Passenger

I said, “This is a fucking palace, Qui

Qui

I said, “Honest?”

Qui

“Waking up on the floor of Ben and Griffin’s garage, wearing a prisoner uniform. What was that, four or five days ago?”

“And you don’t remember nothing else?”

I cleared my throat and rolled onto my side. There was the dribbling, metallic sound again. Ben had gone off behind us, and was peeing noisily into Qui

“Well, some things my friend Co

Qui

“It’s gone.”

“Nuh-uh. Let me see if it is.”

And Qui

He kneeled at the side of my cot and grabbed me by my right wrist. I opened my hand, and Qui

“Billy, this looks exactly like that—”

“I know.”

The hole in the sky.

Ben stood over us, watching. “Like what?”

“That thing in the sky,” Qui

“What thing in the sky?” Ben asked.

I pulled my hand away, closed it. “The boys haven’t seen it.”

Qui

He looked from Ben to me, back to Ben again, and I could see he was trying to figure out what our story was, even if we didn’t know enough about ourselves to tell it.

“Well, let’s go look then.” Qui

“You, not-Ben—stop tugging on your little pecker or it’s going to fall off. Heh-heh-heh. Let’s get up on the roof—there’s something you boys need to see.”

And as Qui

I just nodded and followed the redhead.

“One of these days, Griff. I promise.”

sixteen

The rain was gone; the air, thick and hot.

It felt like we were bugs, competing for air, trapped beneath an overturned cup.

The four of us stood at the edge of the roof of Qui

Qui

“You never seen that before?”

Ben shook his head. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Qui

“It looks like fireworks to me,” Griffin said.

“I’ll tell you what it looks like, not-Ben.”

Then Qui

He pi

“Show them, Billy.”

“That hurts. Let the fuck go, Qui

I kept my hand closed tight.

“What are you scared of? Just let them see it. Prove I ain’t crazy.”

You are fucking insane, asshole.

I pulled my arm back, but Qui

Remember the last time you used a vice, Jack?

“It’s not fu

I tried pushing him off me with my left hand. The kid didn’t budge. I glanced at Ben and Griffin. Somehow, I almost got the feeling that they were curious to see the scar now, too.

“Fuck this shit,” I said.

I punched Qui

It wasn’t intended to hurt; I was just trying to knock him away, make him let go. But he got this crazy grimace on his face, and he began twisting and prying at my fingers.

I guess he was fed up with us, with our intrusion into his perfect world. Qui

Ben put his hand on Qui

I could tell that Ben was trying to restrain himself.

But Qui

*   *   *

The first time Qui

I felt it.

It was like a wound, a stab, an incision that somehow cuts through all the layers, stack after stack after stack, piercing all the insides and outsides that collapse down and converge at the center of Jack’s universe.

And here I am now, standing with my hand open in front of Qui

I accept the fact that I fucked up—that all of this isn’t happening to me—it’s happening because of me.

I knew it all along.

I knew it when I was tied to a fucking bed at Freddie Horvath’s house.

But I just didn’t want to think about it.

*   *   *

I open my hand.

The light comes first. It is always the light, and then the sound.

Of course the mark is the same. Everyone can see that.

The scar in my hand.

The hole in the sky.

The center of the universe.

The boys are saying something. I can’t hear them. We are standing inside a thousand jet engines, beneath a churning wall of water that endlessly crashes upon sawtoothed rocks.

And I am looking directly through my fucking hand.

I am looking directly through.

The boys are saying something.

Qui

He’s afraid.

Fucking prick should have left me alone.

So I am looking.

In my bathroom, at Wy

That’s what this looks like now.

Only there are no mirrors, and I can see step after step, endless ladders like train tracks, each of them framing a narrow glimpse of here, another Marbury, a Glenbrook, Marbury again, the inside of a Cadillac, Marbury, that fucking cop, inside a barrel, the fucking inside of a plastic barrel and I am there, cramped among the bones of the friends I love, a dirty fucking bed where I am tied down, bleeding, Freddie Horvath’s hands on me, fuck this place, fuck this place, fuck this place.

And out of the infinity that expands before me, a throng of ghosts, faceless and bleak, run toward me, step after step, in the bed, in the barrel, Marbury, another Glenbrook, the barrel again. I am tied down on top of a bed, a naked photograph of Jack where I must be asleep, so don’t wake me up. This all must be inside his head. The ghosts coming and coming, out from my hand, out from my mouth, and I finally see among them a boy’s face.