The City Still Breathing (17 page)

Milly slugs him in the stomach, doubling him over, and then kicks him in the face.

Gordon drops to his knees.

Milly backs up a step, lets him waver there and bleed a bit.

If this was wrestling – if this was really real – he'd shake it off now, work up a rage, start trembling all over. Get to his feet and rip that jacket open, tear his shirt right off with both hands. And then the comeback.

Martha watching it all happen. Wanting to step in, to do something, but she doesn't know what. Always with Slim, she knows anything she could do is wrong. She just wants to pull him away, but she can't leave Gordon. Can't look away. Not like that last game. Her sitting centre ice. Gordon and that boy going down, one of them not getting up. And all the shit that happened after. He didn't come around anymore and she didn't call. They were both thinking the same thing.
Monster
. And years later when she saw him again, it was as people who used to mean something but don't anymore. She's not lookin away this time. Monster, nutjob, hero, mother, whatever the fuck they are, she's gonna look right at them. See all of them.

Slim can see the big asshole is a red mess. A hard breeze away from toppling over. But he's not even looking at Milly, all coiled up and ready to put him out. He's looking past him at Slim.

Not asking for help, not wanting it. Looking at him with such a softness – sadness for what he's done or what he's got left to do.

And then Milly's there, right up in Slim's face, breathing hard. He reaches down and closes his hand around Slim's, the one with the knife in it. Gently prying his fingers back to take the blade.

So this is fuckin it.

But it's not. Instead those grey eyes just look at him for a second. Long enough for Slim to know that they're not the eyes of a madman.

‘Where is my brother?' The words so quiet he's sure no one else heard. And it's not an accusation, it's a prayer. The kind that can kill.

But before it can be answered, Milly's being dragged back.

Moony doesn't know what to make of this. This big guy bear-hugging Jyrki, whose brother he taught piano. And something in that image jogs his memory and he finally recognizes the big guy – Gordon Uranium, that hockey player who turned some kid into a vegetable, years back. Was going to be something big but threw it all away. Turned into a mute. Got by on odd jobs around town, from people trying to live off the fumes of a legend.

Moony doesn't know what this fight is about or how this woman's, Martha's, son is involved. But there's a knife and a lot of blood and someone's gonna get fuckin hurt, that's for sure.

Then something grabs his attention past all the action – a shape moving out on the water, coming to shore.

The Brawl to End It All and they're tangled up, falling back onto the rocks by the water, Gordon underneath, slipping a forearm up under Milly's chin, the other one across his forehead – the Sleeper, his patented move. Both of them flopping around on the shore like a couple of dying fish. Then even the flopping slows.

Milly's eyes bulging out, strange noises coming out of him. The Python tightening the choke.

Heck looks around – nobody doing anything – just watching. A high sound, somebody whistling, and he thinks he's hearing things.

Then someone yells.

‘Whoa!' is the only word Moony can think of, so he yells it again. ‘Whoa!' Running past the two twisted men to pull the approaching canoe up on the shore – the bow scraping over the rocks, paint flying. Falling back with the effort.

Two little kids crouched in there shivering, one of them whistling away.

‘Elwy? Emilia?'

Gordon's choking the life right out of him. He can feel it, like squeezing a sponge. Another ten, twenty seconds and this guy's dead. Like that body on the television, like every body. The body laid out on the ice.
Crash
. How you go from that much noise to silence, he'll never know. Nobody moves. Players on both sides, staring at him. The blood coming out like a red hole opening in the ice underneath the kid. They came running on with a stretcher. Breathing, still breathing. And it should be a relief. Except as they cart him off, Gordon looks up. The score tied. A red hole left behind. Nothing moving on. Still five seconds left on the clock. Five seconds of forever.

Five more seconds and he'll kill this guy. Just another body.

Almost twenty-four hours ago Francie's life was so simple.

Five minutes ago Slim was about to die.

Four more seconds and Gordon's gonna kill this guy.

Francie thinks about all the photos of her that Slim took. All these pieces of her like dead skin cells scattering in the wind now across the slag up near their shack. Thinking, They're all pieces of my past, none of them are me. Just moments.

All Slim needs to do is keep her in his sight. He wants to shout, I see you, Francie! If he doesn't see her, she disappears. She stops existing. She stops being Francie. The Francie he's known for three years, three months, three days.

Three more seconds. Gordon just needs to hold on.

You can only hold on to a photograph. You can't keep what's in it. Not really. It's where you are out of the picture that matters. All those models, in those magazines – they're trapped. Forever. Like Francie, trapped in this town.

Slim just wants to break free. Grab Francie's hand and say, I'll take you wherever you want to go. Whatever you want. Just us two.

Two more seconds. Does Gordon hate this man this much? Or himself? For what he's become, for what he can never be? Where does he find this much hate?

And it's not hate anymore. She doesn't hate this backward town. It's just nobody sees her here. In this big fuckin mess of blood and noise.

If he loses her now, he doesn't know who he'll be.

Everyone needs to be alone to be something.

One.

He can't lose her.

But she's lost.

Nothing.

The world comes swimming out of the black and all of a sudden Milly can breathe again, and all he can think is, I'm still here.

Everybody's moving and talking. That big fella off him. Milly rolls onto his stomach, coughing blood, and slowly sits up.

They're crowded around a couple of kids up on the shore. That punk Slim in the middle of it, but the big fella off to side looking at him all funny. Then he just turns his back, walks away from the crowd to the lake, the mist all around his feet.

