On the Lips of Children Read online

  Voices zigzagged from the shadows.

  “Mr. Hank, Mr. Hank, the alarm…”

  “You spilled the cart. You spilled the cart.”

  “You knocked it over, did you?”

  “He’s alone. He’s alone. He’s some kind of jogger. It’s okay, he’s not one of them.”

  “But he broke the cart. It’s done. It’s all gone.”

  “Who’s got smokes?”

  “Early yet for radio waves. Don’t let him see your retina.”

  “Shut up, psycho.”

  Indecipherable curses from down in the ditch continued. The gargoyle figure who seemed to be stooping over it all came down from his perch and approached.

  “Sorry about that,” Macon said, speaking first. “I was just running. I didn’t mean to lose your stuff. It was just impossible to see.”

  Macon’s knees were bent, and his body was ready to spring forth in a run should he need to flee. A circle of eyes watched him. Bodies walking covered with blankets made shadows of themselves and looked like monks.

  The man in front of Macon wasn’t a threat, not by himself, but he carried himself strong. His hair was bushy and his beard was long, but seemingly groomed because it had that majesty of a king. He was dressed with a black hoody, gloves, and pants that looked like they were the bottom parts of suspenders. He saw the brand Dickeys stenciled on them. Good brand. Probably the envy of his clan.

  “I’m sorry man, but you left it right in front of the trail. Nobody would ever have gotten through here without hitting it. You want me to help you get it back?” Macon made a half-move toward the ditch, as if ready to help the poor, raggedy man who was already wrestling with the shopping cart, yet he also felt another urge to dash down the trail and find out how much his knee really hurt. Instead he stood his ground and felt like a dog ready to have his ass smelled by the home-team pooch.

  “You,” the man said. “You are someone from beyond. You should pass freely. But why do you push this down from here? And you have no dogs; you have no place here. Just go. Go and leave us.”

  “He’s not from the family, not from the family. You sure, Mr. Hank? You got that right, Mr. Hank?” a crouched man said.

  “Be silent and still and look at him yourself if you wish,” Mr. Hank answered. “Tourist from some rich place.”

  “No, really, I can help you. Listen, I’ll come back and…” Macon stopped and scanned his surroundings. Attentive eyeballs and muttering lips continued around him. Finally one person approached with his voice blazing loud.

  “Spare some cash? Spare some green? Singles, got any singles? You need a ride? I got a bike, a real good one.”

  Macon decided he’d stayed long enough to not seem rude, but any longer would make him seem responsible for this mess, so he turned to run, quickly dashing the last bit through the dark underpass. His knee throbbed with each step.

  Just a bruise that will go away once I’m fully warmed up, he decided, and with every step further down the trail, the contaminated air from the homeless monks faded, and clean oxygen took its place.

  But this freshness soon faded, and he sensed a shroud come upon him. The click-click-clicking noise of a bike was approaching. Someone was right behind him, and Macon picked up his stride to a near sprint and looked over his shoulder. Not one, but two homeless bike riders, side by side, were steady behind him—chasing him maybe.

  To his left was a steep incline full of rocks and to his right an overgrown ditch.

  What the hell. They were homeless, frail, and starving, and he would go ape-shit all over them if they did anything. He imagined his swings, his fists on faces, but instead kept pace and felt strong. They would see how strong and be amazed when they couldn’t even catch this marathon man.

  His legs gained strength with each step. His body was a machine, crafted over months of training so that a super exoskeleton spread over him. Clean lungs acted as a carburetor, and finely tuned legs and arms pumped liked pistons.

  Wings. He would get wings inked on his legs identical to the one’s Erin had upon hers. Erin had a tiny pair of wings just above the passage from her favorite poem, the famous Robert Frost piece. The line And miles to go before I sleep was tattooed on her calf.

  Just a few miles, and slow. Erin had left him with rules for this run. She was full of rules: how much to eat, when to eat, how much to drink, when to run fast, how to run efficient, all sorts of high-maintenance guidelines. But he wanted to run raw and primitive and would turn down the drinks and the energy gels that looked like thrown-up bile anyway. He would love the feel of his muscles and bones being ravaged. Attack Life. It’s Going To Kill You Anyways.’This was Macon’s rule and the only text he had ever written upon his own body.

