Wally

by Rowan Massey

  My legs were stiff and heavy. I couldn’t lift them far enough off the ground that I didn’t stumble like a dunk. All I could do was move from one body to the next. One dead face, two dead faces, three dead faces…. I lost count over and over, never knowing why I counted, but I kept starting over.

  Two bodies near the trees were different. The blood was in the wrong places. They’d been shot. I hurried to the two kids with bullet holes ripped into their faces and let myself fall down onto all fours in front of them. They were Doc’s patients. I felt so bad for him. He would find out and never get over it. He’d been so close to curing them.

  The pill. It went into my mouth and something pushed me not to chew. But that something wasn’t me. I wanted it. I needed to die with them.

  I chewed, letting the chalky bitterness water my mouth. Now, like always, I would go out into the middle of the field and be with my people. Like always, it would be amazing. Getting to my feet again wasn’t easy. I couldn’t breathe. My brain was shorting out. That something inside me was telling me to panic. But that wasn’t me. I ignored it.

  The field felt cold. Where was the pounding of feet, the voices of the tourists as they gawked and laughed? Where was the massive feeling of being alive and happy? No, it was just quiet and cold.

  Once I got to where the dead fielders had gone, I would be warm again.

  Lightning pain shot through my teeth, crawled up my nose, and stung my eyes. There was no one to help me cut my head. There was no razor, but I could grit my teeth until they felt like they would crack. I could distract the crawls by biting my tongue.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  The drummer counted out the slow beat, the guitarist strummed lazily, and I walked towards the warmth I could feel out there in the dark. A smooth male voice started out the song with a long, emotional, ooo-ooohhh youuuuu…

  They are all saints!

  Let the kids dance!

  Let them all fly!

  Perfect children of the cosmos,

  Let them dance!

  Our little saints,

  Let them,

  Let them dance, dance, dance, dance, dance!

  All the flailing, stomping, swaying fielders lifted themselves out of the darkness around me and lit the place up in a burst of harmless flames. We were bloodless, clean. The crowd was larger than any I’d ever seen. We were hundreds of thousands. We were thick in the place, no room for hardly anything but us. Up above were the stars, swooshing down and around in rhythm, and between us were thin, twisting trees full of bright fruit. Under our bare feet, green grass. And the biggest, craziest flowers I’d ever seen grew on vines that arched up and over our heads. Colors spread out from our skin, hair, and clothes, creating new life, new music, new feeling. I could see the music on the air. For once, we all heard the same song, and we sang along like a choir.

  We are all saints now,

  We will all dance now,

  What a colorful feeling!

  What a colorful sky!

  And we will dance!

  Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!

  ◆◆◆

  Wally,

  I can’t protect you from your life on the streets, and I won’t try to make your choices for you because I know from experience with other kids that you would only push back. All I can do is inform you.

  The drug you take keeps you from making logical choices. This is true of all fielders, but you are now at a greater risk than you have been in the past. Someone violently dangerous has entered your life, and I want you to be more careful.

  I can already predict that you won’t avoid Nando, even after the way he has hurt you. After you take your next dose, you’ll forget, in a way, how you feel today. No matter what someone like Nando does, you’ll take your next dose and forget. This puts you in great danger of being drawn into an abusive relationship. I’m afraid for you. If you don’t leave Nando, he might one day kill you.

  Additionally, you are not like the other fielders when it comes to more than survival time. No one else tells me that they are at a ten at all times. Most fielders are happier than the general public, but they range from a five to a ten at the end of each day before they dance. Your faith in fielders is unfounded, and I have concluded that you in particular have a delusion that keeps you from having to deal with your life in a normal way. Spitz feeds your delusion by going along with your almost religious belief in your drug. When you aren’t around, he reports his happiness scale at much lower numbers than he reports when you are next to him.

  Your belief that you are always as happy as possible without exception has been broken today, and you’ve told me for the first time that you are not at a ten. I want you to remember that. Life is not perfect on fielders. But that’s okay because you have your friends and me.

  Sending you to New York City will hopefully give you space to think about these things and decide what you want to do when you get back home to Emporium. You’ll also learn from the experience of travel and meeting new people.

  Think about what I’ve said, and try to make good decisions in the future. It’s time to grow up a little bit now, and accept your realities. I say these things with the best of intentions.

  I’ll look forward to your return.

  Sincerely,

  Doc

  Thank you for reading Wally’s story. For more about the author, please visit RowanMassey.com. From there, you can sign up for the newsletter and be the first to find out about new releases.

  More by Rowan Massey:

  Sick & Tragic Bastard Son

  An abandoned son. A lonely father. A perverted plot for revenge.

  With an undiagnosed mental illness, a troubled past, and a hopeless future, gay teen, Zander Mason, is spending his days doing drugs, drinking, and indulging in risky behavior. When he turns eighteen, his mom tells him about his father, Clay, who he's never met and has always hated for abandoning the family. When he's told that his father is also gay, his mind is spinning. He's had anonymous sex with older men all over town. Could it be possible that he's accidentally hooked up with his own father? Then again, wouldn't that be the perfect revenge?

