In the weeks that followed I managed to attain equilibrium on all fronts. We’d struck a silent bargain, Nan and I. Under no circumstance would be talk about Teddy---or the fact that I’d taken it upon myself to mentor him into a presentable figure capable of changing underwear daily, washing a nutsack, and, ultimately, finding a mate. She was aware of my project despite it going on when she was at work, rendering full disclosure mutually redundant. I knew she didn’t wanna hear about it for reasons beyond logistics and efficiency. She was afraid, but she wasn’t gonna shut it down just yet. Equilibrium.
He’d shacked up with his older sister, Ruth, who incidentally is my ex-girlfriend but that’s a different matter entirely. It wasn’t what you’d call an optimal setup, her being a different breed of degenerate; unpredictable, violent, and very, very persuasive. Teddy didn’t have options, net worth subzero on no income, and his mother had already turned his old room into an office cus’ I didn’t think y’were comin’ back. Yup. Not that it presented itself as a favorable alternative. Quite the opposite. Ruth stood, in that moment of time, for everything we were trying to raze and demolish. She was the effigy of unwant that made the enterprise oh-ho-ho so exciting. Nobody thought we could get him out of hell and above water, faith lost. Deep down I’m not even sure we believed it ourselves. But I wouldn’t let it come to that without exhausting all possibilities, starting with the most pressing issue at hand.
Teddy went to a job interview in the docks set up by I through a lowkey desperate campaigning of my phone-list. It’s not like I’m an employment agency, or connected in any way shape or form. The list was full-stacked with old clients from the dope-peddling days and I had no image to uphold, no face to lose as they'd all lost their value. So out of the hundred hooks sent one baited; a fine, reserved lad that had left his dogdays behind and blazed a path all the way up to shift manager at a postal sorting center. Within a week there was an interview.
The job was simple. Shitty, but simple. Working the graveyard shift in a massive tin box by the lorry-landing, emptying the hold of trucks coming in from Poland, Germany, UK, Denmark, Russia, Bulgaria – the meteropolic centers of the universe. Teddy was a fine worker, I didn’t doubt it for a second. Give him a purpose and a mop and he’ll sweep to his heart’s delight. No complaints. Treat him to a hot cuppa twice a day and his designated cog in the machine will be squeaky clean and pearly-oiled. He’d run the numbers, and on any given night he lifted parcels totaling an average of ten tons, which took care of two börds in öne blöw. The quelling of idle hands, and a body’s discovery of muscle tissue. I’d enforced basic hygiene routines; brush teeth twice daily, four minutes a pop. Check. Floss. Check. Rinse. Check, I think. Wash clothes. Hopefully check. And undies. Unsure. Updating his wardrobe beyond the one pair of jeans, one pair of hoodie and two t-shirts was painfully mandatory but impossible in the face of lacking his first paystub. I’d already put together lists and looks, honed in on a particular style that would slip right in line with the degen-fashion crowd, passing him off as a model citizen of the underground. That’s the thing about unemployment, you can achieve wonders with all that time without even leaving your bed. Which brings me to the catastrophic uprootal of stroking my protege from nine to five.
It was with a heavy heart that I left the comforts of unemployment. Increased rent was the official reason, that and saving for a trip to India. The real reason – which neither I nor Nan had uttered aloud – was Nanski's increased interest in Tramadol. Between her working hours and our nightly rituals of getting fizzy, scratching each other's backs and nodding to ambient musique psychadelique, I was clueless to specific amounts. Her bankroll had diminished mid-way through the month, and in those hazy wool-padded nights she ate twice, sometimes thrice, the volume of yellow and blue or red and white little niblets that I did. With them came the natural upflux of weed. We were racking up credit at the dealers fast, approaching a predicament. Put the accountants to work if you want numbers, I need them naught. All it took was a scornful line delivered with such sleight of tongue that any outsider would’ve been oblivious to its magnitude. Maybe it’s your turn to hook us up. And so it goes.
This little shift was precipitated by a different type of new brewing on the horizon. Our lease was up, time to vacate, and fortune willed it such that Nanski's mother had a commuter flat in MCity which would be vacant over the summer. The affair was grand, no sobbing farewell to the town we both grew up in or had been connected to in one shape or other since the beginning of our lives (since birth she’d lived outside town in an old 1800th century stable turned rustic and habitable by her parents, in a small village by the sea, and I originally came from an equally small village at the same distance from Pisstown, but inland (in a whisper: we moved when I was ten)). We were effectively making it, shedding the skin of a past grown too claustrophobic to carry us anywhere, stepping on the first stone of many leading into a life we felt destined to lead. It was our birthright, and now we were letting go of the railing, taking the leap, together. Before we could spy out over the pastures shrouded in night, there was one last formality left to do prior to boarding the train to MCity.
