***

Ericha had travelled five blocks east, using the bathroom at a gas station along the way, before waiting at the bus stop for the city’s routes to open. Paying three dollars and fifty cents, she took the number one bus downtown for five miles to the Metropolitan Zoo. Normally she would make the hour and forty-six minute trek on foot, but having found a stray twenty-dollar bill the day before, she felt the urge to treat herself to the luxury of public transportation.

With no official procedures mandated by national law, most city officials navigated the current pandemic in the manner that best served their political or financial standings. While a “stay-at-home” order was originally issued in the early days of spring, specifying that all residents follow strict quarantine protocol, it lasted only three months before being lifted. The city’s unfortunate majority convinced themselves that the virus was nothing more than a hoax, despite both infections and deaths steadily rising across the country.

As she stepped aboard the bus, she wondered what her mother would say if she could see her now. Although she was warned about the dangers public transportation currently posed, she felt a strong desire to suffer less on this day. She had enough burdens in her life right now, none of them meant for the shoulders of a child, yet weighed on hers all the same; it seemed no more a risk to her health than her current state of living.

Twelve other weary commuters would climb aboard the bus along the way; all of them far more grizzled from the stress of their lives than any human ought to be, none of them safely masked. They were worn bare from the very jobs they were currently heading for; their clothes crisp with salvaged hope for the coming week, their eyes fresh with morning deliria, and their shoulders still shrugging off the previous night’s disheartening dreams. Upon a simple glance, one would suspect that each of them, like most of the poor in this world, were responsible for more than just themselves. For every step they fought to take, they fought harder to take two or three or more steps for those who could not do so; whether they were at the beginning of their lives, at the end, or debilitated somewhere in between.

Looking around at each of them, imagining what kind of lives they led, what kind of families they had, Ericha was only ever reminded of her own; a particular flash of memory, back before their eviction from the only place she had ever called home. She remembered awaking one night to the muffled passion of her mother’s voice, climbing out of bed, and stumbling off towards the small living room at the front of their cramped apartment.

“The curse of the starving class is overpopulation, but that overpopulation is the very advantage that we have over the oligarchs and aristocrats and tyrants who work tirelessly to keep us ignorant to our power.” she heard as she approached.

The living room was filled with several unfamiliar faces all turned towards her mother, who paced the room, “Does anyone remember how Gaddafi was removed from his dictatorship? Yes? No? Well – we need to all storm city hall like the Libyans – storm the capital too! Violence is all these administrations know and they will only ever be removed by it. If we want a more progressive society, one that looks out for its citizens instead of placing prejudicial dollar signs on them – a society that doesn’t calculate the cost and profit before saving lives – if we want that kind of world, then we need to rip these fuckers out of their cushy offices, and drag them out into the streets to face justice. And come on, if anyone deserves to be repeatedly stabbed in their ass with the largest fucking knife we can find, I think most of us can agree it should be –!”

Her father quickly intercepted her, “Ericha, sweetheart, did we wake you? Were we being too loud? I’m so sorry, princess.”

“Who are all those people?” she asked.

“Just some friends,” he said, turning her around and leading her back to bed. “We were having a little meeting is all.”

“What’s got mom so mad?”

“You know how passionate she gets about things.”

“Politics…” she muttered.

“Exactly, honey, and we can’t ignore politics. It’s important.”

“I just don’t want either of you to die,” she said.

At a loss for words, her father elected to simply tuck her back into bed, leaving her with a tender kiss on the forehead before hurrying out of the room. He cast a fearful glance back at her, as if for the last time, before softly closing the door; underneath, his shadow remained unmoved. It was an unnerving moment; her mother’s words underscoring the dim edges of her father’s uncertainty as it reached to join with the familiar warmth of her dark bedroom. She wanted to call him back in, ask why he looked so afraid, but she didn’t trust that she’d be given the full truth.

The bus arrived at Thirty-Fifth and Granby Street at six thirty-four A.M. Not one of the passengers nor the driver offered to assist Ericha as she struggled to step off the bus. Her cello, which was manageable for her small body to carry on flat ground, now antagonized her descent. It bumped and banged against the railings of the bus’s entrance, providing a fleeting entertainment for those who looked on with disinterest. Her knees briefly buckled after the initial drop onto the sidewalk, catching their load as the sliding doors squeaked shut and the bus continued onward. The streets of downtown were still fairly empty and quiet; it would be another hour before the hustle of the city’s enterprise was switched into its regular gear.

