Never Knew Another (9 page)

“I said…” The middle boy squatted down, coiled and tense. He jumped the fence. His brothers followed. The middle boy darted around the butcher, making for the shop. When the butcher went after him, yelling, the other two boys leaped after pigs at the fringe of the huddled masses.

Djoss reached over the fence and grabbed the nearest child’s earlobe, pulling up the tallest one. The youngest boy had managed to tackle a pig, and hang onto it. The middle boy came running out of the butcher’s shop. His hands were bloody, but he didn’t have any meat.

The butcher came out next, mean-eyed, a huge skewer in his hand. His face was so red that it looked like the veins on his skull were going to burst.

Djoss let go of the boy he held and stepped over to the butcher with his hands up. “Hey, don’t kill the little bastard! He’s just hungry!”

The butcher raised the skewer higher, trembling.

Djoss grabbed the man’s forearm and stopped the butcher’s strongest swing as casually as holding an egg over his head. Djoss was the stronger man, by far.

The butcher spit in Djoss’ face.

Djoss laughed. “I’m on your side, pigman.”

The youngest and the oldest got a pig between them and ran for it. The middle boy tried to catch another, but the pigs were too fast. He fell on his face. He got up from the muck, laughing, and dove again.

Djoss threw the butcher back against the wall and snatched the middle boy. He hefted the fighting child up like a sack. To the butcher, he said, “Be back with your pig in a minute.” Djoss looked over at Rachel and shook his head at her not to follow. Rachel stood up and leaned against the wall across the butcher’s yard to wait in plain sight of the angry man.

The butcher stepped over the fence.

Rachel snapped her finger at the butcher. “You all right?”

The butcher sneered at her. “I’m going to get my pig back. Going to the king’s men for it. If that’s your man, I ain’t paying reward for what he stole. That was a grind, and I know it.”

“Djoss is getting your pig back,” Rachel replied. “Whether you pay him or not, you still get it back.”

The butcher didn’t say anything. He just walked off, looking for guards.

Rachel left, too, in a hurry. Farther up the street, Djoss carried the pig under his arm.

Rachel shook her head. “We go back, he might get us arrested.”

Djoss looked up and down the street. There weren’t any king’s men, yet, and running would only draw attention. He pointed off down the street behind him. “Boys ran off that way, to this alley.” he said, “Maybe got somewhere to cook it that way.”

At the corner of it, peering down the long, narrow path between two buildings, the alley was busier than the street. After the buildings ended, it even opened up into a kind of yard, but what exactly was back there was hard to see from the street. There were people moving around, there, and sitting along the sides of the buildings, and moving around. A man in a red cloak stepped out from a doorway right at the front. “You going back there?” he said. “Yeah,” said Djoss. “You stopping us?”

“No.” He was ugly and thin. He smoked a pipe with pink smoke and watched from a doorway. “Don’t cause trouble. King’s men come looking for your pig, I might not stop them, if they want it bad enough.”

Djoss nodded.

Past the alley was an abandoned shipping yard. People lived there in tents and old crates. Rachel scanned the crowd while she and Djoss walked around. She set her eye on a woman dressed in the same kind of home-sewn burlap the three boys had been wearing.

The woman stood up when Djoss and Rachel reached her crate. She must’ve had manners once, or else she wouldn’t have pulled herself up from the mud. She wouldn’t have curtsied. But when she spoke, her grace fell. “What do you want?”

Djoss smiled. He tried to be friendly. “You got three boys?”

She frowned. “I don’t know where they are.”

“We’ll share this with you and your boys if you can cook it. We don’t have anywhere to cook anything.”

She looked with some trepidation at the stolen pig. It had clearly been a long time since she’d had anything that good to eat, but she never believed it would really be handed to her.

“Bring it here, then,” she said. “I’ll get the fire going, and we’ll cook it up. You know my boys are going to be hungry.”

“Everybody is,” said Djoss.

“My name’s Sparrow.” She started piling wood upon large stones in the middle of her crate. She had gotten the wood from the crate, itself, burning her home to heat the cooking stones. “You from around here? Never seen you before.”

“We came south from the warehouses,” Djoss replied. “Looking for work.”

