“Help me. Please, help me …”

The guy’s words are weak gurgles and he’s laying there near the empty sidewalk, the victim of a crime evidently committed moments ago. For an instant I consider just quickening my pace, being in no condition to help myself let alone some other poor fool. But clearer thinking prevails and I get to one knee thinking maybe I can
coax some words from him.

“Are you hurt?”

He looks at me, just stares and says nothing. Then …

“I’m shot. Oh Jesus, I’m shot.” He indicates his chest where the overcoat he’s wearing is smeared with an expanding stain. Pulling his coat open he reveals a gaping wound still oozing blood. At that precise moment my stomach churns and I realize I’m no hero.

“Let me go for some help, okay?”

“Don’t leave me here to die. Please, don’t leave -”

“Listen, I’m not certain what to do. I don’t know any first aid.”

“Please.”

There’s no one near, no traffic, nothing. So I tear open his shirt to give the gaping hole in his chest some air because that’s all I can think to do. But he’s turning pale and seems to be growing weaker. I’ll be looking at a dead man soon if I don’t do something, so I reach for my cell phone.

“I’ll get some help,” I tell him while punching in 9-1-1. A woman answers and she’s all business.

“Nine-one-one Emergency. Please state the nature of–”

“A man has been shot!” I tell her trying to keep my voice calm.

“Where are you located?”

It’s a good question. I’ve been walking half the night, but damn if I can remember why. Being new to the city I have no idea what block I’m on and there are no street signs visible from where I am.

“I don’t know exactly. I’m in front of an office building of some sort but it’s dark. There’s a closed coffee shop across the street. I can’t see any street signs from here. Listen, a man’s been shot. He needs help right away.” A siren screams in the distance. “There’s an ambulance or something going by a few blocks from here, if that helps any.”

“And your name is?”

I was afraid she might ask that.

“I was just walking by, okay? I just happened to find this guy here on the sidewalk. Listen, I think he’s hurt pretty bad.”

“Unghh …” he manages to mutter.

“Stay … the line, sir. There’s … patrol vehicle in … area.”

The operator’s voice is dropping out. I look at my cell. The fucker is down to one bar and the ‘LO’ battery indicator is on. I flick the phone with my thumb, the universal meaningless act of desperation performed by every putz who suddenly finds himself in a mindless panic.

“Are you there, Miss?” Nothing. “Miss? Are you still on the line.”

The cell flickers, gives a weak beep. Over and out.

“Shit! Shitshitshit!”

Thank Christ some rationality remains. My attention turns to the man whose blood now is leaking small puddles onto the sidewalk. “Listen, do you have a cell phone I can use …?” The guy is fading too quickly for me to waste time with the formalities, so I rifle through his coat pockets. Finding nothing I go into the pockets of his sports jacket. Blood smears my hands, and some cheese like goo is dripping from my fingers. Christ, it’s worse than I thought. This poor sap is going to die if help doesn’t arrive soon. I can’t find his cell but he’s got a wallet.

Whoever put this bullet into him, the guy wasn’t very thorough. There must be several hundred still in his pocket. He’s wearing a damned fancy watch too, one that looks to be worth a nice piece of change. If this was a robbery, the crook with the quick trigger finger must have been a complete idiot.

A police siren wails. It seems a few blocks off, so the cruiser must be searching for the place I described. Thank Christ! All I have to do is wait. I’ve still got the man’s wallet, and curiosity gets the best of me. The guy’s ID reads David Solomon, and for a moment the memory doesn’t register. Then Ka-Boom! the thunderbolt comes.

The Law Firm of Lansky and Solomon! I’ve heard of them, damn straight I have. And this David Solomon, he’s the lawyer who was Barbara’s attorney during our less than amicable divorce. Not a bad looking guy, either, from what I remember during our earlier encounters, although he doesn’t look so good right now. A man prostrate on a dark sidewalk, hell, you don’t recognize him so easily. My hands make the decision for me, and I glance inside the wallet at the photo he’s carrying.

My stomach feels like I’ve been sucker punched.

The photo shows a woman posed on a beach wearing a wisp of a string bikini. I recognize having seen that bikini a dozen times, maybe more. Because …

… because the woman in the photo is Barbara!

The sirens are closer now, probably no more than a block or two. The police will be here any minute. That sudden realization has cleared my head. Blew those cob webs right out of there.

This David Solomon, this legal piranha bleeding at my feet, this is the man who has done a completely thorough job of separating me from both Barbara and my kids …

… and this is the man who for years has been doing as thorough a job fucking my wife!

The police cruiser rounds the corner. Its lights strobe along the sidewalk, turning the pale flesh of Mr. David Solomon red then blue then red again. The guy isn’t moving any more, and I listen close to hear if he’s breathing. He isn’t. I slap him. Hard.

“Come on, goddammit! Don’t you fucking die on me!”

No such luck. Barbara’s lover lies dead at my feet.

That thunderbolt again. Ka-boom! and suddenly it all comes clear.

The gun remains inside my pocket, a .22 small enough to fit into the palm of my hand. But it was big enough to blow a hole through the heart of Mr. David Solomon, attorney at law. And earlier this evening through my whoring wife’s brain.

“Hold it right there!” an officer shouts.

“Put your hands up where we can see them!” another one adds.

… and suddenly I remember the reason why I have been walking these streets so late at night for so many hours.

A father roused his son from sleep and said, “Today you will learn the joy of catching bluefish.”

They set sail toward the rising sun on the barnacled Northern Star. When the shore was but a haze, sails were drawn and stone anchors released. Men crowded the sides of the ship and dropped their hooks of herring.

The boy pouted about not being able to see and about not getting his own pole. “You’re still too weak,” the father said.

A drunk nudged the boy and crouched to his ear. “Tell your father to mind the fish.” The father turned to find the thick rod bent to a bow ready to distance its arrow. He took the rod from its holster and paused before ripping back to bury the hook deep in flesh.

“Let’s see your strength, boy.” But the son could not turn the reel and the pole dipped low over the edge. The father took control and wore the fish down: releasing line, reeling line, releasing line.

