Dream: I Want His Cutlery
Wednesday, March 22nd:
Our class of a half-dozen students worked on final projects in the computer lab. Break time rolled aroundthis was also our employmentand we gathered by the foot of the stairs to chat. Most of the guys were about my age or younger. The tall man in his late 30's stood quietly on the second step like he always did, interjecting with wise comments. Ed just listened and smiled. Svetlana stood a couple yards back from us feeling isolated, so she couldn't see the tall fellow. The only other woman, an attractive blond about my age, still sat at her computer.
"Hey, [Amanda]," she said, addressing a third woman I hadn't noticed, "what's the number for [Mental Health Services]?" [Amanda] stepped out of our group and helped her. The blond woman kept getting calls from distraught and disturbed people, and she had to redirect them. It wasn't really their fault; our company name was misleading.
Hayley Stark (the 14-year-old in Hard Candy) hid under a pile of nets on a barge. The blue wetsuit covered her auburn hair, and the shadows of ropes camouflaged her freckled face. She'd heard of the barren islands and mud bars around Manhattan, and she wanted to see them for herself, so she'd stowed away for a ride. (This was the second time she'd done something on her own like this. I don't remember the first, but she was getting much more reckless.) The charcoal haze of smog stretched across a clear night sky, smoldering in the urban glow.
The old man running the barge nearly grabbed the nets over her head and revealed her, but he got distracted at the last minute. (I privately wondered whether he knew she was there and was pretending not to notice.) He talked to his grandson, an innocent-looking boy just entering middle school. (He looked like the kid from the park bench in Amateur.) They neared a small island, and Haley slipped off the barge while they talked.
Grandpa cast out a tiny netyou had to be careful in the narrows of Long Island Soundand hauled a bundle up from the murk. Gray water slooshed across the deck and over the side as he freed his catch: a pair of plastic milk crates. They'd been tied together into a cage, shark tape securing the join. Shark tape was something between fiberglass packing tape and Kevlar, so-called because it had to withstand bites from the tiger sharks that prowl the sound.
He cut the crates apart and pulled free a pair of clear, round tupperware containers, each about a gallon. He opened one and showed his grandson the contents. Several dozen rings of bone sloshed inside, each a couple inches across; I figured they were cross-sections of large, hollow femurs, and I somehow knew they were human. The boy tried to ask something, but couldn't get it out. Grandpa explained that the microbes and so forth would've cleaned off everything that wasn't bone by now, just from the heat. He knew they'd been dumped by one of the hospitals or medical corporations; it was mildly illegal, but they all did that. He poured them into a larger container on the deck, the one where he kept his collection of bone rings.
"What's your job, Grandpa?" the boy asked.
"Looks like now it's being on the run from twelve armed men," he said, hefting an eighteen-inch blade with a comforting smile. The pistol-gripped deck knife flashed in the evening gloom, heavy and wickedly serrated. Had it met a gang of kabars in a dark alley, the kabars would've run screaming. It looked like a sharpened gorilla bar edged with the curved fangs of a tree saw. It could've been a close-combat weapon for killing ents.
The barge had been floating in the middle of the river, but now it was docked again. Just before grandpa cast off, the Haley ran smiling to the end of the short pier, water gleaming on her suit. She'd ditched the heavier diving gear.
"Not going to send him out alone, are you?" she asked. (He wouldn't be of course; Grandpa would be with him. She'd meant "without someone close to his age.") The boy was confused, but Grandpa understood. He returned her smile and gestured her aboard. He figured she looked resourceful, and obviously needed to evade troubles of her own.
Our class of a half-dozen students worked on final projects in the computer lab. Break time rolled aroundthis was also our employmentand we gathered by the foot of the stairs to chat. Most of the guys were about my age or younger. The tall man in his late 30's stood quietly on the second step like he always did, interjecting with wise comments. Ed just listened and smiled. Svetlana stood a couple yards back from us feeling isolated, so she couldn't see the tall fellow. The only other woman, an attractive blond about my age, still sat at her computer.
"Hey, [Amanda]," she said, addressing a third woman I hadn't noticed, "what's the number for [Mental Health Services]?" [Amanda] stepped out of our group and helped her. The blond woman kept getting calls from distraught and disturbed people, and she had to redirect them. It wasn't really their fault; our company name was misleading.
Hayley Stark (the 14-year-old in Hard Candy) hid under a pile of nets on a barge. The blue wetsuit covered her auburn hair, and the shadows of ropes camouflaged her freckled face. She'd heard of the barren islands and mud bars around Manhattan, and she wanted to see them for herself, so she'd stowed away for a ride. (This was the second time she'd done something on her own like this. I don't remember the first, but she was getting much more reckless.) The charcoal haze of smog stretched across a clear night sky, smoldering in the urban glow.
The old man running the barge nearly grabbed the nets over her head and revealed her, but he got distracted at the last minute. (I privately wondered whether he knew she was there and was pretending not to notice.) He talked to his grandson, an innocent-looking boy just entering middle school. (He looked like the kid from the park bench in Amateur.) They neared a small island, and Haley slipped off the barge while they talked.
Grandpa cast out a tiny netyou had to be careful in the narrows of Long Island Soundand hauled a bundle up from the murk. Gray water slooshed across the deck and over the side as he freed his catch: a pair of plastic milk crates. They'd been tied together into a cage, shark tape securing the join. Shark tape was something between fiberglass packing tape and Kevlar, so-called because it had to withstand bites from the tiger sharks that prowl the sound.
He cut the crates apart and pulled free a pair of clear, round tupperware containers, each about a gallon. He opened one and showed his grandson the contents. Several dozen rings of bone sloshed inside, each a couple inches across; I figured they were cross-sections of large, hollow femurs, and I somehow knew they were human. The boy tried to ask something, but couldn't get it out. Grandpa explained that the microbes and so forth would've cleaned off everything that wasn't bone by now, just from the heat. He knew they'd been dumped by one of the hospitals or medical corporations; it was mildly illegal, but they all did that. He poured them into a larger container on the deck, the one where he kept his collection of bone rings.
"What's your job, Grandpa?" the boy asked.
"Looks like now it's being on the run from twelve armed men," he said, hefting an eighteen-inch blade with a comforting smile. The pistol-gripped deck knife flashed in the evening gloom, heavy and wickedly serrated. Had it met a gang of kabars in a dark alley, the kabars would've run screaming. It looked like a sharpened gorilla bar edged with the curved fangs of a tree saw. It could've been a close-combat weapon for killing ents.
The barge had been floating in the middle of the river, but now it was docked again. Just before grandpa cast off, the Haley ran smiling to the end of the short pier, water gleaming on her suit. She'd ditched the heavier diving gear.
"Not going to send him out alone, are you?" she asked. (He wouldn't be of course; Grandpa would be with him. She'd meant "without someone close to his age.") The boy was confused, but Grandpa understood. He returned her smile and gestured her aboard. He figured she looked resourceful, and obviously needed to evade troubles of her own.