Monochrome (4 page)

She saw the same guilt settle upon him.
What does he have to be guilty about?
She returned his stare, an act made easier due to the liquid desensitization drumming through her veins.

Ishmael shifted uncomfortably. He broke the standoff and played with his cigarette in the ashtray in front of him, rolling it, still lit, among the ashes already in the tray. “Well? Stay or go, Abby. Your choice.”

She thought about what she just saw, and tried to still the tears stuck in her throat. She moved to drink her shot, but stopped short. “If that was a test, it may be testing my determination to get back home, right?”

He didn’t answer, but took another drag of his cigarette and slowly exhaled.

“If it was,” she continued, “then I’m not going to fail it. Maybe Jason did hate me then. I’m not too fond of me, either.” She paused and thought about how many times she’d been angry with him.

“But I think it’ll pass. I know he normally loves me very much. I can make it up to him, to
them
.”

Ishmael appeared doubtful. His doubt made her more determined to prove herself right. She didn’t like when people doubted her.

“Plus, my baby needs me, regardless.” She stood up, put the cap back on the whiskey and slid it to the bartender. “How much do I owe you?”

Jim caught the whiskey in a lazy motion and ambled towards her. “Five shots for you. You can hold your shots, lady.” He eyed her standing firm, patting her outfit, vainly searching for money. Abigail grunted, more worried about the fact her trip here left her without her wallet.
I’ve got practice. S
he thought to herself.

“Two for Ishmael, plus a whiskey and coke.” Jim nodded in Ishmael’s direction. “One yellow memory or two purples. Unless you have a moon, which I doubt.”

Abigail, who was checking her dress frantically for pockets, stopped and lifted a confused eyebrow towards the bartender, his gibberish confusing her. She aimed her quizzical brow at Ishmael when the bartender offered no explanation.

But Ismael was searching his own pockets. “I pay for mine, Jim.”

Jim hacked a guttural clearing of his throat. “Ishmael, you know the rules. Guides don’t pay.”

Ishmael stood, straightened himself, and surprised Abby with his height. She hadn’t realized, until now, he was taller than her five-eleven.

“Butt out,” he growled at Jim, sliding a silver rock towards the bartender.

“A half-moon for my drinks. I don’t want to argue with you.” His voice was cold, his face annoyed.

Jim took the silver rock with a shrug. “You’re wasting your moons, man, but they’re yours to waste. I can see why you waste it on this one, though.”

His gaze shifted to her. “Thinking of making good memory? Those don’t happen here. You know that.”

He scanned Abigail up and down until he got to her face, which maintained an ‘I will kick you in the face if you stare at my body one more time’ look.

He drew his eyes upwards and addressed her face. “With the new calculation…” He shook his head and glimpsed at Ishmael, who seemed like he was going to strangle the bartender.

“You owe me one pink memory, please.”

She frowned at Ishmael. “What?”

He was still glowering at Jim, but he spoke to Abigail. “Here, unless you are employed and get Monochrome currency, you have to pay for food, shelter and drink with memories, good memories.”

His eyes met hers and his face was deadly serious. He grabbed her arm and implored her, “Be careful which memory you choose. Once you give it up, you no longer have it. You can’t
ever
think of it again.” He paused to make sure she understood, but kept his tight grip on her arm, which hurt.

He continued. “A pink memory is a fond memory, but not especially important. It makes you happy when you think of it, but is not life altering.”

He tightened his grip further and Abigail winced and pulled away from him. Abashed, he dropped her arm. “Sorry. It’s just that it’s important you don’t choose a memory you will mourn losing.”

He waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Though, of course, all of them are memories that will be missed. Which makes them acceptable payments.”

Abigail stepped closer to Ishmael, anger flushing her cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

To her surprise, he sulked like a shamed child. “I thought I had. When I mentioned the Roamers? I do this so much the process blurs together.”

She felt her anger grow at the obvious lie. “
Don’t
lie to me. I don’t know what kind of idiots you guided before me, but I’m not stupid. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ishmael shame was replaced with stubborn anger. “Don’t call my past Leads idiots. You don’t know them.” She was surprised by the regret and guilt in his voice. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to pile all the bad shit on you at once, okay? I wanted to merge you in slowly. I didn’t ease the others in and, well…”

He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Besides, Abby…” He raised his eyes to hers, speaking softly. “Usually Guides don’t pay. Their assistance is normally offered for a fee—room, food, and drinks are taken care of by the Lead. It’s part of the deal.”

He shot a deadly glare at Jim, who grunted. “
Usually,
I charge this fee as well, but I happen to have some moons, Monochromian currency, so I will not be doing so until I run out of moons.”

She bristled. “You
still
should have told me. I’m tough. I can handle the truth, and I much prefer it to being lied to. I
hate
being lied to.”

He shook his head, but didn’t argue.

Abigail was hurt he didn’t seem to think her capable of handling this place, but she refused to let him see it in her face. Ishmael touched her arm and she pulled away haughtily.

He dropped his hand and explained. “Abby, the fee of a Guide isn’t meant to harm you. It’s just, most Guides have very few good memories left. We’ve paid so much all we have left are the great memories—those keeping us in touch with who we were—and bad memories, which remind us why we’re here.”

