by Peter Liney
No matter how bad he was feeling, the little guy still knew enough not to go up against her. He paused for a moment, then turned and slunk away in the opposite direction, following the wall down ’til he disappeared from sight.
“He is such a fool,” Delilah commented.
“It was a great score,” Gordie commented, as if that made it more understandable.
Actually, it didn’t change things that much. Jimmy barely went out anyway, and never without a disguise. What it did do, though, was to enhance the feeling that Infinity were starting to close in, that with every day their grip was slowly tightening.
It started me thinking: maybe it’d be possible to get through the fires now? The only reason we were all still there was Lena. The others didn’t need to stay, especially not Jimmy, with all the problems he had, not to mention Delilah’s one lung still sawing away at that solid wall of smoke. Why didn’t they just go on and leave me to find a way of rescuing Lena?
But when I tried to raise the subject, no one would even hear me out.
Of course, I was touched, I truly was, but some people might’ve thought it was a little foolish. Everything felt so hopeless now—even the length of time since I’d last seen Lena was starting to work against me. Maybe she didn’t wanna be rescued anymore? Maybe things had changed? . . . I dunno. Lying propped on my side on that sleeping bag for hour after hour, I was imagining all sorts of crazy stuff.
Which was why a visit from Gigi, something she brought with her, couldn’t have been more timely.
She appeared that afternoon, not bothering with any greeting, just strolling up and handing me a piece of paper.
I stared at her as I unfolded it, having no idea what it might be, but the moment I started to read, it was all I could do not to break into tears.
My love,
I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. I think whoever’s smuggling it out is taking a big risk, but I have to grab this opportunity.
You have no idea how much I miss you. There isn’t a minute goes by when I’m not thinking of you. I don’t know what’s going on, or why they took me. I hear the occasional whisper, but people are too scared to say much. Even Dr. Simon won’t tell me. All he says is I’m “special.”
They’re treating me okay, don’t worry about that. Whatever’s happening, I’m sure, when it’s over, we’ll be together again and finally able to make our home in the country.
I’m sorry, I can’t write any more. No matter what happens, Clancy, I will always love you. Nothing can ever change that.
Lena
PS Do you know Nora Jagger? Whatever you do, don’t go up against her.
I have to say, for a while there was quite a wrestling match went on between me and my tear-ducts, and I only won ’cuz I was so surprised by something she’d said. “Doesn’t she know?” I said, turning to Gigi.
“What?”
“That she’s pregnant?”
Gigi shrugged. “Dunno.”
“You have to get word to her!”
She glared at me with real aggression—the Island blade abruptly flicking open. “Do you know how hard it was to get this out?”
“Yeah—sorry,” I said. “I am grateful.”
“She’s a woman! If she doesn’t know yet, she’ll work it out soon enough.”
I nodded my head, though I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. I guessed she was talking about having a period but . . . I thought . . . if a woman got stressed or went through a big change of routine or something, might she miss the odd one? Which could be confusing. Mind you, I’m just a dumb old big guy who never had a real girlfriend before Lena, and for sure I wasn’t asking for clarification from some kid with seagull feathers in her hair.
I read the letter again, studying it more closely. For the first time since it happened, the pain in my ass was entirely forgotten.
“What’s with this Nora Jagger woman?” I asked.
It was funny, even though Gigi paused for only the briefest of moments, you knew that somewhere in there was a whole world of information.
“Some people call her ‘the Executioner.’”
“That’s legal?” Delilah asked.
“Not officially, but ‘accidents’ do happen when she’s around. People die of injuries sustained alone in cells, commit suicide when they have everything to live for, fall outta locked windows, that sort of thing.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. The thought that Lena was apparently familiar with this woman was not sitting well at all.
“She had all her arms and legs cut off,” Gigi suddenly announced.
“What?” Delilah grimaced.
