Wear Your Home Like a Scar, page 4
Pedro paused in reading, his countenance changed. “We have to,” he said. “There’s too much riding on it for us not to.”
The music fell silent when the announcer cut in. “Mucha atención. In response to infamous narcotraficante Pablo Escobar offering a two-thousand-dollar reward in American dollars for every police officer murdered, the National Police are stepping up the number of raids by el Bloque de Búsqueda, the elite squad led by Colonel Hugo Martinez, tasked with bringing down the Cartel de Medellín. They are asking citizens to remain vigilant and continue to report any known activities—”
Pedro snapped off the radio. “That pinche hijueputo maricón.” He hobbled back to his bed, cursing a few times, his demeanor completely changed. “The man who was in here the other day? Tall brown-haired one with the mustache?”
Eduardo nodded to continue the conversation, though in reality he’d been too consumed with retaining his composure to take notice of the men.
“His brother was killed two weeks ago. Some kid just walks up and shoots him in the face. And for what, some money from éste berraco maricón? Assassinating Galán at a campaign event wasn’t enough, so now he has to murder random officers where they stand?” Pedro rubbed his hand across his face, through his bare upper lip, the space where his epic mustache had been. Had he shaved it overnight, for one of his checkups?
Eduardo shifted in bed and felt something in Topo’s jeans. He dug his hand into the pocket and realized the shape was Topo’s navaja, his razorblade.
“You never know what people will do for money.” Eduardo’s guts tightened as a plan came into focus in the dark parts of his skull. “Things they’d never before imagined.”
Pedro sighed hard, gave that lazy half-smile but his eye didn’t droop. The skin around it seemed tighter, even, and Edo realized this wasn’t an angel; this was just some cop, some tombo who would’ve easily shot him if he’d been on that raid last week.
Topo did not send this man. Topo sent this blade.
“This country, you know?” the roommate said.
Eduardo shrugged in place of answering.
“Veni, we should be out of here within an hour. I’ll take you to this place I know and get an arepa.” Eduardo pushed himself up off the bed. “You never had ones like this. They’ll change your life.” Eduardo smiled. “My treat.”
“Pues, I never turn down free food.”
Eduardo felt the navaja press against his leg, felt Topo’s presence, his hand guiding Eduardo’s once more. Still, Eduardo couldn’t help but feel even more alone, as if he’d briefly held God in his hands before slipping away.
Back to TOC
Mori Obscura
My voice echoed through the living room. A few blades of light sliced past the plywood nailed to the window frame. Two rats scratched behind a puke-splattered armchair. Scratching on the other side of the wall, too. Something definitely not a rat.
A crack under my foot. Couldn’t tell if it was a chicken wing or something else. I knelt down and braced my elbow on my knee, opened up the aperture and framed a shot of the crushed bone. Switched to a slower shutter speed for extra coverage and got one of the ripped sofa in the corner, too. I circled the mattress in the middle of the floor, a knot of dark fluid in the center. Blood, afterbirth. Tar, maybe, though unlikely here. Still looked tacky, but no way in fuck would I find out what it was. I called out again to avoid a board across the throat.
“I’m not a cop.”
Slumped on the bottom shelf of the unplugged fridge was a withered bouquet with a tiny plastic sign. I framed it up but part of me felt like I was unleashing something unholy by photographing a funeral arrangement. Especially if it was stolen. I knew that these were all just filler shots for the piece, nothing substantial that would shut Cliff up for long, but it was all I had right now. I snapped a few and slipped into the hallway, staying out of the shadows so no one would think I was creeping.
At the end of the corridor was a jagged opening in the wall, the soft flickering of candles in the next room. The door lay cockeyed on the floor, chunks of limp drywall stuck to the hinges. To the right was a stairwell with no steps. A bucket hung in the empty space, probably to protect whoever was holding up there. Organized bastards, these. More candles flickering above, more hushed, liquid voices. I burned through a roll and a half concentrating on shutter speed and composition, trying to ignore the gnawing inside my bones, the aftertaste of baking soda at the back of my throat.
