“Goddamn punk motherfucker!” he heard as his head ripped alongside something on the way down, his ear coming aflame. Then he was flat on the floor, in a heap, the old wildcat on his back. Seemed Mr. Feeble Shopkeeper had a few tricks of his own. But with the surety of instinct alone, Sautin kicked out with both legs and flung himself over and across two feet of scuffed and peeling floor. He twisted around and managed to land on his back, grunting in satisfaction as the air whoofed out of the old man, still scratching and clawing like a madhouse lunatic. Sautin’s hand immediately went to the boot, fumbled around the bellbottom to get at the blade. The old man went loose on a solid stream of profanity and whirring fists and with all this to contend with Sautin couldn’t tell what was happening near the front door. He almost laughingly tried to negotiate this new series of circumstances in his head, to little effect. But one lived with the deal of the hand; he’d known that for a long time now and he fisted the knife’s shaft. Desperate times, desperate measures, he thought and pulled it free. Seemed a simple ass-whipping was no longer on the agenda.
The blade slid out sweetly to the light and for just a moment it froze there in the air, as if asking whether or not it should continue. Because it looked like he’d have to. Why, even now, the old bastard was working his fingers into Sautin’s eyes, and even with the bigger man’s weight full on him the proprietor’s adrenaline was apparently going to be enough if Sautin didn’t get the show on the fucking road.
He spun the blade around deftly into a downward striking grip and drove his elbow back hard. Instantly, the rabid fingers let go of his face, giving him both time and opportunity to free himself from this surprisingly persistent nemesis. He raked the blade free with a savage pull and stumbled to his knee and then up to both feet. Somewhere far back in his mind he could still hear frantic screams coming from the nurse in breathless continuity. He had no idea where Darrell was. Almost twenty-five seconds had passed since the Fall.
Another three seconds later he watched the proprietor struggle to his own feet and knew he’d gotten lucky. Blood pumped from the old man’s leg in a spraying gush; so he had gotten the damn artery. Well, fuck him. The old man’s eyes weren’t registering pain yet, that much was clear, only a mighty fucking lethal dose of hatred. Yeah, it was time to cash his ticket. Sure is sure. Sautin slashed out with his right hand, catching the shopkeeper just below the chin and opening his neck with the lucky precision usually found only in second-rate horror movies. The old man sat back down in a rumpled heap, his hands to his throat, his eyes quickly losing their lust for revenge. Sautin watched him dim for a moment and turned to see what he could salvage, calculating already how many steps it would take him to get across the showroom floor to the staircase. Fifteen, probably, at least no more than twenty.
And at that moment of indecision another voice chimed into the fray, drowning out the frantic background screams coming from the nurse and the gurgling of the shop owner. And this one small miscalculation almost sealed the deal. It was something Sautin never forgot afterward, or at least not until it was too late.
Darrell was standing in front of him about twenty feet away looking down at the nurse, but that wasn’t it at all. Sautin jerked his head around and found the old fag.
His voice held its high, shrill edge but the pistol, it looked like a goddamned Police-issue .38, laid a new wrinkle to the personality Sautin had so readily dismissed. A wave of madness had swept his face and Sautin had a moment to drink it in, damning himself for missing the little things. Then the nurse got a little louder and that seemed to crank the fag up a notch. Darrell noticed the track of the gun pin him to the wall and surprise was just changing his face to china white when the gun went off and a neat dot of blood appeared immediately dead-center of his chest. He brushed at it for a moment like flicking away a fly until another one appeared by his left shoulder as a perfect match and with that he went down without a sound, bloodlessly. Through the window, across the street, Sautin saw a head turn and a finger point their way. The old fag was still screaming, stepping up a few paces now to plant a couple more slugs into Darrell.
Sautin, noticing he still held the hockey stick, dropped it to the floor.
