I don’t mind, but… sometimes I just wonder… what’s the point of me? (The Real Folk Blues Part 2)

And then I noticed everyone else was looking at the same thing Sean was. It was a man. His eyes were bloodshot. His arm was bleeding. His messy blonde hair tried to be slicked back, but it flung around the sides asymmetrically. One of his eyes was green, the other blue. He had a scar cut diagonally along his face. His whole body looked like a Frankenstein patchwork of a man. Or, perhaps more accurately, a ruin of one. And through the ruin we found ourselves in, stalked this ruin of a man.

He was looking at the body that was lying around the collapsing building we found ourselves within. It was perhaps the first time any of us had noticed its presence (the smell of corpse had permeated the air long ago), and yet, seeing it now, it was so obviously there. Like a black cat sitting in front of a Jackson Pollack painting. The body was dead for about a month or so. It had decayed a bit, though one of his eyes was perfectly preserved. Must’ve been a fake, I thought to myself. The ruined man stalked towards the body with great effort. He was dragging his left leg as if it was a bag that weighed 500 pounds.

All we could do was stare at the man as he collected the body. Even in his state, he could still lift the corpse all by himself. He walked so much easier as he carried the body away from this broken building. As if a weight had been lifted from him. Indeed, it felt that way for all of us in that ruined building. As he walked past us, not caring who we were, I looked at him. He had a face I thought I saw before in a dream once. I was running from some bastards who thought I was someone else, someone who owed them money. He was one of them. I never got his name.

When the man left, Sean broke into tears. Maybe he knew the broken man. Maybe he’d been holding himself together in the wake of what happened to Patrick. Maybe he’d been holding it for much longer. Whatever the cause, he broke in that moment. I don’t know. Regardless, we all went to comfort him in his moment of need. He cried in the arms of friend and stranger alike. They were ugly tears not once seen at a funeral. They were the tears you cry when you’re alone and hope to god no one can see you, even as you beg for them to. As we held him, the sun began to rise from outside the cruel, grey clouds.

--

The next day, we learned the war was over. We weren’t told this had happened. We just knew. It was like the air had come out of the bubble not with a pop, but with a fizzle. Buildings were destroyed, the ISSP was leaving, and people were left wandering in the dark. We survived. Not through ingenuity or strength or even the power of friendship. But because we were lucky enough to survive. That was the case for so many of us in the city. High and low had been discarded in the aftermath. All we had was each other. I hoped, at least.

I saw the man again. He was at a graveyard with a shovel in-between two graves. I couldn’t make out the names, I was so transfixed on the man. I said nothing to him as I approached my own grave. Sean was with me, still not talking. I was told by another member of the crowd that he hadn’t been talking for a good long while. I liked his soft baritone. Their apartment was empty when we traversed the ruin of a city. Not a splot of blood or remain of person. It was a mess, but I remembered it always being a mess. When I asked him what happened to Sam and Lucas, he turned away from me. I thought taking him to my brother’s grave would make him feel better. At least get some reaction out of him. He broke down again and I held him like he was my own husband. I never married, though I thought about it. I’m not much of a person yet to be in a relationship. Maybe someday when I’ve grown up a little.

Patrick was always more capable of being in a relationship. He had his shit together, while I was too busy going from one therapist to the next. I tried to kill myself once. There was this abandoned theme park a few miles from Tharsis. We used to go there as kids. I had planned on letting myself wander the park before something inevitably killed me. Such things were common at that park. That’s why it was closed down. Too much death. When I got there, all the attractions were shut down. Someone, it seemed, beat me to the punch. I could see his remains splorched on the pavement like a cockroach on the side of the road. He wasn’t a person, not anymore. He was more symbolic art project than corpse. Whenever I relayed this story to my therapist, I’d joke by saying he looked like a sailboat. He actually looked like a wound on the pavement. Nowadays, there were so many other wounds, we were practically swimming in them. The sky was burnt orange as we returned to Sean’s home.

--

I found Sam three months later. They were trapped for months in a building three blocks away from the apartment. He survived, barely. There were three other people in that building, two men and one woman. Their names were Jonathan Jacobs, Lucy Tafoya, and Roberto Rogan. They survived too, so their stories are not mine to tell. When I heard the news, I told Sean. His face lit up for the first time in forever. He was eating, that was a relief for most days. He was capable of communication, though until that day, only written communication, and brief, terse messages at that. “Ryan,” he said, perhaps the first thing he said in a long while, “are you ok?” I was crying. I was happy for him, for them. He still had someone to live for. I barely had that.

