Rob Thurman: Nightlife

Yeah, the city had been better, but Sophia had lost her lease after running off most of her regular clients through boozing. She'd also racked up a few debts that made a relocation to the country suddenly seem desirable. And off we went to live the good life, the good life being a battered, rusting metal trailer squatting on a piece of land far from the nearest neighbors. I didn't know who owned the land or the trailer. I'm not even sure Sophia knew. But she'd found it with a sixth sense honed by years of scrounging, conning, and outright stealing. We'd been in the tin Taj Mahal now for almost two months. I was lucky it was summer because I had no idea where the nearest high school was and even if I had known, there wasn't much chance a bus came out this way.

But today was the final day in the boonies. I was packing up the last of my shit in the best luggage garbage bag companies made when Niko shifted weight on my worn mattress and grimaced. "You can't want to bring that, Cal, honestly."

"Caliban," I corrected automatically. I'd decided recently that I didn't want to be called Cal anymore. "Caliban" meant monster, and that's what I was. I had no intention of forgetting that, not for one minute. Looking down at the sweatshirt wadded in my hand, I demanded, aggrieved, "Why not? It's my favorite one. I wear it all the time."

He let the name issue go for the moment. But I wasn't under any illusions that he'd give up. He'd give me some space and if that didn't bring me around, he'd jump on me when I least expected it. I was never going to be the poster child for mental health, but Niko wasn't about to accept that. Returning to the sweatshirt topic, he leaned over and poked a finger through a hole in the shoulder of the shirt. "Yes, I noticed that. It looks to have been almost favored to death. Not to mention the color."

"Purple? What have you got against purple?" I shoved the shirt into the bag and gave him a warning look. Love me, love my shirt.

"Only everything in the world, and that particular shade barely qualifies as a color. It's more a visual assault."

I grinned. "College boy with his big fancy words." I began to tie off the bag when the sound of shattering glass came from outside the tiny bedroom. "Mom's up," I said, matter-of-fact.

"I didn't think there was anything breakable left in this forsaken pit." A hand landed on my shoulder, a steady and comforting grip. For the first time in a while I didn't grumble or try to shake him off like any self-respecting, full-of-himself fourteen-year-old who knew he was too old to be treated like a baby. I simply soaked up the warmth that sank through my shirt.

"Probably just a plate. Breaking's easier than washing, right?" I pulled another garbage bag out of the box. The hand moved to my hair and mussed it without mercy.

"Considering the way you wash them, it's probably more sanitary at any rate." He stood and moved past me to the bedroom door. "Once more into the breach," he exhaled ruefully. "Keep packing. We'll be leaving in an hour or so."

And then we'd give the phrase "Don't look back" a run for its money. As I finished up with my things, I could hear Niko's quiet, calm voice and Sophia's slurred one coming from the kitchen. To be more exact, I heard every word spoken. Hell, the kitchen was barely twelve feet away; I didn't have much choice. "You two still here?" came the uninterested voice. Once it had been a smoky blue velvet; now it was a threadbare polyester, raveled around the edges and stained with cheap whiskey. I thought it had been one of the reasons she'd been such a successful fortune-teller. People paid not so much for what she said, but more for how she said it. Even the most stupid and inane "You'll meet a tall, dark stranger" sounded seductive and mysterious when Sophia Leandros said it. Or it had once upon a time.

I had her voice. I also had her inky black hair and slate gray eyes. No olive-tinted skin, though. I was pale, Grendel pale. Mom had looked at me once when I was younger, about eight. It was a strange look, one of repugnance mixed with a reluctant pride. "You're a monster, but you're a beautiful one," she had said. Great, I was an evil, squatting thing wrapped in shiny silver Christmas paper. Even at eight I hadn't thought that was much of a compliment.

As I gathered up a few musty, used paperbacks, Niko's voice drifted into the room. "We're leaving as soon as we get Cal's things loaded into the car. It shouldn't be long." There was a pause and then he added without any real enthusiasm, "Will you be all right?"

There was a humorless laugh and the clink of ice in a glass. "Without you and the demon spawn? Shit, sweetheart, things could only get better."

And just like that, before I even knew it, I was standing in the narrow doorway, my eyes on my mother… a fine upstanding woman whose reproductive system should've been removed at birth. She sat at the lopsided rickety table with her hand curled around a glass. Black hair untouched by silver spilled past her shoulders and onto a red silk robe that had seen better days, better years even. Eyes as polished and cold as steel studied Niko as she half emptied the glass in two swallows. "Where's my money?"

I watched as Niko silently pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and laid it on the table. He'd been giving money to Sophia since his first job at fourteen. I'd have been expected to do the same, but out here there were no jobs and since I was too young to drive, there was no way to get to them if there had been any. She scooped up the cash and counted it with nimble fingers. "Keep it coming, puss, or our nosy little monster comes back home with me. We all clear on that?" Her gaze pinned me in the doorway for a moment, and then I melted back into the gloom of the bedroom.

I'd wondered why Niko hadn't stopped giving her most of his paycheck when he'd moved off to college and the dorm. But it was as I'd suspected. Sophia had us both over a barrel. I was only fourteen. She didn't have to let me go live with my brother, and the law would see it the same way. How the hell Niko would manage to pay for an apartment while giving her practically all his money, I didn't have a clue. Even with me getting a job there and helping out, it'd be tight. Real tight. But the dorm room… it had been part and parcel of the scholarship. No rent there. No younger brothers either.

Sitting on the bed, the mattress bowing beneath me, I took a good look at my pile of "luggage." Suddenly every bag looked like a chain, a heavy one made exclusively to drag my brother down. He'd end up quitting school to get a second job. He'd have to. He was smart as friggin' hell but there were only so many hours in the day.

Only so many chances in a lifetime.

I pulled the nearest bag to me and began to untie the knot at the top. A hand looped around my wrist and squeezed tight enough to make me turn loose of the plastic. "Don't even think about it or I'll put your things up front and stuff you in the trunk," came the unruffled voice.

Niko. And he was pissed . Niko kept his anger under rigid control and most people wouldn't have even known it was there, but I knew. I could smell it every time. And not once, in all my life, could I remember it ever being directed at me. Neither was it now.

"You are not staying here. Not for any reason." Eyes uncompromising on mine, he released me and retied the bag. "It will be all right, Cal. We'll do just fine. I promise you."

I wasn't too sure I bought that, but I did know one thing. Niko wasn't leaving me. For a year I'd made do with seeing him on the weekends, escaping Sophia only then. For a year we'd planned and saved. But the year was over and now, maybe, we would survive. Maybe it just took a little faith. And if I was short on that, it could be Niko might have enough for us both.