After a swift inspection of our first home, we handed the keys over to Goran, our landlord, who assured us that he felt no remorse whatsoever for replacing us with some pompy actor paying three times more than we had.
“All my life I’ve been the one to give give give,” he’d said in his ponderous, raspy voice, wild beard tossing to and fro as he looked from Nan to me and back again. “Now it’s my turn to take take take.” We laughed like no hard feelings. He assured us that he loved us earnestly and that we must remember him on our future travels, send a gift or two from exotic places. “But don’t lead on. I want it to be a surprise.”
Spirits were high when we stepped down onto the cobblestones, collars swiftly drawn to stave off a chilling gale. On our short stroll to the restaurant where we were meeting up with my mother, sister, grandmére et grandpére, Liz topped us off on trammies, assured me that it was a vital thing to do.
The oldies all lived in Pisstown still, settled in like people do after a certain age and displeasure of living. My sister, Nell, had just got back from a stint up-country and the how’s and why’s of her return were still murky. Leaving the capital for a semi-rural shithole required desperation or resolve, and she wasn’t the sentimental type. We’d never been real close, sis and I, until Nan came into the picture. The atmosphere grew warmer and friendlier with each family gathering, and I developed something akin to brotherly care, like I wanted to do good by her and that doing so mattered. This makes no sense without adding the oh so important detail of the veritable war that erupted with my parents finding out I was a dope fiend way back when. In doing so sis got caught in the line of bombardment. No good war without civilian casualties. They couldn’t understand it. Some people dig their heels in sports, books, mopeds and whatever, which would’ve been all fine. Me tying the knot with drugs didn’t sit right, it was so out of their scope that they didn’t have a plan for it. So they did what they could and improvised. Countless times I’ve been driven in the middle of the night to the police station by my own father for surprise drug testing, greasy officers making me undress to do a strip search, putting me in holding cells to ponder all the misery I’d inflicted on my loving little mama and pappy. And then there was the odor of dogs in my room when I got back from school. Or my shit being far too orderly for my lowly habits. Credit is due where such is warranted, and my father, being a major in the Swedish army, had access to rooms and favors I don’t believe even he was aware of before rattling their handles. When they couldn’t raid a positive sample out of my urine, they gave up and remobilized. For my sixteenth birthday I got a moped, which did steer me away from Teddy momentarily, into a crew of rowdy boys who had no business owning horsepowers. They unlocked the gates to parties, zhe boys, and drinking. Oddly enough I had a feeling that Kate and Ray had debated this, deeming it a wholesome step in the right direction, and thereafter supplying me with booze whenever I mentioned a fette. No stealth needed, curfew extended, and the path to Teddy cut from fifteen to five minutes compliments of a 100cc Fukhatan combustion engine. From there it just sort of settled. I stayed true to my vocation, learned how to cover my tracks with adept precision, and they stayed pissy out of an assumed inability to catch me red-handed. In this they were united right up until the divorce, and after that old daddyo capitulated, said I could smoke whatever I wanted as long I don’t listen to reggae. I mean I understand them, in a way. When Teddy delivered my soul I had a new mother, one who could give me the universe. How do you even compete with that?
I sighed when we stopped outside the gilded doors to The M Lounge to finish our cigarettes. Nan turned around, glossy-eyed and bubbly, undid a button of my overcoat and snuggled herself in and around.
“It’s not so bad,” she murmured. “And then I’m all yours. You’re all mine, for a thousand nights you’re mine.”
We got stuck like that, cigarettes devoured by the roaring wind, until she jolted to life, suddenly remembering the where’s and how’s. She grabbed my chin and looked right through me with honest intent, and then a kiss.
“Kate better behave,” I said and pttrooed like a horse.
