3

You started your engine, a few more minutes and you’d leave JK in her bathroom. You picked up your cell phone in the wait. Clicked it off and back on. Text message, the only way Ren would actually check her phone anyway would be if the little blue blinking light would flash the B signal. You weren’t any different, at least you would pick up phone calls. The Audi engine idling, Jenny was slow as usual, Boo was taking her time this morning too. Knocks on the window shook you out of your daydream. Boo, and she was panicked. A sharp scream when you rolled down your window shook through your sound proof box.

“Drive Bart! Just drive!” Boo scrambled into the car.

“Yes Ma'am.” You wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to pull off as Snoopy slinked out in heels, but this time she was moving faster than you’d ever seen her go, the blonde loops on top of her head were stained royal blue, it must be spirit week. You slowly pulled towards the driveway, inching along, doors locked. “If seven of nine heaves a sigh what do you get?” Jenny banged on the passenger side door, pissed. Boo laughed her head off. You noticed the blue rings circling underneath her eyes. Jenny’d been caught sleeping again, but had enough guff in her to switch to a white, bed sheet cotton sundress, something a little more fitting for the informal makeover Boo placed on. The devil was inside her from the looks of it. You cracked the window.

“Can I help you?” tilting down your glasses bearing your teeth at her.

“Look what your f*****g baby did to me!” She sobbed, the ability to cry on cue made it easy to want to appease. It wasn’t working, her face brightened to crimson in the morning light. 9:30 AM.

“GO BIG BLUE, GO BIG BLUE!” Boo chanted through the crack in the window, you rolled it down just a little more so the tint was at eye level.

“I DON’T EVEN GO THERE YOU C**T!” Ink marks dropped lines like varicose veins on her cheeks. “ JUST LET ME IN THE F*****G CAR BEALZABART!”

“MAGIC WORDS, JENNIFER!” You shouted back. Boo shook her head no. Ear splitting shrieks through the window came with all the vinegar of headless anger. You pulled forward a few more feet.

“Puhlease!” JK. You popped the lock. Jenny nearly dove through the door ripping Boo from the front seat making sure to hit her while she was down. You could use the comedy, plenty of time before you had any obligations, the mid morning meetings and then the dreaded sessions with your analyst, maybe you would go and meet Kaite and Jane at the condo in Nosfarlun. “Look at my face,” she kept her glasses high on her head, mirror reflection on her, she stared at you for solace. “I knew you wouldn’t give a damn, you’re always taking up for Boozilla.” She locked the door, you unlocked it, she locked it again, Boo staggered to her feet and dusted off. She timed the open close cycle and slid into the back seat.

“If it’s any consolation, I think it’s lovely. Didn’t I do a good job, very coon chic.” Boo giggled, scooching across the back seat to avoid Kryss’s claws. You peeled out onto the winding road that broke your home to the outside world. Jenny Kryss extracted a vial of clear liquid and splashed her face, the antiseptic sweet smell of makeup remover, she cried out, more of the dye, her eyes down on the towel she blotted her face with. Her seatbelt strapped her in tight, unable to make the reach toward Boo’s breathless face cackling.

“God, just look in the mirror, Snoop, you’re fine.” It was invisible ink, the lines on her face dissolving into skin tone again.

“Splash!” breathless gasp of Boo coming back down to earth, joke fully played out. “Gotcha.” Chemistry lessons had been paying off apparently. Jenny sat silently she clicked the radio on and blasted the volume.

“Cut it out, it was funny.” You moderated the battle down to an even keel; you turned the radio down from ear splitting to a clear channel.
“More on Bitter Blood after this.”

“F**k you, I know what I look like.” JK

Traffic was significantly less than usual as you made your way out of the neighborhood onto major streets, no one on the road this morning. “Let us take the long way, how about that?” You narrated your route, a glance at Jenny, she stared out at the passenger side mirror. “The Our Lady station of Bernal Flats was a barren one sitting smack dab in the middle of the center of education for some of the wealthiest contingencies on the planet, one would have expected something a bit grander. Residents of the Flats knew it as the center stop on the Green Blue Line. The wealth at the other spokes of this hub, Los Los was even more desolate and similarly surreal place, Nosfarlun didn’t even have a station. OL had a quaint downtown, roads still unpaved, opting for cobblestone and packed earth leading to and from the station. The town’s heart was a no drive zone with four inches of a genetically engineered blue grass that was never invaded by vehicle tires. Fire trucks appeared in front of what were always lost causes, flames jetting from windows, always just too late to save the home, the families were always relocated, out of site, out of mind. Juniper trees would eventually fill the empty lots well fertilized with the lives of former tenants.”

