“My sister has. Did. Whatever.”
The old man breaths for what seems like the first time in 50 years. “And you be thinking them be better?”
“What else?”
“Spose I misjudged you. Stupid, sure. But a thinker, like that old statue.”
“I didn’t exactly have a ton of options”
“I spose not. Next time, though, don’t”
“Next time don’t what? Live? Crash? Almost die but not quite? Let your deranged sister murder your agency approved family? Gee wilikers Johnny, I done did never think of that! What a genius you are! A real saint to the human race. If it wasn’t for you, I’d go and do it again! Hell, lets do it right now, shall we? Give me that wheel, I have a great idea.”
The old man shakes his head, smirks, chuckles.
A windowless building. Men in dark uniforms. The old man and I gawk at the walls, each other, trapped in an alley.
Shadowed figures linger beyond the sun, weaving and heaving. Men like rats, rats like men, avoiding the unpopulated streets. Urchins, she called them. A reminder to everyone else that at least you’re not them.
The old man unbuckles his belt, turns to me, sighs. He nods to the building, the men. A four story cage. No way in, no way out.
“Ain’t no need for perplexin missy. I know what I’m doin.”
He points down below, to ripped shoes, curled feet, blackened toes.
“They guard anything and everything, ain’t no question bout it. But spose people gotta get rid of the old, in with the new. Gotta keep clean, ya know?”
“Yea. So?”
“They got one of them, whatchamacallits…sewers. Places to keep everything clean. Bury it far underground so as to not to have to think, to see, to hear, to smell.”
“Thanks for the history lesson Hugo.”
“Ain’t you none get nothin stupid? It gotta get out somehow.”
“So?”
“So that’s our way in.”
“At best, it opens up to a yard full of armed angry men. That’s kind of a terrible plan.”
“Gotta better one?”
The viscous goo gushes between toes, seeping through shoes, wrangling feet in a hot, wet ooze. The old man slumps along ahead of me, shuffling his feet below the surface of the intoxicated river, grumbling and mumbling and whispering conspiratorially.
“Do you even know where you’re going?”
“Damned if I did.”
“So we’re just walking around endlessly?”
The old man grunts, groans, shifts his rickety body towards me, points behind me. “Spect that be backwards, yea?”
“Yea. I guess so.”
“So this gotta be the way forward.”
“Forward where?”
The old man shrugs. “Spect good near somewhere, probably.”
“And what if it’s not? What if it isn’t? What if we climb up some ladder and suddenly we’re nowhere.”
“Ain’t never been nowhere never.”
“What do you call this?”
“Just where we be.”
“So this is just some sort of creepy little fantasy then. Like what you did with that boy, that kid.”
The old man lurches, grabs, lifts me off the ground. “I ain’t never done hurt ya and ain’t never done gonna!” I drop into slush. “When you ever gonna learn that?”
I spit warm sludge, dry heave, lean on my knees. The old man lingers over me.
“Why can’t you done trust nobody never?” His eyes search for mine.
I scoff, climb to my feet, push him off. “Forget it. I’ll find her myself.”
The old man sighs, steps forward, stops, a barrel pressed deep into his stomach, snatched when he held me. My hand tightens around the trigger. His eyes widen with recognition.
“Now don’t be none stupid now. Fire that gun and they be down real quick. Agency ain’t deaf, ya know.”
“You don’t know that.”
The old man shrugs. “Better than you ever will. Even if they don’t go on listening, ya still be dead in a week. Less, if you ain’t willing to drink whatever that done be.” He nods to the sludge rushing past our feet “Can’t nobody find their way out of this nohow. Not alone.”
My gaze meets his. Mere apathy. Worse, acceptance. She was right. There’s a lot worse things than death.
I nod to the impending darkness, to the alley covered in slime. “Go”
The old man smiles, winks. “Spect I can’t be none persuading you much bout that gun now, can I?”
I cock the gun.
The old man chuckles, pushes the gun aside, and walks on.
What little light once pierced through the dark corridor quickly begins to fade. Hour after hour seeps away. The gun chafes my lower back, producing a rash. The rats, which once scurried away at the sight of human flesh, scurry no more.
The old man stops at the precipice of shadows, impenetrable darkness. He turns around, looks at me. “Spect this ain’t much the way.”
“What tipped you off? The three hour march or the pitch black cave.”
“Ain’t no need to get bitter. Ain’t my sister need saving.”
“No. It’s not. So why do you even give a shit?”
“Like I done said”
“Bullshit. You could get a girl for a lot cheaper.”
“I ain’t want cheap.”
“What the fuck do you want?”
The old man sighs, looks down, stares at the sludge. “I ain’t never asked for nuffin.”
“Ask would be a strange way to put it.”
“Ain’t no harm in a little company.”
“If you think that’s what this is. If you think I’m just gonna…”
“Ain’t nothin like that missy. Can’t you done get that?”
“Kind of hard when I don’t know where I’m going.”
“This ain’t about this.”
“What then?”
The old man kicks at sludge. “When 45 came, kids ain’t lowed no more. Had to get rid of em. Fresh start and all that.”
I chew my tongue
“Everybody done think they know, what it’s like, what it means. But ain't nobody know…That scream…Those eyes…it ain't like nothin ever.”
The old man stares at the sludge. “People be saying they be better off, they get and go to heaven. But what’s heaven to a kid without his Pa?”
I roll my tongue along the inside of my mouth, searching for the words that cannot be found.
“I know you none ain't think nothing bout that kind of stuff. Bout kin. None much does nowadays. But he ain’t none need that. Ain’t no one none need that.”
“But you do?”
The old man squawks a bitter chuckle. “Done ask you bout the same thing.”
I grip torn leather. I steady shivering feet, quivering hands, slow my breath. The old man sighs.
The gun fires. The old man drops to his knees.
I stare at the humid slush, the stagnant water, the rats eating each other. I look back to the light, to the endless alley. I close my eyes, inhale a toxic breath, and press the barrel into my skull. There’s a lot of things worse than death.
“You ain’t got it in ya”
My hand trembles, finger wrapped around the trigger. 3 centimeters.
I pull the trigger taut.
Tighter.
Tighter.
Tighter.
I release the trigger.
“Coward"
I aim the gun at my foot, fire. The wretched wail of my own scream.
The sound of sirens. Of men marching. Of slush sloshing.
I sit down next to the old man, wait.