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They’d always thought it would be triumphant. A stand against evil. A candle in the face of darkness. Yet here they were, the disaster they had so carefully planned finally spilling over the restaurant. Their intended target was bleeding out, likely dead. In the eye of the storm, all they could think was ‘At least that’s done’.
A hand extended through the curtain that they had retreated behind to observe the chaos. They watched it with detached interest. Maybe this was how it ended.
“We should get out of here. Come on, I can get us through the back door.”
They knew that voice and they reached back, taking the hand. That was the start of it.
They had met Oluwande when they started working at the restaurant. He was a good co-worker, friendly, but not invasive. When he found out they were fluent in Spanish, he’d switch to it whenever he wanted to speak just to them. He seemed to think they were buddies and they let him. It’d been nice, having someone around that would take a table that was giving them grief or ask for their help in a busy moment like he knew they were up for it.
But when Oluwande said we and slipped out the back with them, they weren’t just co-workers or buddies anymore.
“What’d you do that for?” he asked as soon as they were walking briskly away.
“Do what?” They scanned the crowd. It was dark enough that no one gave them a second look with their hands shoved deep in their pockets to hide the blood.
“You spilled soup on that guy’s lap on purpose and made it look like someone else did it. You were fast, but not that fast.”
“I needed a distraction.”
“Yeah, I saw that too,” Oluwande kept walking, his voice wavering, but not judging. “What’d he do to earn that?”
“Eye for an eye,” they said grimly.
“No one else saw it, I don’t think.” He made an abrupt turn and they followed him for lack of any other plan. Sirens sounded in the distance. “And that brawl you got going will confuse things.”
“Yeah, that was the point.”
“You can stay with me tonight. No one would think to look for you there.”
No one should be looking for them anywhere. The name they’d got the job under was stolen and different from the other stolen name on the lease of their shitbox studio.
“Yeah, okay,” they said anyway. They’d run out of The Plan ten minutes ago and Oluwande had ideas. Good enough.
He lived pretty close to their place. “My roommates are out. Let’s just get you cleaned up, huh?”
“Sure.” They trailed him to a cramped bathroom where they carefully washed their hands.
“Shirt’s a goner,” Oluwande pointed to a creeping stain. “It’ll be loose on you, but you can borrow one of mine.”
It wasn’t so bad to pull on a clean t-shirt and sit down on the edge of his bed. His room was small, but full of interesting things.
“You have a girlfriend?” They asked, spotting a dress flopping out of a crammed bureau.
“No.” He scooted in front of the drawer and attempted to shove it back in.
“I don’t care if you do.”
“I...no. I’m getting into drag. Just as a hobby.”
“Oh.” They had a vague idea of what drag was, but had never given it much thought. “Okay.”
“It’s pretty fun,” he ventured and when they just nodded, he took it as permission to go on. “I like all the pageantry and stuff. And you get to be someone else. I like that part a lot.”
“Yeah,” they said roughly. “I can get that.”
“I thought maybe you could,” Oluwande sat down next to them. “So you were planning this for a while?”
“Yes.” Months. Years. Arguably the majority of their lives.
“What now? If you get away with it.”
They fell silent again.
“Okay....how about we start with dinner?”
They ate pizza on Oluwande’s bed. He turned on some show that he thought was good and they listened to him explain it more closely than watching the screen. In the back of their head, they were already regrouping. Except...except they were tired. It’d been two years tracking down that motherfucker and he was dead. There were others, of course. There was a list.
But they were so very tired.
“Can I sleep here?” They asked, belly full and eyes heavy.
“Oh, uh yeah, I can take the floor. I’ve got a sleeping bag-”
“We can share,” they said firmly. “I don’t take up much room.”
“That’s not exactly a first time visitor territory, but it is a weird situation,” Oluwande wavered. Then yawned, “Fuck it. I’m good with it if you are.”
It had been a long time since they’d shared a bed, but it wasn’t unpleasant. He was a tidy sleeper, tucked up and still. There was a warmth they had forgotten that sapped into their bones and made them all the more drowsy. They slept.
When they woke, it was to a cup of coffee on the bedside table.
“So the restaurant closed down. Apparently the cops found some interesting stuff int the back when they came to arrest everyone,” Oluwande informed them. He was sitting at the bedroom window on a folding chair. “They called to tell us we’re all out of work. Want to go job hunting?”
So they searched together. The first restaurant they hit up needed one person.
“You take it,” Oluwande urged. “I have a month’s rent saved up.”
“No,” they frowned. “We find a place together.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” they nodded once. He was the one who had said ‘we’.
The fourth place did need two people and they were handed uniforms. Very different uniforms. They took theirs with mild disgust, but a skirt had to be bearable for the sake of survival. If Oluwande thought it was strange that they asked for the same shifts, he never said anything. Instead, he seemed shyly pleased that they continued to talk to him at all.
“I’m bored,” they declared, a few weeks later.
“How’d you get in here?” Oluwande yawned. “It’s like six am.”
“We both have off today,” they sat down near his feet on the bed. “Let’s just go somewhere.”
“Where?” He curled around his pillow to look at them.
“Dunno. Just...not here.”
“Give me an hour to wake up and we’ll figure something out.”
They slithered to the floor, out of sight and let him go back to sleep. It was already less painfully boring than being in their own place. Olu had a collection of geodes that were interesting to look at and a small pile of National Geographic back issues that he’d bought for a dollar at a used book store. All they had were memories and a futon.
“There’s an outdoor music festival at some town upstate,” Oluwande emerged from the blankets clutching his phone. “Direct access by train.”
“What kind of music?”
“Folk?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Do you like folk?”
“Let’s find out.”
It had been ages since they’d left the city. Spring was fresh in the air, leaves just struggling to unfurl and forsythia spreading bright yellow along the tracks. The color was a relief from the paved over world and they rested their forehead against the window to watch.
“Want to listen to this podcast with me?” Oluwande offered.
“Yeah.”
They shared his headphones, one earbud for each of them. It was some history thing that they didn’t really absorb, but it was good to sit like this, sharing the same sound in the liminal space of travel.
