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Info
CONTENT WARNINGS: Depictions of homelessness, drug addiction, ableism, societal neglect and abuse, and a mention of forced sex work. Please, read this only if you are in a good mental state. 16+.
Foremost - Part 1 of the Forefront Series.
Author:
Wynths
Total Wordcount: XXXXX words. (0X:XX:XX reading time, at 200wpm.)
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1332 words
The wind batters the flags which wave over the apartment complex that Joseph Salerno, a weathered man of 40, enters. The slushy, poor imitation of snow that's been falling for a few days clings to his overcoat, despite its supposed repellent, and it comes in with him. The stuff seems to attack the edifice; all of the brick's crevices are filled with the snow, and Joe's English frame is accented with white.
He tries to shut the frosty double doors as swiftly as possible to prevent the building’s heat from leaving. He merely succeeds in making a loud, scratchy noise that causes the receptionist to look at him with beady eyes. With a quick motion, something that might be akin to a nobleman’s cigar puff, Joe swipes the elements off himself and puffs his coat up to seem as clean as possible.
The receptionist gives another sidelong glance at Joe, and with a silent sigh, Joe removes and hangs his coat on one of the myriad hooks which line the walls, the rags indiscriminately placed below them saturated from managerial neglect. It didn't matter much, however. Joe was bent on taking his coat with him; he would not want to risk one of the patrols coming to collect a tax from the commoners. It was about that time, wasn't it, when those bastards-
-but who could stop them? If they were bastards, they were certainly rich, and that held a lot of weight in this place. It wasn't in Joe, the drywaller from a backwards city, to rail against them. That much was certain.
Light that seems stronger than usual comes down from the ceiling lights. It originates from some sort of special elemental thing, which this building was fortunate enough to have a complete set of.
It was the one thing he could be grateful for, Joe thought — at the very least, the building had constant lighting. That was a privilege not often possessed. Stepping quickly through the old wooden floorboard — and taking care not to break it with his body's weight, for it was a wretched and flimsy thing — Joe finds his way to one of the lifts. He would not give up hope, as barren as it was, that the elevators would actually work. Anticipation momentarily rears his head as he presses the greasy Up! button with his shirt sleeve, and it tucks itself away as the button does not light up.
No, the lifts would not be turning on now. The economy drive was still in full force. Joseph wondered how long it had been since there wasn't a drive… he could not now recall.
Joe feels that he is creaking as he takes a pace or two down the corridor and enters one of the maintenance shafts to which the janitors lay claim without ever actually using. At one time, he had been nervous while he walked up the five or six flights that took him to his apartment. It occurs to him now, as he breathes a deep breath and feels the stab of warm air entering a cold body, that the only thing the act registered in him now was mere drudgery. Somehow, he feels that this is not right, though he cannot quite crystallize what makes it so.
He is now at the stairs. He looks at the hallway, resting a moment before he continues.
Luckily, it’s cleaner today than most, though some irrecoverable stains still lay on the carpet. It feels nice, a forebearer to the (hopefully!) decent restday that Joseph has earned. He walks, opens a door, and steps inside his living quarters.
Joseph Salerno has never been a very tidy man, though his work would not paint that portrait. The steady and constant effort which flowed from the man was simply not reflected in his private handiwork. The dustbunnies under the front cabinet, the opened bottle of gin which still lay on the fold-out table in the corner, and the wailing of the mahogany door as he opens it are the greatest testimony to this.
Still, he did try with the room. He had painted it a cool shade of blue and taped carpet over the bare concrete floor over the first few weeks of his tenantship. The furniture that it came with was almost unbearably shoddy, but Joe had deconstructed and repurposed it, and now it was only once in a while that something irreparably broke. And, though the floor space was quite small, he enjoyed the fact that nearly the dozen people he had let come into his apartment in almost as many years all said that the space looked larger than it was.
He sets himself down slowly on the bed which occupies the far left corner, just next to that table. He thinks that he should get a shot of the gin, but reasons that it must have been there for longer than is reasonable by the smell which it gives out. A fridge and microheater are just opposite the bed, just right of the door, and it occurs to him that he ‘ought to use them — it is quite likely that he will not eat anything tomorrow, and his stomach already wants to scratch at his innards with acid and rumbles.
Knowing that the smell of dampness and cave-like something will make it difficult, he makes his way to the fridge and removes one of the ration packs, saved for an occasion like this one. It’s a miserable thing, and the reheater only makes it edible, but the lukewarm, papery sausage is tolerable when combined with crumbly, brown poundcake and dirty black coffee. It goes down rapidly, and again, Joe finds himself on the bed… simply lying. His mind stretches back, wanting to find what his foremost concern is, wanting to find out what has made his shoulders tense the whole day. There was nothing new to the load, nothing except the crushing immensity of the immediate task that had been done and the city that stretched around him.
It wrestles for a bit with the desperate effort that his body maintains to simply lie, simply sleep; but eventually, his anxiety wins. Feebly, he gets up from the bed. He puts an arm on the shelf in front of him, then thumbs through the slits of cardboard which fill the layers. He lingers for a moment on one, then returns to it two moments after — this is the one. If he is going to become catatonic for a little while, it had best be to this disc.
Joe's most prized possession lay on the table which was off to the side of the fridge, awkwardly shoved an inconvenient distance from the bed. He took the disc to the machine; this was what made it so amazing.
Joe takes a finger and lets it fall onto the vinyl disc. It's remarkable how light it is — light as air! — and how the needle seems almost to stab into it and its precious contents.
The tinny music that splays out of the gramophone isn't enough to completely calm his nerve, but it is enough to clear his mind for a moment. It's all that is needed, he decides — if he is to be alone, he would do best to be alone with his focus, his clear thoughts.
Joseph was the sort of man who ran a consistent, unceasing internal monologue inside himself. It was a habit that he had picked up — well, he could not quite say, — ten or fifteen years prior, just before he had come to this Level. Transmitted to him from a former lover, he could not quite kick the habit, and he could not quite figure out why. He did not believe that he had anything important to say, nor could he say that he even wanted to. But he spoke. It was a murmur that served nothing, a whisper that contained everything.
As he rubs his temples, unconsciously removing his conscious doubt, he believes that the disc he chose was a good one.
1225 words
The toolbelt around him was heavy, and he struggled to keep it from sagging the thick carpenter’s pants as he walked through the crowd, despite another belt being worn under the tools.
Joseph Salerno brushed his hair in an attempt to get the snow-like stuff that fell upon it away from him, and he merely succeeded in spreading the stuff to his hands. It really was horrible; embarrassment was foremost in that horror. Really, the whole maneuver was embarrassing. Luckily, it went unnoticed in the crowd that passed through him, the people in their proper nondescript piles of textiles pacing around him as water flows around a healthy fish. That flow, he reflected, was what he most appreciated about this specific section of the Level, of the City: it was developed, yes, but above that, there was standardization.
The standardization would come to assist him in his work too.
Joe was a construction worker, and he prided himself on being a damned good one. It was noted by the people who worked with him that he seemed suspiciously able to land a job toiling away in a clinic or home whenever he needed.1 Furthermore, he did this while being simultaneously fast and precise, a combination which was astonishing to observe within any other person, much less the common sheetrocker.
But that was why he was renowned, was it not?
