I turned to face him and my smile felt broad and bloody.
"Big things".
He slipped through a foot-wide gap in the wall and I could hear him clambering overhead. I stared at the metal shiv in my hand and my excitement started to taste old and primitive.
I tried to track his footsteps overhead. I heard wood groan and split and the foundations shudder.
It was silent for a moment; just the distant rasping voices of ferals carried in on the wet breeze. He could have easily run away - leapt out a window and run from building to building.
Three sharp taps against the wall. The thin ceiling shook and white dust fell down over my face.
“Come up here”
His voice was muffled and I couldn’t pick the direction - just that it was somewhere above me.
I carefully slipped the shiv into my jacket pocket and followed his path through the gap in the wall.
I emerged into a hallway - the drywall at the far end had been pulled away and the wooden frame was exposed. The ceiling had long since crumbled and there was a high, unboarded window at the top of the wall, three floors up.
I climbed up the framework - slowly picking stable crossbeams and tearing my hands with splinters. The wood was brittle and salty. I reached the top and looked through the window.
The Tarboy was perched outside on a shallow cement overhang. He nodded and watched as I struggled to pull myself over the window sill.
I crawled out onto the awning and crouched beside him. The cement of the ledge had been eaten away by moisture and salt and tar. It had rotted in some places and revealed a skeleton of metal bars.
The frame groaned but it seemed stable. I would come back to salvage the bars later.
I looked out across the feral shanty-town. A thin, salty mist hung in the air.
When the evening came and the first wave of tar hit the shore the hair would race up the riverbank and across the cement. It would rush over the tar as soon as it touched the ground. New limbs would sprout and it would grow dense and twisted. The tendrils picked up the color of the sky and their veins started to glow.
In the daylight the hair grew angry - bound to the black water, swarming toward anything with fat or blood, but there was something about the tar or the cold light of the evenings that satisfied it.
And so it grew over the shacks and the fire-pits and along the makeshift walls and stopped just before reaching the bordering apartments. The ferals slept in the half-darkness, lit by the sickly sky and the glow of hair.
When the day crept in and the tar began to boil the hair would slink back into the water, scraping the huts clean and leaving just a few lonely clumps twisting and burning as the tar turned to vapor.
It smelled like the old world.
I could see the old lady standing by the remnants of her fire, surrounded by ferals, gesturing wildly across the harbor.
Gesturing wildly to Jesus.
The Tarboy turned to me and spoke. His voice was flat.
"They're like hair.”
He jerked his head toward the ferals.
“You put your hand into the water, it senses that you’re there... but all it can see is skin and fat and sugar and..."
He locked his fingers together and pushed them toward me.
"After that your hand is more hair than skin and it's covered in flowers that look like your blood"
I looked at his hands. They were pocked with tiny red dimples.
He caught my eyes and shrugged. I waited for him to continue but he turned back to the ferals and was silent.
The metaphor was lost on me.
I searched for Jesus in the crowd. He was moving from group to group. His hands were empty. He was flanked by Muscles and Insect. She would fall back every so often and hand something to a feral. Rough, most likely.
Pavlov’s Ferals. They see Jesus and they salivate.
A damp, grainy tribute to the lowest common denominator.
I ran my eyes along the shanties. They were waiting in groups for His arrival.
At the very far end of the town, furthest from the water, wedged up against the sagging wall of an apartment building - I saw Junior.
He was standing on a cement block, chest puffed full of wet air - chin thrust out, waving a pistol in the air like a conductor.
I hadn’t seen a real pistol in years. I wasn’t sure how he’d saved the metal from decades of tar. My stomach throbbed. I didn’t want to tangle with a gun.
A line of ferals stretched before him and back among the shacks. At his feet a tremendously fat man was gesturing to the queue of people.
He was obscenely fat. The rolls of skin hung from his bones and glistened with moisture. The skin was so pale that it was almost blue. His clothes were stained with sweat and meat.
He gestured along the line and wiped his face with a swollen hand. His movements were frantic and exaggerated.
Piles of blue meat were arranged in a grid on the ground in front of him.
Blue meat. So much blue meat. I had never seen that much meat in one place.
The Doctor had been busy. He’d screwed me swiftly and with clinical precision.
I was just a blind shill for the meatbin.
All of my work had been stretched over the slab and was now the currency with which Jesus was buying the animalistic love of the ferals.
The line of bodies shuffled in front of Fats. He stooped down, picked up a slab of meat and passed it to each. They nodded in dumb gratitude.
I jerked a thumb at Fats and turned to the Tarboy.
"Who is that big guy down there?"
The Tarboy stared at his hands and replied without looking up.
"The guy with Jesus?"
I shook my head.
"No, the guy along the wall down there."
I narrowed my eyes and turned back to Fats.
"Looks like he's feeding them"
He followed my gaze.
"Yeah. It does look like that."
It was culinary incest. My hands were shaking.
I pressed my eyelids with my fingertips and they stung with sweat.
The tears ran down my face. They tasted warm and sweet.
