We came upon him in the alley behind the bar. That poor schmuck—for that’s all he was to us, a schmuck, he didn’t need a name—eyed us nervously as we approached. “How’s it going, fellas?” he asked as we drew near. We didn’t respond. Words are meaningless when action is called for. I think he—that guy, the schmuck, that “Nemo”—sobered up at this point. He achieved an animal understanding of threat. Maybe that’s not entirely fair, though, because I don’t think the animal kingdom differentiates between “threat” and “doom” in any meaningful way, and this guy saw doom. “Look,” he was shaking, I could practically hear his teeth chatter, “I don’t have much on me, but here,” he extended his wallet toward us and we watched his hand bounce in the air. “Take it. Please.”

I did just that. I took the wallet from him. He seemed to relax a bit. “Now, now,” I said as I opened the tan leather bifold and began thumbing through the contents. He had $47.00, a load of crumpled receipts, a debit card and three credit cards, and of course his driver’s license. I held the license up to compare his face to the photograph. I noticed that the State had also given him a name, a residential address, even a date of birth—none of which interested me. “Come on, man,” I said as I tossed the wallet and it slapped into a nearby puddle. “Have some pride! That’s your hard-earned cash, your scratch—it may as well be your lifeblood!—and you want to hand it off at the first opportunity? Not to mention that this implies we can be bought off, or bought off so easily—as if we were such simplistic organisms as to bend to, or beg of, or obsess over a bit of a splurge…”

This man, this schmuck, this nobody, had no idea what to make of this. His eyes widened and the light in him went dim. We were no mere strangers, or simple lowlives, not animals or beasts, and in the coming moments we would not be plain murderers, but rather we were forces of nature, acts of God in the making; there was a flash of pale lightning at the realization that we could not be reasoned with, that we were not in it for any reason understandable to any society. It might have been apt for him to call us monsters or devils, but I never asked what his opinion was. If I had asked him that, then I may as well have asked him about his opinion on public transit, or private property, or tax brackets—that’s not to say I didn’t care, per se, but rather that I’m sure I would not have cared had the thought occurred to me.

I thwacked him with my cane, a good hit across his jaw, and he fell into the brick wall. My boys, my companions, the “fellas,” came in at this and began to kick and punch at the man as he slumped down and curled into a ball. I kicked him too, and hit him with my cane again, then I poked him with the tip of it—jabbing and stabbing at him for good measure. This went on and on, we were all panting when we decided to call it quits. The guy didn’t move. Was he breathing? Was he dead? Again, uninteresting questions. We turned and began to walk up the alley. All it takes for fate to intervene itself upon you is for someone to have nothing better to do at a given moment. It was a good night.

 ◈

I was sixteen when my mother set her Bible down for the final time. Her last prayer soon followed. She up and flew toward the pearly gates and streets of gold and left me to figure the immaterial on a material plane. My father was sad at this and became even more bitter than he already was. He was angry more often, and more drunk—deeper into his wounds—and while he had mostly refrained from inflicting physical maladies upon me since I grew to be close to his size, he still referred to me as “dog,” and “rat,” and whatever other inconsequential, short word could be pinned to me with a thumbtack. I don’t remember the last time the man used my name—whatever a name is. But this does not matter. My father came home late one night, his breath was thick and sour, it filled the room as he walked in. Behind him came a blonde woman equally as drunk, and I knew the score even before they started their fumbly waltz in the kitchen. I watched them twirl and careen for a moment and then cleared my throat to announce my presence. “Out,” my father told me, but I was not in the mood to be so easily commanded. “Out,” he said again.

I stood and watched the two of them. They stopped swaying and my father glared at me. “Didn’t I tell you to leave?” Why yes, father, you did. He released the blonde woman and stomped over to me. “Get your sorry ass out of here, you little rat!” He jammed a finger in my face and it smelled like he had rubbed it in an ashtray. “I don’t care where you go or what you do! Just get the fuck out!” I snorted at him so he slapped me across the cheek. It was then that I noticed the beer bottle he had left on the counter by where I stood, emptied and forgotten since whatever binge-night it was from. I took it up and smacked him in the temple with it, and then I tossed it to the floor, and then I left.

Down at the railyard not far from my father’s house is a spot where the moon shines down as if it’s taken an interest in that patch of gravel and grass. I would go sit in that spot and just be...there were many times when I had the look of someone lost in contemplation when in fact I didn’t have a single thought in my head. I hardly observed or listened to the world around me—I only occupied it. Some people would call me easygoing, but the fact of the matter was that I was simply oblivious, ignorant, going through the motions. Did I care what my father said to me, what he called me? No. Designations were the fault of those who spoke them.

