RATHER THAN ROANOKE

2023

He stood in the middle of the freeway. 

The blood on his hands dripped, creating Rorschach blooms on the expanding circles of glass twisted through metal around his feet. The noise had diminished to a narrow focal point– a singular car horn honked a delayed metronome of danger as its echoes liquified underneath the overpass. A child cried in the arms of a woman; a red halo ran around her face. She walked across the fast lane, slow as her boots cracked the glass underfoot. 

The man looked up at the bridge, where the silhouette had stood minutes ago. Their back had faced the sun, and the rifle in their hands had glowed against the warmth of the sunset. The figure was gone. 

The painted glass reflected the distorted images of the man as he sat down in the middle of the freeway on a piece of a car door. There was nowhere else to go.

The Arcade lights cast hallucinatory colors and flashes below onto the scuffed gray asphalt. The rain remained in black puddles, bottomless cosmic mimosas to a mirrored reality.

"Mac, wait,"

The Arcade's windows rattled, finger-painted with dustless tracks of smiley faces, penises, and high school tag graffiti. The arcade doorbell jingled for the second time as a boy followed behind a girl.

The waist-length black plaits of the girl whipped in an arc as she turned on her heel back to face the boy- a pole of a boy who was made to spin the signs on the side of a freeway. 

The low growl of the fluorescent lights popped off, row by row, and the proprietor of the Arcade, Gus Copeland, stepped up to the closed door behind the pair and locked it. He waved with half his hand before it dropped to his side upon his retreat into the dusty recesses. 

"Mac," The boy touched the girl's elbow.

She tucked each of her braids inside the hood of her patched Old Navy agreeable-gray hoodie and stepped aside to allow the boy room to exit the entryway.

He slid past her, hands held tight against his sides to not brush her skin. Once past into the street, he heaved a Shakespearean sigh and held a hand over his heart. 

"You wound me, Mac," He bowed to the girl, who kicked out at his bent head. "Just because I annihilated you at skeeball doesn't mean you're not the winner of my heart."

"Oh my god, stop," The girl's frown twitched at the corner of her lips, where a freckle pointed in the direction of her deep dimples. 

She reached out a hand to his shoulder and wrinkled his pressed buttoned shirt between her sharpie-colored nails. He laughed as she pulled him close by the fistful of cloth, but it died away as she stared at him with narrowed eyes. 

She raised her onto her tiptoes and whispered in his ear, "You know, I will always be the winner."

She let go and roughed up his slicked-down brown curls. 

"Hey!"

The girl's laughter carried down the sidewalk as she ran away; she kicked each still puddle in her path. 

The last of the souring, late summer California sun was cut in orange and purple shards across the sky, leaving a trace amount of sunshine to reflect across the side street. The sides of the roads had become the dumping grounds of tourists speeding through to explore the city streets. The street was a minefield of glass bottles, rotting food, animal remains, beer cans, beach gear, and scavenged drug paraphernalia.

The girl was light on her feet. She was an Olympic dancer, spinning around the debris to leap over the discarded trash bags. The street had been a commerce area for locals years ago, but the local taverns, convenience stores, and gathering spots had all shut down. The business had moved two streets over to the tourist strip. The Copeland Arcade was the last soldier standing on the desert strip. 

The Arcade was to close next month after the damages from a break-in by the local fraternity had put the business in over the red with debt to repair. The State College had opened just down the interstate freeway five years ago. That was the start of the end, but the boy and the girl could only remember what things used to be like. 

The boy followed after the girl, past the shuttered windows of the pizza parlor where they had shared their first kiss (peck on the cheek) at eight years old, and past the grocer's mart where they would buy the Quarter candy from the manager Reggie King. He died of a heart attack four years ago after the chain grocery moved three streets away, and Reggie had to struggle to bring in more than one customer daily. 

The girl stopped her flight at the mouth of the alley, the only separation between the old town and the commerce strip. 

The traffic was crawling on the other side; the SUVs and convertibles returned from the beachfront. The Beach Marshals had begun to enforce the sunset curfew last month after several gangs of college pledges hosted a midnight fight club on the waterfront, and a linebacker got stabbed in the eye. 

The boy was behind the girl at the head of the alley and joined her contemplative vigil. They knew the alley would soon be gone, filled in by some tourist trap, salon, or bar. The old town would be a sealed grave, trapping them inside. 

Neither of them wanted to take the first step. 

The girl held her hand out to the boy without looking at him. 

He saw the circle of bruised prints on her wrist, trailing up under the sleeve of her hoodie. He bit hard on his tongue and remembered the last time he asked her about her stepfather. She hadn't spoken to him for two weeks. 

They folded their hands without a second thought, each missing piece cut from the skin to create a perfect match. The boy squeezed the girl's hand, and she squeezed back. 

The graffiti on the pool hall wall on the right side of the alley caught the boy's eye, and he let go to inspect it closer. 

'Our Town Now Fuckers' 

The cherry red paint was peeling in the direct line of sunlight from a window across the strip. 

"No," The boy picked up a broken brick from the ground and scraped away at the graffiti. "I hate this; I hate them."

He kicked at a pile of wooden pallets; his curses echoed down the alley, which could have been longer than before. 

"Did you hear about Breaker's point?"

The girl leaned against the alley wall. 

"No."

"The lighthouse beachfront was sold for close to nothing to the developers, all because of the dying reefs. But they're only dying because of all the waste we're pumping into the water." 

The girl slid down the wall to sit, "Soon, there will be nothing left for us."

The boy abandoned the scratched-up graffiti, which now read 'R tow No Ucks.' He bent to pick through a pile of trash as he spoke. 

"You're right. There is already nothing left. My dad's apartment building was bought out this week. He thinks we might have to move when they raise the rent."

The girl had come to stand behind him and bent down to stop his hands from their sorting.

 "Careful, you don't want to get cut or poked."

His laugh was stuck high in his chest; he squeezed her hands and turned back to continue sorting into three small piles. 

"Remember my cousin Josh?"

"The one that lost his finger in the fight with the frat guy?"

"Yeah, that one. Josh’s been telling me about this group of people that’s forming around town. Locals only."

The girl's eyes fell back down the alley– stretching longer and longer, watching the vibrant swatches of traffic at their slow march. 

