I only smashed one window myself during the riot, and I had chosen
it carefully. The peak of the chaos lasted maybe half an hour, and
during that time I also lit fires in a few  trash barrels. Mostly I ran
around and screamed myself hoarse, much like everyone else. When the
cops came I retired through the well-chosen window with two well-chosen
friends. We cleaned up a bit before bedding down in the bulk aisle. If
the co-op grocery store was going to give us an alibi, the least we
could do was to show some kindness in return.

    The police reached Cornucopia Foods in their rounds near 4 AM. We'd
cleverly made ourselves co-op members the night before, even remembering
to wash off the bluish ink used for the "valid through 200_" stamp,
which we'd gotten all over out hands trying to manipulate the inkpad in
the dark. It never came up, though, as the cops saw us lying there,
unafraid to be noticed, and didn't bother checking credentials. I
attempted to answer their questions:
    Had we been attacked personally? No. Did we see who smashed the
window? Sadly not. Did we know how it all started? No, we came over
after the noise stopped. We wanted to make sure looters didn't ransack
the place, I said, patting a grossly outsize pumpkin.
    The officer doing all the talking wanted to know if I really ate
this stuff myself. Sure, I said; a good herb tea in the morning and
fresh vegetables at lunch, blah blah blah. But, I finished
conspiratorially, the lahvosh by the counter still tastes like
cardboard. (I spoke from personal, albeit recent, experience.) That
sealed it. He smiled, and motioned for his colleagues to follow him out.
    Alone again, we three discussed what to do next. My new
acquaintances were far from home, college dropouts hitching and grifting
their way across the country. She went by Hannah; he, 'Bag'. I'd offered
them safety from both riot and police, and tried to absolve them of
guilt for stealing a little food, but I think they sensed that I was a
fundamentally bad person and wanted to get away from me. Bag had already
asked whether the small infinity sign on my thumb was a jailhouse
tattoo; happy to tell the truth at least occasionally, I said no.
    They wanted to stay and volunteer help when the place's owners
arrived in the morning, pleading indigence and good intentions. As I had
neither, we parted ways.

    The city at down looked peaceful despite the debris. Passing the
mall I had been in when the fracas started, I side-stepped a messy,
odiferous stain on the ground, only to be rammed shoulder-first by a
drunkard with lingerie on his head. I got to my feet, massaging the spot
in my side where he'd struck me as I watched him careen festively down
the empty street. For someone like him to stick around, the police would
have to have already gone home entirely. Not much of a riot; lucky for
me.

    Riding the bus out of town, I read the morning paper. Police
believed the brawl started when a young tough was thrown from the mall
skyway to his death. His crowd and their enemies clashed, some other
kids decided to start breaking things, and it got out of control; just
bad luck. Every word of it was true. And I admit I goaded the guy into
killing that kid because I wanted to start some trouble, but had I known
what would happen I might not have. I've done stupider things, perhaps
not worse ones.
    That symbol on my thumb gets more preposterous each day. Every city
I'd rather not go back to, every mistake I make, chips away at the
infinity of possibilities I thought I had when I was just crooked,
instead of lost. I wonder whether I will run out of mistakes before I
die.
    Would I even know it, or would I count the seconds until it all went
bad again?

written for Kira while standing up 8/17/03

I had no strong idea of where I was going at first; I tried to draw on my old ideas about throwing plot points up into the air with the expectation of collecting one or two later. I also tried to create suspense, having felt like the previous story depended too much on geniality I hadn't established.

Partway through, though, I started to feel like I was creating a lovable scamp, and I really hate riding that bus. I pushed myself to make the narrator genuinely unpleasant, but even so, he'd been carefree enough that I didn't feel comfortable making him the killer, as I'd originally planned. I think that makes the end more convoluted, maybe even unclear. I don't know.

"Bag" sounded like a plausible nickname for a young hippie-type who'd genuinely slipped onto the outside of mainstream culture. Well, I assume it seemed plausible, because I used it, but I don't remember why (I'm writing these notes a month later).

Rereading it now, the rhythm seems interesting; there's less suspense than I intended but I actually like it that way. If the last large section could be rewritten to flow smoothly from what came before...

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

<< back to more fast custom fiction<<