by Rich Mallery
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<\/br>
\nLeonard Gold was always barking about shutting down the Overlook.\u00a0 At least once a fiscal quarter he\u2019d waddle through the front door in his scratchy over-sized suit, shadowed by a pair of New York\u2019s finest.\u00a0 That weasel would snatch the Bic out of his mouth and tap the chewed end on his clipboard, shaking his tiny head in disgust.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no, no,\u201d he\u2019d mutter.\u00a0 He\u2019d shake his head more and dandruff flakes would settle on his sunken shoulders.\u00a0 Although his suit hadn\u2019t once been dry-cleaned and his Payless pair had never been shined, the fuzzy horseshoe of hair on his head was always neatly trimmed.\u00a0 He\u2019d run a sweaty hand through it and then shove it in his front pocket, clanking together a fistful of dimes.\u00a0 \u201cMy supervisors are not going to like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019d turn and staple an official-looking sheet of government paper by the front door and that would be that.\u00a0 The last time this happened someone shot a spit ball at his head.\u00a0 It smacked into the splotchy bald center of his scalp.\u00a0 He was too timid to turn and face the culprit, of course.\u00a0 Instead, he slouched forward and hunchbacked his way outside.\u00a0 Even after the state-issued sedan door slammed shut behind him, a trail of his dollar store deodorant lingered in our nostrils.<\/p>\n
But this time Leonard meant business.\u00a0 With about a dozen uniforms, Leonard stampeded through the front door determined.\u00a0 He waved a handful of documents and squealed, using his authority as vengeance for years of being shoved into high school lockers.<\/p>\n
The Overlook had been a safe haven for runaways like me for over a decade.\u00a0 But last week after a socialite overdosed and was photographed by paparazzi exiting on a stretcher, our group was third page news complete with the mayor\u2019s vow to take immediate action.<\/p>\n
Although the letters had fallen off the fa\u00e7ade a generation ago, the Overlook was once the glorious Gold Lion Hotel.\u00a0 Every now and then someone brave would explore the upper floors and discover some yellowed stationary or piss-soaked towel branded with the ostentatious lion\u2019s head.\u00a0 Back in its glory days, the Gold Lion was overflowing with musicians and movie stars.\u00a0 The only difference now was that then the loiterers were Hollywood\u2019s darlings; now the ones that partied here were washed-up train-wrecks who couldn\u2019t even get cast on a reality show.<\/p>\n
The five-story crash I called home for two years went by many names: Hell House, Paradise Lost, Amityville Horror, but to my crew it was the Overlook.\u00a0 It had no resemblance to the infamous hotel from The<\/em> Shining<\/em>, but that didn\u2019t stop us from inventing wild stories about a psychopathic bellhop who axed the entire third floor and shoved their limbs down the laundry chute.\u00a0 To which many open mouths would gasp, \u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\n No.\u00a0 While there were scores of scandalous rumors about why the Gold Lion closed its giant metal doors for the last time, the truth was nowhere near as exciting; the neighborhood simply went to hell and business disappeared.<\/p>\n Since that tragic day in 1974, The Overlook had been condemned, forgotten about, and condemned again.\u00a0 It was an eyesore on a block full of eyesores, in a part of town that double-decker tour buses avoided.\u00a0 To an outsider the neighborhood was a lawless mess, with syringes sparkling on the sidewalk and junkies smiling rotten on every corner.\u00a0 But for those of us with nowhere else to go, the only danger we feared was falling through the decaying floorboards on the Overlook\u2019s upper levels.<\/p>\n Fortunately, most people never saw past the lobby.\u00a0 That was where the real desperate crashed.\u00a0 Lumpy shapes squirmed underneath army blankets around the perimeter.\u00a0 Every now and then cigarette lighters would blink in sync, unleashing an addicts\u2019 concerto of bubbling liquid and wheezing exhales.<\/p>\n The walls were once sunflower yellow, but the paint had long ago chipped away, leaving behind grey cloud-shaped scars.