Part Two: Meeting Good People Under Bad Circumstances, 3

“It’s all ego, partner.” Dallas was laying down in the bath tub, and the man was sitting between the toilet and the wall. “You’ve imagined a perfect version of yourself that you can’t measure up to. You think everyone is watching you and everything is your fault.”

“That’s right.” The guy nodded sagely. His eyes were swollen from crying.

“But no one cares about you man. They’re all just living their lives. When you can’t recognize that, where are you? Thinking a bird is mocking you, taking chirps personally? Brother that bird is just a bird.”

“It raised its crest so condescendingly. I feel like if a bird doesn’t respect me, I don’t deserve to respect myself.”

“That is the most alcoholic shit I’ve ever heard.”

“I don’t really drink like that,” the man said. “I don’t know what came over me. I never believed in that wild night shit, but-”

“Man I saw your needle.” He opened his mouth to explain himself, but Dallas held out his hand. “You talked to me about anxiety and guilt and obsessed over a cockatoo. Its a thinking problem, not a drinking problem.” The man nodded along. “I did a shit ton of drugs too, but that’s not the point.”

“Its not?”

“No man. I feel just like you do. ‘I’m such a good guy, my intentions are so good, why don’t these birds like me?’ Like I’m the main fucking character.”

“Shit,” the guy said. “Do you ever feel like, I dunno, like you’ll never be worth anything? Like you don’t deserve a second chance?”

“Every day dude.” Dallas said. “I feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world every day. That’s the malady. Ego.” Dallas stood and rubbed his back. “Come to a meeting.”

“I think I will.”

“You think?”

“I will. I just will.” Dallas held his arms out for a hug. “Man I’m covered in rice and bird shit.”

“No worries I sleep in this suit.” Dallas hugged him and held on when he tried to pull away. “Relax. Allow yourself to be comforted.” He did. Dallas released him and patted him on the back. “It works if you work it, and you’re worth it,” he told him with a grin, then led him out of the bathroom.

The man noticed Dzerassae by the window as Dallas lead him to the front steps. “By the way, what are you guys doing here?”

“We weren’t here.” Dallas stared at him hard then shut the door.

“You do Amy style therapy?” Dzerassae asked.

“No, we fucked,” Dallas said. “I’m pansexual now. He had a beautiful soul and I rawdogged it!” He did a baseball slide back to the window. “What’d I miss?”

“Men have come to greet Zengrel,” Dzerassae said.

“Jesus these guys couldn’t wait to see some thirteen year olds! Who came?”

“I’ve noticed several-”

“-both meanings of the word.”

“Several men. Some from Real Estate, one who ‘work’ in tech ‘industry.’ A researcher from University. Two from Intelligence.” Dallas was taken aback. “I can tell my kind.”

“Are they investigating him?” She shrugged. Dallas grabbed his binoculars and they watched a man pull up on a rent-a-bike, wearing a beige Italian suit with pink and yellow stripes. Short ponytail, trim beard.

“Cesare Attolini,” Dallas said. “Ponytail aside, dude’s got style. Obviously I only wear short-shorts when I bike, so that it looks even gayer, but respect.” The guards were suspicious and hostile but he had them laughing in minutes. Even from distance his mannerisms put a begrudging smirk on Dallas’ face. One of them went inside to get Zengrel without even demanding a bribe.

It was clear from Zengrel’s demeanor that they didn’t know each other, but the stranger had him chatting enthusiastically within moments. “I like twelve year olds,” Dallas mumbled, “well I prefer ’em a little younger. You’re alright buddy, come on in!” Zengrel had a guard call an Uber for his new friend. A handshake turned into a hug, then the stranger disappeared into the car. Zengrel ordered one of the guards to walk the bike back.

“We have hundreds of files on everyone connected to Zengrel; I’ve committed all their faces to memory in case I ever see one in an alley. I have no clue who that was. Intelligence?” Dallas asked.

“If we find nothing on him, then is likely. If he is new aspiring member of cabal, then he is vulnerability. They won’t protect him, he won’t protect them—we may have found weak link.”


Ellis hung his head between his knees. She seemed so nice; he just wanted a friendly acquaintance he could greet in the hallway sometimes. But he wasn’t thinking about her, he was being a boundary crossing busy-body and a white knight and now she’d avoid him and tell everyone he’s a weirdo who gets in peoples’ business.

Yo,” Sascha said.

“Hey…” Ellis rasped miserably.

She plopped down in a chair near him. “He finally shut up! Sorry about that, I’m so embarrassed.”

“I shouldn’t have antagonized him.”

“That was all him! I’m impressed you didn’t swing on him.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t go downstairs,” Ellis moped.

“Laundry room was a great idea. I think you in earshot kept him in check. He’s all about appearances, especially around other men. Hey, what’s the matter?” She scooted to the seat next to him.

“I didn’t mean to get involved in your business,” Ellis said.

“That wasn’t my business. It had nothing to do with me, I’m just the ball. Plus they did it right in the hallway. I am incredibly not angry at you. You helped in a way that a responsible stranger or a nice neighborshould have, and you didn’t escalate it. You’re good, we’re good.”

It wasn’t fair that she was cheering him up. He needed to switch gears. “Sorry. We just met and I don’t wanna be weird.” He put his hand in his pocket, and his face flushed with embarrassment.

“You had your key the whole time didn’t you?”


11:23PM. Zengrel was visited by a white man with blonde hair wearing a suit and rawhide moccasins. Shaman Aditsan Spread Eagle, previously Daniel Bauer, was an self-proclaimed Native American spiritual guide. And a self-proclaimed Native American, allowing him to legally distribute peyote. He ran a racket guiding wealthy start-up owners through expensive ‘spirit journeys’ where they mostly tripped balls in the prairie and suffered heat stroke.

“I used to respect his hustle,” Dallas said, “then Amy taught me about cultural appropriation. Now I don’t even eat tacos. Also he operates a compound linked to several disappearances. Allegedly!”

11:43PM. Zengrel was visited by a tall, rotund man in an over-sized suit and an over-sized cowboy hat. He was always slit-eyed and grinning like he found the whole world trite and amusing. Mearl Marland, the CEO of Greenway Fracking, famous for aggressively lobbying for fracking in residential districts. Dallas remembered the billboards promoting, ‘freedom to pump profit out your own backyard.’ This lead to a marked increase in polluted drinking water, birth defects, and cancer rates, particularly among children and pets. Mearl inherited the company from his father, a self-proclaimed ‘friend to the Red Man,’ who used his wealth and influence to drill on Native land. Greenway was linked to the disappearances of many Native Americans. They seemed to disappear a lot.

11:55PM. A bearded, jowly man showed up wearing a button-up shirt and overalls. He made a face while he walked like he was stuck in traffic, angry he wasn’t already where he was going. He looked ready to fight and die on any hill.

“Berty Doukas,” Dallas was shocked. “I escaped his horror-show rehab. Ego is the boogieman behind every ‘ism’, so he reckons the solution is ego death. Has everyone tear each other down. Plus he’s like the ego serial killer. Only person that’s ever made me cry.” Dzerassae gestured go on. “Well, at the time my monumental drug use basically made me incontinent. He made people call me–”

“About him, Dallas.”

“Don’t wanna hear about my shits? He moved his people into a new facility once he good and broke their self esteem. Just an apartment building bought with state grants. He knocked down all the walls, saying none them earned privacy. That’s when I bounced. Spent too much time in compounds; born in one, ran one for a little while. Heard it got real culty. I got friends inside got forced to change their haircuts. Some of my friends talked about forced marriage—but they’re burnouts, I’d take it with a grain.” Dallas fidgeted with his collar. “Hits a little close to home, I guess. Manipulating a bunch of addicts, saying its for their own good. At least I’m hotter. And I haven’t had any disappearances linked to me for a couple years! I should get one of those flip books. ‘Haven’t disappeared Anyone in X days.’”

“I was in the KGB,” Dzerassae said. “I have caused much disappearance. But we are finders now.” She put an encouraging bony hand on his shoulder.

Douka seemed displeased. He nodded his head a lot, said little, and stormed off the moment Zengrel finished talking. Zengrel laughed and lit a cigarette, wearing an expression of impish glee. The detectives understood why he had so many late-night visitors. He was using blackmail, debt, or his influence to coerce them into coming out paying their respects at an inconvenient time. It was an elaborate power move on his first night in town. A New York elite dunking on the Sincoke small fries.

“Sincoke Small Fries would be a dope team name,” Dallas mused. He put a hand on his Sincoke Grump bolo tie. “As long as they don’t change my beautiful boy—mother fucker!”

Dallas leapt at the window as Sheriff Louis “The Shepard” Arpel showed up at midnight. A solidly built bald man with a tree-trunk neck and a neatly trimmed mustache. Epitome of goon bod. He wore riot gear and brought an escort. His boys weren’t in uniform, but Dallas could smell the cop on them.

Nicknamed after a German Shepard for his aggression and hyper vigilance—and for several controversies involving K9 units—Arpel was one of the few things most Americans knew about Sincoke, reaching national infamy for his harsh and uncompromising views. He and the DA broke records on capital punishment, making Sincoke second only to Texas. He instilled an ‘us versus them’ mentality in the SPD, encouraging police to be suspicious and condescending to civilians. His motto was, “if your body cam breaks; you’re allowed to break bones,” and he rewarded officers with paid suspensions for acts of brutality. He was amassing military surplus gear with taxpayer money, making Sincokers pay to have helicopters over their homes and tanks on their streets.

He packed the streets with plainclothes officers and unmarked vehicles, which was why Dzerassae called Sincoke, ‘little USSR.’ But without a universal jobs guarantee.

Zengrel’s private security were dismissed and replaced with Sincoke’s finest.

“Mother. Fucker.” Dallas said through his false teeth.


The hallway was quiet except for the hum of the florescent lights. Tension from the fight hung over the whole apartment like thick fog.

“They aren’t always that bad,” Sascha said.

“I grew up around fighting. This is the world part,” he gestured around them to the loud quiet, The feeling of certainty it would happen again, and the uncertainty if it’d be months or minutes.

“Eh.” She shrugged. “This part is just my life. I’m used to this.”

“I’m sorry that you had to get used to it.” They reached his door. “Thanks again for helping me find my keys, and for being nice to me.”

“We still investigating your weird-ass place?”

“Oh. Yeah, if you still want. I mean, it’s probably not that weird. I don’t want to–”

“Just let me in ya big nerd.”


12:11AM. A man with a crew cut, a beard, and cold eyes stepped out of a Jeep Wrangler wearing a tight shirt showing off a toned physique. Zengrel saluted him. He handed Zengrel a bubble mailer wrapped in shipping tape.

Christopher Garcia. A member of JSIN, an organization that recruited the most violent and psychotic members of the Navy SEALs and Green Berets, headquartered in Fort Crow out in the prairie. They were trained to deal drugs, terrorize populations, and distribute arms to criminals and terrorist cells to destabilize places where America had interest. In essence the same things they did in SEALs, but independently of the pentagon with almost no accountability or oversight.

When they weren’t on tour they’d get bored and do what they did in Afghanistan right in Sincoke. JSIN members were linked, unofficially, to several disappearances. They also constantly killed one another over women, drugs, or for fun. Fort crow kept it covered up.

Dallas clocked another man in the Jeep. “Holy shit, that’s DONT ANSWER, GIRL.” Zengrel waved to him. He seemed disgusted by Zengrel and unmoved by his charm.

12:25AM. A lazy-looking, lanky man with wavy hair pulled up on a bicycle, wearing a button-up, jeans, and no shoes. The CEO and public face of Prairie Good, an organic grocery store chain trying to ‘change the way Sincoke eats.’ Also a quiet majority shareholder of Val-U Plus, a discount grocery store that undercut other chains out of business, leaving cheap, processed ‘food’ as the only option for Sincokers in the poorest neighborhoods. He was a prolific union-buster who was linked to the disappearances (and a half dozen mysterious deaths) of labor activists. He gave Zengrel a weak handshake and left quickly.

At 12:34AM the SPD caught a young man in an antiquated suit sneaking around, and beat the shit out of him.

“You need to let me in,” he yelled, “I need to find the Source of the Change! Things must Alter! Otherwise you will be unable to face your shadow with perfect courage, unable to contribute meaningfully and with proper manliness to your surroundings!”

“Friend of yours?” Dallas asked.

“Because he has Russian accent?”

“No, because you both talk like wizards.”

“He is amateur vigilante and looks like Bakunist.”

After his beating, he straightened his coat, actually shook his fist at the guards, then walked away if nothing happened—his attention only on what was in front of him.

Dallas whistled in appreciation. “Kid seems tough as nails, though.”

12:38AM. Zengrel was visited by the principal of a rehabilitation camp for troubled teens. A blonde man in a brown suit with a square face, thick brows, huge hands, and a wide jaw. His facility operated within a small, remote suburb. There were allegations of abuse and the school was linked to—say it with me now—several disappearances. Faculty convinced parents not to trust their children, they paid off the Sincoke Department of Child Welfare, and employed the majority of the neighborhood they operated in so no one would help runaways. He and Zengrel beamed at each other and embraced.

Dallas’ jaw was tight. “He’s homies with Doukas. Uses his methods on sad, crazy kids.”

“Americans treat adolescence like pathology,” Dzerassae said. “Sad and crazy is normal.”

12:48. A serene looking Asian man arrived wearing a blue suit. He was escorted by a young woman wearing a traditional Chinese dress and stark white face paint.

“That’s the Street Fighter guy!” Dallas grinned ear to ear. “Apparently he can throw fireballs, levitate, and cast cure wounds with yoga.”

“He is under asylum, like me. Internationally famous CCP critic. American government finds use in that. Anything to pretend they not already win Cold War.”

“He’s also a critic of homosexuality and miscegenation! I wish this country handled Televangelists the way China handled celebrity spirit healers in the ’90s.”

Practitioners of Hao Yidong moved to Sincoke from California when the LAPD began to investigate rumors of abuse and—you’ll never guess—disappearances linked to their compound. They refused to cooperate and lost their tax exempt status, so they slinked off to Sincoke where no one investigated anything. Sincoke’s minuscule Asian minority doubled overnight.

They lapped up public art grants to stage elaborate performances, billed as a celebration of Chinese history. These plays were anti-communist propaganda mixed with good old fashioned American conservatism. Unwitting audiences laughed politely as they suggested their off-brand Tai Chi could cure cancer and that evolution was fake, before being distracted by back flips. The posters were everywhere, as ubiquitous and omnipresent as Chinese food sauce packets.

Zengrel gave the girl a wide, lusty grin and snaked his arm around her to rub between her shoulder blades. She tensed up and forced herself to smile. He recoiled at her blackened teeth.

“She some kinda tribute?” Dallas said, taking dozens of photographs.

Dzerassae observed the young woman’s clear athleticism, her posture, and her defiant attitude. Hers was not a placating smile. It was a chimpanzee’s.

“That girl born wearing combat boots.”


“They’re all expired!” Sascha held out a roll of condoms. Ellis was on death’s door. “We figured out one thing about your brother!”

He got self-conscious as soon as they entered—what if the apartment wasn’t actually that weird? She followed him around quietly, making him even more anxious. She went dead silent in the kitchen, then started peeling the plastic off of everything, cackling and proclaiming that she needed to deflower the apartment. She convinced him to infiltrate the bedroom with a wild gleam in her eyes.

“He doesn’t fuck!”

“Must run in the family,” Ellis said. “Because uh, I’m not the kind of guy to like–”

“Lure a girl into your apartment?” She said.

“Except to hang,” he choked out.

Sascha wanted to hit him with an aw what a shame just to see him fluster. “Well we know everything we need to know about mystery brother. You want help unpacking?”

“Dallas hasn’t told me where to put stuff. But I should check that everything’s there.”

They sat across from each other on the floor going through his CDs and cassettes. Sascha had been exposed to an eclectic range of music from the weird side of YouTube, but nothing like Ellis’ confounding mix of ’30s Trinidadian calypso, bubblegum pop, and soundtracks to movies neither of them had seen. They found common interests, and the chip fell off his shoulder when he talked about music. He became sincere and articulate, and even made eye contact a couple times. Sascha was deeply charmed, she was a sucker for special interests. She let him go off about song construction and what he liked about each album, not listening very intently, just basking in the enthusiasm. They stayed on the floor until their ankles hurt. Ellis shot up and apologized for keeping her so late.

“Ti’s the afternoon for me. I woke up at three.” She wondered if her online friends were worried about her; but it was nice to be around someone in the flesh. She moved to the couch and stretched to see if he would ogle her. He looked away very intentionally. “You play guitar?”

“A little,” Ellis said. It was a bass ukulele but he felt bad correcting people. He started to open the case, struggling with the zipper. It was held together with tape and staples.

“Looks like that case died a long time ago.”

“Well, I like it,” Ellis lied.

“Do you want me to fix it?” Ellis froze. He didn’t know how to process such generosity. “I love fixing old things. Your bro doesn’t have a sewing kit, ugh men and all that, but I can bring mine next time. Unless that’ll make it less punk.”

Ellis was happy to hear next time. A bunch of lined paper covered in elaborate chicken scratch spilled out of the case. He quickly gathered them up and set them face down.

“Ooo what’s that?” Ellis tried to deflect but she slid back to the floor and flipped through them.

His jaw tightened. “Sometimes I get ideas for songs, but I don’t know how to write music. I had a cassette recorder for a minute, but it broke and the quality wasn’t good anyway, so I–”

“Did you make up your own music notation?”

“Look, who cares? I know how to read it.”

“Why are you getting huffy?” She narrowed her eyes and he lowered his head. He assumed she was making fun of him. “Hey, if you wanna record stuff I can bring my computer over sometime.”

“I don’t want to make you uh, waste your batteries.”

“Aw, are you embarrassed? All your songs about cute redheads or something? Afraid I’ll be… instantly seduced?” She made a little swooning gesture.

“I’m not embarrassed. They’re good songs, I did all the right things. But I wrote most of them for piano. I used to play one at the music store but they got a new manager who’d kick me out. There was a cool girl who worked there that would let me play, so I’d loiter around the strip mall until she showed up. Then they called the cops on me and I think she stopped working there.”

“You must have been awful if they tried to arrest you,” Sascha said. He insisted he did everything right. “Is music really about that? Isn’t it more about like, creativity or sincerity?”

“Depends on what you’re doing. If you’re tryna be real personal and spill your soul, get weird and ugly.” He shrugged. “But if you’re trying to evoke a specific feeling, set a scene, make people dance, or just get stuck in peoples’ heads, there are methods that consistently work if you do them well. Sometimes music is art, sometimes its just a trade like bricklaying; you’re just putting things in the right spots.” She asked what he did. “I come up with an idea, then I keep making small changes until its just right.”