“Well, not exactly . . . she lost an arm in an accident—survival training—and had an artificial one specially made. It can do anything a normal one can but it’s ten times stronger. She liked it so much, she had her other arm and legs replaced.”
I stared at her, not exactly sure what my reaction should be. “You don’t believe that?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Come on—it’s just talk, people trying to build themselves a demon.”
Gigi firmly shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
I chuckled like I was dismissing it, but not with complete conviction. Just from seeing that face on the screen, those eyes, I wasn’t sure I’d put anything past Nora Jagger.
“How’d’ya get the letter out?” I asked, changing the subject.
Gigi shrugged. “Can’t tell you.”
Hanna sniggered, like it was all a bit absurd.
“What?” Gigi demanded, and I immediately stepped in between them.
“Okay, okay! Thank you.”
“I gotta go,” Gigi said, glaring at Hanna as if she was the reason.
Gordie stood to walk her out, the way he always did now.
“What is it with you two?” I asked Hanna, the moment they were out of earshot.
“Nothing,” she said, as if she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.
I thought about pursuing the subject but instead returned my attention to the letter, reading it again, even checking for a smudge of something, a crumb maybe, anything that would connect it with my Lena.
It wouldn’t be fair to say that Jimmy (or should that be “Jimy”?) sulked for the next few days, though he did keep to himself in a way I’d never seen before. He barely said a word over meals, only spoke when spoken to, and the moment he could, sneaked away to be alone. Delilah and the kids did the scavenging, bringing back what they could, though they weren’t exactly a formidable team and on a couple of occasions the stuff they’d spent all day finding got stolen from them.
My ass was beginning to heal and I started doing some exercises to free it up a little. It wasn’t exactly stimulating, but at least it gave me something to think about rather than endlessly brooding on Lena.
I watched the screen a couple more times, as much to get another look at Nora Jagger, to see what she was up to, as anything. She’d obviously decided to take over the search for Jimy herself, suggesting that no one else could be trusted. I tell ya, that woman looked so damn vicious, so cold-blooded, I could see how rumors about her would circulate, and why people would believe them—but surely no one would deliberately have their limbs removed? Especially when you think of those unfortunate enough to suffer that through no choice of their own. It’d be a damned insult.
It’s an unusual circumstance for a killer to make it to the top job. Normally they just stay doing what they’re good at (the ultimate “dead-end job?”), hopefully keeping their impulses in check. But if somehow they do manage to reach a position of authority, a place where their power can give vent to their instinct, well, that’s where the problems really start. And from what I’d seen of Nora Jagger, that was what’d happened here. I didn’t know a lot about her, but I did know enough to see why Lena had warned me.
Yet again, like some mindless mantra, she referred to “Jimy” as “Public Enemy Number One, the arch-terrorist, the brains behind this highly
destructive anarchy,” not the sad little baldy guy who’s been hiding out in a corner of a flattened churchyard.
But Jimmy’s not the sort of person to hide himself away for long; there’s nothing very constructive about feeling sorry for yourself, and I wasn’t altogether surprised when he finished breakfast one morning by asking everyone if they had anything to contribute to his new disguise and borrowed a baseball cap from Gordie, a scarf from Hanna and Delilah’s parka.
Lile protested, of course, but not that loudly. She knew he had to do something. Like me, she’d never seen the little guy so down, and if that was the cure, then she was prepared to reluctantly go along with it.
After that he went out almost every day—not for long, nor that far, but enough to prove a point to himself, if not others, returning with food or water, some little gizmo that’d caught his eye. Like the rest of us he was getting by but inside feeling hopelessly impotent, no longer capable of making things happen, blinding our faith and placing it in the care of God and the ticking of the clock.
I can’t tell you how surprised I was the day Gordie came home with Dorkus. He kind of shuffled in, looking all self-conscious, glancing behind him with this excited little smile. Everyone looked over, wondering what on earth was going on, and suddenly there was this dog peering out from behind a bush: a little gray, wiry terrier-type with big brown eyes staring out from behind a long tousled fringe.
