Marcus Sakey - At The City's Edge

He smiled at her misunderstanding.

From around either side of the darkness he took to be her, he saw a strange glow. Like someone stood behind her with a flashlight. He squinted. It was odd. He couldn't bring Officer Cruz into focus, but somehow he could clearly see shapes standing on either side.

Two young boys. One was Billy, on his feet and breathing easy. The other was a smiling black boy about the same age. Who was it?

The boys each took one of his hands, Billy the left, the smiling boy the right. Their touch flooded him with peace like warm rain.

And just before he died, he saw that the smiling boy had a cauliflower ear.

August 25, 2005

They wait for him inside. Alive and dead, they wait .

He heard the shots. Somehow knew what to expect, even as he forced himself to his feet, even as he staggered through the living room, hand tracing one wall .

The living. Cruz, her arms a mess of gore as she labored over Washington. Billy on his side, eyes closed, breath steady .

The dead. Scarface, Kent. Galway .

And Washington. Jason knows even as he watches Cruz press on his chest, as he watches her try to save him. He can tell by the strange little smile on his friend's lips .

More than he's ever wanted anything, Jason wants to lie on the cool hardwood floor and close his eyes. Rest and let this all fade away .

Instead he looks around. Flashes of Baghdad, the inside of a café after a suicide bombing, chunks of drywall and wood, fist-sized holes in the walls. The glass doors to the back are spider-webbed and gaping. One of the chairs has been knocked into the fireplace, and the stuffing burns with a hungry green flame that casts flickering shadows .

Perfect .

He walks to the fireplace, bends to grab the protruding leg of the chair, a wave of heat washing red over his face. Carries it to the drapes on the rear wall and touches them. The fire leaps like a child .

He goes to the sofas. To the bookshelves. To the ornate chairs and the hardwood bar. Touches them all, and everywhere he touches, fire is born .

He leaves the chair leaning against a wall of photographs and framed newspapers. Adam Kent cutting a ribbon on his company's new offices. Adam Kent shaking hands with the Mayor. Adam Kent looking somber next to an article describing his IPO .

The car keys are in Galway's pocket. Jason kneels by Cruz, still bending over Washington, and touches her shoulder. She looks at him through a wet veil .

" Let's go," he says .

She swallows, and nods, face lit by fire. She lifts Billy, cradles him.

He takes Washington. It isn't easy, but he doesn't want it to be .

Jason made sure the door was locked. Double-checked it.

Then he walked through Michael's bedroom, his fingers tracing objects his brother had touched. The soft worn texture of the comforter. A pair of running shoes, the soles scuffed bare. A bureau of polished mahogany. He went in the bathroom. Shaving cream and a razor, a comb with strands of hair stuck in it, half-empty shampoo bottles. He looked in the closet, opened dresser drawers. Shirts neatly folded, underwear jammed in. A tin holding spare change. A couple of loose pictures:

Michael and Lisa coming home from the hospital with baby Billy wrapped up like a burrito.

Billy wearing a McDonald's crown and tearing open a birthday present, his face lit from within.

Jason's mother, that scowl she always got when you pointed a camera in her direction, but a smile in her tired eyes.

The teenaged Palmer brothers at the lakefront, circa 1992. Cheeks sunburned, hair wild. Michael's arm around Jason's shoulder.

Jason took the photo to the edge of the bed, sat down. It was cool to the touch, and there was a thumbprint along the edge, like Michael had paused on it himself. Jason put his own thumb there, felt something straining inside his chest. Started to fight it, reminded himself that was why he'd come up here. Glanced again at the door to make sure it was locked.

And finally let go.

The sobs came hard, long brutal tugs at his innards. He bit his fist to fight the noise, but let the tears run free, rocking back and forth, his feet on ground his brother had walked, his head and heart far away. Let himself remember the afternoon the photo had been taken. The heat of the July sun on his face and shoulders. The way he'd been vaguely embarrassed to be at the beach with his mother, to be posing for a picture. The girls in the background, soft brown spirits of a lost summer. The waves forever frozen in the image, one just breaking, white foam and sand grit, and behind it another, and another, on into an endless blue sky.

He cried for all the things he'd done wrong with Michael, and all the things he'd never get to do right.

But he also cried for all the moments that had been perfect.

And he cried because finally he could.

Eventually, he stood up. Put the photos back in the drawer. Went to the bathroom and took off his dress shirt. Ran cold water, splashed dripping double handfuls on his face, then borrowed his brother's razor to shave, doing it slowly and carefully. Toweled off and looked in the mirror. Put his shirt back on, thumbing the buttons slowly, then reknotted his tie.

He would mourn again. He would cry again. All his life, he supposed. But now someone else needed him more than he needed himself. Practicing his smile, he unlocked the bedroom door and went downstairs.

Cruz was in the kitchen, talking on the phone. He tapped his wrist, and she nodded. Behind him, footsteps echoed down the stairs. His nephew looked fragile in an Izod shirt and slacks. Tendrils of purple and yellow marked his forehead. His concussion had messed with his short-term memory, as they often did, and Billy couldn't remember anything later than sitting under the table at the party, smashing cities of hors d'oeuvres with the toy that had been his father's, and then his uncle's, and now his.

Strange to think it, but in an odd way, DiRisio had done Billy a favor.

Billy stared up at him with wide eyes. Michael's brown eyes.

"Hey, kiddo. How you doing?"

"Okay." Billy said, shuffling his feet awkwardly.

"It's okay to feel sad." He knelt in front of his nephew. "I do."

Billy bit one lip. "Me too." The boy looked at him like it were a headache, like Jason had a pill that could make it go away. He felt that old panic, the instinct that had sent him running most of his life. The one that saw responsibility the way other people saw an onrushing train. He had an urge to ruffle the boy's hair and then go fetch the car.

Instead he took his hand. "You know what your dad would say when I was sad, though?"

"What?"

Jason leaned forward, motioned Billy closer, then closer still. When the boy's face was only inches from his, Jason dodged in, his face moving fast, planted his lips against Billy's neck, and blew a raspberry against the soft skin. Billy shrieked and squirmed, wriggling away, smiling, his hands furiously wiping his neck. "Gross!"

Jason smiled back. "I always thought so."

"I got your package." There was anger in Division Chief James Donlan's voice. "I know you're pissed at me, but this is a lousy way to play."

"My package?" Cruz switched the phone from one ear to the other.

"Real estate contracts, shipping manifests, payroll logs, bank account info for Tom Galway, Alderman Owens, some guy named Anthony DiRisio. It'll take the lawyers weeks to backtrack it all. And with Adam Kent involved, what was already a major news item just got escalated to the story of the damn century. Bitchy of you, Elena."