TITAN

Eric used to have a good sense of humor. It was eclectic. He could talk for hours on end about the logical inconsistencies on Power Rangers or just as long about foolishness in politics. From one thought to the next, Eric could be wry, dry, or terribly sarcastic. Every now and again he would go on George Costanza-like rants about whatever pissed him off at that time. Usually it was about driving or school, but it could be about something as stupid as why a movie called Major League: Back to the Minors shouldn’t be called “Major League” if the team is in the minor leagues.

If it hadn’t been for that sense of humor and his light-hearted spirit, Melanie might have destroyed him. Not killed him, mind you; Eric was very much the product of Tim Steele, a strong-willed man who didn’t allow his son to use the word “can’t.” No, Eric never ever considered suicide. Nothing, his mom always told him, is worth killing yourself over. In the end, Eric agreed. He hurt all over, but he was alive. That was something. It didn’t seem like much, but it was.

The destruction of a person’s spirit is almost worse than death. There were times when Eric felt like he didn’t know who he was anymore. It tortured him to think that he had lost himself and forged his identity through Melanie, but it was the truth—or it used to be. But without her, after that terrible day, Eric held on to his humor. It sustained him and kept him alive. When all other emotions were forced or fake, Eric could laugh—and doing so jumpstarted his heart. After a while, it was beating on its own and Eric found himself again. Admittedly, a bitter flood of hate swept through him whenever he saw Melanie or any of his old “friends,” but it would subside.

There was something else, too. When the world crashed down around him, Drew was there—non-judgmental and supportive. Of course, he wasn’t supportive the way Oprah was supportive; Drew just listened. As for his lack of judgment, Eric was quietly astonished. Drew had an opinion about everything. And they had been friends almost as long as Eric and Jim had been friends. So Drew was rarely shy about sharing his opinions. When Eric was with Melanie, Drew thought he was too needy, too dependent. Most of all, Drew didn’t buy the whole “love” part. He didn’t think two 14 year olds could know what love was. Maybe he was right.

Eric and Drew worked at a RECenter ice rink. They were “skate guards,” which Eric likened to lifeguards. And in truth, the jobs were basically the same, except one was on a rink and the other was in a pool. But there was a lot more cleaning in their day to day. And, oh yeah, they were paid a lot less than lifeguards.

The evening after Eric woke up red and restless, he and Drew swept up in the “warming” room just outside the rink. There were large wooden benches in rows lined up. They were old and the wood was chipped and splintered from all the skate blades that had been set upon them over the years. The temperature was cool. A smell like stale water was always in the air. They were debating an important issue.

“I like Rocky IV as much as the next guy, but it’s not better than Rocky II. I mean, how exactly do you judge that?” Eric asked with the shadow of a smile on his lips.

Drew shook his head. “Rocky II is boring. It’s like Rocky… but not good. It’s depression for two hours until he finally fights again.”

“Depression? It’s character development! Rocky’s gotta figure out that, at heart, he’s a fighter. No matter what Adrian or Mickey tell him, he needs to fight. The ‘depression’ is his journey in understanding that. But that’s beside the point… Rocky IV is only an hour and ten minutes long and three-quarters of it is a friggin’ music video!”

“With awesome music! The eighties at their best.”

“You know I love the eighties as much as the next guy… but ‘No Easy Way Out’? C’mon, that song’s horrible. The guy who ‘sings’ it is a discount Corey Hart.”

“Nooooo.” Drew leaned on his broom handle and swayed. His goofy haircut flailed after a day’s worth of wear and tear.

“Did you hear Prom might be on a boat?” Eric changed the subject.

“They say that every year,” Drew waved dismissal. “It’s gonna be in the same Arlington hotel it’s in every year. Besides, the school is so cheap. We pay like eight million dollars to go and our desks are from 1985.”

“The newer wing is okay.”

“Yeah, if you like sitting in a refrigerator,” Drew said.

“Those rooms are cold…”

Eric noticed that Drew made the slightest of hesitations. “Who are you going to take to Prom?”