“Ohhh! Where d’ya get him?” Delilah cried excitedly.
“I just saw him,” Gordie said casually, like such things happened all the time. “Up near the Square.”
“Here, boy! Here!” Delilah called, and the dog slowly made his way over, a little uncertainly, and tolerated rather than enjoyed Delilah’s enthusiastic petting.
“This is Dorkus,” Gordie said proudly
“That’s his name?” Delilah asked, a little perturbed.
“It’s what I call him. He’s mine.”
With that, and despite the fact that she made it a strict policy never to show any interest in anything Gordie said or did, Hanna completely melted, leaping across, falling on her knees, cooing and scratching the dog’s ears.
“Hey, now just a moment,” I said, knowing I was about to make myself about as popular as the traffic cop who booked Santa, “we can’t keep him.”
“Why not?” Gordie wailed.
“Clancy!” Delilah chimed, joining in the protest.
“No! I’m sorry—it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
“A stray dog?” Hanna asked.
“It’s okay, Big Guy,” Jimmy reassured me.
“No, it’s not! Dogs bark,” I told them, just in case they didn’t know. “They don’t understand when you tell them to hide or be quiet—and it’s another mouth to feed.”
“Clancy! Look at him,” Delilah protested as the dog glanced from one face to another, plainly wondering what the hell was going on.
“I’m not getting rid of him,” Gordie said, and the dog, as if realizing he was his most likely savior, circled around and pushed himself in between Gordie’s legs.
“Nooo!” Hanna moaned, siding with Gordie for possibly the first time ever.
“I’m sorry. We don’t have a choice,” I told them. “What if someone comes sniffing around one night? Some ‘bounty hunter’ looking for Jimmy? Can you guarantee that thing isn’t gonna give us away?”
“It’s a bit unlikely,” Jimmy said.
“It could happen!”
“If he goes, so do I,” Gordie said defiantly.
“Clancy!” Delilah protested.
There was a brief silence. I mean, I hate being the bad guy, but I couldn’t see why they didn’t get my point.
“Why don’t we have a vote?” Hanna eventually suggested.
“Yeah!” agreed Gordie, pretty confident he’d win.
“No. We’re not having any vote,” I told them. “He’s gotta go.”
There was a long pause, and Delilah kinda cleared her throat. “Clancy, we’ve always been a democracy.”
Oh Jeez! I’d known I was open to that charge. I also suspected that something about that dog, his tousled fringe and big brown eyes, just might be reminding her of Arturo.
“Let him stay! The first sign of trouble, he’s out of here,” she begged.
“That first sign might be Jimmy with a bullet in his head.”
“Thanks, Big Guy,” Jimmy told me. “That’s made me feel a whole lot better about the whole thing.”
“I’m just trying to get the seriousness of this over to you!”
Again there was silence, only this time it was set a lot harder. You could see how upset Gordie was: his eyes were all wild and staring and he wouldn’t meet my gaze at all.
Hanna bent down to pet the dog again. “He’s so cute.”
“Let him stay, Clancy,” Delilah urged.
I just shook my head. As far as I was concerned, I was done with talking.
“Just for the night,” she added.
I knew what she was up to. It’s the oldest trick in the book—I tried the same one when I was a kid—but this was different. “It’s asking for trouble,” I insisted.
The fact that I didn’t actually say “no,” that my voice softened a little, was taken as sufficient encouragement for Delilah to start looking out some scraps for the animal.
I hesitated, feeling we were far from done but aware of all these pairs of eyes turned on me, about to unleash a salvo of protest and guilt. “All right,” I sighed. “Just for the night, that’s all.”
I don’t think they heard anything else I said. The only thing that mattered was that for the moment at least, I’d withdrawn my objection. For the rest of the day, and the evening too, little Dorkus was treated like canine royalty, passed from one person to another, everyone taking their turn to pat or stroke him, getting this dopey smile about them, though I pointedly declined.