"What about it?" Her voice had no conviction left. "The city can't fix any of this. They won't fix any of this."

"It's not with the city," He stood, leaving dark residue on his trousers as he wiped his hands. "Josh said it's the people that won’t wait any longer. The people that want our town back, the ones that can't just sit back and watch our town decay."

She met his gaze and saw everything. "Let's join."

"Really?" 

She kissed him, full on the lips. 

He laughed inside the kiss, "Oh."

"Shut up," she smiled, then kissed him harder.

He kissed her back and held her head at the back of her neck. The sounds of traffic and the absence of sounds of quiet decay all softened into the background as the alley filled with the soft rays of sunset. 

"Get a room!” Loud laughter. “Or don't, fucking townies; we don't need you two making anymore."

A gang of five young men had blocked the opposite side of the alley. 

They broke apart and stepped away from each other. The boy stepped out before the girl and held a hand back to shield her. 

The silhouettes of the five square-shouldered college boys dragged long across the alley; each boy was a carbon copy of the other. Same rugged jawline, low faded buzzed haircuts, tropical print button-up shirts with only the bottom three buttons straining over sweat-accentuated muscles.

The speaker, a blond with freckles on his nose and hard brown eyes, slapped his friend on the back as all of them laughed as a synchronized pack. 

"Fuck off!" The boy bit back as the pack paused their laughter to breathe. 

The girl grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back from the alley, but he stood his ground. 

"Ooh," the group of boys chorused like a choir. 

"You gonna take that, Charlie?" The brunette said. 

Charlie, the blond, spat and began to advance into the alley. He passed the employee door to the bar next door, then the dumpster of the pool hall. 

"You can't talk to the people that are keeping your shit hole town alive like that," he gestured back to his pack to join him. "I think we should teach you how to respect your betters." 

The girl stopped trying to pull him away as her face went slack. 

It was the boy's turn to try and hold her back, "No, Mac," he grabbed her hand as she tried to run forward at Charlie. "Wait!"

She pulled a silver pocket knife from her jeans and opened it, "Let go of me, Parker!"

She twisted her wrist free and jumped across the pile of pallets to span the distance between the alley's end and Charlie's. 

"Whoa there," Charlie stepped back, bumping into another one as the pack collided with the overflowing dumpster.

The girl slashed at them with her pocket knife, ripping into one shirt and slicing the arm of another. He cried out and covered the gash in his arm with the other hand. 

"Crazy bitch," Charlie reached out and pushed her from the side, slamming her into the alley's brick wall. 

"Oh shit," One of the frat boys bailed, followed by the injured brunette, who turned toward the bar, yelling for help. 

As the girl slid down the wall, the boy ran forward with a guttural yell, his voice only cracking twice. He barreled into the three remaining men and leaped onto Charlie, which toppled the pair onto the ground. As his head cracked onto the asphalt, Charlie's scream intertwined with the boy's. 

Straddling the older man, the boy continued to scream as he punched his face, neck, and torso. 

"What the fuck, what the fuck," The ginger's shirt fell to pieces around his arms as he grabbed the boy by the shoulders and threw him off against the dumpster. "Charlie, hey Charlie, are you okay?"

The ginger hoisted Charlie up off the ground to steady him, but Charlie kept going and fell onto the boy. 

His scream of pain turned into a roar of animalistic rage as he hammered the boy's face into the dumpster. The boy wasn't screaming anymore. 

"Shit, Charlie! Stop!" The man's shirt gave way and floated down, landing to stick in the growing puddle of blood. 

He ran, leaving Charlie alone in the alley. 

His blood leaked into his eyes, obscuring his perspective of the boy and the dumpster. Charlie did not see the girl crawl next to him, and he couldn't hear the click of her pocket knife extending to its entire length. 

Charlie went silent. The alley was quiet, and the traffic was silent. The whole city was silent. 

He looked down at the knife wedged to the hilt inside his rib cage. Charlie laughed with bubbles of blood and stared down at the boy. 

The employee door to the bar slammed open in the alley, and a crowd of bussers, cooks, and patrons shoved their way out—the alley’s ends filled with more onlookers flooding from the pool hall next door. 

The girl stood beside the man, looking down at him as he swayed on his knees, straddling the boy. The girl reached out a singular finger and pushed Charlie's forehead. The silence in the alley broke as his body fell back, landing with a sticky thud in the puddle of his and the boy's blood.

The empty spaces left between the lanes sat stilling from the vibrational echoes of rush hour, even though no one was looking. Each route condensed its particles of matter, flatter and flatter, as the asphalt continued to be asphalt. 

The tires leave microscopic residue, the rubber smack of ill-begotten love, to steal away atoms to deposit somewhere else in the universe.

The tan SUV was cruising the passing lane, doing eighty in the seventy-mile speed limit on the interstate. A state patrol officer saw it pass but decided that his coffee was more important. 

The driver of the car was uncomfortable. With one hand on the wheel, he pulled and yanked at the hem of his fresh steamed dress shirt. Before, He thought the yellow washed out his tan skin, but Tiff convinced him it would match her yellow sun dress. 

He had worn it back in his computer start-up tech days for work outings. Now, the hem inched up his gut whenever he depressed the accelerator, and the steering wheel left indentations into the sensitive flesh of his stomach, where he had his hernia removed last month. 

"Honey, stop. It looks fine! Quit messing with it." Tiff smacked his hand away from the passenger seat as he tried again to secure the unforgiving fabric under the waistband of his trousers. 

"I don't understand," He glanced over at her. "I wore this to the company party last year and Magdalene's quinceanera before that. It fits, it's just- it's stuck."

Tiffany gave up her attempt to comfort her husband and turned to the backseat to check on their children.

Melfina sat in her car seat, one knee pulled up to her chest and one hand playing with her hair. Her attention was captivated out the window as she tried to spot out-of-state license plates. She had learned how to fog up the window to trace shapes in her science homeschool group last week, and the oily remains of doodles left ghost figures flying across the burned-out summer landscape. 

"You okay, baby?" Tiffany patted Mel's outstretched foot. 

She moved her foot back so Tiff couldn't reach her. Mel was still mad that she told her she couldn't have a sleepover at Carlton's house because of the three older teenage boys who lived in the basement. Mainly because her father said yes, and then Tiffany said no. 