Milly circles around and comes up behind him slow, and he knows the big fella knows he's there, has to, but still he just stands.

Why? You had me, why'd you let go?

The lake is going calm and even though he's panting, Gordon feels the cold right to his root. A few months after, he took a bus down south. He'd never been to the big city and it took him a while to find the hospital. He couldn't remember the name, he just told the cab driver
Hospital
and the guy laughed at him in some other language. All the hallways squeaked, reminding you with each step where the hell you were. When he finally got to the door, he almost turned around and left. The kid was there, somewhere in all those cords and tubes and beeping things. Paul Katie – looking the same as when he hit the ice. The blood cleaned off so you'd think he was alive.

And what do you do? Do you apologize? He got a penalty. Five minutes for charging. They lost the game. They told him later, he didn't even know. Nobody was pressing charges.
Dirty hit
, some said.
The kid was hotdogging, asking for it
, said others.
Just a bad fall
. He knew the truth. The truth was this kid was good as dead, only nobody was gonna let him be.

All he could think was pull the plug. If that was me, pull the fuckin plugs. Please. Don't let me go on and on. Kill me or let me do some good. Maybe even kill me to do some good.

Five minutes, five fuckin minutes. How do you measure that against years, years and years of minutes. How could that ever be enough?

All day he's known someone's gonna die. Since that news report. Not the kid. Martha's kid. He could be something. You never know. And Gordon wasn't a killer. He had all the kill sucked right out of him by those cords and tubes. But this guy, this Myllarinen, he was a killer. It made him think of Katie. The man at the pet store told him,
You should think about defanging it, rip the venom glands out
. But he didn't want to hurt her. Instead, he let her bite him. Once. Let her sink her fangs in deep and held her there so she'd know what she'd done. Suffered through the pain so they both would know it wasn't worth it. She lost her nerve after that.

Maybe you can save someone, or save yourself. After all.

There it is – the arm coming around his neck. Bringing him back to the lake. He feels the heat off it, and he can't remember the last time he's been this close to someone, this still. The breath behind his ear, the smell of sweat and earth through the sleeve, the fine blond hairs on the wrist as the arm comes back, leaving him already – don't go, don't leave me alone – and then he's warm, so warm, so so warm for the first time in so long.

Warm coming out of him all the way down his front. He lets it go. And that lake so calm at last.

The big fella just lets go, drops to his knees – Milly helping him down, taking his weight and dragging him back from the water. Laying him out there on the rocks. The mist tight about them, giving them some kind of strange privacy.

All that blood surging out of him. His mouth working a little like he's trying to say something. He reaches out and Milly gets ready to bat it away, to go for Slim, but the big fella just takes his hand. Holds it tight. Looks into his eyes like this is all okay.

And then the rest goes slow, every muscle giving up. One by one. No death rattle, no explosions – just here and then not anymore. The hand slipping loose to the ground.

Hell of an easy thing for both of them. And he wonders if it was like this for his parents and for Lemmy, if they got some peace and if it was a hell of an easy thing.

He runs his finger along the entire length of the dark line at the throat. Trying to find a single atom of warmth in all this. Anything he can recognize in this stranger. But it's already going cold.

Ei, ei, et minua
. Not you.

He picks up the Pystykorva and looks over at Slim. Turned from the crowd, facing him. Shock, fear, hope, so much feeling coming out of the kid, like he's cracking right open. More feeling than Milly's ever known. A twitch of his finger, a squeeze, that's all it would take. To snuff out all that feeling.

His hand slides down the stock and he finds the notch Ukki carved. Just one little notch, one bullet, but it runs so deep. The butt of the rifle pressing against his belly, the notch sinking into him – a shaft right down into the pit inside. It's his notch now, too. Just a squeeze, one more notch. And down into that pit forever. A pit, like this town, this one place he's ever known, without feeling.

It shouldn't be this easy.

He gets up and walks away from the body, passing Slim, leaving it all behind, and when he reaches the trees, there's a scream back there, but nobody tries to stop him.

He heads for the car, wondering if he should stop to pack another suitcase and how many hours he can get in before dawn. Going gone.

Martha looks down at the face, surprised she's so calm about this. His skin gone smooth, moving back through the years. Too young. We were never that young.

Not a Gordon anymore. Not a Van. Not anything. Funny how a person can go and still leave so much behind. This thing to signify the absence of a person.

Fuck's sake, Martha
, she can hear Lucy saying.
Told you so. Obsessed
.

She must be in shock to be taking this so well.

But she looks around their circle – nobody crying, no hysterics. And she almost expects to see all their faces reflecting the same thing, but nothing's that tidy. All the others staring down, each of them seeing this in their own way. A breeze picks up behind them, carrying the mist back out over the water, taking some of the cold with it.

‘Do you think he's alonely?' It's the little boy whispering, looking up at Moony.

‘No, Elwy.' He takes the boy's hand. ‘I don't think he's lonely anymore. Do you?'

The boy doesn't answer, he whistles instead.

No, he's not the one who's got to be lonely.

‘What're we gonna do with him?' Hector this time.

And the question just hangs there, a thread no one wants to pick up.

‘We should probably call the police,' Moony finally says, and then when nobody argues, ‘That's what we should do.'

‘Maybe they're already on the way.' Hector again.

‘Maybe.' Moony taking the little girl's hand too, looking at Martha. ‘Does he have any family?'

‘I don't think so. He lived alone.'