The Blade Between

by Sam J. Miller

  Treenie wonders, What are you up to, Ronan? And what am I going to have to do to stop you?

  * * *

  “HEY,” DOM SAYS, finding Ronan alone out on the edge of the Elks Lodge roof. Behind them, in a glass-enclosed room, the party is in full swing. Bright lights. Abundant alcohol. Loud laughter.

  “Hey,” Ronan says. “When did you get here? I looked for you when I arrived.”

  “About fifteen minutes ago. Had a visit to make first. Pretty impressive, seeing you operate.”

  “How so?” Ronan asks, smiling, knowing the answer.

  “Acting like you’re one of them. The rich artsy New York City guy. They ate it up.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Was I mistaken, or did you just get a gallery show?”

  Ronan laughs. “You’re very attentive. Yeah, a friend of Treenie’s has a gallery down by Third Street and offered to do a photography exhibit. Between Two Worlds, or some such bullshit.”

  “I’ve heard artists complain that it’s harder to get a show up here now than it is in New York. Ever since that latest New York Times article, all the tastemakers have their eyes on Hudson. And the gallery owners can be extremely picky.”

  “I guess it’s my lucky day, then.”

  “I almost feel sorry for them,” Dom says. “Between you and Attalah, you’ll have them skinned alive and turned inside out before they know what happened.”

  “Where’s this friend you wanted me to meet?”

  “Wick texted me and said he couldn’t come.” From his phone, Dom reads out loud: “I get these very serious depressive episodes and I try to spend them playing video games or listening to loud music with my headphones on, on the floor of my closet under a bunch of clothes. Anyway I’m having one tonight. This kid’s sixteen! He’s a trip.”

  The four circling spotlights converge and disperse, converge and disperse. Scraps of black show between the clouds.

  Dom points. “How much do you think it costs to rent those?”

  “No idea. But I’ll find out for you.”

  “I know that you will.”

  “I had a dream last night,” Ronan says. “A whale, swimming through the sky.”

  “Me, too,” Dom says.

  Sudden, louder laughter from behind them.

  They can’t see us, Dom thinks, because the mechanics are the same as the two-way mirror at the police station. Bright lights in there, darkness out here. All they’ll see is their own reflections. And they’d never even think to try to look past something so fascinating. He stands behind Ronan, wraps his arms around him. Pulls him tight. Kisses the back of his head.

  This is wrong, Ronan thinks, but cannot bring himself to say.

  “You want to go somewhere?” Dom whispers.

  Ronan turns around. “More than anything,” he says, but neither one of them budges right away. They hold tight to each other for a very long time.

  * * *

  THREE A.M., and Zelda is wearing all black. She parks two blocks away, pulls the black ski mask over her face, and hurries down the hill.

  “Hey,” says the man who’s waiting for her, also wearing all black and a ski mask. He smiles, and by those jacked-up teeth she’d have known it’s Rome Byles even if she hadn’t been the one to call and ask him to come.

  “Thanks for helping out,” she says.

  “You kidding? What’s more fun than breaking the law?”

  The crooked-tooth smile is a little bit too wide, and Zelda worries—not for the first time—whether Rome was the right choice for this. True, he had been extremely fond of mischief back when they were teenagers, and, true, his status on the police force meant he’d know better than anyone how to evade capture and throw the rest of the force off the scent when they came sniffing . . . but maybe he enjoyed mischief a little too much. Maybe he took things a little too far. Maybe he enjoyed other people’s fear a little bit too much. Not the first time she’d seen a bully or somebody full of unfocused anger gravitate toward the police force.

  They walk the half block to the big billboard across from the train station. A smiling blue whale in a darker blue sea, with white words emblazoned over and around it: WELCOME TO HUDSON: A WHALE OF A TOWN. Beneath the billboard, the tools are waiting for them. Rollers on long poles; a bucket where wallpaper powder has already been mixed with water to make glue. They unroll the poster.

  “Fucking brilliant,” Rome says, seeing it. They turn to look across the street, imagining the hordes of Columbus Day invaders who will stream off the train in the morning to see this message.

