Chapter 9

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Into the Sewers

In books and movies, people are constantly going down into sewers.  In fact, to judge from popular entertainment, one might think that there were more people living under the streets than on them.  Johnny had learned that this was a silly concept.  There were many reasons for this.  Sewers are hard to get into, first of all: they’re dangerous, so cities make them difficult to enter.  Secondly, they’re dangerous, and also disgusting, so there’s no good reason why anyone would want to get into them.  Finally, they’re redundant.  If you have a burning desire to be underground in the city, there are basements, and there are culverts, and there are subway maintenance tunnels (that particular cinematic image has more truth to it), all of which are much nicer places to hang out than a sewer.  Assuming you want to be underground at all, that is, and the only season that you might want that is winter, when being underground might be warmer.  Maybe.

So, all in all, nobody lived in the sewers, or traveled through them, or even went there for a quick visit.  In all his years on the streets, Johnny had never once been in a sewer, nor ever known anyone who had.  And yet, here he was.

The water was lower here, only up to their mid-shins, and the area of Johnny’s body between the previous waterline and the new one was starting to get very cold.  The smell wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t really noxious yet: Johnny figured that this was mostly just runoff, although it hadn’t rained in almost two weeks.  But Johnny tried not to think too hard about that.

The noises behind them were getting fainter, although no less frenzied.  They were walking up a slight uphill grade against a mild current, and trudging through a foot or so of water made that all the more difficult, so they weren’t moving very fast.  Johnny was half-supporting Larissa, and trying to place his feet very carefully—he didn’t relish the thought of falling down in this muck—so he wasn’t paying attention to how fast the light from the end of the pipe was fading until he abruptly realized he couldn’t see anything.  Larissa straightened up a bit and Johnny heard a small click.  The light from the trusty Zippo was small, but welcome.  Johnny stopped walking and looked around them.

The surface of the water was dark, and broken occasionally by bits of wood and stray pieces of trash.  The pipe itself was huge—Johnny might be able to touch the top of it if he were to stand on tiptoe, but then again maybe not—and perfectly round.  Its concrete sides were covered in gunk that Johnny fervently hoped was vegetable matter.  The primary sound he could hear was the rushing of the water, on its way down to The Creek.  Tuning out the animal screams that still floated up from the channel below, he thought he could make out some smaller skittering noises closer by.  For a moment this put him on the edge of panic, but Larissa’s calm voice rang out in the stillness.

“Just rats.  They won’t bother us if we don’t bother them.  Especially if we keep the lighter lit.”

Johnny looked doubtful.  “We can’t run the lighter forever though!  We’ll run out of fluid ...”

Larissa gave him her calm, studying look again, and Johnny suddenly realized that the panic he had been on the verge of was less about rats and more just a delayed reaction, but now suddenly everything seemed okay again.  “I have extra,” she said.  Johnny took a deep breath and tried to still his shaking muscles.

Larissa’s look turned questioning, and Johnny was suddenly sure she was going to ask him how they had gotten through the grate.  Instead, she said: “Why did you bring us in here?”

Already trying to come up with an answer to the question he had thought she was going to ask, Johnny was caught unprepared.  “I, um ... it was ... we couldn’t just flounder down The Creek, right?”  Larissa continued to look at him.  Johnny thought back to the confusion at the metal grating.  “I think I ... felt something ...”

And now, freed from having to think about keeping Larissa safe or not slipping in the pipe-muck, he found that he could feel it again.  It was a curious sensation, not a tugging like with the mist, but a heat.  Which wasn’t really right either, but he could feel some sort of brightness up ahead, and his mind automatically translated that to the sensation of feeling the heat coming off a powerful light such as a spotlight.  But it wasn’t actually hot on his skin, and it wasn’t even his skin that was feeling it.  It was just a knowledge that up ahead, on the right-hand side, there was a beacon of sorts.  It didn’t draw him in the way the mist had, but it had piqued his curiosity and drawn him into the pipe.  It didn’t feel like a refuge per se, but then it didn’t need to feel very safe to feel safer than what they were leaving behind.

He realized he was looking up ahead, towards where he knew the thing was, and Larissa was following his gaze.  “Okay,” she said.  “Let’s go find it then.”




Twenty mintues later they were sweating and exhausted, and dirty from bits of goop falling on them.  The pipe had mostly leveled off, but there was still the current and the depth to fight against.  Johnny’s nerves were on edge from the occasional squeaking and splashing of the invisible rats, although this didn’t seem to bother Larissa.  There was absolutely no light at this point other than the small, flickering circle provided by the Zippo, which had already had to be refilled once (and that was a harrowing experience, since obviously you can’t keep a lighter lit while you’re refilling it, and sewers give a whole new meaning to the word “dark”).  Johnny imagined that the lighter must be getting hot by this point, but Larissa didn’t seem concerned.  All in all, the situation ought to be discouraging, but it wasn’t.  Johnny knew that the thing, whatever it was, was up there, and by now he knew it was much closer.  Larissa just seemed to believe he knew what he was doing.  Johnny hoped he did.

And then, out of nowhere, the door.  Right where Johnny knew it would be, even though he hadn’t known it was a door.  How could he have?  There are no doors in the sides of sewer pipes.  Besides the completely ridiculous aspect of having a door that opens onto a sewer, there were physical impossibilities to deal with.  The pipe was round, which meant the “wall” of the pipe was curved.  And the door was not.  It was utterly flat, made of a black substance that seemed to be wood, with white markings on it that might have been some sort of faded symbol or might have been random scratches made by giant claws.  And it was circular, and its ragged edges glowed with a faint greenish cast, obscuring the impossible join of vertical to concave.

Johnny stood, staring at it.  Larissa held the lighter aloft and stared as well.

After a moment, Johnny shrugged.  “I suppose this isn’t any weirder than anything else that’s happened lately,” he finally said with a sigh.  “Shall we go in?”

Larissa was silent for a long moment.  “Is it better in there?” she asked finally.

Johnny wondered what her definition of “better” might encompass at this point.  “Well, if you mean is it safer, then I think so.  There won’t be any rats, and we won’t run into any actual sewage, and whatever those things were back there with the claws and the teeth won’t be able to get in.  If you mean, is it saner, then I suspect absolutely not.”

Larissa considered this.  After a time, she nodded.  Johnny put his hand on the door.

There was no doorknob, no knocker, no bell pull ... no obvious way that Johnny could see to either open the door or request it be opened by something on the other side.  But he knew how to go through it.  He just laid his hand flat on the door, felt the skin of his palm adhere to the strange wood, which felt both slick and tacky at the same time, then pulled.  The door opened smoothly, swinging outward as if it had hinges on the leftmost edge of its circular form, which it definitely did not.  The inside wasn’t dark, but it was so full of that dim green glow that had been leaking out around the edges that it might as well have been.  Larissa poked at the strange light with the Zippo, but it just made the flame, and even the whole lighter, turn green.  She shrugged and turned to Johnny.

“After me, eh?” he said.  Weirdly, he felt a grin on his face.  There was something about this new, otherworldly sense that just made him unreasonably happy.  “No worries,” he said, which had been a favorite expression of Amiira’s, but which Johnny hadn’t said in years.  Just now, though, it felt right.  He plunged through the green glow that filled the circular doorway and disappeared.

After a moment, Larissa followed.


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Chapter 8 (concluded)

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They spent the afternoon roaming the woods of Rock Creek Park and its environs.  They passed the occasional hiker or biker, depending on which paths they took, but often they were alone amongst the trees.  It was a bit cooler here out of the sun, but very peaceful.  At first Johnny had been a bit nervous, being away from the hustle and bustle of the city—this was more alone than he strictly wanted to be at the moment—but he had to admit that it was pleasant.  This wasn’t a creepy, Hansel and Gretel sort of forest.  It was more like when Amiira used to take him to Great Falls Park, just over the state line in Virginia.  They had gone several times, without his parents of course, and he still had fond memories of it despite how young he had been at the time.  It was like exploring their very own wilderness, away from the crowds of the suburbs.  Still, as the day grew longer, he felt the vague nervousness returning.  There was a sense of isolation, and a feeling of being watched.

Finally Johnny suggested that they head back into the city.  Larissa studied him for a moment, then shrugged and struck off in a new direction through the trees.  Johnny didn’t question that she knew where she was going.  Larissa always knew.

They cut through the cemetery and came out onto the trail very close to where they’d first joined it, earlier that morning.  This time they kept moving south, under Q Street, then under P Street.  The trees were getting thinner and the city traffic was becoming clearer and louder off to their right.  Twenty or thirty minutes later, Johnny was just starting to remark to himself that he’d never been this far south on the Georgetown side of The Creek, when a baseball diamond suddenly appeared to their right.

“Hunh,” Johnny said aloud.  “Where the heck are we?”

“Rose Park,” Larissa replied.  She stayed on the trail until just past the field, then cut off the path and headed to a small children’s playground.  There were a couple of picnic tables on the outskirts, and Larissa picked one and sat down at it.  On the far side of Georgetown, the sun was sinking, and the play area was deserted.  Must be a weeknight, Johnny thought.

And so they had a quiet little picnic with booty from Sandra’s café: cold sandwiches, and cheese, and fruit, and some sort of cream cheese and mushroom puffs, and little dark chocolate cupcakes with pink cherry frosting.  As the sunlight faded, Johnny felt full.  This was an unusual feeling for him.  Johnny had been full only a few times since he’d come to live on the streets, mostly coinciding with his stints in foster care.  He leaned back and savored the feeling.