The hammer clinked against its loop and the nails bounced in their pouch as he looped around a gathering of children, who all looked at the snow and grabbed at it. Two blue-haired rascals could be heard above the rest. Joe smirked; they were one of the strange kids, one of the native inhabitants whom has been received with this Level. He paused for a moment: it was eternally amusing to hear their broken dialect come out of the mouths which they had only recently learned to manifest.2
“Wo’sie!”
“I’s so cold…”
“Ye’, it is! Wo’sie!!”
With that, the child grabbed a mass of snow in their hands, their mouth wincing but their eyes determined, and lobbed it at the other. Joe turned away as it quickly turned into a flurry, his cheek grazed by the residual play. The snowfight snapped him out of his distraction, and with a start, he turned and followed the mass of people.
They were all headed to the same place.
Joseph Salerno worked currently as a carpenter and drywaller for one of the larger buildings in the City; it was a glass monolith which wanted to stab the sky with its famous antennae, a tower from the far future of 1992 — according to the records that were found within it when the explorers’ squads first emptied it out3. Now, it was home to some agency which concerned itself with records and administration, things which the man walking through snow and just in the crossfire of the youngs’ snowfight did not care for.
He strode towards it and stopped when he was at the foot of the spire. Its iron sign read:
The Davidson, Locke, and Bumstead Interior Commerce Plaza.
Under it, in neat, detachable lettering:
Suites 2001-2010 Currently for Sale!
The name was not flattering, but the thing really was impressive when viewed at proximity, he reflected. Inside its lived walls, it may have been a hodgepodge of repurposing and remodeling done to an interior that nobody truly understood, but the outside still radiated confidence. It was nice; it would be doubly-nice when he rose to the top.
Grasping his clearance card in hand, he briefly stood at the door, and waited for a skinny, stoic-faced kid of 19 to authenticate it with a streak of his counterfeit pen. Joseph Salerno barely waited the courtesy few seconds which you were obligated to spend waiting for the ink to turn a "genuine" blue, and though the guard glared at him with some aggression, Joe had long since learned which guards would take the valuable step of escalation, and which wouldn't. It was sure that the kid with the new paycheck fell firmly into the latter camp — no one wanted to risk a paycheck in this age.
The lobby was well-lit, with the sun's light, refracted through the interior plastic and dye, appearing as golden as honey. The light fell upon black leather seats and sleek glass tables, and it shined on the polished ceramic floor, which was the great pride of the custodians. It set one, if one were not in it already, into an amicable and friendly mood. Under the warmness, it was noted, the sale and trade of important things became easier, and the non-amicable dealings which went on within the burrows of deeply-buried suites in the complex became much easier.
In short, it was precisely pleasurable for the business dealers, and inconvenient for the man who built their habitats.
Clutching his tool bag, he hurried out of view of the clientele and found himself in a janitor's hall, thin and dirty. The light here was white, and it showed stains from contact with bleach and human bodies. His shoulders, which he did not realize were tense, relaxed as he walked through the hall, eventually finding himself at a dingy, open elevator.
The thing would never stop being frightening in its operation. For some obscure reason, it was determined to make the walls of the elevator corrugated iron, and for the floor to be nothing but a steel mesh held up by thin rebar. It was this thing that was supposed to travel up to 35 floors safely, quickly, and silently. Of course, the final two conditions were not met, although Joe did know that the elevator, for its gung-ho appearance, had not once failed.
Its panel did not contain buttons, but instead a lever, which one pulled either up or down to traverse the building. He pushed it idly to the upward position and closed his eyes as it began to climb.
883 words
The first thing he did when he entered into the suite was to look around and see what the night shift had done.
It appeared that they had been a bit more active tonight than previously — the electric cables had been severed, undoubtedly to be replaced by some new model under the cover of night4 — and the wall had been opened in order to install some pipes. He was annoyed that they hadn't closed it themselves, but decided to believe that the task had simply been left unfinished.
Today, there would be only one dilemma to solve; this was going to be a half-day, which he had decided to take some time ago in order to solve the more difficult problem of his back. He had noted for years that it had become more inflamed and more stiff. That was natural for people in his profession, and though he fought against the knowledge and the effects, it had become apparent recently that he had to do something regarding it. He had scheduled an appointment with some medical man a month back, and it finally came time for him to go to the office and to see if he could somehow get rid of the gnawing, needling pain that shot its way upwards and originated from his tailbone.
All he had to do today was to remove this bottom piece of sheetrock and the corner supports from the fur down, and to investigate the type of pipe that the lowered ceiling had concealed. While the blueprint said it was simply decoration, Joseph Salerno had seen many instances where plans had failed, crumpled and discarded in the face of the reality which confronted oneself.
Now, this job would normally take far longer, but there was a saving grace: For some non-obvious reason, the ceiling was not only reinforced by the corner braces, which were anchored to the concrete base of the floor above, but it was also reinforced by a large number of wires, which held in place and angle the grid work that supported the sheetrock. Whilst it was known that these wires had a tendency over time to falter, the original remodeling was still new enough that there was no concern in Joe's mind.
No, there was no concern to be had at all.
With a groggy air about him, and a bit of fatigue from the morning still dampening his nerves, he placed a ladder under the corner. He held it up with one hand to make sure it wouldn't fall onto him. He took the other and found the screw, hiding itself under a mesh line.
Unaware of what he was doing, he raised himself up a bit on the ladder to get a good hold on the nail. It was unimportant! He just shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Besides, it was certain that the ladder would support him; its weight capacity was rated to a hundred pounds more than his body's weight.
He had done this hundreds of times before. He knew what he had to do, and he did it without thinking. He did not even need protection; the hand 'ought to work. He could always rely on his strength.
He touched the drill's trigger, making sure it was aligned with the nail. He pushed, somewhat, against the ceiling. It seemed to be fairly light. It should have been: the overhang was hollow, containing nothing but tufts of insulation and the drywall itself. He might not be young anymore, but he could still rely on his body to support that…
…Right?
He pulled the trigger.
The nail came out. He did not know it, but he took this as license to go further. He had positioned himself directly under the nail; presently, he leaned to the side slightly, placing a great deal of pressure onto the joint. He did not realize it, but though he had shuffled the ladder such that it was even, this joint had not been completely extended. He also put less pressure on the ceiling. To legacy's credit, it did not dip even a little bit, showing that it was securely in place. He could trust, ultimately, that the previous contractors had done their job. He would simply remove the outer screws, and place himself in a good position for the last one so that the sheet of drywall would fall harmlessly onto the floor.
The inch-wide gap which formed between the slab of sheetrock and the wall went unnoticed, along with the incompletely set ladder.
Both of these conditions had occurred before. It was no issue then.
He aligned, pushed, and pulled.
The metal used was heavier than normal. The wire was more lazily placed than normal.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
1187 words
I'm coming into my own, and God, the light is bright as the flames of the Morning Star 'imself, and it shines down on walls that would otherwise be dark and dirty. It's so bright, indeed, I'm closing my eyes tight as I can, not wanting to let it in, and before I open-
No.
I need to take this gown off, I don't understand, I don't understand — in my sides, an astounding wave of stimulation comes into me at the notion that I might move, and I have to clench my teeth to prevent the groan from coming out.
I don't understand.
I will now recollect my memories… if I can — something has gone quite awry, and I cannot definitely remember what happened;
God, I do not even know if it was today, or what. A new course of action: Find someone to query about the date and time; never take action without that, that's all that I know now, and I worry that it may stay that way.