\u00a0 The floor tiles had all been sold, and if you didn\u2019t step quickly, your sneakers would stick to the concrete.\u00a0 The whole room could be doused in bleach and would still harbor enough pathogens to shut down your insides.\u00a0 I can still taste the thick, burning plastic stench that would sting your throat if you lingered too long.<\/p>\n But once you made it past the dropouts, the place really wasn\u2019t that tragic.\u00a0 There were about thirty of us who officially called The Overlook home.\u00a0 Most of the hallways were piled deep by garbage, but the East Wing was off limits to everyone but us.\u00a0 Grandpa Joe, who lived at the end of the main hall, made sure we kept our spaces straight.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t really a grandfather (at least not that I was aware of), but he\u2019d lived here the longest.\u00a0 He spoke slowly, with a crunchy, matter of fact voice, and his face was scarred by enough prison tattoos to make him intimidating to even the hardest.\u00a0 But as long as you were straight with him, and didn\u2019t cause any drama, you were more than welcome to stay as long as you wanted.<\/p>\n <\/br> So when Seth, the bottle-nosed accountant she was balling, decided he wasn\u2019t going to leave his wife and kids after all, the fault rested solely on yours truly.\u00a0 I was also the reason that the Arabs who ran the corner store didn\u2019t take her bad checks, the reason she overslept for work three times a week, and the reason her father died of lung cancer.<\/p>\n Seth had given her the \u201cit\u2019s not you, it\u2019s me\u201d speech on a Sunday.\u00a0 Two Thursdays later, she was still shoulder deep in a pill coma, sunk into the couch with her crusty pink bathrobe tied loosely around her waist.\u00a0 A Camel burned past the filter between her knuckles as she stared into her blackened reflection on the television screen.<\/p>\n If it weren\u2019t for the grating sound of her teeth grinding every time Bartleby, the schnauzer owned by the Russian\u2019s next door, barked, you would\u2019ve sworn she was a wax statue.\u00a0 Teresa swore they left that dog outside to mess with her sanity.\u00a0 She was never able to understand that the whole world wasn\u2019t against her.<\/p>\n I\u2019d seen her crumble before.\u00a0 This catatonic episode was nothing new.\u00a0 Her cheeks were perpetually stained by eyeliner tears.\u00a0 If her nails weren\u2019t dull, yellow stubs, she would\u2019ve drawn blood from fanatically scratching at her neck.\u00a0 As far back as I could remember, she was a pathetic mess who refused to leave the couch.\u00a0 But unfortunately for Teresa, the breakup with Seth was one of those last-straw-type of disasters.<\/p>\n The last night my mother and I were both under the same roof, I was rolling a joint on my Geometry text book.\u00a0 My fingers were stubby so it often took me at least four attempts to craft anything that didn\u2019t canoe.\u00a0 This time I was ready to give up when her screaming shattered the silence.<\/p>\n I rushed to the window in time to see her thrashing Bartleby around the neighbor\u2019s yard by his chain.\u00a0 His body limply thudded on the ground behind her, trembling as it got stuck behind a potted plant.\u00a0 My mom gave the chain an abrupt jerk and toppled the planter over, spilling a landslide of dirt onto the concrete.<\/p>\n On the front porch, the Russians shrieked and shook their fists.\u00a0 My mom\u2019s bathrobe loosened and exposed her skeletal, naked body.\u00a0 But instead of covering her shame, she let the robe fall to the ground and, gripping the chain with both fists, swung Bartleby in a circle around her.\u00a0 His tiny body scraped pinkish chunks all over the driveway.\u00a0 By the time police arrived, Bartleby was road kill.<\/p>\n It took three officers to shove my mother into a black and white.\u00a0 The forth crouched down so he was at my eye level and rested his stony hand on my shoulder.\u00a0 In an emotionless voice, he asked if I had any immediate family I could call.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t, so I did what any teenager would\u2019ve done.\u00a0 I lied.<\/p>\n I dialed a random number and held my breath until someone answered.<\/p>\n \u201cHey dad, it\u2019s me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s this?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been an incident with mom.