“Signal if you need a refill, ok?” She winked, spun around and led the way. Mom picked the same place she always does when there’s cause for celebration. A place frequented by family’s past the messy toddler years, couples dating collectively with other couples, suited up business people gawking the day away. Big polished wooden tables for celebratory gatherings, positioned strategically with just enough distance to the neighbors to feel at ease. Chairs clad in coarse white fabric reaching down to the maroon, thick floor carpet. Floor-to-ceiling storefront windows to occupy minds and eyes, watching the diluted population scamper down the streets outside. It was beyond post-tacky. IKEA prints of the Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower, Golden Gate Bridge plastered over every available wallspace. Wooden panels in dark oak covering an inner wall. A palace for the upper middleclass, crummy and soulless but functional when each and all chipped in and swallowed it, paying four times more for a pizza that tasted just as bad as at the shoddy place down by the train tracks. Lots of money to be made if you can crack the formula of population size, average income and lack of feeling important. Nan walked with a purpose, got stopped by a nervous waitress.
“Do you have a reservation?” she cautioned, a new addition, or old with a new face.
“Yes,” I smiled. “We’re with some people. Kate Marrow.”
She smiled back at me, weighing us real subtle like I wouldn’t notice her train of thought, that we weren’t on the scale of passable clientele. Waiting for a reply, seeing none in sight, I walked, took Nan's hand and squeezed it. “Bring two beers to the table. On the bill.”
“Big ones,” Nan giggled as I dragged her along. The hostess eyed us some more before scurrying off to the bar, draped in a plastic smile you’ll only see on the burnt out pawns of the service industry. We were late. Walking at grazing length from the congregation of piké shirts, boat stripes, broad leather belts and wavy tops, pale jeans or navy trousers, starched white shirts or off-tint babyblue, I spotted them in the farthest corner. All eyes were on us the instant we gained the three step elevation, arms around waists. They lit up with a peevish radiance; we had finally arrived.
“Late as always!” Harold roared so everyone in the whole restaurant could hear him, summoning a slap on the wrist from my grandmother. “Eh? What’s gotten into you?”
“Hello Max,” she said apologetically. “And hello Nanna.”
“What the hell is going on here!” Harold continued, eyes propped at full height. “You’re always late,” looking at me, he smiled and chuckled.
“Dad, stop it,” Kate said and got up to greet us.
“Yap-yap-yap-yap-yap,” he cackled. “If y’raised him proper he’d be on time.”
I leaned down to accept mummy’s hug, handed her over to Nan and went around the table to envelop Penelope. “When you start talking substance,” I said to Harold who was still grinning at me, crown of slicked white hair absolutely radiating above his rotundity, “I’ll make sure to be here on time. Gotten fatter ei?”
Penelope’s body jolted a little, obviously pleased with the remark but proper enough to not alert the other’s.
“Max!” Kate snapped behind me.
“Hah!” he bursted out, slapping his gut. “Shut up woman, he wasn’t talking to you.”
Sis absently accepted a hug and with that the round was completed. Nan seated opposite mother, I opposite Nell and the grudgebearers opposite each other. My phone buzzed. Glancing at it I saw his name scroll by, The Kid, followed by Need to see you tonight. Day was shit. I looked askance at Nan who looked askance at my lap. My stomach did a flip around itself. Her hand came looking for mine under the table, finding it, smiles exchanged. Nan would get pissy if I ditched her tonight. It was to be our first night in a new apartment, new city, new beginnings – far away from Teddy and every intruder claiming my attention. On the other hand, I would betray four weeks of intense labor, possibly tossing it all in the shitter over something as meager as bad timing. You in MCity or here? I replied with my free hand.
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“So you’re leaving us,” Mom said after an eternal silence. “And the nerve to just kick you out on the streets like that. Awful, awful thing that is! Goes to show that there’s no decency left in this world, tossing you out like that.”
“He didn’t toss anybody,” I filled in. “The lease was up and he found a tenant who paid more.”
“Well who did he find?” she replied like these things never happen.
“Some movie production company. Charged them triple our rate.”
“You say that like it’s perfectly normal,” she went on. “Huh? Is that how you treat other people? Well then that’s perfectly normal isn’t it. Nan, your mother is a saint for turning you around like that. You must give her my regards when you see her. You simply must.”
“Oh I will,” Nan said genially. “It’s working out perfect really. I mean I work in the city. It’s summer soon so we’d be there all the time anyway.”
A new waitress spectrally appeared behind us, placing beers on the table to mother’s blatant discontent, asking if we were ready to order. I quickly skimmed through the menu, settling on a Caesar salad for the sake of simple edibility. The trams were kicking in, placing thought for food at the farthest possible distance from actual enjoyment. Nan followed my lead and round the table we went until Harold was up, breath held by all. Once he realized it was his turn, he said “I’ll have the ENTRECODE. I want it MEDIUM-RARE,” real slow and loud like he was talking to a misfortunate.