  * * *

  BERGEN IS PRACTICALLY shaking with anticipation. He’s been waiting so long. Thirty minutes—Tom was supposed to have been here twenty minutes ago. He must be insane to be standing here in Prison Alley. It’s long after midnight and hardly anyone ever sets foot in the alley even in the middle of the day, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a public place and anyone at all could come along at any moment. At this point, he prays he is being catfished. Because if Tom does roll up and drop his pants, he knows he’ll do whatever is asked of him. And that’s how well-behaved gay boys end up on the sex offenders registry. He asked Tom to come over to his house, even offered to blow him in his pickup truck, but Tom typed back:

  I’ll fuck you in the alley like the dirty bitch you are

  And Bergen became very hard and very scared at the exact same time.

  He’s not hard anymore. He’s ready to go.

  Twenty minutes is long enough. If I write back and say I got tired of waiting, I’m not in the wrong at all.

  But now! Here he is. Emerging from the shadows between two brick walls, like he was part of the night itself. Jug-handled ears stand out in silhouette, lit from behind by a building’s back-door security light.

  “Hey,” Tom says, lean, hungry, taut with muscle and menace.

  All that fear abandons Bergen. “Hey,” he says, in a tiny, tiny voice.

  Tom reaches out, hooks one hand around Bergen’s neck, pulls him close. For a kiss, Bergen thinks, and leans forward, but Tom moves his hand to the top of his head and pushes him to his knees.

  Bergen’s eyes glaze over, being mere inches from the significant tenting of Tom’s pants. But when he reaches out his hand, Tom smacks him in the face and laughs.

  “If you want this, I need you to do something for me first.”

  Anyone could see, by the thirst in Bergen’s eyes, that he’d do absolutely anything.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The first train of the day out of New York Penn Station arrives in Hudson at 9:21 A.M. On an ordinary Saturday there are plenty of empty seats—not so many weekenders are eager to get up at 6:00 A.M. on a Saturday to make it to the train station by 7:15—but this is Columbus Day weekend, and it’s sold out like every other northbound train.

  “We’re just pulling into the station now,” says a boy who has been on his cell phone for almost the entirety of the two-hour ride—including several long stretches where the train passed through a cell reception dead zone and he just kept saying Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hello? All around him, fellow passengers exchange murder-plotting glances. Just after Yonkers somebody asked him to lower his voice and he said, The quiet car is the one behind this. I suggest you go there if the noise is getting to you.

  “Yes, yes, I got it,” he says, shuffling down the aisle. “I can read a Google Map, Bergen. I’ll walk. See you in twelve minutes according to the map. Holy shit, this fucking town doesn’t even have a platform?”

  He hangs up and clambers down the steps, refusing the hand the conductor offers and almost falling.

  “What the hell?” says the man in front of him, and stops to take a picture.

  Across the street is a brand-new billboard. It says ATTENTION: INVADERS FROM NEW YORK CITY in wide block Gothic letters, and YOU ARE HATED in thick playful cursive.

  Red letters; white drop shadow. Behind the words there is an angry black sperm whale, on an angry gray sea.<
br />
  Phone Boy snaps a picture, sends it to his friend Bergen with a message that says WTF?

  * * *

  I’VE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE, Zelda Outterson thinks, waking up in Rome Byles’s bed beside his naked body.

  Not the sex. The sex had actually been pretty good, as far as she can recall. Surprisingly. Rome had always seemed like a selfish bastard to her. Not so, in the sack.

  No, the mistake was doing drugs with him.

  She’d been so good, for so long. She’d made sobriety work for her. Attalah had thrown her a lifeline, getting her this job, and she’d wanted so badly to succeed.

  But something about last night had triggered her. The excitement of illegal activity. The thrill of vandalism. It shook her up, reminded her of hungers she’d starved for so long she forgot about them. So when he kissed her, up against the billboard, and then when he said I wanna fuck you, she’d nodded, not wanting this newfound buzz to fade. And he’d driven her to his house, way the fuck out in Claverack, because not even Hudson cops could afford to live in Hudson anymore, and she was pretty sure he was on something but she wasn’t scared, because he was the law, and the law meant invincibility. And when he snorted something and offered it to her, she snorted it without asking what it was.