The difficulty comes into mobility; there is nothing I can do to lift myself without that insane blow. Inconceivable that one movement can cause such pain. And yet it does. I must call out for help, yet when I do, I notice that my own voice does not appear to be so strong anymore.
Something has gone wrong.
With as desperate a motion as I can permit myself to enact, I see through the gown — there is my body, and it appears just as any other day, but…
I've found the fault — oh Lord, have I found the fault.
There is a great line of color which rings around my waist and back, up my back, up to about the bottom of the ribs, and it is a massive band indeed, and it is something textured — a bandage. I must inspect the bandage, but touching it again brings that soaring, ugly pain.
I hate that I have to learn yet again what pain is. I am not ready for it, and I have not steeled myself for it as I have done before. While I do not notice it, it appears that I have been allowing to escape from me a great deal of groans, whines, and other such noises — presently, the door is opening.
I shed all pretense and decency, and my face becomes as wrinkled as a grandfather's as I expose myself to the light.
The man in front of me now is one of those patients. I let a sigh go as I look down on him; he woke up. Phuny.
O', guess I 'oldn't'a sayed that. I's not nice to say the hard words; maybe, it won't get it right when i's scanning this tomorrow, or maybe, the man, like they says, is a sensitive.
Somehow, I on't feel real as I walk over to the table, makin' sure I let him get used'a seeing before he has to get to hearin'. I's standard stuff, yuh, but I always fohget, and some'haw, I forget now.
"'alo."
He's blinking. He want'sa say sum'n, but it willn't come out.
I sit. Supposably, the yrnolp want that.
"Ar'… 'ar…"
I's took a bit fo'h me, but I get it, ther's a word with 'ar, but the langwage takes me a lot anyways. Still, yrnolp wants it, no?
"'Alo. Do you want water?"
He bobs his he'd up'n down; i's yrnag.
I's kinda odd when tha' happens, when it happens that somethin' is the reverse of what it signishows in our brains. If 'e was a bhutu, I'a wast' no time to bash his phunyu head in. But I control me.
I raise and get watar.
I wondar wha's next; do I only look over him? It won't be fun, fo'h me o' him. No, i's somethin' better, but first, I need'a learn what this man wan's.
"Time, s'uhr?"
I shou'nt do that, be slappy in my speaking, but I do. I thank that the man kno or care nothing.
"Y…Yes."
I turn me'h hand.
"Twulve-F'rteen. May, Thurteen."
The man woes cold.
It can't be.
A deep, nigh-ancestral memory awakens in me; it is the knowledge of endurance, of telling the pain that you experience that it's best for all parties involved if it kills itself.
I jump up onto my back, and from there, I am able to remove the needle, with an overwhelming effort; the ribs, my sides, the bone at the base of my spine, all hate me. The steel tip of the needle is cold, somehow, and drips some sort of viscous, clear thing which burns my fingers just a bit as I rub them together, letting the muscles warm themselves and the tendons reactivate under the current strain.
The Faceless at my side looks at me with concern, her one eye glassing over in that characteristic manner unique to the young ones. Her mouth quivers. After a moment, she finds her voice, and she speaks at the level of a normal person now, widening her mouth 3 or 4 inches and puffing her chest to scream it out.
As much as I can appreciate the attempt to connect to me, the blurry, slurred "WAIT!", I cannot stay.
It has been 3 days.
INTELLIGENT PICTUREBOXES' TRANSCRIPTION
13/05/1949.
Relevant Documentation: John Doe 3AD0 "Myke": Non-Compliance Report 2.
[1320]: "Myke" exits Hospital Room 20A; Attending Stewardess Jane follows him. "Myke" has a noticeable limp, but still runs faster than Jane can.
[1320]: Jane: "Please! You can't go! I have to keep you here!"
[1320]: "Myke": "Leave me! You don't have to chase me!"
[1321]: "Myke" reaches the end of Hallway 201. He passes through the door and shuts it behind him. Jane attempts to open the door, but cannot. "Myke" collapses in the stairwell. He appears to cry, covering his mouth to prevent his sobs from being heard.
[1320]: Jane: "Please. Myke. I can't go back there."
[1320]: "Myke": "Banchu? I'm… sorry. I can't understand."
[1321]: Jane: "Just come here. Let me help you."
[1321]: Jane: "I have to."
[1321]: "Myke": "I won't. I can't afford it."
[1321]: Jane looks at her hands; she displays signs of Faceling Disassociation, and is unsteady on her feet. She says "You need to! It's for your good!" No response is given.
[1322]: Jane sits, bobbing her head. She appears to be reorienting herself per company protocol.5
[1322]: "Myke" rises from the floor halfway. Clutching his stomach with one hand and grabbing the stair railing with the other, he descends two floors.
[1324]: "Myke" pauses at the door, looks inside, and enters Hallway 183. It is devoid of people. He walks to a door marked "BROOM CLOSET 18" and enters.
[1325]: "Myke" goes to a service elevator embedded within the main janitorial closet. He stumbles over a discarded bottle of bleach, and leans against the wall as the mechanism activates.
[1325]: Line of sight is lost with "Myke".
[1325]: Jane gets up from the floor; she is now cogent.
[1327]: Jane walks to the main elevators for the floor and enters them.
[1329]: Jane goes to the front desk, asks for a service representative, and begins reporting the incident that has occurred.
[1330]: "Myke" leaves the hospital through a backdoor on the first floor.
XXXX words
The light of the petrol station in this quarter of town is almost blue. It fits the blues attitude inside well, though it does make one quite blue to be inside for any length of time.
Joseph Salerno found the station from a memory of some earlier time, a time when he went about the world with a constant companion. It was pretty in his mind, but Joe knew it would not be so when he was back there again. Really, it was something deeper which had appealed to him about this place, some crushing thing which had brought him down as surely as his sutured side, which stabbed at his heart as surely as the injured muscles screamed up to his brain that they needed to stop, before they would begin to cry and Joe would feel the leakage of hot blood in-and-out.
He was going to follow the wound's commands — he would rest in the Gladwell Petrol Station.
He chose this place not only due to its familiarity, but because there was something that he needed to do while he was here. If luck shone down on him, they would not have removed the paid outer phone links which allowed one to, for a reasonable price, contact any phone station in the Backrooms and in the Frontrooms — in real life.
As he wandered about the store, he caught a glimpse of black plastic. He rushed to it as best he could, and between stacks of lottery cards and nicotine gum, there it was — 3 phones, which still remained, lightly dusty, as though they had not been used in some days.
Always there was a necessity for them. It must have been the only reason the shopowner reasoned to keep them. It may not have been the most important, and when used, it may have brought even the electrical bill of the store up a dozen dollars, but it was worth it nonetheless to have a connection to the outside. If he could have, Joseph Salerno would not have found it difficult to lay on the floor and weep in the cold blue light.
But that was not the most painful thing to do at the moment, it was not the thing that needed to happen the most, even if it may have been the most urgent. With trembling hands, he grasped the mouthpiece and held it up to this shoulder, holding it in place for a bit by hunching them. He paid, and a voice activated, sounding as clear and wavery as a real operator. It was canned grace — distasteful.
"You're connected to the Trans-Clipped Cable Network, or TCCN! To proceed, please input your TCCN ID."
He did.