He bolted across the scuffed, paneled flooring then, throwing over a bookcase full of nicked and depressing bric-a-brac and scattering a hedge of plastic shrubbery as he cut for the staircase. At the banister he paused for one moment: there was continued activity on the street outside and the Unknown Element was now turning his attention Sautin’s way.
Sautin took the staircase three steps at a time and shouldered his way through the door at the top of the landing as two ripping thunderclaps showered sheetrock and wood fragments all around him. He thought he also heard the sound of the bell above the door, and maybe even sirens, but couldn’t be sure in the chaos and rolled quickly across the floor as far away from the door as he could get.
The room was small, with all the depressing finality of a bachelor pad, and sparsely furnished with shit that could have graced the floor downstairs, but there were still many places an eccentric old fuck of a drug dealer could stash whatever he had. And time was something Sautin didn’t have a lot of. From the random firing and ruckus below, the whole goddamn French Quarter ought to be coming down around his ears anyfuckingtime now.
And at this singular moment of his existence, a slot clicked into place. A cog setting for the young murder and thief. A sudden, stunning calm descended upon him, blocking out the din outside and all the mad, spinning thoughts inside his head. Everything disappeared as the thing slid surely into place. And oddly, it was as if he’d known it all along.
He pulled himself slowly to his feet and walked over to the closet, wrenching open the door and stepping over the expected pile of boxes inside. His arm went to the attic entrance (a tiny notch cut in the plywood years before and practically impossible to see in the darkness), his fingers clenching into a fist with which he punched away the cover. He reached into the darkness above his head, not even mildly surprised when his fingers closed around the rock-hard brick of Colombian marijuana.
He pulled it down, looked at it and grunted. Not much, but enough for now. Time and opportunity provided to fit the occasion, and one was advised to respect the courtesy. The commotion downstairs was getting hotter, different frantic voices reaching his ears, though his own eyes were wide at the thing he’d found with his sudden act of violence. He turned, already keenly aware which window the fire escape served.
And minutes later, even as the siren-wail bounded against the surrounding buildings, he walked the back alley, keeping his sight firmly fixed ahead and letting the new purpose he felt in the very marrow of his bones steer him safely away from the scene of his Awakening.
Chapter 8:On the Streets
I waved to a few of the neighbors as I locked the door (I wanted to keep people out of there as long as possible), and made off down the street as if headed to the store for a loaf of bread and a stick of butter. I still remember that old cartoon sticking in my head, trying hard not to think about what I was actually doing. Because I was alone now, completely and utterly alone.
I didn’t know what the hell I was gonna do; I didn’t know where the hell I was gonna go. I just knew I had to put as much distance between myself and this place as humanly possible. Scared as hell, sure, but not scared enough to fall into the Hands of the State. I’d listened in on too many of those conversations with the moon drifting in like thin sheets of paper through the slats. I’d read Orwell by then too.
I covered the better part of five blocks before I even slowed down or stopped looking over my shoulder every thirty seconds. I kept my hands in my pockets, one of them wrapped around the tight knot of bills I had there, the other around the house key I’d never need again, and I remember trying to figure how long I could expect the money to last. Because when it was gone, there I’d be…
We lived not far from downtown and back in the day, before all the “Beautify Our Fair City” campai
gn struck up, there were plenty of old buildings and parking garages to get lost in on the off chance some perv got loose on your tail or the night got too goddamn cold. But of course hiding out in deserted buildings wasn’t gonna be a viable option for long since A) I had to find a way to make money if I wasn’t gonna resort to eating out of garbage cans, and B) someone was eventually gonna notice and start askin questions. I remember that first night, lying miserably in the crawlspace beneath a deserted frame house (I dared not stay inside for fear the ones who obviously slept on the filthy mattress came back with more of the shit they were shootin as evidenced from the needles scattered across the floor), going over plan after ill-formed plan in my head. I could take the bus. OK, where? Nothing came to mind. I could try to get in touch with one of the several relatives Grandma had talked with infrequently. Again, fine, but to what purpose? These people had kids of their own or were two fuckin old to go through the whole business again. Or at least that’s what I told myself; inside I hadn’t liked any of them that much anyway. And then, of course, I could go to the police. But that one I considered most ridiculous. As far as I knew, they might have a few unpleasant questions for a runaway who’d packed his grandmother into a back room and walked out without saying a word. Somehow I felt sure there was something illegal about that. The only thing I knew for certain was I was most vulnerable alone. I needed to get in with others, now, fuckin yesterday. I didn’t know how or with whom, but I did know that numbers would be my best shot at staying free. At least for the short term.