“You know where I want to go Simp,” JK had stopped sulking.

“Haha. That’s not going to happen.”

“What? I take you to your boyfriend’s whenever you want?” JK. Text message sound going off from your pocket, the vibration signifying the urgent reply tag attached to it.

“We’re taking a detour, just be easy,” you ignored it while driving.

“What, like you?” JK snipped back at you, poking at the phone in your pocket.

“One more, Jenny I swear to God.” Pulling past the oncoming cars you put foot to floor and rocketed out of the way of a glancing blow from an unmarked police vehicle moving in the opposite direction full tilt and sirens off. The cremated remains of Cliffson and Hunters broke with the order of events, you didn’t start any fires. Those blue transformers don’t break down like that; the intensity level on the grid for that block was too low to trigger smoke no matter how many lights were on. Flashbacks of you in front of camera lens, Flat Barons video shoot for SALT magazine, the feature face was the great Jason Ashby, family man. You turned left onto the Danbury Service Road, expressway blocked at the first entrance plaza.

“What do you think you’re going to accomplish with this?” Jenny looking increasingly nervous approaching the second plaza, an opening between barriers, jetting through a crevice you hopped onto the abandoned highway.

“I want to see what happened.” You glanced up into the rearview mirror, Boo bobbing her head in the back seat headphones on, eye lids closed, she had taken off on space cadet training, no cars coming in either direction.

“You know what happened, the houses were burned down, probably because of some f**k up on their end installing the converters since they were contracted to do it. It’s not like you’ve never seen a burned out house before. We had a---” She trailed off looking out of your window. “Okay, I retract my previous statement.” A low cloud lay on the ground the color of 2% milk. “Maybe it’s just flame retardant chemicals, you know, to smother the fire.” The earth rapidly tanning as the substance sucked the green from the grass that you could see.

“Sittin on a quarter p of hay, thangs is feelin good today, I’m to’ up from the flo’ up,” Boo sung away, you waved your hand past her face to get her attention. Jenny Kryss flicked her on the nose. She opened up her eyes and pulled down her headphones.

“What’s that Boo?” You adjusted your mirror to keep the picture in sight a little while longer before you pulled back off of the expressway.

“Someone better call 9‐1‐1.” Boo

“What is that though?” Jenny squinted over her shoulder out the rear window.

“How should I know, Krysstoph?” Two seconds and her blonde hair whipped back forward. She blew spit bubbles and popped them with her tongue.

“You’re such a freak.” Jenny Kryss finally putting her glasses back on, the moment passed. An ice cream truck was pulled to the side of the service road serving two black operations vehicles. You swerved past the barriers locking you into the expressway. The trucks didn’t budge. There was a metallic taste in your mouth like something seeping down your throat, you rolled down your window for fresh air, jasmine, no trace of what you witnessed clouding your nostrils.

There was a division over where the Ashby girls would be schooled. Before Boo was old enough for primary school, yourself and Jenny Kryss attended the same school up through your graduation, afterwards the competition began. Jenny Kryss was caught selling hashish on school grounds and was kicked out of Lito & Layne All Girl’s School her sophomore year. Boo would be scrapped from OL Prep for forging class notes. Both entered the Loyal Orchid Academy Jenny Kryss’s junior year and Boo’s freshman. Come second quarter Boo was booted again for selling term papers. You were also quite the scholastic felon; it ran in the family, your majors, espionage, arson, and vandalism with a few points for forgery. Your first stop, Loyal Orchid. Jenny Kryss’s makeupless face behind dark glasses, she slammed the car door strutting toward the large revolving door of the central auditorium, B‐O‐O sown in black, blue and tan thread down the back of her stockings. You slammed on horn speeding out of the parking lot, Jenny’s middle finger raised in your rear view, she disappeared through the spinning lock revolving doors. Boo scrambled over the armrest into the front seat going nearly a*s over elbows as you braked at a red light. She plugged in her Sound Card and kicked her heels onto the dashboard, “Today a GOOD day, I know don’t jinx it..”

“So what’s on the agenda today sis star?” Miming the movements of a DJ, your sister’s long hair banging to the beat, “You gonna kill anymore boys?” You checked your phone for the missed message. Ren: The red pills make you move, the grey ones make you mean.

