The hum of a newscaster's voice rang throughout the apartment. It bounced from wall to wall, from bookshelf to book-covered shelf. It pinged off the ceiling fan and the carpet and even the filing cabinets in the living room. I heard it all the way from my own room. The paper-thin walls did little to save my early morning rest.
Light slipped through the blinds. The warmth tickled my nose.
Our huge industrial windows that took up a quarter part of our loft did little to muffle the morning traffic outside. The street below was packed with semis, flatbeds, and pickup trucks waiting to make the early commute. Backlogged SUVs beeped and honked in tune with the whistling of the tv, almost like a holiday jingle. It was nearly December, and about three years later, so someone was playing Christmas music.
A voice lifted above the noise.
"⏤South Easttown and Octoberfaire residents are strongly advised to stay in doors and wait out the thunderstorm coming off the bay tonight. We will likely see our first bit of snow after Thanksgiving break⏤"
A knock at the bedroom door garnered my sleep deprived attention.
"Don't forget Monty! Tomorrow we gotta go to your session in Northtown. So make sure you have everything you need ready when you get back. And just in case I don't come back until late tonight make sure to get some sleep."
I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my head until the outside door clicked shut.
Not long after he left, I woke up, got dressed, left the apartment, and hopped on a bus heading into town.
We were all packed together, a crowd of strangers and I, into the bus like a can of sardines. I stood shoulder to shoulder between two middle-aged husks staring blankly into their phones. I figured that they did not even know I was there. Like lint between the cushions. They remained still, glancing off into traffic, or whoever knows where, every minute or so, as if they were waiting for something interesting to happen to them. Someone else behind me coughed into my ear. In the front of the bus, a child cried into her mother's arms. So many sounds, sensations, odd smells and the like.
There was always something else to stare at. Someone else to steal a glimpse of. A sports car or an ad to gawk at. Everyone had an excuse to look another way.
The bus rocked back and forth. I braced myself and grasped the bar with both hands. People in their seats were knocking into each other, bobbleheads waving side to side. A weight pushed my backpack down. Someone must have been knocked into me.
We were stuck in a hot and cramped aluminum can, and I hoped someone would cut us open. I clung to the bar harder, fighting the twists and turns like my life depended on it. We zipped through Octoberfaire's outskirts. Eventually we'll get to a main road between the town and the inner city.
Easttown was strange like that, towns segmented off from the busy downtown, especially those on the south shore where our major industrial center is. Other than on the northern and eastern borders with Vaux and Lenox respectively. If I looked hard enough I could see the other wards from my apartment window.
I wondered if David also had to endure this dreadful traffic. This morning I managed to evade his inquiry, for whatever reason. When I came out from my room, the apartment was empty of life. Not a single other soul or sound around. Empty besides the absentee chatter of newscasters on the tv and David's archival stuff cluttering boxes and corridors and corners throughout the loft. It wasn't the first time left the tv on when he went to work. I surmised on my own that he probably left it playing on purpose; he often "forgot" to turn off the tv when he leaves the apartment. He probably thought it made me feel like he was still home, or that the ambient sound made me feel less lonely, like an unsocialized cat hiding under his owner's bed. It did not really help, to say so much. It made me want to retreat further into the silence, into myself. I dreaded it, but not as much as I dreaded the bus.
What was I complaining for? I knew he just wanted the best for me, he said that as much every chance he had.
It was my pain to endure, not his.
The people crowded around me were a mosaic of different textures, scents, and hues. An older man followed by the ghost of liquor slept upright on one of the bus seats, his skin leathery and thin. His clothes clung to him in tatters. An odd smell, motor oil and exhaust fumes, wafted off of a mechanic beside him, whose overalls were stained with black grease. A woman in her thirties, saddled with a thousand-yard stare, cradled a crying baby on her shoulder. Puke stains trailed down her cardigan. A middle schooler with a backpack too big for him teetered on the verge of falling over.
And how did I look to them? Who did they see? A kid with bags under his eyes and a stiff upper lip? Or maybe they saw someone on the verge of tears, hugging himself as if he was freezing, his eyes darting anxiously from stranger to stranger, always lingering a little too long before glancing away to settle on some other unperturbed stranger.