I thought maybe the campus might be the ticket. LSU had plenty of young, unsuspicious kids loitering around, and bars. I pictured myself slinking around in the alleyways, picking through garbage cans, looking for hand-outs. Fucking pickle-puke nasty in retrospect, but realistic I thought, and lucky for me I hit a sudden growth period and shot up almost four inches in the next six months. Fuckin knees hurtin like hell. I could grow a full mustache by the time I was fifteen; a street-tough persona by sixteen. But I can’t take credit really.
It was Blinky who saved me. Without a doubt it was her. And goddammit, she never had a chance. I saw that from the first, from that first look in the alley, but I clung to her anyway like the fool I’ve always been; you don’t abandon a leaking life raft in the middle of the fucking ocean just because you have to keep scoopin out water. But with her it was different because I did love her goodness, and her desperation too, I guess, this poor girl dealt a shittier hand than mine, even though she (as opposed to Yours Truly) never lost her sense of balance. Or humor.
Until the end, that is. At the end there wasn’t much left to salvage, and I guess that in itself allowed me to leave her. I seriously doubt (if she’s even alive somewhere, somehow) she’d even recognize me now. Oh, she’d know me the moment I opened my mouth, I still believe that, but manys the time I’ve lain awake trying to picture her face remembering me. No real point really, I know it’s wishful thinking, self-indulgence. But what the hell, right? Anything in a fuckin storm.
She was the one who popped my cherry, but the drugs took something much more precious than that from her by the time I finally ditched. And by then she was a shell. That, too, reminded me of my mother. It was as if I could smell the thing which consumed her a little at a time, and I knew there would be no going back for me, or any of us at a certain point.
I met her on Chimes Street just off campus. It was dark, the week after Thanksgiving and the air starting to wear a chill. Not much, but a mild warning nonetheless of winter sneakin up from behind. And even though it was south Louisiana, when you spend every hour outside or underneath some shitty overhang, or beneath a house when it rains, winter always means different degrees of the same fuckin thing: cold and miserable. Doesn’t matter where the fuck you are. I tried keeping a low profile during the day because the holiday was almost over and Christmas was not for another couple of weeks. And sad to say, that was my only goal at the time: not getting picked up for vagrancy (or God’s knows what else?) before the year ended.
Maybe I was looking for a sign, those portents I mentioned earlier, and if so, I found it in the weird gaze of the girl who proved to be my first lover. No beauty, for sure, but in my eyes, for awhile, nothing compared. She told me late one night, looped on acid and fading between waning bouts of the shivers and frantic laughter, she’d been pinched by forceps at birth. Fuckin doctor said it wouldn’t affect her later, but it had. The orbit around her right eye was pushed inward just so, drawing the lid to a tight half-mast. It blinked constantly, too, and wept, and she hated it. I personally didn’t care because I needed her. She was seventeen, a runaway from Meridian, Mississippi. Fuckin pervert of a stepfather couldn’t keep it in his pants and her mom wouldn’t hear any of it.
I met her behind The Bayou. I guess it was my first Saturday night on the street, and I remember sitting on a trash can listening to the music pump from inside, wondering what the hell I was gonna do. There was a lot of bickering, laughing and cursing from the street, and I flinched when I saw a shadow round the corner and head my way. Then I saw it was a girl, and a pretty drunk one at that, so I slipped off the can and scooted around behind it to hide. I don’t know why, really. All I knew was nobody was getting the thinning wad of bills crammed to the bottom of my pocket, girl or fuckin not.
