Blackbird

by Michael Fiegel

  Impressed as I am, I really do not want to be here. I like Buffalo for her history, for the power she used to wield, but now she is nothing but grain elevators collapsing with age and neglect, the buckle of the rust belt. She gave the country two presidents and took one away. She has been bleeding population since the ’60s, yet still totes the psychological weight of a quarter million lonely souls afraid to leave because there just might be someplace worse out there. Perhaps things will get better. I hope to be long gone before I have to find out.

  Xtian and I are living in one of my spare nests, a gray post-war duplex on the north side of the city. I picked it for the same reason I choose anything: because it is in-between everything. The couple who live upstairs are well into their sixties and crave every little scrap of attention I am capable of throwing their way even if it happens to be only money. Although I have not been here in years, I have arranged to send them rent every month, tell them the apartment is for a business, tax reasons. Two-fifty a month, always has been. Reasonable in any economy. Why not?

  It has been a long time since I sat in this room, typed at this desk, but it may as well be yesterday. Nothing has changed. Same holes in the wall, the rank odor of soot and cereal hanging in the air, the stink of a dying city that should have had the good sense to stay burned when the British put it to the torch. But then, I cannot be too critical, since I could say the same thing about Washington, DC.

  One thing is different this time, of course. And she is making life difficult. Starting with the fact that she is currently nowhere to be found.

  • • •

  I can almost forgive him now for abducting me. I can even mostly forgive him for tormenting me with his rants and “lessons” for two years straight and being a psychotic bastard much of the time. Everyone has flaws, and at least I got something out of all of that. He taught me about politics, about people, about the way the world really worked. There was even Phys ed of a sort, lots of exercise and watching what I ate, even if he didn’t follow suit. So yeah, I guess I can forgive him for all of that, at least in part.

  I’ll never forgive him for the uniform, though.

  I couldn’t go to actual school, of course. That would mean records and fingerprints and prying eyes. So we had to pretend. You’d think that would have been awesome, right? No school! Yeah. Not so much. Every morning I’d head out the door with a backpack full of random books, and a half-hour later, Edison would pick me up from 7-Eleven and we’d sneak back home. Then he’d give me something to read while he went out and did whatever it was he did. Shopping, or stalking, or both. At three we reversed the process, and I came home from “school.”

  The problem was I couldn’t very well pretend to go to public school—people in the neighborhood might notice my absence. I don’t know where he got the outfit and I didn’t want to know, but he got one, so he decided that I would go to Catholic school instead. If anyone ever asked, the plan was that I would pick a random name. It sounded stupid but it worked. At least, until the big snowstorm.

  Neither of us were so stupid that we couldn’t look out the window, see a bunch of snow, and decide that my imaginary school would be closed for a snow day. But this was one of those “perfect storms” that complicated matters. The storm had hit hardest on the south side of the city, burying entire neighborhoods and triggering school closures across the area, but our neighborhood had received just an inch or two. Edison would have checked online anyway, but I had gotten it in my head to act more grown up and take care of my own morning routine. Everything looked fine out the window so I ate breakfast, got dressed, and headed outside “to school” without bothering to check with him.

  It only took a few minutes to discover my error.

  The snowball caught me in the left ear about halfway to my normal pickup point. This was followed by laughter as three boys a few years older than me—twelve or thirteen at most—appeared from behind a tree.

  “Where you going, dummy?” asked one of them, who I immediately named Dick.

  “Where do you think?” I replied but even as I spat out the words I noticed they weren’t dressed for school, didn’t have backpacks or paper bag lunches. They were in fact dressed in play clothes, ripped jeans and Sabres jerseys. Sneakers and hockey sticks. No actual winter clothing, of course. Only babies wore boots and gloves.

  “School’s closed, dipshit,” said Dick. “Snow day.”

  “Mine’s open,” I said, stupidly.

  “Yeah?” he asked. “Which one?”

  I stammered for a moment, then turned to leave. But someone grabbed my backpack.

  “Hey—”

  I don’t even remember doing it—it was that hardwired. Next thing I knew, he was on the ground grabbing at his groin, and I was bringing my leg back down to catch my balance. It was a perfect shot, exactly as Edison had taught me. He was down, and I was in control of the situation. Briefly.

  I forgot what to do next.

  • • •

  Shopping does not come naturally to me—I hate it, and I have to work at it, just like my father did after my mother got sick. He never made a list, so it was always a roll of the dice what he was going to bring home from the store. On one memorable occasion he got spaghetti sauce with onions, which I refused to eat. He never took no for an answer, poured sauce all over my noodles and said I was not leaving the table until I had cleaned my plate. In retrospect, it was foolish to think dumping it on the floor would count. And a waste of effort, since I ended up eating it off the floor anyway, sobbing as he taught me a lesson with his fists.

  This pretty much sums up my childhood. Does Hallmark have a card for that?

  Where was I? Oh, right. Shopping.

