We Leave Together, стр. 12
When Djoss emerged, he heard a voice on the horizon: the old woman. “Nobody wants to hear about your family,” she said, to someone.
Djoss pulled himself up to sitting. Djoss sat up too fast. His head spun, and he fell back to the filthy pillows. The spout of the hookah slipped from his fingers and jumped away with the coiled tube. Djoss reached around for his among the pillows. His fingers found the rear end of a rat. The rat hissed and scurried off. The rat had been eating vomit. Djoss ran his hands over the powdery dried vomit, looking for his piece of the hookah.
“You hear me, king’s man?” said the old woman, “If you start screaming, I’m throwing you out.”
Djoss pulled up onto his elbows, and this time he managed to stay there. He looked up at the man at the door.
Jaime, in his king’s man uniform, sneered at the fan held between him and the hookah. “Don’t be like you, lady,” said Jaime, “I’ll ring the bells for you here. I’ll call the others. I will.”
The old woman gestured with her fan. Jaime stepped into the room. The only empty spot was next to Djoss. Jaime picked up Djoss’ lost hookah limb and sat down where it had been hiding among the pillows. He took one long drink of smoke, and collapsed to kneeling.
“King’s man,” said Djoss. He sat up and reached out for the lost pink smoke. “Hey!” he said.
Jaime didn’t hear him.
Djoss touched his back.
Jaime smacked Djoss’ hand away.
“Hey, that’s mine!” said Djoss, “Hey!” Djoss waved at the old woman.
A woman shoved her fan over her face and stepped into the little room. She kicked Jaime in the head. Jaime looked at her like he was afraid of this old woman.
The old woman snatched a new limb from the hookah off the floor, and shoved it at Jaime. Jaime took that one, and shoved them both into his mouth.
The old woman pointed at Djoss.
Jaime’s eyes were closed. She had to reach into Jaime’s limp hands for the end of the lost hookah limb. She placed it between Djoss’ lips.
Djoss swallowed joy hard one last time before he drowned too deep to swim ashore.
He woke up in an alley. Jaime was there, next to Djoss, deeper than Djoss had been. Jaime hadn’t been smoking as long.
Djoss reached out his hand to the prone guard. Djoss fingered the king’s man’s uniform.
If Djoss had been stronger, he’d have stripped the uniform from the sleeping man’s limbs. Djoss was still too weak.
Djoss felt his stomach rolling. He pulled himself up to the king’s man’s face. Djoss curled his lip. “The king’s loyal dogs pissing and drooling themselves,” he said. Djoss opened his mouth and tried his best to smell all the filth of the alley, all the smells rising up from the pink king’s man.
The king’s man opened his eyes.
Djoss closed his mouth. “Hey, dead dog,” said Djoss.
The king’s man’s eyes tried to focus.
Djoss slapped Jaime’s face lightly. “Look at me, dreaming hound.”
The king’s man focused.
“Hey,” said Djoss.
“What do you want?” said Jaime.
Djoss looked up and down the uniform of the man below him. “You a king’s man?” said Djoss.
“Corporal Jaime,” he said. The king’s man’s stomach convulsed. Djoss rolled off the king’s man fast. Pink bile leaked from Jaime’s lips without much substance, like smoke congealed into flecks of watery vomit.
Jaime choked on it. His arms reached out to the walls. He rolled himself onto his side.
Djoss pulled himself up to his boots. “You ain’t so tough, now,” he said. Djoss lifted a boot up and let it fall upon the king’s man’s back. “You’re the guy with my sister, aren’t you? I saw you naked, with her. I heard your name. She called you Jaime.”
Jaime took another boot between his shoulders. His stomach was still rolling over everything inside, and it was all pink.
Djoss dropped his boot again upon the king’s man’s back. Djoss leaned against the wall to walk away from the man on the ground. On the main avenue, he grabbed the first person he saw.
“Hey,” he said.
A shopgirl took one look at Djoss’ bloodshot eyes and pink sweat. She jumped away and walked fast down the sidewalk.
“Wait!” said Djoss, “There’s a king’s man over here pink as Elishta! You can walk right up to him and kick him like nothing!”
People kept walking.
Djoss stumbled down the street to the closest fountain.
He puked at the base of the fountain. He splashed water over his head. He rinsed his mouth out. He waited there for his limbs to recover their strength in the fading afterglow. He watched people come and go. Young women, ignoring him, brought buckets to the fountain to carry back to their apartments and homes. Young apprentices brought water back to their businesses and horses. They stepped around Djoss like he didn’t exist.
Eventually, Jaime stumbled up next to Djoss. Jaime splashed water on his own face, and rinsed out his mouth. Jaime stripped to the waist and shoved his uniform shirt into the water. Jaime had to get the smell out of his clothes as best he could before muster.
Jaime squinted at Djoss. “You kick me, tosser?”
Djoss balled up his fists. He snarled. “Kick nothing,” said Djoss, “I don’t know about any kicked king’s man. You stay away from my sister or I’ll know nothing about a tooth in a king’s man belly, either.”
“What time is it?” said Jaime. He wasn’t listening to the muttered threats. “Where’re the cryers? Where’re the bells?”
Djoss turned and walked away. The lingering fog in his limbs slowly diminished. The boots walked with certainty. The eyes squinted less and less in the streetlamps.
He made his way back to the small side street in the Pens. He climbed up the stairs, opened his door, peeled his shirt from his back, and fell into his bed.
He didn’t notice it, but he had just fallen asleep on