Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,67
she wants to. She doesn’t, but it’s all over her: someone close is gone, has been gone for a while. A brother, cousin maybe. He’s tall and lanky, young. His face stares defiantly out from the haze around Kia. He’s probably dead, the way she carries him enshrined so.
Kia’s staring at me. I exit her private thoughts and make myself smile. “It means a lot to me, you helping me out like this.” I’m really not good with saying things like that, so it comes out all off rhythm.
“Ha—don’t worry about it. I said I’m having fun.” She smiles an awkward teenager smile and heads back into the kitchen.
If Sarco goes to Sasha . . . I don’t know what I would do. In part because I don’t know what she would do. She’s a total unknown entity at this point, a wild card. On the one hand, she showed a healthy distrust of him when she was telling her story; on the other, she shish-kebabed me to the couch and summoned that asshole to my house. Then again, I killed her brother. But she also didn’t look that happy to see Sarco when he showed up. And that face she made at me just before leaving: could that have been remorse in her eyes?
“Hey, whatever happened with your lady friend?” Kia yells over the clatter of dishwashing.
I hate it when she does that. “Which one?”
“Oh please. Don’t act like you got chicks climbing over each other to get on that dick.”
“Well, damn.”
“The one that had you all frowny a few weeks ago.”
“Oh yeah, that one. Seems she’s the one that put the blade in me.”
“Oh. So not so good, then.”
“Well, she may have had somewhat of a justifiable reason.”
She appears in the doorway, arms akimbo. “What the fuck did you do, Carlos?”
“No . . . nothing. To her. Nothing like that. I mean . . . it’s complicated.”
“No fucking shit it’s complicated.”
“You got a boyfriend, Kia?”
“Man . . .” she scoffs. “There’s this one dude Renny I kinda like.”
“Renny?”
“Renard.”
“Is he eighty?”
“No, Carlos, he’s sixteen. Just has an old-ass name. But I dunno. Mostly, I don’t have time for these children that’re tryna throw game my way. Seriously, these idiotic little boys come with some true stupidity, and quite frankly I got better shit to do.”
“I hear you.” Of course, I don’t a have an adolescence to hark back to, but from what I’ve witnessed in the street, her assessment sounds about right.
“All right,” Kia says, putting down the dish towel and sitting at the table. “Stop distracting me. I got homework and shit.”
* * *
A murderer.
Sarco’s voice wakes me from a delirious dream and I jolt up, throwing my glance around the dark room. Nothing stirs. Victor is knocked out in the easy chair, snoring loudly. The moon is strong tonight, sends bright beams in to illuminate the edges of my furniture. Outside, passing cars slosh through puddles and the rain still soft-steps through the night, against my windows.
No Sarco.
I lie back down.
Murderer.
That sickening whisper. He knows who I was. Or he said he did, anyway. My creator. He seemed to have the memories to prove it, but I suppose there are ways of faking such things. I roll over, scowling at my tender abdomen and impossible thought lines. I want to know. I couldn’t give a fuck for three years and suddenly it matters. Because now the answer is a reality, somewhere, in someone’s mind, even if it’s a near-impossible, almost-definite lie of a reality. There’s still a glimmer there, and a glimmer is all I need to get agitated.
Fuck.
I roll over again, squirming with pain.
Ass.
What happened immediately before that moment of me? What happened after? I took it to be some part of my death struggle, but who knows? If Sarco’s telling the truth and I was a murderer, I suppose I could’ve had many moments like that.
Fuck.
This means that when I finally do find Sarco, I can’t just ruthlessly end him for good the way I’d like to. I have to find out a few things first. And this complicates shit. The hunger for knowledge always complicates shit.
And I hate complicated shit.
Fuck.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
My brother.”
I’ve never been so happy to see Riley in my whole entire life. Ever. And it’s not a dream. I grin up at him like an overjoyed idiot and he rolls his eyes.
“I’ll take that stupid-ass smile to mean you’re feeling better.”
“Yes.” And it’s true. I feel . . . cleansed. That fresh