The Grand Ballast (17 page)

Do we even see what we’ve lost? Do we wonder
why a visit to the doctor is like standing in line at the grocery
checkout—“Here are some pills; see you in a year?” Do we hate that
our houses all look the same and are flimsy?

Let’s take back wonder. Let’s take back
freedom and joy. Let’s not forget how good it feels to be afraid or
in love or both, to draw truth from invention.

As Bode walked home from
school that day, he felt light and fierce. Like he might never have
to sleep again. He’d gather everything in him, and he would
create
. He would
make
; he would
give
.

He stopped and tipped his face up to the
sky. White and gold and forever.

You can take me. You can
have all that I am.
He spoke to the
world.
You can push me. You can make me
better.

Please, please. Make me better.

VALEN

“
That poor Boy of the
Water,” Kilroy said on their third day in Moat & Rankle, as he
and Bode stood outside and watched a worker hammer in a tent peg
that was coming loose. The sun was strong, and there was little
shade. In the distance, Mr. Lein was alternately sawing and
welding. “I don’t know if he’ll recover.”

Bode shrugged.

Kilroy shielded his eyes.
“He seems aware of his surroundings, don’t you think? How do your
visits with him go?”

There was a
ptink, ptink, ptink
as a
worker hammered the peg into the ground.

“
I don’t know.” Bode tried
to sound disinterested. “I only go to bring him food.”

Kilroy glanced from the
tent to Bode and smiled without showing teeth. “What would Long
John think of the amount of time you spend with him?”

“
LJ and I
aren’t anything.” Bode wiped the sweat from his face. Kilroy was
trying to goad him. Just trying to put pins in his skin. It was
almost working. “LJ doesn’t
think
anything,” he
added.

Kilroy whistled.
“
Whoo-ee
. That
so? You never had a thought, Bode? In the Haze?” He crouched and
brought the ring stick down on a line of large black ants. Raised
the stick, and Bode saw he had managed to impale one ant on a
thorn. The ant’s bulbous thorax lifted and lowered, and then it was
still, its legs curling under it.

“
Might as well not have,
for all I remember.”

Kilroy gazed at him coolly.
“I don’t believe that’s true. I think you remember plenty.” Kilroy
flung the ant off the stick. “Shall we go visit him right now?
Together? See if we can get him talking?”

Bode didn't want to visit
the Boy of the Water with Kilroy. Ever. He hadn’t even wanted to
see the Boy after that first night. He’d only gone to the equipment
car yesterday to bring the Boy food, and he’d gotten out of there
before the Boy could start on more of those bizarre
recitations.

The Boy’s words ran
through Bode’s head.
“I am the light. It
is not for me to pick or to choose…”

“
I don’t want to see him,”
Bode said.

“
You don’t want to help me
decide what to do with him?”

“
He’s yours,” Bode
interrupted. “Isn’t he? You bought the contract.” He wondered if
the contract contained the Boy’s name. Information about him. Bode
was curious in spite of himself.

“
Oh, Bode.” Kilroy laughed,
a sound like a bone breaking. “Your friend is from the No Returns.
He’ll be no good to me.”

Bode’s heart began to
pound. “What’re the No Returns?”

Kilroy raised his
eyebrows. He tucked the ring stick in his belt. “A cult. A veeery
famous one. The members are trained to have no material
attachments. No ties to other people, no desires. To accept that
anything,
anyone
is capable of causing either joy or pain, and therefore
nothing and no one can be trusted.”

Bode tried to process this.
“Why?”

“
The theory is that it
makes an individual…nearly invincible.”

He frowned. “How do they do
it?”

“
The same way any sort of
brainwashing is accomplished. Organized religion, the media
slobbering over skinny bodies, parents feeding children their
politics… You say something enough times, and a weaker mind starts
to believe it.” Kilroy looked at Bode. “Tell someone over and over
that he’s committed an unforgivable crime. That he owes you a
debt…” Kilroy grinned. “He believes it.”

