Gadarene

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

GADARENE Copyright © 2008 by Tina Anderson and C.B. Potts All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission. Written by Tina Anderson and C.B. Potts Cover Art and Character Designs: Laura Carboni

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ISBN: 0-9744195-2-4 ISBN 13: 978-0-9744195-2-7 For wholesale inquiries and purchasing copies of this novel for resale, please visit EM-Novels on the web at http://elegantmadnes.net

WHAT is supposedly so hot about looking like a girl and secretly having a penis? Or... brilliant idea!... what about if the characters actually expressed even the SLIGHTEST transgender leanings instead of always having to cross-dress because they made a promise to their dead mother or some other stupid-ass excuse? -Jason, a friend. The "female impersonators" on display at the Bowery resorts were the most famous symbols of gay life, and the impression of that life they conveyed was reinforced by the countless other effeminate men who were visible in the streets of the city's working-class and amusement districts in the early decades of the century. (...) They were not the only homosexually active men in New York, but they constituted the primary image of the "invert" in popular and elite discourse alike and stood at the center of the cultural system by which male-male sexual relations were interpreted. (...)The determinative criterion in the identification of men as fairies was not the extent of their same-sex desire or activity (their "sexuality"), but rather the gender persona and status they assumed. - George Chauncey Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings of the Gay Male World, 18901940.

Where vice is, vengeance follows. - Scottish Proverb.

GADARENE

1

Back in the World.

The gates swung open, heavy and slow. The sky was slate gray, its grayness still far brighter than the stale old light that hung heavy inside of Ludlow Prison. Galen blinked into it, eyes adjusting to freedom’s vivid aspect, taking in the crooked skyline of Five Points tumbling down before him. “There you go, Driscol,” the guard said, jerking his head toward the outside. “Get on with you. And don’t come back here.” Galen looked up at the man, one of the legion who’d kept him inside for the past three years, and smiled. Had the guard been made of weaker stuff, not well accustomed to the violence that was part and parcel of life in the Bowery, the smile would have haunted his dreams for nights to come. “You can count on that, sir.” -6-

GADARENE

It had rained not long before, leaving long slick puddles around the ever-present islands of trash. Galen made his way downstreet, carefully navigating his way to keep to the higher ground. No sense getting wet, he figured, until he knew he had a place to dry off. Kearney’s was still there, full of drunken bruisers unwinding after a day shoveling shit through the city’s bowels. O’Neill’s was next, catering to the fresh-off-the-boat crowd with watered-down stout and meals that, if you closed your eyes and pretended, could taste like you were back home in County Clare. Almost. If you didn’t think about it too much, and didn’t mind parting with the better part of a day’s wages. Galen passed with a nod to the fresh meat, watching the way their eyes searched his face, clearly hoping against hope for a glimpse of someone from the Old Country. Then it was Grady’s, and then he was home. Home, or his corner at least. Galen smiled at the battered lamppost, still standing against gravity and malcontents’ best efforts to bring it to earth. It had served as the touchstone for much of his youth, the base he’d return to before setting off on yet another adventure through Five Points. Later, it became the place where those in the know knew to look for the Mongoose, should they have a need for a Mongoose to take care of some little bit of unpleasantness. Others had laid claim to his spot while he was inside. Such was the way of things, and he didn't care. They’d see the light -7-

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soon enough, and move along. Until then, they could be of use - their eyes had been watching while his had been trapped, their ears had been listening while his were filled with the wailing of a thousand Ludlow layabouts. “Oy,” he said to one, a heavier one, one whose belly was like to be full enough to give up the information for free. “I’m looking for Meggie Driscol.” “That old whore?” The thug jerked his head across the way, down the hill a piece. “She keeps a room upstairs down there.” His eyes turned to Galen, knowing. “But you don’t want to be troubled with that. I can get you a nice piece, half the price, half the years.” Galen’s lips thinned, one against the other, but he kept his tone light. “Thanks, but no. I’ll find my way to Meggie.” A low rumble of conversation followed his steps, punctuated by a sharp bark of laughter. “Hey, boyo!” the fat thug called after him. “Sorry ‘bout that. I didn’t know she was your Ma.” Galen, without looking back, waved a hand in the air. He’ll be the first one that I’ll be kicking down to the gutter once I’m back in business. “Screw me sideways,” he said aloud, half a block later. “They’ve gone and turned the Old Brewery into a Mission House!” Some fool had scrubbed the windows and hung the big front door back on its hinges. There was a small white sign near the door, proclaiming that God’s mercy was available -8-

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inside. For all the external changes, though, he found that the lot hanging round the steps was still the same. “Galen, me boy!” It was Charles Clancy, looking none the worse for wear, if you didn’t take in the newly glassed eye. “Good to see you!” “Lad, where you been?” Murray Donovan grinned like he’d gone half-simple. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.” “Been to Ludlow,” Galen replied, clasping the old man’s outstretched arm. “Rehabilitatin’ meself, don’t you know.” “That’ll be the fucken’ day.” Meggie Driscol was leaning out of the doorway, forearms braced to provide the stability that sobriety could not. Amply freckled breasts threatened to spill out of a bodice two sizes too small, though neither of the men on the stoop gave them the least bit of notice. “Hey, Ma.” Her expression softened, just a touch.

Not that you’d

notice, if you weren’t her boy. “How’d they treat you in there?” A russet eyebrow arched upward as she looked him up and down. “You spend your days playing wife?” He snorted. “No. I didn’t play wife. I was a man when I went in, a man while I was there, and I’m still a man today.” She turned and went up the stairs, Galen following close on her heels. “That’s good. You can go about getting a job, like a man is supposed to.” Her room was tiny, no more than a bed and a washstand. A lone pot hung on the wall by the stove, battered and black. -9-

GADARENE

There was a thin carpet that stretched from the doorway almost to the cracked window. “I just came home, Ma.” Galen the raggedness of his mother’s room, it was better than where he’d spent the last year of his life. Grimy skirts swirled as she spun to confront him. “Fuck you, boy!” A bony finger drove into his chest. “You talk like you’ve been on bloody vacation, while I’ve been near to dyin’ out here.” More flouncing fabric as she paced the tiny room, listing complaints on her fingers. “You steal, you sleep less… then you get your fool self caught, you get locked up. Dry and warm, I warrant, and at least one meal a day.” Her look was sharp. “More than we had here.” Galen spread his hands. “So I’m being punished for getting locked up.” “Your sisters never get caught, and they’re out there every night. You -- it’s like you want to get into trouble.” “It’s been three years, Ma. I’m changed now. I’m a new man.” She snorted. “I’ll be believing that when I see it. New man.” Another snort, this time coupled with a derisive shake of her head. “Next you’ll be telling me you’ve got a new man already.” “I been back half a day.” Galen looked toward the window, where the sun was still working its way upward over the island. “Not even.” - 10 -

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“You men work fast when it’s only you men.” Galen leaned back against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest. “Oy, you seen Wira?” “That one?” Meggie shook her head. “Not laid an eye on him. Or her. Whatever the hell that one is calling itself.” “Don’t be like that. Not about him. He can’t help how he was born.” “Hmmph.” Meggie pulled the pan off the wall and set it on the stove. “Man or woman. You knew better than anybody, didn’t ye?” Galen stood up, brushing his hands through the dark chestnut brown shock of his hair, and peered toward the stove. “What’ve ye got going into the pot, Ma?” “Oy, I got a man coming…” He chuckled. “What’re you gonna do when the men dry up?” She cackled, and patted the front of her skirt, squarely between her thighs. “As long as this don’t dry up, the men won’t neither.” She jerked her head toward the door. “Now, get your feathers off my perch.” Galen turned toward the door, one hand on the thin, splintered frame. “When will you be done with your doings?” “When I am -- and not a minute before!” Meggie waved an exasperated arm in his direction. “Get your arse down to the Bowery. I hear your Wira’s working those parts now.”

- 11 -

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It took a while to make his way to Orange Street, what with running into some of his boyos and a few cautious nods to the Long Coats, and fewer, far more careful nods to the Top Hats. Morning had melted into afternoon, and afternoon was well on the way to night by the time he saw her. Galen smiled and fell into step behind him. He kept his pace purposely slow, taking the time to admire his lover. Women weren’t his thing -- but when Wira donned gown and wig, it was a sight to behold.

He’d just stepped out of

Cumming’s. Long black curls tumbled down the middle of his back, spilling between narrow shoulder blades and hanging heavy, half bouncing, above his waist. Galen let his eyes trace the fine line of Wira’s hips, the gentle sway of his skirts as he delicately picked his way down Orange.

Narrow ankles moved deftly around the litter,

keeping him well above the filth.

Wira was his angel,

something separate, apart, from the chaos of Five Points. God, how he’d missed him. Still he waited, waited until they’d passed Riley’s. Waited while they passed the Bricklayers’ hall. Wira had to hear his heavy, booted steps, but he never turned his head, never gave an indication that he knew Galen was there. And so he waited longer. Waited as they walked past tenement after tenement, the buildings growing more and more decrepit with every passing step.

- 12 -

Waited until one

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scrupulously kept shoe turned into a doorway, until one fine hand had turned the knob. “A lovely lady like you shouldn’t be out this late alone.” The black curls fanned outward around his shoulders as he turned his head, devastating blue eyes flying to Galen’s face. Lush lips curled upward, the smile automatic, deepening when he saw who it was. A graceful tilt of his head invited Galen to follow him up the stairs. He did, letting his fingers trace over the faded wallpaper clinging to the narrow hallway. It might have been a nice building once, but it had obviously fallen on hard, hard times. Three flights later -- three narrow, twisting flights later -they entered Wira’s flat. His room was large, easily three times the size of Meggie’s place, and scrupulously clean. Galen sat at the table, taking it all in and sipping from the steaming mug Wira’d pressed into his hand as soon as they’d passed over the threshold. A daybed took up most of the main room, dressed with a well-worn quilt and two oversized pillows. A dressing screen stood in the opposite corner, creating a narrow alcove for Wira to duck into. There was a small vanity flanking that, with a stool that had obviously seen better days positioned carefully in front of it. “You’ve nice digs here.”

- 13 -

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Without a word, Wira stepped out from behind the screen, wrapped now in a dressing gown. He sat on the stool, facing the mirror hung above the vanity. Deft fingers flew around his face, plucking pin after pin from the ebony curls piled high on his head. Galen

smiled,

enjoying

the

familiar

routine

but

disconcerted by Wira’s silence. “What’s this, now? Don’t you speak anymore? No hello there, Galen? No fuck you, Galen?” Delicate hands lifted the mass of curls upward, moving gently to deposit them carefully on the wig stand. His hair, revealed, was a short-cropped black stubble, arching upward in a million crazy spikes, wilting under the weight of the day’s sweat. Then Wira turned, the robe falling open to frame smooth pectoral muscles and a startlingly gaunt ribcage. “Hello, Galen.” A wry smile. “Fuck you.” The chair legs bumped over the well-swept floor, catching on the carpet as Galen pushed himself upright. He didn’t even notice when it toppled over, its collapse unimportant compared to the need to get his arms around Wira, to feel his lips flatten against his. “I’ve missed you.”

Wira was light in his arms, that

intoxicating combination of fragility and strength. “So much.” Galen bent his head, hoping to claim a kiss, but at the last possible moment, Wira turned away, offering only the soft curving expanse of his neck. Galen took that, enjoying the - 14 -

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resilient velvet feel of his lover’s flesh for half a heartbeat before Wira broke away from the embrace. “Stop. I need to bathe. Bring me up some vater, you, and I’ll cook you a meal.” Galen smiled. “Now that sounds familiar.” Wira grinned back. “Vell, you don’t want to be kissing my lips. I’m dirty. Let me clean up. Let me feed you.” He’d missed the familiar V-sound of Wira’s double-u. Galen stepped toward the door, only to stop after a few paces, puzzled. “Where’s the…” Wira cut in. “Drum’s in the hallway. Near the stairs.” He smiled. “I’ve missed you too.” “How much do you need?” “Eight…” Wira began, only to pause and eye Galen. “No, ten. Ten drums full.” A gallon of water weighs eight pounds. Wira’s drum held near on five gallons, when Galen filled it near to the brim. He lifted it, careful not to slop any of the frigid water onto himself, and turned back toward the doorway to Wira’s flat. “Fuck me.” Three flights of stairs. Forty pounds of ice cold water, splashing over the side and soaking through his trousers as he ascended those narrow steps. Nine more trips to make, after this one. “That looks heavy, mister.” Lilting tones cut through his contemplation, allowing Galen to postpone the unpleasant task a few moments longer. - 15 -

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“‘Tis.” He looked up to see two wee brats, black as the ace of spades and two times as cute, standing against the far wall. Dangling between them, a ratty rope, looped over a well-worn pulley high above. “But I got no money.” The little girl, pushing hard against the edge of womanhood, laughed. “Then I guess you got you no pulley.” Her brother laughed.

“Yeah, this is America, Potato.

You’ve got to give, you want to get.” “I know it’s America.” Galen laughed a little, sharing in their joke. “I was born here too.” The girl met him halfway, flirting a bit just for the practice of it. “Then you’re already knowing that a pulley ain’t free.” “What if I got something better than money for you?” The kids looked at each other, messages flashing unspoken between their deep chocolate eyes. “And what’s that?” the boy asked, suspicion puffing out his chest so he looked all the world like a banty rooster, proud and protective in front of the henhouse. They’d heard this line before, obviously, and not liked the answer. Galen slid long, fine fingers into his vest pocket, and pulled out a battered pack. “These.” “We don’t smoke.” The girl snorted, dismissive. “That ain’t worth nothing to us.” “Maybe not, pretty lady, maybe not.” Galen caught the little proud flash in her eyes, smiled gently. “But them blokes

- 16 -

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down to the pub? They smoke. They smoke plenty. You flash a pack of these at ‘em, you’ll get yourself a few coins.” She looked at him, considering. Then, with an odd little half nod, she held out her hand. Galen flipped her the pack, which she promptly handed over to her brother. “Get on, you.” “Why do I have to do it?” He might be the older of the two, but he whined like a wee babe. “Because I’m too beautiful to go selling smokes to a bunch of drunk white men.” Her hip cocked upward just a fraction, flattening under her hand. The other hand flew like a startled bird, thrusting at her brother’s nose. “You know they get all crazy on they whiskey. I go down there, they see me, they’s a gonna try something.” She turned to Galen for support. “Am I right, Potato?” He nodded most sagely. “So get on with you!” She shooed him from the yard, and smiled up at Galen. “Here’s your rope, Mister.” The pulley didn’t make the water any lighter, but it did make the ascent much faster.

Galen pulled, sending the

sloshing drum past window after window, icy droplets of water cascading down into the courtyard all around him. The little girl had been wise enough to jump back out of the way, but Galen managed to get himself well splattered. At long last, the drum reached the little platform outside Wira’s window.

- 17 -

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Galen stopped pulling and watched as Wira pulled the drum inside. The routine repeated nine more times, punctuated only by the little girl’s singsong game of hop-scotch, played in the rocky courtyard, and the triumphant return of her brother, flashing three silver coins clenched tightly in his fist. “Was a good deal, this was,” he crowed, looking over at Galen. “You made a fool’s bargain, Potato -- the pulley’d only of costed you one of these.” “Looks to me that you were the fool,” Galen replied, eyeing his take. “You could’ve gotten five bits for that pack.” Like a rocket, the little girl zoomed across the yard and started pounding on her brother. “You snake! Where’s the rest of it?” She knocked him to the ground and started pawing through his clothes until emerging, exuberant, half a moment later with two silver coins. Galen laughed and stepped around them, going up the stairs to his love. “Shoes.” Wira said, as soon as the door had closed. “That courtyard’s filthy.” Galen grinned, kicking off his heavy boots. A quick glance at the daybed revealed an orderly row of shoes lined up beneath: black pumps, fine gray boots, a nice brown pair he didn’t remember from before he went inside.

- 18 -

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“Oy, it’s good to be back,” he smiled, walking over to the stove. Two pots bubbled away, one larger, one far smaller. “Is this the bath water? What’ve ye got in here?” “Keep moving, you.” Wira smiled. “I’m making something good. You’ll be happy.” “I can smell it already.” Obedient, he pulled his hand away. “And I’m already happy, just to hear your voice.” Wira sighed. “I vrote you so many letters…” A shrug, those delicate shoulders curling upward. “But there vas no sense for me to send them.” Galen’s fingers traced over the sorrowful line of Wira’s jaw, from just below earlobes pinched from wearing glass gems to the angular point of his chin. “Ye weren’t to know.” “Know what?” “That I learned to read.” “In the prison?” His look was sharp. “In the prison, you learned this?” Galen shrugged. “At night. Worked all the bleedin’ day, but one of the blokes learned me at night. He’d a book with him, taught me the letters.” “Vhat for vas this book?” “Weird thing. The Inferno, it was called. The bloke, he said it was only fitting.” Galen shook his head. “Not sure what he meant by that, but there you go.” He smiled. “I could be reading them letters now though.”

- 19 -

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Wira smiled. “First, you can be helping me with the vater, yes?” “Sure.” The pot was heavy and hot, but they managed it between them. Billowing clouds of steam rose when they poured the water into the standing tub, obscuring the window with a clinging film of moisture. “Mmmm….” Wira purred. “That looks so good.” “It’s not the only thing.” Galen watched, wide-eyed, as the robe slid from Wira’s shoulders. Fine shoulders led to wiry arms, roped round with deceptively strong muscles. Delicate forearms ended in well-kept hands. Freed from a corset, Wira’s torso was a long line of muscle, capped with the subtle bulge of his pectoral muscles. A fine black tracery of hair started in the hollow of his belly, but before Galen could get an eyeful, Wira turned, revealing the fine curve of his back to his lover. Galen licked his lips, letting himself revel in the sight. Too many times he’d had to do this only in memory, closing his eyes to see the delights of Wira’s shoulder blades, the narrow V of his waist, the intoxicating swell of his narrow hips. The two tight, taut half-moons of a perfect arse, presented only, as ever, to him. Now he could see it all for real, in the flesh, within reach if he’d just reach out his arm… Wira sank into the steaming water and smiled over his shoulder. - 20 -

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“So, you are going to stand there all day vith the staring?” He wiggled, just a bit, sending small waves shimmering through the tub. “Or are you going to get in here and let me vash the stink of that place off of you?” Never had a man shed his clothes so quickly, never once in the world’s long history of dressing and undressing, as Galen did at that moment.

Let it not be said that Wira was

unappreciative: his dark eyes didn’t miss a trick as the rough linen shirt fell to the floor, nor as the linsey-woolsey trousers were abandoned. It was good to have his hands on Wira again, even if the thin, rough square of the washcloth separated their flesh. The soap slid between them, Wira’s delicate hands maneuvering it over the broad expanse of Galen’s torso, tracing around the caramel nubs of his nibbles, sliding between his pectoral muscles, bumping over the washboard of his abdomen. “Oh…” Galen breathed, leaning in to claim a long and lingering kiss. “Don’t stop…” Wira smiled, letting his hand dip lower for a few exquisitely teasing moments before pulling away. “Ve cannot. No evil juices in the vater, you know?” Galen ground his pelvis toward Wira, desperate to bring their flesh together again. “And why not?” His next kiss was more demanding, sending half a gallon of water sloshing on to the ground. “Give me one good reason.”

- 21 -

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Wira broke from the embrace, long enough to reach out one long arm and pull a towel down onto the puddle on the floor. “Because I don’t live here alone.” Galen sat back, one eyebrow arching upward. “Is that right? Who else lives here?” Wira laughed, enjoying his jealousy, however fleeting it might be. “Georgian.” A relieved burst of laughter escaped from Galen’s lips, sounding like a surprised owl. “Hoo hoo! Ha! Georgian the Great, living here with you?” Wira smiled primly, standing up in the tub. “Yes, and she vill be needing this bath too.” Galen lounged back in the tub, looking Wira up and down, and up again, enjoying the view. “She? If I recall, Georgian was not a she.” Wira stepped out of the tub, sliding back into his robe. “She’s who she is in her heart. This, I respect.” Galen followed him, tucking a towel around his waist before pulling Wira into his arms.

“That’s because you’re

perfect,” he said, murmuring against the velvet expanse of Wira’s neck. “I don’t think so,” Wira said, melting into the embrace. His head dropped back further, and there was no protest as Galen’s hand slid inside his robe. “I missed you so much, Wira,” Galen’s voice had dropped a full octave, husky with need. “Being away…” - 22 -

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“Hey, what smells like chicken and dumplings?” The door flew open, and a gaily-dressed woman, half a hand taller than Galen and twice as wide, burst into the room. Broad steps covered the room quickly, and she picked up the lid to peer inside. “Without the chicken, of course!” Galen winked at Wira, who covered her laugh with a hand. He tiptoed up behind the statuesque man, so well disguised by lovely black skin and a daintily personalized dress, that no one would suspect him anything but a woman, and threw his arms around her, planting a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek. “What a beautiful woman!” “Bwah!” Georgian’s arms flew up in the air and she near to jumped right out of her skin. Turning herself right around in midair, she came down facing Galen’s laughing face. “Jesus wept! You crazy ass Potato! Are you trying to kill a girl, scaring her to death?” She glared at Wira, who was now laughing openly. “You’re just as bad, letting him carry on like that!” Wira shook her head and disappeared behind the dressing screen. “Don’t be mad, Georgian.”

Galen shrugged. “You can’t

blame a lad. You’re the tastiest thing I’ve seen since I got back!” “And when was that?” Georgian asked, his voice obviously very much manly, as was his passions; she let her eyes drink in

- 23 -

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Galen’s nearly naked form. “Look at all the new muscle on you, boy!” “Jest this morning.” Galen slid into his trousers, buttoning them so they rode low on his hips.

“Near enough to

yesterday.” He pulled a small bottle of whiskey out of his coat pocket. “What say we have a little celebration?” Georgian’s eyes flew over to the dressing screen. “You know Dubuya ain’t had a drop --- not a one -- since you got sent up.” Galen set a glass down on the table, hard. His eyes locked with Georgian’s. “No. I didn’t know that.” His lips thinned. “She didn’t tell me.” Georgian shrugged. “When’d she the time? I’m just telling you, no offering, you hear?” “I promise.” A laugh then, short and knowing. “Your promises don’t mean shit.” Galen cocked his head, and looked at her. “You know that, and I know that. But ye’ve got to admit, I sound way more sincere than I used to.” “You damn Potatoes are all the same.” Georgian turned away. “You’re all in league with the Devil. Handsome and right nasty, all at the same time.” “True enough.” Galen took a long swig of the whiskey, enjoying the way the amber burn slid down his throat. “But we can’t be helping that. Where’ve you two been workin’ at, while I’ve been away?” - 24 -

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Georgian was setting the table, laying out three thin bowls. She didn’t look up to answer, her words falling heavily in front of her before rolling over to Galen’s ears. “Me and Dubuya, we’ve been cruising the Bowery Bars for Missus Delorian.” “That old bitch?” Galen snorted. “I remember her. I saw her old man inside, scrubbing the floors.” “No shame in that.”

The last spoon precisely placed,

Georgian straightened and gave Galen a look.

