This fiction contains offensive material. Please do not read without an open mind.

THE DEEDS OF SAINTS

chapter two: Edgar wrote bad poems

I'm standing face to face with Isshin Kurosaki and I'm thinking, 'liar'. His small, dark eyes are fierce on mine and in his mind he's saying, 'lieutenant.'

"Dad. This is the guy. He's here to apologize."

No I'm not. That was never in the job description.

"Apologize? So you're the reason I had cops searching my house last night?" he says.

I look at Isshin.

Liar.

Faker.

"Yeah," I say.

He hums in his throat. "Well, what's done is done. It was all a misunderstanding. What can you do?" And I know that what he's really asking me is, 'Why are you here? Are there other shinigami as well?'

"Just a misunderstanding," I say and what I'm really saying is, 'I'm alone. There is nothing going on.'

He nods. I start to leave, but I feel Ichigo grabbing my wrist and he says, "your hand." He won't look at me. I follow the orange beacon of hair, letting him lead me into a private room. It's part of the clinic.

He grabs a roll of gauze and I don't really trust him to wrap my hand. "Let me wrap it," I say. "You're too rough." He hands it over to me. I use my teeth since it's awkward to wrap with only one hand.

"What's going on, Renji?" he says. He still isn't looking at me.

"I told you, didn't I? Soul Society's orders."

"Yeah, but why?"

Maybe if I ignore the question, it'll go away.

"Renji?" he says.

How do I put this?

"Renji!"

"They don't trust me." The answer surprises even me, but once I give it time, it makes sense. An antisocial personality is not the most eccentric character found in the Seireitei. I would hope that Kenpachi Zaraki is more cracked than I am. No, it wasn't a matter of ability or senses. It was about trust. Loyalty.

They tucked me neatly away.

"They don't trust you?"

"It appears that way, doesn't it?"

"You're… staying here then?"

I nod.

"…Until what?"

I shrug.

"So, what exactly did you do to make them not…?"

"Hm. I got carried away." Carried away? "And there is no tolerance for overstepping certain boundaries. Not since Aizen; not since Gin; not since Tousen."

"I see."

…

This is the suggestion box. A small wooden token, the divine connection between the white coats and the scum they serve.

And I think, do people read this shit?

Never mind.

The first paper card says, 'It has been brought to my attention by Macleans' Magazine (it was in the lobby) that the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed. I refuse to use toilet paper. Please supply the washrooms with those power jet toilets.'

It's signed by 'Edgar Allen Poe.'

I take another papery suggestion from the box. This one says, 'The milk served at lunch was sour.' It's anonymous.

Lunch.

Then it occurs to me.

I put the suggestions back in their wooden shrine. I start walking to the cafeteria. Lunch is served at noon. It's a little after one. I haven't eaten in two days.

I want lunch.

By the time I get there, the place is nearly cleared. There are a few stranglers harassing the staff and asking for sex. They say, "Oh, come on. You look alright baby." And they say, "Oh no. God no. Absolutely not."

There's a metal rack, deserted and forgotten, only a few paces away from me. In my reach are dozens of picked over meals. Sally Joe's half eaten sandwich and Crazy Jim's cold fries, even Fat Anna's greasy, American burger.

Lunch included: no extra cost.

Twenty minutes later, I'm throwing up in my hotel toilet. I think it was the burger that did it. Rising from my stomach are Crazy Jim's fries, still cold and salty. The poorly chewed potatoes are coated in mint ice cream and floating in my stomach mucus. I'm thinking, why the hell did I eat that?

I'm allowed a moment to breathe before soba noodles start creeping up my throat. Chunks of fatty pork are scraping my insides and the coagulated mixture is being pumped out of my mouth. I'm thinking, why the hell didn't I chew that?

Now there's mustard colored pudding with green, mint swirls in my hotel toilet. It's so thick a spoon would stand in it. I flush it away. It'll drain into the ocean and be filtered into fractions. And somewhere, some kid is drinking kool aid with mustard, mint pudding in it.

And I have a doctor's appointment in fifteen minutes with no clean shirt to wear.

My white-coated lover is peaking in my ears. He asks how I'm sleeping. I say fine. He asks how my bowel movements are. I say fine. He asks if I've felt any dizziness or nausea lately. I say no. Then he asks flatly, "How old are you?"

