If I Fall, If I Die

by Michael Christie

  Time slow as poured honey. She’d sat down but had not died. Will was awake now, fighting the straps, mewling in his stroller, the sound recalling his birth: all that breathing, an ocean of air through her, and his first breath—not breath—gasp, how greedily he’d come. Mercifully, she undid his buckle, and he stepped free from his bondage, plodding forward out into the empty platform, unsteady, half-made.

  Suddenly she looked down to watch a slow-motion darkness bloom in her dress, the accompanying release, the patter of urine on the platform. She considered wiping it with one of the diapers in her bag. No worry, when the tunnel was filled with fire, everything would dry and the city would crumble like dead paper and the sky would blow with cinder. She heard a rumbling and didn’t know which train it was, Charlie’s or her own. Boys loved trains. Why was that? The noise? The speed? The single-mindedness? Why wasn’t hers here? They’d been walking today, in the heat, so long ago now. She had a son, didn’t she? Yes. Blond. Not wholly blond. Hair like wood grain, the tint of wheat. She’d misplaced him, but he resolved before her now on the platform. A rushing thing close behind him.

  Perhaps, she thought breezily, it would be better if she crawled over the edge and into the track bed. Put herself in the clank of gear and wheel, down where her brother was. How would its thunder register in her chest, where on her body would the kiss of wheel and track come? How insignificant those on the platform would look.

  She watched this perplexing, curious shape stumble onward near the edge of the tracks, right to where she’d been standing so recently, mesmerized by the noisy mechanics and the searing lights and the dark tunnel, and, yes, of course she would lift herself from the tile and go to him, scoop him to her breast, protect him. This was her duty.

  She was a mother. His mother. But even though she was a mother, his mother, she would not go to him, could not protect him. She would fail at this, as she had failed to protect her brother, because she would remain here, in her lair, burrowed, sapped, doomed, because this weakness had always lived in her, disguised, hiding like septic marrow in her bones, as it had lived in her brother, taken her brother. She fought to rise but couldn’t and knew balance would never again return, that her name would be the sound of her own weeping. She’d been pierced by the lion’s jaws, because the jaws had finally closed.

  What did it matter that this helpless morsel of boy had that day spent an uncountable time mere inches from the yellow line, silhouetted by the pure, apocalyptic motion of a train blasting through the station, his hair a wildfire of gold, his jostling cheeks iridescent, before turning to toddle back toward her and plop down at her feet as if nothing of consequence had transpired while she’d sat frozen in panic. It was what she couldn’t do that had ended her life that day. She’d failed him so thoroughly, so completely, as she had her brother, and now here he was, imperiled once again. Right now your son is in grave danger, said that strange man on her doorstep, who seemed so much more menacing in retrospect.

  And here she was, trapped in her bedroom, preparing to fail him again.

  24

  “Nice of you to return my boat, Corpsey,” the Butler said as he crushed Will around his arms from behind. “For a while I thought you and your little crewmate were going to perform your best submarine imitation out there.”

  Will kicked his legs wildly in the air and yelped. Titus grew stern and spit on the ground and had put up his big fists to advance on Butler when from behind Claymore appeared like a phantom and drove him flat across the back with his shovel. Titus collapsed as though his body had momentarily teleported from his clothes. He lay in the pigeon droppings, heaped, breathing shattered.

  Will struggled to retrieve his garrote, but his arms remained pinned. Then the Butler seized his wrists and offered up his hands to Claymore, who bungee-corded them behind his back. When the job was done, the Butler let go, and Will took a jumping kick at Claymore, who dodged it easily.

  “Careful there,” Butler said, tapping at Will’s Helmet with his own sharpened shovel. “When my friend here loses his temper, he doesn’t find it for two weeks.”

  Titus was bound and hauled to his feet. They dragged Will and Titus through the elevator’s lower catacombs to the iron staircase. “Up,” Claymore growled, kicking Will in the flank.

