your homeland doesn’t exist anymore!
so get over it, babe
in cheery pink bubble letters. Inside, the small restaurant was dim. There was a long wooden bar with stools, and tables and dark booths hugging the corners. An ancient-looking woman stood behind the bar, wiping down glasses. Good old YD. Trina sighed. Some things really never did change. Her hair was still cropped in a tight buzz cut, and she wore her white cotton T-shirt and one long, dangling earring like a uniform. The restaurant was pretty empty of patrons, just a couple cooing over a bassinet with an orange kitten swaddled in baby blankets inside it. Trina didn’t see the boy anywhere.
“Nu?” asked YD, gesturing at her with a dishrag. “You don’t call, you don’t write. I didn’t know what happened to you!”
“Hey, momma,” said Trina, leaning over to kiss her old wrinkled cheek. “I fell into a black hole for a few days. Took me a little while to climb out.”
YD’s lips puckered into a frown. Trina squeezed her hand. It hadn’t occurred to her that YD would worry. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time.”
“Okay, okay.” YD nodded. “What can I get you, mameleh?”
“The daily special, please, and thank you.” She smiled at YD sweetly. “And the best cocktail in the world?”
“Mameleh, is that a good idea?”
“YD, I’m fine! I just feel like having a cocktail, okay?”
“Okay, okay.” She looked into Trina’s eyes. “You had us all a little worried, Trinelah. My mind went to all the bad places.”
Trina laughed. “YD, your mind always goes to the worst possible scenario, no matter what I do.”
YD smiled. “I’m part of a long, grand tradition of worriers.”
“You could have reached out to me, you know.”
YD waved her hand overhead. “You know I don’t like to bother you. You’re busy!” She began fixing the drink. “With the hospital. You’re a very important lady!”
Trina smiled. YD was feeling guilty. She could get two, maybe even three drinks out of her tonight without too much hassle. For a society built around “live and let live,” everyone sure liked getting into Trina’s business. No one needed to know she hadn’t been to work in months. Anyway, she had more important things to do. Someone needed her help. She had to find that kid from the Compound.
YD didn’t give her too hard of a time, but Pina the bear wasn’t impressed. She trundled out from the kitchen on her hind legs, holding the daily special carefully. She was generally a pretty grumpy bear, and she had been in an especially bad mood since the summer. Pina gave Trina one long look, her paws gripping the plate like big leather gloves. “You smell like poison,” Pina grunted before dropping YD’s delicious kasha varnishkes down with a bang. It was a miracle she hadn’t broken all of YD’s dishes.
Trina took a big sip off the top of her Old-Fashioned. It ran down her gullet in a bright line. YD certainly knew how to make a cocktail. “I love you, YD!” She took another little slurp. “I love you so much,” she whispered to her drink.
Pina came over with a tall glass of water. “Here. You drunk already.”
“Don’t oppress me with your old-fashioned moralizing, man,” said Trina.
Pina frowned at her. “Stop using words to confuse me.” She lumbered back to the kitchen. “And I’m not a man!”
“Well, neither am I.” Bears were so literal. Trina sucked at her drink. The edges of the world were already starting to blur nicely. “You smell like a wet dog, ever think of that?” she muttered softly. One had to be careful. Pina’s depth perception wasn’t great, but her hearing was top-notch.
Trina got up to pay her water bill. What a stupid way of saying she had to pee. If she said that to one of those Seep kids, they’d probably ask her if she was talking about the old days of scarcity mentality. Before the arrival of The Seep, she and Deeba would earnestly talk about the heady ideal of a world without money. Trina hadn’t known what kind of revolution she wanted; she had trouble deciding what to eat for breakfast. Deeba had always been more militant and exacting in her demands of the world. How she had loved Deeba’s fierce certainty. Goddamn Deeba, thought Trina. Leaving me here by myself in this fakakta future! Trina splashed her face with cold water. She was starting to sound like YD.
Trina heard a rustling from outside the restaurant, like something rooting around in the trash. She looked out of the little bathroom window onto the back alley. It was the kid from the Compound! Bless that creepy redhead and her silly tarot cards. Magic was real, Blessed Be! The boy was just wandering around the alley, looking lost. Trina watched as he took a few steps, then stopped and walked back, as if unsure of what direction to go in or whether he wanted to reach his destination at all.
Another figure approached from the main street, cutting through the alley toward the boulevard. It was Horizon Line, that cheap hack of a performance artist! She hadn’t seen him in years, not since that silly dinner party. Trina watched as Horizon approached the boy. A coil of rage unspooled in her belly. Trina wanted to punch the wall. Her fists clenched in anticipation of doing so, but then she thought about how sad YD would be if she actually hurt The Shtetl. It was so annoying to know that even buildings could feel pain. Of course, The Shtetl didn’t deserve any of her ire. She relaxed her hands. But goddamn it, Horizon was still wearing that dead man’s face! From the looks of him, he had gotten a few other Seep mods in the past few years—some silly deer ears, hair extensions. He and the boy talked for a few moments before Horizon took the boy’s hand and led him to the boulevard. Perhaps the boy had found what he was looking for after all. Horizon Line was certainly not kind.
Still, Trina didn’t like the idea of him with the kid. She and the boy from the Compound had both lost people they loved, both been betrayed by the whole damn world. She should be the one taking him by the hand, not Horizon Line. He needed someone older and wiser who could help him find his footing in this strange new place.
Trina surged toward the door, then stumbled, banging her knee into a wall. Oh, shit. She was pretty drunk. No matter. She ran out the back door and into the alley. She could see Horizon Line’s dark antlered head moving down the wide lush street alongside the boy’s. She raised her hand and started to call out to stop them. But just then, a herd of deer clipped down the street, followed by a topless unicycle collective. Trina stood on her tiptoes, trying to get a glimpse of which direction Horizon and the boy had gone, but they were lost behind the crowd. The dust settled. She saw the dense plant life on the street repairing itself from the deer hooves and unicycle treads. Trina grimaced and rubbed her knee, then looked at her hand and realized it was lightly smeared with blood. She hobbled back toward The Shtetl. Okay, there was more than one way to pet a cat. So medical attention first, then she’d go find the boy. And give Horizon Line a piece of her mind, too. She had intended to tell everyone about what he had done to that poor young man, stealing his face after his death. Why hadn’t she gone through with it?