I will be honest, updates less than one day after the previous one will not be a frequent occurence. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy!

Some explicit language and references to drug use and suggestive content.


PART I: ALL WE'VE GOT
CHAPTER II: OSCAR


It was half past two in the morning when Oscar de la Robbia shuffled into the drug store on the corner. "Hey, take the hood off," said a voice from the far corner of the store. Unwittingly, he removed the hood he had wrapped over his head. He did not realize that, after doing so, he stooped his head down in a subconscious attempt to remain hidden from view.

Looking left and right before heading into the aisles, Oscar had only one goal. A box of L'Oreal Paris Superior Preference hair dye, in Dark Golden Brown. It was six feet down aisle 2a, and from there it was just a few dozen feet to the registers. It was 11.88, with tax, and he had twelve dollars in his pocket. He could be out in six minutes.

"Fucking shit," he muttered to himself as he got to the aisle. There, in the middle of an otherwise perfectly full wall of hair dye, was a gaping void right where Dark Golden Brown ought to be. He pulled out the boxes in the spots next to it, throwing them behind his shoulder, hoping there might be some hiding. There was none.

"Hey," he called out towards the corner that had told him to take off his hood. "Can you check and see if something is in the back?"

"We ain't got shit in the back, fruitcake," the corner called back.

"Piece of shit," Oscar muttered through gritted teeth. Sighing, he looked at the wall before him and gauged his options. There was "Paris Couture™ Iced Golden Brown," but that was a dollar more, and he couldn't afford that. "Medium Chestnut Brown" was too bright, and "Medium Copper Brown" was too red. "Shit shit shit," he said to himself. He had to dye his hair tonight, people would start asking questions. He grabbed a lock of his hair and tried to compare it to the boxes. "No, no… god damn it." He grabbed a box of plain old Medium Brown and walked dejectedly to the counter.

There was an old woman with curly white hair at the counter, staring up at the ceiling and humming a tune to herself. Oscar coughed. Still humming a tune, the lady looked down – though still off into space, vaguely near the cash register – and scanned the box. "'Leven eighty eight," she said in a small voice. Oscar fished the money out of his pockets and handed it to her, bouncing on his heels and staring at the clock behind her. "Only 'leven here, son," the lady said.

"What? No, there should be…" Oscar stuffed his hand back in his insufferably tight pocket. There was nothing. He tried the other pocket, and even the one in his shirt. "Fuck."

"That's alright, son," she said, popping the drawer. "Go on ahead." He could barely hear her, she was so quiet. Her voice was shaky, and her hands were too.

"June, if you let him go with that you're fuckin' fired," the corner called out sharply.

The lady, June, waved her small, bony hand. "Go, go, go," she whispered. "Just take it."

Oscar stared at her for a moment, then at the box of dye, and then grabbed it and ran. He could hear angry obscenities from behind him, but they ceased when the automatic door hissed shut. A police officer on the corner looked over at him for a moment, then turned back around and walked across the street, towards a group of kids. The night was lit by a streetlight on the corner and headlights going up and down the street.

It was a very nice thing that the lady had just done for him, Oscar told himself, but as he stared at the box of dye, all he felt was guilty. He felt like he had stolen something. That was something he told himself he wouldn't ever do, right?

No, he hadn't stolen anything. He just… borrowed eighty-eight cents from the drug store. He hoped the lady wouldn't get fired. Maybe they would just take it out of her paycheck. Maybe he should go back and give her another dollar later. Yeah, he'd do that. No harm done, right?

Halfway down the block, it started drizzling rain. It wasn't enough to bother him, but it was enough to get his glasses wet. He took them off and went to stuff them in his pocket, but remembered that his pants were so tight they would probably break. He threw his hood back up clutched his glasses and the box of dye close to his chest. Sprays of water from cars on the road hissed at him, getting his jeans damp. Far away, he could hear the dulcet tones of a police officer and the agitated voices of several young men. Oscar tightened his hood.

The door was locked when Oscar got back to his apartment. He fought with his pockets for several moments to fish out his key, and crept inside as quietly as he could. The door had a tendency to-

SLAM. The door flew back into the frame with such force he thought he heard the walls crack. Shit. He froze in place, face scrunched in fear, hoping maybe they slept through it.