12:58 AM. Zengrel ordered the guards inside. He looked anxious.

1:00 AM. An unmarked van pulled up and Zengrel put on his mask of casual confidence.

Dzerassae narrowed her eyes at agent White, then widened them at an old wiry man who stepped out of the back seat. He was bald and his skin was covered in big dark blemishes. He looked the spitting opposite of still, straight-backed agent White as he scrambled around with his head on a swivel, possessed of nervous energy.

Zengrel extended a handshake. White refused it. Zengrel smiled and gestured to something hidden in a hedge. The old man barked at him impatiently. Zengrel then produced a flash drive from his pocket. White snatched it out of his hands and got back in the car.

The old man ordered the SPD officers to get something out of the trunk. It looked like a powder blue coffin decorated with white frills. The detectives tried to photograph the text on it, but couldn’t get their cameras to focus before the guards whisked it inside like pall bearers. The old man made a licentious face and a crude gesture. Zengrel nodded, clearly humoring him.

“Does your spook still ask questions about me?” Dallas asked.

“He thinks you are extremist, over-idealistic vigilante.”

“If guys like him did his job, the world wouldn’t need guys like me.”

“I have seen naive idealism and ruthless pragmatism in equal measure,” Dzerassae said. “Both lead to destruction. White’s pragmatism make him collaborate with devil like Zengrel.” She helped Dallas see the camera hidden behind the hedge Zengrel gestured at.

“Zengrel’s an asset. Huh. That’s how he gets away with shit. This case just got way more dangerous. Whoops all CIA! You know the old scarecrow?”

“I have known of him since Cold War,” Dzerassae said. She noticed Agent White staring in their direction. Did he see them, or were his instincts telling him it was a perfect place for someone to hide?

Zengrel lit a cigarette and sat on his front steps after they left. Before he finished it, a smug looking young man with beady eyes and a yellow vest approached him and shoved a microphone in his face. He was accompanied a skinny bearded man with a camera. Zengrel patiently tried to dismiss them. When that didn’t work, he got a cold look on his face and had the SPD smash their equipment.

1:32AM. A hummer pulled up. The front hood was painted like a skull and a flag trailed behind it. The flag looked like a massive sheet of parchment with the entirety of the second amendment written in cursive text. There doors were painted like the American flag with crosses instead of stars—the symbol of the Prairie Patriots, an anti-government, white nationalist, Christian identity militia. They showed up at protests and strikes to escalate them into violent confrontations. They went to universities and libraries to harass and intimidate anyone ‘pushing’ inclusive practices. Several members were running for office. AIDS had photographed them cooperating with the SPD but no normal news sites would run them.

A man wearing a bulletproof vest emerged from the driver’s side. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder, seven handguns belted around his waist, and enough pockets of ammunition to make a Rob Leifield character blush. Dallas whistled in appreciation. Zengrel couldn’t mask his distaste.

“What’s good liberal Zengrel doing associating with these clowns?”

“Aiding in CIA infiltration, maybe.” Dzerassae said.

“The CIA isn’t trying to infiltrate the PP. They’re after good Communists like us.”

“You not good Communist, you are Maoist,” Dzerassae spat. Dallas grinned at her. “Melting spoons and killing sparrow instead of seizing means of production.”

“CIA is probably arming the PP so they can harass minorities and unions and distract this country’s half-assed progressive movement. Could be using Zengrel to control or influence leadership.”

Zengrel made a show of coyly shutting off the secret hedge camera. His mouth widened to a malevolent smirk, then he and the Militia leader discussed something in hushed tones.

“Or some fucked up new thing.” Dallas sighed. “New secret union from hell.”


“Its about a mouse my Mom killed,” Ellis was embarrassed.

“That’s sad and kind of sweet. What was his name?”

“He didn’t have one,” Ellis said. “He was a mouse. I think it’s arrogant for us to give animals names. They don’t care. They don’t even know.”

“Yeah. I had a hamster named Starfish when I was a kid. I was obsessed with her and I felt really stupid for being sad when she died. I think I felt ashamed for thinking my hamster mattered. She wasn’t important just because I cared about her. Arrogance, I guess.”

“Then I went and wrote a whole song about a mouse.” Ellis shrugged. “So I get it. Maybe we only care about animals when we project onto them. On the other hand, there are millions of hamsters and mice but probably one day there won’t be any, so maybe they all count. And none of them are Starfish. I’m sure there were unique things about her.”

“She squeaked real loud whenever she saw me, she had one crooked whisker, and she used to fall asleep in her food bowl like she loved her snackums so much she had to snuggle them. What was unique about your mouse?”

“Nothing. He saw peanut butter and got excited, then a clamp crushed his leg. The peanut butter was just out of reach. He kept sniffing it, because what else was he supposed to do. He wasn’t thinking about life or death—there was peanut butter. Now I gotta think about him. And anyone who hears the song. I want everyone to have to think about that mouse.”

“Can I hear it?”

Ellis felt his chest tighten. It wasn’t Just Right yet. But he picked up his bass ukulele.

His soft, practiced voice was jarring. It struck her as funny to hear such soulful, pretty sounds come out of that perpetually frowning mouth—like Kurt Cobain singing Sarah McLachlan with a completely straight face. She had to stifle a laugh. She’d never forgive herself if she snickered at him.

After the initial surprise, she got lost in his performance. The wistful song mourned the mouse’s difficult life and honored its quiet dignity. It was written from the rodent’s perspective, describing loneliness, stealing crumbs, and surviving winters. He acknowledged his lot in life without feeling sorry for himself. He didn’t have a name, but he knew who he was. The third verse described being trapped. His only wish was for one final bite of peanut butter. He struggled valiantly, then acknowledged the reality of nature and accepted that he couldn’t even have that. It ended with the mouse, who knew no one, just as no one knew him, wishing himself goodbye.

Ellis went somewhere else while he sang. He closed his eyes and swayed gently, performing like he was alone. It seemed meditative. Or maybe he was anxiously disassociating. He finished, came out of his trance and said, “Fuck I’m sorry. I should have just done the first verse.”

“What?” Sascha became very animated. “No holy shit it was great. Like did that just happen? We need to get you to an open mic yesterday.”

Ellis got visibly anxious. “I can’t, it’s not finished yet.”

“Seemed like three verses and a chorus to me.” Ellis launched into explaining everything wrong with it. He seemed stressed thinking about it, so Sascha gracefully switched gears. “Well I’m grateful I got to hear the alpha version. It fucking broke my heart.”

“Thank you for humoring me.” He couldn’t tear his mind away from the upsetting thought of performing an unfinished song, so he changed the subject. “What happened to Starfish?”

“My brother stuck her in the microwave. He said a boy shouldn’t have a girl hamster. Little did he know!”


Tyler Kimball, https://www.instagram.com/tylermkimball/

1:56AM. Dallas got a Bali Myna—a beautiful, endangered white bird with dark blue skin around its eyes—to sit on his shoulder.

2:00AM. A white and gold limousine pulled up and let out a middle aged man in a white suit, wearing a watch worth more than the combined salary of everyone at AIDS. His self-satisfied grin matched Zengrel’s. He was accompanied by a tall, prim young man with piercing eyes who walked with an elegance and gravity that commanded Dallas and Dzerassae’s attention, even as Zengrel and the older man performed an elaborate handshake full of suggestive gestures.

“Johnathon The-Blessing-Of-The-Lord-Makes-A-Person-Rich Wilson, better known as Johnny Gospel,” Dallas said. “Millionaire who runs a megachurch and has a finance podcast called The Prosperity Doctrine. Spiritual and financial guru all in one—talk about saying the quiet part out loud. At least your fundamentalists have Gothic architecture and sick iconography. We get acoustic guitars and linoleum floors. You’re lucky if you see a fucking candle.”

“Those gaudy buildings are soaked in Pagan blood. They should be torn down and replaced with concrete apartments.”

“At least evil in Europe is tasteful. We get this shit,” Dallas gestured at Zengrel’s bland home, Gospel’s gaudy car. “The kid is the special boy from the news. Gospel’s congregation thinks he can speak to the dead and cure their diabetes. Amy says that much praise—like literally they pray to him—basically constitutes abuse. I guess I have to feel sorry for him, I’m sure John’s milking it.”

Dallas imagined John tending his flock, telling them what was good for them and taking everything he could. He rubbed the bird’s neck with a finger. It leaned into his hand.

Special boy produced a miniature bible from his pocket and recited it at Zengrel. He spoke quietly but Dallas and Dzerassae could hear his voice clearly. He seemed angelic; their thoughts turned to Christ striking down the merchants’ tables at the temple. Zengrel and Gospel listened with bemused detachment—but listen they did. The Bali Myna began to peck at itself and draw blood from its talon. Gospel ushered him back into the car, with an apologetic shrug at Zengrel.

The hair on Dallas’ neck was standing up. “True believer, that kid.”

“Very useful for his handler,” Dzerassae spat.

“And maybe for us—a righteous guy on the inside who can’t keep his mouth shut? I’ve gotten tips about Gospel, I’ve wanted to investigate him for-e-vah. Special kid might be an In. Amy’ll be thrilled. She can fix him!”

Zengrel sat on his patio. No guests arrived for some time. Dallas fantasized about taking one quick shot. But then they’d never find the girls. But then Zengrel couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. But then his allies would cover their tracks. But it would feel so good.

Dzerassae intuited patterns. The hedges all grew in the direction away from Zengrel’s house, and the wind blew litter towards it. Trash comes, life flees. Zengrel seemed antsy. Even when he was being harassed by reporters and his CIA handlers, he moved with a lumbering swagger, as if not a single muscle in his body were tense. Now his shoulders were pinched and his leg bobbed restlessly. He kept checking his phone. Who was coming? Dzerassae’s chest began to swell with the anticipation. She started seeing malevolent patterns everywhere. She was drawn to the bathroom and discovered that the drunken man had opened the window to smoke. She closed it, and was able to filter data again.

Dallas’ mind started running through every open case. He resented having to do their paid work of stalking insecure rich mens’ cheating wives. Good on ’em for getting some real dick. He could solve anything fix everything save everyone if he had more time. Shoot Zengrel in the head. Al Capone style right in the open. It was like a nagging cigarette craving. But he couldn’t let his people down. They needed him. His fingers stopped dancing around the butt of his

gun

then started again when a young girl rode up to Zengrel on a city bike. She had shoulder-length hair dyed black, ripped jeans, and a black t-shirt with a graphic of a face bisected vertically. One side was a skull, the other a Cheshire grin. She was wearing a lot of eyeliner and dark red lipstick. Trying to look like a woman.

Zengrel smiled and pulled her into a tight embrace that lingered too long. He buried his face in her hair. His hands traveled from her elbow up her arm. His fingers traced the curvature of her shoulder blades before resting his palm between them, spreading then closing his fingers. He held the hug until she pulled away, like he was testing her boundaries.

He stared directly at her face while they spoke, drinking in the sight of her, the hungry black voids of his pupils filling up with whatever he was taking. She looked at the house and the hedges, nervously avoiding eye contact. She glanced back and he circled her, to be between her and the bike, then he put his arm around her shoulders and guided her to the door. He never looked away from her face and he never blinked.


Ellis thought of little Sascha crying while her small pet scratched desperately at the glass of the microwave, trying to get to her while it’s insides heated up.

“Cyrus didn’t know what he was doing. He was like, eleven, and I think it traumatized him too.”

Helplessness, children, small animals, Starfish not understanding what was happening to her, people innocently harming things,

the way it felt to realize you’d done something awful,

lonely homeless unacknowledged
desperate the indignity of your body which feels
and tastes
and holds and haves
becoming mush
Tara alone and abandoned
hurting people without knowing or understanding
what—

“I have a little shrine in my room. Mom bought me a star-shaped box—probably the most thoughtful thing she’s ever done. I keep her favorite toy and some sawdust from her tank in it.” Sascha noticed Ellis was quiet, and assumed he was tired of hearing about her dead hamster. “Anyway,” she held up a sheet of music notation. “What’s this one?”

Ellis snapped out of his head and turned red. “Can’t talk about that one.”

“Is it really horny?”

“Yes,” Ellis lied because that was less embarrassing.

“Then what’s this one?”

“A cover of Maxine Nightingales’ Right Back Where we Started From.”Ellis sung the chorus, hitting the night notes proficiently. “It’s a disco pop song.”

“Did you do like a… heavy metal version?”

“No. Straight cover. I have to adjust the pitch a little because I have a deeper voice than her.”

“Why that song?”

“It rules.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“No. What’s your thing?”

“My thing?

“Yeah like, what do you do?”

Sascha froze. It was an intimidating question from someone with an actual hobby. She stopped making videos. She couldn’t just say video games. She shouldn’t tell him about camming. Come on girl, you do stuff. She’d done web design for her friends. She had tried making games. “I’m in school for software engineering.” His face was imperceptible. “Coding, computer programs. It’s boring.”

“Are you rich?”

“What? Aha, no. Nooo. My Mom got sucked into an MLM and Madhi donates half his money to his super-AA thing. It’s online community college courses. I already know how to do it all; just need my piece of paper. Like there are any coding jobs here anyway. I keep thinking, maybe I’ll move! But like, first off to where? Silicone Valley? Ew. And also I wouldn’t be the first to try.”

Ellis was mystified. He launched into a series of questions, including: you speak computer language? (I can code in Javascript and HTML). So you can make programs, like Word and YouTube? (Uh well one of those is a website, but I can do those too). Is it green and Japanese like the Martix? (A hundred percent yeah). He had a million misconceptions about hackers, and some romantic ideas about the dark web which she shut down (it’s basically just child porn, dude). She ended up explaining some basic concepts to him; it blew him away. She eventually admitted she didn’t think it was boring.

“I think its beautiful,” she said. “Binary is a perfect language. No vagueness or room for interpretation. 1:1 communication.”

“That’s so cool. I wish I could make music like that, songs with one, explicit interpretation. What kind of programs do you make?”

“I’ve built websites for some online friends. Ooo and I’ve worked with people on indie games. They’re up on itch with like, ten downloads.” She shrugged.

“Do you like video games?”

She held her hair back so he could see her RareWare earrings. “I used to have a YouTube channel where I reviewed retro games. I really like analyzing them.”

“Have you played—hold on.” Ellis dug into his boxes and pulled out his dusty NES and Megaman 2.

“Uh, yes! Cuh-lassic. Are you a retro gamer?”

“This is the only video game I’ve ever played.” She was disappointed, then perplexed. “I used to play with Dallas. I think he stole it. Its my only memory with him. I figured when I got here we could, well, I dunno. I really expected him to be here.”

“…He put you in a weird spot, didn’t he?” Sascha said.

“I put him in a weird spot. He doesn’t really know me and he’s gotta put me up.”

“Well, his loss. We’ll just have to play Megaman without him. I have an adapter at my place. It’ll look kinda weird on the flat-screen—maybe I’ll just lug over a CRT?”

“Aren’t you avoiding your brother?”

“Awful night for brothers, ain’t it?” She said. “Be right back.”


“Pensive Cigarette,” Kenneth Steven Janes, https://www.twitch.tv/scrunklebunglo, https://soundcloud.com/kenneth-steven-janes

Every
Second


Stre
eee

e
tched

as Dallas and Dzerassae waited, knowing Zengrel was alone with a child. They knew what room; a light turned on on the second floor. The red curtains were open but they couldn’t see inside from their angle. Neither of them said a word.

Dallas resisted a calm instinct to raid the house. No sense of vengeance or hatred. Just what you do. Dzerassae ruminated about societies where neighbors are strangers. In the old country, or even in her Kruchevka in Peter, a mob would have stormed Zengrel’s home driven by the same instinct Dallas was suppressing. She missed living in places where people kept each other. They fed off each other’s energy. At any minute they might stand up, without a word, and break into Zengrel’s house. Then the girl reemerged.

Dallas scrutinized her through his binoculars. Dzerassae noticed she was fine. Creeped out, but not traumatized or injured. She was in a hurry to leave, but not fleeing for her life.

Zengrel was wearing a salmon robe. He went in for another hug. She hugged him around the waist, ducked under his arms before he could pull her into another long bear hug, then got on her bike. She was good at deflecting advances. Dzerassae knew she’d been doing it all night.

Zengrel said something and she stopped to ponder it. He planted a seed in her mind. He smirked. Just had to let it grow.

She took off on the bike.

“I’m on her,” Dallas said.

“I’ll get car.”

Zengrel’s face twisted in frustration as he watched her go. “How impolite of me,” he grinned again. “I should have had my staff bring her bike in.” He stood unmoving and unblinking. “Could have gotten stolen.” His smirked widened. “…Could get stolen.”

Dallas jogged after her, taking cover behind houses. He hopped fences and trudged through backyards, tripping over garden gnomes and showing up on Ring cameras, but he didn’t care. Young girls weren’t safe on Wild Nights. Dzerassae caught up to him in the AIDSmobile, the agency’s latest clunker. The beat up ’92 Nissan Maxima looked conspicuous among the Telsas and Cadillacs.

They followed her at a discreet distance. Another car started following her, so they ran it off the road, then Dallas got out and slashed their tires with one of Dzerassae’s knives. He sauntered away while three pockmarked little men threatened him, knowing no one who stalked young girls would fight a grown man. He remembered their license plate. He memorized their faces.

Someone tried to sell her drugs. He was being pushy, so Dzerassae hit his parked car; giving her a chance to bike away. Dallas got out to take his drugs, but he started fantasizing about taking them. He apologized for his Grandma’s driving and they took off, their front bumper now hanging loose.

She seemed lost when they caught up to her. Dallas considered giving her directions; Dzerassae was sure she’d find her way.

She arrived home in the early morning and tried to sneak inside, but a tall young man with long dark hair was waiting at the door.

“Oh good, Dude looks like the platonic ideal of a protective older brother. Archetypal as shit. Chef’s kiss.” Dallas sighed in relief. “Fucking try harder next time, man.”

“Hmm. She is wily one,” Dzerassae said. Her brother was a tired guardian. She sensed his innate leadership. The gravitas of the Medicine Man or Chieftain. Knightly Honor. The Mandate of Heaven. But he was stretched thin, not yet in his full power. “The girl slip through Zengrel’s fingertips. Her family will have difficult time if they try to hold her in.”

“She’s fucking wily alright. We literally saw her dip away when Zengrel tried to ‘hold her in’,” Dallas smiled. “I’d like this kid if she wasn’t being so dumb.”

“Young girls are known to stray from paths.”

The girl and her brother yelled at each other, then she stormed inside. He took a deep breath then stormed after her. She was safe. She never noticed the shadows guarding her.

