by

Lee Noble

1

Tyler walked the usual stretch to school every day like clockwork; east towards Amsterdam, turn left and walk straight up the Avenue to St. Catherine’s of Genoa where he would hang left again and one final left into the school. His Grandmother lived three blocks away so he spent his weekdays at her place as if he were the child of a migrant family. But Tyler’s parents were divorced anyway and he didn’t remember seeing his mother. She left before he turned two. He couldn’t recall her face, her smell, her touch. All he had were constant reminders on the weekends from his father, Joseph, how much Tyler was just like his mother. And not in a good way.

“You’re manipulative and sneaky, just like your mother!”

“You’re lazy and thick-headed, just like your mother!”

“Tyler, you know, your mother used to say the same damned thing.”

And at no time were these characterizations stated in a kind or introspective way. Just another form of vulgarities from an adult projected unto an unprepared child. Tyler never spoke back. He just sat there and listened whenever his father would get angry. He would not cry either. Just sit and listen. Hopefully not get hit. He hadn’t been whipped with a belt in quite some time. That time, Tyler was about five or six years old. His father was in the shower and Tyler went to the window in the living room. The Manhattanville apartment was a railroad flat and the living room window was huge. Two big panes of glass that were at least 72” x 72”. Tyler saw that there were plant boxes on the sill just before the fire escape and was curious. There were no plants but why were they out there? His curious mind motivated his fingers to dig in the dirt and see. There wasn’t anything except dirt, perlite, and some little seeds. Some of the seeds were tiger-striped a few paler but with dots all over. 

Then his father had come out of the shower, towel around his waist as anger built in his belly.

“Tyler! What the hell are you doing?”

Tyler jumped and almost hit his head on the table by the window. He turned and put his hand up.

“I was just playing in the dirt.”

His father’s face grew dark and terrible. He stormed to the closet and pulled out a belt then stormed back to Tyler and began hitting him with it.

“Stay. The. Fuck. Out. of. My. Shit!” punctuated each swing. The last hit caught Tyler on his right eye brow with such force it sliced it open. Joseph at that moment stopped and regarded what he had done. He stood there quietly then placed his belt back and got his clothes on. He brought out bandages and Mercurochrome then sat with Tyler to clean his wound. Tyler never forgot the sting or the trip to the hospital after Joseph decided he probably should bring him there to get stitches.

Tyler walked onward to school as the recollection faded. The smells of bacon, eggs, and fried bread wafted from the bodegas on the block and entered his nose. He had already eaten breakfast his Grandmother made him but his stomach shifted and yearned. But Tyler kept walking. Maybe on the way back from school, he’d grab a churro he thought to himself.

“Yo! Aye yo, Ty!” 

Tyler turned and saw Alejandro run up to him, his legs flailed as his parochial school clip-tie raced to keep up, blazer in his clutch.

“Hey, Al, what’s up?” said Tyler. Although he was 13, he could have passed for 17 with his height and deep voice.

“Yo, Mr. Park is going to kill me if I don’t get this math in. Lemme copy yours?”

Tyler didn’t get an allowance so he had started a side hustle to make some extra money. He was always top of class although his ‘rival’ Sean was always right there with him in the grade-book. From first grade to eighth, they had this academic rivalry that the other classmates began to recognize and acknowledge. Sean didn’t need to get extra money since he came from a more upper crust family than Tyler. Yet Tyler did what he needed to do. He had a plan and Harlem wasn’t going to be his only option.

“Yeah but you have to mess up a few. At least two. If you have exact answers all of a sudden, he’s going to get suspect.” Tyler warned.

Alejandro smiled. “Cool, cool. But only problem is..”

“What?” Tyler interrupted. “You have to be quick, we have 5 minutes.”

Alejandro reached into his bag and pulled out a small wooden box.

“I don’t have any loot but I do have this. My brother and his crew pulled a B and E. Grabbed some shit from this old bag up in Fort Tryon. Guess her husband was some rich Jew that left her a ton of money and shit. She used to work with my tio’s wife in Riverdale. I guess she was all racist and shit and got my tio’s wife fired. Had some disagreement or some shit. Well she told my bro about what happened so bam.”

Tyler’s stomach turned. He didn’t like dealing with fenced goods and especially if he knew about the source. Money was fine but even then he always felt guilty. But he did it because he had to get out of New York.

“Fuck, man. Really? You know I do cash or something different but..”

Alejandro cut him off when he opened the box and showed it to Tyler.

“Look.” He handed the box to Tyler. He looked at the item. It was a medal of some sort but different from any medal he had ever seen. 

It was almost oval in its shape with intricate carvings. The medal had a good heft to it. It was gold and had a skull at the base with a sword which impaled it along with a hydra. The several hydra heads mouths were open as they looked upon their doom. On the hilt of the sword was a symbol but it had been removed somehow. Tyler rubbed his fingers across the surface. He felt something tell him not to take it, to leave it. It wasn’t an inner voice it was as if someone were whispering it into his ear. The hairs on his neck stood to attention.