"Sorry, baby," Tiffany bit back the irritation at the back of her throat. "Why don't you sing us that song you learned in group this week?"

"Okay!" Mel loved to sing.

The baby, Thomas, was sleeping. Tiffany regretted her request but gave the carrier a small rock, crossing her fingers that he would stay asleep. He had had a bottle before they set out forty-five minutes ago, and she was confident that he was too full to keep awake. 

She reached out a hand to stroke the soft skin on Tommy's foot. Tommy’s skin was blanched yellow, but his jaundice improved each week. 

"Tiff, sit straight. You're blocking my mirror."

Mel was singing, Twinkle twinkle little star…

"Sorry," She wasn't sorry. 

She leaned back into the passenger seat, her hands wrangled the seat belt across her throat, and imagined it was his neck. She thought of all her favorite expletives that hadn't crossed her lips since the nineteen-hour birth of her daughter. 

How I wonder what you are…

Will barely heard his daughter's singing but registered the high nasally tone. He envisioned their arrival at the company picnic hosted on the shores of Lasota Lake. He would rumble the engine of his 'Used Like New' last year's lot SUV as he turned into the parking lot, as slow as legally allowed. 

The men would be cloistering, lost in the tarmac playground after the women and children had fled to the lakeshore. They would see his elevated lift, polished silver hub caps, and grill- picked free of the swamp gnats and hornets. 

Dan, Fred, Ben, Frank, Mike, they would flutter and squawk and slap him on the back. They would mutter under their breath all the places he should fuck himself in. 

He would pass by their corollas, their civics, and their jeeps. He would suggest the name of the best mechanic in town where they could 'hook you up with the barely legal parts, the ones the cops would blush at". 

He was thinking about Mrs. Dan Brush, Elaina. 

He was thinking about her ample hips and each of her pinup brown curls and how she always takes a smoke break in the alley next to the sandwich shop after her lunch at 12:45. 

When he visits her in the alley, she asks him, "What kind of sandwich did you get today? Hope to god it wasn't onion..."

Up above the world so high…

Tiffany opened the overhead mirror to block the sun from her eyes. Like her mother told her, 'Squinting causes crow's feet, crow's feet cause wrinkles. Wrinkles cause infidelity, and infidelity causes death’.

She traced the lines of her crow's feet, each crevice massaged smooth with Botox injections. To smooth out her worry, shame, anger, and happiness. Will did not know about the hundreds she had spent on Botox in the last three years, and she didn't know how he would react if she told him. 

She poked at her cupid's bow and lip filler in the mirror. 

Will only complimented her on the days she had on an entire second makeup skin. She never had the energy to do that anymore, especially after Tommy came along. 

She fluffed up her hair and triple-checked the linchpin hair clips that held her fraying bleach blond hair in two beach wave curls to hide her receding hairline. 

“Can you roll my window down, William?”

He sighed and cracked the window. He still hadn’t replaced the damaged internal mechanism after he threw a full supersize cup of Sprite on the door when he was stuck in traffic last month. The door and window controls would not work. 

Wait, She noticed something. 

Tiffany leaned in close to the mirror. The rims of her eyelids were red, and tiny slits of bloodied veins twisted from the edges of her eyes towards each cornea. 

She had burst a blood vessel in her right eye two days ago after crying for two hours straight and rubbing her eyes raw.

She had gone into Will's car while he was taking a nap after work. She was searching for the Louis Vuitton scarf he had bought for her on their anniversary two years ago. It was an ugly and horrendous scarf, but she wanted to wear it for their date night and make him remember what he had done for her out of love. 

She knew she had used it weeks ago when she was nursing Tommy in the front seat, and he had gotten sick in the new church outfit that her mother-in-law had custom-ordered for him. He's a baby for Christ's sake. He doesn't need a tailored suit. She had to save the jacket with her scarf and discarded it in the backseat. 

She had success under the seat twisted around Will's old briefcase. He had used it ten years ago for his fitness kick that lasted six months longer than everyone thought it would. The scarf was twisted around the handle, and she couldn't pull it free. The case was stuffed full and surrounded by yogurt tubes, wet wipes, and bits of destroyed Happy Meal toys. She had to brace herself against the car door to pull the case out from under the seat. 

The scarf had crusted over, but Tiff knew she had a dry cleaning voucher she could use before the date that night. God knows her whole closet needed dry cleaning; all of her nice clothes had baby fluids and food residue from cooking for four mouths a day. 

She peeled and tugged so as not to damage the intricate stitching of the scarf. Her eyes caught on the furled corner pages of a magazine stuck between the latches of the case. Their bedroom window was still dark, and the kids didn't have to be retrieved from the church daycare for another hour. 

She unlatched the case and allowed the overfilled contents to slide in a wave across the backseat. The pornos were well-worn. The pages of the one she picked from the top of the pile were as thin as a breath. The pile flowed with curves, big breasts, tiny waists, and the brightest and softest bleach-blond hair. 

The collection was vintage, expansive, and outdated. The title of one read, "SLUT: How to know if you're dating a whore, or a good girl." 

The palms of her hands curled the pages into a kaleidoscopic collage of dismembered women. She tore the thing to shreds. 

Like a diamond in the sky...

The thing climbed down her throat as she swept the torn paper onto the driveway and stuffed the collection into its bag, not stacking the piles or caring about the crinkled pages. She threw the case back into its hole under the seat and tossed the car seat back into the car before slamming the door.

The magazine pieces formed a vision of the perfect, godless women as they blew out into the neighborhood. 

She left the scarf on the driveway and spent the next hour dyeing her brown roots the brightest bleach blonde. Will still had yet to notice. 

Tiffany rubbed concealer over her eyes, speaking the mantras her yoga instructor told her under her breath.

"I am enough. I have enough. I do enough."

Twinkle, Twinkle, little star...

During her yoga class yesterday, Jacqueline pulled her aside after class for a private session. 

"Your energy is dark, love; let me deliver a chakra cleanse."

Jacky's dark skin was smooth and fell across her high cheekbones, collarbones, and wide hips in a tight sheath. She was a delicate goddess-like figure with tight brown curls, the warmest smile, and the lowest, darkest voice. 

Her hands were kind to Tiffany's body. 