Plucked from the water and set on the floor, the blue slapped its tail and flapped into the boy, knocking him down.

The slaps and flaps few and weak an hour before the end of day, the Northern Star began to ease the shore out of its haze. “Let’s see if we can win some money,” the father said. The boy followed the father and the fish to the center of the boat. There a man held up a hand scale, a blue hooked on either side. The scale man removed the blue of lesser weight and put the father’s in its place.

“My boy got this one,” the father said, as the seesaw tipped in his favor.

The father’s fish proved heaviest until the final round, where the drunk took the prize.

“How could this be, father? Our fish was bigger.”

“The drunk stuffed his blue with more stone.”

“That’s not fair, father. Men shouldn’t use stones to win.”

“But son, this is how we have always done it. We keep our slaves to stay competitive among farmers and stuff our fish to stay competitive among fishermen.”

2

The next time the boy sailed the Northern Star he was a man. The air of early autumn reminded him of the first trip—he, wrapped around his father’s legs, shielding himself from the cold. At the bow alone, heaving toward the gusts of mist and the source of light, the man said to his heart, “I must honor my father.”

Before the anchor was dropped, his hook was sinking into the school of blues—the other men still filling with drink and laughter. With dedication he eyed the line, reeling it a bit. When the rod bent he gave life to his father and was aware of it. Forearms tan and rippling, he took the pole from the holster with care, planted its butt right of his groin, and tore back.

“This is no war, young man,” the drunk said.

These words did not phase his rhythm. He dipped the rod forward, reeling. He pulled the rod back, not reeling.

People cheered as the great blue was brought to light.

“This is sure to win the prize,” said the drunk, teeth gone and chin closer to his nose.

Before the young man could remove the deep hook, the pole of the drunk pitched forward.

“Ah, I might be giving you a run for it,” he said, reeling in a fortyinch blue by the magic strength of years. No one had ever seen a fish of this kind that big.

But the young man had brought a pocket full of stones. He gorged the blue to the point of ripping and took the prize. The drunk hugged and kissed him.

“You sure came prepared to win. Well played, young man. Well played.”

3

The next time the young man sailed the Northern Star he was a father. He took his son as his father once took him. He even let his son reel the pole, relieving him when the struggle proved to be too much.

At the competition, the father-and-son team faced a former slave with a fish not much bigger.

“Yeah!” the son said when the seesaw tipped in their favor.

The former slave was angry. He stomped the ground and ripped open the winning fish. He picked up the stones that clinked the floor and punched the father with a fist full.

“Thisy noty right. Thisy noty right!”

“But this is how things have always worked,” the father said, holding his jaw. “This is what we do. Next time you will stuff.”

“Never do,” the former slave said. “Never do!”

The father turned. “Come on, son.” But the man punched him in the back of the head and threw him overboard. Holding on tight to his father’s leg, the son would have went over too were it not for the drunk that reached out and grabbed him.

The choppy sea banged the father against the bottom of the boat. He was left alone with his shame in the black.

“That it was always done like this is no excuse,” he said to his heart. “It is no excuse.”

“You are not responsible for what you have done.”

He was swarmed by bluefish.

“You must release your shame,” they said in unison.

“But I cannot blame my ancestors. I decided to do it. I was responsible.”

“You will die soon, so you must listen. You would be wrong to blame your ancestors. No one is responsible to such a degree as to deserve punishment or reward. It may be right to punish or reward in order to change or preserve behavior—or just to appease others. But no being deserves punishment or reward. No one is responsible for anything they do. No one is responsible even for actions planned out beforehand. We who are deep know this truth.”

“How can this be? Help me before I die in shame.”

Zooming around the man, the school gave its case.

If you are morally responsible for action O, then

you must have contributed to giving rise to O

and you must be morally responsible for at least

some part—call it “Z”—of what you contributed.

If you are morally responsible for this Z, then

you must have contributed to giving rise to Z

and you must be morally responsible for at least

some part—call it “Y”—of what you contributed.

This chain will go on in an indefinite amount of steps

until some point is reached, at best your fertilization,

where you are clearly not morally responsible for that

part of what you contributed in question at that point.

Never does moral responsibility get conferred to O.

You are not morally responsible for O, or any action.

“Reconciliation is not about judgement,” Father Blake said. “God knows what’s on your mind, so nobody will be disappointed.”

“What if I told you I’m not sorry?” the voice grated. “About anything.”

“Why come to me if you feel no remorse?”

The dark face leaned closer to the screen. Through the tiny holes, rows of small teeth gleamed in a wry smile. “Why, Father, I’m here for your confession.”

Father Blake’s stomach sank. “If you are a parishioner with a complaint, I have office hours.”

The voice laughed, deep and dark.

“I do not wish to turn you away,” Father Blake said, “but your conduct is inappropriate.”

“You don’t recognize me?” the voice growled.

Father Blake peered closer.

“Not my face,” the voice snarled. “This face is any face. Insignificant. But my voice is everyone, even those who work so hard to bury me in distant memories and banish me to fleeting impulses.”

Icy numbness crept over Father Blake’s shoulders. “Why are you here?”

“Because you believe you’ve found some pathetic balance. You’ve built a masterful illusion of discipline and service. While all along, deep inside, you ache.”

“You’re here to tempt me.” Father Blake clutched black rosary beads at his side. “I’m not impressed.”

“I am impressed by the architecture of your self-delusions.” The other side of the confessional swelled with shadows. But the toothy smile grew wider, brighter. “Lies are useless. I feel your blood quivering, your skin crawling at the truths I know.”

“This is a holy place. You’re not welcome.”

“There are no holy places, Father. Not the tabernacle where you sneak gulps of Christ’s blood to get you through the day. Not the classrooms where you fantasize about leaving bloody ruler marks on the hands of snot-nosed Twenty-First Century brats. Not seminary school where you and Jonas fondled one another.”

Father Blake gasped. He wiped cold sweat off his forehead. “I committed no sin then. We were young. Naïve. The act was consensual.”

“The real sin, Father,” the entity scratched the wicker screen with sharp fingernails, “is that you never repeated it.”

