by W. Winters
The next float strolls by and this time the man stops. He shouts something, cupping his hands around his mouth to call out across the street. His smile broadens and the cheers get louder as the music does. Everything is so damn loud, but it’s silent just the same.
It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t mean anything.
For Harold it’s just another reason to drink and then get in his car.
I wish I could steal his car from him when I’m done. That’s a regret I have. But my teacher, the monster he is, would never do such a thing. He doesn’t take trophies. That’s a rule.
Even if I could steal the car and take it from him, it’s not like I could drive it.
So for now, sneaking onto trains and in the back of trucks to get back home will have to do. But I’d be damned if I didn’t admit the trunk would be a good place to sleep at night. A closed-off, locked space … I can only imagine.
A cool breeze blows by and I instinctively look for the stairways down to the stores. They block the wind too and when the stores are closed, bundling up in the corner and hiding behind a trash bag works quite well. They can’t see me. So long as they can’t see me, then everything is all right.
“You okay?” a woman asks as she stumbles into me, her sharp red nails digging into my shoulder as she braces herself against me. I get the idea that her instinct was to keep me upright, but she staggers in her high heels.
Her lashes are dark and long and there are little diamonds at the corners of her eyes. “Little dude, you shouldn’t be out here all alone,” she tells me and looks past me.
She seems like one of the good ones. One of the ones who need protecting. She’s so much taller than me. Pretty bird. That’s what the man would call her. But only once he was done with her.
“You lost?” she asks when I don’t answer. I smile up at her, shaking my head and tell her I’m just going home. She smiles back. “Be careful, cutie.”
The short interaction almost makes me lose him. I can’t lose sight of him. Not today. Today is the day it has to happen. A numbness pricks along my skin as I follow Harold around the corner, quickening my steps and slipping through the crowd.
Harold disappears into a liquor store, one he’s been in a number of times. I bide my time, finding a rock and carving something into the concrete. It won’t last, just like the promise I make with the stone won’t either.
Kids play with rocks outside of stores. No one looks twice.
With the parade, the noise and the crowds to slip back into, the timing is perfect for my first.
And Harold has to be the first.
Harold has a habit. It’s a bad one that he’s yet to learn from. He drinks, then gets into his ’86 Ford and drives home. His brother, a senator, got him off this last time. The charges suddenly disappeared, as did his sobriety test results. The scandal was all over the news. And even though there isn’t a damn thing distinctive about Harold, I knew him. I recognized him.
Because he’s the man who took my parents away. He caused the accident; he set all of this into motion. He should be my first.
The moment I saw his picture in the crinkled newspaper that reeked of the coffee it was stained with, it all made sense.
It was meant to be this way.
He took my parents, and that led to everything. He started it all and who I was before will end with him. Only then can I truly be Marcus.
The bad guys always lose and he is a bad guy. Even if he smiles. Even if his brother is a senator. Even if tonight he decided to walk instead of getting into his car. His victims don’t get to decide anything anymore.
If he hadn’t done it again, if it hadn’t been in the papers I scavenged while rummaging in the dumpsters that lined the alley hours away from here, it never would have occurred to me. I wouldn’t have chosen him. But he did do it again and they let him go. They gave him another chance, but that’s not fair when the man he killed didn’t get another chance.
Harold is a bad man and his time is up.
A numbness pricks down my arm, my fingers twitching for the cheap blade I found last week. The very day my plan came together. It’s funny how things all align when you have a plan. How the pieces fall into place and it’s so much easier to sleep, to move forward.
His death is my purpose.
As we round the corner of the liquor store, the parade falls behind us. With a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag, it seems he’s given up on the beer and moved on to something harder. I’ve watched Harold for nearly a week and his routine is simple. He leaves his home around noon. He wears jeans stained with old paint. He goes to the bar down Fifth Street and when they kick him out, he goes to the liquor store he just came out of.
Then he goes back down to Fifth but he takes the alley. It’s so he can piss on the wall or the cars in the parking lot behind the bar. He’s only done it twice, but his rough laugh that echoes late at night indicates he truly enjoys it. It’s just as much a part of his nightcap as the bottle of gin he’s got gripped in his right hand.
I’m grateful he’s gone down this way tonight. I don’t know why he’s already headed down the back path, given that he wasn’t even at the bar for long today and left to see the parade. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
Back here it’s quieter, but the music still filters through. I keep to the left, next to the trash cans and look down at the old stone that’s unrepaired and the rubble of concrete that was used to fill the gaps years ago.
My heart races, moving so much faster than my footsteps in the worn sneakers that don’t quite fit. Everything feels hot, even though I’m aware I’ll be freezing tonight, wherever I lie down to rest. The blood rushes in my ears so loud I can barely hear him.
His jacket rustles when I tap his shoulder. I have to look up to do it, my neck craning because he’s a larger man, rotund from drinking and not doing a damn thing else. When he turns I’m quick to hit him in his groin, catching him off guard to steal his wallet.