Larissa was looking towards the street, which Johnny figured was probably 26th or 27th or something like that.  Something in her gaze brought him up out of his well-fed stupor.  “See something?”

She shook her head briefly.

He didn’t see anything either.  “Hear something, then?”

She cocked her head to one side and drew her eybrows together slightly.

Johnny listened.  There was a bit of birdsong left, despite the dying day.  There were traffic noises, despite the lack of visible cars.  There was what was perhaps a fire engine, far away.  There were occasional shouts or screeches or barks, probably from neighborhood kids and their pets, but those weren’t that close either.  There were some rustlings in the bushes, certainly more squirrels.  Squirrels were everywhere in the city.  In fact, if he looked around, he could proably see some.  Anywhere there were people and food, you could be sure to find a bold squirrel on the lookout for droppings.

But, actually, now that Johnny looked around, there were no squirrels.  Or birds, either: all the chirping he could hear was from deeper in the trees towards The Creek.  There were no cats, which should be fairly common this close to a residential area, or rabbits, which should be fairly common this close to Rock Creek Park, although they certainly weren’t as brave as the squirrels.  There was, in fact, nothing moving as far as he could see.

“Say, Larissa, I think it’s time to be going.”

Larissa nodded, still searching the area towards the neighborhood.  They both stood up and quickly packed away the leftovers.  Then they both took a step ... in opposite directions.

Larissa gave him her studying look.  Johnny waved at the sky vaguely.  “Look, it’s getting dark.  Traipsing through the trees in the daytime is fun and all, but I don’t want to be lost in the woods at night.”  Larissa arched an eyebrow.  “Not that we were ever lost today, of course!”  Johnny put up his hands, palms out.  “I’m not saying that, I’m just saying ...  City.  People.  You know?”

Larissa pointed back towards the treeline.  “That way is safer.”

Johnny started to give her a “you must be crazy” look, but was distracted by a soft chuff from the bushes between them and the neighborhood.  He froze.  There was a low growling purr that seemed to have an electronic whine embedded in it.  “What the ...” Johnny started, but Larissa was already heading back towards the trail.  Johnny quickly followed.

They ran along the trail for a few hundred yards, then Larissa cut through the trees back to the other path, that ran along the parkway.  The remnants of rush hour were still clogging the road, and Johnny mentally applauded Larissa’s choice.  He felt safer here, even though the commuters, in their single-minded drive to get back to comfortable suburban homes, were a world away from the two ragamuffin street children.  They slowed down now; passing under another busy street that Johnny felt sure was M Street, the main drag in Georgetown.  Still breathing heavily, they walked a couple hundred feet and passed under another road.  “Pennsylvania,” Larissa said in answer to Johnny’s unasked question.

After emerging from the underpass, they walked past a short grassy area to where the trail crossed the Pennsylvania Street exit off the parkway.  Waiting at the edge of the crosswalk for a few cars to pass, Larissa suddenly spun around and looked back toward the gloom under the bridge.

“What” Johnny started to ask, then he heard it too: a soft metallic click whose echo bounced around with all the carsound from the parkway.  It was almost lost in all the traffic noise, and at first Johnny was sure it must be his imagination, but now he thought he caught a flash of small red light as well, and suddenly it seemed more prudent to assume that he wasn’t hearing things.

“Let’s go,” Johnny said, and Larissa nodded.

They crossed the crosswalk at the next convenient break and hustled, not quite running down the trail.  Ahead was a bridge, and some waterway that intersected Rock Creek (“Chesapeake and Ohio Canal” Larissa muttered under her breath) and they made for it.  Johnny had a flash of Amiira reading him “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.”  To their left, the parkway too went over a bridge: Rock Creek was wending its way west to meet the old canal.  Although the sound of the traffic and his own heavy breathing should have made hearing anything else impossible, Johnny would have sworn he could hear something in the water now, perhaps the splashing of a large animal, and when they were almost at the abutment of the bridge, a sound rang out, very loud over the sound of the traffic, a primal big cat scream as reproduced on a cheap Casio synthesizer with too much feedback, and Johnny knew that it wasn’t just in their heads because out of the corner of his eye he could see people in their cars looking wildly around for the source of the noise, and the traffic on the parkway slowed to even more of a crawl as the echoes of that cry rolled down Rock Creek.  They froze.  It was now almost full dark and they could see nothing outside of the flashing of car headlights.  Then there was another great splash and then great, heavy wingbeats, followed by a screech that was surely produced by two pieces of rough metal grating against each other but somehow managed to sound like the cry of a great raptor: a hawk, or more likely an eagle.  Johnny instinctively looked up, but the traffic lights had ruined any hope of night vision and it was just darkness up there.  He felt Larissa’s hand clutch his upper arm and then there was a heavy metal scuttling from the other end of the bridge.  Twin red pinpoints of light appeared in the darkness.

Instantly Larissa yanked his arm and plunged down the embankment towards the water.  Without hesitation Johnny followed, although there was no path, the hill was steep, they couldn’t see, and there was water and likely rocks at the bottom.  Fuck it, Johnny thought, and plunged after the small figure disappearing into the bushes in front of him.

They slid more than they ran, but they reached the bottom of the hill without injury and hit the water.  It was cold, but there didn’t appear to be rocks threatening to snap a leg.  Instead of being darker here, practically under the footbridge, it seemed lighter ... possibly the subtraction of the car headlights made it easier for them to see in the gathering twilight.  The water was cold but not freezing, and was almost up to their waists, making it hard to maneuver.

Larissa turned away from the bridge, facing back toward the canal, but another huge splash sounded in front of them, and this time they could make out a large catlike shape.  Johnny knew there were leopards at the National Zoo, which was just a few miles up The Creek.  Not pleasant to imagine one of them having escaped, certainly, but right now it seemed more pleasant than the alternative.  The big cat turned its head toward them, and there were the red dots of light again, not so small this close up, and the fur color was wrong—more tan than tawny—and then it reared up on its hind legs and just stood there, flashing claws that somehow were made of a bright, silvery metal.  Larissa stared.  “Cougar,” she said.  “Puma.  Mountain lion.  Catamount.  Puma concolor.”

Johnny was pulling the back of her light green jacket as he backpedalled under the bridge, where he could hear water rushing into the creekbed.  “Yeah, right, red-eyed puma with silver claws standing on its hind legs.  Don’t identify, just move!”

Suddenly there was more splashing behind them and for a moment Johnny’s heart stopped, but whatever it was rushed past them and planted itself between them and the cougar-creature.  From this angle, it looked like a massive black wolf, big enough that the water just lapped at its belly, except for its heads, which looked more like coyotes.  Johnny blinked.  Yes, heads, with an S ... three, to be precise.  Two of them snapped ferociously at the man-cougar, which in turn flashed back silver fangs.  One narrow-muzzled head turned to look back over its shoulder and stared directly at them.  The mouth did not open, but Johnny heard a voice nonetheless: Run!

_

You don’t need to tell me twice, thought Johnny, half-hysterical, and he pulled Larissa back towards the rushing water, which turned out to be a huge outflow pipe.  It was covered with a sturdy metal grate to keep people from getting inside it.  Johnny pulled at it, pointlessly.  It was not going to budge in this lifetime.

“Jackals,” Larissa said calmly.

Johnny looked wildly at her.  “What??” he barked.

“Not coyote heads, jackal heads,” she corrected.  “Golden jackals.  The ones that statues of the god Anubis were based on.  Black-backed and side-striped jackals can’t bare their fangs, of course.”

Johnny gritted his teeth and shook the metal grating as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard).  “Not helping!” he said.

Larissa didn’t answer.  She was busy watching the three-jackal-headed dog and the metal-fanged were-cougar circling each other, snarling and growling and snapping frenziedly.  The canine had more teeth, but the feline had height and a longer reach.  Johnny decided that Larissa wasn’t going to be immediately useful.

He was about to turn away from the pipe and head further down Rock Creek when he felt something on the other side of the grate.  “Felt” wasn’t exactly the right word, though ... sensed it somehow, in a way that was slightly reminiscent of how he had perceived the mist, but also slightly different.  Without thinking, he reached for it, both figuratively and literally, and nearly bit his tongue when he realized that his arm was now inside the pipe—not just stuck through the bars of the grate, but literally _through the metal, all the way to his shoulder, which now had crossbars running through it.  For a moment, he almost lost a concentration he hadn’t even really known he had achieved, and he sensed this would have been disastrous.  But he shoved the panic in his brain into a back corner and relaxed again.  He flexed his arm forward.  Now the grate was practically touching his neck.  He flailed around behind him with his other arm, feeling for Larissa.  For a moment he became convinced that the arm was just passing unnoticed through her as well, but then he connected.  He pulled on her jacket and she floundered backwards, still calm, still not taking her eyes off the two creatures.  He could still hear them, sort of, but sound was muffled again, as it had been with the mist.  He pulled her again and brought her back into contact with the grate.  Now was the time to see if he could do what he thought he could.  He felt as if he ought to be able to, but then how could you trust any sort of instinct about something this alien?

He took a half-step forward himself, and now the metal bisected him nearly perfectly.  He knew that if he lost control now, there would be two Johnny Hellebores, but neither one would be much use to anyone.  He ignored the frenzied terror that fought to come bubbling out of his mind and spilling out of his ears.  He twitched something inside him, and then he gave Larissa one last, good pull, and she stepped backward cleanly through the grate.