I throw a number out there, "seventeen," I say. Now times that by a six.

"Are you sexually active?"

"Yeah."

"Have you been engaged with a sexual partner recently?"

"No."

"When was the last time you had sexual intercourse?"

"I don't know. Maybe a month or two ago."

"Any complications arise from-"

"-No."

He nods and scratches down a few notes. He dismisses me by telling me I'm physically healthy.

And he would know. He's a doctor.

I walk out into the waiting room. Five sorry looking patients are sitting in those chrome chairs. Just waiting and waiting for new prescriptions. They wait to be called. They wait to be saved.

…

I'm searching for food. A fucking candy dish; a cookie tray, but the place is fucking clean. This hospital hasn't even got flowerpots. For serious, I would have eaten the flowers. There's not even a fucking apple tree outside. I'm walking and walking. Nothing. Just grass. I'm not going to eat the fucking grass. If I'm caught they'll move me to fourth floor.

That gets me thinking about the woman, the one with steel eyes. And now, I'm really thinking about her. Her small, thin body and the pale skin stretched over it. Her blue-black hair, short and cropped. Then, there's the fact she is dead.

Ah, who cares? I bet she had great legs.

…

I didn't mean to do it. Wait. No, I meant to do it. I just didn't plan it.

Earlier, I skipped group therapy. In all honesty, I didn't want to get involved in the whole therapeutic touching thing. Fuck hug time. I just trotted out the front doors in my sour clothes instead. I walked down the street with my long greasy strands braided behind my head. I smell like old sweat and blood, but I figure, fuck it.

And now I'm racing down the street on a shiny, new Duc; and I'm stealing it because I'm lost. I didn't plan this. I couldn't find my way back to that guy's place if I'd tried. This is no longer a test drive. I'm stealing his Ducati.

You can do anything if you're fearless. It's fear that makes you hesitate, makes you stop and stumble. If you don't fear falling, your mind will not think of falling and your body will act like it cannot fall.

I've never driven before, but I watched some show about it. This is the ignition. Here are the disc brakes. This is counter steering. Here is subculture. So, now I'm skidding around on the road and driving way too fast. I don't fear falling.

Ichigo is sitting with me. We're at his clinic. It's later that evening. The same day I skipped group therapy; my gigai is ridiculously torn up and my shirt is less clean than it was. I tell him I wiped out on the Duc.

He asks me, "What were you doing on a motorcycle?"

And I say, "driving it."

"No," he says. "What were you doing on it?"

"Oh, test driving it?"

"You don't even have a license."

"A what?"

"Never mind." He's wrapping my bloody arm. No broken bones, just bruises and cuts and a mild concussion. I slip my bloody, sweaty, sour shirt over my head. "Hey," he says. "Cut it out. I'm trying to bandage your arm."

"My side," I whine. "Ah, it hurts." I take a look at it. Ah, Fuck. There's a leaking, red smile splayed across my ribs. Its lips are puckered and angry. I run a finger over it. It's like touching dimpled chicken skin.

"That's a nasty gash," he says. He doesn't sound worried at all.

I let out a heavy breath. "This body wasn't made for all this excitement. I need a new one."

"Or maybe just don't steal bikes. Don't drive recklessly. Don't get into fights. Don't tell lies. Don't incriminate your best friend. Don't-"

"-Yup," I say. "I get it." God forbid he mentions lunch; or eating Crazy Jim's fries; or mustard, mint pudding.

He tells me he'll be right back, but after five minutes I get reckless. I wander alone into his kitchen. This is my fourth, fucking, foodless day. I peak into his fridge.

Food.

Rack upon rack of food.

I grab a bowl of cold rice. Start simple. I don't want to throw up this time. Someone screams and I almost drop the fucking bowl. There standing, mouth agape is a scrawny little kid. She's pointing at me and yelling. Crying for help and just yelling, 'auuggggh.'

I hear gallops and soon Ichigo skids into the room. He's yelling too, only he yells, 'get out the fridge!'

The kid stops screaming and hugs her brother's bony leg. "Brother," she says with snot dripping down her nose. "Who is he? He has tattoos and red hair."

"That," he says, "that is Renji."

