Xerxes

* Written spring of 2015

Sean always took the subway home. The ride would take up to half an hour. He’d leave the office at around 6:00 every day. Take his coat, his leather binder with all the sketches so he could work on them the rest of the evening, and have a glass of wine before he went to sleep. Architecture came to be an odd choice for him, especially since his love fell into creative design but somehow he found himself in conference rooms discussing how to keep skyscrapers from collapsing. It wasn’t creative, but his boss Gilbert reassured him that he got paid a good amount that day. Reassured being an understatement.

Sean tapped on the glass, and cracked the door. Gilbert spoke on the phone, but waved him on in. Seventy stories up, the entire cityscape sprawled before the office through the plate window that filled the west wall. Sean took a seat, and peered out. The entire Overgrowth was in view. He could see the legislature building sitting in the middle of Caulfield Park in the center of town, surround by a ring of towering banks. Overpasses sprouted from their roads and span across the city. Monorail lines circled the area. In the further distance, where Sean tried to find his flat, white fog hung over like a curtain. His eyes dropped from the fog, past the overpasses to the dark mass of buildings between the hills and below the bridges. The Undergrowth, as the citizens of Angel City called it. He looked away, and traced his way home. The old church couple blocks west looked like a dot. The subway tunnel entry a mere speck of dust.

Gilbert hung up the phone, and Sean turned to him. Back straight, hands in his lap.

“What can I do you for?” Gilbert asked, his forehead forward, glasses somehow avoiding dropping from his crooked nose. Sean held an admiration for the boss’s lack of formalities.

“I think I’m ready for an assistant manager position.” Sean said. Gilbert raised his eye brows and took off his glasses, as if his vision had somehow caused him to mishear. But they both knew there was no mistake. The writing on the glass door read: Franklin Gilbert. Assistant Manager.

“You want my job?”

“I’ve been working here for twelve years. I don’t want your job, but I’m ready for a promotion. Everyone in the office knows it.”

“Well,” Gilbert put his glasses back on and leaned back in his chair. “An opening in the mail room opened up. Do you like working here?”

“Yes sir,” he lied. “But you understand that if I’m going to put another decade into this company, then I’ll need to know that the company is working with me.”

“Sean Macintyre… Yeah you’ve been putting in a lot of time. Show up early, leave late. I see you at every meeting, and you have good ideas. You’re sure are a competent man.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“Look out the window. I love this view. Every morning before I do anything my secretary brings me steaming hot coffee, and I get to stare out and sip it. Know what I can’t help but study the most? The Overgrowth. See that building with the radio tower on top? That’s LLP & Merrel. The fourth biggest Architecture firm in the country. Ten years ago, they were the thirtieth. Know what ours was ten years ago?”

“Tenth?”

“Eighteenth. Now? Twentieth. We’re losing money, Mr. Macintyre. Who do you think is in that building? Don’t answer because I’ll tell you. Two thousand people that are just like you. Maybe more. People in this city by the millions, they put in twelve hour days, and work weekends too. Are you happy with your salary? Don’t answer. I know it should be enough to keep you, and your family, if you had one, fed. I know its sufficient to afford antiquate housing. What you do with it is up to you, I don’t care. My dad was an architect. Think he did it for money? No, he believed he was helping this city. Do you think you’re helping the city, Mr. Macintyre?”

“Yes sir.”

“How’s that?”

“Word is a land is being cleared for a new hospital down by the Undergrowth.”

“Hospitals, schools… The city needs a lot more then hospitals and schools. Those things mean nothing without people and money. Otherwise they are just more concrete. Do you really think you are helping people here?”

“Of course…” Sean lied again.

“One thing I hate, Mr. Macintyre, is an ass kisser. That is one thing this company does not need.” Gilbert reached to his phone, pushed a button. “Ms. Doe, will you please open the door for Mr. Macintyre.”

Sean left the office at 6:45. The sun hadn’t set yet. His folder heavier than normal. He rubbed the bags beneath his eyes, rolling through the event in his head as he went down the forty floors in the elevator, again as he crossed the lobby and went out the doors, each time reimagining the encounter, fantasizing about interrupting the man, standing up, taking him by the collar, gritting his teeth. He went west down the block towards the subway. Crowds of strangers surrounded him passing every which way. He waited at the cross walk, when the light changed he moved to the next block. The brick building he walked along caught his attention. Like tiles on the brick, fliers hung in neat order. On them, the endearing, but questioning gaze of Paster Richard Bakeman. Sean knew the name because it was in bold below the man’s chin in every flier. He didn’t read any of them, he didn’t care anymore. Some warning about homosexuals and atheist bringing the end of days. End of days? The sooner the better, Sean thought. It was no mystery to him, or to the rest of the citizens that Bakeman owned two Ferraris and lived in a Penthouse in the Overgrowth. The local media obsessed over him, though Sean just wished the news would ignore them so they would disappear from his mind.