A light flicked on down the hallway. Shit. Duane leaned his head out of the bedroom door, glaring down the hallway with narrowed eyes. When he saw that it was Oscar, he frowned but leaned back in and shut off the light. That would probably mean a ten dollar hike in rent. Again.

Duane and Angela Graham were a young, childless working professional couple. Or at least they had said so in the housing ad, Oscar didn't know anything else about them. They were never home during the day, and all they asked in a renter was to be quiet at night. Well maybe they ought to fix their goddamn door. Although, Oscar reminded himself, he was not technically their renter. He was renting a third of the basement from Craig, who was the renter. For four seventy a month he got ten feet by ten feet of space, Wi-Fi, a free mattress and a space heater. Craig had even furnished the curtain that separated their space, and put up the curtain rod across the basement himself. It was crooked. But hey, it was Greenwich Village.

The stairs to the basement were in the kitchen, and that door was creaky too. He gingerly stepped on the tile, wincing as his feet squeaked with each step. The door that was probably older than his grandfather groaned as he opened it, and the noise was accentuated by Oscar muttering shit shit shit. His feet thundered on the wooden stairs, or so it seemed. He imagined a ten dollar rent increase with each step. He wouldn't put it past Duane, who was probably the only person on Earth who had a larger stick crammed up his ass than Ulrich Stern.

Craig was passed out, sprawled over his bed with his clothes still on. There was an empty bottle of vodka next to him. Oscar's vodka, he noted. The door to their fridge was hanging open. If that ran up the electricity, that would be another ten dollars to Duane. With a sigh, Oscar shut it and walked through the purple curtains to his "room." There was a note sitting on his bed: "Owe you fifteen bucks for the vodka, or a b.j. You're pick. Thx bro!" Truth be told, he would probably pick the fifteen bucks. He couldn't buy more vodka with a blowjob from Craig.

Oscar set his glasses on his desk and peeled off his hoodie and shirt. He tried not to think about how he much he could feel his ribs as he pulled on his shirt. The small mirror that hung above his desk showed an annoying light streak across the top of his head. Roots. He had waited too long this time, people would ask questions. He leaned in closer and looked at them, running his fingers through his hair, remembering how it used to be blonde. How he used to be named Odd, and how he used to be a superhero. And then he brought his hand down and smacked himself across the face. Once, and then once more.

Oscar. His name was Oscar, like the award he would be getting someday. Oscar like de la Renta, the god of fashion, rest his soul. He lived in New York City, spoke English, and was the best damn cashier at the Midtown Office Depot. He was a filmmaker, an artist, and he had done it all on his own. He was living the dream.

He slapped himself one more time before he went back up to the bathroom to dye his hair.

"Oscar, get off register, we need you stocking shelves over in in school supplies." Assistant Manager Derek shouted at him from the printer aisle. "And don't dilly-dally with the art stuff like you always do." Dilly-dally was Derek's favorite word. Oscar liked to call him dilly-dally Derek. Dilly-dally Derek was 350 pounds, bald, and had a bushy, graying goatee that always had flecks of spit and food in it. Oscar desperately wanted to make a film about him. Just take his camera and follow him around all day and see what kinds of things he did. Did he have a wife? Did he have kids? Did he tell them not to dilly-dally too? Dilly-dally Derek was his favorite person.

A cart full of boxes awaited him in the notebook aisle. Amanda was also in the aisle, whispering something to herself as she sorted through five-subject notebooks. Amanda talked to herself almost all the time, she probably didn't even know it. Oscar wanted to make a film of her too, record all her conversations and try to make sense of them. America was just full of so many fascinating people. So weird, every single one of them.

The boxes in his cart were all single subject notebooks of various colors. He began absent-mindedly opening the boxes and throwing their contents on the shelves when he realized some of them were different brands. "Oh, shit," he muttered to himself. That box was all Mead, but the spot was for Five Star. Or were they the Office Depot brand ones? He lifted up his glasses to get a closer look at the shelf label. Mead went in location 105, and Five Star in 110. The Office Depot brand ones were on the endcap. Right.

