Dating : Seven-twenty

‘T was in the darkest depths of Mordor

I met a girl so fair

But Gollum, and the evil one

Crept up and slipped away with her

Led Zeppelin

I

Little hammers chomp pieces off his flesh. Soon, there are thousands and, suddenly, the sound of crushing metal. He starts to feel terribly cold. This startles him awake.

He opens his eyes. Little hammers turn into icy spheres and bounce with a light plop, dancing on rough black cracks. Just hail, nothing more. He pushes himself up, his eyes on the tiny pellets littering the ground below. He wonders how long he’s been drooling on the pavement. His ears ring and everything around is a myopic slush.

Someone’s behind him.

He swings to turn around and loses his balance, bracing himself on something metal. It’s a drain pipe, one of those angular commercial ones with leader heads on top and metal brackets running down the side of the building.

“Hey. Who’s there?” he growls.

No response.

He stumbles.

“Fuck. My head hurts like hell,” he mutters.

He feels a cool, soft touch on his right hand and looks at it. New fingers grip his own mangled ones. They are small, with short smooth nails that end in peach crescents.

Shit.

Another one of those easy pickings, motherly types who feed you pie and keep you warm? Some kid, fishing for the rough-and-tumble? He is exhausted.

He steps away from the cool smoothness of that hand, trips and meets the damned pavement again, scraping his elbow. The small fingers wrap around his shoulders, pull him up, grunting unevenly, and prop his back against the drain pipe. He keeps his lids closed and lets the hail devour his face.

II

The scent of burned coffee hugs him gently, then begins to suffocate. He opens his eyes, gasping. It’s dark. He struggles to sit, swinging his legs off the ledge, into unknown darkness. Thump. The soles of his feet find a smooth, cold surface below. He heaves a grunt.

There’s a narrow puddle of light ahead.

He stands and takes a step with his arms outstretched. He stops, sensing the awkward way his body feels, creeping through the dark, stuffy air nuzzling at every pore. The puddle of light explodes and then collapses into a single vertical shard. A small pink plastic bag flies through it and lands on the floor in front of him: “Thank you for shopping with us!”

He is now quite aware that he is missing a few things. His clothes, for one. He hooks the plastic bag through one of the loops, pulls it up, and peers inside. Socks. Boxers. T-shirt. Sweatpants. Once, back in high school, he had an epiphany: he’d never wear sweats. It was Tuesday afternoon and he landed under the bleachers with an exceptional combination piece: short skirt and long lashes. Unbeknownst to him, she had an unruly pet of a sweat-suit from the school’s wrestling team. That evening, his father laughed and proclaimed his face a cubist masterpiece. Wednesday morning, he watched a fly meticulously measure ceiling panels, as latex fingers and cold metal re-sculpted his broken incisors with something that smelled like stale glue. He was dutifully suspended from school for a week and grew a particular disdain for athletic attire and flies.

“Stay naked in a closet or wear sweatpants? How are these my fucking options?”

He dumps the contents of the bag on the floor in front of him. They flop through the air and land in a soft pile. He palms through the contents and quickly pulls on the socks, the boxers, and the t-shirt. They are rough against his skin and smell like a madman’s pickle jar parody. He considers the sweatpants still on the floor for a moment, steps over them and approaches the light ahead. He reaches through, grabs at the door’s edge and pulls. A dollop of daylight drops on him like he’s a monstrous piece of jello. He steadies himself and squints. It’s too damned bright out there. He widens his eyes toward a stain to the left. It moves in closer and takes human form: shaggy brown hair, oversized blue cable sweater, orange socks.

“Hey, kid. Where’s my stuff?”

Cable sweater points decisively to his right. There’s a blood-stained, mangled heap on the floor there he recognizes as his. He drops next to it, rummages through the pile and locates his other missing essentials: wallet, switchblade, a green pack of Kools.

“Got a light, kid?” He straightens, tapping a cigarette out of the pack, his hands in cuts, shaking.

Kid shrugs.

“How about a kitchen?” he suggests, suddenly mesmerized by the surprising cleanliness of his hands.

Kid turns and waives for him to follow.

They walk past a black futon and turn sharply to the left. He walks over to the stove and turns on one of the burners. It clicks, releasing blue teeth in a wide-mouthed grin. He lights the cigarette in his hand and takes a long drag. Then, flips off the burner.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Lex.”

“I’m Art. You pick up lots of old men out dumpster diving, Lex?”

Lex shrugs and starts nibbling at the left sleeve.

Art smokes, flings the butt into the sink. It hisses.

“Got any food besides your sweater there?”

Lex shrugs again, points left at the fridge, turns and leaves.

Fridge contents disappoint: tofu, Swiss chard, a pack of corn tortillas, orange juice. Who lives on tofu and chard? Art swallows the entire pack of tortillas and jugs down orange juice in huge gulps.