I give a slight wave and spoon rice into my mouth with my wrapped hand.

"Ichigo," she whines, "why's he have no shirt on? And why's he covered in bandages?"

"He fell off his motor bike and wasn't wearing a helmet," he says and then asks, "Can you give us a moment, Yuzu?"

And the kid scampers off.

"What are you doing?" he asks me. I can tell he's a little more than annoyed.

"Oh, come on Ichigo!" I'm so hungry. Yesterday, I almost ate grass.

"Don't gimme that! Your getting to be a real pain, you know that?"

I keep eating the rice. I'm thinking about the money I'm saving. Free rice.

"You smell disgusting by the way."

Free rice.

"Seriously dude."

Rice.

"Honestly, when the last time you washed?"

I shrug.

"You're disgusting."

…

"That water is fucking cold!" I yell.

"Hey! Shut up! Don't swear!" Ichigo has the shower handle in his hand and he adjusts the temperature. I'm sitting in his family's bathtub, both shoulders draped over one side and staring at a plate of grilled fish. I pinch a piece of the flaky meat off the fish and put it into my mouth. "Use a fork!" he yells, spraying my back with warm water.

I pick up the fork. I stab the fish right through, so the whole thing sticks to the fork and I eat the fish like a pogo.

"You're unbelievable," he says. "Unbelievably disgusting." He squirts some soap into my hair and starts scrubbing. I rest my chin against the tub's edge. The soap smells like cinnamon and I feel hungry again. I finger the fish bones on the plate. He's muttering again and I start chewing on the fish bones. "Don't eat the bones!" he yells. He rinses my hair with the showerhead.

He gets up and walks over to the sink. I'm wet and cold. I think it's around eight p.m. He comes back and kneels in front of me. Using his finger to wriggle my mouth open, he puts a plastic toothbrush in my mouth and says, "brush." I taste mint in my mouth and start scratching my teeth with the toothbrush. "Here's a towel. Just do your thing… I'll wait outside."

I spit the toothpaste out and towel-dry my hair. I don't have any clothes, so I wrap the damp towel around my waist and look for Ichigo. He's in his room. His eyes bug out of his head when he sees me. "You didn't just walk around naked in my house did you?" he asks, sounding horrified.

"I don't have any clothes."

He digs in his drawers, digging as if he's searching for money, as if I was a loan shark. He comes up and tosses a gray shirt and a pair of sweatpants at me. Elastic waistband. Nice touch.

The pants fit around, but hit me only to mid calf, so I roll the ends to my knees. And the shirt, I couldn't get it past my shoulders. So when I return, Ichigo's eyes are still bugging and he's saying, "Fine. Whatever. You wanna walk around half naked? Go ahead."

I sit against the wall. Being here is nice. It's not the seventh floor. It's not a place where I'm being scrutinized and its got free food. I can unwind. I can slouch and when I look at Ichigo, I don't see a white coat. He doesn't prod, or ask me about my bowels and he doesn't ask if I've swallowed down this morning chemicals. He doesn't hug me. So I feel like I can talk to him, tell him that there's nothing I could open up to him about; that I can't feel shit anymore; that I've got nothing to give anyone anymore.

"Shouldn't you be heading back?" he says.

I think about room 746, the hotel bed and toilet; the balcony and I remember the nasty iron smell. "No," I say.

"Whatever," and he continues to read. Schoolwork, I'm guessing.

"This morning," I say. "I saw this young chick wheeling around some old lady. And as I'm walking by them, the old lady reaches out and grabs me. She starts yammering, says I look familiar. Asks if we know each other. And the chick, she's giving me this look like she's sorry. Like she's heard it all before, you know? And so I swat the old lady's hand away and I say, 'you're a fucking wrinkled old lunatic'. And I walk off."

"Wow," he says flatly. "You're an asshole." He turns back to his book.

"Do you know there's therapy for that?"

"For what?"

"Being an asshole," I say.

And he says, "whatever Renji."

"No, really. You take pills for it and everything."

"Alright."

"Really." I'm taking them. They're pink. He closes his book together. "Done?"

"Yeah," he says.

"What are you going to do now?"

He shrugs. "It's late. Maybe sleep."

"We could go to a bar," I say.

"What?"