“I don’t think I’m going,” Eric said.

“C’mon, it’s Senior Prom. You know I’m not into that shit, but it’s like a rite of passage. You’ll regret it if you don’t go.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m just…” Eric wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m not up to it, I guess.”

Drew turned his broom into a golf club and set himself for a tee shot. “What if…” He wound back and drove the invisible shot. “…I knew someone you could go with?”

“Who? I know everyone you know.”

“Ha. Not true. Constance has a friend.”

Constance Campion was a girl that Drew occasionally “got with.” Definitely hot, but almost too much for Drew. Sparkling eyes, gravity-defying breasts, and a “supple,” to use Drew’s assessment, derriere. Drew wanted to date her, but Eric thought she was tweaked in the head. She’d screw Drew’s head off but wouldn’t let him hug her. She’d go down on him and didn’t care if anyone knew, so long as no one thought they were “together.”

I bet any friend of hers is a gem. But Eric was tired of being alone.

“What’s her name?”

“Rose.”

Eric liked that. It wasn’t exactly an exotic name, but it had a certain sound, a kind of lilt to which Eric was drawn. Maybe it just sounded slutty.

Besides, on prom night, you’re bound to get something… with a name like Rose? Pink pedals blooming… the imagery practically wrote itself.

Eric nodded as Drew went on. “It gets better, my friend. Wait for it… she’s a redhead.”

Whoa…

Eric had a thing for redheads. Their skin was usually a milky soft white and they usually had hips. Maybe he enjoyed the risk—redheads could go either way: look like a frilly clown or have a mane of deep, fiery red. Obviously, he hoped for the latter. Unfortunately, redheads usually had small breasts and he was a breast man.

“Keep talkin’. Is her hair deep red or clown orange? What about her B/B ratio?” Eric twirled his hand for Drew to continue.

Drew sat on the bench opposite Eric. “Well, I haven’t met her, but Constance says she’s cute.”

Cute? The female buzzword for not cute. Plus, since Constance was so smokin’, Rose might be The Ugly Friend. It was the rule of two; hot girls paired themselves with uglier girls to look better by comparison. Or so Drew had theorized…

Eric’s head sunk into his hands. “Cute?! Dude, c’mon… you know what that means.”

“I know no such thing.” Even Drew didn’t sound convinced, but like the used-car salesman he was born to be, he tried to sell it. “Okay, okay… how about this? I’ll have Constance come by here tomorrow and she can bring her friend. Somehow I’ll see if they’ll get slutted up before they come by.”

A laugh escaped Eric that he would’ve preferred to keep back. “How will you do that?”

“I dunno. But this way you’ll get to meet her on neutral territory. You can decide then.”

Eric spotted their boss eyeing them from inside the office and sprang to his feet, broom at the ready. A dusting of pretzels and barbeque chips surrounded his bench left by the figure skating kids that practically lived at the rink. Eric started brushing them into a pile. Drew followed suit.

“Okay. I’ll meet her.”

* * *

The Steeles and McNultys had been friends since Eric and Jim met in kindergarten. Even after Jim left for the academy they all still got together for dinner, talked, and generally kept in touch. But they had only done it a few times since Jim had been sent away.

Eric never liked it. He felt strange being at Jim's house with Jim's parents, his little sister, and his dog—but not Jim. If it wasn't for Jim, Eric would not know these people. And, of course, these were the folks that sentenced Jim to the Wyoming wilderness.

Mr. McNulty, or “Phil” to Eric's parents, was a tall, studious man. He was difficult to dislike and wore a perpetual smile. Some of Eric's scariest memories were the few occasions that he, Jim, and Drew had angered Mr. McNulty enough to turn that smile upside down. Continuously angry people are not as frightening as typically happy people turned mad. He was very stern to Jim, however, and Eric always figured that Jim's exile was, in large part, Mr. McNulty's idea.