“I don’t know man, the whole thing is sketchy.” Tyler murmured. His stomach didn’t feel right. He couldn’t explain it but at the same time, something about this medal spoke to him.

“Come on man, we have two weeks before finals. I do not want to repeat eighth fucking grade, man! Please, por favor, mi amigo, hermano, I am begging you!”

Tyler sighed and took his backpack off. He placed the box in his bag and pulled out his math notebook. Alejandro started to do the Cabbage Patch dance.

“My man. MY MAN!” Alejandro exclaimed.

2

The morning and afternoon classes were the usual teach and reach the youth so Tyler daydreamed. He often looked out the window and into Trinity Church cemetery, the North one not the one Hamilton was buried in. He would think of the weekend with his stepmother while his dad did whatever he did. His father seemed to be infected with something akin to narcissism and rage of an unknown origin. A mortal who believed himself a god but was just a fractured portion of his former self. Something changed in his father and Tyler couldn’t figure it out. He figured he’d be able to build up enough of a shield to his father’s lack of compassion but here he was, 13 years old and unsure of what to think of his own father.

A movement in Tyler’s peripheral vision drew his attention. In the cemetery, a figure was looking around the corner, seemed to look at Tyler. Tyler looked further, strained his eyes in an attempt to see what it was. Was it a tree branch or just a trick of the mind? Then a low whistling almost akin to a building tea kettle started to come from Tyler’s bag. He looked down and the class began to notice the sound. It built up and then stopped. Everyone looked at Tyler then each other. 

“Tyler?” said Mrs. Murphy, the 8th grade Moral Studies teacher, a middle-aged pastor from the Upper East Side,

“Yes, Mrs. Murphy!” Tyler stammered.

“Turn your walkman off and pay attention. Just because your grade average is perfect, your attention isn’t.” she stated matter of factly and switched back into robot mode. All she needed was a chrome body and she’d fit the part of the perfect automaton. She was the mold of all the carbon copy teachers at St. Catherine’s; stoic, religious educators with their heart in the right place but condescending and patronizing. Tyler couldn’t wait for June. He still needed to figure out high school. He had only been accepted to two schools and they were both boarding schools. His father gave him no choice. Either way, at least he could go somewhere else. Tyler was tired of the isolation, the rigid educational upbringing. He was grateful for the knowledge he gained but loathed the man who could not be pleased. 

Tyler thought about what he saw and heard. What the hell was that? He didn’t want to think about where the sound came from. He knew that it was just too out of place. But his mind was weird. He loved the fantastical, the weird, the horror, all of the genre pieces he could absorb. Clive Barker, Stephen King, Frank Herbert, Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Bradbury, Octavia Butler, Harlan Ellison, Heavy Metal magazines, and too much more to mention. Compounded with superstition and tales from his grandmother, it didn’t take long for him to make a conclusion.

He sure as shit knew that the medal was the source of the sound.

He didn’t have to contemplate. His gut tried to warn him after he looked at it. He knew that fucking Alejandro gave him something cursed and whatever the hell he saw in the cemetery wanted it. He looked around and noticed Alejandro wasn’t even in class. So what now? Wait for it to get him after school like some bully at 3 sharp? And what was “it” going to be? A dilemma indeed. He looked at the clock. It was 2:25. Ten minutes before school ended. He had done his morning’s homework during lunch so he didn’t have to study that evening at his grandmother's. And it was Friday so he was going to his father’s apartment for the weekend. The same routine that he had been going through for seven years. Tyler laughed to himself when he realized his father pretty much had been preparing Tyler to never really be around. Sometimes it’s just like that he thought. He had every reason to hurt but didn’t. He had paid attention to what his grandmother told him growing up and she imparted wisdom on him. But what could she say about a possibly cursed medal? Probably a nod and a call to Bellevue.

The bell rang.

Tyler moved at a faster pace back to his grandmother’s because he didn’t have any idea what to do next. Then it occurred to him. Go to the library and research whatever he could about the medal. Someone had to have some information on how to avoid being annihilated by disembodied whistle demons. He fished a quarter out of his pocket and went over to a payphone outside Jose’s Bodega. He picked up the handset and dropped the quarter into the slot then dialed his grandmother’s phone.

“Hello?” answered Tyler’s Aunt Lynn. When she answered the phone it always sounded as if she were a little aggravated you called. That your call was more of an inconvenience to her rather than viewed as a loving gesture from a family member. 

“Hey Aunt Lynn.” Tyler said. “I have to go to the library on 125th for this school project and I will be back a little before dinner. Can you tell Grand?” 

She sighed. “Why does it have to be down there, Tyler? Doesn’t the school have a library?”

“Our library is mostly religious and neutral. I have to. It’s literally life or death.” Tyler replied.

“Fine, but if your father….” she started.

“I will deal with that. Thanks, auntie.” he said and hung up the phone before she could make a last stark warning. 

Yeah, he really needed to get out of Harlem. 