  As his mental health deteriorates, and he starts to hallucinate colorful lights more and more, Zander follows through on an incestuous plot to get back at Clay. What he doesn't expect is to get romantically involved with his dad.

  In this family drama, Clay, the lonely father of a teenage girl, meets an intense younger guy and can't help but start to fall for him. All the while, Clay is on the hunt for the son he was forced to give up. Eventually, the truth must come out. How long can Zander continue the lies?

  This is a story-heavy gay romance, family drama, and tragedy with no HEA. Content warnings: explicit sex, drug use, mental illness, religious abuse, child abuse/neglect, and animal abuse

  Upcoming books!

  Such a Colorful Feeling

  Book Three: Doc

  Book Four: Jace

  Such a Colorful Feeling

  Book Three: Doc

  Chapter One

  My grief is a worshiped wound that will bleed for eternity, well past my own existence, and not in defiance of the way things should be, but in congruence with reality.

  Given the means, I would erase the moment I admitted to myself that Wally was just like Ryker; that he had the same place in my heart. It was one of many times I’d left him alone in the lab, his having earned my trust. As usual, I was alerted by my security team that there was a drug runner coming down the street heading for my house. I preferred being able to open the door before they could knock so that they knew how well the area was policed by my guards. A small package was received without speaking a word—one vial of a dissolving bioglue. I unwrapped it as I traipsed down the hall and noticed that there was a hairline crack in the tube of glass. When I reached the middle of the steps, I heard Wally make a whooshing sound and looked up to see him with his back to me, gliding his hand just over a table top, then up into the air in a steep takeoff, preten
ding his hand was an airplane. It was a game familiar to all children, especially those with little or no toys. Their thumbs and pinkies spread out from the other fingers, palms gliding carefully over and past surfaces or objects, it was a built-in toy for boring moments. He hadn’t heard my steps, and I could barely see him past the edge of the ceiling. Whooshing turned to a practiced slow-motion explosion sound borrowed from action movies. His fingers spread out, flipped over, and crash landed with great drama. The motion of his arm, the sounds he made, all of it was a perfect mirror of Ryker’s mannerisms. Or was I imagining it? No. He was just as ordinary and damaged as Ryker had been, exactly as lovable.

  I turned and went just as quietly up the stairs as I’d descended. With my back against the wall, I put a hand to my face and gripped my jaw as tightly as I could until my arm shook. Wally’s singing rose up, quietly, then loudly, the acoustics of the space making it even more sweet than usual. I hadn’t heard the song before, but I had no doubt that it hailed from the seventies. It was sung complete with a guitar solo, and I felt certain he was strumming his air guitar, not because I’d ever seen him do that, but because it was what all boys did.

  After breathing in and out, relaxing my shoulders back, and telling myself to act like a man, I went downward again, this time stomping a little more than necessary so that he’d hear me. When I reached the bottom, staring at the crack in the vial in an effort not to show emotion, Wally was standing like a soldier at the ready, pressing his lips together as if to force himself to be quiet and still. I couldn’t help smiling, but I didn’t want to encourage any silliness in my lab, so I turned away from him to transfer the liquid into a new vial in silence.

  Four years earlier, when I went to the new Federal Adoption Center, I was dressed in a suit and tie. I knew that almost no potential adopters were being turned away; that I could have shown up having pissed myself and they wouldn’t have told me to leave so long as I didn’t make any trouble, but I wanted to make a good impression on whatever teenager was placed in my care. Who knew how long the Federal Adoption program would last—probably no longer than any of the other new social programs, which was usually a year or so. I was so paranoid about losing such an easy opportunity to adopt that I was already fucking it up. By the time I walked into the center, I was chagrined, cringing in shame at my appearance. My immaculate clothing would undoubtedly be intimidating to most of the kids, who had nothing but one backpack full of belongings each, if that. Some of them wore tattered rags and nothing to carry from place to place besides their undernourished bodies.

  There were three-high bunk beds crowding one side of the converted gym, some pressed together so that a third child could be placed in the middle of two beds. Metal tables crowded into the other side. They were identical to the kinds installed at vitamin stew stalls, round stools bolted to the floor. I had no doubt, judging by the number of teenagers sitting on the tables, floors, and beds that every surface was slept on during the night.

  The noise had been heard from down the street as I was approaching. Up close, it was maddening. Endless young voices created a cacophony of sound. Balls bounced on the walls, tablets and radios squawked noise from cheap speakers, one of the tables was being used as a drum, and a large, makeshift kitchen was in action in the far corner. Giant cans of vitamin stew were being opened under industrial can openers. Skinny kids with desperate hunger in their eyes were already trying to become first in line, but they were shooed off by one of the cooks. Sweat streamed down his red face, adding to the spittle when he screamed, “Go on you little shits! Go on!”

