Coughing and ripping sounds, then a voice, “You promised a twenty.” Soft and slow, weak with illness or fear, a woman’s voice. Not a child, now, but she held the child she had been inside her still.
“You get what I give you.” Grunted again, but this not smoothly, this was a dangerous grunt and one which reminded me of where I was and what I needed to do. At that moment, I elected to remove myself from the situation. Those words given to me by a case worker who offered advice she didn’t expect me to take. I’d been eight then and unlearned, but I remembered and held those words to me for a long time. Nearly two years before I embraced her counsel, words I’d come to live by and words that always worked.
Retreat, shouted my feet, and I agreed, but before we could make good on this new decision, movement in the alley startled me. A woman, half again as tall as me, darted out of the shadows and up the alley, something clutched in her hand. Her throat was a mass of red marks, deep weals wrought into her flesh, dark bruising with white between and half-moon blood-filled craters on one side.
“Hey.” The guttural shout startled me, and I looked past her to see a man. A giant of a man. He dwarfed the woman in height, breadth, and sheer size. Trundling out of the shadows, his measured movements were in stark contrast to her darting dance of evasion, her shoulder a finger’s-width ahead of his grasping hand. “Hey,” he shouted again, and I recognized the dangerous anger in his voice.
Anger I knew very well, and tried to stay away from as best I could. For nearly thirteen years I’d been reasonably successful, but there he was. His anger bubbled over, eyes fixed on me and not the woman who had now turned the corner and was away up the street. I stared at him coming towards me knowing he was an inescapable force. Even if I tried to move, his anger would draw me in, closer and closer, like a dark star I’d seen a movie about in the planetarium where they offered heat on a cold winter day, and people threw away half-eaten hot dogs and candy bars when the show was over. Sometimes taking pain was the only way to avoid it.
Then “Hey” came from behind me, and the man pulled up short, blood-crusted nails so near my face I could make out the splits in the tips, see where the cuticle had been scuffed back. The circumference of his fingers matched the fat, red weals on the woman’s neck, and I knew his was the hand had been wrapped around and choking. I tore my gaze away from his hand and glanced down, sagging pants buttoned but not zipped, plaid fabric sticking out of the opened enclosure like a flag telling everyone who cared to look that something had escaped recently.
“Do not touch her.” Words came again from behind me, and I saw the man move, watched his knees bend as he prepared to jump, forwards or back I could not say, would not say, should not say, then the voice said, “You will make me a happy man if you pursue that thought.”
I wasn’t sure if the voice was talking to me, but if this was how it sounded when happy, I surely didn’t want to make it unhappy, so I followed the thought I’d had about the man, and told it so. “I can’t say if he’s going to jump on me or over me, but he is definitely about to move.”
A laugh, the voice closer than before. It was a man’s voice, but not frightening. The sounds were as crisp as if we stood in Lincoln Park at 5:00 a.m. with only the joggers’ footfalls to hear us talking, where you can nearly hear the trees growing at the height of spring when the leaves are unfurling from the branches, and he said, “He is about to move, little one, but his direction should be away, if he wants to remain healthy.”
“Most people want to be healthy, but they are afraid of what it takes to get there, or stay there. Watch at the gym sometime and see which are the ones who look inside the windows longingly, because they want to be back there, or if they stare at their shoes and hurry past, because they fear who they could become.”
I hadn’t said so many words together in a long time, and I thought I should share that, too. “You make me want to talk.”
“This is good, little one, because I like to hear your thoughts. You should not keep them bottled up. Let it out. Let the world hear you.” The man in front of me lowered his hand, and I lifted my eyes to look into his face, impressing his features into my memory. Avoidance required knowledge, after all.
“Bones,” the hulking man said, and that didn’t make any sense because while I was thin, I was far from boney. I’d seen bones and skeletons inside the museums, and I had far more flesh than they did. “Don’t want no trouble, man.”
“Do not make trouble, then, Charlie. Walk away.”
