She kept noticing him, just like the teacher. The teacher looked into the crowd of students and saw Iggy. This lady looked onto the busy Feline Street, with constant traffic and constant people, and saw Iggy, no matter how hard he tried not to be seen.
What did he have to do to make the lady not see him? Where could he hide from the lady and the sidewalk? He couldn’t let the lady know about the sidewalk. He couldn’t have her talk to the sidewalk; if the two of them got together, then Iggy would never be free.
Iggy started sobbing for a moment. His mind would get clear, the sobbing would stop, then in a second, he would feel the confusion jump back in: clear thought, confusion, clear thought, and then confusion. The confusion was weaving its way passed every clear thought and ruling Iggy’s brain. He continued rocking, shivering, and sobbing. He felt so frustrated trying to figure out the lady—trying to grab the clear thoughts in his hands and really look at them. He wanted to look at every inch of his clear thoughts and put the puzzle together, but the confusion would pop the thought out of his hands like a playground bully.
Then, Iggy stopped for a second because he heard screaming. There was screaming… loud, thundering screaming. The cold stopped, the rocking stopped, and both the confusion and clear thoughts stopped to listen to the screaming. Iggy never realized that the screaming was him until the next day. He had hyperventilated, passed out, and woke up with sunlight on his face.
Rafael
The little boy was hidden in his mom’s closet, behind her coats. She saw him run in and go to her room. She knew where he went. Her closet, with her stuff, and her smell was where he always hid when he was frightened. Usually a mother would rush to her child to aid him, but Rafael’s mother just kept cooking dinner.
She knew that no matter what she said or what she bribed, the boy would not come out of his hiding place until he was ready. There was never any rushing him. There was never any reasoning with him. There was only waiting for him to decide that the danger had passed, whether the danger may be real or not.
So, she stirred her soup, then closed and locked all the doors—shutting the blinds on the windows so that he wouldn’t go out again today.
Rafael leaned back against the coats and scratched his arm over and over and over, burying his face into the coats for warmth. His arm was cold and his arm was itchy. He needed to tell his mom. He wanted to tell his mom, but he couldn’t leave the closet just now. He couldn’t scream for his mom. Rafael would have to wait on his mother to come, and then he’d have to wait on his brain to finally convince his body to step out of the closet for help.
He was shaking now from the itchy cold, but he was used to waiting. He waited because of himself, and he waited because his mom was never in a hurry to fix anything. He knew this about his mother. He felt that his mother was a good person, but she wasn’t the kind of mom you saw on TV. She wasn’t the kind of mom he saw at school either; not the kind of mom who talked to teachers and gave kisses on foreheads. She was different, never physically far from Rafael, but her heart was never present. He didn’t think she had a heart. She only had a brain. She could think, but she didn’t feel. Rafael felt the same way. He could think, but he wasn’t sure he had a heart. The coat was painful, his arm and face were raw.
An hour or so later, she took the boy out of the closet, put him in a warm bath, applied medicine to his arm, and fed him some soup. After dinner, she brushed his teeth and put him in bed. All signs of a loving parent, but all done mechanically. There were no silly songs during the warm bath. There was no conversation during dinner or discussions about tooth fairies while brushing his teeth. She never read him a story before bed. It was step 1, step 2, and on and on always—never a silly song, a corny joke or motherly kisses on his little boy toes.
Lisa
Memories of her childhood were scarce. There were times when Lisa thought the Mothers had purposely made it hard to remember growing up with them. Lisa could remember small pieces of this or that. She wished she could piece together all the bits and pop them out of her brain like lint; then, smash them all together and look at the whole. That seemed undoable even for her, even for them.
Them, being her race… she guessed that’s what it was called. She knew she was not like her marks. She was flesh. She was bone. She was a carbon copy of the human race, but not really of the human race. She came from a woman like all other humans, but that did not make them the same. The Mothers were not like all mothers. The Mothers were not like any human woman she saw on the street when she was doing her duty to their Superior Mother.
Lisa had a theory that she had actually had her own mother; one of the many was hers. One of the many had created Lisa in her body, but Lisa didn’t know who. Things were not that way with her race. All mothers raised the young. They were all the same and none different. So, every one of them was a mother to Lisa. Which one was really, by human standards, her mother Lisa would never know.
Then, Lisa thought maybe her birth mother didn’t know either. If all babies were raised together with all the Mothers, then how could they tell who belonged to who? If that, in fact, was the way it worked. Lisa didn’t have that information yet. She wasn’t allowed in that area of The Grey. The Mothers all looked exactly the same: the height, weight, hair color, and skin tone all copies of the other.
There was no way of telling one Mother from another. There was no way of telling the difference between one or another in her race. Except for the name tags. All were given name tags. There was one of each. A name was used only once so there would be no confusion. There was never a Sally 1 and Sally 2. When everyone looked exactly the same, a name was vital to the Superior Mother knowing exactly who you were.
If Lisa squinted her eyes and held her breath, she could see herself as a young girl - maybe eight or nine - sitting in a classroom doing her school work. To the left, were three little girls who sat alike, looked alike, and if Lisa stared at them long enough, she’d forget who she was and think she was one of them. To the right, sat a Mother—perfectly upright, perfectly still, and not a hair out of place.