"One moment while we verify your identity and contacts…"
"Connection established! You're now logged in as Joseph M. Salerno. You have three contacts: Nicodemo L. Salerno, Beatrice R. Hurley, and Jasmine H. Bond."
"Connect with Nicodemo first, please."
The line buzzed, the waves that represented Joe's and Nico's voices being clipped through a hole in reality. He waited. And waited. And waited.
"Sorry. Connection was unsuccessful — Nicodemo does not have a working phone and/or TCCN subscription. Please try another number."
Joseph balled his fist. The anger was unjust — Nicodemo was always hard to reach, like trying to find a discolored patch of sand on a beach in the dimness of the sunset. He could not now fault him for being like this, although it would've been good to have the old man's company, maybe even a bit of his money if the fortunes of the market had been good. No matter. He had two more people… hopefully.
"Please connect with Beatrice."
The same song and dance… he thought. Then it went through: a motherly voice was at the other end, and, yes, she knew that something was wrong because her poor little boy would never call home until and unless it was absolutely necessary, and she wanted to send well wishes and prayers.
"Oh, Joe'y, please, I want you to tell me, I want to know."
"I.. think it's too much for'u, ma'. Or maybe for me, one of those two anyways."
"Joseph Macedono Salerno!"
"Alright, mom." The light chuckle was lighter on her end.
"Oh."
"Wha'?"
"It's worse than I thought, isn't it?"
"Uh… it's bad, yes. I'll tell you, I sa'pose I shoul': I got hit by a… ceiling, I think, while I was workin' on one of the skystabbers here."
"Ough, my God, Joe! Please, tell me that you're okay! Did you go to the doctor, what did she say, did she-"
"I did, I did! But, I couldn't stay there… they're not like Earth doctors, you know that."
"What did those bastards do to you-"
"I's not that they're bad at their job, Ma', it's the price ya've got'a pay for it. I's so much. And they just take and take, and tha's why I had to go — so I have somethin' left if they find me and make me pay."
"Oh… I see now."
A moment's silence. Its acknowledgement is more powerful than a verbal one could ever be.
"So, what can I do for you now, my boy?"
"Hah — I don'know anymore. I… don't think you're rich ya'self-"
"But I have quite a bit — a couple hundreds of dollars. I can loan to you, and I will be fine. I'll go-"
"I can't take everythin' ya' have, Ma'!
2619 words
Joseph Salerno rested on the bed now. That was all he did, all he could do. The night out and about, chasing a sister and a friend and a lover who would not come back to the miserable place he worked in to save him from it, extracted a heavy toll. His body felt like it had been pulled in some way, the muscles contorted across bone, and the way it felt that it split couldn't have been good.
Working was unthinkable. Not only did it involve far too much physical strength for this broken body, but it would attract the Debtors. They had the ability to see money that was given out, and it was known that all of the major offices — the one he worked at included — cooperated with them in order to root out people exactly like him. By running, he had pulled the noose that already formed around his neck.
But maybe, maybe, the knot wasn't so tight that escape was impossible.
Initially, he was concerned that the Debtors would come for him, chasing him down as the police chase down a wanted criminal. But this failed to occur.
It set Joe on the edge, but it simultaneously reassured him in an odd way; in some way, Joe felt certain that the Debtors would not come for him at all. It was folly to think that — the hospital at which he had been consigned has every legal right to send men in black suits to ask for his indentureship or income6— but it was affixed in his mind in the same manner as the laws of arithmetic or his certainty that hardship was to come.
Everything was gravely tender. As he looked at the ceiling, observing without thought or comment the little strokes of texture which he had himself added, he felt his back rearranging itself from the sudden pressure of the run and his upper leg tearing apart with the weight of his steps. His insides felt as though they were in the same shape; only barely functional. He imagined that if a taxidermied animal could think, it might approach the feeling which now invaded his body from the heart-out. Once again, he wished for vitality to be sent through the ages to this moment — he needed, more than ever, strength.
Strength came to him in sleep. Barely conscious, he stripped, drank of the foul alcohol, and did not even bother to put on over clothes as he laid on the bare mattress.
In the morning, many hours later, when he arose to find himself still yearning for more rest, he could sense that something had shifted. He put his weight on his foot, and found that with enough forewarning, he could put his weight onto it without it collapsing and cracking into its constituent parts. He would need the strength, he gathered. Or what little of it he had…
For what little he had was barely enough to get him off the bed (and only with the guidance of an umbrella-turned-cane!) and to the door, behind which a racket was taking place. Whilst Joe had planned to leave said racket unanswered, it had went long enough that curiosity overtook inertia; it had inserted itself into his deepest, unremembered dreams.
He undid the deadbolt, installed in a great rush as he had practically fallen into the apartment, and cracked the door.
A gray man answered it and beckoned with his right hand for Joe to open the door. The left clutched a stack of papers. Joe blinked and looked at him again, slightly startled. The man seemed to take note of this and internally rebuke the fellow in front of him for not being prepared to see someone who was so… disheveled. He was not one of those Faceless people, merely a very tired postal worker of some sort. There was unwiped debris on the man's spectacles and creases in his skin that ran from nose to cheek.
"Hello, Mr. Salerno." It was marvelous to behold the tone of this human's voice — it was like a skull speaking.
"My name is Rapheal Minos, and I'm here today to discuss your ongoing payments to the GROUND Corporation."
Joe was sincere when he said "Wait, wha's the GROUND Corporation?" He was also sincere in his dread, the lurch in his stomach powerful enough that it took an effort of the will to remain standing. He had taken a great blow to his stomach at those words.
The man remained expressionless except for a very slight twitch at the corner of his mouth; a smile, killed dead in its tracks.
"Some months ago, you bought some material from us. There were…"
Joe didn't now need the man to go on, but he rambled off statistics and large numbers for a few minutes regarding the metal that he had been using for his commercial work. Apparently, some sort of clerical error was afoot — Joe had made all of his payments on time, and had instructed one of the tellers at the bank whence his checks were deposited to pay the total that was demanded and to report what it was at the end of each month. In the neat handwriting that he cherished, Joe noted down the numbers of each expense he made, barring "partnerships" that he had formed with some of the more scrupulous individuals in the Locke Plaza. He had thought it did it well, but…
"…So, with all that in mind, you've left unpaid a total of 4500 dollars."
That was something that Joe was able to fix his mind upon.
"No! That gotta be untrue. I'an go inside and show you all'a the stuff that prove tha's wrong."
"I will be your guest, Sir."
The impeccable man stepped through the door. Joe felt at that moment a sort of doubt that spread out from his bowels, a sensational feeling that something rung true in all that the collector had said. But he would not give ground to it, even if the stabbing, needling pain was exacerbated by it.
These people, though they would always try to make themselves correct, were paid to do one thing, and that was to get as much money as possible. Joe found it quite believable that a collector would lie to get an increased commission, and he had heard stories to support that. He decided that the only way to ward off this threat from being realized was to get ahead of the Debtor and show him that he had kept all of his paper in order. Nothing would be wrong here.
God, nothing could be allowed to be wrong.
The fabric of Rapheal's 3-piece suit rustled in a muted, authoritative way as he made his way to and sat down in one of the ruined seats that Joe kept stubbornly about. The man showed a momentary discomfort as he sat on some defective spring, then resettled himself. He sat up as straight as an iron rod, and kept his hands affixed strongly to his knees.
