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BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD-CHAPTER 30-STEWARDS

STITCH’S POV


The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.
--George Bernard Shaw

Life beneath the streets of New York City wasn’t defined by the limitations of mortality, but rather by duty. And because of this, Alan’s impending aboveground send off seemed misguided. It was those below ground who were truly miserable. Alan had been a runner, a blessing to many who couldn’t bear to go upstairs anymore, whose eyes had over-adjusted to the darkness they inhabited. As you made your rounds that morning, informing those who cared that you were bringing some of Alan’s friends into their world, they were less than receptive. Even the prospect of going to Alan’s funeral swayed few of them; some were terrified to leave their homes, and others just didn’t believe you. They were more frantic about who would take Alan’s place, about who would graciously accept the orders of so many and not extort them in return. Some of them, you knew, weren’t actually grieving for Alan, but instead for themselves, grieving that once again they’d have to beg, borrow, and steal to get through the day. Each speech you made repeated a similar refrain, “He has friends and family upstairs. They need to say good-bye. Don’t let your fear deny them that.” Your status in the community was the only thing that calmed them; Alan was a runner, but you were the mayor by default. They had only two choices: acquiesce or overthrow you. It was easier to do the former, too time-consuming to do the latter.

*********************
ZEEK ZIRROLLI’S POV


A man who has never made a woman angry is a failure in life.
--Christopher Morley

Wednesday morning, April 6, 2011, 8:03 a.m.

You made contact with Stitch at exactly eight o’clock. He was waiting for you against a chain link fence, a look on his face of resigned skepticism. “Where’s everybody?” he asked, his eyes flitting around you as if you were accompanied by invisible friends. “They’ll be here,” you replied, flipping your cell phone open as it rang. Stitch stepped away from you; it was Kinney. The banks didn’t open until nine a.m. he informed you; he and Justin would be there a little after. “Gonna be awhile, Stitch.” He nodded and agreed to return in an hour.

You lit a cigarette and paced in front of the entrance to the subway, adjusting to the feeling of having your father’s Smith & Wesson .38 strapped to the inside of your left leg, and that’s when it came to you: how to fix Ruben’s Ms. Pac Man crisis. You called him right away.

Man, I’m popular today,”

You got straight to the point, “We’ll take the railing down completely, hoist the game up there and then bolt it back down.”

Bitchen.”

“You’re doing your happy dance, aren’t you?”

Maybe.”

You’d seen Rube’s happy dance more than once, usually when he won an auction on Ebay for retired Pez Dispensers. (You referred to it as Rube’s ‘Safety Dance’ because there was no way in hell anyone would want to do the horizontal hokey pokey with him after they witnessed it.) And then you saw Sam coming up the stairs from the subway, “Gotta go, man.”

Rock the Casbah.”

“Get some help, man. Get some help.”

…...

“Greetings, Spielberg,” you said to Sam as he approached. “You look like shit.”

He tossed his brown, leather backpack on the ground between his feet, “Thanks.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Harper; she’s not happy with me right now.”

“Isn’t that a universal law of marriage or something?”

“In my case, yes.” He leaned back against the fence Stitch had been employing minutes before and sighed, his arms crossed in front of him. “She doesn’t want us to do this.”

“She doesn’t?” That surprised you.

He didn’t answer you, pressing on with his train of thought instead, his eyes staring vacantly at the street in front of him, “I feel bad. I shouldn’t have left her this morning.”

“Isn’t Doc there?”

“Yeah.”

“She’ll be okay.”

……

He didn’t seem to believe you, so you continued, “She’s a woman; she needs to talk. He’s a shrink; he needs to listen. You know, it’s like symbolistics.”

“I think you mean ‘symbiosis.’”

That was probably what you meant.

……

……

You changed the subject, tried to start again, “That little girl of yours, she’s something else, isn’t she? Looks just like Harper.”

“She’s Harper’s MiniMe.”

……

……

You were running out of things to say, “Daddy’s little girl, huh?”

“If by ‘Daddy,’ you mean ‘Brime Kinney.’”

……

You looked down at the time on your phone.

Jesus Christ. Forty minutes to go…

……

You spent some of that time wondering how Gabe was faring without you and without Kinney. You couldn’t imagine him surviving without an ass to kiss—or kick. But that thought made you remember that it you wouldn't have even been standing there that morning had it not been for your little brother...