\u00a0 Can I stay with you till everything gets sorted out?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs this a joke?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGreat.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be there in a half hour.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGo to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThanks.\u00a0 I\u2019m on my way.\u201d<\/p>\n Long story short, instead of going to St. Jude\u2019s Youth House, I went to a punk show at Coney Island High.\u00a0 That\u2019s where I met Lek.<\/p>\n <\/br> It didn\u2019t matter though.\u00a0 Regardless of how down she dressed, she always held the room\u2019s undivided attention.\u00a0 Even when we were starving, her wicked smile would light up your insides and you\u2019d be magneted to the circle surrounding her.<\/p>\n Lek left Phuket for America when she was seven.\u00a0 Any memories of her native neighborhood were fogged out, but she could remember every detail of the closet-sized room that she shared with her parents and her baby sister Ai when they first came to New York.\u00a0 She could still taste the peanuty Thai food from her uncle\u2019s restaurant bleeding through the floor below her.\u00a0 All she had to do was close her eyes and she could feel the creaky floorboards on her chest, and Ai clutching a handful of her hair as she tried to sleep, the snapping of rat traps jerking her out of a nightmare.<\/p>\n Her uncle was a degenerate alcoholic who owed a small fortune in gambling debts.\u00a0 When things hit rock bottom, he had someone torch the restaurant.\u00a0 Unfortunately when the cocktails started crashing thrown the front window, Lek and her family were sleeping upstairs.<\/p>\n Lek only told me this story once, but I could visualize it as if it were my own memory.\u00a0 Her parents were also drunks and it took Lek several minutes of screaming and tugging to pull them back into consciousness.\u00a0 She coughed burning smoke in their faces, pleading for them to wake up.\u00a0 When they finally came to, Lek\u2019s father dragged her under his arm outside into safety.\u00a0 Lek screamed for him to put her down and grab Ai but he was still too battered from the night before to listen.\u00a0 By the time he realized he had forgotten Ai in the doorway of their apartment, she had already suffocated from the smoke.<\/p>\n A fireman carried out a charred body covered in a soot-covered blanket and placed it on the curb.\u00a0 Her mother fell to her knees in hysterics.\u00a0 She even tried to run back into the burning building.\u00a0 Before she could even get close, Lek\u2019s father pinned her shoulders to the sidewalk and drooled tears on her face.<\/p>\n Despite all this, Lek hid her demons well, always charging headfirst into the outside world.\u00a0 Tick and Dutch were another story altogether.\u00a0 When Lek first introduced me to them I couldn\u2019t imagine what the three of them had in common.\u00a0 Lek was tiny and Tick towered behind her, protectively clutching her shoulders.\u00a0 He moved slow, and thought even slower.\u00a0 Even his facial ticks were sluggish.\u00a0 When he was nervous, his whole face would scrunch forward and his left eye would squeeze shut.\u00a0 It would take a lifetime before it reopened and his face turned back into the blank block it normally was.<\/p>\n Dutch was his complete opposite.\u00a0 He dusted pills by the handful and stretched his slurry sentences into one another so that they flowed like endless word salad.\u00a0 Embarrassed by his lack of height, he walked on his toes and compensated for his skinny frame by covering his body in layers, sometimes wearing four shirts at a time.<\/p>\n We were all misfits in our own ways, and bonded almost immediately.\u00a0 The night I met them, a fight broke out during one of the band\u2019s sets.\u00a0 After a skinhead sucker-punched Dutch in the jaw, I threw him to the ground and Lek immediately stomped her boot into his face.\u00a0 While security sorted out the chaos, we snuck out the exit and met at a diner up the block.<\/p>\n We tightened over stale coffee and without hesitation they invited me to crash with them at The Overlook.