When Tyler arrived to the 125th street location for the New York Public library post-haste, thoughts whirled through his head. He thought of “The Tell-Tale Heart” even though he hadn’t committed a murder and the rest of the class heard it too. That building sound that still irritated his ears. A demon train that whistled its warning it was coming and the destination was unknown. What if it kept building? Louder and louder until the windows blew out and everyone’s ears imploded? Tyler kept whirling the what-ifs in his head. He shook them off and hurried inside.

The library wasn’t too busy considering it was a weekday and the librarian at the Information desk was free for Tyler to ask any questions he may have. At least considering books.

He felt confident he could find something in folklore. Or the supernatural. But how could he pose a question to the librarian without giving her a reason to call the cops and say a crazy 13 year old claims to have heard some demon whistle. He decided the online catalog would be a better idea. At least he could clear the history of the browser. He couldn’t hypnotize a person to forget some crazy brown boy from uptown.

3

When Alejandro arrived back to his mother’s small two bedroom flat, the apartment door was open. His heart skipped a beat then thumped hard, his ears felt the erratic rhythm of his heart, a drumbeat only he could hear. 

“Mama?” he yelled out. “Raul?” Neither his brother or mother answered. It wasn’t like them to leave the door open. Never. Not in Washington Heights. This wasn’t some upstate haven where everyone knows everyone and they don’t lock their doors. Nah, they leave em open, Raul told him awhile back. He knew at least some places did because he robbed them. Westchester County had a few naive neighborhoods like that but not all. And some would be packing a defensive that he couldn’t outwit.

Alejandro looked at the door and noticed the exterior doorknob didn’t look right. That was when he noticed it was crushed. As if it were made from aluminum foil. His heart beat faster. He looked down and saw footprints on the carpet. It looked as if mud and shit were used to leave the impressions behind. Some homeless meth head was walking barefoot with shit and mud on their feet. Alejandro could hear his mother screaming at him already in his head. The future wasn’t looking so bright. “Dios mio,” Alejandro said as he genuflected and punctuated the movement with a kiss on his thumb.

A noise caught Alejandro’s attention coming from one of the bedrooms. He wanted to run but he couldn’t. He had to see what was going on. His abuela taught him that fear is the last step before action. And although he was small guy, he wasn’t afraid of getting in a scrap. His brother made sure of that. He reached into his bag and pulled out a blackjack his dead father left for Raul. 

Their father, Jorge, was a fierce street cat back in the day, when Vietnam ended and the Black Panthers were being eliminated. He had been in Philly the day the police firebombed MOVE in 1985 and was mistakenly picked up, accused of being part of the MOVE organization. His only association was with a member of the organization and Jorge had been seen leaving the doomed building MOVE housed their liberation group. Being who he was, brash, stubborn, and combative, he tried to get away. He almost would have too. The four policeman knew they had been in a fight because Jorge fucked them up. But while he ran away, adrenaline coursing through his veins and an emerging grin on his face as he reveled in his victory, one of the cops fired on him. Five bullets ripped through Jorge’s back. One of them severed his spinal column and made Jorge fall to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. Alejandro didn’t know that part. His mother wouldn’t allow her son to know his father died as dishonorably as he did.

Alejandro steeled himself and held the blackjack in his grip. His right right trembled, his legs yelled run, but he crept towards his room. 

BOOM!

Someone was definitely in his room. Some homeless ass fool broke in! His shit! Some homeless dude broke in and was going for his and his brother’s booty. Uh nah, he thought. Not today!

He decided the element of surprise would be the best strategy since he didn’t think a homeless pendejo would be much of a challenge. He ran into the room with his blackjacked hand ready to attack when he saw it. 

A shifting, massive hulk of a thing made of mud, shit, and glass faced away from Alejandro. Its arms, or what it was using as arms, pulled books and shelves down as it searched through Alejandro’s hidden larcenies. Its back made crunching noises that made Alejandro’s teeth itch and his ears ring as glass and rock clinked and rubbed high frequencies akin to a wet finger along a thin wine glass, mud moved like sentient beings in the muscle and sinew, veins of crack vials and knuckles adorned with hypodermic needles. What in the fuck was this thing, he thought? I have to be dreaming. I got hit by a car or something and I’m in hell. Oh fuck, he thought. Fuck fuck fuck! 

And the stench. It was absolutely putrid. Like burning bodies slathered in shit, honey, gasoline, pepper, garlic, and death. He did his best not to throw up or piss himself in fear. But when Alejandro finally made his move, he did so by emptying his bowels and bladder followed by vomiting, blackjack scattered to the ground, Alejandro not far behind. He began to cry and the thing turned around. It turned fast and leapt over towards Alejandro like an agile cat. By then, Alejandro wanted to just die, he had no answer for anyone as to why he soiled himself and purged so violently, why this thing from a hellish sewer was in his home, why he wished he could just wake up and hug his mama and change his tune.

“Whheeeeeerreeeeee,” bellowed from the bowels of this demonic scourge. “Isssss itttt?”