"Are those glasses fake?" Amanda suddenly spoke up. Her voice was plain but her words hit like cannonballs.

"Wh- huh?" Odd's hands flew up to involuntarily touch the sides of his glasses.

"You always move them when you want to actually look at something. I was wondering if they were the fake kind. It's okay, you look good in them." Amanda offered a smile and stared at him, patiently waiting for a response.

"Uh, they're… they're…. I-" Odd forced his hands down to his sides. "They're just. I just… need new ones! These ones don't work right." He swallowed. "New ones… c-can't afford, yeah." At his fingers clenched into fists and then stretched wide. He could feel himself sweating.

"That's okay," Amanda said in her unfazed, level-toned voice. She turned back to her notebooks.

Odd flung the notebooks on the shelves as fast as he could, not even bothering to check the brands anymore. He had to get out of that aisle. Away from Amanda. Maybe he would do pens and pencils next. God, he hated all the pens. He wanted to be surrounded by them for the rest of his shift. The rest of his life, if necessary, to keep away from Amanda.

Emilio was in the pens and pencils aisle. He was a forty-something man who spoke maybe eight words of English, and mainly shuffled around stocking whatever they told him to. He hadn't spoken more than five words to Odd in the whole two years he'd been here. Fantastic. Odd was going to help him with the pens.

"You got this section? I'll start down here," Odd said, grabbing a box of pencils. He noticed, as he reached the end of the aisle, that he was out of breath for some reason. His hands were slick. He wiped them on his khakis and started to rip open the box. The sound of tape tearing was somehow satisfying, and the smell of wood blasted him in the face when he opened the box. He breathed deep for a moment. In, and out. In, and out.

Odd smiled. He was being entirely ridiculous. Calm down, he told himself. There's no fire. He did indeed spend the rest of his time in the pens and pencils aisle, making sure every box was empty, every peg was full, and the Dixon Ticonderogas were all kept separate from the Stanfords. At nine that night, he stepped back to look at his handiwork. The aisle was immaculate. "Good work, Emilio," he said, flashing a smile and a thumbs up.

Emilio smiled back and replied "Hey, new hair!"

Odd felt like he had been punched in the gut. He ran a hand through his hair, from the top of his head down to his shoulders where it rested, a shade too brown. At the edges he grabbed it tight and almost pulled, almost pulled it right out of his head, because it was wrong. It was wrong and everybody could see. Everybody could see how it was wrong and they could see right into him. They were all looking at him. They could tell he was faking. They could tell he was wrong.

He turned behind him to run, but there was a customer there, who could see him and who knew that his hair was fake. He bolted past Emilio, towards the front, looking at nothing but the door. He felt like he was shaking, his shirt felt damp and clung to him, constricting him, choking him. There was some kind of strange whining in the air, maybe some kind of alarm. It made everybody look at him. Everybody was staring at him. It did not occur to Odd that the whining was coming from him.

The automatic doors didn't open fast enough and he ran into them. He slammed his hands on them, begging them to open. "Ouvrir, ouvrir, ouvrir," he pleaded. "Merde!" The door finally opened and Odd practically fell out of it, running in the general direction of anywhere fucking else. Fortuitously, he ran right into a trash can. It was fortuitous because, right at that moment, Odd threw up.

It was a sickening, heaving sound, like a cat with a hairball. It echoed in the metal can, rattling Odd's brains. He kept his head in the can, even after he was done, because he couldn't bear to look up and see people looking at him.

"Oscar," came a voice behind him. It sounded like Derek. Dilly-dally Derek. It was good to hear that sound, even muffled through the metal. Oscar. That was his name. Oscar.

Oscar pulled his head out of the trash can. It was indeed dilly-dally Derek who was behind him. He was holding a roll of paper towel. "Sorry," Oscar said.

"You alright, son?" Dilly-dally Derek looked him up and down. "You didn't get any in your hair. That takes skill."

Oscar laughed. It was a genuine, joyous laugh that cast away the last vestiges of sickness lingering in his gut. "Just one of my many talents."

"Listen, why don't you take tomorrow off? Take some time to rest up. Get better." Dilly-dally Derek clapped Oscar on the shoulder.

