by Almon Chu
backwards into the crowd.
Another man had rushed Aleksi in this time and was attempting to throw him to the ground. Aleksi was punching the man while he gripped Aleksi's shirt. I kicked Aleksi's attacker on the side as Aleksi landed a punch that split open the side of his face. The attacker backed off and disappeared into the mob that was now surging at us.
The taste of blood and broken teeth pervaded my mouth. The voices filled my head with laughter. I pulled my knife and the wave of people stopped in their tracks.
“C'mon you fuckers! Who wants to be a hero?” I yelled at the crowd with reddened teeth, blood flowing down from my mouth and arms, completely consumed by rage.
Aleksi slowly walked up a few flights and tugged at my collar. “The hell are you doing?” he said into my ear, “let's just get the fuck out of here.”
I stared down the crowd, watched their inaction. My rage slowed. I spat blood and pieces of teeth onto the ground in front of the crowd. The voices quieted.
“Jon!”
Seeing the logic in Aleksi I gave in to his pleading, and slowly backed up the stairs. When we neared the door we broke our steady ascent and ran for the street, slamming doors behind us as the mob rushed to catch us. A great cacophony of hurried foot steps.
We jumped a fence and disappeared into the dark. After an hour of walking and running through snow-choked backyards and wooded paths we were confident that we had lost them. We stopped for a breather on a park bench, the city glowing just beyond the trees in front of us. My wounds had closed but my mouth still bled. I spat bright red into the snow. Aleksi's knuckles had been bleeding, frozen streams of blood kissed the edge of his fingertips.
“What the fuck was that,” Aleksi said, with a seriousness I had never seen.
“What?”
“Don't what me, you almost got us killed.”
“He called you a bitch so I hit him. I wasn't going to let him talk shit about you.”
Aleksi glared at me. I was never a very good liar, but I wasn't going to change my story.
“Fuck you, I didn't ask you to jump in. Besides it's all under control,” I said.
“Fuck me? Fuck you. How is this under control? We just pissed off an entire party of people. If Benny and the two guys we messed up don't call their boys on us, then someone at that party will.”
“You're an idiot. We've got Berne. He'll make a few calls and this will all blow over.”
Aleksi threw his arms up in the air, and tried to form a response through his clinched face. He stopped, threw his arms back down and turned away from me.
“Fuck you Jon. You reckless shit. Why did you have to drag me into this? You've been nothing but a burden. You're not a friend, you're just a horrible person.” He began to walk off.
“Fine. Fuck you. Leave. I don't need weak people like you. Faithless trash,” I shouted at him as he walked away.
Following the lights I found my way back to the subway station. The half-awake subway attendant paid no attention to me as I passed by the ticket booth covered in blood. I sat in a corner of the train and looked at my wounds under the light of the ads. The other passengers kept their distance and made an effort not to look in my direction.
'Berne will fix this. Aleksi will see,' I thought to myself, 'the stupid coward will see that I'm right, this will all be over within a week. Who the fuck is Benny anyways? Fuck him.'
A faint familiar scent whirled in the stale air of the train. Once again I gambled with my faith, entrusting myself to the actions of another.
You're not a friend, you're just a horrible person.
“Who the fuck is Stacy?” I asked aloud to myself and burst into laughter.
Tonight it was my turn to be the lunatic on the train.
III.II
The peddlers were out in force.
“My buddy,” a Chinese man screamed into my ear while waving a fake designer purse in my face.
“You buy, four for ten dollar. Good deal,” a Vietnamese woman shouted into my other ear.
Every step I took there would be a new ragged peddler shouting something at me. My scabs cracked in the dry cold as I pushed through the crowd's current. I refused to step in tune and go at a steady pace, today I had a purpose.
Today would be the beginning of the end for Benny. I smiled at the thought of him and his buddies being subdued into nothingness. The arrogant pretender. I wondered how confused he must have been after regaining consciousness, how much creditability he must have lost, and laughed. The cold morning air filled my lungs and mixed with the rotten stench of Chinatown. The crowd did not thin in its usual spots.
'Must be a festival,' I thought to myself, though I heard no cheering or music. Suddenly the current changed and it seemed everyone around me was heading in my direction. Something was off.
