"The Night Before" and "Money"

Two segments from my work in progress 'Death Man.'  These are pre-workshop and pre-mentor critique, which means they very well may suck.  Please enjoy. 

The Night Before

            Sometimes when they left the windows open, the apartment felt almost bearable, but on that day the cross breeze that cut through the living room and into the hallway was hotter than breath.  It seemed to the boy that after months of slowly baking his meal, here, at last, was the huge mouth, God’s perhaps, blowing on his food, gusting idly before devouring North City in a single bite.     

            Nothing could break the heat that summer.   The Elites enjoyed the luxury of air conditioning units, but for civilians and servants there was no escape, not even temporary.  Electric fans did nothing but move sweltering air from one place to another and the lake’s water, now tepid, left swimmers feeling fatigued rather than refreshed.  Everything slowed down.  There were hardly any executions, and the few that did take place were done with little showmanship.  It was too hot to do much more than just a quick beheading, and what was the point?  The heat acted like an honorary Death Man, executing quietly and efficiently, without the need for an audience. 

            The boy had seen it for himself, down in the dungeon with his mentor.  It was an elderly woman.  She was alone in her cell with no one to comfort her as she convulsed and sweat herself to death.   It seemed to the boy that in the moment she died, her skin turned transparent revealing the orange and red of the fire raging through her body, burning her up from the inside out.  When she finally cooled the boy wondered if there was anything but ashes left inside her.  She was but one of many to die this way.  The honorary Death Man worked tirelessly, killing over and over until there were too many bodies for the crematorium to process.  A pyramid of corpses lay in wait for a different kind of heat to burn them from the outside in, and while they waited for incineration, they bloated and burst one by one until the perfume of putrefaction blew through North City, thick enough to choke.  It was a familiar smell to the boy, almost like the aroma of the blood fed flowers beneath the stage. 

            Every day was bad, but night time was the worst.  The boy had resorted to sleeping naked and even though the digital thermometer in his room told him the temperature had dropped a little, he didn’t believe it.  Behind his lids the darkness sparked in ghost images like grease splatters from a sizzling pan.  No matter how much water he drank he couldn’t put out the fire in his skull.  He saw things, he saw Scarlett, and he was never sure if it was dream or fantasy.  There were nights he woke himself up groaning.  When that happened, he’d roll onto his stomach, half in a trance, and thrust his hips into the mattress, jerkily, until he sweated everything he had, until he trembled and collapsed.  Then he’d sleep, because there was nothing left inside of him for the heat to prey upon.  But in the morning it would start all over again.    

            Everything made him sweat, even meditation.  He would sit there – legs crossed and hands placed carefully in his lap, palms facing upward, one hand on top of the other – and melt.  The heat pulled sweat from him the way ointments pull infection and yet, he thought, he withstood it better than most people.  Most people, citizens and elite alike, busied themselves with doing nothing, only venturing out to attend the performances of the Arène, furiously fanning their faces with folded paper while watching sun burnt little boys grapple with slippery palms.  None of the fights could have lasted long.  Most of the casualties of the Arène that summer were from heat exhaustion.

            He didn’t remember it ever being quite so hot during the years he’d fought in the Arène, but every second away from the fighting pits felt like a stolen eternity and it was easy for memories to get lost in the forever ago between then and now.  And in the now, all he knew – all it seemed he’d ever known – was right in front of him.  He blinked sweat from his eyes and looked down at his almost Death Man hands.  Even after wiping his hands on a rag, he still wore gore up to his elbows.  Blood gathered and congealed under the white of his nails and in the creases of his palms while perspiration from his arms thinned the remaining red and kept it from going brown.  It had been maybe ten minutes since he’d executed the killing blow on his last practice victim and he was still a little giddy.

            “Is the bath ready yet?”  The boy stood before the door wearing nothing but boxers and blood.  He didn’t understand why his mentor had closed the door in the first place, but he knew better than to open it.  That had been one of his lessons under the apprenticeship of the Death Man Roy Kim and repeated failure to respect closed doors had once cost him riding privileges for a week.  It occurred to him that he would be a man in the morning and no longer subject to his mentor’s rules and regulations, but for now he was too tired to disobey. 

            “Roy?” he called.

            There was no answer.  Roy might not have heard him over the water.  The boy sighed and rapped his knuckles on the bathroom door.  “Let me in already.”