The town was quaint, a little river town that must’ve made their money on trade two hundred years ago and now cashed in on how little it had changed by appealing to tourists. It wasn’t hard to find the field with the festival, dozens of people heading that way.
“I went to a concert like this when I was still in high school,” Oluwande mused as they paid the entrance fee. “Got a contact high like you wouldn’t believe. What about you?”
“Never really went to concerts.”
“Why not?”
“Hey! Giant pretzels.” They veered off to the food trucks.
“There’s giant pretzels in the city,” Oluwande followed after them.
“Not this size! Holy shit, we could eat this for a week.”
They bought one, obviously and then found a patch of unoccupied grass to flop on. Oluwande took his half without further grumbling and they were quickly both sticky-fingered with mustard and lightly dusted with salt. The music was okay, twangy and harmonious, but nothing that gripped them.
“That guy has a good hat.” They pointed to a man in the crowd with a wide-brimmed brown cowboy sort of hat.
“It’s pretty good,” Oluwande conceded. “Better than a fedora anyway.”
“I’m gonna get it.”
“Please don’t get us arrested at a hippie festival,” Oluwande sighed. “That’d be upsetting and ironic. You know how irony gives me a stomachache.”
“Have a little faith, Olu.”
It took a little doing, but they returned to his side, very pleased with their new acquisition.
“So what’d you do?” He lifted his eyebrows.
“Relax, I gave him twenty bucks. He wasn’t that attached. Looks better on me, anyway.”
Oluwande reached out and adjusted the brim a little, “Yeah, it does.”
“Want to walk around?”
“Sure, rocks aren’t doing my ass any favors.”
There were a few craft tables out. Oluwande looked at each one politely and then got suckered into hearing the macrame lady’s entire life story. They wandered off and came back with a coke icee.
“Where’d you get that from?” He reached out expectantly so they handed it over. Warmth knotted in their gut as he took a sip and gave it back.
“Is this your girlfriend?” The macrame lady asked in the saccharine tone that always made their skin itch.
“My best friend,” Oluwande said absently. “Can I get the bracelet with the turquoise?”
“Of course! What an excellent choice, goes right with that earring of yours,” the woman crowed.
They clutched the icee a little closer. Best friends were for children. The kind of thing that meant whispering together in a cafeteria or always having someone to pair up with for school projects. Someone to share the best coloring page in the book with, passing crayons back and forth. Their last best friend had been at six years old, before the world ended.
“Hey, you want to go check out the town while we’re here?” The bracelet went around his wrist, blue-green stone bright as a flower against the rich earth of his skin. “Get dinner?”
“Yeah,” they said thickly. “Let’s do that.”
There was a small Chinese place on one corner.
“You want kung pao chicken?” Oluwande asked. “I’m going to do the garlic eggplant.”
They shared the plates between them, spearing bites and talking about the music. By the time they were back on the train, they were pleasantly worn out and not at all bored.
After that, it became a thing they did together. Once a month or so they’d get on a train and just go. Sometimes with a destination, sometimes just getting off at a random stop and going exploring.
“Hey,” they realized while they were poking through an antique show. “How come I’ve never seen you do the drag thing?”
“I gave it up.” His back was to them, picking through a collection of salt and pepper shakers. “What do you think of the mice?”
“Too cutesy. What do you mean you gave it up?”
“I couldn’t get a gig and I was spending too much to do it for free,” he shrugged.
“But you liked it.”
“Can’t have everything.”
And you couldn’t. Sometimes you couldn’t have anything. They knew all about that. But Oluwande never asked for anything and gave people everything. He deserved something good. When he talked about drag, he sounded happy.
“Why couldn’t you get a gig?”
“Just not much of a dancer or maybe I’m bad at all of it. Never even came up with a good name.”
“I can help with one of those,” they smiled wide and plucked up a marching pair of ducks. “Get these.”
“Which one? Why these? Where are you going?”
“Come on!”
They wound up using their place. The bare bones of it coming in use for once. They put on the music of their childhood and it didn’t even make them a little sad for once. They were too distracted teaching Oluwande where to put his feet. He had a good sense of rhythm and he picked it up fast, but they’d never taught anyone before, so it took close attention.
“Why do you know how to tango?” He asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?” They swept their foot back. He let them lead without question.
“You always answer a question with a question, did you know that?”
“Step forward, step back,” They recited with the beat.
“I think you like being mysterious.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” they said dryly. How could they explain that there was no mystery. They were just a blank page. Unconsidered, irrelevant to the story. “Stand up as straight as you can. It makes a nicer line.”
“You know you can tell me anything.”
“I tell you more than anyone else. As much as I can. Step back and forward.”
For a tenuous moment, they thought he would reject that. Accuse them of lying, but instead, he stood up straighter and reached over to restart the song,
“Show me again from the beginning.”
It was one of those golden hours that stayed, tucked like a jewel in a box of memories. He laughed as they glided away and made him go alone, tapping their heel to the floor to keep the rhythm. When he got sick of their drilling, he put on a swing playlist and they swung each other around the tight floor space, trying out wild moves and falling almost as much as they stood up.
Maybe that was why the crash hit them so hard. Oluwande went home and they went to bed and just stayed there. They woke up tired and when they sat up and looked at the hateful uniform, they just flopped back down and stayed there.
Time slowed.
Some unknowable amount of hours later, their phone vibrated on the floor, clattering over the floorboards that had so recently known dancing. They watched it move like an inchworm. Start. Stop. Start. Stop.
Then it rang. And rang.
“Fine,” they muttered and picked it up, dropping it on their ear.
“You’re an hour late,” Oluwande’s voice pierced through the miasma. “Where are you?”
“In bed.”
“Okay,” he inhaled roughly and expelled it fast. “What’s wrong? Do you need me to bring you something?”
“I can’t put it on.”
“What can’t you put on?” he prodded gently. Always and ever so gently. Like they were an egg instead of a knife.
“That fucking skirt, Olu. I don’t want to put it on. I never want to wear a goddamn skirt ever again. I don’t want to be girl or a woman or a lady or whatever stupid fucking thing people call me. I’m done with it.”