“Bitch took my wallet.”
Something flew past my head, and I flinched to the side so hard I landed against the wall, expelling a huff of air that wasn’t a groan, but a grunt, but not like the ones from before. The big man fumbled with what I saw was a wallet, cursing as it landed at his feet, spilling the contents to the dirty pavement of the alley. I was near the dumpster so decided no time like the present. Putting my shoulder to the metal, I pushed. An inch, another inch, and then a hand appeared in front of me and gripped, pulling the metal box so effortlessly that I stumbled forwards. I didn’t fall because another hand gripped my upper arm, holding me upright. Restraining but not restraining, I was merely suspended between falling and standing until I got my toes back underneath me again. Without looking up, I jerked away, the grip falling to leave a chill behind on my arm, and then I had the bag in my hands. The grocer always put a bag out for me, and that was why I happened to be there at this exact time on a Wednesday. I decided to tell him that, too. “This was all I was here for. I can go now.”
“Where will you go, little one?”
Heavy footfalls moving away, down the alley and towards the street marked the departure of the grunting man.
Boots underneath dark jeans were planted on the pavement right in front of me. I clutched my bag tighter because he had somehow moved closer without me knowing. Not the grunting man, but the quiet man with the musical voice, an accent dancing along the edges of words like the flags fluttering over the hotels on the Magnificent Mile. Flipping noises this way and that, so they came at you from unexpected directions, the sounds beautiful in their randomness.
“I go where I want.”
“But where do you want to go now? I can give you a ride, preciosa.” Rolling vowels and consonants made up the same words other people said, but when he let them free of his mouth, they forced me to shiver.
I saw slim hips topped by a metal belt, entirely made up of links of chain. It had to be heavy, but he bore the burden without complaint. A wide chest with broad shoulders, elbows to the side with his fists planted on those hips.
I stared.
Every exposed inch of skin told a story. I could see the flow of some of them, like the glyphs at the Egyptian exhibit they’d thrown me out of because you weren’t allowed to touch the things. I found my fingers clenching the bag fiercely, trying to deny myself the knowledge of what his skin would feel like with all those stories. Would it read like braille to my fingertips, a learned language of experiences he would be willing to share with me? Would it be grooved and stroked with music like a record, where only the finest of needles could decipher the surface? I found myself leaning towards him, as if the whorls of blackness were drawing me closer, whispering their secrets only for my ears.
My gaze lifted involuntarily, and I looked at his face. Something I’d trained myself not to do, something most people found uncomfortable, an action that could provoke the evil that lived inside so many of us.
That was when I knew him, knew why his name was Bones, knew everything I would ever need to know about him. All the things he kept locked inside a room hidden in his head and didn’t let anyone see. Everything I needed to know was plain on his face, covered in ink to distract and dissuade people from looking too closely. Words and symbols and lines and pictures and color—and all of it so people wouldn’t see him.
“I see you.” I told him this straight out, not wanting any lies between us. “I see you, and I know you.”
“What
do you think you know, little one?” One corner of his mouth lifted into an easy grin, and I saw how the lines rearranged to tell me this wasn’t comfortable for him, the idea of someone seeing him behind his disguise.
“I won’t tell anyone.” That promise was something I would keep until the day I died. He would never know how soul-deep it ran. “I promise.” That too, I gave him straight out.
The grin fell away, and I saw him again. Bones. He was so beautiful it tore my heart in two, and I felt the fluttering clasp of it dancing through my chest, edges mending back into something different, a more whole heart than I’d ever known. I had no idea how long we stood there, staring at each other, but it was about an eon too short a span of time. His expression softened, and how such a softness could live on a man who needed to be hard astounded me. I reveled it was turned my way, loved how it felt to bask in sweet softness, knowing few had ever been granted that place. “I need to go.”
“I know.”
He narrowed one eye, tilting his head ever so slightly. “You do?”
