RED PARALLEL

Chapter 50: Death's Type

Song: Beautiful, by Eminem.

He wished the ache in his body was big enough to take the pain away, but it wasn't, it didn't, so the chest hurt, with everything inside it. There was something inside it, he could swear, and he wished there wasn't. The anti-virus the pharmacy woman had given him seemed not enough to kill him. He should've asked for a poison, right away, but he panicked. "No, woman, my head hurts, that's all." But the woman seemed to know there was something wrong. Anti-viral, okay. I must be filled with them.

I'm the virus, right? The fucking sick murderer. Boom.

There wasn't much money left in his bag, of course. How could he ever imagine he'd be out in the streets again? He had plans to live inside Gretta's place forever. What a joke, right? Traviz asked himself if he'd ever laugh at that. Probably never. With the sense of humor frizzling under his neck but with no mouth to smirk, he stared blankly at the subway railway map for the fourth time in three days, wondering where not to go.

No West. He left that place after Cobe had almost kicked him out under some weird gangsta 'Imma save ya' aura. How was that possible, really. No Downtown. He had finally learned that it was where his shot dad lived. Or used to live, who knew. No East. He simply couldn't appear at The Crib and say "Hey, I'm a motherfucker asshole and a criminal 'cause I just tried to kill my dad, you know, hope you guys don't mind it, I regret what I've done and what I've said, now can I have some beans?" No. Aaron would aim his mortal jump right at his face, and since Traviz was now incapable to dodge from anything - like, a piece of flying newspaper -, he'd probably lose a tooth or so, and teeth mattered because otherwise it'd be impossible to bite, let's say, hard stone bread. So no. No South either, because there was only one subway station pointed at the map, so if he had to spread running and vanish, it'd be hard.

There was only North left.

That's where I am.

Trying to imagine what type of savage threat the North hood could present to his ungrateful life and not concluding anything but the pain on his back, Traviz turned around and grabbed his cash. Using his impaired brain and his ridiculous crooked instinct, he turned left at a random road and knocked on the first door he saw. Nice plan. A fat bearded man opened the door, scratching his back and eating a piece of meat with bare hands. Shocked with the man's state, Traviz looked up the building he had just blindly chosen and noticed it was the most screwed shit in the street. A nice street, with normal shits and stuff, but he had to pick the worst place, of course.

"No cats allowed."

Why no cats?

The man scrutinized him, chewing the meat like it was anything but food. "Whatcha need?"

"Do you have food and bed?" Traviz went straight to business. He just couldn't stay at the subway, a woman with a fucking piercing high heels had stepped over his right leg, and that was unforgivable.

The man went straight to business, too. He spat the chewed meat and said: "Only bed. Fifty bucks a week."

Fifty bucks... What the hell...

Traviz snorted. "I'm not rich, man. If I were I wouldn't be here, ya know."

"If I were rich, I wouldn't need fifty bucks a week, you know," the man retorted.

He's got a fucking point...

"'Kay, I'm in."

Huh? Come again? The hell I'm saying, I ain't got fifty bucks?

"Upstairs, fourth room." The man turned around and disappeared.

Dark green with stinky grey box room, a tall straight window, a bed that didn't look like a bed, a chair that was not meant to be seated, a desk with the third leg missing, and a wardrobe in which lied the monster of his early childhood nightmares. Concluding he had just lost the only fifty bucks left - the man made him pay right away - and that he'd end up cracking and smashing and exploding all that fucking wood, Traviz looked for the bathroom.