"Origin" by Giovanni Dania

Origin
Giovanni Dania

Marie ran as she never had in her life, not daring to look back, feeling instead the onslaught of post-pubescent testosterone behind her like a hot breeze pushing her forward. Her lungs were on fire, yet at the same it felt like tiny icicles were scored through the inflamed tissue. Her legs felt as if each fiber of striated muscle were stretched beyond its physiological limit, and drenched in corrosive lactic acid. But she pressed on, the adrenalin of fear raging through her veins, rapids of biochemistry.

Ivan, the leader of the gang, was gaining on her, the rest of the boys flagging. His breathing was even, his strides sure. She turned a corner a block ahead, two intersections, but Ivan turned at the next one, meaning to flank her. He motioned to the other boys to continue on the way she'd gone.

Marie was nearing a house on a tall hill; she decided to run that way, hoping perhaps to find someone who could dissuade the gang from doing whatever it was they'd planned on doing. She actually had no idea what had brought on this chase, and the uncertainty of it, coupled with a crushing feeling of déjà vu, only served to increase her fear. Her calves burned, her every footstep shooting fresh granules of pain up her legs. The rain from the night before had made the hill muddy, and she slipped headlong into a brown puddle, flipping over several times before finally coming to a halt.

The boys were cut off by a truck transporting used vehicles, but Ivan turned onto the street, and spotted Marie on the ground. He hesitated for a moment, then made a mad dash for her, and leapt, landing just shy of her face.

Even covered in mud, she took his breath away. Noting that his crew wouldn't be there for a few moments, he had a change of heart, and helped her up.

They said nothing, simply staring at each other. Her eyes spoke of pure animal fear, his of debilitating longing. He stammered as he tried to tell her that everything was alright, that he'd in fact forgotten why they'd chased her. Apparently he'd said something right, however, as she seemed to relax somewhat.

He turned, and ran to cut the boys off. It wasn't difficult to persuade them as the gates of their neighborhood were going to close soon, and they'd be stuck out here if they didn't hurry back.

He took one more glance back at Marie, then followed his boys. She sobbed silent tears of relief, not realizing the effect she'd had on Ivan. She also didn't realize that she was rubbing her back exactly along the scar she'd gotten the last time she'd been chased like this.

She finally ran towards her home, taking a different route than the gang had. She was on kitchen duty tonight.

* * * * * * * *
There was an unspoken agreement between the residents of Bartlett Park and the rest of St. Petersburg that, although the gates would be open twelve hours a day on weekdays, people wouldn't actually leave the neighborhood. It wasn't impossible, however, and there were reasons still that someone would have to. Salt Creek was probably the easiest way for someone to attempt a temporary defection, as the St. Petersburg Police knew that the Bartlett folk wouldn't cause trouble. And even they recognized that there was still business to be conducted between the municipalities.

Of course, St. Petersburg is one of the few urban locations left that hadn't been walled away under geodesic domes, a fact that lends it some notoriety. An interesting point is that the city was once known as "Florida's Sunshine City," a point which has escaped few people's ironic sense. Through years of conditioning, of being taught to fear naked sunlight, there was little to motivate outsiders to stop by for a visit. As a result, the city had taken on more and more the kind of insular industrial economy that had driven mill towns across the country into the ground, literally. Boca Ciega Bay was a stew of industrial pollutants, harboring waste products of sadly virulent toxicities. Indeed, it's a rare sight to find someone walking along that shore. Such a person is either suicidal, or just plain crazy: in either case, someone to be avoided.

Ivan remembered seeing his father dive into the poisoned water, finally overcome by the pressure of living in isolation from the rest of the world. Bartlett Park was like a benign prison, but it did affect its inhabitants in different ways. These days, one would be hard-pressed to find someone who could remember why the neighborhood was separated in the first place.

Ivan was six when his father took the plunge. He could still hear the charring skin, the boiling humors, the screams of sudden regret. There was resignation in the voice, inevitability, the fact that a point of no return had been crossed.

Occasionally, Ivan still woke from nightmare images of red and yellow fluids mixing with green, of bleached bones and muddy clumps of hair and shiny fingernails in rainbow oil suspensions.

* * * * * * * *
Fresh out of the shower and donning clean clothes, Marie felt strangely invigorated, as if she hadn't been running for her life only hours earlier. She ladled out big-ass portions of macaroni and cheese for the other residents of Bartlett Park with an efficiency rarely seen these days. She hadn't even recognized the gang that had given her chase as they stepped up with their battered trays; they, gripped by hunger, didn't notice her either.

Except Ivan.

He motioned to the others to take their seats, that he would join them presently. Marie slowly became aware of him lingering there. The flash of recognition evident in her wide eyes was unmistakable, and Ivan again stuttered through an attempt at being comforting. Finally, he sighed and gave her a picture of a flower. It was a lily, and her confusion combined with an admiration of the beauty of that no-longer-extant flower such that she was speechless. She looked up at him again.

"I... I'm Ivan," he said, his voice soft and not quite sure of itself. But he managed a smile, and felt confidence returning to him.

Before she could answer, a group of Chinese kids entered the queue, and immediately made way for Ivan.

"Where your boys, Ivan? We got things to talk about."

He gave her one last glance, an apologetic one, and walked away, leading the Tong children away from the food line, and toward his gang's table.

She heard them discussing delivery schedules, dosages, and what sounded like names. They were quickly out of earshot, however, and she felt the impatience of the diners pressing upon her.

"You'll get your damned drug, Charlie," was the last thing she'd heard.