“Yeah...yeah okay, give me a second. Gotta do something. I’ll call back, pick the fuck up this time, okay?”
They hung up and waited. It was weird how saying it was the last step to making it true. Fuck all of it. Fuck the whole goddamn sorry world.
The phone rang. They picked it up.
“So?”
“So, I quit. You know that sketchy burger joint we both like? I saw a for hire sign up last time we got take out. I’ll meet you there in a half hour. If you’re not there, I’m showing up with chicken soup and a rom com.”
“You wouldn’t.” They sat straight up.
“Try me,” he challenged. “Half an hour.”
They wore the hat. When the sun hit, they tilted the brim down. It gave a different view of the world, shaded and creating privacy in the crowd.
“Hey, you made it,” Oluwande waved frantically at them as if they could miss him. “Come on, I already talked to the owner. I, uh, look if you hate it we can change it, but I gave him a different name.”
“Why?” They sunk their hands into their pockets.
“You never like the old one. Seems like maybe if you were done with one part of it...”
“How’d you know that I didn’t like it?”
“You gave a fake one to every place we’ve ever gone? Different ones. And when I called you by it once, you made a face like I shit on the floor.”
“Yeah, okay. What’d you go with?”
“Jim?” He offered with a hopeful lilt.
“Jim. Jim Jimenez.” They weren’t sure they were conveying the right amount of incredulousness.
“I panicked,” he sighed. “You don’t have to use it.”
“No, uh. I like it.” Jim. Jim. Jim was pretty good actually. Jim wore a hat. Jim had a best friend.
“Good, great. Let’s go in before they change their minds and run a background check.”
“They wouldn’t find anything,” they snorted. “I’m too good for that shit.”
It went fine. The place even paid in cash if they didn’t ask too many questions about the loading dock’s comings and goings. Jim saved up a little and stopped by a store Oluwande had pointed out months ago. Maybe a year ago? Could it be that long?
“Happy birthday.” They presented him with the shopping bag.
“It’s September.”
“Yep.”
“My birthday is in July. You bought me dinner, remember?”
“Just open the damn bag, Olu, fuck.” They rolled their eyes.
“Okay...shoes?” He pulled out the shoe box.
“Shoes.” They shrugged.
Olu opened the box, “Holy shit, how’d you remember?”
“I’ve got a good memory,” they grinned. “Right size?”
“Yeah, wow. Jim...” Olu held out the pair of pumps. Square heeled for dancing. They were a bright sparkly orange. He’d stood in front of the window a little too long looking at them. “Why?”
“You should try again.” They crossed their arms over their chest. “I taught you to dance. I’ll go with you to auditions and spook ‘em if I need to.”
“I don’t know if that’ll help.”
There was a fly in the room. Jim watched it carefully.
“Whatever you were doing before wasn’t working.”
“Yeah, thanks for the reminder,,” he huffed, but he was still holding fast to the shoes. The fly was buzzing around his head now. “I guess a little revamp can’t hurt.”
Jim drew their knife and threw, pinning the fly to the wall, “Gotcha, motherfucker.”
“And there goes the last of my security deposit,” Oluwande said dryly. “What is wrong with you?”
“Oof, tough question. Why, what’s wrong with you?” They cackled and pulled the knife from the wall, flicking the fly carcass away from his bed. They slept there sometimes, after all.
“Right now, mostly that there’s a knife wound in my wall.”
“You can’t wound a wall. It doesn’t bleed or anything.”
“It’s been stabbed. You stabbed my wall.”
“Is it still stabbing if you throw something though? Stabbing is more of a close combat motion.”
“I don’t care! You’re getting the spackle and fixing it. Again!”
“Yeah, yeah, I have the stuff from last time.” They dropped to the floor and started digging around under his bed to find where they stashed it. It was deeper than they thought and it took some wiggling.
“Hey, while you’re stuck down there. What’s your favorite color?”
“What?” They hit their head on the metal frame.
“Seems like a simple one, c’mon.”
Jim wrapped a hand around the spackle. Favorite color. Who had a favorite color? Was that a thing people had?
“What’s it matter?” They rested their head on their forearm, closed their eyes.
“It matters to me,” his voice went all soft. “I like knowing things about you.”
“You know me,” they considered just staying under the bed.
“Jim, c’mon. It’s just a color.”
There was the bracelet with its bright bead to match his earring. How it made Jim’s fingers itch to touch.
“Teal,” they settled on. Teal was close enough. Teal was something. Teal wasn’t evasion and being too fast to catch.
“Great, thanks. Hey, you need me to pull you out from under there?”
They wiggled a little and then groaned, “Yeah, maybe.”
He hauled them out by their ankles. At least they remembered to grab the spackle on the way out. As Oluwande watched them cover up the hole, he said,
“You’re really accurate with that knife.”
“Yep.”
“How accurate do you think you could be? Inches?”
“Centimeters,” Jim contested.
“You’re that sure?”
“I don’t miss.”
“Then I’ve got an idea.”
They practiced first, dragged a piece of cardboard in front of a dumpster and started with an outline of a person that Oluwande gave a worried expression. When Jim neatly outlined him in knife marks, they graduated to pillows. They put up with it. If Oluwande needed the assurance it was fine by them.
The first time they threw at him, Jim actually had to stop and take a breath. It was disconcerting to aim at a person without any rage and admittedly a little bit concerning. But they got their flow down.
It took a few sessions before Oluwande announced,
“We’ve got an audition for a Saturday gig.”
“Awesome.”
Being up on stage was uncomfortable but Jim focused on the knives and blocked the rest of it out.
“It’s not really our kind of thing,” the owner said gently. “But Wednesday at 8…you could do it for tips.”
“That’s something,” Oluwande sighed.
“Gotta start somewhere.”
“What’s your act’s name?”
“Jim,” Oluwande hesitated, “and Teal Magnolia.”
They stared at him and he smiled warmly until Jim had to jump up from the chair too full of feeling to finish out the business bullshit.
They went from bar to bar at awkward weekday hours and walked out with twenty or thirty bucks most times. It was wearing on Oluwande and they didn’t know how to fix it. They tried their best to shake out a better gig, but it wasn’t really their area.