\u00a0 Tick was an expert at electronics and the bedroom they shared was overflowing with broken appliances and televisions he was fixing to sell so they didn\u2019t have extra room, but it didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 The three of them took turns double-sleeping on a flat inflatable mattress that was stuffed with cardboard and newspaper.\u00a0 Their floor was actually more comfortable, since in place of carpet they had stapled sweaters to the floor.\u00a0 Two weeks later I joined them in stealing clothes from the Goodwill box to replace the ones that were starting to stink.<\/p>\n The first night, Lek slept on the floor beside me.\u00a0 We\u2019d just met, but still her arm draped around my shoulder like I was hers.\u00a0 It took three nights before I was able to sleep, but that first night I savored feeling her body close to mine, her warm breath massaging the back of my neck.<\/p>\n <\/br> \u201cI gotta quit smoking,\u201d Tick wheezed.\u00a0 He coughed into his palm and spit a chunk of black phlegm on the sidewalk.\u00a0 He spread it out with the sole of his workboot.<\/p>\n Tiny white specks sparkled in Lek\u2019s hair.\u00a0 She stuck out her tongue and let snow drift on top of it.\u00a0 From three feet away I could already see her delicate lips starting to chap.<\/p>\n \u201cSo now what?\u201d Dutch asked.<\/p>\n I stared at the ground, my mind blank.\u00a0 Usually I was the one with the solutions.\u00a0 But this time, I had no plan whatsoever about our future.\u00a0 A taxi driver blurted his horn as traffic swelled behind us.\u00a0 I tucked my hands under my sweatshirt and rubbed them together for warmth.\u00a0 An unforgiving breeze stung the wet spots on the back of my neck where the snow had melted.<\/p>\n \u201cMy cousin might have room for one of you,\u201d Tick offered.\u00a0 \u201cHe lives over by St. Marks.\u00a0 Lek, you interested?\u201d \u201cI have a few dollars,\u201d I added, hoping to defuse the situation.\u00a0 \u201cWe can lurk in a Starbucks till closing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs there a bookstore around here?\u201d Tick asked.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re usually open until at least eleven.\u00a0 We can hang for awhile and when they close Lek and I can go to my cousins.\u00a0 Maybe you two can meet an art student to crash with.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know a place,\u201d Lek smiled.\u00a0 \u201cIn Queens.\u00a0 It\u2019s nothing special, but it\u2019s four walls and a roof.\u00a0 At least there we\u2019ll all be together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSounds perfect,\u201d I answered.<\/p>\n \u201cMy cousin\u2019s a douche anyway.\u201d\u00a0 Tick kicked at a paper fast food wrapper tumbling in front of him.\u00a0 We all knew he was tortured by her constant rejection and if we weren\u2019t freezing we would\u2019ve stopped to sympathize.\u00a0 His failure to move on was pathetic, but Tick was family, no matter how much of a loser he was.\u00a0 Besides, its not like Dutch or I were any closer to scoring with her.<\/p>\n Lek hooked her arm around mine and led us to the nearest subway.\u00a0 The train was empty except for a snoring bum and the lack of distractions smacked the horrible truth across our faces.\u00a0 We were now officially homeless.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is us,\u201d Lek shouted over the squealing brakes.\u00a0 The subway screeched to an abrupt stop and we lumbered off into a warm wall of piss and curry.\u00a0 I held my breath until we were up the stairs and back outside.\u00a0 Even as we exhaled, Lek wore a face that was sucked dry of emotion, as if she were a statue, a robot following her programming to guide us from point A to point B.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow, we\u2019re going winter coat shopping,\u201d Dutch shivered.\u00a0 This meant that we were sneaking inside Crunch Fitness and walking out with whatever people left on the hangers.<\/p>\n The sun had already set and the newly dark sky shoved winter onto us.\u00a0 It was still early, but almost every one of the neighborhood shops were locked down, with metal, graffiti-covered grates hiding their insides.\u00a0 The snowfall had stopped but a thin layer of powder was dusted over the ground.\u00a0 As cars passed they kicked a spray of wet behind them.<\/p>\n Lek led us a few blocks down to a row of abandonments.\u00a0 In the center cowered a burned out shell of a building.