Don't go.
I turned the corner and saw the cause of the commotion. It was definitely not a festival. Red and blue lights flashed in the alley way. Yellow police tape blocked public access to the alley. I pushed and shoved my way through the gawking mass. The steel door had been completely ripped off its hinges and laid in a twisted heap. Armed and armoured men stood around the site talking into microphones. While others began photographing and loading our shipment into vans.
Berne sat in the back of a paddywagon with his hands cuffed and a fresh bruise on his forehead. He seemed deflated and indifferent. He didn't even bother to look up at the destruction of his world. It was the first time I had ever seen Berne accept defeat so completely.
They had Aleksi cuffed and pinned against the wall before they began dragging him towards the paddywagon.
“Fuck you!” he screamed as they dragged him. He jerked out of the grip of the officer leading him and began to make a run towards the crowd. A nearby officer tackled Aleksi to the ground, he fell towards me, and others swiftly came to restrain him.
The fall had cut Aleksi's face. He looked up at the crowd as officers yelled at him to cooperate under threat of force. He scanned the crowd until our eyes met and smiled at me.
“Please step back from the line,” an officer said with his hand outstretched.
My legs turned to heavy stone. I tried my best to conceal my horror, to hide any affiliation with the shop. The voices in my head began laughing.
A cold gust blew down the alley. It made my bones feel hollow, my muscles nonexistent.
'What now? What now?' I kept thinking to myself.
“Sir, please stand back from the line,” the officer drew closer, one hand was now on his holster.
Walk. Just walk. A voice in my mind said amongst the laughter of the others.
I gathered all the strength I could muster. Turning my back to walk away, I heard Aleksi starting to laugh. My feet dragged.
“Who is weak now?” he yelled in my direction.
Walk. Walk.
“Tell me, who is weak?” he continued to yell.
“He's lost his mind,” one of the officers said.
After passing a few people in the crowd I looked over my shoulder to see Aleksi being thrown in the back with Berne.
“Who is weak now?”
The paddywagon doors closed with a slam and Aleksi could no longer be heard.
Walk, there is nothing for you here.
I kept walking with my hand on the handle of my knife. I was weak, easy prey.
Who is weak now? The voices cackled.
I walked past the peddlers, past mounds of garbage, the flayed animals, window displays, and neon lights until I found myself no longer on the rot slicked roads of Chinatown.
“Three seventy five,” A fat disgruntled man growled at me through a glass booth.
I threw some change into the slot. Transfer-slip littered floors. Monotone colour schemes. Advert plagued platforms. The screech of a stopping train. I sat glass eyed on the subway. Children clinging to their mothers. The irate ramblings of a crazed passenger. The jolt of the train coming to a stop. Immigrants try to sell me
something, religion or candy? The snow. The cold. Reinforced windows. An ashed out elevator. Scuffed walls. Loud abusive neighbours. I looked to my right and my left and opened my door.
I closed my door and collapsed against it. The door shuddering upon impact. I sat on the floor of my doorway with my forehead pressed against my knees.
“What now?” I asked myself aloud.
“What do I do now? Fuck. What's left?” The makeshift foundations buckled. I felt everything collapse again. I felt myself falling through the ground.
“How?” I asked with a lump in my throat, “why?”
Even if these questions were to be answered it would make no difference. It was over. It was all over. I stood up, barely able to support my own weight, threw on the light switch and walked the eight feet to my sofa.
Dim lights danced off the empty vodka bottles.
The voices came to haunt me again.
The city will eat you alive.
You are weak.
Did she ever love you?
You are alone.
I lied there staring at the ceiling, letting my mind wander and terrorize me. The cellphone beeped and vibrated in my jacket pocket.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it's me,” it was Rean.
Traitor.
“Hey.”
“It's Friday, you promised me that we'd hang out.”
You still want to see this liar? This deceiver?
“Oh.”
“Something wrong?”
“Yeah,” I tried to ignore the voices.
“Well-”
“It's Berne and Aleksi,” the words stuck to my throat, “it's all over Rean. It's just -” I couldn't find the words.
“I'll be right on over,” she said and hung up the phone.
Thoughts swirled in the silence. My