Chase me down the alley, my inner voice prays. My sneakers squeak as I run farther to the left, farther away from the couple kissing past the dumpsters at the start of the busy street.
So we can be alone.
“Little shit.” His groan fills the smaller space, the alley that leads down to an old row of homes built for the steel mill. You can barely fit a bike through this alley. I remember when my brother did it, though.
With everything raging inside of me, I don’t count on the tears or how my gaze becomes glossy at the memory.
Cody had me on the back of his bike, and he was able to ride down an alley just like this one. I remember how scared I was that he was going to hit the wall or that his handlebars would catch the side of a brick. I shouldn’t be thinking of him right now. I lose myself, my focus, I lose everything remembering how I held on so tight to him. Stopping in my tracks, right in the middle, the man curses behind me and grabs my shoulder.
I don’t even recall my hand wrapping around the blade, but when I strike him in the gut, once then twice, that’s when I realize what I’ve done and that I’m still here. I’m not back with Cody, holding on to a small bag of candy.
I’m not there at all. I’m holding a bloody blade and looking up at a man who fails to say anything.
Harold looks older than the picture in the paper when I look up. His skin is a little more yellow too, and more wrinkled than the paper. The shock in his gaze was also absent then.
I hesitate for only a moment when his wide eyes look down at me. He stumbles back just slightly and I stand facing him in the narrow alley, his wallet in one hand and the blade in the other.
My heart is still racing, but he’s more disoriented than I am. And I’m the one with the plan. He swallows thickly before calling out for help.
The man’s on his ass, scooting backward. He’s trying to get away, but what’s done is done. There’s sorrow and sympathy, but it’s odd how it comes, how it’s because it’s like Cody’s watching me. He wouldn’t want this, but Cody’s not here and h
e’ll never know.
Everything speeds up then. I only hesitate because he’s watching me. The moment Harold turns his head to look behind him, maybe to cry out for help again, I strike. Eating up the short distance between us with long strides and slicing his throat.
Once, twice, and a third time.
It gushes at first, hot and bubbly. It’s different than what I’ve seen in the barn.
He clutches at his throat, trying to speak.
I don’t tell him why. I wonder if when we die, we can still ponder things. I hope not. I want the things I think about to rest once I’m gone.
I watch him, and make sure he’s gone. It doesn’t take long. It’s so much faster and simpler than I thought it would be.
A breeze goes through the alley and my face is cold. Streaks of what feels like ice make me shiver involuntarily until I brush away the tears. They’re unexpected.
I clean off the knife on his shirt before dropping it down a sewer. The last act that involves Harold has to do with his wallet. I collect the cash and pocket it. Only forty-three dollars. Then I drop the wallet down the grates along the street too.
The white noise fades fast and I can hear the parade again, like nothing happened. Picking up a stick, I trail it along the mortar between the bricks of the building. Because that’s what kids do, they like sticks and rocks and keeping to themselves.
I keep walking and I don’t look back. Instead I think about Cody and how that was the only time we rode down that alley. How when we went down it, I couldn’t wait to try on my own. I was going to have my own bike soon and I was going to do it too.
I don’t hear anyone scream like I thought I would. Watching the parade from the end of the street where it’s taped off I wait, but no one ever screams.
The sirens come and no one wants to part to let them through.
It’s for the better outcome.
It’s for all the pretty little birds.
Delilah
I was never adventurous. I didn’t want to go play outside. My father locked the door once after telling my sister and me to go on the front porch. He yelled through the closed door to go play and turned his back to us.
I suppose telling us we couldn’t stay inside all day during summer got old, so he resorted to kicking us out. When the streetlights came on and dinner was on the table, we were finally allowed back in. But kids were supposed to be outside playing when the sun was out. Luckily, I almost always had a book to keep me occupied.
Inhaling the fresh smell of the forests to the left and the hints of hay from the field to the right, I don’t know why I didn’t play out here more. It’s peaceful.
The field didn’t scare me like it did my sister. She said she could get lost in the long rows of corn and that freaked her out.
She hated it out here. I remember her, so much taller than me, with her arms crossed over her chest in her favorite blue jean jacket. She’d rather lose at hide-and-seek than take one step into that cornfield. I don’t know why it spooked her like it did, but I love it out here.
The red barn always looked beat down to me back then and the years haven’t been kind to it now.
I wonder what Marcus knows. There’s no such thing as coincidence when it comes to him. There’s a reason he brought me back here to the place I know my father used to hide away in.
When my mother and he were fighting, he’d always take off to help Mr. Dave fix up the old machines. There’s more than a time or two I can recall Mom hunched over the sink, gripping the counter and pretending not to cry when I stepped into the kitchen after hearing the argument from upstairs.
She’d wipe away the tears with her back to me, and dry her hands on the flannel towel that hung from the cabinet below.
“Clean yourself up. It’s almost time for breakfast.” It wasn’t always breakfast she’d say; the meals were interchangeable and all corresponded to the time of day.