From where Sean walked, he could see the iron cross situated on top of the steeple. The closer he got, the more of its wooden walls came into his focus.  Small dimensions, he noted, the nave built when the cities congregations exceeded no more than fifty people. Even the narthex seemed squished between the main chamber and the heavy double doors. The sign posted by the side walk proudly announced that sinners are doomed to hell, and that includes the atheists, the gays, and the Pancake Feed will be next Tuesday at 7:00.

             Murmurs around the city whispered that the place used to be a black church back before the fifties. Shut down after a series of attacks by the local Klan. Sean thought it could be true, but found the irony reason enough to strip the rumor of its legitimacy.

            Sean held his breath as he descended into the subway. The strangers that lingered around the platform made him feel anxious. Something about stopping in the open, and standing still made him feel vulnerable. As the train lights glared down the tunnel, and its hum became noticeable, a group of four robed folk came down carrying their warnings and bibles. Sean ignored them, mind only on his folder of sketches in hand.

            The subway rolled near, its metallic hum rising like air pressure. The dozens of strangers around him stood in the same silence. Sean held his leather case, catching the sour scents of the underground tunnel. Some people he recognized from his office, others mere strangers slouching, overworked and burdened. No one talked though, but for the members of Bakeman’s church. In whispers, with eyes shifting around, they acted like they were exchanging secrets amongst enemy spies. The train couldn’t have shown up fast enough. Sean was the first to push his way onto the cart. He didn’t sit. The outside of the cart was covered in graffiti. Water coated the floor. Newspapers covered the seats. The smell of vomit and alcohol filled the cabin. Sean leaned on a pole and watched everyone fill in behind him. The church people got on last. By chance they crammed their way next to Sean. Old people, each of them. Not close enough to death, but older then Sean by at least a decade.  One of them, a woman with short hay colored hair, turned around and shot a nasty glance at Sean before turning to her cult friends, and whispering to them before turning back around.

            “You should be ashamed!”

            “Pardon?”

            “I know who you are.”

His picture had been in a few magazines, and a few newspapers across the city. Not because of his architecture work, but because he had been organizing gay marriage assemblies in Angel City, a duty that got him his fifteen minutes. It had a good year ago, most people had forgotten but not these bastards apparently. Good thing they didn’t also know he was an atheist.

            “Listen lady, I respect your beliefs, but you should mind your own business.”

            She humpfed, and turned to her likeminded compatriots.

That day he went home to his apartment. A spacious loft, furnished with vases and plants among couches, tables, and chairs. He went into his studio, put his sketches on the bench, left to get some gin and coffee, and stayed up until two am going over work.

            The next day, he went the similar way, down past the church, in to the subway. The same bland grouping of strangers, tired and in worn suits, ready to go home to their boring lives. Sean stood in front of them all, waiting for the train. The light cut through the dark, and its hum strangled the silence. The robed church people came down the stairs, this time not casually meandering through the subway. This time, the number was closer to ten, and they each held hands, forming a fence of church cultist. 

            They didn’t whisper to each other, but hummed a tune to lyrics that rolled in their minds. Once inside the train, Sean leaned against a window on the seat closest to the door. The church folk each filled in the seats around him. Spoke no words, but each stared and hummed their tune. The train paused at stops, people would get on and off, but Sean didn’t move, nor did the robed church folk. He started to panic. He held his leather case tighter than ever. The train came to his stop. From this platform, it was a half mile walk to his building. He hoped it would just be a coincidence, but the minute he got up the robed folk got up. He left the train, into the busy platform full of strangers and beeping machines, the light from the surface shining down a flight of stairs. He looked behind him, there they were, each hooded but for one, the pastor himself, Mr. Bakeman. His hair had thinned to a white ring since the time the photo on the flier had been taken. His cheeks sagged, and his eyes had sunken in. Dark purple circles ate away at them. Rolls of skin layered beneath his chin, his lips curled and his cheeks folded over them. White bristles sprouted from his chin and jaw. Sean believed he had seen a defeated man, looked back up to the street lights gleaming from the stairs and walked up. The fence of religious freaks behind him. They didn’t interrupt their little tune, making sure that Sean could hear it. Then it occurred to him. He didn’t want these people to know where he lived.

            He turned around, and waited for them to stop before him. Bakeman standing across from him.

            “You guys have made your point. Go home.”

            “We don’t listen to servants of Satan.” He sung

            “You think you’re scaring me? I’m from Missouri.”

            “Why do you hate Jesus?” a little voice said.

Sean looked down, holding the hand of the old man was a little girl, round face with shiny eyes, and braided locks hanging from a nun shawl.

            “Go home, or I’m calling the police.” Sean said.

            “All Jesus wants is to save you from eternal damnation, Sean.”

