After sleeping at the Bible Rescue Mission again that night, I went downstairs and got my nose set. I was expecting it to hurt a lot, but the doctor gave me a shot of morphine beforehand, which I initially refused, thinking it might be some kind of poison. John convinced me to take it though, and I was glad I did, because having my nose snapped back into place still really fucking hurt even with the morphine. It didn't hurt anymore though; I was just aware of how sore it was. In fact, I felt pretty good overall, definitely relieved and almost happy as I sat here eating an omelet in Messinger's. I knew that was mostly the drug though, and as much as I sort of wanted more of it, I also knew I couldn't go down that road anymore. I was converted now, on the path to salvation (at least I hoped), so I had to quit behaving like a no-good alkie bum. There were enough of those in Chi anyway, one of whom I was about to track down and have a little chat with.

At the hotel, Mole answered the door.

"Swarm! Where've you been?!" he exclaimed, staring at me with horror that, while justifiable, was nevertheless very painful.

"Don't worry about it," I said, looking past him into the room. "Where's Hack?"

"You didn't go to the hospital, did you?" he asked.

"No, of course not. I saw a doctor," I snapped, getting annoyed. "Where's Hack? Did he come back yet?"

His eyes quickly darted back and forth before he replied, "Yeah, he did."

"Alright, so where is he?"

"Well, he left again."

"And he didn't tell you where he was going?"

"No."

Leaning into him, I said, "You know, Mole, I'm gettin' the feeling you ain't bein' entirely truthful with me here. So I'll give you another chance. Where is Hack?"

He looked up at me fiercely and suddenly snarled: "Fuck you, Swarm."

"Where is he?" I demanded, using the tone I would have used to tell him to suck my cock or spread his ass.

Baring his teeth, he growled and slammed the door in my face.

I banged on it and shouted, "Tell me where he is! I know you know, Mole! You'd better fuckin' tell me! I ain't foolin' around!"

Yet there was no response from the other side of the door. I was so mad I was thinking of knocking the damn thing down when a voice in my head told me to stop and think about what I was doing. Did I want to be a person who tormented others, even if they had done me wrong? No, I didn't, and though I told myself I was doing God's will by walking away, it was also true that I didn't want the cops called.

Hack and Mole were up to something again, that much was sure. That was how it'd been from the start, the two of them always sneaking off to do God-knows-what, God-knows-where. Selling coke, as it had originally turned out. I wondered if they'd started doing that here, but Hack had promised me he wouldn't. Then again, Hack had broken promises to me before, so who could know? All this was enough to make even the good feeling from the morphine vanish, and as I stood out here on the curb outside the Fremont Hotel, fury and doubt ate at me like moths a jacket. My instinct was always to look to Hack for help, but Hack was the very problem here. How could he do this to me? How could he keep things like this from me?

I was going to find him and get to the bottom of this. There was no use sitting around crying about it – I'd done enough of that lately anyway. It was so humiliating thinking about last night, worse yet when I remembered that it could've all been avoided if Hack had come straight back to the hotel – not to mention not bring fucking Craig back with him, which I was almost positive he had. He'd better have a damn good explanation for this crap, that was all I had to say.

The first haunt I checked was Bum Park, since it was closest, a mile down from the main stem. Hack and I spent a good deal of time here in the spring and fall, when he was too plastered to get his ass to Grant Park or Bughouse Square. We'd get here after breakfast, find a nice place in the shade, maybe on Crumb Hill if we were lucky, and I'd read Hack the paper while he just laid there quietly and listened, believe it or not. It put a bad taste in my mouth now remembering all those peaceful mornings over the years, and as I scanned the park for a 'bo with blond hair and an outdated beard, I felt myself reaching my boiling point.

As usual, the place was overrun with tramps and hobos, but Hack wasn't among them. Great. Now I had to go all the way back over to the fucking Loop to see if he was at Grant Park, whether junking in the dump or loafing around the lakefront jungle. Shit, I should've gone there in the first place. That was where he'd be getting into trouble, after all.

With each step I took, I got angrier and angrier. God, he really thought he could pull the wool over my eyes, huh? Him and Mole, keeping things from me, cashing in on coke, bringing snake-face Craig here to piss on me and break my fucking nose. It was deplorable behavior, the lowest Hack had ever sunk, and I was so lacerated by it that I thought I might throw up from rage. Any minute now, I felt like I was going to lose my mind and just start screaming. I struggled to even breathe properly as I marched across the bridge that spanned the I.C. tracks, towards the unfinished part of the park where the jungle was.

There were about a dozen tramps lazing around on the shore, whether washing clothes, mending shoes, or, as it would happen, croaking out hobo ditties in his intolerable Appalachian twang:

"Hallelujah, I'm a bum,
Hallelujah, bum again,
Hallelujah, give us a handout
To reviv—"

He stopped singing as soon as he saw me.

"Swarm!" he sputtered. "F-funny seein' you here!"

There was something very off about the way he was speaking.

