Nocturnal

Aggie Gets a Roommate

Aggie James didn’t want to wake up, but a part of his mind pulled at him, tried to drag him out of a dream where a little girl’s lips pecked feather-light on his cheek, and her arms wrapped around his neck.

He didn’t want to wake, but wake he did.

He sniffed. He rubbed at his face. The real bitch about getting sober? You start to remember things.

Aggie James hadn’t always been a strung-out, homeless bum. Once upon a time, in fact, he’d owned a little counterculture Internet café. He’d attracted a certain antiestablishment clientele. All kinds of people wandered in, but after seeing the giant FUCK STARBUCKS mural painted on the wall behind the coffee counter, the visitors either smiled and stayed or frowned and left.

He’d run the place with his wife and his teenage daughter, right up until the robbery.

The robbers shot Aggie first. Shot him twice, in fact, once in the leg and once in the chest. He remembered dropping to his ass, back propped up by the counter. His blood ran everywhere. He couldn’t move, couldn’t lift a finger, but he stayed conscious long enough to see them put a bullet in his wife’s head. He stayed conscious long enough to see his daughter run for the door, to see her shot in the back before she could reach it. He stayed conscious long enough to see her crawling across the floor, bloody hands reaching for him, begging for her daddy to help her, to please help her, please!

Aggie James even stayed conscious long enough to see the gun pointed at his daughter’s face, and just long enough to hear her last scream stop abruptly when the gunman pulled the trigger. Only then had he passed out.

The cops told him the robbers probably thought he was dead, and that passing out had probably saved his life.

His life.

What a joke.

Fucking memories. He couldn’t shake them, not until he’d done heroin for about a month straight. That made you forget everything. Almost.

He’d lost all that mattered to him. Nothing would fill that inescapable dullness in his heart. Not that he’d tried very hard to fill it, of course. With no reason to go on — and not enough guts to kill himself — he’d chosen a slow route to the grave. A painful route. It’s what he had coming, after all … if a man can’t protect his family, does he deserve to live? Aggie had thought not.

That was before the white dungeon.

This horrific place reminded Aggie that life — no matter how crappy it might be — was far better than the alternative. A day and a half ago, as near as he could tell, Hillary had given him hope. If there was even a chance to get out of this, to live, Aggie would do anything she asked.

He finally blinked away the sleep to see that a new man had been chained to the wall on his left, where the Mexican woman had once been. Not a man — a boy, really, but a goddamn big boy. The kid’s face looked like swollen hamburger: split lip, broken teeth, blood all over his mouth and a seriously fucked-up nose. He was spitting up blood and making low moaning noises, noises that had the cadence of speech but were not words.

The boy opened his mouth to moan louder, and Aggie saw why the sounds had no meaning — someone had cut out his tongue.

To his right, Aggie heard other noises he didn’t understand, but that was only because he didn’t speak Chinese. The Chinaman was on his knees, tear-streaked eyes shut tight, body rocking back and forth as he prayed to someone or something.

Aggie James couldn’t help the Chinaman, and he couldn’t help the tongueless boy. He could only help himself, and only if Hillary gave him a chance.

He lay back down and closed his eyes. Maybe he would dream of his daughter again.