The sun was rising. The Avia Investigative Detective Services took on missing person cases pro bono. They kept tabs on Sincoke’s villains. They fought on wherever Sincoke failed; committed—heart and soul—to helping those who fell through the cracks.

They also had bills to pay.

“Drop me off at the office,” Dallas said through a yawn. “We got some poor cuck coming in at 8:30. I’m gonna nap in the waiting room for a couple hours. You can come in at noon today, if you want. I know you old folks don’t sleep that much.”

“I have not slept through night since middle age.”

“You were alive in the middle ages?”

Dzerassae let out one of her rare cackles. “I am too haunted by past to sleep.”

“Comrade Dzerassae,” Dallas rested his hand on her arm, “you’re alright, old lady.”


The NES wasn’t working. Ellis was devastated, it was his oldest friend. “Was it in the box I dropped on that asshole’s foot?” He muttered.

Sascha didn’t question that. Windy night. “Does your brother have one of those twisty things they use to close up bread?” Ellis produced one from his pocket. “Dude, why?”

“You can use them as zippers or key rings. Also since they break easily, you can use them to tie box cutters or a bag of rocks to your belt loop if you think someone might try and jump you. Faster than taking it out your pocket.”

“They… sure are versatile.” Sascha deftly opened up the console, practically making Ellis’ heart stop. She finagled with it until it ran on the widescreen. “Wallah! It is risen!”

“Whoa. How’d you do that?”

“Magic.” She winked. “Don’t shake it too much.” The display was stretched out. She refused to accept that and messed with the settings for several more minutes.

They sat cross-legged on the couch and switched on death. Sascha worked on Ellis’ guitar case while he played. It was good she brought her sewing kit; he almost never died. It may be the only game he ever played, but apparently he played the shit out of it. On her turns she blew his mind with secrets and Easter eggs; benefit of having the internet.

Ellis talked about the game’s soundtrack. Sascha talked about game design and working within hardware limitations. Occasionally their knees touched, but by 3AM they stopped jerking away when it happened.

Ellis abruptly paused the game. “I can trust you with that binder.”

She grinned like a cat. “The horny binder.”

“Its… a concept album about Megaman. Keep it mum,” He said in a hushed tone. “I don’t want to get a copyright whatever.”

“Its three in the morning, but I need you to sing the whole thing for me. I’ll stay up all night. I’ll never sleep again. I need to hear your musical fanfic.” Sascha looked at the tiny blue man on screen, fighting another blue man with a fan for a face. She needed to hear what this absolute weirdo she found thought Megaman was about.

An admiring look came to his eyes. She knew she was in for something good. “So Megaman’s life is simple. He knows his maker and what his purpose is. Binary computer language, like you taught me. That’s why his design is so simple, he’s innocent. The first song is about his choice to protect humanity; sacrificing a perfect life without uncertainty to protect a group he can never belong to. He’s superior to us after all—he’s Megaman—and that isolates him. He fights his Own, the Robot Masters. How do you think he learned to value free will?”

“I don’t know!” Sascha was wide-eyed and smiling with her mouth open. “Please take m—I mean tell me. This is nuts. I mean that in a good way. Don’t get self-conscious.”

“Well… that’s what the third song is about. The second one is about Protoman, a really complicated figure. First man. Abraham. He’s trying to rule humans, but in a protective way, like a strict father. Dr Wiley is like the Old Testament God. He’s a doctor, masters over life and death.”

“Ok, hold up,” Sascha cut in. “You’re not anti-vaccine are you?”

“No, I think they’re good. I don’t know if Mom got me any.”

“Well, never too late. Please go on.”

“I know how this next part sounds, but I am also pro-doctors. In theory anyway. I’ve only seen them on TV. You know how they cut people open and give them medicine with nasty side-effects, but ultimately its good for them?”

“Just checking that we’re still talking about Megaman 2. Somehow.”

“Yeah. That’s how Protoman sees subjugation. Shitty but ultimately good for people. But I think Megaman admires free will because he wasn’t born with it. He experiences it for the first time when he disobeys his protocols, which is an act of will and also kind of a miracle. So the two brothers want to save people, but they come at it from different angles. Their conflict is very tragic. The best part is it conveys this entirely through music queues.”

Sascha imagined all the time he spent playing Megaman alone, role-playing this in his head. The game let his imagination run wild, and that validated a medium she was passionate about. She made a solemn vow to never to tell him about the canon. She needed to protect his beautiful mind from the wikis and Archie comics. She thought about showing him Megaman X to see if he’d have a stroke.

“What is it about to you?” He asked.

“Oh, platforming with really tight controls, hard but fair difficulty, power ups that let you modulate difficulty to a degree. Nuances like how it pauses when you die so you can process what happened, or the split second you get to scan the room during stage transitions so you don’t fucked by unreactible bullshit.” Ellis looked at her like she was soulless. “That stuff is important, dude. They didn’t have CGI cutscenes in 1988. The gameplay conveyed the story. Megaman took on overwhelming, insurmountable odds right? He suffered setbacks, but got stronger with each victory. That’s expressed through the game itself! It’s a story that happens directly to you.”

“Holy shit. Its like music, conveying things without words. To set a mood, put visions in peoples’ minds, to,” he struggled to articulate something.

“To tell a story,” Sascha said.

The wind raged outside. So did the city. Sincoke hard-boiled over as suppressed emotions were stirred by the air. That night there were 51 reported car thefts, 33 robberies, 42 break-ins, 71 assaults, 114 cases of domestic abuse, and 24 murders. 66 People went missing. Those were just the official numbers.

These two new friends enjoyed a calm, relaxing night.

Part Two: Meeting New People Under Bad Circumstances, 2

A cockroach writhed on its back in a dark corner of the lobby. Ellis’ welcoming crew. He kept glancing at it while he looked on the mailboxes for Dallas’ name and apartment number. He wanted to help it, but it might freak out and shoot eggs at him. He found his brother’s name on the mailbox for Apt 68. It was partially scratched out.

The narrow hallways and low ceiling made Ellis feel like he was in a mine. The dim florescent lights flickered like torch fire. The gum encrusted floor and peeling paint created uneven textures like the rocky sides of a tunnel. He eyed the elevator unhappily. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but the sensation of going up filled his stomach with butterflies.

The elevator smelled like body odor. Not like a locker room, like a specific individual’s.

Opening the door to Apt 68 was like gazing through a magic portal to a furniture show room. Everything was pristine and brand new, in stark contrast to the rest of the building. There was a black leather couch with perfect, plump leather cushions that shined in the overhead light like polished boots. No water rings on the coffee table or holes in the dry wall. The purple curtains looked ironed. The huge TV had plastic cling on it. The remote was on the stand, not lost like remotes should be.

Ellis froze in the door frame as if he’d sully the apartment with his riff-raffishness. It didn’t feel like a home, it felt like a set. Did Dallas even live here. Why’d they clean it so well? What had they done here?

He noticed a tiny bit of water damage on a purple accent wall near the ceiling. It was enough proper wear and tear to put him more at ease. He carefully set his luggage just inside the doorway, relieved he didn’t have to carry it anymore. He checked it to be safe, then explored the space.

The kitchen was crazy. Ellis had never seen such clean appliances; even the displays at stores had some fingerprints on them. The fridge was empty except for a collection of exotic hot sauces. All unopened. The drawers had silverware, but no spatulas, meat thermometers, or any other essentials. There were Chinese food sauce packets, but that was cold comfort. Those were everywhere.

The bathroom was very small. The shower curtain was mildew-free and the caulk around the tub was stark white. He’d never seen a bathroom with no moisture damage. He lifted open the toilet, expecting even that to be dry.

Ellis wouldn’t go in the bedroom. Too personal. There was no bedroom door, just a thick purple curtain. There wouldn’t be a lot of privacy. He’d be getting kicked out whenever Dallas had girls over.

Ellis set himself on the couch trepidaciously, like he was stepping into cold water. He didn’t want to put wear and tear on someone’s new couch so he sat on it like it was an antique, careful not to get too comfortable.

He felt monumentally lonely. He had one close friend back home, but no way to contact her. He’d have to pay someone to borrow their cellphone to say hello. His Mom didn’t want to hear from him. The night shift gas attendants, homeless dudes, the one nice librarian, the autistic kid who lent him comics, they were all far away. He missed the old men who played chess in the WinCo parking lot, the lady on his block who tied her cockatoo to her shoulder, and other people who he’d never spoken to, but knew. He was starting from scratch. There was nothing familiar.

He couldn’t trust Dallas for support. Motherfucker didn’t even leave a note on the fridge.

That lack of communication made Ellis feel restrained in the house. He didn’t know the boundaries, so he was afraid to do anything. He got up and did what he did when his old house felt unsafe. Take a walk.


“Z, I know what you’re thinking, but there’s nothing to worry about!” Dallas came out from the bathroom. There were no toiletries, just bird medicine and other supplies. It confirmed Dallas’ suspicion that no one actually lived here. Dallas knew his birds, many of these were endangered and illegal to own. Some rich guy who lived in a nicer city with real regulations needed somewhere to keep his exotic pets.

“And!” Dallas held up a needle he found in the trash. “Whoever tends these birds parties. Hard. He ain’t coming to work on a wild night.”

“Clearly he has healthy amount of disrespect for his employers. But that is no guarantee.”

“Look I don’t know what Wild Nights are. Amy is always talking about collective consciousness and infectious energy and mass hysteria and you’re always talking about that too but in more of a Jungian supernatural way and I kinda nod at you guys politely because I’m just a freaky lil monkey man but I know ONE damn thing, and it’s when when I was on this shit, I was NOT going to work on Wild Nights. Lemme tell ya.”

“If he shows, we bribe. There is other problem,” Dzerassae gestured her chin towards several cameras facing the bird cages, pointed at hanging toys or food trays.

“Pet cameras,” Dallas said. “1920’s noir motherfuckers never had to worry about this stuff. They usually notify people when the animals move or make noise.” The birds were freaking out and Dallas was constantly trying to touch them.

“Then you must control yourself and stay away from cages,” Dzerassae said.

“Eh, he could live in another time zone for all we know,” Dallas lovingly watched an African Gray maul his finger. “Otherwise, sorry but see you in jail. Not as bad as the Soviet ones at least. Just kidding, they’re torture chambers over here. Ow, fuck. Cutie found the cuticle.”

Dzerassae ignored him and the birds. She was the one who found Zengrel’s new address. It was renovated recently, three apartments converted into one large mansion. It came to her attention when the good liberal neighbors called ICE on the contractors. Renovations aren’t common in Sincoke, and they began right after Zengrel’s trafficking and statutory rape trial in Los Angeles—which got inexplicably little media coverage. He got a minor solicitation charge. She sent Lester to case it. Dallas spoke to some old acquaintances—other mostly reformed thugs and gangsters that did private security work. A couple of them had passed up opportunities to work there, being a little too reformed to work for rich people who demand ‘extreme discretion.’ They tracked some packages and stole the moving company’s records. The apartment was owned by a NYC real estate company, operated by people close to Zengrel.

It didn’t take a data interpreter or a criminal psychologist to put it together. He was hiding in Sincoke while the limited press from his court case blew over. But he wasn’t covering his tracks very well. Many rich people were very private. Most large conglomerates and finance firms didn’t have a public face. She wondered what gave Zengrel all his confidence. Dallas assumed it was money. America believed he was a narcissist. Lester figured he was just stupid. Dzerassae had a feeling there was more to it.

She had to periodically rest her old eyes. Dallas was starting to fade too. He spent most of the day stalking cheating spouses to keep the Agency afloat. Americans call people friends far too easily, but Dallas was certainly a comrade. She wasn’t sure if he was more interested in helping people or punishing himself. She could tell his mind was dwelling in darkness.

“Do not listen. You are good man, Dallas Avia,” Dzerassae said. “Awhile back you called your contacts ‘other mostly reformed gangsters.’ You are fully reformed. You are on the other side.”

“Heh. I just broke into someone’s house, and I’m stalking a guy I don’t like,” there was some amusement in his voice. “For sure I’m on the other side. But I haven’t changed.” Dzerassae nodded in solemn understanding. She, too, still lurked in shadows.

“I mean I even brought a lackey with me! That’s crimelord shit.”

“I am NOT lackey!” She frowned deeply and pointed a withering old finger at him.

“Hey don’t curse me with your witch finger!”

“I curse you!” She wiggled it. She was dead serious.

“No! The power of Christ repels you!” Dallas flipped open his wallet and held out a picture of Mao Zedong. “Oh shit—“ he gestured out the window, “there’s guys!”


Ellis was at peace in the hallways because there was nothing he could do to make them worse. He was looking for one of the kinds of vending machines he knew how to rob.

He heard a couple fighting and got excited about shaming them with a disapproving look, but they were inside an apartment. 69, directly across the hallway. He listened for a moment in case things got violent. In his experience no one took the ‘yelly’ household seriously, and he worried no one else would take it seriously if the woman screamed for help.

“Social, cosmic, individual unity! She is disordered on every level. We need to get her into a Game. Maybe even the wilderness facility!”

“Those nit-picking hawks are gonna tear her apart at that awful fucking humiliation ritual,” The woman seemed to hiss at a thousand decibels. Her voice was shrill and throaty. It came from the darkest part of her heart.

“It’s therapy!” The man yelled, “better than the self-delusion echo chamber you get with a shrink. No better than her online–”

“She needs to move some of this product with me,” the woman said, “needs some fire under her ass, learn how to make it as a woman in this world. These are the most productive years of–”

“You and the fucking product! You blew your savings, lost your job and most of your friends over–”

She started yelling indistinctly. No words, just hoarse, furious, demonic shouting.

A third voice repeated the word ‘mom’ increasingly loudly. Suddenly something big and heavy thunked into the door. Ellis saw it shake from impact. Whatever it was shattered on the floor.

Ellis braced himself to kick the door open but the woman didn’t scream, she sighed.

“I loved that thing,” she said coolly. Resigned.

“Its—these—internet—people. He’s—confused.” Silence punctuated each word. “Discipline! Responsibility! Without tradition, without roles, things—have lost—all—meaning. He’s a degenerate—who watches—cartoons. He’s given up on the world—accepted a passive role. That’s what this postmodern Neo-Marxist gender ideology reflects—a broken and confused inner psyche. Dad’s organization is full of low status males and drunks,” a huffy sound of disapproval from the first voice, “but that kind of tough love might help. Don’t you understand?”

The woman sighed. “I haven’t understood a fucking word you’ve said in three years.” The young man cursed and Ellis heard him punch a couch. “Are you going to let him act like that?” The woman said. The first man offered up an explanation so pathetic and impossible to respect that Ellis blocked it out entirely. The younger man launched into another weird speech. His family sounded sick of listening to him, and Ellis was too. He walked away.

It was comforting and confusing to know the apartment was a real place with real people. He walked past several doors that meant dozens of people living separate lives under the same roof. It was a unique loneliness.

He saw a room at the end of the hall with white tiles. A facility. Ellis loved those. Laundry rooms, kitchens, locker rooms. It was easy to pretend you had a reason to be there, so no one asked you to leave. Sometimes they had the old vending machines without cameras and alarm systems. He got closer and saw washing machines. That meant loose change.

He heard the distinct rumbling of a dryer. He walked in and saw

a cute girl. Dancing.

She looked his age, late teens or early twenties. She had olive skin and orange hair gathered into a thick mess. She was wearing a green tank top, dark sweatpants with prints of video game mascots, flip flops, and big bulky headphones. She swayed her hips and swung her arms with her eyes closed. Ellis was captivated by her long sloping nose. It started at a gentle bump between her eyes, perfect for resting glasses on. He he heard Mediterranean people were self-conscious of their noses. He couldn’t imagine why. Hers was elegant.

Ellis felt deep secondhand embarrassment. It was such an intimate, joyful moment and he profaned it profaned it walking in on it. She noticed him just as he was about to back away slowly. She gave a sheepish smile, then sat in the only plastic chair that wasn’t covered in gum or bent at the legs.

Ellis would look like a creeper if he left right away, so he acted like he meant to be there. In a laundry room, with no laundry. He went down the row staring at each dryer. He was obviously more embarrassed than she was, so she decided to rescue him.

“Looking for a good one?”

Did he need one? Ellis pretended to wipe his nose on his shirt collar, covertly sniffing it. “Wait—are some washing machines better than others?”

“I dunno man, I just come in here to dance.” Ellis gave an understanding nod, which perplexed and intrigued her. “You new here?”

“Moved in tonight.”

“Oh, very new! Cool. From what part of the city?”

Her eyes were big and bright brown, with dark circles her iris. He felt them taking him in. He stared at the ground, occasionally chancing glances at them. “Uh. Okonkwa,” Ellis said. “Its like, outside the city.”

“No fuckin’ way. You moved here? Like, from the world? I’ve never met anyone who’s been outside the city. Did you trek through the prairie?”

“This cab driver who wanted to die drove me.”

“Tell me of the outside world, traveler,” she said in an old hag voice.

“Its a complete nightmare. It’s mostly highways and stores, and everywhere you go someone hassles you until you spend money.”

“And they wonder why kids don’t play outside any more. Why’d ya’ll move to the Sinkhole? Running from something?”

“Beat a cop half to death.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Ellis’ sour expression and curt responses made her nervous. She got that a lot; pretty much every time she went out in public. It’s why she didn’t. She watched the way he slumped and how the silence made him fidget, and realized he was just a grungy, feral, awkward dude. His face was probably stuck like an apprehensive animal. He didn’t disapprove of her, he was just uncomfortable. Well, she was very good at fixing that. Plus she liked ’em bashful.

“I hate the police. I used to work my uncle’s falafel truck. I can be charming when I have to, so I was a neighborhood favorite. They called me ‘Little Falafel Girl.’ Got some serious tips. The police were constantly harassing me, searching for drugs and hassling me about permits. Do I look like I know anything about zoning laws? I was there to fry chickpeas. One of them called me a ‘Fucking Arab’ and said a bunch of shit about Sharia Law and hijabs. Dude, I’m Irish and Persian. Like get your racism right. So I had to stop working there.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ellis was appalled. She was happy to see him engaged. “I didn’t know that my guy was a cop, but maybe I’ll beat the next one fully to death.”

“Please tell me more.”

“Well they have guns and they call like fifty of their friends if you reach for your pocket,” Ellis held his chin. “So I’d have to get the drop on him. I think I could knock him out with like a brick? Or if I used a roll of quarters like brass knuckles. But then I might lose some quarters.”

“Fascinating, but I meant about how you’re on the run from the law. Was he in plain clothes or?”