            “Jesus ain’t real. Get away from me.” He pulled out his phone, dialed 911, and started telling the guy on the other line about what was going on. Like cockroaches, the congregation of haters turned tail and fled back into the subway. He waited until the cops showed up, and told them about what had happened. Asked if they could keep an eye out. The officers reported that they couldn’t act unless a crime had been committed. Just call them again if the Bakeman’s church persisted. Thanks, Sean told them, dripping with sarcasm.

            The next day, ten of them waited by the subway tracks. Sean sighed, remembered what his older brother had told him when kids at school kept beating him up. What his first love had told him after getting fired from the Good Will. Don’t turn tale, just keep your head up. They didn’t get onto the train with him, but they watched, humming their stupid hymn. On the train, though, ten more robes stood around, humming.

            One robed man whispered from behind,

            “Better watch your back, fag.”

            Sean turned around. Spat on the man’s shoe.

He got off at his stop. They didn’t follow him, but on the platform ten more robed folk waited. These ones didn’t sit complacently, but in their fence formation cut across from him, repeating their haze in song form. Something about fags going to hell, Sean didn’t have time. His folder was heavy with sketches he wanted to work on, and he had bought a new bottle of brandy that needed to be sipped on. He stood, with false patience, waiting for them to finish, but they weren’t about to finish. They had an objective this time. One of the robed folk stood out from the rest, a big white man with a full blonde beard, standing like a bull over calves. He cut in front of them all. Dozens of strangers came and went as they pleased. In the second before this giant laid his palms over Sean’s shoulder two hundred people must’ve came and went. In the next second, Sean’s ass was on the cold concrete, and the leather folder was in the grasp of the giant. The haters laughed and danced as he opened it and showered them in the sketches. Their pale arms stuck out like dead branches, taking the scraps and tearing them to pieces, fluttering the small strips around them, stomping on them, spitting on them.

            Sean got up, tears pushing against his eye lids, the control over them weakening. He wanted to grab the giant by the throat, and force him to understand that no one puts a hand on Sean Macintyre, but all he could do was call him an asshole, before fleeing towards the stairs, tears streaming down his face, curling into his mouth, the sweet salt tasted like blood.

            At home, he sat on his couch, facing out the glass door high above the lights and noises of the city. With a bottle of gin in his arms, nearly empty, Sean wondered about how he had managed to arrive on the coast from the river lands of Missouri with the intent on escaping the haters that patrolled the night in search for whoever they wanted to hurt on that night. Why had he come so far? The problem persisted everywhere, he could’ve gone up the river to Omaha, it wouldn’t have made a real difference. Hate existed everywhere.

                The next day, he had to walk back into Gilbert’s office to let him know that the sketches, all of them, had been destroyed. Gilbert’s mouth dropped open in silence. Sean explained what happened. Gilbert took his glasses off.

            “I don’t want any more excuses. You were responsible for those designs. How do you expect to get anywhere in this business if you can’t keep track of your own portfolio? Don’t answer. I don’t want to hear it. Before you leave I want them back on my desk.”

Sean finished when the hour hand clicked between ten and eleven. He fell asleep in his chair, hunched over his desk, pencil held erect against the paper. His head dropped, and the straight lines outlining a building became an unconventional shaped subbasement. It felt good to rest. He hadn’t eaten. Only got out of his chair to visit the bathroom. The joints in his wrist burned. His eyes felt like they would pop from their sockets, and worst of all his throat felt like a desert, praying to be relieved by a rain of a vodka. Sean jumped awake, believing for a second that he had seen a brown robe standing before him. Turned out to be a coat rack on the other side of the darkened room. Sean sighed, and pressed his palm into his each eye, and as if he was sanding wood, rubbed like he was trying to blind himself. Relief came, but he had to fix his sketch. He erased the impractical subbasement, took the rule and finished the wall, and the floor. He took the drawing, put it in the folder, and left his desk to leave it on Ms. Doe’s desk. He left that night, his spine aching, and his head feeling like holes had been burned into it. He walked out the doors, faced the subway tunnel, then stopped. An eye twitched, and like that he decided to take a different way home. Away from the church, away from the subway. The road he walked along would stretch for about five miles. It would take him at least two extra hours to get home. But he was okay with that.

 So he walked. The upper city streets had nightlife. Cars still filled the roads, people still stuffed the sidewalks. The further he travelled, the less cars, the less people occupied the volume of the city. Buildings became shorter. Roads became slimmer. The city became quieter. Street The bright lights of the towers looked miles away, because they were. The monorails divided the night sky over head. The side walk declined into a slope. Sean found himself jogging, gravity pulling him down into the city below the humming bridges. Black smoke and chemical fumes puffed from stacks and chimneys behind the cracked buildings. A car with no windshield or tires sat on cinderblocks. The windows of buildings were either shattered or waiting to be shattered. Sean’s eye twitched again as he paused to read the mouth of the overpass before him. Sean knew exactly where he was. It was spray painted over the mouth of an overpass. Undergrowth.