I’d fed the cancer and it had grown strong; coming to bind my hands with Justice and throw me out among the ferals and the slaves and the black-meat madmen.
It was out to drown me in a seething ocean of Freedom and Goodness and Love and Charity.
I chewed my lip until my mouth grew warm. The sky was fading and the old city across the water was starting to sink into darkness.
I pulled a blue from my pocket, swallowed it with a mouthful of blood and slapped myself across the face with a sweat-slick palm. The world pulled into sharp focus.
I turned to the Tarboy.
“It’s time to wake up.”
It was early twilight, the dull purple of the sky made the buildings seem surreal and alien. Hundreds of square black eyes looked over the scene in silent architectural judgment.
From the street the bar looked abandoned. The windows were boarded and shuttered so expertly that no light came in or out.
The door was closed and bolted. I gave it the usual sequence of knocks and stepped back. I pulled the Tarboy tight beside me and put my hands out by my side, palms facing up and out. Tarboy emulated the gesture.
The peephole showed a momentary circle of light and went dark. My face broke into a broad smile but it was lost in the shadows.
The door cracked open and a warm orange light came through - broken only by the wide barrels of the scattergun.
“It’s just me, Dad. I’ve brought a friend. I can vouch for him.”
I could only see the silhouette of his wire hair through the gap.
“Who is it?”
I pulled the Tarboy over into the slim beam of light.
“He’s just a kid. I saved him from being beaten by a group of ferals down by the harbor. They looked like they were going to kill him. Look what they did to his face.”
> The Tarboy lifted his chin to the light. It was still dark with dry blood.
The door opened. Dad stood in full silhouette, lowering the scattergun.
“In you come. Take a seat at the bar. Tell me about your day.”
He closed and bolted the door behind us. It was warm inside and the air smelled like burning wood and black tobacco. A thin carpet of smoke pooled against the ceiling.
Tarboy looked around the bar. It was the first time I’d seen the stony mask of his face drop. He looked happy. It was subtle but it was there.
Dad stepped behind the bar and slipped the scattergun underneath it. His eyes remained fixed on the boy. He poured two shallow jars of shine and pushed them toward us. He caught my eye and gestured to the Tarboy, mouthing something that I couldn't read. I think I caught the general meaning.
“He is, yes. He’s young. Very young.”
Dad nodded. Tarboy turned to him but didn’t speak.
We sipped the shine in silence.
I fished the remaining blues from my pocket and put them on the bar. Two left.
I looked at Dad and he looked down at the blues.
He went to speak but I cut him off.
“I delivered the shine to the Doctor. He wants two more crates. He’s got a good amount of rough and blue meat and a few jars of reds…” I coughed and continued “…and blues.”
He nodded and I turned away.
“And did you get him to take a look at your face?”
I dipped my fingers in the shine and wiped the dry blood from my face.
“Yes. He cleaned me up. It’s just superficial.”
He turned and stared at me. I met his gaze and didn’t flinch.
“And where were you for the rest of the day? Did you do anything I need to know about? Anything stupid?”
My face burned and I looked down. I could feel the boy staring at me.
“No. You can ask anyone. I delivered the shine. I ran into the Boss-Lady, and I saved this boy from a bunch of ferals. I didn’t even kill them - he’ll vouch for that.”
Tarboy nodded and sipped the shine.
I could feel Dad’s eyes on me still.
“Good. And do you have anything else to tell me?”
I looked up at him. His face was expressionless. His wiry hair was warm and brown in the lamplight.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded and turned away. We both knew that it was a lie, but it was a gesture that we both needed.
“Good. I appreciate it.”
He looked over his shoulder at the boy.
“Will you be staying with us? Is there anything you need? I’m sure your new friend here will barter for you”
He gestured to me. It felt like a taunt. Tarboy shook his head and smiled.
“No. Thankyou. I’m with the traders. I’ll be out on the next burner.”
“Very well. You’re welcome to sleep here. We don’t charge for empty space. Behave yourselves.”
He emptied a jar of shine and nodded vacantly in our direction, opening the trapdoor behind the bar and climbing downstairs to the cellar. The trapdoor clamped shut behind him.
The lamps sputtered and continued to leak thin black clouds into the air. The ceiling shone with tar.
I slid off the stool and walked behind the bar, pushing a full jar of shine to the Tarboy.
“Do you know where the Animal Hospital is?”
He shook his head. I sighed.
“Okay. This jar is to buy another few days of your time…”
He held his hand up and cut me off.
“You’ve got me for two days. The burners leave the day after that. You can have me until then, but after that I’m leaving with them. I have to go home.”
Home. I rolled the concept over in my mouth and looked at him. It seemed so antiquated for such a new-world feral. I nodded.
“Okay. Take the shine to your owner…”
He cringed. I continued.
“…and meet me back here. Bang against the wall on the building next-door. That’s underneath my window. I’ll come out and we’ll head to the Animal Hospital. Things are about to get heavy. If there’s anything you need to do first - you’ve got half an hour to do it. Be quick, I’ve got another job to go to.”
