Сигрид Нуньес - Salvation City

“She’s only sixteen,” Cole said, his heart breaking.

PW shrugged his big shoulders. “My granny had two babies already by that age. My mama had her first when she was barely seventeen.”

“But aren’t you going to call the police?”

“Dude, just what is it about you and the police? Didn’t you and me already have this conversation?”

Cole wasn’t sure if PW had raised his voice because he was angry or because he was drunk.

A promise is sacred. Cole made a quick decision and plunged ahead.

“I saw them. I saw Mason—I saw them kissing—that’s how I know—”

To Cole’s astonishment PW laughed again.

He must be drunk. How else could he laugh?

“Listen to me, son. You think you’re the only one that’s got eyes in his head? You really think I didn’t know what was up with the two of them?”

Yes, he could see it now. That had been pretty stupid of him. He was seeing a lot, finally. No wonder he’d started to feel sorry for Starlyn.

“So you’re mad at Mason. So you go and make wild accusations, talking a heap of nonsense about kidnapping—and why? I’ll tell you why. Because you’re jealous. Because you think he stole your girl. Isn’t that what this is really about?” He punched Cole’s shoulder again, less playfully this time. “Like you had any business sniffing after her.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Cole said hoarsely. He was mortified that PW had used the word sniffing .

PW kept silent, as if to give Cole a chance to explain himself, and when that didn’t happen he sighed and said, “Look. I don’t mean to be harsh, but you got to understand this has nothing to do with you. We shouldn’t even be discussing the matter, it’s not fitting. I want you to promise you’ll put it out of your mind and leave it to your elders to worry about, okay?”

Cole nodded mechanically.

“Good. Now, let’s talk about something else. What do you hear lately from that aunt of yours?”

“I’m thinking about going to see her in Germany.”

In fact, until that moment he had been thinking no such thing.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Cole remembered that he had not yet passed on the news that his aunt was back in Berlin. He was about to explain when PW doubled over.

The attack this time was shorter but more vicious than the first. When it was over PW stood up, saying, “Let me go dry myself off.”

Left alone, Cole tried—unsuccessfully—to pray. All his other emotions were now swamped by a new fear. What if PW never got better? What if he could never live a normal life again? What if he just drank and drank and drank?

Cole was distracted by the appearance of a moth that had come indoors and kept banging into one thing or another until finally it knocked itself onto its back. Fantastically large, almost the size of a sparrow, it lay quaking on the floor, filament legs kicking furiously. Then it went still—not dead, Cole figured, just wiped out from struggling. It could rest there all it wanted; no harm would come to it. He resisted the impulse to pick it up. He’d been told that touching a moth or a butterfly could hurt its wings and maybe even kill it.

This time, unlike a moment before, and without trying, he found himself praying. He prayed to God not to be too hard on Starlyn, and if it turned out she was never coming back he prayed that God might bring her, somehow, somewhere to safety. Amen.

PW returned wearing a clean white shirt, left unbuttoned, and carrying a fresh pint of bourbon. He tousled Cole’s hair with his free hand as he sat back down on the sofa. He seemed to have forgotten what they’d been talking about before, and Cole did not remind him. They sat for a few moments without speaking. The second attack had so weakened PW that his arm shook just from the effort of bringing bottle to mouth.

“You know,” he said, staring straight ahead as if he were addressing someone other than Cole beside him, “God put men at the head of women because we’re the stronger sex. But it’s my observation that when it comes to physical pain women can take more. Think of Tracy.” Which Cole did very reluctantly, recalling the time he’d accidentally hit her in the chest. “People still talk about how brave she was when she had the cancer, and I can testify she was a real trouper when she got the flu. I just know she’d be able to deal with this neuralgia thing better than I can.”

Cole said nothing. A cosmic sadness was seeping into him. He was afraid if he opened his mouth he would start wailing and not be able to stop. It was happening again, he thought. Everything was changing. The air felt supercharged, and there was a weight to every passing moment that said nothing would ever be the same. He saw how wrong he had been to believe he was no longer a child. He was a child, only a child, too young to know what to do. Everything was too hard and too complicated, and he was too young, he was too weak and powerless and dumb.

He wanted to be alone. He was tired and confused and filled with anxiety at not knowing what was going to happen next. Too much had happened already, and he wasn’t able to put all his trust in God the way PW and Tracy and the others did. He would try, but it wouldn’t work. It was like trying to stick a piece of paper to the wall with spit.

He wanted to be alone. He thought that if he was alone some idea would come to him. If he was in his room he could start to draw something, and that would make him feel calm and normal again. But then the thought of drawing—the thought of all the drawings he had done and the pleasure they had given him and the pride he’d felt at being praised for them—suddenly all this struck him as embarrassing, cause for shame. He thought of the comics he’d lavished so much of himself on, and he cringed. He’d made a fool of himself, he thought. Just like when he was on the radio. It would be a relief to destroy them, to burn every one of them. Then he could start all over again. This thought made his throat ache.

He wanted to be alone. But he could not leave PW. He had to wait until PW—already breathing heavily and listing at his side—was ready to pass out. Then Cole would help him get up the stairs and to bed.

THAT NIGHT HE RODE THE HORSE AGAIN.

A game—long forgotten—from the days when his mother used to tuck him in. Time to ride the horse! Scooping him up in her arms. Not into bed but onto the back of a horse he’d pretend to climb— Now, off you go, pumpkin —to ride through the night.

His mother’s smell.

His bronco sheets.

That night he rode the horse again. A hero’s horse, fast and thunderous as a train. Here and there along the path masked figures rushed at them. Hands reached up to grab and yank Cole to the ground. But the horse knew never to stop or slow down.

And he could never get lost, his mother said; the horse knew the way.

Morning: this was where she always promised to meet him.

He sat up, drying his eyes.

He had slept as usual with the blinds open. Outside the light was pale. The sky looked low and as fragile as eggshell, as if a rock hurled hard enough could smash it.

He glanced uneasily around the room, gripped by a vague pang of fear—but no, it was all right. He hadn’t actually burned or destroyed anything, he remembered now. It was just a silly passing thought. Coming in last night and seeing the drawings lying around or taped to the walls, he’d felt sheepish about his vow to get rid of them. Most of them still made him cringe. They were childish, they belonged to yesterday, they should be put away in a box or a drawer somewhere. But there was no reason to destroy them. What if it turned out he never saw Starlyn again? Wouldn’t he hate himself for not having kept those drawings of her?