I was lucky. At least I still had David to take care of me. He made me coffee in the morning, lunch, and dinner. So, why wouldn't I say anything to him this morning? He left me my breakfast on the table, and lunch in the fridge. So, I picked up the plate he left out for me and sat down to watch the news before leaving for the last day of school before the break. He liked to arrange my breakfast and meals in "fun" ways, and most of the time his attempts came out just shy of perfection. The lopsided eggs and curled bacon made the smiley-face look more like a creature feature monstrosity than I previously thought possible to stumble upon accidentally. One thing you could say for certain was that he really tried. I scarfed the breakfast down like a thanksgiving turkey, leaving no trace of the egg-thing left to soil my mood.
What was that news segment that was playing on the tv?
Whenever I sat down to watch the news, a part of me always expected something connected to what happened that day to appear. Maybe even during a "miss it in a glance" kind of moment. Like, if I wasn't watching, I could miss out on key information someone mentioned off handedly. Nowadays, my expectations have waned. I understood that disappointment followed those kinds of expectations. There was just too little information on the situation I could find, or ever found. When I first tried looking into what happened, I scoured the internet rigorously and searched determined to find something connected to what happened; some key detail in a newspaper clipping, an interview with someone assumedly irrelevant, an article written about the case my mother was working on before she passed, a social media post someone my dad worked with as a fireman. For hours throughout the night I stayed up digging into archived newsreels, public security cams, website articles, chatrooms, anything that could tell me about that day. Anything at all. And it's all come up empty, fruitless, whatever word you felt the need to swap the irrefutable apt jackshit with.
I was desperate for anything, any sign of what happened to have caused the explosion.
I remembered, for a few months after it happened it was all over the news. A tragedy along the lines of which Acadia rarely ever saw. My parents' faces, along with twenty eight others, were plastered all over the tv, posters, articles, and conspiracy boards for a year. Their names were spoken by over two dozen newscasters all over the Acadian Metropolitan area. I had my work cut out for me, to say the least.
What would be my next move? Where would I go from there?
The more I mulled over the facts, the more it seemed like no one had any idea what actually happened. No concrete answer other than it was "probably" a gas leak, regardless of the fact that nothing was found at the scene of the crime to support that claim. I remembered that day as vividly as anyone could. I never smelled anything remotely odd. Not even the police would give me an answer.
Casey called every week to check up on me. I relied on our chats to keep me sane during all that's happened. She would usually update me with anything that she could find, if she ever could find anything. For the better part of a year now, our talks have been pretty dry. Nothing remotely substantive in the past few months has popped up. We have a call scheduled for later tonight. I still had to think of what to ask her.
We still did not know who caused it. No suspects emerged in the initial investigation. The authorities who found me in the hospital did not believe me when I told them what happened. They could not. I was so desperate to get off my chest. For a while, I tried to tell anyone who asked. Eventually I realized that it was pointless. No one would listen to me. I was alone.
Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I still am.
Casey said she believed me. David said that he did too, though he always seemed less enthusiastic about it. I did not think that they really believed me. They believed me in the same way a parent believed their kid who barged into their room, in the middle of the night, terrified of the monster in their closet. They believed--they knew--I went through something traumatic. Someone whose life was upended in a sudden, freak accident. A kid who tried to justify the tragedy of losing his parents even if it meant believing in a lie. That's who they believed.
They did not believe me, not really. Yet, I did not blame them for it. I would not believe it myself if I had not seen it with my own two eyes. Cobalt blue, like packed ice, staring back at me. A shiver raced down my spine.
I questioned if I should call Casey early. See if I could catch up on any leads. Even just a sliver of a hint. A name, a place, a piece of a fucking brick dislodged from the buildings foundations--something for god's sake. Although, would she even want to? For all her help, I think she tried to discourage me. David, I thought, tried to too.