Mrs. McNulty was similar in height to her husband, but she shrugged and slumped a lot. She was always very nice and had treated Eric well over the years. Eric had always gotten the impression that Jim, as a firstborn, was not her ideal child. He was a boy, for one; Eric thought she wanted a girl and some of Jim's issues like grades and occasions of acting out just seemed like annoyances to her. Eric suspected as much of Mr. McNulty as well, but he covered it better.

Mr. McNulty was just a very smart, accomplished man who seemed to have little patience for failure. He started his own financial company from nothing and built it up to be a fairly successful local firm. Eric hadn't the slightest idea what he did exactly, but he didn't really care either. None of it mattered inasmuch as his best friend was gone and these people were to blame.

Tim and Nancy Steele, on the other hand, were very much blue-collar, "pull up your bootstraps" types. Tim was a successful engineer, to be sure, and Nancy used to be a bigwig at a bank, which had since died off. But they were both, at heart, still two independent-minded kids from Buffalo. That they made it out of Buffalo at all was something of a miracle. The rest of Eric’s family still resided in Buffalo and his parents were, for some reason, looked down upon for moving away.

The McNultys’ dining room was in the back of their house, separated from the kitchen by a door and short hallway with a small closet on one side and a half bath on the other. Eric didn’t eat much. He just stared at the door leading to the kitchen, which was one of those doors that you could push open and it would swing back on its hinges. It reminded Eric of the stereotypical kitchen door at some kind of swanky restaurant.

The food was okay, but Mrs. McNulty was a health freak. They were having chicken, which Eric loved, but her chicken was flavored with vinaigrette or some damn thing that tasted sour, sweet, and watery. No butter, no gravy, no taste—no good taste anyway. So Eric did not enjoy the company, the conversation, or the food. Really, his sole purpose there was to suffer. His parents knew how he felt, but they didn’t much care.

Jim’s little sister, Beth, seemed about as interested as Eric did. In her case, though, it was because she was eight years old and had no interest in Eric or his parents. Beth played with her food, twirled her hair, and shuffled her feet noisily. The elder McNultys either didn’t notice or didn’t care; they said nothing. Eric did notice, though, and he was slowly going crazy.

“How’s Jim, Phil?” Tim Steele asked, forking a sliced piece of chicken.

Mr. McNulty finished chewing some asparagus and nodded, pointing his fork nowhere in particular. “He’s doing fine. They march the boys out in the snow up there. He’s building character. Grades are going up, too.”

Nancy smiled. “That’s what it was all about, too. So is he feeling better about college?”

Mrs. McNulty looked like she was about to answer when Mr. McNulty jumped in. “Yeah, the school he’s at has a good reputation and colleges look positively on accelerated improvement. Plus, I have some connections at a few of the schools he’s looking at, so…”

Eric seethed and didn’t think he hid it all that well. He was waiting on several colleges to respond and hated how casually Mr. McNulty could just throw his influence around. Envious? Sure, but Eric didn’t really care about the other negative emotions running out of him—“envy” was relatively tame by comparison.

Almost as if his mother sensed him tense up at Mr. McNulty’s remark, Nancy chimed in. “Eric feels pretty good about Capitol University. He’s actually spoken with some of their staff in the admissions office. What did they say again?”

Ugh. He had to talk. Eric tried to moderate his tone, filtering out some of his annoyance. Some. “The assistant admissions director called to say how much he liked my personal statement… you know, the writing thing you do… anyway, he said that it would go a long way towards helping my application. It’s just that my grades are really more average… I have like a 3.4… and, as you know, CapU is a top school. I applied there really just on a whim.”

Mrs. McNulty found her moment. “That’s great! The fact that someone in the office knows your name, personally, is a big help. I think you’re going to get in. You’re a great candidate. Jim applied there, too, but he hasn’t kept his grades up like you have.”

“Well… there are a lot of factors, Hon,” Mr. McNulty jumped in. “Recommendations, school setting, extra curriculars… you know.”

Eric stiffened. “Yep. You’re right. I hope Jim gets in. He’ll be home again. We talked about being roommates if that’s possible… if we both got in.”