When we arrived at the hospital, it was less hectic than it once was. Before, when Patrick died, the bodies were practically piling up by the hundreds. You could barely walk into the hospital without tripping over a broken person. Even back in the beginning, when my apartment was attacked, the bodies were still numerous. Sam was lying in a hospital bed. They were missing an eye and their lower body was completely covered in bandages. They cried when they saw Sean, confused and saddened by what he had seen. He held their hand as the winter sky began to transition into spring.

From there, I began to piece together what had happened. Sam had been scavenging the wasteland looking for something, anything that could help them survive. They had found, in The High City, an untouched mall waiting for someone to steal from it. Though, I suppose it’s not stealing when property has been abandoned. The ISSP certainly didn’t arrest any of the people looking for food. They didn’t even arrest the majority of the bandits. Other people saw the mall and had the same idea. Only three of them were bandits, which meant the other five had to fight them off. In the commotion, someone threw a bomb, collapsing the exit. The only survivors were the bandits and Sam. They made peace rather quickly. They weren’t bad people, Sam would tell us. They were just desperate people who thought fighting was the only way to survive. I wish I could believe him.

Sean went looking for them. He looked in The High City and the low. But he never found them. When he returned to the apartment, Lucas was gone. Sean never found Lucas. He tried to sleep in that apartment, but he couldn’t sleep. There were too many bad memories and bad dreams emanating from the apartment. (It took me two months to get him back into the apartment.) And so, he wandered the city that called itself Tharsis. And then, we found each other. Broken, dazed, and confused looking for something, anything that could make sense of the world around us. Of the apocalypse, the time where people always lost everything and barely gained a damn thing.

--

On April 16^th, 2072, we found Lucas. Sam had just gotten out of the hospital. The wounds, while not fully healed, were healed enough to make them able to walk, which was enough for the hospital to clear his bed for another patient. We were able to walk him back to the apartment. As we walked, I noticed that the city was starting to look like a place rather than a ruin. You could see the wounds in the landscape, but they were starting to heal. Some things were irrevocably broken. I was happy to see the division between High and low city destroyed like a sandcastle at the end of low tide.

Sean was talking again, telling Sam all these memories he had of their relationship. Sam just listened to his husband’s dumb, amazing stories. I listened too, but I kept my mouth shut. I thought about Patrick and how he would have loved to hear these stupid, amazing stories. I was thinking about how much I missed my brother and how much they must miss him as well. It feels like a dream sometimes, like we’re all gonna wake up, and Patrick’s going to be in the shower, confused that we thought he was ever dead.

While Sam was in the hospital, they decided that they were going to leave Tharsis, leave Mars entirely. Too many bad memories, they said. Too many good ones, I thought to myself. They had given up on finding Lucas. He was either dead or gone. They loved him and missed him, but sometimes you have to learn to let go. I thought about Patrick and how he would have reacted to losing Lucas. Would he have broken down like Sean did? Would he not bring it up unless asked like Sam? Or would he be like me: relatively fine, if a bit disheartened? No, I don’t think he’d be like me. Truth is, prior to the war’s end, I barely knew the people Patrick married. I’ve been drifting for a while before my apartment got destroyed. I was truthfully only in there to sleep.

I actually returned to it a few days before Sam was let go from the hospital. It was a ghost town. I heard from Wilma, who spoke in a mechanized voice, that John was still off planet. She didn’t know where he was now, but he sent her a message from Ganymede. She didn’t talk about Luna. She didn’t talk about anyone else aside from John. Even in the emotionless affect of the voice she was forced to use couldn’t hide her anger at him. He abandoned her. He abandoned everyone. Wilma was living three doors down from Sam and Sean’s apartment. She had found a nice woman in the hospital and they were quite happy together.

While we walked back the apartment, I made a rash decision. “Guys,” I said, my voice subtlety trembling. They turned towards me. “I think I’m going to leave Mars too. There’s just… a lot that hurts about being on… on…” I broke down. Was it because my brother was dead? Because I was alone? Because it would hurt less to be with them and the memories they inspired than alone on Mars? I don’t know. Maybe I never will. What matter in that moment, in that instant, was that they held me. They held me like they would Patrick. And I cried for what seemed like forever.