She had been a member of Soul to Sole Holistic Health Boutique for the past five years since Mel was born and her first case of postpartum depression. She went to class three times a week, whenever Jacky was the instructor, and booked a private cleanse session with her once a month. 

Jacky's hands found the knots in her shoulders and the crisscrossed stress latticed in her hips. As soon as she began her work, Tiff could not hold back her tears. 

"He hates me!" The thirsty rattan plush drank her sobs as Jacky rubbed smooth, concentric circles on her back. 

"He doesn't deserve your love; he doesn't see you for who you are."

Deep breath in, one, two, deep breath out. 

"My kids need a father,"

Jacky's breath tickled her neck hairs and played rhythmic tremors through her frayed nervous system. 

"Tiffany, listen. All they need is love. They have yours," 

Jacky swept her shawls in flight and landed in a shivaysa pose in front of her. Her skin barely contained all her curves, angles, and quiet strength. 

She placed her hands on Tiffany's shoulders, the most gentle touch she had felt in many years. 

"You have more love than you know how to give."

The angelic face before her distorted through a watery wall of grief; it could've been anyone. 

Tiffany leaned forward and kissed her.

... How I wonder what you are.

She slammed the sunshade shut. 

"Melly baby," She twisted through the belt as it snaked across her neck. "Mommy needs some quiet time. Can you sing it in your head? Why don't you play the license plate game with your brother."

She tickled Mel's toes, hanging over the edge of the booster seat.

She pouted, "But you said I should sing! Daddy, Daddy, did you like my song?"

Will hummed in the front seat, "Very nice, sweetheart.”

His eyes caught away from the road and angled down the gaping cleavage of Tiff's blouse as she leaned back into the backseat and checked on the baby. 

"He can't sit up," Mel's pitch continued to rise. "How is he supposed to find any license plates?"

Mel kicked the back of the driver's seat out of protest. The Subaru in front of the SUV brake-checked Will, who had been spanning the distance between both bumpers. He slammed on the brakes. 

Tiffany choked as the belt caught tight around her neck. Will yelled multiple profanities. Mel screamed in the backseat, and Tommy woke up from his nap to cry. 

No cars were behind the SUV, but eyes flashed from the other side of the freeway as Will pounded on the horn.

A newspaper caught on the metal fence on the side of the highway. Its pages were blurred by rain and sun, but the headline on the front page was legible in boldface type. 

‘LOCAL ECO TERRORIST GANG  STRIKES OUT AT LASOTA STATE COLLEGE’

The article is obscured by damage. 

The wind blew from the east, off of the water. A storm was blowing in. The pages of the paper caught and flipped through the articles. A picture of a courthouse was at the top of the page, the ink beginning to run. 

“-On the morning of August 15th, crowds filled the sidewalks and streets outside of Lorenta County Courthouse during the Appeals of the defendants Aaron Fredricks, Antonio Longo, Diangelo Evans, and one unnamed minor. The four defendants appealed the guilty verdict in their second-degree manslaughter case after the murder of local boy Parker West by student Charlie Levinson. The court heard the appeal based on a mistrial because the jury was compromised by being locals of Lorenta County biased against the defendants being out-of-towners. The demonstrations outside the courthouse were quick to be called to order by the police presence. Multiple arrests occurred as the demonstrators were detained for assault and resisting arrest. The appeal successfully reduced the defendant’s charges from second-degree voluntary manslaughter to third-degree involuntary manslaughter, with a sentence of twelve months with time served and two years of probation. After the defendants were released from the courthouse, the demonstrators overturned the police barriers and incited a riot. 

The sentence of local Mackelyn Leigh has been called into question by this new ruling, and an appeal date has been set. Her lawyer, Pauleen Jackson, is hopeful for a mistrial-”

The paper caught on the breeze and blew off into the middle of the freeway. 

Emmanuel needed to buy drugs. 

When he woke at the shelter that morning, he knew something was off. The first thing he checked was his stashes. Under the pillow of his cot– gone. Inside the lining of his jacket– gone. Inside the sole of his boot– gone. 

Someone had snitched. 

But who? Aaron was gone; he was hitchhiking to Washington. Amelia was shacked up in a motel room for the past week. Carl was in the hospital after a gang hit, and his girlfriend was staying with him with their kid. 

He had nothing except the realization the people he had trusted were gone. He took a long look around the shelter’s sleeping hall, and only crazy Anne looked him back in the eye. She waved. Emmanuel knew he had to get out of there; everyone had to be in on it; they would come after him. 

After he packed out and left, three empty bags of coke drifted from under his bunk and across the linoleum floor. 

He checked out and filled in the paperwork prompt, ‘Will you be coming back to stay here again?’ with a big black X. 

It was cold in August. The streets were cleared out; the tourists started to go home to Wisconsin, Oregon, Idaho, and Ohio. There was one other shelter on the other side of town, but it was too close to the places Emmanuel wanted to avoid: the police station and his dad’s house. 

The last time he had visited, it hadn’t gone too bad comparatively. Until his stepmother brought the kids home, he had the same conversation with his dad that he always had. 

“How’s life,”

Oh, I like to sit under bridges to watch the water flow by and snort my coke off of the flattest stones I can find. 

“You been eating any meat? You’re too skinny,”

I eat cold, hot pockets, the soup kitchen mystery stew, and the burgers off the dollar menu on the best days. 

“Seeing any ladies?”

No, Dad, I’m gay, remember? That’s why you kicked me out of the house when I was fifteen years old and didn’t speak to me for years until I showed you a vag photo that my prostitute friend Amy used to prove she didn’t have STDs to clients, who I told you was my girlfriend. 

“How’s Samuel?”

Samuel Hillard had not spoken to him in three years, but Emmanuel let his dad continue to believe that he was living in Sam’s basement. 

Everything was fine until Stephanie brought the kids in from the garage door entrance to see them sitting at the dinner table. Emmanuel was mid-slurp on his spoonful of tomato soup that his dad had heated on the stove. Stephanie looked him up and down and grabbed a fistful of both kids’ collars; Liam and Paul gave him a curious look and turned them around and out to sit in the car. 

“I won’t have you in my house with my children!” 

Stephanie was convinced gay people were pedophiles after she watched her uncle rape her little brother when their families lived together, or at least that’s what his dad told him before the first time he had met her. 