“Me and

Dubuya did that ourselves to get train fare back to the City last summer.” Galen raised an eyebrow. “We went to see my Momma, down Philly way,” Georgian explained. “It was nice.” She paused and bit her lip. “That’s when baby stopped drinking, come to think on it.” “Never thought I’d see the day…” Georgian dropped his voice, watching Wira step from behind the screen. “She stopped because she started seeing them boys again.” “They came back?” Wira looked up from the breadbox, cutting into the conversation with a sharp look. “Ve need some bread. All that’s here is some crumbs.” “Oy.” Galen gave her a soft smile. “Georgian was telling me about me your summer.” “Our trip to Philadelphia,” Georgian explained. “When we went to see Momma.” - 25 -

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Wira’s face lit up with remembered happiness. “Oh, it vas beautiful there! So very beautiful! Ve saw the Brandywine River and the city…” “Wilmington.” “Yes,” Wira continued. “Then ve crossed on the ferry boat and saw Salem.” “That’s in South Jersey,” Georgian told Galen. “They blow glass there. Marvelous glass.” Wira’s eyes were shining, full of the memory. “All the colors. All the shapes.” “Did ye bring back any?” “Some.” Georgian’s voice was sad. “We sold the last of the color bottles we had last month.” Wira laid a comforting hand on Georgian’s ebony forearm. “A friend needed some help, vhat for vith her rent.” Galen looked up at Wira, caught the soft sheen of tears unshed in her dark eyes. “Well, we’ll have to go back there someday.” Wira smiled a smile that grew deeper and wider as Galen pulled him into his lap. “You are a sweet man,” Wira said. Tongues danced, one over the other. Each embrace grew deeper and deeper, hotter and more passionate, until it was too much for Wira’s roommate. “Y’all need to be taking that someplace else.” Georgian stood up and stretched, hands barely missing the ceiling. “I been out all night -- and a girl needs her beauty sleep.”

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Keeping his eyes riveted on Wira, Galen held out the halffull bottle of whiskey. “Take this. Get drunk. That way you won’t mind as much.” He bowed his head and took a healthy nip on the side of Wira’s neck. “Ah! Galen!” Wira purred. “Don’t stop!” “I don’t mean to,” he replied, taking to his feet. Wira was a feather in his arms, the lightest and yet most compelling of passions. “Not now. Not ever.” The bed was surprisingly soft, catching them on a cushion of spent feathers and blue-ticking pillows. Galen pulled Wira on top of him, crushing his lover’s narrower chest against his own and staring directly into the blue depths of his eyes. “I love you.” Another kiss, demanding yet gentle. “So damn much.” Wira met his lips, more than halfway. “I love you too.” Outside, the courtyard erupted with a cacophony of shrill shrieks and girlish laughter. Georgian cast baleful eyes toward the pair of lovers in the next room and took a long swig from the whiskey bottle before heading toward the window. “Bless me!” she shrieked, loud enough to startle Wira and Galen from their embrace.

“It’s snowing! Already!”

She

turned toward the bedroom, as if the weather report was going to be of equal interest to her flatmates. “T’aint gonna be heavy - you can still see the stars…” Wira’s robe slipped from his shoulder, revealing a creamy triangle of skin. The sight seemed to startle Georgian back - 27 -

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into her settings, and she promptly looked away. “Oh, the hell with this!”

She grabbed a wrap and flung it round her

shoulders. “I just love the snow!” Galen and Wira looked at each other.

The corners of

Galen’s mouth turned up, his eyes bright in the dim light. Wira held up a finger, warning his lover to silence. It wasn’t until the door slammed shut that they could let their laughter out, loud and long and rich. “Poor Georgian.”

Galen shook his head.

“She hasn’t

changed a bit.” “She’s a good one.” Wira nodded. He turned to Galen, his tone suddenly serious, his eyes intense. “And she vill not stand on the streets the whole night long vaiting for us.” Galen claimed another kiss, pushing the robe further off of Wira’s shoulders. “Then let’s make use of the time we have.” Words failed them as one kiss melted into the next. Galen, long denied, wasted no time in reacquainting his hands with Wira’s flesh. The long, arching line of his neck an especial favorite, the hollow where collarbone met sternum calling for and receiving a kiss. Wira arched his back, thrusting his chest forward to meet Galen’s tongue, hand instinctively flying to his mouth to stifle cries of pleasure as the raisin colored nubs were worked over. “Don’t,” Galen murmured. “I want to hear you.” Fingers closed gently around one nipple, pinching just enough. “And I’ve waited so long.” - 28 -

GADARENE

“O Moj Boze,” Wira sighed, letting pleasure push him back into his native tongue.

“That feels so good, Galen.”

He

wrapped his arms around Galen’s head and pulled him up for a kiss. “And you, you are not the only one who has been with the vaiting.” “No?” Galen’s eyes were bright, intent. “You’ve ‘ad not others, ‘ave you?” Wira slid down over Galen’s prone form, pushing the bedclothes to the floor. His eyes were shining as he wrapped his hand round Galen’s shaft. “My love,” he purred, “there are no others.” The first touch of Wira’s tongue dropped Galen.

He

flattened against the bedclothes, closing his eyes as his lover sent him spiraling into a world of sensation, both remembered and realized. One hand reached out, possessively sliding over Wira’s cropped scalp. “This is my hair,” he groaned. “Mine.” “Yours,” Wira agreed, pulling his head up for an excruciatingly long moment. Their eyes locked in the quickly darkening room. “And that, that is not all that is yours alone.” The words prove a more powerful goad than any touch could be. Galen pulled Wira from his task, drawing him close for a kiss. Wira had just confessed that no other man had been inside of him, no other man, but Galen. “Can I?” he asked, lips so close Wira could feel them moving against his own. “Can I ‘ave you now?” - 29 -

GADARENE

“Vat do you think,” Wira smiled, “I have been vaiting for?” Long legs parted to accommodate questing fingers. “Gently, love.” Blue eyes shone up, over flattened shoulders. “It has been quite a while.” “Three years.” Fingers slid deeper, slowly widening the way. “Longest three years of my life, doing without you.” Wira’s eyes closed with pleasure as Galen’s knuckles slowly bumped their way in. “Too long,” he agreed. “Too long to vait for this.” One thrust, another, a third. “Are you ready?” Galen’s voice broke, entering a register normally reserved for those half his years. “Sweet Jesus, Wira, I can’t wait much longer.” No words, only a splaying of the legs. The hips cantilevered upward, the invitation clear. “So tight.” A tough man can be gentle, if he wants to be. “Sweet, sweet Wira.” “So big.” A gentle man can be tough, if he wants to be. “Give it to me now, Galen.” Thrusting hips met thrusting bum, each lover eager to give, to take, to offer, to receive.

Faster and faster, gentleness

supplanted by need, need by burning desire, burning desire culminating in gasping cries in the darkness, names shuddering through ragged breath, sheets clenched into permanent wrinkled knots. “Oh, Galen!” - 30 -

GADARENE

“Sweet Jesus, Wira!” The once gentle hands were now iron bonds, pulling hips upward, backward, as far as they could go. “Now!”

“Ye didn’t give up smoking when you put the bottle down, did ye?”

Galen reached over the side of the bed, rooting

through his trousers. “No.” Wira smiled, pulling his robe closed around him. “A girl’s got to have some vices, after all.” He vamped, just for a moment, to see Galen grin. “Else, how do ve keep you fellas interested?” They shared a battered cigarette, passing it between them. A long, thin curl of slate blue smoke curled around them. After one particularly long drag, Galen looked at Wira and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think that that should be a problem. Not for you.” Wira shrugged. “Ve are what ve are. This is the way of things, you know?” He held out an ashtray. “Put that here. No sense for to be burning the place down while ve’re sleeping.” Galen complied, carefully tapping the edge of the cigarette against the glass. “It’ll feel good to sleep in a proper bed again.” Wira snuggled against him. “I’m not being too sure that any bed vith you in it, my love, could ever be called proper.” - 31 -

GADARENE

Shadows slanted one against the other, merging to cloak broad expanses of the wall in black. Through the window they could see the snowflakes spinning toward earth, the earlier flurry transforming itself into something perhaps a bit more meaningful as the night wore on. Galen pulled the blankets up over them, positioning himself so Wira was tucked into the hollow of his arms. “You smell so good.” His nose was buried in Wira’s hair, just long enough for a kiss to be planted on the scalp. “Even your hair smells good.” “Mmm.” Wira’s eyes were halfway to closed. “G’nite.” “Wait.” Galen laid a soft kiss on Wira’s shoulder. “I need to ask you something.” “Vat’s that?” Wira shifted in his arms, turning to look up at his lover. “Vat do you want to ask of me?” Galen bit his lower lip, holding it for a long moment before letting it and his words go. “It might be a bit hurtful to talk about, and I’m not in a hurry to hurt you.” Wira shrugged. “Then don’t. I’m tired. Let’s just sleep.” He started to turn back on his side, but Galen stopped him with a gesture. “No, I need to talk. To you. About this.” Wira raised an eyebrow, his shrug a masterwork of Slavic eloquence. Galen cleared his throat.

- 32 -

GADARENE

“Do you ever…” His voice thickened, the weight of what Galen had to say nearly choking him.

He struggled with

speech for a moment before finally forcing the words out. “Do you ever think about Him?” Galen could feel Wira stiffening in his arms. It was terrible, the way that long, fine spine straightened in place, the way his delicate arms braced against bare sides. Yet the words would not stop, tumbling from his mouth almost from their own volition. “I’d near on forgot about it all, meself. I swear to God. But when I was inside,” he continued, shrugging out the window toward Ludlow, “I met up with someone who’d crossed paths with Him as well.” Wira turned his head away. “Galen, I’m tired. Let me sleep now.” “But I want to talk about it.” One arm pushed against the mattress, propelling Wira up and out of Galen’s arms. He snatched his robe from the foot of the bed and slid into it, tying it tightly around him. “Good for you. Me, I don’t vish to talk about this.” He paced across the floor to stare out the window. “Not one bit.” Galen swung his legs out of the bed, letting his feet rest on the floor. He pushed his hands up and through his hair. “You can’t just push what he did out of your mind, Wira.” Arms crossed, Wira snapped a reply. “I can and I have.” His lips quivered, “I don’t need this.”

- 33 -

GADARENE

Galen paced the small distance between them, letting his hands rest on Wira’s thin shoulders. “You don’t need this.” He sighed. “Well, I need it.” Wira turned to face him, eyes shining even in the darkness. “Can’t you just forget it? Forget what this inside man told you?” His hand came up to cover Galen’s own, thin fingers cool and steady. “Please, Galen?” Galen shook Wira’s hand off, stepping backward abruptly. “And how can ye forget?” His gaze was level, direct, angry. “Forget what He was about?” Wira was deflated, a balloon with the air let out. His words were barely audible in the room, just a hair louder than the clatter made by powdery white snowflakes falling on the windowsill. “I did not say that I forgot. Him I will never forget, ever. I cannot.” Tears welled up in his eyes, kept from falling only by sheer force of will. “Not even when you’re inside of me.” Galen’s jaw dropped, his eyes widening in disbelief. It took a minute for his thoughts to connect with his vocal cords -- just long enough for a healthy dose of venom to accompany the sentiment. “Fuck you!” He bent over and snatched his clothes from the floor, dressing in a silent fury. Wira watched, one tear following another down his cheeks with increasing regularity. He held

- 34 -

GADARENE

up a hand as Galen pulled on his coat, but a dark-eyed look from the Irishman stopped him. Heavy boots clomped down the stairs, near on fast enough to sound like a body thrown. Outside on the stoop, Georgian stood in conversation with a tall gentleman, discussing the myriad ways one could keep warm on such a frigid evening. The disharmony was enough to attract her attention, chocolate eyes widening as Galen burst into the street. Three floors up, shutters flung wide.

Wira leaned out,

screeching and waving an arm. “Don’t come back here, you … you…” Galen waved an arm, fingers saying what words would not. “No danger there!” “I don’t vant to see you!” Wira threw a pot out the window, missing Galen by half a foot. “Not until you are ready to stop living in the past!”

- 35 -

GADARENE

2

The Mongoose.

Galen had no place to go, not with Wira’s door shut to him and his Ma too busy entertaining. Luckily, for a man like the Mongoose, Killen’s had a ready supply of barstools just waiting for any who had the price of a few pints. Galen had been there three days now, hanging about and drinking slowly. Taking time takes time. A man can’t ease himself back into business without having a clear idea which way the wind was blowing, so he sat back and watched. - 36 -

GADARENE

Watching. Being watched. He knew someone would come to him sooner or later. They always did. The Mongoose was a necessity -- someone who could take care of the internal gang troubles without making a big fuss about it. Galen was neither Top Hat nor Long Coat. Outside of both gangs, he could be of use to the pair. It was a good, if unpopular, position to be in. But the first one to approach him wasn’t a Top Hat looking for the Mongoose. It wasn’t a Long Coat, either. The searcher who found him didn’t want the Mongoose. Instead, he wanted to find the man. Galen heard Wira before he saw him, the way his heels clicked lightly across the wooden floor. His hand was light on Galen’s shoulder, tentative. His words, pitched for Galen’s ears alone, were softer than that. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t look up from his pint. “I know.” “That vas not true.” Wira sat down beside him, and he looked. He couldn’t help it. His eyes were aching to see him, to drink in the fine lines of his face, to enjoy the secret of the masculine body trapped in the confines of a tightly laced corset. Wira smiled at his glance, a touch of newfound confidence letting his words spill a little faster. “That vhich I said, it vas not true.” “I know.” - 37 -

GADARENE

“I don’t think of Him when…” Galen reached out, letting his broad hand cover Wira’s. Gentle, protective. Possessive. “I know.” “Oy, Mongoose.” Caleb Joyce, one of the Long Coats, stepped up behind Galen. “Your drink’s ‘alf gone there. Can’t be ‘aving that, can we?” Galen nodded, and let his eyes slip over to Wira. “I got some business to tend to.

We’ll talk about this later on,

alright?” Wira’s eyes darkened. “Vhat kind of business?” Galen let his head tip back a fraction, nodding subtly toward Joyce. “Neighborhood stuff.” “Galen…” Wira turned his hand over, letting his narrow fingers twine upward through Galen’s larger digits. “Is this a good idea?” Galen pulled his hand away. “Don’t start.” There was a pleading note, well hidden by the firmness of his tone, but still there. “Please?” Wira’s narrow shoulders sagged.

“You vill be arrested

again. Taken away from me.” Galen slid his fingers under Wira’s chin, turning his head so he was looking into his deep brown eyes. Shiny, angelic blue eyes, with tears hovering at the corner. “I ain’t never going down again. That’s me promise to you.” “Promises,” Wira shrugged, defeat written large in the gesture. “Vat for good is promises? I do not like this promise.” - 38 -

GADARENE

“Oy!” Joyce called from across the bar. “I don’t ‘ave all the time in the world, boyo.” “Yeah,” Galen snapped. “Give me ‘alf a minute!” His eyes locked with Wira’s. “Wait here. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.” “Hmph.” Wira didn’t say a word. At least not out loud. “Good to be out, innit?” Joyce asked, as Galen slid into the booth opposite him. Galen smiled. “That depends, me boyo.” “On what?” Irish eyes can narrow quicker than any in the world, given provocation. “On if ye’ve work for me.” “Ah, Mongoose.” Eileen set a pint down in front of Galen, giving him a bit of the eye before sauntering away. “I don’t know if it’s work I’m talkin’ about, but there’s a couple of snakes in my garden that need attending to.” “Killing snakes,” Galen replied, “is what I do best.” “Then why don’t we,” Joyce said, standing up, “go take us a look at me garden?” “Sounds good to me.”

Without even a glance at Wira,

Galen followed the gangster out of the bar. It was a quiet departure. If you hadn’t been watching, you wouldn’t have noticed the men leaving.

But Wira had been

watching, and Eileen, the barmaid, had been watching Wira. “You alright, love?” - 39 -

GADARENE

“No. No, I am not okay.” Wira looked up. The pool of tears in his eyes had deepened considerably, and threatened to spill over the carefully kohled line drawn under his lashes. “I’m very thirsty. I vant a shot.” Eileen’s eyebrow arched upward. “You sure about that, love?” Black curls bobbed as Wira nodded. “Very sure.” The small glass was poured. Wira stared at it for half a second, hesitating a handful of seconds before tipping the contents down his throat. He set it down decisively. “Another, please.” Eileen poured silently. The drink disappeared as quickly as its predecessor. When Wira ordered another, she balked. “I dunno. You might want to go easy now. Been close on a year since you touched the stuff.” “I’ve got money.” Wira’s tone was short. “I can pay. And there’s no reason,” he added, turning to glare at the door, “for me not to.” Hours slid by, accompanied by the better part of a bottle of whiskey. Wira drank his way steadily through it, an ounce at a time. By the time midnight had been and gone, he was glaring sullenly at the doorway, turning away only to refill his glass. In the corner of the bar, Eileen spoke quietly to Old Man Killen. He listened carefully, only to sigh and run his hand through a tangle of greasy brown curls. Arms crossed, he stood behind the bar, just watching. - 40 -

GADARENE

When Wira snapped at a man who’d approached her looking for company, Old Man Killen decided he’d seen enough. “Oy, Wira, I know you’ve ‘ad a hell of a day, but that’s it. You’re not getting any more. Understand?” Wira’s glare would have killed a lesser man. “No moreski. Go homeski!” Wira pulled himself upright, dignity affronted. He jabbed a finger at Old Man Killen. “I vas born in this country. I’m more the American than you!” His shawl slipped from his shoulders, and he struggled to pull it back into place. “And not every Polish word is ending vith the ski.” Old Man Killen smiled. “Go home, Wira.” Shawl settled in place, Wira turned toward the door. “Dupa.” It took a few tottery steps to close the distance to the door, but she managed. It closed with a crash behind him, leaving Old Man Killen and Eileen looking at each other. “Poor thing.” Old Man Killen shook his head. “I ‘aven’t seen ‘er this way in a good long while.” Eileen started wiping down the bar. “It’s that Mongoose she dotes on. ‘E just got out, and look.” Her shrug spoke volumes. “All men are bastards, when you come right down to it.” Old Man Killen smiled. “Oy, and that’s why ye love us so.”

- 41 -

GADARENE

Walking Orange Street wasn’t easy at the best of times. With some new snow down, wind-whipped piles of trash everywhere, high heels on and the better half of a bottle of whiskey in you, it bordered on the impossible. Wira headed home slowly, leaning heavily on friendly buildings for support. It was a journey he was making alone -near on everyone in Five Points had called it a night, leaving him to walk the streets in solitude. “Isn’t that the vay?” Wira said, speaking to no one. “Ven they vant help, Vira is there. But who is for the helping ven Vira needs it?” Silence was the only answer, unless you counted the whispers of the early winter wind. Wira turned to glare at a tumbling sheet of paper, pushed along by a wayward breeze, careening crazily against his skirts before progressing further along -- when suddenly, he saw it. There, clearly outlined against the buildings behind her, was the dark shadow of a small boy. No more than three feet tall, he was there, childish arms dangling at his sides, a wee cap pushed far back on his head. There was a shadow. There was no boy. “Go away!” Wira screamed, terror ripping at the lining of his throat with every syllable. “Leave me alone! I don’t know you!”

- 42 -

GADARENE

Fear propelled him across the street, the sheer blinding panic so overwhelming that for a moment he forgot he was drunk, forgot that the connections between his brain and his legs were clogged down with more whiskey than anyone needed to have in them. Then a ripple in the air caught on his shoes, sending him careening into the buildings on the far side of the street. Half of the air was knocked out of his lungs on impact, leaving him gasping for breath. His hands scrabbled along the surface of the wall, desperate for purchase. Finding none, the fine skin on his hands opened itself against the bricks, leaving thin, bright red curls of blood on the walls as he crashed to the ground. Pure instinct got him up again, up and moving toward home. Half a block later, he'd calmed enough to look over his shoulder. His own shadow was where it should be, off and following at a respectful distance. It wasn’t alone. The shadows of two small boys were behind his own dark companion, hand in hand and doggedly tracing her steps. “No!” Wira ran, ran as fast as he could, ducking down the first alley he saw, determined to get away from the ghostly children.

He was running, running, running.

Running

without direction, running without any idea where he was going, running until he collided headlong with Georgian, who’d been busy chatting with a nice-looking fellow.

- 43 -

GADARENE

Georgian caught Wira in her long arms before he continued his headlong flight to the ground. “Dubuya!”

Her eyes were wide, surprise at Wira’s

condition evident. “Where have you been, girl?” Wira startled, and tried to answer. When he opened his mouth, though, it all came out: the contents of his stomach, the sour-slick pool of whiskey, bubbly acid adrenaline erupting out and splashing in a multi-colored puddle at his feet. It was the last thing Wira saw before he collapsed into Georgian’s arms.

When Galen told Joyce he was good at killing snakes, it wasn’t an idle boast. But now it was time to put proof to his words. The Mongoose was needed, called upon to quietly and efficiently eliminate those gang members that had violated some unwritten law: talking with the Top Hats, perchance, or letting the law catch sight of that which shouldn’t be seen. It was work he enjoyed. The quiet approach from behind, the thin knife sliding easily through thin clothes, thinner flesh. Snake killing’s easy, if you’ve got the gift, and Galen had it in spades. Half of ‘em never saw him coming. Them that did were ill equipped to stop his efforts, caught without fail by the sharp edge of his blade. Galen smiled. It was good to get back in the game. - 44 -

GADARENE

“Here.” Georgian pulled the quilt up over Wira’s shoulders, carefully tucking it under him. “You’re going to catch your death, shivering like that.” Wira blinked, turning her head toward the window. Outside, the sun had more than started its journey across the sky, illuminating a slate-gray sky hung heavy with clouds. “God,” he groaned. The glass of water Georgian offered was gratefully accepted, the clear contents disappearing in a gulp. “My head, it is pounding so.” “How much did you have to drink last night?” Georgian took the glass carefully, setting it to the side. “Must have been quite a bit, seeing as Old Man Killen sent one of his boyos telling me to come and collect you.” Wira promptly burst into tears. “Baby, baby,” Georgian said, spreading her arms wide. “Come to Momma. It’s gonna be alright, chile.” Wira collapsed into the circle of Georgian’s arms, snuffling against her flat bosom. “I’m so sorry, Georgian…” “Don’t you mind that.”

Georgian used the edge of the

blanket to dry Wira’s cheeks. “I want to know what got you drinking again.” “It’s Galen.” Georgian snorted. “No surprise there.” “He’s going to jail again,” Wira wailed, dissolving into a fresh torrent of tears.

- 45 -

GADARENE

“Already?” A charcoal eyebrow arched upward. “That was fast. He got picked up already?”

She clucked her tongue

against the roof of her mouth, a hollow popping sound. “And him not even out two days.” Wira shook his head. “Not yet.” His shoulders sagged. “But he vill.” “Oh, Dubuya.”

Georgian sighed, and pulled Wira back

against her chest. “You can’t get sour over something bad that ain’t happened yet.” “Hmm.” Georgian looked down, took in the weight of exhaustion riding on Wira’s eyelids, and pulled the quilt up around the two of them. She started to rock back and forth, murmuring the whole while. “That boy’s never gonna change, chile. He was born with a bad streak.” Across town, Galen was stepping in behind a Long Coat who’d made his stumbling way out of exactly the wrong bar to be spending an evening in. “But that don’t make him bad,” Georgian continued, noting how the tension was starting to melt out of Wira’s body. “On account that Galen does bad things, but he does them, to bad people.

- 46 -

GADARENE

“You see, policemens are for them nice folks that don’t do the things we do. They don’t gamble. They don’t steal, or pimp, or whore themselves out. They don’t,” she added, with a wry look downward, “drink to get drunk.” “Hmm, they are smart for this.” Wira said, snuggling deeper into Georgian’s arms. “They are,” Georgian agreed. “That’s why the policemens help them: help ‘em find their kin when they go missing, and get their little kitty cats out of the trees, and make their way across the busy streets.” “Hey me boyo,” Galen called, letting his hand falling heavy on the Long Coat’s shoulder. “You and I need to have a talk.” “But the gamblers, thieves and whores have problems too. Sometimes it takes bad men like Joyce and his lot, to get it all sorted out.” Wira was more than half asleep. “So Galen is like a policeman?” “Whas’ dat?” The Long Coat turned, catching the point of Galen’s blade squarely in his stomach. He was dead before he realized he was in trouble.

- 47 -

GADARENE

“I think so, Dubuya. The nasty life comes with some nasty rules. You break those rules, and someone nasty comes a’ callin’.” She smiled at Wira’s soft snores. “Someone like your Potato.”