This spooked the waitress but she recovered, scribbled on the notepad, asked “Anything to drink with that?” He looked confused. Leaning towards Penelope he barked “What does she want?”
Grandma ignored him. “He’ll have a glass of red wine, please. He doesn’t hear very well. You’ll have to excuse him.” Harold looked down at the tablecloth or something, then up at me, shook his head all dumbfounded, like ‘I don’t know what the fuck is going on’ and I grinned like ‘Yeah you’re fucked’. I liked him, my grandfather. You’d never find peace and quiet in a ten feet radius around him for more than twenty minutes if my mother or grandmother was around. He thought he ran the show but the only thing he ran proper was his yap, nagging at them both for some unspeakable affront only he was privy to. Before his hearing went to shit they’d all get real rowdy and ruin just about anything capable of ruination, but this edition, the hearing-aid-cranked-up-to-full-spurting-out-screeches-of-raw-horror-at-random-edition—he was mellow. Abysmally declined, without a soul in the world to tell it to.
Sis sat all aloof next to mom, ordered a Caesar salad minus chicken and dressing. I tried to get her attention by staring intensely but she wasn’t playing, so I got my phone out and wrote I’ve got rope, you got tree, let’s go hang just you and me. In my head it sounded like a jingle but I felt instant regret after sending it. Teddy had texted MCity. Got beer. Just like that he’d knocked me down twelve paces, like he thought that low of me, that I wouldn’t hang with him unless he lubed up.
“What does that even mean you freak?” sis said and kicked my leg under the table.
“Relax! It came out like a tune or something. But… Forget it!” I got up and rounded the table, hugged her from behind. She sat there all awkward at first, but I didn’t avert. Slowly she gave way, squeezed my arm which was good enough. “You can always call you know,” I whispered in her ear before going back to my chair. They all watched me, didn’t say a word until I was seated again. It was always like this. Like everyone had arrived to collect a medal for outstanding service in the line of blood bonds, too harrowed to give a damn about the actual war. But lips must move to fill the vacuum, sure as bits they must.
“Tell me Nan! How are things at work?” mom asked all giddy.
“Good. Real good actually,” Nan replied as if she was surprised by this fact. “I’ve been promoted to team leader.”
“That’s marvelous!”
Penelope oooowwh’d uncharacteristically, eyes going all owly, forcing me to bite my cheek into submission.
“I guess,” Nan said, playing down their praise. “It’s more responsibility, a bit stressful. But I get to pick my team and don’t have to focus as hard on recruiting.”
“Max, you don’t have the faintest idea how lucky you are,” Kate said with a vicious side-look. “I don’t understand how you put up with him. He’s the laziest person I’ve ever met. I’m not even sure he’s mine! They must’ve swapped at the hospital.” She laughed and everyone joined in except for sis who forlornly stared into her phone, Harold staring into the void. “I mean these things happen!”
“Good looks. That’s his saving grace,” Nanski replied with warmth and a kiss on the cheek for reassurance.
Harold scoffed, pointed at me and exclaimed “Him!? But he looks like a bloody mop turned upside down,” which amused even sis. His hearing aid must’ve latched on. I took a big swig from the glass, gasped as the bubbles pop-pop-popped down my throat, sinking deeper into the pills in real-time. You’re not supposed to mix Tramadol and booze. It’s bad for the liver – and as with any painkiller you’re more inclined to get bum-fucked in the brain without noticing it.
“Hah! Good one Harold. Man of the hour! Shove an enema up your ass,” I said while flicking my hair back.
Mom’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t just say that! The food isn’t even here yet and you’ve already managed to ruin it. He didn’t say that! Does he talk to you like that Nan? My own son!”
“Ah shut yer yap woman. He’s only teasing,” Harold said, which did shut her up. Just in time for drinks. I picked up the phone, wrote I’ll be in at 10. C u then? Nan took a deep breath. She knew what was going on. I could feel it. The double edged sword that was my conundrum sliced through the air and any hopes of a peaceful evening fell lifeless and limp into my lap. If she would’ve done some deplorable social act, grind me to a pulp in front of my family, I could at least feel justified in ditching her in favor of Teddy. We hadn’t even faced our entree and all which radiated from her onto me, the honey smooth devotion, squeezing my hand every time a noxious comment flew my way, told a tale discordant with my hopes. She knew very well that I hated being in the M, that I hated every single occasion that forced us to gather there, and simply by the press of my hand she swatted away the ghouls of discomfort. It would be a tough sell, rendezvous avec le Teddy. A fact of life far beneath a recipient such as her.