Ericha crossed the street and traveled several blocks to her usual spot in the small, lush square that sat at the center of several offices, shops, and the entrance to the high-rising college campus. She uncased her instrument, checked the tuning of its strings, rosined her bow, and held it at the ready. Remaining silent and motionless, she closed her eyes and listened to the surrounding city’s waking heartbeats. Her breathing steadied, her mind settled, her nerves softened, and for the briefest of moments, her world seemed at peace.

The music of Ericha Zann began with a soft, unnerving veracity. A low, resonate humming of the strings slowly morphed into a bewildering melody of ever-changing accents and stresses. It whispered laments of paradises lost: the love of a family, the comforts of a home, the anticipations for a future. With every second that passed, her pace quickened further, spurred on by some unrelenting instinct to persist through pain and discomfort. As it grew to wilder heights, it took on qualities that one might deem unnatural to human ability; each note sounding in strange multitudes, creating the symphonic atmosphere of some orchestral mutation. The music swelled into an overwhelming cacophony of lawless pandemonium, peaking into a brief moment of miraculous harmony, before the limits of Ericha’s body imposed a temporary rest. It was this single moment within the resonance that she toiled so desperately to reach, where she could exist both inside and outside her humanity simultaneously; all the fears and doubts that she had held at bay could now be dealt with and sorted. Unfortunately, she could never manage all of them in the few seconds of clarity she achieved, and thus repeated this process again and again, over and over, like clockwork.

Most reactions to Ericha’s playing often fell somewhere between complete indifference and feigned admiration. It wasn’t that people disliked it, but rather that it frightened and confused them in a way they refused to understand. Instead of confronting the insecurities that arose from hearing her play, it was easiest to simply take pity on the girl and blindly return to whatever hollow existence was back inside their comfort zones. Throughout the days there might come a few individuals who would stay and listen to the music in its entirety. These were kindred spirits to Ericha; like her, they were lost and silently yearning for direction and purpose. With the conclusion of the music, each of them would discover clarity unique only to themselves.

Of all the people who would pass Ericha by, and the few who would spare their loose change, at the end of this day only one would stop to truly share in her labors. Ericha’s music would continue for ten more hours before this passerby would find himself captivated by its abnormal notes. Unlike her typical interactions, where strangers would often approach her singing their praises and offering her benefaction, this time she would instead remain ignorant to her song’s reach, while the young man, Jamie, remained equally unaware of the girl’s connection to the community he would soon be inspired to destroy.

Jaime began that morning more restless than he had ever felt before in his 24 years of life. He spent the previous night tossing and turning in his bed, unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. The more he had tried to relax, the more his body ached from the previous day’s work, a pain he was told would develop further character, and one which he gambled was necessary for the betterment of his future. It was only after silencing his alarm that he finally felt his eyes wanting to close, but before he could even consider the temptation – the sudden sound of movement outside his bedroom door lifted him to his feet.

He had run through various break-in scenarios a million times in his head, even falling asleep to the fantasies of their coming true on better nights. Despite the sudden feelings of dread that seemed to slow his initial reaction, a few seconds of sleep-addled adrenaline would push his concerns aside in favor of blind excitement. With his heart beating like a war-drum in his chest and his breath marching erratically alongside it, his unsteady hands found their way around the stock of the gun kept hidden under his mattress. He approached the door, too distracted by his own fumblings with the gun to notice as it swung open, directly into the side of his face. Falling backwards to slam his head into the floor below, Jaime recovered only to become unnerved by the sight of his father’s disappointed grimace in the doorway.

“The fuck’re you doing here?” his father impatiently asked.

“Me? What about you? Did you come over just to hit me with a door?”

“Not my fault if you’re that stupid.”

“Kinda is though, isn’t it?”

