M. Buehrlen - The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

I’d seen enough gangster movies to know what a Tommy gun sounded like, but to hear one in person, to be so close you could feel the percussion of the bullets battering inside your ribcage…

That was something else entirely.

A dozen thoughts flashed through my mind as I clung to that boy, my muscles tense and cramping. The baker who shooed me from his window – was he dead? Were his customers bullet-riddled, their bodies slumped on the floor? What if the boy hadn’t knocked me down? Would I have been shot? If I died in one of my visions, did I die in real life? Would Dr Farrow have a “perfectly logical” explanation for that too?

It felt like ages before the gunfire stopped and the roadster sped away, but as soon as it did, Blue Eyes pulled me to my feet.

“Run,” he shouted.

I ran.

I wasn’t sure what we could possibly be running from now that the shooting was over, but it didn’t take long to find out. The bakery exploded and I felt the pressure of the blast on my back as it shoved me to the ground. I hit the concrete, shielding my head with my hands.

Blue Eyes reached for me, finding my sleeve and fisting the material in his hand. More glass and brick plummeted down on us like thick, random raindrops. Only everything was hot. Scorched. My skin, my clothes, the sidewalk, the air.

My ears felt thick and full, like I was wearing those smooshy, expandable earplugs. My mouth was dry and gritty, and I tasted the salty tang of blood on my teeth. Every bone and muscle in my body felt cracked in half, and I wanted nothing more than for the vision to end. I wanted to see Mr Draper sneeze into the old handkerchief he carried in his back pocket and ask us what the billboard in The Great Gatsby symbolized. I tried desperately to summon the black by squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as I could, but my senses never left. I still felt the concrete biting into my palms and cheek, and how difficult it was to get one good, decent deep breath.

As the thickness in my ears faded, I could make out a dog barking nearby, men arguing, a siren off in the distance, a child crying. I slowly lifted my head, the pain of hitting it on the sidewalk sending a rush of dizziness through me. I tried to look around, but everything looked tilted.

Two strong hands took hold of my arms and hauled me to my feet, holding me steady as the world shifted, then came back into focus.

“Aw, geez. You’re covered in blood.” Blue Eyes took my face in his leather-gloved hands, swept my hair from my eyes, and tilted my head in every direction, assessing the damage. “Can you hear what I’m saying?”

I nodded.

“What’s your name?”

“Alex.” My tongue was a blob of wet sand.

“That’s a boy’s name.”

I rubbed my jaw. “Yeah. It’s also a nickname.”

“Short for something?”

“Duh.”

“‘Duh?’” He scrunched his nose. “What day is it?”

“October twenty-third. Tuesday.”

He frowned. “You hit your head harder than I thought. Come on, I’ll take you to Doc Stein.”

Blue took two long strides, pulling me along, but I stopped and wriggled my arm free. “No, it’s all right, my head’s fine. I don’t have a concussion.”

He wrinkled his brow. “A what?”

“I’m fine. I just need to sit down.” And wait for the black.

He hesitated, searching my eyes. Then he reached out and pulled a piece of glittering glass from my hair. “All right, but you tell me if you feel faint or you need to throw up.”

I nodded again. He took my arm, gently this time, and led me around the corner, down a back alley to a stack of wooden crates. He pulled one down and helped me sit on it, then leaned beside me against the wall of the building. He crossed one ankle over the other.

We stayed like that for a long while, me taking in slow, shuddering breaths and staring at my boots, him rolling that piece of glass between his gloved fingers.

I just couldn’t get over what happened. I’d never witnessed such public violence in my life. Back home, they said we were desensitized to violence, us modern American teenagers with our graphic movies and video games. But now I knew that wasn’t exactly true, at least for me. I was so far removed from violence in my cushy home, in my cushy city where police patrolled day and night, in my cushy world where lawmakers did their best to keep criminals off the street. No amount of blood and gore on screen could’ve prepared me for the true horror I’d just experienced.

While I felt paralyzed with shock and fear, the boy who saved my life appeared unshaken. Maybe violence was like germs or allergies. If you exposed yourself to real violence, did you build up a tolerance against it? Were these drive-by shootings normal for him, living in a time when gangsters ruled the streets and cops craned their necks the other way?

I stole a glance at Blue. He was watching me. When my eyes met his, a memory, faint and sort of sweet, tickled the outer reaches of my mind, and I felt the unmistakable sensation of déjà vu. It made my stomach dip. I was just about to ask if I knew him from somewhere, but he spoke first. The memory fluttered away on a breeze.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said.

I swallowed, trying to get rid of the wet sand feeling. “Does that – this sort of thing – happen often?”

He tossed the piece of glass in the air, and we watched it hit the ground and roll away. “Not often, but it’s getting worse.”

“Were those men gangsters?”

He slid his back down the wall and sat on the ground, his arms propped on his knees. “They work for the Cafferelli Brothers. The Cafferellis think they own the whole damn neighborhood.”

I’d never heard of the Cafferelli Brothers before. Al Capone and Bugsy Malone, sure. But Cafferelli? “Why would they attack a bakery?”

“Sloan’s isn’t exactly a real bakery.”

“You mean it’s a front? For liquor or something?”

He nodded. “Sloan tried to do business on his own, but when the Cafferellis found out, they wanted a cut. They’ve been at odds for months. Which is why I’m curious…” Blue lifted his handsome face up at me. A swipe of dark stubble lined his jaw. “Everyone around here knows to stay away from Sloan’s. Why didn’t you?”

I kept my head down and stared at my boots. Keeping my eyes focused on one spot seemed to help with the dizziness and the shock. My throbbing toe didn’t matter much anymore compared to my throbbing head. “I’m not... from around here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Annapolis.”

“Maryland? Really? What are you doing in Chicago?”

Chicago. Was that where I was? I knew the accents sounded a little off from what I was used to on the East Coast, but I wouldn’t have been able to peg it on my own. I’d never been to Chicago.

“Just visiting,” I said. I pulled a few more pieces of glass from my hair. They were tinted pink with blood. I looked Blue in the eye. “Are they – those people I saw in the bakery – are they dead?”

He glanced away, which was answer enough. I played the scene back over in my mind, and there was no other way to reconcile it. If it hadn’t been for Blue, I’d be dead along with them.

“You saved my life.”

He gave a half-hearted shrug and said nothing. I could tell he didn’t want me to make a big deal out of it. So I just sat there, pulling glass and brick from my hair, wondering how sick my subconscious must be to come up with such a horrifying vision. And what did it mean to have this hot guy come to my rescue? I bet Freud would have something to say about that one.

After a long while, Blue asked, “Feeling any better?”

The wet sand feeling seemed to have moved to my ankles and feet, making my legs heavy and somewhat still immobilized from shock, but I thought I might be able to stand. I nodded and he pushed himself to his feet. “Where are you staying? I’ll walk you.”