Slowly she put her hands up to touch the metal.  Hastily Johnny pulled himself the rest of the way through and let go of everything.  When Larissa’s hand brushed the metal grate, he could tell it was solid to her touch.  And his hearing returned in a rush, and the sounds out there were frightful indeed.  “Hey, L?” he said softly.  “Let’s move a little further down this pipe, okay?”  She turned and stared up into his eyes, but still didn’t speak.  He wondered if something in her might have just snapped, but he comforted himself that she didn’t talk that much at the best of times.

He pulled her close and they moved cautiously down the outflow drain.


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Chapter 8 (continued)

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As they passed through Dupont Circle, Johnny asked Larissa where they were headed.  The little girl shrugged.  “Park,” she said shortly.

Johnny considered that.  “Rock Creek, or Mitchell?”

Larissa merely arched an eyebrow.

“Nothing wrong with Mitchell Park, you know,” Johnny contributed.  “It’s a nice little park.”  Larissa kept walking.  “Maybe not as big as Rock Creek Park ...”  Again the eyebrow.  “Okay, not even remotely as big as Rock Creek.  But, you know ... it has tennis courts, and ...”  At this point, Larissa actually stopped and stared at him.  “No, I know: we don’t play tennis.  I’m just ...”  He stopped and laughed at himself.  “I’m just babbling, apparently.  Lead on, Macduff.”

“Lay on.”

“What?”

“Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’”  Larissa paused.  “Not that you want me to attack you, I suspect.”  Johnny smiled.  “Perhaps ... Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!  Although of course that’s still a bit martial for the sentiment you were trying to express.  You could try ...”  But Johnny was laughing openly now.  Larissa stopped and looked at him.

“No, nothing.” Johnny was still chuckling.  “It’s just good to be back to normal.”  He looked around the crowds walking up and down Massachusetts Avenue.  “Or as normal as our lives usually are, I suppose.  Just ... carry on.  You lead, and I shall follow.”

Larissa looked at him for a moment longer, then turned and resumed walking.

At Q Street they turned left and walked across the bridge over the Rock Creek Parkway.  Just past the end of the bridge, they ducked off the sidewalk to the right and walked down through the trees to the bike path.  The trees were just starting to change colors.  Though the sounds of traffic still came to them clearly, it was as close to walking in the wilderness as it got in DC.

They followed the path, occasionally spying the outer edges of the cemetery to their left, then across Devil’s Chair Bridge, where the bike path rejoined the parkway.  Following the countours of the busy road, they eventually walked underneath Massachusetts, then the bike path cut across Rock Creek again.  Here Larissa took a left onto the footpath and they walked back they way they had come, but on the other side of the creek now, back under Massachusetts again.  It was a pleasant two miles or so altogether, accompanied by birdsong and the busy rustlings of squirrels.  Even walking alongside the parkway, this was still a place where you could forget you were actually in a city of half a million people.  After crossing another small creek, Larissa abruptly left the footpath and led them unerringly through the trees until they came out in the heart of Montrose Park.  Then they strolled west down R Street and took a right on Wisconsin.

They were in Georgetown now, a place where Johnny rarely came.  The more upscale parts of town contained more rich people, which theoretically meant people with more coin to spare, but it also meant people with far less tolerance of ragged street urchins.  But Larissa seemed just as much at home here as in any of the “bad” parts of town (though even the street people stayed out of the really bad neighborhoods).  She walked confidently down the sidewalk, ignoring anyone who looked askance at her.

They crossed to the west side of Wisconsin and approached a small café.  Johnny looked at Larissa somewhat nervously.  “Hey, L?  I’m not sure we can afford ...”  Larissa ignored him and opened the door, ushering him inside.

The interior of the place was as fancy as he had feared.  Johnny didn’t normally feel that dirty, but it was undeniable that he generally wore the same clothes every day, and only got to wash them once a week or so at best.  He was sure he didn’t smell that hot compared to the sort of people that would frequent this upscale eatery.  He felt several eyes on him, but no one commented.  Larissa took his arm and led him up to the counter.  A young, very well-dressed woman came over and looked them up and down.  “Can I help you?” she asked, with vague disapproval.

Larissa ignored her and waved to someone in a back room.  Immediately an older woman with slightly graying brown hair piled on her head came out and flapped a hand at the waitress.  “Never mind, Mary, I’ll take care of them.”  She beamed down at Larissa.  “And how’s my secret weapon today?”

Johnny blinked.

The woman lifted a hinged countertop and ushered them behind the counter.  Ignoring Mary’s flustered look, she shooed them into the back room, which turned out to be a small office just off the kitchen.  She closed the door behind them and offered them chairs.  “Who’s your friend?” she asked Larissa.

Still somewhat confused, Johnny stuck out his hand.  “Johnny Hellebore, ma’am.”

“Oh, pooh,” she said, clasping his hand briefly.  “I’m not a ‘ma’am,’ I’m just Sandra.  Very pleased to meet you, Johnny.”  She turned back to Larissa, still smiling broadly.  “And is Master Johnny one of the priveleged few?”

Larissa nodded.

“Ah, good, that’ll make things easier.”  She turned back to Johnny.  “Such a pain, you know, not being able to use the name.  I generally register her under ‘Elizabeth’ and then just call her ‘Liz.’”  She lowered her voice conspiratorially.  “But Larissa is a much prettier name.”

Johnny nodded, more confused than ever.  Obviously this was a friend.  But what did she mean by “register”?

“Well!” Sandra continued.  “Let me get you some food first off.  I’m sure you’re both quite hungry.”  She bustled off to the kitchen.  Larissa sat on the chair, swinging her legs back and forth.  Johnny looked around.  The walls held various plaques and certificates.  Here was a caterer’s license made out to Sandra Hunter.  Here was a diploma for an Advanced Culinary Arts degree from Stratford University, also for Sandra Hunter.  And here was a plaque for 1st place in a ...

Sandra came back in juggling several plates.  “Ah, so you’ve seen our trophies!” she said, beaming.  “That one was for last year’s tournament.  Substantial cash prize, that one was.  And this one over here”—she had put the plates down on the desk and was proudly pointing out further plaques now—“was the year before, we came in second, and this one ...”

Johnny interrupted.  “Second?  With Larissa on your team?  Seriously?”

Sandra frowned.  “Well, you know, there is a bit of luck involved.  The other team got the better die rolls, that’s all.”

Johnny put up a hand.  “Sorry.  It’s just ... I mean, she knows everything.”

Sandra immediately put her huge grin back on.  “Yes, isn’t she wonderful?  First place year before last as well.”  She pointed at yet another plaque.

Johnny nodded.  “I didn’t actually know there were organized tournaments for Trivial Pursuit.”

Sandra nodded enthusiastically.  “Oh, yes.  Well, you know, it’s not a national sport or anything, but we have a pretty big group that covers the greater metro area, and we do an annual tournament.  And I’ve been playing for years now.  Then I found Larissa here ... and, well, the rest is history.”  She looked at them both, still smiling.  “But, please, don’t let me carry on.  I’ve brought you the best my humble kitchen has to offer.  Eat, eat!”

As it turned out, Sandra’s “humble kitchen” was quite impressive.  There was French onion soup, and pasta salad, and hot prime rib sandwiches with gooey brie cheese.  It was all amazing, as far as Johnny was concerned.  He hadn’t eaten this well in ... well, however long it had been since he left home.  And probably not for a while before that: the last few weeks, between his father’s exit and his mother’s final breakdown, the cooks were just killing time while they found new jobs.

As he ate, Larissa was packing up food into a curious vest thing.  “What’s that?” Johnny asked, his mouth half-full.

Sandra jumped in.  “These are marvelous.  You wear them under your coats ... here, I’ve got one for you too.”  She held it up.  “You see, so that you can carry food around without being obvious.  I understand that in the circles you two travel in, carrying a bag or pack or something along those lines would just be inviting trouble.”  Johnny had to agree with the wisdom of this.

“Thanks Sandra,” said Larissa when she was all packed up.

Sandra was still beaming.  “My pleasure, honey!  You know I’m here for you, any time.  Half that cash prize is technically yours, you know.”

Larissa gave a faint smile.  “Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it.”

Sandra chuckled.  “Benjamin Franklin today, is it?  Very well, then, I’ll hold on to your half and just mete it out in foodstuffs and vests.”  Her laugh was unaffected and infectious.  Johnny couldn’t help but grin himself.

As he finished up, Larissa was handing him a vest to wear himself.  He took his coat off, put the vest on, and then replaced the coat over it.  The vest itself was light, but the food packed in it gave it a little heft.  Still, it wouldn’t weigh him down too much, and the extra food was certainly welcome.  This was dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow, at least, and possibly more.  None of the food in the vest was hot, so it would probably keep just fine until they got around to eating it.  Additionally, there was a thin thermos attached under one arm.  Water, most likely.

As Larissa zipped up her own jacket, she pointed at the half-finished menu Sandra had been working on when they came in.  “Try salmon roe here,” she said, putting a finger about halfway down the page, which was upside-down to them.