"What're you doin' here, Hack?" I asked him.

"Just, uh, harmonizin' with my friend Cincy Tim here," he said, his expression becoming theatrically bothered as he looked at me. "I been lookin' all over for ya, actuarlly. Did, er, did Ol' Pearly do that to ya?"

"I need to talk to you." I turned to face Cincy Tim and sternly said, "Alone."

When Cincy Tim left, Hack saluted him, which irritated the hell out of me.

Hack held onto his ankles as he leaned back on the big busted crate he was sitting on, still staring at me like I was some sort of freakshow act.

"So, uh. How you been, 'bo? 'Sides the nose, I mean."

I got up in his face and hissed, "Are you on fucking coke?"

"What! No!" he yelped, jerking back and putting his hands in front of his face. "We did it all! Just like you said!"

But he looked a little nervous for about half a second, and that was enough to give him away – Hack was a better liar than Mole, good enough to fool a housewife with a sob story, but not good enough for me.

"I might've… had a little," he admitted before quickly adding, "but only because Cincy Tim gave me some."

I squinted at him, not buying a word of this.

"What?! It's the truth!" he argued.

"Right. So if I was to look in your bag, I wouldn't find anything."

His eyes veered from me to that old sack with tell-tale apprehension.

"Well, I dunno what you'd find," he began, "but I think you oughta respect a 'bo's privacy."

Before he could do anything, I grabbed the sack and opened it. Inside were white boxes – and the unmistakable scent of cocaine. I was speechless.

He snatched it out of my hands, exclaiming, "Christ, Swarm! You're really somethin' else, you know that?!"

"You promised me you wouldn't do this here," I muttered in a low voice. "You promised me, Hack."

"I know I did," he said, his voice wavering a little. "But listen to me. Please, 'bo, just listen to me. Please." He put a sweaty, shaky hand on my shoulder. "I love ya, but some of what you know ain't exactly… right."

I slapped his hand off my shoulder.

"Oh, is that so?" I spat. "And just what do I know that 'ain't right,' huh?"

"I was just gonna say, about the coke," he said in a miserable voice.

Scoffing, I shot back, "Yeah? And how's that? You tellin' me the stuff's perfectly legal?"

"Well, no," Hack said, "it's not that black and white. There's more noonce to it than that."

"There's no nuance to it!" I barked. "It's fucking illegal!"

For someone on coke, he was pretty damn calm as he said: "Well, yeah, but the thing is, it ain't so easy to get caught sellin' it. And frankly, I don't see why I gotta do things by your rules when some of those rules don't make no sense."

"What!? So now the law doesn't 'make sense' to you? And I'm the crazy one?" Laughing caustically, I added, "Ohh, that's right! You're on fucking drugs! So of course you ain't makin' sense!"

I thought for sure that'd make him mad, but what he did was groan with his mouth wide-open and roll his eyes.

"I know where you're comin' from," he said. "Believe me, I do. But if I thought me doin' this was truly I threat to you, I wouldn't do it."

"Oh, really?" I sputtered, nearly consumed by rage at this point. "So you wouldn't happen to know how Craig got here, would ya?"

"Huh?"

"Did you bring Craig here?"

Squinting slightly, he said, "I caught out with him, yeah."

"So you admit it."

"Jesus Christ, Swarm, admit what?"

"That you have brought threats my way," I said, hurting for the truth of my words. "I don't trust your judgment. I don't trust you."

I marched away then, but of course, he started coming after me, calling my name. If I were smarter, I would've kept going and ignored him, but instead I stopped and asked him what the hell he wanted.

"Please don't be mad," he begged, all out of breath. "I swear I'd never do anything I really thought would hurt you."

There was nothing I could say in response to such a bald-faced lie. I just shook my head with disgust and walked away again, but he kept following me.

Now though, he tried a different angle, saying in this obnoxiously judicious tone, "You know, sometimes you act like I go outta my way to make your life harder. Like I'm out to get you or something. Now, I know the first thing you're gonna say to that is that I brought Pearly here. And yeah, I did, I did catch out with him. But guess what, Swarm? I can't fuckin' control what that guy does; I can't fuckin' control what anybody does – not you, not Handle, and sure as hell not Pearly. And besides, just how in the hell was I s'posed to know he'd come after you for somethin' that happened what, two, three years ago now? That's fuckin' nuts, how was I s'posed to know he was gonna go do you in over that?"

All this shit really pissed me off, but the stuff about Craig in particular reminded me of something extremely important I'd almost forgotten.

I stopped in my tracks and said to him, "You listen here and you listen good. You'd better tell that friend of yours he better keep his mouth shut 'bout me bein' hot, otherwise him and you both are gonna have a problem on your hands. You hear me, Hack? I ain't havin' this rat you brought here goin' around slanderin' me. I don't give a damn whether you think you can control anybody or not, 'cuz if you can't keep that son-of-a-bitch from running his bazoo off about me, then you know goddamn well that'll be the end of me. So unless that's what you want, I'd highly advise you to keep an eye on that little barnacle friend of yours. Have I made myself clear?"