“I devoted myself to God.” Father Blake’s voice trembled.

“Do you know the difference between me and God?” Raspy breaths heaved between words. “I really care. It matters to me what you do or do not do in this world. A human life is a blip in existence. It comes and goes like a flash of lightning. I want you to use this time. To strike so hard and flash so bright that the pathetic souls around you feel the ground shake beneath them. That their eyes will be blinded by your brilliance.”

“Sin is a shallow pleasure,” Father Blake hissed.

“How would you even know?” Wide palms pressed against the wicker screen, pushed it inward. “You’ve but tasted carnal pleasure, when you could feast. You would sleep every night with a warm body against yours, but for the arbitrary rules that shackle you.”

“I regret that,” Father Blake whispered. “But that is all I regret.”

“Like a criminal, you sneak pleasures that others take for granted. You’ve buried a powder-keg of rage deep within you.” Oily black claws stabbed through the wicker holes, tore at the screen. “Unleash your anger on those ungrateful hypocrites you call followers, and their spoiled brood.”

Dark hands peeled the screen away. The toothy smile glowed moon-yellow beneath a pair of shining eyes. A hand reached from the darkness, but without claws. A warm, human palm, pale and pink.

The other side of the confessional smelled like soap and sweat. Father Blake felt the soft linens of St. Peter’s dormitory against his skin. He heard Jonas blowing out the candle between their beds. Sulfur and smoke permeated the air.

“I wish to hold you, David. Will you take my hand?”

“I want to.” Tears burned down Father Blake’s cheeks. “But I can’t.”

‘Stop stressing, Adele.’ Jenny looks up at me with that adorable lopsided smile.

‘I’m not stressed.’ Even I can detect the transparency of my lie. I know she hears it too.

Jenny picks our two wedding dresses off her lap where she’s been cradling them for the last hour and places them on the adjacent seat. ‘You always fidget when you’re stressed. Stop scrunching it.’ She takes the ticket from me and places it on the seat. ‘Here,’ she says, grabbing both my hands. ‘Squeeze these instead.’ Her grasp is firm and comforting.

I glance over my shoulder at the bustle of colour and commotion in the terminal.

‘Don’t worry. She’ll be here.’ Jenny’s voice is so confident, but there is no sign of Mama and she hasn’t called. Why couldn’t she at least call us?

Tears threaten to emerge. My cheeks ache from trying to hold them back. I run my finger under the rim of my eye catching a stray drop, no doubt giving myself mascara panda eyes.

Jenny giggles. “And you didn’t think we needed to bring our make-up case.”

The laughter is so soothing. I kiss her and wrap my arms around her neck. For the briefest of seconds my stress melts, the commotion around me lulls and all I hear is her sweet breaths.

‘Ahem.’ A middle age woman coughs as if she has a tiny tadpole in her throat.

‘Mummy, plane!’ a young girl squeals, running past us to the woman. The mother turns her daughter from our direction and coughs louder: the tadpole transforms into a bullfrog. The croaking cough is so loud that others in seats nearby look in our direction.

There is a shake of the mother’s head and a raised eyebrow: the non-verbal ‘tsk tsk’.

Not today. I can deal with this any day, but not today. I close my eyes and nuzzle my nose in Jenny’s neck trying to block out the scrutiny surrounding us.

‘This is a pre-boarding call for QANTAS flight QF246 to Vancouver. We invite passengers requiring special assistance and parents with small children to begin boarding.’

‘No, no, no. They can’t be boarding yet.’ I scan the flurry of activity. A business man runs to his boarding gate; a stewardess tries to run while fixing her slick-gelled bun with bobby pins. Nowhere among the chaos is Mama racing towards us.

Business suits, turbans, old, young, wheelchairs: the terminal is a sea of colours blending together, but Mama is not among them.

Jenny squeezes my hand.

‘Ahem!’ coughs the mother.

Anyone could blend in at the airport and go unnoticed, but my simple sign of affection arouses a chorus of coughs that would drown out a pond full of frogs.

‘Oh! Are you okay, love?’ Jenny asks the mother, with a voice like butter. ‘I think I have some cough lollies in my travel bag.’ She begins rummaging through her bag, but I know she hasn’t packed any.

‘There are families here.’ The mother hauls a bag on her shoulder, grabs her daughter’s hand and strides to the window.

‘Don’t go. I know I have some cough lollies in here somewhere,’ Jenny calls out to her, the sincerity seeping away ever so slightly.

I feel the heat burning in my cheeks. How Jenny manages to stay to calm and not get embarrassed always perplexes me. Nothing could faze her. She is the complete opposite to me. Yin and yang – as they say.

‘I’m going to get a coffee. You want one?’ Jenny asks.

I shake my head. Caffeine won’t help my nerves right now. ‘Do you have time?’

‘Sure. Besides we still have to wait for your Mum.’ She strolls back towards the cafes as if she has all the time in the world and so confident that Mama will suddenly appear.

The mother and little girl have retreated to the airport windows. Her tiny hand and face press against the glass as another plane coasts along the tarmac. I wonder how long it takes to clean all those little fingerprints from the glass. One day, Jenny and I will have a proper family. Maybe a boy and a girl.

A man walks up to the mother, kisses her on the cheek and holds her hand. The girl turns to look at me. I grab the inside of my cheeks with my fingers and make a face. She giggles and mimics me, until the mother notices and ushers her back to plane watching.

Planes are much safer.

I shouldn’t judge. Twenty years ago, Mama would’ve acted the same. If turning me from my current direction was as easy as distracting me with planes, I would’ve spent my life at the airport.

I look around the hordes of passengers making their way to the gate. Where is she? When I was five, she promised she would be here. At our preschool play, she’d sworn on her life she wouldn’t let me down.

‘I don’t wanna marry John,’ I had bawled as our teacher started playing the wedding march on the school piano. ‘I’m gonna marry Marco. He has a Play Station. If I marry him that means I own it too.’ The chuckle from the audience probably should’ve told me I was speaking too loud from the wings, but I didn’t care. ‘Mummy, I’m not marrying John!’ I threw the bouquet of flowers onto the floor and stomped on them until the plastic petals had fallen off. ‘John doesn’t even like video games. He sucks.’