“Remember girls… we are all the same and none different.” She spoke with a smile on her face, but her hands were balled-up in fists a reminder to not anger a Mother. The Mother’s must be obeyed and order must prevail because the Superior Mother wanted it so.
The last glimpse of that memory was always the same—Lisa looking down at her yellow polo shirt… on it was a name tag: ‘Lisa’. It had always been on her. She couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t, except for when she was given the duty by Superior Mother to go out and find marks. Right before she walked out of The Grey and into the world, she took off her name tag and put it in a box by the door.
“It’ll be there when you return,” was all Superior Mother said before she held open the door and gave Lisa a nudge out. It was closed behind her and locked very loudly.
She was given her “duty” to fulfill by Superior Mother. There were no questions about why she had to. Why find the marks? Why these marks? Why by the date she was given? What was going to happen on that date? No details were given and that was the way it was done. You did not need the details of the mission. You did not need, and would not be given, the ‘why’ it was done. You would only be given what needed to be done and Lisa would have to figure out the how on her own. Her duty to Superior Mother was to be done with no questions asked. To ask for more information was to question the judgment of Superior Mother and to question Superior Mother was unheard of. No one had and no one would.
The Mothers were never soft and always swift to control any situation that might get even slightly, remotely, a teensy bit chaotic. Organized order was the life blood of The Grey. The Grey were a breed of women not human just different. The Grey were somewhere in between. Lisa must fulfill her duty to The Grey because it was not expected, but demanded of her. She was one of them—born to them of them. There was no way of denying who she was or where she belonged. There was no query of her origin
s.
“We are all the same and none different…” Lisa whispered to the shower water. Next, she needed to talk to the marks—to start a dialog, a reason for them to speak to her and keep talking to her. It seemed so very easy, but it was conversation. Communication, the most basic of human functions, was not just a function, but a need. It was a need and above that, communication was an art form. Finding the perfect way to talk to her marks, and to keep her marks talking to her, was the new dilemma.
A dilemma must be dealt with immediately otherwise it wasted time. She was trained to understand that conversation was nothing more than information gathering—information sharing. If her marks felt comfortable having a conversation with her, then she would be gathering much needed intel for The Date. The Date would come sooner than she would be ready for.
Maggie
There was a melancholy to her tonight that she couldn’t shake off. It is a type of sadness that sinks into your teeth and leaves a nasty taste, with diseased thoughts going through the brain. Maggie knew the melancholy was nothing more than a woman’s monthly nonsense. She should ignore it and know that within days it would fade, but that didn’t seem possible; she was in the depth of it now and could do nothing more than tread water.
With misery as her cheerleader, Maggie lay in her bed and dove into all the negative thoughts that she would push aside and scold herself for thinking on normal days. At her age, this monthly novela should be gone—the blood is, but not the emotion. There was no use to negative thoughts…at least that is what her sister always told her. Her sister would forever be a positive, cheery person. In the darkest of times, she was the one that would find a reason for gratitude.
Maggie remembered everything about her sister—a sister that had died more than 50 years ago. Lying in bed, Maggie could perfectly picture her sister’s eyes. Mopping the floor at work, she could hear her sister’s voice telling her to be happy and proud to work… whatever the work was. Cooking dinner, Maggie could sense her sister watching her, telling her that no matter the food, at least she had something to eat and a warm bed to sleep in—smile, be grateful, and stop frowning…stop moping around.
“Levanta la cabeza caminas como un cadaver…” Maggie could hear her sister’s words and almost see her shrug at her. Their mother had passed away when Maggie was two. Their father was in and out of the house. He mostly left money and patted the girls on the head, then left town again. Both Maggie and her sister knew he was a dangerous man. The type of man that should never have a wife and children, but he did. He came home often when their mother was alive. He would walk in the door acting as if he was home from the office. The girl’s mother would greet him warmly and pretend that he was simply any other man coming home from work. It never seemed to bother her. Maggie wondered, now that she was older and alone, if her mother just pretended all was well to keep it well, as all good Mexican women do. They smile and cook, never giving a hint of the worry or sadness - maybe even the hate - that was in their hearts.
Maybe because of the melancholy, Maggie’s heart hurt for her mother and for all of the women that do the same. They smile through their pain in order to keep things going, in order to keep things at peace for everyone else so that their families can go about their lives without a scar on their heart.
Maggie’s scars were different than other women. There were no scars of past romance. There would never be a scar from losing a child. Her scars were from never having had that romance—from never having had that child. Her scars were left from atrophy; a heart that was never used, that runs on an empty tank. It runs on fumes.
Maggie’s pillows smelled like Maja, her favorite perfume. It was cheap and it reminded her of her childhood. Her sister’s endless grooming rituals always included Maja. It always reminded Maggie of home—a home she never saw again after the death of her sister.
Without intention, Maggie stopped treading water in her melancholy and let herself sink into the sadness. Almost at instance, she was drowning in her own tears while the images of her sister’s death spit on her face.
