Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

‘Thanks.’

‘What’s going on, man? You okay? You haven’t missed more than a handful of days in almost three years, and never without calling. Boss is mad, says the police were asking about you yesterday.’

Eugene rubs his hair dry with the towel and combs his fingers through it. He looks toward his friend. His friend looks back. Finally he says, ‘I need a gun.’

‘What?’

‘A gun. I’m sorry to ask, but I need one.’

Fingers sighs and scrapes at the corners of his mouth with index finger and thumbnail, rolls up what he finds there between his fingers, flicks it away.

‘I got some guns,’ he says, ‘but they’re bought and paid for and not by the kind of people I want to be fucking with. What kind of trouble you in, Gene?’

‘The serious kind.’

‘You really need a gun?’

Eugene nods.

‘Okay.’

He once more disappears into the hallway. When he returns this time he’s carrying a green canvas duffel bag. He sets it on the floor in front of Eugene.

‘Take your pick.’

‘Are these guys gonna go ape on you?’

‘They’ll box my ears a little, but I’ll live.’

‘You don’t have anything else? I don’t wanna put you out.’

‘I got a Baby Browning used to belong to a girlfriend of mine. But you can’t walk into a situation with a lady’s gun as your primary.’

‘It’s fine. I don’t want you in a spot.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’

Fingers gets him the small gun from a kitchen drawer and a box of rounds as well.

‘Thank you.’

Fingers nods. ‘You frail? I got some money stashed away.’

‘I have a little money.’

‘Is there anything else I can do?’

‘I don’t think so. I’m on my own on this one.’

‘Okay,’ Fingers says. ‘Good luck.’

1

Sandy sits at the desk in his room. He looks out at the rain. There are great puddles in the recreation yard, reflecting clouds and looking like small pools of sky, though the rain continually breaks apart the images, and the storm is slanting down diagonally, and the light seems somehow ill.

He doesn’t like it here.

The other boys with whom he shares this room are playing a card game, he can hear them behind him talking and laughing, but he wasn’t invited to participate. He’s still not made any friends. He thought he might make friends with his roommates at first, they talked to him and tried to include him in things, but within the first couple days they decided they didn’t like him. They flicked his ears. They wiped boogers on his shirt just to see how he’d react. Now he avoids them. There’s something about the way he speaks, or his posture, or something, that people simply don’t want to be around. During recess, which they call recreation period here, he plays alone. If there’s a free basketball court he shoots baskets, despite the fact that he’s not very good. If there isn’t a free court, and usually there isn’t, he bounces the ball against a brick wall and catches it, until someone takes it away from him, as someone inevitably does. He doesn’t know why people pick on him. He hasn’t done anything to anybody. He wouldn’t care that they don’t like him if they would just leave him alone. If everybody would leave him alone he’d be fine.

So far it hasn’t been that bad, but even so he feels something vicious inside him, something he’s afraid of, some terrible black liquid filling him up again. He poured some of that violence out when he shot his stepfather but a week later he’s once more near to overflowing.

He gets to his feet and walks to the door and steps through it. He looks to his right. The hall monitor sits in his chair. He seems bored.

‘Permission to use the bathroom.’

‘Go ahead.’

He turns left and walks to the end of the hallway.

Once in the bathroom he stands in front of a urinal and unbuttons his fly and pulls out his penis. He’s glad no one else is here. When other boys are in here they make fun of the way he stands. Why you stand with your legs apart? You squirting from a little pussy and don’t want it to dribble down your leg? Why don’t you sit down to pee like all the other girls? Have you started your period yet?

He has to wait a long time. He didn’t really have to go. He just wanted to leave his room. He was tired of sitting at the desk, tired of staring out the window, tired of listening to his roommates play behind him. He wanted to be alone, even if only for a couple minutes. Finally he begins to urinate. It’s just a trickle.

He stares down at his penis and wonders if it will always be so small. He’s seen some of the other boys in the shower. It makes him embarrassed. He hates to be naked in front of them. Some of them are beginning to look like men, but his body looks the same as it did last year, and the year before that.

Skinny and hairless and pale.

Behind him, out in the hallway, the sound of a door creaking open and swinging shut. Two voices: request, response. Footsteps echo in the hallway, growing louder.

He finishes with a final spurt, shivers, shakes off, tucks his penis away. He should have gone into a toilet stall. He could have been alone for a little while. Now someone else is coming and will see him and he’ll have to leave. He can’t just stand around doing nothing while someone else is in here peeing. That would be weird. People already don’t like him, already think he’s strange.

He doesn’t want anyone to think he’s a pansy.

He walks to the sink and turns on the water. He washes his hands. In the mirror he sees another boy walk into the bathroom, and recognizes him. A couple days ago he came up to Sandy and took the basketball he was playing with and threw it across the recreation yard. Sandy wanted to punch him in his stupid face, but the boy’s much bigger than he is, and already has a mustache.

His name is Raymond.

They make eye contact in the mirror.

‘What are you looking at, germ?’

Sandy drops his gaze to his hands, rinsing the soap away. ‘Nothing.’

He turns off the water. He grabs a few paper towels and dries his hands and throws the towels into the bin. He turns around.

Raymond stands inside the bathroom door, leaning against the tile wall, arms crossed. He stares at Sandy.

Sandy tries not to look back, tries to pretend he doesn’t notice him at all, and walks toward the bathroom door. I don’t see you, please don’t see me, please don’t see me, please don’t see me.

Raymond puts out his arm, blocking Sandy’s path.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘What?’

‘You retarded or something? You a retard?’

Sandy blinks, feeling something terrible inside. ‘No.’

‘I think you are.’

‘Just leave me alone.’

‘Just leave me alone.’

‘Please.’

‘Please.’

Sandy tries to push past Raymond’s arm, to get out of the bathroom, but Raymond pushes back hard. He sends Sandy backwards. His legs can’t keep up with the force of the shove, and after a couple scrambling steps he loses his footing and falls onto the tile floor. He bites his tongue as his backside hits, bites the left side of his tongue between molars, and tastes blood.

Tears of pain sting his eyes.

‘Such a retard you can’t even walk.’

‘I didn’t do anything to you.’

‘I didn’t do anything to you. Drop dead, germ.’

He kicks Sandy in the thigh, sending an immense pain through his leg. Sandy rolls onto his side and clutches himself. From the corner of his eye he sees Raymond pulling back to kick again. He scrambles out of the way quickly. Raymond’s leg continues past the spot he expected Sandy to be, and Sandy, with tears still stinging his eyes and with fury in his heart, moves in and takes the other leg out from under him, rushing forward and knocking it away. Raymond falls sideways, tries to catch himself on the wall, and instead hits his head on it before continuing to the floor.