Stepping back and stretching, Daniel almost bumped into a young man lounging against the roof railing.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you standing there.”
“It’s OK.” The man smiled and offered his hand. “That’s some impressive stuff you got. I’m Andy, by the way.”
“Was better before it got cut up, but thanks. Daniel O’Malley. Hi.” The handshake was strong and warm, matching an easy smile of someone not yet ground down by life, and Daniel liked him instantly. On closer inspection, Andy was not much older than he, maybe sixteen at most.
“Cut up? Oh … Glad you could save it, then.”
Daniel nodded. He did not feel like going into the whole explanation with a stranger, no matter how likable. He ran his hand over the painting, still feeling the slight wetness of glue under his fingers, indicating that he could not yet safely pick it up and leave. Andy was still there, watching, as if waiting for something. The silence was getting awkward, and Daniel was in no mood for games.
“Can I help you with something? Or you just want to know what a white kid is doing in this building?”
Andy blinked, visibly embarrassed. “Uh … Sorry. “
“No problem,” Daniel nodded, satisfied that his guess was correct. “I live here. We’re Holdouts. You got any snarky remarks, now’s the time. Just keep in mind, I had a very long day.”
Nice going, genius. You want to get beat up again?
Fortunately, Andy seemed unperturbed. “I figured it would be something like that. Your parents must be hardcore, eh?”
“Not anymore,” Daniel shrugged. “Troopers dragging you out of your home in the middle of the night does wonders for the attitude.”
So does being treated like an outcast by most of your neighbors.
He kept the last thought to himself. Unlike his generation, adults were still able to choose their friends, or, conversely, to shun those marked as troublemakers. One of the ways the government punished the Holdouts was to place them inside communities where they would stand out and have problems finding support. Sometimes such decisions were based on skin color, sometimes on more subtle factors, but the intent usually worked. Trust was in short supply in Cities, and residents were unwilling to reach out to those different from them in any manner. It was not their fault. In any case, Andy seemed friendly enough, and Daniel felt guilty for snapping.
“Sorry. Like I said, a long day.”
“Mm. I can tell. You come up here a lot? I’ve never seen you before.”
“When I can,” Daniel sighed. “Less so lately. I got a lung condition, kind of knocks me out. It’s the air in these buildings, but the doctors can’t say it. When I do come up, it’s usually at night, when it’s all dark and quiet and I can pretend it’s a different place. A better place, you know?”
He immediately felt stupid for sharing his childish fantasies, but Andy had not laughed.
“A better place ... Tell you what, Daniel. You want to see something, not pretend? Come up here next Wednesday, about four, and be sure to bring your painting.”
“What do …”
Daniel never finished the question. Andy had already disappeared, as quickly and silently as he came. The service door closed with a soft click, and the roof was empty again, with only the painting to keep him company.
Days crawled by. Daniel’s mind kept drifting back to his mysterious neighbor, and the promise of whatever would happen next Wednesday. He was somewhat disturbed when Colin, a quiet boy in his class who usually stayed out of trouble, flatly refused the teacher’s order to modify his sketch. The punishment must have been severe because Daniel noticed him limping the next day and felt responsible for setting a bad example. Other than that, Daniel stayed under the radar and waited for Wednesday, using up the patience he did not have. He wondered if children used to wait with the same excitement for Christmas, back when it meant gifts and joy rather than secret prayer meetings by those still clinging to the remnants of religion, but he had no way of truly knowing.
Daniel stood next to the roof railing, taking in the dreary City landscape below. In daylight, from this high up, people really did look like insignificant ants ready to be crushed, making his art teacher’s favorite quote so much more credible. He turned away, unwilling to let the view ruin his high spirits, and noticed Andy standing behind him.
“Nice view, isn’t it? All these people trying to make the best with what they’ve got, even in this hellhole of a place. Kind of inspiring, eh?”
“Mm,” Daniel shrugged, reluctant to admit having exactly opposite thoughts only seconds ago. “Anyway, what’s with the new look?”
Andy’s hair was neatly parted and held in place by gel—a dramatic change from the loose Afro style of last week—and he wore a white polo instead of a t-shirt.
“Ah, that’s a bit of a tradition,” Andy smiled. “Linda likes us clean cut.”
“Well, thanks for telling me,” Daniel pointed to his worn-out shirt and jeans. He tried not to even think about his hair.
“Hey, if you were any more clean cut, you’d look like an undercover Trooper. Seriously, though, who did that to your hair and why aren’t they in jail?”
Daniel ran his hand over the top of his head, feeling the uneven patches under his fingers. His scalp had finally healed, but the hair took time to grow back.
“Friends,” he answered curtly. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh. Sorry, man. I didn’t mean … “
“Don’t worry about it. Not important. Let’s just get going, OK?”
“Yeah. You got your painting?”
“Right here.” Daniel slung a large canvas bag over his shoulder and followed Andy down the stairs.