Sandra scooted around the desk and put on a pair of half-moon glasses from her pocket.  Squinting at the page a bit, she drew her eyebrows together.  “Red caviar?” she mumbled.  “Salmon roe, salmon roe ...”  She trailed off, gazing now at the ceiling, lost in thought.  Suddenly she clapped her hands and broke into a grin.  “Yes, salmon roe!  Of course!”  She rushed around the desk and siezed Larissa’s head, kissing her crown.  “You are brilliant, my little partner!”  She turned her happy expression onto Johnny.  “You must come again, Master Johnny.  And take care of this one.  She is precious.”

Johnny nodded.  “Yes, thank you, Ms. Sandra.  And yes, I’ll take good care of her.”

Together, they left the café, Sandra waving at them happily.  Larissa led Johnny on down Wisconsin until they reached Whitehaven, where they turned right to head toward Dumbarton Oaks Park.





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Chapter 7

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Encounters

Johnny wanted to answer her, but the mist—if it could still be called that—was thick over his mouth.  It was more like the consistency of jelly now, or vaseline: gooey on his bare skin, and cold and damp through his worn jeans.  It covered his eyes as well; looking at Larissa now was like staring through curved glass that had some sort of greasy film on it.  But sight and touch were still dulled slightly, as were his other three senses (or seven, if Larissa was right, which she generally was).  This strange new, otherworldly sense had peaked, and it was receding now, but there was still enough of it left to make his normal senses seem diminshed.  He tried to hold on to it, knew that he needed to do one last thing, and knew that he didn’t know what it was.  Maybe he could sense the answer, the same way he had known what to do with the mist ...

He stepped back.  Not with his body, exactly; more like with his being.  And as he stepped back, the mist, or gel, or whatever it was—still retaining the rough human shape it had acquired from being spread over his body—was ejected forward, and now there were two figures in the box.  Johnny shook his head, feeling woozy, and stumbled backward.  The cardboard box was now a bit crowded with two of them standing in it, and Johnny tripped over the side behind him and half stepped, half fell out of the box.  Catching himself with one hand, and now keenly feeling the cold air on his bare skin, he looked up at the figure still in the box.  It was completely clothed (unlike himself), and even had gloves.  A wide-brimmed hat kept the face and neck in shadow.  It seemed to be a man, but it was difficult to tell, as the clothing seemed lumpy in odd places.  There were two tiny glints that must have been light reflecting off eyes—the bare light bulb was very close above the figure’s head, so that almost made sense, although there was no reason the brim of the hat, large as it was, should keep the face pooled in that much shadow.  When it spoke, the voice was raspy, like ripping paper.

“What day is it?” it asked.

Johnny just stared.  Larissa spoke cautiously, unsure who or what she was addressing.  “It’s Tuesday.”

“What day of the month?” it asked, more sharply.

Johnny shook his head and looked at Larissa again.

“September the 10th,” said Larissa.

The figure flexed its workman’s gloves.  “I’m early,” it rasped.  It stepped out of the box and turned to look at Johnny.  “Thank you,” it said.  “For bringing me through.”  Johnny tried to extricate himself from the box with little success.  He looked up at the strange, misshapen figure.  Its shirt was cornflower blue.  Its pants were denim coveralls.  Its shoes were crinkled black boots turned down at the tops.  Johnny stared at it in fascination.  The figure turned to glance briefly at Larissa, then strode down the alley.  When it reached the sidewalk, it turned left and was lost from view.




Johnny was still on the ground, with one bare foot in the cardboard box and one arm behind him holding himself up off the ground.  “That was ...”  Johnny trailed off.  There was no reasonable way to complete this sentence.  Larissa stood, staring at the end of the alleyway with her lips just barely parted, as if frozen in the act of one of her diatribes.  For several seconds, no one moved.

Larissa closed her mouth and turned back to Johnny.  Weirdly, her eyes held no surprise, or fear, or even curiosity.  She just studied Johnny, as she always did, but he began to feel uncomfortable.  “Um, yeah,” he floundered.  “Maybe I should ...”  Abruptly a shiver coursed through his body.

“You’re cold,” Larissa pointed out.

Johnny wasn’t sure that was the ultimate source of the shiver, but Larissa wasn’t wrong either.  Late summer it might be, but it was night, and there was a September breeze kicking.  He disentangled himself from the box and began to put his socks and shoes back on.

Suddenly the ambient light dimmed a bit.  Johnny looked up, confused.  Larissa turned back to the mouth of the alley, which was now pitch dark for some reason.  There was a huge snort from that direction, half cranky old steam engine and half large hoofed herbivore.  Johnny froze, his laces pulled tight.  From the corner of his eye he saw Larissa’s head twitch.  But his focus was on the darkness that had swallowed their only exit back to the real world, the world where matronly whiskey-swilling old ladies might know more about you than was strictly logical and white-clad street preachers might grab your head and make freaky pronouncements and your whole unchanging life might seem more like a weird dream, but the real world nonetheless, where you did not cover yourself in mist and spit out bizarre otherworldly travelers.  That world now seemed very far away indeed.

Suddenly there were twin beams of red light in the darkness, and a heavy, sharp metallic click.  The red lights grew brighter, swinging back and forth, and the metallic click was repeated.  Whatever it was, it was advancing.

And then, the sound, coming from far away.  At first, it seemed like a police siren, a very familiar, comfortable sound, but then it fell when it should have risen, or perhaps rose when it should have fallen, and the real and the unreal abruptly diverged.  This was not the howl of a responding black-and-white, oh no.  This was the howl of an honest-to-god wolf, a huge beast with a deep barrel chest, and the sound carried the mournful wail of a deep winter wind embedded inside it, so that Johnny knew this was a white wolf, a great white wolf with ice-blue eyes, standing on a hillside overlooking his domain while the snowflakes eddied and swirled all around him ...

The red lights swung around and disappeared, and there was a profusion of clicks and another great snort.  The lonely, wintry howl was repeated, perhaps a bit closer this time, and there was a squeal from the end of the alley, a whine of clear frustration that was again partly mechanical and partly organic, with just a hint of heavy grunt at the end, and suddenly they could see the street again.  A couple walked past the end of the alley, holding hands.  They unconsciously huddled closer together when passing the opening on their right, as non-street-people usually did.  It was such a slice of ordinary human life that Johnny almost became convinced that he had just suffered an elaborate hallucination.  He turned to Larissa in confusion, his hands still holding his laces taut.

Larissa spoke rapidly but very cripsly.  “I think,” she said, “it is time to leave now.”

Johnny snatched at his remaining clothes on the ground.  “Fuckin’ A and hell yeah to that, sister.”

They fled.


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Chapter 6 (concluded)

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What is this?

Continuing down 18th, he felt mildly guilty about his lie to the guitarist, but he certainly hadn’t been about to admit that he’d been drinking to dull the feeling of something invisible pulling at his guts.  And apparently it had worked: he had felt nothing like it all morning.  He glanced covertly at Larissa to see if she was studying him, but she was just walking and watching life on the street.  He decided to do the same.

And so down the busy avenue, a liesurely stroll in the warming late morning air.  When the lunch rush came out, they stopped to work the crowds and pick up a bit of coin.  Then they got some burgers at a fast food joint and continued wandering down the road.

By this point, they had left Adams Morgan and drifted into Dupont Circle.  When they hit New Hampshire, they turned right and soon arrived at the eponymous traffic circle.  It wasn’t really big enough to be called a park, but there were trees, and a few street people: Parking Jimmy, snoozing on a bench, Saint Thomas, who was one of the few street people who was well and truly crazy, muttering to himself as always, and the new face everyone had been talking about at court two nights ago, whose name Johnny had misplaced.  He turned to Larissa for help.  “Drew,” she murmured.  Johnny introduced himself.  Drew was white, older, still a bit skittish.  “Anything you need,” Johnny said to the new guy.  “Either of us would be happy to help out.”  Drew thanked them nervously, then moved on.  Johnny and Larissa relaxed on the bench with Jimmy for a bit—he cracked an eye at them, but didn’t really wake up—then decided to move on themselves.

They headed down Massachusetts, which would eventually take them to the construction site where the new Convention Center was almost finished.  Security around the site was pretty tight, but it was occasionally possible to sneak inside for a night, and, if this breeze kept up, they might appreciate being out of it.  But somewhere in the midst of evening rush hour Johnny suddenly felt it again.

He stopped abruptly on the sidewalk.  People jostled him, some muttering unfriendly remarks.  Larissa pulled him out of the flow of foot traffic.  Leaning against a building, he looked down the street.  It was a bit to the right of the new Convention Center, which he could just make out the top of from here.  Probably a bit south of Mount Vernon Place, then ...

He glanced over at Larissa.  She was studying him again.  “I think we need to go back to Chinatown,” he said softly.  She simply nodded.




They spent the next several hours following the occasional tugs that Johnny felt.  By the time dusk fell, they had crisscrossed Chinatown’s six or so square blocks perhaps a dozen times.  They got as far east as St. Mary’s, as far south as the Verizon Center, back west to the Convention Center (the current one, not the new one they were building), back north to Mount Vernon Square.  The feeling was always just out of reach, and maddeningly intermittent.  Any thought of dinner was forgotten.  Occasionally, people they knew called out greetings; they ignored them.  They tried alleys, roads, parks, anywhere they could get to without risking unwanted attention.  Each time they came up empty.

“What time is it?” Johnny asked finally.

Larissa again gazed skyward.  “About 9:30,” she pronounced.  It had been dark for a while now, but of course the city lights were still bright.  The night air was slightly nippy.  At the moment they were walking south on 5th, just crossing I Street.