After we’d all recovered from the initial ordeals the conversations proceeded as they always do. Mom talked about everyone who’d done her wrong and who was fat and caught cheating on their spouse and who’s life was going to shit and why society was shit, and for the occasion she’d even prepared a little speech about the Arabs in MCity which hinted that she was indeed capable of writing novel material; she laid sleepless at night worrying that some barbarian was gonna throw a grenade through our bedroom window.
“We’ll be up on the tenth floor mom,” I said in an attempt to calm her but she wasn’t listening. While this went on I fell into the usual Harold-trap, which sinks its teeth in if you happen to ask how he’s doing. He gave me a detailed list of all his new medications, which doctors he’d seen, how much pain he was in and which knee had swollen up to the size of a football when, meticulously detailed with dates and locations. Then he pulled his bit about the Arabs and the shootings in MCity, with the conclusion that we should avoid them all together.
“They’ll ask for directions and BAM!” he snapped and slapped the table. “There’s a knife in your face! I remember when there weren’t so many Arabs. Oh yes, very different. You didn’t have to lock your door.”
“It’s not like you’re forced to lock it now Harold,” I replied. “Do you frequently have your door handles rattled? I don’t lock the door when I’m home.”
“Then what’s the point of having a door? You better start.”
When the rest of them gobbled down dessert I was ready to leave. Nan had restocked twice already. Judging by the time spent in the bathroom I deduced that she’d snorted on both occasions, but you really couldn’t tell. She was pro like that. Always able to carry herself no matter what storm she’d summoned internally. When she got up to pop round three Mom cast a shrewd smile in my direction.
“So what are you going to do over the summer Max?” she said as Nan left the range of hearing, taking on a parentally condescending tone. “You can’t leech on Nan like this. It’s embarrassing for a mother. You’re a parasite. Do you ever think about what you’re doing to her?”
Sis, who’d been quiet all evening, apart from feeble conversations with me and Penelope, asked her to quit it. Mom snapped back like a viper, slumping sis back down in her seat.
“He is! A worthless parasite. Don’t you feel shame?”
“I’ve gotten my old job back.”
“Selling TV subscriptions? That’s just what the world needs. More TV! Aren’t you going to do something useful with your life? Look at Nanna. She’s working for Amnesty, Max. I can’t believe it. Honestly, I can’t. You were such a nice little boy. So polite and sensitive. And look at you now. She’s going to leave you if you carry on like this.”
“So what? If I’d been uniformed up outside a storefront it’d be all fine, right? Now cus’ it’s over the phone I’m a lowlife even though I can make more than everyone at this table.”
Harold asked Penelope what we were talking about, but she silenced him with a pat.
“She’s a team leader for crying out loud!” she went on, working off a fiery momentum. “What are you? An entry level nobody! When you quit – when, not if – nobody will even remember your name.”
Sis got up, grabbed her coat off the chair’s back and left without saying a word.
“See what you did Max!” mom continued and gesticulated after Nell. “Your sister is fragile right now, and you don’t even have the empathy to spare her this… this!”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Like I did that.”
“We worry about you,” Penelope said in her soft grandma voice looking at me like I was wholly alien. “Harold can’t sleep at night because he worries so much for you.”
“Are you on drugs again? Your pupils are awfully small.”
Nan soared out of the bathroom looking real content. Giving her the glance, I got up, took my jacket and said goodbye without waiting for their replies. My chest felt like it was about to explode. As I stormed with heavy stomps for the exit, Harold’s voice boomed over the restaurant chatter. “What the hell did you say to him this time?”
I pushed the door open, wrestled against the wind’s pushback, stepped out into the lamp-lit darkness, fished up a smoke and tried to fuse it.
“She’s not nice to you,” my sister said, almost making me drop my ciggie.
“Shit! Well… No. She’s not.”
“I’m feeling better. Thanks for asking.” She rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t think you wanted to make it a topic back there. That’s nice. No?”
“Sure. It was too… busy.”
“You’ll love it here. Polar fucking opposite. Full gridlock.”
Nan came out the door, cast an odd eye at sis and snaked herself around my arm.
“Fuck me it’s cold!” she shrieked. “How are you Nellie? How’re you holding up?”
“I’m fine. It was nice seeing you.” She quickly spun around and ca-dak ca-dak ca-daked into the night. I wanted to have a sit-down, get to the heart of this little matter but there was something brewing between Nell and Nan, out of reach, out of tune. For later, I decide.