  Still, at times he humbly gave in to her rules and took an energy GU, drank the piss-yellow Gatorade, or slowed his pace when the urge was to sprint. They ran up and down their city streets, trails, and a zillion paths Erin had run on her own, and now Macon was along for the ride. She was right; it was a primal experience.

  But he never expected to be running followed by these dregs. Could he punch a homeless man?

  It was at a Jack In The box just yesterday that a young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, in a white tank top and overgrown jean shorts, sat outside and said, “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me. Do you think you can help me out with a few dollars so I can eat today?”

  She asked kindly and humbly, perhaps rehearsed, but Macon paused and pondered. The rest of his family was already in the car, doors closed, and he had to decide whether to join them or give this person some money; perhaps for a burger, but probably for something else: heroin, booze, her pimp.

  “Sorry. Good Luck,” Macon said with a smile and got back into the car.

  He made sure not to make eye contact before they drove off.

  “Daddy, what did that girl want?” Lyric asked from the back seat.

  “Some people ask for money for something to eat, but you never know if that’s what they really want. It’s very hard, Lyric.”

  I should have brought the girl inside the restaurant and bought her a meal, he realized later. It would have either called her bluff or fed her, and he could have been on his way without this guilty aftertaste.

  And these two men now pursuing him, from the same legions as the Jack In The Box girl. He looked over his shoulder and saw they were still behind him, not pedaling fast or even trying to catch up, and Macon realized they weren’t pursuing him but only following, tracking him. And now he was sure he could punch a homeless man and was pretty sure their rotting teeth would be easy to knock out.

  “Hey, hey, whatcha doing, Boss?” one of the bicycle men blurted just behind Macon’s ear. “Why you running so fast? Damn, I can’t keep up.” Macon slowed his pace. The tone in the straggler’s voice was kind and seemed to Macon as if from a peasant to his king.

  “That’s better, Boss. I’m coming along. Just like Hank says, you be right in front of me. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “Yes, it’s like that, just like that, you see,” the homeless friend mimicked. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

  The bikes looked brand new. Macon recognized them as Kestrels, probably stolen; certainly not the type you’d expect homeless men to be riding. Were they telling him that they could hurt him if they wanted to, or just smelling Macon’s fear? He wasn’t sure. Either way, he needed to get rid of these two lurkers, get his run in, and go home. Social conventions be damned. It would have been easier had they attacked; then he could get away with a couple of hits.

  “Going to walk now,” Macon announced, and slowed down his pace, moving to the side to let them pass. Instead, they coasted right up to him, and he got a closer look.

  One man had gaunt cheeks that hung slack over his skull, and you could see skin waggle under his chin, like a turkey. Macon saw the faded SD letters of his San Diego Padres baseball hat. The other man was tiny, his back hunched over, and it was clear he was more sidekick than leader. A textur
e of hair that looked like steel wool covered his head and his scarred face. Patches covered his skin like he was a burn victim.

  The Padre and the burn victim, come to chase him down.

  “Okay, you walk. We’re okay with that, too. You walk to the beach, that’s where we’re going. But stay by us. Hank will be okay with that.”

  Macon thought about turning around, shooting back, and then realized he’d have to run right by this Hank dude again, and that didn’t sound too fun either. The trail’s a bit infected, but Macon could hang with these two. He prided himself on rubbing elbows with kings and queens, and beggars from alleys.

  “You want to race me instead? How would your Hank feel about that?”

  “Well, kind sir, you fancy yourself a cheetah or something?” said Padre-hat.

  “Well, my good man, you may have a head start.”

  “You’ll see. You’ll see,” said the burn victim sidekick.

  Macon’s headphones had long ago been put away since it was clear he would need all his senses, and now he had these two strange trainers to push him along. He darted off, the two disciples at his back.