“He was my Mom’s boyfriend,” Ellis said. “Got violent and uh, so did I. I’m not like a violent person, I just, you know.”

“World’s a nightmare,” Sascha shrugged. “I get it. S’why I carry bear spray. Mace don’t cut it.”

Talking about violence sucked. Ellis wanted to keep talking but he didn’t know any subjects. Sascha was happy to talk to someone in person for a change. She asked what floor he was on.

“Room 68.”

“Oh my God, neighbors! I’m in 69. Nice nice, eh?” She made a suggestive face, Ellis made a sympathetic one. He must have heard her family going at it. “My name is Sascha, by the way.”

“Ellis Avia.”

She got up and asked if he hugged.

Ellis was fatally touch-starved. “I’ve never been asked.”

“Boundaries are important.” She put her arms around him. Realized he did need to do laundry. “Welcome to Sincoke, city of quantity over quality. Its like TV. A billion channels, nothing to do.”

Ellis understood she was hiding from the yelling. The dance didn’t feel private or intimate anymore, it felt lonely. He didn’t want her going back home. He invited her to hang out.

“I think that’d be fun!” She said. “I have online classes most days but I’d love to show you around a little.”

“You free tonight? I was unpacking and my apartment is weird.” She was a bit put off being invited to his apartment. He noticed. “No pressure. Its just really weird. Like, spiritually empty.”

“Haha ‘spiritually empty’? Well, no one lived there,” she said.

“…You’ve never seen anyone there? It’s my brother’s place. Allegedly. He sent some prick to bring me here. You haven’t seen him?”

“Wait, I saw a guy there months ago. Maybe a year? Time feels irrelevant. He was really hot.” She paused for a moment and went for it. “Kinda looked like you.”

“I have no idea what he looks like.” Ellis said.

Did it go over his head, or had she been deflected? “Wait,” she said, “you don’t know what your brother looks like?”

“I haven’t seen him in ten years. Suddenly he invites me to stay with him, and the apartment is like spotless. Everything is new. It’s all very mysterious.”

“Maybe he cleaned it for you. Or maybe… its his porn studio.” Ellis looked perplexed. “Dude you know. All those ‘amateur’ guy-with-camera porn sites. They’re always in very clean, mostly empty apartments.”

“Why would he let me stay there then?”

“Fluffer,” she said. He nodded knowingly, clearly had no idea what she meant. She rolled her eyes at herself for worrying. There was not an ounce of guile in this boy. “I’ll help you investigate your brother’s creepy porn studio. Plus if you’re a secret murderer my family might hear me scream over their own yelling.” He looked mortified. She set a laundry alarm on her phone, and turned her location on just in case.

He seemed more nervous than she was. They heard another crash from Apt 69. “Hey, even if you’re a secret murderer, it can’t be worse than my place!”

Philip K Dude

9:32PM. Dzerassae photographed six men as they showed up at Zengrel’s house. Thick necks, pot bellies, big arms, and fascistic tattoos. “Classic goon bods,” Dallas did a chef’s kiss. “If it were lighter out they’d be wearing sunglasses.”

They were wearing dress pants, white gloves, and double breasted black jackets. “What are they, bellhops?” Dallas said. “They look like they should be wearing anti-woke brand t-shirts. Second Amendment Cereal or something.” “I fucking hate private security. It’s all guys who want to ‘protect and serve’ but they’re too out of shape and racist to be cops. And that’s saying something.”

Their shirts weren’t tucked in and their buttons were undone. Dzerassae had affection for anyone who disrespected their employer. “Where is class solidarity?” She asked Dallas. “Private security make paltry minimum wage that make breadlines look like generosity. It is hard economy.”

“ACAB, Dzerassae. Even fake ones.”

9:46 PM. A large van pulled in. “I thought all his shit was already here,” Dallas said. “What’d he forget a couple 14-year-olds?” Dzerassae ignored him but readied her camera. That was a very real possibility.

The van had a logo for ‘Innovative Livestock Solutions.’ The security performed their theater. hassling the black drivers, giving each other hand signals, and constantly gesturing to their guns. Eventually the deliverymen unloaded large coils and huge commercial refrigerators. The goons kept haranguing them about where to go. No doubt giving confusing, conflicting instructions.

“What kind of fucked up fetish is this for?” Dallas said. “Guess he needs a lot of Dino Nuggets and Lunchables for his harem.”

They took pictures of the equipment; they’d have to do research to deduce its purpose. Watching the movers work was monotonous. Detective work was incredibly boring, even when investigating an elite sex cult. Their vigilance waned, their minds wandered. Dallas imagined anemic figures sprawled on the floor inside. Powerless, poor wretches stuck in Zengrel’s orbit. Dzerassae saw signs of doom. She interpreted patterns in the positions of the guards, and in the rhythm of the birds beating their wings. Junk data. Not everything was an omen. There was a fine line between listening to the universe and magical thinking.

Something about Zengrel’s apartment inspired dread. The deliverymen moved quickly like they didn’t want to be there. The guards watched them like hawks but wouldn’t follow them inside.

One of the guards put his hands on a deliveryman, starting a loud altercation. “Wild night,” Dallas shrugged. “Hope the dude doesn’t get shot. Be a useful photo, though.”

10:16PM. A limousine.

“Oh fuck oh fuck,” Dallas said. “Wee-oo wee-oo. Pedo’s here.”


Sascha acted amused by the yelling echoing through the halls. Ellis had enough tact not to say anything. He stood in front of his door and fumbled through his pockets.

“We can keep the door open if you want,” he said.

“And listen to them? We should soundproof it and blast music or something.”

The laundry room was a safe place; she didn’t like being right outside their door. She fidgeted anxiously while Ellis pulled cheap ear buds out of his pocket. Sascha’s Mom screamed about entrepreneurial spirit. Batteries, a rubber band, a bunch of loose change. Sascha’s Dad threatened to relapse. Half-eaten bag of Swedish Fish, taquito wrappers, a reusable straw, a student bus pass. Cyrus repeated some gibberish he’d heard online. Chinese food sauce packets, a library card from Okonkwa, Cyrus cursed at the top of his lungs, a bunch of fliers for open mics, Cyrus punched their couch—

The parents grew increasingly bewildered by their son. Being misunderstood hurt his ego and made him angrier. She was familiar with the cycle; she had to grow up with him.

“Shit,” Ellis mumbled to himself. He seemed nice and she was very lonely, but he was a stranger who walked in on her in the laundry room. Without laundry.

“FUCK!” Cyrus screamed.

“Fuck…” Ellis breathed as he thrust his hand back into his pocket.

She heard Cyrus throw something at the wall. What if he was in her room, destroying her figures and electronics? What if he found the titty figures?!

Ellis threw a wad of receipts on the ground in frustration.

“I’m actually gonna watch my laundry,” Sascha mumbled, stepping away.

He exhaled loudly. “I think I locked myself out.”

“Property manager’s number is downstairs.” Poor guy. He never answered.

“I uh, don’t have a phone.”

Cyrus punched the door and she jumped. “Convenience store might have one,” she spat.

Ellis finally clocked the vibe shift. Her whole body was turned in the direction of the laundry room. He froze, confused and bug-eyed. “Did I-” don’t question her, “sorry I-” nothing to do with you—just let her go. “Alright, I’ll go downstairs. Uh, see ya maybe.”

“Sorry, good luck with the door!” She started scurrying away when the door crashed open and Cyrus spilled out. His skin was lighter than Sascha’s but he had the same nose and eyes. The sides of his head were shaved, and the top was long and slicked back with so much gel it looked plastic. He was wearing a stark white polo. He had an enamel pin of a smug-looking toad on his lapel.

He slammed the door shut. “Normies! NPCs!” He roared. Then he noticed Sascha and Ellis. “What are you doing. Who is this beta?”


Zengrel handed his driver a fat tip. He was tall and broad like a linebacker, with a big face, wide jaw, and long gray hair. He wore a salmon polo and faded jeans. His deep smile lines were noticeable even from a distance. The employees’ mood shifted when he arrived. His big smile, self-satisfied as it was, proved infectious. He never blinked. He put his arm around the guards and movers and slapped them on the back, treating the hired help like old college buddies.

“Life of the party, this guy,” Dallas said bitterly. “Real peoples’ champion.”

“Stops people from asking too many questions,” Dzerassae said. “ I hate American performative niceness. Smile when you happy. Scowl all other times.”

“I can take or leave most of my culture,” Dallas said, “but I think its nice to smile at people and shake hands.”

Dzerassae gestured out the window. “See what niceness hides.”

They heard footsteps outside the aviary, followed by dangling keys.

Dallas got up to handle whoever was at the door. AIDS developed a system called the Sus Scale, where each member’s trustworthiness was ranked based on looks and vibes, to determine who should speak to police and civilians. America was voted least suspicious, though she argued her blackness was a disadvantage with some people. Next was Dallas. He could be charming, but he smiled like a freak and had no filter. Dzerassae was last because of her old-world mannerisms and Russian accent. Lester was banned from speaking to the public.

Dallas saw a stocky man through the peephole. Mid 30s, ratty windbreaker and cargo pants. He was holding a plastic bag and struggling to inset a key into the lock. Dallas noticed he was swaying

Dallas opened the door and said, “Howdy?”

The guy looked surprised, then awkward and unsure of himself, as if Dallas caught him doing something wrong. Dallas waited for him to talk first, hoping for a clue about who he should pretend to be. The man tried to look past him and Dallas moved to block Dzerassae from view. A bird squawked, and the man leered.

“I’m here to… to feed the fucking birds,” he stammered, visibly drunk.

“Oh man they didn’t tell you? I was gonna be here tonight, so I volunteered. They were supposed to give you the night off.” This seemed to frustrate him, like he was used to abrupt schedule changes. “Ugh. Hate it when they fucking do that,” Dallas said. The man nodded. He tried to hide the plastic bag.

A draft came in. The birds started squawking, and the man’s face reddened with rage. “Fucking birds disrespecting me!”

“Whoa there partner,” Dallas tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but the man shoved his way inside, pulling fistfuls of rice out the bag.

“FEATHERED FUCKS!!!” He tossed rice and it scattered everywhere.

Dallas dove between the rice and birdcages. “The birds are innocent!”

“He is attracting attention from across street,” Dzerassae said.

Dallas spun around the man and covered his mouth, kicked him in the back of the knees to drop him, then pulled him into the bathroom.

“Windy Night in Sincoke,” Kenneth Steven Janes, https://www.twitch.tv/scrunklebunglo, https://soundcloud.com/kenneth-steven-janes

Cyrus straightened his shoulders, lifted his chest, and raised his chin. It made Ellis think of a goose hissing and flapping its wings. Geese can’t take a hit. Cyrus turned away from Ellis as if he was sufficiently cowed. Normally that’s when Ellis would take a swing, but Sascha was right there.

“This” Cyrus gestured to Ellis, “is what I want to talk about, Sascha. Look what postmodern media—and hormone therapy—have done to your mind.” Ellis looked perplexed. “See? He doesn’t even know what’s going on.”

“No one does, Cyrus. No one ever knows what you’re talking about,” Sascha said.

“Yes—you do. You’re not connected to your evolutionary intuition. Let me explain; this beta hasn’t consciously realized it—but instinctively—he knows—we’ve established our status in relation to each other.”

Ellis looked at Sascha pleadingly, like a dog that wanted to chase a squirrel.

“What are you doing?” She asked Cyrus, deadpan.

“Forget this petty squabble,” he gestured at the apartment. “You’re not in a place where you can understand. But-”

“What are you doing talking to me? This isn’t how it works,” she said, sternly and sadly. “None of you talk to me. You yell, and I guess now whisper and plot, about me.”

Cyrus stepped towards her. Ellis stepped towards him. “That’s because you don’t listen Sascha.”

“Not with a straight face,” she said.

Cyrus twitched. “’People mock things they aren’t ready to accept,’” he quoted someone.

“You don’t need to tell me that!”

Ellis looked at their parents. A refrigerator-bodied Mediterranean man with a mustache whose posture made him look smaller. A petite middle aged white woman with weird Pilates muscles and over-sunned skin. They seemed mesmerized by their daughter’s voice, as if they’d never heard it.

“Mahdi-” Cyrus began.

“That’s Dad to you!” Their father yelled petulantly.

“You lost that status!” Cyrus shot back.

“That’s more like it.” Sascha said bitterly. “I’ll just stand here.”

“I want you to come to my meetings,” Mahdi pleaded.

“I think it will teach you some Responsibility,” Cyrus said, choking up at the word.

“There’s only one way to learn anything,” Sascha’s Mom said, “Rise and grind!”

Wow all that sounds great, guys. Tell you what, why don’t you all fucking kill each other, and whoever survives can tell me how to live my life! Sascha didn’t say. She turned and looked at Ellis, simultaneously sorry he was seeing this and annoyed he was still there. Ellis just glared at Cyrus.

“Hey,” Cyrus said, mustering as much authority as he could, “you and I already settled things.”

“Have we?” Ellis had venom in his voice. He didn’t want to meddle in Sascha’s business. So he had to make Cyrus hit him first.

“You’re trying to save face—that’s normal—but all you can do is talk.” He wasn’t wrong. If he shut Cyrus up his way, he’d be the bad guy and everyone would avoid him. The yoke of acceptable behavior was on his shoulders, always benefiting the biggest asshole. Didn’t anyone know what ‘fighting words’ were? “It’s the same for all of you—you’re all frozen, quiet—your genes recognize my dominant position.” He looked at Sascha. “And I’m finally using it to set you—on the right path.”

“You’re just making everyone feel weird,” Ellis said.

“Do you even eat raw liver?” Cyrus said. Don’t say I eat your Mom, Ellis thought. She’s right there. “You obviously eat processed foods. Sascha—if you were a real woman—your evolutionary psychology—wouldn’t permit you around a man like this.”

“I was helping him find his keys,” She turned to Ellis. “Go call the property manager.”

“See? In the presence of a real man your status plummets,” Cyrus said.

“Just go downstairs, dude,” Sascha was exasperated.

“Run along now,” Cyrus said.

“Nah,” Ellis said.

Sascha narrowed her eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

“This dude’s violent, I’m staying within earshot. I’ll finish my laundry,” Ellis stared Cyrus right in the eyes. You know where to find me.

“Excuse me—who the fuck are you?” Cyrus spat.

Ellis leaned forward and glared at him through his wild hair. “I’m your new neighbor,” he gestured to the door behind them. “Be seeing you around.” I’ll be here now. I will hear everything. You have to think about me. I’m the Mom’s Boyfriend now.

Part Two: Meeting Good People Under Bad Circumstances, 1

“Ey yo Countryman!”

Riley’s neighbor Henry ‘Ford’ Floyd popped out up from underneath the hood of his truck. He was a skinny middle-aged man with a farmer’s tan, and a perpetually sunburned bald head. The peeling skin looked like tufts of curly hair. He had a spark plug in his mouth and a timing chain slung around his shoulders.

“Howdy Fordie.” Riley nodded. “Another late night stroke of genius?”

“Pure inspiration pardner. I dunno where it comes from.” He noticed blood all over Riley’s chin. His shirt was torn from Longhorn dragging him onto the sidewalk.“Who we killing, Countryman?”

“No one ever, brother. I took care of it. You keep working on the Mark 27. Or whatever Mark you’re up to.”

“Calling this one Mark 69!” Fordie hollered with a toothy grin.

“Hope I live to see Mark 420.” Riley sauntered down his neighborhood whistling tunes from Conan the Barbarian. His feet knew all the cracks in the sidewalk. The feather was still in his hair.

He heard boys roughhousing in his Dad’s friend’s backyard. The jeering and cursing were getting out of hand. He turned the corner and saw two kids making a real show of fighting one another, shoving and slapping half heartedly while nine other boys egged them on. Riley stood at his full 6’6” with his arms crossed. They broke up the fight as soon as they noticed him, saving the little pugilists from further embarrassment.

“Did Michael put you guys up to this?” Michael threw his arms out, appalled. Riley’s little brother played with Michael when they were younger. He was a rumor spreader who got his kicks pitting other boys against each other. To their credit, none of them snitched. Seeing good kids act out worried Riley about his siblings. He told the boys go home, then hurried along himself.

The Countryman residence’s wear and tear made it more welcoming. It looked homey and lived-in, like a pair of trusty old boots or a beloved stuffed animal with matted fur and one of its button-eyes hanging on by a loose thread. The family jalopy was in the driveway. The twins’ rusty tricycle was in the yard. It was his once. Leo’s after that. It was a sore spot for their sister Dakota, the only one who never got a turn.

The front door opened into the living room. There was a couch with sunken cushions, nicotine stained curtains, and a window boarded up with moldy cardboard that Riley put a baseball through when he was seven. They had a boxy old TV on the floor that didn’t get cable, a DVD player beside it, and a bunch of DVDs from the library scattered around. The stained carpet was cratered with indentations from old furniture. Dad wasn’t in his chair. Riley didn’t hear him at the kitchen table either, where he usually poured over paperwork.

He took a long step over the mountain of shoes by the front door. They were countless, in various states of wear and tear—worn backs from being kicked off, dirty and frayed laces, holes in the soles, soles coming off, scuffs, tears, floppy tongues. Some of them were taped together and no one knew which pair belonged to who. Hand-me-downs from siblings and neighbors, none of them fit anyone. They had their jobs. They served the Countryman family and multiplied. They couldn’t afford to throw any away.

It was suspiciously quiet. Suddenly, there was an avalanche of outerwear. A young man burst out from beneath the many jackets and sweaters hanging on the wall. Riley stepped out of the way, grabbed him by the arm, then slammed him onto the doormat. Sneakers flew everywhere.

It didn’t make the house noticeably messier.

“Get good, Leo,” Riley said, as his brother laughed hysterically. “Heard you at the last second.”

“FUCK dude I have been hanging there for HOURS. My fingers are BLISTERED and I am SWEATING but it was WORTH IT. I almost got your ass. I will be the older brother one day.” Leo was all smiles. He understood the fun in losing. He needed braces. Riley was sad he’d never get them.

Riley offered him his hand. Leo took it—the fool—and as soon as he was on his feet Riley pulled him into a grapple. Leo anticipated this and positioned himself to resist it. Riley acknowledged with a nod. They gave each other a stern look and yelled,

VIGILANCE. ALWAYS.”

A firm handshake, and the ritual was complete.

“Where is everyone?” Riley asked.

“I dunno, I’ve been under coats.”

“’Vigilance Always, Leo!’ You’re second oldest. I bet Sitting Dog is with the twins, or else he would’ve tried to tackle me too. But in a nice way, you fuck.”

