Wild Awake - By Hilary T. Smith Page 0,84
wooden cover over the keys. Shuttered like that, it almost looks like an instrument again instead of the massive winged creature with polished white teeth it had started to become in my mind. Leaving the living room, I glance over my shoulder, but it stays like that—placid, benign—and I know the next time I play, it will be from love.
I want to see what the world looks like from the ground. I ride my bike to the Salvation Army thrift shop and buy a lime-green radio, then bike to Skunk’s house and leave it on the patio outside his door, tuned to the mystery station.
Next stop is the Imperial. I spy an old microwave someone put on the curb with a STILL WORKS sign and decide to bring it to Doug. On my way up the stairs, I make a list of all the things I need to remember to tell Doug about the microwave. Number one, don’t put metal in it. Metal will make it spark. Number two, don’t put anything in it for longer than five minutes. Longer than five minutes and even the rock-hardest frozen thing will be reduced to a hissing, bubbling goo. Number three, never put cat food in it. There is no reason to ever put cat food in a microwave, and I know you’re going to be drunk some night and try it. Number four, don’t let a crackhead sell this microwave for crack. Number five, do not make any part of this microwave into a deadly weapon.
When I get to the fourth floor, Doug’s not in his room. I unplug his hot plate and thunk down the microwave in its place. I plug it in and stand there, setting the time. Doug would never in a million years bother to set the time.
I’m about to pay a visit to Sukey’s rooftop when I hear a grating yowl. Snoogie has wandered out of the closet and is skulking across the room in my direction. She gets close and starts pressing herself around my legs, doing that round-the-leg figure-eight thing cats do. I bend down and scoop her up, a skinny hot bag of bones with fur like a ragged bath mat. She sticks out her legs, claws extended, and rakes them against my shirt. I flip her around so her back is against my chest and her razor collection is sticking out in front of us as protection against crook-nosed Kids who might be roaming through the hall.
“Let’s find Doug,” I whisper, and she meows in response. “He needs a microwave tutorial.”
The usual suspects are drinking on the front steps of the hotel. I say hi to Jasmine, who is wearing a stretchy purple tank top, leopard-print sweatpants, and sparkly pink eye shadow that goes all the way up to her eyebrows. She’s sucking on a cigarette like it’s a stick of honey.
“Aw,” she says. “Doug wanted you to have that kitty.”
“I brought him a microwave,” I say. “I left it in his room. Where is he?”
Jasmine stubs out her cigarette. “He’s dead, baby. He passed on Tuesday night.”
I stare at her, stricken. “What? How?”
“He’d been sick for a long time, baby. HIV. He didn’t like people to know.”
“Does he have any family?” I say, but Jasmine says no.
I hurry back up the stairs to Doug’s room, blinking back tears. I will pack up his things; I will keep them in my closet until someone who loves him picks them up. But when I get there, there’s a skinny, sunken-cheeked, green-skinned elf in the room with the microwave under one arm and Doug’s blanket under the other.
“Hey,” I say, and he turns and snarls at me with a face of such pure, ugly, Gollum-like desperation that I take Snoogie and bolt before he kills us both.
Snoogie doesn’t stop yowling the whole bike ride home, and I have to hold her in one arm like a tattered, flea-bitten baby to keep her from twisting away and getting run over by a bus. When we get home, I drag us to the top of the stairs and pull my bedroom door open, ready to collapse on the floor.
But there’s already something on the floor. A smashed thing.
Blue shards crisscrossed with looping silver. The splintering angles of a broken frame.
I look at the wall. The nail is bare. I look back at the floor.
Sukey’s painting.
I die.
chapter thirty-seven
Someone’s knocking on the front door of my house.
I’m sitting in bed with my knees drawn up to my chest,