“I heard some of the girls talking,” Teal emerged from a cramped dressing room one night still in full drag. “There’s a new place opened up a few streets over. Desperate for acts and can’t get them.”
“Why not?” Jim shot back their single complimentary shot of vodka.
“They think it’s a scam. Money is too good, guy is an overdressed weirdo.”
“What do you think?”
“That I don’t own anything worth scamming?”
“Let’s go,” Jim grinned at him.
The bar was open, but totally dead. The man sitting at the stage was surrounded by piles of clothes and humming atonally. When he caught sight of them he slid off the stage, landing a little awkwardly.
“My apologies! Are you here for a drink?”
“We heard you’re looking for acts?”
“I am!” He studied them. “I like the red feathers, very effective showmanship. I’m Stede Bonnet. Welcome to the Revenge. Do you lip sync?”
“It’s a double act,” Jim said coolly.
“Oh fascinating! Why don’t you give me a taste? Is there a song you’d like?”
Jim handed him their USB and then jumped on the stage to evaluate the space.
“Hope you don’t care about the crown molding.”
“Excuse me? Bonnet frowned as Teal went the long way around to use the stairs. The orange heels were really tall.
It was fun to be up on a big proper stage. It made it so much easier to perform. Like maybe all of the rest of it had been practice for today. The whole thing went flawlessly and Jim knew Stede was going to hire them before they were even done.
“Marvelous! Just the thing I was looking for. Now it is a bit of a commitment. Show is every Friday night.”
“What’s the pay?” Jim glanced at Oluwande. Fridays were good tip nights at the burger place.
Stede named a number that would pay half the rent. For both of them.
“Uh yeah we can do that,” Oluwande coughed. “That works.”
“I don’t suppose you know anyone else who is a little experimental?”
“There’s the juggling pair from a few weeks ago,” Jim offered. “At the Wild.”
“And that one queen that has a chainsaw act from the late late show,” Oluwande nodded.
“Tell them to come see me,” Stede nodded vigorously. “Let’s do some paperwork!”
Stunned and back outside a half hour later, they wandered down the street.
“You know if he pays us more than once, we could move. Both of us. No more shitty roommates for me and you could have a place with a working fridge.”
“Big dreams.”
Stede did pay and kept paying. A month later, they got a two bedroom closer to the club than the burger joint. They both cut back on their hours too.
There had been a little worry, sharing their space full time again, but living with Oluwande turned out to be easy. He set a routine and Jim liked routines. Waking up early and sharing scrambled eggs that they took turns making was a great way to start the day. Jim went for a run while Olu did yoga then they switched off showering. Lunch shift working side by side then back home, curled up on the couch watching television, playing cards, practicing their act and trying every new flavor chip the bodega on the corner got in stock.
And on Fridays, they got to the Revenge a little earlier every week. It wasn’t bad shooting the shit with John or learning how to use a cleaver from Roach or trying out experimental cocktails that Lucius mixed with a heavy hand. Even Stede was all right. Off in a lot of ways, and self-absorbed in a sad sort of way, but all right.
“Let’s go somewhere this weekend. It’s been ages,” Oluwande suggested as they counted tips. It’d been the best night yet. There were, somehow, regulars now. And curiosity seekers. “I saw something online that looked good.”
“Yeah okay,” they carefully flattened each bill so everything stacked with the faces the right way. “It’s enough for a round trip ticket, a nice dinner, and a new lamp, right?”
“Too bad about the old one.”
“Look I promised I wouldn’t sleep with a knife anymore only if you didn’t bring it up again.”
“You better stick to that. I’m not going to get stabbed because I woke you up wrong.”
“The lamp had it coming. You don’t.”
Jim rarely asked where they were going when they went on their jaunts. It was Olu’s job to find something and they always liked where they wound up. It’d been a long week, so they rested their eyes on the train. It was only when they pulled to a stop that they caught the sign.
“Oh shit,” they muttered under their breath.
“It’s a fall festival! Biggest one for miles.”
“I know. I shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not? Come on.”
It was pure reflex to follow where he led. Even into this. The fair was big. Maybe they wouldn’t be spotted. They had on the hat and the long coat they’d found in a charity shop and haggled for until they practically paid for them to leave.
None of it helped. She was at the same small booth that Jim had sat behind one sullen afternoon a year their whole lives, passing out the same tired pamphlets and shaking the same plastic pickle jar to collect coins from the guilty.
“There you are,” Nana had only grown sharper and she called to them from down the street. “You can’t call? You don’t remember how to text?”
“Jim,” Oluwande said slowly. “Is that nun yelling at you?”
“I’ve been busy!” Jim yelled back.
“Too busy to let me know how you are? Come over here right now. Help me pack up. I’m taking you home for lunch.”
“It’s the fall festival! You’ve got work to do,” Jim protested.
“So I’ll miss ten dollars and a few sinners. You are worth more than that. Who’s the man?”
“Oluwande, this is my Nana,” they said so reluctantly the words barely tripped off their tongue, “Nana, this is my friend Oluwande.”
He held out his hand smiling to beat the band. “What a pleasure to meet you.”
She took them back to the parish house. The old priest still lived upstairs, apparently but otherwise it was just Nana left downstairs.
“Have you made progress?” Nana asked when Oluwande went to the bathroom.
“The leader is gone. The one that mattered. I sent you the newspaper article.”
“The rest are still out there.”
Jim leaned back in their chair, “Why can’t one be enough? He’s the one that did it.”
“They shouldn’t live,” Nana scolded. “You and I know this.”
Jim fisted their hands in their coat pockets.
“You know what?” Oluwande stepped back into the room. “Thanks so much for lunch but we should head back. I forgot that I’ve got a shift tonight.”
Jim looked blankly at him, but got to their feet and followed him outside.
“We don’t work tonight.” They reminded him.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said tightly. “I don’t know what went on in your past because you won’t tell me, but you’re allowed to walk away from it.”
Jim sat down hard on the stoop. How many afternoons had they sat here after a drill and stared blankly at the garden? How many days honed against a whetstone?