  As they climbed, Titus was soon drowning in the clogged pond of himself, coughing and retching and sucking voluminous gasps that never were sufficient to sate him. Will’s thoughts turned to Angela grinding out coughs in her hospital bed, to his mother hyperventilating on the kitchen floor. At last they crested the stairs and passed through the Distribution Floor, where Will and Jonah’s skateboard ramps sat unused like monuments of a fallen civilization, a world Will now doubted he’d ever inhabit again.

  “It’s a clever security system, Corpsey,” the Butler said out on the walkway, swinging open the boiler door with a rusty peal. “But we found your hidey hole all the same. Thanks to a mutual friend of ours,” he said to Will with a grin.

  With his hands bound behind him, Will was pushed onto his face in the ash and was spitting it out when he came through the other side into the workhouse. There Will saw another of Butler’s men, the one pushing the wheelbarrow that day, watching over Jonah, who was bungee-corded to a chair, his head dipped, bangs hanging in his face like a fox tail.

  When they were all inside, the Butler took out a small bottle of amber fluid and had a long slug. Claymore walloped Titus again across the back and he buckled to the floor near his pallet bed.

  “Don’t,” Will said, nearly sobbing. “He can’t breathe.”

  “Oh, he’s used to it,” said Claymore, unwinding Will’s wrists in front of Jonah, who looked up to Will and offered a weak smile. “Doesn’t take care of himself is his problem.”

  After Will was tied to the chair beside Jonah’s, the Butler left, and Claymore and the other one started tearing the workhouse apart, unearthing plants and throwing Titus’s hefty books around, plunging their heads into the cupboards and shelves.

  “They asked about the map,” Jonah whispered. “But I stuffed it in my underwear. Luckily they’re not perverts. But I do wish I wore my helmet.”

  “Shut up,” Will said, smiling despite his clunking heart.

  Then the other man left, leaving only Claymore, who was turning over Titus’s mattress and peering into the birdfeeders Outside. Titus remained unconscious, crashed on his face, hands bound behind him. By then his breathing had quieted and sounded trifling as a fire flickering out. Soon Claymore gave up his search and sat across the room thumbing through Titus’s books, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette that smelled of creosote.

  “How did you get here?” Will whispered. “I thought you were done?”

  “Because I couldn’t sleep. I knew you were crazy enough to come back down here. I figured you’d be needing some medical attention.”

  “Jonah,” Will said, leaning as close as he could manage. “You were right about Titus. He did do something to Marcus,” Will whispered. “I think he might have sunk him in the lake during one of his moods. But I don’t think he remembers. For some reason I’m not convinced he meant to. I can’t explain it, but whatever he’s done is what’s making him insane.”

  “Well, our best bet is to give the Butler his map and leave Titus to them. He deserves whatever’s coming for what he did to Marcus,” Jonah said, managing to dig in his pants, extracting the map and balling it in his fist.

  “But it’s not just Marcus,” whispered Will. “Today he was wearing the exact hexagon boots. And last night I found his fingerprints inside my house.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Jonah, shaking his head.

  “Where. Were they?” Titus said, suddenly awake, neck straining upward in agonized rapture.

  “Where were what?” said Will. “The tracks? Right behind my house. Made by the same boots you’re wearing.”

  “The fingerprintssss …,” Titus said, his lungs letting go.

  “Doesn’t matter where they�
�”

  “In. My room?”

  “No,” Will said, “they were in my room.”

  “I watched. Her paint. Everything. When she returned. Where. Was it? Up high?”

  After matching the prints, Will had dusted other surfaces like the doorknob and the light switches and moldings, and he’d found plenty of his own, even a few of his mother’s, but the prints on the light fixture were the only trace of Titus he found. “Yeah, so what, what does it matter?”

  “Wouldn’t get. Wiped. There. Not unless. A neat freak. Which she never. Was. Exactly,” he said heaving.

  “Will,” Jonah said, before leaning in to whisper that he remembered studying a passage near the end of their fingerprinting manual that said latent prints left on ideal surfaces like glass or metal when kept in a climate-controlled environment could last for years, sometimes indefinitely.

  “But why were you in our house?” Will said.

