Semper Prixus (pt 6).

Hey Jude, Kyle says. Don’t let me down.

You make the same joke every time, Jude says; he sees Kyle looking over his shoulder at the kid in his bed and comes out into the hallway, closing the door. And then padlocking it. Kyle follows him out the back door of the bar, and down the stomped-out trail through the trash and dead raccoons along the back wall of the hotel, and down through the reeds on wooden pallets until they get to the only house left on the banks of the Smoke, spared by the flood in ’87 that left the bar alone, too. Mom’s sleeping, Jude says, sliding open the patio door. If she hears you she’s gonna go crazy so be quiet.

They sneak downstairs to Jude’s basement room like little kids, climbing up on his bed in bare feet. Two years ago Jude cut off his ring finger in this basement with a pair of rose shears and wrapped it tight and put ice on it and took him to the emergency room, and for that Jude has kept him stoned for practically nothing ever since – but not with that shit the rest of them get but what he keeps hidden away in a bottle in a bag in a box in a locker with a lock. Jude pours the contents of the bottle carefully into a spoon and holds it out for Kyle to take, like cough medicine; Kyle doesn’t know what it is, but it glows and it closes all the doors in his head that seem to do nothing but hang back and forth all day long – and who cares if they ever open up again? Everybody thinks it’s so important to remember things, Kyle says, leaning back against the side of the bed; he has vertigo, but it is the pleasant kind. Like keeping a diary. Why bother. Your brain has all of that in it already, and then when you die it just rots. Just rots away.

I’m gonna fix things, Jude says.

Sure you are, Kyle says with a laugh. You’re going to save the world.

Fuck you, Jude says. I don’t even want to save the world.

He measure out another spoonful of the glowing stuff and swallows it, wincing when he swallows. You don’t even know, you come over here from the good side of things and act like you know because you….what’s the word, you dabble. Jude snaps his fingers. Yeah, you dabble, man.

Kyle holds up his hand, showing him the missing finger; Jude shakes his head.

That’s what I’m talking about, he says, his eyes filling with milky clouds that coat the iris. So what. You did that and so what did it tell you, or teach you, or change on you, ‘cause you’re still the same you, dude. How many pieces you think you could give me before you stopped being Kyle?

Stop it, Kyle says, not liking the sound of Jude’s voice – it’s like there’s another track playing underneath it with words that echo enough to make him queasy. He’s keeping his distance this time, which is good; usually Kyle has to push him off a few times when they’re alone like this. He licks his thumb and presses it to Kyle’s forehead, and in an instant one of those doors inside of his head, perhaps the noisiest one still remaining, that holds back a room filled up with his dad and years of hitting and breaking, slams shut for good. Ah, Jude says, sighing, and sniffing. That’s sour. Like green apples.

He hasn’t taken anything important yet. Even the finger’s only a big deal if you plan on wearing a ring, which Kyle does not.

So how you going to fix things? Kyle asks him, getting up after two more spoonfuls, and two more thumbs pressed to his head. Magic?

There’s no such thing as magic, Jude says, rolling on the floor and gorged on memory.

I saw some today, Kyle says. My dad showed me.

Dads know better than magic, Jude says, dragging the pillow off of the bed and balling it up under him, his eyes as shiny as silver. It’s all locked up in ‘em though, you can’t get to it. That’s the fucked part, it’s right in there but they can’t give it to you.

Kyle leaves Jude asleep, rubbing his finger stump absently, taking the bucket of cold chicken out of the refrigerator with him as he walked back alongside the hotel and the bar in the deep dark. Two years ago he’d followed the Shark from the YMCA in Orchard back to this bar, though once the man had stepped inside Kyle never saw him again, other than in the rooms in his head that he filled, the hundreds and thousands of them. Kyle had followed him in, but met Jude instead – but does not remember how, or in what way, or sequence; those memories have already been eaten.

He bangs his knee on the van that is mostly hidden in the scrub brush, forgetting it was there; he aims for the streetlight at the front of the bar, amazed at how clear everything is, how grainy with detail and sharp with sound and glinting with beauty. The world is stretching and he is stretching because he is pliable, Jude has made him pliable, and malleable and you could sculpt him into anything you want.

He’s leaning against the front of the bar; people are coming and going, he becomes aware of that, but they are moving at super-speed, going back in time. One guy stops, stumbles back, leans down right in Kyle’s face, and Kyle sees that he’s not the only one in there. Hey, the man says, his teeth shiny and sharp, you want me to walk you home? And Kyle knew that the man in the fatigue jacket with the nametag read DYER would do more than just walk him home, he would eat him right up, so he said no thank you, sir, and that was the right thing all right because Mr. Dyer roared with laughter and punched him in the shoulder and went inside whistling. And maybe I should have let him, Kyle thinks, his heart breaking all over again. No matter what I wouldn’t remember it.