The only light in the alley dripped down from a rusty, utility-pole globe, almost obscured by a plywood billboard advertising a Lebanese restaurant for anyone passing on the opposite side of the street; from where I was you couldn’t even read it. She stumbled over something and it gave me a chance to peek out to see if there was anyone with her. And as I expected, she was alone.
Right about then she pulled her pants down. Just like that, she was standing there fumbling with something that turned out to be her zipper, and in one smooth sweep she had them right around her ankles. And I saw her, framed in that yellow light like an angel out of Heaven, the perfect little dark triangle between her legs and those naked thighs. I think I almost came on myself right there and then, even before she squatted. The light was just right and I saw her ass then, the first, live female ass I’d ever seen. And right then I wasn’t thinking anymore about the money in my pocket. I wasn’t thinking of the weather turning bad, or of Grandma lying dead in that dark, silent room either. Right then all I could think about was that beautiful, round ass poised in the seduction of the light. My face was suddenly very hot, my pants bursting at the seams. I rocked forward to give my dick some leeway and the goddamn garbage can tipped over like a herd of fucking devils coming through. Her head jerked my way but she didn’t stop peeing.
I ducked back to the wall, trying to hide, trying to pretend I didn’t know she’d seen me. But it wasn’t long before I heard pants being pulled up and then footsteps heading my way. I was crippled with fear and an awesome hard-on, I think the latter the most debilitating.
I knew she was drunk as soon as I saw her eyes. Of course, first, I saw that one, but the picture alcohol paints is always the same. Her words were a little slurred but I made em out just fine. What the fuck was I doing? What was I, some kind of fuckin peeping tom motherfucker? I remember the amazement that paralyzed my brain then, making me subhuman and inarticulate, the amazing guilty thrill that had me shaking and about to burst my zipper.
She must have figured me for a baby because her voice shook off the drunken belligerence and she squatted down again, this time to get eye-level. I could still see her shining, white ass in my mind, and when she reached over to touch me on the knee I came explosively in my pants.
And here’s the thing about love: she must have known, but didn’t say anything. And that’s how I came to love her.
***
I ended up crying out the worst of my story sitting back there amid the garbage cans in the alley, eventually spilling out the whole miserable story as the music pounded louder through the wall and the drunks got louder on the street. It was as if I’d been waiting for her and now that she was here I held absolutely
nothing back, suddenly released from the black pit of my mind, and I remember how she cradled me and brushed my hair back as I went on and on. Once she yelled some curses down the alley in the direction of laughter, me not even looking up, like a child in her arms, then rocking me back and forth until I was better. She asked if I’d had anything to eat and I said no. She asked where I was sleeping and I told her anywhere. She smiled at me then, ran her hand across my face to dry the tears, and pulled me to my feet. At that moment I would have followed her down the steepest, bloodiest stairway of Hell itself. And funny, as it turned out, I very nearly did.
I lose track of the flow that night. I remember a knot of some very older-looking people, a very dangerous-looking bunch I was afraid of even from a distance, though they didn’t fuck me over or turn me in to the police. They eyed me blankly, alone there under the streetlight on the corner, and after a few words from Blinky, kept me stuffed out of sight until the street closed down and all the night-rats crawled back to their holes.
And when they went I went with them, Blinky hanging back when they dispersed in the lamplight which was just fine as far as I was concerned. I was hungry, scared, tired, shit, everything, but I still didn't feel comfortable around all these…hoods. Because that’s what Grandma would have called em. I’d seen this kinda crap plenty of times in our neighborhoods, and Grandma had made a damn good point of letting me know that under no circumstances was I to pal around with any of them. Her lips would move a lot when she didn’t think I was watchin and even though her eyes weren’t always shut, I guessed she was praying God to make sure He didn’t allow me go against her wishes. But maybe He wasn’t listenin.