It was the strangest dream – me and Bastion were living in Philadelphia in this tiny one room tenement, something small and dirty like when we first married. He had brought the dog in from a walk, but Chelsea had some shit stuck to her that Bastion hadn’t cleaned off and she had dragged her ass all over the carpet. I was angry at Bastion because he hadn’t paid enough attention, he was angry at the dog, and everybody was screaming, including the dog who was barking at the moon (despite it being mid-day).
“Well, what do you want me to do?” Bastion yelled, and I knew he meant that the mistake was made, so why was I yelling.
It struck me as a stupid question, though, and I snapped back, “Clean it up!”
“Fine!” he screamed, walking over to the carpet. I just boggled at him as he got down on his knees and began scraping at the streaks of shit with his hands.
I felt myself stepping around him, mind bending in that space, as if keeping my distance could prevent whatever had gotten into him from taking hold. “Bastion,” I asked, feeling rash, “what are you doing?”
He raised himself up on his knees, hands covered in shit, and spat back, “Oh, is this not good enough for you? Here!” He bent back down and began to lick the carpet, burying his face in the streaks of shit until it covered his cheeks.
Alarmed, I could only think of the most useless thing to say, “Bastion! Stop!”
His hand shot out then and snagged my arm about the wrist, pulling me down. On my knees in front of him, he grabbed me by the back of the head and forced me in for a kiss. Despite the smell he was grinding into my hair and the brown stains on his cheeks, I didn’t resist. The dog howled.
It was the strangest thing. I’ve never even been to Philadelphia.
Select the play button above for an audio reading.To see all chapters, go here.
I had never been beyond the river. Across its furthest western shore, I imagined another neighborhood where the poor that serviced the rich of Old Town lived. A deep groove that cut into the rocky soil that made up the hills surrounding the city, with only a few bridges that crossed it, the river made a much more effective periphérique than the tram stations with the police ever could.
Near the Factory, the eastern edge of town ended abruptly at a steep slope that ran down to the river’s edge, several stories of stone protecting the city center from seasonal floods. The past evening’s rains hadn’t been much, but what had come dribbled out of the storm drains that dotted the embankment. A sidewalk was built running along its top, providing a continuation of the Promenade, but this one giving a view of the river below. You could follow it all the way out to the ocean if you were so inclined.
To my surprise, Sartre didn’t start along the sidewalk, but straddled the big chain strung through the heavy metal posts that dotted the outside of the path. He gestured for me to follow, then lifted his other foot to the opposite side and began inching his way down the levee. The rocks were fitted together squarely, providing few handholds and the last rain made the surface slick with reflections of the iron lampposts that lit the path. But with Sartre’s men standing unmoving behind me I didn’t see another direction. I handed one of them the umbrella and followed.
It was slow going, but I could see Sartre shuffling down in front me of, so I kept at it until I saw him stop at one of the storm drains. The big cement tunnels projected out of the stone embankment like short cannons off a ship, the rocky base of the city rising out of the water below. I found a good grip on the concrete of the shaft and swung myself to get a foothold in its inner darkness. A smell of stagnant water, human waste, and death came out of it, stronger than any cordite.
Sartre clicked on a light and I nearly lost my handhold. A few feet down the tunnel, on the other side of an inner grate, was a man bloated with strips of his flesh melting away. I caught myself before my recoil nearly dropped me down the embankment.
“What the hell Sartre?” I decided the situation allowed for the dropping of any formalities.
“What? You have never seen a cadaver before?” Behind the light he held Sartre was just a cutout in the darkness beyond. But I could tell he was smiling.
Compelled by the stories of high adventure in dime novels, he set out West. Walking along with wagon trains to which he did not belong, he reached a place where the sky seemed to bloom into an eternal blue above the green of the prairie. There, on the rise of the undulating treeless plain, sat a group of buildings, squat one-level wooden domiciles, an island of civilization floating out amongst the eternal grassland. A small fenced area not far from the structures spoke of livestock, which meant water, so he headed that way, feeling by its weight that his canteen was empty.
Out front stood a tall woman, little more than girl, bony with fiery hair that she pushed out of her face as he approached. Even from quite a way aways, he could see that she was beautiful, so much so that he began to lace stories around her; of how her family had moved out of the city to escape the oppression and smog; how they had intermarried with Indians to survive a harsh winter; that they had adopted the name of Espinosa in a generational fit of poeticism and religion; that she spoke three languages, but English only poorly and as they learned how to better communicate with one another that she would fall in love with him.
He thought on all of this as he noticed a small white puff float up from one of the cabins’ windows, like a cloud floating away on the grassland’s endless wind. Then there was a pressure in his chest, like a rock had struck him there, and the world tumbled until he saw nothing but the bright prairie sky.
To start at the beginning go here.To hear an audio reading of the chapter, hit the play button below.
Select the play button above for an audio reading.To see all chapters, go here.
Sartre led me out of the Abbatoir, through the Factory’s main floor, and back out the front door. Anyone caught in the path of Sartre’s convoy moved out of the way as if a Humvee were bearing down on them. The bald giant at the entrance had been replaced by another of Sartre’s men who fell in behind us as we made our way down the alley.
