He stops at the end of the alleyway.
Whistling in the schoolyard.
Man, what a warble.
I got him, Mrs. M.
Peytr edges around the corner, afraid to take a wrong step now, afraid to be mistaken.
I got him, Ann.
“Good work, Borysson,” says Cap, clapping Peyt on the back. Big meaty whacks of the hand. Dake’s alive and he saved him, he dug him out of the playground rubble, he dragged him back to the truck. Fuckin’ right he deserves Cap’s praise—he deserves a fuckin’ medal. But what he gets is shoved into an alley, no wider than two men standing side by side, and Cap yanking Daken in behind them.
Soon as Cap saw him on Peytr’s stretcher, he hauled Dake up by the collar, angled his face to catch the light.
“This him?” he asked Nestor’s boys, who nodded without hesitation.
“That’s the turncoat,” says one.
“Close enough for gov’t work,” say another.
Before Peyt can stop him, Cap strips Dake to his filthy jocks, tears the bandanna from his head and binds his wrists with it. The other soldiers block the way out as Cap hooks Dake’s legs out from under him, though he can’t hardly walk; the brick and mortar all but crushed the pep from his calves. Nestor’s guys are tense. Angry. Embarrassed at failing, Peyt thinks. At being ambushed. The men thrash their wordwinds, wield them like cat-o-nine-tails. Take their frustrations out ’til Dake’s cheeks lips are swollen, his eyelids purple-blued, his cheeks plumped with red. Daken closes his eyes, suffers it silently. His ’wind close-cropped and blurry.
“Enough,” Cap says and Peyt starts breathing again. He tries to turn, but Cap holds him firm by the shoulders. Thumping with gusto. Thump, thump thump. “Enough. This one’s all yers, Borysson.”
“But it’s Miller, Cap. It’s Daken.”
Thump, thump, thump.
“He’s one of ours.” Peyt’s voice breaks and his guts turn to vinegar. “He’s like—” A what? A brother? A roommate? A lifelong friend? “I saved him from the greys—”
“Did you? Or did they send him back for more intel? Ask him that, soldier. Ask him where he up and vanished to this morning. Where he’s been burrowing all day. Ask him why he fucked us over.”
Peyt’s legs twitch, left right left right, and he’s got a desperate urge to piss. He’s seen the kind of questioning Cap’s talking about. Back at camp, with some twelve-year-old runner they accused of squealing. Peyt carried the kid’s body away on his stretcher. “I’m no Whitey. I can’t read this fuckin’ guy’s mind. Never could.”
Dake? Dake? Dake? Dake? Dake? Dake?
“You damaged, Borysson?” Cap sighs and Peytr lowers his gaze, ribs contracting, burning around his lungs. “Don’t use yer fuckin’ egg. Use yer fuckin’ gob. Use this, fer fuck’s sake.” Cap yanks the cutlery still dangling against Peyt’s chest, hands him the sharp spoon. “Dig in.”
“Why me?” Peyt whispers. His hands shake so badly, he drops the utensil without even feeling it. Cap picks it back up, closes Peyt’s fingers around the shaft.
“Might be we got ourselves two traitors here,” he says. “How am I to know? You and Miller go way back, right? And I seen you snuggling bunks, whispering late at night… . What’s to say you ha’nt been planning this all along?”
“Planning what?”
“Don’t play dumb, Borysson. You can’t tell me you ain’t heard Miller communicating with the greys today, warning them whenever we was coming. Man’s got a whistle on him all right—now we got to find out what secrets he’s gone and trilled.”
“But—” Peyt wishes he’d brought his mask tonight. Wishes he could block out Cap’s accusations, his glare. “What am I supposed—”
“You know what to do.”
Blocking off the end of the alley, Nestor’s brutes cross their arms, ’winds glowing encouragement. Rough bricks scrape Peyt’s back as Cap pushes him down. After a few seconds, his legs give out, too tired to maintain a crouch.
“Did you do it?” Peytr asks. “Did you?”
Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it …
Daken’s glance oils over him. As if they’ve never met.
“Get on with it, soldier,” Cap says. “Or else I will.”
“No,” says Peytr. “I’ll do it.”
Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it …
The spoon rasps against Daken’s stubble as Peyt scrapes into his wordwind. A whisker of thought curls beneath the bowl, mismatched letters and codes that smell salty, musky-sweet in the gaps. Greys… . Doorway… . Conc— Daken bucks so Peyt throws his weight into it, pins him against the brick, bony shoulder against naked chest. He jams the spoon into Dake’s scalp, seeking purchase, seeking a crack. But Daken’s thoughts are steel-girded, giving up little but meaningless filings and tiny hickory-scented details.
