Lost in the System Read online

  I pick up the sketchpad again, flipping it open. An exquisite drawing of a beetle adorns the first page…then a weathered pier over the river…an old man on a bench follows. I examine the picture closer and realize it’s the gentleman we spoke to at the park. David’s added so much detail the illustration could be a photograph. There are many more. Drawings from the park, the library, his home, even a couple from the school. Glancing through the book helps me take my mind off the intense thirst and hunger I am feeling. I resist the Gatorade, although his body is a vast desert devoid of any nutrients. There isn’t much of the precious blue liquid left. David has been carefully rationing it, and I don’t want to waste his efforts. I can wait a little longer.

  My eyelids shutter closed. I force them open again. Add tiredness to the long list of maladies. No, not tiredness—ran a marathon in a 110 degrees level of exhaustion. I’d love to lean my head back and slide into dreamland, but I need to see if I can find any scrap of info about what landed David in this flarpdek.

  About halfway through the book, the art changes. It’s rougher than the earlier sketches, shakier. He must have started drawing these after he was stuck here. The lighting stinks, low sun during the day/candles at night. And pain accompanies his every move. It must be hard to hold the pencil steady. Even so, the art evokes more emotion that the earlier ones. Those were more detached observations of life. These pulse with passion, longing, and fear. I can feel it from the page: the fear that he will never leave this place, and the fear that he will never see the faces he’s drawing ever again.

  First is Lydia. He’s drawn her in happier times: a wide smile, compassionate eyes. It’s the way he wants to remember her. I can feel him saying goodbye with each stroke. Next is Madds. Hers emits a different vibe. He is mourning the loss of what could have been. Through his eyes, her radiance shines through. Her features are all drawn correctly and, yet, he has somehow elevated her plain proportions to beauty. He depicts her from a distance, a rare unobtainable thing. Poor girl. She will never know what could have been. The next few pages are drawings of his parents, Jesse. Some teens I don’t recognize, but I bet are his friends in Nashville.

  After all these portraits, I turn to what appears to be a comic book. Bronwen pops up in the first frame. I skim the page and recognize the work for what it is—an epitaph.

  I stifle a laugh, and it comes out as more of a cough. “Leave it to David to write his last will and testament as a graphic novel,” I mutter, returning to peruse the comic in detail. Bronwen approaches him while he’s drawing at the park. He did run into that lying, low life witch.

  “Excuse me, young man. I don’t mean to bother you, but the spirits are speaking to me about you. They say you bear a great weight.”

  “Way to dial it in, Bronwen,” I chide. “What teen doesn’t think they’re under a weight?” David was hooked though. His drawing depicts the interested upturn in his eyes.

  “Ah, I see they are right. A heavy burden is upon you. A family member, is it?”

  “Come on, Davey. She’s fishing. Can’t you see?” I wheeze into the empty room because I’m not capable of a shout. But of course, he couldn’t see. His slumped shoulders and furrowed brows only made her bolder, more certain.

  “A loss?” She put her hand on his arm. That tart dared touch him! “A parent—a sibling…”

  “Both,” David answers.

  Don’t talk to her, Davey. Once you talk to her, she has you hook, line and sinker.

  “Both. Oh, you poor child. I see it now. An accident. So sudden.”

  “Of course, it was an accident. He’s too young to lose them all naturally. She’s not even that good,” I add, like I can somehow warn him, but she has David snared now. His full attention is on her.

  “The spirits are speaking loudly—I hear one voice above the others—it’s female.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, your mother.” David didn’t even realize he was feeding her the answers. He thought she really knew. That hag. After I’m sure David is fine, she’s my number one mission.

  “She wants you to know—speak up I can’t hear you…” David drew Bronwen cocking her head. “Wait, don’t go…” She paused then outstretched her hands in a meditative position and chanted. Finally, she spoke, “I’m so sorry, young man. The spirits have departed. They are such mercurial creatures.”

  “But, wait—what was Mom saying?”

  “I know not, child.”

  “I have to know.”

  “Perhaps luck will favor us, and the spirits will return again in a fortnight or two.”