After a few yards I sped up a bit to walk side-by-side with Sartre, who made his way with a quick gait of his short, pumping legs, oblivious to the dirty water or trash. Flanking each other, we moved west. I said nothing, feeling Sartre occasionally shoot me a sideways glance. The bass of the club faded away, leaving the silence of the night only cut by the rapid tapping of our feet as we moved further and further away from occupied civilization.
We crossed under the bridge, moving in a formation of synchronous footsteps, before Sartre spoke. “How is Atwell?”
Sartre was kind enough to speak softly, but the mention of Atwell around so many still made me instantly nervous. Back in the States knowing that any criminal was cooperating with a government agent, no matter what government, would have meant a death sentence, or at least a severe beating and ostracism, by his peers. In this city, though, Sartre had no peers. Or at least he hadn’t before Mitnick arrived. In Sartre’s eyes, and by extension the eyes of his men, he was using Atwell, not the other way around, so I was Sartre’s property, not Atwell’s.
I shrugged, trying to roll the knot of anxiety out of my shoulders. I wasn’t going to pretend to understand how the influence game worked here, or anywhere else for that matter. What I had seen of it was all pre-9/11, then there had been the Marine Corps, then Cheryl’s illness, and then prison. Each of those chapters had taught their own lessons, but they all basically amounted to be observant and keep your mouth shut. With that in mind, I followed the shrug with, “He seems fine.”
Sartre chuckled. It wasn’t a happy sound, not one that suggested he was glad to hear Atwell was doing well, but a noise like the subject of it had failed to start the engine of his mirth. “That weaselly little bastard would never be fine,” he countered. Arrangement or not, Sartre’s opinion of all law enforcement, particularly those who worked in the gray area between cop and informer, was the same as most professional criminals. “He’s too busy running around, frightened he might not know what’s going on, to ever be fine.”
I smiled without reservation, large enough that Sartre or anyone else who was watching me could see it. I appreciated someone else expressing my own dislike for the little bastard, and I was fairly certain Sartre already knew I shared his opinion. It may have been one of the reasons he gave me a job, albeit a shitty one, at the casino when Atwell asked him for the favor.
I thought about Atwell’s attempt at nonchalance in the car but it had been a risk for him to pick me up out by the Promenade. Not for him, personally – I doubted very much that Atwell would ever take a risk that would put his own well-being in danger. Had the right person spotted us, though, I would have been compromised and that would have nullified a great deal of work that he had done. “He’s worried,” I replied.
Sarti didn’t let the conversation stop him, my reply only producing another rolling chuckle as his legs continued to work. We were headed west, I noted, towards the river. The cobbled streets had started a slight declination that would continue to increase as we headed further that way. “My little show at the casino upset him, yes?”
“It frightened a lot of people.” I thought about that now and how much Sartre risked with his stunt and wondered how far he would have gone.
He seemed to enjoy the thought of scaring people as his chuckle this time sounded more genuine. “Such displays are necessary from time to time.”
“Why?” The question popped out, floating up on any number of scenarios I thought of on how Mitnick could have been handled. Some place private, some place quiet.
Watching my feet on the cobblestones, slick with morning dew and a wind coming up from the river, I could still feel Sartre’s sideways glare at me. Even for a man unaccustomed to being questioned, it felt like a strong reaction and I wondered then if there might be bigger repercussions to just killing Mitnick then Sarti didn’t want to deal with.
I knew I had at least temporarily escaped the repercussions of Sarti’s anger when he answered me. “It show outsiders like Mitnick who’s in charge. And it keeps everyone else in line.”
It was my turn to glance over at Sartre, my longer legs stretching out to keep up with him, none of the conversation having interfered with the pace he was setting. I could see now that Sartre had been prepared to go all the way in the casino, prepared to kill Mitnick and as many of his boys that he had with them if they had put up a fight. If Mitnick had sensed any weakness Sarti would have been done in the city right at that moment. Which meant either of them would have been prepared to accept any collateral damage, the deaths of however many tourists that had just shown up at the casino to play at being James Bond for awhile. Sure, there were the high-rollers too, but how many of them were benefiting from some kind of relationship with Sartre?
A part of me wanted to thank Sartre for reminding me that he was just a different kind of monster. I thought about the brothel rumors and wondered how many of the Ukrainian girls that inhabited them were brought in by his crew. Maybe he could be involved in the girl the Corsican had been asking about. Instead of that, though, I asked, “So where are we going?”
“To the river.” I wondered then if he had decided it was time to get rid of me. I relaxed, though, after a moment. I was a nobody, not a man of stature like Mitnick. If Sartre wanted to get rid of me he would have just sent someone.
14 years sober and a hypodermic still causes her toes to curl, remembering the visceral need, the anticipation. Holding breath before the puncturing of skin, the inhalation the moment before the rush that negated everything. An abandoned building might was well be as good as a penthouse, the back of an old jalopy a limousine. The state of things or places only mattered before and after, but never during.
So watching her daughter get a flu shot, she flattens her feet and lets those memories slip away, knowing that holding onto them or pushing them away only gives them their own inescapable gravity. Instead she smiles at her daughter and wonders if she’ll have to explain any of this to her some day as she politely refuses the doctor’s offer to vaccinate her as well.
