Claudia Casper - The Mercy Journals

Come with me, Allen. You’ve got nothing going on here. We’ll take Mom’s ashes up together. Maybe your boys will be there. We can fish and kill deer.

The deer population is depleted, and the island cougars, who are already the most aggressive on the continent, are starving. There are hardly any fish left. And what about vegetables, scurvy and such?

You always were a negative Nancy.

Transportation?

I can get us kayaks.

I laughed. I got dressed for work and handed him the apartment key. I held it in my hand over his palm — This is only for one day. Don’t touch anything other than the fridge.

I was cold and hungry after work that night. I wondered where Leo had our mother’s ashes, thinking I must ask him. The wind blew so hard it seemed it would strip the new buds off the trees, and the clouds were so thick that dusk was dark as night. I had to use my Callebaut.

No one knows how long these new flashlights are going to last, but they’re definitely outlasting their owners. They were invented by a guy called Enstice Callebaut who discovered a way to isolate microscopic particles of nuclear waste, encase them safely, and convert them to light. Callebaut instantly became a hero and is honoured once a year on Guardians of the Future Day. A lesser star was the woman who found a way to wrangle wire coat hangers into devices to suspend the light from the headboards of beds, thereby expanding its radius and preserving the integrity of books’ spines.

The flashlight gives off a cool, narrow line of illumination that has no glow. You have to point the beam directly in someone’s face to make out their features, and no one wants that, so all we see of each other at night is our feet, unless the moon is out.

I fretted about what to feed Leo and decided to take him to the community dining hall.

When I opened my apartment door, Leo was sprawled in my armchair, using my mobile’s precious daily charge. He wagged his index finger at me.

You’ve broken the rules, Allen. He nodded at the goldfish.

Mr Pure and Noble. Mr Saviour. Mr Enforcer. Mr Fucking Good of Mankind. I’m going to have to turn you in. I’m telling Mom.

Pets were outlawed in 2033 when it was deemed immoral to keep animals for pleasure while people starved and undomesticated species disappeared forever. I’d bought cartons of fish food, plastic bins to store it in, replacement tank lights, and filters. I’d found a black market supplier to replace fish at the cost of one week’s pay. In their small, contained world, I could take care of them and do no harm. I could experience a sliver of love and appreciate their beauty — an easy pleasure, a tiny responsibility, a miniscule infraction. A life could only shrink so small without disappearing. I’d needed those fish to survive.

I flushed with annoyance. Get off my mobile.

Where’d you get them? He put my mobile down with elaborate care on the side table. Hunt’s Point? Medina? South Tacoma? Capitalism creeping in on the margins, eh?

Why are you using my mobile when I told you not to touch anything?

Allen, my brother, take a load off. Let me get you a drink.

I don’t drink anymore.

No shit. Wishful thinking. A cup of tea then?

I sat down in my easy chair, and he spoke to me like the master of my own kitchen.

I’m sorry about the mobile, but I was so fucking bored and I didn’t feel like reading War and Peace. He made air quotes. I mean, where did you get such singularly uninteresting books? That takes a special talent.

I owned three unreturned library books: War and Peace, Brecht: A Biography, and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. There were four books from our parents’ library: Bad Dirt, The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, Learn French the Fast and Fun Way, Weekend Woodworking with Power Tools—18 Quick and Easy Projects, and two of my sons’ old classics, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Leo yawned, I wanted to find out what was happening in the world. It’s been a while.

You truly live like a bum then?

Bum is a bit insensitive. There are places. Dormitories.

He gave me back my mobile. I checked the history and asked, what’s Occupy Now Gold Chat?

Some buddies from the old days. Haven’t seen them in years. I was mildly curious what they were up to. He got the milk out of the coolbox.

What happened with the leg? He nodded toward my prosthesis.

Garbage truck ran over it after Jennifer and I split. I don’t remember much. I was passed out beside a dumpster.

Mom and Dad would be so proud.

Yeah. We’re starting to make quite a pair.

We began laughing, and every time we looked at each other, laughed harder. Leo carried a kitchen chair and placed it beside the easy chair and brought in two cups of tea.

So, seriously, Leo. Are you looking to get yourself killed?

He looked away.

You know mobs have killed people for less?

He shrugged. I’m not sure more life is what the doctor’s ordering right now. He smiled thinly. I am bored. So bored I can barely be bothered to feed myself. Fatally bored. You know me, I don’t like having to cooperate and play nicely with the other assholes in the sandbox. I want to grab everything for myself and then not even play with it. Just savour knowing other people want it. It’s the way I am.

He was getting back in his armour. His eyes weren’t settling on anything.

Hence my mobile, I observed.

He glanced at me, then raised one hand as though he were a king graciously bestowing a gift.

One of the last pleasures of a dying man.

Those could add up, I had a feeling.

We finished our tea in silence.

I replayed Ruby’s presence in the room. It was radioactive. I crossed my legs to hide an erection.

I told Leo that the government had announced another amnesty period. All he had to do was turn himself in and he’d get set up with a housing unit, a job, a Callebaut, and a mobile. I offered to take him by the office the next morning. He said sure, sure, and asked if I had a woman.

Something about his asking put me on edge. I didn’t feel like sharing my sandbox toys.

Why, did someone come by?

He smiled.

Did she leave a message?

Not really. We had a good conversation though. Interesting woman.

Leo, I am going to help you out of your misery right now and permanently, if you don’t tell me word for word what she said.

A tactical error, I knew immediately, but there was no right move. I remembered the ease with which Ruby had taken her clothes off. I replayed the way Leo was sprawled in my armchair when I got home. His talk about boredom, the last pleasures of a dying man. Still, I doubted he would have laughed the way we did at the thought of our parents seeing us if he’d just poached my woman. Then I didn’t doubt it.

I leaned forward in my chair, hunting thoughts in his eyes. He looked back at me with a defiant glitter, then he crumpled. I will always be the one who had what he wanted and now can never have. And I have never really wanted anything he had. I realize now, writing this, that that picture of himself in the sandbox, just having all the toys and not even playing with them, is how he saw me in our family.

She was looking for you, obviously. I offered her tea but she didn’t want anything. When I told her I was your brother, she asked me some questions about what kind of kid you were, where we grew up. That kind of thing.

I didn’t want Leo to know I had no way to reach her. I didn’t want Leo to know anything about her. I wanted to make sure he never set eyes on her again. And I was thrilled she had come looking for me.