When we finally returned to the apartment, there was Lucas, covered in dried blood. His curly black hair covering a scar across his forehead. He smiled and said, “hey.” And then he collapsed onto the floor.

Long Ago in an American Spring.

9/2/2019-11/15/19

Brother, that’s action! (The Real Folk Blues Part 1)

My brother was killed last night. His name was Patrick. Patrick Chack. He wasn’t that important of a person, not to the rest of the world. He wasn’t even killed because of who he was. Just collateral damage because of someone else’s hit. He was bartender, owned the place for years. Patrick called his place “The Loser Bar” on account of an old comic book he read as a kid. The Losers were a group of soldiers who, no matter the odds, always came out on top. Until the one time they didn’t, as I’d cruelly yet jokingly remind him. He served good beer and was well liked by everyone. It was slow night, just two guys at the bar. I suppose it’s fortunate no other unimportant people were killed. He had a laugh that would make anyone happy, even on a rainy day like today. Patrick was a lean fellow with brown eyes, short brown hair, and a face that was prematurely aged towards melancholy. He was married to three guys, all of whom unimportant enough not to deserve being shot up like my brother was. But sometimes, the syndicate just doesn’t care about the collateral damage.

I haven’t had much time to think about my brother. No has had much time to think about anything lately besides running and fighting. The city of Tharsis has been lit aflame by a gang war. A gang civil war to be precise. There’s an old joke about one side of a war being Right but Repulsive while the other is Wrong but Wromantic. I wish that was the case with this war of theirs. Both sides were repulsive and both sides were wrong. I’m no cop. I can see the value in supporting doing illegal things. Hell, I’ve done some illegal things before the war to survive. But the syndicate was not the way to do it. Too much like recreating the systems that have been putting everyone down but with them on top. They wanted power, control, and all the other boring things one could want.

The war lasted five months. I found out what was happening in the third. I was awoken by the sound of gunfire and death. My neighbor, Wilma Jones, was screaming as the gunfire raged. Someone on our floor was working against the old guard of the syndicate. The new guard wanted the power the old guard had and the old guard wanted to keep it. The guy they were after wasn’t even a member of the new guard. He didn’t even betray the old guard. They just thought he did and acted as if that was the same thing as him doing it. I never knew the guy’s name, but his remains were barely anything that looked at all human. Everything was on fire. Wilma was in pain from the gunshots. All she could do was scream as the lower half of her jaw lay on the floor as a puddle of gore and liquid. It was shocking that she was still alive. I was only spared because I was sleeping prone in bed.

Other neighbors were in pain too. Frank Smith had his left leg ripped clean off. He barely survived the night, but didn’t survive the day. Luna Jane Masterson had five bullets go clean through her chest. She was shot in the ribs, just below her heart. She survived and stayed in the city. I never found out what happened to her besides that. John Johnson, which was not his actual name, lost his eye and half of his nose. He lived in the end. He even tried to convince me to leave shortly before my brother died. Said there was no reason for me to stay on Mars. I looked out the window. The sky was grey and the autumn leaves of November danced across the sky in intricate yet improvisational movements. Their symbolism is lost on me even now. I told John, “My brother lives here. I’m not going to abandon the bastard to save my own skin.” John respected my decision by calling me a fool and leaving. My brother’s dead, and John isn’t.

The first thing I did when I found out my brother was dead was look for his husbands. They weren’t home, but then no one was home anymore. We were all hiding in someone else’s house we once called our own. But they weren’t there either. I called Sean Jacobson first. He was always on his phone, hoping someone would care enough to post a warning that the city was on fire. No response. Lucas Gaines was next. While he wasn’t as glued to the phone as Sean was, he still kept it close to him. No dice. Sam Jones was a bit more of a long shot. They weren’t what you might call a luddite, but they didn’t use their phone that often. When they picked up, they were sobbing.

“Ry-Ryan, it’s so g-g-good to hear you.” They landed the “D” harder than they meant to land it. “W-whe-where’s P-P-Paaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” They couldn’t even finish the sentence. They knew where he was. They knew I’d only call at a time like this to tell them bad news. I hung up instead of answering their question. I never heard from them again. I was too busy running for my life like everyone else to care any more than I had to. A woman was lying dead on the streets next to me, cradling her equally dead child. That’s what happens when you care more than you need to: you die.