“We’d love to have him near home again,” Mrs. McNulty said. Almost as a reflex she rubbed Beth’s back.

“Yeah,” Eric nodded. “I wish he was here now.”

Tim cocked a glance Eric’s way. Eric ignored it. Instead, his glance moved between Mr. and Mrs. McNulty. Neither of them sensed Eric’s disdain when he commented. Eric went back to moving his food around.

After dinner, once the McNulty’s had shut their front door leaving the Steeles on their front porch, Nancy nudged Eric as she headed down the stairs to Eric’s car. “Subtle.”

“All the money and all the influence they have… Jim’s where he is because of them. Their rules applied only to him, not Beth,” Eric said. “Whenever I was working on school projects or anything, they had him out in the yard lugging rocks, mowing, chopping down trees…”

“You do yard work, too,” Tim said. His patience for complaining was slim whenever it was someone else’s complaints. “Your grades are good. Jim didn’t put in the time. There are consequences for that.”

“Not every weekend. And whenever there were parties, especially ones with girls, he never got to go. They sabotaged him from day one,” Eric said.

Nancy shook her head. “It’s not your problem. How about you worry about your grades and leave Jim’s business up to his parents? He’ll be home for summer in a few months. The McNultys will have to deal with what they created then.”

As Eric swung into the driver’s seat, with his father in the passenger seat beside him, he didn’t think the McNultys would suffer any consequences from their choices. Later, when he was proven wrong, he wished he had never thought such a terrible thing.

* * *

Since the fallout from Melanie, Eric sat with a new group of guys at lunch. If Simon, the asshole from the hall, was in the “cool” group, these guys were in the “I don’t give a shit” group. Frank, from sophomore math, hung out with them. He was best friends with Will Coulier and John Stanton, the two de facto “leaders” of the group. They didn’t boss anyone around or anything like that, but both played football, wrestled, and were also on the crew team. They were tough guys.

Eric knew Will from grade school. Will joined the school in first grade, and he and Eric had been in the same schools ever since. They were always friendly, but until recently, Eric and Will didn’t hang out much. To Will’s credit, and everyone else’s in the clique, he didn’t rag on the fact Eric just showed up at the table one day. They all knew what happened.

Will only mentioned it once, the first day. “Melanie’s some kinda bitch, huh?”

Eric had been pretty raw then, but Will was a great guy. His little remark had loosed a smile on Eric’s lips that hadn’t been seen too often then. A joke, sure, but hidden beneath it: solidarity. “And she doesn’t put out, either.” Eric had said.

That had gotten the table rolling. They all laughed and Will slapped Eric on the back, hard. He wasn’t really a part of them, not yet—probably not ever—but they were some people he could sit with. And after a little while of eating with them, Eric learned that Will had always liked him and wished they had been better friends. Eric agreed and silently wished he’d been with Will and his friends all along. They had played baseball together in junior high and gone to the same elementary school, too, but had never really hung out.

Will and his buddies took some getting used to, though. Their conversations were a bit more R-rated than the ones Eric usually had. Eric played hockey, so it wasn’t even the cursing; it was how graphic and vicious they got. They bitched about guys like Simon and Antonio on a regular basis. Not just “Oh, I hate those guys” either, more like: “I’m gonna eye-fuck that shithead’s mom. And not with my eyes, but literally stick my dick in her eye socket.” And John hated Antonio, too—a man after Eric’s own heart. John’s feelings toward Antonio were simple: he was a screw-up who got away with everything because his dad was loaded. It wasn’t an original story, but every school had one.

In the end, they were probably worse to each other. Lunch on some days seemed like some kind of nature survival special. Everyone would pick on whoever was talking stupid that day or whoever just got in trouble with Mr. Gibson. Everyone understood it was just screwing around, but someone just strolling by would think they were all being pricks. They were, but everyone knew that.