Emmanuel didn’t blame her, and he didn’t have the energy to argue the point, and his dad certainly wouldn’t. His only regret was not finishing that tomato soup. He could almost taste it. 

He had three dollars in his pocket, not enough for cocaine, but enough to start with. But he had a plan. He would hit up his usual spots, see if any of his friends were in town, and work his local corners to see if there was any work. It was his favorite time of year when the tourists began to leave, but the sun still shone, and the sound of the pelicans still echoed from overhead. He walked down the strip; most of the storefronts were shut down for the year, leaving not much for the locals to shop at. 

That was the way of life now. Tourism kept the town alive by the skin of its neck every year, and it held its breath until the following year. Emmanuel found the convenience mart still open and pushed through the revolving door. The teller was a high school girl, a sophomore, maybe a junior. She had bright purple streaks in her hair and blew pink bubbles in a Hollywood-esque disdain in his direction. 

“Restrooms are for paying customers only,” She called between bubbles.

He grunted in assent and trailed away from the front of the store. He passed the racks of name-brand chips and dip, passed the dog and cat food, and stopped at the shelves of over-the-counter medications. His buddy Mole was banned from all the local stores for buying too much aspirin and selling it as oxycodone to freshies at the state college looking to try out drugs ‘just the once.’ The name-brand aspirin was 2.99, and Emmanuel didn’t have enough to cover the tax. He ducked and rummaged through the lower shelf before finding a knockoff aspirin for 1.99. The bottle had 100 pills, which would get him at least twenty, maybe more if Mole was desperate. The homecoming season was coming up, so it was likely that Mole’s clientele was building. 

“I think I know you,” a voice spoke behind him. 

Emmanuel dropped the aspirin bottle, and the pills rattled like bones as they hit the ground. 

“Oh, sorry, my bad,” The girl from the register bent down and picked the bottle off the ground to hand back to him. 

He waited for people's usual reaction once they realized he was homeless. The crinkling of the nose once they smelled his clothes, the confusion at the dirt scuff marks covering his body, the alarm at his tweaked-out eyes, or his raw red nose. He never had on short sleeves, even in the summer. Nobody ever saw his bruises from his track marks, the ones that wouldn’t fade no matter how long he went without them. 

The girl did not react. She still held the bottle towards him, “You were gonna buy this, right?”

“Did you go to the high school on the hill?” He took the bottle and picked up a bag of chips, acting like he was thinking about buying it. 

“No, I was raised by the cultists up the road.”

He put the bag of chips back down as he forgot about his act, “What?”

Her poker face broke, “I’m just joshing you. Oh my god, the look on your face. Yeah, I went to the high school. Did you have Bronner's class?”

A face flashed in his mind, a salt and pepper beard, a classically tailored suit coat and tie every single day. “I think so, but it was his first year in my last year. He was a try-hard.”

“He was a pedo! Have you not heard? He felt up some boy in his class years ago when I had him in English.” She leaned an elbow on the side of the rack, and it groaned in protest. 

That tripped a wire in Emmanuel’s mind. Samuel’s brother, Micha. He had been molested by one of the teachers, and he told everyone that Emmanuel had been his ‘gay awakening’ when he would have sleepovers at Samuel’s house. When the teacher approached him, he didn’t say no. When he told Samuel about it later, Micha realized he had been groomed. The teacher was fired, but they never found any proof; he never went to jail. 

He had never spoken a single sentence to Micha in the ten years he had been best friends with Samuel. He wished that he had. 

“We might have met in drama club,” Emmanuel gestured to the front of the shop as he slid past the girl in the narrow aisle. “I directed several plays that had middle schoolers in them.” 

She nodded and trailed behind him. “Yes, that’s it. I was big into theater for a while.”

He reached the counter and put the bottle of Aleve on top of the register. As she passed around the employee side of the register desk, he slipped a package of M&Ms into his front pocket. 

“Just this for you today?”

“Yeah… headache.”

She scanned it, and the total of $2.12 flashed on the til. He handed over his three dollar bills, and she returned three quarters, a dime, and three pennies into his outstretched palm. The coins sat in his hand for half a second before he dumped them into the collection jar for the children’s hospital—no use for pocket change. 

“Nice to see you again,” she coughed once. “You are welcome to use the bathroom; sorry about before.”

“No worries,” He did have to go, but not under these circumstances. “See you next time.”

“Yeah, see you around.”

He left the convenience store and made a mental note never to go back to this particular branch again. The light clouds had converged into a small summer storm, and the drizzle pasted Emmanuel’s hair onto his forehead. He hated being wet. He spotted the nearest bus stop awning a block down the street and found it empty, except for one school-aged boy with a backpack. He ducked underneath the canopy and shook his hair, spotting drops onto the plastic sheeting. 

The kid was younger than he had thought from afar, appearing anywhere from twelve to eight; he had never been a good judge of age. 

He sat on the opposite end of the bench from the kid, who took up the smallest amount of edge possible, his posture tense. 

Emmanuel took the M&Ms out of his pocket and curled back an edge of the package. The kid looked up at the sound of the plastic packaging. His eyes were rimmed red from crying, a long dribble of snot hanging from his nose. 

“Hey, kid,” Emmanuel kept his voice low. “You alright? Are you hungry?”

The kid nodded and pulled the straps of his Pokemon backpack tighter around his hunched shoulders. The kid had scruffy black hair and bright blue eyes that reminded him of Samuel’s. Something about this kid felt familiar to him. 

He held out his package of M&Ms to the kid, leaning over slow to not spook the kid into running. His outstretched package with the torn corner wavered in the air for a minute before the kid held out his open palm in response. Emmanuel shook out half the pack into the kid's hand. 

They ate the candy, watching the speeding cars whiz down the street in the light rain. 

“Which color is your favorite?”

The kid didn’t respond, but he picked a green one off the pile with his other hand and showed it back to him with an indicating glance of the eyes. 

“Ah, yes, that’s a good one. I liked her in the commercials. She had the spunk.”

The boy let out a small chuckle. “What’s… spunk?”

Emmanuel leaned back against the plexiglass wall of the rain shield, resting against his backpack. After a moment, the kid copied his relaxed posture while waiting for his response. 