It was only prudent to drink in a Long Coat bar after doing the Long Coats’ business. Galen pushed into O’Shea’s and called for a pint. “’Ere you go, luv,” the barmaid said. Galen glared up at her, hating the way her ponderous breasts threatened to spill out of her bodice, hated the slack-jawed slovenly way she presented herself, hated the very smell of her, earthy and stale. She didn’t miss the look. “Oy, and what’s crawled up your backside?” Galen caught his reflection in the mirror and startled. It wouldn’t do to go around looking like death warmed over, not if he wanted to avoid being noticed. “Sorry, sweetness,” he replied, slipping into his liar’s smile as easily as one would don a favorite familiar jacket. “I lost a bundle on the ponies and haven’t worked out what to tell the Missus.” The barmaid laughed. “Good luck with that!” she replied, the automatic response to the tale told more often than not in - 48 -

GADARENE

her domain. Galen smiled with her, happy to be faceless again. He was one of a dozen drinkers mourning fate’s slow stumbling feet, no longer an individual, no longer distinct. Which was fine with him. The ale was more water than anything else, sliding down his throat far too easily. Galen looked over, ready to call for another, when a square of linen lying on the bar caught his eye. It wasn’t the finest cloth he’d ever seen, but it was quality. Embroidered in the corner, two interlocking horseshoes wreathed round with laurel leaves. Galen swallowed, hard, pushing the acid that had surged up from his stomach back into place. The motif on the handkerchief was not unknown to him. “Oy!” Galen called to the barmaid, picking up the cloth and waving it like a flag of surrender. “Where’d this come from?” She shrugged. “Big bloke. He left a few minutes ago.” Galen stood up. “And which way was he headed?” “Out the back, to take a piss.” Galen looked up sharply toward the back door.

Just

beyond, he could see a tall man, broad shouldered, relieving himself against the wall. “I found you,” Galen muttered.

“All this time, I found

you…” He looked down for a moment, taking in the embroidered motif on the kerchief just to confirm his vision. When he looked up again, the alley was empty. - 49 -

GADARENE

“Shit.” Galen scowled and sat back onto the barstool. He nodded to the barmaid. “Keep ‘em coming.” She complied, filling his glass again and again until last call. “’Kay, luv,” she said kindly then. “I’ve kept ye away from yer Missus long enough. It’s time to go on and face the music.” He blinked at her, confused for half a second. “Wira?” “Yeah, honey.” She propped the door open for him. “Go on to your wife.” Galen snorted at the thought, but made his way outdoors. The night was black, the darkness punctuated with half a million snowflakes spiraling ever faster toward the ground. There was an icy edge on the wind, promising a long, cold stretch until dawn arrived. Ma had made it clear that she’d be ‘entertaining’ till that dawn had come and gone, and none of his three sisters had the time of day -- or night -- for him. They, like their mother, learned early that there were two sorts on men in the world; men needed to live, and men you lived with. Galen, as their brother, fell through the emotional cracks of their everyday life, and so, Galen wouldn’t be welcomed, not even for a night. “Fuck me,” Galen said, leaning up against the battered lamp post. If he stood at just the right angle, he could catch a glimpse of Wira’s building, crookedly propped up at the far end of the street.

- 50 -

GADARENE

It wouldn’t take but a few steps to get there. Even after a night at the bar, he could make it. Totter his way down there, take Wira in his arms, kiss those lush, pouty lips and… And have to own up to upsetting Wira. Somehow he’d have to apologize for the slamming doors and shouted curses. That brief moment at the bar wasn’t going to cut it, not after the harm he’d done. If Galen closed his eyes, he could still see the tears streaming down his lover’s cheeks, glistening proof of the pain wrapped in all the anger. Galen sighed.

He could manage one or the other this

evening, but not both. The journey there would take all his coordination, the apology all his eloquence. The combination of the two was simply beyond him. “Oy.” The watch came by, gave him the eye. “If y’ev not a place to go, me boyo, I’ll be more than ‘appy to bring you in on loitering. Vagrancy carries thirty days with it.” “T’hell with your vagrancy,” Galen snapped back, managing to keep all but the edges of a slur away from his words. “I’m ‘eaded ‘ome right bloody now.” “See that you do.” The nightstick traced an eloquent circle through the darkness. “I’ll be back around to see the truth of it.” Galen started toward Wira’s, carefully navigating the downward slope. It’s a funny thing, how ground horizontal by day picks up an awkward angle when the sun goes down. Each stumbling step brought him closer along, his progress - 51 -

GADARENE

convincing Galen that, despite all evidence to the contrary, he might in fact be able to make it to his lover’s and fashion some sort of apology. That was, at least, until gravity stepped in to remind him that it was not just a good idea, but was in fact the law. A large pile of trash was good enough to catch him, cushioning his descent with a heap of discarded news sheets and rags too tattered to be of interest to even the most desperate of tinkers. “Oof!” The trash was soft enough, but smelled fouler than foul. Galen turned until he was facing upward, away from the stench, focused on the stars. “Hell, its fit for a prince, innit?” he muttered, wriggling his shoulders to get comfortable. There were worse places to sleep, and he’d been in most of them. Especially when they first came to Five Points and Ma took up whoring -- most blokes don’t want to get down to business with a little one about, so he’d spent more nights out than in. Course, you took your chances. Like as not, none were gonna bother him now -- few things were as dangerous as a startled Mongoose -- but it wasn’t always that way. No. When he was younger, he’d had to keep an eye. The alcohol was trying hard to pull Galen into unconsciousness, but memory held him fast. He was trapped in yesterday, remembering when there were still those who thought they could put one over. - 52 -

GADARENE

When He tried to take advantage. Galen had been near on ten years old when it happened, when He had picked him up just as easily as you’d tote a sack of flour and brought him back to his foul room. It was clear he was in trouble. He had crazy bright eyes coupled with the type of leering want that Galen had only seen on his Ma’s more impatient visitors. Hot breath and grasping hands trembling as tight rope was looped round his ankles…and in the corner, Wira, a wee little thing then, crying and despoiled. Emotion lurched upward then, propelled along by all the ale he’d consumed. Galen swallowed, forcing it down. “Not tonight,” he groaned. “Not tonight.” Half a moment later, he was asleep.

The snowflakes

knitted a quick cover for his prone form before abandoning the sky.

- 53 -

GADARENE

3

The Pretty Man.

Lush lips pursed together, pressed against a well-worn piece of red crepe paper. Georgian smiled at the wavy mirror, checking the effect. Then she glanced over at the daybed, and her smile faded. “Dubuya, it’s getting near on lunch hour, girl.” She walked over and gently shook Wira’s shoulder. “Time to get up and get your beauty on.” - 54 -

GADARENE

Wira shook her head. “I’m not going out tonight.” He sat up, comforters bunching around his waist. “I’ve got to go find Galen.” “You sure?” Georgian frowned. “Missus hears of it, she’s gonna send Antonio to come get you.” “Do you think I am vorried about Antonio?” Wira asked. Georgian smiled sadly. “I’ll tell her you’re feeling poorly. She ain’t gonna buy it, but I’ll tell her.” “Thank you, Georgian.”

Wira held out a hand for

Georgian’s, clasping it tightly. “Thank you for everything.” Once Georgian had cleared out, Wira climbed out of bed, washed his face and body at the bowl, and eventually found his way to the closet. His walking dress wouldn’t do, nor would the blue he wore when the weather was fine. Wira looked at the meager contents of his closet and grimaced. Looking for Galen was going to be dirty work, more likely than not, and he didn’t have enough clothes to sacrifice any of them. Shunted in a back corner, almost forgotten, lay a narrow pair of trousers and rough shirt. Wira thought, there were times when a man needed to look like a man, and this was probably one of those times.

Thoughts like this always

confused Wira, but he grabbed the garments, determined to make use of them. It was passing strange to slide into trousers, to button the waistband secure round his hips. The fabric was close to his flanks, wrapping him tighter than was his wont. It’d been a - 55 -

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while since he’d worn the shirt, and pickings had been thin. As a result, now the garment was more than a touch too large, threatening to envelop Wira completely, but it would have to do. Walking was awkward. It’d been years since he’d worn trousers, years since he’d gone out in public, as a man. Despite the swell of his pectorals, the thickness of his teats, and the underdeveloped gash hiding an inch below his small penis, his maleness was something special, something sacred, something that he reserved for Galen and no one else. It was their secret, not intended for public eyes. His mother had chosen womanhood for him, and when she died, the youth home at the Bowery had decided he was a little boy. They’d cut his hair, and given him the clothes required to suit their decision. He was no stranger to slacks, but now his legs felt bizarre; dressed yet still feeling strangely exposed as he descended the three flights of stairs. Wira had no more reached the front stoop when the realization hit him. “I can not go out,” he said to himself. “Not like this.” Never before had he ascended the staircase so quickly. Sheer relief propelled him into the flat, the seldom worn man’s clothes peeled from his body as quickly as fingers would fly. It took only a minute to decide on the worst of his good dresses. The wig was a familiar, comforting weight on his scalp.

The sturdy brown boots weren’t what Wira would - 56 -

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normally choose for this outfit, but there are times when even the prettiest girl must bow to practical considerations.

Old Man Killen was surprised to see her. “Oy, Wira, I didn’t expect to see you about this early.” He reached out a hand. “Sorry ‘bout that business last night.” Wira smiled. “My own fault.” He took the barkeep’s hand, and smiled into his eyes. “And I know that for me, you have only the good thoughts.” He smiled back. “And that’s God’s own truth, m’dear.” “’Ave you seen Galen about?” Old Man Killen’s smile faded. “Can’t say that I ‘ave. Nor heard tell, though me ears ‘ave been open.” Wira pulled his hand back. “I’ve got to find him!” “If he left with Joyce, chances are they went to O’Shea’s.” Old Man Killen’s eyes narrowed. “They’re a rough bunch there, and Missus’s girls aren’t welcome, most generally speaking.” “I’m not going to vork,” Wira replied, already en route. “Just to find Galen.” “Be careful, little bird.” Old Man Killen watched her depart, shaking his head. “You poor, poor thing.” Truth be told, a visit to O’Shea’s was not high on Wira’s list of favorite things. The women who worked there were a rough

- 57 -

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bunch, just as likely to cut you with a broken bottle as the whore’s more common choice of weapon: sharp words. But if Galen was there, there was no helping it. Wira used each step to muster up his nerve, gathering every scrap of courage he had. “It vill be okay,” he whispered with each stride. “It vill be just fine.” Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a boot. A very familiar boot, toes upward, in the snow. “Galen!”

Wira rushed over and knelt next to him,

unmindful of his dress, squarely in the pile of stinking trash. “Galen, are you all right?” He turned his head toward him, bleary-eyed. “Wira?” “You cannot be lying here in the snow.” Wira slid one arm under Galen’s shoulders, forcing him to sit up. “You vill be coming with me now.” The smile was instinctive. “And where are we going, love?” Wira turned to Galen, eyes shining. “Home. Vere else?”

“Drink this.” Wira pressed a steaming mug into Galen’s hands. “And you need a bath. Sit there, and I’ll get it ready for you.” The last thin shreds of intoxication fell away as Galen watched Wira bustle around the flat, bringing the kettle of hot water over to the tub. - 58 -

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“I found Him, Wira,” Galen began. “I found him last night.” “Enough vith that.” Wira pointed to the tub. “Get clean. You stink of the streets.” “Yes, dear.” Wira was soaping the stench out of Galen’s hair when the door was suddenly kicked open. Wira fell away from the tub, hands slick with soap, and stared up at the hulking mass of a man who’d barged in, fists clenched and cigar smoking. “He’d best be a payin’ customer, girl,” Antonio, Missus Delorian’s oversized enforcer, growled. “Or you’re in for a world of hurt.” Galen stood up with a quickness. “I don’t fucking think so.” Antonio spared him a look, black eyes blazing. “Shut yer mouth, Potato. This don’t concern you none.” Galen was out of the tub swift as a cat, laying into Antonio with both fists flying. A surprise uppercut threw the enforcer off balance, blood cascading out of his nose. “Where Wira is involved,” Galen growled, “It all concerns me.” He grabbed the big man by the scruff of the neck and the backside of the trousers and shoved him through the splintered remnants of the door.

- 59 -

GADARENE

“Is that understood?” Galen asked, drawing his arms back to toss the enforcer. “Yeah, yeah,” Antonio stammered, looking face-first down three flights of stairs, “I got it!” “Good.” Galen replied, a split second before he let Antonio plummet headlong toward the first floor. Wira had both hands plastered over his face, unable to fight the urge to smile. “I can’t believe vat you just did!” Galen stepped over and gently took Wira’s hands in his own. “Believe it. I’m back now, and I’m takin’ care of you.” Wira looked up, the tears flowing freely. “Really?” “I’m sorry.”

Galen leaned in closer. Their noses were

almost touching. “I’m sorry for all of it. For getting locked up. For going on about Him. All of it.” “Can you stop it?” Wira asked, barely speaking aloud. “Stop with the worrying about Him? Just to be letting it go?” Galen’s eyes were locked on Wira’s. “It’s gone.” A kiss then, deep enough to steal the air from Wira’s lungs. “For you, it’s gone.”

- 60 -

GADARENE

“You,” Galen said, letting his fingers trace over Wira’s face, “are so fucking sexy.” Wira smiled, dipping in for another kiss. “I’m glad that you are thinking this,” he said, pulling the blanket up over them, “but I do not like this word, fakking.” The scent of sex hung heavy in the room, not dissipated in the least by the breeze coming in through the open doorway. “You see, I do not like it, because I cannot say it.” Galen smiled, “Fucking.” Wira tried again, “Fakking.” Galen, with all his passions - martial and carnal - safely sated, was content to stay where he was. “I could lay here with you all day.” “But Missus Delorian is not going to be pleased with what you’ve done.” Wira sat up in the bed and looked nervously toward the door. “Antonio vill be coming back to find you.” Galen said, “Not if I go looking for him first.”

Wanda Delorian held court in a tumbledown set of rooms at the far end of Five Points. The back end of the house was particularly troubled, pitching sharply toward the ground. If anybody knew that they were going to spend more than an hour at a time beneath that sloping, shaking roof, they might find themselves most concerned. - 61 -

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But they didn’t, so they didn’t, and if it didn’t trouble the paying customers, it was of no concern to Wanda Delorian. In any event, she found most of her attention consumed by the angry Irishman in her front parlor. “I said no.” She crossed her arms, locking eyes with Galen. “He’s me prettiest bitch. Brings in more money just sucking cock than these ugly whores who spread their legs for a dime.” “I’m not arguing that.” Galen was calm as calm could be, the type of stoic calm that the wise know comes directly before a powerful thunderstorm. “There’s not going to be any trouble here. I’m just saying that Wira ain’t coming back. He’s just not. End of discussion. What I want to know is how much it’ll cost me.” Caleb Joyce walked in then, all smiles and flashy flourishes. Wanda broke away from her conversation with Galen to fawn on the mobster. “Mr. Joyce, sir! How good to see you! What can we do for you tonight?” “I’m just about for a bit of fun and a good card game.” His eyes widened upon seeing Galen. “What are you doing here, lad?” Galen smiled and nodded his head gently toward the madame. “Just telling this one here that one that what’s mine ain’t to be working for her no more.” He shook his head. “She’s not takin’ the news too well.” “Hmph.” Joyce’s eyes slid over to Wanda. “That true, Windy?” - 62 -

GADARENE

“Wira is one of my best girls,” Wanda stammered. “After his own fashion, that is.” Joyce’s expression grew dour. “Well, and I’m hoping that you’re not about upsetting me boyo, here, Windy. I’d hate to have to pay him more, just to keep him content like. So what is it? Do I pay him more? That’d mean I’d ‘ave to stop paying you, and that,” he said, looking around the brothel, “would be a pity.” Wanda smiled, but her hands were tight against each other. A less polite man might notice that her knuckles were white with fear, but both Galen and Caleb had their manners on, and waited for her words. They weren’t long in coming. “What’s done is done.” She nodded toward Galen. “Your boy stays with you, Driscol, but you best be reminding him that blowing kisses where my others do business ain’t allowed.” Caleb looked at Galen, who gave a little nod. “Good!” The Long Coat said, spreading his arms wide. “Now that that’s all settled, let’s have some fun. Ye got a bonny lass hiding around here somewhere for me, don’t ye?” Wanda’s smile was bright and almost unforced. “Surely. Right this way, Mr. Joyce.” She’d left Galen in the parlor, and was surprised to see him there upon her return. “And what are you still doing here?” “Oy, Windy…” - 63 -

GADARENE

“That’d be Missus Delorian to you, me boyo,” she snapped. “Don’t be putting on airs.” “Well, Missus Delorian,” Galen continued, “since I’ve put your boy out of commission, I figure the least I can do is make it up to you till he gets back on his feet.” Wanda smiled. “You’re as much a man as your father was, lad, bless his soul. Sounds square to me. I need some new faces, if you can spare the time to find some.” She started to walk out of the room, only to pause and look over her shoulder. “After all, t’wasn’t just the one boy you put out of commission. T’was a pair.”

- 64 -

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4

A Dream of Murder.

“And that’s it?” Wira’s jaw fell open. “She’s agreed to let me go?” “Course she did.” Galen smiled. “She’s not stupid, is she, to argue with me about you?” Wira snuggled into Galen’s arms. “I guess not.” He smiled. “Look! It’s snowing again!” “And it’s more than a month till Christmas.” “Last year,” Wira replied, “ve had no snow until the week of Christmas.” - 65 -

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“I remember,” Galen said. “We had to work in it.” Wira looked up at him. “What was it like, in there?” “You worked all the day,” Galen answered, his eyes locked on some distant memory, “and slept with one eye open.” A long pause fell between them. Wira let his fingers trace over the bulging muscles in Galen’s arm, wrapped tight around his waist like a belt. “It was cold,” Galen continued after a time. “Always cold.” “But that’s over now,” Wira said. “You’re here with me. Varm. Safe.” Galen laughed. “Warm, safe, and in the mood to celebrate.” He stood up, bringing Wira with him. “Your freedom and mine! Let’s go down to the pub!” “Stepping out with you?” Wira smiled. “Sounds like it vill be fun. But I must to change first.” Galen spread his arms. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” Humming happily, Wira ducked behind the dressing screen. Galen stood up and patted down his pockets. Something felt awkward and off, and he aimed to discover what it was. The discovery didn’t take long to make. The small amount of folding money he’d had was still there, but his knife, boon companion for this many years, was missing. “No wonder I felt nekkid,” he muttered. “Vhat is that, Galen?” Wira called. “That you said to me?” - 66 -

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“Nothing,” he replied. “Just clearing me throat.” All of the knives in Wira’s kitchen drawer were too long by half. There was no way a man could go walking about with a butcher knife tucked into his trousers, not if he wanted to avoid doing himself an injury. “Shit.” He glanced around the flat, smiling when he saw one of Georgian’s bodices draped over a chair.

A quick

examination revealed a long, thin stiletto running alongside the front boning.

“Georgian, ye beautiful bitch, ye!” he

whispered, tucking the knife into his pocket.

Old Man Killen and Eileen were both surprised to see Wira back at the bar, although some of the mystery was explained away when Galen joined him. “Set ‘em up, Eileen,” Galen crowed. “We’re celebrating! Wira’s in the family way, and I’m gonna do what’s right by her.” Killen huffed, both hands planted on the bar, “Putting this pretty one in the family way?

Now that miracle me boyo

would earn sainthood for certain!” Eileen set a pint down in front of Galen. “’Ere you go, Mongoose.” Her eyes softened when she turned to Wira. “And what about you, luv?”

- 67 -

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“A glass please,” Wira replied, meeting Eileen’s smile with one of his own, “from the special bottle.” Eileen grinned as she poured Wira a double shot, of water. “Here you go,” she said with a wink, “This one’s on the house, being your condition and all.” Wira laughed as hard as he could. For a while it was perfect. Wira thought he was dreaming. At last he had everything he wanted, everything he’d imagined on a nightly basis for the past three years: Galen laughing and happy and there, spinning fine tales about life back in the day. All of their friends smiled to see them together, and any time he wanted to touch his lover, all he had to do was reach out a hand and there Galen was, in the flesh. Then a Top Hat came in, cutting sideways through the crowd until he stood behind Galen. “A word?” Galen’s eyes flashed up to Wira’s. “I’ll be home late, darlin’.” He squeezed his hand. “Don’t wait up.” Eileen had offered a drink, but Wira declined.

One

drunken stupor a week was one too many, as far as he was concerned. Sobriety certainly made the trip home easier. Wira covered the distance in a handful of minutes, and was just about to congratulate himself on the total lack of shadows dogging his steps when he saw the bright eyes glaring at him from the opposite stoop.

- 68 -

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“Hello?” he murmured, stopping to peer through the darkness. “Who is this?” It was a surly boy, barely old enough to be out of short pants, sitting on the stoop. He had his knees drawn up in front of him, arms folded on top, so all Wira could see were his angry, angry eyes. They burned like twin fires, simmering with rage. “Vhat is the matter?” Wira asked. Almost against his will, he stepped into the street, compelled to discover what had troubled the boy. That’s when he dropped his arms and looked up. The boy had no mouth, none at all, simply a gaping, bloody space where the lower half of his face should have been. He said nothing, simply staring, accusatory in his silence. “Yaah!” Wira screamed, turning on his heel and fleeing into his home. He slammed the door hard enough that the entire building shook, cracking the small fan window arching overhead clear across.

He took the steps three at a time,

racing upstairs at breakneck speed. Trembling fingers fumbled with the flat key. Wira looked over his shoulder as he struggled to gain entrance, but no one was pursuing. Not yet, anyway. The door firmly locked, every light off, Wira shivered under the bedcovers. No one could see him here. As long as he stayed quiet, he should be safe. - 69 -

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He was almost sure of it.

The Top Hats had a problem. One of their own had independent aspirations, and had ‘borrowed’ too freely from the gang’s resources. As the morning sun illuminated the city streets, Galen was on his way to persuade this entrepreneur of the error of his ways when he saw Him. He had a small black boy by the hand. A head covered with close cropped curls was barely even with the bottom of His suitcoat, tilted upward to catch every word He was saying. “There’s plenty of work for young men like you. You can clean my office, sharpen the pencils.

Maybe deliver some

messages.” His smile was cold. “You can do these things, can’t you?” “No!” Galen growled. “Don’t do it!” “No!” Wira, standing somehow outside in his bare feet, cried at the boy, “Don’t do it!” The child heard neither of them. Trusting, in that way only small children can, he followed Him up the stoop, and inside the building. Wira stood, staring, shaking, frozen in place. He knew full well what was happening. From firsthand experience, he understood the horrors that little boy was about to face, the

- 70 -

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overwhelming anguish that comes from knowing the end of a life is close at hand. Yet he couldn’t move. His legs were locked, rigid in place. Every fiber of his being wanted to rush inside and save the child, prevent him from the most horrible of fates, but he was paralyzed. He tried to open his mouth, to scream a warning, no matter how futile, no matter how late, but no sound would come out. Terror had stolen his vocal cords, rendering him mute as well as immobile. All around him, people were moving, going about their daily business, paying him no mind. If Wira could just signal to them, communicate somehow that the boy was in trouble, that they had to save him now, now before it was too late! There might be just enough time, if only he could make the passersby see him, hear him, understand his words… And Galen? Where was Galen? Wira’s eyes darted about, searching for his lover. Surely, if he was nearby, if he only knew, he would save the boy. He would save Wira, as he did so long ago. But he was nowhere to be seen. Wira moved toward it, and soon he was staring at it, from the bottom of the stoop. All Wira eyed the battered green door to the Fifth Avenue flat in fear, that same door he’d passed through so many years before. The same door Galen had had to kick open to allow

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them escape, the same door that set the tangible boundary of his captivity, on what had been the longest day of his life. Suddenly that door flew open! The small boy, one arm pressed against his upper arm, splattered in hot red droplets that could only be blood, was running as fast as his little legs could go. He didn’t make a sound as he passed Wira. Instead, he simply tucked his head down and ran, intent on safety, intent on making it home alive. Wira turned his head to follow the boy’s progress, watching until he’d disappeared from sight. Only then did he realize that he was free from his paralysis, that his muscles were once again content to obey his will. Somehow, incredibly, his will seemed determined to find Him.