*********************


I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
--Mark Twain

Monday, August 23, 2004
2:15 pm


It was the last five in your pocket and you needed it to dry the wet load of clothes sitting on the washing machine in front of you. You were doing Gabe’s laundry that morning because you’d lost a bet with him the previous Friday. It wasn’t really a bet, actually, just one of those moments when you were helping him close the restaurant, and he was critiquing every little thing you did, so you asked him if he thought you were stupid or something, and he didn’t answer in that way that people don’t that always means yes. This pissed you off because it was a fucking Friday night and you could’ve been at any one of the city’s hot spots, seconds away from getting your dick sucked, but no, you’d volunteered to help him, and then you were regretting it. So he said he wanted to ask you a question, just one question, and if you got the answer right he would never, never again insinuate that you were more brawn than brains, and like the idiot he subsequently proved you to be, you agreed. He’d made a production out of it, too, pondering what he was going to ask while he turned every single chair upside down on its assigned table as you followed him with a mop. Finally, after nearly fifteen minutes of thinking about it, he was ready.

“Okay, you ready?” he asked.

You were leaning on your mop handle by then, “Hit me, Einstein.”

“Okay, one question and one question only, right?”

“Right.”

“And this decides it once and for all, right?”

“Yes, right. Just ask me the fucking question.” In all of the moments you’d endured waiting for him to come up with something, you’d been doing word problems in your head:

If Gabe Zirrolli rises at five thirty a.m. on a Monday morning and goes to bed at ten p.m. the same night, how many people can he suck up to by the end of day without getting chapped lips?

If it was a math question, you figured it might take you awhile, but you’d eventually get it right. Besides, there was nothing said about how quickly you had to answer. You were prepared to use Gabe’s precious, leather-bound reservation list for scratch paper if necessary.

He started unrolling his sleeves, a sign that he was finished with his manual labor for the evening, “Okay, the question is: which childhood musical coined the phrase ‘supercalifragiliciousexpialadociou

s?'”

“That’s the best question you could come up with?” you asked.

“Short notice,” Gabe conceded.

……

You knew the right answer; fuck, everybody knows the answer. So you decided to push it one step further, “If I get it right, you’ll stop treating me like an idiot?”

“Sure.”

“And do my laundry for a month?”

“Absolutely,” and then he added, “But if you’re wrong, you’re doing my laundry a month, and that includes ironing my shirts or taking them to the cleaners.”

“Done.” Starch was always Gabe’s drug of choice.

“Okay, what’s the answer?”

You were salivating over the prospect of him walking through your apartment, collecting your neglected, dirty underwear with a pointy little stick. It bore an uncanny resemblance to the one he’d lost up his ass when he’d come back to the city with a PhD in Elitism. “I hope you know I’m holding you to this ‘Cakes; you’re not gonna wiggle out of it.”

“I’m aware. May I have your answer, please?”

“Yes, you may,” you told him, clearing your throat, “The movie that made up that word you just said was… The Wizard of Oz.

……

……

The smile on his face was classic Gabe Zirrolli.

……

If you only had a brain…

*********************


A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you.
--Adlai Stevenson

Or courage…

You would’ve settled for that the moment you looked up from Gabe’s laundry basket and saw her—the girl you and Reef rescued a few months ago from what you thought was the attack of a madman. Alan was practically screaming in Harper’s face that day, and she clarified the misunderstanding when you and Reef grabbed him. You apologized to both of them; Alan ran away; Harper sank against a wall, her face in her hands. Apparently, she’d told him that she’d been to see their father.

Since that windy March day when you'd needlessly saved her, you’d seen her around now and again--in a liquor store buying Tequila, getting into a taxi cab on a rainy day, and once standing in line to see a movie. She was always alone.

And that day at the laundromat, she was alone again--alone and broke. Her last dollar had disappeared into the detergent dispenser, and when it failed to deliver soap, she kicked the machine and barked at it, “Goddamnit!”

She cursed under her breath all the way back to her clothes basket, walked out the door and slammed it on the ground next to her. When you saw her fishing for something in her purse and realized that it was a cigarette, you left Gabe’s over-priced, wet wardrobe on top of a machine and made it outside in time to offer,

“Need a light?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said, not recognizing who you were at first, “I have no fucking clue where my lighter is. This day seriously sucks.”

You stood beside her smoking, trying to appear interested in the traffic or clouds or something while she continued, “This morning, I locked myself out of my own fucking studio, almost left my purse on the subway, and if I didn’t have this fucking cigarette, I’d probably be going postal right now.” You got the feeling that she was talking to the universe instead of you. But then she turned and looked at you, “I remember you.”