‘Oh, mia bambina. It is just play. Make-believe.’ Mama took my hand. ‘You take Fred’s hand. He walk you onto the stage and down the aisle and then you pretend to marry John. It not real.’

‘Why do I have to walk with Fred?’ I crossed my arms and pouted.

‘Because he play the part of the Daddy. That is what the Daddy does.’

‘Can Daddy walk me down the aisle when I marry Marco?’

‘Oh, mia bambina.’ Mama had squatted so that she could peer into my eyes. ‘We speak of this. You know he cannot come back.’

‘Why does a Daddy have to walk the girl down the aisle?’

‘Because that how it done. He giving her away.’

‘A way to do what?’

There was another subdued chuckle from the audience as if they were uncertain whether they should laugh at the drama unfolding off stage. Mama had laughed a genuine laugh though. She crackled like a hearty Italian breakfast frying in the pan. A comforting laugh.

‘It’s a Daddy’s job to give girl to husband. It tradition.’

‘So how will I get to play Marco’s Play Station if Daddy can’t walk me down the aisle.’ The tears began to resurface.

‘Maybe if good, Santa bring Play Station for you at Christmas.’

‘But Santa doesn’t know what one Marco has. He has to get the right console and games.’

‘Santa is magic. He get anything you want.’

‘Can he get Daddy to walk me down the aisle?’

Mama kissed my forehead. ‘Sometimes we can break tradition. When ready, I walk you down aisle.’

‘Really. Is that allowed?’

‘Yes. I promise sweet mia bambina.’

‘Hurry up!’ Fred stood with arms crossed and a frown as peaked as Mt Kosciusko. ‘You’re messing up my chance to be a star.’ He held out his sweaty hand.

‘I’m not holding that!’ I picked up my decrepit bunch of flowers, shoved them under my arm and then stormed onto the stage before Fred could say any more. Amid the audience’s laughter and applause, I heard Fred sobbing back in the wings and complaining I’d gone on stage without him.

One day. One day, Jenny and I would have to calm our crying children during school plays.

Someone taps me on the shoulder bringing me back to the present. I turn expecting Mama to be standing there, but instead look up at the husband of the coughing lady.

‘Stop staring at my child,’ he says.

‘Sorry?’

‘Perv,’ he whispers as he turns on his heel and walks back to his perfectly acceptable family.

‘What was that about?’ asks Jenny as she returns with her coffee.

‘Nothing.’ This is her day too, there’s no need to get her worked up as well.

‘This is the final boarding call for flight QF246. We now invite all passengers to proceed to the gate.’

There’s still no sign of Mama among the crowds.

Jenny sits back down in the uncomfortable plastic chairs. ‘I don’t know why everyone rushes. Look at that line. They’re just going to be standing and waiting for ages.’

I know Jenny is trying to reassure me, trying to convince me that we still have time to wait for Mama.

‘You know Maria’s just running late,’ she says.

Late? Mama is never late. In high school, she’d grilled our limo driver for arriving ten minutes late to take me to the prom.

‘This is no seven o’clock.’ Mama had leant through the driver’s side window and tapped her watch impatiently, and then the poor sod had to sit there and listen to her grill him about punctuality for another twenty minutes. Not that I minded the delay. Mum’d set me up with Jack, the class jock. All the girls in our class loved him, so why did I think he looked like a Fairy Penguin in his suit and bowtie?

‘Mama, let the limo go without me. Chris and I really wanted to go together. I’ll get a lift with her.’

‘Chris?

‘You know Chris. Chrissie. You met her during the school holidays. We were going to dress up in costumes. We were thinking…’

‘Costume? Do not be daft, mia bambina. This your formal. Once in a lifetime event. Make it perfect.’ She had handed me a pink flower with a loop of elastic.

‘What’s this?’

‘Corsage.’

‘That’s so daggy, Mama.’

‘It’s traditional. It’s the way it’s done.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says everybody.’

I wanted to tell her then but she hadn’t been ready. Looking at the dwindling line of airport passengers, absent Mama, I know she still wasn’t ready to hear the truth. Maybe she never will be.

The tail of the line finishes boarding. Jenny runs his finger around the rim of my engagement ring and squeezes my hand. ‘We should go.’ The confidence has faded from her voice.

I shake my head. I can’t speak. If I do I know my voice will crack. I swallow hard trying to remove the lump in my throat.

Jenny slings our wedding dresses over her arm and holds out her free hand. My body obeys. I can’t let Jenny down. But my mind is still sitting in the plastic chair, cursing the gods and the whole world. This isn’t how my special day is meant to happen. All my friends were meant to be sitting in chairs, adorned with sashes and flowers, staring at me with admiration as I walked down the aisle as the Wedding March echoes around the room. And Mama would be by my side, with tears welling in her eyes. And at the reception, she would be trying to make everyone to eat more than they could stomach because she would have over-catered for the event. It would have been spectacularly extravagant.

Instead, the scanner beeps abruptly as Jenny hands over her ticket. As she waits for me, her eyes glance to the crowds behind us. She knows how much it meant for Mama to come with us.

Reluctantly, I hand over my ticket. The stewardess runs it under the scanner, but it doesn’t beep and validate my ticket. It must be a sign.

‘It’s just a bit crinkled.’ The stewardess straightens out my printed receipt and the scanner beeps with a flash of red.

‘It’s no wonder,’ says Jenny trying to sound cheerful. ‘You’ve been scrunching that thing all day.’

Just like Mama did when I handed her the ticket to come with us.

‘This not right, Adele,’ she’d said. Even when I got in trouble with the police in college, I was still her baby, her mia bambina. Hearing Mama call me by my name stung even more so than watching her scrunch up the ticket.

‘Enjoy your flight,’ the stewardess chirps oblivious to my pain.

As we make our way onto the plane, there are the usual smiles plastered across cheeks and cheerful welcomes as I show my boarding pass.