“I do.” My reassurance was quick and firm. I’d heard the motorcycles in the distance, and I knew from the symbols on his vest that he was out of place. I urged him with words and a nod, wanting him to be safe, but not knowing why. “You need to go.”
The rumble transferred up my feet and into my legs, and I knew he felt it when he grimaced, and this expression screamed discomfort to me. “I fear I have left it too late.”
I smiled, because I knew a secret about that alley he didn’t know, and the thought of teaching this man something pleased me. Quoting one of my favorite movies, seen a dozen times one weekend at the dollar theater, I told him, “Come with me if you want to live.” Holding out my hand, I waited as a look of surprise and then pleasure danced across his features, fear washing it away far too quickly when the rumbles started to die off, signaling the bike engines were being unengaged and then stopped. His painted hand lifted, fit itself to mine, palm to palm, and I pulled him deeper into the alley, towards the space where it turned back on itself into a tiny courtyard. A courtyard where a fire escape ladder was drilled and mounted and secured to the wall. Leading to the roof, only two stories up, easily scaled by me, even more easily for him.
I felt a hundred feet tall when he trusted me, felt rewarded by a thousand kings when he grinned his silent thanks at me, and then felt cherished beyond a million sunrises when he pushed me up the ladder ahead of him, marking my safety with his own body. Once on the rooftop, he paused, staring down at me. “I see you, too, little one.” With such a gracious gift, he left, running swiftly across the rooftop and away.
My beauty
Bones rolled the bike to a slow stop, scanning the benches in the park. It was the third one he’d been to in the past hour, and with each approach, he had felt his pulse speed in anticipation. There, he thought, satisfaction and relief sweeping through him. She sat on a bench, head cocked to one side, listening to a boy tell her a story. Arms pumping, the boy seemed to be miming every aspect of the tale, from running while looking frantically over his shoulder, to leaping across an obstacle, finally collapsing back onto the bench with arms lifted in victory. The woman’s own arms raised in shared jubilation, and Bones heard her laughter ringing through the air.
He had first met her months ago. A chance meeting which intrigued him so much, he felt compelled to seek her out again and again. That first time had been in a section of town belonging to neither Skeptics, nor Rebels, and his very presence there carried a certain danger if discovered. Alert to any oddness, the bolting exit of a woman from an alley with a man’s wallet in her fist had caught Bones’ attention.
One moment later she continued on her way sans wallet, and he’d walked into the alley to see what was transpiring—just in time to see a man lifting his hand to strike the whore in front of him. Bones thought surely the skinny woman must be a whore like the one who’d just escaped, finding out moments later he had been wrong. Reading wrong meaning into circumstances, he had judged as surely as every person on the street judged him. The knowledge had stung.
Defending her regardless, that defense had granted him far more than anticipated. Such had been his introduction to his nameless friend. Standing with a bag of spoiled fruit clutched to her chest, she had squeezed so tightly in her fright the peaches had left pink stains on her shirt. Bright eyes looking out from underneath a wild mass of hair, she had gifted him with a wide smile when she stretched out her hand, quoting a ridiculous movie. With her actions and words, she’d shown him she had mastered not only her environment, but also was a master at observation. She’d taken his measure in a glance, and not found him wanting. Something for which he was eternally grateful, because she somehow made his life richer.
Destitute, homeless, she was filled with a giving nature the likes of which he had never seen. He had watched one day as she took a loaf of bread given to her by a shopkeeper and divided it down so her portion was the least. Half given to a woman with a child, half of what remained to a legless veteran on the street corner, half of what remained to a dog that whined and twined around her legs, making her laugh, and half of the last piece went to the clutch of pigeons that landed at her feet the moment she took a seat on a bench, happy to stuff a single bite into her mouth, laughing again as the birds strutted and preened at the attention.