            The water stopped.  Roy Kim opened the door and stepped out into the hall.  Steam puffed out around his frame.  “Don’t be impatient.”

            “I’m filthy,” he said.  They looked at each other a moment.  Something was off about Roy’s eyes.  The black parts seemed dull and the white parts were swollen with red and pink spider webs.  Had he been crying?

            Roy Kim drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face, starting with his eyes.  “I put crushed rose petals in the water.” 

            “What for?” 

            “For spiritual cleansing,” he said.

            The boy looked at the bathtub.  Shredded flowers floated back and forth on the crests of frustrated ripples while swirls of oil formed here and there on the surface.  He stepped back and frowned at his mentor.  “Is this because of tomorrow?” 

            “Yes.”

            “What exactly happens at one of these graduations?” 

            “A lot of talk,” Roy Kim said.

            “Could you elaborate?” 

            “It’s actually kind of boring.”  He wiped his eyes again then sighed.  “From what I remember of mine, it starts with the Luminary standing there reciting the usual dogma about hard work and faith.  Then he’ll talk about you specifically.  I don’t know what he’ll say exactly, but he likes you. It’ll be kind whatever it is.”

            “And after that?”

            “You’ll take an oath of service.  And then you’ll be a citizen.”

            “No I won’t.”

            “Well, it’ll seem that way.  You’ll have a home of your own as well as a stipend.”

            “What’s a stipend?”  The boy frowned.

            “Money,” he said.  “You’ll have your own money as well as the autonomy to spend it.  So my recommendation is to do so wisely.”

            The breeze must have cooled.  Goosebumps prickled along the boy’s flesh.  He felt like he’d swallowed ice.  What would someone like him do with money?

            “I don’t want all of that.  I don’t need all of that.”  A sharp twinge near his elbow made him jerk.  He scratched it and realized that it was just the blood.  It had dried and tugged a hair as it crackled.    

            “How do you think you’ll get clothes?  Food?  Blankets for your bed? You’ll be all on your own.  You’ll need it soon enough.” Roy Kim pointed toward the bath.  “Go.”

            The boy glared a moment before marching over to the tub. “You know, Roy, you’re an asshole sometimes.”

            “Then, good news,” his mentor said from the doorway, “after tomorrow you’ll be free of me.” 

            The boy stilled.  It was really going to happen.  Everything would change tomorrow.  Everything he did tonight, it would be for the last time as a boy.  Everything happening now would be for the last time as the Death Man’s apprentice.

            It seemed to him that time worked like a disease, quiet and hidden and waiting.  All these terrible, large, adult things – like the Arène, or that night in the dungeon with a little baby dug out of its mother’s belly, or even this moment – had existed like blurred lines laying his life’s road before he was even born.  Time took a little boy who didn’t believe in death and threw him into the fighting pits when he was only ten years old.  Time made every wicked thing possible.  For the past two years, graduation had only been an abstract idea, something too far ahead of him to worry about, but his mentor was right.  Tonight would be his last night in the guest room.  Tomorrow he’d have his own apartment and a new room in which to suffer insomnia.  The infection had begun the day Roy brought him home and tomorrow it came to fruition.  Two years could have been two hundred and it wouldn’t have mattered.  Everything would have turned out the same.  Welcome to eternity, money included.  He would be all alone, nothing but his own death ahead of him and, just as with everything else, it would seem too far ahead to worry about it now.

            “Roy?  You’ll be there tomorrow, won’t you?” he asked.

            “No,” Roy Kim said and grabbed the door handle.  “They won’t let me in to watch.  But I’ll be right outside.”  He swallowed hard, the boy could see his neck move, and then he closed the door. 

            Alone now, the boy pushed his boxers down and stepped out of them and into the rose water.  The steam made his nose run.             

           

Money

            “Presents?  You got me presents?”  He looked down at the kitchen table where a small package wrapped in cloth and ribbon looked back at him.  The boy felt a weird heat rush through him, not the kind that made him sweat, the kind that sent little tremors up and down his spine.  He’d just gotten out of the bath.  His tank top and shorts stuck to his damp skin and, even though this was his usual evening attire during summer, he felt indecent.  People who looked like this didn’t get presents.

            “You know you didn’t have to do that,” he said and sat down across from his mentor.  His hair dripped water down his face and back.  At least it wasn’t sweat. 

