Broken Bloom

The kid was too pretty for this part of town. That was my first thought, and it was the kind of thought that gets a man in trouble.

He stood under the sodium light on the corner of Ninth and Fremont, hip cocked, thumb hooked in the belt loop of jeans that probably cost more than my rent. Eighteen, maybe. Nineteen. The kind of face you see on billboards for cologne, all cheekbones and full lips and eyes that looked like they'd seen a thing or two they shouldn't have. He wasn't dressed for the job, not the way the girls on this strip dressed. No tube top, no heels. Just a thin white t-shirt and those jeans and a denim jacket that hung off his shoulders like it belonged to somebody bigger.

I was off the clock. That's what I told myself when I pulled the unmarked onto the curb and killed the engine. Off the clock, on my way home, just checking on a kid who looked like he was about to get himself hurt.

Bullshit. I knew what I was doing. I'd known since the moment I saw him from the intersection, backlit and glowing like something out of a fever dream.

The window rolled down with a squeal that made him flinch. He recovered fast, smoothed his face into something practiced, something older than eighteen. He walked over with a sway that didn't match his face. Like he was trying on a costume.

"You looking for something, officer?" His voice was soft. Not what I expected. No street rasp, no hustle. Just a boy's voice, a little hoarse, a little stoned.

"I'm not a cop tonight."

He laughed. A short, breathy sound. "They all say that."

"I'm not." I reached over and popped the passenger door. "Get in before somebody sees you standing there looking like a lost puppy."

He studied me for a long moment. His eyes were glassy, pupils blown wide. High on something. Weed, probably, from the sweet skunky smell that drifted through the window. He looked at my face, then at my hands on the wheel, then back at my face. Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it, because he slid into the seat and pulled the door shut.

The car filled up with the smell of him. Weed and sweat and something floral underneath, cheap soap or expensive shampoo, I couldn't tell which.

"You got a name?" I asked.

"Eric."

"Eric what?"

"Just Eric." He pulled his knees up to his chest, feet on the seat, making himself small. The denim jacket bunched around his shoulders. "You got a name?"

"Gary."

"Gary." He said it like he was tasting it. "Gary the not-cop."

"Gary Cooper."

His head tilted. "Like the actor?"

"Like my father had a sense of humor."

That got a real laugh out of him, not the practiced one. It was high and bright and gone too fast, like a bird startled off a wire. He pressed his forehead to his knees and looked at me sideways. "So what do you want, Gary Cooper?"

I should have said nothing. I should have asked him where he lived and driven him home. I should have called it in and let the night shift deal with it. I should have done a lot of things.

"Company," I said.

He smiled. It was a sad smile, the kind that lives in the mouth and never reaches the eyes. "Company costs."

"I know."

He named a price. I didn't argue. I put the car in gear and drove.

My apartment was four blocks away, a one-bedroom on the third floor of a building that had been nice in the seventies and had spent the intervening decades getting tired. I parked in the alley and led him up the back stairs. He moved quiet behind me, footsteps soft on the metal grating, and I kept my eyes forward because if I looked back at him I wasn't sure what I'd do.

The door stuck. It always stuck. I shouldered it open and flicked on the light.

Eric walked in like he was walking into a church. Slow. Reverent. He touched the spines of the books on my shelf, ran a finger along the edge of the kitchen counter, stopped in front of the window that looked out over the parking lot and the dumpster and the neon sign of the taqueria across the street. He stood there for a long time, just looking.

"You live here alone?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"It's clean."

"Thanks."

He turned around. The light from the taqueria sign painted his face red and green through the glass. "Most guys who pick me up, their places smell like beer and socks."

"I'm not most guys."

"No." He walked toward me. Slow. That same sway, but different now, less like a costume and more like a decision. "You're not."

He stopped close enough that I could smell the weed on his breath, sweet and thick. His eyes were huge. Up close I could see the veins in the whites, the tiny broken capillaries at the corners. He looked tired. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He looked like he was about to cry.

"You okay?" I asked.

"People don't usually ask me that."

"I'm asking."

He reached up and touched my face. His fingers were cold. "I'm fine," he said, and his voice cracked on the second word. "I'm always fine."