“You do?” you asked.

She blew her smoke away from you, “Of course, I do.” You couldn’t tell if she was happy about that. “Where’s your friend?”

“Reef? The guy that was with me that day?”

“Yeah.”

“Probably at home getting seriously baked.”

“God, I haven’t smoked decent pot in, like, three weeks.”

……

The opportunity was there; you had an in.

……

But instead of jumping on it, you heard yourself asking the question that had popped into your head ten minutes ago when you were desperately trying to think of something to say to her, “You need soap or something?” (Possibly one of the least memorable pick up lines in the twenty-first century.)

“Yeah, I even forgot my fucking detergent. I just need to wipe today off the calendar.”

“You can use some of mine.”

Her cigarette out, she took you up on the offer. You followed her back inside, and she started laughing when you handed her a bottle of (Gabe’s) Woolite. “Tough guy like you uses Woolite?”

“Only for my delicates.” And while she was still laughing at your jokes, you fed your last five into the nearest washer and said, “Clean clothes. On me.” As the water began to rush into the machine, she smiled at you, pulling her arms inside her shirt, and like the most amazing magic trick you’d ever seen, divesting herself of the bra she had on, pink straps sliding out of her sleeve. She threw it in, closed the lid of the washer, plopped her basket on top, and said, “Now, I have nothing to do for twenty minutes.”

“Hungry?” Your family’s restaurants was a few blocks away, and it was early enough in the afternoon that Gabe wouldn’t be seating people. You could go in, comp her at late lunch, and be gone before he’d even set foot in the place.

……

A few hours later, you’d forgotten all about Gabe’s damp clothes festering at the laundromat in their wicker, plastic-lined basket most likely bought online at StuckUpYuppie.com because you were at your place reintroducing Harper to some very decent pot.

*********************

She speaks eighteen languages and can’t say no in any of them.
--Dorothy Parker

Fucking a guy is a full-on rush to the end zone, while fucking a woman is more like a kinky version of Mother May I. Harper was sitting cross-legged on your bed flipping through pictures from a trip you’d taken with some friends, and when she looked up to ask you who somebody was, you leaned forward, took a chance and kissed her. The photos slid off your bed, fanning on the floor; the kiss never stopped.

She moaned when your hand slid underneath her shirt, no bra to stop you as you pushed her back on the bed, and all you could think was:

Go, go, go.

……

Green light. Green light. Green. Light.

……

Do not fuck this up.

You were so busy bossing yourself around, that you were late noticing her pushing your hand down her stomach. When you popped the button on her jeans, she returned the favor. You were instantly grateful; your dick was in desperate need of some air. She was warm and wet, and her body seemed ready to bully you into fucking if you hadn’t been so inclined.

Jesus, she wants me.

You’d fucked your share of horny woman, but this was far beyond that. She made you feel like the last doctor on earth who could cure what was ailing her. And you cured it several times over. She came when you fingered her—fast and hard; she came when you went down on her—a delicious, thundering ascent, and she came when you fucked her—loud, needy and final. Never had you fucked a guy and felt like such a god.

Her orgasms were the icing on your favorite cake, and as the sun was starting to go down on that first hot night, she looked at you and then said the four little words that every man longs to hear at least once in his life:

“Your name’s Zeek, right?”

……

Days passed, and then months, and it was always the same: if she was in a bad mood, she wanted to fuck; if she was angry, she wanted to fuck; if it was cloudy, she wanted to fuck; if they were having a huge sale at a store she’d never even set foot in…she wanted to fuck. You feared you might have to get a second job just to pay for all the rubbers. And you knew she was using you for sex, for physical contact; Harper had a way of sliding back and forth on that slope right in front of you. She never asked you for anything else which was probably why you stuck around. She wasn’t your girlfriend; you weren’t her boyfriend. You were just the guy who knew the exact physical address of her g-spot and gave her lots of free spaghetti.

*********************



She wrapped herself in an enigma; there was no other way to keep warm.
--Karen Elizabeth Gordon

There had never been any valid reason for Harper to like you, a fact your friends reminded you of on a daily basis when you’d ditch them to spend time at her studio--their opinion was that your days were numbered, just maybe not consecutively--but you found yourself drawn to the part of her that fancied herself an outcast. You knew she wasn’t; she gave off the completely opposite vibe, the contradiction igniting a potent attraction between you.