He checked his watch. Past midnight. He shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets and cuddling his coat closed before going forth. The lip of the overpass hung high over his head, above the rust colored buildings, over large flat pairs of flying wings. From the skim sand barely clinging onto the face of the concrete, tiny specks of stone kissed his face as he watched and  brown torrents of cold water poured from celestial gutters, bending and twisting until it flooded into bubbling trenches. The sound muffled against the buildings, but Sean could still feel bits of icy bits of moisture against his nose and cheeks.

Once he inside of the mouth, his pupils focused on the screen of dull light reflecting from the other side. The sound of water stopped. The loud drone of traffic above muffed his ear. Faint fog danced across the streets. He could make out flame spilling from the lid of barrels and silhouettes of people gathered around them. Someone covered in a rat skin blanket slept against a cement support post. Sean began to hurry, but slowed down again, shaking his head, and wishing he had snot to spit. Funny, he muttered aloud, people rolling through his mind like a reel of film. People from work never went down this side of town.  Hell, the city was building road that pass over this part of town so that folk from the Overgrowth wouldn’t have to pass through to get into town.

The air felt wetter, frost built around the gutters swallowing water flowing from alley ways. He reached out as he walked along a brick building and le his fingertips scrape against the melting surface of the bricks. The strand his finger cut through the wet film of moisture stretched to the end of the curb. As he passed over the next sidewalk, his found pieces of broken glass snapping under his feet. The buildings ahead seemed to smile at him, with rows of shattered windows as missing, like a meth addict in a trailer.

Everything outside of the street lights looked black as a trash bag. Only one light per block was lit. The halo of butter colored light was wide, but seemed stretched and thin. Nothing seemed to move but for Sean however. The constant hum of cars passing through the city remained like an annoying mosquito, but other than some wind, an occasional cat meow, or that destitute laying under the underpass (though he could very well have been dead) nothing else seemed to be alive.

A dead and abandoned factory wasted away behind a chained off lot. One metal door bent into the building, its bottom half clinging onto its hinge. Not even a disease carrying rodent.

Many doors had been covered up with ply wood. Each one had been coated in a lexicon of graffiti. The alleyways had intricate designs and street terms that Sean wasn’t familiar with. This reminded him of something that Gilbert had told him. IT had been a few years back, Gilbert came into the conference room, red faced-infuriated that some punk ass low life had covered one of the hotels they had worked on. Sean had seen it, everyone in the room did, and Sean had been with all of them. “Fuck that guy!”, “Yeah he ruined the aperture!”, “Know how long it takes to get a building with that kind of poche?” and so on. If felt good, and Sean really did hate the guy who did it. Some asshole in a hoodie, sat, surveyed each building in that area, and decided this had to be the one. Teen feet across, nine high, Sean didn’t even remember what it looked like- all he saw was garbage and a wall that needed repainted. No respect for good architecture.

This graffiti over these buildings though, made Sean stand up straight. His back popped all along the line, and he found himself admiring the craftsmanship. Such small spaces, intricate details, use of language, and color. These punk ass low lives were good at something, after all.

Garbage filled the alleys. Not just the first one Sean passed, but each one he encountered and flowed with fat bags of trash, spilling out like guts. White grease stained bags rolled from the alley ways the smell putrefied the entire street. Sean covered his nose with his shirt, crossed the street, but the opposite side smelled worse. Sean began to cough. His stomach felt like it was melting.  Bottles had been smashed into a pile, rats dug through garbage bags and pulled out diapers to eat. Sean wondered if humans actually lived beneath the monorails, beneath the bridges. Another highway suspended above the dark part of town. The moon still glowed from the cloud of soot and gas that ate the night sky. In its thin light, Sean could read LLP & Merrel. He tried to recall from his time looking down into the undergrowth from the office. he never counted the bridges or the monorail lines but there were at least five. Probably about ten. And newspapers said that LLP & Merrel only had more road projects in the future. Sean balled up his fist, wishing that Gilbert would pop around the next corner, cold, shivering, lost. Probably wouldn’t even believe himself when he takes off his glasses to see if it really is Sean Macintyre, then Sean would hurl a fist and straighten his crooked nose.

