Shades

undetermined—somewhere between his mid-forties and late sixties. A thick, long beard obscured much of his face. He wore a weather-beaten coat and baggy, threadbare jeans with a hole in one knee. His dirty work boots echoed with each step. One hand was in his coat pocket. The other clutched a cigarette butt tied to a piece of string. The old man held the string out in front of him as he walked. The butt spun like a miniature propeller.

As Gustav approached, the blue crabs scattered, abandoning their feast. The gulls above continued to circle and shriek.

Danny’s legs felt frozen, his mind numb.

Gustav drew closer, and the cigarette butt spun towards Danny. The concentric circles grew smaller. Then it stopped swinging altogether. Gustav looked up, saw Danny standing over the dead body and the fleeing crabs, and stopped.

I am so busted.

The old Russian blinked at him, inquisitive.

Danny offered a smile. “Hi…. Umm… Look what I found.”

The smile was not returned. Saying nothing, Gustav stuffed the string and the cigarette butt in his pocket, and scratched his bearded chin. He gave the body a cursory glance as if it were no more than litter on the freeway, but studied Danny intently. At first, he appeared confused. As the moments passed, he seemed angry, amused, annoyed, and saddened. Finally, he spoke.

“Here you are.”

Danny didn’t reply immediately because he was not sure if it was a question or a summation. He looked down at his feet. The crabs—and his dirt bike—scurried away on segmented legs. When Gustav said nothing further, Danny finally stammered, “I—I was just…”

Ignoring him, Gustav bent down over the corpse. He looked from the body to Danny, and then back again. He shook his head and muttered in Russian, then reached for Danny’s shoulder to pull himself up.

Danny took a step backward. “I—I found him.”

“Did you?” Gustav arched an eyebrow. He motioned for Danny to help him rise.

Danny didn’t move.

“Come,” Gustav grumbled. “Help an old man to his feet.”

Danny complied. Gustav slapped dirt from his knees, and looked at Danny.

“Did you, indeed?”

“Yeah, I did. I mean, what—you think I killed him?”

Gustav laughed. Overhead, the gulls screeched in chorus. Glaring at the flock, he muttered something under his breath. Immediately, the circling birds fell silent.

“Now we will not be interrupted. Do I think you killed him? Nyet.”

“Huh?”

“Nyet. No. You do not kill. Not yet.”

Danny frowned. Was the last “nyet” or “not yet”? He knew what it sounded like, but it made no sense.

“What’s wrong, boy?”

“You said, ‘Did you?’ like you didn’t believe me when I said I found him.”

Gustav nodded. “That is because you did not find him.”

“I swear! I didn’t put him here or anything. He was laying there under all the crabs, I just—”

Gustav waved his hand, silencing him.

“He was not meant to be found by anyone. The body was hidden in plain sight. You did not find him. He found you.”

“Found me?” Danny forced himself to laugh. “Come on. That’s crazy.”

“Crazy?” Gustav plucked three long hairs from the dead man’s head. “Crazy, you say. Madness. Yes. Yes, it is. But true? Oh…perhaps? Perhaps that also, no?”

Danny blinked, watching in revulsion.

Gustav chuckled as he braided the three hairs into a tiny rope.

“I…I don’t understand what you mean. And what are you doing with his hair?”

“What do you like to be called, boy?”

“Danny.”

“Okay, Danny. And I like to be called Gustav.”

“I know who you are.”

“Do you?” The Russian pinched the braid of hair in his left hand. It fluttered in the breeze. With his right hand, Gustav fished a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket. He offered one to the boy.

“You accept my offering, yes?”

Shrugging, Danny took it. Gustav slid a chrome Zippo lighter with a strange symbol on it from his pocket. He held it out for Danny’s smoke, and then lit his own. As he exhaled, he looked deep into Danny’s eyes. Danny wondered if the old man was a pervert. Maybe Jeremy had been right about him.

“Uh…thanks.” Danny took a drag.

The aroma of tobacco filled the air, momentarily blocking out the dead man’s stench. This was the first time Danny had smoked in front of an adult. Usually, it was with his friends. They’d sneak cigarettes from their parents’ cartons and smoke them on top of Hook Mountain, flicking the butts off the cliff, hoping that no one down below would recognize them and tell their parents. All of their parents subscribed to “Do as I say, not as I do.”

“You’re welcome.”

Gustav nodded at the braided rope of hair in his fingertips. It bent toward Danny. Danny considered accusing the Russian of making the hair do that, somehow manipulating it with his fingertips in imperceptible movements, but he knew better. It was like the spinning cigarette butt when Gustav approached, the silencing of the gulls and the banishment of the crabs to their rocky hidey-holes—a whole bunch of shit that shouldn’t be, but was regardless.

Crazy shit…but true?

Gustav coughed. “Yes. You begin to understand now.”

“No. I actually don’t.”

“Actually?”

“Yes, actually. I don’t understand anything you just said.”

Gustav flicked the Zippo and touched the flame to the hair. It flared bright in his hand, intense and white. It took a moment to fade, leaving purple blotches in his vision. The smell filled Danny’s nostrils, powerful even over the cigarette and the corpse.

“You do not understand? You do not know?”

Danny breathed through his mouth. “I said I don’t.”

“You know much.” Gustav grinned. “Much. You just don’t know it yet.”

The sun moved higher in the sky.

The corpse had two shadows, but Danny didn’t notice.

TWO

Michael Bedrik walked along the path through Gethsemane Cemetery, chuckling to himself.

A man—a boy, really—clad in a pretentious amount of black sat on one of the benches. He drew in a sketch pad. His model was unaware. She sat fifty feet away against one of the graves, engaged in an internal guilt-ridden conversation with her dead sister.

The artist had convinced himself that he was a tragic romantic. As he drew, he entertained a fantasy of shyly presenting his work to her and introducing himself. She, being both intrigued and flattered, would agree to a cup of coffee with him at the cafe on the corner. Following the coffee, they would have a deep, intellectually stimulating conversation, then a slow sensuous fucking amongst many pillows and red satin sheets.

Bedrik stopped in front of the kid. The boy looked up, his face like one of the concrete angels on the family