As Jaime scrambled up onto his feet, his father took a moment to disapprove of his son’s minimalist decor; four bare walls complimenting the two stacked mattresses sitting frameless in the far corner of the room, with only a single pillow and a thin polyester sheet atop it. The only swaths of color came from the various articles of clothing strewn about with neither rhyme nor reason, and the occasional empty cigarette box peppered in for extra texture. His pasty face visibly sank from disappointment into disgust as his eyes fell upon the gun lying carelessly on the floor. Surely his son wasn’t that stupid. Surely he had raised the boy to properly respect and store his gun. Granting Jaime the benefit of the doubt, his thoughts steered to a more embarrassing possibility, one which equally sat uneasy in the pit of his stomach.

“Please tell me you weren’t trying to engage with that gun and walked into your own damn door, son – please tell me you ain’t that short of braincells, please,” he almost seemed to plead, desperate to know his son could in fact do one thing right.

“What are you even doing here?” Jaime asked, picking up the gun and stashing it back between the mattresses.

“Not even a holster – let alone a lock-box? I thought I raised you with sense enough to respect your gun, respect the responsibility of owning a gun, but not leave it lying about so anyone can waltz right in and take it.”

“And who’s that going to be? I’m the only one living here,” Jaime said.

“The problem with y’all kids nowadays – you think this life is some kind of movie or TV show or video game,” his father said, “But you ain’t got any kind of clue as to what reality is actually like, do you? Owning a gun don’t make you a badass or some cool mafioso, son. Owning a gun is a commitment to responsibility, a commitment to respect, a commitment to –”

“Yeah, yeah, right, I get it, dad, but I’ve been living out in reality for 7 years now, if you haven’t noticed.” Jaime spoke up, his frustrations steadily rising, “You’re just spinning yourself in circles at this point.”

“That’s because I have to – otherwise you don’t retain a single damn bit of information,” his father said.

A sudden commotion could be heard coming from elsewhere in the house, one consisting of aggressive grunts and haphazard bangs, which Jamie immediately recognized as his mother’s violent cleaning habits. “Mom’s here too?” Jamie asked.

His father fired back with his own line of questioning, “Why are you not at work? Did you get yourself fired? Or just calling out to be lazy now?”

“My shift doesn’t start until eight, calm down – but that doesn’t give you the right to break into my house while I’m gone either.”

“My house,” his father corrected, “It was left to me, not you.”

“Yeah but it's my paychecks footing the bills for it – I figured that’d earn me some kind of privacy or general courtesy at the very least,” Jaime said.

“Then work harder and buy your own damn house!” his father exclaimed, “You’ll be able to live however you fancy under your own roof – but you have to actually work for it. Laziness gets you nowhere. The world won’t be handing you anything for free so don’t expect it from me either.”

“Yeah, I know, I remember that all too well.” Jaime said,

“Well, if you work a little harder than maybe you’d actually see some success – maybe you’d actually build something for yourself,” his father said.

“Well, speaking of such subjects, there is something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about,” Jaime said, “I’ve been saving up money and I’m in a good spot to get a promotion at work soon and since I’m already paying all the –”

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

His father cut him off, “Look, son, your Mom and I got a schedule to keep here. Can whatever you’re about to say wait until later? Thanks,” and he walked out of the room. Jaime was quick to follow after him down the hallway and into the small kitchen.

“Why exactly are you two here right now?”

“We got someone wanting to see the house in a few hours and we knew you weren’t keeping the place in showroom condition.”

“What the fuck – you didn’t think to let me know about this?”

“You were supposed to be at work,” his father said, retrieving a trash bag before shoving it into Jamie’s hands, “Collect all your clothes in there and stash them somewhere, please. Anything you want to keep you better put away out of sight.”

“Legally I’m owed at least thirty days notice – you can’t just kick me out if someone wants to buy the place.”

“The house ain’t even sold yet so there’s nothing to give notice about.”

“I still have rights as the renter of this property for the last year.”

“That’s if you were a legal resident, but you’re not, are you? We never signed any leases. This city recognizes no squatter rights and you were told countless times when Debbie died that staying here was only temporary. In the eyes of the law, you’re no more than a trespasser.”

“For the last year I've been saving up – I’m close to a promotion that would give me a chance to get a loan and –!”

“Son, I see where you’re headed and all I can say…” his father took a breath, “Unless you got the money now, I can’t just put the house on hold. My hands are tied.”

