South Village (Ash McKenna) (25 page)

T
ibo looks at me, unblinking, like he told me the weather report. I don’t know what to say and I’m digging for some words when Zorg pokes his head into the kitchen.

“Zorg doesn’t mean to interrupt, but we’re getting close to dinner…”

Tibo nods. “Sure. Why don’t you two get started?”

“We need to talk about this,” I tell him.

“And we need to get the people who haven’t abandoned us yet fed. Get started and we’ll talk about this later.”

“Are you serious?” I ask.

“Not a debate,” he says.

I hold his eyes for a second. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by what happened and I wonder how he pulled that off.

People handle killing in different ways, I guess.

Tibo leaves and Zorg comes in, hovering by the doorway, in an open vest over his bare, small chest. In the center is a red cartoon heart, the size of a silver dollar, tattooed into his skin. Sloppy, like a stick-and-poke job. He looks at me like a puppy.

“So…” he says.

“Let’s get to work. Asian stir-fry. We can bang that out quick.”

Hanging from the ceiling is a wok that’s more than two feet across at the top. I pull it down from the hook and place it on the stovetop, get it fired up. Line up a big pile of vegetables—mushrooms, peppers, onions, garlic, broccoli, snow peas. Then I grab a few blocks of tofu out of the chest fridge.

“Chop chop,” I tell Zorg, pulling a knife out of the block and holding the handle out to him. He takes it and attacks the vegetation with confidence.

I rush through the prep, thinking about what Tibo said. It tracks, sort of, that he killed Pete, in the sense that he’s been distant and vague, on top of there being some kind of strife between the two of them. But I can’t make the connections. The ‘why’ of it. Every time I get on a train of thought for too long, it derails, crashes, and burns, and I have to start at the beginning. It’s hard to focus, especially with the temperature in here climbing. I pour myself a big mason jar of water, down the entire thing in a few gulps, and pour another.

Zorg senses that something is off because he keeps throwing me sideways glances, until finally he dives in.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “You look like you’re not feeling well.”

“I’ve been better.”

“Want to talk about it?”

My gut response is to say: Not really.

But Aesop was right. Talking about things has helped. Versus what I’ve been doing for so long, hiding a part of myself so no one could see it. Staying away from the circle, sitting on the bus, drinking myself into oblivion, until there was nothing left but a void.

So I try something new.

Because something new has to be better than where I am.

“Delirium tremens,” I tell Zorg. “The price you pay for self-medicating with alcohol.”

“That’s what the valerian root is for, then?”

“It is. Aesop hooked me up.”

“How are you feeling today?”

“Not as bad as yesterday. Still not great.”

“Some people it’s a day or two. Others it’s weeks. It can get much more extreme than this. You should be okay.”

“How do you know that?”

“My dad.”

The period on the end of that sentence is a fine point that brooks no further conversation.

When the stir fry is done I dump it into a big bowl, check on the rice. It needs another few minutes. I slam the lid back on.

“I’m sorry again I was such a dick to you,” I tell Zorg.

He shrugs. “I’ve heard worse.”

“Seriously though. Everyone here is so goddamn nice and I haven’t done much to deserve it.”

Zorg shrugs again. “Community is all we have.”

I remember those words from someplace, like hearing a bell off in the distance. It takes me a second, and then I’m standing on a street in Portland. Someone helped me who didn’t have any business helping me, but he did it anyway, because, according to him, community was all we had.

Something I never really thanked him for, either.

I’m a little sad it took hearing that a second time to properly recognize it. But Hood was right, and so is Zorg. Community is all we have. This is a big bad world full of assholes, and if there’s an opportunity for a few like-minded folks to buckle down and do the right thing for each other, it’s worth taking.

For the first time since I got here, I realize I’m going to miss South Village when I leave. I still think it’s a good thing to go. I’ve never been to Europe, and tickets to Prague are expensive. I probably can’t get a refund at this point.

Anyway, I’ve got a bone church to visit.

But this is a place I’d be happy to come back to.

Monster bugs and scary toilets and heat like I’m sitting in an oven. Everything.

