by April Lust
“Good,” the man replied, releasing the grip on his neck and standing up straight. He brushed a spot of pasta sauce from the lapel of his jacket. His nose wrinkled in disgust.
“And clean this place up,” added the fat man. “You’ve got a lot of broken shit lying around on the ground. It’s a pigsty.” He smiled evilly. Both men laughed again.
I liked them even less than I had at first. They were not nice men. Daddy was mean sometimes, but even he didn’t deserve this. I felt scared. I hoped they wouldn’t come after me.
“Should we leave him something to remind him of us?” the fat man asked his friend.
The other rubbed his mustache thoughtfully. “I guess so,” he sighed.
Turning, the fat man plucked the cigarette from between his lips with one hand and grabbed my father’s wrist with the other. Daddy started to struggle, but the mustache man pinned him to the table top. He looked on in horror as the fat man flipped his hand over, exposing his palm, and pressed the lit tip of the cigarette down into his skin.
I ducked back around the corner and covered my ears as Daddy started to scream. I kept them covered for a long time.
When Daddy limped back around the corner a while later, I saw he held a corner of his apron pressed against his palm. He looked at me. His eyes were round and sad. For once, he didn’t look angry. He just looked so tired.
I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t say anything. He sighed and just kept walking.
I never did get my dolls back.
Chapter 3
Nicholas
I didn’t know how long I was lying there. It was the opposite of my first memory. This time around, when I returned to the realm of the living, instead of being white, everything was dark.
It was nighttime. The lights overhead in the alleyway were dim and flickering. They only made the shadows deeper and more jagged. I felt something warm and wet dripping from my mouth. The tangy, metallic taste told me it was blood. My lips were dry and my whole body shivered from head to toe.
I tried to move. The second my muscles ignited, pain tore through me like I’d never felt before. The white hot epicenter of it burned in my chest, where a grinding crunch hinted that something must be broken.
The dealer had beat the shit out of me and left me for dead. I was close to it as far as I could tell. Nothing moved right. Everything hurt. I couldn’t even sit up. All I could do was blink. Even thoughts seemed like too much effort for my body to handle.
I kept fading in and out of consciousness. It went dark for a while, and when my eyes opened again, it was morning. I was so thirsty, my throat desperate for a sip of water. Something cold nuzzled against my face, a tiny pinprick of sensation. It was snow. Flakes began to fall from the sky lazily, drifting down between the power lines and the rooftops to settle in a thin patina along the wet concrete. I opened my mouth and caught a few snowflakes on my tongue.
Every time I tried to move, the same pain flared up, just as bad as the first attempt. I was going to die out here if I didn’t get some help. No food, no shelter. I’d be buried in a snow bank for weeks before they found my body. I almost wanted to laugh at the mental image of some garbage man unearthing me, finding a scrawny little corpse with his tongue stuck out.
The snow kept falling. I wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t, try as I might. This was as far as Nico was going to get. I should’ve died in the car crash. It would’ve been quicker and less painful.
“Oh, shit!” came a wearied, nasally voice. “What’s this little man doing back here?”
I struggled to move my head in the direction of the sound. “Help,” I wheezed through my dry throat. My lips cracked and bled with the motion. “Help me.”
The man rounded into view. He was small and frail. Dirty clothes hung loose from his skinny body and a thick beard clung to his sunken cheeks. His fingers twitched and danced restlessly in the air in front of him. He looked like shit, but his eyes were brown and friendly. “Oh, shit!” he exclaimed again. “You ain’t doin’ so well, my man.”
I raised a limp hand, but the effort exhausted me after a moment. It dropped back to the ground uselessly. “Please,” I muttered. The act of speaking tugged tenterhooks into my devastated rib cage. Each word was agony.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “Wait, no, no, don’t tell me. You don’t look like you can speak anyway.” He laughed, then cut himself off suddenly with a frown. He seemed crazy, pirouetting from emotion to emotion, his body never standing still. I groaned.
He pounced over and crouched in front of me. Reaching forward two dirt-covered fingers, he peeled back my eyelids. I looked up into his face. The beard was grungy and when he smiled, I could see the clotted gunk accumulated through years of street living. “What’s your name, amigo?” he chirped.
I drew in a slow breath, wincing, and said, “Nico,” as loudly as I could. It came out in a tinny whisper.
“You a young one to be out here alone, ain’t ya?” The man cackled. “Well, I’m Smalls. And I can’t very well leave ya out here like this, can I? No, certainly cannot. You’ll have to come with me.” He furrowed his brow and hunched closer to me. He smelled horrific. “But you can’t walk, can you?”
I shook my head gingerly.
“Didn’t think so,” he replied. “Hmm.” He stroked his beard and looked around. “Ah, I know, I know.” He rose to his feet and sprang out of my field of vision. I heard the sound of cardboard ripping. Smalls pranced back around, a gleeful smile splitting his face and a big sheet of cardboard held between his hands. He set it on the ground next to me and patted it. “Come on, now,” he said. “Roll on over on top of this guy right here. This’ll do the trick.”