The guys weren’t big fans of Drew, though. Eric understood that Drew was a unique guy who had to be taken with a grain of salt. Will, John, and the rest of their gang either didn’t know that or knew and didn’t care. Drew had a habit of trying to be the smartest guy in the room. And Will wasn’t the smartest guy around, he was a bruiser, but he knew when he was being condescended to. Eric wasn’t positive that Drew even knew he was doing it; it was probably his way of fitting into the alpha male pack mentality. Wrong people to treat that way, though.

This lunch had been fun so far. Will, for all his height and muscles, was really a big klutz. He was large and awkward, with a high-pitched gasping laugh that didn’t quite fit his proportions. Will had unpeeled his banana but wasn’t eating it. Instead, he fitted it with a jury-rigged condom made out of a plastic sandwich bag.

John laughed as Will assembled the make-shift phallic representation. He reached into his lunch bag and produced a tube of yogurt. Through bouts of belly-seizing laughter, John tried to get a hold of Will’s creation. “Wait, wait… you’ll like this.”

Will handed it over with a sigh. John turned it upside down and squeezed some yogurt down into the tip of the bag. Everyone laughed harder. Frank’s face was bright red and he slapped the table. When John held it horizontally, so that the bag drooped slightly off the edge of the banana with a slight pool in the tip, it only got worse. No one had eaten anything for the past five minutes. Will grabbed the yogurt from John’s other hand and squeezed the rest of the tube into the bag, turning it into a sloppy mess.

“Now, it’s Ron Jeremy’s banana,” Will said with a laugh.

Eric had been laughing, too, but not quite as hard. Will played with his food every day. Today’s banana penis was nothing compared to the cheese and banana peel vagina from the other day. Eric tapped John’s shoulder and said, “Cut it to about three inches and it’ll be Dave Chong’s.”

Will laughed at that hardest of all and between gasps said, “Three? Try two, or one and a half.”

It was probably so funny because Dave Chong sat across from Will, John, and Eric. Naturally, his laughter had subsided. And that’s why everyone else laughed harder.

“Ha, ha,” Dave droned, “Asians with small dongs, right, right.”

Will especially liked the term “dongs.” He laughed harder.

As was often the case, their table was the loudest and most raucous in the cafeteria, except for Simon’s table. A lot of the other tables were staring at them. Eric would not have cared, except that Melanie and Sophia were among those looking.

As much as Melanie had crushed him, Eric hated thinking—knowing—that they still talked about him. It wasn’t enough that in one fell swoop Melanie had stabbed him in the heart with the longest, sharpest, most rusted knife she could find, but it twisted in the knowledge that his old friends, people he’d known for years longer than Melanie, gossiped about him behind his back. It was melodramatic and very high school, but it didn’t change how he felt.

Melanie’s look always had the same effect on him. It froze him. Her gaze swept through him like a cold wind that chilled to the bone. It reminded Eric of when he and his parents had visited family in Buffalo—lake-effect wind was chilling in every sense of the word. It passed through him like he had been wearing nothing but underwear. Eric’s smile died on his face at the sight of her eyes, just as it would have if he had been in that bitter Buffalo wind. Her eyes were still beautiful, but when they looked at him, they became like glass with nothing behind them… nothing for him anyway. What used to be in her eyes when she looked at Eric was gone now.

Eric’s table continued laughing around him, but he didn’t hear it. Walls had settled around him and that icy, cold, something twisted in him again. He desperately wished it would just go away. But whenever it did, Melanie’s bitter look revived it, thrashing and chomping at his insides. A pain beyond physical. He would claw it out if he could.

It was worse when he did it to himself. Sometimes he would be reading or watching TV or, hell, even at hockey practice, and his mind would be working on something else when an errant thought would slip through. Usually, it was something small like what it had felt like to hold Melanie’s hand, how his face seemed to burn the first time they had kissed, or the soft moans that would escape her lips as he gently kissed her neck. The memories would pry their way into his mind and then they would all start coming with no shut off valve.

Melanie’s eyes slipped back down to her meal. And just like that, Eric warmed again. Melanie’s scrutinizing eyes were focused on something else now. He relaxed slightly but not all the way. A terrible guilt washed over him. Why can’t I get beyond this? His heart knew the answer, but his head didn’t accept it.