“Oh yeah it’s a wild night! Oh no aaahhh spooky wind! Its a stupidstition dude, everyone is fine. Saw you had a wild night with the Alfalfa Street Longhorn though.”

“Why does everyone else know who that is?” Riley said, walking past the walk-in closet Dakota took over. Everything they used to store in bulk, like soap and cans, was taking up their whole kitchen counter so that she could have ‘privacy.’ He thought it was a lot of trouble just so she could listen to music in the dark.

“Longhorn’s a LEGEND dude! He rules! Poets write verse of his Mighty Charge.” Leo held his hands on the side of his head like horns. “You were dancing around him like a matador. Real Bugs Bunny, spirit of the trickster shit. Where’d you find a red cape?”

“It was someone’s rug. We uh, ran through a lot of houses. Listen—he and I worked things out, that’s the important thing. His wife left him this morning. We sung breakup songs together, and a whole crowd joined us. We were all singing and crying and healing. It was magical.”

“Riley Charisma,” Leo said.

“And then his wife came back!”

“Yeah, she always does,” Leo said. “Don’t you know anything?”

Riley saw the twins, Virginia and West Virginia, in the backyard standing side by side. They were posing with one arm pointing towards the sky and the other parallel to the ground. They were completely still. They were five.

Sitting Dog, a large black mutt, was watching them intently. He looked at Riley, then at the twins, then back to Riley, lowering his ears as if to say, “what do I do about this?”

Riley pet him. “Good boy. Let me handle it from here. Hey! Why aren’t you little Oompa-Loompas in bed?”

“We’re playing Satellite,” Virginia said matter-of-factly. As if it were obvious.

“Oh, of course. My bad. What kinds of frequencies you picking up?”

“Well, there was a man who was very mad,” West Virginia began, “and a woman who was very, very sad.” Virginia tilted his head and shushed her.

“Alright well, can you send messages back?” Riley asked.

The twins lit up, then commiserated with an elaborate series of facial gestures only they understood. Riley waited. He preferred how he and Leo communicated. With their fists. Like men.

“We can try,” West Virginia said, eventually.

“Tell them to calm down and keep their chins up. Things get better.”

“What about Daddy?” Virginia said. West Virginia shushed him.

“The… situation surrounding him will get better,” Riley said. “He’s got us, after all.”

The twins stopped responding to him, seemingly absorbed in being satellites. Which didn’t talk, they realized. At least not how people do. Riley asked Sitting Dog to hold it down outside for a little longer. The loyal vassal borfed his assent, always willing to serve his family.

“Can’t wait for them to develop personalities in a couple years, so I can relate to them,” Riley said inside.

“Yeah itsa big age gap anyway bro check it out I was working on the project while you were at work and I came up with some dope designs and yo look at how BUFFthis dude is,” Leo rattled on, holding his sketchbook out to Riley. “I was insanely productive dude. I just kept having great ideas and I think I got better at drawing anatomy. Then I had the coat hanger idea and I kinda stopped. Anyway dude check these out. They’re sick.”

“I know they are bro, but hold on.” Riley knocked on their parents’ door.

Tamaqua ‘Tom’ Countryman was propped up on his orthopedic pillow. He winced when he rolled over to look at Riley. “Sorry,” he said, for laying down. “I managed to fill out some forms.” He grimaced in pain as he reached towards the paperwork beside him.

“Ey take it easy Dad. Oh,” he pulled an envelope from his pocket, “I also got this.” He tossed it with the other papers, trying to be low key to avoid the usual song and dance.

It didn’t work.

“Oh, Riley, No. It’s my job to provide for this family. This is your money.”

“Ah come on, you been providing for me for twenty years. Grown men pay rent.” Riley had been bringing money home since he was sixteen.

“No, no.” He put up a hand. “You should save. Get ready to start your own family.”

“Already got one,” Riley said. A single tear came to Tom’s eye. “Ah come on Dad, you look like someone just littered. I’d rather work a double every day of my life than deal with your paperwork.”

There was a fat stack of documents he needed to fill out and mail for disability benefits. Dates, pay rates, work history, expenses, and dependents. He had to list what groceries they bought, with receipts, and the names of all his kids’ teachers. Had to be 100% accurate down to seconds and decimals, and submitted every week at the same time. One mistake or one millisecond late meant your family didn’t eat that week. Then he had to do it all again for food stamps and healthcare. Requirements changed frequently with no communication. Once they were denied benefits because he forgot to dot an i. Their tribal status complicated things further. Years ago Tom tried to supersede tribal regulations, getting himself in trouble with the state and the reservation. Now everything was harder.

There were also sweepstakes applications. Every bag, flashlight, mug, or tool set he won was another thing they didn’t have to buy. Every object in their home had some company’s logo on.

“The middle-men and bureaucrats need to line their pockets,” Dad said bitterly.

“The spirits aren’t with us,” Riley said. This seemed to calm his Dad. It was Native American for win some, lose some. It was practicing acceptance. Tom picked it up in AA.

“Where’s Mom?” Riley asked. Tom looked guilty and ashamed—which meant she was still at work. “Wild Night. She’ll have some crazy stories from the hospital. Nina’s in her hole?”

Dad sighed. “I heard her come home, so I assume? Don’t know where else she’d be.” Tom wished she could have a proper bedroom. Riley wished she’d stop hiding from the rest of the family. None of the other siblings had privacy. Tom noticed Riley getting angry and waved his hand. “She’s 15. It’ll pass.”

Riley stomped over to her closet door. “Come out from under your rock. Maybe say hello? Maybe check on your injured father, see if he needs anything?” Tom winced to hear his infirmity acknowledged. Riley waited for a sarcastic comment. When it didn’t come he gestured to Leo, who was making some final touches on his latest sketches.

“She home?” Riley asked.

Leo shrugged. “I mean I assumed.”

“Dude… did anyone fucking check?”


Philip K Dude

Ellis stared out the window, fully lost in the view.

It was his first time in a city. It wasn’t like pictures he’d seen of New York or Chicago. There was only one skyscraper, an ominous jet-black eyesore with two ‘arms’ that jut out from either side in an affront to gravity and good taste, making it look like a cactus. It was surrounded by medium-sized buildings, all black against the setting sun. Lifeless obelisks. He gazed at the smallest buildings, with lights on—with people in them. The little one or two story buildings sprawled infinitely into the horizon. They were shades of red, brown, and tan. Colors that are boring, but warm.

Ellis was so consumed thinking about all those people that he didn’t notice the preacher going off again at full volume, with a tiny self-satisfied grin. He thought Ellis was pretending to ignore him.

The sound of the brakes snapped Ellis out of his head. The train made an abrupt stop and he cringed as his CDs and cassettes clattered onto the floor.

People shot up, joining the crowd already at the door. Ellis sensed a great and infectious urgency. He knew there was gonna be a stampede the second the doors opened. He didn’t expect anyone to help the grumpy weirdo who took up two seats with his junk, especially after he made a scene. That was the down side of making himself scary.

The doors opened. He waited for the inevitable distressing sound of a jewel case cracking. The crowd cleared and he was alone with the preacher and a teenage girl with a black wolf cut she obviously did herself. Both of them were gathering Ellis’ stuff.

She reminded him of Tara. Ellis imagined this new girl crying about her hair, cutting it off in a manic fit. It would look so good, it would fix everything. Suddenly regret, mourning. Self-hatred for being stupid and self-pity for not having money for a stylist. Everyone else gets to look pretty.

She looked bewildered by Ellis’ CDs. He had eccentric taste, to put it nicely. A pop culture illiterate who grew up without TV or internet access, he lacked context for things and was only dimly aware of genre. His collection ranged from decidedly uncool pop music, some of which was for children, to independent punk bands and obscure prog-rock groups of which he was the only living fan.

He noticed they were wearing the same T-Shirt. It was black, with a graphic of a face bisected vertically. One side was a skull, the other was a Cheshire-cat style grin. It was Ellis’ favorite shirt, evidenced by the wear and tear. And the odor. The logo was fading, so he didn’t wash it unless he hadto. And he had to.

This was his chance. He felt excitement and nerves swell in his chest. He almost stepped on one of his own CDs as he approached her. “Hey,” none of his excitement reached his face. “You know this band?”

“Nope. Just happen to have their shirt.”

“Can you name any of their songs?” She gave him an incredulous look, shoved him his things, then disappeared into the rapidly thinning crowd. “Wait what did I do?” He actually just happened to have their shirt. Took it from a thrift store because it looked like a logo a cool band would have. There weren’t any record stores in Okonkwo and he couldn’t find anything by googling, ‘skull smile logo band,’ on the library computer.

“You are guileless,” the preacher said.

“Forgot about you,” Ellis snapped out of his grief and confusion. “Put my shit down.”

The preacher raised an elegant eyebrow at Ellis. “Are you serious?”

You’re not. You’re just trying to look like the bigger man.”

The preacher stood erect and moved close to Ellis, as if to demonstrate that he was, in fact, bigger. “Do you hate the word of the lord so much that you’d spite yourself?”

“No opinion on the lord, but I don’t like you. You’re not supposed to be loud on the train. And you called me the devil!”

“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the Devil speaking through you.”

“Who was speaking through you? The fucking… annoying demon?” Ellis was not good with words. He considered that a virtue.

“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that was also the Devil talking.” He smiled condescendingly. “No creature of God is this graceless.”

“DOOR CLOSING,” came over the speakers, and they rushed through the doors, each carrying half of Ellis’ stuff.

“I said put it down,” Ellis commanded. He placed it in a neat pile at Ellis’ feet.

“Peace be with you,” he nodded and walked away.

“Yeah, maybe now that you’re gone,” Ellis called out.

He got no satisfaction from having the last word. He stayed mad while he fixated on his things counted everything six times, then looked up and noticed his surroundings. The station platform was a gray slab of cracked concrete. None of the streetlights worked except for one that was bent, leaning over the train tracks and swaying in the wind. The caution tape around its base was old and worn.

There were a bunch of homeless people sitting together in a big pile, like a single organism in the dim light that coughed and shuffled lethargically. That’s why everyone climbed over each other to disperse. People couldn’t stand seeing the homeless. It was a grim reminder of the edge they were on. Ellis wasn’t afraid to confront the moral nightmare. It made him feel superior to the people who ran.

The nearby businesses had LED signs that shone dimly through layers of dust and car exhaust. There was a gun store, a fried liver ‘n gizzard joint, a military recruitment center, a non-denominational Christian church sharing a building with a cowboy-themed bar, a phone repair place, and a tax agency. There were a lot of shuttered buildings. The sidewalk was littered with broken old A-frames with faint, illegible remnants from chalk-markers. The phone place was called CRACKS KILL—THE GLASS MASTERS. A man in a racist Native American mascot costume was sitting on the curb in front of Trail of Taxes accounting. Open 24 hours. He caught Ellis looking at him and weakly held up his sign. Ellis gave him a little wave. He didn’t look like the kind of person who did taxes. He wasn’t sure if the government knew he existed.

He could still see that humongous cactus in the distance. It was blacker than the night sky. He was always dimly aware of it, like he could see it no matter which direction he faced.

One of the homeless women scratched at an angry, wet scab covering her whole cheek. Ellis began ruminating on its color and texture. He imagined it on his arms, inside his mouth, and on his genitals. Her asking him for a hug. Crying, needy for affection and attention and desperately self-conscious.

What if Dallas didn’t show? He looked at the addicts—he wouldn’t be the first person that scumbag put outside. Wouldn’t be the first time he had to sleep outside either. Sometimes his Mom would tell him to spend the night at a friends’ house and he had to pretend he had any. Well, any with homes he was welcome in.

He noticed a drug deal in a nearby parking lot. He knew better than to look. The wind was incessant. It wasn’t cold, but it felt weird on his skin and it made him antsy. What if that was Dallas selling drugs? What if he was still a gangster and this was all an elaborate ruse to press Ellis into a gang? He tried to covertly look at the men. What if they saw? What if they thought he was a cop? What if the scab woman tried to kiss someone, and collapsed into hysterics when they refused, incapable of understanding why no one loved her? He kept glancing over at her. Seeing her grounded Ellis in reality. His thoughts were worse.

“You shouldn’t stareat people,” came a gruff voice.

The man was average height with a thickly muscled upper body and a bit of a hunch. He wore a tight white t-shirt, gray sweatpants, socks with sandals, and a black choker.

Ellis kept quiet and glared at him.

“I’d be careful about making that face, kid. You don’t look tough, you look petulant and self-pitying. Kinda like my kid when we make her eat broccoli. Might scare some people, but it’ll piss off the wrong guy.” The man got in Ellis’ face, and Ellis noticed he wasn’t wearing a choker—it was a neck tattoo. Black text around his throat that read:

I’mthe wrong guy.

Ellis dropped his box on Lester’s foot and threw a punch. Lester swung his elbow in the way of Ellis’ jab and he felt his knuckles explode. Ellis swung with his other arm and Lester let it connect to make a point.

“Quick to violence and weak as shit. You’re definitely Dallas’ brother.”

Ellis stepped back. “Are you his enemy?”

“Yeah,” Lester said.

“I barely know the guy. Haven’t seen him in a decade. Your beef has nothing to do with me.”

“That’s not how this works. I beat up his brother, it’s an insult. Word gets around. He’s an image-obsessed narcissist. He’d retaliate quick—emotional and sloppy.”

“I see,” Ellis rubbed his knuckles. “Fuck that. If you don’t like someone go after them. Don’t hurt people who have nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t ask you shit,” Lester said.

“I didn’t ask you shit.” Ellis looked around for stuff to throw. Bricks, loose concrete, broken glass, that’s how he dealt with stronger guys. Every trash heap was a secret weapons cache.

“You drop something? I don’t have all night kid.” He did, though.

“Hold on.” Ellis abandoned his luggage and dashed to the homeless people.

One man was still awake and upright. “You gonna fuck that guy up?”

“Yes.” Ellis said, holding out a five-dollar bill. “Do you have a used needle? Even a broken one?”

“Pfft shit man, yeah.” He fished through his pockets on the many jackets he was wearing. Ellis kept glancing at Lester. “Fucking EMT punk narcan’d me yesterday.”

“Were you overdosing?”

Yes motherfucker it ruled. I was fine! The shit’s in my system still, so I can’t get high. What else am I supposed to do out here?”

“Drink?”

“No way dude. I’m ten months sober.”

“Oh. Congrats dude,” Ellis said. The guy gave him a broken needle with a bent tip for five dollars. He had the phrase scumbag written on his knuckles. Ellis trotted back to his luggage, holding the needle out in front of him. He held it out to show Lester.

“Kid what the fuck are you doing.”

“You can probably kick my ass, but if you try, I will stab you with this needle. It’s used. Could be infected, probably isn’t, but at the very least you’re gonna wanna to get tested. Is it worth the hospital bill? The long line at the clinic? The anxiety, the sleepless nights?”

“Put that down kid,” Lester said. This was escalating and his face was getting hot. “Dallas is busy, so I’m picking you up for him.”

“But you’re his enemy,” Ellis said.

“We’re both too tired for that. Let’s go.”

“You threatened me.”

“Welcome to Sincoke.”

“Those people were very nice,” Ellis pointed to the homeless. They waved at him, lethargically. He felt buyer’s remorse about the needle. “Listen, I don’t know who the fuck you are and I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Lester stifled a curse. He heard America in his mind. Blowing up isn’t ‘letting off steam,’ it’s indulgent and addictive. He thought about calling Dallas but he remembered the piece of crap was on a stakeout. Then he remembered his phone bricked. He did not stifle that curse. He fished around in his pocket for his business card. His pockets were full of torn-up receipts. His fingers were always restless.

“Here, kid.” He tried to toss the card to Ellis but the wind blew it onto the tracks. Lester groaned and jumped down to retrieve it, but it blew away every time he got close to it.

“Shut up!” He pointed at Ellis, who hadn’t said anything. “Just wait a fucking minute.”

“What if the train comes?”

“I’ll jump in front of it,” Lester growled. He finally got the card and leapt onto the platform. He was red in the face and a little light-headed. He stomped over to Ellis, who held his needle defensively, and held the card out forcefully.

Avia Investigative Detective Services

Lester Guerra

“Your name is Lester?”

“Your brother’s business is called AIDS but you make a smart comment aboutmy name?”

“You work for my brother?”

“With. I work with your brother.”

“Dallas is a detective now?” Ellis eyed the card, then Lester, suspiciously.

“What do you need, two fucking cards?” Lester felt Ellis didn’t trust him because of how he looked. Kid should look in a mirror. Then it hit him. Dallas is a detective now, the kid said. He knew what his brother was before. Of course he was scared.

Lester relaxed his posture but couldn’t soften his permanent mean mug. “Dallas took a road trip awhile ago. Did some volunteer work, hung out with Shaolin monks or something. His personality is exactly the same, and he still breaks the law, but he’s…” Lester couldn’t believe this was coming out of his mouth, “not a bad guy anymore.”

“Shaolin monks?”

“Or whatever they’re called.”

“What was he doing with them?”

“I dunno. Blowing them. Come on. There’s a Starbucks with a safe needle deposit. Don’t want your little stunt to kill a sanitation worker.”

Ellis didn’t have any other options. And he’d never been to Starbucks. Maybe if he stared at the menu without saying anything, Lester would buy him something. The goon walked ahead of him, leaving Ellis to carry all of his boxes with his swollen hand. So probably not.


“How would you do this guy in the Soviet Union?” Dallas asked Dzerassae as they walked along the road, through a neighborhood with no sidewalks.

Dzerassae was quiet. She got dismissive or cranky when she didn’t want to answer a question. She considered her words carefully when she did, and the pregnant pauses gave her words impact.

“Spare me the ancient wisdom,” Dallas grinned at her. “I don’t need a life lesson. Off the cuff. How would you ice–”

“I must translate words in my head,” she spat. Dallas held up his hands in apology. They were a conspicuous duo; Dallas in a purple three-piece suit with a pistol at his belt, grinning like an idiot because he loved stake outs. Dzerassae in her white gown, headscarf, and combat boots, with a belt across her chest strapped with knives. “Men like Zengrel are adaptive. In United States, he become investor capitalist. In Soviet Russia, he become party man.”

“They should let me run the country. Everyone would be free under my thumb! You know what I would do with guys like him?” He pulled out his gun and pointed it downward, like he was aiming at a man on his knees. Pedestrians crossed to the other side of the road.

Dzerassae swiftly disarmed him with a practiced maneuver, and hid the gun in her shawls.

Dallas rubbed his wrist. “We gotta sneak you into Z’s house. What would you cut off first with those daggers? His freaky lil’ thang?”

“I am done being part of organization that sneak into homes and kills,” she chastised him. “I try to teach you self restraint, subtlety. We need to keep low profile.”

