The Age of Embers Read online

  At this point, I’m just spreading blood all over myself and I have nothing to say. My face is a crime scene. Now my head’s one, too.

  “I’m just so tired of this life,” I hear myself say. “These people, man…they’re not human. And now my daughter calls the phone I thought I left in the car.”

  “So Brooklyn called you? That’s the big problem?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, right now, yeah.”

  “She okay?”

  “I don’t know, X.”

  My body is at odds with itself. I’m sweating bullets out in the cold of night, but inside, I’m burning up. Am I having a heart attack?

  No.

  Am I cracking?

  Definitely.

  “Are you in trouble, Fire?”

  My stomach drops, plummeting so low I start to wonder if I’m going to be like one of those rookie cops who pukes the first time he sees a mutilated body. Everything in me wants to tell Xavier I crossed the line, see what he can do about keeping me out of jail, but I don’t want him shouldering this burden. I don’t want to shoulder this burden.

  “One of the guys, he snatched my phone from me, listened to the message. He had a gun in my face.”

  “Which guy is that?”

  “Manny.”

  Manny is—rather he was—a vicious little tweaker. His paranoia made him dangerous; his bad attitude made him unlikeable. He was good though. Good enough to grab my phone and listen to my daughter’s voicemail when no one normal would have even given it a second thought.

  “What did he do?”

  “Smashed my phone, called me a liar. I went in single with no kids. That was the deal. That’s what I told these guys because there’s no way I’d ever give them leverage.”

  “We can spin this,” he says.

  “No, we can’t. Brooklyn didn’t call me Dad, she called me Fiyero. Not a name any of these knuckle draggers have ever heard.”

  “Oh, boy,” Xavier says, letting out a low breath. “This is bad.”

  “Kids who don’t love their parents stop calling them Mom and Dad and just start calling them by their given names. Brooklyn clearly doesn’t like me.”

  “You’ve been deep cover for eight months. We talked about this.”

  I find myself pacing.

  “I never should have agreed to this. What was I thinking?” I ask, raking a hand through my hair out of habit, still not caring where the blood gets.

  “So they know your real name, but they don’t know Brooklyn’s your daughter?”

  “This job,” I mumble, feeling myself starting to unravel. I stop pacing, lean my belly against driver’s side door, rest my forearms on the roof because I’m both physically and mentally wiped. Looking over the ‘Cuda’s roof, out into a darkened field of weeds and past a chain link fence, I say, “I’m so sick of this job.”

  “You have problems, Fire,” Xavier says, so calm I start to worry. “You had problems with the family when you started this job and you’ll have them when you retire out. It’s the nature of our work.”

  “This isn’t helping, though. This job.”

  “You have crappy genetics. You said so yourself. The DEA likes you because no one else really does and that’s why you’re so good on the job. You have single-minded focus.”

  “You don’t understand…”

  “Well then why don’t you explain it to me,” Xavier says, his annoyance returning. “Because if given the choice between a beautiful woman who’s taken to begging for me to come back to bed and listening to you, I’m picking you.”

  “I think I need psych leave.”

  “No, you need to get your head right and see this through.”

  “I hate this city, X.”

  Giselle is calling him again, less sexy, more insistent. I remember those days with my wife, Adeline. The days when she started to realize the job would eventually take priority over her. From then on, things have only gone downhill. I don’t want that for Xavier, but Giselle is young and needy and Xavier knows the score. She wants the attention. She needs it from him, but the job won’t let her get her way. When guys like me and Xavier get married, we all marry our future ex-wives.

  “You hate this city, Fire. Everyone hates the city.”

  “But I love it, too.”

  “Thank God you’re not this wishy-washy on the job,” he muses, but with no real humor to his voice.

  “I hate this job, Xavier. That part I’m not wishy-washy on at all.”

  “Everyone hates the job eventually. But what else are you going to do? Your attitude is junk and your people skills are garbage at best. You’re truly in your element when you’re neck deep in it. Which you are. All the time. This job is perfect for you even if you despise it.”