His sandwich lost its appeal and Eric slipped it back into his lunch bag. The laughing at the table continued as Mr. Gibson stood at the head of the table trying to get the banana away from Will. Mr. Gibson wasn’t angry, but frustrated and blushing at the representation. A chuckle escaped Eric, but the laughter was gone.

Frank tapped the table in front of Eric and gestured behind him. “Don’t you know that guy?”

Eric spun around and scanned the busy room. No one stood out until he came upon Jim McNulty in a burgundy military uniform. Jim was out of place. His uniform was light wool, well-coiffed, with a wide, thick white belt—he stood out from the band of Catholic school kids untucked shirts, too big pants, and shoes to cover all shades of the rainbow. Jim’s eyes searched the room. He looked lost like he didn’t belong anymore and knew it.

Eric jumped to his feet and wound his way through the isle. No one scooted in or made any moves to help him, so he pushed and squeezed through. A few kids gave him dirty looks as he made his way out to the open path, but he ignored them. Eric felt a wave of nostalgia and happiness that seemed foreign.

“Jim!” Eric called, unable to hide his smile. He felt elated—an actual emotion, real and true. He made no effort to restrain it. He embraced it, in fact.

Jim had been looking to his left, scanning the seats, when he heard Eric and turned to see him coming. He smiled too. Usually sullen, Eric thought the smile did Jim justice. Eric was happy just to feel genuinely happy. He hadn’t seen Jim in forever. It was refreshing. A link to a happy past Eric wanted to be a part of again.

“Hey,” Jim stuck out his hand.

Eric grabbed it and hugged him. A real “man hug”—one arm around, not too tight. But it felt good. “What the hell are you doing home? We just had dinner with your parents and they didn’t say anything.”

Jim scratched his head. Doubt? Hesitation? It was subtle. Eric figured Jim was just overwhelmed to be home.

“They finally let me have a pass and I thought I’d surprise everyone. Besides, isn’t your birthday this week?”

Eric had forgotten. On Friday, he would turn eighteen. After all the bullshit, he’d just forgotten.

“Yeah. Friday.”

“So what’re we doin’?”

“I don’t know. I had forgotten to be honest. I dunno if my parents got anything planned.”

Jim was incredulous. “You’re kidding. This is a big one. We gotta do something. How ‘bout we go into Old Town or something… try to finagle some drinks out of one of the local bars. Maybe play some COD.”

“I suppose Drew would go for that. S’been awhile since we all hung out,” Eric said.

“OR, you and I can just go. There’s some stuff we should talk about,” Jim said.

Weird. “We’ll all hang out later, though, right?” Eric said.

“Oh, sure. But you know Drew, he’s a big douche. Let me be home for a lil’ while before getting a dose of him, ya know?”

“Yeah, geez, don’t I know it. You shoulda seen him bitching at work the other day… but, uh, what do you want to talk about?”

Jim shook his head. “Hey, it’s no big deal now. It’s not really the time or place anyway. It’s just some stuff that happened at school. I thought we could get into it later.” Jim pantomimed looking at a watch he wasn’t wearing. “I haven’t seen my parents yet. I took the Metro from the airport and hopped a bus home. You know… big surprise.”

Eric nodded. “Hey, that’s cool. They should be happy to see you. They sounded like they missed you. But listen, we’ll catch up later. Gimme a call and we’ll ring in my b-day right… maybe go vote or something.”

Jim smiled again. Not a laugh, but a smile. Since when did Jim get so smiley? I’d have thought months away at military school would have etched a permanent frown on his face.

“I’ll catch you later, man,” Jim said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the universal “gotta go” gesture. He clamped Eric’s hand with a firm grip and walked back out into the hall before disappearing around the corner.

* * *

The Shadow Man was waiting outside with two men. They were stiff and humorless. Their hands were clasped in front of them and they were giving Jim the stink eye. They had .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistols inside jacket holsters, but their jackets weren’t tailored properly so they bulged. Why Desert Eagles anyway?

