Dead Echo

by C.G. Banks

  *

  Tomas, grown now, distanced from any and all orphanages and foster homes, stood naked in his own backyard, recalling the random cluster of memories that had come into his head. It seemed like someone else’s life now, that fucked up kid who was constantly getting passed around, but when he really thought back, it was him, always had been. He’d been fashioned more in those eighteen years than anything else that had happened since. He’d grown up hard and it’d served him well, and he’d taught himself how to hide away from others, and that had served him even better. And just like Brown had told him that day years back, he was not a rich man but it really didn’t make much difference. When you’ve been born and raised with jack shit anything you get is more than you expect.

  And Karol Leszno had damn sure left him more than that.

  Oh, he’d read the file Brown had left that day. He’d read the goddamn thing sitting right there in the chair in the confidence room. Maybe it had been dumbed down but that had no effect on the way it made him feel. The old man had left him money, and from what he understood, it was some now and some later. He’d called one of the numbers that night at midnight, after lights out, hunched in the corner and scratching a hole in his leg from a nervous habit. Sure enough, someone had answered, it wasn’t Brown, and assured him (and this was the crazy part) that at his earliest convenience a car would be sent to pick him up and bring him to the office of the string of lawyers he’d seen on the card. Barely able to keep from laughing outright or cursing the lying fuck on the other end of the line, he’d set a time for mid-afternoon that Thursday and sure enough a black BMW had arrived and whisked him away to a new life. He’d left the goddamn group home with the full expectation and even the intention of returning whenever the joke was finally revealed but he’d never seen the place again. The few possessions he’d owned he’d left without another thought. And as the old saying went, he’d never looked back.

  But he goddamn sure remembered.

  On nights like tonight. He’d gotten the initial compensation from the sale of the first filing of Leszno’s Farm and since then had received a check every month from some kind of shelter or annuity the rest of the land generated. He guessed one day, when everything was sold off, he’d stop getting the monthly checks but, hell, by that time he’d have taken his cut from the entire sale of the land.

  But the money was only a means to an end. For years he’d been looking for whatever would shut the racket in his head, and just the other day, in a hardware store, of all places (Christ, you just never knew what was gonna happen from one day to the next) it had come upon him. Or rather her. Oh yeah, she’d come upon him, right there at the back of the store by the wind chimes. He’d seen her and something had clicked in his head.

  And she’d felt it too. That had been just as obvious.

  Everything else went away and her face washed across his memory, the line of her cheekbones, the swell of her breasts. It was like some kind of fucking prophecy, really. He closed his eyes and sought to pull her in. He already knew where she lived and that’s what truly made everything divine. He felt a sudden pressure and looked down. His dick was standing out true and hard, ticking a bit up and down with the blood piling up inside. He dropped the hose and spread his legs. Grabbed his cock and began working away on himself underneath the mild, night sky.