Bad Glass

flame. The picture was taken without a flash, and the whole frame is bathed in this orange candlelight, all other colors washed away. In this respect, it is not a full-color shot, but not black and white, either. Instead, black and orange.

The photograph is blurred, the scene too dark for any reasonable shutter speed. Filled with trails of movement and bright, unsteady auras. But still, the warmth of the scene comes through. The cozy happiness.

A dinner by candlelight.

It was twilight by the time we made it back out onto the street. Purple-tinted clouds were barely visible in the darkening sky, and there was thunder rumbling to the east. The thought of hunting out a place to stay, looking for a hidey-hole in the encroaching dark, was seriously daunting, and I was grateful when Taylor invited me to stay at her house. If I had to trust anyone in this place, I figured, she seemed like a safe bet. Safer than someone like Wendell, at least.

She pulled a flashlight from her pocket and led the way north, back across the river. Once on the other side, she began cutting back and forth through upscale residential neighborhoods. It was extremely dark out here on the streets. Without electricity, the street lamps stood like dead trees on the side of the road. There were a few candlelit windows, but they were rare, and the weak light seemed somehow ominous, like hooded, distrustful eyes blinking in the night.

Back in California, I’d wandered through neighborhoods like this during rolling blackouts, deep in the heart of energy-crunch summers. The feeling here was similar, only deeper, more intense. During the rolling blackouts, there had been people all around, out walking the dark streets of the neighborhoods, lounging on their front porches—or, if not visible, there had at least been the sense of people around, the knowledge that they were out there, safely holed up behind their windows. And there had been the conviction that the lights were just about to return, the belief that this silence—so eerily complete—occupied that brief moment just before the click and hum of air conditioners powering back up, just before the epileptic stutter of streetlights flickering back on. Here, there was none of that.

Just darkness and silence. An extended promise.

Taylor pointed out Gonzaga University, waving her finger into the void. She might as well have been pointing toward China in the distance. I couldn’t see a thing.

With a loud crack of thunder, the clouds opened up and sheets of water came crashing down on our heads. My jacket was soaked through in a matter of seconds. Taylor grabbed my hand and started sprinting through the downpour, leading me the last block to her house. During the rush to get inside, I didn’t get a good look at the house’s exterior, but it seemed big—a multistory Victorian, painted yellow. There was a red and blue pinwheel in the flower bed at the base of the porch; it was spinning wildly, caught in a stream of water falling from the roof.

Taylor pushed through the front door, into a brightly lit entryway. “Wipe your feet,” she said, nodding toward the doormat. She shrugged out of her wet hoodie and hung it on a mirror-backed coatrack. Underneath, she was wearing a bloodred turtleneck.

This was the first time I’d seen her without the hood. There was a propane lantern burning on a nearby table, but its brilliant white light couldn’t touch her pitch-black hair; it was so dark, it sucked in light like a black hole, refusing to give back even the slightest glimmer. Strands hung in wet rivulets around her face, dripping water onto her shirt. She glanced into the mirror and pushed the stray hair back behind her head, smoothing it into an elegant wave.

Again, I was struck by her beauty. Her features were angular and sharp; her beauty was strong and intimidating.

And she’d invited me back to her house.

What does that mean? I wondered, setting my bags on the ground and shucking out of my jacket. Convenience? Pity? Something more? I tried not to get my hopes up. Already, Taylor had seen me at my worst: weak, scared, confused.

She picked up the lantern and started back into the house. I grabbed my bags and followed.

The thick scent of pot hit me as soon as we crossed into the living room. After the day I’d had, it was an enticing smell, pungent and warm, a breath of comfort and sleep in the still air. All of the room’s furnishings had been pushed back against the walls, and a half dozen people sat gathered around the lit fireplace. There were four men and two women, their faces bathed in the flickering yellow light. None looked older than thirty.

“Glad to see you got the fire going without me,” Taylor said, setting the lantern down just inside the door. She was greeted with smiles, nods, and a halfhearted grunt. “I was afraid I’d find you all frozen into tiny little cubes.”

One of the men leaned back on his elbows and flashed Taylor a sly little grin. “You know, we got along just fine before you showed up. I myself survived twenty-four years without your help—”

“I still find that hard to believe,” Taylor interrupted, cracking a smile.

“The sun rose and set without you,” the man continued. There was something wrong with his voice; his words were drawn out, stretched into a dreamy singsong lilt. It was a disconcerting effect, and it made me feel uncomfortable. “Governments formed and dissolved without you. Plants sprouted, flowered, and died. The tide rolled in. The tide rolled out.” Still smiling, the man lowered himself onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. I was struck by a moment of deja vu, and I followed his eyes, making sure there was no fractured body looming up above. “And despite your help, despite all you do, things still fall apart. The world decays. The city falls into chaos.”

“Yeah, Devon,” Taylor said, the smile fading from her lips, her brow scrunching into confused lines. “And morons still bray nonsense.”

“But we appreciate your help,” the man, Devon, continued, ignoring Taylor’s insult. “Really, we do. Working hard. Seeing the good in everybody. Out there gathering up the lost and the helpless.” He gestured in my direction, a languid flick of the wrist. Then he raised a pinkie finger up toward the sky. “Plugging up the dike with your tiny little finger.”

“What’s his problem?” Taylor asked, turning to the other people at the fire.

A girl with short blond hair let out a giggle. “Fuck if we know. He just won’t shut up. I think he found some Quaaludes or something.”

When I looked back at Devon, I saw that his eyes had fallen shut. He was lying on his back with a distant smile on his lips, rocking back and forth. Taylor just shook her head and gestured me toward the fire.

Taylor made introductions.

The girl with the blond hair was Amanda. She’d been studying psychology at Gonzaga. “Big waste of time,” she said with a giggle. “People just don’t make that much sense. End of story.”

The man sitting next to her was Floyd. “Pretty Boy Floyd,” one of the others said with a laugh. That’s what they used to call him, back when he’d been making skateboarding videos. But those days were long past. “Fucked- up knee,” he explained. He rapped his knuckles against his leg and gave his head a bitter little shake. “More metal than bone.” His nose was crooked, and his cheekbones didn’t sit quite right. “I had the bad habit of landing on my face.”

Then there was Mackenzie, a former bookstore clerk with red hair and a thick beard. I had him pegged as the oldest of the bunch, placing him at about thirty. He had a gruff voice, and his laughter was a low bass rumble, subdued and guarded. Maybe it was just the pot, but Mackenzie kept looking around the room, casting nervous glances toward the doors and windows. The smile on his lips didn’t really touch his eyes.

Sabine was sitting perched between Mackenzie and the fireplace. (“Sabine Pearl-Grey,” she said with a half-mouthed smile. “That’s my stage name.”) She was a small, delicate girl with small, delicate features— porcelain-doll cheekbones and a long, thin neck. Her hair was dyed black with stripes of bright red shooting out from her scalp like bolts of lightning. Her smile was bright and gleeful. She was an artist. “Performance artist,” she said