“Spunk is universal; it’s the universal language of cool.” He waved his hand at the kid and his backpack. “You’ve got spunk and good taste. I used to have some spunk. Superheroes like Batman and Spiderman. The ones that don’t have the best cards on the table but pull out ahead anyway, they’ve got the spunk.”

“What happened to your spunk?”

The kid sure did have a spunk of some kind. Emmanuel stalled answering the question by popping another M&M into his mouth, cracking it between his incisors, and directing it past his molars, which were riddled with sensitive cavities. 

“You use your spunk when you have to think through the bad things that happen to you, that happen to everyone. I didn’t use my spunk. It was easier to run away from my problems than have to think them out.” He played with the empty package between his fingers, tearing it into small squares. “The people that taught me how to use my spunk, they chose not to be in my life anymore.”

“Me too,” the kid sniffed and balled his fists into his eyes as he started to cry.

“Oh,” He left his hand on the bench and wished he could span the distance between them but knew that was not right. “I’m sorry.”

The boy was crying, and Emmanuel saw himself at fifteen, bags thrown all over the front yard, clothes spilling out onto the damp grass. He was sitting on the curb, sobbing uncontrollably and holding his face after his father had beat him for kissing a boy, for kissing his best friend, Samuel. 

“It gets better,” the words came out, and he was surprised at himself for them. “People will love you for who you are; you just have to find them.”

The kid rubbed his nose on his sleeve and hiccuped a sigh through his tears. 

“I ran away last night,” he looked down at his shoes. “I don’t know where I am.”

Emmanuel looked around the street, but no one was around to help. They were on the east side of town, the old city that the new developments had overrun. All of the shops on the street had closed for the day, and the dog park behind them was only frequented by drug dealers and cop cars. 

“My name is Emmanuel.” He didn’t want the boy to run for it; he held his hand to the kid. 

“I’m Zeke,” The kid’s voice shook, but he did reach out his hand to switch hands when he realized he had wiped his snot on it. 

They shook hands across the bench, and Emmanuel smiled. 

“Why’d you run away, Zeke?”

The kid’s shoes didn’t reach the ground from the bench, and he swung them in a short arc. “My dad… he was mean. He said I couldn’t go back to the farm camp anymore; he said I needed to learn to be a man, not play with the animals anymore. He wants me to go to the STEM school. I hate math. I don’t want to leave my friends.”

“What about your mom?”

“I only see her on weekends. She lives far away; I wanted to find her. I think I got lost.”

Emmanuel nodded and laced his fingers together. “Do you know your mom’s number?”

The kid shook his head, “I don’t want to go back; she’s gonna make me go back to my dad. He doesn’t want me, she doesn’t want me, I want to go back to the farm.”

“I understand, buddy,” he stood up. “Just remember that they love you. A home you can go back to is the best thing in life. Someplace where you know, there is love waiting for you.”

“Thanks, mister.” The kid sniffed and let out a small smile.

Emmanuel left the bus stop, pitched the M&M wrapper in the recycling bin, and continued down the street. He looked back at the kid one more time before he turned the corner onto Fourth Street and jogged over to the post office. 

The door dinged as he went in, and the patron at the desk glanced up from her crossword for half a second, “Welcome in.”

“Thank you,” he weaved through the empty line barriers to approach the front desk. “May I use your phone?”

She exhaled as she tore herself from the half-finished crossword and let her book fall shut. She gave him the once over, face tight as her eyes caught on his stained shirt and duffel bag backpack slung over his shoulder. Her silence stretched a moment too long, and Emmanuel bit on his tongue. 

“I need to call the police. A missing kid is sitting down the street.”

Her face fell open, “Oh, my apologies, absolutely, here,” she turned the landline around from behind her desk and pushed it to the edge of the counter. 

He dialed 911. 

Emmanuel watched the bus stop from the street corner as the Lasota County police cruiser approached the bench. The female officer stepped out and sat beside Zeke on the bench. He was too far away to hear, but he watched the silhouettes of the officer and boy turn to each other and speak for several minutes. After a few minutes, a tan minivan careened around the corner of Fourth Street and did an illegal U-turn to park on the side of the bus stop. A middle-aged woman with long black curls fell out of the driver's side, picked herself back up, and ran to where Zeke was sitting. She picked him up and sat on the ground, embracing him. Emmanuel could hear her cries from down the street, releasing a long-lost memory of his mother. 

He missed a basket, and his ball rolled down the driveway so fast, then out into the street. He knew his dad would yell at him if he lost his new basketball. He ran after it, down the driveway and out into the street. He was a fast runner; he always had long legs for his age. He almost had the ball; he was close enough to reach it. 

A car lay on its horn. 

He looked up to see the bumper of a truck taller than him. The ball rolled into the storm grate, and the headlights left two holes in his vision. He had enough time to suck in a deep breath to scream. 

His mother grabbed his shoulders from behind and pulled him out of the path of the braking car. The tires left black, stinking marks on the asphalt that wouldn’t come out of the street for months. He fell on top of her, and she had to go to the chiropractor for a fractured tailbone for two months. She held him for ages while she cried. 

The mother carried Zeke back to the minivan as she spoke to the officer. Emmanuel recognized her, the way her hair fell across her shoulder and the brown birthmark on the back of her neck. She was his introductory stagecraft teacher from his first year of high school, Mrs. Grist, Grismer, or Gryffin? She encouraged him to go into directing the summer charity play Peter Pan. There was a rumor about her that she cheated on her husband with the Calculus teacher, Mr. Hartman; some senior snuck into a new dive bar selling cheap liquor shots and bikini-themed margaritas and saw the two of them dancing the cha cha slide on the dance floor. Emmanuel liked her; she was always nice to him in class. 

She got Zeke strapped into his booster seat in the back of the minivan and turned away to speak with the officer. He had a clear line of sight to Zeke, who was rubbing his eyes but had stopped crying. Emmanuel waved. The kid noticed him and gave a small wave back. 

The bottle of Aleve became a sudden, heavy boulder in his pocket. Mack and Samuel and his dad and his lack of coke all came back to him. 

Mack’s place was on the other side of town, back behind the strip off of the freeway. He lived in the new slums birthed out of community housing and the old trailer park after developers had bought out all the affordable housing in a wide radius of the town and the college. Emmanuel thought Mack might even let him stay the night in his backroom with the dogs if he didn’t try to haggle too much for the pills. He might hit up the dumpster behind the chicken joint on the way to see if he could get on Mack’s good side with a chicken dinner. 