The bell rang. It's ringing split my ear, right down the middle, and ripped me out of my daydreaming. Desks rattled and chairs shuffled, filling the classroom with a cacophonous mix of addled chatter sprinkled in. I glanced at the clock: 2 PM. The school day has already ended. Odd, the day passed by quicker than usual.
The other kids started to pack their bags all around me, slipping in binders, pencil cases, and textbooks like loose decks of cards tossing around a knapsack. It was a familiar sound: one part eager to get the hell out, like a paper-mill running a tight shift, another part lax and chatty, like coworkers chatting over a drink. Wait. Did I catch what the homework was?
I looked around at my desk mates. A girl with platinum blonde hair. A guy with a short-cropped haircut and thin lips. Each packed up their things as quickly as anyone else. I turned to the girl to ask her about the homework--because maybe she would know--but immediately an entourage of her friends swooped in and stole her attention. No problem, I thought. I'll just ask…And the same thing happened with him. Three other guys with short cropped hair and graphic tees managed to slip in before I even had the chance to say hello.
No one else in the classroom seemed eager to stay. I heard a voice speak up behind me.
"Monty, is something troubling you?"
I turned around to see Mrs. Shelton-Tuttle. Today she wore a forest green jacket over her blouse, a richly textured one like the shell of a tortoise. Her glasses threatened to fall off her nose. If I had to guess, she must have been in her thirties, though she dressed like she was sixty. She didn't seem to grab the attention of her students in class. Something about her hushed voice and timid stature made it easy for some of the students--especially the boys--to ignore her. She was kind enough, and almost never raised her voice.
"Nothing's troubling me. I'm just tired. I don't think I got enough sleep last night," I said.
"You forgot to grab this," she said as she handed me a worksheet on electromagnetism. "If this is going to become a habit--"
"--I won't make it a habit," I said, interrupting her.
She frowned. "I believe that," she said. "My office is always open, though, if you need the help."
I started to pack up my things as well. My desk neighbors were already long gone by the time I got everything together.
"Mrs. Shelton-Tuttle, if I need the help. I'll ask."
She nodded. "But, even if you don't need it. It's here, nonetheless."
"Thank you, but that won't be necessary. I have all that I need."
"It's not healthy to be stuck in your head for so long. You'll have to look outside, at some point. Smell the flowers"
"What kind of advice is that?" I asked.
She giggled like a schoolgirl. It caught me off-guard.
"I'll stick to teaching science I think," she said.
I threw my backpack over my shoulder. She watched me follow the rest of the students into the hallway. I didn't look back.
Underwood Academy was what I settled on. I tried other schools, public and private, but none of them really stuck. The students were fine enough, and the teachers fine everstill, the winding corridors and stairwells reminded me of a gothic castle without the bats, and natural lighting.
I passed my Geometry classroom. Students sat at their desks quiet and statuesque like headstones in a graveyard. A few more classrooms flew past in a blur until I came across an empty stairwell. While descending the stairs, I caught a glimpse of platinum blonde hair. What was her name? Was it Amy or Ama? My feet clattered down the stairs.
"Hey--uh, Amanda," I said unconfidently. "Cant I take a quick photo of your notes from Science with Shelton-Tuttle. Sorry. Monty, your seat-neighbor--"
The girl who turned to me was in fact not Amanda, or Amy, or Ama from my Science class. A girl with wide bangs stared at me with disinterest. Her bubblegum pink backpack sat lumpy on the floor, her hand wrapped around the straps, like a duffel bag.
"MOVE asshole," she shouted at me. I recoiled, my back slamming into the lockers. A solid clang bounced off the wall and caught the attention of a guy behind me. She reeled back and threw her backpack over my head, clocking the taller boy's crown behind me. It nearly knocked him on the floor. He turned to us. When he noticed her his eyes steeled.
"Oh you're dead Seiko," he said and he turned on his heel to face her.
She bolted. By the time I glanced back to see her reaction she was already on the other end of the hallway, wrapping around the corner. The boy chased after her, nearly knocking over a crowd of theater kids in his way.
Her afterimage left a taste in mouth, like lavender and mint.
Sometimes I wondered if I would survive a full four years here.
