hot knife / zori

I spent a half hour staring out the window of my hotel room. Red neon flickered vacancy every now and again, bathing the whole of my little suite in light. A spring mattress screamed out when I’d thrown myself on top of the covers and the mothball smelling pillows. Wallpaper peeled off walls with a yellowed pattern, and the bathroom ran clear water from the tap after a few minutes. I couldn’t be sure the last time the carpets had been cleaned and hoped the stain to the left of the bed was just a coffee spill that’d set long ago.

My papers had been stamped for a work trip between districts. I’d set up a meeting with Pierre Hope to discuss ‘trade’, and he’d finally accepted my request to meet. It’d taken a few years to get the opportunity, and I wasn’t sure what to think about him. He’d lost so many, Hope a name that seemed to surface every few years. He’d led his district for years now, too. He had to be a reasonable man, like me. Putting in his years protecting his family, and his people, from the worst of the capitol’s abuses. Having to stand back and watch them take his family and nod along, a part of the machine.

And maybe like me, he was tired of it, too.

I’d thought about taking a beer from the little humming fridge in the corner and having a little drink to send myself off to sleep. The list of prices on the door had me think better of it. Night was settling in then, and I looked out at the street.

Eight reminded me of the block cities that Yani liked to arrange. Buildings wedged up against one another, with spaghetti roads and a great expanse of people hurrying along. Here and again they had their trees sprouting out of concrete, but even the sky seemed a paler blue that changed to gray the afternoon I’d arrived. Where Eleven had neat rows of fields, and a humidity that stuck with you, Eight felt as though folks had fought over a map to put buildings, each taller than the last, on top of each other.

There was a curious charm to how strange all of it was.

For the first time in a while, whether the change of scenery or the nervous energy knowing I’d be coming face to face with Pierre the following afternoon, I couldn’t sit still.

I made the decision to toss on my leather jacket and gather my things before I could give it a second thought.

It’d been four years since I’d gotten on a train to eight, and even then, we’d only stayed a few days to sell trinkets in the stalls of the market. None of the streets held names for me to recall, no one stopped to give a nod and ask about the family as they pushed past. Every step was new, every corner a crossroad holding paths I’d likely never walk down again. I made sure to memorize where I was going, distracted as I was by the shops (I’d have to ask Katelyn if she’d heard of jorts in the capitol).

The music drew me in. A couple of younger folks had opened the heavy wooden door and I could hear the sound of electric guitar and feedback echo out onto the street. Most of the folks were pressed closer to the little stage, with a few seated at the bar. I took a seat on one of the stools at the end and waved a hand to the bartender.

Eleven had the odd watering hole, but the few I’d seen were home to older folk there after a long day, or worse. Here the faces still shone under the light. As though there wasn’t a tomorrow to be thought about, just this moment, this dance, this song. I took a pale glass of beer and set about paying.

Emma bought me the little money pack for the trip. It clipped around my waist to make sure that whatever was inside would be safe at my hip. Money and my papers would be harder to steal, with a zipper for opening and my eyes on it. She’d gone with a soft denim with a white strap, and I’d tucked my wallet, along with a photo of all of us inside.

I smiled at the sight of their faces – my wife and children – before handing over a set of bills.

When the song changed and a pale, thin little man with his bulkier, dopier looking friend took the stage, it wasn’t long before a heckler started. Not that I disagreed with her, at first glance they seemed the sort of men that thought their personalities could outweigh whatever talent they might not have possessed.

‘Hey! You suck!’

She leaned back into her seat and I couldn’t help but stare. Maybe it was how the men on stage seemed to sweat a bit more just by the sight of her, or the certainty that she’d be yelling at them again. She had all the markings of someone that could have been a hurricane, just waiting to strike back when the time was right.

“Boo!” I joined her with a smile. What better was I to know how things were done around here? It felt good to give an honest opinion to the world about how lousy their guitar strokes were. I took a gulp of my beer and turned to my accomplice.

“You know, he has, uh, clumsy hands,” I cast a sidelong glance at the taller one. “That’s not how you treat a guitar. He’d be better suited on drums, banging out how he feels.”

I leaned against the bar and offered a hand. “Vasco. Can I, uh, not enjoy this show with you tonight?”

Vasco Izar

The boys on stage struggled through another harmony while the woman next to me pointed out if they’d had any direction, they might’ve stood some sort of chance. A half-glance at the man in the beanie left me with the impression that he’d the passion part locked away. His sweaty face pressed closer to the microphone, and I watched his fingers pluck the guitar, struggling over a chord. Dedication had never lived here with him, at least, not for a long time. Bless his heart. Maybe someday he’d understand that all the passion in the world couldn’t replace hard work. Especially if he wanted to make something beautiful.