“The mafia owns the concrete, that’s why they’re number four!” He imagined himself screaming as he held the man on the cold wet sidewalk and pummeled his face in until Sean would fall against as building, and rest, his chest racing like he had finished a marathon. Blood  would stain his hands, probably his clothes too. The best part, no one would see it, his odds of getting away with such a crime seemed highly probable. He wouldn’t go through the man’s pockets, thieves get caught. Detectives would show up at his apartment, ask to come in for some coffee, as they would with everyone that worked with Gilbert. If he stole his wallet, they would find it. However, if he left it inside, then some bold fool will come along and take everything from the pockets. The wedding ring would probably be worth a nickel or two. His wallet, probably real leather. Probably a couple dollars with Franklin smiling back. A nice phone, top of the line shoes, wool coat. Yeah, Sean decided, if Gilbert pops the around the next corner or any other corner that night, then he’ll murder him, dispose the body in the garbage because no one would notice the smell and clearly not too many people attend to the trash situation, the corpse would remain undiscovered. Then an even better idea came to Sean, what if Bakeman came around the bend?

Sean wanted to break out in gleeful laughs, but forced in inside so that he only chuckled to himself in the dark while his arms trembled with delight at the idea of curb stomping Bateman. The crack would be his new ringtone, he decided. Rats would eat the body, and then his congregation of would come looking, and find a putrid nest that providing food to an entire family of rats. Maybe that would finally make them shut up and disappear.

Around the corner he turned, half wanting to fight someone, half surprised, he found an entrance to a subway guarded by two burning barrels by a makeshift shed over the entrance, and a woman. Smoke spilled into the sky, and the light danced over the woman. A foot taller than Sean, with black hair tied into a braid that dropped past her knees onto the grime covered sidewalk. She smiled at Sean, her big dark eyes lined with his, her fingers gently beckoning for him to come closer. He emerged from behind the corner, wiping his hands off on his coat as he approached her. She kept her hands on her hips, Her lips curled into a smile, she squinted, trying to use flirtation to get him inside, keeping one hand on the v of her semi-unbuttoned shirt.

            “You’ll have to do better than that.” He said to her. “What’s inside?”

            “Local artists. Come check out my booth.”

            He didn’t listen to her, just pushed past her and went through the door. Heavy and black, white spray paint marking it. Down some crooked stairs he went. He clung onto the rail, the metal warming his hand like a cup of hot fluid, nothing at how much longer this stair well was then any other that had taken him to the subway. The stairs seemed to expand before him, but it was the same feeling as walking down a steep hill. Something compelled him. The lights burning at the bottom danced, and grow wider. Distinguishing from one another, he saw them become torches and lamps lined along the wall, and pillars supporting the ceiling. The smell of putrid city weakened, became twisted into a new smell that was of a mix between sour wet subway tunnels and the rich autumn scent of burning plants. Voices too, a clamor of them.

Sean felt eager to reach the bottom. His tongue lapped the roof of his mouth as he came to the last few steps. With one heavy step, he found himself at the bottom at last. Among crowds of freaky people, young and old, passing him by like an ant. He examined himself. While some people casually wore ripped jeans and faded hoodies, others wore strange costumes. He was the only person there wearing a suit, he noticed. He had undone his tie, though he didn’t recall when. His shirt had come untucked, hanging past his belt and ruffled.

He disconcerned himself with his appearance however. Something pulled him through the crowds, as if he were tethered to something inside. He strode confidently like a man with business to take care of with heavy steps and his face forward.

He found people were clearing from his way, and that made his search easier. He glanced over the booths. Some had crafts. Carvings whittled from logs into horned animals. Boars, and deer, then animals that Sean had never seen before. A booth had handmade flags. Old, tattered, red communist flags, some black with strange symbols, some crossed with swords and annotated with a language that Sean had never seen before. Some had stone sculptures and clay pottery, some sold hookahs and glass work that bent and curled like Sean couldn’t believe.  A man seven foot tall, arms, shoulders, neck, and face decorated with tattoos stood behind a display of sex toys. Some Sean recognized, others he didn’t believe were even made for humans. Like the phallic rimmed with barbs. Next to it, a booth of kitchen knives. The booth across from that one, had all kinds of knives, but also an arsenal of swords, spears, hammers, axes. The man behind the kitchen knife booth sat sadly, while the weapon man appeared to be quite popular. Next to the booth, a transvestite dressed in a leather suit sharpened farm tools against a limestone wheel. Confused, Sean’s head cocked to the side like a dog. The transvestite noticed, “Got a problem, Mush-face?” Sean looked away, and got lost in the group of people. Hippies mostly, people with long untamed dreadlocks, faces painted in many manors of designs, as well as people hidden behind masks of cruel looking demons, angry rabbits, and other creatures that Sean had imagined to exist beneath beds and in closets across the darkened world.

 Sean felt like he had finally blended in when a stranger with the frizzled hair and outgrown beard who resembled Rasputin grabbed Sean by his shoulder, laughing like an old friend, and handed him a joint. Sean gave him a nasty look, but assumed an expression of neutrality as he took the joint, put it to his lips and inhaled deeply. The two men huffed away until the joint was ash.

            “Comrade, you look lost.” He had a British accent. “What are looking for?”

            “I’m not sure. I’ll know when I see it.”

