It’s probably the drugs, I decide. I should get some fresh air. I make my way through the club to the fire exit. People aren’t supposed to use this exit, but everyone does. Only once you’re out, you can’t get back in; it locks behind itself. No one cares, though, because the alley it opens into is the traditional place for hookups. Well, there and the toilets, but the alley is a little more sanitary.
When I get out there the cool night air stings my face. The quiet after all that club noise makes my eardrums feel like they’re ballooning in my skull. The wafting of eau de trash from the nearby dumpster only adds to my melancholy.
Nights like this, I tend to remember Mom. Not the good things, just the last things. The way she was smiling at me, but scared of something. I could see that, young as I was. Thirteen years old and trying to be brave for her like she asked me to be. We were going away on an adventure, and we were going to be happy together.
We never got our adventure, though. She got a bullet, and I got ostracized from the family.
A cough interrupts my building black mood, and I glance over to the dumpster. Behind the dumpster I see a leg sticking out. Some hobo, I think, before I realize the shoe is shining; shining enough to reflect the light from the street. The cough comes again, and the shoe jerks. Another shoe joins it, the legs sticking straight out now.
I take another drag on my cigarette and I contemplate those shoes. “Sure is a fine night,” I say loudly. “Seems a shame to waste it sitting behind a dumpster.”
I want the guy to know I knows he’s there. “You looking for a hookup?” I call, half hopeful. This is how fucking far the Prince of New York City has fallen.
The shoes go very still. “Get fucked,” says a hoarse voice.
“I intended to,” I tell him. “Guy I was hoping for left me high and dry, though. How about you, buddy? You worth my time? Or are you some down-and-out looking for a fix?” While I’m talking, I’m walking, too. I can hear my voice echoing very slightly in the still air of the alleyway as I walk towards those shiny fucking shoes sticking out from behind the dumpster.
“Whatever you’re on must be pretty fucking intense for you to be still sitting there in trash. You tripping balls?”
I round the side of the dumpster and stop short. “Fuck,” I say. “It’s you.” I give my hyena laugh, stopping abruptly when the guy’s head rolls back against the black trash bags and he glares at me.
It’s my guy from inside.
He coughs again. “Leave me alone,” he says, his voice drifting.
“You said you were coming back.” I crouch down next to him. “What happened to business?” It’s only when I get closer I notice the guy’s hands aren’t pale like the rest of his skin.
They’re red. Red and wet.
“Business happened to me,” he says wryly.
“You’re bleeding?” It comes out as a question. “Shit, man, I better call—”
“No. No cops.”
“Ambulance, my friend,” I say. “You need medical professionals.”
“No ambulance either,” the guy says, and then groans. He looks at me critically. “What the hell are you on?”
“You,” I say truthfully. The high he’s giving me have left the drugs in the dust. He’s even prettier out here under the dim New York moon. I reach out to touch his face and he grabs my wrist. With his other hand he pulls out a flick knife and holds it up to my throat. The soft click of it opening seems to reverberate through the alleyway.
The knife is pointing right under my chin, at the soft part where my head turns into my neck. I guess we all gotta go some time, I just didn’t picture it with so much trash around me when I kicked it.
Ah, well. I grin at him. “Go on, then.”
“Listen,” he barks, his voice mean and hard. “You’re gonna turn around and walk out of this alley and forget my fucking face. You hear me?”
This close up, I can see the green tinge to the guy’s skin, the yellow bruises that are just starting to come up on his cheek bone, and the split lip.
And he’s young. Not as young as me; I just hit nineteen last week, but mid-twenties, max. Young enough that I wonder how he got so hard at his age. Because he’s a shark, this dude, even lying here in the gutter and stinking trash. He’s an apex predator, and I wandered right up to him and laid myself out like a tasty treat.
I lick my lips. I’ve got a devil in me that makes me say stupid shit, makes me take chances just to see what happens. A curious devil.
“But it’s such a pretty face,” I tell him. “How’m I supposed to forget a face like that?”
The club door swings open again. A greasy thumping bass oozes out of the club, and a couple of guys draped in neon necklaces and bracelets fall into the alley, their faces stuck at the mouths like they’ve been glued together. I can hear them sucking tongues when the door swings shut again.
I haven’t moved a muscle, like I’m playing one of those childhood games where you have to freeze. But then I turn my eyes from the face-suckers back to the guy.
“They’re not gonna go away,” I whisper at last.
“You stupid fuck,” the guy sighs.
“Please don’t kill me, dude. Like, I definitely have a death wish, but I kind of want it to be on my own terms, you know?”
The guy looks me over, our faces still so close together that his breath is warm on my cheek. After a second, the knife retreats back into its sheath with a soft whoosh, although the guy keeps his grip on the back of my neck.
“They’re coming back