“I fit in just fine. This is Sincoke, grandma. Ten thousand times as many guns as people.”

“You dress too extravagant.”

“Because I like color? We’re going to the rich pedophile district. Everyone is dressed like Willy Wonka. I fit right in with my style.” Dallas got quiet and introspectively. “Do I dress like a rich pedophile? Z, you know I have proletarian values.”

Dzerassae nodded sincerely. “You do not like exploitation. You value camaraderie.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to wear overalls right? I can appropriate colorful menswear. I mean, I slept in this suit. On the floor of my office. That’s salt of the Earth. Salt of the floor. I woke up next my own boot print. That should get me a pass on the ol’ calloused hand check.”

“But does fop suit help detective work? They recognizable,” Dzerassae waggled a finger.

“If they’re focused on my style, they ain’t focused on my face.” She seemed satisfied. “And what about you? You look like a Bene Gesserit.”

“Pah! No one pay attention to old lady.” Dzerassae stooped forward a little bit and put a bit of a hobble in her walk. “You see?! Like I disappear.”

Dallas raised his eyebrows in appreciation, and stared ahead as they walked. Dzerassae took his silence as him pondering the questions she posed, before disappointing her with more violent posturing. “I know you’re not a full pacifist old friend. If we broke into Z’s house—oh shit, you’re Z, he needs a new nickname—but if you had a clean shot on him you would do it right? Come ooonn.” He gestured with finger guns.

Dzerassae got quiet once again. Dallas rolled his eyes. More ancient wisdom incoming.

“In Soviet Union, like United States, places of power fill with men like him. Killing change nothing. You are not thug anymore. I am not secret police. We are detectives. We still move through shadows, but only to cast light. We stake out house. We see who go in, who go out. Use that as leverage to obtain more information on victims. We are here to save children, not kill men.”

“As long as he’s alive he’ll just keep doing it. Finding victims is great. Sure. But AIDS isn’t about hording blackmail. That would just make us the CIA.”

“You spoke to mothers,” Dzerassae said. “You promise them closure. Not revenge.”

“Just satisfy me. From a pure, irrational, emotional perspective, you would totally blow this guy’s brains out right? I need to know that warm blood runs through you,” Dallas said. “Don’t overthink this. Just be a human. How would you do it? Would you say some cool shit like, ‘this is for the people’?”

She narrowed her thin lips. “In old country, we would make public,” She said grimly.

“There’s the old leftist,” Dallas grinned evilly. “Guillotine shit. Show everyone what happens to the bourgeois that get too crazy.”

“I am not one of revolutionaries who admire violence and authoritarianism. But sometimes, it can serve a purpose. A show.”

“Always the pragmatist,” Dallas said cockily. “Bread and roses and circuses.”

“I am not talking about Soviet Union. I am talking about Old Country. Village men would drag him to town square, victims and their families beat him.”

“I love that.” Dallas took a deep breath. “I want to inhale this visceral honesty and feel it course through my veins. Thank you, Z. God, Amy with all this therapy-speak and everyone with all the ‘responsibility,’ and, ‘ethics of vigilantism,’ shit. Sometimes your heart knows the path to righteousness.”

“How American.” She spat. “Hearts only know what hearts want. Not what is right.”


Ellis didn’t like Starbucks. The cafe was big enough to fit dozens of tables but they only had three. The bar counter was covered in cardboard ads so no one could sit there. It wasn’t a place for people, it was a place for laptops.

The baristas had hall monitor energy. They were assertive in an anxious, jumpy way, hiding behind the register and the espresso machines like they were castle walls. They shot pensive looks at Ellis and his boxes, like they were afraid he was moving in. Ellis clocked the supervisor, a chubby guy with a a scraggly beard and a wiry handlebar mustache, ready to spring into action and ask Ellis to buy something the second he sat down. If Ellis sat down in Antarctica, a penguin would ask him to buy something.

The supervisor switched places with the girl at the register when Lester approached.

“Code for the bathroom?” Lester said.

He started to make what Ellis called ‘policy face,’ the look of fake sympathy when someone is about to say sorry but no. Company policy. Wish I could. Nothing to be done. I don’t make the rules, I just abide by them and hold all people to them evenly. Swear to God.

Ellis could only see Lester’s back, but he sensed the threat of unruliness. Ellis was in awe. Everything about Lester projected that he was more trouble than its worth. No matter what ‘it’ was. He probably never paid four dollars for anything. He truly was the Wrong Guy.

“6969,” the supervisor said.

Lester yelled at Ellis for trying to take his boxes into the restroom. “Someone might throw it out,” Ellis said, “People throw my stuff out all the time.” Lester told him hurry up then. There were unshucked ears of corn stuffed behind the toilet. As if someone was trying to hide them. Like buried treasure.

“There was corn in there,” Ellis said said when he emerged. Lester shrugged and mouthed the words wild night. “I’ve never had Starbucks.” Ellis was making his bid. “Always wanted to try it. Have you?”

“I’m a QFS guy. Call us a ride. My phone… broke.”

“I don’t have a phone. And I don’t mind walking. Can you help me carry my stuff?”

Lester groaned through his teeth. He did some grounding exercises that America taught him. “Look, kid–”

“Ellis,” Ellis said indignantly.

Lester did grounding exercises again. “Sincoke is a car city. Everything is spread out. Lot of neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks, and public transit sucks shit. You gotta use the apps and get driven around by teachers, nurses and other people who can afford cars but not their student loans.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Look my license got revoked OK?”

Handlebars asked if he could help them with anything. The implication was: if not then get lost. Lester told him to call a cab.

“I’ve already been carrying this shit all day,” Ellis was worried he’d have to split the cost, “what’s another couple–”

“It’s not a safe night to be walking around,” Lester said. He didn’t feel like explaining wild nights, people who hadn’t experienced them never took him seriously. He knew they were real. He knew he wasn’t immune. He wanted to harass the supervisor until he was afraid to come back to work.

Ellis picked up on nervous energy from everyone around him. They were alert and apprehensive, anticipating an explosion. It reminded him of the tense silence after one of his Mom’s boyfriends slammed a door.


Dallas and Dzerassae walked towards Sincoke’s Black Cactus. Aside from the ostentatious, gravity-defying arms intended to make it look like a trident, it was no different from the other empty office buildings in Sincoke’s ghost-town of a business district.

They erected it during the tech boom that never happened, when App developers tried to make Sincoke the new Silicone Valley. It’s cheap, nothing’s regulated, and city leadership made it rain tax breaks and subsidies. But Sincoke had no talent, and talent wouldn’t move there. Some recent graduates and older engineers facing age discrimination showed up. Sincoke collected them and fed itself on their frustrated ambition and wasted ability. They all stocked shelves or drove Uber now.

Few people ever worked in the Black Cactus. It was plagued with problems. Ceilings leaked, entire floors were unfinished, and there were HVAC issues that left people coding in a black building under the hot Western sun without air conditioning. It was the focus of lurid conspiracy theories, chief among them that it was an intentional failure. Dallas and America looked into its funding. It was extremely opaque. They reckoned some real estate mogul from Texas or Seattle was making a lot of money on subsidies and write-offs.

It was a well-documented phenomenon that people experienced acute feelings of fatigue and hopelessness when they looked at it. Like staring at an eldritch abomination or being in a Walmart.

“Someone should 9/11 that thing,” Dallas said. “It’s an antennae that beams what little money this place has to already-rich leeches in nicer cities.”

“…Cyapitalism,” the old Soviet said quietly, as if embarrassed by the cliche. “What of your brother?”

“I sent Lester to escort the little prince home.” Dzerassae was quiet. “Don’t worry, I’ve got him on a leash.”

“Lester is good man. Hard life, common story. He makes you dwell on past, like that idiot cigarette you carry. A test. Yes?”

“Its not a test. He’s committed to the work. And he’s changed.”

“Old habits are stubborn. You both always arguing, it puts us all on edge. You give old lady heart attack.”

“Good. I ain’t paying you people to relax.”

Cyapitalism,” Dzerassae muttered again.

“He’s got that stupid code.” Dallas hated Lester’s code. “Motherfucker spent the last decade mugging people and selling drugs but it’s all good because he follows the code!” Dallas made a jerk off motion. “Oh what’s that Lester? You’d never sell drugs to a pregnant woman? Wow what a bold fucking stance! God I hate it so much, but that’s why I trust him. Consistency. And as long as he’s around me and still drawing breath, its proof I’ve changed a little.”

“So it is test,” Dzerassae said.

“For him! Because the second he steps outta line!” Dallas reached for his gun, forgetting Dzerassae confiscated it. “Hey, over here we have something called the Second Amendment, Z.” She looked at him like he was an idiot. So did a bunch of pedestrians in designer athletic gear. They tipped Dallas off that he was in the right neighborhood.

Sincoke’s wealthy neighborhoods looked uncannily uniform. When Sincoke was up and coming, speculators swarmed like piranha to ‘revitalize’ it. Grey and white veneers were slapped over the bones of old brownstones. Sheet flooring was layered on asbestos-laden linoleum. Thick paint masked crumbling plaster—also full of asbestos. New appliances were plugged into old fuse boxes that were illegal in every other state. Most of these new-seeming homes were uninhabited, because Sincokers couldn’t even afford fake nice things.

There were cameras in front of every house on Zengrel’s block. “Look like a nice man and his grouchy Mother,” Dallas said. Dzerassae guffawed and said she was too old to be his mother. They noticed ‘for sale’ signs, pristine doormats, and overstuffed mailboxes. Dzerassae felt the husk-like aura of empty homes all around.

“We pick whichever,” she said dismissively. “Why they buy homes and never use them?”

“Its for shady shit,” Dallas said. “It’s a middle-of-nowhere privatized hellscape with a criminal police force. Perfect to store your ivory collection, your exotic pets, or the people you trafficked.”

“Hmph. Private island do not have vulnerable population,” Dzerassae said with a scowl.

“I think they like doing it in populated areas, right under the noses of normal people. Transgression gets them off, waving money at boundaries until they break them. I don’t even know if Zengrel and his friends are necessarily attracted to children, I think they just like crossing taboos, and flaunting that rules don’t apply to them. That’s what power does.”

“I do not dwell on their minds. That is for comrade Amy. I stick to patterns. Data. Simple.”

“They don’t have the same problems as us, so they don’t think like us. Once you transcend human problems, you stop behaving like a human. Which is the same as not being one. That’s why you can do whatever you want to them. Like they’re fucking dogs.”

Dzerassae shot him a stone cold look. Dallas was familiar with it. I am watching you, Mr. Avia. My primary allegiance to this cause and I know 100 ways to kill or maim you. Well, he knew like, 20 ways of stopping her.

“Relax, I’d never hurt a dog. God forbid I fantasize about killing the child rapists! Oh Dallas is such a wild guy! Itchy trigger finger Dallas!”


The drive was a nightmare. Sincoke was a labyrinth of roundabouts, eight-way intersections, and sneaky exit ramps.

Fights broke out. Drivers screamed at each other until they were separated by the flow of traffic, then they’d start right where they left off when they caught up to each other. People blasting music left their vehicles to dance in the streets, flipping off everyone honking at them. A man in a $400 jeans shot a pistol at the sky. An old black man in a Gucci shirt paced up and down the breakdown lane in a trance, occasionally making a heart with his fingers, holding it above his head, then slowly rotating by the waist to send love to the swaths of angry, impatient people. Their driver—a plump thirty-something middle school teacher—hyped Lester up and they started throwing loose change at other cars.

Ellis anxiously watched the fare go up. He had intrusive thoughts about people just wanting to be home. Crying. Lonely, overwhelmed, depressed. It was getting to him. He felt a deep sense of injustice, ruminating on Lester at the train station. The teacher had a suitcase full of textbooks and tests to grade. Every time there was a loud noise, Ellis wanted to swing the suitcase at Lester’s stupid fucking head.

They got to Dallas’ apartment complex. It had three floors and was made of bricks the color of mulch. It was on little square patch of dead grass in the middle of crisscrossing roads, isolating it from the dumpy little duplexes around it.

Lester regained his composure as he stepped out of the car. “Big intersection, kid. People blow reds all the time. Careful you don’t get hit around here.”

“I’ll look both ways,” he grunted sarcastically.

“I said don’t get hit, not to be a pussy. We jaywalk here. If people see you on the crosswalk they’ll hit you to put some hair on your chest.”

“Yeah, sure. Big scary city. I’ve fought meth heads at gas stations and I’m pretty sure I’ve pissed higher than the tallest building here.”

Lester looked at Ellis for the first time since the train. “Dallas tries to protect people, so its gotta be me who tells you. I’ve been to every city in this rotten country and I’ve never been jumped on a front lawn ten feet from kids playing in a pool, and the kids don’t even react. Every city has bad neighborhoods—Sincoke’s made of ’em, and you can’t tell them apart from the good ones. So don’t look like a bitch anywhere.”

“Now you’re supportive. Big tough guy giving street wisdom. I know how to handle myself. Now is there a key or something?”

Lester looked at the building wistfully. “Can’t believe I know where he lives. If I knew a couple months ago I would have set it on fire.”

“…What?”

Ellis looked a lot like younger Dallas. Dallas the Lesser Evil, the Shepard, commanding with care. Providing with blood money, placing his iron fist gently on your shoulder. Made sure his customers’ drugs weren’t laced, until they dared to buy from someone else. His girls were shadowed wherever they went. Safer, if they didn’t mind being followed by shadows. The people under his protection felt it weighing on them, like they were caught in a cardboard baler. Everyone lived in fear of him except for Lester. The Wrong Guy.

Then Dallas convinced him to give up the life and go after ‘the real bad guys.’ Am I being lead by crook and cane? Am I one of his guys or am I his? How about his brother? The Shepard was taking in another stray. Promising to save a life, but by taking it over.

“Times change, kid.” But did they? Lester threw Ellis the keys. “And you better look tough because you punch like your brother. Bye forever.” Then he crossed the street without looking either way, miles from the crosswalk.

Ellis didn’t say goodbye. He couldn’t afford taxis out of the neighborhood often so he was anxious to see what was nearby. There was a gas station convenience store that probably had cheap food. He could live on taquitos for a couple weeks before he’d have to ask Dallas for money. Way longer if the attendant was an asshole, because then he could justify stealing. There was a tea shop. Seemed like a place people would be nice to him if he ever had a couple dollars to spare.


“Fake cameras,” Dallas said. There was one on every front door. “Zengrel’s are probably real. Part of his whole sexual blackmail honeypot thing. You were part of that world, right? Kompromat?”

Dzerassae looked at the camera on Dallas’ hip, hidden in a gun holster because Sincokers were comfortable with guns than cameras. “I never left that world.”

They walked past a yuppie couple arguing and struggling with an anxious labradoodle. It was barking at something it could see or taste on the wind. Dzerassae had experienced the supernatural in the Caucasian mountains. She knew what existed in the middle of nowheres all over the world. Doing a stakeout on a wild night was smart, because their targets would be brazen and unhinged. But she worried about Dallas. He was a good man, but wild and righteous, and energy in the air found refuge in disquiet minds.

“House right across from Zengrel looks empty,” Dallas muttered. They walked down the driveway without any hesitation. It was easy for Dallas. Just had to act like he was supposed to be there. He had a lifetime of experience breaking and entering. He used to feel like he owned the world. He still had a general disregard for rich peoples’ property.

“You or me?” Dallas pretended to look for keys. He had lots of pockets, could stall all day.

“You. It is computer lock,” Z said, grimacing at the blue LED light. She was discreetly beaming a laser pointer at it to disrupt facial recognition.

Dallas clocked a plastic rock in a potted plant, scooped it up, and removed the key. Dzerassae raised an eyebrow and muttered a compliment.

A tinny voice emanated from the electronic doorknob. “Hello?!” It demanded. The voice was old, tired, angry. A distinctly working class drawl, the voice of a man who drank beer and watched football. He wasn’t the owner.

“We were told no one would be home,” Dallas said. “You sounded a lot different over the phone.”

“I don’t believe we’ve spoken,” the man said.

“I’m not sure who I talked to. I’m here to photograph the apartment for a contest.”

“Ain’t heard nothing about that,” the voice said. “Not much in the apartment, anyway.”

“The contest is about the bones of a structure,” Dallas guessed he was the property manager; that he heard a lot of new age nonsense from his upper class striver clients. Best to try his patience and make him desperate to hang up. “Its not about spaces that are lived in, its about absence. The home as a structure, and the story that structure tells us.”

He could feel the man’s blank expression over the phone. “I wasn’t notified of this.”

Dzerassae jumped in, playing up her accent because Americans think all Europeans are art freaks. “The owner is trying to hide participation from their partner.” Dallas commended the use of ‘partner.’ Could mean anything. Plus its modern connotations were likely to exhaust him.

“Well it’s not the first thing he’s neglected to notify me about. I’ll unlock the door.” Dallas pocketed the key just in case. “The little guys don’t like strangers. I hope my client didn’t neglect to notify you to bring earplugs.”

The dim light from the streetlamps reflected in dozens of beady black eyes. Dzerassae turned on the lights, prompting a cacophony of chirps, skarks, screeches, and mimicked car noises. Exotic birds batted their wings in feathery chaos. They all had cages bigger than Dallas’ office.

“Oh. Hell. Yes!” Dallas stuck his finger right in the nearest cage.

“Can we please buy van?” Dzerassae pleaded.

“Not in a million years,” Dallas said. “That’s too conspicuous. And too easy. And look at this little guy!” A cockatoo bit the fuck out of his finger, reaching its pointed beak into his nail beds. “Ow. I love him!”

The cages were clean, with boutique silk covers hanging from hooks on the walls. This was a prized collection. Dzerassae looked around. Someone was taking care of these birds. And they might show up.

Part One, The Air is Alive in Sincoke, 3

Earlier that day.

Dallas Avia, owner and leader of Avia Investigative Detective Services, was in his cluttered office, trying to focus on documents the Commissioner leaked him. He wasn’t actually a Commissioner. Dallas couldn’t remember his real title, because a grizzled old cop who leaks documents to cool private detectives is a movie character. And in every movie that character is The Commissioner.

He was thinking about his cigarette today. He could feel it calling to him from his back pocket, where it lived in his fake gold wallet in a little plastic tube from an at-home flu test. It had been there for three years, torturing him. Served him right.

It stopped him from thinking about other things.

Dallas grabbed a handful of hard candy from his antique bowl and shoved it in his mouth. Everything in his office was antique. He had a Grandfather clock, some grandmother curtains, an antique glass case full of old tobacco pipes, sea glass, aged whiskey, model ships, fine china, creepy ceramic dolls, and Native American handcrafts. He thought it projected wealth, class, and professionalism. He collected it from estate sales and thrift stores, most of it for under ten bucks. It looked like grandma’s house.