The resentment on his face was unavoidable and enduring, like nothing I'd ever seen before. I tried to pretend it didn't bother me.

"Fine," he said in a sharp, tight-lipped voice. "I'll pass the word along."

"Good."

This time when I marched away, he didn't follow, but he did shout out a cheap apology a few seconds later. It was enough to make me laugh. If he really were sorry, he wouldn't have tried to justify himself or flip things around and make me out to be the crazy one.

That was it, right there. That was what he was doing. How did I not see it before? He'd done the same thing when he got us all snared down in Kosciusko: after we got out, he downplayed the whole thing, telling me they never catch the right 'bo, that so much time had passed, etc. When I told him getting released from jail thousands of miles away from Idaho wasn't proof of that at all, he just kept dismissing me and treating me like I was nuts for being worried, as if he hadn't been telling me to worry for the past three years! And as if I didn't know it myself! Now I could see very clearly that he was doing the tricky, tricky thing of twisting things around to try to shift the blame. And now he'd done it again.

He must have gotten Kyle in on this too. They thought they could play me like this! I could just see it, Hack whispering in Kyle's ear and telling him to trick me into thinking I was crazy. God damn him! God damn them both! They were conniving little rats, those two, playing mind games on me so they'd look good and I'd look bad. The truth was, they were bad; they were the crazy ones. Kyle had had a goddamn conniption at that mission house in Pittsburgh, throwing shit at me, hitting me, screaming at me that I was crazy. That was the behavior of a crazy person. It was Kyle who was crazy. And Christ, could I count the ways! He had left a life where he had everything, where he was going to college, just so he could get a little taste of "adventure." That sounds like plain old stupid, but when Kyle did stupid things like that, it was always under the guise of "sanity" and "logic" that seemed to convince even him. That in and of itself was ludicrous, but then he went the extra mile and bludgeoned anybody who dared criticize him with his little iron fists. He was a vicious combination of insane and despotic: if you weren't with him, you were against him, and he wouldn't stand for anyone being against him.

All summer, I had lived and breathed him, but it hadn't been enough – he needed me to be so sucked up in him that I went along with everything he said and did, even when it was tearing me apart. Maybe especially then. Would that have been enough for Kyle Broflovski, for me to just sit there and take it? Would it have been enough for my dad? My sister? You know, it probably would've been. The sad thing was though, that I wasn't on my own now because I had too much self-respect to keep taking their shit. With my dad, I just couldn't bear it anymore. With Kyle, I probably would have gone on bearing it forever. I even wanted him back. As things stood now, I was in tatters all on my own, instead of being somebody else's broken pieces. I'd let Kyle smash me to dust if it meant he still loved me.

But he didn't – he had betrayed and abandoned me, just like Hack did, and now I had no one and nothing. Oh, God. I took in a huge breath and lamented the fact that I still could. The sky was thick and gray above me – I truly did not feel that there was anybody up there who loved me. All I could feel was the clutch of agony in my chest, heartache like a whip around my neck, and my nose throbbing with the very real effects of Hack's betrayal. My heart had been torn to shreds, and Hack and Kyle were flicking the pieces into a great big bonfire, its massive flames furling into the air. They were laughing it up, sneering at what was left of my body: Old Swarm, a battered corpse on the side of the tracks. How, how, how? I'd needed them, I'd loved them, and they'd turned on me. The pain was unimaginable, and bearing it was intolerable. Existing was intolerable. I sobbed out loud, nearly choking on it, and felt so completely vanquished, so ready to die. Anguish was all I was, from the pit of my very being, to how I never thought I wouldn't have Hack, to knowing that Kyle despised me. Everything inside me was breaking down and rotting – my skin was a baggy old diving suit with nothing on the inside but old hurt, settled down in the feet like dust in a forgotten house. In Texas, in summer…

Oh, Kyle, how could you?

My eyes were pouring like spring rain, like they weren't my own. I gripped my sides and hung my head, afraid that someone might see, even though there was only me again, walking down the lakefront. I knew now more than ever that if I didn't do anything, I'd go on forever enduring the hurt I'd inflicted and the hurt that'd been inflicted upon me. All those things had piled up so high, and they would never, ever leave me. I looked over at the lake, seeing all the little rifts and ridges in the water, and felt strangely assuaged. Lake Michigan was wide open for me, and when I listened carefully, I could hear her kindness in the way the waves lapped against the shore. It was sort of funny: I'd spent so long trying to put this solution out of my mind, but as I stood here on the beach and stared at the water, already able to feel the relief it would bring me, I couldn't believe that I'd ever tried to dissuade myself of it. Killing myself was clearly the answer, and with every step I took towards the water, I felt more sure of it.

For the first time in a long time, I actually felt good about something.