Cap snatches the bones, gives Peyt a shove. “Try harder, Borysson,” pussy pussy pussy “Unless this is you volunteering for interrogation?”
“No,” Peytr says again, forgetting the cutlery, favouring the tools he was born with. Leaning closer and closer, he scrabbles with his nails, then sticks out his tongue and licks. Spit dribbles down Daken’s temple. Shatters his calm. For a split-second his concentration wavers, and Peyt bites. He tongues the sections around Dake’s ears, gnaws chunks of his fear, his tension. Vague emotions distil into coherent thoughts, memories of today, this afternoon, this morning. Peyt breathes the other boy’s breath, inhaling him, nibbling him, sucking to catch any wriggling lies.
Daken thrashes beneath him, pummels with joined hands and knees and hips.
“Well?”
“It’s grey—”
Cap cuts him off, pushes Peyt’s mouth back down. “That’s a start, soldier. Not an answer.”
There’s blood on Peyt’s tongue as it darts and scoops, jaws aching, lips and chin chafed raw on Dake’s bristled head. He starts gagging, retching up bits of iron-tinged ’wind. Placing a boot on Peyt’s heaving back, Cap says, “Keep it down, soldier.” And it’s enough to make Peyt swallow, swallow, swallow, swallow, a lifetime of stolen words shredding the full stop lodged in his gullet.
Jamming fingers into his mouth, Peyt tries to puke up all he’s ingested. He tastes Ann Miller’s face powder on his lips, knows what it’s like to kiss her goodnight. He remembers a father he’s never had, a man who could lift Daken overhead with one muscled arm. He feels what it means to be strong and hard and cool. He knows what it’s like to fuck without regret. He sees himself through Dake’s eyes, the little Dalmatian, and chokes on a bellyful of shame, neglect, love.
Knuckles scrape bloody on Peytr’s teeth. Bile juice-burns his throat.
Beside him, Daken is babbling, his limbs lax. Listless. His tongue, suddenly too big to be stowed in his mouth, bulges obscenely from his frothing lips. Aphasic gibberish spills from his forehead. Primal verbs: eating, shitting, fuckin’g, fuckin’g, fuckin’g …
“Sorry,” Peytr whispers, then vomits long and hard, spattering truths all over Cap’s boots. Etched in acid and bile, stark against dull green leather, they reveal everything Peyt has discovered. Everything he’ll never forget.
His wordwind screams humiliation.
“Well,” Cap says, reading the sludge. A few chunks about a grey IED. Merv hightailing at the first click of trouble. A squelch of falling breeze blocks, then hours of digging, digging, digging … “Tell Nestor to cordon off the schoolyard, pronto. And Borysson—”
Peyt’s vision is clogged with words. Tremors rack his guts, his legs, his arms. He tries to shake it off, left right left right, but has no control. He cannot stop, cannot be still.
“Get yer meat tray, kid,” Cap says, nodding Nestor’s men out of the alley. He strides to the truck, grabs the nearest Whitey. “We got a man down. I repeat: we got a man down. Medics, run your asses over here to the All Night and parlez with Borysson.”
“Ten-four, Cap.”
“Good work,” Cap says again, coming back to t
he alley to help Peytr up. Thump thump, thump. He hands Peyt a rag from his pocket. “All good, soldier?”
Cap watches Peyt spew for another minute or two, then leaves him to clean up the mess.
For almost two years, the same routine.
Borys wakes between noon and two. Swings his good leg over the edge of his single bed. Places his good foot on the floor. Keeps the sweat-dinged sheet draped over his lap, his thighs, his knee. In case Euri or the little one barrel into his room. In case Jean forgets to keep the growing girls out. In case Jean forgets herself. Borys bunches the sheet around him. Bolsters himself with threadbare cotton. Creates an impression of presence, of bulk. He leans over and his undershirt gapes. Musk and milk, dried stenches of night, waft from the scooped neckline. Out of habit, he clutches the fabric. Grabs at dog tags that aren’t swinging there, aren’t clinking together, aren’t giving away his position. Deep breath in. He presses the silent shirt to his chest. Exhale. Tomorrow, he thinks, I’ll do a load of washing. Tomorrow.
