Featured Writer: Benjamin Reed

Where I Live

Shift Change

I wake up before the alarm goes off, again. My own body refuses to let me rest. During the night the cold crept in through the cracked and dirty window panes and slid under my sheets. I get up to shower. Once again, there is no hot water. The first icy blast is rust-colored and makes me gasp as it hits the pale and yellowed skin of my hollow chest, making my thin flesh revolt into goosebumps. After the shower I dry off, shivering, with an old towel that smells of mold. I pull on my uniform. The rough pants, shirt, and jacket issued by the factory where I work. They’re all shades of dark but fading blue, beginning to wear at the knees, seat and elbows. Thick, coarse, and heavily starched, they feel like a wooden and cracked cocoon, holding no warmth, barely attached to my body.

I leave my room, lock the door, and trickle down the stairs. The wind outside is freezing, clutching me as I grunt against the weight of the double doors. My building is dark and stained with soot, six stories high. The only paint left on its cracked stone face is peeling off, barely hanging on, like scabs. The sky is an overcast gray, charcoal strata swirling in slow motion over my head.

The City is in ruins. During the day, the inhabitants, human and animal, are hard to see. They crouch in the shadows of burnt-out houses, drinking green water that drops from the ceilings of collapsed textile factories, gathering in murky puddles of emerald and obsidian where they lead their children in a vain attempt to quench a permanent thirst. They slumber in the rusted-out foundations of sky scrapers, now just heaps of rubble around them.

On this morning, the sidewalks and gutters are littered with charred corpses. Most are men, some are women, a few are children. Many are just skeletons, sexless, ageless, black and crisp, stuck to the ground. They must have had a blast last night.

I don’t know anyone who goes out after dark anymore. The night is filled with gunfire and the echoes of desperate footsteps, metallic shrieks and inhuman screams. No one wants to end up like the cooked pieces of human meat I weave around and carefully step over. They stink like barbeque and gasoline. I don’t look into their blackened faces. I used to, and never will again. After awhile, I start to think I might recognize someone I know. Or knew, anyway.

In The City, it’s best, and easiest, not to think about what you see. I walk to work with my eyes on the ground, past incomprehensible graffiti and sleeping bums that might be dead, and dead bums that might only be sleeping. The trees are dead and leafless in this perpetual winter. I can’t remember life being different. Now, only my dreams hint at a warm past, of smells other than decay. I am distrustful of these dreams, though they are growing dimmer. It will be easier when they cease.

Fallen power lines are draped over the shattered streets and rubble of crushed buildings, some still attached to cracked and splintered telephone poles, snapped at the middle and aimed at the ground. A few of the wires are still live, dancing across the pavement like broken earthworms, crackling in blue sparks and little plumes of smoke. God knows where the electricity comes from anymore.

At intersections and down alleys I catch quick glimpses of other men and women walking in the same direction, wearing the same coarse clothing, headed for the same destination. We all look the alike: haggard, a little unshaven, eyes dry and deep-set, on a far-distant view, oscillating between comatose meditation and catatonic disbelief of what lies before us. Some of us are smoking, taking quick pulls off white cigarettes that leave a trail of smoke the same color as the sky. Others just walk and inhale the chemical smells that now remind us of home. Some have brown paper bags curled in one fist, swinging like a hungry dog’s balls. I have never seen two workers walk together.

I wonder who makes their lunches. Wives? Girlfriends? Mothers? I don’t have any of those. I eat the gray and green swill they dish out in the cafeteria. I don’t know what it is, but they take a three dollar deduction out of everyone’s paycheck, whether one eats it or not.

I turn a corner and come upon a small park that marks the halfway point to work. Little more than a fence around an acre of dirt, patched and spotted with brown grass. A rusted jungle gym squats and sags in the center, trees dotted around. A massive oak, the trunk gnarled and carved with pen knife profanities, dominates one corner. Today, from the lowest branch, hang four bodies. A man, a woman, a teenage girl, a young boy. A family portrait. Their clothes are ripped and bloodied. The women are ravished, their clothes reduced to ribbons, almost naked, stained with purple bruises and red, angry-fingered handprints. I remember the screams I heard last night and I shudder. I shudder again as I realize that the  nauseas twisting in my bowels is the first time in months that I’ve actually felt anything, besides hunger or fear. The man’s eyes have been gouged out, now just blotches of purple and black. The little boy’s tongue is sticking out. What the hell were they doing outside after dark? They must have been from out of town. Someone should cut them down, I think. But then what? Once the sun sets, they’d be food for a pack of wild dogs. Or worse. Bury them? In the frozen ground of the park? That would take hours. I hear the factory whistle blow once. The graveyard shift is being let off. In five minutes the whistle will blow twice, and the day shift, my shift, will begin. I hurry to work, leaving the family still hanging, twisting gently in the wind.