This railyard was a sort of proving ground for many kids at school. We’d gather and have fights, sometimes to square affronts and other times just to pass the time. Some of the other boys had heard how my father addressed me and took to teasing me by calling me “dog” and “rat” as well. I couldn’t escape it. My name had been well and truly lost. Again, I can’t say that it really bothered me, but after punching one of the boys in the mouth I realized what an offense it could be, and what a reason for fighting with my classmates as well. Sometimes I would be in better shape than my opponent, other times it would not fare so well for me. I was told to come to the railyard one day after school, so we could really settle things, and I obliged. My opponent that day was mean but not all that tough, so I did him in without too much trouble. My other classmates began to call the fight off, as if they could decide for us when it was time to stop. I kicked him while he was down and punched him a few more times. It was as if I were in a trance, a dumb automation fell over me as I kept going past what was deemed to be “good reason.” There was a knight’s code between us, or there was expected to be, I guess. I was restrained by three bystanders when I picked up a large rock and went to place it on my adversary’s head.

 ◈

I sat for a bit in that spot of watching moonlight and then I heard the train horn signaling the approach of that giant steel snake. I swallowed the last gulp of my whiskey and threw the empty bottle at the tracks. The boys had gone their way, and I went mine. They didn’t like coming to the railyard with me. I’m not even sure if we had gone to school together, or if they had heard the story of the day I had tried to splatter a melon on my peers. It wasn’t hard to figure it out, though: they didn’t like me, so they scattered once our business was concluded. Maybe they saw the same thing in me that the other kids had seen however many years ago. Still, they came around. We skulked about and made a mess of whomever we pleased. I think they had it in their heads that it was some kind of liberation, a philosophical railing against the norms of society. I just looked at it as something to do. I would be the unlucky one some day.

Maybe that’s what scared them. I wasn’t wrapped up in the same juvenile idea of “freedom,” I didn’t care about being “wild,” or “untamed.” The nine-to-five schmucks were all neutered and domesticated, and while that bothers some people, it just wasn’t my problem. I hadn’t thought about things all that much. I simply was.

We walked by a liquor store one evening and decided to go inside. Some people would rob the joint because they wanted booze, because they didn’t have the money for it or didn’t want to pay. We made out with a cart full of bottles, some brown, or yellow, or clear, some red or reddish brown, or pale yellow, amber—they looked like shades of some murky, intestinal rainbow—and the clerk was bloodied and rasping behind the counter, looping onto another earth as consciousness faded. I don’t know if it was really a robbery, it was just a chain of events; it may as well been completely random, and maybe it was. We had walked in a door with nothing and walked out with whatever we could carry. We did the same thing at grocery stores and gas stations, too.

One day I was at a park feeding the ducks. I had brought some lettuce for them. A cop rode by on a bicycle and I wondered if he would stop to question me, or even arrest me. I understood that was the logical consequence of my actions, of what went on at night. But either he didn’t know, or didn’t recognize me, or was as uninterested in it all as I was, because he cycled on by, as if he were just another guy on a bike. A lady walked her poodle by me and I started to itch: I wanted to throw her in the pond, or steal her purse, or cut the dog’s leash, but good sense told me not to conduct myself in such a way in broad daylight. I listened to that survival instinct of mine and suffered through inaction because so far it had kept me free and clear of the aforementioned consequences. I tossed another leaf to the ducks.

◈

“We need to go out,” he said. “We need to do something.”

“No,” I told him.

“Why not?”

I shrugged.

I wasn’t bored. I didn’t feel like it. There were better or worse things to do. This could change any minute—I just went with the flow—but this particular day felt like a lazy day.

“Fuck this,” he stood up and glared at me. “I’m going out. I want to do something.”

“Then go.”

He walked out and let the door swing shut behind him. I was alone, but I think I had been alone even when he was in the room with me. We occupied space and said a few words to each other but that didn’t mean all that much. I don’t even know for sure if I felt better or worse when someone else was around. We’re just details, really.

A hand soap commercial came on TV. It amazed me how well people could act, or be trained to behave, for something as small as a twenty-second ad. These people were too excited about doing the dishes-they were over the moon—and I just couldn’t believe anyone could even fake that reaction to soap. I changed the channel.

That’s how watching TV works: you change the channel until you find something that catches your eye for a few minutes, and then the ads cut in and you must decide whether to change the channel or stick around. It’s all just mindless bloat. A television program is no different than a commercial if you think about it. You’re expected to buy something either way, and every sentence, every slogan, is just a cheap imitation of words. We’re a species of buyers and sellers, some evolutionary corporate entity. And we’re expected to search for meaning in all this, whatever meaning is. A mob boss sending a hit squad after his ex-wife is no different than hand soap, or tupperware, or blood sugar medication. It’s all the same, honed into a fine edge of common denominator.