Alejandro couldn’t find the words in his mouth. His brain couldn’t comprehend anything, couldn’t possibly fathom how in all that was holy this thing could be here. Existing. And he thought of his mother, his brother, his abuela. He began to cry. He found his voice but he didn’t plea.

“What?” he stammered over his ragged breathing. “Where is what?!”

“Theeeee keyyyyy?” boomed out of its belly.

Alejandro passed out into a black pool of night and accepted whatever fate lay ahead of him. At least he wouldn’t be awake to witness his own death, he chuckled to himself darkly as his head fell into darkness. And the ghastly beast placed its filth-caked hand unto Alejandro’s head.

4

Tyler had gone through as many books as he could in an hour’s time. The library was due to close at 5 and he could already hear his grandmother scolding him in his mind. 

“If your father knew you didn’t come right home, boy, you’d might as well done stayed where you was!”

But at least he’d know what to expect from his father. In this case, this was “devil you didn’t know” shit and he had to find out what to do or…

He had fought the thought off because he didn’t want to be looked at as a punk ass but he didn’t rob anybody of their cursed medal. Give it back to Alejandro, this is not what you bargained for. Just as he finished his thought, a flash appeared in his eyes, a eureka moment.  A medal. That’s what it looked like, he thought. 

The lights flickered on then off. A scattered yell was heard and a book fell to the floor with a THUD!

Tyler jumped and looked towards the noise. A thick book laid sprawled on the floor. As Tyler walked over, a slight breeze from his approach nudged the page of the book and when Tyler looked down, the nape of his neck grew cold.

The book hadn’t been there before but here it was. The book was a book of war medals from various eras and the page was opened on a page about German war medals during the Nazi regime. On this page lie an exact copy of the one that Tyler had in his possession. It was a Bandenkampfabzeichen, a bandit-warfare badge given to Nazi Germany airmen, army soldiers, the Order Police, and Waffen-SS who engaged in fighting insurrections or resistance to their party during wartime. The example in the book was in better shape with oaken leaves detailed on the example where the one that Tyler had was worn. And the symbol on Tyler’s version where the marking was, a Nazi swastika appeared on the original in the example. The lights flickered again and Tyler’s heart skipped a beat. He didn’t know exactly what was happening but he knew one thing. 

The medal had to go back to its owner. Somehow, this medal was linked to something much deeper than anything Tyler could imagine. Book, movie, whatever. This was real. This was supernatural. This was not his story to tell and he needed to find the narrator. 

He placed the book back on the shelf and grabbed his bag. The medal was quiet. Tyler hoped it stayed that way.

Tyler headed to the train station on Broadway and 125th and hoped he wouldn’t run into his father. It was 4:58 and his father got off at 125th. On the same side as Tyler would be on. He didn’t feel like dealing with it and just wanted to get to his grandmother’s. Ironically, his father’s place was just up the street from the station. He could have gone over and said Hey Dad, want to hang out, but that wouldn’t go over well. No it wouldn’t have at all.

He made it to the subway platform and waited. The thoughts in his head whirled and ducked, his insides churned, and his palms were sweaty. He grew anxious so he held the straps of his bookbag with his thumbs crooked in between them and his outer armpits. It made him feel comfortable and secure as if he was a paratrooper steeling himself before a jump out of a plane. The rumble of the #1 line started to come from the left. He stepped to the edge of the platform and craned towards the emerging sound, to see if maybe it was the middle track instead, the express barreling Uptown.

It was the #1 train heading uptown towards the Bronx. He steeled himself and hoped Alejandro could tell him who the old lady was Raul ripped off. If he could get it back to the original owner then whatever this thing was trying to do or conjure could stop.  The train stopped and Tyler boarded and stood facing west towards New Jersey.  As he stepped on the train, his father stepped off and happened to see Tyler get on. He grimaced and anger began to show in his darkening face.  Joseph debated whether he should go home, call his mother, see if Grandma would cover for her grandson.  As the doors closed, Tyler’s father stepped back on the train and watched Tyler. Watched him lay his head on the subway car door and start mouthing words to himself. Tyler started to say the Hail Mary. ...pray for us sinners….

5

Alejandro woke up to the sound of his screaming mother and shocked brother. Dios mio, hijo! Que paso? First, Alejandro couldn’t believe that he wasn’t dead. Second, the room that had earlier been scattered and destroyed by a garbage-drug-shit demon, Alejandro’s closest approximation of whatever that thing was, had left no trace behind.  No rancid smells or disgusting displays of insanity. And he hadn’t vomited all over or soiled himself. Although he didn’t know if that was sweat or urine in his underwear. His mother asked why his keys were still in an open door, you know that idiots and thieves live here in rapid Spanish. Es que las drogas? He shook his head, “No, mama, no drugs. Just, didn’t feel so good. I must have passed out. And I had a bad dream.” Raul still hadn’t said anything, just looked at Alejandro, pale and disturbed by what his brother had just said. Raul’s head began to throb.