"Alright," Oscar said. "I should be fine later, I just-"

"Yeah," said dilly-dally Derek. "See you then."

Dilly-Dally Derek really was Oscar's favorite person.

"Craig, get dressed, you're going to buy me some more vodka." Oscar called down from the top of the stairs. There was dim, multi-colored light coming from the basement – Craig's strings of Christmas lights. He only lit them when he was smoking, so he knew he must be awake.

"Aw, you don't want the blow job?"

"Blowjobs don't get me drunk. Vodka does. Come on."

Craig surfaced a few moments later, wearing tattered jeans and a black t-shirt emblazoned with a giant, sparkling green marijuana leaf. "You know dude, your voice gets all French when you yell at me."

"Yeah, well, then I'm gonna get a lot more French if you don't get moving," Oscar said. "We are wasting valuable drunk time."

"Where are we going?" Craig ambled in front of him as they walked up the street. This was a usual question for Craig, but perhaps only because his shaggy blonde hair was always covering his eyes.

"The one on 4th and A," Oscar said, "I… don't wanna go to the one on the corner."

"That's so far!" Craig stopped in his tracks, gesturing wildly in what he probably thought was the direction of Avenue A. It wasn't.

"That's what you get for drinking all my goddamn vodka." Oscar was having none of it. Besides, Craig would forget about wanting to complain a few minutes, tops. Sure enough, though he was slow and slumped for half of the walk there, by the time they were there he was practically running.

"Look, they've got so many kinds of tequila! Tequila is my best friend," Craig said happily.

"We are getting vodka, Craig. One bottle of vodka, and that's it. Unless you want to spend anything more than that, that's your business. But vodka first." Oscar pointed at the back wall of the store as he walked through the door. "March."

"You're so mean," Craig said, but he was smiling as he walked.

Oscar grabbed his usual bottle, something Russian that he never really bothered to read. Craig eventually decided on a bottle of the cheapest tequila on the shelf. As much as he trusted this place, it was probably paint thinner with a worm in it.

"Oh shit," Craig said. "I forgot my ID."

Oscar pinched the bridge of his nose. "God damn it, Craig. Just gimme the cash."

Craig handed over his money. Why he didn't keep it in a wallet like the rest of the world, Oscar would never know. But he couldn't glare at Craig for too long. Damn puppy dog face.

"ID," the guy at the counter when Oscar set the bottles down. Casting another quick look at his roommate, Oscar fished out his green card and handed it to him. "What the hell kind of name is Odd?"

Odd clenched his fists. "Um. Um."

"I thought your name was Oscar," Craig said.

"Check it out!" The cashier laughed and showed Odd's card to Craig. "Are you French or Italian or what?"

"I… my name is… please, g-give that…" Odd's voice devolved into a sort of bumbling whimper. He reached his arm out weakly but it fell back to his side, useless, as Craig grabbed the card.

"Hey, I've been spelling your last name wrong this whole time! Why didn't you say something?" Craig was smiling as he looked at the card, but Odd couldn't see it. His eyes were blurry. There was something on his glasses so he tore them off, but it didn't help. Whatever it was was on his eyes. Crying. That's what was happening. His chest was heaving. His ribs hurt. Everything hurt. Everyone was looking at him and he could feel it, like daggers. His throat was tightening. His shirt was damp and choking him again. Craig's mouth was moving but he couldn't hear anything. He had to get out. He had to go away, he had to get somewhere he could be someone else again.

Odd ran.

The sound of his feet smacking against the sidewalk gave him a sense of calm. It was rhythmic, after a while. He wasn't even sure where he was going, but eventually he found himself in an alley with no one in it. He stopped, looking around to make sure he was alone, and then slumped to the ground in exhaustion. His eyes were shut and his chest felt like it was full of fire. He was too exhausted to remember if he was Odd or Oscar, and at least for the moment, that was okay.

It was at that moment that his phone buzzed.

As far as almost everyone on Earth knew, Oscar de la Robbia did not have a phone. It was an artistic statement he had made to rebel against the societal obligation to be connected all the time. He could think better, and make better art, when he wasn't constantly worried about what everyone else in the world was doing or thinking. But he did have a phone, an old Nokia phone with a French number that he kept in his pocket for emergencies. There were only about a dozen people who had the number, none of them lived on this continent, and none of them had been particularly chatty with him in quite some time. God, he hoped no one was dead.