We are encouraged to escape from harsh reality. Spend your time wisely, live fulfilled, because any light can be snuffed out by random violence. I changed the channel again. A news anchor looked at me with a madeup face. Not even actual events are safe from being dressed up. There’s been a string of violent acts, the anchor said. Places were robbed, people were attacked, the police are on the lookout for a very generic sounding individual. I didn’t know if I should be offended or relieved at the so-called description—it either meant that I was as plain a copy as everyone else or that the police were looking in the wrong direction. I would have to wait and see. I changed the channel three more times and then turned the TV off.

That’s the way these days went, these lazy days. They were restful but draining—the soul steamed and whistled out your nose like a tea kettle. My toe began to tap on the floor, all on its own. I grew restless. Things change in mere moments. Now I wanted to go out. Now I wanted to do something. I was tired though, so I leaned back in my seat and stretched my legs. I went to sleep. I woke up a few hours later in a dark room. The sun had gone to bed and that meant that the shadows were free. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The phone rang.

 ◈

We came upon a man on an empty street and like all the others he had no name. The schmuck. He was talking to someone on the phone and I did him the favor of taking it out of his hand and said goodbye to the person on the other end. I tossed the phone to the ground. I don’t know if the call disconnected or not.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The guy took a swing at me and then noticed the others. We fanned out around him, boxing him in. “Hey,” he said as he looked around for an opening to dart through. If he had ran in the first place he probably would have gotten away. We just looked at him. One of us snickered. I clubbed him on the head with my cane and he fell to his knees. The wooden beating instrument gave an awful crack as I hit him again.

We finished our work and left the pulp on the street. Off we went. About thirty minutes later we passed by a small convenience store and we did the same as someone stepped out the door. The clerk inside screamed as the window went red, then we saw lights and heard a siren—a cop had just so happened to pull in at this moment. We took off and ran behind the building, and then scattered—each of us going our own way. There were maybe two cops in that car, we didn’t take the time to notice, but there was no way they would be able to catch all of us, and as luck would have it I had no one in pursuit of me. I still ran, though. I was out of breath and my throat was raw from panting. My chest was sore, too. I finally ducked behind a burger joint and collapsed beside a dumpster. I couldn’t help but giggle as I caught my breath. My eyes burned and leaked. I had escaped another hunt.

That was not the case with the one of us that the cops did pursue. He was the pale and pasty and blond one. He had told me once that I looked like an ogre and I had thrown a dart into his shoulder. He had maintained a righteous fear of me. But the cops had seen which way he went, and he was the slowest of us. He made a wrong turn into a dead end and figured he’d try his luck. He charged at them and they drew their weapons and he was shot sixteen times, but the first bullet killed him.

This rattled the others but I didn’t necessarily care. They had formed a sort of camaraderie among themselves, and I could take or leave any of them. I came out of the bathroom and there was a candle burning in the middle of the floor. The room  was silent and each took a turn with a bottle of whiskey, pouring a splash onto the floor, taking a swig, and passing the bottle. I watched for a moment. No one tried to offer me the bottle. The procession ended and they all sat down on the floor around the candle. The rest of the night would continue to be somber.

Next we went to the junkyard and set off fireworks. We made a lot of noise and the owner—or whoever it was that lived there—came out half-naked and hollering. We fired Roman candles at him and watched him dance and bounce for a moment until he pulled out a pistol and fired. It was a warning shot, just to let us know he meant business. We took the hint and ran out of the junkyard, but not before one of us managed to light one more firework and toss it in the box with the others. The air smelled burnt and the man began to howl. We looked back and saw multi-colored flashes in a thick wall of smoke where the box had been.

 ◈

We broke into some colonial style house and listened as an old man plead with us. “Please,” he said, “my wife and grandchildren are on their way home!” He wanted us to just take what we wanted, to not hurt him. I tapped my cane in my hand and was about to get started when one of the boys jumped the gun and dove onto the old man. The others followed suit and I stood to the side dumbfounded at the scene. This soured my mood more than a little. They practically tore him apart and didn’t leave any for me. I was ready to say something but noticed lights in the driveway—the telltale red and blue. The old bastard had set off an alarm or something!

“What do we do now?”

Everyone just looked at each other and shrugged. I had an idea, though. The one who asked the question was standing right in front of a large window. I glanced out and saw more lights. I gave him a hard shove and he went back through the window. The pane broke and let him tumble outside. The others all stared at each other with their mouths open and when they turned to address me I was gone; I had run out the back.

Everything was quiet for a few days. I wasn’t sure what happened to the boys, if they had been taken in or shot or got away. I didn’t watch the news either, so I was in no way apprised of what had happened after I had left. I sipped a cup of coffee and looked at that spot on the floor, where the candle had been, where they splashed cheap whiskey onto the floorboards. For all I knew I was free. It was fitting that I had no one to share with, because I had nothing to give. I felt good, or fine, or at the very least I didn’t feel bad.

