“You were an autoworker?”
“I worked in the GM truck assembly plant for nineteen years.”
“When did it close?”
“Six years ago, when GM moved the operation to Korea. Everyone lost their jobs. When the plant closed, this town just died. Like the old west come to Michigan. Eight months later, the bank took our house. I didn’t handle it well. My wife left, took my boys with her.”
“I’m sorry,” Violet said.
“When I got out of the institution, I came back here.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain. I just felt like this was where I needed to be.”
“Don’t you think about all you lost though? Isn’t it thrown in your face here?”
“Of course. Every day. But after absolute loss, it still continues.”
“What?”
“You. Consciousness. There is life after hope, you know.”
The fire popped.
“And what does that life look like?”
“Not what you’d expect?”
“No?”
“You realize something,” Matthew said.
“What’s that?”
“That you go on. That you can take so much more pain than you think. We’re built for it. It’s almost like that’s our purpose. We’re vessels that exist to be filled with pain.”
“That’s depressing.”
“No, that’s truth. And once you come to terms with it, it changes you. After everything is taken from you, you see that you still have control over so much. Control over how you cope with misery. You realize all the beautiful choices you still own. Like whether to love or hate. Or forgive.”
Violet pushed against her knees and came to her feet. Walked over to the scrap-wood pile and loaded a few two-by-sixes into the fire that looked like they’d been torn from the side of a house. Outside, it was sleeting—the dry tick of ice pellets bouncing off the pavement.
“What kind of trouble are you in?” Matthew asked.
“I lost my husband a year ago.”
“What happened?”
“He was murdered. My life has sort of...unwound...since then.”
“You’ve lost a lot.”
“I’ve lost everything.”
Matthew struggled to his feet and shuffled over to his cardboard box which had once held a refrigerator. He dragged out a pillow and tossed it across the room.
“Sleep by the fire,” he said. “Feed it when it gets low.”
“Matthew,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Come here.”
He staggered over.
Violet reached up and covered the earpiece, hoping her hand would muffle the microphone, if it was even activated.
“You ever see a man hanging around here?” she asked.
“In this building?”
“Shhh,” Vi whispered. “No, I mean...what you called it earlier...the concrete barrens. This whole area.”
Matthew sipped from his jug of wine.
“Like I told you, there’s bangers who come out here to do drug deals, initiations. People like me who try to live quiet and undisturbed. I mean there’s rumors, sure, but I never paid any attention—”
“What rumors?”
His brow furrowed, confused by her sudden interest. “Rumors of a man. They say he brings people here to torture them. It’s just an urban—”
“Who says this?”
“I don’t know. Just in passing by the people who live in or have reason to come to the concrete barrens. We hear things occasionally. Screams in the night. Hear about people dying, strange people around, but out here, everyone’s strange in one way or another. They chalk it up to some boogeyman, because I guess we need monsters, but the truth is, this is just a weird and sometimes dangerous place.”
“What else do they say?”
“Just horror movie crap—he’s supernatural, he’s a demon, he takes your soul.”
“You don’t believe it?” Vi asked.
“Of course not. Then again, it doesn’t mean I go wandering around the old GM factory after dark, or any time for that matter, but people just want to—”
“What’s special about the GM factory?”
“Nothing. It’s just a big empty building, and people say that’s where he’s from. The ruins.”
“Do they have a name for him?”
“El hombre con el pelo negro largo.”
“What is that, Spanish?”
“Yeah, the Latin Kings coined it.”
“What’s it mean?”
“The man with long black hair.”
A shard of ice trailed down the length of Violet’s spine.
“You’ll be okay right here?” Matthew asked.
“Yeah.”
“Look, you’re welcome to stay tonight, but—”
“No, I understand. You’ve been very gracious.”
The pillow smelled like spoiled cabbage, so she rested her head in the crook of her arm, facing the oil drum for the heat that radiated off the metal. Through tiny perforations, she could see the glow of the coals, pinpoints of sun-colored brilliance in the dark.
She closed her eyes.
Cold creeping in from every side except where the heat lapped at her face.
His voice came through the earpiece: “Violet? You asleep? Violet...”
“I’m awake,” she whispered.
“You sound tired, but I’m afraid your night isn’t even close to over. You handled yourself well up on the tower. That was fun to watch, but in all fairness, purely self-defense. Kill or be killed. Tonight, I want to see another facet of Violet King, specifically, just how cold your blood runs.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the knife, Violet. I’m talking about Matthew. About you killing him while he sleeps.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I can’t, Luther.”
“Matthew reminds me of a dear, departed friend.”
“Luther, please.”
“My mentor. A man named Orson, who, very much like Matthew, escaped into homelessness to find himself.”
“I do not have that in me.”
“Well, that is very bad news for Andy and little Max. Andy you there?”
“Violet?” Andy’s voice.
“Andy.”
“Luther, please,” Andy said.
“Would everyone stop begging me already? I didn’t bring you into this, Andy, for you to plead for me not to do what has to be done.”
“Then what?”
“I just thought you might advise Violet. You’ve been in this situation before, right? You’ve murdered an innocent to save yourself and others. Tell us, Andy, did it change you?”
“Fuck you, Luther.”
“Tell us, Andy, did it change you?”
“Fuck you.”
The wail of a baby filled Violet’s earpiece.
“Andy stop!” she whispered.
“Yes, Luther, it changed me.”
“For the better?”
“Hardly.”
“You still think about them?”
“Sometimes.”
“And this pains you?”
“They were some of the worst moments in a life filled with bad ones.”
“That’s because you’re weak, Andy. I never understood what Orson saw in you. You should’ve emerged from that experience stronger. Harder. A pure human being.”
“So that’s what you’re holding yourself out as, Luther? A pure human being?”
“Violet,” Luther said as she wept softly into the sleeve of her tracksuit. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not rushing you. We’re going to leave you now, so you can have this moment. Please believe me when I say that it can be revolutionary. Life-changing. If you let it be. If you’re strong enough.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Aren’t we past the threats, my love?”
Andy screamed something and then the line went dead.
She could hear the freezing rain coming down again, feel the shudder of her heart against the filthy floor. She lay there in the dark and the cold. Waiting. For something to change. For reality to break through and end this nightmare.
But the rain kept falling and the fire dwindling and the cold sinking in.
After awhile, she came to her feet. The knife blade reflected the firelight. She stared at it, then picked it up.