He went through more stands until he found himself in the heart of the venue. There, something caught his eye. A tiny Asian girl with dark hair molded into spikes, and a macabre parody of a doll’s dress stood at a table of dark paintings of strange shapes and frightening creatures. A white spider eating a crow. A turtle with the face of a disgruntled human. Burning cityscape in the ivory palm of a skeleton. At the feet of the table, Sean was drawn to the painting of a cat. It’s eyes, its nose, Its whiskers. He felt enthralled, as if the creature was meowing at him and rubbing at his shins. The color of its pupils, the shape of its eyelids. He bent down, the sticker in the corner read, name your price. 

“Hi. I’ll give you ten dollars for the cat.”

            “It took me three months to paint that. Can you do fifteen?”

            There was no way that it took her three months to paint that cat. Clearly she had talent, and all of the paintings around her cascaded with a brutal realism that heavily contrasted the elementary talent of the perfectly symmetrical cat face. The paintings above her head priced twenty dollars and up.

            “No. Ten dollars is what I’ll give you.” He lied. He would’ve paid twenty if she had refused. She nibbled at her black fingernails, looking around like a sheep.

            “What do you like about it?” She said taking his money.

            “The eyes. This kitty knows what it wants.”

            “This is actually a painting of my own cat. He likes to sit on my chest and stare at me. So I painted him. His name is Xerxes. Do you have lots of pets?”

            “No. I’m allergic. Thanks, I’ll take good care of Xerxes.” He smiled and took the cat away with him. The whole way they walked, Sean probably didn’t get back into his own neighborhood until 3:30 Am. At one point a cop slowed his car to ask Sean where he was going. “Home,” He responded, not stopped. They asked where he got the painting from, their eye browns furling as if some great troubling thought had entered their mind. As if they had forgot to turn off the oven. “It’s my cat” he’d tell them, and then they’d tell him to get off the streets.

            He hung it above the mantel, where he would put a TV if he wanted one. He looked outside. The sun hadn’t risen yet. The night still felt young. He poured himself a glass of vodka, and sat with the bottle on the coach, facing the painting.

            It wasn’t a very good painting. It was probably worth no more than ten dollars, but the way it called to Sean, he would have given her anything if all he had done is say no. fifty dollars. Five hundred dollars.  He had felt such a strong attraction, that he couldn’t look away from its bold killer eyes, softened with a ring cuddly gray fur. 

            “Hey cat. Welcome to my home.”

            Good to be here. Will you shut up and leave me alone?

            “That’s not very nice. I brought you into my home.”

            It’s a dump.

            “I didn’t pull you out of that deplorable slum to take shit. I’ll make a vest out of you if don’t improve the attitude.”

            …

            “That’s better. Now why don’t you climb down from there?”

            Why should I listen to a damn thing you have to say?

“Because you’re my cat. Your destiny since conception has been to christen my mantel.

A neighbor walked by Sean’s door, though he heard voices. Curious because Sean lived alone and had no friends that she had seen over. Leaning against the door, she pressed an ear against it and listened…

            “You’re mouthy… No I wasn’t scared… do you want to... No, I’ve never looked at it that way before…” The last part Sean said with sarcasm. The neighbor shook her head and left.

Know what I like about you? The cat asked. It’s eyes in the frame, still, unflinching.

“What?”

                Most people are too afraid to come to the Undergrowth. They avoid the road that takes them under the overpass. They’ll take half an hour, maybe more than that, just to avoid that part of town. You? Just like a walk in the park. You even bought some art! The cat laughed.

            Another neighbor passed by. Wanting to ask for a cup of sugar, he held his knuckles ready to knock when he heard the discussion.

            “What will you do…that’s crazy… how… interesting… I’d like to see that…I doubt it…”

            He walked away, going for sugar elsewhere.

            “That’s what they want me to do. Hit one of their jesus freaks and sue the hell out of me. They depend on that shit to keep their cult running.” Sean leaned up against the mantle with both arms. The near empty Vodka bottle sat within reach. His unblinking eyes zeroed into the cat’s big black pupils, only a brick’s length between the two. “There’s so much hate, I don’t even see what difference it would make.”

            It makes all the difference. Violence is how you get what you want.

            “No, I won’t hurt anyone.”

            Don’t be such a coward. It would make you feel better.

            “I doubt it will make me better. I don’t know what to do.”

            The cat groaned. Fine. I’ll do it, just like everything else.

            “Do what?”

Don’t worry about it. Just finish your drink, head to bed, and I’ll take care of everything.

            “Ugh… I have to get up for work in two hours.”

            You’re not going to work tomorrow. I already sent the message to your boss.

            “You’re a smart cat, you know that?” Sean tipped the bottle up and drank the rest of the liquor. His body felt like melting. “Good to know I have someone to count on.”