“Plenty down here for a man. Nothing for me.” She had stones placed around. “Here, take this pot to the river. Got to boil the pig.”

Rachel placed her hand on Djoss’s leg. “Wait.” She pulled a chunk of ice from the air and placed it in the pot. It was faster than river water.

“Don’t need ice,” said Sparrow. “What good is that?”

“I’m not done,” said Rachel.

She snapped her fingers and concentrated on another koan.
Snap snap snap.
Fire picked up in the wood. She pulled it from the air all over the ice, feeling the heat in her fingertips. Flame licked across the ice. The fire took to the wood, too. The ice melted quickly, and the heat rose up into the water from the stones. Soon, the water was steaming like it was about to boil.

“Don’t say thank you, or anything,” she said.

Sparrow cut the pig’s throat. She bled it out into the boiling water. It trembled in her arms, but died soon enough. She hacked up the pig as best she could without a knife. It was hard to break the tendons loose from the bones. “How’d you do that?” She tossed pieces of the pig into the pot.

“I’m Senta.”

“What’s that?”

“It would… take a very long time to explain.”

Sparrow poked at the meat in the pot with a stick. “Yeah, and if it was worth knowing you wouldn’t be here with me, would you? Not if you knew anything really good.”

CHAPTER V

I
t happened so fast. Out of nowhere, we were making friends. We brought a pig we stole. We shared it. Got introduced to someone who could help Djoss find work. Djoss makes friends. I don’t really make friends. Djoss just reaches out his hand and I don’t want to talk to anyone.

Sparrow’s kids came through when they saw food in the pot. They didn’t look at Djoss and Rachel. They were smart enough to know when they should shut up and take what was allowed to them. When they got meat, they ran off with it, hiding from even each other to keep what was theirs in their mouths like wild dogs scavenging. Djoss, Rachel, and Sparrow weren’t so uncivilized. They didn’t run away anywhere to eat. The good meat got eaten as fast as it was boiled through, but there were still edible bits left, and some organs, boiled soft in the pot. Sparrow’s kids were coming back, loud and rowdy. They wanted more. Sparrow smacked the first hand reaching for the pot. “Ain’t yours,” she said. “You want work you bring the pot over to Turco, see if he wants any. You remember me you get any coin from him.”

“We will,” said Djoss.

The pot was still too hot to carry. Djoss peeled his shirt off and wrapped a hand in it. It had been a long time since Rachel had seen him without his shirt. He looked like the side of a tree. His skin was pale and flaking like bark, and he had lost weight. His muscles bunched like knots under his ashen skin. He looked strong, but not healthy.

First, he carried the pot towards the alley where they came in. He saw a big man, bald with burn-scars all over his head and his ears cut off. Rachel went with him.

“Hey,” said Djoss. “Looking for Turco. That you?”

The man slowly reached a hand into the steaming water, and pulled out the pig’s head. He bit the animal’s cheek like a slow turtle eating wet grass, never taking his eyes off Djoss.

“I guess you are Turco, then.”

The man in red lit a match in an open doorway, to the side of the alley’s entry way and pulled on a pipe. “Not him.” His bright red clothes looked like they’d been cleaned sometime this year. No one else’s clothes looked like that. His hands were clean, too. He stood up from the open doorway. He didn’t bother closing the door. Past him, Rachel could see people sitting in the dark, but it was impossible to see what they were doing. “This for me?” He stood up and looked into the pot. He grimaced. “It’s disgusting. Who made this?”

“I don’t remember her name,” said Djoss.

“Sparrow,” Rachel said. “She has three boys.”

“Her boys need it more than I do.” Turco pulled on his pipe. and blew a colorful smoke ring. “Who are you?”

“I’m Djoss, and this is my sister.”

“You going to be living in our little neighborhood too? When I saw you coming in I figured you were looking to settle down in one of the crates if you could find room for it. Thought I’d have to come find you later. This is our place. Keep the king’s men back because of the good stuff. Cost some folks plenty keep it alone.” He pointed at the men inside the building. “They don’t pay for it. You’d have to pay me to live here.”

“We don’t have any money.”

