As a kid, punishment had been reciting the rosary while kneeling on grits his mother had poured on the floor. Kai recalled the way his thumb would move across each individual bead, reciting the Lord's prayer while he tried to ignore the stinging of his knees. If he fumbled a Hail Mary, then it would be back to the beginning, thumb moving back to the silver crucifix as he forced his way through the Apostle’s Creed once more. He’d gotten used to acting like it didn’t get to him, but his scabbed knees were always a traitorous reminder of his wrongdoings. These days, punishment was nothing more than the shrill sound of his alarm as it roused him from sleep and rocketed him into the land of the living. In comparison, it was the lesser of two evils. But for Kai, who’d smoked his way through a pack of Marlboros on his fire escape until 4am, he might have taken the grits and the rosary and his Mama’s backhand across his face if it meant getting to shove his head back under his pillow.
The real Devil, he decided, created 8.30am classes.
“Last day of the semester!” Livvy’s voice rang through the door, followed by her quick shave-and-a-haircut knock. Kai groaned, squinting against the morning light as it filtered through his broken blinds. He wondered how successful he’d be at playing dead, hoping he’d overestimated his roommate’s capacity to care about him. Maybe she didn’t give a shit and wouldn’t investigate if she didn’t see him surface before she left their rundown apartment for the day.
Swiftly, her knuckles turned into her fists as she pounded the door twice. “Up and at ‘em!” she called, squashing Kai’s dreams. Huffing a sigh that suggested he was facing the biggest no-good trial of his life, Kai eventually dragged himself out from under his bedsheets, fresh laundry he hadn’t put away and a sleeping Zeke, who huffed loudly at being jostled before settling his head back onto his paws.
“Lucky son of a bitch,” Kai muttered as he tugged a clean button down free from underneath his husky’s behind.
With one day left of summarising the idea of evil in the Old Testament before the promise of summer became a reality, it felt like a cruelty of divine proportions for him to open up his fridge and find the milk carton gone. He glanced over his shoulder at Livvy, sandwiched into the corner unit, loudly slurping from her mug with an abandoned carton of Oatly Original beside her. She shrugged at his narrowed eyes.
“I got you up. It’s not in my job description to keep you caffeinated,” she told him.
He grabbed a Mountain Dew, slammed the fridge door shut and thanked his chosen deity (the Manhattan city planners) for placing his favourite bookstore-cum-coffeeshop on his route to work. His gratitude only lasted so long, however, when he reached the street and came across a blockade. Of sorts. He blinked his sleep-crusted eyes a few times to determine why there was a huddle of people taking over the block. Lots of folks, holding onto… flags, he could make out. Cardboard signs that he couldn’t read because he was standing a ways away and still stubbornly refused to go see an eye doctor. But what he did see was a familiar face.
“Marcus!” Kai called, a smile lighting up his face. The kind that was reserved for Livvy when she brought home takeout. Had been used for Sean and Clover, once upon a time. He felt his stomach tighten almost reflexively as the other man turned when he heard his name.
Gripping his backpack, a dumb multi-coloured thing he’d accidentally lifted from Sean when he’d been on the road with him, he made his way over to Marcus. Almost shyly, if someone like Kai could be shy. Marred with sin as he was, there was something about a pretty-looking man that made him weak at the knees, enough to have him acting near-sheepish. Maybe it would’ve looked endearing on someone else. On Kai, he figured he looked stupid, not-quite-right. Like when a storm had torn through town when he was ten and blown out the stained glass windows of the church. The church handyman had tried to piece it back together and everyone agreed he had done a fine enough job, but Kai had still let his eyes wander to the reds and blues of St Francis of Assissi during sermons and decided he only looked saintly again if you squinted at him. That’s how he figured most people looked at him. Acceptable, if you squinted.
“Y’all protestin’ somethin’?” he asked Marcus. He nodded down at the sign in the other man’s hand. He tilted his head to the side, puppy-like, to get a read on it. “What’s it say?”