I stepped into the water, and it slowly began to seep through my boots. Once my slacks got wet, I was really able to feel how cold the water was. I bit my tongue and pushed forward, wading farther into the lake. My head spun when I got in to my waist – it was physically shocking, just how cold the water was. By then I was shivering violently, and my teeth were chattering just as bad. I looked back to make sure nobody was on the beach, and even though I wasn't thinking of going back, my brain scolded me regardless: "Don't you dare." I clamped my jaw shut and trudged forward, bogged down by the weight of my wet clothes. That's good, I thought, they'll help weigh me down.

Once I got far out enough that I could actually swim instead of wade, my body was so cold it hurt, and my limbs felt heavy and numb. It required a lot of effort to swim, but I was determined to go as far out as possible, that way I'd be too tired to go back if I changed my mind. So I put everything I had into swimming farther and farther out, away from this city that was not my own, away from this world that didn't want me. By the time I was too tired to keep going, I wasn't as far out as I'd hoped. Still shaking tremendously, I weakly paddled a bit farther out, and just that little bit had me utterly drained. It was so, so cold. Already I was beginning to sink just because it was too hard to keep treading water, so it was nothing for me to simply stop expending effort. I took one last breath and just let go.

As my head sunk beneath the surface, I was even more overwhelmed by the coldness. Although most of my body felt numb by this point, it still hurt a lot, almost in a burning way. That was the one thing on my mind as I continued to sink, displaced only by the short relief I felt when I realized how deep the water was out here. Eventually though, my foot touched the bottom, and I felt a sort of finality to that, or I guess a prelude to finality, because now I had to open my mouth and breathe in the water. I expected it to hurt, and I held my breath for a few more seconds wondering how much it would. In the end, I decided I wanted it to hurt, and I was just about to open my mouth when very, very clearly, I heard my mother shouting my name the way she did when I was in trouble.

That tone she used – sharp, angry, appalled – scared the hell out of me just like it always did, and I instinctively swam straight back up with a surge of strength that seemed to come from nowhere. I gasped, choking for air when I made it to the surface. My head spun as I tried to get ahold of myself. I felt dizzy and incredibly strange, almost delirious. My limbs felt like dead weights, and I was still wracked by intense shaking, but I knew I had to get to shore.

As I struggled to swim back, I felt incredibly ashamed of myself. My mom was up there on the shore with her arms crossed, looking angry. I was terrified: I was almost never bad, so it really distressed me when she got mad at me. But at least she was here. I was so cold and weak that I needed her now, and I knew she'd take care of me. So I pushed myself harder to swim, except as I got closer, I realized it wasn't my mother at all, but a man.

I think he was calling out to me. I had to get the fuck away from him.

Once I got to shallow water, I started stumbling, crashing about as I staggered to shore in my wet clothes. The man ran into the water towards me, and then he was right there alongside me when I collapsed onto the beach.

He was trying to hoist me up by my shoulders, but my body was floppy and limp, completely sapped of strength.

"Come on, come on, get up," he urged me, his anxious voice sounding thousands of miles away.

With his support, I managed to raise myself up into a kneeling position and look at him. He was blond and piercingly beautiful, with clear blue eyes. An angel in tramp's clothing. He was here to save me, and though I was embarrassed and unworthy, I put myself in his arms.

I lied and told him I'd been swimming.

"The water must have been freezing though," he said, and I could feel his eyes on me as he waited for me to say more, but I had no words. I could barely even think; my brain felt so slow and stupid.

"Weren't you cold?" he pressed.

"Yeah."

I was still shaking, still cold. He had put his jacket on me, which I'd already soaked through. I felt awful about that and everything else.

"So why then…?" he asked.

"I don't know."

A moment later, he very delicately asked, "You weren't trying to drown yourself… Were you?"

I hung my head and said nothing. I was humiliated beyond belief.

"Please don't tell," I asked him in a small voice. Really, begged.

Though he paused for a moment, he did say, "Okay. I won't."

As we went over the bridge, I got scared that I was dripping through the grate onto the tracks, not just my clothes but the soles of my shoes too, since my feet were still kind of numb. I didn't see anything when I looked down though, and then I realized I was barely dripping at all anymore; I was just soggy and damp, like an old rag. They should just start calling me that. After all, it was Hack who'd come up with my moniker. Maybe it was time for a new one.

A train was coming, whistling as it stormed down from Central Station. It made me nervous being on this bridge in the middle of the day, and I looked around to make sure there weren't any town clowns who might think we were trying to catch out. I didn't see any, but you can never be sure, because sometimes they wear regular clothes to fool people. So I tried my best to keep my eye peeled, even though I felt like I was going to pass out.

"What's your name, by the way?" the man asked me.

"Huh?"

"I said, what's your name?"

"Swarm."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Swarm. I'm Goldy Gary – though usually just Goldy," he said with a small laugh.