“Hey, Lex.”

No response.

Where the fuck did the kid go?

He considers this question. Maybe the kid’s just a mirage. You know, the kind you get when you’ve hit your head too hard too many times? Maybe he’s gone all schitzo? That’s a comforting thought. He’d never be alone if he’s really gone insane. About time, too.

No fucking way.

“Kid, where the fuck are you?”

He walks out of the kitchen, back toward the black futon. Lex is the blue lump on its edge, facing a tall windowpane, still nibbling the sleeve. Outside, a crow and a squirrel fight for prime utility pole real estate — the distribution transformer. The crow swoops up and down. The squirrel shakes its tail in rhythm.

Fucking Alamo out there.

“Kid.”

Lex turns and shoots two bright, questioning hazels with gold flakes up at him from below the brown shag.

“Marshals don’t dumpster dive.”

“Play detective in your spare time, do you?”

“You drank all my gin and used up all of my hot water allotment for the week.” Lex turns back to the window. Art remembers neither the gin nor the hot water, but begins to understand the hazy cleanliness. The standoff outside heats up. The crow boldly flaps its wings in clumsy applause, cawing, its tongue sharp and black against the gray sky. The squirrel squirms left and right, baring its small jagged teeth, its tail shaking. After a few more swoops and flaps, the squirrel turns and scatters down the pole. The crow lands on the transformer box, closes its beady eyes and caws in triumph.

“Benny’s turn at the throne.”

There’s a knock.

“Find some pants.”

Lex pushes past him silently. Art stumbles back toward his mangled bloody pile of junk just beyond the futon. Ah, there’s his pair of jeans, stained with blood and mud. They could use a wash. He pulls them on anyway. Button, zip.

On firm ground now.

He listens.

“I’ve seen the hot water meter.”

“Mhm.”

He turns to watch Lex stand in the doorway, a motionless blue blob.

“You have unregistered tenants?”

“No.”

“You’re over your hot water allotment.”

“Yes.”

“That’s twenty bucks.”

“Yes.”

There’s angry whispering, then the door bangs shut. Lex slumps down onto the floor.

“Lex, why am I here?”

“I pick up old men out dumpster diving. It’s a fetish.” Lex stares at him from across the room. “You should leave,” she concludes.

“Mhm,” he says and looks over his shoulder, at the window. Outside, the utility pole is empty — Benny’s abdicated his throne.

III

Art ponders the sidewalk as he walks. Cigarette butts and pieces of chewed up plastic fill the cracks in the pavement below. He diligently steps over them. Once, in a childhood dream, he stepped on a crack just like this and fell. He saw everything he knew melt into black ink and wash away. He was a petrified little boy, standing alone in white space, calling his mother. The sidewalk ends — no pedestrian crossing ahead. He turns around and heads back, stepping over familiar cracks.

“How long will you be mapping the pavement, Magellan?”

Art looks up.

“Lex. Why are you here?”

“I am the Queen of Hell and I choose you as mate.”

“What?”

“You owe me a bottle of gin and twenty bucks for the hot water, Art.”

“Tell you what, kid.” Art reaches into his back pocket and finds nothing. He stares down at his shoes, still covered in blood and mud, as if they hold all the answers. They stare back.

“Tell you what, Art.” Lex taps his wallet on his chest, small fingers with short nails gripping the worn brown leather. “My gin’s been wasted on that wasteland of yours. That kind of loss is irreconcilable.”

Art, bewildered, grabs and holds the wallet to his chest, his fingers wide. He looks like a schoolboy pledging his allegiance to the American flag in the classroom corner. Lex nibbles on the left sleeve, small fingers lost in the cable knit chasm.

“Thanks, kid.”

Lex shrugs, turns, and walks away. He watches her blend into the street and disappear.

IV

The scent of burned coffee envelops and hugs him gently. Diner door opens and the bell clangs like a tired tin can. Art ignores the cliché. He sits in the corner booth, stirring long-dissolved sugar in his cup. The spoon cling-clings against the white ceramic. The black liquid swirls into a funnel. He is back with Lex, watching Benny reclaim his throne. The haziness of that gray morning and the cuts on his hands are gone. He drops the spoon, pulls out a green pack of Kools and taps out a cigarette. He rolls it dreamily back and forth between his right thumb and index finger.

Something flashes in front of him and slams against the table. The coffee jumps in his cup like it’s part of the salmon run: flip-flop. Small fingers hold a smooth chrome rectangle, an unmistakable Zippo.

“Fuck, kid.”

“As if. Looks like you could use a light again.”

“Not a minute too soon. Are you a professional stalker or is this a newly acquired hobby?”

“I play detective in my spare time, remember?”

“Mhm.”