\u00a0 Lek snuck to the front window and shoved the metal obstruction blocking it to the side.\u00a0 She crawled in and signaled with her fingers to follow.<\/p>\n \u201cThat looks safe,\u201d Tick complained.\u00a0\u00a0 Dutch and I agreed, but without hesitation we climbed in after her.<\/p>\n Lek flipped open a Zippo and held the flame over a pile of old newspapers in the corner.\u00a0 They were damp, but after a few minutes the stack was burning bright.\u00a0 Flickering light filled the room as the paper crackled.\u00a0 Tick tumbled through the window, landing with a deep thud.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the hell happened here?\u201d he blurted.\u00a0 A foot-long rat scampered past us into a pile of rusted metal.<\/p>\n \u201cA fire,\u201d Lek answered.\u00a0 \u201cOnce upon a time someone started a fire.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cObvious,\u201d Tick said.\u00a0 Giant Rorschach patterns stained the ceiling black.\u00a0 The walls were a mess of melted plastic and chipped paint.\u00a0 Although the fire appeared to have happened years ago, the room still held the stink of soot.<\/p>\n \u201cLek,\u201d I said, \u201cThis isn\u2019t\u2014\u201c<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t finish the sentence.\u00a0 Lek\u2019s eyes were normally deep brown, but as the orange glow of flames danced below her, her pupils burned the darkest shade of black.\u00a0 She sniffled and nodded her head.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t what?\u201d Tick interrupted.<\/p>\n \u201cForget it,\u201d I shouted.\u00a0 I turned to face her. \u00a0\u201cWhy\u2019d you bring us here?\u201d \u201cWhat is this shithole?\u201d Tick asked.<\/p>\n \u201cIt used to be a restaurant,\u201d Lek answered.\u00a0 She knelt and fanned her palms on the floor, as if she were feeling for a pulse.<\/p>\n \u201cWaitress, I ordered that burger medium rare,\u201d Tick chuckled.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cHe doesn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t be,\u201d she snapped back.\u00a0 \u201cHe didn\u2019t start it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStart what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fire, douchebag,\u201d Dutch huffed.\u00a0 He knew Lek\u2019s story well.\u00a0 He was the one who found her in hysterics wandering around Washington Square Park.\u00a0 That was when she was fifteen and came home from school to find a scribbled note from her parents saying they had moved back to Thailand.\u00a0 \u201cYou are slower than syrup.\u201d<\/p>\n Lek tiptoed over the pile of garbage in front of the staircase.\u00a0 Most of the steps were missing, but Lek\u2019s eyes followed them into the darkness, nodding her head as if she were answering an imaginary question.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat really hurts the most,\u201d she started, pausing to regain her composure.\u00a0 She pulled her hair tight behind her and knotted it in a tail.\u00a0 \u201cWas that I was supposed to take care of her.\u00a0 My mom, dad, they were whatever.\u00a0 But me, I was her sister.\u00a0 Me.\u00a0 Lek.\u00a0 I was the one who needed to protect her.\u00a0 I should\u2019ve just grabbed her and ran.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why I was expecting them to do anything.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like they even noticed Ai other than to bitch about having to feed her.\u201d<\/p>\n I stepped behind her and rubbed a circle on the back of her sweatshirt.\u00a0 There was nothing I could do to comfort her, but I needed to let her know she wasn\u2019t alone.\u00a0 I grabbed her shoulders and tried to drag her into a hug.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not your fault,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned in life,\u201d she huffed, pulling away, \u201cis that blame doesn\u2019t mean fuck all.\u00a0 Things happen regardless, no matter how good or how bad a person you are.\u00a0 You can start a million fires, burn a million children to a fucking crisp and at the end of the day, the sun still rises in the morning and sets in the evening.\u00a0 You can still enjoy the taste of a steak, or the lips of your wife.\u00a0 Giving a shit is so pointless.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we all need to drop out,\u201d Dutch said, squatting against the wall.