Not that he was that affectionate—he didn’t object or nothing, but he did give the impression he could’ve done without the fuss. I guessed he’d had to toughen up on the streets. Mind you, he was something of a novelty. You gotta remember, you didn’t see dogs anymore. Like so many things, family pets had become a liability: feeding them, vets’ bills, all of it contributed toward people, not selling them, ’cuz no one would buy, but just abandoning them wherever they could. And not just dogs either: cats, rabbits, ponies, even large reptiles had been left to wander the City—’course, they quickly disappeared, most dying of starvation, some of disease, and quite a few getting killed and eaten. To see a domesticated dog wandering around was quite something, especially for kids from the Island, which made me feel even more of a heel.
When we bedded down, Gordie squeezed little Dorkus into his sleeping bag with him, everyone laughing fit to bust, not in a teasing way, but just as an expression of how cute they looked together. Though Gordie took great pains to point out that Dorkus was a survivor, a tough little mutt, and no one should forget it.
“Hey now, look,” I said, getting a little frustrated by this happy family scene, “just remember: no decision’s been made.”
“Clancy!” Delilah protested, like she’d assumed it had.
“No!” I said impatiently. “We’ll discuss it in the morning.”
The last thing I saw as Jimmy turned off the camping light was Gordie disappearing down into his sleeping bag, two bumps, one large, one small, joining together. I mean, he was a cute little fella, I could see the attraction all right, but I could also see the risks.
The irony—and it made a rock grow in my heart every time I thought about it—was that by now I looked on Gordie as a kinda son, and there I was behaving in exactly the same manner as my father once had with me: a man whose abilities as a parent I’ve constantly called into question.
I don’t know how old I was at the time—eight or so, maybe. This guy I knew, Lennie, a real down-and-out, had been sleeping on the same bench in the park for as long as anyone could remember, most days just dozing, but o
ccasionally trying to earn a few coins playing his harmonica. He had this dog, Buster, a bit like Gordie’s mutt but rangier, with legs that stuck out at odd angles. He was the most loyal animal you could ever imagine. When Lennie died of TB he sat by that same bench every day for months. They sent the dog-catcher, all sorts of people to impound him, but no one could, and the moment they gave up he returned to sit next to his master’s bench.
But the thing was, he knew me: he didn’t run when he saw me approaching, he even let me pat him, and when I noticed he was getting a little thin, I started to bring him food. It went on for ages; through the summer and into the winter. Then one day, after I fed him and went to walk away, I turned to see him following. That night we had some of the deepest snow in years and I reckon Buster must’ve known it was coming.
The only thing was, my old man hated dogs—he hated all animals. He used to get so angry when people said there was no such thing as a bad dog, only bad owners, said it was arrogant for us to assume we had one hundred percent control of how a dog turned out, which actually, does have a certain amount of twisted logic to it. Anyways, he was against Buster from the moment I brought him home, saying I wouldn’t take care of him, wouldn’t take him for walks, and that there was no way he was going to do it for me. I begged and pleaded, and thanks to Ma, he eventually let me keep him, but he was a long way from happy, and after a while I noticed that Buster started trotting out of the room the moment my old man appeared, as if he was being mean to him when I wasn’t around.
In the end, when Pa lost his job and money started getting tight, he said I had to get rid of Buster. I wouldn’t, of course, but one day, when I got home, he was gone. Pa said he was sorry but he had to do it, that we just couldn’t afford a dog anymore, and that Buster had gone to a good home. Couple of days later, some kids I knew told me they’d found Buster in a sack floating in the canal. I told them it wasn’t him. Even when they took me down and showed me, I still said it wasn’t my dog. I just didn’t want to admit it—not then, not even now.
It was Delilah who woke me in the morning, shaking my shoulder and screaming into my face, yelling at me to get up.