It would've been an appropriate moniker even if he weren't blond. He was radiant, while I myself was grimy and grotesque. The tape and packing in my nose had fallen off, exposing my black and blue face to the world. And though my eye patch had miraculously stayed on, I'm sure it just made me look more hideous in context. Despising myself, I turned away from him. The train was closer now, and the black smoke coming out of it looked monstrous.

"M'sorry," I told Goldy as we stepped off the bridge.

"For what?" he asked sincerely.

Eventually, I replied, "You don' have to help me."

"I want to help you," he insisted.

I didn't understand that at all.

The hospital was down on the corner. When Goldy told me he was taking me to the hospital, I initially refused, but he said I'd get sick otherwise. Again, I realized how stupid it was for me to be worrying about the black bottle when apparently I wanted to die anyway. Well, yes, but the black bottle still scared me. Just looking at the hospital scared me. Maybe Goldy would save me again. Thinking about that made me feel uncomfortable though, like I was a woman in some novel. I didn't like it.

When we went inside, Goldy said to the receptionist: "My cousin here needs help – he fell in the lake and he's, ah, he's anemic. Please, can you help us? He's about to freeze to death."

The receptionist's eyes on me were unbearable, absolutely brimming with judgment.

"You're going to have to go to the emergency room," she said. "The entrance is around the corner on Prarie Street. You'll see it; it's labeled."

"Alright," Goldy said. "Thanks for your help, ma'am."

Goldy ushered me back outside, where he clucked his tongue but didn't say anything. I was just glad she didn't tell us to get lost.

We went up the steps of the entrance labeled "EMERGENCY" and went up to the front desk. All the hustle and bustle in here made my head feel even slower, and I couldn't focus on what Goldy was saying. A pretty young nurse with auburn hair suddenly appeared, carrying blankets. Her shoes clicked on the white tile as she led us back. She was walking so fast that I couldn't keep up with her; the whole world still felt so fuzzy and slow. Goldy was here though, helping me along, thank God.

We got to an empty bed, and then, the next thing I knew, the nurse had shut the curtain on Goldy's face and was stripping my wet clothes off me.

"Goldy! Goldy!" I cried out. I sounded like a child, and I felt like one too, nearly in tears as this nurse tore off my shirt with none of the kindness I'd expected of her.

"I'm right here!" he said on the other side of the curtain.

"Don't go!" I begged. "Please, don't leave me here!"

"I'm not going anywhere, I promise," he said from just outside the curtain. His voice was so calm, so kind and reassuring that it allayed me a little. I really felt I could trust him.

"You're going to be fine," the nurse told me in a very matter-of-fact tone. By now she had begun trying to pull my boots off. "We just need to get these wet clothes off you."

It took me a moment to realize I should probably help her. I shucked off my soggy left boot and then helped pull my pants down, which was mortifying.

I was probably only naked for three seconds total though before she began wrapping me in blankets. As she was doing this, I saw that her eyes were very similar to Kyle's, green with an amber ring around the pupil, though the amber in her eyes was much brighter, almost golden. You almost never see anybody with eyes like that. It put a terrible taste in my mouth.

"Do you feel confused?" she asked me.

"About what?"

"Just in general."

"Not really."

"Tired?" she asked.

"Extremely," I said.

A moment later, she asked, "What happened to your nose?"

"Somebody broke it."

I couldn't figure out how she was looking at me. It wasn't concern – it was more like uncertainty, maybe even stress. It made me feel uncomfortable and kind of guilty. I had the urge to apologize for myself.

"Well, we'll put some tape on it," she said before going to grab something from the cabinet: a thermometer. "Here. Let's take your temperature while I get you something warm to drink."

I watched her shake the thermometer and then let her put it in my mouth. When she left, the curtain flying back open, I saw Goldy standing there, just like he had promised. We made eye contact for a brief moment, and he smiled at me reassuringly. I blushed and looked away, huddling up in the blankets and trying to hide myself. It was instinctive; I couldn't help it.

Alone now, I closed my eyes and hung my head, feeling like I might fall asleep. By now I was a little warmer, but my face was still throbbing. I wondered if that bottle of aspirin was still in my pants, or even more importantly, my wallet. It would be very, very bad if I lost my wallet – they'd definitely give me the black bottle if I couldn't pay the hospital bill. A little voice in my head reminded me again that I'd wanted to die, and then I got very frustrated with myself. It just wasn't that simple.

The nurse came back with a cup of tea. She set it on the table and took the thermometer out of my mouth.

"Ninety three degrees," she said after reading it. "Could be worse. How long were you in the water?"

"I dunno."

"So what made you decide to go swimming on a day like today, anyway?" she asked.

"I guess I was hot," I mumbled. I couldn't recall any of what Goldy had said when we came in here, and I was worried about contradicting him. "I don't think I realized how cold it was until I'd been in there for a while."

"Were you feeling sick beforehand?"

"I don't know… I don't think so."

"Alright." She handed me the tea. "It should be cool enough to drink. Just don't drink it too fast."

