The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  * * *

  They let me go home that same day. I was clearly not in shock, having been asleep at the moment when, thankfully as a human being, I’d been caught in Croyd’s arms. Mother stayed beside me, occasionally looking at me as if to ask if it was all right she was there. I wondered if she’d somehow intuited that Croyd had told me what she’d said. She looked so frail, suddenly. She looked lost in a foreign country. She wasn’t proud of me, but she was afraid for me. It weirdly seemed now like even that much must be difficult for such a small woman to manage. She and Croyd were careful with each other. We went back to my place in the same taxi. We didn’t talk.

  * * *

  I found a message on my answerphone from the owner of the circus, asking me to call as soon as I felt able to, to talk about my “employment options.”

  I went into the kitchen space with Croyd, wondering what Mum would make of the tea we had over here. Croyd held me. He was quaking. I heard a noise from the other room. It sounded like a sob. And then the door opened.

  I ran out into the stairwell, but Mum was already on her way down, as fast as her heels could take her. “I can’t, darling,” she called, before I could shout, “I’ll come and see you tomorrow.” And then she was gone.

  * * *

  Croyd sat on the sofa just staring at me. He looked desperately sick. “I thought … I thought…” He didn’t look as if he could think anything. He looked like he was about to have a heart attack. Saving me had taken all the strength he had left. His eyes were half in a dream.

  I decided.

  I went to the kitchen and made him a cup of very strong coffee. In it, I dropped the sleeping pill I’d taken from my mother’s purse.

  He took a few sips of it, then as soon as he could, threw back the whole mug. He could hardly talk. He was desperately holding on. I put my arms around him, and rested his head on my shoulder, and hoped that I hadn’t just committed murder. To go alongside all my other guilt that day. He tried to fight the feeling, tried to fight me, but finally, with an exhalation, his head slumped against mine and he was asleep.

  * * *

  I put him to bed. I piled food beside it, ready for when and if he woke: boxes of Hostess Twinkies. I lay beside him, trying not to think about the evening performance that was taking place amongst all those lights out there, without me. I wondered if I’d finished off my life here alongside his. I kept checking to see that he was breathing. Sometime in the early hours I fell asleep myself.

  * * *

  I woke and he was in the exact same position, still asleep, still breathing. I put a little water in his mouth. I checked my phone and found a message from Mum. She sounded calm, lost. She’d meet me at the same place she’d met Croyd. She said one o’clock, as if leaving it up to me to arrive or not, or controlling me still. One or the other.

  I looked at Croyd and decided that he would either wake or he wouldn’t. It might be days. I had to see her. I wasn’t exactly sure what for.

  * * *

  We sat in the low angled sunlight of the coffee shop. She looked momentarily pleased to see me. Then she locked that expression away. “How is he?” she asked.

  “Asleep.”

  “Yes. I thought it would be soon.”

  “He told you about his power?”

  “Yes. Did he tell you what I said?”

  “Yes.”

  She closed her eyes. “When I’d heard everything, I told him he reminded me of the wide boys my father used to hang around with. He was of that generation, and of that type. I asked him how he could ever be sure that he wouldn’t hurt you in a drug-induced rage. My father, after all, gave my mother a black eye occasionally. And so that is something I would never allow, for myself or for you. I asked him that simple question, and he flung the table aside, bellowed at me, threw cups and plates at me, until I was quivering.” She looked suddenly ashen at me. “Oh. He didn’t tell you that part.”

  I was furious with her all over again. But I held it in. “I believe you,” I said. “But he would never have hurt you.”

  “I understood that at the time, I think. And I became convinced of that when I saw him risk his life to save you. The elephant almost crushed him, you know—”

  “You mean I did.”

  “I told him he was too old for you. That you could never keep up with him. That you still needed to grow. That he would get frustrated at that, and there would come a time for the black eye. He stopped yelling. He finally started listening to me.”

  * * *

  I knew my apartment was empty before I entered. I found mucous and scales and what might have been feathers on the bed. I fell back against the wall.

  He was alive.

  But he had not stayed. He had not gone out to find a pizza or anything storybook like that.

  He wasn’t coming back.

  I was sure he had done it for me. But perhaps it was apt punishment also. I had, after all, controlled the most important decision he made. Perhaps, that day, we had saved each other’s lives and parted because of it. Or perhaps we were just victims of the way the world is still made. I haven’t decided yet.

  * * *

  I tried to stop myself, but I gave in. I tried to find him. But I’d left it too long. And he’s good at not being found. I might have seen him, amongst the jokers passing me. I kept looking, for a while. I didn’t know what he looked like.

  Mum and I spent the next few days together. I told her Croyd had gone. She nodded. We didn’t talk about what had happened. Or anything else meaningful. We talked about the weather, which was getting colder. We talked about New York, which she’d started to gaze at, from out of the window.

