Where the lobby intersected with the first-floor corridor, she stopped.
Up and down the hall—pockets of black offset by pockets of dismal light that filtered in from outside.
“Where am I going?” she asked, but no answer came.
She let the hunting bowie slide out of her sleeve and into her hand.
The fear paralyzing, all-consuming.
For a long time, she stood listening.
Water dripped.
The soft moan of wind pushing through one of the upper corridors.
And then...snapping. Cracking.
Woodsmoke.
Violet followed the smell into darkness and then out again.
Daylight passed through the open door of what had been an apartment and struck a wall covered in graffiti.
Clothes and toys and all manner of garbage littered the corridor.
The scent of woodsmoke was getting stronger and now she could see firelight flickering across the wall at the end of the corridor.
“Hello?” she said, and then softer, “Luther, is that you down there?”
Violet came to the end.
In an alcove, she saw the source of the firelight—an oil drum filled with scrap wood burning next to a busted window. Most of the smoke escaped outside, though enough had become trapped to lay down a foggy veil in the room. As she drew near, she could feel the warmth of the fire, and had just noticed the bedroll in the corner under a cardboard box when she heard the crunch of glass directly behind her.
Violet spun around and the first thing she noticed was the smell—rancid body odor laced with booze. She stumbled back, her heart in her throat, couldn’t see anything in the semidark but the shadow of this foul-smelling person advancing toward her.
“I have a knife,” she said.
Her back touched the wall. Nowhere else to go.
Stood there clutching the knife and watching as a filthy man in layer upon layer of tattered clothes stepped into the gray light that filtered in through the window behind her.
He stopped when he saw the knife.
Vi could hear the rain striking the pavement outside and the fire hissing in the oil drum and nothing else.
The man’s face was all but hidden under a wild beard, but his stark blue eyes shone through the tangle, staring her down.
“What are you doing in my house?” he said.
“Your house?”
“My house.”
Vi glanced over at the cardboard box lined with old newspapers, the shopping cart beside it.
“I was just cold, trying to get out of the rain,” she said. “I smelled the smoke, so I came in here.”
“You just want to get warm.”
“That’s all.”
He considered this, said finally, “Put your knife away, and come on over.”
The man walked over to the oil drum. He knelt down and gathered a few scraps of wood and fed them into the fire, then held his hands over the heat.
Violet set her knife on the windowsill and joined him, extending her hands over the flames.
She felt lightheaded, attributed this to thirst, hunger, and the smoke she was breathing in.
“I’m Violet,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
The man watched her. His beard was a deep, greasy black, and the few patches of skin that showed through, dirty but unwrinkled. Her first impression of him had been an old man, but now she reconsidered.
“What are you doing out here,” he asked, “in the concrete barrens?”
Violet didn’t know how to answer that question, so she just stared down into the flames and the bed of embers underneath.
“Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here?” he continued. “Nothing but bangers and people like me.”
In his words, Vi discerned an obvious intelligence.
“What do you mean, ‘people like me?’” she asked.
Now he stared into the flames, which had grown brighter.
Out the window, Vi could see the light draining from the sky.
Darkness falling with surprising speed.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
Luther spoke into Violet’s ear, “Tell him you want to stay the night. You have a lot to learn from him.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Tell him or I will rip Jennifer’s baby apart right now.”
“Can I stay here tonight?” Violet said. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
The man looked up from the fire and studied her.
Nodded.
“What’s your name?” Vi asked.
It took him five seconds to answer, as if he hadn’t said the word in ages.
“Matthew,” he finally whispered.
It was full-on dark within the hour. They sat against the wall beside the oil drum, Vi ravenously drinking water from a milk jug.
Matthew rummaged through a plastic bag of snack food, finally withdrawing a packet of crackers. He offered the bag to Vi.
She didn’t know when she’d eaten last.
Reached in and grabbed a bag of potato chips, ripped them open.
“Thank you,” she said.
They ate quickly and in silence.
When Vi finished, she stared longingly at the bag again, but didn’t ask.
“It’s been a lean month,” Matthew said, “or I’d offer you more. I have to store up for the winter months.”
“You’re going to stay here?”
“Where else you think I’m going to go?”
“What will you do?”
He pointed toward a stack of books in a corner of the room—must’ve stood six or seven feet tall.
“When it’s warm, I spend my days at the library, but it’s too far to walk there every day in the cold. I’ve been collecting them. I’m going to read them all, starting at the top.”
“What kind of books are they?”
“Mostly philosophy. A few classic novels. Occasional comic book thrown in for spice.”
“Philosophy, huh?”
“I think it’s really the only thing worth reading.”
Violet studied the room. The squalor. Couldn’t imagine spending a night in this place. She knew the vast majority of the homeless suffered from debilitating mental illness, and wondered what storm raged behind Matthew’s vivid blues.
“I’m in a bad spot,” Violet said, her voice just a few notches north of a whisper, wondering if Luther could hear her now. If he could see her.
Matthew wiped a few crumbs out of his beard and stared at Vi. He lifted a jug of Carla Rossi to his lips and took a generous pull. When he’d finished, he offered it to Violet.
“No thank you.”
He drank some more, then rose and fed the fire from the impressive pile of scrap wood he’d lined up against the wall.
“All these abandoned houses,” he said with a smirk, “keep me warm and toasty during the snows. An endless supply of firewood.”
The wine seemed to have lifted his spirits, loosened his tongue.
“I have everything I need here,” he said. “Warmth. Drink. Food. Books.”
“What did you have before?”
He looked at her like she’d cut him but he answered without pause.
“An electricity bill, a cable bill, a cell phone bill, health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, homeowners insurance, VISA statement, Mastercard statement, Discovery Card statement, Mileage Plus card, AVIS card, mortgage, car payment, truck payment, line of credit, fifty hour work weeks, in-laws, accountants, annual physicals, multivitamins, Wellbutrin, Advil, a book club, a bible study group, rec center membership, golf club membership, a basketball game every other Thursday night, poker at my friend Jim’s every other month, four different stops on Thanksgiving and Christmas, sex twice a week, taxes once a year, waking in the middle of the night every night wondering how to keep everything afloat, and beautiful children who grow up so fast I can’t even look at them.”
He hit the wine again—a long and focused pull.
His eyes shimmering.
“I used to live a half mile from here,” he said. “I’ve taken siding from my old house to keep a fire going. This place was so vibrant. Kids always playing in the streets. Block parties. A great community.”