There was a tea bag still seeping in the clear liquid, and it did smell like tea, so I decided it was safe. As I drank it, I realized how thirsty I was, so I also asked for a glass of water, but she told me I had to drink hot beverages. Once I finished the first cup, she went and got me another, reminding me again to drink slowly. Then she told me she'd come back in a bit to check my temperature again. Before she left, I asked her if Goldy could please come in and sit with me, and although she hesitated for a moment, she did end up saying yes, even going so far as to welcome him in as she left. He nodded at her, smiling, and then looked at me with this expression of utmost sympathy. It made me feel so small and stupid – I couldn't fathom that anyone less than an angel would be so selfless and kind, and to me of all people.

He came over and gently touched my shoulder over the blankets.

"Do you feel any better?" he asked me, and for one stupefying moment, I was transfixed by his face: he really was breathtaking, with angular features that made him look masculine but in a youthful way, and eyes so blue and soft that when you looked into them, you could see how warm of a person he was. I guessed he was in his mid-twenties, maybe a little older than Hack.

Shaking myself out of it, I replied, "Yeah."

"That's good," he said, rubbing my shoulder with heartbreaking reassurance. It was similar to the way Hack would sometimes do. But thinking of Hack now sent me straight back to the lakefront, to being underwater. If I'd succeeded, I'd be dead now. I closed my eyes and thought about that. Mostly I felt regretful – if I were dead, I wouldn't be here in this noisy hospital with this mean nurse. I had to remind myself that dying wasn't just sleeping forever; it was going to Heaven or Hell or Purgatory. And anyway, it was clear God didn't want me to die now, because he'd sent Goldy to save me. So that meant God really did love me and didn't want me to die. He and my mom really were looking out for me. This made me feel a little better – not much, but a little.

I drank some more tea and stared at Goldy's shoes. They were in good shape, probably recently acquired – there was no way he'd worn them all summer. Then again, he could've been on the homeguard all summer, or I guess it was also possible he was just a tramp, though I really doubted that. I realized it was high time I got new shoes myself. Every mile I'd gone with Kyle I'd walked in the soggy, broken boots that were lying at the bottom of the pile of my clothes on the floor. Goldy's jacket was also in that pile. I couldn't even bear to mention that to him – it was representative of how I was dragging him into my filth.

Daring myself to look him in the eye, I said, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," he said, his tone warmer than the tea, the blankets. "I couldn't have just left you there."

The nurse came back with more tea and took my temperature again. This time, it was ninety-six.

"Getting there," she said, her green eyes fixed on the thermometer. Suddenly, she looked up at me and began scrutinizing my face, which frankly scared me a little, like she was forming the words in her head to criticize me. "Your nose looks pretty straight, but there's a lot of bruising. When did you break it?"

"The other day," I told her. "It's set – it's been set. A doctor did it."

"Alright, well, let's tape it up again so it stays in place," she said. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Alright. I'll get you something for that."

She got gauze and tape and scissors from the drawer, which she then set down next to me on the bed.

"Can you take off the eye patch?" she asked, but in a way that didn't sound like a request.

"No!" I instantly sputtered out, jerking away from her.

That seemed to surprise her, but I didn't care – I'd run out of here before anybody took my eye patch off. Also, I didn't know why she was even asking when the doctor this morning didn't.

"Oh. Well… I guess you can keep it on then," she eventually said.

Afterward, she just sort of stood there for a moment before going and cutting pieces of gauze to put up my nose. I was expecting her to be rough like she'd been when she was taking my clothes off, but she was surprisingly gentle.

Now with my nose all packed up again, I had to breathe out my mouth, which made me feel even uglier in front of Goldy. I wanted to hide; I felt so disgusting.

The nurse came back a while later and gave me a pill, which I took without even stopping to think that it might be bad. Yet again, she took my temperature, and this time, it was almost normal.

"The doctor'll be in to see you soon," she said before leaving, the curtain swooshing behind her.

By now I had finished the third cup of tea and really had to pee, but decided to hold it for a few more minutes, until it became unbearable. At that point, Goldy took it upon himself to go find out where the bathroom was, and then he insisted on helping me get there, which I guess was fine because I was still so tired I felt like I was going to fall over. On the way there and back, I kept my head down so nobody could see my face. By the time I got back to my bed, I felt like I'd run a marathon. I lay down and closed my eyes for just a second when all of the sudden, that fucking nurse was back again, waving that thermometer in my face. Lying there with the thermometer in my mouth, I began dozing off again, not thinking of anything as I stared at the floral pattern of the wallpaper. Just as I was about to fall asleep, the nurse returned, took the thermometer out of my mouth and said it was normal.

Then she disappeared for the last time.

It smelled awful down in the basement, like strong chemicals and the trace scent of mold, or maybe that was just that smell that accompanied dark, slightly damp spaces. Either way, it was all-consuming and didn't put me anymore at ease trying to navigate this place in the dark. Up ahead, there was a single bulb dangling from the ceiling and illuminating an assortment of paraphernalia – tables, a cistern, metal drums.