  Finally, it was time for her to go home. She asked me when I had to return to school. I told her I still had two weeks. I thought she was about to offer me money, but she thought better of it. She kissed me on the cheek and I smelt the same perfume that I associated with what I’d fled, and felt the age of her skin on mine. I gave her some of the many boxes of Hostess Twinkies I still had lying around, which I was sure she’d give all of to Maxine. I was sure for many reasons.

  * * *

  The media coverage was minor to nonexistent, an accident to an increasingly minor celebrity. A run of shows cancelled, understandably. I rejoined the School much as I’d left it.

  * * *

  I’ve talked to Mother on the phone twice since then. She’s more like her old self. Which is either normal, or evil, or scared, depending on the background she’s seen against. The weather over there is much as it is here, getting colder. The aunts are fine. Thanks for asking.

  * * *

  As the snows came to New York, I realized that I’d stopped looking for Croyd in every crowd of jokers. That I’m sure I will see him again. I call myself The Understudy in ace circles now, and will until I feel justified doing otherwise. I don’t know how that could happen. But I know it might.

  I’ve finished crying, anyway. Telling this story cleared something away for me. I don’t know if I entirely wanted it cleared. But it has been.

  There’s no justice to any of this. One day I may end up taking care of my mother. She will never apologize for anything. I’m not sure I could ever be sure enough to insist she should. The battles of our adolescence can never be won.

  Copyright (C) 2013 by Paul Cornell

  Art copyright (C) 2013 by John Picacio

  * Possibly in Fort Freak, the latest Wild Cards book, in which Abigail makes her first appearance.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright,
please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Contents

  1 ------------------------ 76th Precinct, Union Street, Brooklyn - 8 a.m.

  2 ------------------------ Lunchtime

  3 ------------------------ Up on the Roof

  4 ------------------------ Nightime

  1 ------------------------ 76th Precinct, Union Street, Brooklyn - 8 a.m.

  Jack Murphy shut his locker and tried to act as though what he had just done – stow his clothes and get out his handgun – was something he had done a hundred times before.

  Instead of this being the first time.

  “New blood – get your asses in gear. Eight a.m. means eight fucking a.m.!”

  Two other just-graduated cops had come to this precinct in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn. This was not the Brooklyn that Jack knew. Not the leafy streets of Bay Ridge, close to the Atlantic, where he’d grown up.

  Jack didn’t know much about Red Hook, and what he had heard about it made it seem like a forgotten place. Somehow it had missed the train to gentrification.

  He hurried into the morning room, where the cops on the beat got that day’s assignments. There were still a few chairs free, but the cops sitting next to the empty seats seemed to let their arms and legs sprawl into them as if daring any newbie to take a seat.

  Go on – just try to sit here.

  So Jack stood with the two other new cops to the side.

  First roll call.

  Starts here, Jack thought.

  One of the new cops, a lean black kid who didn’t look more than eighteen, had already been assigned a partner. That was the way it would go down for all of them. You get teamed up with an old timer.

  Someone to show you the ropes.

  Or not.

  Story was that this ‘mentoring’ could be the equivalent of hazing.

  They like to weed the candy-asses out early.

  That was the story back at the academy.

  Jack didn’t doubt it.

  He looked around the room to see who he might get as a partner. Like picking ducks at the carnival.

  Which one was a prize, which one wasn’t?

  “Okay, Murphy – you’ll be with Schiller.”

  The sergeant’s announcement produced a laugh in the room. Some muttering.

  The last pair-up announcement hadn’t done that.

  A freaking laugh?

  Why did I get the laugh? Is it that bad?

  Then he saw a guy, this Schiller, turn and look back at him.

  Big white face. Almost no hair, his shirt’s buttons struggling to stay buttoned.

  No spring chicken, and he didn’t look in shape.

  My mentor, Jack thought.

  No prize-winning duck this time.

  Schiller made a pistol out of his hand and gave Jack a shot and a wink.

  Jack smiled back.

  Which only made his partner roll his eyes and look away.

  “Okay, boys and girls. Time to hit the streets. Hot town, summer in the city. Let’s make those streets of Brooklyn safe.”

  And the cops got up out of their chairs, talking, the slow blue beast coming to life. No eagerness, no joy.

  Jack and the other two newbies waited, like lampreys for a shark, until their partner rolled by.

  Schiller took his hat off. Dressed in the summer uniform of a short-sleeved blue shirt, Jack saw beefy arms. Could be he was strong, or could be all blubber. His belly suggested the latter.

  “So you’re a mick? When I joined the department, it was still fucking mick city around here. Now—well, you see. You got mutts like me. Everything and anything.”

  For a moment, Jack felt like he had landed in Serpico.

  Are we about to do our run to pick up money from our drops, from the bag men or whatever the guys doling out bribes were called?

  That was one thing that was made clear at the academy.

  That – and those days – were over.

  No bullshit.

  It would be nearly impossible to be a cop on the take these days.

  Salary wasn’t bad. You could still retire after twenty years. Benefits were good. And you always had the brotherhood of blue.

