No integrity
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White haze.
I walk as if blind, following the smell. The streets are empty, hushed. Through an open window I see a family sitting down to supper. Behind them a television flickers in silent, bleeding colors. The smell expands and I stop. That smell, something. Traffic lights change red to green with no cars to stop or go. My boots scrape. Gun in my hand jingles. If I concentrate just so, there is the subconscious hum of something about to happen. I'm dragging my left leg behind me, bleeding. Holding my ribcage with gun in my right hand, which is bleeding of course. I keep telling myself I'm a lizard, I'm trying to watch myself from distance. No, that's not it. I'm trying to subdue the pain. The gun has few spare bullets, just enough to finish it now.
There's a sound in the street.
I ready the gun.
I scan the street and a rambling figure approaches, shape shifting through morphine white. Something familiar in the short warped stride. Coming closer and I see it's a male in middle thirties. Tall and muscular, wearing loose torn shorts. One leg hanging longer than the other. Disintegrating gray T-shirt with ripped pocket and shapeless brown hat. It looks like Jet, and now I remember. Someone said he was living around here. It's been five years and I sift what news I've had. Jet's former and present girlfriend supposedly had a kid. I can't remember the girlfriend's name, though I fondled her once, in a vacant street.
Her name with phone number was written on my hand, but it disappeared with dead skin and I never called her.
I should have, no, no, no... I was drunk.
Weird is, that my brain is able to remember, in my shape.
I cough out blood.
Now I know that the rumors about swallowing pint of blood without getting sick are true.
But back to the present, don't let brain remember any pain.
Okay... where was I?
Oh, yeah, Jet's girlfriend.
She stopped bleeding and they were married by a judge. Last thing I heard they had an accident. Jet supposedly freaked out driving high in the rain and went over a guard rail. The car rolled five times. He was barely hurt but she went through the window face first, and the kid was born retarded or something. And since then, I don't know. Jet is a friend, but I stopped seeing him after my dying act. Pain ceases with adrenaline. I think Jet will just fade past. Or I think he'll kill me, even in my state. Eyes flick over me and away. I hesitate. Jet stops and now my hand holding ribcage and gun goes tense.
"Thought it was you, Spike."
I hide the gun and my wounds, then I insert hands in pockets, acting normally.
I remember the fight we had when we first met, and I wonder if killing him would be any different than anyone else.
"Jet... Heard you were around." I say.
"What happened, you were kinda limping for a while?" He says.
"It's... nothing." I say.
Silence.
"Okay, why needing a gun then?" He says.
That's it, he'll kill me now.
I take a big breath and try to center my enlightened spiritual entity.
Raindrops on roses.
Happy animals.
Green leaves.
This makes my parts hurt even more.
"Nevermind. My place is down the street. Come up and say hello to Alisa." He says.
Yeah... now he mentions it, that was her name.
I think.
I wonder how much time I have until I die.
Or.
Why the hell I'm hiding my wounds?
Jet's left eyelid is nervous, twitching under the brim of his hat, a fishing hat that was once white now brown with dirt. I can't say no. His voice has changed, mutated somehow, but I would know him anywhere. Two claustrophobic minutes to the apartment building without speaking. Jet stares ahead and rattles keys around in his pocket. The building is old brick. Small balconies with dark rusted screens. Heavy iron fire escape. The kind of radiators that hammer all night. I follow Jet up creaking stairs. Dust rising. Jet wears rotting tennis shoes secured with duct tape. Orange socks. Reminds me of my former apartment. Finally the door and I have to say something. I'm curious about... what was the name again? I'm curious about that girl, if she had a child then...
"How long you guys lived here?"
"Two. Maybe three years."
Jet fumbles with the lock while I calculate. The baby would be about three. It was surely not mine.
"Where you working?" I say.
"Don't need to work." Jet approximates a grin. "Insurance." He says.
The air is trapped inside. The mingling, intimate stench of wet carpet and cigarettes. Tomato sauce and fried egg. Puppy shit and baby puke and semen and mold. I feel gun in my pocket. Jet takes off his hat, then his shirt. Soon he puts the hat back on. The heat is fierce and the windows are shut.