“She’s right,” they said quietly. “This is what I was made to do.”
“No one is made to do anything. We’re just...people.”
“I’m not a person,” Jim watched a fat bumblebee rest in the upturned face of a rose. “I’m a knife. A blank page.”
“That’s bullshit. Total bullshit. You’re a person with feelings and a heart. You’re my favorite person.”
Jim rubbed a hand over their mouth. “I have to go. I know where the next one is. I never really stopped looking. Just...put it off for a while.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
They got to their feet slowly, a hand’s breadth away from him. They took his hand and put most of the cash in it. Jim always carried the cash. They had deeper pockets and a more suspicious mind.
“I’ll see you when I see you.”
They took off running which was probably unfair. Oluwande was light on his feet, but Jim ran every day. He’d have no hope of catching up even if he tried to go after them. When they were clear of the neighborhood, they stopped long enough to turn off their phone. They should chuck it and get a burner, but they hung on to it instead. No one could track them from a powered down phone.
It had been too long since they had to live this way, but Jim remembered the way. They used some of the money to get a crappy motel room and spent three days scoping out their next target. He looked happy, the motherfucker. Happy after all he’d done. Sneaking up on him was easy. He’d grown weak and complacent after all these years. They took him down behind the office building he went into every day. He fell to their feet and took his last breath with their boot on his throat.
“You know,” a gun muzzle rested on the top of their spine. It had been a long time since anyone had gotten the drop on them and it put ice water in Jim’s veins. “Someone might take it personally, the way you thin out the workforce.”
Jim knew that voice.
“Jackie, hey. Funny story, this guy fucking killed my family. So did the last one, for the record.”
“Funny story, I’m going to shoot you and roll you into the river.”
They moved fast. Not with the skills they’d learned from Nana, but the hours of knife throwing with its hair split precision to pin feathers to the wall. With a flick of the wrist, they took off Jackie’s earring and pinned it to the ground. The distraction gave them the momentum to disarm her and crowd against her against the wall with their other knife at her throat.
“Look, kid, I didn’t even really like the guy that much,” Jackie said with a placating smile. “How about you come inside and we chat for a while? Ever thought about going into security?”
“No.” They took a step back, kicking the gun away.
There was no one there to tell them it was a bad idea. That they had somewhere else to be. So Jim followed Jackie inside and accepted a drink. Her office was huge, but dark, the skyscraper windows closed to the daylight. There was a decanter full of amber and she poured them both a drink, settling behind her giant desk while Jim took a guest chair.
Jackie talked about the job and Jim tried to listen, but their mind kept wandering. There were a lot of things to look at in Jackie’s office and their gaze would slide over them instead of taking in the finer details of PTO.
“You’re gonna say no,” Jackie finished off her glass and set it down.
“How do you know that?” Their gaze snapped back to her face.
“You know how you recruit people for this line of work?” Jackie steepled her fingers. “You look for the hungry. Not hungry for money, even if that’s what they think they’re looking for. You look for ‘em young when what they want is a group. Someone to pat them on the head, some comradery. They’ve got to be hungry for that. Starved ideally.”
“Seems unethical.”
“Yeah, well, tomato, ta-murderer, kid.” She snorted. “The thing is, I can see you’ve been fed too recently. Maybe if I got you after the first kill. Little more wild around the eyes then. Too bad. You’re good with those things.”
“Thanks.”
“If you ever get hungry, you know where to find me,” Jackie said firmly. “But I think I hope you don’t. Get out of here. Don’t come sniffing around this place again unless you’re ready to sign up.”
“Yes, m’am.” They knocked back the last sip of their drink and got to their feet. “Hey, one last question?”
“Yes?”
“What day of the week is it?” They’d lost track and it seemed important.
“Thursday.” Jackie frowned. “You need to sit back down?”
“No, thanks.”
The bottom dropped out when they hit the pavement outside. What now? The next one wasn’t far. And the next and the next. A trail of bodies and then...and then.
Jim walked a few blocks and found a park bench under a leafy oak that’s dropping acorns with an intent to kill. They watched them drop, bouncing harmlessly into the grass.
They turned their phone back on and didn’t look at the scolding amount of text messages. Instead, they called Nana.
“It’s done,” they said as soon as the line was live.
“Where are you?” Nana demanded.
“Where you told me to be.” They pressed a hand to their eyes, hard enough that stars burst behind them.
“That man of yours, he came back in after you left. Gave me a lecture like I haven’t been given since I was younger than you,” Nana sounded...amused? Sad?
“Olu yelled at you?”
“I didn’t say that. He has a very kind modulated tone. A real gem that you found, rabbit.”
No one had called Jim rabbit in a decade. It made their throat tight. “What he’d say?”
“The details are none of your business. That’s between me and him,” Nana said with a finality that meant the subject was closed. “But...I saw his point. So. Here’s my advice.”
“Advice? Not orders?”
“You’re grown. The time for orders has slipped away from me. No, it’s advice. Strong advice.”
“Not sure what the difference is, but okay, shoot.” They took off their hat and held it close to their chest.
“Go home, rabbit. Go on home for now.”
They did not need to be told twice. The next train to the city saw them tucked in a window seat, watching the sunset smear over the sky. No dozing today. When the city rose up before them, it was awash in yellow and blues as the lights flickered on and the moon took over the sky.
It was Thursday. They hadn’t missed a show. Hadn’t stranded Olu when he might need them.
They took the subway and then walked the last three blocks. A heaviness that they hadn’t fully acknowledged sloughed off of them as they got nearer and nearer. When they finally put their key in the lock, it was gone as if it had never been. They felt as light as feather and as likely to blow away.
“Hey!” Pete was standing on their coffee table while John pinned a dress to him like a living mannequin. “Jim’s back! Hi Jim!”
“Hey Jim!” Frenchie was sitting at their kitchen table, apparently eating Jim’s Pop-Tarts.
“Where’s Oluwande?” They demanded.
“Oh, he let us stay here for a couple of days. Burst pipe in our bathroom,” John explained around a mouthful of pins.
“Ruined my favorite rag rug,” Frenchie grumbled.