Her ability to light a candle, dim a light, and burn something that made you feel both peaceful and impassioned at the same time left you spellbound most nights. (It never dawned on you to light a candle when you were fucking a guy, a practical reason prevailing: one of you would knock it over and burn the place to the ground.) She’d blow you until you were dizzy and then peel her jeans off to sit in your lap. Her long hair would tickle your face when she rode you, her efforts to keep it back failing just like you wanted them to. In those moments, you were lovers. The rest of the time, you were friends.

……

When Alan came around, you’d usually make yourself scarce. He was always gone in less than twenty-four hours, always leaving her quiet and somehow sad. You’d reappear then, determined to cheer her up. It was a routine that worked for all of you.

In the spring of 2005, Harper announced that she was moving to a new studio, courtesy of her father. She would help her current landlord rent her space out, a condition of getting out of her lease. It didn’t take long for someone to take the bait, an attractive, intelligent, blue-eyed, blond guy who took himself way too seriously. Harper turned the place over, content that she’d passed it on to the right person and moved out. You saw her a little less after she moved because she became immersed in her work like you’d never seen before and dropping by just to fuck seemed like an interruption. But the guy who rented her place you saw more often—usually alone, at a gay club, spending the evening looking at every face in the joint until he found the one he wanted. It struck you as odd; he looked way too young to be so predatory.

……

But after about a month in her new place, the girl that always let you ride shotgun on the skin bus to Tuna Town didn’t want to party anymore. She still drank your beer, though, so you had hope. But that hope died when her buzz made her weepy rather than horny, laying her head in your lap. You weren’t used to her doing that before you’d unzipped. So you stroked her hair and heard yourself asking her what was wrong, felt yourself actually caring about the answer.

Harper was tipsy and crying, telling you that she hadn’t seen her brother since she moved. She feared something awful had happened to him, and you didn’t hesitate to offer your services. The next morning, you blew off the Manhattan penthouse you were supposed to paint and began to search for Alan.

Never let it be said that you didn't have a heart.

*********************


I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
--Robert Frost

On the morning of Monday, April 19, 2005, you set out knowing who you were looking for and with a vague idea of where to look. It didn’t take you long to locate the right tunnel. You ignored the begging of those who lined the entrance, stopping instead beneath a catwalk above an active subway track. There were three guys and a woman up there, but no Alan. As you climbed the metal ladder to get to them, they got quiet, the woman on the catwalk hiding behind one of the men as was typical.

“Where’s Alan?” you asked.

“Not here,” the guarding man replied.

“Where’d he go?”

“Here, there, anywhere,” another man replied. You looked him straight in the face; he was fucked up, probably on smack.

You pulled twenty bucks out of your pocket, “The first person who tells me where I can find him gets their hit for today.”

The cowering woman, wrapped in a blanket as if it was the middle of winter, poked her head out around her bodyguard, “He got adopted.” Her protector cursed her, “Shut the fuck up. We don’t even know this asshole.”

You ignored him and continued to make eye contact with the woman, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘adopted.’”

“Got himself a new home. A good home,” she replied, staring not at your face, but at the money in your hand.

“Where?”

“Downstairs,” she replied.

You thanked her, stepping forward to hand her the money. One of the men grabbed it first, and the smile on her face vanished completely. You looked at her, “If I find him, I’ll bring you the other half.” She nodded, watching you climb back down the ladder. When you got to the bottom, you heard her one last time, “You need to find a guy named Stitch.”

“Thanks.”

*********************


One man with courage is a majority.
--Thomas Jefferson

After descending a couple of levels, you started to feel like you were in an overly-realistic video game where one false move could kill you. Each level was exactly the same: wander around, follow the suggestions of sketchy individuals until you found the one with actual authority. He would tell you how to get to the next level. From your best count, Alan was now living seven levels beneath the streets; the appointed sentry of the sixth level assigned someone to escort you the rest of the way. You were resentful at first, but then realized why: there were trip wires and booby traps everywhere. You would’ve never made it on your own.

Your escort took you to the entrance of Alan’s community and instructed someone else to go find Stitch. You were allowed no farther without his permission. You guessed that it took him about five to seven minutes to appear, squinting even in the few shards of light filtering in the tunnel. It had taken you over an hour to get down there, and you were tiring of their procedures.