"Painted shut." Jet says. "Take off your shirt, if you want."
I hesitate, then drag off my shirt. Drop it in a chair and follow Jet, who walks sideways crablike circling and his eyes steady on me. This is so surreal that I forget about the calculation. No, I forgot everything.
"This is the living room." He says.
"Decent light in the morning but the carpet's all the time damp. Can't figure it out. This here is the kitchen. Too small for doing much and the garbage needs going out. Hey. Let's get a drink."
"No." I say. "I don't drink." I lie.
I'm under several painkillers. And diet pills.
"What do you drink, then?"
"Coffee, most of the time."
"Never touch it. Bad for my stomach."
"That's fine. Really."
"Well..." Jet says. "In here's the sunroom. Always little dust particles floating around in the light. If it was sunny you could see. Bedroom is back there."
There is almost no furniture in the apartment. Boxes and dust and scattered trash. I listen but I don't hear baby sounds. The bedroom door is closed. My stomach growls. I smell oranges, bright and sweet. Left hand feels strangely numb and I make a fist, then pain attacks my stomach. I'm fucked up. I swallow another mouthful of blood.
I only await vomiting now.
"That is some killer ink." Jet says.
He's looking at my chest. The tattoo, shaped by my scar, is a boa constrictor, slightly coiled. The head is poised to bite the nipple. The work is crude, with scars. It was done when after I killed Vicious, at some low-grade hospital downtown. I just wanted some memorandum, and Vicious as a snake was best choice. Now I am snake looking for prey, choking it first... **** those pills. Is it me, or just my imagination? What am I thinking? Geez.
"It goes all the way down." I say.
"Down what?" He asks.
"Past my waist."
"Oh, yeah. Let's see."
I hesitate, then sit on a coffee table to take off my boots.
"Better take your socks off. Else get them wet."
"Uh huh."
Then... his girlfriend walks in from the next room. She wears a dirty white T-shirt and panties. Her hands are red, covered with jelly. Her face is normal, no sing of any car accident. Her mouth is opened slightly, the lips don't meet. Her jaw and left cheek are shiny with scar tissue. That she's beautiful is easy to see. Yeah I was drunk, but... strange, I feel attached.
"Look who's here." Jet says. "It's Spike."
"Spike?" Her mouth jerks.
"Hello... Uh...?" I say.
"Alisa." She says.
"Hello, Alisa." I say.
I kissed her mouth in a vacant street, five years ago. Her lips were heavy and red, her tongue fierce. Now she sticks a finger in her mouth and licks away the jelly.
"How are you? I hear you had a baby." I say.
"Oh, yes. A beautiful baby boy."
We are good actors, I think.
Well it's me, not her, who's wounded.
"I'd like to see him."
"He's sleeping now. But maybe another time."
She smiles and sucks at her finger.
The pain shoots through my chest right into my leg.
"I have to... go."
Alisa is making noises like a bird chirping. She presses herself up against Jet, her hands moving over his chest and arms, leaving red streaks of the jelly. But this isn't jelly. This is red-eye. Her mouth goes to his throat. Jet just stares hard at me. Alisa grunts softly, pushing with her hips. She steps back and shrugs out of the shirt. Her breasts are visible. Stretch marks on her dark flat belly. Now the underpants drop and she is naked against Jet. What the hell happened? He stands there like a statue. I stare at her. I try hard not to remember something five years old. But for nothing, memories just stick out. Her body is lovely. I need to go now, or I'll forget about Faye and... another quick stare.
Maybe, I should.
"I really have to go." I say.
No response from Jet. Alisa makes animal sounds.
I look around. Where the hell is my shirt?
Alisa's body wriggles against Jet, who responds only with his mouth. His hands never touch her. This would be me if I wasn't drunk five years ago, not like I want it. I find my shirt, tuck it into my belt. My feet are wet from the mildewed carpet. The blood crashes in my head. Feels like my eyes are expanding in their sockets. Hell... Sh...it. I bring out my gun, and beat it twice in my head. Mouth's hot and I try to swallow. Pull on my socks, torn cotton sticking against skin. I get them on at last and focus on the laces of my boots. My fingers don't work. I hear what sounds like a groan of protest from Alisa.