“I dunno,” Johnny said, frustration oozing out of his pores.  “I can’t seem to ...”  He stopped.  Larissa stopped as well.

To describe it as a “tug” was no longer sufficient.  This was as if he had been transformed into iron and placed near a giant magnet.  His teeth seemed to be vibrating.  He felt like his heels were being pulled along the sidewalk.  He found he was unconsciously leaning backwards to balance himself.  Glancing at Larissa, he found her staring at him with widened eyes.

“I gotcha now, you bastard,” he muttered triumphantly.

He began walking, faster and faster.  Just before they reached H Street an alley appeared on their right, and the pulling sensation abruptly vanished.  Johnny turned to Larissa.  “I think,” he said breathlessly, “that we’re finally here.”

The First Gate

Johnny and Larissa turned the corner and went down the filthy dead-end alleyway.  Several restaurants had back doors or side doors that let out on the alley and lots of food trash went out to sit, calling to the rats and the cats and the bluebottle flies.  The smell was nauseating, but in a mercurial way, constantly shifting:  one thread out of the melange—say, spaghetti—might predominate for a split second, giving that strong marinara scent that might almost be enticing, and then immediately it would get swallowed up in a soup of egg foo yung, refried beans, Korean barbecue, and sour milk, nearly making you retch.

Larissa’s nose wrinkled, and her hand rose to cover it.  Johnny seemed oblivious to the olfactory assault; his eyes were fixed on a lone light bulb burning at the end of the alley, over the last door on the right.  Slowly he picked his way towards it.  Larissa followed.

When he reached the light he could see what had drawn him there.  There was a single wisp of mist, curling around the light as if caressing it.  It floated slowly, unusual at first only in its solitude, but Johnny just stared, unmoving, as the minutes ticked by.  And, as the time elapsed, they could see that it was completely abnormal mist, because it would slowly float to the edge of the illumination provided by the bulb, then it would turn around and float in the other direction.  And when it reached the opposite edge of the light, it would turn again and start back.  Except, of course, that mist didn’t turn around.  That was ... preposterous.

After a few circuits back and forth, Johnny reached out to touch the mist as it went by.  He heard a gasp and a truncated plosive over his shoulder; Larissa’s concern for Johnny was obviously at war with her sense of detachment.  But he wasn’t worried.  He knew the mist wasn’t there to hurt him.  Actually, the mist wasn’t there for him at all ... he was there for it, in some way.

As his hand passed through, the mist swirled around it, seeming to cling to the short hairs on the back of his hand.  As Johnny slowly pulled his hand back, the mist seemed to want to follow it, briefly, then it pulled away from him, almost as if with great effort, and went back to its original spot.  The feel was not particularly unusual—cool and moist, as you would expect mist to be—and yet there was something that Johnny felt beyond feeling, something that he was aware of on a level that he didn’t even know he possessed, as if the whole concept of five senses was a lie and he actually had seven, or eleven, or nineteen.

“It is,” agreed Larissa, talking fast now.  “You have nine, not including your sense of time and the homeostatic interoceptive senses ... visual, auditory, vestibular, olfactory, gustatory, somatic, thermoceptive, kinesthetic, and nocioceptive.  The concept of five senses was advanced by Aristotle, who of course also believed that there were only four elements, or five if you include aether, and nobody believes that drivel any more, but for some reason the five senses thing just ...”  She trailed off into silence and Johnny returned his attention to the mist.  Curiously, since he had touched it, it was just hanging in the air, not pacing back and forth as it had been before.  He stepped forward and looked at it, put his hand out but didn’t actually touch it this time, just held it close, mere millimeters away, and opened up a door in his mind and reached out.

Then Larissa was shaking his shoulder, with some determination, and he looked lazily back at her, curious but not worried, and she was talking again, in that college-professor way she had that was so weirdly incongruous in a girl of her whatever-age-she-was, and he couldn’t really make out the words she was saying because his hearing was turned down because this other sense, this new sense, was cranked way up, and he was cocking his head to one side now, in what Larissa, judging from her expression, found to be a very un-Johnny-like way, and he spoke, or at least his mouth opened and words came out: “I have to put the mist in the box.”

Larissa looked down.  There was a large cardboard box, open, empty, and clean, which in itself was bizarre beyond belief in this food-strewn alley.  She looked back at the mist.  She looked back at Johnny.  She enunciated very carefully.  “That’s just silly.”

Johnny smiled, a big dopey smile, and he nodded.  “Yup,” he agreed happily.  “Very silly.”  Then he began to push and scoop and swirl the mist over to the box.  And because it clung to his skin ever so briefly after his hand passed through it, he actually made some small progress, pulling the mist gradually over to the box.  Once he reached the cardboard, he took off his coat.  Larissa pointed out that it was getting cold.  Ignoring her, he took off his outer shirt, and then his tee-shirt.  His nipples puckered in the night air, but he couldn’t actually feel it.  He kicked off his boots and then pulled off his socks.  He actually had his hands in the waistband of his trousers when he remembered Larissa.  He looked back at her.  Her eyes were big and round.  He felt he ought to blush at this point, but somehow that didn’t matter.  “That’s probably close enough,” he said softly, still smiling.  And then he stepped into the box.

He pulled the mist to him, then squatted down on his haunches.  Immediately he felt a strong urge to urinate, but he suppressed it.  He began to spread the mist over his body—that was really the only way to describe it—and it felt moist and sort of squishy and vaguely ... organic ... and both comforting and a little bit gross at the same time.  Mostly it felt right.  And although it hadn’t seemed like there was very much of it—just one little wisp of mist, after all—for some reason he was able to keep spreading it, and spreading it, until every inch of him seemed to be covered.  Once he was finished, he looked down, concentrating on a spot on the bottom of the cardboard box between his feet, and his eyes began to burn, as if he had something stuck in his eye, only it was both eyes, and instead of blurring his vision, he could see everything much more clearly now.  Everything was both brighter and darker and the world made so much more sense ...

When his head cleared, he was standing again, and the mist was thick and unmoving on his skin and his pants.  His feet were together, arms stretched out to either side, as if he were portraying a crucifiction victim.  Larissa was staring at him, open-mouthed, her eyes still large.  “You’re wearing someone,” she said.

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Chapter 6 (begun)

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The Morning

Johnny sat bolt upright and stared wildly around him.  For many long seconds he had no clue where he was or what might be around him.  He flailed about with his hands until he hit something soft; still unsure, he poked it.

Something grabbed his wrist.  He gave a muffled shriek and tried to pull back, but it held him firmly.  Suddenly there was a spark and a flame, and he was looking into Larissa’s eyes.

He gradually got his breathing back under control.  Larissa let go of his wrist and held her dented Zippo aloft, looking around for the source of his fear.  If it even had been fear ... “I think,” he started hesitantly, his voice rough, “I think I must’ve had a bad dream.”  She stared at him.  He shrugged.  She sighed.

Having satisfied herself that there were no immediate threats, she put the lighter away and squatted on her haunches with her back to the alley wall.  Gradually, Johnny’s eyes adjusted to the dim light; it was pretty black in the back of this particular alley, but it was never completely dark in the city.  Johnny could see the dumpster that protected them from prying eyes and the slight autumn breeze.  He could make out some light in the alley beyond it.  And there was a glow in most of the night sky, although they were under an overhang.  He tried to remember how they had come to be here.  Last night was somewhat blurry, but he thought he remembered going out ...

“We’re in Adams Morgan,” Larissa supplied helpfully.

Johnny thought that might sound familiar.  He tried talking again.  “Why?”

“We went out drinking with Jet and Grinch.”

He stared at her blankly for a bit.  “We don’t drink,” he finally contributed.

“Apparently,” Larissa noted, “one of us does.”

Johnny pondered this.  “Let me guess: is it me?”  Larissa nodded.  “I thought so.  Maybe I should go barf now.”

“That could be helpful, if you have any undigested alcohol.  But I doubt that, given how long ago we went to sleep.”

Actually, Johnny didn’t really feel nauseous.  Just ... fuzzy.  “How much did I drink?”

“I would say about 6 fluid ounces of Irish Mist and roughly 18 ounces of Milwaukee’s Best.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows.  “Really?”  He almost felt impressed with himself.  “That sounds like a lot.”  Larissa didn’t respond.  “How did I get liquor?” he asked.

Larissa shrugged.  “Grinch bought it.  He and Jet were drinking it.  You asked if you could have some.  Jet said he didn’t think it was a good idea, but Grinch gave you some anyway.  You drank it.”

That did indeed sound remarkably simple.  “And the beer?”  Larissa just looked at him.  “Same deal, I guess.  Yeah, that would make sense.”

“You’ve been drunk before.”

Johnny decided to take this as a question.  “Once.  I raided the liquor cabinet when my parents were out of town.  I was ... I dunno, ten, eleven?  It was right after ...”  He paused uncomfortably.  This was dangerously close to talking about family.  “Anyway, after that, I just never thought alcohol was that great.  Just something else that makes you sick.  That’s why I haven’t had any since I got here.”  Since he came to live on the streets, he meant.

Larissa didn’t comment.

“I don’t actually feel drunk now, though.  I guess I must’ve been, last night, since I don’t really remember much, but now ... I feel okay.  Just a little disoriented when I woke up.”  He stood up, stretching his cramped muscles.  “Do we need to stay here, or ...?”

Larissa stood as well.  “It’s about 5:30.  The sun’ll be up in an hour and fifteen minutes or so.”  She looked back at him expectantly.