“The fuck are you?”
I startled despite myself, fucked up the shot. “I’m not a cop.”
“Fiends cop down the street, heard? This is a private establishment. You ain’t seen the sign?”
“It’s a number to call in case an animal’s trapped in here, not a marquee. I work for The Sun.” I displayed my camera like a badge. “Got an assignment you might help me with.”
He mumbled something about being security, turned and shuffled back through the opening. He looked to the side, said something and flicked his head at me. I took gentle steps, wishing I’d brought a knife or blackjack. Even a sock and a bar of soap. A couple more half-ass pictures and I crossed through the opening behind him.
A half-dozen discarded armchairs lined the room, mattresses tossed at odd angles among them. The soot line on the walls looked like a faltering EKG in the flickering flames. I held up my camera, gestured toward a woman slumped in the corner mattress. Security shuffled from foot to foot, a red cap in his fist, gave an erratic nod. I circled the woman, shot from a few different angles. The needle wobbled with her breathing. I synced mine with hers to keep the shot steady.
Cliff had said I was the right one for this assignment, knowing my background so well and all. Said I could find the small corners where the story really was, put him in good standing with his Managing Editor—the caps were implied, being a big deal and all—which would put me in good standing with him and validate the chance he’d taken on hiring me. I told him that was the damn problem, that I knew enough to know I could get lost easier than I liked to admit. He just thumbed my blue NA key tag, tapped the back, said, Six months and a day.
“Looking pretty comfy with that camera there.” His voice was a rusted gate blowing in the wind. His voice could’ve given me tetanus. “Sure you got enough light in here?”
I drew back my shoulders, stood and turned. He’d hunkered down on a stool by the opening. Right hand swollen near double the size of the left, a constellation of black smudges over his skin. His nails were the same color as the smudges. Even his palms were just about black. He tipped his head back, candle throwing a slash of light across him.
“Flaco Delgado, as I live and breathe.” His smile was a crescent moon across the night sky of his face. “So, the practical son returns.”
“It’s prodigal,” I said, but my voice failed me. I cleared my throat and repeated it.
His was the last face I wanted to see. I wasn’t surprised to see him here, but I wasn’t happy about it either. Last time I’d seen Clarence, he’d been cuffed on a curb while I was sitting in the back of a police car. He had an I.V. in his forearm now, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was the same one he’d had back then. He’d told me once while headed to a scam that he’d jacked it one of the times he was in the E.R., installed it himself. Heard otherwise it was because he was diabetic and irresponsible and the nurses got tired of sticking him.
“Long time, Flaco.”
I nodded, messed with the settings on my camera. “I’m on an assignment. I’m a journo now.” Part-time freelance, anyway. “I got the basement in my cousin’s place and a ’98 Geo. It ain’t much but it’s mine.” I had no control over my mouth or anything it was doing. I didn’t even know why it was doing anything. I didn’t care, I didn’t care. Lord, help me to accept the things—
“Ain’t really yours if it’s your cousin’s basement,” he said. “Look like you doing all right, though. Fancy camera, clean shoes. Could use you some nicer getup though.”
“It’s June.” I fingered the threads hanging from my shirt, smoothed them out like it was fashion. “And it’s their camera.”
“No matter. Still glad you made it out.” He held a piece of metal—the sidewall of some kitchen appliance, maybe—and drew in the dirt on the floor. “How long’s it been?”
“I’m on an assignment,” I repeated.
“Thought you would’ve picked the O’s or something. Or all them new beehive ladies sprouting up Hampden. When they start caring about us again?”
I shrugged, opened up the aperture then closed it again. Checked the light meter. “Mayor fired one of her cabinet people for shooting off their mouth about the drug task force or something. They said the reports were all cooked up.”
Clarence looked around like that should’ve been obvious.