\u00a0 He pulled out a prescription jar and tapped several pills into his palm.\u00a0 He placed them in a plastic crusher and twisted the top.\u00a0 \u201cLek, you down?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s a smart idea,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to find a place to stay before it gets too late.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Tick added.\u00a0 \u201cWe can\u2019t stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d Dutch argued.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not the plaza, but after a bump or two you won\u2019t give a damn.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess,\u201d Tick muttered.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll pass,\u201d I said.\u00a0 Lek ignored the conversation and paced further away from the light.\u00a0 A shadow draped over everything but her right arm.<\/p>\n \u201cLooks like it\u2019s just you and I.\u201d\u00a0 Dutch grabbed Tick\u2019s wrist and rolled up his sleeve.\u00a0 \u201cNow let\u2019s order room service.\u201d\u00a0 The two of them disappeared into a dark corner.\u00a0 Lek collapsed on her knees and started crying.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my culture, a spirit can\u2019t rest until they\u2019re given a proper funeral.\u00a0 Monks have to chant and gifts have to be given or else the spirit suffers.\u201d\u00a0 Lek\u2019s watery eyes stared through me.\u00a0 A reflection of the flame flickered white in her irises.\u00a0 \u201cMy parents didn\u2019t offer anything.\u00a0 They were too busy swinging at each other to even think about Ai and now, she\u2019s suffering.\u00a0 She\u2019s tortured.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can we do to help her?\u201d I asked.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t believe in spirits or ghosts, but Lek did and that was enough to make them real to me.\u00a0 I imagined Ai reaching out her tiny hands, screaming for help.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to give her something pure.\u00a0 Something beautiful to let her know that she\u2019s loved.\u00a0 We have to show her that there\u2019s nothing to fear and that soon we\u2019ll be together again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWait here,\u201d I said.\u00a0 Lek wasn\u2019t listening.\u00a0 She was in her own world, mumbling under her breath.\u00a0 Her body convulsed, unable to cope with the pain throbbing in her guts.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d<\/p>\n I rushed outside into the darkness.\u00a0 I almost lost my footing on the wet concrete turning the corner and luckily I was able to grab onto a mailbox or else I would\u2019ve cracked my head open on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n The freezing wind carved notches into my lungs, but I didn\u2019t stop until I found a storefront that wasn\u2019t boarded up.\u00a0 It was a florist, and inside beautiful bouquets and arrangements sat behind the giant window.\u00a0 I flipped over the garbage pail on the corner, looking for anything I could use to smash the glass.\u00a0 I tore through plastic and paper bags until I found a chunk of metal the size of a baseball.\u00a0 The alarm blared as I fired it into the store.<\/p>\n I leapt inside and grabbed as many flowers as I could carry.\u00a0 Before anyone came to investigate I raced back to Lek.\u00a0 My ears, still ringing from the piercing shrill of the alarm, felt as if they were about to explode.\u00a0 When I climbed through the window, Lek was still on the floor, rocking as if she were in a trance.<\/p>\n \u201cHere,\u201d I said, placing the flowers on the floor in front of her.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know any monk chants or prayers, but these are for Ai.\u00a0 Can you let her know they\u2019re for her?\u201d<\/p>\n Lek\u2019s face was covered in shadow, but a tear faintly sparkled as it trailed down her cheek.\u00a0 She grabbed my hand and pulled me down to my knees.\u00a0 Her grip was weak, but still a glow passed from her flesh to mine.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you,\u201d she whispered.\u00a0 \u201cAi thanks you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime.\u00a0 I wish there was more that I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStay with me.\u00a0 Tonight, stay with us.