Roaring

I made sure today was another day.

I did not venture upstairs to see Dante, or Ig.

I put on my coat.

I grab my mask. Turning it over in my hands, seeing the lack of ash... That makes my jaw grind. That makes my fists clench. 

I fetch my crowbar, and I leave Dante's house.

It is not an especially long walk to the nature trail, even as the snow falls. Despite the city's best efforts to preserve nature within this winding park, the snow is still darkened by smoke and pollution. The broad river may be frozen over, but beneath the ice, the water is still all murk and stink. Wherever Smoke has lain, it can never be pure again. So Dante said.

A bridge spans the river, thick concrete arches supported by a web of steel beams. It is a great almost-wall, cutting through the valley, joining the near-cliff of a complex of apartment buildings and condominiums with the gentler suburban slopes on the far side of the opposite bank. Subway trains rumble across, sending motes of dirt and dust drifting down to whoever walks beneath while the rail-borne thunder rolls by overhead.

Or upon the heads of those who live and work below.

There is always someone. Maybe a homeless person, huddled up by a small fire, trying to keep warm. Maybe a few criminals shaking someone down, or fighting, or doing drugs. Maybe even a dealer, now and again.

I finish trudging through the snow and gravel of the trail, and step onto the pavement below the bridge.

A homeless man crouches beside a dying little pile of smoking sticks, desperate, trying to fan the fire back to life.

I put my mask on.

If he can hear my footsteps, he gives no indication, frantic as he blows and fans and does everything he can think of to bring the fire back to life.

He does not know what burns within me.

I let the crowbar slide, until I am holding it close to its straight end. I am within spitting distance of the homeless man. He reeks of booze. I planned on waiting for him to notice me. I planned on giving him the choice, the standard routine. I even considered chasing him off and waiting for someone else to walk by.

But that smell, and the dark beneath the bridge, it lets me know I have to burn out the fear again. Hate has to well up faster than terror, or I will be weak and frozen again. I will be trapped once more.

So I swing at the homeless man.

I bring the crowbar down on his head. 

I bring it down again, and again, and again, until my arms are singing and stinging and hot. I am lost in the crunch of bone, the ache of muscles, the sweat, the ringing in my ears.

The homeless man is no longer moving. Dark, cold blood begins to pool near his head, extinguishing his shattered attempt at a fire. Just as the rage brought me heat, the dark returns. I realize I have walked deeper into the shadows under the bridge. The light is far away, now, and harder to see. Smoke billows up and around me, filling the cold space, clouding my vision.

I see a large shape in the shadows.

I know it is crouched, and waits to spring forth. I know it is chained, but those links are broken. It is still, but I have never tasted such violence  as that which oozed from it. Its eyes were darker than everything around me in that gloom and haze, deeper.

For a moment, I was a little boy again, trapped in a basement bereft of windows, devoid of any light source besides a single bulb which was broken long ago. Alcohol fills my nose, and the barest outline of a man steps forward, the source of that smell, and raises a fist. I want to flinch, want to run away, want to cry, but I can't seem to do either, or any.

But it is only for a moment.

This shape is not that man. 

It is both without and within at the same time.

It is a boiling heat I know well. 

It is kindred. It sees a piece of Itself in me, and I see the source of the fire in It, and It reaches a long, thick arm of smoke towards me, and I reach for It.

In that moment, We are One, and my world is only Smoke.

Off

Today is supposed to be another day.

I climb the stairs to the only bedroom with a lock. Dante is in bed, sweating, eyes glazed over as he looks out the window, at the grey skies above. He insisted upon pushing his bed to the very corner of the room, beside that window. Or so Ig has told me.

Ig is in a folding chair beside Dante's bed, trying to get Dante to drink. Today, Ig is male, and gone is the faded orange shawl he wears on female days. That does not matter, though; Ig still does not bother paying me much mind. When Dante spoke to me, when he imparted the burned words of wisdom, his eyes always bore into mine, a quiet intensity smouldering there. Ig can barely bring himself to see me.

Dante's eyes are different, now. When he can keep them open, they're tired, or they rove all over the place. They look wet, glassy, sometimes their lids are ringed with red. Sometimes, blood vessels pulse there. His own body is raging against him. I do not understand why.

When Dante speaks, his words are wavering, winded, worn. Dante has always said many things that do not seem clear, but they made more sense when I vented my rage. In that warm glow, I could accept what he said.