  Good, right? he’d asked. I have a great dealer. Her name is the evidence locker.

  She’d watched the whole encounter unfold as if she were an outside observer. As if Good Zelda, the one she’d been for years now, had paused in the middle of walking away, to look back sadly at Bad Zelda’s triumphant return. The helpless one, who slept with boys and did drugs because she couldn’t stand to be alone.

  Who’s in the bed with Rome now? she wonders. Which Zelda?

  “Hey,” he says, reaching out to press his thumb against her lips. Horny already.

  But not for her, apparently. He reaches under the bed and produces not a condom but a little baggie of crystal. “You wanna?” he asks.

  She nods. It isn’t a voluntary motion. No thought was involved. It surprises her, that nod, but she knows better than to fight with her body when it gets like this. Because she does. She does wanna. So fucking bad.

  * * *

  BERGEN WRITES A LETTER. Writes it with a pen and paper, because he’s not entirely sure how the printer at work works, whether it saves a copy of everything that it prints, whether it could point back to his workstation in the admittedly extremely unlikely case of an investigation. He wouldn’t put it past busybody Lilly to periodically peruse the files of the documents people printed.

  He prints in block letters. Wears gloves when he does it, when he puts it in the envelope and the envelope in the mailbox of 310 State Street #3.

  The text was provided by Tom Minniq, in a direct message in the app.

  People like you have no future in this town. Get the fuck out before we have to get you out.

  Who is this person—this Heather—and what horrible thing does Tom mean by People like you?

  Bergen knows it’s wrong. He also knows he’s weak, he’s hungry. He’s lonely. And Tom said he’d come see him at home tonight if he did what he asked him to do.

  * * *

  TREENIE’S WALKING DOWN Warren Street when she happens to see Ronan scowling into a cup of coffee, in the motorcycle-themed coffee shop that opened up two years ago. Her instinct to say hello is strong, and she has to fight hard to keep from doing so. Instead she goes inside, buys a cup of coffee—keeping her back to him as unostentatiously as possible—and sits down in a corner where she can see him clearly, half hidden by a purely decorative motorcycle.

  Ten minutes in, he takes out his phone. Whatever exchange he has is unpleasant. He’s scowling even harder when he puts it away.

  What are you up to, Ronan?

  Eventually he arrives at some decision and gets up. She counts to thirty and then follows him out to the street.

  * * *

  PHONE BOY IS ON THE PHONE AGAIN. Bergen assured him the billboard must be some kind of joke, or part of the set of some movie or photo shoot—Hudson has more and more camera crews these days, always making things weird for people. But now, in line at the bakery, the girl behind the counter has a button that is eerily similar.

  Red letters; white drop shadow; dark gray backdrop. YOU ARE HATED.

  “Ask her what it’s all about,” Bergen says in his ear. “I swear I never heard of this before.”

  “What does your button mean?” he asks, when it’s his turn to stand before her.

  She stares at him and then says, “You’re talking to me, or the person you’re on the phone with?”

  “You,” he says, but only because his head’s not in the game, the phone call has him distracted—ordinarily no one outsnarks him. “Is it like a band or something?”

  She looks down at it. Then she looks up and past him. “No. It’s not a band. Help who’s next?”

  He shuffles awkwardly out of the way of the person behind him in line.

  * * *

  SHE’S SURPRISED at how easy it is. TV shows always make it seem so difficult to tail someone. Difficult, and dangerous.

  Then again—this is almost too easy. Ronan is oblivious to the world around him. Treenie follows him down Warren Street from half a block behind, but she could have been breathing down his neck and he wouldn’t have noticed.

  He turns right onto Second Street. Past Rope Alley, past Strawberry Alley.