His desk was made of rare wood from an extinct tree. That’s what they told him. It was water damaged from decades stored in a basement. It used to make the whole office smell like mildew before he tried to restore it—then it made the whole office smell like varnish. Opening windows doesn’t make a difference in Sincoke. You don’t get fresh air, just bugs. The 19CE desk wasn’t designed for a computer monitor and keyboard, so it was always cluttered and he was constantly moving stuff around, which caused him to spill coffee on documents and electronics innumerable times. Only one client had ever commented on the wood.

He read four more words, then got distracted by nicotine again. He bit down on hard candy until his jaw ached. He felt it crush down into the pits in his molars. America, his right-hand woman, came and leaned on the door frame.

“Sup Amy,” he said.

“Throw the damn thing out, Dallas.” She could tell what he was thinking by watching his eyes.

“They always say, ‘don’t give up smoking, its all ya got.’ And then I went and fucking did. Now I just got you guys.” He flashed her an unsettling grin. Dallas had a wide mouth full of implants. They were too big, too white, and too even. It looked like there were too many of them. And he didn’t—perhaps could not—smile with his eyes. He braced himself for another lecture about decision architecture.

“I don’t wanna be your chemical crutch,” she said.

“It’s not a crutch, its a test of willpower! It represents my inner-demons.” He put his feet up on the desk. There was someone’s blood on his purple shoes. “Which I must face. Every hour, every second. Like a mantra!” Dallas made an elaborate, Buddhist-style gesture. He learned it during his time with the monks before they kicked him out. He didn’t know what it meant.

“You’re trying to dismiss me with jokes because at least part of you feels silly, right? On some level you know you’re being ridiculous with this cigarette thing.”

“Please don’t psychoanalyze me in front of the intern, America.” He gestured to Lester. He was sitting on the couch in the waiting room, pretending to read a fitness magazine.

America tread carefully whenever Dallas and Lester spoke. They were still adjusting to not trying to murder each other. It was like having a snake and a mongoose in the same cage. It was her turn to dismiss things with a joke. “Psychoanalyzing you is how we pass time around here. And anyway this case is huge. A lot of people are counting on us to find their children. Can you fight your inner demons on your own time?”

“Alright, alright, take my cigarette away for awhile. But pwease pwease pwease don’t throw it away! It’s a little reminder that I haven’t relapsed. And if I do, the nearest substance will be a fairly harmless little cigarette.”

America’s expression softened. “I’m not sure if that’s necessarily healthy, but at least its not actively self destructive? Kinda proud of you, Dallas.”

“Also you guys will have the length of a smoke break to take me out.” America slumped and looked at him incredulously. Dallas made a finger gun. “Kill me in my moment of weakness. Whoever does it gets to take over the agency. That’s in my will.” It really was in his will. “Gorilla rules. Just tell the judge I needed killing. Les will do it. Won’t you, buddy?” Lester pretended to ignore him, but he tightened his grip on his magazine.

“Won’t you, buddy?” Dallas elbowed in his direction.

“Well, it was nice to feel like you made progress for two seconds.” America held out her hand out for his wallet. He made a big guffaw about handing it to her. Some gold paint flaked off of it. She took out his cigarette and took a moment to pick out all the receipts and candy wrappers he had stuck in there.

“Nooo, not my filth! Also careful with that wallet,” Dallas got serious. “It’s antique spy gear—probably older than Dzerassae—it’s loaded with a single bullet.”

Dzerassae was in another office, looking for patterns in their target’s financial reports. Her face wrinkled. “I unloaded it when I caught you spinning it in the air and catching it.”

“You know what? Fair enough. You Gonna sundown tonight, or are you gonna stake out this pervert’s house with me?”

“You forgetting something?” America said.

“Happy birthday?” Dallas said. She didn’t respond, so he leaned forward towards Dzerassae’s office. “Happy birthday Z! What are you uh, a hundred?”

“Feels like it,” she said. “America is referring to your brother.”

“Oh, Ellis,” Dallas said dully. “I’ll swing by and leave a key under the doormat.”

America closed his office door.

Dallas felt tense. He handled it the only way he knew how. “Oooo,” he said, “Dallas is in troooouble! Wait are you actually mad?”

“You told the kid you’d meet him at the train station,” America said. “Your brother is coming in on the ‘Fentanyl Express.’ It’ll be late, he doesn’t know where he’s going, and you don’t know if he has a phone or any money. Plus I think tonight’s a wild night. We’re due for one.” Sincoke’s weather channels were totally unreliable when it came to wind, erroneously predicting it constantly. They cashed in on the hysteria and mystique surrounding wild nights without ever openly mentioning them. America could reliably predict them by observing how people behaved in lines, or in traffic. “You swore to your mother you’d take care of him.”

“She was so eager to get rid of him, she’d have sent him to live with John Wayne Gacy,” Dallas said. “Or our boy Zengrel,” he gestured to the papers.

“I’m dead serious about this. He’s in your care.”

“Oh cut the umbilical cord lady. He’s like nineteen!”

“What were you doing when you were nineteen, Dallas?” America said, prompting a cold look. People used to shit themselves when Dallas looked at them like that. He caught himself and mumbled an apology, surprised and ashamed of himself.

America was somewhat sympathetic. Ellis reminded Dallas of his younger self, and reconnecting with his family was a huge step for him. As his therapist, she needed to make sure he took that step. He was trying to disassociate by burying himself with work.

“I was a social worker for ten years Dallas. Ellis is a troubled young man and I take that seriously. He needs someone, and you stepped up. Too late to step down. Meet him at the train station, take him out for dinner, and introduce him to his new home.”

“We made all these plans before we knew Zengrel was arriving tonight. If you care so much about kids,” Dallas pointed aggressively at the documents. “You know what I mean.”

“Dzerassae worked for the KBG. She can stake out a house on her own.”

“Why don’t you go meet the kid?” Dallas said.

“Because I have appointments tonight, and because it’s your responsibility.”

“My responsibility,” Dallas said as he drew a loaded gun out from under his desk and dropped it on the paperwork covering his keyboard, “is to rid the world of this fucking monster, America.”

America put her hands on his desk and leaned over his computer monitor. Dallas recoiled. She was often frustrated or exasperated with him, but he’d never seen her this angry.

“No, Dallas, it isn’t. Our responsibility is to stake him out, discreetly, and find the missing girls. That is what we told their families we’re going to do, and that is what we are going to do. As despicable as this man is, you will not pull some macho vigilante bullshit and kill him because of your guilt problems, and your tendency to project yourself onto horrible people. Because if you do that, his lackeys and connections will freak out and cover up their tracks. And then we’ll never find those girls or expose his wealthy enablers. You won’t do that because you are not a horrible person, Dallas.”

“OK, OK,” Dallas said. “Yep. Yes. Good. Please don’t hurt me.”

“No promises,” America said. She leaned back. “This is important Dallas. Get over your shit.” She turned and opened the door.

Neither Lester nor Dzerassae looked at her. They aggressively, intentionally didn’t look at her.

“Dzerassae, I’m leaving early to see clients.”

“Just pay her for the whole day,” Dallas said.

America and Dzerassae shared a look. They both knew the agency didn’t have money for that. Avia Investigative Detective Services didn’t take in much money. Dallas founded AIDS with a mission—to take on missing person cases pro bono. He convinced the rest of them to join him. They sacrificed a lot for it.

Many people went missing in Sincoke. The poverty, the constant anxiety and ennui, the remoteness, the way PR minded city officials kowtowed to the rich and buried bad press, it left a lot of cracks for people to fall in.

Someone had to find them.


Ellis was restless in the back of the cab while it bumped around on some poorly maintained prairie road—the kind where if your car broke down you just died. He kept shifting around, randomly leaning forward in his seat, looking out the window, checking his luggage, then looking around the cab. The back seats were scratched up and there was powdery adhesive around the tears, leftover from tape that must have dried to dust. The window between him and the cab driver was so thoroughly coated in initials and penises that Ellis couldn’t see through it.

“Can I initial the glass?” Ellis asked.

The driver shrugged. “People just do it.” He was emotionless. He seemed like he didn’t care if he lived or died. Ellis didn’t have a pen or a knife and it seemed weird to ask for one.

He was a scrappy kid. A little skinny, messy hair. He had his arms folded inside his baggy T-shirt and the sleeves dangled at his sides as he fidgeted around. His resting facial expression could only be described as “disapproving.” The face an old man makes when he sees his granddaughter with blue hair. He looked like he was ready to fight anyone over anything. It often got him into trouble.

Sincoke was as long way away from the nearest town, with nothing but grass, militia bases, cult compounds, homeless camps, broken-down mobile homes, exotic animal farms, and various other buildings that don’t show up on google maps in between. There was no train directly in. There was no airport. Just roads that shipping trucks barreled down all day, to loading docks on Sincoke’s outskirts. Many truckers waited in the driver’s seat while their haul was unloaded. They refused to set foot in Sincoke, not even to empty out their piss bottles, lest the curse take them and they never leave.

Ellis was moving in with a mystery. Dallas was a legend, a rumor, barely spoken of. Their father, who Ellis knew even less about, kicked teenage Dallas out of the house. He visited once when Ellis was very little and living alone with their mother. Ellis’ only memory with his brother was playing Megaman 2 together.Mom cut him off again, but he resurfaced two years ago, claiming to be off drugs and out of the ‘crime business.’ Mom slammed the phone on him.

Ellis noticed sections of train tracks that ran parallel to the road. They were almost entirely consumed by grass. They passed an abandoned train car covered with graffiti.

“Oh sick,” Ellis lurched forward in his seat and craned his neck to see. “Do people live there? Like, off the grid?”

The driver was quiet for a minute. People didn’t hide in the prairie to do anything good. He’d seen some things. “Just do drugs probably,” he mumbled.

Ellis fantasized about sneaking in, stealing their drugs, and burying them. He imagined saving a girl who fell in with a bad crowd. She’d find him and thank him, then he’d say she had the wrong guy and walk off mysteriously. He started ruminating about his friend Tara. She believed in the curse and was convinced they’d never see each other again. She was devastated and had one of her fits. She came up with elaborate plans for them to run away together. He needed to contact her as soon as possible. He didn’t want to leave her alone.

He fucked up. A week prior, he came home and his Mom’s new boyfriend—a thick-necked asshole who only worked out his biceps—was drunk as shit. He threatened to hit her, so Ellis broke a bottle over his head, because what else was he supposed do?

Turns out he was a cop. Ellis had no idea. Motherfucker must have been the only one in town who hadn’t hassled Ellis before. In retrospect it was obvious. He looked and acted like one.

Their town had less than 2,000 people and for some reason the police had military surplus gear, including two helicopters and a tank. They didn’t raid the trap houses or the drug labs, they walked around the library and the pizzeria dressed like space marines, scaring the shit out of teenagers, jaywalkers, and people nodding out in public bathrooms. They kicked down homeless peoples’ tents and stole their stuff. They were bored and violent. Ellis needed to get gone. Mom arranged for him to move in with Dallas.

He felt like he was being shipped to a penal colony. Mom promised Ellis she’d keep that man out of their life. Whenever Dallas called she’d cry and hug Ellis, then microwave him something. Ellis never felt closer to her than when they were united against his brother. Making them live together was a jarring switch, and he couldn’t help feeling abandoned and betrayed. She said it was for his safety, but wasn’t Dallas also dangerous?

It made him think of the weird stuff. The signs he tried to ignore. She left him alone a lot. She pretended not to notice him sneaking out at night. One time he listened to her on the phone, talking about how the ‘look in his eyes’ scarred her sometimes.

What fucking look in his eyes? He tried to look at himself in the driver’s rear-view mirror, but he couldn’t see past all the scratches. He was being paranoid, she was only protecting him from the cops. Desperate times and all. But why Dallas? How could she break her promise so flippantly? She was happy to be rid of him. He tried to acknowledge this numbly, but his stomach churned like he chugged hot sauce. His Mom had been through a lot.

Look out the window.

Tape on the seats.

Mom, Dallas, Mom, Dallas Mom, Dallas Tara Mom

Check your boxes check your bags you’ve got them all. Check again. Look out the window. Tape on the seats. Mom. No. Yes. No. Something else.

Look out the window.

“Alright,” the cab driver said. Ellis snapped up. He saw nothing but concrete—his first taste of Sincoke. They were in a warehouse loading dock surrounded by shipping containers and big trucks.

“Oh.” Ellis hesitated, unsure if he or the driver were supposed to do anything. The driver just sat. Didn’t even look at him.

“Well, thanks man,” Ellis fumbled with the door, opened it, and set foot in Sincoke for the first time. He tipped the guy ten bucks. Ellis had $60 to his name. He got it by stealing DVDs from Walmart and then returning them. The guy at the counter knew what he was doing, but didn’t seem to care. It was really embarrassing.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more money,” Ellis said. “Feels like a bad tip for such a long trip. I guess I catch a bus or something from here?”

The driver said nothing. He waited for Ellis to unload his cardboard boxes and grocery bags, his backpack, his messenger bag, and his guitar case. Then he drove off, leaving Ellis alone with his things in an ocean of gray. It felt more like the middle of nowhere than the prairie. Maybe one of the workers would help him, but they’d probably just tell him he wasn’t supposed to be there. People were always telling Ellis that. The concrete felt cold, even under the blistering sun. He felt it through the holes in his sneakers.


Alexandra was rubbing her temples behind the bar at the Dark Mother,a fancy lounge basked in blue and purple light, with ornate, Gothic furniture designed by local artists. There was a small stage. A curtain blocked off the back half of the building, which she rented to a dominatrix and a photographer. They called it a speakeasy, because Alexandra didn’t have a liquor license. Though technically she could ‘give’ people alcohol and they could ‘give’ her donations. Legally speaking, it was a performance space and an art gallery. In actuality, it was a temple.

Alexandra was a middle-aged woman with a fit body, straight bangs, and a perfectly witchy hooked nose. She looked the part of a high priestess of Thelema. She was there with her girlfriend Amunet, ‘the best thing she dug up,’ when she worked as an archaeologist in Egypt, and their sisters Loretta and Agatha.

Loretta was a stout, chatty woman, wearing a toga with her left breast exposed. Dark Mother had no rules against nudity. “Do what thou wilt’ and all that. Agatha was an anxious baby witch. She was fixated on looking the part, so she looked like she got caught up in a tornado that passed over a Hot Topic and a Spirit Halloween. She wore a lot of makeup to cover up years of drug use. Magic was an opportunity to replace her old rituals with new ones. Alexandra protected and encouraged her.

“No more intersectionality,” Alexandra said, reflecting on what a mess that was.

That night was an experiment. She invited all of Sincoke’s pagans, astronomers, Satanists, and occultists from every tradition and discipline to come together, to try to channel the destructive energy of a wild night toward something deserving of destruction. It resulted in the loudest, most disorderly gathering the Dark Lady had ever seen. Not every union of egoists is pretty. And Blessed Mother, there were some huge egos in their community. ‘Do what thou wilt,’ meant, ‘be an asshole,’ to a lot of them.

“It was pretty funny when those frat boys wandered in and Steve tried to sacrifice them,” Loretta grinned.

“You tried to sleep with one of them,” Amunet said, trying not to sound judgmental.

“I tried to sleep with all of them. Almost did! Then they heard Dark LordDave talking about cum-eating ceremonies and started calling him gay. Things escalated.”

“You know what? I’ll take Sincoke’s insane, ‘everyone-make-their-own-shit-up’ occult community over that Levay stuff.” Alex said, rallying. “That’s why intersectionality is a bad idea. Whenever we organize, it always leads to cum-eating.”

Essence Consumption,” Loretta mockingly corrected her.

“Speaking of Levay, I found this weird guy skulking outside earlier,” Agatha said. “He was super polite, almost uncomfortably so? Like, weirdly posh and rigid.”

“Sounds like one of ours,” Loretta said, “autism runs strong in this community.”

“I apologize for coming off as stiff,” came a soft, steady voice. A young man walked in. He was a big guy, tall and broad shouldered with glasses, very neatly cut hair, but a messy beard. He spoke and moved very precisely, as if he gave deep consideration to everything he did. He was wearing a black sport coat over a button-up shirt with a tie. He always dressed like this.

“Sergei you are the last fucking thing I need right now,” Alexandra said.

“Forgive me Aleksandra. I am here on a pressing matter, or else I would not disturb you.”

“Go away. You’re not twenty-one, you’re weird, and we’re closed,” she said.

“How old is he?” Loretta pulled her toga over her boob. “Am I committing a felony? Not my first not my last, but ya know.”

“Be not concerned,” Sergei told Loretta, “I have been working on redirecting my libidinal energy towards more worthy intellectual pursuits, such as medicine, psychology, maths matics, and grappling. But, oddly enough, libidinal energy is what brought me here tonight.”

“Really hate where this is going Sergei. Like, more than usual,” Alexandra said.

Earlier that evening, Sergei was reading medical textbooks with a severe and thoughtful expression. He rested his chin on his fist, posing like an Historic Person in a black and white picture. He imagined himself accompanied by a quote. Probably a misattributed one. He had an erection. He wasn’t aroused. He felt a sudden spasm. Uncomfortable, sudden, joyless.

A spontaneous emission, he thought clinically. He closed his medical textbook and placed it on his coffee table, along with books on Gnostic mysticism and Collective Dynamics by Kurt and Gladys Engel Lang. He looked around his room, carefully scrutinizing his packed bookshelves, his weights, his tatami mat, his three computers, his collection of esoteric artifacts, and his large human anatomy models. He was looking for a sign. A clue as to what entered his study.

Psycho-social forces could manifest as tulpa, mental constructs, the things ancient people revered as gods or devils. They weren’t corporeal and they didn’t ‘exist’in the strict sense, but they could effect things. Usually they emerged spontaneously from the collective unconscious. A city full of desperately lonely men could very well birth a succubus. They could also be created—intentionally or not—by an individual or small group. His enemies may have sent something after him. He could have birthed it himself. He was, like everyone else, a slave to his id and his death drive. For now.

With a mumbled evrika, he noticed the head of the male anatomy model was rotated and facing backwards. It wasn’t looking straight ahead. Someone or something was trying to confuse him. It wasn’t a succubus draining his energy, it was an imp meant to distract from the work in front of him.

“But, I couldn’t return to my work, you understand,” Sergei explained to the four women, who regarded his story like a train wreck. They couldn’t look away.

“It’s like we summoned him by talking about cum,” Agatha whispered in Loretta’s ear.