\u00a0 Tomorrow we can go find someplace else to crash, but tonight, we need to be here with Ai.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course.\u00a0 I can stay as long as you need to.\u00a0 Just let me know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n Lek rested her head on my shoulder.\u00a0 The flames started to fade out, teasing us with random flashes of light.\u00a0 The paper crackled weakly as it dissolved into ash.\u00a0 Every few seconds I heard a tear drop gently on the ground beside me.\u00a0 Dutch sniffled.\u00a0 Tick scratched the crotch of his jeans.\u00a0 Another rat scurried across the floor.\u00a0 Lek hummed a melody I\u2019d never heard before.\u00a0 I closed my eyes and listened until the only sound left was the ringing in my ears. Rich is currently a writer for Fangoria Magazine and has been published in several literary journals including Evergreen Review, Metal Scratches, 10,000 tons of Black Ink, Foliate Oak, and Drops of Crimson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Rich Mallery Leonard Gold was always barking about shutting down the Overlook.\u00a0 At least once a fiscal quarter he\u2019d waddle through the front door in his scratchy over-sized suit, shadowed by a pair of New York\u2019s finest.\u00a0 That weasel … Continue reading
\nThe fact that my father left on my ninth birthday was entirely a coincidence, but that didn\u2019t stop Teresa for blaming me.\u00a0 My dad and her had been clawing at each other since the moment they met, but in her mind I was the catalyst that sent the love of her life\u2019s face between the legs of his twenty-year-old secretary.<\/p>\n
\nLek (pronounced Lake) was the most striking girl I\u2019d ever seen.\u00a0 Even though she always hid her face behind oversized plastic sunglasses, or underneath the brim of a dusty baseball cap, she couldn\u2019t step off the subway without some pervert in a business suit stalking her.\u00a0 This drove her mental and she did everything imaginable to hide her appearance.\u00a0 She wore thrift store t-shirts that fit like dresses and rhine-stoned her winter trench coat with multi-colored sucking candies.\u00a0 She even smeared tar under her eyes instead of eye-shadow.\u00a0 Anything to keep horny boys from staring holes into her flesh.<\/p>\n
\nWe had only run a few blocks before we had to stop and let Tick catch up.\u00a0 Light buckets of snow tumbled wet on our faces.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t being chased, but a desire burned in our stomachs to put as much distance between ourselves and The Overlook as possible.\u00a0 We could\u2019ve loitered outside, kicking the curb, watching police shove the disoriented campers into shiny vans, but there was always a chance our presence would\u2019ve drawn attention and we would\u2019ve ended up amongst them, choking on their sour body odor on the way to the precinct.<\/p>\n
\nTick was harmless, but his constant flirting with Lek had started draining even her.\u00a0 She had the patience and compassion of a saint, but lately she didn\u2019t have the strength to ignore him.\u00a0 Tick thought if he persisted eventually he\u2019d break down her walls enough to slide between her legs, but in reality it was only a matter of time before she exploded rage in his face.\u00a0 She squeezed her fists until they turned burnt sienna.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she said.\u00a0 She dragged her fingers down the wall and winced.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve never come back, you know.\u00a0 I have nightmares that I come back and my sister\u2019s spirit is still here.\u00a0 Trapped.\u00a0 She\u2019s always crying.\u00a0 I never know what to do so I run away.\u00a0 Only usually my legs are moving in slow motion and I can\u2019t run.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\nRICH MALLERY<\/strong> stays pale in the summer, prefers pencils to pens and is easily distracted by ice storms. He refuses to look both ways before he crosses the street, colors outside the lines and dreams about living in a post-apocalyptic world. He writes every free second he has. He writes on walls, the stack of bills on his dresser, his arms- anything that has room for words. Although he deeply loves the city of New York where he\u2019s from, if the boroughs started burning, he wouldn\u2019t stop dancing. <\/p>\n