It was a long walk, first through some dangerous-looking alleys, and then over a dilapidated pedestrian bridge towards the abandoned, unpaved area that was a no-man’s land between the edge of the City and the off-limits woods of the Nature Preserve. Daniel kept glancing over his shoulder for any potential muggers or wild animals. Andy occasionally shot him an amused look, but made no comment.
There were things Daniel was dying to know, the secret to Andy’s confidence being the most important, but he did not want to come off as too prying. People in the Cities did not willingly part with personal information, and besides, he was not too willing to share all the details of his own life, either. And so they spent the time talking trivialities, which perhaps were not so trivial. Their tastes in music turned out to be somewhat similar, tending towards the energy and optimism of the 10’s and 20’s rock. Daniel was sorely lacking in his knowledge of movies, while Andy had missed out on the paper book experience. They took a semi-joking vow to remedy each other’s deficiencies at the earliest opportunity.
“I wonder …” Daniel trailed off, hesitating.
“What?” Andy prodded. “Something bothering you, now’s the time to tell.”
“No, nothing like that. Was just thinking, the whole system they got in the school, with Friends being assigned to enforce the rules and not just be, you know, actual friends … It just might be so people don’t talk like this, don’t learn from each other, don’t get inspired to make anything new …”
Hearing no response, Daniel became nervous. Questioning the Rules was, in theory, a reportable offense. Was his new friend scared? Upset? Calculating the potential benefits of turning him in? He shook his head, disgusted. Living in the City was getting to him, eating away at his trust without him even realizing it.
“Funny,” Andy finally answered. “We were just talking about it in the Room, last week. I think … you’d fit right in.”
“Uh. You say that like it’s not a good thing. What is the Room, anyway?”
“You’ll see. As to it being a good thing, I don’t know. There might be trouble ahead, but opportunities too. You’ll have to decide, when the time comes.”
“Thanks, that totally explains everything.”
Andy only shrugged, and they walked the rest of the way
in silence.
The Room, he found, was simply the first floor of an abandoned convenience store. The owner must have left in a hurry because the faded sign still hung above the door with a false promise of Snacks’N’Stuff, and the inside had not been fully emptied. Stacks of broken chairs and half-rotted shelves had been pushed to one side, and about a dozen young people sat in a loose circle in the cleared area.
A stocky woman in her mid-twenties stood up to greet them.
“Hi, guys! We were just about to start. I’m Linda. And you must be Daniel? Welcome to the madhouse, kid. Glad to have you.”
Shaking the woman’s hand, Daniel noticed the smell coming off her body—not sweat, but something chemical and vaguely unpleasant.
“Sorry about the odor. Paul and I work with garbage.”
She pointed at a large man in a flannel shirt who looked more like a lumberjack from old videos than any kind of artist. Daniel must have looked stupefied because he heard a few of the others in the group chuckle at his expression.
“Now, guys, don’t scare the newbie,” Andy had finally decided to come to his rescue. “These two make sculptures from recyclables. And if they don’t watch themselves, they might actually get critical success.”
Fake gasps of horror emanated from the group members, followed by laughter. People moved around to make space, and Daniel took his place next to Andy in the circle.
“Alright, time to get going,” Paul announced, looking around the room. “Who wants to start?”
“Might as well,” Andy replied after a few seconds of silence. He reached into his backpack, pulled out a sketchpad and passed it to a slim Asian woman seated to his right. “First three pages is my new stuff for the week.”
“Where are these from? The people look … I don’t know, different somehow.”
“Walked over to the rail station. Figured I’d get more of a sense of motion there. I did kind of make them different on purpose. What do you guys think?”
“Don’t look like anyone I’ve seen at the station,” said a dark-skinned boy, barely in his teens, with a guitar laid across his lap. “But it’s cool.”
The pad made its way around the room, finally landing in Daniel’s hands.
“These people,” he said slowly, shaking his head in wonder, “they’re not real. Or rather, it’s real people, but not how they are. How they could be … should be … Sorry, I’m not explaining it right. Is that what you tried for?”
“Tried? Not sure about that. More like, when I look at people, that’s what I see. Normally I change the final sketch to make it more realistic, but this time I just left it, the first impression.”
“That explains why they don’t look like City people,” the boy with a guitar snorted. “What they could be … it ain’t no more. But that’s why I like you, Andy. Always looking at the bright side.”
The room went silent as Andy put away the pad, and then it was another member’s turn to share.
“And now, for the best part,” Linda announced. “Today, we have a new member. Daniel, do you have anything for us?”
Having seen other presentations, Daniel felt thoroughly intimidated, but it was too late to back out. He got up, took the painting from the bag and frowned at the little air bubbles and frayed edges where the glue did not work quite right. There was no fixing it now.
He put it up on the makeshift display—a few pieces of broken wood cobbled together to form a stand—and stepped aside.
“So, uh … here,” Daniel mumbled, more nervous now than he had ever been at school. What if he did not measure up? Would they reject him? Would Andy regret bringing him in?
Before he got lost in his fears, the boy who had earlier commented on Andy’s sketches let out a long whistle.