“The head looking backwards could have been a sign that I was missing something,” Sergei said, “perhaps I was being warned against tunnel vision.”

He sought answers. The Pyatnitskovich family had done well after fleeing from the destabilization of Russia in the ’90s. Sergei’s Father was a professor of theology, and they had a tall house in a spread-out neighborhood, with a big enough backyard to build a shooting range. Sergei’s study was in the attic. He climbed out of the window and pulled himself onto the roof.

He stood on one leg and moved his arms around, as one would adjust a TV antennae. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he shivered as he tuned in to the psycho-social frequency of the city. It was easier on wild nights because the wind carried the psychic impressions further. He felt anger and excitement. It came to him from the endless sprawl to the east, from the built up city center, the rural western district, the forgotten Old City in the south, and the reservation far beyond that. He felt the psychic black hole emanating from the JD Booker Enterprise Building, colloquially known as the Black Cactus. He almost felt his essence being sucked into it.

The city was anxious and anticipatory, like a patient before the scalpel, a virgin bride on her wedding night, someone in a suicide crisis with their finger on the trigger. Sergei felt a chill though his entire body. His eyes opened and he gasped audibly. Something had come to Sincoke. It had been coming. It was here now. Everyone knew it on an unconscious level. And now, something was going to happen. Good, he thought. Sincoke’s stillness was not inherently bad—a bored mind can catch wonderful ideas—but it was due a shake-up. Sergei was a proponent of order, but a healthy spirit requires balance and some things can only be learned through adaptation. The only antidote for Sincoke’s diseased spirit was change.

“Did you change your pants?” Amunet asked, legitimately concerned.

“There was no time,” Sergei said. “I am kidding. My my, long range contact with this force of chaos has me making jokes. Brilliant.”

“Why did you come here?” Alex asked. “I don’t know about any succubi, or whatever.”

“I am looking for this chaotic force,” Sergei said, “so I can ally myself with it, and shape its course. I sensed a strong psychological current emanating from this sacred place.”

Alex sighed. “Sergei, listen, I don’t hate you. I think you try your best. But I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Ever. And I don’t know why you keep coming here. We’re Thelemites, not whatever weird psycho-drivel you’re always talking about.”

“There is much synergy between psychology and spirituality. What is magic if not–”

“–And if there wassome kind of weird chaos force coming to Sincoke, you are the last person I would trust to guideit.”

Sergei took a deep breath and stared at Alex impassively. “I apologize for taking up your time,” he said. Then he left, looking ahead, focused. If he was offended, he had already forgotten about it.

“Mind like a goldfish,” Amunet said.

“Only thing I like about him,” Alex said. “If only he’d remember to stop coming here until his twenty first birthday.”

The four women continued chatting, but Agatha was quieter than usual. Sergei’s allusions to incoming change stuck with her. She did a tarot reading earlier in the evening and drew Death five times. She convinced herself that she wasn’t shuffling properly, but then she dropped one of her cards while she was putting her deck away. She didn’t need to look to know which one it was.


The prairie felt endless. It was easy to lose your sense of time, distance, and direction, because there was nothing but grass no matter where you looked. It was yellow and brown, sparse and thin, like it grew out of the cursed soil already dead. It looked bright gold in the sunlight, like Dzerassae’s hair 40 years ago. Fool’s gold. Cattle starved to death on it. Sincoke was only useful as a hideout or a battleground. She longed for the lush, frosty grass that blanketed the hills of her homeland. She would not have chosen to spend the end of her life here. Sincoke was Limbo, a spiritual dead end, where old women who served a country that no longer exists were sent to be forgotten.

No one escaped. This was reflected in the prairie, where compasses were known to stop working. That wasn’t the curse, it was interference from the military and CIA headquarters. Some things were magic, others were just intelligence operations. Dzerassae was intimately familiar with both.

She stopped to ponder at some pampas grass, one of the many invasive species in the prairie. Its blades looked like ostrich features. It was out of place like her, in her long double-breasted white and black dress, her head and shoulders covered by a white scarf, and the dozens of knives in decorative holders strapped around her waist and arms.

Her knives were considered culturally unacceptable, but it was fine to openly carry a gun. She guffawed. Why would anyway advertise that they needed a gun? She thought about the thousands of cowboys who died in Sincoke’s old boom towns, and their cowardly style of violence. Americans like murder that’s impersonal. Dzerassae believed it should be face to face. You should have to look someone in the eye. You should have to feel the knife go in. If you could stomach that, it was fine.

An ostrich emerged from the tall pampas grass and locked eyes with Dzerassae. They stared at each other until the ostrich heard the sound of a vehicle and ran away. A Jeep Wrangler pulled up close to Dzerassae. Agent white leaned out of the window. The former Texas Ranger was big, and old like her. He looked like an ad for cigarettes in his suit and 10-gallon hat.

“Now you be nice to the locals there, young lady.”

“It saw this shriveled old face and thought I was one of its own.”

“Now don’t go saying that about yourself.”

“What? I’m old. And you make me walk all the way out here.”

“No one made ya walk. And ya look good for yer age. Better’n me.”

“It’s the cigarettes and red meat,” she chastised him. “I keep telling you—you need to eat melted cheeses with sour cream, and warm bowls of starch.”

“You inviting me over for dinner?” She gave him an angry ‘what do you want’ look. “I’ll waste no time on pleasantries.”

“You already have,” she spat.

“Base doesn’t know I’m here, they think I’m tracking tigers.” He waited for her to be incredulous. “There really are escaped tigers.”

“I know nothing about tigers. I know nothing about anything.” She did her usual spiel. “I have not been in Russia or Caucasus in over thirty years. I have no contacts there. I have told you everything! And in exchange I am still prisoner.”

“We both know that ain’t true. You’re not our prisoner, you’re under our protection. And that’s what I want to talk about, little lady. Buncha old pals have come looking for ya.”

She made a loud, dismissive, bah! “The current regime barely knows I exist. I was mere data interpreter.”

“They called you The Orakul,” White said with reverence, “no ‘mere’ anything. And its not the Kremlin, its one of your old buddies. A mister The Wolf. Ring a bell?”

“I worked for KGB. I knew fifty men who called themselves The Wolf.”

White grinned. “Well, when you catch him, send him our way Little Red.”

“You call me pet names because you can not pronounce Dzerassae,” she said pointedly.

“Got me there. Now maybe while I drive you back to city limits you can tell me a little bit about what you’re doing with Dallas Avia.”

“Mister Avia is nice man who give old lady job!” She spat back.

“We have reason to believe he’s targeting one of our assets for his nutso vigilante—y’all excuse me for cussing in front of a lady—bullshit. Dallas Avia didn’t hire theOrakul to help him with paperwork.Now, I always liked you, but wise up and—”

“Do your assets disappear young girls? I am in hiding because I develop conscience, mister White. Since we are not here on official business, I will say I might have liked you too, if you followed gut and stop being boot-licking CIA crony.”

“Can’t fix things outside the system. Independence corrupts faster than power. Sincoke has seen decades of old-school lawmen and inquests. It just dun’ work. You need checks and balances. You’re Marxist-Leninist, you believe in hierarchy.”

Dzerassae handed him Narcan. “On way back, look out for seemingly abandoned cars and vans. This place is rife with civic irresponsibility. I do not want ride, and next time we talk, keep it on record.”

White seemed dejected. There was some affection in her eyes, and he took solace in that. “We been working together for years, thought I’d do ya one nice. I guess I misunderstood how we were. Apologies for insulting your new comrade.” He rolled up his window and drove off.

Dzerassae had been experiencing a nagging feeling that something was coming. She wasn’t apprehensive, just aware. She knew it would be significant, but no one would know when it arrived. She had wondered what it was; but a looming wolf was a clear sign that a story was about to unfold. She wasn’t worried. Clever girls overcame wolves all the time, it had no chance against a wise old woman. But it couldn’t be her story, she was too old and had already been in hundreds.

Dzerassae practiced geomancy. Everything was a symbol and nothing was a coincidence to her. She looked around and tried to divine something about what was coming by observing patterns in her surroundings. The world told things to those pay attention—and no one paid attention like Dzerassae. There was no difference between data interpretation and magic. Shamans and investigators are both just people who notice things others don’t.

Her homeland spoke to her in riddles and half-truths, but the grass here just babbled. It was white noise, unintelligible, and it distracted her. There was a sudden breeze, and the grass made an eerie susurrus. White’s Jeep left tire marks in the ground. The pampas grass was a ferocious outsider that never stopped growing—even though it could be harmful and no one wanted it.

The grass in the wind: discontent, a million voices speaking out at once, saying nothing. The tracks: there could be nothing more American than a Texas Ranger in a Jeep Wrangler; America, where there was no unity, no concept of common good or even commonality. The pampas: tenaciousness. Her conclusion: a singular figure or a small group would take control of popular sentiment and unrest, and make its mark.

Sincoke was choosing a Hero. Such a force should be guided by an old hand.

Dzerassae noticed a few blades of green grass in the tracks from White’s Jeep. She couldn’t tell if they were uncovered by White moving the soil, or if they’d been crushed under the wheel.

Tyler Kimball, https://www.instagram.com/tylermkimball/

Dallas’ argument with America was very sobering, and helped him focus on his work. This case made him very angry.

Theodore Zengrel was connected to an international trafficking ring. Three years ago he was convicted in California. Four foreign, teenage girls were found at his beach house. None of them spoke English, and none of them had passports. He plead guilty to a minor solicitation charge. The detectives who investigated him were unceremoniously fired, witnesses disappeared, and his lawyers kept him off the sex offender registry by making a big stink about a clerical error.

Dallas wondered how much he paid the DA to fix things. It probably didn’t cost him a cent. Zengrel had friends in politics, finance, and tech. Entertainment industry too, but he was a pedophile so that went without saying.

Zengrel bought a downtown apartment in Sincoke during the tech boom that never happened. He laid low there after California. It was AIDS’ first year of operation, so it was just Dallas and America. Some girls went missing in connection with Zengrel and the authorities refused to look into it, so their desperate parents came to AIDS. America did most of the talking. The last thing those poor people needed was to talk to a guy like him.

AIDS promised them justice, but Zengrel abruptly left Sincoke. Who could blame him? He had apartments in Florida, New York, and a private island in the Caribbean. Tonight he was coming back. Dallas was determined to make good on his promise, even if that meant putting a bullet in Zengrel’s head and incurring the wrath of his billionaire friends. No one looked out for one another like the super rich. It’d be nice to make them feel vulnerable for once. If only it could be that simple though. America was right; this was an opportunity to obtain documents, figure out who his contacts were, and most importantly track down missing people. Only God knew how many disappearances were actually linked to him. Then again maybe he didn’t. Zengrel had friends in higher places than God.

Dallas also wanted to know what Zengrel was doing here. No one came to Sincoke for no reason. Fewer still came for good reasons.

Dallas and America—the more social members of AIDS—did interviews in anticipation of his arrival. Every employee they spoke to, ex or otherwise, refused to give up anything. Zengrel may have been paying them to keep their mouths shut, but Dallas refused to believe that many people could live with themselves not reporting child abuse. They probably just hadn’t seen anything. They could have been intimidated. A lot of his employees were undocumented or had criminal records, people who lived in extreme instability even by Sinkie standards. Also its scary to discover your employer is involved with the Balkan mafia or the Illuminati or whatever.

There was another possibility that frightened Dallas even more. Many of Zengrel’s employees hardly saw him, they just maintained his property while he was away, but they still spoke well of him. He seemed like a generous, patient boss. America watched their eyes closely. She sensed some reservation in their praise. They’d seen hints of something wrong, but they were ignoring what was right in front of them because they liked the guy.

Dallas believed most people weren’t evil, and evil people knew that, so they hid. They operated in nooks and crannies, whether that meant assaulting people in basements and alleyways or controlling their lives from private offices. The later liked to sit on corporate boards or get appointed to arcane government positions so they could make the world a worse place in comfortable anonymity. They have a wider reach, and face justice far less frequently than violent offenders.

The third kind of evil, the people person kind, is far worse. They want power and attention. They want everyone to love or fear them. They’re kind and generous to their lackeys to make loyal little vassals out of them. They sometimes develop real affection for the people who get stuck in their orbit, loving them like you would your favorite screwdriver or your car. They love to start cults, start companies, run for office, or in Dallas’ case run a gang. Dallas had a feeling Zengrel was like him. A man who wanted the people he took from to love him.

Charisma is a gift. Using it to alter reality is evil. Dallas might have hated him more for being a philanthropist than for being a pedophile. Philanthropists are the worst, because they obscure the fact that they control the money, and use it buy prestige and cover stuff up.

According to the documents, Zengrel preyed on young women from all socioeconomic backgrounds. He had procurers, sometimes young girls themselves, seek out poor girls and and offer them money to ‘spend time with’ a lonely old man. He’d manipulate rich kids by promising them scholarships, mentorship, or college referral letters. A family—the Becksters—were bragging that they were hosting him on social media. They were upper middle class strivers who liked to party with rich socialites from better cities. They talked about bringing business and culture to Sincoke, but Dallas got the sense they just wanted an opportunity to leave.

They had a daughter. Dallas wondered how far away this guy could smell vulnerable young women. Apparently all the way from his penthouse in New York.

But who was Dallas to talk? He wasn’t a sexual assaulter, but that’s the only line he hadn’t crossed. There are a lot of ways to ruin a life. How many people had he made dependent on him for drugs, work, protection, or housing?

He was still at it. His employees at AIDS could die working for him. And for what? Anything they dug up about Zengrel would get buried again. His arrest would implicate too many important people. Maybe AIDS could expose a few low-ranking members of the cabal. Patsies. People they could afford to send to prison. Dallas used to do the same thing, rank his followers, made sure they knew it too. His jaw felt sore. He’d been clenching it. Another mouthful of hard candy. His cigarette. He could not let any of his detectives get harmed. He was responsible. Responsible for Ellis. He was bad. Wait who was, Ellis or Dallas? Ellis just got into some trouble. Lots of kids get into trouble. Dallas did. They were a lot alike. One of his. His tribe, or his kind? Ellis would need to be watched.

—had to watch over every

Dallas couldn’t let Dzerassae go alone. She was getting old. He got up and walked to the waiting room. Lester was still pretending to read.

“Lester?” Dallas said.

“Piece of crap?”

“I’m your b- you know what? Yeah, sure,” Dallas said, rubbing his sore jaw.

“Suck too much dick?”

“I need you to pick up my brother at the train station.” Lester, who looked like a henchman from a comic book, gave Dallas a blank stare. “Look, I know we ain’t friends. I wouldn’t ask you for a favor, I’ll keep you on payroll.”

“You don’t have any friends,” Lester said.

“Yours are all in prison.”

“They still count. I’m with my daughter tonight,” Lester said. They were quiet for a moment. They both knew that wasn’t really going to happen.

“I’m glad you and what’s-her-name worked something out tonight,” Dallas said.

“None of your business,” Lester said.

“I want you to know,” Dallas grinned with mock good-nature, “that I can laugh all this off because I write your paychecks. But if-” he caught himself and trailed off.

“But if what?” Lester said, but not too aggressively. He wanted to give Dallas a jumping off point. Lester hated Dallas, because he was a violent psycho but he tried to hide it. He justified everything he did. He was a ‘rebel,’ a leader of the dispossessed. Now the self-righteous atonement shit. But Lester did not want to fight him. They were both trying to leave the past behind. Dallas regretted his combative choice of words, but he was still unwilling to look weak in front of an old enemy. He hated himself for it. He hadn’t changed a bit.

“You big strong men don’t have to show off for me,” Dzerassae said condescendingly.

Dallas exhaled. “Have fun with your kid tonight, Lester.”

“What time’s the little punk gonna be at the station?” Lester picked his magazine back up. “I’m only allowed to see Diega for an hour. I won’t be busy all night.”

“Aw dude, thank y—“

“But you have to say you’re a bitch,” Lester said.

“’You’re a bitch,’” Dallas said.

“Damn.”


Ellis was in a bad mood. He gave someone $4 to call his Mom on their cellphone for directions. She acted distracted, like she couldn’t wait to get off the phone.

He had taken three buses (which had all been late) to the only train in Sincoke. It was a little two-car shuttle, basically a bus on rails, that went through the center of town. The last stop was within walking distance from Dallas’ place.

Every bus driver hassled him about his transfer tickets. He handled them all by being obstinate and asking a lot of questions. He could beat most hall monitors—which is what all of these people are—by being more trouble it’s worth. After seven minutes of arguing or answering questions they usually give up on your bus fair, your late fees, the roll of toilet paper you slipped into your backpack, or whatever else they wanted $4 for.

Life, for Ellis, was an endless parade of people hassling him for $4. Society was built on demanding $4 from people. Want to sit in the air conditioning for a little while? $4. Use the bathroom? Get somewhere? Look around? Eat today? Fucking breathe? That’ll be four dollars.

Ellis’s Mom told him to take everything. His shoulders were burdened by a backpack full of clothes, a messenger bag, and a guitar case. He had shopping bags full of stuff tied to and hanging from his backpack straps. The messenger bag kept cutting across his neck and choking him. It was miserable, especially with the heat. It started getting windy as the sun set and the breeze was a relief.

The rest of his stuff, mostly stolen library books, magazines, a couple comics, and a bunch of CDs, were in musty old cardboard boxes. Every now and then someone would help him carry them up stairs or across the street, but most people glowered at him for taking up too much space. He glowered back and tried to look like a deranged delinquent. Be more trouble than you’re worth.

People don’t want to make a scene. Ellis used that to his advantage, but it annoyed him. A lot of shitheads got away with things because people are terrified of looking foolish or drawing attention to themselves. For example, there was a young man loudly reading bible verses next to Ellis on the train. The kid was wearing a white suit, and his blonde hair was neatly combed back. He stood erect with perfect posture. He didn’t move when the train rocked back and forth, even though he wasn’t holding onto anything.

Everyone was clearly annoyed, but everyone was afraid to be the asshole. Ellis decided to do the right thing. He looked up and spoke through gritted teeth.

“Hey man, can you read to yourself?”

The other boy turned and looked down his nose at nasty little Ellis and his dirty boxes. He looked wildly offended.

“What did you say?”

“I asked if you could read to yourself.” They locked eyes.

“Fine, Devil.”

Predictably, Ellis got more dirty looks than the guy who was bothering everyone. People hated shit-stirrers, he thought, they’d rather just accept their situation quietly. The boy kept reading, now just loud enough so that only Ellis could hear him.

Ellis wanted to flip out at him. He deserved it. Feeling the yoke of public shame, he quietly tolerated it. He opened the window and the sound of the wind being sucked into the train drowned out the preacher’s voice.

Philip K Dude