  I stood pivoting in the middle of the chaos. It felt like a battlefield, and many of the kids looked just as jarred by it as I was, others feigned boredom, still others were limp and staring into space. As I slowly walked through them, some kids were leaning away from me, others leaned forward. A small group of teens nearby started eying me, not with wariness, but with open greed and envy. Wanting to get away from them, I walked towards the kitchen, looking for an adult. One of them broke from the group—a gawky, hostile-looking boy with a shaved head. He scrambled to his feet and followed after me. I pretended not to notice, but stayed aware of his presence as I went closer to the kitchen, trying to wave down the cook who had screamed at the kids. He saw me, but looked bored. I was ignored. Frustrated, I turned on my heel and almost ran into the boy.

  “Did you pick one yet?” he asked.

  His eyes were unblinking, body language incredibly tense, but his thumbs were thrust casually into his pockets in an attempt to look friendly.

  “I’m here to adopt,” I said, talking above the noise. “Do you know who I can talk to?”

  He gave me a quick nod but asked another question.

  “Have anything in mind? Boy or girl?”

  “Who’s in charge?” I asked sternly.

  “I’ll show you around, but I’m the best they got around here. I can work harder than any of these others. Don’t eat very much. Not picky about anything. I can take care of myself. No drugs. That’s a guarantee. Never been in trouble. Never. I can babysit, clean, cook, everything.” All of this was said very quickly and in a practiced manner. It was so painfully clear by his dilated pupils and breathless speech that he was presently on drugs. I sighed and looked around one more time. The kids were apparently going unsupervised for the moment.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, and he grinned, thrusting a hand out. I shook it.

  “Really glad to meet you,” he said, gripping my hand too tightly, having apparently already forgotten the question. He smiled at me as if he’d won a prize.

  I pried my hand from his thin fingers and walked past him. He followed and continued to talk.

  “I had a job before they made me come here, so I can work hard. I’m used to it. Been working since I was nine. I’ve never complained in my life. Never, never complain. That’s my motto. Or I can find a job and take care of myself if you want. Are you looking for sex? I can do that too, or I can tell you about the girls—”

  I spun around and put a hand to his chest, stopping him in his tracks. It was my intention to tell him he shouldn’t ever put up with abuse, that he was a child and should be taken care of. He reacted instinctively by grabbing onto my arm with two hands and squeezing his eyes shut, ready to take a blow. He stayed that way, shoulders shaking slightly until I gently withdrew my hand. He opened one eye, and seeing that I wasn’t hostile, opened the other.

  “What’s your name?” I asked again.

  “Ryker”

  “Ryker what?”

  “I don’t know. Just Ryker, I guess.”

  “Okay. If you help me find out who’s running this circus, you’re coming home with me today. No more stew. How does that sound?”

  His eyes widened and he sprang into action before I’d finished talking. He jogged into the mess of bunk beds and turned just before going out of sight, gesturing for me to follow. It didn’t sink in until I walked down the isle of beds that it was a frightening place, even for a grown man. Blankets and sheets had been hung everywhere for privacy and it was impossible to see more than six feet in any direction before your line of sight was blocked. Resultingly, there was no air circulation. I put my hand to my nose when we walked past a yellow plastic bucket full of dark piss. When we approached a barely pubescent girl smoking something toxic from a small pipe made from a hose and some foil, I stopped and took it from her without a word. She was too slowed down to stop me. Her hands stayed in the air long after she had nothing to hold. A baggie of the substance was on her lap. I took that as well.

  When I turned back down the aisle to keep following Ryker, he was standing gaping at me. His eyes went to the drugs, then back to me, and he seemed deeply confused or disturbed by it. For the first time, I saw him blink, then he turned and kept leading me through the horrors. In one bed, pale naked bodies could be seen moving together. The bed shook from the activity. Kids in general had long since taken to having sex in public, so it didn’t surprise me, bu
t made me wonder about Ryker’s comment about sex. I didn’t want to think about the kind of hierarchy that might be at play around me. Like I always did when encountering what humanity had come to, I told myself it wouldn’t do any good to become emotional.

  Ryker jogged off into one of the tighter isles going crossways, and I stood for a moment where he’d left me. He came back in five seconds with a bundle on his back that had been fashioned from a garbage bag and some duct tape twisted into rope so that he could strap it over his chest and go hands free. Without a word, he kept leading, and I kept following.

  We came to a broken door. Ryker rammed it twice with his hip to get open, and we exited the building. There was a makeshift awning beside the wall. At first, I assumed the agitated man at the table under it was a booth style drug dealer, but Ryker told me he was the man in charge. I introduced myself, but instead of giving me his name, he put a large knife on the table, keeping eye contact, and said, “Fifty dollars. You want this one?” He pointed at Ryker with a meaty finger.

  I looked at the wired teenager beside me and wondered how I had come to the decision to do what I was doing. Perhaps I was naive. It was too late. Ryker was giving me a worried, pleading look because of my hesitance, and I felt compelled to make sure he wasn’t left in the hell I’d just witnessed.

  I took my wallet out, fished out the money even though the adoption was supposed to be completely free, and handed it over. I hadn’t been so naive that I’d thought I wouldn’t be asked for cash. Since money was literally meaningless to me, I’d come prepared and didn’t mind it. Problem was, several pairs of eyes were on me and my stash of wealth. Kids hanging out along the street and coming out of the broken door were watching me.

  “I need you to come with me to the car as soon as the paperwork is done,” I told the man.