He reaches down, through his absent shin, and pulls a box from under the bed. Takes the shoes out, left first, then right. Fine black leather. Lace-up. Toes tapering to a blunt point. He polishes them with a brush and shammy. With spit and elbow grease. Left, then right. Left, then right again. Once they’re gleaming, he takes the balled cotton out from beneath their stiff tongues. Two black socks and one yellow-white. He slips the black pair on two feet—one flesh and, collected from the floor, one cast steel—then stretches the white over the scarred stub of his thigh. Quickly corsets the stump in the metal leg’s brace. Cinches it in tight. He adjusts straps to relieve the pinching. Adjusts and adjusts and adjusts. Puts both shoes on the floor. And stands.
Clunk-thunk, clunk-thunk, Borys crosses to the closet. Hips swivelling his kneeless leg onward, leaden heel propelling the nimble. He takes the only pair of slacks off their hanger. Navy twill, no belt. With fingers more than eyes, he inspects pleats and creases for crispness. Satisfied, he balances against the closet’s sliding doors. Get the pants around his ankles. Hops them up, hop-hops, pulling both legs at once, careful not to snag the fine material on his brace. Next he puts on a dress shirt. Pale blue cotton, button-up, with a stiff semi-spread collar. Tucks the tails it into his waistband. Jams them flat against his boxers. From the breast pocket, he takes the cufflinks Jean gave him, oh, ages ago. Before. When they first met. Stupid in love, he’d thought them precious. Their shape so intriguing, so abstract, so avant-garde. A curving swirl, fat at one end, narrowed at the other. A teardrop? A whooshing zeppelin. A yin, maybe, or a yang. For years they’d been bright, burnished gold. Now the finish is wearing off. The brass beneath rubbed visible, dulling the gilt veneer.
He fastens one at each wrist.
Reaching for his tie, crimson faded to rust, Borys hears the back door creak open. Seconds later, it gently clicks shut. A pause as Jean heel-toes her shoes off. Bare feet pad across the kitchen. Rattan scratches on melamine as she slides a basket onto the counter. Window-box vegetables for her supper, his breakfast. Turnips, baby carrots, beets. A cupboard door opens, closes. The cutting board is placed, quiet as a piece of blank paper, close to the basket. A knife slinks from the block and slowly, carefully, begins to chop.
That’s my Jean, Borys thinks, noosing the silk tie around his neck. Deep breath in. Yep, that’s my girl. Treading softly while the rest of us sleep. Always thinking of others. Always putting their wellbeing before her own. He snugs the knot up to his throat. Exhales. Smooths down the flaps of his collar. Discreet, industrious Jeanie. Always busy. Always planting and planning and preparing, hardly making a peep in the meantime.
I didn’t want to wake you, Borys.
I waited as long as I could.
Well aren’t you just a lamb, dear Jeanie. Aren’t you just so fuckin’ considerate.
Borys gobs into his palms. Attempts to smear his hair flat. Fails. The thick brown mass is reinforced with grey. Little spirals of age that tease the strands up and out, even when wet. Lack of colour that leaches his wordwind, slows it down, encourages repetition. I didn’t want to wake you, Borys. He crams a wedge cap onto his head and feet into shoes. I waited. Unhooks his cane from the doorknob, hoping the oak’s sturdiness will offset his wobbles. I waited. Clunks out of his room. Into and down the hall. I waited. Passes the living room and there’s Ann Miller, staring out the window in nightgown and robe, tearing tissues into snowflakes that collect in drifts at her feet. Eyes forward, eyes forward. I waited. He wills Ann not to see him until he’s well on the other side of the pane. I waited. Steals through the front door. Clunk-thunk on the cement step. Outside.
I waited as long as I could.
Halfway down the drive, Borys stops to net stray words with his hat. Should’ve worn a hood. Regardless of how it looks. Tomorrow, he thinks. I’ll wear one tomorrow.
Gravel lines the roadside, tessellated chunks of concrete mixed with smaller crumbs of asphalt and mortar and punctuation. Footing is unpredictable, the loose stones sharp and unsteady. Borys relies on the cane to keep him upright. Relies too heavily on it, Jean says. As if he wouldn’t smash the thing to pieces. As if it’s a frivolous accessory, vain and stupid as cufflinks. Feeling Ann Miller’s gaze on his back, Borys widens his stance. Tries not to lean.