  The water next to him seemed to have gotten deeper, or the air around him quieter, because he could hear tiny waterfalls from the ravine bubbling and gurgling. A descent was up ahead, this one clearly at a steeper pitch below a darker tunnel. The highway up the rocky hill was fully out of site, but car headlights zooming by still caused shadows against the boulders that lined the steep incline. His escorts slowed just before the drop, curling off to one side to a place where the foliage seemed to open, as if it were a regular parking spot where bikes had gone before.

  “We can’t make this pitch, Boss,” the Padre said. “You keep going. You have a good day, you hear.”

  Macon let gravity pull at him and suck him down. It tugged at his chest, and his footstrikes zapped at a faster cadence, gaining speed and hammering his hamstrings. Blood pumped deeper into his muscles. Damn this feels good. The full darkness of the underpass swallowed him, and momentum carried him underneath the bridge.

  Then he felt a sharp pain of something slicing into his leg and an electric jolt went through his spine. Digits had reached out and clasped around his calf, so he lifted his leg with force and took the next stride, ripping his leg away. Nails scratched along his flesh as the digits released and he stumbled on, losing his balance but staying on foot with the speed of the hill still behind him.

  He turned to look but kept running, gazing back over his shoulder, running on the edge of control, but wondering if he was being chased. He wanted to strike back, to drag the person living under the bridge out of the dark, into the light and destroy them. He imagined them with an unshaven, sunken face full of despair, but with a desperate claw trying to grab onto any life that passed them by since they had no life of their own.

  Instead of revenge he let out a bellowing roar of curses meant for the troll under the bridge to hear and ran on. The throbbing of his knee from the shopping cart hadn’t faded yet, and now the stinging of scratches, like five prickly thorns from the errant branch of a bush, graced his skin. But the ocean was calling, the end of this run was near, and tomorrow at the marathon, nothing—nothing would stop him from moving forward. He had miles to go, children to raise, a woman to love, and wedding plans to make.

  Thank God Lyric and Erin aren’t here, he thought, and he mentally rehearsed the watered-down version he would tell her, if he said anything at all.

  Just then, two bikes, one at each of his sides, came cruising by. The bikers muttered something, but the words moved with them too swift for Macon to hear. The wind of them passing spun his senses, like his brain was a weather vane, and his thoughts and decisions were being shuffled. He decided to slow to a walk, let the bouncing balls in his brain come to rest, and looked around. Nobody was in sight, and the two red bike reflectors had nearly faded into the distance. He walked in a circle, looked up to the sky, and then down at his calf.

  Someone had tattooed him, barely broke the skin, but it was hard to tell in the dark. He took his finger to his mouth, grabbed a wad of saliva, reached down, and rubbed repeatedly on the scratches, trying to wipe away any foreign homeless residue of who-knows-what, which was living under these places. The scratches felt like tiny bumps on perforated papers, and only small droplets of blood inside seemed to have seeped through.

  There’s tunnels, tunnels all through here. Marcos had warned him.

  This pain would be like any other tattoo and become a part of him. His life on both sides of the tattoo gun confirmed how pain becomes life affirming, how the tiny cells being inked become more alive, on fire, and electric. Like all of those who he had sunk the needle into, he knew that pain is a chemical rush. Having your atoms spin furiously at the height of sensation just make you feel more alive.

  Eventually the pain is welcomed.

  And that was what he hoped tomorrow would bring.

  Will it hurt? How much will it hurt? Will it bleed? Customers ask this again and again when they come into his tattoo shop browsing his flash art.

  You will think it hurts for a second, but then you’ll get used to it, and finally, you just may embrace it, was his answer.

  And then, at that first moment when the needle touches flesh, when it hits the skin and there’s the tiny inkling of a flinch, you can feel the endorphins rushing and the changes in the air. The grinding needle is likened to the hum of a perfect universe. He knew they welcomed it, because they always came back for more.

  When Erin came to his office and pleaded for him to ink another tattoo seconds after the first, he had cautioned her with his words, but inside couldn’t wait to dig into her. Later he learned about the child she had just lost, and it made sense why her body was buzzing so loudly that very first night, as loud as the tattoo needle itself. He could feel her body spinning and whirling from the energy of each of the thousands of rapid incisions.