“Just another day in the water, f**k class, I’m so not in the mood.” You volleyed back: Riddle me that Rennifer, meet me at Black Pools in a half. Your usual place to avoid campus life at all costs, your classes droned and the majority of the subjects you took didn’t require you to be there. There were the occasional hour long meetings with professors to explain why you weren’t attending lecture. Your classmates were nonexistent while you maintained the curve bender status. Their propositions to dumb it down a bit on exam day kept you banked from their pockets.

“Any work?” Boo

“Yeah, figure out what the f**k that was on the expressway,” you checked your mirrors changing lanes and shifting past cars.

“Pistachio.” Boo

“Not the ice cream truck.”

“Haha, I know, that was odd though,” Boo looked over at you. “They never chase, they’re always running after spooks.”

“I was talking about the grass, it was all yellow.” Boo

“That’s what dead grass looks like.”

“Figure it out, Flipper.” Boo. You parked. “Take me to Ellery Tower, Love.” She looked through you to the black glass spaceship floating in the sky. It was the highest point on the Green Blue Line. The mass of the structure was shrouded under powder blue curtain secured tightly on all sides, you’d never seen what it looked like underneath. It was there before your birth, the only break in the cloth at the height of its domed observation deck, a crown of black glass. You could see well into the outlands of the flats. A massive set of hand crafted copper bells glinted in the sunlight shining down through an excised hole in the roof casting fiery rays against the tinted walls. She wasn’t your sister anymore something was off. You eyed this alien warily.

“What’s in the watch tower, Bear?” She never called you flipper, the hairs on your neck stood on ends, behind black glasses you looked her up and down, a switch was flipped, humidity rising in the car, her light hair filled with static.

“I can see better from there, Barty,” A light went out, things were back to normal. There was a falling in your chest you had never felt before, she moved on unblinking, unaware or unconcerned of the bust in your hand. “Please?”

“Roger wilco, we’ll go, it’s close enough to Black’s anyway,” you threw the car in drive. She cranked the volume, your composure fully returned, it wasn’t the strangest thing to happen in the last forty‐eight. “You know the drill, dear.” She sparked a cigarette and put it between your lips, you rolled the windows down. You pulled onto OL University Drive. Fountains arched over the bridge crossing Dee Lake; you made your way towards the blue obelisk left of the rotunda. You dropped off Boo, no more stops, your passenger seat empty, tourist flocked around her for photo opportunities, smiling, rock on fingers thrown up. A red sports car parked you in. You lit another cigarette. Red Pippi Long Stocking pig tails, blowing in the wind, the Sonnison sisters, Maddy and Margret, you sighed, rolled down your window as they signaled arms flapping at you.“Barty!” in unison.

“Morning girls,” you blew smoke out of your nose. They were both in your rhetorical methods course, terribly cute girls, the kind that made you want to chew off and swallow your tongue sometimes with their bulging eyes so alert that you swore they shot amphetamines into their necks and voices so high pitched and full of niceness that you couldn’t help but laugh that the thought might be true.

“Are you going to class today?” Margret watched your sister a bit too intently. You took in another drag.

“Do I ever?” You forked over a bit of a smile, tapped your hands on the side of your door, this could be a while.

“I don’t think we’re going to go today either.” Maddy. “You look really great today.” A wink that took you a second to register.

“Rebels, aren’t we? Taking the long way home?” Margret twirled her hair between her fingers, you’d seen this look before on girls, teeth gripping the corner of the lip, she was flirting with you. You didn’t really see the pair outside of the occasional classroom visit; Ren circled them as non‐combatants in the war on the upper class, maybe slipping into bystanders on this occasion. Maddy laughed.

“You know, just hanging,” Margret let her breast rest on the rolled down window, hands under chin. Her sister drooped her arm over her shoulder and leaned close, two strawberries, “You wanna hang?”

You blushed at the idea, leaned back into your car. “Sorry Mads, Maggie, I’ve got plans.” The image of the two of them dancing under mood lighting, low‐fi french ambient sound and your cigarette smoke leaving ribbons in the dark. You pulled forward, a buzz on your phone, rapid post message.

“Call us some time.” Margret blew you a kiss. You touched on the gas, slipping between the curb and the cherry red racer out onto the driveway, rearview shot of them parallel parking. Checking your cell phone, you slid a finger across the screen to see kissy faces and the address of your new admirers closed out with xx.