“So I guess we’ll move along then,” Johnny said.  “Where to?”  Larissa just waited.  “Yeah.  Let’s just ... we’ll walk.”




The alley opened onto Columbia Road.  Traffic was already starting to pick up in the pre-dawn gloom, and many breakfast places were open.  Johnny wasn’t particularly hungry, but he bought a bottle of water for each of them at one of the shops and then they ambled down to Columbia and 18th, the heart of Adams Morgan.  Light was beginning to seep into the sky, and foot traffic was picking up as well.  They ran into Filbey, one of their fellow street urchins, who was planted on a corner of the busy intersection with Dotty.  They exchanged greetings, but it would be considered rude to horn in on his time, so they didn’t linger.  They moved on down 18th, looking for nothing in particular.  Ducking into the network of alleys between 18th and Columbia, they ran into a knot of street folk and spent some time exchanging pleasantries.  They had just missed Whiskey Sally, apparently, but Randall and Sanchez and Marge and several others were still wandering about.  There was a brisk trade going on—cigarettes for clothing for food for liquor—but they didn’t need anything in particular and had nothing in particular to offer.  By the time they emerged back onto 18th Street, morning rush hour was winding down.

Strolling down 18th, Johnny happened to glance to his right and noticed a tiny record shop below street level.  The sign was roughly chest high: Back in the Groove.  Johnny stopped abruptly.  “Hey, isn’t that where the Grinch works?”  Larissa didn’t correct him, so he assumed he must be right.  “What time is it?” he asked.

Larissa looked up at the sky.  “Almost 10,” she decided.  Johnny went down the short flight of stairs to the front door of the store and looked in.  The pink mohawk was unmistakable.  He tried the door, but it was still locked.  He rapped softly on the door and the Grinch turned around and caught sight of him.  He pointed at his wrist; there was no watch there, but Johnny got the message.  He shrugged and spread his hands.  Grinch looked skyward in an exaggerated “why me?” expression, then pointed to the wall to Johnny’s right.  Johnny glanced over and saw a narrow dead-end alley.  He nodded, then turned around and went back up the stairs.  Larissa was waiting.

“Just take a sec,” he told her, then walked over to the alley.  About halfway down, a small door opened and Grinch stepped out and lit up a cigarette.

He puffed briefly then looked over at the two kids.  “Johnny Hellebore,” he half-smiled.  “And his ever-present sidekick.”  Larissa arched an eyebrow at him, but he just chuckled.  “What’s up?”

Johnny was normally a bit intimidated by the Grinch, who was a good two or three inches taller (not even considering the hair) and possibly a hundred pounds heavier, none of which was fat.  But this was the man he’d gotten drunk with last night, right?  “Hey man.  I was just wondering ... I don’t have a real clear memory of last night.”

Grinch gave a rare toothy grin.  “I bet you do not, my friend.  I didn’t think you could actually hold your liquor, but I reluctantly admit: I was wrong.  You were packing it away, street rat.”

Johnny decided to take that as an affectionate nickname.  “Yeah, so she tells me.”  He indicated Larissa with his head.  “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t say anything embarrassing or anything like that.  You know?”

Grinch focused on Larissa briefly, then went back to his cigarette.  “She tells you, eh?  Does ‘she’ actually have a name, as it happens?  It’s not really Alice, is it?”  He waited for a reply to this, but he didn’t seem surprised when he didn’t get one.  “Embarrassing?  Nope, you were solid, small fry.  You were, in fact, rather happy, as I recall.  You kept saying, ‘See? Now I can’t feel it.’”  Another puff.  “Whatever that meant.”  He looked appraisingly at Johnny.

Johnny hoped his face didn’t look as shocked as he felt.  “Hunh.  Welp, no idea what the hell I was talking about there.  As long as I didn’t try to take my clothes off or throw up on anyone, I guess I’m good to go.”

Grinch stubbed out his cigarette on the brick wall.  “Nope, nothing that might have gotten you arrested, jacked, or beat down.”  He stuck out a hand.  “In fact, we’ll have to do it again sometime, eh?”

Johnny was a bit taken aback, but he shook the large hand that was offered.  “Thanks.  I ... yeah, definitely, next time I’m in the neighborhood.”

The Grinch’s grip was firm, but the man didn’t try to crush his hand.  “Take ‘er easy.  I gotta get back to work.  Almost time to open up the shop.”  Johnny nodded, and the pink mohawk disappeared back into the little door.





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Chapter 5 (concluded)

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Glancing back at Larissa, he found her staring at him.  Perhaps something was showing in his expression; that blank, studying look was what passed for concern in Larissa’s facial lexicon.  Tina rambled on, oblivious.  When she finally looked up and noticed that Larissa’s attention had been hijacked, she too looked over at Johnny.  She brightened immediately and waved at him to come join them.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” she was saying as he drew within earshot.  “Perfect, yeah, perfect.  We need a male opinion.  Point and counterpoint, ya know?”  She looked at Johnny expectantly.

“Uh, sorry, what?” Johnny mumbled, confused and still distracted.

“The great name debate,” Tina said, rolling her eyes.  As if there could be any other topic, her demeanor suggested.

Apparently, the band was between names again.  In truth, it spent more time there than anywhere else.  Johnny had long ago given up trying to keep track of the current moniker.  “Oh.  Um ... what were the choices again?”

Tina pursed her lips and rolled her eyes theatrically.  “We’re trying to think of some.  That’s the point.”

“Oh,” Johnny repeated.  He still wasn’t really concentrating on this conversation, and he suspected, from her look, that Larissa knew it.  “Um ... what was the last name?”

Tina threw her hands up in exasperation.  “Crystal Eyes!  Don’t you remember?  That one was my suggestion, but then Grinchy over there didn’t like it—like he ever likes anything—and Flesh’ said she didn’t really care, but Debbie was so supportive ...”  Johnny had to blink a couple of times before he could remember that “Debbie” was Braithwaite; no one but Tina called her that.  Tina had gone on talking, of course.  ”... so Melora said ‘screw that’ and now we’re back to square one.  I swear, one little band name ... you wouldn’t think it would be that hard, right?  But apparently there’s all sorts of legal issues and then everybody has their ‘artistic sensibilities’ ...”  Tina invested this phrase with quite a bit of sarcasm; Johnny suspected that, in Tina’s view, all this was just a quirky hobby that her girlfriend would eventually grow out of.

Larissa suddenly interrupted, which was a fairly un-Larissa-like thing to do.  “Have you asked Doug?”

Tina’s face lit up.  “No! Yes! Of course!”  She rose and flounced over to the sometime-sound-engineer.  “Doug!” she screeched over the music.  Doug, who didn’t speak much in the most relaxed of situations, looked up with a rather alarmed look.

Larissa turned back to Johnny.  She didn’t speak, but Johnny knew that she had just gotten rid of Tina, and that she knew that he knew this, and that as far as she was concerned “what’s wrong” would at this point be redundant.

Johnny opened his mouth, unsure of how to explain the problem.  “Larissa ... where are your parents?”  And then clapped his mouth shut, practically horrified at what had somehow come out.

Johnny and Larissa had known each other for at least two years, probably three, possibly four.  During that time, there were months in which they were constantly in each other’s presence, days in which the only time they couldn’t see each other was when one of them was going to the bathroom (and, truth be told, even that was often a just matter of the other one having the courtesy to turn their back).  There were also months in which they barely saw each other, but fewer of those.  They had spoken to each other in every conceivable situation: while walking, while eating, while hustling change, while huddled together for warmth, while trying to avoid getting mugged for their coats or shoes, while sitting on the Mall in the summer sunshine, while crouching, shivering, under a slight overhang in the pouring rain.  In all that time, never once had either of them asked about the other’s family.  It simply wasn’t done.  A street person might volunteer information about their past—and once they did so the floodgates were opened—but until they did, if they ever did, you never asked.  Never.  Johnny’s question was as bad as farting in public—worse, really, in street culture, which wasn’t nearly as uptight about bodily functions as the rest of society.

Larissa cocked her head to one side and continued to focus that look at him.

Johnny knew he must be red.  “I’m sorry, I don’t know ...”  He swallowed.  “I just feel ... something.  And maybe I need to ...”  He shook his head helplessly.

Larissa straightened her head and reached over and touched his hand, another rare gesture for her.  Johnny felt a momentary flush that he couldn’t sort out.

Then it hit him again.

This time it was like the hook was set right into the middle of his guts and twisted, twirling his intestines around to get a firmer grip, and then it pulled.  And this time there was a very definite direction that it pulled in.

He realized that he had clutched Larissa’s hand reflexively.  She was staring at his grip on her smaller hand.  Then she looked up at him.  Still studying.

Johnny was so breathless he forgot to be embarrassed.  He let go of her and opened his mouth and just stared at the south wall of the studio.  It was that way ... no, more to the right.  He turned his head slightly until he was facing almost southwest.  “There,” he whispered.

Larissa flipped her palms up.  Her expression didn’t change, but this was as clear as if she’d shouted “What??”

Tina had returned.  “You catchin’ flies there, Juanito?”  She chuckled, although it sounded more like a snort.

Johnny ignored her.  “Where are we?” he asked Larissa.  “What neighborhood, I mean.”

“Truxton Circle,” she answered immediately.

Tina wrinkled her nose.  “This is part of Shaw, isn’t it?  Or are we far enough east to be in Eckington ... let’s see ...”