Raul had gone to meet a fence of his the previous night. When Raul arrived at the agreed upon location, Riverside Park by 145th and the Hudson River, his guy didn’t show. What did show up was a man in a German soldier’s outfit and instead of medals, he had gold teeth on his chest where the normal arrangement of fruit cocktail would go. A holstered Luger P08 was strapped on his right outer thigh and a sheathed long-knife strapped to his other thigh. His uniform was not ragged but it wasn’t crisp either. It looked as if he had been in a few skirmishes. The pants bore cuts and rips, probably the result of an enemy combatant attack or a fall in an attempt to avoid gunfire. 

The man walked eagerly towards Raul with an eerie smile that grew wider and wider showing black teeth with bits of worms slumbered between the gums but it was too dark for Raul to see the wretched display in full detail. He asked Raul a question over and over again. "Wo ist es? Dieses Ding gehört dir nicht!"  Raul turned to run and the park went dark with a chorus of streetlights that exploded and fell to the ground. A high-frequency crescendo of glass showered down on to the grass, concrete, and Raul.  That’s when he ran. He ran as fast as he could towards Riverside Drive but before he could make it ten feet, he tripped over one of the seesaws and tumbled to the ground. The wind left his lungs in a wheeze when he hit the ground and as he looked upwards towards the monkey bars to his left, the German soldier looked down at Raul perched high above his prey. 

"Wo ist es? Dieses Ding gehört dir nicht!"the German soldier said and jumped down with a speed so frightening Raul didn’t have a chance to scream. Raul sobbed and dug his heels into the ground while his elbows scampered away in an attempt to get his body away from this thing. This soldier with nothing better to do but yell a language Raul couldn’t place. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you want!” Raul screamed. “"¡Ve al infierno, hijo de una puta diablo!"

The soldier then spoke in an accented English. “Give me the key!” Then suddenly, inexplicably, the streetlights came alight again and although the filaments inside should have been in pieces, they were still intact and shone brighter than any energy could have possibly powered. And the illumination showed the details of the soldier’s face.

The flesh on the soldier’s face looked as if it were melted down to the muscle and bone. When he opened his mouth to speak, worms, maggots, and spiders fell out in black pools of blood. It fell unto Raul’s face and went into his open, paralyzed mouth. He wretched and vomited. The thing smelled of the nastiest public restrooms from Grand Central, Penn Station, the Port Authority and any porn theater combined. The thing grabbed Raul and he yelled for his savior, whomever would listen. Jesus! Mary! Joseph! Methuselah! Anyone! He blacked out into a blinding light and the thing shoved it’s hand deep into Raul’s mouth. Then black. That was all he remembered besides coming to and seeing that the lights weren’t popped out. His throat was sore but that was most likely from screaming he realized. 

And he also realized that the stories his abuela told him held weight.

“Spirits exist,” she had warned him, old-school from beginning to the end. “Don’t piss off the wrong ones.”

Raul went over to his brother and helped him up, brought him up like a child who had fallen off their bike.  He assisted Alejandro to his room and laid him down on his bed. A Hulk Hogan WWF wrestling buddy fell over unto Alejandro as he laid down and he jumped. He bent down and whispered to his brother. “Que paso?” Raul said nervously. “You didn’t just pass out, bro.” Alejandro started to shiver, a cold slither through his veins. He remembered the thing, how could he not, but the door knob? The trail of shit and dirt down the hall to his room? 

“Dude, there was a demon in my room,” Alejandro whispered back to Raul. Raul didn’t know how to respond. Alejandro didn’t need any further inquiry. He sat up and looked Raul dead in the eye like abuela. “I don’t know what in the hell you stole but it spoke to me. In my head. I blacked out and remember it’s hand on my head.” He swallowed as he started to get cold and clammy. Alejandro felt like he was going to vomit. He jumped up, pushed Raul out of the way, grabbed his wastebasket from beside his desk and released whatever else was left in his stomach. The thought of that thing touching him so close to his mouth made him remember the smell, the smell that suddenly wasn’t there but in Alejandro’s mind, it would always be there. Reminding him. 

“I didn’t know what was going on.” Alejandro said. “First I come here then this thing was in my room, wrecking the hell out if!” Raul stood there, unsure if his brother was crazy too, just like him. Then Raul confessed. “Last night, I was supposed to meet up with my guy, you know, the one with the van?” Alejandro blinked. Raul grew impatient, “Stuff falls off, he sells it for cheap?” Alejandro got it then. Raul continued, “I go there and he ain’t there. But this weird fucking dude in a soldier’s outfit comes up to me, saying some shit in a language I don’t know. Lights go popping everywhere, glass falling all over! I’m scrambling to get the hell up out of there!” Alejandro interrupted his brother.

“What the fuck, bro?” Alejandro asked through gritted teeth.

Raul seemed to have no answer. “Yo no se,” Raul said low.