‘Only if you buy me another one of these,’ She curled her fingers around the necks of the beer bottles. Oh – well, I suppose it would’ve been unkind not to buy a lady a drink. She seemed more than capable of getting someone to offer her one, anyway. Maybe that was how it was in district eight? ‘I’m gonna need it to get through this. You’ll probably need another one too.’

“You’re telling me.” There was something to the swell of music and the crush of people that let me buzzing. Looking out at their faces, at the dark and cozy corners of the bar, I’d never imagined what it would feel like to be so unknown. All my life had been in eleven, in fields sowed by my parents and their parents. I could walk to the market with my eyes closed, backwards without missing a step. Sitting there, somewhere new, and different, felt as though I could be anyone. Someone different than the man who’d spent the last three months wandering through darkness.

She waved down the bartender to get another round of drinks. I watched the way she hung over the bar, certain of what she meant to say. The light flattered the way she’d set herself apart. A little bit of shadow to embrace, and hide in, until she felt ready to reveal herself.

‘I’m Birdie. Nice to meet you, I guess. You, uh, don’t really look like you come to these types of places often.’ I let out a little chuckle. I guess I’d never felt I needed to put a lot of thought into how I looked. Sofía had teased me all my shirts were from a decade ago or second hand. Emmanuel once pointed out that maybe a shirt from my high school days might be a little too frayed and worn to be considered "gently used". Maybe boots and faded jeans didn’t quite fit with the younger crowd, but then, who was I trying to impress? 

‘What, you and your mom get into a fight or something?’ She pointed to the fanny pack. Right. Perhaps we’d been a little overanxious as to how dangerous eight was. I pulled at the zipper and started to take out some cash when the bartender returned with the beer.

“Yeah, she wanted me to take her purse, but I wanted something that would let you all know I definitely wasn’t from here.” I counted out a few bills and placed them across the bar, before sliding another handful in a tip for the young woman. She paused, sliding back the picture of Raquel that must’ve gotten caught up underneath. I put a hand over her photo and leaned closer to the bar. “Gracias. Y dos – two tequilas, eh?”

“I’m… on vacation,” I said. In a manner of speaking, it was true. “From eleven. Here for a few days, to see someone I’ve been meaning to see for a long time.”

The bartender poured out the shots, complete with salt and a wedge of lime. I lifted the little glass and raised it in a toast. I couldn't help but smile again. 

“Care to join me? Eh? To a memorable evening.”

Vasco Izar

‘I already want to forget it.’

Birdie was the sort of woman who laid out her feelings, raw as they were, and didn’t wait – or need – your approval before moving on. She was magnetic, the way she stared down the men on stage, or commanded the bartender. I wondered if she knew how she’d drawn me in, or if that was just a part of her charm. A life that collected strangers could be lonely, and hard, if they only ever stayed with us an evening.

I don’t think anyone wanted to give away pieces of their soul to folks only to find the other person had put them in their pocket and gone. Or worse, discarded them.

Comfort came from the warmth of the bar. Yellow lights cast shadows along the back of a brick wall decorated in faded black and white photos of years long ago. The song finished and folks lingered, intent on staking a claim on one another, or just a good time.

I smiled at Birdie in agreement, licked the salt from the curl of my thumb, hoisted the shot to my lips, and swallowed down whatever tequila the bartender had given us. The heat splashed back against my throat and I closed my eyes. I concentrated on the warmth flowing down through my chest to stomach. I chewed at the lime to stop the acrid aftertaste.

‘Another one?’ Birdie leaned closer.

Heavy eyes. It wasn’t the make-up that tipped me off, or the way the shadows played on her face. Maybe it was the years of having teenage daughters (though to be honest, my son Emmanuel had always been moodier than Raquel or Sofía). For a second, I wanted to tell her – you don’t need to rush, I’m not going anywhere – but maybe that would’ve been the exact wrong thing to say Birdie Hope.

She ripped through another shot, not waiting for a second to toast.

‘Who’s that?’

I pulled the photo closer, up from the bar so I could grasp the curled glossy paper between my fingers.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” I stayed looking at Raquel’s smile. The room grew warmer and I smiled back down at her. Mi cielito, eight years on and it was hard not to find a hole where there should’ve been joy. Looking down at a memory that could stay for a while, bittersweet, but not quite as painful as it’d been last year, or the year before that. “She was my daughter. Raquel. I liked this photo best because – that whole afternoon we'd been going back and forth about something. And she’d been so mad about something small, but then it was like, nothing at all had happened. Teenagers, you know? She always had a way of burning up whatever it was that bothered her and coming right back around.”

I didn’t just see Raquel smiling there. I could spend a week there in one evening recounting all the stubbed toes, shoulder rides – the time she’d cut her own hair and cried – staring at this photo.

“She taught me a lot about who I was. Who I should’ve been,” I offered the photo and waved for another round. “You ever have any of your own, Birdie?”