            “I know.  That’s what makes it a present,” Roy Kim said and produced an envelope from his pocket.  He set it on the table and slid it toward the boy. 

            “I’ve only ever gotten presents from my mom.”  Back then he’d known what to say to presents.  He’d known how to smile, how to be gracious, how to treasure every little token.  Looking at Roy Kim now, he was more afraid than thankful.

            “It’s not much.  But I thought it might be nice to have something to take to your apartment tomorrow instead of just the clothes on your back.”

            Reaching toward the gifts he selected the package first.  His fingers shook as he pulled the ribbon.  Red silk fell away and the cloth wrapping unfurled to reveal a small wooden box.  There were two hinges in the back and a plated keyhole at the front.  It looked like an old trunk only miniature, small enough to lie across his palms.  Carved on the lid was a cat, but it was unlike any cat the boy had ever seen.  It had a thick body, a large head with an open mouth full of enormous teeth, and weird gashes, almost like stripes, all over its coat. 

            “It’s a tiger.”  Roy Kim reached over and tapped the box, startling the boy as he did so.  “It’s got something inside.”

            The boy pushed up on the lid, but it didn’t budge.  He frowned and tried to manipulate the keyhole, running his fingernail all around the little plate, looking for a latch or button.  When he didn’t find anything, he asked, “Is there a key?”

            “No.”

            “So how do I open it?”  He thought of Scarlett.  She could open anything.

            “You don’t.”  Roy Kim smiled.  “That’s where the tiger keeps his secret.  He doesn’t give it up easily.  You’ll have to break the box.”

            “I would never do that.  It’s too pretty.”  But someday he might.  He never could resist digging his way inside of things, destroying what he needed to, pulling the pieces apart to uncover their secrets.  Still, he’d try Scarlett first.

            “Pretty things don’t last forever,” his mentor said.  “Don’t forget about the envelope.”

            With a nod, he set the box down on the table.  It was difficult to pull his fingers away from it.  He liked the way the carved grooves felt, how the smooth parts turned rough, how the rough parts became sharp.  But he’d have plenty of time to touch it later.  Smiling at his mentor he reached forward and picked up the second gift.  It was money.
            He laid the credit notes on the table.  Words covered the page, tiny words, typewritten and perfect and overwhelming.  The boy had never seen a note up close and it took him several seconds to find the credit value.  When he did find it, he jerked his face up to look at his mentor.

            “Ten?” 

            “Well, I did say it’s not much.”  Roy frowned.

            “Are they all for ten?”  He didn’t wait for an answer.  Gathering the notes up into his hands he examined each one.  Four were valued at ten.  The last one was for twenty-five.  He shoved them into the envelope and pushed it toward his mentor. “I can’t take your money.”

            “It’s not a matter of taking.  I’m giving it to you.” 

            “But, it’s too much.”

            “It’s a pittance.”  Roy pushed back from the table and stood.  “You have to learn about money sooner or later.”

            The boy chewed his cheek and stared at the envelope.  “I don’t have a wallet.”

            “So go buy one.  Leather if you can manage it.  Just don’t let anyone swindle you,” he said. 

            “I’d help if I knew what swindling was.”  His stomach tensed.

            “You’ll know it if it happens.  Now go get some clothes on – ”

            “Wait,” the boy stood and nearly knocked his chair over.  “Will you go with me?” 

            “No.  I’m going to bed.  We have an early day tomorrow.”

            “You say that like it’s something unusual,” the boy grumbled.  He shrugged and pushed in his chair.  “I think I’ll just go to bed, too.  I don’t want to go out alone.”

            “That’s a very boy thing to say.” 

            “Well, that’s what I am,” he said, “a child for one more night at least.”

            Roy Kim let out a deep sigh and set his hands on the boy’s shoulders.  With a sudden tug, he pulled the boy into an embrace and held him.  Startled, the boy stiffened.   He’d forgotten all about hugs, but his arms knew what to do and they wrapped carefully around his mentor.  It didn’t matter that it was a thousand degrees in the Death Man’s kitchen, neither seemed to want to let go. 

            As if he were apologizing, Roy Kim whispered the boy’s name and said, “You may be a boy, but you’ve never been a child.”   The hug ended and the intimacy of their connection disappeared as if it had never been.