* * * * * * * *
Poison rain sizzled on the cracked cobblestones. Anyone out would have had a terribly compelling reason for it. Ivan slumped against a storefront wall, underneath a rusting metal awning that had more the appearance of a giant elliptical colander. By his watch it was still early; five thirty, but he had the bad habit of always expecting other people to be as prompt as he. He glanced at the cargo truck, wondering how long the reinforced carbon mesh cab roof would last out here before the deadly downpour made its acidic way through to the cargo. He wasn't a first-rate chemist by any stretch of the imagination,-- hell, he was only fifteen-- but even he knew what kind of deep shit all Bartlett Park would be in if the contents of those crates were released into the air.

He thought about why he'd given the cafeteria girl that picture, the one he'd had for two years, after he and his crew had raided a bookstore for books on biochemistry and anatomy and the like. They'd actually had to go out of state for such rare literature, which was a risky move for people from Bartlett. He'd never seen anything like that flower in his life, and he'd treasured its image. He frowned in frustration, having no suitable answer. He shook his head vigorously as if trying to remove these doubts. He had no time for girls.

Charlie and about six members of his gang scrambled towards him, wearing improvised raincoats of canvas and steel netting. Once they were under the awning, however, the rain stopped abruptly. Ivan suppressed a grin.

"Right on time, Charlie; I like that."

Charlie grabbed his crotch. "Yeah, like this, gwai loh. You got the shit?"

Ivan sighed; these guys had no sense of humor. He gestured toward the cargo truck. "All right there. So, what's the deal, anyway? What're you trying to do?"

Then Charlie smiled, a strange thing to see on him, and answered, "You know, we're just foot soldiers, you and me. We each have people we're answerable to. Funny thing about my people is I answer to them, they don't answer to me."

"Yeah, I get it. Anyway, here's the key. I don't have to remind you about the payment arrangements, do I?"

Charlie didn't bother to look back at Ivan. The Tong kids jumped in the back of the truck while Charlie cranked the motor.

As they drove off, twenty-three gangsters came out of hiding, about a quarter of Ivan's force. He had been pretty sure he wouldn't have needed any at all, but he was glad he had only brought so few, considering how many Tong there had been. To Ivan, there was something inherently dishonorable and unwholesome in an uneven match.

* * * * * * * *
"How did you get this?" He traced an index finger over the scar, which in truth she found not a little annoying. They’d been together for two weeks, and Marie was starting to think that maybe she’d gotten into something she hadn’t quite wanted after all. Ivan was, at best, mediocre in bed, and given to say incredibly rude and inappropriate things. And he evidently loved to argue, about any little thing. He was a headache, a pain in the ass... in short, he had to go.

His "loving" touching of her scar was doing nothing for her humor; Marie was on the verge of wailing on him. Unfortunately, the sensation exhumed a bulk of memory, of how she’d gotten it in the first place, and remembered fear and guilt paralyzed her.

Her father's shameless seed had seemed to sear across her face, lo those years ago.

She shivered and suddenly rose from the bed. "You okay, hun?" she heard him say behind her as she shut the bathroom door.

As hot as the water was, she just could not feel clean.

* * * * * * * *
Marie was serving pasta salad at a new cafeteria; this was her second transfer, but Ivan seemed to be able to find her each time. He never went to her line, though; he apparently was content with simply letting her see him, as if taunting her.

It had been two months since they’d broken up, and he would not let go. Or perhaps he was punishing her for what he saw as betrayal on her part. In all frankness, it didn’t matter a whit to her, she was tired of it all. Of him.

On her break, Marie went to his table. "Do you enjoy what you’re doing to me, Ivan?"

But he always had an answer for everything. He smiled and said, "Marie, I’m not doing anything to you that I enjoy." Then he got up and left.

Marie was too upset to notice that he was being followed by the Tong.

* * * * * * * *
Death is pretty much a common, everyday occurrence not only in Bartlett Park but in all of St. Petersburg. So the disappearance of one teenager, and especially one who had made the choice of being in a street gang, was met with indifference, if anyone had an opinion at all on the matter.

There was no one to record what had transpired for posterity, so what follows is perhaps the most accurate reenactment of what went down that evening.

* * * * * * * *
"Hey, Charlie, that shit working for ya?"

The Tong had stopped Ivan about three blocks from the cafeteria. It had been a taxing moment for Ivan; even though he’d said a mere ten words to Marie, it had taken all the strength he could muster.

Charlie smiled. "We’ve made some... modifications to your formula, and we want to test it."

Ivan relaxed. "Well, let’s see, it’ll take me a couple of days to get a subject, but... yeah, it can be done."

But Charlie shook his head. "Nah, dawg: we need to test it now."

Ivan barely felt the needle that Davie, Charlie’s second in command, slipped into his shoulder. Charlie smiled with pride.

* * * * * * * *
It wasn’t a modification; Ivan had been injected with a completely different neurotoxin, one that paralyzed him but left his sensations intact. The Tong boys took turns beating him. They’d started with their fists, but when their knuckles had started to bleed they took to steel pipes and aluminum bats, although where they’d been able to find such equipment would have been anyone’s best guess.

Then, content that they’d broken every bone in Ivan’s body, they took him to Boca Ciega Bay.

Ivan had felt like screaming as the toxic solution burned him. But he couldn’t scream. He could do nothing, except feel pain beyond anything to which the name of pain had ever been given. And, when at last all the soft tissue had bubbled away, and Ivan’s skeleton had begun to fizzle, Charlie’s boys left.

They had a job to do.