The Heart is a Poor Judge Ch. 02

--

"Get up." The man kicked Miguel's side, waking him, startling him to his feet. Immediately this figure, still only a shadow, began dusting dry mulch from the side of Miguel's tattered vinyl jacket. "You're too young to be sleeping underground like this. What's wrong with you?"

Miguel just stared at him, bleary eyed, swaying on his legs. The painted stone walls radiated aquamarine and a grimy, caged clock above the platform read 1:40 in the morning. What the fuck was going on? Where had he ended up tonight? An offensive block of Helvetica sharpened on the wall behind the man's head. Senna-Joyce Station. That's right. Ejected from the train during a drunken midnight pilgrimage to the water. Fuck, he hadn't made it very far this time.

The man switched to Spanish. "What language do you speak? My God, you smell terrible. I would like to take you somewhere so you can shower. I can also give you clean clothes—hello?" He banged his fist against Miguel's scalp. "Any of this getting through?"

Miguel rubbed his eyes and nodded his heavy head.

"Okay. The train is coming. Let's get on."

This mustached man was older, shorter than Miguel, and very attractive. Miguel guessed he was Mexican, like his mother. If he was out looking for a good time, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing. Maybe it was what Miguel deserved.

"If you can prove you're worth a damn," added the man, dragging Miguel toward the warm breath of the train, "I might even have an opportunity for you. We'll see."

We'll see? In Miguel's world, there was nothing left to see. Every worthwhile stone had been turned over already, each revealing a mottled underside more grotesque than the one before. By this time he was adrift and under total influence, with each coming moment, of whatever rank breeze happened to blow with the most force. But this was not a breeze. It was a whirlwind that plucked him up and pressed him to a cushion-less seat and thrust the car doors along their rusty rails until they were shut tight.

--

"You want any help?" The kid spoke hastily, noisily in order to reach Miguel's ears at the back of the warehouse.

Miguel returned, unburdened, to confer with Gabe over the roof of the car. "What did you say?"

"I asked if you want any help."

"That's what I thought you said."

The kid looked annoyed. "Eddie says things need to change around here. He says I need to be more involved. I know we've got a lot of class-A in the pipeline these days. I was reading about how the density of class-A is twice that of B. And four times the bottom-shelf stuff." He paused, drew in a breath and said, "Anyway, it's heavy. I know that now. Do you want help or not?"

Miguel smiled. Apparently the kid had hit the books since their last meeting. He smacked the hood of the car. "What the hell, let's crank this out."

Gabe placed his fingers gingerly around the scuffed edges of the first package (a small brown cube, Koreatown-bound) as if it were hot to the touch. Miguel directed him carefully among the pallets, accompanying him to ensure no mistakes were made, explaining where each package belonged and why. Sure, Miguel could have done everything himself in less time, but where the fuck did either of them have to be?

Once they were finished, Gabe closed the trunk for Miguel and then, stern-faced, gripped his hands over the edge of the deck lid to steady himself.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

Miguel felt his heart sinking in his chest for the kid.

"So, what do you do after I leave?"

Miguel shrugged, looked around the place. "Sometimes I tidy up the office, but I probably won't tonight. Just have to double-check a few things and close up."

"Okay. Do you want to get out of here?"

Miguel laughed. He couldn't help it, after such a corny line. "Are you asking me on a date?"

The kid reacted in alarm. "No. What? No, it's just that I think we should talk. Eddie says we should. I'm not old enough to go to a bar, but I know a few restaurants that are open late."

"If you want a drink," Miguel suggested, "there's this place I know that doesn't check. Just don't shave off that stubble on the way over." Miguel thought the kid might smile again. Nothing.

"Fine, I won't."

And so, instead of following the stench-filled alleyways home, Miguel rode along with Gabe. The kid drove like Miguel imagined a cop would: full stops, early signals, heavy but smooth application of the throttle. The car was large inside and smelled like new plastic. Gabe looked even smaller than usual at the wheel, but at least he was confident. Miguel himself had never learned to drive.

After a few minutes of silence, Miguel said, "I don't speak to my mom. But if she were to pass away, I don't think I could handle it. There's no way I could be calm about it." He paused. "...You know...like you are."

Gabe just shrugged. "We're not the same."

Miguel waited for something more, but nothing came. That was all he had to say? "I know we're not. Sorry to bring it up again."

"It's okay. Like I said, my mom and me, our relationship wasn't normal. Look, I don't know how else to say this, but I think she was ready to go."

The concept was brand-new to Miguel. "I guess."

Gabe cleared his throat. "I have to accept that."

"Now that she's gone...are you alone?"

"Yes, I am alone."

Miguel looked away. "Well, I'm around."

Gabe didn't respond for a long time, finally saying, "I try to spend a lot of time in busy places. The distraction seems to help."

"Like where?"

"Like The Station. Odin Park, Chinatown—just places like that."

"Chinatown," he repeated, turning to Gabe. "Back where you belong?"

Gabe shook his head. "No, that would be Little Saigon." He coughed. "If that's the box you're putting me into."

"I'm not putting anyone into a box." But he couldn't be full Vietnamese. "Are you half?"

"Does it matter?" Gabe shifted uneasily in his seat.

Grooved concrete moaned up through the tires of the car.

"Sorry. No, it doesn't."

Miguel spoke up once or twice to offer directions, but otherwise said nothing for the rest of the ride. They parked on an upper floor in a crowded, towering garage in the financial district. Miguel paid the toll. Down on the street, they crossed over radiant asphalt toward the rhythmic white beacon of a walking man. The place, Pub Odessa, was crammed into the bottom floor of a slab-sided bank building on an adjacent corner. "Odinberg's finest," he assured Gabe, who only nodded. Miguel drew in one last calming breath of hot night air before pulling open the door.

If he had known the weight of the information he would soon ingest, he might have taken greater pause. The structure of the camp was partly to blame, its workings compartmentalized as they were, its workers so unlikely, given the harsh consequences, to gossip among themselves. Up until this point, Miguel had been mostly satisfied to remain in the shadows, but he would soon wonder why such a mundane detail had been kept from him. He would also feel like he had been blind. How had he not figured it out on his own? He should have seen it, should have sensed, led by his famed intuition, that a promising fragment of his beloved mentor lived on, stood right before him now in full human form, breathing and walking among them all...but that simply wasn't how Miguel came to know.