“You didn’t ask him, Jim.”

Jim was covered in sweat. His uniform felt sticky with it. He was so happy to see his friend, but twisted within that emotion, he was terribly ashamed of what he was doing. Lying. Deceiving.

Betraying?

No. Not that.

“It wasn’t the right time. There were a lot of people around. I’m meeting with him for his birthday. I can ask him then and settle it.” Jim didn’t believe what he was saying. The Shadow Man knew it. As someone who traded in lies for a living, the Shadow Man knew lies when he heard them.

“Son, I’m very disappointed.” The Colonel’s emphasis on “disappointed” stuck in Jim’s mind. His thoughts returned to the idea that the Shadow Man was restraining something big and terrible beneath his human façade. “Friday might be too late. It might happen by then. You know this.”

“Look, I just did this so he won’t get hurt. If we wait till Friday, he’ll be alone with me. If it’s true, you can help him. Besides, you said you didn’t know for sure… you didn’t have the book.”

The Shadow Man’s right arm slipped around Jim’s shoulders like a father might. For a split second, Jim thought the Shadow Man’s surprisingly strong limb might tighten around his neck and snap it. The second passed and he was still alive. “There is a lot we don’t know, Jim. But there’s a lot we do know. And of what we do know, if Eric changes before we get to him, he’ll likely die. It’s not meant for him and we don’t know if that puts him in danger or not. But what can I say… he’s your friend. We’ll play it your way.”

Jim stepped out of the Shadow Man’s grasp. He couldn’t bear it a second longer. “But I don’t get how it’s dangerous if his dad had it and he’s okay. Why would it be different for Eric?”

The Shadow Man’s mouth formed a humorless smile. “I don’t understand it myself, Jim. I just know that my bosses think Eric Steele is a ticking time bomb. But look, the point is, we want to make sure Eric is okay… and that the country is safe from a possibly catastrophic sickness. And if he’s not, we can help him and stop an epidemic.”

Jim nodded, but he was afraid that these men weren’t as interested in curing Eric as they said. There were too many guns and too many secret late night flights. He couldn’t believe he was in the middle of all of this; it was surreal and he felt like he was sleepwalking through it.

But Jim’s fear continued to be mostly about himself. What were those shots for?

* * *

By the time he went to work, Eric forgot about Jim. He was sweating. As he dusted out the insides of the guest lockers on the far side of the ice lobby, his eyes flicked to the doors beyond the concession stand and the clock over the skate rental counter. 4:50 p.m. Ten minutes. Anticipation was building. Luckily, it squashed the other thing that twisted cold inside him sometimes.

Drew strolled out of the women’s bathroom with a pail of cleaning supplies and a mop slung over his shoulder. He wore that same peculiar grin. When Eric saw him, it quieted his anxiety a bit.

“I don’t care what anybody says… women are gross.” The grin never left Drew’s face, but now he was shaking his head. “Two days in a row, some lady’s fuckin’ bled all over the place in there! It’s getting to the point where I’m gonna start lookin’ for a body.”

Eric laughed. It felt good. He relaxed a little.

“It’s the teeny-bopper skater girls,” Eric said. “They friggin’ live here and… well,” his voice deepened, sounding very much like a PSA, “they’re going through important changes. It’s scary, I know…”

“Fuck that. Clean up after yourself.”

“I hear ya.” Eric looked between the door and the clock again.

Drew saw him. “They’ll get here when they get here, man. Calm down.”

Eric frowned and reached back into the locker with a wet rag. It came back gray. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this. I’ve seen the girls you date. Other than Constance they all looked like Kimmy Gibler from Full House.”

“Hey! Kimmy was a sweet piece of ass. But listen, how’d I get stuck doing the women’s bathroom today?”

“Because on Monday you knew Niles was gonna ask us to scrape gum and while you were duckin’ him the whole shift, I cleaned the Men’s and Women’s.”

“Buulllshit, I cleaned the men’s room on Monday.”