  It didn’t sound bad to Jack.

  Especially when there didn’t seem to be any other options. The world had shut the option shop down.

  When he got a shot at a slot in the academy, he took it.

  “Fuck, it is going to hot today, Murphy. Fucking hot. And the AC in this piece of shit is fucking iffy. They keep saying they’re going to fix it. Overnight. But the car goes out every night…so guess what?”

  “No one ever fixes it?”

  “Bingo, Einstein.”

  Schiller opened the door and got in, signaling Jack to do the same.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky today. Maybe not.”

  Schiller was already dripping. Dark blue splotches blooming under his armpits.

  For the sake of breathable air, Jack hoped the air conditioning worked.

  Schiller started the patrol car. The car’s AC wheezed, then seemed to pump out – something.

  Jack’s partner put a meaty hand against a vent.

  “There we go. Good. Cocksuckers will never really fix it. But today—” a big grin – “looks like we’ll be cool.”

  And Schiller pulled away from the station house.

  While they drove around the neighborhood, Schiller reviewed the game plan.

  It would be a standard patrol. Driving, checking out some abandoned buildings and warehouses, a nice, quiet day, waiting for any radio alerts that would make them divert from their patrol loop.

  “I always go down here, down Dwight Street, first thing. Always good to show the shop owners we’re out here. Their tax dollars at work. And show any bums hanging out. Then—” Schiller pointed ahead – “a quick turn up ahead, down Creamer Street. Some name, huh? Creamer! Good to run through the neighbs. Lots of empty houses there. Place has been hard hit, man. Foreclosures all over the fucking place.”

  “Get squatters?”

  Schiller laughed.

  “Squatters? Yeah. But I don’t go looking for them unless they’re making trouble. Too much booze, too much sucking on the pipe, then things happen, y’know? Then you gotta clear out a place, round up whoever’s inside.”

  Schiller took a breath. “If a place is abandoned, why the hell should we care?”

  He looked away from the windshield.

  “And man—do they smell. You better not get downwind of them. Wouldn’t want to be the team who has to load them into the wagon.”

  Schiller nodded. Maybe he had done that job, loading the stoned, homeless maniacs into a police wagon.

  “Could make you puke your guts out.”

  Jack looked ahead. The streets already looked sizzling, the heat waves radiating off the pavement, a ribbony wall.

  Is it always this hot?

  But he knew the answer to that. Everyone did.

  The answer was – quite simply – yes.

  Jack had told his father before he died, after the baptism for Simon, what he was going to do. Christie’s teaching brought in most of the money…now that Jack’s construction work seemed to shrink weekly.

  They wanted – needed a house. Not the two bedroom apartment they had. It was a good time to buy.

  They looked at the Verrazano Bridge, the gateway to the suburban world of Staten Island.

  His father was already dying. Months, the VA’s cancer docs said.

  But what did they know?

  Turned out to be weeks.

  “Dad – I applied to the academy.”

  His father had nodded, as if expecting that this was what Jack would do.

  “Yeah?”

  Never much for conversation.

  “Two kids now. Christie has to take a leave. We got some savings. Should hold us until I’m out.”

  “You sure you’ll get in?”

  Jack took a slug of beer. He had trouble getting his regular b
rand, a little pale ale from Maine. Seemed like all the beer choices had suddenly narrowed.

  Strange.

  “See that’s it. Was hoping you’d put a word in. To some of your friends. Pull some strings.”

  Jack smiled

  His father didn’t.

  If there was one thing about his dad, it was that he was by the book.

  And ‘pulling strings’ wasn’t in that book.

  His father had taken a swig of his beer.

  Jack felt that his father couldn’t look at him and not think of his other son, the one lost, killed a world away by a stupid homemade bomb.

  Then: “I want to be a cop, dad. A good cop.”

  “No other kind,” his father said, repeating a litany held close.

  But they had talked. They both knew otherwise. Maybe not corrupt cops. But lazy ones. Careless ones. Dumb ones. The cops marking time, counting the days.

  Then: “What do you think, dad?”

  His father nodded. And then – a bit of a smile, perhaps happy at last by the decision that his son had made for his life.

  “I’ll get the word out,” his father said. A bigger smile. “Pull those strings.”

  Jack grinned back.

  “Then – I best go tell Christie.”

  And Jack walked out to their small kitchen to where Christie sat with their new baby, such a perfect, beautiful boy, and Jack thinking…this conversation, this decision…. was all about her, their daughter Kate – so smart – and this new baby who was all eyes and drool.

  “Whoa. What’s that?”

  Schiller slowed the patrol car. A couple screaming at each other on a corner.

  Jack watched the man – lanky, white, with the crazy beard of a mountain man, push the woman hard. She was as black and as wide as the man was long.

  She teetered backwards and then took a swing at the man.

  With amazing aim, she caught the guy on his chin and he spun around, cartoon-like, before returning the favor.