Beyond all that, I saw a flight of stairs. An exit.

As I quietly headed towards it, trying my best not to look at anything in particular, the awful aura of this place only intensified. There was suffering down here, suffering and death. As if on their own, my eyes shot towards a heavy steel door with a circular window. It was up on the left, in the shadows, contrasting with the vaguely-lit wooden steps up on the right. My eyes were stuck on that door, and my ears were pricked, terrified I'd suddenly hear screaming from inside.

It was quiet though. Very, very quiet. And that made it all the more eerie.

Finally, I made it to the light. As I walked past the metal tables, I accidentally noticed that one had a bloody cloth on it. I immediately squeezed my eyes shut and blindly raced the rest of the way to the stairs. By now, my heart was beating so fast it felt like it was caught in my throat, almost choking me. I just prayed to God I'd be able to find my way out from the first floor, because I wasn't going to last long in here otherwise.

The stairs creaked, because of course. It was an agony trying to walk as quietly as possible and failing each time. The high-pitched sound of creaky wood seemed to echo loud as gunshots through the cellar. If I made it up these steps without getting caught, it was going to be a goddamn miracle.

Somehow, I made it. At the top of the steps, I stood there with my sweaty hand resting on the handle, still too shaky to turn it. My other hand was clutching my chest, my heart still pounding inside, utterly unable to calm down. At my back, I could sense the profound darkness of the cellar. So much cruelty, so much brutality. It was sick, just completely sick. But then, who was I to talk?

When I finally opened the door, what I saw was disturbingly normal. Just a hallway, with a window looking out onto the street and numbered doors. I looked left and right, but the hallway made turns in both directions, both paths disappearing out of sight. I didn't sit around debating which way to go though; I just went right, turning around the corner and then around another. This corridor went down reasonably far, but as I went down it, passing more numbered doors, I had this weird feeling that I wasn't making any progress, as if I were hardly even moving. At this point, I knew I needed to get out now, so I retraced my steps to get back to that window that overlooked the street, thinking I'd just jump out of it. Yet when I did that… I couldn't find it. I went exactly the same way I had gone, even encountering that cellar door again, but the window just wasn't there.

That was when my eye caught sight of something: from beneath a nearby door, a bright red pool of blood was steadily oozing out. I stood there, completely frozen as I watched it continue to creep out, knowing exactly whose blood it was. Even out here in the hallway, I could sense his rage, and if I listened very carefully, I could hear the vague sounds of him gasping and sputtering.

The blood was getting dangerously close to my feet. For some insane reason, I had this bizarre compulsion that I had to go open the door. I even found my arm reaching out to do so, but it was right at that second that the edge of the pool touched my foot, and I suddenly got my wits back about me. As fast as my legs could carry me, I ran back the way I had just came, searching desperately for a window, a stairwell, an exit.

But when I turned yet another corner in this labyrinthine place, what I stumbled across was not that at all – rather, it was the murderous mastermind himself, in all his evil glory. He was just exiting a room when he laid eyes on me, his features instantly contorting with rage.

"You're in for it now, boy," he uttered, his eyes narrowed as he came towards me.

That was when I noticed the hatchet in his hand and the blood spattered all over him.

I ran. I didn't know where to; I just ran as fast as I possibly could, going any which way to try to lose him. But every time I looked back, he was always right on my tail, lunging towards me and swinging that hatchet, screaming that he was going to cut my throat and sell my body to medical school, that I was a cheat, a fake, a killer, but that I was too soft to ever be a true yegg, and that he was going to get me for it.

As I ran in horror down these down endless, winding corridors, I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears, which did nothing, for I could still hear his awful voice saying those awful things clear as day, as if he were speaking to me in my mind. And he was saying these things so fast, with such a bizarre inflection, that it was almost like he was speaking in tongues. It was completely fucking terrifying, and I couldn't get it to stop. I was barely even aware that I was sobbing, begging for him to stop.

When I dared look back again, I saw that he wasn't alone: the railroad bull, bloodied and bloated, was awkwardly running right alongside him, spurting blood as he staggered along impossibly fast. His eyes were red, completely full of blood, coloring his rage and hatred towards me. He was shouting too, but it was completely incomprehensible. The hate in his eyes said enough though – his gaze burned through my back like hot coals, scalding me as it echoed: "You. You did this to me. You. It was you."

Out of foolish desperation, I began checking random doors, but all of them turned out to be locked, raising my terror to unimaginable levels. It was when I was sure I was going to die that I was finally granted some mercy: at last, I found a door that was unlocked, and I immediately scrambled inside and slammed it shut behind me. They started banging on it, screaming as they tried to open it, but I managed to keep the door closed with my body, eventually locking it with enormous difficulty.

I was safe. Finally, I was safe. They were still outside, pounding on the door and rattling the knob, but at least now they couldn't get to me.