            That night, so drunk that the floor felt like a water bed that could split open at any misstep, Sean nestled his way to his bedroom, singing softly to himself, where he curled up in his blankets, and with his head spinning fell asleep.

 The light of the rising sun woke him up. A hangover split his brain in two. He crawled out of bed, still wearing his old suit, stumbling to his living room where his bottle of gin, nearly empty waited for him on the mantle. He took it, and tipped the bottle up in the air, letting the remaining milliliters fill his stomach, and warm his body. The pain left his brain and retreated to his temples. He rubbed them, and went to the bathroom to take some Advil. He splashed water against his face. Dirt and sweat turned the water spinning down the drain a grayish yellow. He watched it slip away from the basin, sniffing himself. He hadn’t bathed since yesterday morning, and he already smelled like he lived outside. He took off his suit coat, throwing it on the floor. The white dress shirt underneath had yellow stains from beneath his arms and back. He peeled it off, and threw it on the floor. He took his slacks off, left them on the floor, than took a shower.

The water turned on with a small shriek, than he spent what felt like an endless morning standing in the steaming flow of water. He turned up the heat, until the level was passed H and could go no further. Then the bathroom became a fog filled furnace. Sean felt nothing though. No pain, in fact, he actually wanted it hotter.

He got out, walking naked through his home. He went towards his bedroom to pick out a fresh suit, but something caught his eye before he could get there.  The leather folder, fat with sketches, peeking from the studio. He growled, ripping through the door, taking the folder an storming to the balcony. He opened the glass door, cold wet air blew in like he faced a vacuum. Once outside, he unclipped the folder and let the drawings fly out over the little ant sized cars below.

Sean put on another suit. This one black, with a red tie. Then he made some coffee, sat on the coach and stared at his painting. This time though, the cat was gone. In the frame, only ceiling above an empty room. Then, someone knocked on the door. Sean put his coffee down, and answered the door. One of his younger neighbors, lived alone, anxiously called on to him to come see her TV.

            “You gotta check this out. I can’t believe it.” She told him over and over until he relented and entered. She looked troubled, leaning on her fist, pouting before the screen. Sean’s jaw fell open, and he had to fight back a smile from opening across his face. News helicopters had gotten pretty good footage of the old church engulfed in flames. Close ups of the walls wavering and collapsing, the iron cross falling through the steeple and the great cloud of ash pluming into the air. Sean jumped to a window across the room, and peaked outside. Sure enough, he could see smoke rising into the air.

“It’s horrible, Sean! The news is saying that they were in a middle of a sermon. I mean, they were bastards, but no one got out. The fire just started!” She said it as if magic could be the only explanation.

“What if they asked you for help?” Sean asked her. “Begged for help?”

“I don’t like them, or the terrible things they do, but no one deserves to be burned alive.”

Sean scoffed. “Thanks for getting me out of the apartment. I just remembered that I have something to tell my boss.”

He took the subway, laughing to himself the entire trip. An old woman gave him a troubled look, to which Sean responded by breaking from his fit to say, “Got a problem, mush-face?” scowling at her until she moved to a different seat.

Sean left the subway tunnel and entered the street where he normally would walk to work. The sound of sirens and alarms still filled the air. Yellow tape closed off the entire block. The fire must’ve spread, but the authorities standing their uniforms didn’t seem too concerned. Sean hoped that the fire commissioner would be on TV later to explain what he thought had happened. It would be a treat.

The ambulances didn’t disappear as he came to his office, to his surprise. Another group of people gathered behind police tape, facing the building, blocking Sean’s way forward. He squeezed between people, pushing them, shouting at them until he was in in front of them all. Spilled pooled from beneath a mass under a black blanket. Paramedics took their time moving in a stretcher. Sean dived beneath the police tape and jogged over to get a closer look. A cop stood before him, holding his hand out, pointing in the opposite direction. Sean tried to explain that he worked there and was trying to get into the building, but the officer ignored him and put his thumbs in his belt. Sean felt good about the church burning down, so he decided to comply and spare the officer the trouble. He left, navigating through the people until he found a coworker.

“What happened?” Sean asked.

“It’s Gilbert!” the coworker reported. “Where were you? It just happened!”

“Don’t worry about it. Tell me what happened?”

“Gilbert leapt from his office window, man!”

“That’s great news. That means I’ll be promoted!”

Sean stood at a point in the world where two of his enemies met their demise. Right in the middle. He stayed around the street until sun down, watching the show, feeling for the first time in a while, at peace with his place in the universe. As if that very intersection had aligned with stars put in the sky just for him. Leading from where Gilbert’s body had smashed, though Sean never saw it, led little bloody paw prints lead into an alley.

Years Later…

Sean sat at his desk, working out supply sheets, when Ms. Doe pressed the call button.

“Mr. Macintyre, there’s a Detective Francis here to see you.”