I dozed off in my chair and when I awoke there was a figure before me. It felt like a dream until my vision focused and I saw that it was one of the boys. He made it home. He just stood there and looked at me, his eyes hot and terrible. He had something in his hand but I couldn’t make out what it was. “What the fuck?” he said at last.

I began to sit up but he shook his head.

“Why’d you do that to Randy?” he asked. It took me a moment to grasp what he was saying, that he meant Randy and not randy. He had used a name, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember who Randy was. “A piece of glass got him in the neck,” he went on, “he bled out right there.”

“It was him or us,” I said.

“Bullshit.”

“No,” I shook my head, “we had to get out of there. I just made it happen.”

“Not like that…”

“Just like that.”

He began to fidget, probably deciding whether or not to bother saying anything else. I let him fidget. I watched him. I waited for his decisiveness to take hold. Finally he stopped his little show and leaned in. I felt something go in my side and toward my stomach, and then I felt my warm interior juices begin to spill out. When he stepped back I saw the bloody knife in his hand for what it was, and I felt more of me slip out through the hole it had made.

I forced myself to my feet, the wound felt like it tore open even more as I did so, and I managed to push him back onto the coffee table and run for the back door. I pressed my hand to my side and it immediately became wet and red. I stumbled through the door and nearly fell down the steps.

I pressed on, sweating and gasping for breath. My wound felt hot and as I pressed my hand to it the pain tried to contort me into a little ball. I fought on, everything going dim and blurry, and looking back I saw him coming out the door in pursuit of me—I also noticed I had not in fact gone all that far. Every movement was a struggle of diminishing return. I made it across the yard and to the street but that was it. I tripped and fell to the ground, and once I was on the ground there was no getting myself back up. My legs would not cooperate with me. I was sweating and panting, I felt so hot as if I were on fire, but I felt cold, too. I shivered. I writhed on the ground.

There was a sharp pain across my back and I flopped onto my side. Thwack! He had caught up with me and had brought my own cane along with him. He hit me again and again, he called me a dog, a mutt, he cursed me. He kicked me in the stomach, pushing my fingers into the wound. I howled, or tried to howl, but I was out of breath and my throat was raw, so whatever the sound was that came out of me was not recognizable. Another thwack! landed and I was on my back, given up, the struggle was over. Everything was dark but soon the lights would go completely out. I didn’t feel all that sad, though, which I thought should be strange. I was being snuffed out, handed a one way ticket, and even to the very end I simply did not care. This thought made me want to laugh at how I had fought and scrambled away. I tried to live. I don’t know why I did that. My luck had finally run out. Something had, at long last, happened to me. I was on the receiving end. I was the schmuck.

He loomed over me, more of a silhouette now than a man, and he raised the cane up over his head. There was one more blow to be had, and I would be gone. It took a lot of effort to keep my eyes open, but I wanted to see it all. But then I heard something strange: it was a loud roar, but in my current state everything sounded so far off. I heard another, and then I saw him drop the cane and place a hand to his chest, and then topple over. Someone had shot him.

Another silhouette rushed over to me and began to ask me all kinds of questions, but they sounded so far away—not in another room, but rather three or five rooms down. They wanted to help me, but I was a lost cause. No amount of care would bring me back from the threshold, and I knew I didn’t deserve any miracles. Whoever it was began to speak in rapid echoes, they were on the phone, probably, calling an ambulance. The world became a very contextual thing in this moment—I had to figure out the puzzle of everything. That’s when my finger brushed something that brought me back: I could tell from the cold feel of it that I had found the gun...my Good Samaritan had placed it down next to me when they swooped in for the rescue...and I knew what I had to do. I fumbled with it, getting my hand around the thing, and I raised it, surprised at how heavy this handgun could be or seem, and I tried to figure out where to point it in the void I looked into.

I heard something but don’t know what. I felt hands and fingers upon me. They were trying to wrestle the gun free! I only had so much time left, so I began to panic. There was a dull burp of distant thunder, and then another, but those hands in the dark still fought with me. I was running out of time, and I knew I was too weak to put up much of a fight, at least for very long. So I fired and fired that gun while I could still recognize the sensation of firing. I was fading fast, and I only wanted to do one more thing before I left.

I don’t know what happened. A door slammed shut, and if you think you know what darkness is then you’re in for it. Everything feels like it’s slipping and I have no idea where I am. I feel like I’m in cold water. That day so long ago was too short, and there’s no way of getting it back. If I had it to do all over again then I’m sure this dog, this mutt, this rat, would bark.