Sweet Dreams

You came into my dreams last night, again. We laid in my bed and talked. You nestled up against me and I held you close. You felt bigger than I remembered, a little heavier, more fertile, slightly softer and more pale, your breasts fuller in my gnarled and rough hands. I thought you were more beautiful than ever. Your hair smelled the same, like baby powder and cigarette smoke. Your pink nipples brushed across my chest. Your lips were soft against mine. I could not stop smiling. We talked and I laughed. I ran my fingertips through your hair and along your hips, grabbed your thigh and pulled you closer to my body.

I woke up with a start, sweating, seething, bolting upright and gnashing my teeth as my fists clutched livid stars of sheets. A cold perspiration beaded across my shoulders. I felt invaded. Confused and compromised. It’s been over three years since you left. Three long years of living in this city, alone, counting the days with my eyes on the ground. Three agonizing years of going to bed and waking up with you in my mind. It was only months ago that I finally realized, after years of  fighting and clawing and ripping and white-knuckled clenching, that I could actually go days, sometimes even weeks, without thinking about you. And now, here you are, breaking into my dreams and torturing me with your memory.

A sweating, cowering, recovering addict, slipped a heavy dose in my sleep. I’m back to counting days.



The Swinging Life

So I moved to The City and got a job in a hinge-making factory. There must be ten thousand of us working there at any one time. When the shift changes we march in like soldiers, or lemmings, through the enormous entryway to the plant. Over our heads there’s this huge, white sign with enormous painted letters ten feet high. It says —and I’m not kidding— HINGES MAKE LIFE SWING EASY.

Presently, I’m an assembler. That means I stand against a long conveyer belt, putting two halves of hinges together and sliding the greased pin through. The man on my left arranges them for me; the women on my right puts them in a box. At lunch we all sit in this hangar-sized room, at long rows of green fiberglass picnic tables, just like the ones in grammar school that made my arms itch if I leaned against them too long. We’re all supposed to have nametags, too, but they always seem to be on back order, so everyone has a patch that reads ‘NEWCOMER’ safety-pinned to their jacket or shirt, even people who’ve worked there for decades. Sitting there, at lunch, eating this horrible gruel they serve every day, it looks like we’re all on the assembly floor of the Newcomer factory. A chewing, belching, swallowing assembly line where strangers are constructed to drift into barren towns on windy afternoons, drawing glares and hushed whispers from wary locals, wandering from corner to corner in dust-caked boots, inspecting hinges and looking for gruel.

They won’t let the workers smoke on the assembly line anymore. The woman who puts the hinges in boxes asked why. The supervisor said that the smoke fouls up the grease. She said, Don’t people smoke in the places where the hinges go? The supervisor said that’s not our problem.



The Iron

At night I try to ignore the screams. I sleep with my head between two pillows. Or I lift weights. I have a metal rack, a bench, a long bar, a short bar, and a large pile of iron plates. In The City, the best way to survive is to mold yourself after the things that survive. The stones, the rocks, the twisted scraps of metal heaped in empty lots. These are the things that withstand the cold, the fire, the acid rain. The men, the women, the trees, the dogs, are all poor casts. They cut and bleed and scream, and die painful deaths. So I lift weights, pushing the bar toward the peeling plaster of my ceiling until my muscles howl for rest, until my body becomes sinew, tough and indigestible. You mutilate yourself so you won’t be tortured by others.



Whores

The sun begins to set and I curse. I am completely lost. I look around, but the broken-down buildings and turned-over, burnt-out automobiles all look the same. Street signs, where they still exist, are meaningless. Every block smells like exhaust. I look around, trying to find some artifact, some landmark that might tell me where I am. But the only thing worse than being lost in The City, is looking lost in The City. The shadows moan and turn against the soot-stained bricks. It’s getting darker. I hurry on.

How could I have let this happen? Where was my mind as left the factory? I was thinking about Her again. The dream. I curse without saying her name. I think about retracing my steps, hurrying back and signing up for the graveyard shift, just to be inside when night falls. But it’s too far a walk, even if I could find it. I hasten my pace as I weave around piles of broken bricks and rubble and craters in the middle of the street. My heart quickens, and I realize that, in an hour, the pulse that courses through my neck and wrists, might cease. Turned inside out, for all to see. Or maybe never be seen again. I begin to sweat under my clothes. At this point, anything’s possible.

Hey buddy, a fork-tongued voice leaps out at my ear and I almost jump. I freeze, turn, and peer into the dark void of an alley. In a moment, my eyes make out a squat little man dressed in rags with stains on his pants, hands in pockets, slouching against an iron door under a dim red light, hat pulled down to his eyes. Hey Buddy, he says again, You lookin’ for me?

