Page 2 of Kazimir

“I watched a video,” I said. It was true, and I’d practiced in the alley behind the diner, obliterating a soda can with a single angry burst.

“Keep it ready,” he said. “You’re not a big target, but you got that look about you.”

“What look?” I asked, bristling a little.

He shrugged. “Like you got somewhere to be, but you ain’t ever been there before.”

The way he said it made me think of the scars on my back, the ones I never let anyone see, not that I had anyone. I rolled the pepper spray between my palms, thumb resting on the trigger. “Thanks, Polk.”

He unlocked the door and opened it for me, holding it until I stepped through. The street outside was blue-black and mostly empty. In this part of Kensington, the traffic went dead around midnight, and the silence was broken only by the distant rattle of the El and the hum of neon from the bodega across the way.

Polk watched me go, arms crossed in the window until I turned the corner. For a second, I wondered if this was what family felt like—awkward and a little suffocating, but comforting in the way a heavy blanket could be comforting, even if it made it hard to breathe. I didn’t have a word for it.

I started walking. The air was thick, damp enough to taste. My sneakers squeaked with each step. I didn’t look back.

The night air hit different once you got past the perimeter of the diner’s fake security. It was denser, more elemental—carrying with it the scent of hot asphalt and ancient trash. My route home was a ten-minute walk, but I could do it in seven if I skipped every other block and cut through the lot behind the used tire place. I didn’t, though. Not after the story Polk told about the girl last month.

I always walked in the open, even if it made me a target. It was better to see what was coming.

A block down, the windows of the corner bodega glared in the dark, all garish yellow and red neon, the kind of place that never bothered with security even after two robberies last year. I went in because I always did, not because I was hungry, but to fill a void. If you stopped moving, you started to think, and if you started to think, you realized what you can’t remember.

Inside, the overhead buzz was replaced with a radio set to a station with someone ranting about politics, which was the same as any other night. The aisles were a jumble of instant noodles, off-brand chips, and battery packs. I went straight for the heated glass case by the register to grab food that I hoped was cooked in compliance with the city health code.

“Hey, baby,” said the cashier, a guy with a raggedy beard wearing a mesh hat and sporting a bandage on his thumb. He’d seen me every night for two weeks and still looked at me like I was a puzzle with a missing piece. “Burrito’s fresh. Got ‘em in fifteen minutes ago.”

I gave him a small nod and paid with a wrinkled five from my tips and a stack of loose change. He always looked at me like he were surprised I chose to purchase a Dr. Pepper. Then he’d watch me open it like I hadn’t paid for it or something.

On my way out, I heard him mutter something in Spanish. I only caught one word, but it was enough. Angelita. He didn’t say it like a compliment. More like a warning.

The outside air was about the same as inside the bodega—warm and humid. The burrito steamed in my hand, and I cradled the can of soda against my chest. I took one step toward my building, then froze.

The world spun for a second. My vision smeared around the edges, and I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the urge to gag.

A memory flashed—except it wasn’t a memory, not in the way normal people had them. It was a splinter, a fragment. Light, so much light it ate up everything else, and a sound like singing and static all at once. There was something I was supposed to do, but the thought disintegrated as soon as I tried to grab it.

I looked around. There was nobody out except for the regular street ghosts: the drunk, the sleepless, the desperate. A car crawled past, lights slashing across my face for a split second, painting me in blue-white like the world’s lamest Broadway dancer. I started moving.

I moved quickly, hugging the buildings and staying where the streetlights overlapped. My pulse thudded in my ears, and every sound was magnified—the slap of my shoes on wet pavement, the distant clatter of a trash can knocked over by the wind, a siren that could have been two blocks away or ten. The burrito was cold by the time I reached my building.

I didn’t look up at the windows—didn’t want to see if anyone was watching, or if they were all dead behind their curtains. The outer door was always unlocked, because the landlord couldn’t be bothered to fix it. Inside, the staircase creaked so loud it set my teeth on edge, but I took the stairs two at a time anyway.

The door to my apartment stuck every time, even after I sanded down the threshold and oiled the hinges with the last of my tip money. Maybe it was the building’s way of reminding me there was something off about my life. I kicked it closed behind me and locked the deadbolts with a practiced flick of my wrist.

The room was smaller than some walk-in closets. Second floor, west-facing, with a single window that looked out onto the back lot and the burned-out shell of a shoe store across the alley. The inside was neat to the point of sterility, because I liked it that way, because that was something I could control.

There were only a handful of things in the room. There were only a few things that would fit: my second hand futon, which doubled as bed and couch; a beat up coffee table I found on the curb in someone’s trash, stained by water rings from their soda cans or other beverages; a metal shelf with three changes of clothes, a Phillies mug I used for must-have cups of coffee; and the pillow.

The pillow was the only thing I owned that felt expensive. Down, real down, not the lumpy synthetic crap they sold at the dollar store. I’d found it in the trash behind the hospital, still in its package, and carried it home like a relic. I kept it in a pillowcase so white it looked blue in the lamplight, and I fluffed it every night before bed with the same gentle touch you’d use for a pet or a living thing.

I fell backwards on the futon, arms splayed, feeling the springs complain under my weight. My feet were on fire from my shift, and the burrito was now room temperature, but it tasted better that way—less like food and more like fuel. I ate it in three bites and chased it with the rest of the Dr. Pepper, which fizzed in my nose and made my eyes water. For a second, I thought I was going to cry. Maybe I almost wanted to. The feeling came out of nowhere, strong and pure, and I sat there waiting for it to pass.

It did. It always did.

I showered with the water as hot as it would go, which wasn’t very. The shower stall was barely wide enough for me to turn around in, but I liked the way the tile steamed and the way the water made my hair stick to my face. I scrubbed until my skin turned pink and the scars on my back stood out like a brand. I stared at them in the mirror after turning left and right, trying to see if they had changed. Tonight they just itched, so I dabbed them with antibiotic cream as best as I could and put on the softest t-shirt I owned.

I checked the locks on the door again. Twice.

Then I knelt by the futon and smoothed out the blanket so there were no wrinkles. The pillow was waiting, impossibly soft, like a cloud from one of those nature documentaries. I punched it into shape, set my phone next to my head, and curled around it like a child.