through the blue tarpaulin and into the heat and the sun as if the heat and the sun were cures for everything. The alleyway cut into the school building was bright and the space beyond it was brighter still. Hot as noon. A playground off to one side partly wrecked but mostly just abandoned. A splintered see-saw weathered back into a plank. He sat Penny on the long end of it and she didn’t want to let go of him so he picked her up and held onto her longer. Tried again and this time it took. He asked her if she knew what this plank was, knowing she didn’t. He told her to watch. He put down the packs and he stepped away and she called him back and then he stepped away again and this time she let him. Went to the other end of the plank and pushed it down and took her for a little ride. Just lifted her up a foot or two into the air. Into a kind of heaven.
She laughed.
It was a lever, a thing with which a person could move the world, and in different circumstances he would have described that possibility but he didn’t do that now. He just let her down slowly and lifted her up again a few more times and then he said honey we’ll do lots more of this in a minute. Just you wait. I forgot something we need. He backed away and she let him. Sitting on the end of the plank, certain he’d come back to lift her up again. The sun working on her and brightening things and helping bring her back.
He entered the little alley and pulled open the tarp and went back down the stairs.
Found the old man sitting right where he’d been. Looking disgusted and weary but not entirely unsurprised. Tipping his head toward the bottle of alcohol and saying, “I knew you’d come for it.”
Weller asked about the locker with the bandaids and he told him where it was. Helped himself to all there were and a spool of adhesive tape too and some gauze pads and a little tube of antibiotic ointment. Loaded his pockets with these rarities. Things that were only rumors out in the Zone. He noticed the flashlight and pocketed that as well. He left the locker and came to where the old man was sitting and took the alcohol. Cotton balls and a rag that was there too.
The old man said, “You can have the rag or the cotton but you can’t have both.” A cigarette between his lips. Picking up the lighter and flicking the top open with is thumb.
“Don’t,” Weller said. “Wait on that a little.”
The old man saying why not. It’s a free country. Just choose one and go. Don’t try telling me what to do. The old man acting ornery and tired and maybe a little sick of what he’d done. Saying go on clean up that little girl of yours.
Weller put down the rag and that seemed to satisfy the old man, who turned away and studied the table and the mess on the floor with a look in his eyes that said he regretted that he’d have to clean it up sometime soon. Weller took the rag again while he wasn’t looking and put down the bottle and took up the other bottle, the brown bottle full of ether. He opened it and doused the rag in one motion and he fell upon the old man. Knocking him backwards and pressing the rag to his face. Saying don’t smoke around this stuff unless you want us both getting killed. But the old man was already out.
He had a brand in his neck all right, that little square with two metal prongs mounted in rubber. Once Black Rose, always Black Rose. Weller took the lighter and worked the bottom part of it open and put the brand inside, in with the soaked cotton wadding. Pushing it deep, burying it there for safekeeping. The lighter fluid cleaning the blood from his fingers. He draped the rag over the old man’s face and dribbled some more ether onto it and capped the bottle, not knowing what the end of that would be and not caring. How much ether could a person breathe before it killed him. Then he slid the lighter into his pocket and went out to the bluelit stairs and back to the playground.
Almost running.
Lifted up.
THREE
She laughed.
It was a lever, a thing with which a person could move the world, and in different circumstances he would have described that possibility but he didn’t do that now. He just let her down slowly and lifted her up again a few more times and then he said honey we’ll do lots more of this in a minute. Just you wait. I forgot something we need. He backed away and she let him. Sitting on the end of the plank, certain he’d come back to lift her up again. The sun working on her and brightening things and helping bring her back.
He entered the little alley and pulled open the tarp and went back down the stairs.
Found the old man sitting right where he’d been. Looking disgusted and weary but not entirely unsurprised. Tipping his head toward the bottle of alcohol and saying, “I knew you’d come for it.”
Weller asked about the locker with the bandaids and he told him where it was. Helped himself to all there were and a spool of adhesive tape too and some gauze pads and a little tube of antibiotic ointment. Loaded his pockets with these rarities. Things that were only rumors out in the Zone. He noticed the flashlight and pocketed that as well. He left the locker and came to where the old man was sitting and took the alcohol. Cotton balls and a rag that was there too.
The old man said, “You can have the rag or the cotton but you can’t have both.” A cigarette between his lips. Picking up the lighter and flicking the top open with is thumb.
“Don’t,” Weller said. “Wait on that a little.”
The old man saying why not. It’s a free country. Just choose one and go. Don’t try telling me what to do. The old man acting ornery and tired and maybe a little sick of what he’d done. Saying go on clean up that little girl of yours.
Weller put down the rag and that seemed to satisfy the old man, who turned away and studied the table and the mess on the floor with a look in his eyes that said he regretted that he’d have to clean it up sometime soon. Weller took the rag again while he wasn’t looking and put down the bottle and took up the other bottle, the brown bottle full of ether. He opened it and doused the rag in one motion and he fell upon the old man. Knocking him backwards and pressing the rag to his face. Saying don’t smoke around this stuff unless you want us both getting killed. But the old man was already out.
He had a brand in his neck all right, that little square with two metal prongs mounted in rubber. Once Black Rose, always Black Rose. Weller took the lighter and worked the bottom part of it open and put the brand inside, in with the soaked cotton wadding. Pushing it deep, burying it there for safekeeping. The lighter fluid cleaning the blood from his fingers. He draped the rag over the old man’s face and dribbled some more ether onto it and capped the bottle, not knowing what the end of that would be and not caring. How much ether could a person breathe before it killed him. Then he slid the lighter into his pocket and went out to the bluelit stairs and back to the playground.
Almost running.
Lifted up.
THREE
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