I check the rice again and it’s done, so I dump it into a bowl. Zorg carries it out and I ring the dinner bell, then head down to the chalkboard to list all the ingredients.

The circle assembles slowly as Tibo stokes the flames in the center of the clearing. It catches as the sun approaches the horizon, washing the woods in golden light. The no-see-ums are out, buzzing about my skin. Real bugs being slightly more comforting than imagined ones.

There’s an odd hesitancy to the proceedings. I take my spot on the bench and Tibo nods at me as the circle closes. Half the size of what it was two days ago. Sunny and Moony are here. So are Alex and Job. That makes me happy. Makes me feel like they’re still on our side. Everyone else is scared off or plotting destruction or, in the case of Katashi, found out.

Tibo bows his head and thinks for a minute.

“South Village is a very special place to me,” he says. “Some of you may not know this, but the reason I picked the name was to pay tribute to the East Village in Manhattan. It’s where I grew up. It used to be a thriving artistic community. Now it’s a commodity, where artists are pushed out to make way for people with money. The things we have aren’t supposed to last forever. Sometimes you have to accept fate and move on. This was my next thing. This was my answer to a world where art and community have been devalued. I truly believe these are the things that will save us.”

He sighs. “I’ve made mistakes. Some of those mistakes are coming to bear on the camp right now. I have done things that are rash, and irresponsible, and thoughtless. I’m still learning. Through that, I want to thank you all for being here. Given what’s happened, you would have left if you didn’t believe in it.”

I know Tibo isn’t talking to me, but it feels like he’s talking to me.

Without even realizing I’m doing it at first, I hop down off the bench. The leap taken, I’m able to step toward the circle. No one notices me.

“I love this place, and I will fight like hell to ensure that it survives,” he says, eyes still downcast. “But I want you to know that I am thankful for each and every one of you. I am thankful for your contributions, and your compassion, and your understanding. Even though there are things I’ve done that maybe I don’t deserve it. Thank you for believing what I believe in…”

He looks up. Stops mid-sentence, locking eyes with me as I step between Zorg and Moony. They sense someone is coming and part to allow me in. When they see it’s me they’re both taken aback. But then they stretch their hands out to me. I take them. Zorg’s is small and warm, sweaty from being in the kitchen. Moony’s is rough and bony. Her long fingers wrap around my hand and seem to meet on the back of it.

The two of them smile at me.

I turn to Tibo and he’s smiling too. His eyes gone soft. I feel like an alien. So out of place, and worse, so vulnerable. And yet at the same time, welcome. It’s a feeling I haven’t had since I was home, and maybe not even then.

“That’s what I’m thankful for,” Tibo says. “Who’s next?”

He looks at me.

I shake my head a little at him.

Baby steps.

He seems to understand.

“Moony?” he asks.

O
nce everyone has had their fill and I’m sure there’s enough food to go around, I fill up a bowl and see Tibo sitting off at the far end of the circle, on the last picnic bench before the forest drops off into shadow. That’s where I usually sit. I figure he’s waiting for me.

As I approach, he scoots aside so there’s room for me to sit. I step onto the bench and sit on the tabletop, take a few bites. A little salty but not a bad effort for a rush job. It feels good to have some hot food. I look into the darkness around us and it feels like we’re in a bubble, the rest of the world dropped away.

There are shapes out in the shadows. Things moving. Not as pronounced as yesterday. I really have to be looking to notice. That, at least, makes me feel like maybe I’m on the mend.

“What happened?” I ask.

Tibo puts his empty bowl aside and folds his hands. “A few weeks ago Pete came to me with a proposition. He wanted to turn this into an outpost for the Soldiers of Gaia. He didn’t volunteer a lot of information. Enough for me to know it was bad news. What they want is completely contrary to what I want. We’re all here, each and every one of us, because we feel like the world has failed us in some way. But that doesn’t mean I want to destroy it.”

“Skip to the good part.”

He looks at me, raises an eyebrow. “You were right. Of course you were right. I cut the rope halfway. Figured he’d walk across the bridge and fall and break an ankle or an arm or something. Enough to slow him down. Make him look someplace else. I had no idea it was going to break his neck. It was… it was so stupid.”