“I’m looking for Alan Harper,” you told Stitch before he’d even stopped walking toward you.

“What’s your name?”

“Zeek.”

“Zeek,” he repeated. He nodded, and you thought that was enough as he began to walk away, but then he stopped and turned around again, “Why are you here?”

“His sister’s worried about him. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

“Wait here,” he told you, disappearing into the blackness again. You thought you were alone, but then became aware of at least three sets of eyes watching you. The darkness began to make you paranoid. They were blinking in unison?

Minutes past, and in the silent blackness, you realized how loud your breathing sounded, how you could hear an echo of water dripping. And then you heard footsteps; Stitch had returned. “Come with me,” he said, and began walking away again, unconcerned, it seemed, whether you were actually following him or not.

But you were.

*********************


No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
--Abraham Lincoln

When you finally stood in the doorway of Stitch’s bunker, you were flabbergasted by what lay in front of you. “Damn, this place is nicer than my apartment.” The room was large, impeccably clean, carpeted, and furnished. It had a working toilet and sink, microwave, and toaster. There was a set of shelves affixed to the wall above the sink that held everything from canned goods to toiletries to cigarettes, liquor, and condoms. Next to the bed (an actual bed, not a mattress on the floor) was a bookshelf stacked topped to bottom with books, newspapers, and magazines. There were two trunks in the bunker and the shell of a sofa that you supposed served its purpose. That day’s New York Times was lying on the top shelf next to a clock radio flashing 12:00; the headline read: Taliban Returns to Afghanistan’s Air Waves. Alan was lying on the bed, underneath the sheets, his body almost curled into a ball. Stitch closed the door behind you as you stepped all the way inside. You turned your head when it shut and saw three keyed padlocks hanging open. The place reminder you of a bomb shelter.

Alan’s voice was softer than you ever remembered it, “What do you want?”

“Your sister sent me. You missed your regular appointment.”

Stitch responded, “He’s detoxing.”

“Heroin?” you asked.

Stitch confirmed your thoughts, “Yeah. He doesn’t want her to see him like this.”

“Since when do you chase the dragon, Al?” you asked.

“Since I fucked up.”

“And when did you fuck up?”

Alan stretched out a little, his eyes opening wider. He looked more like a child and less like a man at that moment, “Since she went to that new place.”

Stitch sat down on the bed, essentially blocking your view of Alan’s face, “He thinks his father is trying to catch him.”

You moved so you could see him again and told him, “He never comes around there, Alan. He pays the rent. That’s it.”

Alan rolled his eyes and turned toward the wall. Your words were no comfort. Stitch stood and pushed you toward the door, as if Alan couldn’t hear him three feet away, “He’s fucked up, right now. When he’s clean, he’ll come back up.”

……

“Can I talk to him alone for a minute?” you asked.

Stitch looked at Alan as if to get his permission, but you got the overwhelming impression that it was the other way around. He left the bunker and stood outside the door, instructing you not to let it close. You pulled a trunk beside the bed and sat down. “Do you want to be here?” you asked him.

“Yeah.”

“You trust this guy?”

“Yes.”

You lowered your voice, “Why?”

“He takes care of me. If it weren’t for him bringing me down here, I’d probably be dead by now. He’s my friend.” You couldn’t really argue with Alan; he was living in the nicest place you’d seen since your journey began that morning. “He takes care of all of us,” Alan continued. “When I get better, he’s going to give me a job, so I can earn my keep.” You wanted to believe him but found it difficult, the moment so surreal. “I’m lucky, Zeek. Nobody does drugs down here. The whole community is clean. I have to get clean so I can stay.”

You handed him one of your business cards with your cell number scrawled on the back, “If you change your mind, you call me. Anytime, day or night.”

He smiled and took the card, folding it into his hand, “Don’t tell her I was using. Just tell her that I forgot or something, that I’ll come by next month.”

“If you don’t, I’m gonna come get you and drag you back upstairs,” you told him. “We understand each other?”

“I will, Zeek. I promise.”

Stitch had re-entered the room and was standing behind you. You jumped when he spoke, “I’ll make sure he does. Don’t worry.”

The man that had escorted you to the seventh floor was standing in Stitch’s doorway, smoking a cigarette, “Come on, man. I don’t have all day.”

“Take care of yourself, Alan,” you told him.