  By now, she knows where he’s going. Lets herself fall behind when he heads down the hill. Surrounded by trees; the slope too steep for anything to be built there. And sure enough, he goes to the front door of Dom Morrison’s house and rings the bell. Attalah opens it. They speak briefly. Ronan goes inside.

  Well, of course. That’s where his best friend lives.

  There’s just one problem: Dom isn’t home. His station wagon is gone.

  So? How would he know that? Maybe he came looking for his best friend, found out he wasn’t home, and decided to wait. Maybe Attalah told him he just went to get a gallon of milk and he’d be right back.

  Maybe. Or maybe something else is going on.

  Treenie sits down on a bench and watches the Bangladeshis play cricket. She’s turned so her back is mostly to the house, but if anyone comes in or out she’ll still pick it up in her peripheral vision.

  She waits three more hours before getting up and going, one thousand percent convinced that Ronan and Attalah are conspiring.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  RONAN

  My father’s phone rang, late at night. Once upon a time, it had been my number, too.

  “Why’d you come back?” hissed a flat, dead, male voice when I answered.

  “Who’s this?” I asked.

  “You didn’t give a shit about your dad for the past fifteen, twenty years,” the voice said, and I felt the temperature plummet. “So why the fuck do you care about him now?”

  I should have hung up. It would have been so easy. But my finger would not budge and my mouth would not open and it took all of my mental energy to keep from bursting into tears.

  “You think we’d forget what a fucking faggot you are?” he said. “We here in this town have a very long memory. And we do not want you here.”

  “Stubb,” I said. “Right? Hudson has a lot of pieces of shit, but I doubt there’s any as shitty as you.”

  “Your own mother didn’t want you,” he said, his voice so deep it was like it wasn’t a human’s at all. “She chose death rather than continue looking at you. Why can’t you do the same?”

  Fifth-grade recess. Bullies stand in a circle around me, hollering insults. A teacher sees it, from her classroom, and comes out and takes me by the hand and drags me to safety. You don’t have to stand there and just take it, she says, disgusted. If she hadn’t rescued me, I might have been there still.

  On the internet I could shout down the vilest of trolls, but in the real world I was still the same soft, defenseless grub I’d always been. Anger was a good spur to my elo
quence, and so was hatred, but all I felt in the face of this inexplicable hostility was fear.

  “Get out now, Ronan,” Stubb said, and I was that helpless little fifth-grader again.

  That’s what stopped me from saying something along the lines of, I finally figured out why you hate gay people so much, Stubb. You’re trying to prove to the world, and yourself, and your dumbass dad, that you’re not one of them. But everybody knows you are. And not saying it probably saved my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Calls to make—emails to send—texts to compose.

  Attalah stops, standing over the kitchen sink, mug in one hand and dish towel in the other. She takes a breath. She takes two.

  There are articles to read. Requests to respond to. Operatives to put in position. Titans of industry to destroy.

  To stop—to stand there—to simply breathe—it feels indulgent. Sinful, even. When there is so much work to do.

  When hasn’t there been so much work to do? Her job, her marriage, her mom’s nonprofit, caring for her mother—and now saving the town of Hudson on top of everything else—all of it arduous, elaborate work. When was the last time she dared to stop and just breathe?

  College: first year, before pressure from her mom got her to drop art school in favor of a bachelor of science as a stop on the way to a social work degree—a nice, sound, soul-consuming way to be of service to the world. Finals week; she should be studying. She told herself going to the Met was technically art history research, but really all she wanted to do was sit in the Arts of Oceania wing and sketch those magnificent monster masks that have enthralled her since the first time her mom took her there at age ten.

  Warthog. Monkey. Cockerel. Unknown ocean deity. Bold lines, big fangs. Glyphs on foreheads: spiders; flames; infinity signs collapsing in on themselves. Names for gods and monsters, never to be spoken by human tongue. Fans of feathers and manes made of spikes. Attalah spent hours sketching. Standing still—her knees and back didn’t give her the slightest bit of trouble. A faint voice in the back of her mind—her mother’s—said these sacred objects shouldn’t be there, they were stolen, but Attalah felt profound reverent happiness to be standing before them.