  I don’t say anything. I’m at a loss for words. I am…inadequate. Unfit. Maybe I’m bad for this job, this city, my family, this life.

  “What do you want, Fire?” Xavier presses.

  “I want to see my wife and kids.”

  “You really want to risk that?” he asks. “Because Adeline doesn’t even like you.”

  “Well why in God’s name would she?” I snap.

  The anxiety is welling inside me again. My hands are caked with blood. All the lines, the crevices, my nail beds. I pull the phone back, check the time again.

  “Fire?” Xavier asks. “What did you do?”

  That’s when I hang up. I’m not ready to go down this road yet. I have to go home, check on Adeline, Brooklyn and Orlando. I would’ve called all of them by now, but only from my emergency phone, which was destroyed tonight. So against protocol and against all common sense, I get in this seventies wreck of a car, secure the coke from tonight’s buy, then fire up the engine, creep out of the parking lot (you’re officially leaving the scene of a crime) and make my way out to the 290 heading home.

  Twice the phone rings. Twice it’s Xavier calling.

  I text him back to say I can’t text while driving and that I’ll get back to him in the morning. It rings once more.

  The 290 (Heroin Highway) isn’t terribly busy, but there’s traffic at this time of night like there always is in Chicago. With nearly three million residents in this city, and crime being what it is, I’m pretty sure half of Chicago sleeps in the day then skulks around at night, present company included.

  Home is a three story brick condo on Belmont Avenue in Roscoe Park. When we first saw this place, there was no way I could afford it on my salary. But Adeline was a woman of uncompromising taste and beauty, just like our daughter, Brooklyn. When I told Adeline she’d need to get a part time job to help pay for it, I thought that would be the end of that conversation. It wasn’t.

  “If that’s what I need to do to help give our kids a safe place to live, then that’s what I’ll do,” she said. Even though when she said ‘kids’ she was really just talking about Brooklyn. She knows how much I love our daughter. And she knows I’m paranoid about her safety. I’m not worried about Orlando, because he’s a tough kid, but Brooklyn…yeah, I worry.

  True to her word, Adeline got a job. Now she runs a non-profit organization that funds homeless shelters. More than eighty thousand people in this city are homeless, and though most of them double up with other residents experiencing hardship, there are still more than twenty-thousand people living on the streets.

  These are the people Adeline advocates for.

  For the first time in eight months, I walk into my house, turn on the lights, and try on the idea of living here again. The thought of going upstairs and getting into bed with Adeline sort of scares and thrills me. Instead, I grab a can of beer from the fridge, roll it over the lumps on my face, then pop the top and guzzle it down.

  Brooklyn didn’t call me Dad. She called me Fiyero.

  My aching ribs make me think I need a bag of frozen peas, but my knuckles are starting to swell, too. I’ll need a bag of frozen corn to go with the peas. Grabbing my peas and corn, I trudge upstairs, to the second floor master suite. I stop the
second I see the bedroom door standing wide open. Adeline insists she sleep with the door closed.

  Is she even here?

  I turn on the lights to an empty room. The subtle fragrance of her perfume stirs so many memories. Where is she? Why isn’t she home? I find myself smiling and feeling sad at the same time. In that instant, looking around the room, feeling the emptiness of me everywhere, I wonder how I’ve fallen so far.

  In the bathroom, I flip on the lights and turn on the sink to warm the water. The second I see my reflection, I blanch.

  “Jesus Christ,” I mutter.

  It’s worse than I thought. I press the peas to my face, lay the corn across the back of my neck. By the time the water is warm, the digital clock on the vanity says eleven forty-three.

  Where the hell is she?

  When the water finally runs hot, I set the peas and corn on the vanity, then wash my hands with soap. The pink water circles down the drain, the night replaying in my mind. Lowering my head into the basin, I wash the blood off my face and out of my hair. When I finally feel somewhat clean, I dry my face then stare at the jerk in the mirror. A drip of crimson rolls out of the cut above my eyebrow, skips down my cheek and lands on the marble vanity.