Joe took a pace across the now-tiny room, proving to the man that he was more healed than he really was, and removed a folder from the bedside drawer. It was thick and well-used, with creases and remnants of words and folded papers on the cover.
They began to go through them. Joe maintained a serene calmness at the start of the proceeding, but it fell away as Rapheal spoke; first in an easy, conversational tone, then in sheer disbelief and pity that made his broken side seem merely an irritation.
It was discovered through concerted effort that Joe had been deceived. In some way, the man before him had done him a favor — it would have been impossible to discover this through any other way. While he tried to dance around the issue initially, he soon confessed to the Debtor that he did not know how to read the papers he collected. He knew how to find relevant information and extract it from a standard receipt, and he knew how to speak in an everyman's tone when it was absolutely necessary, but it was likely that he had not read a book from cover-to-cover his entire life, or at the very least, for the past 25 years. It was unthinkable, Rapheal commented, that he would have been able to detect the transaction fees that were five dollars too large or the conditions of the loan that seemed unable to be killed — a loan that was only so powerful because of an "unethical" interest.
It was incredible, thought Joe, that he had been tricked into all of this. He supposed that, in retrospect, it made perfect sense. He did not have a proficiency in reading, but he believed he was a savant with the practical sense and a damned good speaker. But, foolishly, Joe had assumed that his ability to communicate verbally would somehow save him from the pen. He was sorely mistaken.
The mistake, however, lay not in his trust of the institutions.
It was in his trust of the conman before him.
I have to say, I'm relieved like hell as I rise from that terrible old chair that the old kook "Joe" had me sit on. It's a stupid damned thing to force on one of your visitors, but I suppose he'll be payin' for it out'a the teeth and the mouth and the eyes should all go well. I've a good urge to pat myself on the back as I leave his disgusting, little apartment, whatwith its weird stains and terrible carpet, but I have to keep myself composed. The story that this man has given me through his receipts is, luckily, quite sad, so I let myself explore a bit with the most effective way to sell grief.
I have to say, I'm relieved like hell as I rise from that terrible old chair that the old kook "Joe" had me sit on. It's a stupid damned thing to force on one of your visitors, but I suppose he'll be payin' for it out'a the teeth and the mouth and the eyes should all go well. I've got a good urge to pat myself on the back as I leave his disgusting, little apartment, whatwith its weird stains and terrible carpet, but I have to keep myself composed. The story that this man has given me through his receipts is, luckily, quite sad, so I let myself explore a bit with the most effective way to sell grief.
But first, I've gotta sell him on me. He's a slow fucker to bite, and I've got to ensure that he will, so, I rise from the chair and cough, using that cough to rise my voice a little, be a bit more concerned. Really, I am concerned for the man - he ain't doing well - but I let myself forget exactly how I'ma make him more concerned. For the moment.
"We should really do something about this" I say to the man, confident that he'd wanna go out to get some fresh air.
"Yes, I concur." He says, still tryin'a impress me, an illiterate ass. Somehow he pro'bly thinks that by fooling himself he'll be able to fool me — not so.
"So which bank do you use, ol' chap?"
"Why… I believe that it's the Starsol Bank, now that I've a permanent place in 11."
"Good, good! They're good people over there, I'm sure they can give a fix up to this disaster in but a few moments!" My eagerness wears off on Joe here, and I find that as I pace towards the door, he's gotten lined and hooked — an easy bite after all, so long as you gave him a lil' affection. He takes his coat and wallet out their places and readies himself to go with me, like I've somehow taken a personal interest in him as a corporate salesman, a bona fide Debtor.
Dumbassed motherfucker. It's a good epithet for the man that's followin' me right now, thinkin' that he's somehow mangled up the service which he set specifically to prevent people like me from getting in. He should'a known that Starsol 'asn't let a fraud slip by them in over 40 years, that their methods are quite foolproof. Or 'erhaps he's just some sorta shade of odd if he's willin' to follow me?
Well, it don't matter much the difference.
All of the events thereafter're real routine — the biting is all the trouble that this man gave me. All the papers were, luckily, in order this time — I'd gotten a veritable fright earlier in the week when it happened that a woman whose figure stayed in shadow and whose voice was deeper than natural told me that I was a phony who'd one day be caught — and I had an easy time of it getting along and winning both the teller and then the official who were sent out to me to my cause. Of course, a large slight had to be rectified at lightning speed with Joseph Salerno's banking, and it was a good choice of his to hire me, his attorney in-writing7 to act on his behalf. The matters are, unfortunately, too advanced for Mr. Salerno; all that matters for him is that he is able to pay off an unseen debt, lurking in the shadows and ready to prance at him — a burden merely of the mind, which had never been really levied unto him.
As the convicted swindler Justin McConnell fondled the exquisite pen, he thought of what would happen. Of what the strokes might mean to Joe. He was not a bad man by any means, though he might have been stupid. But it didn't matter. What mattered was that he would have more. He would be able to live, if he signed enough documents, pushed enough people into the soulless machine that had molded this degenerate from an avaricious clay, in a good house with lush carpet and a little glass decor. With good food that was rich and filled him and his innocent friends, the visitors that he wanted to treat so well for staying with him all this time. With tobacco which smelt more natural than rubbery. With a car which did not stutter when one accelerated, and a garden that had beautiful flowers.
Thus, he eagerly signed, and ravished all that this lesser man had. It would take several days until the effects of his subtle scheme were known. By then, his name would be different, he would be two inches taller, and he would be a Turk rather than a Greek. He would become a different person.
Let us go, you and I, to the place where the soul is restrained onto an operating table. I want to see it squirm under the voyeurist surgeon's knife.
Reckoners came on the Eleventh hour
on a day when the clouds rung dour.
And their victim laid prostrate in his home,
days after manipulation had made it all forsworn.
Their breath was the breath of inevitable death,
their sincere speech present only outside the teeth,
their hearts dulled from thousands of others' strikes and pulls.
their sense muffled by financial trouble.
They climb the stairs now in a pair of three,
they scramble through steps like a beetle's climb;
they are disgusting as they roam, free,
free from judgement as they eat a victim in his legal binds.
Not once does reservation flash across their faces;
how could it, when this is the world that's been enforced: graceless?
Beautiful are its towers, wicked monuments of wisdom.
Ugly is its floor, truths remaining in bleach-erased stains.
It erupts out of earnest life and is called vain
by people who live by enforcing social schisms.
His will is tempered, his reach shortened,
his mind slow, his body injured.
Healing is happening, however slow.
He now only wishes for a good morning's glow.
Folly. Sheer folly.
XXXX words
They did not want to help him. No one wanted to.
More precisely, they did not have the resources to. He knew that, deep in his heart, before he even made the effort to reach out to what should have been the many welfare programs and charities that existed in the city. In reality, all of the walking, the enduring through the pain which was now a backdrop to the tragedy that was unfolding before him, was for naught.
Not a single place had the capacity to hold him or the other hundreds that were like him. At first, he did not realize it was hundreds, until he saw a line that stretched across several blocks to get into one building, one room which had a lady, judging people and signing a very rare, very lucky person to be granted entry to one of the cleaned buildings.8. You could always take your chances and enter one of the black buildings, whose windows were perpetually drawn, but to do so was a suicide mission. Everyone knew it, but the tiny uncertainty that you could live within the dream logic and the unending black was enough to make it an option in the minds of the most desperate, the ones who were most fat with fabric and carried belongings.