The intercom buzzed and they both jumped. “Dios mio, ahora que?” said their mother while she walked over to find out who it was. She pressed the Talk button and asked suspiciously, “Quien es?” then pressed the Listen button. Tyler’s voice came over the buzzing speaker, “Lo siento, Mrs. Ruiz, is Alejandro there? It’s an emergency. School stuff.” It was 5:20PM. “And I need to call my Grandma.” She sighed and buzzed him in. Two minutes passed and the doorbell rang. Mrs. Ruiz opened the door and a wide-eyed Tyler awaited her. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept for two days. His back was wet with sweat and it would have been downright drenched had he noticed his father stalking him earlier. If he had been aware that during the five block walk from the 157th St station to 152nd his father had been following him, he would have sprinted. Run forever away from him. But he hadn’t noticed. He couldn’t have because his father was calculating, shrewd, and deceptive. If Tyler wouldn’t follow the rules then he would remind him what happens when he doesn’t listen. 

Mrs. Ruiz nodded and opened the door for Tyler to enter. Tyler went to the phone first to call his Grandma. He picked up the receiver and dialed. The Ruizes were so old-school they still had the circular dial phone. He chuckled to himself as he waited for the phone to pick up. “Hello?” asked his grandma.

“Grand! It’s Tyler! I’m really sorry but I called earlier to let Auntie know I had to go to the library on 125th,” he said. “You know how she gets and I didn’t want Dad to get all stupid about it.” She took a deep breath and Tyler couldn’t tell if it was aggravation, relief, or what. “Honey, you know I trust you. It’s everyone else I don’t. And sometimes that includes your father,” she said. “Dinner is going to be ready by 6. If your father calls, I’ll deal with him. You do know I love you, right?” Tyler felt tears start to come but he didn’t have time. “Yes, I do, and I love you too, Grand,” Tyler said. “I will try to be home soon.” Tyler hung up the phone and turned to Alejandro and Raul. “We need to talk,” Tyler said and brought the two into Raul’s room.

Tyler closed the door and turned to Raul. “Ok, tell me where you got this?” Tyler said and pulled out the medal. Raul looked at Alejandro then Tyler and grew visibly angry. “Alejandro, what the fuck, man? You took that out my stash?” Raul said doing his best not to raise his mother’s suspicions. Alejandro looked at Raul then Tyler with sheepish eyes. “I can’t fail outta school! I didn’t have money to give Tyler for his help so I gave him that. The fuck, man? You want me to be stuck here too like you?” Alejandro threw back at Raul. He had failed out of school at 16 and never went back. It had been four years and he still hadn’t gotten his GED, still ran with the wrong crowd with a few of them having left NYC for brighter futures. Raul began to grow hotter in his anger and Tyler defused it. He said, “Come on. Let’s go for a ride.” The two brothers looked at each other then Tyler then the trio headed downstairs.

6

Tyler, Raul, and Alejandro left the apartment to an open-mouthed Mrs. Ruiz who genuflected before she went to the kitchen to make menudo soup. 

Tyler sprung for a gypsy cab. He still needed to get back before his overbearing father would have any idea as to what may have happened. It had been a hell of a day and he would definitely tell his stepmom about it but he couldn’t expect his Grandmother to vouch for him too much longer. He had to find a way to make it up to her, he thought to himself. Maybe an Atlantic City weekend for her. She’d like that.

The three young men scurried down towards Broadway. Tyler hailed a gypsy cab, the non-medallion holders who operated among the fleets of yellow cabs throughout NYC. The gypsy cabs operated in a decentralized fashion, undermining the already established yellow cabbies who toiled almost all their lives to pay off the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the coveted medallion that proved you paid off your cab. Hundreds of different gypsy cab companies existed at one point.

A red Lincoln pulled up to the curb and the three jumped in the back. “Donde?” asked the cab driver to no one in particular. Tyler looked over to Raul. “Where exactly did you get it?” Tyler asked him. Raul looked confused. “Wait? What are we doing again?” Tyler realized that he hadn’t shared anything about what in the hell was going on. Alejandro, who sat in between the other two, looked over to Tyler and gave a slight head shake and mouthed “No.” The cab driver began to get irritated. “Donde, matecons?!” he said in a firm voice but one that was beginning to lose the patience on its edges.

Tyler reached into his bag and as he pulled the medal out of his bookbag, he saw his father standing on the sidewalk next to him. His father’s eyes were dark and stormy, a look of apparent disappointment piercing into Tyler’s very soul. Time seemed to have stopped at that point for Tyler but his father moved towards the cab nonetheless. Tyler tried to yell out and the words caught in his throat. His father reached the door and just as his hand approached the handle, the cab took off. The cab driver yelled again, “Donde?!” Tyler snapped out of it and held the medal in Raul’s face. 

“Where did you get this and the other stuff?” Tyler questioned Raul. He squirmed and nudged Alejandro in the rib. Raul shook his head and just blurted, “Fort Tryon Rehab. third floor, second room on the left.” He glared at Alejandro but looked down in shame as he remembered the other night. He didn’t feel the urge to piss earlier but he did now.