  I breathe in deep, hold it, then release it slowly. I barely even recognize myself. I know it’s time to check on Brooklyn. Is she okay? I wipe up the blood, head upstairs to the third floor, see a glow from underneath my daughter’s bedroom door. Inside, I hear music playing low. I give a light knock.

  “Go away,” Brooklyn says.

  Her voice is anger, it’s resentment, it’s exhaustion. I breathe a sigh of relief. At least she’s okay. That’s good. Across the hallway, I see Orlando’s door, but no light. I try the knob and the door opens to a dark, empty room.

  I check my watch. It’s nearly midnight. Where in God’s name is Adeline? Is she with Orlando? Heading back to the bedroom, thinking I’ll wait a few minutes before I call Adeline, I lay down on the bed, not meaning to fall asleep, but this night—this life…

  Chapter Two

  I’m dreaming of getting beaten to death in the dark when the lights come on and draw me from my restless slumber. Blinking my eyes, propping myself up on an elbow, I see my wife, dressed to the nines, a scowl on her otherwise gorgeous face. She just stands in the doorway. She won’t even come in to see me much less kiss me hello.

  “Unbelievable,” she says.

  A thousand different responses tumble around in my mind, but what I wanted to see most was that something in her eyes that lets me know she’s happy to see me. If I could have seen that, I’d know for sure we might have a chance.

  But now this face.

  This look...

  “Is that a good or a bad ‘unbelievable?’” I ask. I already know the answer, but I’m hoping I’m wrong.

  “What do you think?” she says sparingly.

  “I think—”

  “Whose purple piece of crap is that parked out back?”

  “Mine,” I say, feeling this old heart of mine trying to kick off the dust and start beating again with purpose. “My God, you look beautiful.”

  “What happened to your face?” she asks, still refusing to enter the room.

  “Can’t you at least even pretend to be happy to see me?”

  She takes a deep breath, lets it out in a measured release, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Whatever light was in there is dimming steadily.

  “I need to check on Brooklyn.”

  “She’s fine.”

  “She knows you’re here?” she asks.

  “No, not really,” I say. “Where’s Orlando? Was he with you?”

  “He’s staying with a friend for a couple of days.”

  Exasperated, dejected, now face-to-face with the grim reality of my situation, I finally say, “Well then shut out the lights, I was having the most amazing dream.”

  What else am I going to say?

  And with that, the lights click off and Adeline heads downstairs to make herself dinner. In the dark, several red numbers glow on the nearby digital clock. Either I’m dreaming, or there’s something wrong with the clock because the numbers are glitching.

  At first it reads 12:35, but then the numbers flicker out and back on really fast, causing me to sit up in the darkness. For a second, I thought they read 6:66.

  “That’s impossible,” I say, rubbing my eyes and looking at the clock again.

  It’s not glitching.

  Laying back down, I chide myself for not asking Adeline where she’s been, or why she didn’t bother to even offer me a kiss. She used to do that all the time.

  That was her greeting.

  Yawning, one eye on the clock, I wait for it to flicker in and out. After a minute, everything seems normal. Truthfully, I’m fighting back the sleep. I want to talk to Adeline. God, she looked good! But will she still look so lovely handing you divorce papers? Probably not. But maybe so. That might be alright. But would it?

  Eight months have passed since we’ve seen each other, and at least a month since we talked on the phone. The conversations grew too terse. Too snappish. What do I know about being a good husband or father? Apparently not enough anymore.

  According to the people around me, I’m only good at one thing—my job.

  When I wake up the next morning, I see Adeline in bed next to me. That she’d crawl into bed and not even kiss me, or touch me, or even say something as mundane as “good-night,” is telling.