But an impatient stewardess walks me down the aisle. The chairs are decorated with suits, magazines and evacuation instructions. The seats are filled with the faces of frustrated business men tapping fingers as they wait for take-off. And the painful song of the stewardess’s voice chimes over the intercom as I take step after step down the aisle towards my seat.

‘This is the final boarding call for Maria Cavinato booked on flight QF246 to Vancouver. Your flight is awaiting you for departure.’

Up ahead, Jenny tries to rearrange baggage in the overhead lockers so she can lay our wedding dresses flat.

‘Don’t move that. It’s fragile,’ says a man from across the aisle. He looks at Jenny and then up at me.

‘Sorry.’ Jenny doesn’t seem to notice the jibe and searches the next compartment. She is still so happy. I should be sharing her excitement. This is meant to be the happiest day of my life.

‘C’e spazio qui, mia bambina,’ an Italian accent resonates from behind me. Never has Mama’s voice sounded so beautiful. The tears I’d been so desperately trying to keep in, spill over, no doubt smearing my makeup. But I don’t care. The day couldn’t be any more perfect. The two most important people in the world are here to for my wedding day.

Mama stands a few seats down from us, pointing to an empty overhead locker. ‘There room here,’ she repeats.

‘Maria!’ Jenny runs up and kisses her on the cheek. Mama smiles meekly, takes the dresses and lays them in the overhead compartment.

‘Sorry I come late, mia bambina. I take too long in Duty Free store.’

She hands me a plastic bag. Inside is a gift wrapped in a page from today’s paper. Apparently, storms are brewing in Sydney’s sky and there is another headline about a political scandal or some such nonsense. I don’t care about today’s news. Where I’m heading the summer skies are a blissful thirty plus degrees.

I look to Mama for a clue. ‘What is it?’

‘Belated engagement present.’

I tear the corner. A coloured triangle, circle, square, x on the Play Station box peek at me from the newspaper.

Mama manages a smile, but I can tell it is still a struggle. At least she is here. But I don’t know why I ever doubted her. Keeping promises is one of her most cherished traditions of all.

Tomé watched the South African frowning into the trees, his Remington ready as if he expected The Ghost to lumber out at any moment, begging to be shot. Alban, the translator, was chatting away next to him but the foreigner seemed uninterested, satisfied to just stare ahead in silence.

Nouradine caught Tomé’s eye and smiled, the chief in a good mood for once. They’d all laughed when Alban had told them a white man from the mining company had heard about The Ghost, wanted to hunt him. Not for pink ivory – that was the funny part – but for a photo. It meant a great deal to this man, Alban had insisted, that he kill the white elephant and have it immortalised in film. They’d laughed even harder at that, until the translator told them how much the man was willing to pay. Tomé’s share would feed his brothers and sisters for a year.

So here they were, driving down the old logging roads to the abandoned lumber camp constructed years ago by the Czechs before they were all killed. Now it was the staging point for both poaching excursions and ranger patrols into the Dzanga forest.

Tomé didn’t know the foreigner’s name and didn’t need to. To the poachers, he was just the South African. They’d joked about a white man hunting a white elephant – it seemed perversely cannibalistic, a ghost hunting a ghost – but Sivori had really taken a dislike to him. That was why he was driving the jeep, to keep some distance between them. Tomé had asked what the problem was, but Sivori had said that he just didn’t like the man’s look. Sullen and angry, Sivori had said. Not a good man to take to the forest. Not a good man to have weapons and money.

Tomé was just happy some of the man’s money was coming his way.

He was searching his jacket pocket for a cigarette when the jeep slowed, stopped. He stood to look over the cab. In the middle of the road was a leopard, staring at them intently. There was no sign of fear in the animal’s stance; only confrontation. It seemed to be challenging them, daring them to make a move.

The South African frowned, barked a question to Alban. The translator shrugged and turned to Tomé. “He asks why we are stopping, what the problem is,” he said in Sangha. “It’s just a leopard.”

Tomé glanced at Nouradine, who looked just about ready to kill someone, or perhaps himself. The chief pulled a small silver crucifix from around his neck and kissed it.

“Maybe nothing,” said Tomé. “Maybe Saturnin.”

—✤—

The trees drank the twilight as they neared the rocky outcrop where they would camp for the night. They were making swift progress, driven hard by Nouradine who pushed them on through the dense forest, face grim.

Nouradine had said nothing, but Tomé sensed his concern about the leopard, that it might mean Saturnin was hunting in the Dzanga. Tomé had never met the man, but Nouradine had had some kind of run-in with him that he refused to speak of. Instead, he kissed the tiny silver cross he wore around his neck every time the man’s name was spoken. Sivori claimed Saturnin was a demon who practised the old religion and worshipped the forest itself, that the leopards were his servants. Tomé thought that was bullshit.

They clambered over the tangled root bole of a rubber tree and down through thick riverbank vegetation, slithering into the channel and slowly wading through silt and mud. Sivori held their Kalashnikov up high, while the others did the same for their pistols and supplies. The South African hugged the Remington to his chest like a child, while Alban struggled through the water with the man’s tent and a couple of rucksacks.

On the far bank, they stopped to drink water from old diesel cans and wolf down some tinned sardines and dried mealworms, which the South African turned his nose up at. He sat off by himself, chewing a bar of nuts and dried fruit.

Tomé was listening to Sivori and Nouradine discussing how far it was to the camp and how best to pick up the Ghost’s trail when they fell silent, staring towards the South African. Sivori raised the Kalashnikov uncertainly but Nouradine pushed it back down.

A leopard walked out from the trees, right up to the South African who sat still, his cereal bar halfway to his mouth. His other hand was creeping towards the Remington propped against the tree next to him, but Tomé knew that he would never reach it if the leopard attacked. He took out his pistol and flicked the safety off, his heart starting to race.

Tomé couldn’t be sure if this was the same leopard they had seen on the road. It looked a similar size, but that didn’t mean much. Had it been following them? Could Saturnin have sent it?

The animal’s eyes sparked in the dying light, then it turned and bounded away.