“Fucking finally,” the gypsy driver said and took off uptown towards the Port Authority on 178th, nestled just by the George Washington bridge. Tyler thought that maybe he should just go. He should just go and never turn back. His father already knew he was out and not at Grandma’s. He knew that no matter what, he could make it but damn, why did he have to feel as if he had to go? No matter what, he felt that waiting four more years to get away wasn’t soon enough. And when he turned back to see if his father was still standing there, his heart quickened more so when he saw that his father was raising his arm up to hail a cab for himself.

“What the fuck, man?” Raul said as he slapped Alejandro in the back of the head. “Fucking snitch!” Tyler interrupted Raul as he turned back from watching his father begin his tail on their cab going uptown. His father most likely pissed the hell off that his son is out here doing whatever he wants and thinking he’ll get away with it, oh hell’s no! No, not today.

“Listen man, whether you want to listen or not, there is some crazy ass shit going on and it started with this here!” Tyler said as low as he could while emphasizing the gravity of the situation and also so the cab driver wouldn’t drive them to the nuthouse. “You robbed someone. So what, I don’t give a shit!” Tyler began to grow more confident with each word as if he were building up the strength to see the return of the medal to its rightful or cursed owner. He turned to Alejandro. “And don’t ever ask me for a favor, man. Cash or not, I don’t care!” Alejandro looked down and looked as if he were going to dry. Tyler grew ashamed at seeing his school friend turn into one of those pitiful kids portrayed in movies so dramatically but he was tired. And he wanted to just be done with it. All of it. This life, this day-to-day. He didn’t want to die but he just didn’t know how he was going to live.

They arrived to the nursing facility and exited the cab after Tyler paid the seven dollars for a little over a mile of travel. Everyone was quiet, a mournful silence that was interrupted by the squeal of the gypsy cab’s wheels as it rushed off for more fares. Tyler turned to the two brothers and sighed. “This has to work. I’m going to go up and bring this back to whoever you stole this from,” Tyler said. “And don’t worry if you think I’m going to narc. Where was it?” He looked at Raul and waited. Raul got the hint and said, “Just put it on her dresser.” He skulked over to a raised concrete bed that housed a lone tree and sat on one of the four ledges, hands in his pockets seemingly mulling over his life. Alejandro looked at Tyler and gave a slight nod and walked over to his brother.

Tyler went inside and expected some sort of security but if that were the case, Raul never would have been able to get through. Whatever Raul may have told his brother could have been bullshit anyway. The facility reeked of age, death, and hand sanitizers. Tyler shuddered to think of his own grandmother being in such a place. He couldn’t leave her behind in a place like this. He shook the thought of his grandmother dying out of his head and took the stairway to the third floor onward to the second room on the left. 

He arrived to the third floor expecting some sort of activity but the place was quiet with a lonely drone of the tv coming from the common room. Then a nurse came out of nowhere and startled him.  The nurse chuckled and asked, “Are you lost? Or are you one of them high schoolers coming in and reading to the old folks?” Tyler ran with it since she gave him a good excuse. “Yeah, I was told to come see the lady over here, 2nd room on the left, Mrs..” Tyler said before she interrupted him. “Ms. Boland? She’s in there. Just got her meds not too long ago. Dinner is soon so you have about 20 minutes.” She sauntered off before Tyler could respond. 

He walked into her room. She was a smaller woman maybe in her late 80s. Not frail but small and solid. Her white wispy hair draped down unto her shoulders which barely covered a long scar just at her neck, a white keloid on her pale skin, her hands corded wood knotted by time and arthritis on top of the scratchy hospital blanket. She lay quiet and peered at the TV mounted on the wall, an unwavering eye of images and commercials. She hardly noticed Tyler or at least didn’t seem to care. He walked in slowly and pulled the medal out of his bag. He looked at the box it came in and realized he had never really looked at it. He pulled it closer, noting the deep shades of crimson and brown patinas that permeated the box and how it almost felt like sparks of electricity at times as he rolled it between both hands. 

He placed the box on the dresser and began to walk away when Ms. Boland whispered something. He turned and saw she was now looking at him. He froze and wondered if she would yell for help, if he would wind up in jail for whatever they would charge him with. But she didn’t yell. She raised her hand towards him, beckoned him to come closer. He went over towards her and felt that he should at least offer some form of apology. He reached her bedside on her left. She raised her hand and took his hand into hers. “The box,” she whispered. “Is it back?” Her accent was a mix of Manhattan and Eastern European. He looked over to the dresser and back at her. He nodded and said, “I want to apolo..” but before he could finish she said, “Bring it to me.” He grabbed the box and gave it to her. 

She began to tell a story. “My husband and child should have been here. But they were taken.” Tyler didn’t understand but he listened. Then she grabbed his hand again and Tyler suddenly was thrust into another place. A war-torn village. He couldn’t fathom it but it made sense. At least as much sense as the rest of the day. He heard her narrate in his head as images came to him in fast flashes like a movie reel montage of death and destruction. Men, women and children ran in tears and fear, German soldiers and warfare bandits shot and killed the younger men as the women and children fled and hid to no avail. Ms. Boland’s fantastical narration continued. “They came for us in droves. Nazis with no souls hunting us down like rabid dogs. But my father, his father, and his before him had secrets. Secrets that were passed down until the last of the line. To me. It protected us. Some of us.” 