The boy stood, and she tilted her head up to look at him, then they simultaneously twisted their necks to look at a red-faced woman shouting, standing on the path. Bones watched as the boy shrugged, then ducked his chin to his neck at another shout. Embarrassed, it seemed. Seated, she shooed him away, releasing him from the niceties of society and the boy ran backwards a few feet, waving madly until both of her hands rose above her head, pivoting in a wild wave at the ends of her arms.
My beauty, Bones thought, checking traffic before he pulled back out, slowly increasing his speed, riding away from her and no longer caring when she had become his. She simply was.
I wanted to be saved
Ester
It wouldn’t be until the fifth time I saw him that I told him my name, which took nearly a year. For someone who liked to keep his fingers on the pulse of things, he seemed reticent to learn me. Much later I found out it wasn’t what I had thought, which was that I was rather less interesting than anything else he had to learn, but because I was more. If that made sense, and I didn’t think it did, but what did I know? I was just me.
Time two had been in a tiny park behind a movie theater. I didn’t expect to see him, hadn’t yet conceived of a plan to find him. I had the desire to, but lacked the ability. Not that I couldn’t find him if I wanted; that was preposterous. I could have recited the edges of his territory from memory based on the words and letters and symbol on his black vest. Chicago was strictly divided, and those divisions were defined by who owned which section of our city. In some cases, the city was owned by a family, and there were suits and cars, and trucks backed up to docks and men watching with guns hidden behind boards and barrels and lapels of those suits.
In some cases those divisions were more fluid, with lines which shifted nearly daily as they flowed back and forth between anger-driven surges of energy and effort, and a belief of this or that mattering more than that or this, but in the end, didn’t it all matter? Didn’t we all matter? But in their self-appointed positions of wisdom, they only saw the one-sided oppression and suppression, and repression and depression. Everything gave them freedom to feel validated because what they worked for and towards, any idiot could see the rightness of what they were fighting to change or defend or prevent or encourage. Their talking and conversations were bursts of static on a radio dial, and as they swung back and forth between the ends of reception, their message became more focused and loud, or weaker and scattered until nothing was left.
Parts of the city were separated by iconic divisions drawn by streets or train tracks, a river or bridge, and if you were from this side, you couldn’t go to the other side withou
t incurring the wrath of whoever was trying to keep you out, trying and wanting and needing to get over there could tear you apart. Iconic and ironic and because the very things that walled you in were what you fought so hard to say didn’t matter, but they did matter because they’d been there forever and the weight of history made the pendulum hard to turn. So you fought and you railed, and you rallied and raised awareness for this cause or that cause, but the cause was inherent in the division which was immovable by nature. Laid in place so long ago people overlook the reasons.
Then there were the parts carved out by effort and strength, bound to the will of men who knew what they wanted and would fight and die to keep it, because it was simply who they were. Bones was one of those kinds of men, and the men he was friends with all felt the same. So, I knew where I could most easily find him, but I also knew those places would be where he was least himself. Where he was guarded, and painted onto the canvas he’d assigned himself. This meant I didn’t want to go looking for him because I wouldn’t find him, I would find Bones. And while that was his name, it wasn’t who he was.
Who he was, was the man who had climbed the ladder behind me without making a single comment that would make me uncomfortable even if I were bare underneath my skirt. It wasn’t something I thought about until much, much later, or I would have thanked him for not trying to reach, or touch, or penetrate even with his words, because it mattered a lot to me once I remembered.
Who he was, was the man who had smiled so freely at me before taking the escape offered. While I knew he was too powerful to have died at their hands, he would have hurt if those other men, who felt their territory had been dishonored, had found him. He had intruded into something precious according to them, sneaking in and the breach would never be healed without blood to pay for the desecration.
Defiled was a state of being for them. A constant they railed against. Not something which poured down your throat as those grunts came from above you and blood beaded on the back of your head. Hair torn away at the follicles in a swath but it grew back, thank God, it always grew back, covering the memories. The pain on your scalp faded, but you never forgot that feeling, of being shamed for all your life. Sullied, and corrupted.
Bones (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 10) Page 3