He dug the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. He stared at it for quite some time, seeing the lines and shapes that normally made words but not really being able to parse them. It looked almost as if it said "S.O.S. XANA." But that couldn't be.

No. That is what it said. It was from Jeremie Belpois and it said S.O.S. XANA.

And what the fuck, exactly, was he supposed to do? He was in New York City, he had twenty eight dollars in his checking account, and he was no longer Odd Della Robbia. He had a life here, he had art, he had… a patch of basement next to a stoner, a camcorder with a hard drive full of footage that would probably never see the light of day, and a trash can full of empty hair dye boxes, empty cans of beer, and more crumpled, sticky tissues than he cared to count. That was what he had. That was all he had. He had built up a false life and a false identity so frail it gave him panic attacks when people mentioned anything about how he looked.

He couldn't even text Jeremie back. He couldn't afford international texting, let alone an international flight. Not like he could be of any help anyway. He was sitting in an alley surrounded by garbage. He was garbage. His life had peaked 12 years ago and now he wasn't even recognizable. He didn't even know who he was anymore. There was no point in attempting to go back.

"Young man? Are you alright?" A very small, very shaky voice called to him. He wondered for a moment if it was God. But when he looked up, it was the lady from the drug store who had let him take the hair dye.

"Oh, I'm… I'm fine," he said, scrambling to get up. He was easily a head taller than her, which was saying something. What was her name? Something like May, or April… June. It was June. She was tiny, frail and stooped over, and her hair was so white it seemed to glow on its own in the light of the streetlamps. She looked like an angel. "Did… did he fire you?"

June smiled. "Yes," she said, but she patted him on the arm before he could say anything. "It's alright, he was a schmuck anyway. And if you want to know a secret, I don't even need the job. I just liked to have something to do." She giggled, and it made him want to giggle too. Soon, they were both laughing together, the sound echoing through the alley and filling him up with something bright and warm.

"What are you doing in… wherever it is that we are?"

"I live just down here, son," she said, pointing a shaking hand at a door just down the street. It was pepto-bismol pink, a spot of color on an otherwise drab and run-down narrow little building. "Why don't you come in, I'll fix you something to eat."

Oscar was suddenly ravenous.

"Goodness gracious, son, don't you ever eat?" June picked up the third plate she had set down before Oscar, on which there had been generous helpings of bacon and scrambled eggs for maybe 60 seconds each. But she was smiling, and seemed to move much faster now.

"Not anything as good as this," said Oscar, placing both hands on his satisfied, dare he admit overfull, stomach.

"You remind me of my son, he was a regular vacuum cleaner at suppertime. He had hair like yours, too." She mussed up his hair as she walked by him to sit next to him at the table. She was so short, she could barely see over the table.

"Oh… this isn't really..." Oscar laughed as he ran a hand through his hair.

"I know. That's what I meant. He had hair that was yellow like sunshine. He dyed it too, though. He liked it black." She smiled. "He was into all that heavy metal stuff. Back in those days men didn't ever dye their hair, but no one was gonna tell him no with all the spikes on his jacket and belt and what have you. But he was a softie."

"Is… is he…?"

June nodded. "He was called home… oh, 40 years ago now." She was silent for a moment. "He was into the drugs. Heroin and all that. You don't do drugs, do you son?"

"No," said Oscar emphatically. "Well… weed, every now and then."

"Well keep it that way. Don't be stupid. You aren't stupid, I can tell." June patted him on the arm. "Tell me what's troubling you. Tell me what you're running from."

Oscar looked down at June. Her eyes, now that he noticed, were a little cloudy. It hardly seemed like she ought to be able to see much at all, let alone the color his roots had been yesterday. But her eyes were grey like steel and had a spirit to them, an energy of determination, and it was clear nothing was going to get past her. It certainly wasn't worth it to try.

