L.

[8.] A Paroxysm

It is my understanding that Nicky has been to the States, and that he comes over the border under cover of darkness, or else upon a train, he is not clear, and he brings with him needles and other beautiful things for me, and he has stolen them from Dasius who knew nothing about it, and on the way he left the hands of Flaque, so the postage cost me nothing, which is good because I have no money, but he gives me money, and he laughs and says, "Do not worry about the body, it is easy." Makes me laugh and laugh. I am laughing and laughing and falling, and then because I am on the floor I lie there, and sleep, and when I wake Nicky is there stroking my hair and saying, "Shh, shh, that's all right, that's all right," and whatever it is that I have done that he is worried about, I cannot remember. I have been sleeping. My body is heavy, all of my limbs, and my head is full of water. "Help," I whisper to Nicky. "Help me." He says, "No. No. You're all right."

What have you done with little Flaque? His body?They cannot find a body like that. They cannot find it, anybody.  He says, "Shh. You do not know. It is fine. If they find it, it will not matter."

In the old days, I told him, I would give them new life, my dead after killing them, knowing they could not live alone, knowing they would die, and I let them wander away, far away from me, and they died alone, and afraid, and starving, and cursing the earth. Me, warm and asleep, while they died many leagues away. So I would not have to get rid of them. So I could kiss them good bye. As if nothing would happen. As if I would see them again. Those things I did. 

Terrible things.

I try to grab hold of Nicky but he is too slippery for me, avoiding me and getting loose from my grasp so that I cannot hold him. "You smell bad," he says, "no." 

I love- There is a moment after ingesting or injecting, when one must become resigned to whatever outcome will occur. There is a moment when a small voice thinks, "Oh no, what have I done," and a fear of death, like losing one's balance due to a problem of the inner ear. It is like a shadow falling across the mind, like a bird of prey crossing overhead. A giving out. A giving up.

I grasp for Nicky but he will not come. In the other room, I hear him making phone calls, and shouting, and calls come in again and again. Is he shouting or is it me? Does he pick up the phone and only listen? Is it me crying out for whoever it is on the other end? It does not matter who it is. Whenever I wake it is not enough. Whenever I am awake, I am thinking, let me find more it is not enough, why am I waking when what I want is to be destroyed? 

Nicky crouches by me and says, "I will return on the morrow and when I come I will bring something for you. Give me your key. Answer no one at the door or on the telephone. Obey me in all things. Submit to me."

I do. I Will. Hold my hand and kiss me once. 

Do not go. Hold my hand and kiss me once.

I think that I am speaking, but realize later that no words had come.

No words. 

*

"Come and sit beside me now," Faya whispered to me. Or he did not whisper, but spoke quietly, as always. "As is in your nature, be silent."

The other boys slept silently in that bed we all shared, undisturbed. I held up my arms, so that Faya could pick me up. 

Faya had left us for a time, after the tremor, and had come home to a place utterly in ruins. Though the house still stood, his beau, Nataniellus, had fallen and broken open his head. A fall? A seizure? A paroxysm? No one saw it. We had found him after following a trail of his blood, from how he had dragged himself into the atrium. And after that, we had all suffered, and we had grown closer. We fed ourselves. Watched the shadows at night for intruders, certain of back up if thieves or scavengers came to us. But there was still distance between us emotionally, that we were too old to close.