"A bar. I could take you. We could get laid." The white coat asks me when did I last have sex, and I say ten minutes ago. "But I can't go like this. I need a shirt."

"We can't go to a bar."

"Why not?"

"I'm not nineteen."

"I could sneak you in."

"I have school tomorrow. We can't go."

"Tomorrow," I say. It'll be Friday.

His shoulders sag. "Okay," he says.

I win.

I slept on Ichigo's floor that night. He threw me a pillow.

I got up so early that morning; it was still fucking dark out. I've got chicken and rice stuffed in my pockets. Free food. And I'm walking down the street. I'm worried I just turned my best friend into my therapist. Last night I told him, "all the odds are against you, really, and you've got no chance. Life's gonna kill you, so you've got to be willing to die to survive." And I kept talking, I said, "And this thing, this grand prize that we're all living for- this fucking promise, this fucking wonderful Arcanum, it wants to kill you too. We'd all be just better off born dead."

I'm walking down the street. I remember his shadowy expression. Last night he responded, "That's pessimistic." And that's it. That's all he says and he's out the rest of night.

I'm half way back to the hospital. I'm wondering, what the fuck is so bad about living? It's not living that's the problem. It's the people. It's authority man. It's the white coats. It's the old farts. It's the pills I take every morning.

I've been cheated. I see billboards that tell me status and money well fulfill me. I taste sake and it's supposed to fulfill me. I become lieutenant and it's supposed to fulfill me. I'm not fulfilled although everybody's trying to sell me fucking happiness. They give me pills and a balcony and that's happiness. Fuck hug time. I'll keep my misery.

Be at your lowest low. Just rot. Have people look down at you, but give them a face to remember. Give them your ugliest face. And forget about your friends; they hate you. Forget about your feelings; they're just a ruse. A scam. They can change depending on what you've eaten. Pills included: No extra cost.

In a few steps, I meet up with another at their lowest low. I stop walking. I look at him and I have this sort of epiphany. He's nosing around in the garbage, huffing and snorting and searching for food. He's all mud, this big, ugly, black dog that I'm staring at. And I think, this is enlightenment. This is it.

You want to know how much people fucking care about each other? Well, have a look. I've seen people in worse shape than this pathetic dog. That's how well we love. This dog, this dead thin dog, he's just looking for food and sniffing around because nobody loves him. So never mind each other. We can't even love a dog.

I grab a leg of chicken from my pocket and offer it to the black bastard. He trots over, tail wagging and eyes wide. He sniffs my hand once to be certain this isn't a trick and then he swallows the chicken. The whole fucking thing except the bone I'm wrestling away from his mouth.

He looks back up at me with these dark eyes and as I'm walking away I hear his steps behind me. He's stepping, following. I'm stepping, leading and I turn to look at him. He loves me already; this unlovable dog and I say to him, "You're better off on the street than with me." And the dog just pants and keeps following. It's too late. He smells chicken and now he loves me.

…

The sun is so bright this afternoon. It's shining right into my eyes, through a window in this white coat's office. He says he's growing concerned, as if he's a garden and I'm causing weeds. He says I never have phone calls or visits. I come back to the hospital late at night and bruised up. He wants to know what's going on.

I tell him nothing is going on and I just prefer to see people outside the hospital.

He asks me what I do while I'm out. Who do I see?

I tell him my cousin. He remembers the one, right?

And he nods and asks what about group therapy?

Well, what about it?

He wants to know why I don't go.

I'm antisocial. It's my disorder. My personality.

He doesn't buy it, but lets me be on my way.

Outside, the black bastard is shitting in the hospital's flowerbeds. I can see him from the balcony. I should probably pet him or something. Somehow, this dog manages to make me feel responsible for it.

Before heading outside, I steal a plate from the lunch's leftover rack. I'm walking down the exit with a dirty plate in my hand and no one says a word. This is appropriate behavior for a nutcase.

The black bastard tromps over when he sees me. He sniffs at my legs and I put the plate on the ground.

"So he's your dog?" The voice is behind me, female, definitely female. She's the woman with the steel eyes, the thin body and the blue-black hair. You know, the dead one?

She has her arms crossed. I can tell that she's the kind of person who doesn't even need to ask questions- She knows all the answers. Right now, she's looking right at my soul. She's seeing my desires, my loyalties, and my fears. She sees it all and she asks me anyway, "Has he got a name?"