  I usually buy groceries at two or three in the morning, when I can shop in peace, just another lonely middle-aged guy who everyone leaves alone while they stock cat food and watch for shoplifters. I still prefer that, even though the proliferation of self-checkout lines has made it easier to shop during the day without speaking to any herd animals. But the shopping list has grown recently. Xtian has been trying to make me eat healthier, so now the list contains not just the usual diet soda and frozen pizza, but things like almond milk. I am not even sure how you milk an almond. And there are too many green things, instead of my usual tan, beige, and off-white. Horrid things, weeds and leaves, fit only for herd animals, but for now I indulge her as it is improving our bond. She needs to trust me for what is to come. I do feel a bit healthier, but for some reason it just feels like prolonging the inevitable.

  I had intended to take Xtian shopping with me today, so she could pick out her own evil green things, but I have no idea where she is, and I am tired of worrying about whether she has been abducted, or run away, or been found by the police. I have a shopping list. I am going shopping.

  Xtian’s timing is impeccable, however. I am just about to head out when Xtian comes barreling into the apartment and kicks her shoes into the corner. Dripping wet, blouse torn, tear tracks on her cheeks. Blood on her lip.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She sniffles, gives me one of those looks I hate, and tells me her tale of woe. To her it is simply the worst thing in the world to have a few boys shove her into the snow, but compared to the first thoughts that ran through my head when she entered the room, this is a walk in the park. A month ago there was a story in the news about two ten-year-old boys who raped an eight-year-old girl, somewhere in London, in broad daylight. On a playground. How did society get so damaged so fast? I need to get back to work.

  I am positive she is uninjured but I check anyway, more so she can learn to check herself. She is understandably reluctant, since this involves showing more of her flesh than I am yet wholly comfortable with, but that sort of thing is unavoidable. I would rather not have to deal with this at all. I appreciate privacy as much as anyone. More than.

  Yet she seems fine. A few bruises on her back, one on her thigh; her blouse is worse off than she. Another tooth missing, but it was
dangling by a thread anyway and the other one is coming in already. They have done her a favor, there.

  “Who were they?” I ask, reaching for my coat.

  “No!” she cries, stepping in front of the door. “Don’t kill them! Please. I’m sorry …”

  I had planned nothing of the sort—I just wanted to get the shopping done—but this does give me a useful piece of insight into what she assumes I am capable of. I turn and look down at the puddle of girl below me, thinking her pathetic, thinking I need to rid her of that. Yes, a lesson. She needs to learn to protect herself much better than this. The world is a dangerous place, and there are worse things than neighborhood bullies out there. There are more people like me. I am not close to the worst of us.

  “Sorry?” I ask. “For what? What did you do wrong?”

  She sniffles, confused.

  “Because they said school was closed and I said mine wasn’t and they said what school and I couldn’t think of one and then—”

  “No. I mean why did they beat you up? What did you do wrong? Tell me.”

  “I don’t kn—”

  “Yes, you do. What happened?”

  “I don—”

  I slap her, hard but not too, right across the face. A tap, really. She is too stunned to do anything.

  “What did you do wrong?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” she says, confused.

  I slap her again, a bit harder, on the side of her head. Her eyes tear anew.

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m—”

  I bring my hand down again, harder. And now she stops me, near-perfect form, the way I showed her just last month in the living room. Left arm up, palm forward, her forearm pushing mine up over her head. Basic self-defense, but it’s taken a long time for her to grasp even the basics, for some reason. Her legs are wrong, too, as she discovers when I sweep her to the floor. She lands hard but now she has the idea and she rolls to her feet a few seconds later. I step towards her, but she ducks under the table and pops out the other side. I can see in her eyes that this is too much a game. Not what I want, but she had her chance. Time to make my point. I shove the table into her chest, hard. She falls back and knocks her head into a chair. I think no less of her when she starts bawling. That clearly hurt.

  “What did you do wrong?” I ask. I first taught her the answer to this question over two years ago. This particular lesson has been hammered home repeatedly, weekly if not daily. But it still has not penetrated, for some reason.

  Regardless, she is too far gone to answer me now, so I step forward and help her up. She will have a lump, but her hair will cover it just fine. I hug her, pat her head, coo like she needs right now, and finally she stops crying. Then I lift her up, set her on the table, and look her in the eyes. She tries to look away, but I grab her chin and force her face up. She will learn harder lessons than this if I do not hammer this home right now. I do not expect her to have mastered Krav Maga or anything. This is the very basics.

  “Look at me. I am twice as tall as you and I weigh almost three times as much. How do you fight me? What did I teach you? Step one. What is it, always? What? Tell me!”

  She looks more scared than she has all day because she knows that now I am beyond striking, beyond pushing. This is a Lesson. And she will learn it.

  “Rhymes with one.”

  “Run?” she says, finally.

  “Yes,” I say triumphantly, throwing my hands in the air. “Run. Always run. If you are outnumbered, run. If you are outsized, run. If you are outmatched, run. If you learn nothing else, learn this. You run. You do not slow down, or look back, or stop. Not ever. When you stop, they catch up. They eat you.”

  She nods. But she has not gotten it, not yet. I walk to the kitchen door and fling it open. A few stray icicles fall from the awning, shattering on the concrete steps and spraying my bare feet with fragments of cold. Despite what people say, they really are not the perfect weapon. Not even a passable one. I have tried on several occasions.