We started for the train station, catching the MCity train for the last time in what I hoped would be forever.
“She creeps me out,” Nan said after some distance.
“Mom?”
“No. Your sister.”
“You creep me out. How can you enjoy these things? Everyone’s so predictable and uppidy, like they’re the Rothschilds and I’m the bastard mom had with the poolboy. They’re all fucking miserable, and still sit there like Christ’s disciples all righteous – like it’s their Lord-given duty to piss on me.”
“It’s family. Family is important.”
I knew this was a truthful conviction, which made it all the more painful to attend all the dinners and birthdays and christmases. Because she actually wanted to. Part of our courting had included a complete indoctrination into Nan's family. From the first day it was like they’d been waiting for me since forever, with the exception of her fazher zhe famous architect (he was a complete failure in his field, seeing that he hadn’t lifted a finger to get a job since he’d published his research on the local color pigmentation of seventeenth century rural timber houses in southwestern Swooden. After getting closer to, and effectively strong arming the man, I realized that he, in his mind, consciously or uncon, had avoided all pursuit of prestige with the aim of freezing in time an image of himself that he very much adored, an image which would crumble under the pinned weight of any failure private or public—a man in a stasis chamber, trapped in his luftschlotte, impervious to the mood of his surroundings and its denizens, blinded by his own light to such a degree that he couldn’t see that they were all turning away from him). With emotions at an all time high, I fell in love with the little gathering of people she called home. Her wee sister, maturing brother, mother spiritualis, and the father. Well. There can only be one occupant on the throne. In their constellation I found something I wasn’t aware that I’d been deprived of my entire life. Unity in blood, love and kinsmanship, a solid mass constituted by individual bodies all moving towards a nameless goal that encompassed everything in a certain place and time. Many are the hours spent with Nanski's mother in her kitchen, dissecting topics true and folly; chasing her little sister through the garden; molding her little brother into a person I’d been proud to call my confidant. And all the while this was going on, unfolding, her father slipped deeper into a rut that had begun long before I made my first appearance. Smitten, that’s the word. I was absolutely smitten with the love bestowed by the favorable quartett of her family. But with devotion comes expectations, and Nan's family was no exception to the rule. Over the course of that first year, her mother had bought an apartment in MCity as a sort of preamble for a divorce, and her father had started pissing more frequently in every direction, drenching the aire in a rancid desperation of a man gripped by a fear of losing it all, a fear he didn’t dare to say out loud. So yes, family is important. To some.
With the train station in view, clock striking four to nine, the moment I’d been repressing began to build up inside. There’s a window, a perfect window for delivering disappointments, when the receiver is most favorably inclined to absorb information not wanted, and such a moment presents itself on intuition. A shudder of the adrenal gland, an unannounced burst in the flow rates of liquids. Blink and you’ll miss it. I was about to open my mouth, swallow the bitter pill but she beat me to it.
“Who were you texting?” she asked, not in anger nor suspicion. Just a matter of factly, simple inquiry, pleading eyes asking for honesty and respect.
“Theodore,” I replied, a stone dropping onto frozen waters.
“What does he want?”
“Well… He needs to see me. Tonight. Says he’s in a bad place, and… I gotta go.”
No response. Her arm lingering around mine before unfurling, two steps ahead, then three, pantomiming the distance between us.
“It’s not like I asked for this you know, like there’s any other place in the world where I’d rather be. This is big, today is big. You know I’ve been helping him out. I mean we don’t talk about it but… And I think. He was committed you know, spent months in an asylum and we go way back and all but… Suicide you know. I’m afraid that if he doesn’t have me, he don’t have nobody to steer him off the edge.”
She paced slow, arms crossed, warming her hands, feet dragging against the pebbled asphalt of the train platform. I felt a mounting panic, questioning my timing or selfishness in betraying what was supposed to be only ours, a time-space earmarked for our future together. I nearly uttered the murderous words of I’ll cancel it. No difference or good it would do, our first night in a new life had already been tainted, downgraded to second-rate, so I did what felt like the only way out. I bit my tongue, bought tickets from the machine, watched her drag her feet in circles while staring into the ground. The familiar scream of grinding metal tore through the night, lights prying open the darkness to announce the approaching train. It screeched to a halt, nobody lining up to get off. She picked a door, I sheepishly hopped on over to join her. As they depressurized, swung open, she took her hood down and looked at me with a sense of insurmountable loss.
“He will destroy us you know,” she said, and walked onto the train.