Dante raves, I don't belong, but I've gone too far to not belong, so I'm stuck. And it's what I deserve. After all the shit I've done, this is what I deserve.

Ig says, no, that's not true. You've got remorse, real, actual remorse. That makes you different. That makes you more human. That's something he's never seen before, says Ig. Ig is quiet, intent on Dante. He does not slip over Dante, or dismiss Dante.

Dante's ruined eyes open, and fall on me. What good is remorse, Dante asks. What good is remorse, when you can see what I've done on top of everything else? It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make anything better. He drapes his forearm across his eyes, and I bolt down the stairs as Ig moves to remove it.

Seeing Dante like this, hearing the words tumbling out of him, it makes something like fear claw its way back into my gut. I need to burn it out. I need to douse it in fire.

Return

I do not understand.

The anger is now a fire begging to burn down a barn and this is the most throttled my rage has been in a long time (though not ever, just since Dante taught me the ways of the fist and bludgeon and edge; it was only kindling in the dark days, only a guttering spark, but it was still there, and there is a certain anger in being broken).

Dante staggered back into the outbuilding the next morning, emergency blanket draped around his shoulders. The Bride from yesterday, the woman with the tanned skin and jagged hair, she stood near him, flanking Dante. That is where I belong. That is where I should have been.

Dante shook a little, but still managed to speak. We are leaving, he said. We are leaving now. On instinct, I stood, but I wanted to argue. I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout and stomp and hit and demand we stay, because I am Dante's neo, and he told me I was to be initiated, placed on the Path at last.

But I did none of these things. Dante saved me, after all. He took me in, clothed me, gave me a name. I owe him and my family much. Maybe, also, I can still taste Flint's blood in the air. Maybe, though that jolt ignited a frenzy, I can still picture it clearly. My fire recognizes Dante's fire, and is left cowed before its heat. That is right. That is proper.

That I can understand.

I do not understand why I was denied anointment after having it dangled before me. Nor do I understand why Graves offered Dante gas money for the return trip, and Dante laughed it off, saying he had more than enough.

I do not understand why he sat in the back seat beside me, gaze fixed upon the snow-covered country moving outside the window, while the Bride drove us home.

She introduced herself, tried talking to me.

She told me her name was Ig. She told me she will be staying with us at Dante's house, for a while, to keep an eye on him.

Dante laughed, and said he did not have a house. It'ss Trailburner's house, he said, it never felt like his home. Dante's voice was strange. It set me on edge. Ig's eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror; they are dark brown eyes. Disinterested. She did not look for long.

And now I am sitting in the living room, typing this as the fire dies. It is not unusual for Brides to work with Smoke, but I want Ig gone. She tends Dante, yet does not tell me what is wrong with him when I ask. Ig's attention sweeps over me for seconds at a time, and does not deign to return for ages. It is just like being in the shadows again.

I will wait. Dante will recover, and likely has much to tell me. This resting time can only mean a great deal of contemplation for him. He will get better soon, or at least allow me leave to share my hate once more.

At the very least, the fire burns hotter and lasts longer with Ig around.

Offering

The outbuilding is cold, made of stacked cinderblocks and plaster. The floor is wood, old, splintered, worn. The ceiling is high. A long bench sits along the right wall further back. Clusters of camp chairs (arrayed in no particular order) are the only furniture, save a table stacked high with six-packs and coolers. Every inch of the place stinks of cigarette smoke, marijuana smoke, bonfire smoke...

And the acrid reek of alcohol.

I sit at the furthest end of the bench, closest to the corner. I hate that stench. Memories well up all at once, bruises bloom once more, shouts ring in my ears, and I start seeing him in the shadows. I want to hit something, someone, I want to make blood flow and knuckles crack, I need to let the rage out. But I can not. There are fights and brawls every so often in the outbuilding, sporadic outbreaks of violent pustules, but any Smoke on the prowl look at my arm, miss the grey cloth, and ask whose I am.

I am Dante's initiate, I tell them.

This seems to startle them. Some react in fear, others sneer, some jeer, but all make note that I am the heretic's neo, and they walk away. I want to stand up and shout at them, I want to hit them and dare them to think less of me, but I cannot. Dante has forbidden it, and I cannot defy him. I cannot leave this outbuilding. I am here with my family, and I must obey their rules. I owe them even the name I walk under.