“Where’s he staying then?” Jim nailed Pete with their glare since he was the most immobilized.
“At Stede’s new place. Said he’d help him get settled in or something. Sounds a bit like free labor if you ask me,” Pete scoffed.
“Fine.” They turned back around, then paused and turned back. “Put my fucking Pop-Tarts back. And so help you if any of our food is missing when I get back and hasn’t been replaced, I will make you pay for it with the spare change that I shake out of you while I hold you upside down.”
“What if I said these were mine?” Frenchie floated. “Could’ve brought them with me.”
“Consider it a rent payment,” they snarled. The Pop-Tarts went back on the shelf and then they left.
They had to get to Olu. Stede’s place was in the opposite direction of the club from theirs. They could take a cab, but it would be hard to flag one down and they were out of cash. A restlessness overtook them.
It had to be now. Right now. They started walking in the right direction. The walk turned into a run. Then an all out blitz. Ducking and weaving through the already fast walking city crowd, they charged past the restaurants they’d eaten in together a dozen times, shops they’d spent idle hours in, and the urgent care where they’d once sat tensely waiting for two hours as Olu coughed his way through an ugly flu.
Another block whizzed by and there was the bar, the eye mural just starting to bloom over the sketched out name. A sharp right turn and they were finally at Stede’s front door. They knocked loudly, then saw the bell and rang that too for good measure.
“Jim?” Stede opened the door, eyebrows high. “What can I do for you? I thought you were out of town.”
“Where’s Olu?” they demanded, breathless from their flight here.
“Oh, I think he got a little tired of unboxing things. I can be a bit of a taskmaster about how my clothes get arranged. He went back to the Revenge to get things ready for opening. Roach is going to start offering a cooking class on Thursdays at 8 and today’s the trial- And you’re leaving.”
“See ya!” Jim leaped off the stoop and turned back the way they’d come.
They knew they were smiling, a little too wild and sharp. When they were little, they used to run through the orchard like this, wind in their hair and doing it for the sheer pleasure of it. For the beauty of the body doing what it needed to get them where they were going. To reach for the ripest fruit just a moment faster.
The alley door was propped open, a drift of music, broken up lyrics coming through. Jim didn’t hesitate, didn’t even slow.
“Olu!”
“Jim!” He was sweeping around the bar, but dropped the broom as soon as he heard their voice. “You’re back!”
“I have something I need to tell you,” Jim finally came to a stop before him. Their heart pounded in their chest, a bird intent on escape. “I’m not a blank page.”
“I know that.” He smiled so broadly it looked like it hurt.. “I knew that all along.”
“There was no time to think about it, about who I was. When you kept asking me, I wasn’t lying or hiding. I didn’t fucking know, okay?” They threw their arms out wide, trying to get it all out, “but I had an outline, I was a fucking coloring page, and you were just...you keep handing me crayons. Teal and orange and red and yellow. So I can figure it out. And I love that. I love our apartment and I love the life we made.”
“So do I,” he stared wide eyed, but smiling, always smiling when he looked at them. “So much.”
There were no more words. Jim just acted, launching forward to kiss him with all the pent up feeling of the better part of two years. It took him a moment, but then he was all over them, sliding his arms around their waist and kissing like he’d taken classes in it.
“When you ran off, I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“I kind of thought that too,” they admitted. “But I’m here. Here is where I want to be.”
The kissing got hotter and between that and the running, it just made sense to toss their shirt aside and started tugging at Olu’s.
“Here?” he asked, a little panicked.
“Should’ve thought of that before you gave our place to the three stooges.”
“Their place’ll be fixed by tomorrow,” he said apologetically. “Didn’t really want to be there without you. I missed you. “
“Fuck. Olu, come on.”
It had been a long time since Jim had had sex. They hadn’t had the name last time. It made a lot of difference to hear Olu chant it at just the right moment when the world went soft at the edges.
It ended with Jim sitting on the edge of the bar, legs splayed to accommodate Oluwande, who rested his head on their chest, arms wrapped around them to brace them up. They were both breathing funny and occasionally laughing at nothing as they swayed a little together.
“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts, doodly-doot,” Someone sang to themselves as the unlocked the backdoor. There was no time to do anything, so Jim just hid their face against Olu’s neck. “Here they are all standing in a row- Oh for fuck’s sake!” Lucius shrieked.
“What the fuck!” Jim grabbed a pile of coasters and started throwing them at him like ninja stars as he backed out covering his eyes.
“You what the fuck! I’m doing my job!” He managed to catch one and tried to throw it back, it landed several feet short. “I’m going to go...count my grievances or something. You have ten minutes to wipe down my bar. With bleach.”
The door fell short behind him and Jim doubled over Olu’s back laughing, only egged along when they could feel him shaking with repressed giggles against them. Then because Oluwande was a good person or whatever, they did clean up and leave before Lucius came back. By mutual silent agreement, they headed back to Stede’s so Oluwande could retrieve his stuff.
“What’ve you two been up to?” Stede’s eyebrows drifted up when they came in.
“Just, you know. Things,” Oluwande blurted.
“We fucked,” Jim held up their hand for a high five. Stede gave very weak high fives, but they gave him an A for effort. “And now we have to go get a hotel room for the night until we can kick out the Pop-Tarts thieves.”
“I...see?” Stede looked between them. “Wait. Did you...at my bar?”
“No,” Oluwande said quickly. “Absolutely we did not. That would be really unprofessional. Right, Jim?”
“Uh huh,” they went on grinning like a maniac.
“Oh, good,” Stede nodded. “It would be. Very unprofessional.”
“See you tomorrow night,” Oluwande lifted his bag. “Thanks for the couch.”
“You’re most welcome. We’re all fri- and you’re both leaving. Good night!”
“Night!” They chorused from halfway out the door.
The sex changed things. For one, Jim never did wind up replacing their futon. They just took over the left side of Olu’s bed and the futon became a punishment for anyone who thought staying the night was a good idea. It also meant that Jim discovered a heretofore unknown interest in cuddling. Only in private, but Olu would never tell how they curled against him like a cat and just basked in their shared warmth whenever he sat still long enough.