The town was divided into two ventricles by the interstate freeway. The old town and the new town. The tourist traps and the boarded-up local shops. 

His hands shook, and he stuffed them deep in his pockets, deep enough to pull out the answers to the questions he refused to let himself think about. His feet took him on a wandering path as he passed by the skeletons of the places he recognized from his childhood. The Hammstein’s house was sold to developers and turned into an exclusive bed and breakfast. The marine biology museum that the elementary school would take them on a field trip to at least once a month had been bought out, and the exhibits had been sold and shipped to other states. 

When he passed by a sliver of the beachfront, he took a detour to walk down the sandy bank and stick his feet in the water. With his Converse in his hands, he stepped over broken bottles and cigarette butts, avoided the condom wrappers and discarded swimwear, and picked up the plastic six-pack holders that the sea turtle babies would get stuck inside of. 

His feet in the water, he felt like all of the versions of himself that had stood on this same beachfront, with this same water between his toes. The sea did not care who he loved. The sea did not hate him for his mistakes. 

Emmanuel took the bottle of Aleve out of his pocket and popped one into his mouth to dry swallow it. He removed the cotton piece and dumped the rest of the pills into the sea. 

With the empty bottle back in his pocket, he felt he knew where he was going. He was going to his house. He was going to tell his dad the truth. He was going to tell his stepmom that he loved his stepbrothers and that he would never do anything to hurt them. He was going to get clean, and he was going to get his job back at the community theater. Maybe he would even contact Samuel if he hadn’t blocked his number. 

The sun had begun its descent through the sky when he reached the freeway bridge. The sky was a sick yellow-green, and Emmanuel thought he could remember an old fisherman’s tale about what it would mean if the sky looked that way, but he couldn’t finish the thought in his head. His hands shook, his mind wandered, and he remembered his missing bags of coke. Who took them? Were they following him? Did they know where his dad lived? Were they waiting for him when he got there?

Emmanuel tripped over his untied shoelace as he climbed onto the walkway of the pedestrian bridge. The traffic was headed north, back inland, and up into the bigger town three miles up the road. The southbound side of the freeway was pockmarked with older cars, the rusted-out models, and the occasional speeding minivan headed home from soccer practice. 

The sun was blinding on the north side, and he decided to cross over to the south side of the bridge. He thought about his mom. 

In the middle of the bridge, he saw a figure looking out onto the freeway. They had a long duffel bag at their feet and a long black hooded coat that enveloped their body. Emmanuel looked out at the highway as well, thinking about the two sides of town and how they connected despite the divide. He bent down to tie his other shoe. 

When he looked back up, the figure was holding a long firearm. It was pointed down at the cars going under the overpass. 

“If you had told me three years ago that you were going to go into law school, I would have sent you straight off into the circus to be a clown,” Dennis Harden laughed too hard and too long at his joke. 

He accelerated over a speed bump to multiple protests from the occupants of the Ford pickup truck, and Samuel turned around in the backseat to check that all of his possessions were still strapped in tight. A tan SUV honked at them in the left lane and sped up ahead to cut in front of them. 

“Dad, please be careful.” Samuel reached his fingers through the cat carrier to comfort his tabby cat Tristen, who had begun to cry out of concern. 

“Yes, Dennis,” Eleanor clutched onto her seatbelt in the passenger seat. “You know I get car sick if you drive too fast.”

He slowed the truck to a reasonable cruise in the middle lane.

“My apologies; I am just caught up in the excitement. Imagine what your grandfather might have said about this; he would be so proud that his grandson was going out into the world, ready to make big changes!”

Samuel sighed inside the collar of his shirt and thought about the letter of acceptance inside his messenger bag. 

Congratulations!

We are proud to invite you to be a member of the class of 2028 of Lasota State College Film School in the Liberal Arts College! You are already a valuable member of our community…

Eleanor turned in her seat to clasp his hand between hers. “We are so proud of you, honey; we will help you in any way you need. Just let us know.”

She turned back to the front as a wave of nausea hit her, “Of course, I may be swamped this fall since I was elected to the board of tourism relations, so that I will be at City hall every other weekday, but your father will be able to take your calls once he gets back from the fishing run in the mornings! You must call us every evening to tell us about your day.”

“We’ll see Mom,” he would not be doing that. 

He looked at the burnt bush passing by as they coasted down the freeway. He remembered when he used to go marsh hunting out there, spent most of the longest days in the summer with his water galoshes coming up to his mid-thighs, hunting for the biggest toads and the meanest crabs. He would compete with his best friends to find the best creatures. One time, Emmanuel found a blue crab as big as his face, and it nearly ripped off his nose when he tried to show it to everyone. 

Samuel smiled out the window, relaxing in the ray of the setting sunshine that cut through the glass. His anxiety popped a thought into his empty mind. 

Jackson would be there at the dorm already when he got there. 

He had been avoiding talking to Jackson for a week, ever since the kiss. 

He hadn’t told Jackson yet that he wasn’t the first boy he had kissed. It might be silly, but he worried he wouldn’t take it well. He would ask questions that would lead to stories, the stories that would lead to him realizing that Samuel wasn’t the person he thought he was when he kissed him at the Freshman Incoming party last week. 

He could hear the conversation they would have in his head. 

You lied to him? You lied to your parents? You let them believe that Samuel forced himself on you and that you didn’t kiss him first after he told you that he loved you? You haven’t spoken to him since? Now you’re lying to your parents that you're going to law school and not to film school? What the fuck, man?

“Oh god,” Samuel groaned and let his head fall into his hands in his lap.

“You okay, baby? Are you sick too? Dennis, you should pull over.”

“No, no, Mom,” Samuel inhaled deep through his nose and pulled a smile up for her. “I’m fine. I’m just nervous.”

“Don’t be nervous, my boy!” Samuel’s dad laughed. “Just remember the cardinal rule: you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

He felt like he was going to be sick. 