  This continued over the years until a phoenix was on her back, a triquetra symbol was above her bicep, a flower grew on her side, some butterflies flew upon her wrists, and barbwire wrapped around her thighs where the scars she put on herself once were. Most recently a mermaid swam over her belly and covered the C-section scar from Lyric’s birth. All the scars she inflicted on herself were gone—the evidence she hated herself taken away, and he molded her with a newly colored body armor head to toe. Her body ached for it. He could feel it in her flesh when he inked himself inside her forever.

  And tomorrow, after he finished the 26.2-mile run and proved he could handle anything, and then got down on one knee, with Lyric perhaps in his arms, he would know by the look in Erin’s eyes instantly. Her eyes and soul should light up in joy. A split second of hesitancy, of her pausing to deliberate, would let him know he had made a mistake.

  Up ahead, the red glow of the bike’s rear reflectors showed they had stopped, and with every stride he was getting closer.

  Then he felt it—the sweet sting of salt in the air. Tiny particles of ocean air sent from the vast sea started to greet him. The trail rose to meet the road next to him until the two became level. The highway was gone and replaced by a single road, with a few houses crowded together with Eurovans and 1995 Hondas in their driveways. The beach lovers were safe and still in their houses at this sleeping hour.

  It was too dark to see any horizon, but the trail slowly disappeared, and the small river next to him began opening to a bigger tributary. Soon Macon was running through the parking lot of a beach park. He saw the tiny red-hots of the two homeless men who were smoking cigarettes and huddled together as if waiting for something, but Macon ran right by, excited by the bigger promises ahead.

  The noise of the ocean surrounded him as if he had stepped inside a huge conch shell. First the soft lull of the unseen surf soothed his ears, and then tiny crashes, like little explosions, greeted him with white caps that then faded and were carried back to sea.

  The sand to the beach was nearly a football field’s le
ngth, but he ran on its softness. His ankles gave way with each step and sunk deep into the earth, and he felt them twist at odd angles before he pulled them up for the next step. He finally made it to the firm, moist surf and ran alongside the edges where the water’s white foam rolled up.

  Stars or boats—he was not sure which—blinked on the horizon. The darkness of the sky melded into the ocean, and up ahead he noticed a road. A huge, long bridge extended out of the land into the ocean darkness, which, upon approach, he could finally see was not a bridge, but a long pier. He pumped his legs, leaving temporary footprints, which were then washed away.

  I need to run that pier, he decided, and then he’d go back. He’d reach the end. This would be it. He ran back up the beach, gathering a bit of dry sand on his now moist shoe bottoms, and onto the pavement to start his dash out on the pier.

  It was too early for even fisherman. There was not a trace of a living body on the pier, only a closed bait shop, sandwich stand, and the unmistakable smell of fisherman remnants. The stench of rotting fish bait mixed with the promise of larger sea life.

  He pounded on the wooden planks, felt tiny vibrations as if they might break, but then realized how vain that was, how small his presence was to this massive pier. The surface of the dark ocean below seemed to beckon him with the promise of something deep, and as always when he was on any heights, he didn’t fear falling but feared that he might jump. He wondered if his own legs would take cues from something deep inside that wanted to jump into the darkness, fling himself over the edge and let himself get sucked down into oblivion. Maybe he’d be eaten, there would be no trace of him, and he’d never be found. It was a thrilling idea to dive into the foam to see what was in that wet, dark underworld, especially at this hour, but instead he ran on.

  He made it to the end rail of the pier to stare farther out into the dark horizon when he heard some noises. He was not alone. He heard chomping noises, very faint, as if creatures living on the surf were feeding, and he looked in circles until he spotted them: two small beings, two children, huddled together on the pier, each of them nibbling on tiny slivers of meat. Their skin was dark, but it was hard to tell if this was a Hispanic brown since it seemed more from permanent dirt. Malnourished cheeks sunk into their skulls, and tiny fish scales from a leftover bucket of bait were stuck on their faces.