“Mata las dos hijas…” said the first gunman, who had caught the girls right outside their front door after school.
“No, déjà la fea, de broma…” said the second gunman, and with that, he shot her sister in the chest three times. He then smiled at Maggie and left her completely alone in this world at the age of fourteen.
“Déjà la fea de broma…” Maggie told the ceiling, but the ceiling had heard it many times before—sometimes when Maggie was awake, and often when Maggie talked in her sleep. Those words defined who Maggie was for the rest of her existence. No one would ever change her mind about herself after that and no one wanted to anyway.
Craig
The itch was gone and the cold had faded, so Craig started telling himself to leave the bar. Getting into a bar on a quiet afternoon is the easy part, but convincing himself to leave when the quiet afternoon had turned into an early evening was impossible.
He wasn’t sure why he stayed; he wasn’t going to pick up any women. He wasn’t going to start any conversations with anyone. He wasn’t going to start anything with anyone—to do so would just end badly. If he got lucky enough to pick up a woman, sooner or later she’d figure out that he wasn’t much of a good time and not that warm of a guy to like, let alone love. If he started a conversation with somebody, at some point he’d want to stop talking and that person would feel awkward and uncomfortable where they were once very comfortable. Craig had always existed in the awkward.
If Craig had some very crystal clear talents, they were boring women to tears and departure, while making the rest of society feel awkward in his naturally awkward presence. Because of all that, Craig had told himself to leave the bar several times during the afternoon and now he was inwardly yelling at himself to leave, to no avail.
It was going to take a big event to move him. It was going to take some inner courage to walk out the door, get a burrito, and go home—home to that ill-tempered house who disliked him, but tolerated him because it had no choice. He should go home and enjoy the fact that he was back just to spite the house. He could also enjoy comfort in the itch being gone. That wasn’t going to happen. Craig knew that in order to get himself to leave this place, it would have to be outlaw style. He’d have to be kicked out and told not to return.
He turned in his bar stool and looked over the bar, determined to get himself kicked out and trying to figure out how. It was the only solution. For Craig, sometimes the only way to fix his problems was an intense, short burst of anarchy. At one end of the bar sat two old men playing checkers and drinking beer. They looked like they belonged on a porch somewhere south, not at some shitty dive bar on Feline Street. Those two old farts should have been home about an hour ago and Craig wondered why they were still hanging around, but there was no way Craig was going to ruin the old men’s evening. It did feel good to know that he’d probably give them something to talk about during their checker games for days after successfully getting himself kicked out.
At the far end of the bar, to his right, a haggard woman sat smoking cigarettes and punching dimes in the phony arcade casino game. Doing anything to her was pointless; she’d laugh him off and offer him head. But, walking in the bar at that moment was the night bouncer. He was a thirty-something guy and looked like he lifted weights all day, then worked at this shit hole at night. He probably spent his days dreaming of being an action star while eating ramen and hoping to fuck the bartender. If Craig pushed his buttons just right, he’d get kicked out of the bar without the guy kicking his ass too much. Craig enjoyed a good fight and sometimes getting punched in the jaw was helpful for his moral, but now the years have schooled him not to get too cocky.
Craig emptied his beer mug and threw the mug across the room at the bouncer. His aim was perfect; the mug shattered on the wall just above the bouncer’s shiny bald head. For a second, Craig wondered why all these types of men had bald heads.
“TAKE THAT YOU M
OTHER FUCKER. I’VE BEEN WAITING ALL AFTERNOON TO KICK YOUR ASS,” Craig yelled. The bouncer was shocked and instantly the most pissed off he’s probably been in a year. He started to charge at Craig which gave Craig just enough time to jump onto the bar and yell some more, “YOU THINK YOU CAN GET MY DAUGHER PREGNANT AND JUST LEAVE HER? YOU WORTHLESS BITCH.”
The last outburst stopped the bartender in her tracks from calling the cops and made the bouncer pause for just a second.
“Get off the bar, looser! I haven’t gone near your ugly daughter,” and the bouncer tried to grab at Craig’s feet, but Craig shuffled and backed up enough to really frustrate the bouncer into getting sloppy. The bartender took a beer bottle and tried to smash Craig on the knee with it, but that made Craig laugh, giving the bouncer the second he needed to get one of Craig’s feet, land him on his ass, and pull him to the dirty bar floor.
Craig was thinking of something new to yell when the bouncer punched him in the gut, picked him up by his pants, and tossed him out the front door. He did all three actions in a matter of seconds, or at least it felt that way to Craig.
“Don’t come back, you dumb fuck…” With that, the bouncer walked back into the bar laughing with everyone else, including the two old men and the hag.
Craig lay on the sidewalk of Feline Street feeling accomplished. He had successfully gotten himself kicked out of the bar. He knew damn well that he wouldn’t leave on his own. It had to be extreme and out of his control—a short burst of complete anarchy was his standing prescription.
The cracked sidewalk was welcoming. The fume infested air of Feline Street felt just right. Craig was in a happy place, a place of freedom from the barstool. Craig was a thousand percent Zen until he heard the siren. With that Craig stood up and started walking home.
Starburst book 1 Page 4
