Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

by Cory Doctorow

again, reached for in the night andcarried to breakfast for months. He was once robbed at knifepoint,taking the deposit to the bank after Christmas rush, thousands ofdollars in cash in a brown paper sack in his bag, and the mugger -- asoft-spoken, middle-aged man in a good suit -- knew exactly what he wascarrying and where, must have been casing him for days.

  The soft-spoken man had had a knife about this size, and when Alan hadseen it pointed at him, it had been like an old friend, one whose orbithad escaped his gravity years before, so long ago that he'd forgottenabout their tender camaraderie. It was all he could do not to reach outand take the knife from the man, say hello again and renew thefriendship.

  He moved the knife back to the magnet bar and let the field tug it outof his fingers and *snap* it back to the wall, picked up the wineglasses, and stepped back out onto the porch. Krishna appeared not tohave stirred except to light a fresh cigarette.

  "You spit in mine?" Krishna said.

  Though their porches adjoined, Alan walked down his steps and crossedover the lawn next door, held the glass out to Krishna. He took it andtheir hands brushed each other, the way his hand had brushed thesoft-spoken man's hand when he'd handed over the sack of money. Thetouch connected him to something human in a way that made him ashamed ofhis desperation.

  "I don't normally drink before noon," Adam said.

  "I don't much care when I drink," Krishna said, and took a slug.

  "Sounds like a dangerous philosophy for a bartender," Adam said.

  "Why? Plenty of drunk bartenders. It's not a hard job." Krishnaspat. "Big club, all you're doing is uncapping beers and mixing shootersall night. I could do it in my sleep."

  "You should quit," Alan said. "You should get a better job. No oneshould do a job he can do in his sleep."

  Krishna put a hand out on Alan's chest, the warmth of his fingertipsradiating through Alan's windbreaker. "Don't try to arrange me on yourchessboard, monster. Maybe you can move Natalie around, and maybe youcan move around a bunch of Kensington no-hopers, and maybe you can budgemy idiot girlfriend a couple of squares, but I'm not on the board. I gotmy job, and if I leave it, it'll be for me."

  Alan retreated to his porch and sipped his own wine. His mouth tastedlike it was full of blood still, a taste that was woken up by thewine. He set the glass down.

  "I'm not playing chess with you," he said. "I don't play games. I try tohelp -- I *do* help."

  Krishna swigged the glass empty. "You wanna know what makes you amonster, Alvin? That attitude right there. You don't understand a singlefucking thing about real people, but you spend all your time rearrangingthem on your board, and you tell them and you tell yourself that you'rehelping.

  "You know how you could help, man? You could crawl back under your rockand leave the people's world for people."

  Something snapped in Alan. "Canada for Canadians, right? Send 'em backwhere they came from, right?" He stalked to the railing that dividedtheir porches. The taste of blood stung his mouth.

  Krishna met him, moving swiftly to the railing as well, hood thrownback, eyes hard and glittering and stoned.

  "You think you can make me feel like a racist, make me *guilty*?" Hisvoice squeaked on the last syllable. "Man, the only day I wouldn't pisson you is if you were on fire, you fucking freak."

  Some part of Alan knew that this person was laughable, a Renfield eatingbugs. But that voice of reason was too quiet to be heard over the animalscreech that was trying to work its way free of his throat.

  He could smell Krishna, cigarettes and booze and club and sweat, see thegold flecks in his dark irises, the red limning of his eyelids. Krishnaraised a hand as if to slap him, smirked when he flinched back.

  Then he grabbed Krishna's wrist and pulled hard, yanking the boy off hisfeet, slamming his chest into the railing hard enough to shower driedspider's nests and flakes of paint to the porch floor.

  "I'm every bit the monster my brother is," he hissed in Krishna'sear. "I *made* him the monster he is. *Don't squirm*," he said, punchingKrishna hard in the ear with his free hand. "Listen. You can stay awayfrom me and you can stay away from my family, or you can enter a worldof terrible hurt. It's up to you. Nod if you understand."

  Krishna was still, except for a tremble. The moment stretched, and Alanbroke it by cracking him across the ear again.