Nouradine swore and grabbed the Kalashnikov from Sivori. “Move!” he hissed. “I want to be at the camp before full dark.”

—✤—

Once they’d reached the rocks and set a fire, a pan of rice and beans boiling away atop it, they started to relax. Sivori pitched their old, worn tents while Tomé tended the fire and Nouradine smoked and checked the weapons. The South African sat with Alban, rubbing his legs and grimacing.

Tomé looked up. The stars were bright in a cloudless sky.

“Well now!” called a voice from the trees. “So many of my friends here in this place o’ mine.”

Two lambent eyes flared in the darkness beyond the campfire, their hue the startling green of fireflies. And into the camp walked a demon.

Saturnin was tall and broad, his face covered in thin dark scars beneath a red bandana tied tightly over his forehead. But it was the way he carried himself that sent a shiver through Tomé. Like a leopard that had wandered into a cattle pen, he stared languidly around at the poachers with those bright eyes. Darkness seemed to follow him from the trees as more men emerged, dressed and armed much like Tomé’s comrades. But there the similarity ended. These were devils of the forest, darker and more dangerous than most men. And Saturnin was the worst.

His gaze passed over Tomé and rested on the South African for a long moment, and then Alban.

“How goes the hunt, Alban?”

Alban made a hard expression, but swallowed nervously all the same.

“Well, Saturnin, well.”

“And a man I don’t know comes to take one of my elephants.” He scratched at a long scar on his cheek, ran his tongue over yellowed teeth as he stared at the South African with amusement.

Saturnin’s gang of poachers always found their quarry. It was widely known that he held all of the Dzanga to be his hunting grounds and when ivory was needed, commissioned or not, he and his men would find an elephant to kill. That was one reason why they were hated and feared.

Another was that Saturnin was crazed, possessed by the spirits of wicked animals that told him to do terrible things. Only the most desperate and disturbed of men would work for him.

Which made their arrival right now bad news for everyone.

The South African opened his mouth to speak, but Alban hushed him. Saturnin pointed to the rifle at the man’s feet.

“Beautiful weapon. Just the thing for a hunter of beasts. The very thing.” He lit a thin white cigarette, let the smoke drift into the night sky. He turned to Alban.

“This man likes to hunt, to take risks. He’s in my forest. Tell him I want to play a game.” Saturnin waited patiently while his words were conveyed, smiling all the time. The South African looked angry and made to stand, until Alban placed a placating hand on his chest.

Saturnin continued as if the man had not reacted at all. “We draw cards. Highest wins. I win, I get that smart hunting rifle he carries. And…” he waved his hand in the air as if thinking. “His watch. Then he leaves, and never comes back to my forest. He wins, we have coffee together and part as friends. I’ll even give him this.” Saturnin held up a carved ivory elephant, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, but even Tomé could tell that it was worth a great deal. What looked like tiny diamonds flashed in its eyes.

Even the forest seemed silent now. The pan of rice and beans boiled on, forgotten.

Saturnin tilted his head. “What does he say?” His hand drifted to his belt and the pistol holstered there.

Tomé glanced at Nouradine, who was watching the proceedings with a carefully neutral expression, his hatred and fear of Saturnin well concealed.

After the translation the South African scowled, but Alban was clearly urging him to accept, knowing that to decline would almost certainly be suicide. And the man was staring avidly at the ivory elephant. Its significance would not be lost on him.

Slowly the South African nodded, and Saturnin beamed. He drew a battered deck of cards from his trouser pocket and shuffled them slowly. Behind him his men watched Tomé’s gang, hands on their weapons.

Saturnin held out the deck and, eyes fixed on the South African, drew the top card. The King of Clubs. Tomé heard Nouradine curse under his breath.

The South African went as pale as the ivory elephant he now looked unlikely to win. His hand trembling slightly, he teased a card from the middle of the deck, held it up. The King of Diamonds. Silence thundered through the camp.

Saturnin kept smiling. “Well,” he said, “I’m a good sport. Since you are my guest, let’s say you won.” He sat cross-legged on the ground in front of the South African, while once again his words were translated. The white man sagged in relief.

Saturnin held out his hand and one of his men placed a metal flask in it. He unscrewed the top and poured out a measure of thick brown coffee. He drank. Then he passed it to the South African. The white man grimaced at the bitter taste, but then smiled and nodded as he returned the empty cup. Saturnin tossed the ivory elephant into the man’s lap.

“You have to understand,” Saturnin said, eyes locked with the South African’s, “that life – real life – is all about give and take. You can’t take without giving, and you can’t give without taking. Because the same spirit connects us all. The Spirit of All Things. As water links the rivers and the land and the sky together, so the Spirit flows between all living creatures. Sometimes it pools in places, to form great lakes. Like here.” He motioned to the forest around them. “Take something without giving, and we are all poorer for it. Understand that, and you understand everything.”

He pointed to the small carved elephant in the South African’s hand. “I always find my elephants, because I know how to give back to the Spirit. And the Spirit is always watching.”

And then Saturnin stood, turned, and walked silently out of the camp and into the darkness of the forest. His men followed, as shadows.

—✤—

Tomé watched the forest while the camp slept. Pistol in hand he stared into the trees, listening for any sign of Saturnin or his men, or rangers, or the predators of the forest. He had volunteered for the watch. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.

He was certain Saturnin was out there. Sometimes he thought he could hear faint singing, as of men voicing a hymn together. Tomorrow he would make the case to Nouradine to give up the hunt – Saturnin was too unpredictable, too much of a risk. No hunt was worth dying over.

Movement made him turn, pistol raised. At the edge of the camp, Alban waved his hand nervously, pointing with the other off into the trees. “Need to shit,” he mouthed. Tomé nodded and turned away.

It was only when the translator had been gone for half an hour that Tomé realised that he had been carrying his rucksack.

—✤—

“Run! Run!”

Tomé jerked awake, snatching his gun from its place by his makeshift pillow and tearing through the cloth of his battered old tent in his rush to get out. Everyone was shouting, the ground trembling.