“Dog doesn’t have money, and he stays here. Sparrow has no money, and she stays here, too.” Turco smiled at Rachel. “You mind getting your hands dirty?”

Djoss held up his hands. “My hands are dirty. I can bounce anywhere. Stevedore, too, if that’s what you need.”

Turco handed the pipe up to Dog, who took a long drag. His eyes rolled back in his head.

“What’s with him?” Djoss said.

Turco shrugged. “Got his tongue cut out. I don’t know his name. I always call him Dog because he follows me like one. Let him borrow my pipe.”

The pipe went back to Turco. Dog went back to eating the pig’s head. He chewed on one of the ears after he finished the cheek.

“What is that? It doesn’t smell like tobacco.”

“The pink stuff. Demon weed. Good stuff.”

“Does it have anything to do with demons?”

“No,” Turco replied. “Just call it that. Want to try?”

“Djoss, don’t…” said Rachel.

“Sure,” Djoss answered. “Bet I’ll be working with it soon enough.”

Turco held out the pipe. Djoss took it in one hand. The fire in the pipe was low, and he needed to get another match to light it. He breathed it in, closed his eyes, and exhaled.

Rachel wanted to scream.

“It’s good,” Djoss said. “It’s real good.” He pulled the pipe from his lips. He was smiling. He gazed into the burning leaves inside the pipe.

Rachel wanted to smack it out of his hands.

Her brother handed the pipe back to Turco and coughed, laughing. He leaned over and put his hands on his knees. He coughed a little more.

Rachel smacked his back. “Are you okay?”

I’m…” he started to laugh. “I’m fine. You should try this, Rachel.”

“No,” she said. “And don’t ever touch that again. Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

“Think it’s any worse than eating this pig?” Djoss reached his own hand into the pot. Even with his callouses he had to move quickly, and he was clumsier after the pipe. Sparrow hadn’t had anything to cut through the stiff bones, and whole ribcage cooled in the pot, the bones still joined to the spine. “Hey, you got a knife, Turco? Want to cut this up a bit for us?”

Turco pulled out a long knife from his boot and took a rough, hacking blow at the backbone, knocking some of the boiled meat loose. “You want work, too?” he said.

Rachel tightened her fists. “I’m not doing anything for you, Turco.”

Inside the room, she heard someone singing. They were off key. People were laughing, there.

Turco took a lazy drag from his pipe. “Too bad. Your brother’ll have to work real hard. Come back tomorrow. Sunrise.”

***

You know men like that are only friendly when they want something.

If they pay us for it, and they help us get off the street, Jona, what were we supposed to do? Turco was taking a cut of Djoss’ pay. I knew that. He took a cut of mine, too, when he helped me find work. But at least there was work. We didn’t have anything before that. We stayed there a while, too.

How was it?

Horrible. Just horrible.

When night came close, Sparrow pulled a stolen canvas sail over the roof of the crate. Turco and Dog slept at the head of the alley, near the room. Rachel could tell where they slept because their bodies left a pink smear on the wall that melted with the dew. Rachel knew better than anyone the danger of stains left on the ground.

Rachel stayed with Sparrow while Djoss disappeared for hours with Turco and Dog, and her boys ran wild.

The two women didn’t talk much. Rachel didn’t want to make a spectacle, so she kept her Senta tricks to herself.

Instead, she sat quietly, and looked out at the dark waters. She searched inside of herself for meaning in the koans, calming her breathing with her eyes closed.
What is my face before I am born?
The understanding of the fires came easily to her. The understanding of the winds and the ice as well. They were koans of the division of things. Insight into the Unity koans of the dreamcasting came to her rarely, if it ever came. When it did, it was never good.

***

My husband said he found the crates where Rachel had stayed, and the stink she left behind.

They have nowhere else to go,
I said.

What else can we do? Her stain lingers there, where she sweat it out. The secret corners where she hid when she needed to squat away from people’s eyes. The only way to reach it all is to burn everything.

These people don’t have anywhere else to go.

We’ll bring them blankets. We’ll bring them blessed apples and dandelion wine. We’ll try to help.

We’ll burn what little homes they have to the ground.

They will rebuild there, when we’re done.

I want to go home.