***

In the parking lot of Black Pools you parked alongside the buttercup yellow chopper that was part of Ren’s collection. Every girl needs a hobby and she had a garage full and a wall of polished helmets at home. Black Pools sat in a pit dug into the earth; you could park on top of it if you wanted. A winding slope lead down to the smoky black wood and steel carved cathedral doors reclaimed from a monastic cult back in the old world. They were ornate enough for you to assume knock off at first glance, but heavy as all hell when you pushed through to the other side. Saline cold purified water made your breath steam coming out through your nose. It was abandoned as usual save the splashes of a few life guards employed by the owner to keep up appearances, they stuck to the hot tub behind the walled grotto that was strictly kids swim and doubled as nursing pool for water births. You dropped your things off in the locker room and stripped. Your one piece half on when Ren floated in, dreamy smile on her face, her low eyes lower than usual.

“I’m on drugs.” She sat down and melted into a puddle lying down on her back across one of the marble slab benches.

“I thought you said they make you go all rage?” You pulled up the top to your suit and pet your fallen friend trying to bring her back to life. “The Sonissons want to f**k my brains out.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” a loop in her voice, “Everyone wants a piece of the pie,” she chuckled. She scooched her head into your lap, “I had to take a half bottle of Rizodun to come down from that pill. Herbie was on some intense s**t, good thing I shot him in the head.” Her fingers dug into your thigh then released. “I tore out three nails.” Bloody prints on your leg, “I might have killed Spunky, I gave him a quarter of a quarter of what was inside one of the red capsules. He flew around for like five minutes then smashed into a fence.”

“Sugar gliders don’t need speed,” you thonked her.

“He was old anyway, I thought he needed some pep, you know, what doesn’t kill you.” Glassy eyes checking your face, she sat up. “Its strong enough to break the waves on 10 pills. It’s been 4 hours, this s**t hits like a semi.” She collapsed again, “I’m gonna miss that rat. Going to sleep now, if you come back and I’m dead, I hope f*****g Sonny and Cher is up to par.” You eased yourself from under the sleeping beauty, heavy snores escaping her mouth, eyes still half open.

You hit the water at full dive. You were part polar bear. The water was ice cold, the rush was gone after so many repetitions of the routine. 64 laps cleared your head, 64 got you heavy and the 128 final were because you were a glutton. Your head bobbed over and under the water line. You didn’t like to break the surface unless necessary, stealth swimming and free diving were your specialty, you didn’t float very well but could creep up on anyone in the water with ease. A jolt ran through you, your muscles seizing through your body, you fought to surface. No goggles, your body spasming, you reached to the top of the water, head bursting through the surface. Black out coming on quickly, and in the haze of your dying rhythms you caught the form and shape of things. Three outlines, on the edge of the pool tipping blocks splashing into the water. Stereo sound, but there weren’t any speakers in the room.

“Serves you right you f*****g c**t.”

***

There was no sunlight and you couldn’t feel anything. Left, or what you perceived as left, was a void. A drain sucking down by the sound of it. There was a periodic hiccup of something metallic. The incessant clinking noise reverberating, skewing, and radiating as you attempted to define the depth and shape of your hollow. Are you sunny side up? Eggs and bacon in the frying pan, crackling sort of, the ding of dinner bell louder in the approach. Blackness. The sound was softer in the recessions. Further away you could hear a ping calling, seizing the edges and scraping against the bowl. You were sentience, your state semi‐truck conscious. In the inkblot, perception was infinite. Was it you? Your will unmoved sealing you in concrete? Scraped from the gnashing metal on metal, your body again weighty in concaved shape bringing you up to light. There was a speeding pressure heavy on top of you, piercing through you and out the other side. The unknown source of your upheaval tossed you high. You screamed for sound to escape your breasts. You were seeping air rather than inhale, exhaling to compression, flattened postage thin. An eye, a massive black well, sclera from iris and cornea and pupil. The thick white meat bolted over with the blue translucence, the hard piping pulsing lifeblood into the shape. Shining wet drops, tears, you watched them rolling over lower lip of eyelid falling down. The eyelash hairs rooted into skin stood as forests, pale cells bunched around each base. You snaked through the flood around the trunks, scaling to the tip of long curled shafts. The thick canopy bubble flecked with the liquid beads of saline. You drifted weightless, the clear satellites floating in orbit between tips and you. You saw hyper white fur laid slick to brow above the eye, cinema bars sat black blocking the top and bottom views and you could see him through her eyes, smiling back at you.