Wira watched, almost from outside himself, as he

ascended the narrow steps leading from the sidewalk to the battered green door. It swung open at a touch, revealing a darkened interior. A stairway, carpeted with the thinnest remnants of intention, rose from the center of the room, leading to another open doorway. Dust, damp, darkness. No one cared about this place anymore, at least not as they had when he’d first come here as a boy. Wira went up.

Something was compelling his steps.

Stepping through that door brought Wira to an unbelievably large room, bright and open. The floor was bare. There was no furniture about…this was the room…the very same room… - 72 -

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In the middle of it, centered like a museum display, He lay. He was battered and bloody, limbs sprawled at impossible angles. One foot pointed directly toward His crushed pelvis while the other was only attached by the thinnest ribbon of flesh. Half of His torso was collapsed, like a cardboard box left out in the rain: the integrity, once compromised, was no longer sufficient to hold form. Yet He wasn’t dead. Wira could tell this wasn’t from lack of trying on Galen’s part -- his lover was straddling Him, methodically plunging the silver blade of a stiletto deep into his innards, over and over, and over again. “Galen!” Wira cried, rushing over to him. “Galen, you must stop!” Galen ignored him. Was Wira even in the room? He smelled the anger, fear, the decay of pain this room carried in its walls, like stains on the floor. It was suddenly important, an imperative beyond all reason, that he get Galen away from here, that they get out of this house and back to the safe confines of his bed. Ground slick with blood made him slip, but Wira managed to hold onto his balance by grabbing Galen’s shoulder. He looked up then, but it was if he did not know Wira, that he somehow did not see him standing there. Galen might not have seen Wira, but He did.

- 73 -

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“Help me,” He rasped.

“Help me, please…” Somehow,

despite all anatomical probabilities, He managed to raise a hand and wrapped it around Wira’s ankle. “You must save me!” Wira planted one foot and kicked with the other, desperate to get free. He fought, but Wira kept on, jerking his leg with all of his strength until at least he broke loose. “No,” He moaned. “You have to help me! You must!” The commanding tone, from one who had once used Wira so, was more than he could bear. His control -- the tenuous grasp he had on his humanity -- surrendered to panic at this point. The next thing Wira knew, his ears were ringing with the sound of His skull collapsing under the heel of his boot. “Wira!” Galen cried, standing beside him. He thought for a moment that Galen was going to stop him, but instead he joined in the gruesome dance.

Together they kicked and

stomped and jumped until they were both splattered with the bloody remnants of His intellect and He was no more than a long, chunky crimson smear on the floorboards. After, Wira looked down. Aghast at what he’d done, he staggered backward, reeling, almost falling, until the wall caught him. He collapsed in a heap, hugging his knees tightly against himself. Galen looked at him for a moment, and then disappeared. Wira startled, but his lover was back almost instantaneously,

- 74 -

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carrying a wooden crate in one hand, a pair of short axes in the other. “Wira! Wira!” Galen squatted in front of him, eyes intense. “I need you to keep it together, baby.” He handed him an axe. “You’ve got to help me.” Shaking, Wira crept over to join Galen next to His body. Was he really here? Why did Galen’s voice sound so far away? There was no way they could fit Him in the crate, no way to dispose of Him, unless… Arm trembling, he raised the axe. The axe came heavily down, sharp edge pointed directly at battered flesh. Just before it hit, His chest rose and fell. It was suddenly clear to Wira that somehow, incredibly, He was still alive. “AAARGH!” Wira leapt backwards, barely managing to keep his grip on the axe. Galen caught him, a split second before he slipped and hit the floor again. “What’s the matter with you?” Galen barked. Wira extended a trembling arm, finger pointed directly at Him. “He’s breathing! The spirit’s still in him.” “Nah.” Galen raised his axe again. “He’s dead. He just don’t know it yet.” His blade slid into the narrow crevasse between His head and shoulders, neatly severing the connection between the two. “You see?”

- 75 -

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And somehow, despite the horror of it all, Wira did see. Galen had the situation under control and it was all going to be fine. Once, that is, they got the body out of this room. Moving almost automatically, Wira helped Galen collect the steaming warm hunks of flesh and bone, into the small wooden crate. It didn’t seem possible that all the pieces of such a large man would fit in such a small box, but between them they managed. “Just one thing more now, lover,” Galen said. His bangs had fallen forward over his face, and he pushed them back with one hand.

Red streaks of blood marked the gesture,

crimson streaks angling sideways across Galen’s forehead. Wira stared at them, mesmerized at the tangible proof of what they’d just done, marking his lover as a killer. He’d always known that about Galen, of course, but it was another thing to see it, bright red and dripping… “Wira!” Galen snapped, pulling Wira out of his reverie. “We’ve got to get our arses moving ‘ere.” He glanced toward the door. “It’s been noisy enough that we might be chancin’ unwanted company before too long. And I’m in no ‘urry to go back inside, if you know what I mean.” “No,” Wira said, words slipping hesitantly from his lips. “I don’t want you to go...” “Then you need to help me.” Galen nodded toward the rope handle looping from one end of the crate. “I can’t lift it by meself.” - 76 -

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Wira nodded. The rope was harsh against his palm, rough with coarse fibers jabbing into his skin.

Wira swallowed and steeled

himself. It had to be done. He couldn’t bear being separated from Galen again. “On three, babe,” Galen said. “One, and a-two, and,” he grunted, hoisting the crate upward, “Three!” Wira gasped. He was much heavier than Wira had ever imagined anyone could be, heavier than a full drum of water, heavier even than all of Galen’s weight collapsing on top of him after… No! He shook his head, not wanting to combine the image of his sweet lover with Him in his mind, no matter how briefly. It was bad enough that they’d connected that initial, awful time, much less this final, fatal encounter. The three of them needed no more intimate connections. “Come on, Wira,” Galen urged. “We’re almost there.” He tumbled down the stairs with Galen, both their shoes slick with blood, and neither man felt the pain of elbows smacked or knees skinned. The cellar door opened up before them, revealing a steep flight of narrow stairs descending into pitch black.

Wira

swallowed. He’d never been down these stairs before. It was only by the grace of God -- delivered in the form of one Galen Driscol -- which he could thank for that. His stomach lurched. - 77 -

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“I cannot.”

He turned toward Galen.

“I’m very sorry,

Galen, but this I can not do. I vill not go down there.” Galen looked angry for a moment. Then he stared down the steep staircase, and looked at the flat blackness that awaited them. “Oy,” he said. “It’s not that I mind it meself, but if you don’t want to, I guess we won’t.” He looked down at the crate. “Let’s just toss this bastard down there, and be done with it.” His eyes were shining as he looked at Wira, his voice still sounded so far away. “All right?” Wira would’ve agreed to anything to be done with this foul business and out of the flat. “Let’s do it.” They picked up the crate again. The contents inside the wooden box shifted, sliding against the slats with a sickening wet thud. “Oh, God, Galen.” Wira paled as all the contents of his stomach raced up his throat. “I can not do this.” “You can’t not do it, honey.” Galen’s jaw was set. “Let’s just get it over with.” Back and forth, back and forth, they swung the crate between them, building momentum with every pass. They’d built up a pretty good rhythm when Galen gave Wira the nod. Wira opened his fingers at the same time Galen did, letting the crate careen into the darkness. Time seemed to slow as they watched it go. The wooden box tumbled through the air, end over end, crimson droplets - 78 -

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of blood flying from the corners as it descended. For a long moment, its passage traced a perfect arc through space, then the lower corner hit the edge of a stair. With a revolting crunch, the crate began a quaking string of tumbles, descending the staircase in a series of short bounces. One wet, crunching thud followed by another, the time spent in the air between impacts growing progressively shorter. The sound

built,

becoming

a

ghastly

crescendo

of

gore,

plummeting into the darkness. Suddenly Wira was moving away from Galen, as if on wheels. Galen was alone, talking to himself, his voice more distant with each passing word. “Fuck me,” Galen whispered, watching the crate’s descent. “What a mess.” Wira didn’t say anything. He just stood there and stared as He passed at long last from view. He couldn’t see it, but a loud thump was enough to let Wira know that the crate had reached its final destination. They turned away, ready to leave. And then they heard it. Coming from the darkness, far below, a weak voice called out, “Help me! Help me!” It was Him. “HELP!” Wira screamed, as loud as he could. His lungs ached with it, his throat was torn raw, but still he screamed. “Somebody HELP ME!” - 79 -

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“Wira! Wira, you have to wake up!” Galen had Wira’s shoulders in his hands, shaking his lover gently.

“Wira!

What’s the matter?” Wira opened his eyes and gasped. Galen was sitting right there beside him, naked in the darkness.

They were both

safely in his flat, ensconced in the comforting confines of Wira’s bed. He looked around, still panicking. There was no sign of Him, the Fifth Avenue flat, nothing. Galen kept talking, in those calm, soothing tones. “What’s wrong, baby? You can tell me.” He threw his arms around Galen, sobbing uncontrollably. “Galen, oh, Galen!” Long fingers slid through his hair, soothing. “Shhh. Oy, Wira, it’s okay. I’m here now.” “Vhere were you?” “Here, baby.” Galen patted the pillow. “I’ve been right next to you, the whole while.” Wira caught a raggedy breath. It shuddered its way down his throat, settling uneasily in his lungs. “Vhen did you get in?” “Late.” Galen leaned his head toward the far room. “A few minutes before Georgian came crawling in. You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you.” - 80 -

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“I’m awake now.” Galen chuckled. “I can see that.” He kissed the side of Wira’s neck. “Should we take advantage of that?” Wira shuddered. “Not this minute, no.” He turned toward Galen, eyes shining. “But could you hold me? And not to be letting go?” Galen’s arms slid around Wira. “Of course. I’ll hold onto you forever, if you let me.”

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5

Momentary Remorse.

The wind loved Five Points. It had to. There was no other reason that would explain why it spent so much time there, barreling back and forth between the buildings, rushing down narrow streets and whipping through the alleys. And the wind did not come alone. It carried cold on its shoulders, a frigid companion traced round with snow. When the wind flattened itself against the sides of Wira’s tenement, it pushed the snow right through the brick, depositing the crystalline powder onto the floor.

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“Bah,” Wira sighed. He pushed another bit of rag into one of the half-dozen cracks in the North wall. It wasn’t much, but it was something, some small bit of defense against the everencroaching cold. Coupled with the newspapers he’d plastered over the windows, perhaps it would persuade the winter wind to journey elsewhere. The only warmth to be had came from the small fireplace. Even that was small comfort; the wind’s icy fingers would sneak down the flue, bringing the frigid outdoor air tumbling into the house. Only a raging fire would keep the cold at bay, burning as bright and as hot as could be safely managed. Keeping the fire going that way took a lot of wood -- and wood was starting to be quite dear. Supplies were running short during this, the worst winter Five Points had ever seen. Monaghan, the fat bastard who brought in firewood from upstate, had had to post guards on his wagon to keep the cold and desperate from pinching logs when he wasn’t watching. More than a few homes were already short some furniture, for warmth meant survival and when there was naught else to burn, the table would do. But Wira, Galen and Georgian didn’t have much furniture to begin with. The pieces they did have they intended to keep, and there was only one way to go about that: bringing in enough money to keep the fires going. For Georgian, this was no problem. Cold temperatures in Five Points increased the number of gentlemen looking to - 83 -

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press themselves up against a warm body. Galen never had any difficulty picking up funds, one way or the other. But for Wira, it was another story entirely. Blowing kisses may not have been the line of work he’d have chosen for himself, but it had kept him in funds. Now that Galen was back, Wira was out of business. Employment opportunities were limited in Five Points for most. That number dropped off sharply if you were an ex-whore, even one who looked like Wira. Maybe especially for ex-whores who looked like Wira. It had been a long day. Wira had made the rounds, seeing if any of the pubs were short a barmaid and needed some extra help. “Sorry luv,” he heard time and time again. “Not today.” Everywhere he went, it was the same story, over and over again. He even ventured down to Pete William’s place, to see if they needed a girl to sell cigarettes to the dancers or check their coats. But the manager had looked Wira up and down, stopping for a long moment at the small square of exposed flesh that was visible above the confines of a tightly-laced corset. “I’m sorry, sweetness,” he said, “And that’s the Lord’s own truth. But I can’t give you a job here.” “And vhy not?” Wira asked. It was hard to tell from his tone if he was exasperated or disappointed. The truth was - 84 -

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probably somewhere in between those two points, though hard to define exactly. “Because you don’t have the right last name.” The manager shrugged. “That’s the simple truth of it. Hang an O in front of yourself, I’m sure I could get you a position. But you know and I know you aren’t about to marry no potato.” “I might,” Wira muttered, starting to turn away. “Thank you for your time.” His hand fell heavy on Wira’s shoulder. Wira looked back at the manager, some small measure of hope starting to leap in her stomach. “Yes?” The manager smiled. It was not a nice smile. “I’ve got some money of me own, ye know. If you’d like to come to a more…personal kind of arrangement.” “Heh.” Wira laughed. “I think that you would find that, if I were still in the business of making personal arrangements,” he said, pushing the door open, “you don’t have enough money in your pocket to afford me.” He was still laughing when he stepped out into the night, the warmth created by the manager’s gape-faced shock wrapped round like him, an extra layer against the chill. It was almost enough to keep him comfortable as he walked the long road back home. “If I vere still in the business,” he laughed to himself, ascending the stairs to his flat, “of making personal arrangements…” - 85 -

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Wira stopped short, good spirits dying in his throat, when he spied a pair of boots placed carefully outside his front door. These were no ordinary boots. They were men’s boots, larger than Galen would ever need. They’d seen a good many miles. Both heels were well-worn, and the leather wasn’t what one would call fresh off the cow. Dried mud was caked up over both soles -- a passing strange thing to see, now in the heart of winter. But that little anomaly had nothing on the lacework of crimson splatters that adorned the uppers, as if both boots had been sprayed with a fine mist of blood. The type of spray that would result, Wira realized, if you severed someone’s feet with an axe. The way he had in his dream, just a month before. These weren’t any ordinary boots. They were His boots. Few men alive can go down stairs as quickly as they went up them -- and fewer still are those that can manage the task wearing high-heeled boots. Wira turned out to be the exception that proved the rule. He flew down three fights of stairs nearly as quickly as Antonio had descended when Galen had shown him out, desperate to get out of the building before He realized Wira was there. He’d almost made it -- the doorknob was a mere fraction of an inch from his frantic fingertips -- when he saw the boy. Barely visible, standing in the shadowed corner of the foyer, stood a small boy. Long, dark sausage curls hung down either - 86 -

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side of his face, framing a sad visage. His black hair was a strong contrast with the crisp white yamulka centered on the back of his tiny little head. He was staring at Wira, tears silently pouring from his eyes. Slowly, he raised an arm and pointed an accusatory finger at Wira. “How could you?”

It was little more than a whisper,

delivered in a skittering, chitinous tone that sent shivers down Wira’s spine. “Vha…” Wira started to ask, only to abruptly fall silent again as the boy let his head tilt backward. An ugly red gash was revealed, stretching from one side of the boy’s neck to the other. Jagged, fresh curls of flesh folded and rolled away as his head went further and further back, tipping well beyond what should have been anatomically possible. That was bad enough. Then the spiders appeared. First, there were only two, sticking long, black fuzzy legs up out of the crimson stump and waving them gaily about before emerging to crawl down the front of the boy’s white shirt. They were leaving, Wira noticed, frozen in place, little bloody footprints as they progressed. They’d no more reached the little boy’s waist when suddenly they were joined by a thousand of their closest friends, erupting out of the boy’s neck in an arachnoid flow of - 87 -

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legs and fat, furry torsos, compound eyes all clearly fixed on Wira. “No!” Wira screamed. “Yes!” the spiders replied, impossibly in unison, impossibly vocal. The little boy agreed with them, adding his assent in heavily accented English, despite the fact that his head was now hanging nearly upside down against his back. His brown eyes burned into Wira. “Yes!” It was too much. Wira whirled on his heel and pushed through the door, clearing the five steps that led to the ground in a single bound. He took off running, as fast as he could, and never once looked back.

“Cold tonight, innit?” Galen sidled up to the girl, taking in her chestnut hair and curvy form.

Not his type, but the

punters would eat her up. “Way too cold to be spending it out of doors.” “You think I would,” the girl asked, looking up at Galen through long-lidded eyes, “if I had a choice?”

The shiny

bright-blue blossom of a bruise ringed round one eye, deepening to purple at the corner. “Some rum bastards up and took me money.”

Tears

threatened to spill out of her eyes, despite her evident

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determination to keep them in place. “And I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” “I can tell you what you could do.” She eyed him sharply.

“Two bits ain’t gonna help me

much.” A little bit of a sniff, which made Galen smile. Girl still had her pride in her, which was good. Usually by this point, the fresh meat had had the spirit beat clean out of them. “And I’m worth a good sight more besides.” Galen laughed. “Yes, you are.” She perked up, only to be crushed a moment later when Galen continued. “Not for me, dearie. But I know them that would.” “I’m not looking for a keeper.” “Good girl. You’re as smart as you look.” Galen cocked his head and smiled. “But how would you feel about a business opportunity?” There was a little banter then, back and forth. Galen spelled out the benefits and countered objections. At long last, the girl looked up at the sky and realized that there was no guardian angel swooping down to save her -- just another night’s worth of crystalline cold, falling flake by flake by flake. “Oy, I’ll do it,” she said, cutting Galen off when he was spinning a yarn about the glories of Madame Delorian’s front parlor. “It’s too damn cold not to.”

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“You’ll be glad of it, lassie,” Galen said, pressing a battered calling card into the girl’s hand. “Get there right quick, and the Missus will have a hot cuppa waiting for you.” She took the card and gave Galen the nod. “Enjoy me finder’s fee, you.” He hadn’t finished laughing by the time she’d disappeared into the swirling snow. Pickings were slim after that. Them that got off the boat with places to go had long ago gotten there, and them that didn’t had gotten the lay of the land and discovered that the dock wasn’t where they wanted to be. “Fuck,” Galen said.

“I sent one her way, and that’s

enough.” A fresh burst of wind blew sideways across the street, pushing him near off his feet. “At least for this evening.” He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and headed for home. That’s when he saw Him. It wasn’t bad enough that he saw the terror of his youth, the foul thief that stole the last vestiges of his innocence away. There was no way that could be pleasant -- but until this cold, dark moment, Galen didn’t think there was a way on God’s green earth it could be worse. But it was. For at the end of His arm was the little boy from Wira’s courtyard. His sister was nowhere in sight. He was all alone, the boisterous spirit so much in evidence earlier now subdued. - 90 -

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Galen stared, aghast, at the curved bow of his neck, the way the nappy head was tilted forward, eyes firmly pointed to the ground. He was frozen for a moment, frozen in place and unable to move.

Then He turned, and Galen realized the pair was

headed uptown. Fifth Avenue. His lair. “Fuck me,” Galen muttered. “I don’t think so!” He took off at a dead run, feet slip sliding over the snowy streets, hooking the corner at full tilt, only his death grip on the lamppost keeping him upright. “Oy, you! Come back here!” Yet He didn’t hurry. His steps were slow and measured, one heavy footfall carefully following its predecessor, forming careful imprints in the snow. “I said stop!” Galen reached out, his fingers extended as far as they would go. One last burst of speed should do it, should put him close enough to get his hands on the little boy, to save him from certain doom. “Oy!” Galen lunged. He connected, fingers skidding over a narrow shoulder, pitifully thin in a woolen jacket. The boy barely kept his feet, and when he looked round at Galen, it was with wide, astonished eyes.

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Galen had never seen him before in his life, not this strange little Italian boy, with close cropped black hair and ebony eyes. Nor had he seen the boy’s grandfather before, clearly blind and at a loss to deal with the sudden disruption of their progress. “Whassis?” he slurred, traces of one too many bottles of wine slipping through his words. “Summa sonabitch trying to rob us?” He waved one hand threateningly in the air. Galen jumped back, waving his hands as if to surrender. “Sorry. Sorry, Papi! No offense meant. I thought you were someone else.” “I betcha did,” the old man groused, shaking his cane. “Come on over here and I’s a-show you someone else.” The child stared wide-eyed as Galen stumbled backwards. “Really,” he stammered. “I’m sorry.” There was a piss-stall at the end of the lane, and Galen ducked into it, desperate to get away from those confused little eyes. “What the hell is wrong with me?” he asked himself. Most of the water in the washbasin was near to frozen, but Galen managed to scoop out half a handful and splash it into his face. “Not a drop since lunchtime, and me seeing things.” He blinked up at the mirror, the frigid drops of water becoming crystalline as they fell from his face. "I’ve got to get me head cleared out.”

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The mirror looked back at him, wearing the visage of a little black boy who looked hauntingly familiar. It looked at him, and Galen heard the voice, How could you? Galen gaped, as the reflection screamed at him, the words growing louder with each reiteration, “How could you? How could you? HOW COULD YOU?” “Yargh!” Galen cried, his words lost in one terror-filled howl. He whirled on his heel and fled the washroom, barely gaining the sidewalk before he crashed into someone else, running nearly as fast. They hit the ground hard. “Galen?” Wira was incredulous. “Galen, this is you? Really? Here?” “And who else would I be?” Galen snapped. “The King of Bloody Norway?” Wira responded by bursting into tears. “Do not be like that, Galen! Not for the right now, not vhen I need you!” Galen softened. “What’s the matter, Wira?” He pushed the hair back from his lover’s face, taking note of the flushed skin, the well-worn tracks of tears, edged by the last, smoky remnants of the kohl eyeliner. Wira must have been running quite a while. “Tell me what’s happened, luv.” Wira tried, the words tumbling out between tearful hiccups. “I vas out looking for a job, Galen, and there vere none to be had,” he started, hands clutching at the front of Galen’s coat. “I vent to all the pubs, and even down to Pete Villiam’s.” - 93 -

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“You don’t have the right last name to be working there,” Galen muttered. “That’s vhat he told me,” Wira said, nodding as a fresh font of tears spilled from his eyes. “But then he said ve could have a personal arrangement…” “What?” Galen stepped backward, the fire to fight bright in his eyes again. “That bastard!” “Stop,” Wira said, putting a hand on Galen’s arm. “That’s not the point I try to make clear!” “Then get to the point, Wira,” Galen glared. “It’s too damn cold to stand out here gabbing all night.” “So the point,” Wira said, “is that after that, I vent to the home.” “Yes?” “He was there.” Wira started shaking. “His boots, there, right outside of our door. I saw them.” “And how do you know they were His boots?” Galen shook his head. “Maybe Georgian was entertaining a visitor, didn’t want you interrupting.” “This I do not think. Georgian, she vorks late on the cold nights.” Wira locked eyes with Galen. “And these boots vere the boots I had seen before.” “Seen before where?” “On Him!” Wira was shouting now, arms flung straight down his sides, ending in furious fists. “Vere do you think I vould have seen them?” - 94 -

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“Calm down,” Galen said. “You know I can’t understand you when you get worked up and talk Old Country to me.” “Fuck you.” Wira turned away. “You can to understand me vhen you vant to.” “Wira,” Galen said, “You couldn’t have seen His boots. It’s not possible.” “I know vhat I saw.” Wira swallowed. “And that vas not the vorst of it.” The tale of the little Jewish boy spilled from his lips, nearly as quickly as the spiders had appeared from the depths of that ravaged child. Galen started, thinking for a moment of the black boy staring at him from the washroom mirror. But it was too much, too divorced from reality to ever be true…wasn’t it? His next words were borne of that indecision. “Wira, baby, was that what you saw or what the bottle saw?” Wira stiffened. “Vhat do you think you are trying to say to me, with these vords?” “Georgian told me you’d been off the bottle for a while,” Galen said. “But Eileen told me that day before this one, you’d had yourself a good snort of the strong stuff.” Eileen had been pretty direct with her opinion that Wira’s fall from the wagon was completely and wholly Galen’s fault, but he didn’t share that now. “Vas Eileen with me this evening?” Wira jabbed his finger into Galen’s breastbone. “No, she vas not. She vas vorking the - 95 -

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bar -- and if she had not been, I vould have tried to take her spot. Instead, I valk the streets, looking for vork since you took my only job from me…” “Hey,” Galen said, “You want to go back to being a cocksucker, don’t you let me stop you.” “You know for vhat I mean,” Wira continued, fury not dimmed one iota by the interruption. “I go for miles and miles and miles to find vork that will please you, and find nothing, so to home I go, to find this horror.” He threw up his hands in despair. “Only to have you tell me that I am vith the drinking confused.” “What am I supposed to think?”