You heard him wish you well right before the door closed behind you, the click of three padlocks complete within seconds. Your trek back upstairs took less than thirty minutes. You made a point of finding the woman who’d pointed you in the right direction, and she was right where you left her on the catwalk, only alone this time, abandoned by her trio of bodyguards. You climbed the ladder once again and handed her twenty dollars and some advice, “Take this and get yourself to a shelter.”

She refused, “Last time I went to a shelter, all I got was raped.” Your instincts told you that she was still being raped, only this time by the devils she knew.

*********************


History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

When you returned to Harper’s studio that day, you told her half the story—that Alan had disappeared because of the influence he felt their father had over her. But by leaving out the other half, you couldn’t stop her from coming to the conclusion that she had to leave her rent-free studio. “I have to go back. I have to be somewhere where he feels safe then.” You tried to reason with her, but failed. Within a week, she called you to tell you that she was moving back to her old place.

“He gave it up, just like that?” you wanted to know.

“No, of course not. We’re going to share the space.”

So you helped her pack up, disassembled her drafting table, packed her computer, filled up your cargo van, and moved her back into her old studio. She was happy again—happy to party with you, happy to fuck you, happy to be working alongside a fellow artist. Justin was no stranger to the club scene, and though the evening might start out any variety of ways, it usually ended up with the three of you back at the studio suffering from acute bouts of intoxication. One of those nights, Harper and Justin decided to get baked and wax about art. You found yourself becoming increasing bored with their conversation, so you challenged them both to a game of strip poker. Justin lost three hands in a row and ended up sitting bare-assed on his milk crate.

Sometimes hindsight is just a bitch.

*********************
JUSTIN’S POV


Husbands are awkward things to deal with; even keeping them in hot water will not make them tender.
--Mary Buckley

Wealth, you’d decided, had gone to both of Brian’s heads. Your suite at The Regency was top shelf—naturally--but it wasn’t the luxury that convinced you, it was the way Brian was treated. As you walked through the hotel lobby that morning, you began to realize that Brian had become one of those people whose arrival launched a sophisticated game of ‘telephone’ among those who are paid to serve. And you knew that Brian knew this, always appearing blissfully unaware of circumstances he was setting in motion. You suspected it made him much harder than you ever had. The Brian you met that fateful night over ten years ago cultivated power; this Brian approached power with a benign acceptance, like a shawl your grandmother keeps on the back of her chair ‘just in case she gets a chill.’ It was rarely summoned, but always, always, always there.

But it didn’t suck to be married to that, even if you sometimes felt like Julia Roberts in her breakout role.

That morning, Brian approached the front desk at The Regency under a sign reading: Guest Services. He’d already been greeted by name when he stepped off the elevator by an over-eager concierge who knew your name as well. "Mr. Kinney, Mr. Taylor." To your recollection, you’d never been called ‘Mr. Taylor’ before nine a.m. in your entire lifetime…unless you were in bed with Brian…which was a different matter altogether. The concierge seemed incapable of dialing down the smile on his face as Brian put his laptop and PDA on the counter in front of him, and then spoke to him,

“I need these items stored in the hotel safe for today,” Brian told him. Kevin Le Concierge responded like a stroked Cocker Spaniel, “Absolutely, sir.”

Don’t pee on the floor, you thought. It’s not like he’s going to fuck you.

You were staring at Kevin’s crotch, trying to see if he was, in fact, peeing on himself, when Brian tapped your arm to get your attention, “Justin.”

“Huh?”

“Give me your ring.”

“Why?”

He looked at you like you were not completely awake yet, “Give it to me.” You did, and he took his off as well along with his watch, zipping them inside a pocket on his laptop case and then, “Do you have anything else on you?”

“Just my diamond-studded cock ring. But you said I’m not allowed to take that off,” you answered, wearing innocence like a cologne reeking since the day you were born.

Brian suppressed a smile that only you could detect; Kevin Le KissAss looked at his fingernails. “Your wallet, please,” Brian said. You handed it to him, and he put it inside the case as well, handing you back your driver’s license. “Thank you, Kevin,” he said, as he signed a declaration form and handed it back to him with a very crisp hundred dollar bill. “And don’t mind him,” Brian added, not even looking at you, “He’s always this way if I don’t spank him before breakfast.”

“Yes, sir.

……

“Thank you, sir.

……

“Have a good day, Mr. Kinney.”

……

……

Brian took your hand and led you out of the lobby, your face so red you’d lost all sense of direction.

……

……

“You need to have your head examined,” you told him a little while later as the two of you were entering the bank.