“But you’re the one tying them! And I’m so fucking close! I worked my ass off for this, I’ve met ridiculous shift demands at the factory – plus, the three years that Aunt Debbie was sick I didn’t see you caring for her – that was me!” Jamie’s frustration was now boiling over into anger, “I am owed a little bit of something for all that. I’m owed a break for once, at the very least. So just give me a chance to prove myself by giving me a little more time.”

“At this moment, I can only give you until the end of the day. Our hands are tied –”

“Fuck no! That’s not good enough!” Jamie shouted over him, “I deserve better from y’all – I’m owed better than the treatment you give some asshole off the streets. For all your preaching about responsibility and respect, you sure don’t seem to respect your own responsibilities towards me!”

“Don’t give me that bullshit double talk. And don’t blame me for your failings. No man on his way up says shit like that.”

“I’m clearly not on my way up then, am I!” Jamie exploded in full force, “I’m clearly on my fucking way down but who gives a fuck about throwing me any kind of rope or life-raft or whatever-the-fuck! I’m only your son, your fucking child – the child you chose to bring into this world by the way, I didn’t ask to be here! But fuck me, right? Fuck me, fuck the responsibility that is me, fuck any kind of help I may fucking need – all so you can buy another useless jetski or boat or fourwheeler or whatever the fuck kind of toy tickles your fancy this fucking week! Fuck you! Fuck your greedy fucking face! Fuck your greedy fucking bullshit! Fuck you!”

“If I help you build something then that ain’t you building it for yourself, is it?”

“There are a million ways to help someone without doing the work for them, asshat!”

“Not in my book.”

“Well your book hasn’t exactly been a popular read, has it? The only purchase has been from Mom and its obvious even she’s fucking regretting it,” Jamie said, “Your kids hate you. You have no friends. You work a dead-end job. You’re a pathetic, weak-willed, joke of a fucking man – and its even more hilarious that you try to act like you’re above me, like you’ve taken higher steps than me when really you’re on the same fucking step motherfucker! Like father like son, but at the end of the day I’m only a fraction of the shithead that you are and that –!”

It was at this moment that Jamie’s mother, a woman of little patience, marched right up to her son and silenced him with a heavy slap across the face. “Don’t be screaming at your father like some homeless crackhead! You want to act like that, you can go do it living in one of those tent towns, but if you want to keep living in this house, you’re going to keep a civilized tongue with your parents,” she warned him.

“So I’m supposed to…” Jamie’s voice trembled as he choked back his anger, “I’m supposed to act civilized while being forced out of my home?”

“The boy is being dramatic,” his father chimed in, “Told him that nothing’s even happened yet with this viewing and he’s already throwing a tantrum.”

“Fuck you, assho–!”

His mother slapped him once again, “I warned you about that tongue.”

Jamie locked eyes with his mother, a decision he would quickly regret as her gaze was soon felt clawing through his own, as if burrowing deeper and deeper into his very thoughts. A throbbing pain began to develop at the back of his head at the same time that a nervous tremor took over his knees.

“Now then, like your father told you, nothing has even happened yet, so there’s no need to get yourself all riled up. If something changes, we will let you know,” his mother assured him

“I-I w-want more than that,” Jamie stuttered, “I-I want a promise on y’all’s part. I want at least thirty days' notice before I have to move out.”

“Oh no, no no no, you little brat,” his father objected, “I already told you –!”

“Fine, sure, yes – he can have thirty days notice, Charles, it’s only fair,”

“And I have one other deal I want to offer up too – probably a better deal than the one you’d get with this mystery buyer.”

“I told you earlier that there wasn’t any time for that,” his father growled, “Don’t you need to be getting ready for work?”

“If you’d just let me talk then all of us could get on with our mornings.”

“Just let him talk, Charles, stop antagonizing him.”

“I’m not – I wasn’t – I’m not,” his father stumbled for words, “But he’s on thin ice, I don’t want to hear anymore disrespect coming out his mouth. The way he’s talking to me, he’s lucky I haven’t knocked his ass out.”

“Yes, yes, you’re quite the saint,” his mother’s impatience was palpable, “I have a lot of work to do so can we please make this shorter than it needs to be?”

