i could have sworn i saw a light coming on
Nathan remembers living in the Narrows.
A lot of kids his age pretend not to. He was ten when it all happened, though people all thought he was older, even then. He can get by with saying he's sixteen, now, though he sure isn't. He remembers when his mom was still around and she would talk wistfully about making it off that island, or bitterly blaming it for everything that was wrong in her life, from the plumbing to her husband. He doesn't know how much of it was true, but he imagines a lot of it was. If they hadn't been living in the Narrows, she wouldn't have gotten sick.
(He likes phrasing it that way. “She got sick”, not “She lost her mind entirely from some kind of poison in the air”. It makes him feel better.)
It was different, for a while. The city gave them some money for their loss (and they all knew it was a loss, they knew she wouldn't ever come out of that hospital, her and all the others), and helped them relocate to another district, one that was low-end but not nearly as bad as the walled subcity that the Narrows had been. He and his father shared a flat with an elderly man who wasn't thrilled with the government mandate that everyone on federal care scoot over and make room for local refugees until new housing could be built, but he'd come to like Nathan a lot. It was nice having someone in the apartment who wasn't drunk all the time.
He's not sure what, exactly, happened to keep them from ever going into the new housing structure. “Politics,” Mr. Greenfield told him, “It's all politics and red tape. Somebody's getting paid off to keep that place looking nice and full of friends and relatives of the department. They don't want folks like you and me in there lowering the tone of their shiny new area.”
Nathan figures Mr. Greenfield's right. He doesn't really know.
It's been too long since they were all moved out of the Narrows. The places they're in now are all over-crowded, and the smell and feel of the air is starting to remind him of home. The sounds, too - all the noises at night, the familiar way he wakes up at the slightest creak, knowing exactly when someone is scratching at his window, looking for money or drugs or jewelry, knowing what the tread of a cop car driving by sounds like versus a civilian car. Soon it'll be just like it was, and everyone seems to know it. Not many people seem to care.
They're used to it.
The walk home from school isn't that bad, but it's lonely. There's not a lot of other kids in his neck of the woods that bother going anymore, even at his age. He's expecting another dull afternoon of homework and talking to Mr. Greenfield and waiting for his father to show up (or wake up, Nathan doesn't remember if he'd even gone to work today or if he was too hung over), so he's a bit taken aback when he rounds the corner to find several squad cars and a van all parked haphazardly outside the apartment building, uniformed officers and a detective all milling around.
He waits, staring, unsure if it's safe to approach. He doesn't see any police tape, but the gently flashing lights and their very presence make him on edge. They're talking and using terms that he's not sure he always understands. “Resisted arrest”, “DOA”, “had a warrant on him anyway”, and they all sound so casual. Nathan steps closer, and he can see that the side of the van reads GOTHAM CITY CORONER. Unable to help himself, he approaches the nearest police officer.
“E-excuse me,” he asks quietly, and they stop and look down at him.
“What, kid? You live here.”
Nathan nods.
“Well you better go find somewhere else to play until we're cleared out,” he tells him. Behind the police officers, the coroner approaches, looking frazzled and unhappy. Apparently oblivious of Nathan's presence, he immediately launches into a tirade. More terms Nathan doesn't understand. “Unarmed”, “excessive”, “paperwork hell”, “lawsuit”. The officers groan and roll their eyes and say look, they're all bad here, nobody cares, they're on the city's dime, just relax, nothing will come of it.
Maybe he just doesn't want to understand.
“Hey,” he tries again, this time reaching up to touch the officer's arm. He flinches when he whirls around.
“What?”
“Which apartment?”
“14B.”
He turns away, careless, and it's for the best. He misses the way Nathan's face falls. It's better if he doesn't realize he lives there, that 14B is where he lives with his dad and Mr. Greenfield.
Lived.
There are bodies coming out on stretchers.
Two of them.
Nathan turns around and walks away, not sure where he's going. It doesn't matter, not really.
It's just like home.