Redemption for the Irredeemable

Manny’s shrill shreak wakes Justin some time around midnight. He rubs the confusion from his eyes and smiles. Manny, it seems, has found the rat.

Justin’s door slams open and the lights flare on to reveal Manny’s hulking form. The stuffed rat dangles from his hand.

“You think this is funny?” Manny roars. Justin tries not to laugh at Manny’s furious expression.

“Something wrong?” he asks.

Manny flings the rat at him. “You know damn well what’s wrong! When the fuck will you grow up, you . . . you juvenile!”

Justin raises an eyebrow, pulling the tangled sheets around himself as he sits up. “Juvenile? That’s the best you’ve got?”

“You know what?” Manny says, crossing his arms. “I’m done with this. I’m done with you and your stupid, childish pranks. It’s not funny anymore. Your lease is up at the end of the month. Start looking for a new place.”

“Wait, what?” Justin sputters. “You can’t do that!” Except, as the only one whose name is officially on the lease, Manny very well can do that.

“Start packing,” Manny says. He slams the door behind him.

Justin sits on his bed, gaping at the door.

Seven years later, Justin pads, catlike, across the marble hall. His breath reverberates hotly against his black face mask. Sweat dampens his skin, and he tells himself it’s this stuffy outfit. It’s not like it’s is his first time. He chokes back a nervous giggle before it can damn him. His hand drifts back to the cool metal that’s tucked, just in case, into his waistband.

A distant footstep disturbs the anxious silence. Justin checks his watch. The guard is right on time. Justin ducks into the shadowed alcove between two obnoxiously ornamental columns. Really, if they want to keep away thieves, they shouldn’t pepper the museum with so many delicious hiding places.

The guard passes close enough to touch, and only years of practice hiding keep Justin from jerking back in surprise. Moonlight illuminates the guard’s face like a spotlight, and though it’s been seven years, Justin knows those soulful brown eyes, that little scar bisecting the upper lip, that proudly crooked nose, those masterfully carved cheekbones. They’ve been haunting him since he met Manny at a terrible party in a tiny dorm room freshman year of college and his heart beat too fast and he blamed it on the Adderall.

Justin squeezes further behind the column and breathes as softly and shallowly as he can without hyperventilating. Manny continues down the hall, sweeping it with his flashlight beam, as oblivious as always.

Justin shakes his thoughts back into place. The guard’s identity has no impact on the plan. However, Justin keeping his shit together does have an impact on the plan.

Manny turns the corner, and Justin creeps to the stairs, keeping close to the shadows and checking perioidically that Manny hasn’t doubled back. Of course, he doesn’t, because that’s not Manny. Once he’s picked a path, he sticks with it.

Justin continues up the stairs, careful to avoid the creaking boards he sounded out while casing the place.

And there she is. The moonlight slanting in through the windows barely reaches her, but Justin doesn’t need light to know it’s her. The elegant, broad brushstrokes coat the canvas distinctively even in the dimness.

Justin checks his watch. Hermia should be here in three . . . two . . . one . . . and there she is, precise as ever. They nod at each other and begin their familiar dance. Disable the alarm. Slip the painting off the wall. Free it from its frame and replace it with a semi-decent imitation. Back on the wall, and she resets the alarm while he rolls the painting and puts it in the bag. Each movement choreagraphed exactly.

Except. As Justin is handing the bag to Hermia, a voice shouts, “Put the bag down and your hands up!” It’s a line that’s been rehearsed in front of a mirror, the kind that helps a man go back to the same dead end job every night, because maybe today will be his chance to play hero.

Justin shoots without thinking, the silenced bang in perfect harmony with Hermia’s. It’s impossible to tell whose shot hits first. Twin circles of red bloom on the guard’s chest, and everything slows down. Justin meets the guard’s eyes, and they’re Manny’s eyes.

Manny stumbles back but somehow he’s getting closer. Justin realizes he’s the one moving as Manny collapses into his arms. Blood dribbles from Manny’s lips and Manny’s eyes aren’t looking anymore and someone is shaking Justin’s shoulder, hissing into his ear, “What are you doing? We need to go! Get your shit together, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Justin lets Manny’s empty husk slide to the floor and a hand pulls him away. Hermia grabs his face and her black mask fills his vision. She tells him, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you’re going to save your freakout for later and we’re going to get the hell out of here. Got it?”

Justin nods. The dance resumes, but it’s stilted. Hermia keeps glancing worridly at Justin, and Justin drifts jerkily through the motions, a marionette manipulated by a clumsy puppeteer. Years of practice and a generous dose of luck somehow see them to their safe house.