Johnny ignored this too.  He pointed.  “What’s that way?”

Larissa looked in the direction he indicated and unfocussed her eyes, as if she could see through the walls.  She shrugged.  “The New York Avenue Playground?  The northern terminus of 395?  Chinatown?  Gallery Place metro and the MCI Center?”

Larissa looked ready to continue indefinitely—Johnny knew she was perfectly happy to keep going until she hit Arlington, or possibly Mexico—but he held up a hand.  Johnny considered.  “Where we were last night, you mean.”

Tina happily joined into the conversation.  Not knowing what people were talking about never stopped Tina.  “Oh, you were in Chinatown last night?  I love Chinatown.  They have such great restaurants there.  I was at this one place ...”

Tuning out Tina was becoming second nature.  “I think we have to go back,” he said in a low voice.

She gazed back at him for a moment, then: “Now?”

Johnny hesitated.  “I don’t ... maybe ... no ...”  He ground his teeth in frustration.  “I don’t know!” he hissed.  Tina seemed to take no notice.

“Johnny Angel said to lay low,” Larissa pointed out.

“Angels!” Tina interjected.  “I don’t really believe in angels, myself.  My family’s Catholic, of course, but I ...”

“Yeah, I know,” Johnny answered.

Larissa said nothing.  Tina continued to babble about angels.

Johnny looked back at the still nameless band, who were now tuning up.  “Maybe we should stay till practice is over.”

Tina nodded enthusiastically.  “Oh, yeah yeah, sure, you don’t want to miss them playing, right?”

Larissa just gazed at Tina.  Johnny spoke into the silence.  “Yeah.  Right.”


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Chapter 5 (continued)

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It was late afternoon now, and Johnny could hear voices bantering in the other room.  He rolled over and checked on Larissa; she was looking at him again, exactly as she had been before she fell asleep.  He wanted to speak to her, but had no idea what he wanted to say.  They lay, staring at each other in a not uncomfortable silence, as minutes ticked by.  Suddenly Larissa sat up and drank some of the water she had left on the small bedside table.  Johnny sat up too.

“Umm ... I guess we should get up now?”  Larissa shrugged.  Johnny looked out the window again.  There were more people moving about down on Harvard Street, but not too many.  Johnny guessed that it wasn’t yet quitting time for the nine-to-fivers.

Johnny stood up and retrieved his coat, which was the only thing he’d taken off.  Larissa hadn’t even done that; she’d slept in her light green jacket.  They opened the bedroom door and walked out into the main room.

“Waiting Room?” Grinch was asking.

“Done to death,” Jet replied.

There were several stacks of CDs on the coffee table and the two musicians were riffling through them.  Grinch was holding up a case with a dark red cover and no artwork.  “Yeah, but classic,” he said wistfully.  He put that one down and picked up another.  “I can’t believe you have this ... oooh, Woman in the Wall.  That would be sick.”  Johnny understood from his tone that this was a good thing.

Even with the sunglasses on Jet managed to convey that he was looking at the taller man as if he were crazy.  “And who’s going to sing that?  You?  You’re hardly a Beautiful South voice, and Fleshlight is even harsher.”

Grinch snorted.  “No, you’d have to sing it.”

“No.  Just ... no.  Find something for Fleshlight to sing.”

Grinch threw up his hands.  “She can’t sing!  Screech, maybe, but sing?  I don’t think so.”

“You’re a dick.  She sings just fine.  You just have to find something in her range ... PJ Harvey, maybe or ... ah, here we go.”  He held up a case with a yellow octopus on a purple background.  “Shutterbug.”

Grinch cocked his head to one side.  “I don’t think she can do the breathy parts.  Find something off American Thighs; I like that better anyway.  Or go back to your original idea ... Me-Jane, or ... hell, anything off Rid of Me.”

Jet glanced up and saw Johnny and Larissa in the doorway.  “Ah, welcome little dudes.  Care to join us?  We’re looking for songs to do covers of.  Everybody wants covers.”

Johnny looked back and forth between them.  “But I didn’t recognize any of those songs you were talking about.”

Grinch grumbled under his breath “yeah, that’s sorta the point.”  Jet just grinned widely.

Johnny decided to abandon this tack.  “Hey, thanks for the bed.  That was really cool of you.”

Jet nodded.  “We’re off to practice pretty soon.  You guys wanna come with?”  Johnny thought he saw Grinch roll his eyes, but the big man didn’t say anything.

“Ummm ... no, I guess not.  We’ll just take off now.”

Jet fiddled with one of his earrings.  “Don’t be silly.  You wanted to be out of the limelight for a bit, no?  So hang for a while.”

Johnny took a second too long to respond, and Larissa planted herself on the floor next to the table.  “Uh, yeah, okay,” Johnny said as Larissa started going through CDs.  He leaned against the wall and watched the three of them pick up and discard.  The two musicians stopped occasionally to quibble over some song or other; Larissa just worked with quiet determination.

After perhaps half an hour of this, which Johnny found calming in a weird way, Larissa suddenly held up an orange-ish case.  “Fat Man and Dancing Girl,” she announced.

Grinch took the disc from Larissa, read it, and laughed raucously.  “Suzanne Vega??  You own Suzanne Vega?”  He grinned ruthlessly at Jet.

Jet was staring open-mouthed at Larissa.  “Where’d you even find that?” he asked.  “I thought I’d lost it.”

Larissa shrugged.  “Under the couch.”

Grinch was still chuckling.  “Look, even if I agreed to shred it up to Suzanne Vega”—he invested the name with a heavy dose of sarcasm—“who’s gonna sing that?”

Larissa looked calmly back at him.  “Braithwaite.”

Grinch stopped laughing.  “Braithwaite can sing?”  He looked to Jet for confirmation.

Jet shrugged.  “Sure, she used to sing all the time before she hooked up with Fleshlight.  Mostly acoustic: Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls, that sort of thing.  She could do Suzanne Vega, sure.”  He had taken the CD from Larissa and was staring at the back of it.  “You know the song?” he asked Grinch.

Grinch snorted again.  “Do I know a Suzanne Vega song?  Seriously?”

Jet waved this away.  “It’s sort of trippy, actually.  You’d like the words ... and we could really punk it up, like the Pixies doing Head On, or ...”

“Dinosaur Jr doing Just Like Heaven,” Larissa supplied.

Grinch was now staring at her in disbelief.  “How old are you, kid?  You must’ve been in diapers when that came out.”  Larissa just gazed back at him.

Jet ignored this byplay.  “No, no, this is good, this could ... Alice, my lass, you are a genius.”  He popped the CD into a boom box sitting beside his chair.  Grinch groaned something about having to actually listen to Suzanne Vega, but Jet was too excited to be stopped.  They lapsed into a discussion of the arrangement and how it could be deconstructed.  Johnny sort of liked the song he heard coming out of the speakers, but he suspected it wouldn’t sound very much like that when it came out of Grinch’s guitar.

He looked down at Larissa, who had stood up and was now leaning against the wall beside him.  “How do you do that?” he asked conversationally.

She looked back at him with a puzzled expression.  “Do what?”




Braithwaite’s laugh was throaty and rich.  “You want to do what?”  The chunky bass player’s wardrobe was also very consistent, although she allowed a bit of variation in terms of color: tonight her long men’s shirt was a faded black, and her baggy jeans were a crisper blue.  Her shoulder-length brown hair framed her smiling round face.

Fleshlight was performing the amazing feat of sucking on a cigarette and chewing gum at the same time.  She looked at the hastily scribbled notes Jet had handed her while keeping one ear cocked to the original song, playing on the much larger speakers in the band’s practice space.  Her honey-blonde cornrows hung loosely; the beads on the ends clacked together rhythmically as she twitched her head in time with the music.  She wore a loose, sleeveless shirt, and Johnny could see flashes of hair in her armpits.  This excited him in a mildly uncomfortable way, although Johnny was used to that from her.  But it seemed to be affecting him more tonight.  Probably because he was getting older.  Johnny had no real sexual experience with women—he had hit puberty during his early time on the streets, which wasn’t particularly conducive to finding a girlfriend, and he had mostly ignored his hormones.  He was apparently a bit of a late bloomer: he had never shaved, but had no facial hair to speak of.  But it was difficult to ignore a specimen such as Fleshlight.

Larissa was sitting at the dumpster-scavenged table that someone had haphazardly repaired enough to stand on four mismatched legs, chatting over pizza with Tina, Braithwaite’s girlfriend.  The two of them were deep in discussion, Tina talking with her hands and with her mouth full.  Her hint of a Hispanic accent became more pronounced when she lost herself in a good conversation.  Johnny had attempted to contribute to the pizza fund, but Jet had brushed him off, saying “you can catch me next time.”  Jet said that pretty much every time.  Johnny was long past the days of arguing with that type of comment, and he had put his few tattered bills back in his pocket without another word.  The pizza was delivery from some forgettable joint; it was greasy and had the consistency of cardboard, but it was hot, and Johnny had certainly not complained.