Bode choked down a
slow-spreading nausea.
“So what was he
doing at the Hydra Arena?”

Kilroy tugged the sleeve
of his jacket down. “Many No Returns kill themselves.
The cult fails to realize that erasing a person’s
interests and desires only makes that person more vulnerable. You
know as well as I do that most people in this world are bored. But
they still find
something
worth living for. Family. A favorite food.
Marbles.”

A physical ache passed
through Bode at the thought of his mother. “So he…he
wanted
to
die?”

“
Of course.” Kilroy looked
amused. “Even an X-show can’t kill a performer without that
performer’s consent.” He pulled the ring stick from his belt and
rapped it gently against the side of his own thigh. “I need to
think about what sort of role he can play in this
circus.”

“
He doesn’t seem like he’d
be good for anything.” Bode struggled to keep his voice
impassive.

“
A gropeshow, maybe.”
Kilroy used his finger to curl a section of hair under his chin.
“Like we used to do with you, that first year. Before you were
fully trained in your current specialty.”

Flashes of memory: He was chained on a small
stage. Hands greasy from popcorn or chips slid over his skin,
tangled in his hair. Cotton candy slipped into leering mouths. A
tongue in his ear, up his nose. A slap to his flank.

“
We charge people to look
at him—extra to touch him. We keep him chained.” Kilroy glanced at
Bode again. “What do you think? Or would it be hard for you to see
all those strangers pawing at him?”

“
I don’t care,” Bode
snapped. His hands shook, and he wanted nothing more than to lie
down, even if it was in his coffin. “I don’t know why you think I
give a shit. I saw him, I wanted him, but now I know he’s fucking
useless. So you can do what you want.”

He walked away.

***

He was eating lunch on the grass by the
train the next day when Mr. Lein limped by, scowling.

Kilroy strode past a moment later. “Bode.”
He stopped, twirling the ring stick. “I’d like you to come with me.
We’re having a bit of trouble with your friend.”

Bode was curious enough to stand and follow
Kilroy toward the equipment car. “What’s wrong?”

Kilroy stopped to pluck a twig that had
lodged in the sole of his boot. “Mr. Lein’s job is to clean the
bucket.” Kilroy tossed the twig aside and continued on. “Mr. Lein
cleans the snake and the bucket—unpleasant jobs, but then, Mr. Lein
simply loves garbage more than anyone I’ve ever known.” They picked
their way around a mud puddle and approached the car. “Mr. Lein,
however, cannot get near your prize without said prize attacking.
Mr. Lein, in fact, now has a sprained knee and an unbecoming
disposition—the latter is nothing new, but it seems exacerbated by
his struggles. The equipment car is starting to stink, and since
you seem to feel some sort of connection with our new acquisition,
I thought perhaps you could collect the bucket for cleaning.”

Bode wasn’t sure if this was some sort of
trap. “Are you ever going to unchain him?” Bode asked.

Kilroy reached the car. “I fail to see how
that would be wise. I met a No Return last year who was like a
puppet made from a wet sock. But this man is…difficult.” Kilroy
glanced at Bode as they mounted the steps. “Which I suppose
explains your fascination with him.”

The smell inside the car was unpleasant but
not intolerable. The lamps were lit on two walls, casting shadows
across the Boy of the Water’s naked body.

“
Hellooo.” Kilroy greeted
the Boy with a false cheerfulness. “I’ve brought someone else to
collect that bucket from you.” He put a hand on Bode’s shoulder and
pushed him forward. “Go on, Bode.”

Bode walked unsteadily
toward the cattle stall. He unlatched the gate, swung it open, and
stepped onto the straw. The Boy stared up at him, his eyes flashing
with a defiance Bode hadn’t seen there before. And something else—a
sort of confusion, as though he were trying to dredge up a memory
of where he’d seen Bode before. Bode willed himself calm.
You know me. I saved you.

The Boy sat there, coiled and ready. Bode
took a step closer.

“
I won’t hurt you,” he
whispered. “Just don’t you hurt me.”