Graves settles down beside me, grunting an acknowledgement. He asks me why I have not at least grabbed a beer from a cooler, and I tell him that I do not drink. Graves nods, approving. He says that alcohol makes you slower, dumber. It is harder for a drunk man to exercise his hate properly. A maimed sort of hate. I tell Graves that alcohol does not create rage, nor violence, and that everything that crawls to the surface while in its claws was curled up and waiting all along. So Dante says.

Graves raises a bushy eyebrow, turning his gaze towards the rest of the room. I do the same.

Dante stands, loose plaid shirt unbuttoned, nursing a bottle of whiskey with a black label. My breath catches in my throat. I force it out. Dante is not him, would not hurt his neo, he saved me. I have to remind myself to breathe in again.

That is true, Graves says, but it provides an excuse for what escapes. I ask him, for whom does Dante need to provide an excuse? Graves shrugs. I look to Dante.

Dante is drinking while Flint yells. Half of the bottle is gone.

Flint is taller than Dante, broader, thicker. His white skin is sickly, almost pallid. The sides of his head are shaved. He wears a denim vest, grey cloth tied around his wrist. His tank-top does little to hide the swastika tattoo over his left breast, the razor-blade with German letters resting atop his collarbone.

Flint says he knows the right fucking path for the Smokes. Says we could have real weapons, real money, add real scalps to the Wall, instead of grovelling in filth with 'low lives'. Very few heads around the room nod their assent. They are all white heads. Flint says, we should sign up with the Brotherhood.

That's why your hatred is so pathetic, Flint, Dante says. That's why it's so weak, and small, and dirty, because you've got to justify it somehow, Dante says, because you have to pick a target. As though you want to make the rage acceptable, Dante says. Your hatred is impure, Flint.

Flint says, that's deep talk coming from some word-omitted (slurs also make hate political, they are social and political, and that is blasphemous towards hate. So Dante says) who's never stepped into a fucking ring with anyone bigger than him.

Silence falls in the outbuilding. All eyes turn to Dante, now. Graves laces his fingers, leaning forward.

Dante lets his arm drop, lets his eyes go wide. His jaw drops slowly. And then, he whips the whiskey bottle at the floor. It shatters. Brown liquid and shards of glass scatter across the wood. Dante begins to pace, to circle Flint. Smoke stand, surround them both. The only rule of the Ring is that no one and nothing else enter the Ring once it is closed. Flint steps closer to Dante. Dante brings his fists up.

They stand there, for a few seconds, almost still. I can feel the anger in the air, it sets my skin crawling. Finally, at last. A release. An outburst. The hate will spill forth at last.

Flint rushes Dante. Smoke starts bellowing, cheering, screaming. Dante steps out of the way, fists raised.

Flint swings a wild, looping haymaker at Dante. Dante steps back, hands going up, and then lowering once more. Flint growls, then charges Dante again.

Dante steps to the side, and slams a booted heel into the side of Flint's right knee. A dull crack barely breaks the crowd's cacophony, but Flint buckles, falls hard to the wood floor, barely catching himself on his hands. Dante swings a boot into his face, now.

Flint takes the kick, but grabs Dante's heel before he can withdraw it. Dante is dragged to the floor, writhing and squirming. I stand. I know I should be concerned, but it all feels so far away. There is only the taste of rage in the air, and sweat beading down my brow, and I am watching and waiting for red to join the whiskey on the floor.

To join Dante on the floor.

He is on his back, now, arms trying to block his face as Flint hammers fist after fist into his face. There. There. Flecks of blood, cuts, what will later be a bruise, they start forming as Dante's defences flag, as Flint picks up speed, vein throbbing in his forehead, spittle flecking his lips, face darkening as his eyes bulge.

Dante's arms fall away completely, splaying out along the floor. Flint grabs one fist in his hand, raises his arms high, ready to bring his hands down on Dante's skull.

And then, Dante's arm flashes across his body, shoots up at Flint, a strange glint between his fingers.

Bright amaranth wells and spurts out of Flint's neck. The metallic tang of blood rips right through the alcohol stink as Dante drives the shard of broken whiskey bottle into Flint's neck again.

Flint gurgles. His blood, his hatred, all cooled now, all spilled and impotent, flecks and stains Dante's face, his clothes. Flint falls forward, landing atop Dante.