"Well… when I moved here… I had just dropped out of art school. In Italy. I'm from France, but I… I didn't want to go back. It was too…" He stopped. "I needed space. I have seven sisters and they're… a lot to handle. I love them and all, but I had to get some fresh air. I didn't fit in at art school, they were all so stuffy and rigid and I just wanted to make movies. I figured I could do that anywhere. But there isn't a city on Earth greater for artists than New York, so I couldn't imagine going anywhere else."

"It didn't quite work out like you intended, did it?" June's voice was sympathetic, but knowing.

"No," Oscar admitted. "I haven't even made a film in years. I've been here for six years. I'm practically eligible for citizenship by now. All I do is work at Office Depot and drink and smoke. But I… I don't want to do anything else. This is all I ever wanted, to be in the center of the artistic world and… live the gritty, emotional life that good artists are supposed to. I keep waiting for something to change, but it never comes."

"Change doesn't come. You make it," June said. "What do you think is gonna happen if you sit on your ass and smoke dope all day?"

Oscar didn't have anything to say.

"The things we imagine when we're young don't always turn out like we picture them. My son thought he was gonna be a rockstar. He died in some warehouse surrounded by bums. You said it yourself, you can make movies anywhere. Art doesn't come from where you are, it comes from inside you. You've gotta make the art, you can't just find it. Just like the change."

"You… you're right," Oscar said quietly. "But I-"

"Let me tell you something, son, never start a sentence with 'but.' Don't give voice to your excuses, it gives them power and holds you back. I know you're a smart young man and I know you've lived a whole lot of life. So you tell me, son, what is it that you need to do next?" June's voice was loud and strong now, and she spoke from somewhere deep in her soul.

"I need to stop trying to be someone I'm not. I need to… go home. I need to go home." Oscar felt his eyes get hot and he let his head fall to the table. "My friends… they texted me today. There's… there's some trouble going on. I can't really… I can't really explain it, but there was always all this crap we had to deal with, and that's why I left and changed my name, because I didn't want to remember it anymore, but it's back now and… I have to go back home. But I'm afraid." His voice cracked and he began to sob in earnest. The table was cold against his cheek but his tears were hot as they pooled around him.

There was a hand on his back, warm and soft. June rubbed his back and whispered softly into his ear "You've grown an awful lot since then. You've learned new things. Whatever it is you've gotta deal with, you're going to be better at it now than you were then. But you've gotta face the music, son. You can't be an artist if you run from the hard things in life. That's what art is for. For making sense of the hard stuff."

Oscar lifted his head from the table and took a deep breath. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah." He turned to face June, a grin on his face. "Yeah!"

June laughed. "Look at that. You're stronger than you think, after all." She gave him one last pat on the back and walked over to her sofa, from under which she pulled an old, rusty metal box. "Since I think you probably don't have a plane ticket to France lying around…" She opened the box and set it in front of Oscar.

Oscar looked down at the box, and then up at June, and then down to the box again. "This… this is ten thousand dollars."

"Actually it's $9,900, I slipped a hundred out to take to the casino last month." She chuckled. "I told you I didn't need the job, didn't I? When I was younger I invested some money in this hotshot new company called Apple. Turned out to pay pretty well. Go ahead and take it son, it's just money and I've got plenty more. That was just my 'fuck you' money."

Oscar stared at June for a moment, unsure of what to say or even how to react. But he found himself taking the bundle of bills and stuffing it into his pants anyway. "Th… thank you," he finally said. "Thank you so much."

"You just go ahead, call a cab, and head right to the airport. Buy a nice ticket, not a cheap one. Get a room at the airport hotel and get a good night's rest, and tomorrow when you fly home you can buy some new clothes and be a new man." June patted him on the cheek and held her hand there for a moment, smiling. "It's okay, to make yourself new when you need to. Just remember that you'll always have your memories with you. You can't shed them. You have to let them be part of who you are."

"Yeah," said Oscar.

"And before you go… I never got your name, son."

The young man paused. "Odd. Odd Della Robbia. I've gone by Oscar here, but… I'm Odd."

June patted him on the cheek one last time. "It was nice to meet you, Odd. Now go on and get to the airport. You've got people waiting for you."


Not that I don't trust you, but I do want to state for the record that all usages of "Oscar" and "Odd" were very intentional. Thanks for reading! Next up will be Chapter III, "Aelita."