I caught his wrist. Not hard. Just enough to stop him. He went still, and for a second something flickered across his face, something that looked a lot like fear, and then it was gone and he was smiling again. That sad, practiced smile.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"I know."

"You're high."

"I know."

"How old are you really?"

"Eighteen." He said it fast, defensive, like he'd said it a hundred times. "I'm eighteen. I'm legal. I'm fine."

I let go of his wrist. He didn't move. He stood there in the red and green light with his hands at his sides and his eyes on mine, and I knew, somewhere in the part of my brain that was still working, that I was making a mistake. That this was going to cost me something. That the kid was a lit match and I was a can of gasoline.

But I'd been alone for a long time. And he was so pretty. And when he stepped forward and pressed his mouth to mine, he tasted like smoke and honey and something underneath that I couldn't name.

His lips were soft. His hands found the back of my neck and pulled me down and he kissed me like he was drowning, like I was air, like if he stopped he'd die. I kissed him back. I couldn't help it. My hands went to his waist and he was so thin under that t-shirt, so thin I could feel his ribs, and something in my chest cracked open.

We made it to the bed. I don't remember crossing the room. I remember the denim jacket hitting the floor. I remember the t-shirt coming off over his head and the pale expanse of his chest, the small dark nipples, the faint blue veins under the skin. I remember him shivering when I touched him, and I remember thinking it was the cold until I saw his face.

He was crying. Silent tears running down his cheeks, catching the light, dripping off his chin onto my pillow. He didn't make a sound. His hands were still moving, still pulling at my belt, still doing the work, but his face was somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

"Hey." I caught his hands. "Hey. Stop."

He blinked. Focused on me. The tears kept coming. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." He tried to smile. It fell apart halfway. "I'm fine. I told you. I'm fine."

"You're crying."

"I'm always crying." He said it like it was a fact about the weather. Like he was telling me it was raining. "It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't stop anything. Just keep going."

"No."

"Please." His voice broke. "Please, I need the money. I need it. Please don't make me leave."

"I'm not making you leave." I sat up. He stayed where he was, flat on his back, tears running into his hair. "I'm just not going to do this while you're crying."

"I'm always crying," he said again, and something about the way he said it, flat and matter-of-fact, made the hair on my arms stand up.

I got up. Pulled my shirt back on. Went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water and brought it back. He was still on the bed, still crying, still naked from the waist up. He looked at the glass like he'd never seen one before.

"Drink."

He drank. Slow sips, his hands shaking. When he was done he set the glass on the nightstand and pulled his knees up to his chest again, making himself small.

"I have a condition," he said. "That's what they call it. A condition."

"What kind of condition?"

He laughed. That bright, broken bird-laugh. "The kind where I see things. The kind where I hear things. The kind where sometimes I don't know what's real and what's not." He wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I'm supposed to take pills. I don't like the pills. They make me feel like I'm underwater."

I sat down on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped. He shifted toward me, an involuntary movement, like a plant turning toward light.

"How long?"

"Since I was fifteen. It started small. Little things. Shadows that moved. Voices in the static." He pulled the jacket up off the floor and wrapped it around his shoulders. "Then it got bigger. Now sometimes I wake up and I don't know where I am. Sometimes I wake up and I don't know who I am."

"Why are you out there? On the street?"

He looked at me. The tears had stopped but his eyes were still wet, still huge, still that impossible blue.

"Because it's better than home," he said. "Because when I'm out there, I'm not alone. And when I'm alone, that's when the voices come."

I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.

He leaned his head against my shoulder. His hair smelled like weed and rain. His body was warm against mine, thin and trembling, and I put my arm around him because I didn't know what else to do.

"Can I stay?" he asked. "Just till morning. I won't ask for anything else."

"Yeah," I said. "You can stay."

He closed his eyes. Within minutes his breathing evened out, slowed, went deep. He slept like a child, mouth slightly open, one hand curled against my chest.

I didn't sleep. I sat there in the dark with a beautiful, broken stranger in my arms and I listened to the city outside and I wondered what I'd gotten myself into.