He wanted to shout, who the hell sent the city? But he knew better. Instead, he did the only thing that he could do. He cleared his desk of folders and papers. Stacking together the unorganized, untidy desk, stuffing everything he couldn’t find a place for in a drawer. Then hitting the button again.

“Send him on in, please.” He sat with his hands folded, smiling. The city held still in the window behind him, the foggy white light flooding the room, and darkening his features. The door with Regional Manager Sean Macintyre on the window opened, and a tired man in a black suit and tie entered. The first thing he did was open his coat and lash the badge at Sean before taking the seat before him.

“Good day. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Good day to you. This is quite the surprise, is there any trouble.”

“Mind if I smoke?”

“I don’t allow smoking in the office. It’s a killer, you know.”

“Fair enough. Mr. Macintyre, I was just reading your record. Been working here for a couple years, haven’t you?”

“A couple years now. Is there a problem?” Sean repeated.

“For the company, no. For you though, there might be.”

His spine tingled.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Did you know that the Senior CEO of LLP & Merrel was found three days ago. Washed up on the bank of the East River. A few days before that, the vice president of the company was found in his car, parked by the construction site of the new parkway. His head blown off by a shotgun in his lap.”

“I –I had no idea… how terrible.” Sean simulated grief. “But what’s this got to do with me?”

“Each man was threatened. Mr. David, the CEO, received phone calls between three am and four am on his cellular phone. Someone had some nasty messages for him. Mr. Fox received a package in the mail with dirty panties, and a note saying “I’ll tell everyone and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Died the next day. Strange, don’t you think?”

“You think I’m responsible?”

 “You responsible for the deaths of your company’s biggest rivals? Just a hunch. How did you predecessor die, Mr. Macintyre.”

“Mr. Gilbert jumped from his office window.”

“Yeah that’s right. Strange. Man made good money, had a smart wife and three beautiful children. No signs of mental illness. Makes no sense to me. Maybe it had something to do with a similar note we found in his coat pocket.”

“Note? What note?”

“I shouldn’t be talking about evidence. If you want to come to the station and talk, we can do that.”

“I got nothing to talk about. Sorry, detective. I can’t help you.”

“Yeah, I hate to disturb you. Been busy, from what I’ve read you’re a good man. Building hospitals and the like. Truth is I’m investigating the deaths of said Mr. David, and Mr. Fox. Thought you would have heard about it. You can understand why you’d be suspect.”

“Listen, I had nothing to do with what happened to either of them. Take any test you need, whatever it takes…”

“No one’s testing you just yet. I came by to leave my card.” He reached into his pocket and set down a paper square with his name and phone number below the ACPD symbol of a blue shield. “If you have anything that could help the investigation or if something comes up, you let me know.”

Sean took the card. “I sure will officer. Thanks for stopping by.”

“My pleasure. You have a nice office set up here, Mr. Macintyre.” He shuffled as if getting up, but stopped and resettled. “Know what you don’t build enough of? Churches.”

“Churches? We don’t handle that kind of work.”

“Terrible what happened to Bakeman’s old church. A bunch of bastards, between you and me, but know what happened?”

“The fire commissioner was on TV. He said he had no clue how the fire started. Magic maybe.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you one more thing before I leave, and since the case is technically open, I shouldn’t mention anything at all, but I feel like you should know, the building being so close to your own office. No one knows how the fire started, but that’s not the strange part. Fires start all the time. Could be the time of year, could be just one unlucky spark. Thousands of possibilities exist. But what I don’t understand, is how someone started it when all fifty members were in full presence. What I don’t understand is how someone managed to seal the doors. The fire must’ve started from the inside. That’s what the commissioner said. The fire started from inside, but someone had sealed those doors, from the outside. What I don’t understand is how someone knew a fire was going to start, and chained the front doors shut, nailed the windows shut, and inserted a steel pipe through the handle of the back entrance without anyone seeing a thing.”

“It’s a mystery, detective.”

“Yeah.” He got up, “Funny how your name came up when I read into that file. Says you complained about harassment from Bakeman. Seems everyone that gets in your way has bad things coming to them.”

The detective turned away from Sean, an icy finger drawing down his spine. He felt color drain his face. He took a pencil and snapped it in half. As the detective left the building, Sean took pencil after pencil and snapped them in half. When he ran out of pencils, he called for Ms. Doe to bring more.

That night, Sean sat on the coach, smiling at his cat up in its painting. It’s still eyes focusing on objective, slightly bent in as if planning to attack, but maintaining unpredictability. A hunter, Sean thought, gleefully drinking from his bottle of gin. Before the painting lay the body of Detective Francis, face down in a pool of blood. Bloody cat prints over his coat, and leading out the room, and down the hall. His body, scratched and bitten like a chew toy, lay sprawled out- like a gift.

            “Good cat,” Sean said.