  “A fortnight? That’s like two weeks, right?”

  “You are correct.”

  “I can’t wait two weeks.”

  Just like a drug; you’re hooked from the first hit. I sigh.

  “If they favor us that quickly. Often they wait quite a while.”

  “Come on. I need to know. Can’t you try again?”

  “Well, I want to help.” Davey draws her eyes dripping with sympathy, her ring-laden hand pressed to her chest. “There is something I can do, but it is draining. It depletes my resources—emotionally and physically. So, you understand that it is a service I cannot provide for free. I do not enjoy speaking of money, but it is necessary. As you are young, I can meet your needs for a mere $500.”

  “Just like a dealer; the first taste is free, but after that you pay—big.” I would have seen this for what it was. In fact, someone tried it on me once when I wasn’t much older than my naive, guileless host. She suffered for it, as will Badapple Bronwen. But I digress.

  Back to our regularly scheduled program, “Davey Gets Trapped in a Pit.” Isn’t it supposed to be Daniel? Where are the lions? I giggle, irritating my ribs. Someone needs to laugh at my jokes. Gray fog creeps into my vision, and I shake my head to keep awake. No air circulates in this room, and the midday heat creates a nice sauna. I’m slick with sweat. The sketchpad sticks to my fingers. I wrestle my attention back to the narrative.

  “I don’t have that much,” Davey said. Bronwen started to disengage. “I can get about $350.”

  “Seeing as how you are so in need, I will accept that amount,” she said, smiling. Here’s the only time David’s drawing has departed from reality, or at least I think it has, I can’t entirely trust my mind. In the picture, her smile reveals fangs, dripping venom.

  In the next frame, time jumped. Davey and Bronwen exchanged money in a room similar to this one.

  “Are you sure it’s okay for us to be here?” He asked, looking at the gaping hole left by the half-finished floor. I glance up through the missing ceiling to the third floor. They must have met up there.

  “Of course. I’ve met others here many times. Spirits congregate in quiet places. Position the white candles at the points of the pentagram,” she motioned to the far corner of the room. Davey drew himself unbuckling his backpack, then turning to Biddy Bronwen to ask a question. She was one step from the door.

  “Hey, where are you going?” he asked.

  She just glanced over her shoulder and sneered, then continued toward the door. Davey dashed toward her, closing the distance before she could clear the threshold. She turned, rushing back into the room, and pushed him hard on the chest with both hands. He stumbled backward and fell through the open floor, landing flat footed two stories down. His ankle snapped, throwing him back onto a pile of boards, and thus ended the ribs.

  He drew her leaning over the hole, staring down at him broken on the dusty floor. The last frame is the same view, but she was gone. I flip through the pages, but there’s no more. I figure he crawled to this door while the adrenaline gave him the strength. Only he found it sealed shut.

  “That cancerous toad just left him there. She didn’t mean to push him into the pit. That was an accident. Initially, running might have been panic, fear…but leaving him…for days, when she knew…she knew people were looking…that’s just…that’s just…” The gray fog returns, filling my vision. This time, I can
’t shake it, and sleep takes me.

  III

  “They’re all just marks. You gotta stop thinking about them like they’re people,” Sharila said, taking a long drag on her cigarette, picking up on our earlier conversation as if the stop for sex was just a commercial break. She rose out of bed, the moon’s light shining on her the curves of her body. It was hard to focus. At seventeen, I was already raring to go again and she did look delicious, but she was in the mood for a different kind of lesson. “Smulls, you and I are stronger, smarter, superior to them. We’re on a different level. Does a lion feel guilty for eating the gazelle? Of course not, the gazelle’s purpose is to feed him. We’re lions, mighty predators. It’s our nature to capture prey as much as it is theirs to be captured.” She came back to the bed and leaned in front of me, her elbows braced, one hand over the other, cigarette dangling. “And what gazelles do the lions eat? The quick, healthy ones? No. They eat the slow, old, sick ones.” She took a drag and blew it out slowly, her tongue darting out quickly and licking at the end. “Can they catch the young ones? Undoubtedly. But why bother when something just as tasty is within reach? The lions don’t want to expend any more energy than they have to, and neither should you, Smulls. All your stupid rules only accomplish making you work harder and keeping you hungrier.”