The air is absolutely electric. The outbuilding has gone wild, smaller fights breaking out all around, howls and yells doubling, tripling. I am screaming too, now, forgetting all forgotten breaths and anticipation. I want to join. I want to be part of the sea of rage.

Dante pushes Flint's body off of him, pushing himself to his feet. Battered, cut, covered in blood, sticking-up hair shining with beads of sweat. His eyes are wild. His breath is ragged, chest rising and falling. He stares at Flint until Graves claps him on the shoulder, grinning. It could have been seconds later, or hours, or both at once. I was burning and right and ready.

The corner of Dante's mouth quirks, and then he turns away. He pushes the doors of the outbuilding open, and the cold withers as it tries to slip in amongst our heat.

I follow Dante, seeking his permission to fight, to find my own release in the violence. To express the ways of the fist and the bludgeon and the edge, as I have been shown.

Dante walks around the outbuilding, stumbling every so often, shuddering once or twice as the wind rips through his open clothes, but he makes no move to close his shirt. The anger still boils, then, still drives his temperature up. I would not know the wind was there were it not screeching.

Dante walks away from the outbuilding, and sits cross-legged between two of the trees amongst the tree line. His back is to me. I think about approaching him, tapping his shoulder or back to get his attention, though I am not uncertain that my fingers would burn. Not that it would matter. Not that it would do anything less than stoke the fire.

But I decide against approaching, at the very last moment. Surely, Dante is revelling in his unleashed rage. The blood is still hot on his flesh, after all. His hatred broke the doubts of everyone in that room as it cut down Flint. I have never seen Dante kill before, but surely he has done so many times. Surely, he takes time to contemplate and explore the experience.

Maybe he's reliving it, over and over. The cold may make his body shake, but his mind is free. He is Dante. He is the apostate, the heretic. Both part of Smoke and above it, higher than it, seeing and understanding more.

I am honoured to be his neo. His chosen. I am honoured that it was Dante who pulled me from the darkness and the vile man lording over me, that he gave me my name.

I turn away, and walk back into the outbuilding's discord. To thrive in the wake of my legacy with my family.

Wall

It is made of crumbling bricks and withering mortar, bits and fragments of red, grey, black, brown all flake away in the whining wind that keens its frozen cries.

There are gaps between the bricks which house hundreds of little containers; some film canisters, some small tupperware boxes, some little glass vials. Some are labelled, and some used to be labelled, and some never were. All are clear, and all hold the same thing. Ash.

The patchwork stone is stained by smoke, lesser ash, blood, spit, sweat, piss, puke, mud. It is sacrilegious and sacred at the same time, its very standing is a testament to nothing more or less than pure hatred, and its spawn, its twin, its sister and its bride: destruction.

Dante had told me stories about the Wall, but being near it was enough to awaken an angry throbbing in the back of my head. My jaw tightened reflexively, fingers clenched, teeth ground. It was wondrous.

A fire burns in a pit at the Wall's base, constructed from the concrete remains of a walkway. Before it, Dante and the others stand. The only commonality among them is a grey cloth of some kind tied around their left arm. Dante stands in a long grey coat, dark brown skin, hair sticking up at odd ends. Graves is another who I know; he wears a thick red vest, skin pale save his face (which is ruddy), bald save for a few wisps of stubborn hair. People of all colours and sizes, not a mob, but still a large group, all wearing the grey. All standing in the field before the Wall, arrayed around the ruins of whatever building once stood there (the root of the hatred does not matter, only where it grows). They are Smoke. Though I stand behind them, soon I shall join them.

It took Dante four hours to drive out of the city and reach the field, but we are still early. As the faded sunlight wanes behind the clouds, other trucks pull in through the line of trees that ring the property. People get out, dressed in yellows and oranges of every shade. Though they are not exclusively female, they are Brides. They work with the others, sometimes (never Dante, Dante stands apart, even from Smoke; they call him an apostate, he says he prefers to work alone). One of them pauses to regard Dante as he gazes into the fire; I've seen her before, though I could have sworn last time she was male. Maybe she fluctuates, as the flames do. Dante taught me some people do that (although why he did, I do not understand). Her neck-length black hair is cropped at a jagged angle, her skin is tanned, and though she is of Asian descent, I do not know if she is Chinese like me. I do not ask. It does not matter.