“Ok, yeah, right, so –” Jamie cleared his throat, “You’ve both been desperate to sell this house, right, and the market is only getting worse lately, and this buyer today, if he was hesitant, could likely talk the price down a little, even with it already being cut down to a reasonable price as is – and that worries you, right? So what if you could sell the house to someone else at your asking price, someone who you already know and can actually trust to follow through with his promises? Wouldn’t that be a no-brainer type decision?”

“You want us to sell the house to you, yes, but how exactly do you plan to afford this idea of yours, son?” his mother bluntly asked, “Is the factory really paying you that well?”

“It is, yeah – and, uh, well, thanks to a new promotion, I’ll be able to use the company’s loan-assistance program to secure the payment for the house. We both win.”

“Hold up,” his father cut in, “You said earlier you were only in the running for that promotion, and now you’re telling me you’ve already got it? I’m calling bullshit.”

“Well, no – yeah, I mean,” Jamie’s mind scrambled for the right words, “Earlier I didn’t say that I – I said it was in the works, that it was in motion – as in, I just needed time for it to all go through. But I have it, it’s mine, it just needs to – you know, it just needs to go through. The paperwork. The sign-offs. The bureaucracy. All that stuff. And once it does, the loan payments, other bills, other expenses – it’ll all be within reason for me. And with each new year I work this job, my pay increases so the payments will only get easier. I’ve already done the math; gone through the forms and documents and legal proceedings and it’s all falling into place. I just need a little more time – and its not like I’ll be moving out before then, so you know payments will be met in the meantime. Like I told Dad, if you can give me a month, I can take this place off your hands and your concerns. Everybody wins.”

“I doubt all that would happen within a single month,” his mother replied.

“Well I’m pushing for one month – and ok, maybe it doesn’t happen that soon, but it shouldn’t take more than two months at most.”

“Oh, here we go!” His father interjected, “Now it’s two months, soon it’ll be three months. I don’t trust it. I’m calling bullshit.”

“The house is going to fall into escrow regardless,” she reminded her husband, “So what’s it hurt to give the boy until that window closes?”

“He needs to build something for himself, without our interference.”

“It’s more of a coincidence in this case though, isn’t it? If he can’t get the money, we go on selling the house as planned, but if he can actually pull it off, then we still just end up selling the place all the same.”

“I understand your point, but it's the principle of the matter that I’m concerned with.”

“Well I don’t see any problem with it so I’m vetoing your feelings on the matter.”

“The boy is old enough now to know perfectly damn well that what I’m saying, and what I’m doing, and what I’m trying to teach him is –!”

“Charles, Charles, enough, we’ll discuss this later.”

“What the fuck – are you trying to silence me?”

“I hear you, trust me, we’ll discuss it later,” she insisted.

“How am I getting sidelined right now? This house is mine to sell, remember that.”

“Of course it is, honey, and we will discuss this later, alright?” she insisted again, this time with a more threatening ire behind her words. Turning back to her son, a devious smirk creeped across her blanched face, settling below her already patronizing gaze. “Let this be a lesson on how the world can work itself out when you keep a civil tongue,” she said.

Jamie’s father let out a dissenting grumble in response before shuffling out of the kitchen in defeat. In any similar instance on any other day Jaime would feel nothing but triumph over his father, but in this moment all he could feel was a numbing sense of dread deep in the center of his chest. His mother’s words sat uncomfortably upon his thoughts, opposing any potential feelings of relief that his heart tried to produce. Neither Jaime nor his parents would speak to one another for the rest of the morning. Instead, he would skip his normal routine of a shit, a shower, and a shave in order to tidy his room, dress, and leave the house as quickly as possible.

He would come to regret this decision shortly into his walk towards the bus stop on the other side of the neighborhood. After only traveling a few suburban blocks, his stomach soon began bubbling, growing more furious with each new step. Considering himself past any point of return, Jaime brushed his concerns aside, resolved to hold his bowels for the entirety of his journey. He was barely half-way to the bus-stop when life intervened.

