Flames Came Rushing//Part 1

Flames Came Rushing//Part 1

"A bird flew into my room this morning."

"That means you're gonna die. Or someone around you."

Neve frowns and bounces his boots against the graffitied wall, left foot against an illegible name and right against profanity. "Y'know, most people would have just said, 'Really?' or 'Neat,' or asked what happened," he says.

"What kind of bird was it?"

"I bet it's you. I bet you're the one who's gonna die," Neve replies with narrowed eyes, which are a dustier shade of green than his short hair. He scowls at Marten in jest, but the expression keeps convulsing into a grin.

This is a night of sparks. Class is out; grades have rolled in from the University, but work is still part time. The sun hasn't set yet, but it may well have—the unfinished Glory Metro station, meant to be part of the Red Line, is at a low point on the hilly city. From around tall structures of glass and steel and brick come rays of dying gold.

Marten picks a piece of rye grass and chews on its end thoughtfully. The place smells like dust, earth, and oil. That's why he likes it, and also because the hobos and homeless who sleep here have interesting stories to tell. And they do tell them, to Marten at least, because he is so unafraid and nonjudgmental. He always walks away carrying something new, and leaves them holding a sense of bemusement.

"Could be," he says with a shrug. He's planning to walk the rails into the tunnel tonight. Through his oversized sunglasses, the opening looks even blacker than usual.

"You shouldn't chew on that grass. Someone pro'lly pissed on it," says Neve.

Marten makes a point to chew as loudly and obnoxiously as he can on the piece of rye grass, and Neve grimaces.

"I don't get it. You're so clean apart from what you put in your mouth." Clean is an excellent word to describe Marten. He keeps his hair tightly cornrowed without a stray frizz in sight, and his dark face is devoid of beard or stubble. Always. Even his eyebrows and nails appear well-kempt, though he's never admitted to or been caught having them groomed.

"Was that a dick joke?"

"Maybe."

"Huh." Marten tosses the grass aside and slides off of the wall. The rough concrete scrapes his legs and back, almost tearing his plain white t-shirt in the process. As he begins to walk away, hands in his jean pockets, Neve drops down and begins to follow. He's been following Marten since the two of them were in diapers. The movement is expected.

"Hey man, it is getting dark," Neve says, glancing up at the sky, which is quickly fading into violet.

"Gonna be darker where we're going," says Marten. He nods in the direction of the tunnel and Neve makes a funny choking sound in his throat.

"Uh, we?"

"Yeah, we. Don't be a fuckin' pansy—ain't no way you'll get lost in there. Your hair is a goddamn beacon."

Neve flips him the bird and sticks out a pierced tongue, but follows anyway. Under his breath he mutters about ghost trains and axe murderers and pedophiles, even though they're both nineteen. He shifts nervously and hunches his shoulders when they walk through the usual group of squatters, but Marten catches several greetings and nods or waves in return. The fire they've started between the tracks is roaring with dry bracken, hemmed in only by the metal on each side. On a dry night like this, the whole city could go up in smoke.

As they pass the fire, a hand darts out and grabs Marten by the arm.

"Where you goin'?"

"Walking," Marten says calmly. He's seen the older man before, hanging around the entrance to the tunnel and scribbling on battered legal pads. He used to be a bus driver and still looks the part, though his face is a little more grizzled and gray than on his license. The expression he's wearing says he knows what Marten is really up to, which is something he will hardly admit to himself.

"C'mere first," says the former bus driver, and pulls Marten to his side. With his free hand he reaches into his pocket, draws out a handful of something, and tosses it onto the fire. The sharp smell of pepper fills the air as the peppercorns snap and pop in the heat. "Look in these here flames. What do you see? Take of them glasses."

Marten does as he's told, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head and then staring into the flames. His nose is burning and as soon as he turns to face the fire, his eyes begin to water. Yet the scent of burning black pepper is also invigorating. The spice of it on his tongue and against his skin wakes him to the world in a new way.

In a low, raspy baritone the bus driver asks him, "Now, what do you see?"

When questioned as to whether he believes in ghosts, spirits, fortune-telling, and the like, Marten will usually shrug and act as if he doesn't care. But he does. The supernatural fascinates him, not in a way worth obsession, but enough that he knows the difference between the real stuff and Hollywood. This urban hobo voodoo…this is the real stuff.

Before him the flames flicker and frolic, feeding on the remains of once-living things.

"I see…a woman," Marten says, entranced, "and—"

Suddenly Neve lets loose an enormous sneeze, hood falling off his head in an opposite reaction to the force. He rubs his nose and makes a slightly disgusted sound before shooting Marten a look of impatience.

"And?" says the bus driver. The mysticism is gone from his voice, and gone from Marten's mind. Telling secrets to strangers is not something he makes a practice of, collector of theirs though he might be.

He reaches down and takes a thick branch jutting halfway out of the fire. It'll make for a good torch, at least for a little while. The dry wood won't last forever, and already small embers are flaking off and burning Marten's fingers.

"And now we walk."