I eyed the cardboard. Summoning all my strength, I threw my weight over to my side. It took a moment to rock back and forth to build the necessary momentum, but eventually I managed to roll myself onto the cardboard. By the time I was on it, sweat beaded across my forehead and short moans burst through my lips. My eyes were wired open, staring at the sky above as lava pain surged up and down me.
“That’s the ticket,” he said, snapping and standing back up. “Good on ya. Well, let’s go, yes?” Smalls didn’t wait for an answer. I tried to yelp for him to wait, but he didn’t hear me or didn’t care. Seizing one edge of the flattened box, he started to pull me down the alley.
I didn’t want to scream, but every bump and jolt made the pain blaze like shots of lightning. We made our way down the alley and went trundling down the sidewalk, headed for God knew where. It didn’t matter. I was alive, and that was all that counted.
But the pain was too much. I held out for as long as I could. Then I passed out.
# # #
Night had fallen. The fire crackling in front of me was warm. I stretched out my hands as far as I could towards it. The heat sank into my fingertips and slid up my whole body to calm my chattering teeth. Despite the blankets heaped on top of me, I was still shivering.
The flame threw funky shadows on Smalls’ face where he sat next to me. I twisted my neck to look up at him. He looked back down and gave a toothy grin. “Beats layin’ in that alley, don’t it?” He guffawed.
I didn’t have the energy to laugh with him. I turned back to the fire. In the hours since he’d dragged me away from the brink of death, the pain had begun to subside slightly, but I could still hardly twitch without it drawing a screaming protest from my whole body. It was going to be a long time before I would be up and moving on my own.
We were huddled at the foot of an overpass. A clothesline strung up around us held thick sleeping bags to block out the wind. The little fire next to me burned on balled up trash and aluminum cans. It was a shitty place to be, but still an improvement over being exposed to the snow in the alleyway. It wasn’t like I had a choice. Wherever Smalls wanted me to go, I would go. I couldn’t possibly fight back.
“So who are you?” I asked after a while. The wind whistled on the other side of the clothesline and cars
thundered past us overhead. Every now and then the screech of a horn and raised voices would puncture the drone of traffic.
“Me?” asked Smalls. “I’m a supplier for the chop shop.”
I blinked in confusion. “A what?”
Smalls laughed. “I boost cars, little man. And then I sell ’em to whoever will pay for ’em.”
I scowled. “You’re a thief.”
He huffed like he was offended. “I’m Robin Hood, man! Steal from the rich and give to the poor. I just happen to be the poor in this here situation.” He grinned at me.
I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t. How was I supposed to judge the man who’d saved my life? He did what he needed to do to get by. At least he had shelter, if that was what you could call this makeshift tent.
“As soon as I can, I’m getting out of here,” I informed him.
Smalls slapped a knee and laughed at the top of his lungs. “Oh, is that so, little man?”
“Yeah,” I shot back. “And stop calling me ‘little man.’ I’m not little.”
“You sure is little! How old is you, anyway?”
“Fifteen,” I lied.
“My ass,” Smalls snorted. “You’re fifteen like I’m a millionaire. You ain’t a day over eight, is that right?”
I hesitated, then nodded angrily.
His face sobered. “That’s awfully young to be out here,” he said.
“I’m a man.”
He eyed me, head tilted to the side. “The funny thing is, little man, I believe you just might be. Age don’t make a man now, does it? No, I don’t suppose it does.” The air was warm and silent as he looked at me. “What makes a man is fighting through pain. Taking what he wants even when he’s hurtin’. Seems to me like you’re doin’ an awful lot of that already.” He stood up and walked over to me. Hunching down, he tucked the blankets tight around my damaged body. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is, if you tell me you’re a man, I’ll take your word for it.”
I nodded again. “I’m a man,” I repeated.
“Okay, shorty,” Smalls said. “Okay.”
# # #
Five Years Later
“Yo, hurry up, man!”
“I’m hurrying. Calm the fuck down,” I shot back. I jimmied the thin steel bar between the window and the car exterior, slipping it down towards where the lock mechanism was sheltered. My teeth gritted as I concentrated on finding the right point of leverage.
“C’mon, c’mon…” Smalls muttered. His hands pawed at the air like they always did. His eyes darted nervously around the empty street, looking for anyone who might cause trouble.
I thought he’d have calmed down years ago, but calm was just not in Smalls’ nature. He was a twitchy, nonstop blur of motion and anxiety, always sniffing out the tiniest scent of danger. There—the bar caught and the lock unlatched. The door to the BMW swung open on silent hinges.
Tucking the bar into the loop of my belt, I quickly dropped to my knees and popped open the panel on the underside of the steering column. The wire guts of the car peered back at me, a mess of colorful, twisted cables and circuitry that would have looked intimidatingly complex if I hadn’t done this a million times already.
