Michael Sullivan - Hollow World

“I said it’s not like that.”

“Just saying, it seemed that way. And you never know. You hear about guys that go to prison and figure they got no choice, you know?”

“Like I said, Pax has just been under a lot of stress. We’ve been through a lot these last few days.”

“Yeah, well, we all have our crosses to bear. But damn, it’s good to see you. I’ve been wondering if you’d ever show up. Thought you might have gotten something wrong and fried your ass.”

The day was winding down. The lazy light of late afternoon reminded Ellis of after-school time, even to that day. Warren was right; it was hot out. He could see the heat waves rising, making the fields blurry, and hear the cicadas whining as loudly as the traffic used to be on old Michigan Avenue. Ellis, who still hadn’t seen a calendar, reasserted his belief that it was mid- to late summer. He could smell the grass and the scent of manure coming from the barn, and hear a horse snorting. There was corn in one of the fields, and it had to be elephant-eye high.

“Like your piece,” Warren said.

“My what?”

“Your gun.” Warren pointed at the holster. Ellis had almost forgotten it was there. It appeared invisible to everyone else. “Lemme see it.”

He only had a fraction of hesitation before pulling it out and handing it over. After all, this was Warren.

The two had met in the tenth grade—when Warren had also been known by just Ren, because two syllables were one too many for high schoolers to deal with, and in 1971 War was as unpopular as Nixon. They had shared a locker that Warren kept crammed with excess football gear that he had refused to leave in the gym. Old number forty-eight—the jersey was always there. In those three years, Ellis didn’t think his friend had ever washed the thing, and he’d had to hold his breath whenever he went for his books. Ellis didn’t care for the moose he had been forced to share space with until Ricky “the Dick” Downs targeted him.

Ellis was struggling to get his physics book past the set of shoulder pads when Ricky showed up and thought it might be fun to bounce him like a basketball. Ellis got in one good punch, but back then he’d only weighed one twenty, and the feeble blow just made Ricky mad. The Dick howled and punched Ellis in the stomach. Blowing his wind out wasn’t going to be enough to sate Ricky after having been hit. That boy had a mean streak. While he liked to pretend he got his nickname from the size of his prick, everyone knew Ricky the Dick was the sort to kick dogs for laughs.

“Now I’m gonna learn ya why fighting back is a bad idea.” The Dick had told him. “There’s a pecking order to the world, and God put you at the bottom.”

Ellis expected he’d be waking up in an ambulance, but that’s when Warren showed up. Like a game of Stratego , where a sergeant took a scout but a marshal took everything, the scenario played out; Ellis was the geek; Ricky was a basketball player with big sweaty hands, jabbing elbows, and a love of intimidation, but Warren was an offensive fullback on the football team. The “Eckard Express” they had called him on the field, and Ellis caught just a glimpse of Ricky in his Led Zeppelin T-shirt flying across the hall. He had left a dent in locker 243 before collapsing to the tile with a grunt followed by tears.

The principal had wanted to suspend Warren and Ricky both. He wasn’t interested in the excuses of two thugs, but Ellis was a straight-A student with no record of trouble. When he spoke on Warren’s behalf, Ricky the Dick received suspension for a month, and Warren only got a talking-to.

After that, Warren and he became best friends, his only friend for forty-three years. Ellis never was good at making new ones, and those he found had bigger dreams than Detroit could support. Warren, on the other hand, was steadfast, and the two settled together like sediment at the bottom of a lake. They were like Vietnam vets who could only fully relate to other combat vets—Warren understood him.

“Browning, right? Nice little weapon.” He turned the pistol side-to-side and peered one-eyed along the barrel, aiming down the length of Firestone Lane. “Funny, isn’t it? I told you I didn’t want to see the future, that I’d rather go to the past, but I wasn’t thinking back far enough. The Old West—that, my friend, was the real sweet spot. When every man had a pistol on his hip, and every crime ended in a hanging. You just went out, built a house, and lived your life, and if anyone tried to stop you. Bam ! What happens in Tombstone…stays in Tombstone. Now here we are in the future but toting guns, living on a farm, and all on a planet with few people and no rules—except those we make.”

Ellis could hear Pax’s voice in his head, screaming, You gave him your gun! The man is a murderer!

He watched Warren play with the pistol, his two missing fingers making it more of a challenge to hold properly.

Two missing fingers. Same hand, same fingers; coincidence didn’t cover that adequately. There had to be a connection, but this was Warren Eckard in front of him. He’d known the man all his life. He grew up with him, had his first beer with him. They saw the first Star Wars movie at the Americana Theater together. Warren was like his brother—a close, protective older brother who’d always watched out for Ellis.

Only…he was different too.

Not just the white hair and beard or the weight loss—there was something in the way he talked. Warren had never been a happy man. He’d spent his entire adult life complaining about how he had gotten screwed. First there had been his mother and teachers who insisted he do better in school, forcing him to quit the football team when his grades had failed to meet expectations, and ruining what he knew was a promising career. Later it had been his bosses, his wives—who had become ex-wives—who never understood his worth. Then there was the government, incompetent and corrupt that destroyed everything. He’d spent years preaching from the pulpit of a bar stool. Many people heard; no one listened. Not even Ellis. He found it hard to heed a voice that dripped of so much self-pity, but all that was gone now. The unfocused grumblings were replaced with a strange optimism that made Ellis wonder if he really knew his old friend anymore.

But it’s still Warren, isn’t it?

Ellis watched him holding the gun and had to repress a desire to ask for it back.

“I was right too. This is the life.” Warren looked over with a sage expression that was another new part of his attire. “It’s hard. Don’t get me wrong. I thought I might die that first winter. Actually ate bugs. Nearly died trying out different berries, until I could tell the good from the bad. That’s the trick of it, learning the good from the bad. Knowing which things you can trust to help keep you alive and those that will sicken and kill you. But My Lord, Ellis, that spring—it was like what all those Bible thumpers used to talk about—a come-to-meeting with God. I felt born again. I crawled out of that grave of dirt and sticks into a new life, a new dawn for old Warren Eckard.”

Warren checked the pistol’s magazine, slapped it back in, slipped off the safety, and cocked it.

Ellis felt his heart quicken.

“I realized there was nothing holding me back anymore. I was free. I could do anything I wanted. No one around to stop me anymore. No laws at all, you know?” He gave Ellis a wicked old-man grin and a wink that shortened Ellis’s breath.

What kind of laws we talking here, Warren?

“If I fucked up, it’d be my own fault. I didn’t think anyone else existed, so I felt like Adam. Just me and God walking in Eden, before that bitch, Eve, showed up and ruined everything.” He chuckled and looked at Ellis. “Why you so quiet?”