The next week is a blur. The leadership of the syndicate, both the old guard and the new, were dead. And yet, the fighting raged on and on and on. New leaders came and died in the vacuum their stupid war left behind. I could see a bird flying in the sky, silhouetted by the evening sky. It was raining, so the lights that made the bird visible were all artificial. But you could still hear her mournful cry. I thought for a moment that it was over the city that burned beneath her. But the city was not on fire. There was just a lot of death. I remember a song my mom used to sing to Patrick and I. I forget the words, but there was always this melancholic tone to how she sung the song. It was like she was remembering a life she used to live. She wasn’t that old, all things considered. But she sang the song like she was thirty years older than she was. She died when I was 21 and out of college. It was a freak accident involving a bomb placed in the wrong car. That was ten years ago, and I can’t help but feel like this war is just a bunch of bombs placed in the wrong care over and over again.

The ISSP and whatever cowboys they could bribe got involved near the middle of this awful war. Tharsis is a city split up into two: The High City and the low city. The High City is where all your upper middle class and above people live. The kind who can easily ignore a war even as it’s happening three blocks away from them. Whereas the low city is where the lower middle class and below people survive. We live day by day in hopes that the syndicate or whatever other bastards wanted to use and abuse us. I remember the chief of police saying on some conservative talk show, “They deserve this bloodbath. They allow filth and decay to thrive in the city, tarnishing everything that’s good about it. We shouldn’t have to deal with it. Let the poor kill each other! It’s like the human body occasionally needs to sweat out sickness. This is just the natural way of things.” The law only started to care when The High City got hit and now the chief is talking about bringing law and order to this crime infested city. Arguably, they made it worse. Suddenly it was a three sided war where the blood and guts danced in the air. At times, the city actually was on fire because of the sparks of the war leaking out like water out of a tied up hose just waiting for it to be untangled and unleashed upon the world. I’ve heard that the war hasn’t touched most of the other worlds outside of Mars. I suppose they’re lucky in that sense.

I can only remember unrelated images shuffled together in my brain like a deck of cards. A man holding his mother at the airport, just rich enough to avoid having to deal with the war. The innocent son of a gay couple crying as his parents try to keep the blood in his body. The face of an old woman as she watches school children lob Molotov Cocktails at syndicate and ISSP alike. The rumble of the sky a spaceships crash just outside of the city. All because one asshole Syndicate member was on the ship. 35,000 people died in the crash. There were only 2,019 or 20,20 survivors. Patrick making a joke about how no one wants to drink at his bar because the water’s poisoned with blood.

It was on December 23, 2071 when I thought of my brother for the first time in forever. The war was ending, mostly because they were running out of bullets and none of the now seven sides (The Old Guard [made up of mostly new people], the New Guard, the ISSP, the Cowboys [who were just there looking to make some easy bounties], the bandits [who weren’t so much a side as people taking advantage], Lucifer [who was trying to gain power in the vacuum], and everyone else) had enough pull to get any more. The ISSP had long since stopped trying to collect the bodies, even in The High City. I was in The High City at the time. Streets were paved in the blood of the guilty and innocent alike. I could hear screams of people who I would never meet. The ruins of the syndicate headquarters loomed over me like a domino waiting to fall and crush everything beneath it.

I never wondered why the ISSP did nothing as the syndicate reigned over the various planets. I never wondered why the chief thought the source of the problem was in the low city even as The High City held the headquarters of the syndicate. I never even contemplated the implications of who was on which side when and why. All I could think of was how much my brother would have liked to seen this tower collapse into ruin and decay. Inside, a bunch of people, unaffiliated with the other six sides, trying to keep warm. Further away from them, there was a body that no one seemed interested in touching. (We never considered moving it until the moment we learned the war was over.) I only recognized one person around the fire.

“Sean?” I said with a small crackle in my unused vocals. He turned to me without saying a word. He had long, curly hair and a thick beard. His eyes were green, yet invisible past his horn rimmed glasses. He had lost a lot of weight in the year since I’d seen him. You could see the bruises even on his dark skin. He tried to smile at me, but he couldn’t make his mouth move that way. All he could muster was the beginning of a smile. The moment where the emotion of happiness hits the body and prepares to smile. His smiles were always the best I’d seen. I’d like to see Sean smile more often. But he turned away from me as soon as he saw me. I sighed.

And then I noticed everyone else was looking at the same thing Sean was.

We’ll be Right Back

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