He picked up the bucket, trying not to breathe in.
Kept his gaze on the Boy, who didn’t move. He was aware of Kilroy
watching. The bucket banged against Bode’s leg, and he glanced
down.

The Boy lunged.

The chains pulled taut as he
grabbed Bode’s legs and yanked him to the ground. The Boy straddled
him, immobilizing Bode’s arms with his thighs, and wrapped his
uncuffed hand around Bode’s throat. He squeezed until Bode gagged.
Bode tried to kick, but even chained and half starved, the Boy was
stronger than he was.

The Boy of the Water looked up at
Kilroy, his hand still tight on Bode’s throat. “Let me go.” His
voice was deep, gravelly, nothing like that distant monotone from a
few days ago. “Or I’ll kill him.”

Bode turned as best he could
toward Kilroy. His eyes bulged as the pressure on his windpipe
increased.

Kilroy gazed back serenely.

“
Let me go,” the Boy
repeated. “Now!”

Kilroy smiled. “You overestimate Bode’s
value to me.” He gave a casual wave. “Go on and kill him, then.
It’s a nice day for histrionics.”

Kilroy walked out of the car. Bode began to
panic then, kicking and thrashing. The Boy held on, squeezing
harder, until Bode went limp.

This might be a
mercy
.

The Boy let go suddenly. Climbed off him,
breathing hard.

“
Jesus.” Bode scrambled
onto his knees, rubbing his throat. “Are you fucking
crazy?”

A long silence, during which the Boy made no
effort to speak or move. The whites of his eyes large and
startling. His eye sockets were bruised looking, his skin slick and
dirty.

Then, slowly, he lifted one
arm. Curled his fingers in and let his thumb stick out slightly.
Left a tiny open circle in the curve of his fingers. Bode glanced
at the wall. A snake. The Boy angled his arm so that his wrist cuff
formed a hood behind the snake’s head. Bode laughed hoarsely.
“You’ve been practicing.”

The snake plummeted
forward down the wall and disappeared. The grin slipped from Bode’s
face.
He took in the Boy’s profile, the
angular beauty of it. Jerked back as the memory hit him—the Boy,
chained to the bottom of the pool. His eyes flashing open. Real
fear in them.

“
Thank
you,” Bode whispered. “For not…” It seemed strange to thank the Boy
for not killing him.
“What’s your
name?”

The Boy drummed the fingers of his free hand
lightly against his knee.

“
Tell me your name. Please?
And none of this ‘I am the light,’ shit.”

A rustle in the straw beside them, and Bode
jumped. A mouse darted through a crack in the wall and disappeared.
The Boy gazed in the direction the mouse had gone.

“
I know where you’re from,”
Bode said. “I know what they tried to teach you, in that cult. But
you must have had a name, and you must have cared for some things.
And you need to remember those things. It’s important.”

A cold crept in through the cracks in the
equipment car, fluttering against Bode’s skin like some tiny winged
thing seeking shelter.

The Boy turned to him. “What do you want me
to say?”

It seemed foolish for the Hydra Arena to
have called him a boy, when his voice was deep, his body huge, his
skin rough. He had beginnings of lines at the corners of his eyes
and in his forehead. “I am the light,” the Boy said—but he said it
with a rising fury, his eyes blazing. “I am the air, and I am
everywhere at once.” His jaw trembled and his hands clenched into
fists. “I am bound to nothing and am un-destroyable. I—”

“
Shut up!” Bode shouted.
“That’s bullshit.”

The Boy looked stunned.

Bode jabbed his chest with one finger. “You
are a man and you were going to die, but I saved you. I saved you,
you shithead. I did a good thing, and you’re not going to take that
from me.”

“
I am the l—”

“
No… you’re…not.” Bode
gripped the Boy’s wrists, their faces inches apart. “I don’t even
know what that means.”

The Boy’s eyes were wide,
the skin around them purple. His foul breath blasted Bode’s face as
he panted. “Let me go. Let me
go
.”

Bode did, slowly. The Boy sank back against
the wall, closing his eyes.