I look up.
She's sitting on the floor with her back to me, a posing nude. The ridged shadows of her spine like an exhibit at the zoo. Jet is gone. Now the left boot feels too tight, like I have two socks on that foot. The laces are in sweaty knots and I'm fucked if I'll try to work them loose. Gun's still in my fist, it is called Jericho, and only cops were using it. I have to get the **** out, or I'll... I want to say something to Alisa but I think I'll... Her back is still to me. This is none of my business. There's a nudge at my left shoulder and I turn and Jet is kneeling beside me with a dead puppy cradled in his arms. Holding it up to my face as if to let it kiss me and the expression on his face is that of a father offering me his newborn for inspection. I go blank. This is not the baby. Jet thrusts the dead puppy at me and I jerk my head back. I try to stand but Jet has the collar of my shirt in a mechanical fist, pulling hard and now I feel the puppy's cold nose touch my lips. My gun shoots out of blue and hit Jet in the foot. The puppy drops like a piece of firewood. But he just fall backwards like if he fainted. Blood sprayed over my legs.
This is my friend, Jet.
Or.
Was?
Red haze.
Everything before my eyes is red. The world with no integrity. The room is full of damp red whitish color. I walk as if blind. The feeling of snake is gone. I tell myself Im a lizard. Only like this I can kill, thinking I'm just watching some horror movie. Boa constrictor, the scar covered in blood. Left part of my body is numb. I drag my left feet. She's sitting before me. The baby cries. Rise and fall like traffic. After a few seconds it makes me sick, nervous.
"Uh... Alisa." I say.
"What?"
"The baby is crying."
"That's normal."
"It doesn't sound normal."
Then I'm choking. He's holding me tight. Locks his mechanical arm under my throat. I struggle and kick, pulling at his arm. I cant breathe and I realize that he's crushing my windpipe. He's using my technique. Only boa constrictor, me, can use it.
Or.
Could?
"I'm not Alisa anymore." She says.
"W...at... you... mean?" I say.
"I'm Faye. From now on, you have to call me Faye."
"Fa... ye?" I say.
What the hell is happening?!
"That's right."
I can only look. The grip is too tight. He has my spine in control, so I'm unable to move. The apartment is nothing but a box of dust. The sun doesn't live here.
No integrity.
"Okay. Are you ready?" She says.
"Wh... th... f...?"
The baby cries.
Boa constrictor, the scar covered in blood.
Sunny day.
Burning veins in my brain.
**** it.
Just **** it.
**** it all.
Bad cough, blood in it.
No matter now.
Baby cries.
No way out.
My left leg moves, I can move with my left leg.
Metal hand is around my neck.
-You're dead anyway.
-All people have to guard their lives, because they're special.
-Expect you.
Emotionless voice.
Maybe so...
No.
You're wrong.
We are not special.
We are not different.
We are crap.
We are trash.
Nothing more.
Something we throw out when it starts to stink.
So...
I concentrate the energy to my left leg and jump back crushing Jet against the wall. His grip relaxes, and I ease his arm from my neck and spin around at high speed. Pointing gun. Baby cries. Alisa slumps down at the floor. I was choking for too long. My skin's the color of the dust. I prepare my gun.
Five years before. Night, vacant street. A girl thin and catlike dressed usually, wearing boots with bare legs. Skin pale green and lips black under buzzing lights. My back against a wall. Long cool tongue darting into my mouth. I reached under her clothes and tore it open. She was naked under a thin shirt. Pale and cold as if dead. I was weak and trying not to pass out. Then she scratched her number on my hand. Blue ink wrinkled in pale skin and I promised to call her. To help her. I promised.
I never called her.
And I never helped her.
I shoot out the window and dive out, the world around is all slow-motioned, like all those games these days.
I fall on my legs and then feel pain.
I run.
I run.
I run.
My muscles burn.
I run.
My body is pumping battery acid.
And I run some more...
I'll vomit later.
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