  I nodded in agreement. I wasn’t, of course, but I had to endure the lecture so that I could enjoy what comes after. It made Sharila happy to think she was my teacher. What she taught me when she was done philosophizing was all the sweeter when she thought I’d learned. A few more days, and I think I’ll be done with her. She taught me more about cold reading and human nature in two weeks than I’d learned in all my seventeen years. Being with her would elevate me from a great grifter to an exceptional one. A legend for the ages, which is why I’d been with her this long. If I’m still learning, it makes sense to hang. Beyond the art of the con, she taught me more in the bedroom than I’d imagined possible. So, it was worth it to stay with her for the time being, even though I thought what she did was repulsive. I watched and learned, but I didn’t actively participate in the bilking of the downtrodden. She thought she was grooming me so we could become a team. Her the psychic and me the shill, bringing in the customers. I didn’t tell her it wasn’t happening. I’m not a fool. The sex was too good.

  “You understand what I’m saying Smulls?”

  “Yeah. The lions take down the gazelles; it’s the natural order.”

  “Good boy.” She kissed me. Her lips tasted of nicotine, but I didn’t mind. She slid into sheets and began a whole new lesson.

  I wake up thirsty, confused. Then the pain and dankness remind me of where I am. I peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth and fruitlessly lick my lips. There’s no liquid there to quench them. I take a sip of the Gatorade. Its sweet refreshment hits my mouth and, before I know it, I drag down three big gulps. Nose to the grindstone, Smullian my boy. You need to save it for later. Tomorrow David will still need it.

  Sharila. I haven’t thought about her and her Rolandi eyes in forever. When I met her, I’d been Earthside for a couple of days, living off the I’m-lost-and-can’t-find-my-Mommy scam while I got the lay of the land. My perpetual babyface softened my seventeen years to a younger age, making the matronly-types trip over themselves to help me and feed me. In this case, that food was pilfren. I doubt it was actually pilfren. Those birds are non-indigenous, and my rescuer bought it for a song. However fried meat on a stick is delicious, even if its origins are dubious. But I digress.

  There at Pike’s Bazaar, fattening myself with ill-gotten gain, was where I first spied Sharila. She didn’t need all the theatrics Badapple Bronwen incorporates. Her Rolandi ancestry did the job for her. Due to its influence, she was slightly duskier, slightly taller, and much more exotic than the average human woman. Her clear, green eyes closed the deal though. They weren’t freakishly big, but large enough to imply she saw more than the visible spectrum. She exuded mystery, drawing in the marks before breathing a single word.

  And “breathed” is the correct verb. She spoke softly, forcing the onlookers to crowd closer in order to hear her.

  “Smart,” I thought. “The quiet lures them in, makes them think what she’s saying is mega important.” I cleaned the last of the pilfren off the stick and threw it on the ground, edging nearer to see what else I could learn. I watched her cold read a few, effortlessly guiding them into expensive personal sessions. I immediately admired her craft, as well as her rack. But then she turned those eternal, fountain eyes on me. I slid into them.

  “And you, young man. What are you seeking?”

  I blinked and turned my head away from her gaze, which for her was like throwing chum in the water.

  “I see it is painful,” she whispered, reaching out and holding my hand. Physical touch, a grifter’s method of creating a false sense of connection. I knew it but was still too young to control my reactions. I swallowed and pulled my hand away from hers. Memories of my mom’s hand falling from mine in the hospital sprang to mind and tears formed in my eyes.

  “You’ve lost someone close,” she drove the knife in farther. Her brow furrowed in mock concern. Tears dribbled onto my cheeks. I dug deep to stanch the flow. This charlatan doesn’t get to talk about Mom and me like we matter. We’re just a meal ticket to her. I grabbed her hand and pulled her close.

  “Stop now, or I’ll spill all your secrets to this crowd. You’ll lose today’s payday and maybe get ruined in this bazaar forever.” I hissed through clenched teeth.