“You might be right,” Brian responded. “But I’m not taking my pants off right now.”

*********************
BRIAN’S POV


The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.
--Lucille S. Harper

You’d see many things that day that you weren’t expecting, but the first was the smile on Zeek’s face as you and Justin approached him. “I never thought I’d say this, Boss Man, but I’m actually glad to see you.” You felt the same way, but it freaked you out a little. The four of you re-acclimated with one another, and then Zeek pointed to Sam, “He’s got everything we need in his pocketbook.” Sam laughed, “I have a toddler. I’m prepared for anything.”

“How much cash did you bring?” Zeek asked you.

“Two thousand.”

He seemed to relax a little, “That should be plenty.”

“I figured a thousand to get down there and a thousand to get back,” you added.

……

Stitch had suddenly appeared again, in that way he had of popping up out of nowhere. He smiled at Justin, specifically, seeming barely interested in you at all. The four of you followed him behind a fence, down a hill, and then through a small park. If Stitch hadn’t been with you, you would’ve never even noticed the entrance to the tunnel. The only tell-tale sign was the people hanging around it; they weren’t the kind you’d chat up at the water cooler.

The entrance to the tunnel was filled with litter, and as far as you could tell, the people who loitered there didn’t actually live there. There were no mattresses, boxes, or blankets anywhere, nothing that made it feel like home.

*********************
ALAN HARPER’S POV


I am not young enough to know everything.
--Oscar Wilde

Your autopsy was over that Wednesday morning, and it was true you’d felt nothing after the first blow, that it knocked you unconscious instantly. The battering of your body was only for show; you never even put up a fight. At just six years old physically, your mother’s lap was comfortable again; she was teaching you how to tie your shoes. Madeline floated next to you as you watched the hospital staff return your body to the morgue. It seemed unfair to you that she had wings.

“It’s because she’s a child, Alley,” your mother told you. “The other children—look they’re all the same.” Madeline flew away to join them, but you knew she’d be back soon. Most babies, you thought, were way too needy to flit around all day. Maybe Madeline was less of a baby and more of a pest.

“How come I can still see stuff, Mom?” you asked. “You can’t.”

“You’re not comfortable here yet,” she told you.

“How long did you see stuff for?”

“The last thing I remember was you placing a pink rose on my coffin. Then there was this warm breeze and everything faded away. I had all the answers I needed, I guess.”

“Will that happen to me?” you wanted to know.

“Of course.”

You were skeptical, “Did that happen to you, Nurse Tate?” She was always beside your mother, even when you couldn’t see her.

“It sure did.”

Madeline was back again; you could feel her tiny feet in your hair like she was dancing on your head. “Will it happen to her, too?”

Your mother kissed the top of your head, for some reason Madeline was never in her way, “She’s a child; it happened instantly.”

*********************
DANIEL CARTWRIGHT’S POV


Ah, the patter of little feet around the house.
There’s nothing like having a midget for a butler.

--W.C. Fields

Your thirty-second diagnosis of Harper’s mental state that morning told you that she was going through the five stages of grief on speed. You could feel her anger boiling beneath the surface, quelled only by the refusal of her body to participate. But the fury was still victorious, shoving tears down her face as if there was a row boat somewhere that they were sinking. You held her hand, let her talk, rant, and sob until she started to shake. You offered her breakfast which she refused. “I think I’d prefer a tranquilizer.” You gave her a generous dose of Klonopin and stayed with her until she calmed down. When she asked for hot tea and Amelia, and you went downstairs to get both. Amelia was done with her breakfast, hypnotized by the television. You heated a cup of tea in the microwave, sweetened it with honey, and then asked Amelia to follow you upstairs. Her little hand could just reach the door knob of the studio door, and she pushed it all the way open and asked, “Do you feel better, Mommy?”

Harper smiled, “Yes, I do. Can you come sit with me for a minute?”

“I wanna make you some breakfast,” she told her mother, marching past Harper and into her tiny kitchen. “You can have some eggs and some cereal, ‘kay Mommy?”

“Okay.”

“And some pizza and some yogurt.”

“Sounds delicious.”

Harper drank the tea you gave her, and you sat in the doorway while Amelia cooked for and served her mother, breakfast after breakfast. At one point, she brought Harper an orange plastic cup and an announcement, “This is your orange juice, Mommy. It’s the ‘spensive kind.”