It spilled over into the rest of their lives. It just felt easier to help Lucius set up the PA system or hold the extra pineapples for Pete when he was warming up for the fruit juggling act or fluff up Leda’s skirts after they got stuck in a doorway.. They talked more, made more jokes. Their spot perched on the filing cabinet while the queens got ready became sacrosanct. Not a single stray piece of paper or compact ever rested there. It was Jim’s spot, out of the way, and keeping careful watch.
The night of the attempted robbery, Jim had been out picking up a pizza order for Frenchie and Roach, who’d been prepping for some new massive prop and forgotten to eat. By the time they got back, all they got was third hand gossip. It wasn’t until a tall person with long curly hair and a really impressive beard entered into the dressing room that they believed it.
Because Leda looked absolutely struck. Fluttering and flirtatious in a way none of them had ever heard before. Beard person didn’t seem opposed and after they exited, none of the rest of them left for hours. Especially not when Lucius arrived, full of fresh Google grist for the mill.
“I know the business,” Jim put in. They remembered Jackie and the hunger. “We keep all eyes on this.”
“Who could look away?” Frenchie laughed. “It’s better than anything on primetime.”
Lucius turned to Jim. Their eyes locked. Understanding passed through them. Without a word said, they divided the labor. Lucius watched Stede, like a hand on the earth waiting for tremors of a coming earthquake while Jim monitored Eddy, nose in the air sniffing for the crack of ozone before a storm.
But it kept not coming. The trouble was when you watched someone so closely, you noticed all the things about them. Not just their combat-wary eyes or the way their hands strayed to thigh holster that wasn’t there every now and then.
You noticed the way they touched a discarded robe or stopped in front of a mirror with a nervy expression. You noticed and you remembered.
“Fifty bucks says Stede’s new fling asks us to put them in drag by the end of the month,” Jim declared before a show one night after Leda swept out to warm up the crowd.
“Two months,” Frenchie put a bill in the air. “I know the type. They string it out.”
“It’s not gonna happen,” Pete rolled his eyes. “I’ll collect six months from now.”
Jim kept the numbers running and collected richly. They would’ve probably gone on gloating if they hadn’t walked in on Frenchie idly talking makeup while Oluwande messed with a mane of salt and pepper curls. The way that Stede’s fling relaxed into it, their ever present tension gone as if it had never been.
They knew that look. That look was a hat and a coat and a best friend. That look was a pit climbed out of, still looking for a safe place to land a boot. That look was a coloring page rapidly filling in.
So Jim broke out the tequila and for the first time, but very far from the last, got extremely drunk with Eddy. By the time Olu found them, filled them with chili fries and tucked them into bed, they’d only half-sobered up.
“Hey,” they slurred, turning to rest their head on his shoulder.
“Hey,” he laughed at them, reaching over to sweep hair out of their eyes.
“I...” they paused dramatically than forgot what they’d been about to say.
“Yeah,” Olu prompted.
“I did a good thing!” They remembered. “I was supportive. And shared.”
“Good job,” he kissed their forehead. “How’s it feel?”
“...purple.”
“Cool.”
After that Jim relaxed their surveillance. Eddy premiered on the stage and Jim got to wear a toga. That was fun.
It was that Sunday that Oluwande finally asked them what they’d been dreading,
“Hey, you want to come today?”
Most Sundays, Olu would go across town and have lunch with his family. It was something Jim was always aware of, but had mentally deleted out. Since they’d started living together, it had gotten harder to ignore and now it seemed the inevitable had arrived.
“Yeah, okay.” They didn’t offer to change and Oluwande didn’t ask them to. Cowboy coat and all, they took the subway across town.
Jim knew a lot about his family. He talked about them often, sometimes taking phone calls that would make him pace around the living room, talking animatedly. There was his mother, and two older sisters, Ada and Zuri. Ada was single and had an impressive job with a long title at some finance place. Zuri was an office manager for a dentist, had a husband named Mark and two kids.
It was all very normal and Oluwande would sometimes complain about this or that, but generally seemed to like them. Jim was dreading all of this.
“That’s the building,” he pointed to a brownstone in a line of them. Nothing special. Could’ve been any building on any street in the city. “Grew up here. Changed a bit.”
“Places do,” they said neutrally, following him up the steps.
The door opened before he could buzz in. It was his mother who answered, recognizable from the family picture he kept on his bureau. She had a petite build and wore her hair in a crown of graying braids. When she saw Oluwande she smiled widely and wrapped him in a hug to the best of her abilities.
“My baby!” She had a laughing voice, musical and full of bells. “And who’s this? Don’t tell me I finally get to meet the fabled Jim.”
“That’s me,” they agreed.
“Well, I can see why he’s so taken with you,” she gave them a once over. “Very dashing. Come in, come in. You can call me Dolly, everyone else does. Do you like ham?”
“Yes, thanks.” They followed Oluwande back to a door left propped open. Good smells soaked out of it, honey and fresh melon.
It was immediately clear where Oluwande had learned to collect things. The living room was filled with carefully curated collections. A handful of ceramic horses on one end table, felted mushrooms sprouting on the window sill, collectible Star Wars plates lined up on the mantle and a profusion of plants in every corner.
One of his sisters was already there. She looked so much like Teal, with more natural makeup, that it almost made Jim laugh.
“Look!” Dolly gestured at Jim. “He finally brought them to us. I thought we’d have to scale a mountain.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Ada,” she waved idly.
The buzzer went and Dolly was off again, fetching Zuri, Mark and the children. The apartment was a good size, but it was hard not to feel cramped with so many bodies anyway. They all gathered at the table after a few hectic minutes of plates and silverware being practically thrown into place.
The food was all amazing and Jim ate to ward off questions. Except they never really came. Everyone made an effort to include them in the conversation, but no one pried. They had too much to say to each other. Dolly and Ada had apparently been egging Olu on to watch a tv show with them and when he admitted to seeing the first episode, they grilled him on it. When that lapsed, Zuri brought up an upcoming cousin’s birthday and plans were erected, destroyed and made again.