“Yeah, well. Re-election’s coming up.” I snapped two of Security spreading his toes with one hand, steadying a needle with the other. Swallowed down that bitter tang. “Anyway, woman she fired was married to my editor’s editor. A wild hair got planted and now I’m here, trying to ‘put a human face on this administration’s lack of responsiveness to the opioid crisis.’” I figured he could hear the air quotes in my voice, parroting back the line Cliff had hung out for me. Cliff had said it was a human-interest piece, but I could smell the con a mile away: this was award bait as much as it was retribution for the firing.
He ran his tongue over his teeth, picked a scab from the base of his IV and threw it on the floor. “Well, it’s good to see you again.”
I lifted my camera and took three of him without looking through the viewfinder. His expression didn’t change, but by the way my skin prickled, I could’ve sworn the temperature dropped.
“I’m on an assignment,” I told him again.
“Heard that already.”
“That all right?”
“I got a choice?”
“I’m not a cop, C.”
“Heard that, too.”
I milled around the room, trying to look like I had some purpose but knowing damn well he could see through me. Always had. Probably always would, I reckoned. A long pendulum of drool swung from the corner of Security’s mouth. The girl on the mattress hadn’t stirred.
“She still with us?” Clarence said.
I knelt in front of Security while he was docile, got a few of his foot. Another roll or two of these should keep Cliff at bay until I could get something better. Somewhere else where Clarence wasn’t. When I got too close, there was a faint smell of vinegar that made my mouth water and I backed away, shoved my hand in my pocket and rubbed the key tag. Didn’t really matter which chip it was. Six and a day, I said to myself. Six and a day.
Cliff—or Mr. Burnham, as I’d known him growing up—had been college roommates with my father. The cops found dope on me after Clarence and I got arrested for stealing dogs from yuppies in Federal Hill that we’d sell back to said yuppies once they put up their Missing Dog signs. I had the choice of jail or rehab, which wasn’t really a choice. But part of the plea deal was that I had to be employed upon getting out of rehab.
I’d shown an artistic flair before losing six years of my life to heroin, so my dad made a call, got me a gig with Cliff at the paper. Freelance, of course, because Cliff wouldn’t take that big a risk, but I figured newspapers were dying anyway so it was just working on my portfolio until something better came along.
Something thumped in the next room, probably the kitchen if this was like most Highlandtown rowhomes. There was another doorway, this one with the door intact. I wove my way through fried fish baskets, paper bags speckled with spray paint, empty bottles of generic ammonia. The thumping fell quiet.
“Someone riding hard?” I said.
“You ain’t the only one hip to the best corners.” Clarence laughed to himself, picked up a spoon from the makeshift table beside him. Table looked like a telephone cable spindle but turned sideways. “Sorry. Was.” He sifted some powder out of a bag, nodding his head like there was some radio transmission he couldn’t get clear. Licking his lips, the cocksucker. Putting on a show. He said, “Flaco, lemme hold your lighter.”
And like the stupid motherfucker I was, I patted down my pockets.
Finger cocked like a gun, he clucked his tongue and fired, then went about cooking. I looked around the room and hoped I wasn’t erect. Dirty son of a bitch didn’t even clean his I.V. after he’d pushed off. Just threw the cotton ball to my feet. “Don’t let it be said I don’t take care of my own.”
“Christ, Clarence.” I dug in my pocket, pulled out my keys and shook them in front of him. The thumping quietly started again.
“Oh.” He nodded a few times, though I didn’t know if I was me or the dope. “Yeah, I heard that.” He rooted around his space, exhumed a ring of keys from somewhere, though I had no idea why he needed keys. “Yeah, I got a couple of them. Trade you two one-years for that.”
“Fuck you.” I started toward the noise.
“Nah, Flaco. It ain’t like that. You at the good time, hear. I give anything be where you is right now. When you push off again, it’s like your dick bursting with rainbows and shit.” He made to stand but swayed instead, settling back to the stool like a piece of gauze drifting on a warm, viscous air.