The strip of wild land along the freeway did not know it used to be a sprawling meadow that melted into the swamp. It did not realize that its wildlife population was displaced due to overcrowding. It didn’t know that the gators crawled onto the freeway in search of more prey. It didn’t know that its foul citizens abandoned their babies in their nests to leave to find food but never returned home. It didn’t know that the construction workers came back every few weeks to cut down, clear out, and pave over a new section of its land. It didn’t know that the mayor was in talks with a resort company to turn it into a dinosaur recreation park while in simultaneous negotiations with the Florida state government to turn it into a protected reserve. It didn’t know the construction crews had a running competition for the biggest wildlife creature they could kill with their equipment. It didn’t know that its existence would come down to the highest dollar amount. It didn’t know that children weren’t allowed to play inside of it anymore because of the large metal fences that caged in the land. 

It wasn’t aware of the freeway running through its heart or the people that watched it from the road. 

It didn’t know how much the people hurt. It couldn’t help them, even if it knew. 

But the land did know the people. The ones that grew up playing on its banks, the ones that sunk their fingers into the dirt and made mud pies while they munched on cicadas. It knew the ones that were baptized in the blood waters of the reefs and the ones that had the ocean in their veins. It knew the ones that could tell the tides by the feeling in their chests and the ones that could sense the incoming rain in their knees. It knew the ones that picked up the litter on its beaches and waved at birds as they passed. 

It knew the ones that wouldn’t leave their town, no matter how hard they tried. 

It knew them, and it loved them, and it waited for them to rejoin it in its open earth. 

Four shots. 

Emmanuel sprinted before he heard the noise. No. No. No. 

The rifle was balanced on the shoulder, aimed down through the metal lattice fence into the four lanes of traffic, coming and going. The recoil pushed them back, and he caught half a thought of a face. 

“Stop!” He was screaming. 

She was screaming. 

A fifth shot. 

He tackled her to the ground, and the rifle flew past them onto the bridge, misfiring in a direction he could not see or hear. 

“Stop, stop, stop,” he screamed. 

He was crying. He held her two hands tight on the ground. She struggled against him, but his weight overpowered her efforts. 

She was older than the last time he’d seen her face. Her black eye and broken nose changed the shape of her face, but he recognized the same features that had been on every television, every newspaper, and he said the name that had been on everyone's lips five years ago. 

“Mac, what did you do?” The air was trapped in a tight ball inside his chest; it came out in a close whisper.

He had met her once when they were kids. She was playing Megatron at the arcade with Parker West, and he had watched the two of them beat each other's high scores over and over again. They finally let him try, and when he couldn’t beat the first level, Mac showed him how to beat the boss. He did, and he got his name on the leaderboard right next to the two of them. 

The sounds came back. 

She was screaming. Metal scraping, cars honking, humans crying, sirens– off in the distance. 

There was nothing left inside her eyes. Emmanuel let go of her when a large, loud pain in his leg shot through his entire body. The gun’s misfire had cut through his ankle, and it all came back in as his heart caught up with the present. 

“Mac! What did you do!”

She had been laughing, not screaming. The tears on her face were old, and old grief aged every line on her face. She was pulling her wild black hair, pieces falling in soft traces around her. Her hoodie caught on the ground, and a puckered pink brand on her neck flashed at him in the light. He recognized the symbol from the shelter, the sign of the prison gang. She had been released from prison recently; someone had told him she had gotten out on good behavior. 

“We’re all dead,” she laughed. “We’re all already dead. Look what we’ve done. Look at it.”

He could not stop the pain. 

“You’re wrong,” he held his hands over the bleeding absence in his leg, but he threw all his strength into his words. 

She stopped laughing. She inched back a foot on her hands and knees but did not look away from Emmanuel’s face.

“We’re not dead. The rest of the world is still alive, even if Parker is not. Even if our town is not, even if it all meant nothing, it’s all still here,” he swept a hand out toward the city and sprayed blood onto the concrete wall. 

“No.” Mac’s eyes were black as she stood from a knee to both shaking legs. “We’re dead. We’re killers, and that’s all we ever were.”

“Mac,” Emmanuel tried to stand as he saw her turn back to the freeway.

He collapsed back to the ground after taking a single step on his injured leg. 

Through the blank white canvas of pain crowding into his vision, he saw her link her fingers into the chain fence and look down into the lanes. She looked back at him once, and for a second, he thought she might have remembered him. 

He blinked, and she climbed to the top of the fence. 

“Get down on the ground!” The police loudspeaker came from nowhere and everywhere at once. 

“Goodbye,” Mac smiled. 

She jumped. 

“The land remembers.”

The meeting was adjourned at the scheduled time. Mr. Turner was anything but late. After the shooting, he was employed by the city to lead the grief and trauma support group for the survivors and to aid in the treatment plans of those who have PTSD. 

He had never dealt with the fallout of such a large event with collective trauma, and he had a waitlist for his group therapy sessions that would last another year at least. 

He said his goodbyes and gave the final pats on the back as he ushered the last client out the clinic door. He had to review his case files one last time before the survivors meeting tomorrow. The weekly schedule on his bulletin board was filled with multi-colored sticky notes that stretched below the edge of the board and draped down to the ground. He found the sticky note for Wednesday’s group, lime green. Group No. 4, Hardin, Smith, Trainer. 

He pulled the corresponding files out of his cabinet; he made a mental note to make a note that he needed a second filing cabinet. 

Patient N0. 1, Tiffany Hatter. 

Case Notes: Acute PTSD and postpartum depression. 

She is filing for divorce from her husband [don’t place in the same group]. She says she can’t be in the same room with him after he abandoned their family during the shooting. 

Patient N0. 2 Emmanuel Smith

Case Notes: Insomnia and night terrors (Referral to sleep clinic)

He returned from the outpatient rehab center and is staying with the family of June Hartman, who volunteered to be his sponsor during his recovery, due to him helping find her lost child before the shooting. Evaluate for depression and anxiety. 

Patient N0. 3 Samuel Taylor

Case Notes: Dissociative Amnesia from brain injury. 

I cannot remember the event or several weeks leading up to the event. Has trouble recalling names and experiences prolonged periods of confusion. He recalls his prior relationship to Patient N0. 2, who has agreed to help facilitate exposure therapy to assist in Taylor’s memory recall. Evaluate for PTSD. 

The lines of text began to blur, and he decided to call it a night. He left the files on his desk and made a mental note to take his daughter to the park after the group session tomorrow.