XXXX words.
The moon hung in the sky like a spotlight over them. Its light was minimal, being stolen by the city that reached for it, but it was enough. She had been able to light a fire, and now, with the unusual way 11 had generated these buildings, they were going to be safe.
It was a new location, she had said, uncontaminated by people. It would shift over the next few days to be more traditional, and so, less effective: the alcove in which they now rested, where a building had clipped and then degenerated, would be reduced from an overgrown plaza into a regular alley. But while they had the advantage, they would use it.
The fire came up easy, and its tendrils flaked off heat. Here, it was essential that the walls closed off the wind: as it was, the bitter coldness made it difficult to begin the fire. Joe could only imagine what it would have been like, trying to shelter the newborn embers from a vile wind.
"It'a be hard if we 'adn't been here. 'Tis why I said we had'a come — ain't no way I'ma lose the chance to sleep, be by a fire, and just…"
She trailed off.
"I's a word. We call it olnhenjos — chitchat, but i's for strangers that talk like they know the other sup'r well."
"Conversation. That's what we'd call it." Joe minded his speech; somehow, he felt responsible for showing the female Faceling beside him how to speak the Human Tongue well. He supposed he should relearn it himself one of these days.
"But… that already has a meaning, don't it?" She was getting better at this. She loosened herself, and it appeared that the less she focused, the better she was at proper English.
"Yea'. It does, y'know. But, English is like that. You have people try to come up with a meaning for a word, you get ten diff'rent ideas."
She chuckled.
"You people."
It was his turn to smile, though it was bewilderment rather than charm.
"What? I dunno what'd be so weird about that.
"I's that you all've so much on us. The cargo, the money, everything, but somehow, 'chu can't even talk right! No…"
She circled her hands together a bit, trusting that he'd understand. He did.
"Unity."
"Yes!" She was glad she knew that word — she'd been getting somewhere with the lessons, she learned now. It… probably wouldn't matter in the end. None of it would. But it was fun to think of her being fluent the way the hospital-runners and the Debtors were; an impossible goal that nevertheless neared every moment.
Joe laughed because there was nothing funny about his reply.
"Well. You're right, we ain't very united. That's the whole goddamned reason I'm here with you, isn' i'?"
She frowned. "I' is."
"Yeah. So, you Facelings might'a been able to talk to one another mentally, but we 'ad to deal with messages 'n all that taking days at best. 'Course we can't be united in that circumstayne."
"Of course."
There was silence for a while. It carried no feelings with it — it was a utilitarian one. Neither one of them had anything to say to the other. He supposed that was the best way to summarize their whole relationship, not just this.
Eventually, the fire began to wither. Joe got up, picked a hammer out of his bag, and knocked down an exposed wooden support from one of the corrupted buildings. The handle rasped his hand, but the discomfort was worth it. It resounded with a thunderous "CRACK!" which was, in all likelihood, magnified by the dark that surrounded the two of them. Being thrown in, it batted the shadows away for a little while longer. Joe took the hammer with him to his spot. Rather than laying down, however, he decided that he should still sit up. Something nagged at him — there was still more to say.
More to ask.
"So… how did'chu get here?"
"'Ey, you mean being in the streets?"
"Yes." He felt a shot of ordinary embarassment — was he rude in asking that? He sure didn't know the "streets" well, at least not these ones. But then, how different were streets from each other?
"Hmph. I…" She was calculating, deciding how much she was going to tell him. Joe realized that calculation was going to land on the side of obscure, and so, he leapt ahead of it.
"Was it money issues?"
"No! No, i' wasn' that."
"Really?" He let a hint of the shock he felt leak through his voice, rising at the end of the word.
"Yea'. It was about somethin' deeper."
A moment of silence. This time, it was not utilitarian, not purely; she was feeling something, and she needed time to settle it down before she bared her soul to someone she'd known for but a day or two.
"I'll… I'll tell ya' like 'is, but promise me y'a'll keep it to ye'self." It was a command, and he obeyed.
"I promise."
"Thank you."
The fire settled itself and endured pathetically, letting some chill through. It didn't bother either of them; the dimming light made it feel more private, and therefore more important.
"So… ya' kno' the expressi'n "A Facefucker never shows love", right? That nasty thing." She lowered her voice, like a priest repeating one of the more controversial verses of Scripture.
"I do." It was an antiquated saying, commonly said a few decades ago and still muttered by ignorant children and bastard adults.
"Everyone knows it wrong, but I 'on't think many of y'all know why. I's because of this: We Faceling rarely do love, and whene'er a man 'n a woman do love, i's a miracle. There's a whole celebrat'on for 'em — food and wine and all the thin's you people agree're nice. We need 'em to stay that way, 'tis an act'a Faith."
Joe failed to see how this connected — he was thrown, however, by the mention of religion. He had not been aware the Facelings practiced such things; had there been some effort to reach out to them, to give them to them the bread and water of the Gospels? Joseph Smith was not a very religious man, but he knew many people who were, and yet, he could not fathom any of them being able to cross a gap as wide as the species one.
But then, his imagination must have been limited. He realized that he wouldn't even have imagined speaking to a Faceling like this, let alone being one of their confidantes. Yes, he needed to have a bit more vision, didn't he?
"Are you gonna go on?"
A blush crept up her cheek. It played against her drooping eyes, and her mouth tilted up in an anxious, loud expression, like those of the cartoons.
"Oh, I… I thought you might understand, I'm sorry-"
"-Wait, no! Don't be sorry just because I didn't understand it, there's tons'a things I don't get." He wanted to assuage her worry, but found himself unable to do anything about it. He should have understood, he thought — was there some assumed shared knowledge which he didn't possess?
The look playing across her eyes, seen large through scratched spectacles, suggested that, yes, there was.
"No… well, I guess I'll ask you this: You think you're a hard Christian? One of the ones that'd wanna come in to talk to us?"
"I would think of a million better reasons to talk to a Facelin' than ta' preach to 'em."
"Okay. Um, so, this love stuff… it's new to us, probably compared to you all, yes?"
"Probably. Who knows how old love is? Might be older than us."
"'Xactly. And, the love we have is a type'a love y'all brought 'ere, whenever people came to the Backrooms."
Joe thought he was beginning to understand, and he knew now that his companion would never muster the courage to say the quiet part aloud.
"You… had some "perverted" kind'a love? I understand that bit from what ya've told me." The words felt incomplete even as he said them, but he had to get somewhere. It was the only reason he even used the word "perverted" — he knew it would sting, knew that it would be important. And he knew that he needed to be important now, as the light died down and the night rose to its climax.
She tossed about in her position, eventually electing to lie down and look straight at the sky. She did not look at Joe as he kept speaking, and he knew that it was better this way. She was quiet for a long moment.
"… Ya've all changed us, more than we'll e'er know. You know that?"
He was going to respond, but she went on, adamant in her speech, stalwart in her resolve to leave no contextual stone unturned.
"We didn't have that idea'a 'love' before y'all came here, and we only knew that very strict, rigid 'love' — we hated everythin' else because the people that came here first were people that were slow to change and hard'a heart, like y'all say."
"And you wanted 'em to change?"
"I need them to change."
A note of something all-too-familiar came into her vooice as she said the words: despair. She knew that what she needed would not happen anytime soon, that it might perhaps never happen. She would never be accepted for the love that she gave, and now, Joe finally understood.