The next morning, Justin wakes from a bad dream. Something smells burnt. Maybe Hermia tried cooking again. He stumbles sleepily into the living room, where Hermia is throwing something into the crackling fireplace.

“What’s that smell?” he asks. Hermia starts a little.

“Our clothes,” she says, staring into the flames.

A hint of unease mixes with Justin’s drowsy confusion. “Why are you burning our clothes?”

Hermia turns, her brow wrinkled. “Because there’s blood on them?”

The air rushes out of Justin’s chest. Manny’s prone form flashes before his eyes. Not a nightmare.

“Listen, do you want to talk about what happened? Did he remind you of someone? Or did you just randomly grow a conscience on me?” Hermia asks.

Right. He supposes he owes her an explanation. “He reminded me of this guy I used to know. It obviously wasn’t him ’cause that guy’s been dead a while anyways, but I guess it just reminded me,” he lies. “Sorry about that, promise I won’t freak out like that again.” That promise, at least, he can keep. With Manny dead, there’s no one left.

Hermia crosses her arms and sighs. She doesn’t believe him, but it’s not her place to care. “We’re meeting the buyer next week. I’ve got a few errands to run, and we’ll leave town tonight.”

Justin grins, and if Hermia didn’t know him, she’d think he was okay. “I’ll hold down the fort, sir,” he says.

The door closes quietly behind her as she steals away into the day.

Justin gets up, though he doesn’t remember sitting down. The sharp edges of something freshly broken inside him grate against each other as he walks to the kitchen. The fridge is mostly empty, but the eggs are still good, even if the toast is going green, and there’s a jar of salsa that should work.

He doesn’t feel any less hungry afterward, just nauseous. Maybe the eggs were bad. Or maybe that white bit in the salsa was mould, not an onion. He barely makes it to the toilet before he throws it all up.

Head resting on the cold gray ceramic, Justin realizes that he can’t sell a painting paid for in Manny’s blood. He checks his watch. Hermia might be back any second, but if he runs into her he can just say he was headed to the grocery store. He hates to leave his things but he can’t risk her stopping him.

He leaves his phone under his pillow, and stuffs some cash into his pocket. His leather jacket hangs on a hook by the door. He snags it as he leaves, doing his best impression of a normal guy on a milk run.

Three days later, Justin roams unfamiliar sidewalks, the pain dogging him with every step. He feels a strange urge to confess, to go up to a police officer or maybe a priest or just a random stranger on the street and tell them, “Hey, I killed the only person I ever really loved, and I didn’t even have the guts to stick around and sell the stupid painting he died for.”

But death isn’t an option yet.

There’s not a lot of jobs available to someone with no identity, but Justin chooses the worst one he can find, cleaning the sticky tables and fetid bathrooms of a drinking hole too desperate to be a dive bar. There’s rumors about the guy who owns the bar, but he doesn’t care who Justin is, so Justin doesn’t care who he is, either.

Despite his best intentions, Justin only lasts a year at the bar before he tells Bill, who bought the bar a month ago and has no intention of improving it, “I quit.”

Bill shrugs. “Leave the gloves on the bar when you go.”

The gloves slap the bar stickily. Justin closes the door silently and emerges into the rank alley. He turns left to return to his appartment and stops. He can’t cover this month’s rent, and without a job, there’s nothing keeping him in this dusty old town. The change of clothes and stained mattress aren’t worth going back for.

Justin twirls and heads right instead, a hint of a spring in his step.

The combined bus and train station stands proudly in the town center, heavy cherrywood doors opening to a vaulted ceiling dotted with semi-clean windows that scatter light across the tiled floor. Justin buys a ticket for the next available train, not bothering to check where it’s headed.

Three years and six towns later, Justin watches droplets race down the many-paned window of an old youth center. A streetlamp casts a shaky circle of light on the cracked pavement below. He pretends to consider braving the rain for the leaky shack he calls home, before pulling a worn camping mat and a musty sleeping bag from under his desk. With fall’s driving rains and Justin’s desire to avoid them, the shack has become little more than a paperwork address.

The camping set isn’t comfortable, but between exhaustion and the rhythmic pattering of the rain, Justin falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the balled up hoodie he’s using as a pillow.

Justin dreams that he and Manny are sailing on a boundless ocean, which is ridiculous because Manny’s scared of sharks and Justin gets seasick, but they’re laughing and picnicking and Manny tosses up a grape and catches in his mouth, eyes sparkling in the balmy sunlight. It’s not until the next day, as he’s is helping a kid decipher fractions, that Justin realizes it’s the first happy dream he’s had about Manny in over four years.