“That’s … you got something there. That little sprout, I can feel how much it wants to live. More than some people, that’s for sure.” As the boy waved his hand at the painting, Daniel noticed a jagged scar across his wrist and immediately looked away, feeling as if he had intruded on a private secret.
He had spent years living in cramped conditions, feeling sick most of the time, mistreated at school, and yet … taking his life had never crossed his mind. How much more had this boy, younger than himself, already endured to almost give up on this world? What kind of society would do that?
“What an unusual presentation,” exclaimed a tall blond woman, interrupting his increasingly darker thoughts. “Did you paint it one piece at a time and put it together?”
“Something like that,” Daniel smiled. There was no reason to tell the story of his public humiliation. It no longer mattered. His fellow artists appreciated the painting, mangled as it looked to his eyes, and he savored the moment.
“You did good back there,” Andy said as they walked the abandoned path back to the City limits. “That crowd’s not easily impressed.”
“Mm.” Daniel felt his initial euphoria dissipate. There was too much to digest, and still too many questions. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“That kid with a guitar. Why did he try to kill himself? ”
“Uh … Just keep it between us, OK?”
“Of course.”
“He’s a musician. Writes songs, but the wrong kind. Rock, on the angry side, like from before the Rules.”
“So?”
“So he played in his apartment, had a couple of friends over. Just kids having a good time, right?”
Daniel nodded. He saw where the story was going and felt sick.
“Let me guess. The neighbors complained.”
“That’s probably what happened. All he knew, first thing the next morning, Troopers show at the door, drag everyone out of bed. Then …” Andy’s voice broke with anger and he stopped walking. “They gave him a hammer. Made him break his own guitar to pieces, right in his room.”
“And then he tried to kill himself,” Daniel whispered.
“Yep. Lucky for him, the family used up the hot water allotment for the month. So when he cut his wrists in the tub, the bleeding was too slow in cold water. His parents found him in time.”
“He still playing?”
“Not at his place,” Andy shook his head in disgust. “Can’t, with those bastard neighbors still there. But a few of us scraped some money together and got him a new guitar. Linda gave him a key to The Room. He comes out there on his own to practice, to write new stuff. When he has a new piece completed, he shares. Tina, the blonde who read her poem today, sometimes puts lyrics to it and we get to hear some real awesome songs.”
Daniel walked in silence for some time before bringing up the obvious question.
“So, what are you guys trying to do? Seeing everyone’s work … Look, it was fun. I had a great time. But the art, the music, the poetry—it all needs to be shared with the world, or it’s wasted. And in this place,” he waved his arm at the desolate landscape, “how do we make it happen?”
“Honestly? Don’t know. I don’t think we have a plan. What we do know is, we keep going. Maybe this crappy system falls apart soon enough and we won’t have to hide anymore. Maybe we find a couple of computer geeks to put it online without getting traced. If not …”Andy shrugged, “At least we’re doing something real, something we love. How many people get to say that nowadays?”
Daniel thought of his parents, the neighbors in the building, even the teachers and counselors—and shuddered at the thought of giving in to the unrelenting drudgery of City life.
“Not many,” he agreed. “Not many at all.”
“Well, then. See my point?”
“Sort of,” Daniel sighed. “Guess I’ve been frustrated lately. The school stinks, big time. And that’s another thing. Don’t you have Friends in your class, giving you trouble?”
“Nope,” Andy said flatly. “We have an understanding.”
“An under—” Daniel never finished the question. They had entered the City boundaries, and he saw his building a couple of blocks away.
> The tightness in his chest came so suddenly, it was as if a switch had flipped inside his body. He stopped, wheezing, his knees buckling under him. Andy’s hand was on his arm, trying to keep him steady, but it was not enough. He reached into his pocket and grabbed the inhaler just as his vision started going dark around the edges.
“Sorry,” Daniel gasped, once he was able to speak again. “Told you … Lung condition … from air … in the buildings.”
“We’re outside,” Andy pointed out. “Sure you’re OK?”
“Yeah. Better now. Let’s go.”
For the first time, Daniel wondered if the doctors claiming his sickness was mostly psychological might have been right. Admitting such a thing would only bring on more counseling, and possibly less access to his medicine, so mentioning this incident to an adult was out of the question. He filed the discovery away as yet another reason to someday escape from the City and everything it represented.
He wanted to follow up on the conversation interrupted by the attack, but could not recall what it was. Something important that he needed to figure out, and not just for his own sake.
“OK, then, I’ll see you next week, same time and place,” Andy said, his face still scrunched in concern.
“Sure,” Daniel nodded. “Actually, if you want to meet up on the roof some time before, I come up most nights. I’d like to talk some more.”
“Of course. You take care now, feel better.”
He watched Andy disappear down the hallway leading to the nicer section of the building, the one with working elevators and clean hallways. Andy’s family were not Pioneers, but they had complied in time and were allowed better living conditions. Any other day, especially so soon after an attack, Daniel would hate walking up ten flights of crumbling stairs to his family’s micro-apartment, but he did not mind it now. It gave him time to think, to plan, and maybe, just maybe, even to dream.
Freedom's Light: Short Stories Page 13