Galen was indignant.

“You tell me about a dead man’s boots…” “How do ve know he is a dead man?” Wira demanded. “Uh…” Galen stammered. “Ve don’t, that’s how ve know.” Wira raged on. “And so for vhen I see his boots outside my doorway, I’m afraid.” His eyes locked on Galen’s again. “And explain to me this boy, this boy filled vith spiders.” “There’s only one explanation for that,” Galen said. “And it comes in a bottle.” “You’re a stupid, stupid man,” Wira raged. “Too blind to see this vhich I’m telling you. And if you are to be believing that I’m drinking vhen two times I have told you that I’m not, then I’m done with you, Galen Driscol.”

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He whirled on his heel and started stomping back toward the tenement. “And what’s the good of going that way,” Galen called after him, “If He’s in that direction?” “Maybe He’ll kill me,” Wira shot back over his shoulder. “Finish vhat He started long ago!”

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6

They Follow.

For the second time that day, emotion served as Wira’s overcoat. He was far warmer now than he’d been earlier, despite the plummeting temperatures.

Anger burns hotter

than mirth, and Wira was very, very angry. “And who is he to tell me I’ve been drinking?” Wira raged in his own form of English, stomping through the narrow streets. The snow was starting to drift up, pushed into long, low dunes by the omnipresent wind. “Do I question his vords? No. I trust him. Do I think he is lying to me or telling tales vhen he spins some tale fantastic?” His front shoe hit an icy patch, and Wira almost went down hard. It was only sheer tenacity and the burning momentum of his rage that kept him upright. “No. I take it on faith.” - 98 -

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Intent on his own fury, Wira didn’t even notice the crowds of people silently passing from one side of the street to the other. The men had long black coats and great beards, the women heavy skirts and shawls pulled up near around their faces. They were intent on their own passages, and paid no mind to Wira. This mutual oblivion ended quickly, when Wira collided with one of the slower moving couples. The impact knocked him off balance, and he started to plummet toward the snowy street. Instinctively, he flung out his hands, hoping the others would catch him, but instead, they pulled back, as if he were some foul thing. He hit the ground hard, feeling all the air whoof out of his lungs. The throng of slowly moving people continued to pass, their

muttered

comments

drifting

down

to

his

uncomprehending ears. “…shikse?” “Nein, nein.”

Coarse laughter, the humor of old men

rumbling through the night. “Gunsel...” A small woman, bent nearly double with age, stopped and extended a hand.

Wira took it, surprised as much at the

gesture as at the strength evident in the old woman’s arm pulling him upward. But when he started to thank the old woman, she held up one bent finger and waved it at him, motioning him to silence.

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And then she too was gone, joining the throng slowly entering the building on the far side of the street. Wira stared after them, watching as they passed through a narrow doorway. Every so often, one would reach up and touch the top of the doorway before entering.

Beyond that, their passage went

unremarked. It was as if he’d passed into another country, one where he no longer spoke the language.

Everywhere he looked, the

signs were written in strange, block letters, indecipherable. The curtains on the windows were drawn tightly against the night, and Wira knew that if he were to knock upon the door where the crowd had just passed, it would not open for him. He was outside -- a foreigner, and alone, in his own homeland. Or perhaps not so alone. Not much time had passed when Wira heard the footsteps. Heavy, slow and measured, they clearly marked a man’s approach. A large man, a heavy man, one who moved through the darkness without fear. Wira peered into the darkness, desperate to see who was approaching.

Yet the grayed streets revealed nothing, and

swirling clouds of snow cut visibility down to nothing. Still, he knew. Someone was coming. Someone was after him. And Wira knew, knew deep in his gut, that that someone was Him.

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He started to run, Galen’s words ringing loud in his head. What is the sense of running home if He is there? But there was nowhere else to go. Besides, Wira reasoned, if the house was closed to him, perhaps there were friends to turn to. Safety is easier to find in familiar surroundings. The heavy footsteps quickened in response to Wira’s flight, keeping pace with him without drawing any nearer. Wira ran and ran, until the signs written in Hebrew were replaced by those fashioned with letters he could read. Yet the footsteps continued, growing louder and louder with every stride. He ran until silent men with great beards and accusing eyes were replaced by clean-shaven drunkards with big mouths. And still the footsteps rang loud in the snowy night. He kept running, despite the pounding pain in his chest, despite the searing burn that came from lungs asked for too much, despite the twisted knots of fire that had replaced the muscles in his legs. Wira ran until someone reached out from a darkened corner and grabbed him. “Bah!” Wira shouted. “You rat bastard! Let me go!” “Wira!” It was Galen, pulling Wira close against him. “It’s me. Calm down!” “No!”

If anything, the fact that it was Galen that had

grabbed him made Wira even angrier. He threw his fists, battering Galen around the head and shoulders, kicking violently the whole while. “Let me go!”

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“Wira!” Galen barked, putting all of his strength into it, shouting with all of his might. “Wira! I’m sorry!” “Vhat?” All of the fury slid abruptly out of Wira’s system, followed by the fear. “Vhat did you say to me, Galen?” “I said I’m sorry, alright?” Galen’s eyes were bright and shiny.

“I ‘ad no right to be accusing you, saying you was

drinking when I know you wasn’t.” Wira dissolved into tears.

“Now you believe me?” He

wiped the back of a narrow hand across his eyes, clearing away a good cupful of tears. “Vhat for changed your mind?” “You mean everything to me, Wira,” Galen said, his voice low and intense. His lips were less than an inch from Wira’s, close enough that the distance between them could be closed with a thought. “I don’t want to lose you. You know that.” “But you believe me?” Wira insisted. “You know that the vords I say to you are the truth?” He longed to kiss Galen, to connect with his lover, but these things needed to be said. “For I vill never lie to you, Galen.” “I know,” Galen said. He shifted his hips, pulling Wira closer into his embrace. Wira melted into it, drinking in the strength of Galen’s long frame, the firmness of his lover. “You ‘ave to forgive me, Wira.” His control finally broke, and he claimed a long, searching kiss. “Because you’re all I have.” “You,” Wira replied, kissing Galen back, “are all that I’m having, too.”

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Words faded away then, the lovers’ mouths occupied with other, far more enjoyable activities. Kisses exchanged became kisses roving, used to chase any evidence of sorrow from each other’s cheeks. Earlobes were visited, nipped lightly, traced with the very tip of a tongue, all while the snowflakes cascaded downward around them. Wira’s long fingers slid over Galen’s torso, guided along familiar pathways of muscle and heat to find sensitive bits only he would know. “God, Wira,” Galen groaned. “I don’t ever want to lose you.” He buried his face in Wira’s neck, biting hard enough to draw blood. Consuming, claiming, and marking, all in one moment. “You’re mine. Forever.” “Aye, Galen.” Wira threw his head back, letting the black curls of his wig fall down his back in an ebony curtain. “Yours.” “I’ve got to have you,” Galen growled. “Now.” His arms slid around Wira’s waist, cupping his ass. Wira squealed a bit when Galen picked him up, but a kiss soon silenced that -- a kiss, and the promise of more privacy, once they’d reached the darkest corner of the alley. Just enough light came through an opened restaurant door to allow Wira to see everything -- to see the need shining in Galen’s eyes, the way lust changed his lover’s features, making them slack and insistent, all at the same time.

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And some things he didn’t need to see. Vision wasn’t necessary to discern that the hardness pressing against him from the front was nearly as firm as the brick wall at his back. He didn’t need to see to know Galen had pushed his blouse open -- the cool touch of the winter air coupled with the hot, burning brand of Galen’s tongue was more than enough to make that clear. “Galen,” Wira groaned. “You’re too much.” “You’re both too much,” a voice laughed from behind them. Two tall black kitchen boys were toting a heaping barrel of sops out into the alleyway. “The way white folk carry on,” one man smiled to the other, who managed to make his way without ever once looking toward the lovers. “It’s enough to make you go blind.” “You two will be blind if you don’t get out of here,” Galen warned them. “Okay, Potato,” they said, chuckling along as they left, and one of them turned and said, “We’re not fool enough to want to spend the night in the alley, anyway.” “Don’t worry about them,” Galen said, turning his attention back to Wira. “Who?” Wira braced his hands against the rough brick wall and locked his legs around Galen’s hips. “I see no one here but you.” “Jesus, Wira,” Galen groaned. He braced one hand against the wall just next to Wira’s head, close enough that Wira could - 104 -

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turn and claim the smooth skin with a kiss. “You make me so crazy.” His other hand fell to his fly, awkwardly undoing the buttons. “Can you feel that, feel how much I want you?” His hardened shaft fell against Wira’s.

It was longer,

perhaps more than doubly so, but that was the only difference between the two of them -- for Wira’s response was equally demanding, equally rigid, equally desperate for contact. One length slid alongside the other, every point of contact a fresh gasp, a new discovery, another kiss stolen between shuddering breaths. Galen’s hands were iron on Wira’s hips, giving him just enough purchase to grind in harder, determined to wring every bit of sensation possible from this fleshy collision. Wira more than met him halfway, pushing hard against the brick wall to connect with every thrust. Skin met skin, passion pushing them together again and again. “Galen,” Wira moaned. “You must not stop, not now.” He bit his lower lip, the plump flesh bulging out around his teeth like some kind of obscene blossom. “For I’m going to…” “I know, I know,” Galen cried. “Me too.” His hips hitched forward, one, twice, again. “But not yet, baby.” Sweat was dripping from his forehead, splashing onto Wira’s exposed chest. “I want you to come with me.” “Oh DAYM!” Georgian’s laugh, rich and textured with the sound of a thousand Southern nights, rolled through the - 105 -

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darkness. “You weren’t lying.” She looked up at her escort, a handsome tall busboy who’d brought her to the alley. “I guess we’ll have company, after all!” Georgian hiccupped, reeled on her feet. “That was some right powerful hooch you slipped me, boy,” she said to her grinning companion. “I think you’re trying to get me in-toxicated!” “Mebbe so,” the busboy said. “But I’m not trying hard.” That, apparently, was the funniest thing Georgian had ever heard. She bent nearly double with laughter, and looked right down the alley. A sudden start of recognition jolted her almost sober, and by the time she stood up, Georgian was Georgian again. She glared around the alley imperiously, taking in the cluster of drunkards who’d taken up residence on one of the sheltered stoops. More than one had their hands rooting deep in their trousers, working feverishly away while staring fixedly at Wira and Galen. “Oh, no, no, no!” Georgian announced. She grabbed her busboy companion by the shoulders and gently swung him around until they were between the drunkards and the lovers. “This show ain’t free!” she laughed, the whiskey still tingeing the sound of it. “You sorry bastards want to watch two white folks rubbing their uglies, you gotta pay. This ain’t charity!” She hiccupped and approached the stoop, tin can in hand. “It’s time to put some nickels in me cup!” - 106 -

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Laughter all around, even a half-snort from Galen, greeted this announcement. “It’s time,” one of the drunkards said, “for you to get that fat ass of yours out of the way!” Georgian pulled herself upright, dignity affronted. “What? Who said that?” Her eye fell on the culprit, and softened. “Oh, hey, honey.” She eyed him suggestively. “You kinda cute. What’cha drinking over there?” Her voice dropped, as if she was sharing a confidence. “I’m drinking tonight, and I’ll let you buy me one…” The drunkard sitting next to the object of Georgian’s attentions stuck out a hand and got himself a healthy feel of Georgian’s backside. “Arse like that, I’ll buy you a drink!” The busboy laughed. “Your best bet is to come with me, girl. I’ll buy you a couple three drinks.” Georgian carefully laced arms with him, laughing loudly when he added, “After all, I gets them for free!” They staggered down the alley, followed by the drunkards. A bar room would provide more shelter than any stoop -- and Georgian in this mood was definitely going to be entertaining. “Now vhere vere ve?” Wira asked, reaching up for a kiss. “You were gonna,” Galen said, slowly starting to move his hips forward again. “And so was I.” “Yes,” Wira said with a smile. He angled his hips upward, forcing more contact. “This I seem to remember.”

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“God, Wira,” Galen groaned, quickly falling back into their earlier rhythm. “I love you so much.” “I love you too,” Wira replied, employing subtle motion to goad his lover along. “So much, so very much.” “Can you?” The need was clear in Galen’s eyes. “Because I can’t hold off much longer.” “Say my name, Galen.” Wira started moving faster. “Say it now.” “Wira!” It was an exhalation, an exaltation. Everything, really, in one tense moment. And as always, it worked. For both of them.

“Son of a bitch, it’s snowing.” Galen had tucked himself back into his pants, and was waiting for Wira to get his clothing settled. “I can’t remember it ever snowing so hard.” “It has snowed hard enough to make you an old man,” Wira said. He reached up and brushed his fingers over Galen’s hair, sending the accumulated flakes scattering in half a dozen different directions. “With the hair white.” Galen smiled. “As long as I grow old with you, that’s fine with me.” Their fingers laced together. “Just fine.”

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From outside, you could see that the fan light above the front door was cracked, a hairline fissure running cleanly from one corner to the next. Yet it still seemed to be securely in place, with no hint of a shake when Galen pulled the door open. Wira followed, relieved to find the foyer free from spiders and decapitated children. Nothing seemed out of place, unless you counted the fine carpet of snow that had blown in with them. Ascending the stairs, Wira felt his stomach lurching through an increasingly complex series of somersaults. If he had to face his fears, he thought, at least he had Galen with him. Then they reached the third floor. There were no boots, bloody or otherwise, resting near the mat. Wira let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and said nothing. Galen was careful to follow suit.

“Warm room. Warm blankets.” Galen put his arm around his lover and pulled him close. “Warm Wira. What more could a man ask for?” Wira was going to reply, but there was no time. Galen started snoring as soon as his head hit the pillow. Wira smiled down at him. Galen’s face changed when he slept. The hardness and years fell away, leaving just the - 109 -

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beautiful man.

Tentatively, Wira let his fingers trace over

Galen’s cheekbones, sliding over the soft plain of his cheeks, the velvety bump that was Galen’s mouth. Like touching an angel, he thought. At least while he’s sleeping. With that, Wira snuggled down and closed his eyes. Later in the night, it was the tapping that woke him, the light rat-a-tat-tat that comes only from hail splattering itself against the window. Wira sat up and shivered. The flat was cold, cold despite the thick blanket and Galen beside him. “Hmph.” It wasn’t like Georgian to let the fire go out, but she had been pretty drunk. Wira ran his fingers over his face, pinching his nose between forefinger and thumb. “Tak,

It’s

not going to get any varmer vith me just sitting here.” He slid out of bed, bare feet searching for his house slippers. They were strangely warm, comfort against the cold floor. Wira slipped into his robe. If he remembered correctly, there should be at least three pieces of firewood left -- enough to get the fire going again and take some of the chill out of the room. If he had any luck at all, there’d be some coals left and he wouldn’t have to sacrifice one of his beloved newsprint story sheets as kindling. A sudden gust of wind blew handfuls of hail against the window, crackling like Fourth of July firecrackers thrust suddenly into a cold environment.

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“Damn, vhat a storm,” Wira said. “I’d hate to be out in that.” Almost in response, Galen stirred in the bed, as if to remind Wira where he was supposed to be. “One minute, lover,” Wira murmured. “I’ll be back before you know it.” More ice rattled against the window, hard enough that Wira feared that the glass would break. Suddenly, he was consumed by a desire to look out onto to the storm, to try to glimpse the powerful wind, to watch the million miniature ice balls slant out of the sky and bounce against the buildings. Yet at the same time, Wira was reluctant to do so. Somewhere out there, he knew, beyond the swirling clouds of ice, lay something more dangerous.

More deadly. More

sinister. And it was watching him. Could he glimpse his voyeur -- perhaps peer beyond winter’s foulest tricks and watch the watcher? Wira shivered. His first instinct was, as always, to flee from the first sign of danger. But then he looked around. Here he was, safe in his home. Galen was with him, proof positive that he had nothing to worry about. “This is silly,” Wira muttered. “If you vant to look out the vindow, look out the vindow,” he scolded himself, using tones

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that he hadn’t heard since his mother died. “You’re not a child to be frightened of monsters in the night.” That admonition didn’t stop him from picking up the long cast iron poker when he walked past the stove toward the window. It was cold, very cold, but the solidity of it was a comforting weight in his hand. Beyond the glass, the world was dark.

The streetlights

struggled valiantly, but did little beyond lending a grayish hue to given points in the storm. Wira stared out into nothingness, watching the fine lacy sprawl of ice being cast over the streets. There was no method in it, no madness, only nature’s capricious dance with the winds. Ice would direct itself at Wira’s flat one minute, only to turn tail and crash into the neighbor’s the next. You couldn’t predict where the ice was going, nor where it was coming from. No one was about in the storm. Five Points held many fools, it’s true, but none benighted enough to be out and about on a night like this. Wira relaxed.

His thoughts of a watcher, some hostile

person peering through the window, must have been a passing bit of fancy, twisted up by too much tension in his dreams. That’s when his nose caught the edge of a strange scent, sliding edgeways through the flat. It was flinty and sharp, rich somehow, yet stale with some kind of foulness he couldn’t name.

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“Vat is that?” he asked, turning away from the window. Galen looked fine, cocooned in the bedclothes. Just beyond, he could hear Georgian snoring contentedly in her bed. All seemed well, but the scent persisted, setting Wira’s nerves on edge. His unease grew when he realized that the scent was getting stronger, the acrid aroma filling the flat, consuming all of the breathable air and replacing it with a foul stench. “But vhere is it coming from?” he asked, only to find the answer pushing its way in under the door. A long black spill slid through the inch-wide gap at the bottom of the door, moving slowly. Viscosity was implied by progress: this wasn’t the rapid motion of a drum of water suddenly upturned. No, this was slower. Not quite the glacial pace of syrup or oil drizzled from on high, the liquid took its sweet time presenting itself to Wira, allowing him just enough time to realize that the black liquid was in fact a very dark crimson torrent, that the flinty smell that had been puzzling him so was the scent of freshly spilled blood. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Wira stammered, hurriedly crossing himself. “Where is this coming from?” The sleet hit the window hard, loud enough that the sound rattled Wira’s brain.

Yet, with his attention otherwise

occupied, he paid it no mind. It wasn’t loud enough to merit his regard -- something that could not be said for the clear, distinct knock that followed. The sound of knuckles wrapping - 113 -

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square on the glass next to Wira’s ear was not the type of thing that could be ignored. Wira turned despite himself, his eyes drawn to the glass even though his mind wanted him to look anywhere else. The crimson-black puddle, while disconcerting, was an almostknown quantity, infinitely preferable to whatever horror might be outside the window. Wira knew that, knew it with every fiber of his being. Yet he looked anyway. He couldn’t tell what it was he saw. The lumpy shape he saw, retreating through the sheets of sleet and ice, was too small and poorly defined to discern. Wira didn’t know what it was, but he was certain what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a bird, not one of the fat-breasted pigeons that thronged round Five Points. It wasn’t a bat, nor a squirrel in the midst of some mad misadventure. It wasn’t anything that belonged outside his window, not in the middle of the night, not during a storm like this, not when a river of blood was coursing under his front door. He peered into the darkness, determined to see. What he could see he could deal with. It was the unknown that was terrifying. That is a magnificent theory, one that has gotten a great many people through a great many difficulties. It can also, on occasion, fail completely. This was one of those times.

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For as Wira was looking out into the darkness, someone else was looking in. They sat and waited, biding their time until Wira was close enough and relaxed enough. When he leaned close to the glass again, trying for a better view, it was time to strike. The glass shattered next to Wira’s face, sending dozens of razor-edged shards spinning in every direction. That oddshaped blob that Wira couldn’t make out earlier was there in all its glory now -- a small boy’s hand, with stubby fingers that quickly wound in Wira’s hair. Wira pulled back with all his might, but it was for naught. He was yanked, inch by unyielding inch, closer to the window until he was face to face with a small boy. This child had vibrant green eyes -- and only a scarlet slash where his mouth should have been. It didn’t matter. His words were clear enough. “How. Could. You?” How could you?” “Stop!” Wira screamed. “Stop it, please!” “Wira!”

Galen’s hands were on his shoulders.

“Wira,

you’re dreaming again. Wake up!” Wira startled, nearly falling out of the bed. If it weren’t for Galen’s grip, he would have hit the ground hard. “Galen?” “It’s okay, babe.” He smiled. “But we’ve got to keep it down. Georgian has company.”

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From the next room, the throaty moans of Georgian and perhaps the busboy were clearly audible.

“That’s probably

what you heard. The way they’ve been carrying on, no wonder you had a bad dream.” He shook his head. “Loud enough to wake the dead, them two.” “Vake the dead,” Wira mused. “I vonder…” “What’s that, luv?” Wira shook his head. “Nothing.” He patted the bed next to him. “Lay vith me a while. I’m not ready to get up yet.”

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7

…such a Poor Thing.

“Look at it snowing out there,” Wira said, sprawling out on the bed and extending a languid arm toward the window. “It’s a foul day.” He pivoted suddenly, looking up at Galen with seductive eyes. “Vhy don’t you stay here in bed with me? We could keep it varm.” The blanket was pulled back, just enough to be inviting. “Very varm.” Galen smiled, and leaned in for a kiss. “It’s a tempting offer,” he said, letting his brown eyes run over Wira’s exposed form. “Very tempting.” Then he glanced at the fireplace. “But we’re running more than a little low on wood, and unless you’re looking forward to freezing to death tonight, I need to bring in some funds.”

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“Today?” Wira asked. “You really think you’ll find any girls today?” Galen turned toward the window, watching the fat snowflakes falling fast and furious.

They looked light and

fluffy, but added no warmth to the scenery. “I think that if there are any girls about today, they’ll be happy to be found. Missus Delorian’s place will seem like paradise, compared to them docks.” “Hmph.” Wira fell back onto the pillows and pulled the blanket up close around him. “Seems to me that paradise could be right here, if you vanted it to be.” “Wira.” Galen’s tone was soft but firm. “I’ll be back before you know it.” One more kiss then, long and lingering. Final. “And then we’ll…uh…” His words drifted away as Georgian bustled into the room. “Damn, Dubuya, you gonna spend all the day abed?” She rolled her eyes and stretched. “Must be nice, living in the lap of luxury and all.” A kettle full of water went onto the stove. “Shall I make Your Highness some tea?” “That vould be nice, Georgian.” Wira smiled. “If you vould not mind.” “Mind? Lawd, I don’t mind.” Georgian winked at Galen. “I hopes to be a kept woman myself, some day.” Galen laughed, and headed for the door. “I’ll keep my eye open for your Mr. Right, Georgian.”