The Brides stand with Smoke in silence, and watch the fire flicker. The sun sets before Dante and Graves step forward, and drop little pouches into the flames. They stand for another moment, watching the air just above the wall until it turns to grey. A solemn ritual. Making sure. A shorter, stockier bride in a deep orange coat then steps forward, and places a little clear cylinder of ash into a gap in the Wall. The three stand there for another moment, before finally turning away.

The Brides and Smoke head towards an outbuilding I glimpsed on the drive in, at the furthest edge of the property. Between the throbbing in my head and the bottled rage in my veins and the burning question on my tongue, I find I can no longer hold back. I jog to catch up with Dante, and, walking beside him, ask when I will be anointed.

It will take place later, Dante says. After the wake for Phoss. I ask whom Phoss was, seething that in death, this man bars my entrance to the Path.

A good man. A good friend. So Dante says.

I am forced to drop it. It is not right to demand now, not when Dante has done so much for me. Not when the others are my family. I join them in their trek to the outbuilding.

Present

Today is another day.

Dante and I put on our masks; his is old, so the smooth surface is stained by smoke, scratched, dented, battered. He's earned the charcoal smears. Mine is still plain, pale, untouched. I have not been anointed yet.

It is winter; the cold bites, the snow covers the ground, and we approach the couple all bundled up and cozy, walking arm in arm. The houses here are nicer than where Dante lives. There are also less police, which Dante likes, because the police are false. They're hypocrites. They hate just as much as everyone else, but they pretend their hate serves a higher authority when they unleash it. They claim to walk above the rest while throwing the same mud. There is nothing worse than hatred made dishonest by politic.

So Dante says.

Our hatred is honest when we surround the couple in the cold dark beside the neat little laneways. We're flanked by tall houses that still have their Christmas lights up. Almost every lawn has a tree, barren branches blanketed in sparkling white. Under these branches, Dante draws his machete. I heft my crowbar.

Dante gives the stunned white couple two choices, a single turn of his blade cutting through the air, slashing the throats of whatever cries of help that would've rose. He says they can either give him their wallets, jewelry, or they can give him an excuse to use the blade. He says he'd just love an excuse, he begs them to give him one.They are shivering, now, and not because of the cold. Their coats are better than ours.

I am warm, though. I can feel the anger, the rage, the hatred, I can feel it boiling up every limb, simmering in my core. There are holes in my jacket that don't matter any longer, the wind doesn't matter any longer.

I know Dante feels it, too. He taught me how to feel it. The others feel it as well, but not like Dante. Not like he's shown me.

The couple give Dante their wallets, a watch, some bracelets and a necklace. I want to hit them, I want release, I want to bring the hatred to the world outside me, but Dante backs off. I grip my crowbar and back off too. I do not want to. I want to turn around and hit them. When we've walked four blocks away, and my feet ache from the cold but the fire inside still roars, Dante directs me towards a tree.

Breaking the bark makes the crowbar shudder in my hands. It is almost painful, but at least I feel relieved while I swing.

I walk home in silence with Dante, our masks removed and weapons stowed. As I am on the very urge of asking him why yet again we didn't make the choice for someone, why we didn't let the rage out, he taps his chin and removes the wallet, a wry smile on his lips.

Dante says that we now have enough gas money for the trip. The beat-up grey sedan in his garage has gathered dust for as long as I've been there, though.

I ask him, what trip? Where are we going?

His smile fades. Dante tells me we are going up north. He tells me we are going to visit the Wall, and that he will place me on the Ashen Path anointed.

I am ready.

Past

Today is a day of rest.

Many of the others do not have days of rest, but Dante says that rage can burn out if you keep burning it. We are too-small vessels filled with a great hatred: if we unstop ourselves at all times, the hatred spews forth and eventually runs out. If we pause and give the hatred a chance, the pressure will increase once more, and we will never fade, or burn out. An endless fire, never starved.

So Dante says.

So I sit by the fire, and write my record.

The only address the past needs is Over and Done With, No More. Dante says the root of the hatred does not matter, only that it grows. But I want to write it down. Once, I was in a bad place. There was only pain and dark there, where lived a Liar.

But Dante found me, and took me away from the dark and what lurked there. He gave me a new home, the others became my family. He clothed me, fed me, even gave me a new name. He took it from an old word, something having to do with fire. Our Cousins have more to do with fire, but there is an overlap.

And most importantly, he is teaching me how to hate. Soon, no lurking thing will touch me, for I will be the monster in the dark.