  Surprise flared in her eyes, but she quickly regained control, flashing a smile at the crowd. “This boy desires private counsel. Come back after lunch for more free consultations.” Then she led me by the hand into the private section of her booth.

  “Color me intrigued. What secrets were you planning on spilling?” she asked with a smirk.

  I wanted to smack that smirk off her face but chose to do it verbally instead. “You talk quietly to make them come close. Plus, it makes them think they’re in some secret club. You ask general questions and then watch the body language to see what direction to go. Darting eyes, swallows, crossed arms all mean there’s something juicy there. That woman having trouble with her husband…you got that from the way she stuck him way at the end of the sentence. ‘I’m on vacation with my husband’ not ‘Hubby and I are on vacation.’ I could go on.”

  “No need. You know a lot about grifting for a kid.”

  “I’m not a kid.”

  “Oh yeah, how old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  That’s when her smirk changed to a smile. Her large, light green eyes drifted over my body, and I liked it. “Why, you’re considered an adult in most regions.”

  “Yes, I am.” Maybe I can get something out of this.

  “Want to stay for lunch? I do readings for the Strosky booth up the aisle, and the owner gives me free food.”

  Angry or not, free food was free food. “Sounds good. No carran though. It tastes like rotten seaweed.”

  She gave a slight chuckle. “It does take a refined palate. You probably haven’t had it served properly. I could order some bordon for you. It brings out the carron’s nutty flavor.” What is she—a food critic? No, wait…she’s trying to teach me. I can definitely get something out of this. I’ll play along and feed her ego. See where this goes.

  When I did leave her asleep back on Earth. I never looked back. She’d served her purpose. I’d gleaned all I could and snatched all the cash. While the lingering thoughts of her kisses come back from time to time, she, her personhood, her identity do not. I never miss her or long for her. I needed her for a time, and then I took off.

  I try shifting my position, but the motion sends crackles of pain down Davey’s frame. I don’t mind; it distracts me from the guilt crackling across my conscience. I can’t exactly judge Bronwen for being cold. I felt Sharila deserved it. But Bronwen might figure David deserves it. I have my rules, and they make me feel superior
to the likes of Shar and Broody Bronwen, but do they? Am I really different? I’m starting to think not so much. Maybe I’m a bad egg just like them—rotten to the core.

  The light from outside is fading, but I resist lighting one of the candles. Like I was doing with the Gatorade, I need to preserve the meager stores. I read and reread the comic looking for any clues in the narrative or drawings as to where this pit is located, but there is nothing. How can I know so much, but not the one thing that really matters?

  “You’re going to screw it up.” I peer into the darkness and see Benigno standing there. He’s wearing a dark suit with a purple shirt and matching striped tie. “You’ve never helped anyone in your life but yourself. What makes you think you can get it right now? You’re not capable of this.”

  Chuckles enters the scene and places a hand on Benigno’s shoulder. “You got that right, Benny Boy. He’s useless. David’s doomed to die here in agony with no one to help him but this waste of humanity. The Father should have sent us. We actually know how to do a job and get it done.”

  Benigno squats down so that we’re eye to eye. “You’re a no-count nobody. People care about David and will be sorry when he’s gone. Who’s going to cry over you, Smullian? Nobody. You’ve drifted through life not making a difference to anyone or anything. You’ll be gone, rotting in the ground, and the universe won’t even register the loss of mass.”

  Marvin enters, dressed in athletic clothes and one of those headbands. He’s swinging a tennis racket like practicing for a serve. Swish, swish. He stops the swinging and looks me in the eye.

  “They’re right, you know. You destroy everything you touch. Look what you did to my car, my baby, my pride and joy. You can’t help it. It’s just the way you are. You like to think about Lydia, but what would you do if you really had her? One day with you, and she’d be ruined. You could convince her to be with you—you’re a good talker—but what would you do to her? Methodically strip away everything about her that was peace and light. She’d become a cynical waste of breath like you. A poor reflection of all the things that were pure about her.”