Vasco Izar

‘I’m sorry.’ Birdie tensed, fingers pressed to the wood counter, tips stark white and her body like a cat before a jump.

The moment was too intimate for a bar smelling of sour beer and cheap perfume.

Maybe that’s what made it all so perfect. Two strangers closer now that just a few minutes ago. Getting to share a piece of me that could’ve been painful, we risked throwing the whole mood in the rubbish bin. But she took the photo and I smiled wide thinking how Raquel would’ve probably liked a place so noisy and crammed full of people. Something far and away from the dustbowls of eleven.

“Thank you.” For a long time I’d thought getting apologies were supposed to forgive how senseless Raquel’s death had been. Somewhere along the way, after the whole district had told me and Emma that they were sorry, all the heartache would be wiped away, and I’d be able to start anew. You cling to thoughts like that when your head aches and you feel like crying; you think that seeing another sunrise somehow can clear away all the sadness.

I had to take the time to learn grief was more ferocious than death.

(Death made widows and stole our children, swallowed our friends and wiped away history, but it was certain. Raquel died once, and there’d been a single funeral).

Grief traveled on like a shade in the night, sprung out over your shoulder and tangled across your heart. I’d been foolish enough to think that I knew who grief was after burying my cousins, niece and nephews. I’d told myself on the first day that we thought we would lose Raquel, I’m ready to let go. I believed I could surrender to grief because my heart had already fractured so many times before.

No one prepared me for what it would feel like to bury my daughter.

Standing there, arm and arm with Emma, watching them lower a casket as though there hadn’t been a whole world inside of her? I collapsed inward a thousand times that day, a million more after. All the smiles and handshakes and thank yous I spoke came out of a hollow man. Afterward, you're just flesh and blood and grief smashed together to form a man that spent days just trying to get out of bed. Get out of bed, you tell yourself, get out of bed and your chest will stop hurting, you’ll stop thinking about all the stupid little memories that make you cry. You won’t blame yourself for not holding her tighter, for not thinking that this could happen to you.

‘I— no, I mean— I did, I had—’

Birdie’s face kept on the bartender. The voices around us kept to a dull roar as the music ended.

‘She killed herself.’ She finished with a shot and left me with my eye brows raised trying to figure out what to say. She breezed through all of it, readying for a change of scenery. I swallowed down my shot and set the glass back down on the table.

I was used to bad alcohol, and bad news.

I leaned forward and took her right hand in mine, and then placed my other hand on top of hers.

What did the world tell us? That death was such a natural thing, especially death we brought to each other. That we could make our own worlds, winners and losers, that history was a legacy and that names mattered so much as we could get other people to repeat them.

I brushed my fingers along the edges of her knuckles and shook my head.

There wasn’t anything to say. Nothing that I could give Birdie that would make her feel better. No silver lining that made getting out of bed easier, or words of wisdom that were just an old man spitting hot air.

But I could be present in that moment. I could offer myself to her, whatever that could mean. A shoulder, a drinking partner, or someone that she could storm out on for being a man she hardly knew. If it made her understand I’d tried to understand her, that would be enough. It’s all I’d ever wanted, was to know that there was someone there to help me think it through, and to feel. When grief came back, I'd be stronger alongside someone else's heart than just my own.

I’d been lucky enough that that’s all I’d ever been surrounded by, a family and a district that let me find my voice again and caught me when I’d stumbled.

‘Hey!’

I turned my head over my shoulder and looked up at the same towering lunkhead that had been poorly playing the guitar on stage. He was sweatier than he’d been before, and reeked of whiskey. Behind him, almost hidden by his bulk was the squirrely looking bassist, arms folded across his chest and eyes narrowed as though he was thinking too hard about what he needed to say.

‘Who the fuck is this guy, Birdie? One of the assholes you’re bagging? Could’ve at least picked someone taller than you.’  The smaller one let out a laugh and the bigger one smirked at his own attempt to cut me down.

‘He doesn’t look like he’s from around here. What, you spend all your time outside to get that tan, feeder?’ The smaller one spat out a slur against eleven.

“You could leave us alone, Ms. Birdie and I were doing well enough before you came. Boys, maybe put in some actual practice on those instruments before you get back up on stage again. Seems like a better use of your time.”

‘Oh really pal? Listen, she ain’t not missus, and you,’ He moved in between, pushing me back on my stool, and I almost slid off to the floor. He grabbed my collar to pull me back, his other hand on my money pack. ‘What’s this, your little bag of tricks, asshole?’

I moved to grab at his wrist to free his hand from my shirt, to which he gave a shove. I kicked back the stool and lurched forward, knocking into him, and he, rearing back, swung his fist hard into my face.

I was on the ground on all fours when my vision started to unblur. Blood dripped out of my nose and I coughed, both hands covered up my face.