“Pliers,” I hissed over my shoulder. Smalls leaped forward and quickly plunked the tool down in my hand. I reached in, grabbed the cable I wanted, and gave it a neat snip. After doing the same with another, I picked up a severed end in each hand and touched the frayed tips together.
The engine sputtered to life.
A big grin split my face as I turned to look at Smalls. “Let’s go,” I told him. He scurried around the other side and yanked open the door before throwing himself inside. I slipped into the driver’s seat.
Wrapping my hands around the sun-warmed leather wheel, I paused for a moment and took in a deep breath. The interior of the car smelled rich and spicy, an intoxicating blend of clean and expensive that never seemed to get old. No matter how many cars we boosted, this was always the best part.
“Drive, motherfucker, drive!” Smalls yelped, slapping on the dashboard.
I laughed, jerked the gear stick into drive, and pressed my foot on the gas pedal. We shot forward down the street, the thrum of the engine settling deep into my bones. I piloted us onto the bridge. We crossed over into the other side of town.
Smalls had finally started to settle back into his seat. He let loose a big sigh as soon as it became clear that no one was following us. “You takin’ too damn long these days,” Smalls accused, half joking.
“You and I both know I’m the fastest guy in the whole damn city,” I retorted.
“Yeah, well, why you gotta be showin’ off, then? Who cares if you unlock every damn feature in the car? All we need is the engine, baby.” He patted the dashboard again to make his point.
“What’s the fun in driving a nice car if you don’t get to enjoy all the luxuries?” I asked. Leaning forward, I turned on the radio. Beautiful, crisp sound flowed out of the speakers around us. I hummed along to the song. “Satellite radio and everything. Now that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Smalls shook his head as I laughed and kept singing.
We drove fifteen minutes further, winding down darkened city streets. It was dusk, the last of the summer sun sneaking its way between the skyscrapers to reach the streets below. Pulling up in front of an abandoned-looking warehouse, I cut the engine. The inside of the car was silent. I looked at Smalls.
“Let me come in this time,” I said.
“No way.” He shook his head. “Not a chance in hell, shorty.”
“C’mon, Smalls,” I begged. “Just this once.”
He sighed and ran a hand through what little remained of his hair. I knew his resolve was weakening.
“Please?” I asked one more time.
“All right, fine,” he growled as he clambered out of the car. “But keep your damn mouth shut.” I barely heard him as I was too giddy with excitement. “And don’t look anyone in the eye.”
I ran around to the other side of the car and swooped him up in a big bear hug. I lifted him off the ground as he yelped, “Put me down, you son of a bitch!” It was hard to believe five years had passed since he’d found me broken and dying in that alley. I was big and strong now. My muscles bulged across my chest and at the sleeves of my shirt. Already, I towered over him.
I set him back on his feet and planted a big kiss on the top of his balding head. He muttered curses to himself as he turned and headed to the dirty, graffiti-tagged door set in the wall to the left of the building. I smiled.
Smalls was a good guy. He’d taken me under his wing, teaching me everything he knew about boosting cars. He was the best in the business, or so he proclaimed, and everything he did seemed to back up that boast. Those twitchy fingers of his could spring a car door open before I could blink. No lock was smart enough to keep him out. It hadn’t taken me long to pick up the tricks of the trade either. Before long, I was hot-wiring engines to life even faster than he could.
The best part, though, was driving. The moment before you pressed the pedal, when the whole road was wide and open, just waiting for you to push the vehicle to its limits. I had a knack for it. The wheel just made sense under my hands, like the second I touched it, I became part of the car. I read it and it read me, and together, there was no corner that I couldn’t drift around, no gap I couldn’t hit with just the right amount of horsepower and torque to leave cops and enemies alike in the dust.
Not that we ever got to hold onto the cars for too long. This was a business, after all, and there were buyers to satisfy. But that was one part of the gig Smalls did his damndest to keep me away from. “You’re too young for this shit,” he’d always tell me. “These aren’t guys you want to meet.” No matter how much I’d prodded and cajoled, he insisted I let him handle all the transactions.
Until today.
We walked up to the door and Smalls knocked twice. A slit at eye level was swung open, revealing a sliver of someone’s face.
“Yeah?” the voice drawled.
“It’s Smalls,” he said. He sounded nervous, though, to be fair, he always sounded that way.
The miniature door closed again without the man saying another word. I heard the clank of multiple locks and chains rattling before the whole door swung inwards.
A man stood at the doorway. I looked him up and down, awed by what I was seeing. He was huge, or maybe he just seemed that way due to the piercings and tattoos that covered every inch of his skin. His muscles stretched tight against the leather jacket he wore. When he looked at me, I felt power rolling off him in waves. This was not a man to be fucked with.
He extended an arm towards the back of the building, inviting us inwards. Smalls nodded and gestured for me to follow him. We walked inside. The door shut behind us.