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“Boy, you better keep both eyes open! And if you see him, you grab his ass!” The tea was hot and strong and sweet. “That’s the last of the sugar in there, Dubuya,” Georgian said. “The church mice are gonna start complaining soon, what with pickings getting thin in these parts.” “Did you put any sugar in your tea?” Wira sat up and looked toward Georgian’s cup, as if he could discern the sweetness thereof. “I’m fine,” Georgian said, brushing the concern away with a gesture. “That’s not the point.” “Galen left me some money,” Wira said, watching a smile come to Georgian’s face. “I’ll go down to the market and get us some groceries this morning.” “You watch O’Reilly.” Georgian snorted. “Half the time his flour’s old plaster, and the other half the time it’s not that good.” “Really?” Wira’s eyebrow cocked upward. “I thought you and he had an arrangement.” “We do.” Georgian rolled her eyes. “That’s why we only pay half of what everyone else does. That don’t mean we don’t get ripped off just the same.” Wira watched the door close behind Georgian. He was going to have to get out of bed at some point, and now that the flat was empty, it seemed the ideal time. The

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space that had been so cozy and warm just an hour ago was suddenly large and filled with awkward echoes. The wind whistled past the window, rattling the glass. Wira gave the panes an anxious look and slid out of bed. He was in no mood for a repeat performance of last night’s horror, even though the glass was unblemished and whole. No, it was better not to think about it. Better instead to gather up the cups from the morning’s tea and clean those. Better to run a broom over the floor, whisking the merest hint of a cobweb from behind the doorway, to fluff the pillows Galen had pummeled into submission, to pick Georgian’s voluminous skirt from the floor. Better to straighten the shoes under the bed, step back and ponder the arrangement, and bend to straighten them again. Anything to keep troubled dreams at bay and reality squarely centered in the grim-gray light of day. There’s only so much housework that can be done in a tworoom flat, no matter how high your standards are. Wira had gone round the place twice, but there was no denying the fact that the sun hadn’t made it halfway up the sky yet and he was out of things to do. “I should to the grocery go,” Wira announced to the empty room. Unvoiced went this nagging fear -- the shivery yet sure knowledge that if he left the confines of the flat, he’d be exposed again, out there with the watcher. Out there, where danger was. - 121 -

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“This is foolish.” Wira looked down at his housecoat and grimaced. “I’m not an old woman to cower behind closed doors.” Long strides brought him to the closet. It was time to face the day. Yet when the closet door was opened, Wira found himself facing a conundrum. Nothing appealed: not his day dress, not the finer gown he wore when he was working. His nice dress, his best dress, was gone. He looked about the room, checked under the bed, and then lifted the blankets of Georgian’s bed, to peek underneath it. Where was his third dress? The last time he’d worn it, he’d been out with Galen…the last time he remembered it, he’d been dreaming. He didn’t want to think about that dream, not that horrible dream. He reached into the closet and pulled out an old everyday dress, the fine blue lawn shot through with narrow white stripes that caught the light and set his eyes off beautifully. Wira considered the garment. For nearly two years, it had been his favorite, the tried and true choice when he needed to make an appearance without soliciting businesses, but it had gone out of style right after Galen had been locked up, and so he never wore it again. Being out of style wasn’t its only crime, for today, the dress no longer appealed. Wira felt no frisson of pleasure, no matter how slight, at the thought of buttoning himself inside of it, of feeling the constant, heavy swish of skirts around his legs. “Hm.” - 122 -

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He hung the blue dress back in the closet and considered another. The working gown wouldn’t do -- the tight lines of the dress and bold colors made it clear that the wearer was after only one thing, and that thing was not to be sold at O’Reilly’s Grocery. Wira took up his narrow pants and the rough linen shirt, and as he stared at it he said, “If I am going to be living with Galen as a man, I may as vell dress as a man.” Yet he did not put the garments on.

He stood there,

holding them, thinking, watching the sunlight change angles as it slid into the room. One stray beam caught the brown neck of Georgian’s whiskey bottle, transforming the prosaic glass into something amber and warm. “Maybe a drink would settle my nerves,” Wira murmured. Yet he stayed his hand, thinking of what else a drink would do -- the silent children, riddled with spiders, haunting his every step. “Enough,” Wira snapped. His robe fell to the floor. It was time to dismiss his fears, time to move away from the past, as he’d demanded Galen to do.

Almost automatically, Wira

reached for his wig, stopping himself just as his fingertips brushed against the black curls. “Now that vould be a fine thing, vouldn’t it?” he laughed. “Not man nor voman but a little of both.” He took in his reflection in the mirror: a fine boned young man, slight - 123 -

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enough to be blown away in a good breeze, but unquestionably male. “Instead I’ll be just the man, for once.”

He felt changed, out of step, different -- yet the residents of Five Points paid Wira no more mind than if he'd stepped out all tarted up in his working dress. It took him half a block to settle his nerves, the journey made easier by the total lack of regard paid to him by his peers. Wira smiled, falling into an easy half trot. Maybe this was going to be a good day after all.

O’Reilly’s was not the best store in Five Points, but it did have a few things in its favor. It was cleaner than most and the prices were fair. More than that, though, O’Reilly welcomed everyone: it didn’t matter if your money came from the bank proper or the banker’s guilty conscience -- it could all be spent at O’Reilly’s. “What can I do for you, me boyo?” Seamus O’Reilly’s voice was bigger than the rest of him, and that was very large indeed. The rich Irish baritone filled the shop, bouncing off the rafters

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and echoing in the valleys between the shelves. “Just got in some fine whiskey from home, don’tcha know.” “Now, Seamus, you know I don’t drink.” Wira turned to look the shop keeper directly in the eye and let his eyelashes droop just a fraction. “Or have you forgotten me already?” “Wira!” O’Reilly did a double take before breaking into rich laughter. “God’s own truth and I didn’t know you. It’s not often I see you out without your feathers on.”

He smiled

kindly, and peered over Wira’s shoulder. “And where is Georgian this morning? Did you bring the lovely lady with you?” Wira smiled. “Not today, Mr. O’Reilly, although she did send me with her best wishes for you.” O’Reilly beamed. “And you bring my best wishes back to her. You know I hold Miss Georgian in the highest regard.” “I vas hoping you would say that,” Wira confided, leaning close to the grocer. It was odd to engage with Seamus man-toman, although he’d talked with the Irishman a million times before. “For you see, Georgian is feeling a little peaked. I’m hoping you can help me find a deal good, so I might for to make her a stew and build up her strength again.” “Do you think,” O’Reilly asked, “That she might stop by and see me after she’s feeling less…peaked?” Wira smiled. “You’re such a nice man,” he purred, “that I can’t see how she could help herself.”

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“I’m pretty sure,” O’Reilly said, straightening up and wiping his hands on his broad, white apron, “that I’ve got some nice stew meat back here with your name on it. Follow me.” They passed through the narrow confines of the store, past the barrels of plastery flour, past the half-sold sacks of beans, past the open door that led to the butcher’s alley, just before the meat counter. Wira paused. Standing there, in the open doorway, was a small mulatto boy, skin as fine as French coffee, eyes dark and accusatory. He was staring at Wira but didn’t say a word, lush lips carefully pressed together. His hands were clasped behind his back, as if he were a school boy, about to recite for the class. Wira looked away, toward the meat counter. O’Reilly held up a finger, gesturing for Wira to wait as he attended to another customer. Why isn’t that boy in school? Wira thought suddenly. It’s the middle of the day. He whipped his head around to look at the boy -- but there was nobody there. The doorway was empty, as was the butcher’s alley beyond. “Wira?” It was Seamus O’Reilly. “What d’ye think Miss Georgian would like?” Wira turned his attention back to the meat case, mouth already watering at the thought of rich stew meat or even, if O’Reilly was particularly charitable or hopeful, some chops. - 126 -

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But that was not what the case held. No, revealed behind the thick, slanted glass was something else entirely. Something horrible. Wira’s hands flew to his mouth as he took in the trays of tiny, severed arms, each capped with a child’s hand. Next to them was a bowl of toes, neatly snipped and soaking in brine. Carefully tied roasts were clearly cut from youthful thighs, the skin still attached and fringed round the edges. A small sign advertised fresh livers for pennies a pound. The bile surged up from Wira’s stomach, propelling itself upward with cataclysmic force. He spun on his heel and raced from the shop, O’Reilly’s cries of “Wira? Lad, what’s wrong?” keeping company with him until he gained the street. A nearby alley caught the contents of his stomach, the hot fear

and

revulsion

bubbling

out

of

Wira’s

mouth

uncontrollably and splashing on the snowy flagstones. The residents of Five Points who paid Wira no mind earlier certainly noticed him now, comments on his sobriety or lack thereof flowing fast and furious from passersby as he retched his horror away. “Sad lot, that one,” Wira heard one man say, with a voice she’d heard cry for Jesus many a time. “Was a pretty little thing till the Mongoose got a hold of him. Now look. Drunk as a lord, and not even noon.” “Dupa,” Wira muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m not drunk.” - 127 -

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Yet the ground was not steady under his feet, pitching slightly forward and to the left as Wira struggled to remain upright.

If it weren’t for the handy support of a nearby

building, the young man would have collapsed into his own vomit. “But I don’t know vat is vrong with me. I must be sick.” A fever would explain everything, Wira thought. Explain the bad dreams, explain the awful vision at O’Reilly’s, explain the difficulty he had now with even standing upright. And he did feel hot -- so hot that the snowflakes seemed to sizzle when they fell against his forehead, melting almost instantly into salty rivulets that ran down his cheeks. So hot, and so dizzy. It must be fever. “I must go home,” he announced to no one and everyone. “And go back to my warm bed.” No one tried to stop him.

“Home,” Wira sighed. “It’s good to be home.” The building steps were covered in a fine tracery of snow, marred only by the narrow strip worn away by passing feet. The foyer was thankfully empty, free from children and spiders alike, but Wira was in it no more than a moment when he began to feel afraid. How could you? The question was coming from nowhere and everywhere, delivered in a childish lisp. How could you? - 128 -

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“Bah!” Wira cried, flattening his hands over his ears, desperate to block out the sound. How could you? How could you? How could you? How could you? How could you? How could you? How could you? He took the stairs two at a time, racing upward to get to safety, to his flat, to home. The voices left him at the first landing, the faint echoes they were carving upon his consciousness fully faded by the second. Wira’s heartbeat had regained a somewhat normal rhythm when he hit the third and final landing, the one that brought him home. He smiled to see the familiar battered door -- poorly patched after Antonio and Galen’s go round, but whole just the same. And then that smile faded. For there, sitting on the mat, was a large hatbox, gaily striped bright blue and yellow, adorned with a large golden bow. It was the type of box that came from the most expensive shops in the city -- the type of thing only heard about, never actually seen, in Five Points. Certainly never seen sitting on the mat of a whore’s flat. Wira’s stomach plummeted into his feet. If the box was here, it meant someone sent it.

And he knew who that

someone was. The box was heavy, far heavier than a hat would be. Wira startled at the heft of the box and sat it back squarely on the - 129 -

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mat. He squatted on his heels, staring fearfully at the striped sides. What was inside the colorful cardboard? Something foul, no doubt, something sent to give him nightmares and send him crying into the street. Out, where he was vulnerable. Out, where anyone could grab him -- the way he’d been grabbed before, so long ago… A wise man would have left it -- or kicked the box down the stairs, so it could share the lobby with whatever fearful spirit had taken up residence there. Wira was many things. A wise man was not necessarily one of them. Curiosity is a demanding mistress, and she was out in spades this day, sitting on Wira’s shoulder, shouting questions in his ear. What is in the box? Who sent it? What’s inside? “I don’t vant to know,” Wira said, straightening up. “It’s better not to know.” The box sat at his feet, stoically concealing its secrets. It was almost mocking Wira -- how could a man, it asked, be afraid of a hat box, tied with ribbon, sent from one of the most expensive shops in town? Perhaps, it suggested, he had abandoned his dresses too soon. Wira growled, feeling cornered in his conflict with the box. Pinned in his position, arguing with the inanimate: afraid of

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what? A slow burning anger caught flame then, spurring Wira to action. He grabbed one end of the ornate golden ribbon and tugged, pulling with all of his might. The top of the hatbox came away with it, tumbling onto the mat. Wira leaned over the hat box and peered inside. His head was in there, eyes wide open and grinning at Wira. Wira jumped backwards, slamming against the wall. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

He stared, wide eyed, at the

monstrosity on the mat. It was clearly Him, with his wavy hair and pronounced features, His demonic eyes seemingly pinned on Wira, watching his panic from afar. Terror took him then, coursing through his veins, flooding his heart, overwhelming his brain. Wira was barely conscious of the fact he was running. There was no time to contemplate the wisdom of attempting to flee a severed head, much less the nerve that it would take to make the leap clear over the hat box. He just did it, crashing shoulder first into the flat door, collapsing onto the floor when it opened for him. He scrambled upright in the twinkling of an eye, slamming the door behind him. The chain lock, the chair wedged under the door knob -- all of these were meaningless gestures, Wira knew, if anyone really wanted to gain entrance to the flat, but he did them anyway.

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He pulled the curtains shut, in the front room and over the tiny rectangle of glass that illuminated Georgian’s room. If I can’t see out, Wira reasoned, no one can see in. The failure in this logic -- that obviously the forces determined to hurt him weren’t bound by the laws of physics -didn’t escape him. That’s when Wira started to pace… heavy, unfamiliar boots tapping out rounds of anxiety on the floor as he circled from bed to stove to window and back again. En route, he passed by Georgian’s whiskey bottle. Again and again and again, the brown glass looking more and more welcoming with every circuit. Comfort and oblivion were there, for the drinking. At last he stopped and unscrewed the top. The scent cut through him, thin and strong -- Georgian was an adherent of the quantity over quality school of liquor buying. “My God, Georgian. I could strip the paint vith this!” Wira said, setting the bottle down.

“Still, maybe a small glass vould do me

good.” Then something hit the door -- something heavy, something solid. Something that crashed against the panels and then slid, broken, to the floor. “Who’s there?” Wira called, willing the shakiness from his voice. “Who has made this noise?” There was no answer. Wira had not expected one.

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The door was creaking, protesting the sudden force pushing against it. Wira shuddered. Could it be His body, come to rejoin His head? He shook his head. Maybe it was Georgian, who looked into the box and fainted away from sheer fright.

Wira

shuddered at the thought of his friend in the hallway, unconscious and vulnerable, right next to that…that…thing. “I have to do something,” he whispered, and yet was unable to move. His mind was racing, filled with images of Georgian - or worse, of Galen -- prone and helpless in the hallway, exposed to His evil gaze, His malevolent stare. It was more than he could bear. “Hold on, Georgian!” Wira cried, swallowing his fear and striding across the room. He pulled the chair out from under the door knob, and grabbed the knob. “I’m coming for to save you!” The grand gesture, the noble thing, would be to fling the door open and pull Georgian inside. But Wira had lived on the street long enough to know that the grand gesture is the quickest way to get killed, and he had no plans to die this day. He pulled the door open a fraction of an inch and peered into the hallway. A choir of dead children stared back. A dozen boys, none more than five years old, all bearing grievous wounds, were arranged in front of the doorway. Those that still had their

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eyes were staring at Wira, while them that didn’t just directed gaping, bloody sockets in his direction. Rats thronged round their feet, swarming like swirling flood waters, long black bodies surging into every corner of the foyer, naked tails flailing around like obscene, fleshy grass, red eyes staring, naked sharp teeth constantly chattering. Behind them the walls ran red with blood. Wira stared at it for a moment, trying to discern a pattern in the viscous crimson flow -- anything to keep from looking at that horrible assemblage of brutalized children -- but it wasn’t enough. As if by magic, his eyes were drawn back to their faces, to their accusing stares. Then, in unison, they began to raise their arms. Some were pointing, the flesh dripping off of skeletal fingers, while others had only half-limbs to gesture with. All of them were focused on Wira, pinned there in the narrow doorway. “You!” they hissed, frothy bubbles of bloody saliva cascading from their broken jaws with every word.

“How

could you?” “No!” Wira screamed. He stepped back, and attempted to push the door shut again. “It vasn’t me! Leave me alone!” But the surging tide of rats would have nothing to do with that. The rodent tide ebbed for a moment, drawing back at the panicked sound of Wira’s voice, but as he pushed the door shut it came crashing back, slamming into the thin wood with a fury. No matter how hard Wira pushed, he couldn’t get the door - 134 -

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shut. He couldn’t keep the rats outside -- couldn’t stop their slick black bodies from tumbling through the crevasse, couldn’t maintain a barrier between himself and those chattering, gnawing, glistening teeth. After the rats came the blood, wave upon scarlet wave of blood, splashing over the teeming black mass of rodent bodies to spill into the flat, cascading over the floor to engulf the furniture. Wira jumped backwards, to keep his feet out of the surging red tide, only to land upon a rat. It squealed mightily, twisting around to escape, sinking its long, broad teeth into the back of Wira’s ankle. “Baahh!” Wira screamed, kicking his leg forward and back until the rat let go and cartwheeled through space, only to crash into the writhing, twisting mass of its brethren. “Get out! Get away!” His words went unheeded, both by the rats and by the quickly deepening pools of blood, now standing three inches deep upon the floor. Little ribbons of steam rose from the red surface here and there, as the warm fluid contrasted with the chillier air. “No!”

Wira screamed until he was hoarse, his voice

growing louder and louder, until it was one long continual shriek, peaking when the blood splashed round his ankles. “NOOOO!”

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It was time to run, run like he’d never run before. Wira sprinted toward Georgian’s room. Perhaps he could pull that door shut and find some shelter in the smaller chamber. It was no good. That floor was already covered in blood. A pair of rats was tumbling together on Georgian’s pillow, making use of the downy expanse to breed the next generation of foulness. Wira whirled away. He looked frantically toward the door, but there was no way out there. Even if he made it through the blood and past the snarling, biting hedge of rats, the children were still there, blocking his exit with their bloodied limbs and baleful eyes. Where to go? Where to go? The chimney was too narrow, even for his slender hips. Only one exit remained. “Lord, forgive me,” Wira breathed, crossing himself in a gesture he’d long thought forgotten. Then he bowed his head and ran straight at the window. To say the glass shattered would be an understatement, as it would evoke images of shards sparkling knifelike in the gray winter light, crystalline diamonds of cutting pain framing Wira’s dramatic descent earthward. No.

The glass did not shatter.

It lacked that sort of

cohesiveness. When faced with the explosive nature of Wira’s terror, the window vaporized: the glass became no more than dust, millions upon millions of ground glass fragments - 136 -

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tinkling to the ground like so much snow. It was an ashy white cloud of sharp death that wrapped round Wira then, buoying him downward, slowing his descent in a sharpened silicate blur. The cloud softened things, cutting as it did into the edges of Wira’s perspective.

He barely had time to recognize his

impending demise for what it was, much less realize that the ground was approaching him far more quickly than he’d ever imagined possible. Snow looks soft. It looks soft when it falls, taking on an even softer aspect as it billows here and there upon the ground in great, heaping banks. It looked particularly soft as it fluffed up around Wira’s crashing form, announcing his arrival with a rooster tail spray of ivory moisture. But it was not soft. It was so not soft that after Wira hit the snow, he not only lost all illusions of softness, he lost all illusions period. He moaned once, lifted his head a fraction of an inch, and closed his eyes. Then he did not move again.

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8

The Guilty One.

“Oy, Mongoose!” Galen looked up to see Charles Clancy. “You’ve a minute, me boyo?” Galen sighed. “Mebbe I do.” His mother’s friends only noticed him when they wanted something, and they only wanted two things: money and money. At the moment, he had neither to spare. “Your Mum just wanted me to chase you down. She wants you to know she’s right sorry.” “What?” Galen looked down, more than half ready for the knife.

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He knew his mother was a treacherous lass, but didn’t expect death to come from this corner. But there was no shiny blade, no blunt-nosed gun flush against his gut. “Sorry for what?” “For that lass of yours, of course.” Clancy looked more than half-sick with it, his condition worsening quickly as he realized that Galen hadn’t yet heard the news. “Wot that went out the window.”

Galen had never run so fast in his life. Not from a Top Hat, not from a Long Coat -- hell, not even from Him, back in the day when He needed running from. Miles disappeared beneath his feet, one after the other, as he rushed through Five Points. Fine folk and bowery bums all felt his elbow if they got in his way, with not a syllable spared in apology. wasn’t time. Not if Wira was hurt.

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The door flew open. The handle crashed into the plaster wall, setting up a fine spray of white dust.

Metal hinges

actually stretched under the assault, barely managing to hold on to the door. “What’s going on?” Galen burst through the door like a tornado, fists bunched up. He was ready to fight if he needed to, heart racing and adrenaline pumping. “Where’s Wira? What happened here?” Georgian stood up from behind the daybed. “Look.” Great arms spread, framing the scene. “Look here.” Wira lay on the daybed, thin and paler than Galen had ever seen him. A million small cuts marked his hands and forearms, matched by a skittery network of red scratches that covered his face. A purple bruise extended from one elbow to a bandaged wrist, with a sickly black-yellow twin on the other arm. Georgian had carefully wrapped Wira in bandages, swathing him round in white bands. Both of Wira’s eyes were closed. His chest was rising and falling regularly, but ever so slowly.

Each breath took an

eternity; lungs’ filling at a snail’s pace, emptying half as fast. Galen sighed. The adrenaline that had pushed him across town soured in his system, sliding bile-like into his stomach and making him cold. Wira was alive, clearly. The fact that his lover only barely came down on the right side of the line that separated the living from the dead was also readily apparent to Galen. - 140 -

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Georgian looked at Galen. It was clear that she had been crying, what with red-rimmed eyes and the normally laughing mouth drawn up in a sorrowful knot. “What happened, Georgian?” He shook his head and looked down at Wira. Almost against his own volition, his hand snuck over and rested on Wira’s thin shoulder. “Why’d she do it?” “Little boy came by from Wilson’s. He was coming by to deliver me new wig.” Georgian hugged herself tight, and nodded toward the squat hatbox on the kitchen table. She took a deep shuddering breath and recrossed her arms, snugging them tight over the vast expanse of her chest. “He told me he knocked three times, but no one answered the door. So he left the wig.” She broke into sobs then, a fresh spill of large wet tears rolling down the ebony expanse of her cheeks. “He left the wig.” “Yeah?” “So he got himself outside. He heard him a noise, so he looked up. Next thing he knows, our Dubuya comes flying out the window. She crashed all the way down, right into the snow!” Galen sank into a chair, his head falling heavy into his hands.

“Someone brings a hat by and she jumps out the

window?” He shook his head. “Fuck me, that don’t make no kind of sense.” The brown edge of the whiskey bottle caught

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his eye, and he looked up angrily. “Less of course she’s been drinking…” “She ain’t had a drop of that!” Georgian said quickly. “I swear to it, on me Momma’s honor!” Galen looked at her, sharp. The Mongoose was in the room then, and Georgian knew it full well. If her next words weren’t the right ones, they could very well be her last ones. “Galen, that bottle being empty is my doing.” Georgian was firm. “I patched Dubuya up,” she continued, resolve slipping just a fraction as she looked over at Wira’s bandaged body. “And then I got me a nice drunk on.” The tears started again. “I’s so tired, Galen. So tired of the heartbreak.” Galen walked over to Wira, and looked down at his sleeping lover. “What’s going on with her?” There was a catch in his voice, slight enough that it wouldn’t be heard by any who didn’t know Galen well. “So much heartbreak. Maybe I should have stayed away.” There was a half-hiccup then, closer to a sob than the Irishman would ever own up to. “For her sake.’ Georgian knew Galen. She heard the pain in his voice, knew its source. “You’re damned if you do, boy, damned if you don’t. Dubuya loves you, and you love her.

No sense in

punishing yourself for it.” Her hand was heavy on his shoulder, comforting, almost maternal. “Not when life is too busy punishing you.”