She inhaled deeply, and her sigh came out ragged. She let go of the tension that built in her chest as she thought about the immensity of the moment when she had been cast out.
"There was a girl, 'n she was the most beautiful thin' I'd ever known."
"And?"
"It was the same like anythin' else. We started talkin', lookin' at each other in the eye down the street, the way you see some of the older Facelin's doin' at noon or 3pm, when the patrols aren't comin' 'rouhd lookin' for 'em. 'Cept, we weren't just going on in our talks — when I looked at her and saw the thin line of a nose, and so many tiny things I could never tell you 'bout, and when I heard her laugh for the first time, wincin' even as she did it from how silent she'd been, I knew I wanted to celebrate ten years' partnership with 'er. Everyday I wasn' workin' towards it was a pain."
"And were you able to win her love too?" It was a question, but Joe knew the answer already, and it saddened him, even beyond the confusion that came with this new knowledge. He had not been aware that the Facelings had the capability for romance or sex, and the idea that early humans' ideas of these might fall into them slammed into his head as horrible, as though he had been hit on the back with a tumbleweed's branch. Joseph may have been more relaxed — he lived his entire life around the idea of love, or at least he wanted to — but he did have to suppress for a moment an aversion, beat into him from what had first been faithful women and then faithful parents. It worried him for a moment that there might be homosexuality among the Facelings, and subsequently, he worried that he had worried about it. What did it say about him, that even now, after all this time, he-
"'ey? You listenin'?"
He nodded instinctively, then stopped.
"No, I wasn't. I'm-"
"I's fine. I saw that you were all stressed inside for a bit — but I think I know you 'nough to feel that you'll be alright. I don't think ya' need'a be all worried."
XXXX words.
The Faceling's pack weighed heavily on him. It was almost as heavy as the tears of regret and guilt and satisfaction that threatened to roll down his cheeks and reflect in the early morning streetlamp's light.
He shouldn't have. I shouldn't have.
But he had.
The blows from last night's fight were still fresh, and combined with the old wounds and the awful, awful strike that had started this whole odyssey, it was incredible Joe found the steel in his heart to keep moving. To keep trying to survive. It may have been that same steel that compelled him to wake in the setting of the night to steal the bag, but Joe could not hate it. It was necessary to survive.
XXXX words
It was cold. Very cold. He tried to get hot, and to go inside, but he could not stay. Loytering, apparently. What that meant… he tried but did not remember.
But he kept trying, he could know that. Count on it.
The clothes around him didn't help much with the heat anymore. At first, he thought they got wet, but later, he saw that they were perfectly dry. It really had been that long.
He touched the outside plastic, and he saw that he couldn't feel anything from it. He should have known that earlier, that… that was a bad sign, he knew that. He was sure of it. Somehow, it was so hard to be sure of anything.
He looked up, and it hurt him badly.
Up from the floor, there was a lot of buildings around him, many… He would always try to open the doors on them, with the number code and the keyhole, but always, it was closed. Shut.
He guessed it made sense. It was night out. You don't want people coming in, bad people…
He wasn't a bad person, was he?
He had to shake himself, though he felt something peeling on his body when he did. He was going to go to sleep, and he knew, fucking God, he did not want to sleep.
He needed to think about something, someway to escape the cold. He needed to find a way to take off the jacket too, because it was so hard — everything was so hard — and it didn't work anymore, it would never have worked forever.
What else was there, besides buildings?
There was no way, he thought, to save himself except with that. So he did, and he went to the doors, the monstrous things with their whiteness and the squares on them so they can look good, and the windows that the people were watching him from; he could almost see right now how fast they would move away from him, and it was then that he realized how slow he was moving. There was a time when his feet would move so far that it would be a V when he walked, and now, and now…
He went on.
A time went on like this — how long, he did not know — until finally, thank God, someone turned on the light in their building. He went to the window, and he moved his tongue, but it was so thick, and he was seeing now that the noise that came out of his mouth was just noise; he did not think that what he said came from him, because it was a different voice, and he didn't know how it could be, but it was, and the other person knew it wasn't him too because they shut the blinds and they clicked the door. He fucking hated the click of metal, the sign that it was done. Closed.
He had to keep going. He stopped now, he had to take breaks in between the alleys, where the garbage sat. He thought about looking for heat vents, and he did for a little bit, but he learned before then that no one would have that there. It can bring people there, people that needed some heat, and he knew that that could never happen. No.
So, he had to go on. It was weird now what was happening too; at first, he didn't want to look up, because it might force even more cold into his eyes, and that was the one part that felt like it kind of escaped, but it couldn't be forever; he looked up, with the same effort that a nail is unscrewed from some heavy piece of metal.
The things were getting higher.
He saw it and he did not think it for a moment, but he had to see after a little bit that it was real. He looked behind him, into the wind that hit him and wanted to blow hair off his skull, and he saw that there was a slope. A big one.
If he had to guess, it was the slope of a mouth, when you open it, and swallow something up. No. It wasn't; he had to know it wasn't.
The breaths he was taking were too big. With a terrible roar, though it was not known if anyone else could hear the roar, he let go of the air that he had in his body, the one with the heat, and he started to take small, little breaths, the one that a puppy nursing from the mom's utters does. It was natural, almost. It made his head light and his eyes sees stars, but it kept him going for a little bit;
Knock. Look. No. Yes? No, it wasn't; the human on the other side wouldn't go, or maybe it was just a worker.
He had to do it a different way, so, with the most regret of anything he had ever done, he walked into one of the darkest alleys, that one where the brick looks black with the lack of light and the stuff that does come down and falls falls in a tiny little triangle right at the edge. Yes, the one that goes on forever; yes, the one that does not die. His feet were like air as he went on them, and he started to change where he hit the ground, because he knew that he could not work them for so much anymore; the ice would get to them, and he felt almost like he could break them if he had energy to spend on kicking the gray floor or the red wall hard enough with his blue feet. The black that came around him now was almost as black as the one that existed behind his eyes, the one that he fent off, somehow.
He was on the other side, and he stopped, and he looked to behind him, and he saw that the building that had been so much taller than him was now only a bit bigger; the walls were gray, and covered in brown dust, the dust of a desert, though where it could have been from was beyond Joe's knowing — when he saw it, he needed to touch it to make sure, and then he cried with what he could bring, which was his heart. He tried to stop it, and he saw that it was impossible, there was so much, too much, and now, there was nothing to do except to wait, and to run into the arms of the thing that was behind him, but not the wind, the…
The sign was lit up, that was the only thing he could see, and he ran to it in his own way, pounding against the pavement with limp feet. The windows were dark, but it was not because no one was in there, but because of a big curtain, and so, he did the only thing he could think to do, and he knocked.
He knocked so hard that the wall shook under it. He did not see it break. He did not see himself stumble inside through a broken window, delirious, his brain going cold after all this time outside in the predatory part of 11. Instead, he was outside the store, not laying in a puddle of his own blood and piss, but waiting. Patient.
In this perfected world, a blind man responded to him.
"Hey man, we're closin'! Don't you see the sign?" Unbelievable.
"Ouh, fuck man, I'm sorry. I, duhnm, I just wanted to cohm in foh' a bit." Stupid. Joseph Salerno was a stupid, ignorant pig who couldn't speak to save his life.