The bus doors opened out onto the street. A flood of passengers poured out, including me and my ungovernable backpack. If I swayed too far one way in one direction and ended up in free fall, it could drag me down with it.
Someone pushed me from behind to get past. I almost ate shit on the sidewalk. My headphones jostled around in my hair and almost fell off too. I quickly picked myself up and brushed past. Luckily I managed to slip out from the blindspot of two chatty Cathys taking up the entirety of the sidewalk. Without an eye for people, you'd be hard pressed to get anywhere in this city.
Octoberfaire's mid-sized residential blocks towered above on both sides of the road. The Acadian Metropolitan Transport Authority, or the AMTA as normal people called it, ran right through the middle of the town. Our main road, which wrapped through the south shore, was also the same route one would take to get into the city center, aka Acadia Island. We kind of shared the route with folks trekking in West from Lenox. One side of the tram's tracks was the bay area, or the south shore, and folks from all around visited the area, especially during the summer. Once June comes, and the schools get out, people arrive in town to make good use of the shorefront. A wharf dense with historical significance, a gaudy amusement park, and a sandy beach resided just off the main route. Tourism thrived here, especially during the summer when the bay thaws and the sun starts to cook your family's SUV like a metal furnace. The other side of the tracks were where the rest of the Octoberfaire was.
Easttown was a city of its own, not just a ward in the Acadian Metropolitan Area. It was huge. Larger than twice the size of the island of Acadia. A recent census estimated millions of residents called it home. It's smack dab in the middle of the entire city, so people from all over treat the ward like a big bus station. It might as well have been. A solid chunk of the city's infrastructure started here--from the waste management department to the canal-building projects. Every city project used the ward like a testing ground. It meant that a lot of work was being done in the city, but that also meant not everything was built for the benefit of Easttown.
David's apartment was on the other side of the tracks. Thankfully, Octoberfaire was a safe part of the city in general, so walking back to the apartment on my own was a breeze. Still, it also was not the nicest part of town. A group of kids with yellow bandanas noticed me as I walked by. Inner Easton was deposited more towards the center of the sprawl and acted as the primary hub for the city. We lived just between the shore and Inner Easton, just a skip and a jump from both. We were like the skip between a pebble thrown and the sinking stone. A rough patch in an otherwise non-threatening white picket yard. At least until you really got north, and east. In the places where Vaux and Lenox collided with our ward, it seemed as though the sprawl had trouble interconnecting, like oil and water.
The shoe factory was just off the AMTA's tracks, and the shoreside parkway that curled around and followed the south shore, leading all the way from the Acadian bridge on the west side of Easttown to South Easttown and the next ward down to the southeast, Ambrugge. If there was ever a prime spot to be mugged, it's near the tracks. Since the area was home to a ton of old factories too, it only bred more trouble. David would always offer to drop me off at the bus stop, but I liked the walk, so I usually turned him down. Usually.
A Murder of Crows song played in my ears--an alt-rock band local to Ambrugge--on my way home. Their sweeping drums and guitar made me feel like I was punk, clad in black and spikes. It matched the atmosphere. Courage stewed in my chest, as if it was being drawn out by the music, and I believed I was tougher than I actually was. That I could actually look like I was from a factory apartment on the south side of Easttown.
If I still lived in Midtown Acadia, would I have felt the same way about A Murder of Crows?
The street I got dropped off on was relatively busy. A pawn shop squatted nearby, a line reaching out and around the corner with people itching to sell what they could, and what they couldn't. A comic book store on the north side also drew a ton of attention, what with its flashy neon sign and colorful decals, stained and sun-bleached after years of acting as set dressing for the kids of Octoberfaire to read beneath.
If I hadn't known better, I'd think it would have been a nice neighborhood.
As I passed an alley a sharp yelp of a siren split my eyes. I jumped back onto my heels in shock. Out came a police car hidden in the alley. "Watch it, kid," the officer snapped. The car rolled past me and turned onto the street as its sirens came to a full rumble. After break-checking the guy behind him, the police car shot down the road, nearly hitting an old woman as she tried to cross.