I can picture it so clearly, the same tearstained cheeks she had only yesterday with her hair up in a silk wrap and not a dress to be seen for days.
When they fought, the kitchen was her safe place. This barn was his.
“What does it mean to you?” Marcus’s voice calls out and it scares me, causing me to stagger a step back. He’s in jeans and a hoodie, maybe ten feet away under the shade of an old pine tree. Leaning against it, with his hands in his pockets, he looks relaxed which is at odds with everything I know about him.
“What does what mean? What does what mean to me?” I have to speak up a little louder than comfortable for him to hear me. The gray clouds part in the muted sky and as Marcus makes his way to me, I see his face easily enough.
Sucking in a breath, I turn to stare at the barn, pretending I didn’t just see his features plain as day.
“Don’t tell anyone you saw me,” he commands although it sounds like a question. His charming smirk looks far too boyish on him. Maybe it’s the pale blue eyes and faint wrinkles around them that give him his boy-next-door appeal. His dirty blond hair tousled by the wind makes him appear all soft, but his jaw is hard and his features severe the moment he tilts his head. “You understand that, don’t you?”
More than anything, he looks just like Cody.
“You’re his brother … you’re Chris—”
“Don’t,” he says, cutting me off and I silence myself, chewing on the inside of my cheek. My pulse races and my heart hammers. They found dental records. The world thought him dead. My mind filters through the tragic tale. If he’s Christopher, Cody’s brother …
“I can see the wheels turning,” Marcus says, coming up beside me. I stay facing the barn, wrapping my arms around myself as the wind blows.
“Is that right?” I ask him, peeking up but quickly looking away. He’s leaner than Cody; I can’t help but to compare every bit of him to his brother.
“Don’t think about it.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Everything eludes you today …” Marcus says and disappointment is evident in his tone.
“What did you mean by your question?” I ask him. He stands beside me, his arm almost touching mine. He’s taller than me but on the hill like we are, he’s even taller and he practically towers over me.
Power radiates from him. Even the air seems to bend around him.
“This barn. What does it mean to you?” he asks and I shrug.
“It’s an old place and … I used to come out here sometimes, but not a lot.” I almost bring up my father, but I choke on his name.
“If they knocked it down, tore it to pieces?”
“It wouldn’t matter to me,” I tell him, and peek up questioningly. “Why would you think it would?”
“What about your family home? If they took it apart brick by brick?”
“You could take it … I’d still be okay.” My mind spins with questions, wondering why he thought this barn would mean anything at all compared to my family house. Is it because of my father?
“Is there no place you thought of as home?” he asks me genuinely and when he does, his arm brushes against mine, offering the barest of warmth.
“That tree over there,” I say, motioning toward an old oak tree near the center of the field. “That’s the wishing tree.”
“It grants wishes?” His smirk is heard just as it is easily seen. It warms me, though, something deep down I can’t explain.
“When we were kids, some boy on the bus said you had to run through the field late at night and climb it to wish on the stars or else your wishes wouldn’t come true.”
“I never heard that one,” Marcus says and my heart flickers.
“I think in most towns it’s wishing on shooting stars.” I turn away from him and stare at the auburn leaves, mixed with hues of gold as I add, “But here we had that tree.”
“So if it were to be chopped down?” Marcus asks.
“I’d be all right. None of this …” I almost tell him it’s not the place, it’s the people. But I bite my tongue at
the thought that he’d threaten to take them away.
“You’d break. At some point, we all break.”
“I feel like I already have and it has nothing to do with where I grew up.” I don’t hide my vulnerability.
“It has everything to do with that, and trust me Delilah, you are far from broken yet.”
There’s an eerie air that surrounds us, almost feeling like a push and a pull at the same time. A warning and a promise.
“Is that why you wanted to meet?” I ask him. After last night, I don’t know what to think.
“To ask you what a barn means to you?” he says and huffs a humorless laugh. “No, that’s not why.”
He doesn’t offer any explanation and the wind blows gently between us. Moving the hair out of my face, I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t.
“Thank you for the note.” Marcus is silent, staring off at the old tree. A crease is in the center of his forehead.
“It’s your handwriting,” I say, prompting him to say more.
“I’m aware.”
“Well … how?” I can’t get the question out; it feels very much like I’m stepping over his boundaries.
“That’s not something for you to worry your pretty little head about.” The mannerism in which he speaks sounds so much like Cody too. I haven’t noticed it until now, maybe because he’s never been this casual before. Or maybe it’s because I can see his lips now. The same lips I’ve kissed.
“You and Cody?” I can’t help myself as my heart breaks, splitting down the center. “Does he know?”
“I don’t want him here.” He clears his throat, hardening his voice and that depth of darkness comes back to his cadence as he adds, “I mean, I don’t want to speak about him. Not here.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up.” A hint of fear simmers in my blood.
“I thought maybe it would help me, to see you here.”
“Help with what?” I dare to ask.
I don’t know why, but there’s a deep-seated pain that rests in his gaze. I wish I could stop it, erase it from all existence. It doesn’t belong there.
