Bad Glass

My shoulders slumped, and I let out a disappointed groan. I’d spent over a hundred dollars on an external grip for my camera—one that took disposable batteries in lieu of rechargeable power—and I’d stocked up on a shitload of AAs. Not to mention a second battery for my laptop.

I turned the computer back around and stared at the mail program for nearly a minute. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, tense, itching to write. But who could I contact? Who would understand? My friends in California? My father? Not bloody likely, I thought. At this point, there probably wasn’t a soul in the world who had even noticed that I was gone.

As I was thinking, Taylor stormed into the house. She moved in a loud rush, crashing from the front door, through the hallway, into the kitchen. She saw me at Charlie’s computer and let out a deep cluck. “No time for that,” she said. “No time. I told Danny I’d be there at noon.” Charlie pulled the computer back across the table and resumed typing, faster now, trying to get something finished.

“Next time, Dean,” Taylor said. “Next batch.” She pointed toward my bags in the living room. “Now, get dressed and ready to go. You’ve got a lot to see here, and I figure we should start at the top. Which means moving … fast!”

I’d slept in my jeans and a sweatshirt, so getting dressed just meant swapping my shirt for a fresh one and unrolling a new pair of socks. Sabine had left my camera on the floor next to my bags. I slipped it into my backpack and slung the bag over my shoulder.

“You can’t take that,” Taylor said, nodding toward my pack as I came back into the kitchen. “Leave it with Charlie. He’ll keep it safe.”

I shook my head. “No fucking way! I came here to take pictures, and I’ve missed enough already.”

“That’s not the way it works, Dean. Unless you want it confiscated, you leave your camera here.”

I studied her for a moment. There was absolutely no give in her eyes. Reluctantly, I set the backpack down on the table. I dug out a PowerBar, then pushed the bag toward Charlie. “I can take some fucking food, right?” I growled, showing her the foil-wrapped energy bar. “Or do you want to tell me how to eat, too?”

“It’s not like that,” Taylor said, a pinched, hard look on her face. “I’m not on some power trip here. It’s just the reality of the situation.”

Charlie finished typing on his notebook. He pulled a thumb-size RAM drive from the USB port and handed it to Taylor. She gave him a satisfied nod, then turned back my way. “You’ll see,” she said. “It’ll be worth it. I promise.”

I was in a funk all the way across the river. The morning sun had burned away the dark October clouds, transforming the city into someplace new; it was no longer the gray, oppressive maze I’d run through just the day before. The streets seemed wider somehow, the towers overhead not quite so tall. And everything had been washed clean by the torrential rain, wisps of steam curling up wherever the sun touched the damp concrete. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy this new, sparkling city. I felt naked without my backpack, without my camera.

I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. Empty, my fingers felt awkward, useless.

Taylor gave me time to sulk. She stayed silent as she led me south, walking a couple of steps ahead but glancing back every now and then to check my mood. After a while, those glances started to weigh on me. I felt stupid. Here I was, pouting like some petulant child.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked, trying to regain some dignity.

“The heart of downtown,” she said. “The best place to start.”

After crossing the bridge, she took me west on Sprague. The street here was deserted, but I could hear voices and laughter to the south.

“Mama Cass’s place,” Taylor said, nodding in that direction. “It’s right down there. She gets her food from the outside. Always has fresh-brewed coffee. If you ever need company, day or night, that’s where you want to go.”

I wasn’t certain about my bearings, but I knew that the hotel from yesterday had to be around here someplace. And the man, I thought, the man in the ceiling, deformed, not even human, but still reaching out. Perhaps it was a block farther south. I stuck close to Taylor.

As we passed, an abandoned building on the north side of the street caught my eye. There were words spray painted across its face, starting way up on the fourth floor. The words stretched left to right in crooked rows, stacked one on top of the other. Each letter was about four feet tall, transcribed freehand in gentle, feminine arcs. The paint was electric blue, laid out in thick, double-wide lines. It was a poem. Or as close to poetry as graffiti could get.

It read:

inside turned out,

no longer hidden

and the weight

    of the world

and the price

        of this vision

and the height

        we will fall

and we WILL

                  f

                  a

                  l

                  l

The last word—fall—was inscribed in the narrow space between a window and the edge of the building, plummeting all the way to the ground. The word will in the final line was traced over with red paint, making it stand out like an exit sign in a dark theater.

“Who did this?” I asked, halting to study the giant words.

Taylor shook her head. “I don’t really know. The Artist. The Poet … You’ll find stuff like this all over town. Poems, slogans. All in the same handwriting. There’s a giant ‘Fuck You’ facing I-90.” She took a step back, as if trying to pull the whole building into frame. “This one’s new, though. It wasn’t here last week.”

Poetry. The word suddenly clicked inside my head. “Sabine?” I asked. “She could have done this. She said she writes poems.”

Taylor shook her head. “I don’t think so. All of Sabine’s poems are about her vagina.” She smiled at the surprised look on my face, then gestured back toward the building. “Besides, that girl’s obsessed with the Poet. She wants to find whoever’s doing this … wants to collaborate.” She was quiet for a moment, and when she continued, there was a hint of disdain in her voice. “You know, sometimes I wonder if this is all just some big fucked-up art project for her, for Sabine. This whole fucking thing. Nothing but background color and clever commentary. A stage on which she can play. Nothing serious, no. Nothing deadly.”

I turned and studied Taylor’s profile, watching as her eyes scanned the poem. “And me?” I asked. “What about me and my photography?”

“You’re new here,” Taylor said. “You’ll learn. Sabine, on the other hand … she should know better by now.”

She glanced down at her watch and nodded westward. “Now, get your ass in gear. We’ve got an appointment to keep.”

The courthouse was a huge, blocky building at the corner of Lincoln and Sprague. It looked like a giant four- sided cheese grater, with hundreds of small windows recessed in a tight concrete grid. The newspaper building stood across from its entrance, and a cobblestone courtyard occupied the space between the two buildings. Once a well-manicured stretch of land, the courtyard had fallen into disrepair, now cordoned off on both ends of the block and cluttered with dead, skeletal trees. A fountain stood near the courthouse’s entrance, but without water, it was nothing but a twelve-foot bowl brimming with trash and leaves. There were soldiers posted at the courthouse’s front door.

Taylor led me down the street at the building’s side, away from the entrance. She stopped halfway down the block and abruptly turned toward the building. It was ten stories of industrial concrete, a drab, oppressive cliff face looming above us. There was a broken window three floors up, a neat black hole punched through the building’s