You laughed and Amelia told you, “I don’t have enough for you, Dr. Car-ride. I only have enough for Mommy and Daddy and me.”

“Okay. I’ll just drink water,” you told her. She brought you a cup with a plastic ice cube in it. It was one of those gag ice cubes with a fly in it. You ranked even lower than you expected. “There’s a bug in my water, Amelia.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, throwing her hands up in defeat, “I tried really hard but he won’t come out. He just lives there.”

“Okay. I’ll just ignore him, then.” You looked over at Harper again, and she was almost asleep. You took her tea away and covered her up as she slid back down under the blankets. Amelia was oblivious, her pink apron strings flying everywhere as she buzzed around the studio. “Amelia, let’s go play downstairs. I think your Mommy is asleep.”

“Okay.”

She followed you out into the hall and waited as you closed the door. The two of you walked back downstairs, hand in hand. When you got to the bottom, she let go of your hand and tapped you on the arm. “What?” you asked.

“That fly, he’s not scary; he’s just betend.”

“That makes me feel a lot better,” you told her.

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh too big for her little body, “Me, too.”

*********************
BRIAN’S POV


There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.
--Alfred Hitchcock

The quest to find Justin’s artwork that day quickly became a journey to the center of the earth punctuated with cameo appearances by the various guards of hell in Dante’s Inferno. The pecking order was as follows: Stitch in the lead, Justin and Sam in the middle, and you and Zeek in the back, bringing up the rear. “I don’t mind being in the back,” you told Zeek. “The scenery’s nice.”

“You can say that again.”

You looked at him like he was asking for it, but he clarified once he saw the expression on your face, “I meant Sam, dumb ass.”

“Oh, yeah. He is hot.”

“And hopelessly straight,” Zeek added.

“Well, he’s nice to look at,” you offered.

“Take what you can get sometimes, I guess,” Zeek agreed.

……

The first two levels of the tunnels were unremarkable. The people populating them ignored your little group completely. They were mostly drunks and junkies with nothing but their next fix on their minds. Zeek pointed to two ladders bolted to the walls of the tunnels and told you, “There used to be a catwalk there connecting those two ladders. Alan lived on that one when he first came down here. Transit Authority tore it down several years ago. They don’t want people sleeping over active tracks.”

“I’m beginning to feel like one of the Hardy Boys,” you confessed.

“I always feel like I’m on some Scooby Doo drug trip when I come down here,” he admitted in return.

Scooby Doo drug trip. That’s redundant.

……

As you walked, Zeek explained what to expect as you went deeper, teaching you about the electrified third rail on the tracks, and informing you that he had a revolver strapped to his leg.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you asked.

“I’m dead serious, Boss Man.”

“Thanks for the update, MacGyver.”

“Anytime.”

……

Your heart began to beat faster, and you made sure that Justin was never more than a few feet in front of you. He and Sam were involved in deep conversation, the snippets you overheard were about Harper, art, cameras, and careers. As the five of you approached the entrance to the third level down, Stitch stopped in front of an open manhole, “We have to go down on at a time.”

You stepped forward and stared down into the hole. You couldn’t see anything, so you asked, “What’s down there? Alligators or some shit?”

Stitch laughed, “No. No alligators. I’ll go first. And Zeek?”

“What?”

“You’ll go last.”

You watched Stitch disappear into the hole and then stepped in front of Sam, “I’m going next.”

The ladder going down was perfectly straight, the bars rough and rusted inside your grip, and the only sense you had of how close you were to the ground was the sound of Stitch’s voice. Absent that, the ground would’ve surprised the hell out of you even with Sam’s flashlight shining down the hole. When you got to the bottom, you looked around. It was too dark to make anything out, but you could hear voices and the stench was different than up above. It smelled more human. “Come on, Justin,” you shouted. When you saw his sneakers on the rungs, you counted for him, “You’ve got fifteen steps, Justin. You’re on five.”

“Okay.”

When he got to the bottom, he wiped his hands on his jeans and called for Sam. When Sam arrived, he shone a light upward for Zeek, who, in turn, extinguished his light, stuffing it in his pocket for the trip down.

Once the five of you had ten feet on the ground, the flashlights stayed on--necessary because it was darker than an inkwell and because the walls had come alive.


Icon bases used throughout this story came from basicbases, basebeat, khushi_icons, obsessiveicons, graphical_love, anithradia, simplybases, randomicons, and foryourhead.

Chapter End Notes:

Original publication 7/25/06

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