Then suddenly Tyler was thrust into a still moment yet one full of fear and dread. He was in a dark small space. A woman and a young boy were cramped in the space as well. They paid no regard to Tyler because he wasn’t actually there; he was part of some mystical remembrance brought on by Ms. Boland. That was the best approximation he could gather. The boy held the box that caused all this craziness, Tyler thought. Then something shifted in the darkness with the woman and child. It growled low but not like a dog. And without warning, a bright light entered the cramped space which was revealed to be a cubby under a set of stairs. A silhouette appeared and stood in the way of the light. Then the low growl became a roar. A huge beast rushed out and tackled the soldier that stood in the doorway. It tore at the soldier as he screamed. Tyler couldn’t figure out what it was but it looked like a wolf and bear hybrid experiment. It’s claws tore at the soldier and gunshots rang out from some other soldiers that were witness to this mauling. The bullets tore through the soldier and beast but the beast was unscathed. And then suddenly a low moan and series of No No No NO began to come from the woman’s mouth. Tyler looked and saw that one of the bullets intended for the monster had hit the boy and the woman. The boy laid in the woman’s arms, eyes open as blood poured from a wound just above his left eye. The bullet that killed her son had ricocheted and hit her neck. Then Tyler realized that this was Ms. Boland. Her voice cut through the fog.

“My son and husband both died that day. And something changed in me. And so, I embraced what I needed to survive.”

Tyler witnessed the beast transform into a dark light and go into the Ms. Boland from the past and Ms. Boland began to turn into something like the beast but even more monstrous. It broke out of the hiding space and tore the remaining soldiers apart. Their screams echoed and stopped. Then Tyler was brought back to his present, back from the journey he shared with Ms. Boland. 

“And you do too,” she said to him. “You brought something back to me that was stolen. And I don’t believe you took it but this has to be kept. This has to be trusted to someone who will be able to do what has to be done.” Tyler didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” he asked. She smiled at him weakly. 

“You’re the keeper, now,” she said. “Use it wisely.” She handed the box to him and closed her eyes. A smile on her face, she breathed deep and easy. Tyler looked at the box and began to cry. He didn’t know why but he fathomed that life is rarely explainable.

He walked out and headed to his friends. How would he explain this to them? What could he do to convince them he wasn’t crazy? But then again, he didn’t have to explain anything to them. As far as they knew, it was done. They could talk about the crazy shit later. 

Tyler reached the ground floor and once he went outside, he noticed that Raul and Alejandro had left. He sighed and realized he didn’t even care. It didn’t matter anymore. Tyler had just been given an heirloom that held more questions than answers for him but he knew it was up to him. Without knowing exactly what it would be, he was confident he would be ready to deal with whatever he had to. Because that was just how it was in New York City. 

He rushed down to Broadway to catch a cab to his grandmother’s when he heard a whistle behind him.

“Tyler!”

It was his father. 

“Tyler! What the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you at your grandmother’s!”

Tyler began to run before he realized he didn’t have to run. This day was going to come eventually.

He stopped and waited for his father to come up to him. Joseph walked up to Tyler. His eyes were bulging and sweat dripped off his hot forehead. His breathing was ragged and sounded like a bull about to charge. Tyler stood at about the same height as his father and just looked at him. Glared even.

“Who the hell do you think you are? Running with your homies, smoking crack, weed, or whatever the fuck you doing? This what you want? This the life you looking forward to living?” his father yelled while spit flew out of his mouth. Tyler sighed and said, “You act like you care but you don’t.” His father’s face turned to shock. He reached back and began to swing at Tyler but Tyler stopped him. He blocked a right that his father had thrown at him with a deftness unlike a martial artist.  Joseph pulled back and tried again. Tyler stepped to the side and his father fell face first into the pavement. Tyler felt as if something gracefully pulled him away from his father’s phantom blow. His father yelled out, “Fuck you, boy! If I knew what I knew now, I never would have had you!” Tyler stood there and looked at the sad man on the concrete, hurt by his own actions but unwilling to accept his own culpability.

“You don’t have to worry about me again. Not like you ever did anyway.” Tyler walked off, tears in his eyes because he would miss his Grandma. He would miss some of the things he did with his stepmother. But he couldn’t be here anymore. And although he felt like he should be cursing Alejandro, cursing his family, cursing God even, he realized he didn’t have to. He didn’t need to be what they wanted him to be. He could be whatever he chose to be. And he chose to be free.

Tyler’s family tried looking for him but after five years of searching, they declared him dead in absentia. His father never spoke of him and Tyler’s stepmom divorced Joseph the week after Tyler disappeared. His grandmother mourned him until her death two months after they declared him dead although a body was never found. Alejandro and Raul became police officers after Tyler disappeared and still did what they could to find the friend they left behind, the one who cleaned up their mess and never had a chance to thank for saving their miserable asses. They didn’t believe he died. They knew deep down that he was alive and he was free.

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