  "Nod if you understand, goddammit," he said, his vision going fuzzilyblack at the edges. Krishna was silent, still, coiled. Any minute now,he would struggle free and they'd be in a clinch.

  He remembered kneeling on Davey's chest, holding the rock over him andrealizing that he didn't know what to do next, taking Davey to theirfather.

  Only Davey had struck him first. He'd only been restraining him,defending himself. Alan had hit Krishna first. "Nod if you understand,Krishna," he said, and heard a note of pleading in his voice.

  Krishna held still. Alan felt like an idiot, standing there, hisneighbor laid out across the railing that divided their porches, thefirst cars of the day driving past and the first smells of bread andfish and hospital and pizza blending together there in the heart of theMarket.

  He let go and Krishna straightened up, his eyes downcast. For a second,Alan harbored a germ of hope that he'd bested Krishna and so scared himinto leaving him alone.

  Then Krishna looked up and met his eye. His face was blank, his eyeslike brown marbles, heavy lidded, considering, not stoned at allanymore. Sizing Alan up, calculating the debt he'd just amassed, what itwould take to pay it off.

  He picked up Alan's wine glass, and Alan saw that it wasn't one of thecheapies he'd bought a couple dozen of for an art show once, but ratherIrish crystal that he'd found at a flea market in Hamilton, a completefluke and one of his all-time miracle thrift scores.

  Krishna turned the glass one way and another in his hand, letting itcatch the sunrise, bend the light around the smudgy fingerprints. He setit down then, on the railing, balancing it carefully.

  He took one step back, then a second, so that he was almost at thedoor. They stared at each other and then he took one, two running steps,like a soccer player winding up for a penalty kick, and then he unwound,leg flying straight up, tip of his toe catching the wine glass so thatit hurtled straight for Alan's forehead, moving like a bullet.

  Alan flinched and the glass hit the brick wall behind him,disintegrating into a mist of glass fragments that rained down on hishair, down his collar, across the side of his face, in his ear. Krishnaticked a one-fingered salute off his forehead, wheeled, and went backinto his house.

  The taste of blood was in Alan's mouth. More blood coursed down his neckfrom a nick in his ear, and all around him on the porch, the glitter ofcrystal.

  He went inside to get a broom, but before he could clean up, he sat downfor a moment on the sofa to catch his breath. He fell instantly asleepon the creaking horsehide, and when he woke again, it was dark andraining and someone else had cleaned up his porch.

  #

  The mountain path had grown over with weeds and thistles and condoms andcans and inexplicable maxi-pads and doll parts.

  She clung to his hand as he pushed through it, stepping in brackishpuddles and tripping in sink holes. He navigated the trail like amountain goat, while Mimi lagged behind, tugging his arm every time shemisstepped, jerking it painfully in its socket.

  He turned to her, ready to snap, *Keep the fuck up, would you?* and thenswallowed the words. Her eyes were red-rimmed and scared, her full lipsdrawn down into a clown's frown, bracketed by deep lines won by othermoments of sorrow.

  He helped her beside him and turned his back on the mountain, faced theroad and the town and the car with its trunk with its corpse with hisbrother, and he put an arm around her shoulders, a brotherly arm, andhugged her to him.

  "How're you doing there?" he said, trying to make his voice light,though it came out so leaden the words nearly thudded in the wet dirt asthey fell from his mouth.

  She looked into the dirt at their feet and he took her chin and turnedher face up so that she was
looking into his eyes, and he kissed herforehead in a brotherly way, like an older brother coming home with along-lost sister.

  "I used to want to know all the secrets," she said in the smallestvoice. "I used to want to understand how the world worked. Littlethings, like heavy stuff goes at the bottom of the laundry bag, or bigthings, like the best way to get a boy to chase you is to ignore him, ormedium things, like if you cut an onion under running water, your eyeswon't sting, and if you wash your fingers afterward with lemon-juicethey won't stink.

  "I used to want to know all the secrets, and every time I learned one, Ifelt like I'd taken -- a step. On a journey. To a place. A destination:To be the kind of person who knew all this stuff, the way everyonearound me