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“So why’d she jump?” Bright eyes turned on Georgian, angry and sorrowful. “Tell me that! If she loves me so damn much, why’d she go out a window?” Georgian shrugged.

“Who knows, Potato, why anybody

does anything?” “Georgian.” The Mongoose had not traveled too far, apparently. “Don’t give me that.” Two fat, slow tears trembled at the corners of Georgian’s eyes. Poverty’s diamonds, they were, shining in the light and setting off the regal lines of Georgian’s face. “What do you want me to say, Galen? I got nothing good to tell you.” Heavy steps then, the floorboards creaking as Georgian crossed the room to look out the window. There was a long pause. Galen waited. When Georgian did decide to speak again, it wasn’t to him that she was talking. Her words were aimed at the darkness outside. “She’s been talking crazy again.

About them children.

She’s seeing them everywhere.” A long, slow shake of the head. “It’s been real bad since winter came on, when we got that first snow.” Georgian looked over her shoulder. Her eyes locked with Galen’s. “Dubuya told me that they’re coming every day now, everywhere she goes.” “I thought they only came when she was drinking.” Galen’s voice was sharp, the tone accusatory. “That’s what you told me, your own self.”

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“And now my own self is telling you she hasn’t touched a drop. Not one.” Galen was standing on one side of Wira, Georgian at the window.

They stared at each other over Wira’s broken,

battered body, fuming. It’d be hard to say which of the pair of them were angrier then, or who had the most fear wrapped round their ire. Then Wira gave a soft, pained moan, turning awkwardly onto his side. “Oy,” Galen sighed, head dropping forward. He dropped to his knees, lips a few inches from Wira's ears. “I’m here, baby. Galen’s here.” His eyes rose to meet Georgian’s, and then rapidly dropped away. It wasn’t his way to let anyone -- not even close friends like Georgian -- see his pain. Georgian took the short trip around the daybed and lay one hand on Galen’s shoulder. “Sit with her a spell, would ya? I got to go get us some fresh water.” Her eyes fell on the drum in the corner. “I used up most of what we had, patching him up.” “I can get it.” “No.” Georgian was firm. “You can set here with Dubuya a spell.” Her eyebrow arched upward. “You can’t just be full of heart and soul when the lights are down and your clothes hit the floor.” “I know that.” “Do you?” Georgian turned her back on Galen and headed for the door. “Then act like you know it.” The rickety door - 144 -

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creaked open. “That’ll do Dubuya more good than any medicine we can buy.” Wira’s breath was long and ragged, the only sound in the silent flat. Galen sat on the bed beside him, watching the narrow, bandaged chest rise and fall. Breathing was clearly an effort -- Wira, unconscious, winced with every inhalation, fists clenching reflexively at the sheets.

A slow, steady rattle

accompanied the air out of his lungs, clacking raspily along a scream-ravaged windpipe before emerging as the wispy memory of pain. Galen stood up and began pacing the floor. The thought of losing Wira was unbearable -- but sitting here, watching him cling to life wasn’t any easier. Galen closed his eyes, watching the starbursts of pain arc across his consciousness. Bright flashes of guilt and responsibility burned him.

Wira’s life hadn’t been perfect

while Galen’d been inside, but at least it had been manageable. A steady gig whoring with Georgian, under Missus Delorian’s watchful, if mercenary, eye. He’d had food a-plenty, clothes to wear. Even some little excursions across the river with Georgian. Some simple fun. “Then I came back,” Galen muttered, opening his eyes to stare at his battered lover. “And now look at you. Near on to dead, because of me.” Memory stepped up then, to give him some slight reprieve from conscience’s steady prickings. After all, Galen mused, if - 145 -

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it hadn’t been for him, Wira never would have escaped from Him so long ago. He wouldn’t have had any kind of life at all: good, bad, or indifferent. It would have been snuffed out in that Fifth Avenue flat, cut short long ago by a jagged-edged blade wielded by a dead-eyed maniac. “Uurgh,” Wira moaned, shifting in his sleep. “It hurtsss.” “Baby?” Galen was at his side in a moment, musing cast aside in the face of more pressing reality. “Are you okay? I’m here.” Wira’s eyes fluttered open, the ice blue orbs clearly focused on some other reality than the one before him.

“We got

away…” Galen took Wira’s hand in his, swallowing at how very, very cold his lover’s fingers were. Like icy sticks they were -tangible proof that Wira was closer to death than to life. “Got away from what, Wira?” Wira’s eyes snapped fully open. Suddenly he was scrambling backward against the sheets, flattening his palms against the mattress for leverage, re-opening a million little wounds with every move.

Bright red spots blossomed

everywhere, soaking through his bandages, staining the sheets. The flinty smell of spilt blood filled the room. “They didn’t get away!” His eyes were wide, sweat already forming on his forehead. “They didn’t make it!” Wira’s gaze fell on Galen, crazed and accusatory. “How could you… how could you do that to them?” - 146 -

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Galen was half on the bed, arms reaching out for Wira. “Do what?” Wira shoved himself further back, just out of reach. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you put your hands on me!” “Wira, what am I supposed to ‘ave done?” Galen caught Wira, pulled him bodily back onto the bed a split second before the smaller man would have tumbled to the floor. “Tell me that!” Wira was thrashing around in his arms like a thing possessed, head whipping to the left and then to the right. His fists crashed into Galen’s chest, bouncing harmlessly until a stray hook caught Galen square in the jaw. Startled, Galen opened his arms, letting Wira fall back onto the bed. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He stood up, stepping backward from the bed. “You’re acting like a crazy man!” “Don’t you see?” Wira sat up, pulling the quilts over him, a pathetic attempt at fabric armoring. “They didn’t get away. Not like us. Nobody saved them. But then you…” “What?” Galen’s arms flew up in the air. “What did I do?” Wira’s arm flew out, one bony finger jabbing Galen squarely in the chest. “I told you to forget about Him. To let it go!” He shook his head, and Galen watched, horror-struck, as Wira’s eyes started to roll back into his head. “How could you do that to them?”

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It was his last question before he passed out again, hitting the mattress like a freshly-felled calf. Small tremors shook his body, violently at first, before settling down into a constant wave of steady shivers. “Easy, babe.” Galen pulled the blankets carefully around Wira. He used a corner of a sheet to dab the rivers of sweat from Wira’s forehead.

“You’ve a fever, that’s all.

Talking

madness.” Wira turned into the gesture, drawing some comfort from Galen’s hand. For a moment all seemed to be well. And then, with a sudden start, all of Wira’s words slid into place in Galen’s mind.

Logic that had been lost in the

panicked delivery of his lover’s words reasserted itself, making Wira’s meaning plain to Galen: They weren’t the only boys who’d ever tangled with Him. They were just the only ones who got away.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Georgian was fury on two legs, arms crossed. The full drum of water was at her feet. She took up all of the doorway. “Dubuya needs you.” An eyebrow arched upward. “Here.” “Georgian, get out of my way.” “No.”

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“I caused this problem.” Galen looked over his shoulder, at Wira shivering through another fit. “And I damn well aim to fix it.” He looked back at Georgian. “Now you can get out of me way, or I swear to God I’ll cut you down where you stand.” There was a pleading note in his voice -- but it was only a thin one. “I’d hate to do it, but I will if I have to.” “You fix it, Potato,” Georgian said, stepping to the side, “or you don’t come back here. Ever.” “If I don’t fix it, Georgian,” Galen said, pushing into the hallway, “then I won’t be round to come back.”

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9

…were boys once.

The day had gone dark while he’d been watching Wira. All the respectable types were long off the streets by now. It was time for the less-savory characters to start thinking about calling it a day. Beds, no matter how humble, were beckoning loudly. It was a time for going in, not a time for heading out. Despite this, no one paid Galen any mind as he took to the snowy streets with an especial fury. The Mongoose kept his own hours, and if you were a wise man, you didn’t pay him any mind.

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Or you paid all kind of mind, but kept your mouth shut. The choosing depended largely on your definition of wisdom.

Angry as he was, it didn’t take Galen long to put Five Points behind him. It wouldn’t have been a long journey anyway: the distance between the slums he called home and the heights of Fifth Avenue was not that great, and it wasn’t the first time he’d made the journey. Not by a long shot. The first trip was definitely the most memorable, even though it had occurred near on a life time ago. Galen hadn’t been the Mongoose then. He hadn’t been anything, really. Just a wee strip of a lad who wanted to do something -anything -- to keep his Ma from crying. That’s all she’d been doing lately, what with Da gone for good and the landlord’s wife coming round to collect the monthly money personally herself. Galen had pondered having a conversation with the landlord’s wife, to try to make her go easy on his Ma, but she was a fearful sort of woman. Not the type to listen to Galen. Not yet, anyway. So the only other option was to find some money. To do something to bring in the funds and chase the tears from Ma’s

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eyes. He couldn’t bear to hear her crying anymore. Not if he could do something about it. Employment opportunities for a small boy were far and few between. So when He stopped by the lamp post and asked if anyone would be interested in a position, Galen jumped at it. “I know this whole city like the back of me hand, sir,” he’d assured the tall, large, imposing gentleman. “I can make deliveries anywhere you need ‘em to go.” He had smiled. “Well, let’s get you to the office. You can meet the others, and then we’ll get you started on a good day’s work.” “And earn a good day’s wages!” Galen had quipped, forcing a laugh from the big man. “That’s right, lad, that’s right.”

His hand had been

possessive, broad in the middle of Galen’s back as He propelled the small boy up the front stoop steps. “Let’s get things started.” The stoop now looked much the same as it did then, dark steps unremarkable in appearance: not too clean, nor too dirty. One chipped step kept the whole thing from looking too new, too attractive to the vandals. It just was, existing without notice. Unless, of course, you count the little ghost boy standing on the bottom stair. If Galen was pressed, he’d have given the boy three, maybe four years. Kids all looked the same at that age, all wide-eyed - 152 -

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innocence and angelic features. This one had ringlet curls, wreathed round his head like a golden cloud, neatly clipped to expose a fine, high forehead and disturbing clear blue eyes. Eyes like Wira’s. Someone had loved this boy once. That was clear from the fine cut of his clothes, the material perhaps not the best but carefully pieced together. Short pants were unwrinkled. If it weren’t for the large, gaping wound cut diagonally across his torso from shoulder to hip, you’d think the lad was just back from a day at the school. But he’d clearly had all the lessons he was ever going to have. The ghost boy and Galen regarded each other, twin stoics in the snow. Then the little boy pointed up the stairs, toward the battered door Galen knew all too well. Galen looked at the door, knowing that behind the shabby panels lay his fate. Then he looked back at the boy. But there was no boy to be seen. “That’s the way of it, eh?” Galen asked himself, swallowing once. Fear wasn’t going to help him now, so he let it slide deep down into his system to keep company with all those other emotions that had to know their place and avoid keeping the Mongoose from getting the job done. And it was clearly time to get to work.

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The door opened at a touch, creaking on hinges in dire need of oil. Galen swallowed. It was dusty in here, and dark. Just as he remembered it, although far dirtier now then it had been upon his last visit. The only light came slanting in through filthy windows, the illumination provided by streetlights only barely adequate to show the stairs. The stairs were narrower than he remembered, narrower and steeper. He had to turn his boots sideways to keep on the top three, the boards splintered and worn thin by the passage of countless feet. Countless small feet. The second door was less memorable than the first. Galen knew it only in its open form, being pushed wide by Him, welcoming Galen to his new ‘job’, being yanked open by Galen himself later that same day. But now the door was closed to him. There was a ring of filth round the handle, proof positive to Galen’s knowing eyes that the knob had been turned half a hundred times since his last visit. It would have to be turned one time more. Galen swallowed. He was not a fearful man, most times. He’d spent three years in Ludlow, and a lifetime in Five Points. There weren’t many things that gave him pause, not anymore, not now that he was grown. But one of those things kept court behind this door. The only denizen of Galen’s nightmares lived here. The darkest - 154 -

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corner of his memory listed this as its address. It was a place fear itself called home. It was also where Wira’s heartache came from.

Galen

steeled himself and turned the knob. For himself, he could let it go. But Wira wasn’t to suffer anymore. Not if he could help it. A cloud of flies rose in greeting at his entrance, glycerin wings catching the pale light and refracting it in a million murky directions. Their collective buzzing was nearly loud enough to drown out Galen’s in-drawn breath, his reflexive retching. The floor of the vast room was covered, corner to corner, with a foul, stinking stew of commingled sewage and blood, each improbably tainting the other. Dark, steaming islands rose from the slick maroon surface here and there, the room’s only furnishings. That didn’t matter. Galen had memories enough to fill the space.

There’d been no job, of course. No office full of eager delivery boys, running errands to the City’s furthest corners. No letters to deliver, no messages to be borne by tender hands and fleet feet. No. - 155 -

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There had been pain.

Pain from behind, knocking the

senses from him in one sudden sharp blow. Then, later, when the light -- brighter then than now -- had knifed through shuttered eyelids, there’d been the pain of the tight ropes binding him to a radiator. That wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it had been the sure knowledge that he was going to die that day, die without ever once making his Ma smile. He was going to die for nothing. He grinned at Galen, upon seeing him awaken. “I’ll get to you in a minute, boy.” His teeth were sharp, sharper than Galen had noticed before. “But I’ve got a little business that needs attending to here.” That’s when Galen saw Wira. Wira was tiny then, no more than a slip of a boy. His hair was wavy, flailing around his shoulders as he frantically tried to get out of His grip. He was making pretty good progress, even though both arms were bound behind him, until He backhanded Wira, rocketing his head over and to the side with a sudden, sickening snap. “Settle down or I’ll twist your head right off your shoulders!” He grabbed Wira’s legs and tipped him onto his back. “Do you understand me?” “I understand plenty!” Wira planted a well-placed foot deep in His thigh. “Let me go!” There was no intelligible response, only a growl. Wira’s eyes got wide, cries dying in his throat as He wrenched the - 156 -

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shoe for Wira’s foot and flung it across the room. Heavy hands fell on Wira’s waist, thick fingers scrambling over the narrow buttoned fly. Galen couldn’t watch -- not when opportunity itself just landed in his lap. Wira’s shoe boasted a shiny sharp buckle, one that Galen immediately pressed into service cutting through the thick, coarse ropes binding his hands. It was awkward work, but terror is a strong motivator. “Aargh!”

He startled backwards, surprised at what

Wira’s opened pants revealed.

“What’s wrong with you,

boy?” He leaned forward again, growling. “If you’re a boy at all, with that freaky stubbin.”

A viscous kick to the ribs

turned Wira sideways on the floor, gasping for breath. “I don’t want no diseased circus freaks, bringing me the pox.” Another backhand then, spurred by anger and fear. The blood has started to flow from Wira’s nose. The crimson trickle seems to inflame yet infuriate Him. He reached between Wira’s legs, cruelly grasping what he found there in an oversized fist. “What is this?” He shook, and Wira screamed loud enough that the pigeons on the roof heard and took wing in their fear. “What are you?” Wira was sobbing, tears borne of pain mingling with those created by fear and long-worn confusion.

Still, he

looked up, blue eyes managing to convey some small measure of defiance. “I don’t know,” he spat. “But leave me alone!”

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“You’re not a little boy, at any rate.” He grabbed Wira by the shoulder and pulled him half upright. "You’re just a waste of my time.” A vicious shake then. “But I’ll be rid of you in a minute.” Wira got his feet under him and started to scramble for the door. “I don’t think so,” He growled. One large hand caught hold of Wira’s ankle, yanking the small boy off balance. “Not today.” Wira hit the ground hard. “I said let me go!” he cried, pivoting on his hip. One foot was still shod, still wearing a stiff leather shoe. He used that foot to lash out, all of his fury and fear centered in one strike -- a strike that connected squarely with His crotch. He bellowed in pain, doubling over for a far too brief moment. “I’ll kill you for that,” He growled. “But I’ll make you beg for it. You’ll pray for death before I’m done with you.” “I don’t think so.” Galen had cut through the last inches of rope and launched himself at Him. He might still be young, but he was young and from Five Points -- which meant he knew enough about scrapping to put a big man down, at least for a few. He was flat on his back and gasping for breath. “Come on,” Galen said, grabbing Wira by the arm. “We’ve got to go now!”

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Wira was right behind him, running as fast as they could out of the flat. They’d barely cleared the door before He started to move, their feet just gaining the stairway when He called out, “Come back here, you little bastards!” They clambered down the stairs, faster than thought, nearly falling head over heels in their desperation to get away. The front door was shut fast, barred and locked. Galen took it at a run, slamming his narrow shoulder into it until the panel splintered into an exit. “You can’t get away!” His feet sounded like thunder, like fireworks, like the cannonade in the parade yard, booming as he descended the staircase. Each step was an explosion, louder and more terrifying than the step before. “I’ll rip the flesh from your bones, I will!” “Go!” Galen said, pushing Wira toward the narrow break in the door. “Get away from here!” “What about you?”

Wira’s eyes were wide. He was

halfway down the staircase. In a few steps, He would have them again. “Don’t you worry about me.” In the face of it all, Galen was calm, reassuring. Decisive. Authoritative. “I’ll take care of things. Let’s get you out.” Wira nodded, and ducked through the narrow opening. He fit through easily, his slight form passing through the splintered boards to safety. Galen followed close on his heels, - 159 -

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but it was a tighter fit. He’d made it halfway through, when he felt His hands closing round his ankle. “Oy!” Galen cried. “Let go, you bloody freak!” Wira, who had been running for his life, heard Galen’s cry. He froze, midstep, and then did something incredible. He came back. Freedom was his for the taking, but he came back for Galen. His long, narrow hands grabbed hold of Galen’s desperate ones, and he pulled with all of his might. At the same time, Galen felt His teeth sinking into his ankle. Rage flooded through his system. That rage, coupled with pain and panic proved to be a heady, powerful combination. His other foot drew backwards, and he kicked with all of his might, letting the toe of his heavy leather boot crash into His temple. There was a muffled roar of pain and surprise from behind him. It was the most beautiful sound Galen had ever heard, especially coupled with Wira’s grunts of exertion, and the final, wrenching, splintered surrender of the door. The two boys tumbled, arse over appetite, backwards down the stoop stairs.

They crashed onto the sidewalk,

inches in front of an old Italian matron, clearly on her way to the grocers. “Careful, you two!” She waved her hands at them. “You’re a-gonna hurt someone, roughhousing that-a way!” “Yes, Ma’am,” they answered reflexively. “Sorry, Ma’am.” - 160 -

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Then Galen grabbed Wira’s hand, and they ran for home. Never once looking back. Until now.

Galen shook his head. This was a mistake. This place was tainted, made wretched with too many memories, too much death. He was a fool to think that he and Wira were the only boys He ever took. Not that he thought about it.

Those were the type of

thoughts a wise man avoided, if he could. No good came from borrowing trouble, not when you had enough of your own. Coming here was crazy. He wasn’t here. Galen knew that better than anybody. It was just an empty flat, made foul by vagrants and mischief makers. The city had plenty of both, though empty flats were hard to come by. Surprising that they’d chosen to wreck the place rather than set up a squatters home, but maybe they could pick up on the foul feel of the place, the residual effect of His evil. Galen had wasted enough time. It was time to go. The fact that he could feel eyes on him, watching his every move, practically reading the thoughts from his skull, had nothing to do with his decision to flee. He was ready to go --

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nothing more than his own will made Galen turn on his heel and wrench the door open again. Nothing but his own desires spurred his steps quickly, quickly, quickly down the staircase. He was taking the rotted risers at a half-run because he wanted to, not because he was scared of anything. That’s what Galen was telling himself, anyway, when the staircase collapsed and he fell into the vast darkness below.

“Vere are ve going?” Wira asked, murmuring through his dreams. “I vant for to go home.” Wira turned on the bed, his arm stretched out next to him. He could almost feel Galen’s hand in his, pulling him forward, urging him to move quicker. They were almost home, almost safe. Almost away from Him. Wira shook then, convulsively, a tremor rocking through him from the base of his feet to the top of his skull. It was strong enough, sudden enough, to jar him out of his dream and render him fully awake. He looked around and found safety. This was his bed he was lying in.

These were his

blankets wrapped around him. In the next room, snoring to beat the band, was his Georgian. All should have been well in the world. But it was not. - 162 -

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“Enough,” Wira told the darkened room. “Ve have to stop with the running sometime.” Georgian gave a great sigh and rolled over in her bed, muttering in her sleep. “Poor, poor Dubuya.” “I’m tired of poor Dubuya.” Wira’s feet hit the floor, and he stalked to the closet. He yanked open the closet door. “Vhat am I?” And from the depths of the darkness, resonating through Wira’s mind, His voice answered, echoing Wira’s words. “What are you?” Gowns spilled out of the closet: the fine blue lawn, the colorful working gown. They cascaded to the floor around Wira, a heap of soft, silken ruffles.

“I’m a woman,” Wira

whispered, just as his mother promised him he’d be. “A woman.” “…not a little boy,” His voice confirmed. Wira pulled his pants from the closet, holding them while looking at the rough linen shirt, still hanging from its peg. “I’m not a boy. I’m a boy. I’m not a boy.” The confusion was overwhelming Wira, despite a lifetime’s companionship with it. The next words were near a wail. “I’m not a man.” “You’re a waste of my time.” He was hissing like a snake, the sound of evil given voice. “A waste of everyone’s time.” Wira kicked at the gowns piled at his feet, sending the fabric sliding across the floor. “I’m not a woman,” he raged. “And I’m not a boy. I’m not a man.” - 163 -

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His voice was getting louder with every syllable, screams sliding into well-worn tracks along his throat. “I’M NOT A WASTE OF TIME!” Wira’s fury was loud enough to cut through Georgian’s dreams, even those put in place with the assistance of the better part of a bottle of whiskey. “Whassat?” she said, sitting bolt upright in bed. “What’s going on? Dubuya, what’s the matter?” “I’m more,” Wira said, shaking his pants toward her bedroom door, “more than vhat it is I have in my pants!” “Of course you are, honey.” Georgian’s eyes were wide with fear. “Of course you are.” Her platitudes fell on deaf ears. “I’m Vira! I am who I am!” Wira continued, sliding the top of the dress over his trousers. “I cannot just choose!” The bodice engulfed him for a minute, yet Wira never stopped talking. His words were muted until his head emerged from the neckhole, “I’m not vhat all people need me to be!” His hand went out automatically for his coat, but then he stopped, taking in the clearly feminine lines of the garment. He yanked it down and pulled it over his shoulders as he headed for the door. “Dubuya,” Georgian called. “Where are you going?” She did not get an answer.

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Wira pushed the front door open. The streets were still wrapped in darkness, without even a sliver of moonlight. It was the dead of night -- yet Wira found that he was not alone. Directly across the street from his stoop stood a small Italian boy, dark eyed and silent. For once, Wira did not run. Instead, he advanced on the child, fury propelling his steps toward the apparition. “Vhy for are you haunting me?” he demanded, bending at the waist until his eyes were level with the boy’s brown gaze. “Vhat did I do?” The boy said nothing. Wira was not surprised. He stood there, arms crossed, awaiting his answer. At long last it came.

A short, stubby arm was lifted,

childish fingers folded into a parody of direction, clearly pointing south. “This is the vay that you vant me to go?” Wira looked down the street and then back to the boy. “This vay?” The boy said nothing, but his arm did not waver. Wira turned his feet and headed south on the empty street. He could hear the little boy’s footsteps behind him, eerily solid on the snow. Wira walked out of the tattered corner of Five Points that he called home, past the shuttered tenements.