Deep breath in. He looks left down the block, then right. Searches for the gleam of Artie’s lid. For the Pigeon’s distinct posture, hunched under a hillock of parcels, mind burdened with a slew of verbal messages, back weighed down by those written in ink. Borys imagines black-ringed letters. Artie’s expression, more resigned than commiserating, as he thinks and speaks the news. Borys looks left, right, left. Doesn’t see the Pigeon anywhere. Exhales.
An hour passes. Two. No one but Ann, haunting the window, pays Borys any mind. Theirs isn’t an unfriendly street, but neither is it ringing with hellos, how are yous, see you laters. Backs turned, people tend allotted gardens. They board superfluous windows and doors. Pull down dangerous, shell-shattered roofs. Old ladies rake their front yards to keep young soldiers from tripping while patrolling the suburbs at night. At irregular intervals, pickups and jeeps bounce across the intersection three houses down. On silent wings, ships negotiate the airways, dodging skybunkers, clouds, each other. Jet engines are muffled but Borys senses they’re up there, swimming the grey heights. In the distance, bombs drop with deep tuba parrumps. Rockets flare green and red over the darkening valley. Borys counts the seconds from the flash to the first pip of the missiles’ piccolo trills.
He looks up the street and down.
Three hours now and no word.
I waited as long as I could …
A donkey ambles past, hitched to a red two-door convertible. Perched on the car’s seatback, the driver whoas the mule. “Need a lift somewheres?” He gestures vaguely at Borys with a horsewhip. “Discount for veterans.”
Jaw clenched, Borys shakes his head once. Stiff-waves the cabbie away.
“Suit yerself.” As he moves on, the driver’s ’wind trails behind him. Tantalising images of bones resting, loads lifted, cradle-rocking lulls of the mule’s clip-clop, laced with taunts and jibes. Purse strings cinched. Arses tight-clamped. Wizened, hobbling gimps.
Fists balled and shaking, Borys follows the cab with his eyes. Takes one unsteady step after it, then another, but stops when his gaze skips ahead. A glint of silver mesh crests the rise at the street’s hilled end. The tip of a hood materialises, it seems, out of nowhere. It spills over a bulbous head, outlines unruly red bangs and sallow face, puddles on hunched shoulders. Tarnished buttons fasten the mantle to a familiar uniform, dove-hued coveralls and double-slung satchels. Borys puffs his chest, deep breath in. Hands by his sides, chin lifted, he waits as the Pigeon shares news with the driver. He steels himself for a parcel. A message. Word that Peytr’s been shot. Captured. Maimed.
Anything.
He exhales.
Eighteen months since the photograph came. It had been creased, frayed around the edges. It l
ooked old. Antique. All greys and whites and faded blacks. Already flaking, though it couldn’t have been taken more than a week or so earlier.
“What did you do to it?” Borys had asked, running a finger over the subject’s masked face. The boy, solo, was towing an armless body on a stretcher. Looked like he’d just emerged from an alleyway. Bricks and mortar and tumbledown walls flanked him. A blurred suggestion of word-smoke darkened the frame’s left side. The soldier, ’windless, was running toward it. His legs fleet, frozen mid-sprint.
“Delivered in the same condition it was received,” Artie had said.
“When did Peyt send it?”
“Not Peyt,” the Pigeon had replied. “The combat shutterbug. Suspect he’ll be sending a bill for the print one of these days.”
“How much?”
Artie shrugged. “You could barter him down. Say there’s no proof this here’s your boy. That mask, that uniform… . Could be anyone’s soldier.”
Even without seeing his face, Borys couldn’t deny that the kid pictured was Peyt. Foxing in the finish blotched his son’s skin more than it already was, but he’d know those flaws anywhere. The tanned neck splashed with stark white milk. The strained forearms girded in Chantilly lace. Likewise, Jean had taken the boy’s identity for granted. “They’ve made him a medic,” was all she’d said when Borys had held the photo out for her to see. Her scarred hands not as dexterous as they once were. Her voice taking up the pinch her fingers had lost. “They’ve made him a medic.”
Now the Pigeon slaps the cab-driver’s mule, tips an imaginary brim at the man, and continues on down the road. Borys sucks in his stomach to keep it from churning. Deep breath in, puff the chest. Arms rigid. Exhale in increments, one small sigh for each of the deliveryman’s oncoming steps.
“Afternoon, Borys,” says the Pigeon. Another tip of a make-believe brim. Pace measured, not slowing.
Lament for the Afterlife Page 4