I stop. Do I know you?

He takes three steps toward me. Maybe you should. You lookin’ for girls?

It’s gotten darker. I look up at the sky. Nightfall is moments away. Yeah, I say, wincing at trepidation in my voice. I guess I’ve found the right place.

Hey, cool, man, he says, turning to open the heavy door. I hesitate, unsure, suspended between a black doorway and a setting sun. I hear a scream in the distance. I take a cautious step inside, tensing myself for an ambush. The filthy little man shuts the door behind me and fear staggers down my spine in frosty clenchings. Suddenly I wonder if I should have taken my chances on the street. When my eyes adjust, I see that I’m in a long corridor. The soles of my shoes echo down the hallway as I make cautious little steps into the darkness, down six unseen steps. I pause to let my eyes adjust and I realize I’ve suddenly stepped into a dark parlor.

Red lamps light the room just enough to make out a dozen girls, laying over couches and chairs, smoking cigarettes. From the shadows an elderly woman drifts toward me, her feet hidden under a long purple dress. Lace falls from her cuffs, her head mounted atop a high, taut collar, silver hair stretched back and tense.

New here, aren’t you, she says, not asks, hands folded across her stomach. I nod. Here for a girl? I take out my cash. She pulls two bills from the fold. This will be enough. Then she eyes me up and down. Actually, better give me this, too, she says, sliding out another bill. Just in case you want to stay the whole night. Of course, smart guy like you won’t be going out at night, will you? I shake my head. Well, you’re welcome here till the sun comes up. You’ve paid your rent. Now, which will it be? My eyes follow her sweeping arm, dingy lace hanging from her wrist like moss. I look over the girls. None of them meet my eyes.

This one’s only fifteen, the purple dress says, resting her hand on the dark hair of a topless woman as old as my mother. And this one will do anything you want, the woman says as she walks toward a curly-haired girl chewing gum and idly flipping through an old magazine. Help me if it ain’t true, Mister, she says, smacking her gum. No? the woman asks, her neck craned, watching my face. May I inquire as to your tastes? Perhaps you like darker girls? Maybe two at the same time? I catch a glimpse of a girl reading a book under one of the red lamps, almost hidden in the far corner. She looks up, slightly startled, and her eyes meet mine. Her? The woman asks with more than a trace of distaste. You realize, of course, that you’ve paid for any of them. The girl’s eyes retreat to her book, her dress pulled up high over one leg. Even from across the room, I can see a confusion of old scars snarling across her thigh. Yes, I say. She’s the one.

He speaks, the woman mutters to herself, then sighs. All right, she sighs again. Lilly, you’re needed, she snaps. The girl sets her book on an end table, slowly stands, and stretches. Tangled, mouse-brown hair falls over her shoulders, down the back of a worn, tea-stained dress. Follow me, she says in a breath of stale perfume. She leads me out of the room, around a corner, and down a long hallway of doors. At the end of the hall, she opens a door. This is my room she says. I follow her inside.

A shawl has been thrown across the only lamp, but through the darkness I can make out four walls, a low ceiling, a bed against the far wall, a night stand. I step in, floorboards sagging under my weight. To my left is a chair in front of a boarded-up window. Through a doorway to my right is a stained, crack-tiled bathroom with a sink, a toilet, and a tub.

A bath is included with the fare, she says as I eye the rust-stained porcelain. A roach scuttles under the sink. She steps toward the bed. Then, catching a glimpse of something on the ground, says Oh, cool, with a girlish delight, bending over to pick it up. I make out the shape of her ass shifting under her dress as she stands up, a dollar bill in her hand. She looks at the money for a moment, smiling. Probably dropped by the last guy who stumbled in here. She walks over to the nightstand and puts the bill in an old candy box.

I throw my jacket over the chair and she sits down on the bed, the broken mattress almost absorbing her body. She grabs my belt and pulls me toward her until I’m standing between her legs. She unbuttons my shirt. Nice uniform, Newcomer. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you work at the hinge factory, downtown. I look down at her and see she has scars on her face too, and on her shoulders under the strings of her dress, down the loose skin on her arms, scars everywhere. One starts above her right eye, curling down, across both lips, disappearing under her chin. Her eyes catch mine and she looks down, to my belt.

Is there another one? I ask.

Yeah. There’s a cog plant way out on the other side of town. We get some of those guys in here, from time to time. She unclasps my belt and says, So, what’s it gonna be?

I . . . don’t know, I stammer. I just needed to get indoors before the sun set . . . this place has a heavy door.

