Glass Boys by Nicole Lundrigan Page A

fire on the beach, when Baby Mackie’s son, Clipper, had peeled a rotting mound off the rocks, tossed it in for a joke. Thought forming, forming, alarm triggering in her chest. A minute or two to comprehend, remember where she was. Who she was. Glanced about, and sure enough, near her bare feet, her father’s kit bag was unzipped, fabric flaccid. His seal fur coat gone.
    Like an insect, two legs amputated, she scuttled across the floor towards the stove, tried to reach into the flames. Vincent knocked her away, and back she came, crying, “Nooo, nooo. Mister.” He slammed the iron door closed, rammed the handle of the door downwards, locking it, and growled, “Stop, beetch. Bring garbage to ma home. Make ma floor stink.”
    â€œNooo, nooo.” Down on front paws, begging, a submissive wolf.
    â€œIs gone, now. Is gone.” He clamped a firm hand around her skinny upper arm, bone bending as she was lifted to her feet, front door opened, and flick of a feather, she was on the street with no coat, no shoes. Sensation of a snowball between her legs.
    Plunked down on a sidewalk, heavy slope, row of pretty painted houses, and no idea how she had gone from wherever she had been to where she was now. Empty kit bag in her arms, she stood, raised one foot, then the other, soldier legs taking the easiest path. Down, down the hill. Past men and women, arms locked, singing and laughing, dapper hats and fine coats. Clicked their tongues, said “Hey, Miss. You’ll catch your death.” But she rolled onwards. Weaving, stepping onto the road, smacking into rough brick, hands out to steady herself as the sidewalk lifted and buckled, knees marching high on this strip of rippling cement.
    From up above, she could see herself staggering, then lurching. Mumbling. Nowhere for her to go, every way she turned led to nothingness. She was on a street of stores, doors locked, lights out, and beyond that were the rough rims of the earth. Over the edges, watery blackness moving up and down. She would go there, throw herself in. No one would notice a slip of a girl floating amongst the rusting boats. Just one step. Not much at all. You can do that, Wilda-beast.
    Yeah. I’m coming.
    She turned herself around, and was taking a second step closer to the harbor when an icy gale shot up the tunnel made by the buildings, lifted her hair. Frost invaded every pore, and she began to shake, a little at first, then violently. Teeth clanking, hands waving, she was blown sideways first, several steps backwards, then up and into a dark alcove. The entrance of a small store. Her head struck against the colored window of the door.
    One sharp knock. Bone against glass. A sound even the deaf would hear.
    Hands on her now, warm, gentle hands, guiding her through a door towards comfort. She knelt on the floor, and opened her eyes, looked up into the face of God. Silver tufts of hair by his ears, baggy skin around his veiled eyes, half-moon glasses dangling on a tarnished chain looped around his neck. “Hello, Lord,” she slurred when she first looked into the face of Francis. “Hello.”
    â€œTHOSE ARE THINGS I did, Lewis. Things I did. I don’t blame anyone but myself.” She stared at the flames, thought about that open oven door, her father’s coat burning. “And then, after all that, I struck my head against his door. Struck my head against the door of the Curious Urchin.” She sighed. Francis had told her that in all his years, he’d never seen a woman in such a state. Like she’d been swallowed by a whale and spit back out. She closed her eyes, could see her younger self staring back at her, summertime clothes in November, thin skin blue, scrapes on her feet and legs, patches of broken blood vessels near her neck, shoulders. Filthy fox bites, her mother would have called them, and the mere thought of those words made her want to vomit. “I was nothing more than a streal. Francis