“You started to when Niles asked me where you were. What’d you do, anyway? Stand on a toilet?”

Drew laughed, “Yeah.”

“Well, good for you. They were bleedin’ all over the place on Monday too. Geez. Who parents these people?” Eric tossed his dirty rag onto the bench behind him and closed the locker door.

“No one. That’s the point.” Drew’s baggy, khaki-colored pants vibrated and jingled with “Highway to the Danger Zone.” He yanked his phone out of his pocket and checked it. “Ooooh. Look.” He held it out.

Eric read the display: Hookup #1 Consta… The rest was too long for the outer panel, but Eric got the gist. Constance and her friend were near.

“You number them?”

Drew flipped the cell phone open. “It helps me know if I want to answer or not.” He thumbed a key and spun away, voicing a cheesy greeting, “Hey, Babe…” Eric couldn’t hear the rest and that was okay.

Eric grabbed his dusty rags, shallow water bucket, and Drew’s cleaning stuff, and lugged them back to the cleaning closet. His fingers keyed the simple door lock code, “0-0-0,” and then he nudged the door inward with the tip of his foot. A familiar musty, chemical smell wafted into his face. He ignored it and fumbled for the light switch, found it, and flicked it down (someone had installed the light switch upside down). An orange glow illuminated the tiny room.

Drew was still on the phone as Eric dumped the murky water down the equally murky drain. It was black and molded with God only knew what. Pretty much anything liquid they threw out, they threw down that drain. Eric imagined that merely touching it would burn his fingers.

Burn.

The sensation from the previous night and early that morning resurfaced. It rose from deep inside, but all over at once—almost like his cells were on fire. But now it was bubbling out from within his stomach. The feeling reminded him of a time as a young boy when his mom had made chicken soup. His dad loved it and encouraged him to eat up. Being a kid is funny because you’ll get jazzed up over the stupidest things. Eric got so excited he picked up his bowl and gulped back a mouthful. Unfortunately, his mom had just ladled it out and it was HOT. Almost scalding, in fact. Eric’s mouth and lips had burned and he cried. But what occurred to him now was how that steaming liquid had felt when it hit his stomach. His body warmed from the inside out and his belly itched with heat.

It was getting worse. Eric clutched his stomach and doubled over. He held onto the wall for support. His face tensed and his lips sealed in a groan that would’ve been loud. With nothing else in front of him, Eric’s eyes drifted down into the blackened, moldy drain. It was impossible to see more than four inches in; what was mold and what was darkness?

The heat expanded throughout his whole body. Eric felt his ribs burn like fire, then his pelvic bones, his kneecaps, his shoulder blades, his collar bone, his elbows, his hands, his skull, and soon enough it steamed behind his eyes! He clenched them shut and they watered through the edges of his lids.

And then it was over. He felt blessed coolness spread through his bones and body. For the briefest of moments, there was a chill, but it passed.

Balance returned to his legs and Eric took his hand off the wall. His fingers caught on something. Eric looked.

His fingers were in the wall. He yanked them out with a jump and stared at the three finger-sized holes where his hand had been.

This place is falling apart. Those were there before.

But he didn’t remember them. Eric and Drew had spent enough time in that closet stocking paper towels, toilet paper, soap, and trash bags to know every inch of it. The wall where the holes were was right where they’d stare blankly as the mop bucket filled. He had never seen them before.

You did it.

What? Not possible.

The place is falling apart… Eric examined the punctures and the wall up close. It was cinderblock. It doesn’t crumble without a pickax. Feeling around, his fingers knocked some loose dust and crumbles onto the floor. It was fresh.

What…?

“Dude!” Drew called from outside. “They’re here! Let’s go meet ‘em.”

Eric calmed himself and popped his head out. “Sure, I’ll be right there.” He shoved everything he had been putting away into its place and looked again at the holes in the wall.

You did it. Impossible. No one can poke through cinderblock with their fingers. Fear crept up the back of his neck. Eric looked down at his fingers.

They were dusty. He had done it, but without hurting himself. There was no blood.