All Tomorrow's Parties

9. SWEEP SECOND

BRIGHT pyramids of fruit, beneath buzzing neon.

He watches as the boy drains a second liter of the pulped drink swallowing the entire contents of the tall plastic cup in an unbroken stream, with no apparent effort.

'You should not drink cold things so quickly.

The boy looks at him. There is nothing between the boy's gaze and his being: no mask. No personality. He is not, apparently, deaf, because he has understood the suggestion of the cold drink. But there is no evidence, as yet, that he is capable of speech.

'Do you speak Spanish? This is the language of Madrid, unspoken for many years.

The boy places the empty cup beside the first one and looks at the man. There is no fear in him.

'The men who attacked me they were your friends. Raising an eyebrow.

Nothing at all.

'How old are you?

Older, the man guesses, than his emotional age. Touches of razored stubble at the corners of his upper lip Brown eyes clear and placid

The boy looks at the two empty plastic cups on the worn steel Counter. He looks up at the man.

'Another. You wish to drink another. The boy nods.

The man signals to the Italian behind the counter He turns back to the boy.

'Do you have a name?

Nothing. Nothing moves in the brown eyes. The boy regards him as calmly as might some placid dog.

The silver pulping machine chugs briefly amid the stacked fruit. Shaved ice whirs into the pulp. The Italian transfers the drink to a plastic cup and places it before the boy. The boy looks at it.

The man shifts on the creaking metal stool, his long coat draped like resting wings. Beneath his arm, carefully cleaned now, the knife in its magnetic sheath swings free, sleeping.

The boy raises the cup, opens his mouth, and pours the thick sludge of ice and fruit pulp down his throat.

Defective, the man thinks. Syndromes of the city's tragic womb. The signal of life distorted by chemicals, by starvation, by blows of fortune. Yet he, like everyone else, like the man himself, is exactly where, exactly what, exactly when he is meant to be. It is the Tao: darkness within darkness.

The boy places the empty cup beside the other two.

The man straightens his legs, stands, buttoning his coat.

The boy reaches out. Two fingers touch the watch the man wears on his left wrist. He opens his mouth as if to speak.

'The time?

Something moves in the affectless brown depths of the boy's eyes. The watch is very old, purchased from a specialist dealer in a fortified arcade in Singapore. It is military ordnance. It speaks to the man of battles fought in another day. It reminds him that every battle will one day be as obscure, and that only the moment matters, matters absolutely.

The enlightened warrior rides into battle as if to a loved one's funeral, and how could it be otherwise?

The boy leans forward now, the thing behind his eyes seeing only the watch.

The man thinks of the two he leaves tonight on the bridge. Hunters of sorts, now they will hunt no more. And this one, following them. To pick up scraps.

'You like this?

Nothing registers. Nothing breaks the concentration, the link between that which has surfaced behind the boy's eyes and the austere black face of the watch.

The Tao moves.

The man unfastens the steel buckle that secures the strap. He hands the watch to the boy. He does this without thought. He does this with the same unthinking certainty with which, earlier, he killed. He does this because it fits, is fitting; because his life is alignment with the Tao.

There is no need to say good-bye.

He leaves the boy lost in contemplation of the black face, the hands.

He leaves now. The moment in balance.