  “Run,” I say.

  “Where?”

  I try to think of something thematically appropriate.

  “The funeral home,” I say. There are a few but she knows the one I mean. She moves towards her shoes, but I grab her shoulder and steer her roughly through the door until she is standing in socks on the snowy steps. Crying. Good. That means she will remember.

  “But—” she tries.

  “I could not care less,” I reply coldly. Then I slam the door in her face.

  • • •

  It wasn’t all that cold. I mean, definitely below freezing, probably in the mid 20s Fahrenheit with the wind chill and only a few flakes drifting down. The stuff already on the ground was the problem, if there was one. A mixture of snow and slush, and me without shoes. Standing there in the snow, my feet were immediately freezing. But I knew for sure that the door was not going to open unless I did what I was told. So I did.

  I ran.

  I cried, too. For a few blocks. And then I realized that was accomplishing nothing. It was pointless weakness. The only reason to cry was for attention, and I wasn’t getting any. And I knew I wasn’t going to die. I knew because Edison had pounded it into my head with his lessons.

  My core temperature would have to reach ninety-five degrees before hypothermia would set in, and things wouldn’t get serious until eighty-five, at which point my brain function would be about on par with those holding public office and I probably wouldn’t care anyway. Mild hypothermia would bring shivering and confusion; severe would mean blue fingers, less shivering. Heart failure, death.

  I wouldn’t be out here nearly long enough to worry about that, especially if I kept moving. Frostbite would be a greater concern and even that was unlikely. Digits would get red and numb, and if it was severe enough I’d get blisters, or my toes would turn black and drop off. It would take hours at least, and more likely days of exposure, to get to that point. Edison had taught me all this. He was hardly sending me out to my death. He was sending me out so I’d remember.

  And I did. I remembered the cold and I remembered the pain.

  And I remembered to run.

  At the time, running down the slushy streets, I thought this would be the worst thing that could ever possibly happen to me. If I could just get through this, I thought, I would be able to handle anything. If I’d only known then what I was soon going to experience, what I was going to learn, what I was going to do …

  It makes me laugh now, to think about how naïve I was that day. Afraid of snow. Of cold. There was so much more to be afraid of. Including myself.

  • • •

  I park here sometimes, on my own, when I need time to think. Technically they are always open, but they are usually closed. Plus, there are no cameras in the lot; no one wants to steal the dead.

  AMIGONE the sign reads. I wonder. Am I?

  I flip down the sun visor. The man in the mirror looks younger than he feels. Lines around the eyes. Gray hair peeking through the dye. Liver spots, whatever the fuck those are. A lot of things can be concealed forever. Age is not one of them, no matter how hard you kick and scream. But the man in the mirror is not gone. Not yet. He still has things to do. Like, perhaps, be a better teacher. Or at least more efficient.

  Behind my reflected eyes I can see her coming so I start the engine and turn the heat back on. By the time she opens the door and climbs in, actual hot air is coming from the vents. Once she is inside, I put the car in gear and pull out of the lot while she puts on the dry socks and shoes I left on the dashboard. We are wordless, until I get to the Expressway.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Galleria,” I answer. The tiny bit of Buffalo in the back of my skull wants to suffix that with “mall,” but I choke it back down.

  “Why?”

  I almost change my mind. Almost. I am not sure if she is ready for this. But I am.

  “We are going shopping for new supplies,” I say. “You just graduated from fake school.”
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  I do not want to think about what happens if she gets held back.

  Venison of Sam

  12/01/2011

  Xtian has begged me for months to take her to Niagara Falls, which is roughly a half-hour northwest of Buffalo. It was once a true natural wonder of the world: white water, cascades, mist, probably some frolicking deer. Now the place just resembles a colder, smaller version of Las Vegas. At night, they use lights to color the water like egg dye. There are casinos everywhere. It makes me want to die. It is the perfect example of the human tendency to never leave well enough alone, and it is sadly reflective of everything society would want Xtian to be: vapid, and shallow, and pretty, and not much else.

  Instead, Xtian and I have traveled an hour in the opposite direction and our destination could not be more different. It is not quite the most remote place I know of, but it will do for this. The specific name of the place escapes me. All I know is that we are somewhere between three small towns, somewhere deep in the woods, so deep we cannot hear any traffic noise. It may be the closest you can get to nothing in this area, the closest you can get to imagining what it must have been like before people ruined the world. Which ironically makes it the perfect place to whip out a shotgun or two and ruin the world a bit more. For some deer, at least.

  There is no way to describe the feeling, crouched in a snowbank, back against an old nurse log, the smell of cold and pine, blast of wind teasing sweat off my neck, icy cold shotgun in hand, eyes sweeping back and forth and back again, waiting for the soft crunch of snow, breathing, breathing, breathing, snowflakes on my eyelids, breathing …

  This sort of hunting is not like hunting people at all. That is a job; this is peaceful, blissful nothing. Or at least it would be, if I were alone.

  • • •

  “Do you think there are wolves?” I whispered. Bored but hopeful.