While he was nodding, I walked to the back, hoping to burn through a roll on whoever was riding back there, then beat feet over Dundalk and take a meeting at Bethlehem A.M.E, over where I wouldn’t know no one and could stay low-key. I yanked on the door and it was locked. There was just the tiny hole on my side, no latch to open. I pulled again and realized the knob was spinning in my hand.
“Members only.” Clarence’s voice traveled through a fog of asbestos and sawdust to get to me. “Thought you saw the sign.”
I pushed, pulled again, then saw the latch and padlock, undone and hanging lopsided. “What the fuck is this?”
He muttered something—to Security, looked like—but got no response.
“Clarence,” I called out. “I thought the stash was upstairs.”
The fucker, he just gave me the crescent-moon smile again and leaned against the wall. I shifted in front of the door, moved my hands slowly and unhooked the lock. The door swung open without a sound, and I thought that was what creeped me out most. The room wasn’t a kitchen, but it was dark, darker than the living room or hallway. The smell of stagnant cigarettes, unwashed bodies, and chemical sweat was so thick I could taste it. On the shelf beside me were four empty cartons of lightbulbs. Knots of singed, crinkled aluminum foil dotted the floor.
And in the middle of the floor stood a small crib holding a ten-year-old girl, her arms lashed to the posts. One ear of her Hello Kitty headband had snapped off. Her skin melded with the shadows but I could still see veins threading through the whites of her eyes.
I said fuck me, Jesus, but couldn’t tell if it was just in my head.
Two men sat in the corner, rocking their chairs and sucking on cigarettes like they were paid ten dollars for it. Scabs across their mouths, their sunken cheeks. The white one had scratch marks on his neck, though I didn’t know if it was from the girl or tweaking. They eyed me with a predatory ferociousness, chained another smoke without looking.
The girl opened her mouth to say something, to scream, to tell me to fuck off for not saving her earlier, then glanced at the men and tucked her chin to her chest. Silent. She pulled at the ropes. Her right sleeve was torn at the shoulder, kind of discolored.
I stumbled on a glass bottle as I backed out of the room.
Clarence just smiled, swaying and nodding and drooling and smiling. I shot fifteen questions at him so quick it all came out as, “The fuck, C?”
“Members only.”
“What the fuck are you doing with a little girl?”
He shrugged. “Found her.”
“What do mean found her? How do you find a fucking child?” I stepped back into the room, like I was checking on her, like I had any right to check on her. One man sat in the same position, smoking. The other unfolded pieces of foil on the floor, a straw tucked behind his ear. I could see myself explaining a broken camera to Cliff, after swinging it like a mace and opening the sides of their faces with shattered lens. I could see myself folding her under my arm, hearing their ribs crack as I mule-kicked then ran out of the room. I scratched my chest and felt a thin warmth. Hoped I didn’t break the skin.
The question crept out of my mouth hesitantly, like it didn’t really want to be answered.
“Waiting to hear back from the family,” he shrugged. “About the only thing we can do now.”
“Ain’t that the girl was on the news last week?”
He puckered his lips like he was thinking. “Reckon so. Folks don’t care about no poor little black girl for more’n a few days, though, so I think we’re safe.”
“How the fuck you going to get ransom if they got no fucking money?”
“You know who her people are?”
I checked on her again. The man on the floor kept the straw between his lips, stared at the girl in a way that made my fingers tingle.
I tried to sound commanding. “Motherfucker, step back from her.”
He spun to face me, something sharp and shiny in his fist. The girl squeaked, then shoved her head down again, pretending she’d never moved. Her fingers kneaded her palms. Clarence’s voice drew me back to the other room.
“Let me put it this way: The news ain’t want to report that police are looking for the baby girl of no slingers. I know kids is kids, but taxpayers don’t want nothing to do with them or they litter. You know, re-elections and all.”
“You’re going to heist up the kid of an East Baltimore banger? Are you fucking serious?”
He blew a smoke ring at me, poked his finger through it.
“Why would they pay when they can just blast in and take her?”
That smile again, the one that had got me a ninety-day holiday in Jessup. Twice. Clarence and his bright ideas.