Art lights his cigarette. Lex draws little tick marks with the left index finger on the table. Art smokes. The diner radio babbles, filling the silence in their booth: ramble on, it suggests. Art grabs the lighter, drops his cigarette butt into the coffee, and pulls a crumpled five dollar bill onto the table.

“Let’s take a walk, Lex.”

Lex stands and leads him into the cold darkness. As they leave the diner, the door bell clangs at them in disdain. The wind outside slaps Art across the face and he stops to catch his breath. He looks at the small flapping sack next to him and wonders how long Lex can stand like this in the wind before fluttering away. When he was seven, the neighborhood girls had a box. It was a plain old brown shoe box. It made the rounds on the playground under the veil of deep reverence and intense secrecy. He watched the box pass from one girl to the next day after day. Extensive observation did not satisfy his curiosity. After a while, it was time to act. It was early spring, the sand in the sandbox was damp and cold; the wind rolled across it, picking up loose grains. Operation Desert Storm. He heard that phrase on TV and thought it appropriate. He crept across the sand toward the mysterious shoe box. Treasures. Secrets. There it was. He yanked the lid and the wind tore through the contents. Paper dolls, paper dresses, paper hats, paper shoes, paper purses danced a mad waltz around him. Shrill, faceless punches followed.

They walk.

“How’s Benny?”

Lex shrugs, stops abruptly, and leans on a lamppost, still flapping in the wind.

“I have dreams, Art.”

“World domination? Not worth it, kid.”

“When I was little, I found a cat under my parents’ porch, named her Basil. She was small and black with glassy blue eyes. She liked to sit in the sun and murmur at birds. My mother chased her away, but she came back and I secretly fed her scraps. One night, I had a dream that she was lost. The next day, Todd, the boy from two houses down the street, decried Basil a witch and had her hung and quartered. He strung her up by the neck from the playground swing and then hacked at Basil’s little body with an ax he found in his father’s tool shed. All the kids watched, the whole street. No one said anything, just watched the blood seep into the sandbox and Todd wipe his face with his sleeve. Later, I picked up Basil’s pieces and buried her in the corner of that playground…My dreams are the kind where you bid sayonara to life among the collective, as in bang and no more Art.”

“I am flattered.”

The wind is gone now and Lex is no longer in danger of becoming a flying paper doll.

“How old are you, kid?”

“I am of the emancipated age.”

“Is that the kind of age that drinks gin and sees visions of my demise?”

“That lighter’s your birthday present,” Lex says pointing at his hand. Art’s been clutching that chrome rectangle since they left the diner. “I checked your wallet that time thoroughly, in case you were trouble.”

“Smooth operator,” Art pulls out his pack of Kools, lights one and smokes. Lex rocks back and forth at the lamppost.

“What’s the plan now? Going to save my ass? You know that kind of shit’s illegal. Statute seven-twenty: unsolicited precognitive services used to abate due processes of time and circumstance are punishable by incarceration. They don’t do tofu and chard in jail, kid.”

“Fuck you, Marshal.” Lex pushes away from the lamppost and folds arms over her head, like there’s an air raid and shells drop all around them.

“Yeah, fuck me, indeed. I’m retired.”

Lex peeks out of her impromptu bunker, then lowers her arms, “Marshals don’t retire.”

“No, they don’t. Marshals are enforcers, people like your friend Todd, calling witch hunts and breaking civilians for violating seven-twenty. They don’t retire, they don’t quit. They are discharged at their utility expiration, put down like rabid dogs. When a Marshal does not abide by established protocols for utility expiration, it’s time for immediate discharge. When you found me, rolling on the pavement, all beat up — that was me quitting the meat grinder before established utility expiration. My immediate discharge turned into an unplanned HR staffing shortage.”

“Why did you quit?”

“Needed a change. Some people — they start buying shit: cars, whores, golf club memberships. Others paint and write bad novels. Me? I quit my job, kill half the precinct, and hook up with an emancipated seven-twenty violation.”

“You’re a perverted idiot, Art. Marshals are supposed to be the best at what they do, at catching anomalies. If you’re an anomaly, slated for discharge, how are you still here?”

“I am what the suits call a theoretical process gap, a special circumstance. Could be they haven’t figured out what to do with that, with me — or they just don’t give a damn. The system works only until someone breaks it.”

They walk again. Headlights from passing cars spotlight them, casting long shadows. Sidewalk ends — no pedestrian access ahead. They stop.

“Now what?” Lex cowers away from the yellow dead end sign.

Art shrugs.

“Let’s go,” Lex grabs him firmly by his left hand and pulls. They go.

V

Lex pushes him into her apartment and the door locks somewhere behind. It’s dark and smells familiar, like burned coffee. There’s a muffled swoosh and a small cold circle presses against the nape of his neck.

Shit.

Click, bang. He drops, shapeless.

“Seven-twenty, Art. You’re an anomaly. I came too damned close to violating that fucking statute.”

END