Then, I looked around and saw that I wasn't alone in this tiny, concrete cell: lying on the floor just a few feet away from me was Kyle, curled up in a fetal position with his back to me. I immediately realized that something was wrong. It wasn't something I knew just from looking at him; it was something I felt in my gut, that earth-shattering awareness that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

"Kyle…?" I said in a tiny voice, too terrified to approach him.

Again, I said, "Kyle? What're you doing?" Becoming even more anxious, I said, "Kyle, get up, we have to get out of here."

It seemed like a hundred years passed as I cautiously stepped forward, kneeling down as I approached him. My hand was shaking as I touched his shoulder, and when I did, he rolled over almost automatically. That was when I saw the most horrifying thing I'd ever laid eyes on. Kyle's face was ashen and bruised, deformed by the swelling and slashed in places, the dried blood almost black. His eyes were dull, lifeless, staring straight ahead.

Then, the universe shifted, and suddenly, everything was dark.

I didn't know where I was. The door was open a crack, so there was just enough light for me to see somebody in a rocking chair in the corner. At first I thought it was Hack or even Kyle, but as parts of my patchy memory pieced together, I realized it was Goldy and he was sleeping. Knowing he was still here put me at tremendous ease, and I laid back and exhaled with relief. Outside the door, I could hear the vague sounds of voices and movement. I guess I'd been moved to my own room at some point. Vaguely, I could kind of remember going up some steps – or had that been the dream too? My recollection of things was incredibly spotty going as far back as this afternoon. I could remember Goldy being there generally, but I couldn't figure out exactly how I got from the lakefront to the hospital.

Maybe Goldy brought me here…?

But why was it that I hadn't succeeded in drowning myself? Did Goldy stop me? God, I sure hoped not; this situation was already extremely embarrassing, since Goldy had to have known I'd been trying to kill myself – I couldn't imagine having lied my way out of that one, with it having been such a chilly day.

Yet despite my shame and confusion, I also had to admit that I felt perfectly safe here in this dark hospital room with Goldy. And that God awful nightmare I'd just had was only that – a nightmare. Even so, the image of Kyle's dead face still haunted me, materializing clear as day when I closed my eyes. God, H. H. Holmes and that bull chasing me through the Murder Castle, then finding Kyle's battered corpse? Jesus Christ, what an awful fucking nightmare, probably one of the worst I'd ever had. I just tried to take deep breaths and tell myself it wasn't real. It was a dream. It was fake. Not real.

Then again, I didn't really know that Kyle was still alive, did I? Far more seasoned hobos had taken the westbound, after all. And if he had run into trouble on the road, I'd always be too late to save him. The thought was crushing: my chest felt like it was going to collapse as I thought of all the ways he might've met his end on the road, his corpse broken and gray in some ditch, or battered and bloody on the side of the tracks.

Oh, God, please no. Please let him still be alive. Whether in some Bowery flophouse or that place in Storyville, or 'Frisco, or wherever, God, please, just let him be alive. To placate myself, I tried to envision Kyle in these places, bumming around all by himself, safe and happy. The more I thought about that though, the more I wondered if he'd really go through all that effort just to be alone.

Maybe he'd just gone back home.

Would he do that, I wondered? The way he'd described home was always so awful, with his parents constantly breathing down his neck and his mother always harping on him, not to mention that girl they wanted him to date. Even so, there was always a part of me that wondered how bad it could really be. Then I'd think it had to be as bad as he said if he'd left home over it. But now that I knew him so well, I knew that he could be impulsive. So it was totally possible he'd originally left home on an impulse, only to eventually realize that I wasn't even worth sticking around for. Truth be told, I could see it. Part of me found it really irritating that he had a home and a family to go back to, while another part of me felt smug about it, because it turned out he was just a sweet back all along, a rich kid who had simply given up when the road got to be too much for his delicate sensibilities.

Well, fuck him. Wherever he was, I doubted he cared about what he did to me. I bet he didn't even think about me anymore.

I laid there for a while longer thinking about these things and feeling more and more awful. It didn't seem like I was meant to exist in this world, yet my escape attempt had been a failure – why? Did I really fail on my own accord? How though? Did God send Goldy to save me? If so, why? I guessed it was true that I hadn't pursued my faith much, so maybe God wanted me to stick around and do that. Yet it was hard for me to imagine myself living in God's name when I didn't want to live in the first place. Maybe I should've just been happy with the fact that God, unlike everybody else, was apparently determined to hold onto me, even if he was obscure about his reasoning. Maybe he didn't need a reason beyond the fact that I was one of his children and he loved me. I wished I felt the way I thought I should feel about this – overjoyed, grateful, blessed, relieved – but it mostly just made me miserable, because all I could think about was all the people who had left me and how I was going to be alone again pretty soon.

I rolled over onto my side and faced Goldy. Even if I never saw him again after tomorrow, I at least had this moment right now, a soft swatch of time in the middle of the night, him the shepherd and me the sheep, quiet and safe at his feet.