  The former cop in me is wide awake. He’s beyond suspicious. I don’t want to think Adeline is hiding something, but any idiot can see she is. The real question isn’t whether or not she’s hiding something, it’s whether or not I want to know about it.

  I kind of think I don’t…

  The beeping phone breaks my trance. I lean over the side of the bed, grab my pants, fish the deep cover phone from my pocket. Three missed calls. One from Xavier and two from Paco Loco, the low-level turd I answer to inside the Chicago branch of the Sinaloa cartel.

  Paco Loco is the stupidest nickname for a drug dealer I can think of, but whatever—it’s real. Everyone says the guy takes himself too serious, and they’re right. Maybe he earned the name, or maybe he just reminds people of El Pollo Loco.

  Either way, to his face he’s Paco Loco, but behind his back the guys still call him The Crazy Chicken. I think it’s because he’s now refusing to get his hands dirty. Which is crazy if you want to go somewhere in this world.

  I drop my pants back on the floor, listen to Xavier’s voicemail. It’s simple: “This is X, hit me up.” He doesn’t talk like this normally. It’s protection against someone else listening to my voicemail. I punch a button, delete the voicemail.

  Next up: Paco Loco.

  “Yo, pendejo, where you at? None of you putas are answering your phones. Don’t make me worry, man. You know what happens to me when I start to worry. I start to think the craziest things.”

  Someone once said Paco Loco beat his grandmother to death with a hammer because she wouldn’t let him watch reruns of The Price is Right. I’m not sure if that’s the case, but sometimes I think it is. Guys like this—douchebags working hand-in-hand with the likes of the Sinaloa cartel—they give guys like me a reason to grow eyes in the back of my head. It’s why I wonder if he’ll be smiling one second then burying the business end of the hammer in my dome the next.

  I glance over at Adeline.

  She’s asleep in sweats and a t-shirt, her back turned to me. Her bra strap is showing, her back lovely and more toned than I remember. But the bra strap. This in itself is so very telling. She has no intention of looking sexy for me.

  Another bad sign.

  The way this woman used to make love, it was like she was trying to prove that no matter what my job was, the hours I worked or how often I was gone, I was hers. Like she was laying claim to me every time we did it. You know women like that—they take care of their man and not some other guy.

  But now, with no good-night ki
ss, and that bra strap…

  The phone chirps. A text. Adeline stirs, then mumbles, “I forgot how much I hate your phone going off in the morning.”

  I get out of bed, head into the bathroom, read the text. It’s from the crazy chicken. IF I DON’T SEE YOU, I’M GONNA SEND GUYS OUT FOR YOU.

  I shut off the phone, start the shower.

  Adeline rolls over in bed and looks at me. She’s still wearing her make up, though it’s a bit smeared. She went from looking high dollar hot last night to the tiniest bit trashy this morning, which is secretly how I like her most. She doesn’t seem to care about this. She’s clearly looking for neither attention nor a compliment.

  “What the hell happened to you?” she asks as I pull my shirt over my head and drop my boxers.

  I look down at my ribs. They’ve been aching all night. Now they’re splotching with dark bruising.

  “Last night was a bad night,” I say as I step into the shower.

  I wash my hair, soap myself down, rinse off then see her standing in front of the glass door. She’s still got that look on her face.

  “What’s going on with you?” she asks. “Why are you home?”

  “I just am.”

  “Are you done then? Are you back?”

  The phone chirps again. Another text message alert. Adeline bends over, picks it up and says, “Xavier wants you to call him.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So?” she says. “Are you back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Meaning?”

  The rush of emotion nearly bowls me over. I can’t distinguish between rage, hate, fear, paranoia, regret, bitterness or flat out disappointment anymore. This is my wife. She’s not happy to see me. In fact, she’s angry that I’m even here. This is my wife and I’m sure she hates me.

  “Can you get me a towel, please?”

  Without a word of acknowledgement she leaves the room, comes back, opens the shower door and hands it to me. I can’t tell if the hard chill that enters the shower bay is coming from the cool morning air or from her.