He nodded and pushed the half-finished shine away. I pulled the bolts on the front door and let him out.
“I’ll be waiting.”
He ran off toward the harbor. His feet slapped against the asphalt and it made the twilight seem hollow and silent. I closed and bolted the door went back to the bar. There were scraps of shine lingering in our jars. I drank the remainder and stowed the empty jars behind the bar.
Dad was still in the basement.
I could hear the stills faintly bubbling away below. If he was going to sleep, he would likely sleep down there - on the cement, on his back. The boiling of the stills and the occasional venting of steam would sing him to sleep. I envied the ease with which he was satisfied.
I swept the remaining blues from the bar and climbed the stairs to my room.
I’d removed the door years ago out of paranoid necessity - constantly listening, constantly watching, but things had gradually become safe and predictable. I had fallen into a routine.
I hadn’t thought about it until now.
Maybe I had been asleep.
Maybe I had killed everybody who needed to be killed.
Maybe I was obsolete.
I shook my head. It was time to wake up.
The room was dark but for the light leaking in from the lamplit bar. There was a mattress on the floor and a few jars of pills along the wall below the boarded window.
I pulled the shiv from my pocket and lay it on the floor beside the bed. If I wrapped the broad end with some tape or gauze it could be a functional weapon.
My elbow was throbbing. I peeled the jacket off and inspected the wound but couldn’t see anything in the dim light. I explored the cut with my fingers - it was tender and felt jagged and deep. There was nothing I could do about it now. I pulled the jacket on again and sprawled out across the mattress.
I couldn’t go to sleep. I just needed to rest. I took a jar of blues from below the window and put a handful into my pocket.
A tyre iron, a pocketful of blues and a piece of metal. That was all the preparation I could do.
It was out of my hands from here. It was in God’s hands now.
I laughed - but it felt empty and forced.
I was half-asleep and dreaming when he woke me up.
I was in the Old World, sitting down to lunch at my desk. The office was silent but for the ringing of a telephone and the machine-gun tapping of thirty keyboards spitting out arbitrary sentences.
The rent was due. I had the money to pay the rent, but I was anxious. My manager walked past the desk and didn’t meet my eyes.
What did it mean?
The phone bill would be due soon.
It was a shaky construct.
My apartment depended on my job, my job depended on my performance, and my performance was judged by a group of people I saw maybe twice a year.
I loosened my collar and coughed. My phone started to ring. It was my mother.
The Tarboy beat against the wall three times. I rolled off the mattress and rubbed my face. I put the shiv in my pocket, patted the blues and adjusted the tyre iron in my belt.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I tried to fill my lungs but the air was too thick.
The Old World was gone. Everything was broken. There was nothing to worry about anymore.
I met Tarboy on the street. He had picked up a stained khaki jacket. He wore it open and without a shirt. The sky had settled into a cool blue and the air was fresh. It was past twilight but the tar hadn’t started to fall.
“Okay. Everything good?”
He nodded. I took him by the elbow and we broke into a slow jog.
“It’s getting late.”
It was an easy half mile to the Animal Hospital. He
stuck to the shadows and skimmed close to the building walls while I ran along the middle of the road.
I whistled through my teeth and we stopped under the awning of a dilapidated antique store.
“It’s around the next corner on the right. We need to find a good place to watch from.”
He looked up the street and back at me.
“How far? How many buildings between here and there?”
I knew the area but hadn’t explored it for a while. I’d been through the Animal Hospital a few years ago, scavenging for drugs or metal or pipes - but the place had been cleaned out.
I shrugged.
Tarboy walked out into the street and looked up along the row of buildings.
The windows were dark. Ferals didn’t live indoors. Grim memories, I assumed. Dad had more spiritual theories.
“Looks like the rooftops are all close together. Let’s just get as high as we can and we’ll see what we can do when we get close to it.”
I nodded. “You’re going to be here all night, maybe more. Get comfortable.”
The window of the antique store was boarded with rotten plywood. He looked up and down the street and put his fist through the boards. They split easily and fell inward.
The room was dark and smelled damp. It was piled to the ceiling with furniture, but the tar had come in through the roof and everything was rotting and black. A staircase along the wall led to the second floor. The stairs had long since disintegrated but a bright white banister was bolted to the wall.
I broke a few ascending holes in the wall with my elbow and slowly edged up the rail, kicking a new foothold every few feet.
The floorboards on the second floor had rotted but the crossbeams were still solid. We picked out a checkerboard path and moved between the rooms.
A window opened out onto the remnants of a fire escape but the rails and walkways had long been salvaged.
We moved between the buildings carefully - climbing along the wooden frames and avoiding the rot. It was painfully slow and with every passing minute I grew frustrated. I was due at the Boss-Lady’s house. The tar was coming. There was precious little time.
We reached the roof overlooking the Animal Hospital. Our hiding place had cement foundations and was mostly intact. We were too high to see through the hospital windows but could see the street in front and the alley behind.
Blue Meat Blues Page 7