As he stood watching the band confer in two distinct knots (Jet with Fleshlight, and Braithwaite with Grinch and the band’s manager, Melora), Johnny felt a sudden tug in his guts.  He started, and looked around in confusion.  Larissa and Tina were holding forth on some topic or other that he couldn’t really make out over the music.  Doug, who occasionally showed up and messed around with the sound board, was lounging in a corner fiddling with some piece of electronic equipment.  Johnny had been here several times—he never turned down free pizza, even if the cost was having to suffer through loud discordant post-punk aural assaults—so he knew that sometimes there were small knots of die-hard fans or friends of friends, but today the warehouse-like space was pretty deserted.  The small troupe of actors and street performers who had had the previous timeslot had cleared out pretty quickly: apparently none of them appreciated the band’s style of music.  There was no one else here, nothing else happening.  He looked back at Fleshlight.  The armholes of her shirt were stretched out, and it was obvious that she wasn’t wearing a bra.  Maybe it was just ... he was a red-blooded teenage boy, after all.

When it came a second time, though, it didn’t feel like that at all.  It felt more like something was trying to get his attention.  He thought of those parodies of old vaudeville routines where the inept performer is dragged offstage by a hook ... it was as if that hook had reached into his body somehow and was tugging on his intenstines.  He felt like he needed to go: both in the sense of needing a bathroom as well as a desperate desire to leave.


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Chapter 5 (begun)

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Jet

The door opened, and a dark face with dark glasses stared out at them.  Johnny didn’t think he’d ever seen Jet without the sunglasses; he wondered idly if the man showered with them on.  Jet was shirtless and barefoot, in black leather pants.  Most of what Jet owned in the clothing department was leather, and nearly all of it was black.

He rubbed his short hair absently.  “Little dudes,” he said softly.  “What’s up?”

Johnny hesitated.  Jet had let them crash at his place before, but it had always been his invitation; Johnny had never actually asked before.  Suddenly he was shy.  “Hey, Jet.  Listen, sorry to bother you ... I ...”  He trailed off.  “Did we wake you up?”

Jet nodded absently.  “Sure.  Played the Grog last night.  Havin’ a bit of a sleep-in.”  They stared at each other for a bit—at least Johnny assumed Jet was staring back ... for all he knew, the drummer might have fallen back asleep.  Jet started a bit, as if he had done just that.  “Listen to me, I’m so rude.  Come in, little dudes.”  He stepped aside and ushered them into the dumpy little apartment.

Johnny and Larissa stepped just inside the door, which Jet closed behind them.  Jet yawned widely, flashing white teeth.  “Ummm ... you guys want some chow?”  Johnny shook his head, not really concentrating on Jet’s words.  Jet turned to Larissa.  “Alice? you?”

She gazed at him soberly for a while.  “Joan of Arc was left-handed,” she said finally.

Jet responded instantly.  “Aide toy, Dieu te aidera.  So was Lenny White.”

Larissa nodded.  “Return to Forever.  Like Jimmy Giuffre, 1961.”

Jet cocked his head and smiled broadly.  “Nice.  But no drummer, so I gotta go pollice verso on that one.”

“Hmm.  Better to say infesto pollice.  Commodus was also left-handed.”

“But not Crixus, I suppose?  A vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire.”

“No.  And Crixus spoke Gaulish.  Descended from the god Dis.”

“Uhhh ... ‘Though I am weak on the floor of my basket, There are wonders on my tongue’.”

Larissa arched an eyebrow.  “That’s a stretch.”

Jet shrugged.  “Only Celtic quote I could come up with.”

Larissa nodded.  Apparently she felt the amenities had been observed.  “Just some water.”

Jet ushered them into the kitchen; it was cramped, but clean.  He put some ice in a glass and filled it from the tap.  Handing it to Larissa, he gave another wide yawn.  “So, little dudes, you haven’t yet said how I may be of service this fine day.”

Johnny still hesitated slightly.  He felt this was a big favor, although he wasn’t sure he could have said why.  “We, ah ... we’re looking for ... we need to be out of sight for a bit.”

Johnny saw a dark eyebrow appear above the top of the dark glasses.  “Trouble with the man?”

Johnny shook his head.  “No, no, nothing like that.  We just ... want to lay low for a while.  Ya know?”

“Not particularly.  But mi casa es su casa nonetheless.  You’ll have to step over the Grinch though.”  He gestured back toward the open area which served as both living room and dining room.  Johnny had missed the hot pink mohawk when he first came in, which only showed how distracted he really was.  The big man, one of two guitarists in Jet’s band, was sprawled on the floor, still completely dressed.  Like Jet, he basically only had one style of clothing, and he was wearing it now: principally it consisted of a faded olive green trenchcoat and well worn black Doc Martens.  Still, it was the hair that made the man in this case, and while Grinch experimented with different colors from time to time, it always came back to pink eventually.  A good ten inches long, it was fanned out around his head as he slept on his side.

“Oh,” said Johnny.  “I mean, if you’ve already got people staying here ...”

Jet snorted.  “It ain’t ‘people,’ man, it’s the Grinch.  Just step over him, like I said.  It’s all cool.”  He looked at Larissa again; she gazed calmly back at him.  “You little dudes need to crash?  I was gonna get up anyway.  You can have the bed.  Or Alice can take the bed and Johnny can take the sofa, however you wanna do it.”

Johnny hesitated.  He and Larissa often shared, beds being few and far between in their lives and body heat being precious, but other people sometimes misinterpreted that.  Larissa, practical as ever, simply nodded and murmured “thanks” at Jet, then led Johnny into the tiny bedroom.  They stepped carefully over the big pink mohawk on the way.




The two-and-a-half-mile walk to Jet’s had been a leisurely stroll along the boundaries of some of the neighborhoods in the heart of the city: Dupont Circle, Shaw, Columbia Heights, Pleasant Plains.  Past the National Geographic Museum and the restaurants and the businesses of 17th Street, then down the more residential New Hampshire and Florida, with their close-set townhouses, up to the Florida Avenue Grill, then down 11th to Harvard, where the neighborhood got just a bit more tired, the paint just a shade more flaky, the old houses, now divided up into apartments, leaned on each other just a bit more stiffly, their architectural joints showing their arthritis.  In such a half-half-house, in the upstairs portion of the left side of what had once been a good-sized dwelling, Jet occupied 3 small rooms, not counting the miniscule bathroom.  It wasn’t new, and it wasn’t tidy, but Jet managed to keep it fairly clean, at least by Johnny’s standards (admittedly much laxer these days), and he knew that this would be considered rather comfortable living by many of the city’s other starving artists.

But of course Jet had money.  Or at least his family did.  This was something Jet didn’t like to talk about, but something that Johnny had known instinctively the first time they had met.  They recognized in each other the subtle signs of the formerly-rich boy slumming it, and they had formed some sort of strange bond over it.  Jet was probably ten years Johnny’s senior—Jet had not only been to college, but graduated, perhaps more than once—but the drummer never talked down to Johnny, or tried to “fix” him.  This counted for a lot in Johnny’s book.

He sat on Jet’s bed.  The dark sheets were tossed wildly about, and no one could accuse them of being entirely clean, but a real bed was such a luxury that the dressing didn’t matter.  Larissa had already snaked the pillow and was curled up on one side of the bed facing the other.  She hadn’t closed her eyes, though.  She was looking at him.  Not staring, not trying to figure out what he was thinking, just looking.  She didn’t even seem like she was wondering.  Johnny wondered if she even did wonder.  Probably she was too practical for that.

Johnny wondered though.  Johnny wondered why he was there, on a bed in a run-down house in a neighborhood where not five years before, he—a skinny white rich boy—might have been scared to go into at night.  Or at least to go into without one of the servants.  Or without Amiira.  By now, Johnny knew a lot of older people, and he was familiar with the combination of nostalgia and despair that leads to the wail “where has my life gone?”  Seemed stupid for him to be bemoaning the same fate at fifteen (or was he sixteen yet?).  Yet that’s the way he felt.  And had never felt before.  There had never been time for self-pity before, and Johnny wouldn’t have indulged in it if there had been.  His attention had always been focused on survival, the simple rhythm of where his next meal was coming from.  But, now, something had slipped ...

He stared out the window.  He knew now that the neighborhood had never been unsafe for him as a white boy, only as a rich boy, and these days he had nothing to fear whatsoever.  He knew now that, like the neighborhood, so much of what he had “known” was just a fantasy that his parents had constructed for him, thinking they were doing him a favor.  He knew that if his parents could hear his thoughts today, they would sit up in their cells, prison and asylum, and shriek what an ungrateful son he was not to appreciate all they given him, all they had done for him.

Of course they had never really done anything for him.  They had given him much, true, but only physical things.  Things that meant nothing, now; things that Johnny no longer owned or even remembered clearly.  The brain-parents in his mind-cells screamed ever more shrilly, about how they had done their best, and it wasn’t fair, and somehow Johnny sensed that “it’s not fair” was a common refrain in both his parents’ present lives, that guards and orderlies were sick of hearing about it and tuned them out, or beat them into silence.  Johnny wondered why he didn’t feel bad about that.  What an awful son he must be.  But he didn’t care, really.  The whole mental exercise ended in clinical detachment, not in any outpouring of emotion.

He turned back to Larissa.  Her eyes still pointed at him, but they were unfocused and he suspected she didn’t really see him.  As he watched, her eyelids snapped closed and her breathing deepened.  Johnny suspected that he had just witnessed the exact moment when another person went from conscious to sleeping.  That was, somehow, far more interesting than thinking about where his parents were.  He watched her sleep for a few minutes, then he went back to staring out the window.  The light in the room faded, although surely it was close to noon outside.  But it continued to get darker and darker, until it was completely dark, and there was a moment of vertigo, and then Johnny opened his eyes and realized that he, too, had fallen asleep.





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