At first he thought it must be Saturnin returned, but as he emerged into the pale morning light he saw a forest elephant charging through the camp, a huge white bull with prominent tusks, panicked or enraged.

The Ghost!

He watched as Nouradine fired his pistol at the beast, only to be bowled over and trampled beneath its heavy tread.

Tomé raised his own pistol and sighted on the elephant’s head, but before he could fire the rattle of an automatic rifle came from the trees and Saturnin strode into the camp, AK47 shivering in his hands. The elephant reared, bellowing madly while bullets ripped into it and blood misted the air. Then it plunged to the ground atop Nouradine, flailing its legs for a few moments before becoming still.

Saturnin grinned as he surveyed the camp, eyes bright.

“Well now,” he said, “looks like the Spirit gave us our elephant.”

Tomé rushed to the dead beast, looking for any sign of Nouradine, but the man was covered by the elephant’s bloody carcass. There was no way he could have survived. Tomé put his head in his hands, squeezed his palms against his eyes to hold back the tears.

Sivori stood behind him. “Where is the South African? Where is Alban!” he said, voice tight with anger.

Together they walked across to the white man’s tent, or what was left of it. The elephant had ripped it to shreds, and the man’s belongings were scattered amongst the wreckage. His rifle lay in its case next to his trampled rucksack and his hiking boots, socks still tucked neatly inside from when he had removed them to sleep. There was no sign of a body, no blood. Tomé wondered if he had fled into the forest when the elephant had burst into the camp. So much for the great hunter.

Saturnin bent down amidst the wreckage, still grinning, and picked up the small ivory elephant he had given the South African the night before. He slipped it into his pocket.

“Give and take,” he said, and winked at Tomé. “You can have one tusk, we’ll have the other. The rest we leave for the leopards. And if you get any other customers looking to hunt in the Dzanga, you let me know.” He took out his deck of cards and slipped one from the pile, scribbled a phone number on the edge with a pen. “The Spirit provides.” He held the card out, and Tomé took it.

It was the King of Spades.

I’ve decided to jack up the next jerk who swings his jungle jim towards my sister. I wanna be the good guy but my back hurts from being walked on. Good guys finish last for a good reason: they are not prepared to kick ass at a moment’s notice.

They must be pushed and punched and pummeled until they get the message—which was clear from the very start. Power only respects power. And at that moment Raj rose up and beat down the bully of his village. No one ever looked at him the same way again. Even his close friends were a bit weary of him.

A small price to pay for the right to stand.

So is the night. A warm Southern California summer night.

I’ve got the windows rolled down, elbow out the window the way I like to drive. It’s all cool, couldn’t be better, when the light bar on the cop car behind me goes off red blue red blue red blue and they whoop the siren.

I’m downtown and they’re pulling me over for being a paisa with a ponytail in a gangbang car on the white folks street at the wrong time.

But I’m cool. It’s routine hassle.

I hadn’t done nothin’. Javier told me go ahead take the Merc. I’m such a numbnuts, I go for it when Javier says he’s borrowed the ride from a guy he knows. Except the guy he knows boosted it from another guy who has reported it. So the other guy didn’t so much borrow it as borrow it.

The cops do the usual, one of them on the sidewalk back from the rear bumper, his hand on the butt of his gun, the other, the younger one, comes up to the window with a hand on the butt of his, too.

The fuckers never pronounce it right and sometimes laugh when I tell them my name is Angel Jesus Soto, so I just say Angelo Joseph and let it go at that. Some days I’d rather be Italian than vato anyway.

I give him my best smile and the Italian version of my name and keep my hands in plain sight on the top of the wheel and he says, step out of the car please.

My stomach sinks. They only tell you to step out of the car when you’re in the shit.

Out on the pavement I assume the stance, hands on hood, legs spread.

It’s a busy street and I’m pulled over next to a hydrant, the squad car double-parked behind me, the light bar pinballing. The sidewalk crowded with people coming out of theatres, going into brightly lit restaurants. Mostly they don’t look and walk fast because you never know if the brown boy bent over the gangster car might go berserk. I wish I was on the sidewalk, too. My eyes are wet, but I don’t let on.

The younger cop pats me down while his partner, a careful distance away, snaps his holster open.

The cop finds my license.

“Real name Angel Jesus Soto. What the hell you doing, Angelo Joseph, giving a peace officer false ID?” I’m in it even deeper.

I turn my head thinking I can explain, and before I know it he’s got my arm in a lock my face planted on the Merc’s hood and the other arm back there and he’s snapping on the cuffs. I’ve got to give him credit, he’s smooth and fast with the cuffs.

And that’s it. I’m back in the system.

They book me, put me in the orange jumpsuit and stick me in an isolation cell, not with the population like I expected.

“How about my phone call?” I ask the guard as he shoves me in. I figure to call Javier and at least tell him what happened to me and the Merc.

“Shut up,” the guard says. “No phone, no contacts.”

I flake out on the thin pad, wondering what the hell. Has the system changed that much since I was here the last time?

They’ve got me stuck away. I listen to the hollow sound of concrete and steel. A TV somewhere isn’t loud enough to follow; a murmur of men’s voices, the occasional laugh, the tang of disinfectant, a whiff of cigarette smoke, the fug where too many men sweated out many long years.

I drift and wonder did Javier know the Merc was jacked when he offered it? I go back over the easy way he said it: Nah, don’t bother, he said, take that Merc over there. Hard as I try, I can’t read anything into it, but that don’t mean there wasn’t nothing there.

My mind moves to Rubytips like it does when I get sleepy. Javier’s sister, Elena, she’s fifteen, Rubytips her tweet handle. It’s just a tag until you see her titties. I’m at Javier’s house as much as my own, and Elena is always around. I knew she had something going on. I try not to look but who can’t notice? Then one day we’re alone and she asks me if I want to see them and pulls up her top. I’m sitting in a kitchen chair and she’s standing in front of me and I’m looking at the most beautiful set of tits I could ever imagine. I can see why she’s proud of them. They’re nice size, high and pointy, perfect, with bright pink nipples.

“Want to touch?” she asks.

They’re warm silk.