All of the

businesses were closed at this hour: the restaurants had fed the last diners long ago. Even the most die-hard drinkers had slipped from their stools into dreamland, leaving Wira alone. - 165 -

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Or perhaps not so alone. His ghostly companion had been joined by another boy. This one was dressed in the thinnest of rags, the shirt no more than a pair of sleeves and a neckline, ripped away to expose a gaunt belly. Wira could do no more than glance at him before the urge to bolt away became overwhelming, so he forced his eyes away. He had run enough. Today it had to stop. When they reached Galen’s corner, a trio of ghostly boys was waiting. Clearly Jewish, they were far from home -- but their mothers had given up on waiting for them a long time ago. Each wore a grisly red gash etched round his neck, an obscene necklace. In unison, they raised their arm, indicating which way Wira should go. He gave them a respectful nod and adjusted his course accordingly. The trio fell in step with the pair behind him. They’d not gone half a block when a pair of black boys, clearly brothers, joined them. The urge to run, to get away, to flee from this shambling horror, hung heavy on Wira. Every fiber of his being wanted to escape, to pretend that he could avoid whatever fate was tailing him, but he knew that he could not. If he ran, they would just find him again, as they’d done so many times before. And Wira was tired of running. - 166 -

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After all, there were more of them -- half a dozen brutalized boys, awaiting him on the corner. Wira swallowed. “Vhat do you vant from me?” The oldest child, maybe six years old, looked at him and smiled. A small spider crawled out of the socket that should have held his eye and perched on the perfect peaches and cream cheek, a perverse blemish. He said nothing, merely pointed. Pointed and led the others to join the morbid parade following Wira. It was, without a doubt, the longest journey Wira had ever made. Once he set foot on Fifth Avenue, he realized that it was probably the last trip he was ever going to make as well. “Oh no,” Wira said, taking in the battered front door. A well-dressed blond boy, head wreathed round with ringlets, suddenly appeared and descended the stoop. He was more present, more animated, than the dozen ghoulish boys who had accompanied Wira on his journey. His eyes were bright blue, shining with a fury that Wira had never seen before. He stopped his descent half a foot from Wira, and looked up at him. “How could you?” he asked, the words well-formed and full of pain. “How could you leave him in here?” He spread his hands, encompassing the dozens of boys now surrounding Wira. “With us?”

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A blinding burst of pain rolled through Wira’s mind, accompanied by the dream image of him and Galen, tossing the crate containing His dismembered body down the cellar stairs. Maybe it hadn’t been a dream. Maybe it had, somehow, in some awful, unfathomable way, been real. “My God!” Wira cried, throwing his hands up in despair. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” The push came from behind, small ghostly hands suddenly real and surprisingly powerful. Wira went with it, shoving past the small blond boy and charging headlong up the stairs. Anything to get away from those accusing, knowing eyes. Anything to get away from the responsibility.

The hardest thing in this world to see is a hole in darkness. It takes a calm mind and careful eye to perceive subtle variations in the blackness, to discern what is merely a nightwrapped solidity and what is the gaping void. Wira had neither at the moment. He didn’t even see the hole in the staircase until he was plunging through it. That didn’t stop his hands from grasping, desperately scrabbling in the dark for something to give him purchase and stop his rapid descent into the unknown. Rough brick walls - 168 -

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promised succor for a moment, only to belie themselves by crumbling away to dust under Wira’s weight. Sharp, reaching remnants of roots whipped his flesh, bringing fresh blood to slick Wira’s palms, making the hopes of securing any grip on anything that much fainter. “HELP!”

he

screamed,

plummeting

downward.

“SOMEBODY HELP ME!” No one answered. Wira had expected nothing different.

He hit the ground hard -- harder than if there had been even the least yielding bank of snow to catch him -- but still managed to get his feet. Wira looked around. Nothing met his eyes. It was black, absolute black, pitch, tar black. It was the type of blackness that stuck to you, that insinuated itself into your consciousness through your eyes and latched onto your brain, the type of total darkness that negated not only all existence but the possibility of all existence. The past retreats in this kind of darkness, but it brings the future with it. Wira was left with only the present moment to keep him company, there in the void. If it had not been for the squeaking of the rats, he would have gone mad, convinced that he’d fallen into some special corner of hell, a punishing spot defined by its very lack of - 169 -

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definitions: a torment made more real by its absence than its presence. But there were rats. Squeaking little bastards, skittering around in response to Wira’s sudden dramatic entrance to their domain. Wira calmed himself and forced his ears to listen. Rats could not run on air alone, and they could not swim without splashing. Their small feet scampered to the left of Wira, scratching along the ground. And then Wira heard the unmistakable sound of their nails hitting a harder surface: some stones, maybe, or a wall. Sliding his feet carefully, he made his way to the left. Both hands were extended in front of him, shielding and questing at the same time. After all, he didn’t want to walk face first into Him. Wira’s stomach gave a threatening lurch, and he forced that thought down and away from him.

There’d be time

enough to think about that later. His foot slipped on a bit of mud, and he corrected himself. If there was a later, there’d be time enough to think about things.

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A wall provides stability. A wall provides guidance. A wall, given time and a little bit of luck, will offer up a doorway that can bring one out of even the most absolute darkness. Wira almost sobbed when his fingers fell upon the door latch. It was icy cold and rough, but opened easily enough. The door swung open to a magnificent stench. It could only be one thing. “The sewer,” Wira said. “I’ve found the sewer.” Foul though it might be, the sewer offered a way out. Somewhere in that dark tunnel, there had to be an exit, a way to get him away from the children and their accusing eyes. Away, finally and forever, from Him. It was a great thought, the merest shadow of what could be a workable plan. Wira took one tentative step out into the black to act upon it. That’s when he discovered the plan’s fatal flaw.

The entrance to the sewers did not open onto a nice level sidewalk. It didn’t even open, as was the custom, to a sloping stone stairway. No. The door beneath His house opened into a gaping hole, with only a ladder for descent. Wira didn’t know this, although he did manage to knock his head pretty squarely against one of the ladder rungs as he

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fell. But by the time he landed, the ladder was the last thing Wira was worried about. He’d fallen into hell itself: a deep and stinking pit full of bodies. Suddenly he could see: he could see the tiny skeletons stacked like firewood, see the children’s faces, all staring at him. Severed limbs fell on top of him, the whole stinking mass writhing against him like a live thing. For that was the awful truth of it: these children were, somehow, horribly still alive. Despite the fact that their heads had been lopped off or their torsos torn asunder, they were alive -- alive and intent on Wira. Their cries filled his ears: the sobbing of small children, uncomprehending, and the older, more bitter tears of youths who understood full well what had happened to them. “Mama!” they cried, in a dozen languages, a dozen accents. “Mama, help me!” Set, almost as counterpoint, against this backdrop was the everpresent song the boys sang to Wira. “How could you? How could you? You put him in here with us! How could you? How could you?” “I’m sorry!” Wira screamed. “I didn’t know!” He thrashed about, desperate to get out of the pit. But young arms wrapped round his waist, childish hands locked on his arms and legs, dragging him down, down, down.

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A severed head rolled along the seething mass of body, cartwheeling end over end until it lodged itself, most companionably, next to Wira’s ear. “BAH!” Wira leaped as best as he was able, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the stone lip that rimmed the far end of the pit. “No! Let me go!” “How could you,” the boys cried, pulling with all of their disembodied might. “How could you do it? How could you leave us? With him?” Their voices grew louder, a deafening crescendo of pain. “With us?” Wira’s head sank beneath the surface. Sludge rushed in, filling his mouth with loathsome dark fluid, flooding his nostrils. Small fingers latched over his windpipe, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing the very life out of him. He kicked furiously, lungs screaming for air, mouth burning to expel the blackness it had taken in. Wira could feel the soft flesh cushioning his kicks, absorbing the force, keeping him down. Forgive me, he thought, and scrambled for a toe-hold, climbing upward as fast as he could. It took long minutes, excruciating minutes, before he broke through the surface, could spit the foulness from his mouth and take in great gulping breaths. “I’m sorry!” he gasped, “But I’ve got to get out of here!” Wira made a desperate lunge for the far edge of the pit, managing to get himself prone atop the mass of children. - 173 -

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“I want go home,” one little boy told him, their faces nearly touching. “I miss Mama.” “I’m sorry,” Wira said. His fingers were just on the edge of the pit, scrambling for some kind of purchase on the smooth, slick stone. “But there’s nothing I can do.” The pit responded to this with an inarticulate fury, the bodies parting ways around Wira, letting him plummet deep into the depths. Then they surrounded him again, crushing him with the weight of their bodies, shouting in his ears. “You did this!” Little fingers scratched at his face, gouging at his eyes. “You left him in here with us!” They were biting him, milk teeth just strong enough to break through the skin.

Wira had to struggle to keep his

mouth closed, knowing that if he opened it, he’d be drinking in more of the sludge, more of the foul, wretched blackness of rotted bodies mingled with the city’s sewage. “Why?” Wira kicked again, flailing his body like a wild thing in an effort to force himself upward. His kicks grew progressively more violent, until the sounds of splitting skulls and breaking limbs could be heard -- just barely, but heard -- above the children’s cries. His lungs were near to bursting, his vision all but obscured by the red-haze need for oxygen when he burst to the surface

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again. One arm flung upward, shaking to shed a short, severed forearm. He was free, at least that much, at least for the moment. Then someone grabbed his arm.

“Wira!” It was Galen, standing on the edge of the pit. “I’ve got ye, honey! Hang on!” He set his teeth and pulled. Wira kicked frantically, desperate to be nearer his lover. His lover who was clearly wounded: blood was pouring from his forehead. Even in the darkness, Wira could see the sharp edge of bone jutting out from Galen’s thigh at an awkward angle. He had to be in excruciating pain. Yet he kept pulling, his strength and determination greater than that of a hundred dead children: the muscles in his biceps bulged large with the effort of it, but he never faltered, not until Wira shot from the pit like a cork from a vintage bottle. Wira crashed into Galen’s arms, and they both went reeling backwards, through the darkness, until they slammed into the wall on the far side of the pit. Above, a narrow hole let in light: the slanting edge of the gutter brought in starlight with the melting snow. More than enough for Wira to see Galen, to find his mouth and kiss it gratefully.

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“I thought I’d lost you,” he said, wiping some of the blackness from Galen’s face with fingers just as dark. “Lost you forever.” “Never.” Galen’s eyes were intent, though his voice was measured. “You’re never going to lose me, Wira.” His fingers laced through Wira’s, squeezing tight. The gesture said all that his words could not. “We’re the lucky ones. Not like those poor bastards.” As one, they turned to regard the teeming pit. Mangled bodies roiled on the surface, tossed about like seasoning in a boiling stew. Wira couldn’t help but cry, seeing the young faces, young bodies, lives cut short so long before their time. “I know, luv, I know.” Galen said. “But there’s naught we can do ‘bout it.” The bubbling in the pool calmed for a minute at his words, and then redoubled. Something was being borne up from the dark heart of the pit, being raised up by the combined efforts of a hundred shattered souls. Wira gasped as it came into view. It was the crate, the rope-handled crate from his dream. The one Galen had used to dispose of His body. “Fuck me,” Galen whispered. He glanced down at his leg. With the bone broken, looking was all he could do. It was then that Wira’s course of action became frighteningly, terribly, irrevocably clear to him.

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10

Make Things Right.

The pool of bodies surged, bearing the wooden crate ever higher on a tide of bleeding, pulsing limbs. Galen and Wira stood and watched as the obscene vessel sailed through the fetid waves, steadily ascending from the foulest depths. It slowly moved higher and higher, progressing past blond heads and brown limbs, wee babes and young men, until it was at the apex of gore, teetering in place atop the carnage. “My God,” Wira breathed, barely louder than a whisper. “It’s Him.” He swallowed. “He’s in there.” “Yes,” Galen replied, bracing himself against the wall. “And there are so many boys! He took them all, He did. Just like He did us.” - 177 -

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“But not like us.” Wira shook his head. “Ve got away. They didn’t.” “How could you?”

the children asked in unison, their

question filling the dark chamber. “How could you do this to us?” Disembodied heads turned toward them, pain-filled eyes and ravaged sockets pointed in their direction. “They’re not angry that we escaped,” Wira said. “They’re mad that He’s in there with them.” Galen looked at Wira. “They want Him out.” “No,” Wira replied. “They want Him destroyed.” The longest journey Wira ever made was from the shadowy corner of the sewer to the edge of the pit. It took half a dozen steps to traverse the distance, each shuddering step made all the more difficult by the sure knowledge that it was leading Wira back to the blackness, back to the foul pit of death. “No!” Galen cried. He took one staggering step from the wall, only to have his broken leg fail him. “Wira, don’t do this. I’ll do it. Let me go.” Wira never looked back. He simply shook his head and took a deep breath. His goal was there in front of him, poised in the exact center of the steaming, stinking pit. He took one good look at it and closed his eyes. Then he jumped. It’s one thing to fall into a foul place. It’s another to go into it willingly. Knowing that the dank, black liquid will wrap round you in a foul embrace doesn’t make it any more - 178 -

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welcoming -- finding it eerily warm after the cold night air is not a pleasant revelation. The pit had parted at Wira’s jump, welcoming him back into its depths. Yet it was clear that while the boys in the foul mass grave had some sort of mental capacity, it was limited. Half of the corpses therein were intent on pulling Wira down -some in an incoherent attempt at punishment, while others were clinging to him in some futile hope of rescue. He had to club them away, thrusting sharp elbows backward into toddlers’ faces, kicking viciously at little children. Once again the pit filled with the profane music of breaking bones, sharp and crackling, accompanied by an almost eerie lack of outcry.

The children were too hurt,

apparently, to feel any new pain. That, or they had learned that crying out would not summon any help. There was no sense weeping when your tears were sure to be ignored. For every boy that wanted to pull Wira down, there was another, older lad intent on bearing him up. Small hands slid along Wira’s ribcage, lodging themselves in his armpits and wrapping round his thighs before pushing him higher and higher, steadily nearer to Him. The crate was almost in reach, the rope handle a mere fraction of an inch from Wira’s fingers. Wira swallowed, and looked down. To advance, he’d have to crawl directly over the corpse of a small Jewish boy, with - 179 -

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wide open knowing eyes and black sausage curls -- the boy who’d been in the lobby of his tenement so long ago. “Forgive me,” Wira sobbed, tears falling onto the long dead face. “I don’t know what else to do.” And there, in the midst of the foulness, in the evil seething mass of death, came a small beam of light, delivered in the smile of a ravaged child. He didn’t say anything -- he didn’t have to.

The smile alone was enough: benediction and

permission, a stray bit of grace letting Wira know that it was time to do that which needed to be done. “Thank you,” Wira whispered. Then he clawed his way over the boy’s torso, letting the mass of his weight fall on one who never could have borne it. It was just enough -- Wira cleared the final distance. His fingers closed round the handle and he gave a triumphant shout. “I’ve got it! I’ve got Him!” The pile of bodies collapsed beneath him, retreating into the depths. The surface was flat and suddenly deathly still. Wira was treading water in a foul, dark bubbling sludge pit, the box bobbling alongside of him. It was not a nice place to visit, nor did he want to stay there. He struck out for the side, swimming through warm, lumpy sludge, retching all the while. The box kept trying to sink, the front corner repeatedly dipping below the surface. He was seemingly determined to return to the depths. “Oh no,” Wira growled. “You’re not going anywhere now!” - 180 -

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The closer Wira got to the edge, the more determined the box was to sink. It took all of Wira’s might to keep going -- the box was working harder and harder against him with every stroke. Wira knew that if he relaxed for just a second, He was going to plunge to the bottom of the pit. Wira had no doubt, not a fraction of an ounce of hesitation, that if He sank, He was taking Wira with him. That was not an option. Having come this far, Wira was determined that he was not going to die today. “Come on,” he muttered. “They don’t vant you in here either.” As if in response, from beneath Wira came a surging wave of support: the combined effect of a hundred small bodies shooting heavenward. It was enough to propel Wira closer to the edge, forcing the box holding His body along for the ride. Again, Wira’s hands scrambled over the slick stone rim. Again, it seemed as though he was doomed to never leave the pit, with egress nothing more but the faintest dearest hope. Again, Galen was there to save him. “Come on, luv.” Two strong hands wrapped round his own. “Let’s have you out of there.” Galen pulled Wira out, stinking and dripping and still clinging to His box. He’d no more than cleared the surface and gotten both feet onto solid ground when the pit went dead. The surface went glassy smooth and still, all of the boy’s bodies hidden neatly in the black depths. - 181 -

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“That’s it,” Wira stammered. “Ve are done. It’s over.” Violent tremors took him then, making him shake uncontrollably. Wira’s knees buckled underneath him. If it weren’t for Galen’s arms around him, holding him upright, he would have fallen down to the stone floor. Fallen, and died, having done that which he needed to do. “No!” Galen said, voice surprisingly firm. “We’re not quite done yet.” “I can’t,” Wira sobbed. “I can’t do anything more.” He turned his eyes toward the pit, now stoically silent. “I von’t go in there again.” “You won’t have to.” Galen looked down at the crate. He gave it a cautious prod with his foot. “We’ve just got to get rid of this bad business, that’s all.” They stared at the crate. He was dead, long dead. Clearly there was no way that he could hurt Wira or Galen and yet still there was something threatening about the wooden box. An aura of menace emanated from the crate, an air of malevolent harm. Wira shuddered. “Vhat can ve do? He can’t go back in there.” He didn’t want to look at the pit again, didn’t want to think about the throng of boys submerged there. “They von’t like it.” “No,” Galen agreed. “We can’t do that.” He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a small tin box. “I think we’ve got to burn the bastard.” - 182 -

GADARENE

Fire is a funny thing. It’s shy, most of the time, hiding itself within dry wood, flames curled tightly out of view, until called forth by a stray spark. It’s a fragile beast, fearful of water and damp. Yet this timid force can grow into an unstoppable beast, given opportunity. Galen opened the box. “I hope they’re not too damn wet to light.” His hands were shaking, from cold and exhaustion and from sheer terrified contemplation of what he was about to do. Wira steadied his arms. “I vill help you.” His gaze fell on the crate, baleful. “And He will burn.” The first match folded on itself, soaked through. “How many more do you have?” Wira looked up at the gutter and laughed, half hysterical. “The match girl will not be around for some hours yet!” Galen smiled. “Three for luck, sweetheart. Three for luck.” The first match was not so lucky. The second showed more promising, catching with a bright yellow fury, only to sputter out half a second later. Wira looked at Galen. He looked at the last match, their final chance. “This one must to vork.” “It will,” Galen said, “Or it’ll answer to me!” One bold stroke and the match lit, the flame proud and strong. Wira cupped his hands around it, shielding it from the steady breeze that blew through the sewer tunnel. “You did it, Galen, you did it!”

- 183 -

GADARENE

Galen looked at the flame and then at Wira, the small fire reflected in his eyes. “It’s time.” He turned and dropped the match onto the crate, near the edge of a splintered board. The flame grew for a second, then sputtered and died. “Well, fuck me,” Galen said. “We’re screwed.” “No,” Wira breathed, staring at the crate. “No, ve’re not.” For inside the crate, barely visible between the tightly nailed slats, an orange glow was starting to appear. That’s when the first rat showed up, skittering around the edge of the pit, running right in front of Galen and Wira before crawling madly up the wall. “It’s going to burn,” Wira said, reaching out for Galen’s hand. “He’s going to burn.” A handful of rats sped by them, fleeing the slowly growing fire. Small orange-yellow flames were beginning to lick round the corners of the crate, whirling upward into the darkness. Galen grinned. “I think we’d better go, Wira.” With a loud crack, a slat started to separate from the back of the crate, angling toward the pit. Little beads of fire fell from the edge of the splintered slat, pooling on the floor. The floor was angled just enough to persuade the pool to spill, in a bright flaming fury, toward the pit. Rats were coming from everywhere now, materializing out of the darkness to scramble up to the street level. “Now, Wira.” - 184 -

GADARENE

“But I can see Him,” Wira breathed, fascinated. The very end of a burning bone was clearly visible in the midst of the flames. “He’s burning!” “You’ll be burning too, if we don’t get out of here!” Galen pulled on Wira’s arm. “Please, luv!” It was the “please” that did it, that brought Wira out of his rapture and back into the moment. Only then did he see the flood of fleeing rodents, their flailing naked tails signaling fear as they overcame every instinct to leave cover and seek the open air. He reached out for Galen’s hand and started toward the far wall.

Rats thronged round their feet as they moved, a

skittering, squealing mass.

The foul black beasts would

scream, an ear-splitting shriek, whenever a heavily booted foot would land upon their backs.

Their pain punctuated the

roaring thunder of the flames, an organic counterpoint to unearthly horror. Galen and Wira reached their destination and looked up. The gutter was some eight feet above: easy enough to reach if you can jump. It’s passing hard to jump with a broken leg. “You go on,” Galen said, grabbing Wira by the waist and boosting him upward. “I’ll take care of business here.” Wira was up and in the open air before he realized what had happened.

- 185 -

GADARENE

“No!” He flattened himself in the snow, stomach on the icy pavement. “Galen! You must come up!” “Can’t be done, luv.” Galen shrugged. He looked over his shoulder. The tumbling drops of flame were slowly advancing toward the dark sludge pit. “Run, run while you can!” A thin, twisting black-blue column of smoke was starting to push past Galen and come up through the gutter. It curled round Wira, a vaporous shroud. Long, wispy tendrils slid over Wira’s hair, brushing against his face, almost like a ghostly lover stealing a last caress before dissipating. “No!” Wira looked alone frantically, but the streets were empty. He thrust his arms through the gutter -- a full foot above Galen’s reach. “No!” “It’s only right,” Galen said. “I done wot I done. Now I’ll pay.” Wira swallowed. “You von’t be paying alone.” “Wira, don’t you dare!” Wira was ripping off coat. “Not unless you come up too!” He dangled the garment through the gutter. “Now grab this, you goddamned fool!” Galen looked at the flames, growing ever nearer the pit. He looked at Wira. “You’re not strong enough. You’ll fall in.” His voice deepened. “I said run, God damn it!” “Grab it,” Wira growled, “Or I vill jump, I svear to God I vill!”

- 186 -

GADARENE

Blue eyes locked with brown, fear and flames and smoke not enough to obscure the vision shared. “God damn it, Wira.” Galen grabbed the shirt and started to climb, using his good leg for balance.

“You are one

stubborn Pollack.” Wira wrapped his arms around Galen’s head and shoulders as soon as they emerged from the sewer and pulled with all of his might. It was enough to send them tumbling backwards across the street, collapsing in a stinky, bloody heap on the far sidewalk. “And you are one pigheaded Potato.” Wira smiled and kissed Galen. “Never can anyone say different.” A fresh surge of rats emerged from the gutter -- hundreds of rats, all running as fast as they could. Long, lush sleek sewer rats were joined by their bloated, diseased counterparts. Mother rats sped by, carrying wee ones in their mouths. A million tiny toenails scratched through the snow, desperate to flee. Below, just out of sight, the first touch of flame reached the sludge pit. With a blue flash, the methane gas wreathing the top of the pit blazed up, followed by an explosion loud enough to crack windows all along Fifth Avenue. A bright orange rooster tail of flames shot out from the gutter, scorching the passageway Galen had traversed a few seconds earlier.

- 187 -

GADARENE

The fire bell started to ring, tolling slowly through the snowy night. Wira and Galen lay there, letting the snowflakes fall over them as the fire grew higher. The parade of rats continued, past them, over them. The street was filled, filled with heavy hanging smoke and a million panicked rats. Yet the pair of them took no notice.

Exhausted and

battered, stinking and broken, Wira and Galen clung to each other in the midst of chaos.

They couldn’t see the scene

unfolding around them, not with their eyes each fixed upon the other’s face. “It’s over,” Wira said. “Finally over.” “Thank God.” Galen pulled Wira down for a long, smoky kiss. “I couldn’t bear to lose you, Wira.” His voice broke, raspy with smoke, husky with need. “You’re all that I have.” A fresh explosion then, rocking the surface of the street as another pocket of subterranean gas ignited. Wira clutched at Galen, collapsing against his chest. “I know, Galen.” The smoke hung heavy over them now, a thick and choking blanket. “I know.”

END - 188 -