It was dizzying and kind and home and it made Jim want to crawl under the table. When he was done eating, Olu put his arm around the back of their chair. A gentle caging that helped a little.
But then everyone started milling around with cups of coffee and napkins filled with cookies. Jim wound up on the couch with Dolly.
“I was so happy when he first started talking about you,” Dolly said quietly, her eyes on Oluwande as he lay on the floor letting the kids use him as a jungle gym. “He seemed so lost.”
“Olu?” Jim frowned.
“Oh yes. He just couldn’t pick a direction. The girls both shot out of this house with a map and plans. Olu left like he thought he had too. I told him he could stay as long as he wanted. He just drifted for a while.” She ran a thumb over the edge of her mug. “Every time we talked, it seemed like he had less and less to say. Then suddenly! All these stories. Places he’d gone, things he’d picked up and it was Jim Jim Jim all the time.”
“He’s full of plans,” they frowned.
“Now,” Dolly nodded. “What about you, Jim? What are your plans?”
“I like where I am.” They shrugged. That probably wasn’t a parent approved answer, but it was all they had. “I want to keep it this way.”
“Not many people can say that. You know, I’ve never seen a drag performance? Oluwande keeps telling me I wouldn’t like it, but I think he’s just shy.”
“I throw knives at him. Maybe he doesn’t want you to see that.”
“Do you ever miss?” Dolly eyed them closely.
“Never.”
“Then I think that sounds exciting. Let me give you my number and you tell me a good night to come.”
Jim figured Olu would be less nervous if he didn’t know his mother was in the audience until after the fact, so they kept that conversation to themselves. Instead on the way home, they listen to him complain about Ada’s new boss. Jim hummed and nodded and clutched the Tupperware Dolly had put in their hands after giving them a hug.
Dolly was nothing like Jim’s mother, who had been their height and always smelled like oranges. Who hugged like a soft breeze, arms barely closing around you. Dolly’s hugs were back crackers just like Oluwande’s and she smelled like rose perfume and baby powder. It had still, unmistakably, been a mom hug and it had knocked Jim back so hard that they were still feeling phantom arms around them.
They declined to go back the following Sunday. Instead, they went to the bar, ostensibly to help set up for bingo. Except that it was hours early and blissfully empty. Jim folded napkins and set out chairs. It was soothing and silent. They couldn’t avoid it forever, but Oluwande didn’t seem to mind them declining.
“Little early for it?” Eddy strolled in before noon one Sunday. They had their hair up in banana clip, a cashmere duster n a blush pink flapping around their calves and a v-neck t-shirt that dipped down low enough to show off most of their chest tattoos. It was so effortlessly cool that Jim sort of wanted to kill them.
“Had a few hours, figured I could get it done.”
“Yeah, Stede fucked off somewhere. I’m on my own too. Want help?”
They got it done together quickly, then sat at one of the tables. Eddy produced a deck of cards and they played idly.
“Can I ask you something?” They ventured.
“Not sure how I can stop you,” Eddy agreed.
“When you were a mercenary-”
“Security consultant,” she corrected absently.
“You can call it what you want, but I think we both know the score.”
“Mercenaries move in bigger groups. Never even been to a war zone.”
“Fine, whatever,” Jim rolled their eyes. “Did you kill people?”
Eddy set down their cards. “Potentially. Indirectly.”
“Was it direct enough that their blood was on your hands?”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“Wow. Olu is right, that is really fucking annoying,” Jim realized.
“What is?” Eddy blinked.
“Answering questions with questions. Anyway, it’s not important. Let’s say you did, okay? All,” they waved their hands in the air, “hypothetical. Can we do that?”
“Sure, kiddo. Hypothetically, I’ve killed people.”
“Do you regret it?”
“No regrets,” they said dryly. “No apologies.”
“That a quote?”
“Something like that. Look if you want to talk about guilt, you’ve got the wrong person. Stede loves guilt. He’ll hold your hand and talk you into absolution.”
“No, I’ve got the right one.” Jim set down their cards too. “I’ve never regretted it. Never felt any guilt. And I think maybe that’s...not good?”
“Oh. Fuck, yeah, okay. I am the right one,” Eddy allowed. They tipped their chair back, balancing on the two back legs. “Why do you think you should feel guilty?”
“Because killing is wrong?”
“Wow, compelling,” they laughed. “Why’d you do it?”
“They murdered my family.”
“There’s your answer,” they sighed. “Look, whatever you did, you did it to take an eye for an eye. I’ve heard the whole world goes blind shit, but like I said, that’s Stede’s angle. People like us, we didn’t have the luxury of mediated conflict resolution.”
“True.”
“You did what you had to do to make it balance out. Maybe someone different would carry that around in them, but you know what I think?”
“I’m asking what you think,” they pointed out.
“Good point. I think you’re a grade A human who got fed a plate of shit before you were old enough to see over a deli counter. If you have to waste a few career sociopaths to get clear of that, I think you’re in the clear.”
“Is that what you did?” They frowned.
“No,” Eddy picked their cards back up. “Started that way. But you’re already smarter than I was. You figured out when to stop.”
“Can I quote you on the smarter part?”
Eddy barked a laugh, “No one will ever believe I said it. We playing or what?”
It had been hard to grab a hold of friendship the first time, but Jim had some practice now. They settled in to play with a smirk. Eddy was dangerous. A genuine terror of a human being, but so was Jim. It was nice to have that part of themselves naked to someone else and have it just be seen for what it was. Accepted, even.
On the way home that night, they slid their hand into Oluwande’s. He looked down in surprise and they bumped their shoulder to his.
“You’re in a good mood,” he determined.
“I like ducks,” they told them.
“Uh okay?”
“The salt and pepper shaker. You asked me why the ducks. I just like them. We had a few growing up and it was my job to feed them. That’s why.”
“Huh,” he kept his eyes straight ahead, but they could hear the pleasure in his voice. “Bet we could find a matching duck sugar bowl. Want to go thrifting this weekend?”
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
The city hummed around them. Spring was back in the air. The forsythia would probably be blooming. If not, then they’d find yellow in the thrift store, nestled among other treasures. Wherever it was, Jim and Oluwande would find it together.