"The black bastard," I say.

"Ah. Well, I'm Soi Fon," she says.

"Renji Abarai."

"Really?" Somehow she looks intrigued. "You're an assistant captain. I'm impressed." And unlike her, I cannot gauge any answers for myself. I really have to ask questions.

She tells me, while she eats her dinner in the cafeteria, that she faked defection fifty years ago. Someone very dear to her had abandoned her and left for the human world with this criminal captain. She wanted to get into the human world without wrecking her ties entirely to the Seireitei. This, she figured, was the ideal way. I would disagree, but to each their own.

I ask her, Why the fourth floor?

The fourth floor is for addicts.

And?

She was an addict.

I thought she was looking for her absconded friend?

She was, but she was also an addict.

Oh, really? What are you addicted to? -This is the kind of conversations held in a nuthouse and she says, sex.

This how I became aquatinted with Soi Fon.

…

That night, Ichigo's pacing in his room and throwing things around. "I wasn't serious!" he says.

"Yeah, you were. You're just backing out now." I say. I'm holding onto Soi Fon. Her skinny wrist is cold in my hand. She has permission to visit overnight with family. We're going to a bar instead.

I find my old jeans on Ichigo's floor, washed and folded with the white cotton shirt. I point. "I'm going to change into those," I say.

"Go ahead," he says. I leave him and Soi Fon alone and quickly change in the next room. I would have changed there, but Ichigo protested. When I come back, he says, "Those clothes are full of holes."

And they are, with huge gaping holes over my knee and shoulder. Thin threads are popping out everywhere and Soi Fon says, "I didn't know your whole body was covered in tattoos."

Ichigo looks. He says, "Renji, those clothes are a bit revealing."

"Your clothes don't fit me though," I say.

And Soi Fon says, "They're fine. Looks like you fell off something real high though."

"He crashed a bike."

"Nice."

The sun has already disappeared and we're walking through a parking lot. Ichigo asks me, "What are you doing?" He says it in a low whisper as I begin lifting the handles of random cars.

"You don't want to walk there, do you?" I say. Soi Fon is quiet and relaxed. My hand slips under a dark handle, I lift and the door pops open.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he says. Now his voice is harsh and quiet. I flit into the driver's seat and unlock the other doors. Soi Fon hops in. She stretches her thin body over the back seat. I reach over and open the passenger door.

"Get in," I say. He waits for about a minute then sits and shuts the door. "That a boy." I'm bent over and feeling the plastic under the wheel. I find a notch and slam my fist against it. To hot wire a car, you have to break it first. I pull the plastic away with my fingers and fiddle with the wires. Since I arrived in the human world, I've been watching much too much television.

"Renji!" he whispers. "Renji!" I touch two wires together and the car huffs. "Renji!" The engine sputters down. I strike the wires together again and this time it starts.

"Alright," I say.

"Renji! Fuck! Renji you just stole a car!" He says this, holding his hands to his head as I pull out of the lot.

"Yeah, so?"

"Fuck! You can't just steal cars!"

"It's only for the night."

He grabs onto the wheel. "No! Pull over!"

I wrestle him off. "It's too late now. Just relax.

"I can't fucking believe this," he says before he hollers out the window. His fist is pumping up and down and he's got the widest grin on his face. His whooping still stings my ears.

Soi Fon's head bobs between the two front seats. She grins. "Alright," she says and flicks on the radio. An orchestra fills up the car. This time it's not just in my head. "This guy's got class," she says, snapping through stations. "But it ruins the mood." She turns the knob until a screaming voice becomes clear over distorted guitars. "That's better, don't you think?" Ichigo yells out the window again.

"Geez, Ichigo. It's like you never unleashed before," I say.

He's leans back in the car, panting. "Unleashed?"

"You know," Soi Fon says. "Like, just do something crazy."

"You're really a whole different person in the human world, aren't ya?" I say.

"Hardly like the ryoka I've heard so much about," Soi Fon says. Ichigo stares at me.

"Meet Soi Fon. Also a shinigami."

"Nice ta meetcha," he says, turning himself back out the window. I crank the music. You're never too old for this shit.