THE ART OF BURNING

VIII: THIS IS FIDEL CASTRO!

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CAIN

            MAYA ZAMAN DOES NOT LIVE in the nicest part of town.

            Her apartment complex is tucked into the edge of the city, located smack-dab in the middle of the nasty little section of crossroads rich assholes pass on their way to work and turn their noses up at. The building itself is dilapidated, covered in graffiti and held up through boarded-up windows, half-tucked under an old highway-bridge, half-out melting under the sun. Outside of it is a small plastic playground where several children play, unbothered by the grimy sidewalk they dance over, oblivious to the oil leaking through the cracks in the bridge. Across the street is a shantytown of tents and cardboard boxes.

            It reminds me of my own neighborhood, of Warwick. I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing my home until I'm face-to-face with a place so similar to it.

            We drop Maya and Silas off at her apartment complex—in her drunken state, she'd forgotten her wheelchair—and head to an empty parking garage about a mile away from her house. We easily break past the flimsy barriers and leave the cop car parked cheekily on the roof of the building, then spent the next half-hour making the trek back to her apartment. We find her and Silas waiting for us outside the building, Maya sitting confidently in her chair.

            Maya's sobered up a bit. She warmly greets us, then leads us inside to a sketchy-ass elevator. We ride to the top floor, and when we reach it, Maya heads deeper into the building, to a door at the end of the hall. She uses a key to unlock it, and shoves us inside. We crowd into a dark, musty hall rank with the scent of Ramen, weed, and burning incense.

            Maya steps in behind us and flips a switch. Light floods the hall.

            I still don't know whether I trust her or not. She seems deadly as a coin: heads, and she's a sweet pothead, a teenaged grandmother with wide, innocent eyes; tails, and she's a hawk with her claws spread, feasting on your exposed flesh. She's dangerous, sure, but is she dangerous to me? The trouble with her comes from not knowing when she's going to flip and when her claws are going to dig into your still pulsing heart.

            She offers me her hand with a warm smile. "So, you know my name's Maya. What's your's?"

            "Cain," I say. "Though some call me Daddy."

            "Nobody calls him that," Atlas cuts in.

            Maya makes a disgusted face. "You better not expect me to, 'cause I'm a whole-ass lesbian."