  Titus managed to roll onto his back, and his breathing came easier. “After. I saw you both in the. Window,” he said. “I waited. For her to come. Out. But she never did. I knew. Something wrong. So I watched. I would. See you. In the window. Icarus. Number One. You always looked. So busy. I liked to observe. You. Paint.”

  “So you were watching us,” Will said angrily.

  “I told Marcus. To leave your. House alone. That it. Was vacant. But he. Didn’t. And then out. You. Came. I knew you. Were hers. The night. At Marcus’s. Shack. Recognized your name. From. Paintings. You threw away.”

  “Then why did you write that note trying to scare me into staying home?”

  “Too dangerous. Down. Here. For you and Icarus. Number Two. Didn’t want to draw you. Into this. Thought she. Would keep. You home. But you came. Back. Your decision. I knew she’d never. Forgive me. But you brought. Her bread. And I liked. You Icaruses. Here. Selfish. Now look. I’m. Sorry.”

  “Okay, okay,” Claymore said, nudging Titus’s ribs with his foot. “Normally I knock people around to make them blabber, but today I may have to do so in the interest of quiet.”

  Then the Butler returned through the boiler, a tall glass of water balanced between two long fingers. “Sorry for all the hubbub, Corpsey,” Butler said in mock sympathy, standing over Titus. “It pains me to say that this has all grown more convoluted than I’d have preferred. But that’s why I left my girls at home in their kennels today, because I want to resolve this peaceably.”

  Then he turned to Jonah and Will. “You see, this old ghost here was supposed to do something for me.”

  “I’ve always. Done,” gasped Titus. “What you asked.”

  “The problem is,” said Butler, still addressing the boys, holding the glass of water. “Now that our trust is broken. I can’t be sure.

  “You see, me and Corpsey here are old friends,” the Butler went on. “And I was glad to see him return to Thunder Bay after so long. I promised to keep it under my hat, especially with respect to particular acquaintances of his, if only he’d do me favors now and then. Tell the boys what you do for me, Corpsey?”

  “Asked you a question,” said Claymore, dinging Titus’s head with his shovel. Titus buried his face.

  “Did you think he pulls those crisp bills he pays you with from the trash? And it’s not just finding me good, unsprouted grain in old Pool Six for my operation or procuring me hoses on the cheap, is it Corpsey?” said the Butler, his eyebrows vaulting suggestively. “No, he loses things for me, too. Don’t you Corpsey? You see, a lot of people down on their luck on this fine harborfront aren’t exactly Jesuits, if you understand. And sometimes, due to their own miscalculations of course, they end up in need of—shall we say—disappearance?”

  “Like that guy in the wheelbarrow?” said Will defiantly.

  “Sure. I mean, who can blame someone with so few prospects who’d rather remain woefully inebriated for their life’s sad duration than suffer the humiliations of unemployment and dashed expectation,” the Butler said. “Well, I can ensure it’s done safely. For one. And I can ensure it’s done affordably—which is why Neverclear is crucial to Thunder Bay. Especially given how things have turned out.” Then the Butler noticed the glass in his hand. “Speaking of refreshments, you look parched, Corpsey. Stand him up,” the Butler snapped at Claymore, who dragged Titus to his feet.

  “You boys know where I got this water?” he said, examining the glass sidelong like a suspect diamond. “I got this water on our very doorstep. Right down where all those beautiful grain boats used to tie up at Pool Six. But old Corpsey here is picky. Yes, unfortunately this beggar is choosy. He says it’s polluted, but you boys know why Corpsey here really doesn’t care for this particular water?” The Butler tapped the glass with his clipped nail. “Well, he and this water have some history together. His pop died right down there, crushed like a chestnut by a ship in its berth. I saw it happen. A tragedy. And then old Corpsey here went and dumped his poor, poor friend in that very same water. But your pop and your best friend aren’t the only secrets sunk in that wharf are they, Corpsey?”

  The Butler stepped closer to Titus, glass held high. Titus turned his head away, and from behind him Claymore wrapped the shaft of his shovel around his throat and pressed.