Oh no you don’t, she says. Don’t tell me you ‘just want to talk’. Last time a guy said that, I got this-- She pulls down her dress, revealing a criss-cross of pink penknife scars on her breasts. Before I can say anything more, she pulls on my belt and I feel the leather slide from around my waist. My pants fall to my ankles. She pulls her dress over her head, showing me patches of hair under her arms. I’m tired of being on my back, she says. Take me from behind. Unless you have a better idea.

A moment later, we’re strangling cries from the rusty springs of the mattress, making the tarnished brass of the bed frame hiss and grate across the swollen floorboards. I sink into her, clutching her butcherblock back in white-knuckled fingers, driving, burying her face into urine-stained pillows, her breasts dangling, flaccid and lifeless, spinning like hung meat with each plunge. My knees are swallowed by the mattress, sliding against a film on the sheets. I make the bed shriek until I can hear her breathe, until angry fists pound the other side of the wall, until little pieces of plaster and paint fall from the ceiling and stick to the sweat on our backs. I push until the gleaming muscles on her scarred back tense and shift, until the roaches scurry for the cracks in the floor, until the bed posts dig white scars in the rippled, black floorboards, until the rats shriek and run over themselves in mad furries between the dingy walls. She clutches the headboard as it slaps the wall, digging in with chewed-down fingernails. I don’t try to hurt her. That would be impossible. When I finally come, it’s in a hot flush that makes me fall from her body, my cheeks hot, my lungs searching madly for breath.

She staggers to the edge of the bed, one foot on the ground, the other knee still on the filthy mattress, clutching a sheet between her legs. She almost falls, and reaches for the headboard, knocking the black shawl from the lamp, bathing her face in the white glow. God, I think, she’s hideous. How many times has she been beaten?

I lay on the bed, panting, trying to absorb each scar, like one wound that snakes and curls to touch every part of her body. Her eyes catch mine and she struggles to cover the lamp again. But the shawl doesn’t quite cover the shade, washing the walls with a thin beam of dim light. Thumb-tacked to the walls are military recruitment posters. Harsh, sharp-cornered paintings of legions of men in gray, marching into the sun. Others show huge, menacing, red-faced men in blue, skewering babies on bayonets. The words have faded, the message impossible to divine.

What are these pictures? I ask her. Oh, just military stuff, she says. They cover the holes in the walls.

Military? I ask, wiping myself off with the sheet. Yeah, she says, there was a war, you know.

War? What war?

She gives me a strange look. You’re not from here, are you?

No, I confess. I grew up by the sea.

Figures, she says and lights a cigarette, smirking, the orange glow from her lighter making the scars on her face stand out in ridges and seams, Mr. I-only-wanted-to-get-out-of-the-darkness. She exhales a long plume of smoke, watching it twist and turn in the still air. The City wasn’t always like this, she says. The City used to be a good place, where you could live, have a family . . . her voice trails away for a moment as she fingers a scar on her wrist. Anyway, one day a fog rolled through town. Some weird kind of gas. This must have been . . . forty, fifty years ago? After the gas rolled through, nobody could talk anymore. It was the strangest thing.

Everybody lost their voice?

Not exactly . . . . . She sits down on the far corner of the bed, out of reach, and rolls her eyes back in remembrance. It was more like everybody forgot how to make words. It was weird. Like people just forgot how to push air over their tongues to make sound. I have a picture here, somewhere . . . she reaches in the candy box and hands me a weathered black and white photograph. The picture is of a city street, unrecognizable as it’s not in ruins. There are men all over the street, huddled around each other in groups, standing in  knee-high fog, wearing overcoats and fedoras, all crazily scribbling little notes to each other with scraps of paper and little, chewed-down pencil stubs. I hand her the picture back. Then those guys showed up, she says, nodding at one of the posters. It’s of a huge man in a blue uniform with brass buttons across his barrel chest, choking a woman by the neck in huge, angry fists. Her children are watching. The only legible word on the poster is ENEMY. Who were they? I ask, but she only shrugs. Nobody knows anymore. I’m not sure anyone knew then, either. They just showed up and started killing and didn’t stop. Night and day, for years. When no one was left, they disappeared.

What about the men in grey? I ask. Didn’t The City have an army?

Oh, The City had an army, all right. A whole lotta good they could do without being able to talk to each other. She takes another drag off the cigarette and stubs it out in an iron ashtray. Everyone who’s here now is a descendant of someone who moved here later, or fell through the cracks . . . or whored themselves to the enemy.

She lays down next to me in the bed. Cigarette? She offers. No, thank you, I say. Do you want to cut me? she asks. I stand up and walk to the bathroom, but don’t go in. I lean on the rotting wood of the door frame. I don’t know why, but I can’t look at her. You want your bath now? she calls behind me. The water’s hot, but it won’t get you clean.



Email: Benjamin Reed

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