“Hello, young sir!” he heard a voice behind him say. He turned, finding himself face to face with a mischievously grinning Floyd. “Didn’t mean to scare ya, no foul intentions here either, I come in absolute peace. I am a vet of the war, you know? And I was just wondering if ya might have a few spare coins – by the way, very comfortable looking shoes ya got on there, they look nice.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, but I don’t have any –”

“I was discharged, you know? Got my discharge papers – honorably discharged some time ago, and – hey, maybe you could help a battered patriot out, huh?”

“I’m really sorry, but I – I don’t have any money.”

“Anything would be helpful, sir. Please. Anything. Have you ever been a part of the military, huh?”

“No, I haven’t – I’m sorry, but I need to –”

“Well don’t go into the army or marines, I’ll tell you that right here and now. Go into the air-force or the navy, but you choose those marines – or worse the army, they’ll ship ya off to some war-zone or danger-zone or whatever-zone to go and get shot through and butchered.”

“Sounds really horrible, but I –”

“Oh, yes sir, horrible it was – horrible it is! Violence, on any level, is always a horrible thing to witness – hell, worse living in it – existing in it. I went and I existed in that hell-hole of a continent – fought, watched friends die – my pal, Joey, he was a sergeant – he got shot through the skull and laid out on the ground in less than a second. I had his blood all over me, you know? Like in some of the movies you see, you know? Well, to an extent, that is. Movies can’t really show you the true nature of war. Nothing artistic can express the natural sickness of war.”

It was at this moment that Floyd spied Skip and Hoss approaching, silent as death. They must have followed him, he figured, now fearing that he may lose his mark. He knew how begging worked – knew that people were more likely to share their spare change and bills when one begs alone, spaced from others. If too many pleas for charity met together in the same ear, they were more than likely to be brushed aside and passed over. He was surprised however, when Skip held his index finger to his lips, as he and Hoss moved behind Jamie to pick his unguarded pockets. Floyd understood perfectly well, rushing along with his long-winded story to better distract their oblivious prey.

“None of it can express – it’s a shame really, don’t you think? Walking forward, as bullets and bombs are pushing you and your kind backwards – it’s a very surreal environment, least in my opinion. There is no glory in it – no glory in any single miniscule part of being involved in that hellish miasma, which is only a byproduct of this society. They serve no time in the valley of the shadows and when a survivor for their cause asks for a little charity – which – is like surrendering to a survivor – what do they do? They lie and raise their chin and shit on the respect which should’ve been given the moment I asked for a little help.”

Skip and Hoss moved back from Jamie, nodding to Floyd that their deeds were done. All that was left was for him to scare Jamie off, “AND YOU! YOU’RE JUST AS RESPONSIBLE FOR SHITTING ON ME! HOW DARE YOU, BASTARD! I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING! I GAVE YOU ALL THAT YOU HAVE! AND I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU FOR IT!”

“FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!” Jamie screamed, slamming his knuckles awkwardly into Floyd’s throat while momentarily losing control of his bowels. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he repeated as he rushed past Skip and Hoss, and back down the street from whence he came.

Floyd struggled to speak, having to take several deep breaths in order to shape his words again. It was all worth it, he thought, taking one for the team so the team could win big. “So what did you two grab?” he wheezed to Skip and Hoss.

“I’d rather not say,” Hoss answered.

“Me too.” Skip replied.

“How’re we supposed to split it down the middle if we don’t know –”

“Woah, woah, woah, woah,” Skip interrupted, “who said we were splitting it down the middle?”

“Yeah, finders keepers,” Hoss added.

“Bullshit – I did most of the fucking work!”

“He didn’t have much” Skip said.

“I saw you boost his wallet!”

“I grabbed small stuff like –”

“Bullshit! That is bull-fucking-shit and you fucking know it! Fuck you! Hear me? Fuck you both to fucking hell! Fuck this place – always the same merry-go-round bullshit – I’m done – there’s a whole wide fucking world and I’m wasting my time with – fuck both of you!”

Floyd stormed off down the street, away from Skip and Hoss, away from The Pig-Pen, away from everything that had fanned his rage into fire. This wasn’t, however, any kind of new behavior. Skip and Hoss were certainly not impressed or worried about him in this state; it had become an almost daily occurrence.

“How long you think he’ll be gone this time?” Skip asked, heading back to The Pig-Pen.

“I give it an hour,” Hoss replied, bouncing happily along with him all the way back to their tents.

***