  “You see,” the Butler went on, “what Corpsey really excels at is sinking. Always has. And recently there was a certain boy who decided it was a good idea to sneak into one of my storehouses and steal my property, then mocked and disrespected me by offering to sell it back. He was setting a bad example for good, honest, hardworking boys like yourselves. So since they knew each other so well, I asked old Corpsey here to fix our problem, for the good of everyone.”

  “I did. What you asked,” Titus said, straining against the shovel. “Leave these. Icaruses. Be.”

  “Marcus trusted you!” Will heard himself cry out.

  The Butler shook his head. “Thing is, now I’m the one having trouble trusting Corpsey. I’m worried that perhaps he didn’t manage things quite in the manner I would prefer.”

  The Butler had the glass close to Titus’s face as Claymore tightened his grip. “Now you’ll show me proof that you did what I asked,” the Butler said, lifting the glass an inch from Titus’s lips, “or else you’re about to take a nice, long drink of history.”

  Titus glanced at Will, his face veiny crimson and for a fleeting moment innocent and soft, the same vulnerability Will had found on his mother’s face a thousand times Inside, and even despite what Titus had done, Will couldn’t help but pity him.

  Titus turned his eyes to the water and shuddered.

  “Show us,” Claymore growled in his ear, “and we’ll leave you all be.”

  Slowly, Titus extended his lips and put them on the glass, slurping loud and long. He closed his eyes and gulped, his throat constricting as the Butler tipped it up, spilling water over his cheeks until it was empty.

  “Tasty,” Titus said with a stifled shiver.

  The Butler threw the glass, smashing it on the wooden floor. “Downstairs,” he said.

  They untied the boys, bound them again by the wrists and dragged them back down the stairs.

  “All this concrete,” the Butler tutted as they descended the staircase, “not even worth the money it would cost in dynamite to blow them up.”

  When they came to the lower level, Claymore pushed Titus to the ground amid the mangle of animal remnants and industrial litter. Then the Butler gave a nod, and Claymore grabbed Jonah roughly and dragged him over to one of the yawning grain chutes. “Okay, Corpsey, since you clearly don’t care much about yourself … perhaps this will persuade you,” he said, crouching over Titus. “How about we drop your precious workers into the bins. Just for old times’ sake. Starting with the Turtle boy?”

  Claymore roughly pushed Jonah backwards over the hole then grabbed the belt that held up his baggy work pants, leaning him back on his heels. Somewhere down in the chute came a sick rustling, and Will remembered what Titus had said about rats craving protein.

  �
�Don’t,” Will pleaded, with a painful lurch in his gut.

  “Don’t be scared, son,” Claymore hissed at Jonah.

  “You should stay off the Neverclear ’cause your breath is like a gallbladder right now,” Jonah said, but it was weak, his words suffused with panic.

  Will watched Jonah’s arms swing to recapture his balance and remembered his drawings and his basement tent room and how neat his bookshelf was kept and how fearful he’d been of dying before Will had dragged him down here, and it broke Will with despair. “Your map is in his hand,” Will cried out. “Take it and leave him alone.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter anymore,” the Butler said, sighing as Claymore retracted Jonah and ripped the map from his grip, stuffing it in his own coat. “The merciful thing about my business is one never has to worry about demand, only supply,” the Butler said as Claymore drove Jonah back over the hole. “Luckily, our stills have already caught up.”

  “Remember the old days, Corpsey?” the Butler said to Titus. “When men used to line up for the privilege of going down into those bins. You were particularly skilled at it, if I recall. Had a few scrapes with an early burial. This old elevator has been swallowing Thunder Bay’s bravest young men since time began.”

  “You hurt. That boy,” said Titus from the floor. “I’ll see you buried. In the ground. Where you stand.”

  “In three feet of concrete?” said the Butler, scuffing his shoe on the floor. “Not likely.”

  Claymore released Jonah’s belt and grabbed the pelt of his bangs, leaning him farther over the hole. Jonah cried out and grabbed Claymore’s hand to keep his hair from being torn out, shutting his eyes, his foot knocking a rusty bolt down into the hole with a long clatter, and Jonah let out a pitiful screech.