I remember what Tibo said as we stood there over Pete’s body.

That it was his fault.

“Why not go to the cops?”

“And tell them what? I didn’t even really know what the Soldiers of Gaia were at that point. And having a bunch of cops crawling around here… that’s not ideal.”

“And you’re okay with the fact that you killed someone?” I ask.

Truthfully, I want to know. Because since Tibo told me I keep looking at him, expecting to see it. That stereogram image. Instead he looks like a person, living his life. No outward signs of rot.

“Of course I’m not okay with it,” Tibo says. “I didn’t intend for that to happen. But at the end of the day, Pete wanted to hurt people. He wanted to burn the world down because of a philosophy. So yes, I feel terrible. But I won’t let it drag me down.”

“I wish it were that easy.”

“Why?”

“I killed someone too.”

Tibo pauses, laughs a little. “So now you admit it.”

“Was it really that obvious?”

“The way you’ve been acting. Trying harder to push people away. I knew it was something big. And it had to be real big, because after everything that happened with Chell, you still set yourself right. And with this, you just kept spiraling down and down and down. So what happened?”

“Back in Portland, I met this girl,” I tell him. “Her ex-boyfriend took their daughter from daycare. We didn’t go to the cops. She didn’t want to. Thought maybe an ex-junkie stripper was going to have a hard time once child services got involved.”

Tibo sticks his finger in the air. “Ex-junkie stripper? That is a fair and accurate point.”

“Well, I tried to handle it myself. It’s a whole thing, but in the end… you know I found the guy who killed Chell, right?”

“I figured as much.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“No one would have blamed you if you did.”

“I wanted to break the cycle of violence,” I tell him. “The thing he did to Chell, it wasn’t going to get fixed by killing him. I had to believe that there was a path to redemption. Less for him and more for me. So I sicced the cops on him. And the whole time I was in Portland, falling into old habits, I swore to myself, I wasn’t going to be that guy. But when it came down to high noon, me and this guy, I hit him a little harder than I should have.”

“Look at the two of us,” Tibo says, patting my shoulder. “Accidental killers.”

“Well, yours was an accident,” I tell him. “I think a bad part of me got loose for a second. The vicious part of me. The part of me that likes to hurt people.” I look down at my hands. I can feel blood on them, thick and wet, even though they’re clean. “Maybe that’s the thing. Why it’s affecting me so hard and not you. You’re not a killer. You made a mistake.”

The next words are hard to say, and as I’m saying them my vision goes blurry, hot tears forming in the corners of my eyes. “I think there’s something rotten at the core of me.”

Tibo huffs. “You’re not a bad person. Because for all your bullshit, at the end of the day, you do the right thing. Even when it means putting yourself on the line. That’s a lot more than other people can say. And second, man, this whole thing, it’s not a contest. You are the sum of all your parts. You are the end result of a long line of decisions. But you can be whatever the hell you want.”

“I want to be free of this feeling.”

“Then be free. Accept what you did and move on. Make up for it if you have to. But there’s no trick or secret to this. I have to live with the fact that I killed Pete. I’ll manage. Because otherwise it means shutting down. And this place and these people—they rely on me. So I’m not going to do that to them.”

I look out into the clearing, at the people who are still here. Working through the pain and confusion of the last few days. Eating and smiling and laughing. I feel apart from them, and maybe I always will be.

“People rely on you too, Ash,” Tibo says. “You do things other people can’t. The things you do… they’re not rotten. They’re special.”

“Killing someone isn’t special.”

“Protecting people is,” he says. “That’s what you do. It’s what you gravitate toward. You knew something was wrong. You couldn’t help yourself. You needed to fix it. Not everyone can do that. But you have the capacity for it.”

Capacity. Temperament. It makes me think about Bill and his horses. The job that may not sound glamorous but needs to get done.

Everything we have is so fragile.

“So, what’s the plan?” Tibo asks.

“Get the cipher, figure it out, and then get Ford,” I tell him. “I think we’ve both learned a couple of times now that boxing out the authorities isn’t the best way to handle these things. I think we can trust Ford.”