As I turned the corner I came to a row of factory buildings. Red bricks and steel infrastructure scaled their sides. They still wore the skins of their old companies. Now that they've been driven out of the neighborhood, they've been cannibalized by predatory residential management groups, driving up the price of housing in the area and pushing out smaller businesses or coops that could have used the spaces themselves. It was part of a new housing project that once again was utilizing Easttown as its personal lab experiment. Signs posted up on the sides of the building were dressed in office-safe fonts and eye-numbingly dull color schemes manufactured in a chemistry set. Underneath them were the washed out logos of long-gone industrial mascots: shoes in the case for David and I's flat.
When I reached the complex I pulled off my headphones to listen to the interim noises of passing cars and vehicles. I heard the train passing by, which meant that I had just missed the afternoon rush.
Stepping inside the factory, the floors and walls on the first floor were renovated. No longer were there pipes and outlying brickwork creeping into the place like moss. A creaky and rusted elevator led up to the higher floors. I rode it up three floors until it opened with a jingle onto an open corridor. David's apartment was down the hall on the right.
Unlike the rest of the complex, David's apartment loft still had exposed brick, and a few pipes too. I questioned if it was safe to live in a place like this. In an act of remediation, he said it was aesthetic, that it looked "industrial". It was nothing like my old brownstone in the city. I hardly ever saw the neighbors. And even when I did, they never seemed eager to humor me.
Inside the apartment was a jungle of protruding book shelves, boxes of paper files, and even more boxes of materials or artifacts he commandeered from the museum he worked at. He was an assistant curator and researcher at the Acadian Museum of History. There was always some weird mystery he was poking into, either home or at work, where he was most of the time. He brought his work home with him often.
I did not blame him, though. He loved his job. He loved to talk to me about it over dinner when we finally had the chance to see each other and sit down together for all of five minutes. The work never stops, he'd say to me.
I opened up the fridge and pulled out the food he prepped for me, reheated it, and sat back down on the couch just as I did this morning. Once again, I came home to an empty apartment. I grabbed the remote and flipped through the channels till I reached the news. I ate and watched, content with my meal. It was mostly about the storm rolling in tonight. I could tell from looking outside that we would probably be hit hard. What a thing to start your Thanksgiving break with.
These particular newscasters stumbled over their scripts. One of them enunciated a few words strangely. Hallmarks of novice spokespeople. I've seen them before, and I had already checked their backgrounds. None of them were around at the time to cover my story.
The newscaster on the right side said, "That's just the thing. It's a wonder how this storm came out of nowhere."
The caster put a finger to his earpiece. Someone was on the other end of it speaking through the piece. Maybe a producer?
"This just in, folks. Reports of power outages throughout the city are coming through. Looks like it's hitting coastal towns and neighborhoods of the city. P-Please be advised that⏤"
Boom. The power went out. The apartment was swallowed up in darkness.
"Just my luck," I said aloud. I got up to look out the window at the street. A wave of apartment windows dimmed across the street. The line of blackouts stretched south towards the tracks until all that was left was a road enveloped in a quickly darkening dusk. Even the street lights themselves flickered out.
"What's going on?" I said. I left the window and retreated back into the apartment. I searched around for a flashlight. Eventually I found one in a kitchen drawer, where David said he'd leave a pack of emergency tools like matches, batteries, and other tools valuable during a crisis. I stuck with the flashlight and matches, at least for now. I turned it on and used it to look for any of our spare candles. I scoured the apartment before finding them in the bathroom. After the apartment was sufficiently lit with the candles I attempted to call David on his cell.
No signal. The power outages must have hit the cell towers nearby.
I followed the hallway back into the living room.
The room was washed in a bright golden glow. It flickered in and out.
Were the lights coming back on? Could it have been the tv? No, the lights in the living room remained still, lifeless, and the tv was the same. Could it have been one of the neighbors? I walked towards the window, the one that took up like a quarter of the apartment, and in the sky a flash of light flashed over the bay. It flickered in the sky like a flare.
No, like a detonation.