From then on, whenever we’re alone—and she’s making things happen that way—off comes her blouse or up comes her shirt. I kiss them and pet them. But that’s all. I never touch her below. She puts a hand on my Levis and rubs and squeezes, but I don’t let her inside my pants. I’d be lost for sure.

I know what’s going on. Her homies are having babies, some of them getting married, and she wants to hang with them. She’s picked me out of the lineup.

I’m on the edge of sleep in that cell, petting the rubytips, and then my eyes pop open and I’m sitting up remembering a couple months ago when Javier walked in on us. Elena and I are on the sofa with the TV going and I’m stroking her beauties and Javier opens the door and starts to walk in. He backs out, closes the door and never says nothing about it, so I don’t bring it up either. I worry for a week or two, but nothing changes and it fades away.

But now I see it. You won’t be touching my sister’s titties, not where you’re going.

The next afternoon I’m chained to a steel table in an interview room. When they came for me they put manacles on my ankles, my hands cuffed to a waist chain, my ankles chained to my waist and I say, “What the hell?” and one of the guards kicks me in the shin with a steel-toe boot and it hurts like hell and I shut up.

My public defender sits beside me, across from us is the assistant district attorney. The PD goes first. He’s got my file open in front of him and pages through it with his right hand. He’s maybe thirty-five, tall and trim, a clean, sharp look to his face, broad shoulders, thinning hair. His left hand is in the pocket of this dark blue suit jacket, and I can see it in there flexing on a rubber ball he carries. This morning when he talked to me in my cell he had it out, squeezing it and flipping it from hand to hand. He told me about his weight lifting and his surfing. “The human body is a temple,” he said.

Now he’s going through my file. “Knowingly providing false information to a peace officer,” he says, “grand theft auto, resisting arrest, accepting stolen goods with intent.” He looks up at me. “If you’re convicted, felony strike two.”

They always throw in resisting arrest, that’s routine. The stolen goods is the stuff in the Merc’s trunk I didn’t know about. The strike two sends a shiver down my spine. It’s three strikes and you’re out. On the third strike, doesn’t matter what, they put you away twenty-five to life. My first strike was seven years ago, when I was eighteen. B&E, breaking and entering. I was the lookout on the corner for Javier and a couple guys, that’s all, never even went in the store. I’ve been clean since. Doesn’t matter.

But having two strikes: everybody knows about the drunk coming out of a bar, found a bike in somebody’s front yard, rode it home. Strike three, twenty-five to life for a stolen bicycle.

Two strikes is like having a guy walking backwards in front of you twenty-four seven with the point of a knife at your throat: one stumble and you’re dead.

The ADA speaks up. She’s younger than the PD but it won’t be long before she’s older, a twisted, worn look to her face, dark hair short in a man’s cut, gray suit. “Not if you’re convicted,” she says, “when.” She makes clear she’s got more balls that the pussy PD.

She’s right. The PD shrugs and smiles. “You need to cut a deal.” He slides the file across to the ADA and stands up. “I need a break.”

I watch him saunter out the door. What the fuck? I need a break? He walks out? Then I catch on: he doesn’t want to know.

My shin aches as the ADA puts her palms flat on the table and lays it out, the trial she’s got going on, the guy she needs to put away big time.

It comes down to this: I do my part and I walk, the arrest record expunged, no strike two, no nothing. A window of blue sky opens somewhere up above me and I nod my head, looking up at that little bit of sky.

They keep the shackles on me, transport me to the County Courthouse and jerk me into a windowless room with just one cop. Before I know what’s what he hits me twice across the face with his nightstick, forehand and backhand, zap zap.

These fucking cops, are they faster and harder or am I slower and softer? Are they all vets from Afghanistan or what?

The holding cells are in the basement and they pitch me on the bed, weak-kneed and woozy, take off the shackles and toss me a towel for the blood dripping from my mouth. I know what it’s about, a reputation for the new guy, a badass who needs to be subdued.

As my head clears I look through the bars to the next cell and check him out, the guy who’s on trial.

He’s flat on his back on the floor in the middle of his cell, ankles crossed, fingers laced behind his head. On his throat, just above the collar of his orange jumpsuit, I can see the tatt of black fingers sticking up, and I know there’s an M in the palm of that black hand. La eMe.

“Hey, man,” I say.

He turns his head, his black eyes open on me like radar. He’s got two tear drops tattooed at the corner of an eye, his lips barely move when he talks. “Shut the fuck up, ese.”

I try a couple more times, but he won’t talk, he won’t turn his head or open his eyes. He’s a soldier. He ignores the bed, stays on the floor to show he’s harder than anything they’ve got in here. Harder than concrete. Harder than steel.

All night long, he won’t speak. He’s way out ahead of the ADA.

Shit, he was born so far ahead of the butch ADA she’ll never catch up. It’s funny when I lay there and think about it, but not funny ha-ha. He doesn’t give a shit and he has no doubts. Warriors don’t doubt, they don’t wonder should I do this, should I do that. He’ll be as much at home in a cell as he would be in his mama’s kitchen.

In a way, I wish I was like him. It would be simpler not to want anything, not hope for anything. But we aren’t like that. Elena with her rubytips wants a baby and maybe a husband; the PD wants a paycheck so he can keep surfing and lifting; the ADA wants a conviction, she’s desperate for a conviction. And now I’m desperate, too.

The ADA told me what she needs when she puts me on the stand in the morning.

“It doesn’t have to be a full confession. I’ll ask you if you spoke to him during the night and you say you asked him if it’s true he did the girl in the shower so there wouldn’t be DNA. All I need is he smiled and nodded. That’s all I need. Corroboration.”

One light-weight lie and I walk. But I know what happens next: La eMe puts a green light on me and everybody in my family, maybe Javier and Elena too. La eMe is like an army, guys everywhere. A green light means drive-bys, blood in the streets. Or I tell the truth: the fucking warrior told me to shut the fuck up and never said nothing else all night long. Then I’m the one looking at a cell—there’s no doubt of that—and I come out with two strikes.

The clock is ticking and I’ve got to choose.