"Hmph. I guess you can." The blind man held something in his heart that kept him from perfection. It did not matter — he still did what should have been done. He let the pig in his store and trusted it would not eat of his product.
"Thank'yu!" And the sighted man did mean it. He came inside, and the air here was hotter, and very humid, as though he were swimming in air. It was much better in here.
"Go wash yourself now."
"I will, good sir."
And the sighted man did wash himself, all the while feeling that he was dirtied by his efforts. The store was ruined by his presence. His eyes welled as he saw, and analysed, the condition he was in for the first time.
The sighted man was rotting away.
The blind man must have known this. With grace, he'd opened the door nevertheless.
For a long moment, they knew they were seeing a night in a good world. They wept under harsh white light for the other; one with dignity to spend, and one without.
"You know, I have to go home soon. I ain't gonna crash in this store all night — got that?" A nervous tick; a twist of the fingers, a calming motion.
"No… Wait, please, I know it's crazy, but can you, just—" A scrunching of the face, something that adds inordinately to age.
"Let you stay?" A smirk.
"Oh?" An intrigue
"Well, in the nicest way…" A scratch at the head, subconscious.
"Yes. I'm aware." A muted sigh, conscious.
"…You… you ain't got no home to go to, don't you?" An icebreaker, hesitant.
"Something's goin' on with you, isn't it?" A continuation, an attempt to probe the ice.
The attempt succeeds.
"To be truthful… there's only one thing that happened with me, isn't there? With anyone in the place I'm at?" An allusion, a pirouette around the pain.
The blind man frowns for the convenience of the dirt-struck, grateful, sighted man who stands some distance before him. The sighted man acknowledges this with a pained smile. It is potent enough for the blind man to see.
For a long while, they are silent. Everything is heard, including a rustling from the distance; the sound of a supply room door being opened. The blind man flinched. Joseph did not see this, and he was ignorant as to the thought that now went through the blind man's mind. The thought was this: that Joseph had gone and taken something, and the steps he now took towards the blind man, the shopowner, were those of escape.
"And why don't you have a… not even a home, a house to go to? You mind telling me that?" The blind man reaches under him. Out of sight, he manipulates a combination lock. It makes a shattering sound.
"It's… God, it's all the things. It's the fact that nobody gives a fuck. Tha's the big thing, the thing that shows off all'th rest. They absolutely 'on't care about the shelters, 'bout the people who walk down these types'a streets, 'bout their servants. I was a good worker for 'em, you know that."
"I can tell. Your hands are rough enough when you touch 'em. And I saw your eyes linger on the ceiling, where the grid wasn't snapped perfectly."
"Wait, how…"
"You forget something about the blind. I'll let you remember it now." The lock pops. A safe door opens.
The sighted man yells, the man who is taking now, taking it all, taking it unfairly from the owner who wanted nothing but to talk to a homeless and think about makes them tick, potentially help them a bit. Now he knows it was a mistake.
"We know when people are taking shit from us. Get the fuck out of my store." He sounds different now. He is further away, with notes of steel in his voice.
"Please! Don't shoot!" The steel came from the barrel of the Smitty that the blind man pointed at him.
No, he was not blind. He just had his eyes closed.
"Then get the fuck out'a this slumbitch now — you fucking rat!" //The unseeing man kept the sight trained, and his hand did not tremble as his steps sounded on the tile, also close, also cold and of steel.
He goes on- "I'll tell you somethin' 'bout you, I'll tell you why you're here — it's because you failed, motherfucker! You failed to humble yourself, you failed to make friends, you failed not to be a vile piece of shit!"
-and the breath comes to Joseph's breath, until they are mingling and twining together in the air, until Joe backs up now — not to protect himself, but to respect the man with the power. "If I let you stay any longer, you're gonna tear this store up. and this is my work, my test to prove that I was worthy. It's lasted 5 years, and you're not going to be its downfall."
"Sir, I wasn' ever gonna be your enemy. I didn' wan'a take from you. And I'ma tell you now: none of us are shit." He's composed now more than he has ever been, more than when the Faceling Jane chased him down the hall and collapsed, weeping because his victory was her damnation.
The unseeing man thought.
"You reek of shit."
He was satisfied with the comment, having told the sighted man everything that was wrong with him. Prescribing to him a life that he did not — never had — led. Joseph Salerno would not accept this.
"Sir, please, hear me. I want a place where I will not die if I sleep." And he kneeled, feeling the shifting of limb even as he was prostrate. Unwillingly, he felt that he cut himself before the unseeing man, but he did not bleed. The injury was somewhere higher…
"And whoever takes you in does it knowing they could die." The unseeing man thought for a while. His muscles relaxed, but still pointed the old revolver at Joe.
"No!" He was moving around, and it hurt, it hurt so much, but he kept in his position, he would be prostrate as long as it took. He would be prostrate until the unseeing man learned that the humble thing to do was to spare him.
"You've seen how your brothers in the street die." A fact. But it was incomplete.
"All because we're abandoned by the rest of the family." It took him a long time to answer, but it was the best answer that Joseph could give.
The unseeing man grimaced. His eyes were not tense anymore; Joseph saw now that though the unseeing man really was blind, he was not deaf or unfeeling. He could be made to understand.
"Sir, I want you to know that when you hear something, you should think about what it means. By itself, not what you give it. Please remember that, only then-"
Then…
It was something like this.
He swam up from some lower, better world.
Though he was lying down, he felt like he stood up to get here. His legs were spread apart. He was kicking, convulsing… walking. His right arm felt like nothing, and he saw nothing but black when he looked at it. The blood drawn from the broken window did not have enough water in it to gleam red. He could not move it.
He told his legs to move. They raised themselves, but he knew he could not support himself with them. They were so cold. They were ice. Ice would break if he put himself on it.
He thought that until he used his left arm. He pulled on it so much, pulled like he was a strong boy again in the real world, moving for the pleasure of it. By thinking of nothing else, he could lift himself into a sitting position. A similar thing happened for him to stand, but as he did, he knew the shelf that was empty, that has always been empty, was his staff.
He had to leave this place. To find somewhere else to go. It was so hot in here, he felt like he would burst open. He could see now the water rising from his body, white smoke from the wet, slippery liver that would fall from him and his skin if he leant the wrong way. He was in a sauna, he needed to leave.
He thought he knew pain until he walked with his red arm, and with the glass buried in his back, pressed into him when he rolled onto it like someone rolling a pizza.
It was the thought of pizza that kept Joseph on his feet. Someday, he would have good food. He would have a bed that welcomed him. As he used a piece of metal that cut his left hand, so that he painted it as he held it, he thought of that.
He went out of the store through the door, under the light, and saw stains on the ground where he had been. He had done nothing when he washed except smear dirt to his face, the one place that still seemed clean. One day, he would be clean too.
He walked with the stick until his feet touched ground that moved. Snow.
There wasn't snow when he entered the gas station. It fell for him. It was real snow, of the kind that Joe remembered balling in his hand and throwing when he was the same age as the kids here. It sank into his boots until it leaked in and massaged his feet.
His feet stopped then, and it was good, because he slipped from the stick at the same moment. He rolled so he could look up.
The snow did not melt against his body. He was too cold for that. Instead, it held him. And Joe was happy that it did.
He didn't know why anymore, but he cried again. The sky was so beautiful. He loved it.
He loved the whole world.
An eternal gift.
They left the delirious homeless man's body alone. At least it fed the vultures.
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