He tried to light his cigarette, but his hands were still unsteady.

She swiped the lighter from him, stared into his black eyes (which seemed to lose their sparkle with every passing hour), and lit his cigarette.

“Don’t hold out on me again, Ishmael.” She kept his gaze even though it was beginning to make her dizzy. “I will pay for my drinks
and
food
and
shelter
and
will help pay for yours, if you need it, but I don’t like being lied to. Once you lose my trust, it’s tough to regain it. This one can serve as a warning.”

Ishmael’s eyes sparkled at her anger. “You could make it.”

She tossed his lighter to him. He snatched it from the air with ease. “I
will
make it,” she corrected him.

She addressed Jim. “How is this done, then?”

He reached under the counter and brought up a bottle, round at the base and skinny at the top. A fuchsia fog swirled inside. “You just gotta think of the memory you want to use and touch the top of this jar. The memory will transfer immediately.”

Ishmael cleared his throat at Jim and the bartender begrudgingly continued. “Think of only one memory and really concentrate, lady. If you think of more than one, I get both. No refunds.”

She nodded at Ishmael in appreciation. He just turned away, as if he didn’t want to witness the process. She was sure Jim hadn’t told her everything to begin with.

Who takes more than what they are owed in a place where memories are currency? What kind of person cheats someone out of their happiness?
She was disgusted with his greed, especially because he seemed like an okay person, otherwise. But she put her disgust aside and concentrated on the payment.

At first, Abigail thought it might be hard to choose a memory, but when she closed her eyes she was slammed with pink-rimmed images. Memories swam through her mind with ease—running the bases in softball after a solid hit, building a fort with her brother in their backyard, taking her favorite chubby basset hound on a walk, her puppy ears picking up dust and tripping her every other step.

But she focused on the memory of a tan, black-haired girl with a mischievous grin. It was Ash, her first best friend. She no longer talked to Ash, so losing one memory of her couldn’t hurt. She liked this memory, loved it even, but it wasn’t life-altering. She closed her eyes and concentrated on remembering it:

A chubby girl with light brown hair held a cleaned peanut butter jar in her hand. In the jar was grass, leaves and a couple of flies. The chubby girl, Abigail when she was ten, was squatting by a mud-brown creek, hazel eyes flashing with anticipation. In front of her, a black-haired, skinny tomboy was ankle deep in dirty water, bent over and facing Abigail.

“Okay, Abby, I’m gonna get ‘em now” she whispered excitedly. “Make sure you take off the lid right when I snatch ‘em, so I kin put ‘em in there.” Abigail nodded seriously, concentrating on Ash’s movements. Ash was going for the quick frog on the rock in the middle of the creek, and he was as good as caught. She was lightening embodied.

Ash sprung forward lithely, leaping, hands open, at the frog. He was fast, but he wasn’t fast enough for the lean little girl. She squealed in delight as her hands closed around the brown-green amphibian. It waaarrruuumped in contempt as Ash splashed towards Abby.

Abby whooped for Ash and quickly unscrewed the lid from the large peanut butter jar. Ash put the protesting frog in the jar and motioned for her to screw the top back on. “Do it fast, Abby, or the flies will get out.” Abby wasn’t quick like Ash, but she nodded and screwed the lid on as fast and tight as she possible, smiling across the jar at Ash when she was done.

The flies were buzzing away from the annoyed frog, smacking into the thick plastic sides of the peanut butter jar. A feeling of triumph and love rushed through her as she clapped at her best friend, muddy and wet, smiling her goofy, too big grin. It was an expression Abby loved because Ash very rarely smiled. Abby was one of the only people who made the girl in front of her laugh.

“Good job, Ash! You wanna come over and play with him in my yard?”

Ash rushed forward and examined the frog. “Hell, yeah! Better than goin’ back to my house. Boggy Bob is bein’ an ass.”

Abby snickered at Ash’s nickname for her mother’s lazy boyfriend. Sometimes he did smell like a bog, when he was drinking too much.

“Race ya!” Ash raced ahead of her, running as fast her skinny legs allowed. Abigail giggled and simply jogged, not wanting to disturb the frog any more than it already was. Ash was the fastest kid in town. Anyway, she’d come back for Abby. She always did.

“In the bottle, lady,” the bartender reminded Abigail. She kept the memory circulating through her mind and raised her hand as if in a trance. A small cloud of images wafted from her fingertip into the bottle, pulling away from her, as if it were eager to join the fuchsia-tinted happiness of other desperate people.

Scenes erased themselves backwards from her mind. Ash’s quick legs…gone. Then her too big smile and wet hair. Abigail’s heart fell to her stomach. She mourned as Ash’s victorious leap was wiped clean from her memory. The last image to leave was the image of herself, happy and excited, holding the used peanut butter jar in anticipation of Ash’s leap. Her hand dropped to her side tiredly as it was sucked into the bottle and out of her.

Jim put a black stopper in the top of the bottle and coughed wetly. “Thanks for the payment.”

Abigail clenched her eyes, trying to will her memory back, but she couldn’t even bring up an image. She knew the memory was of Ash. She remembered choosing Ash, so she thought hard about her childhood best friend.

She pictured their first shy meeting, their first softball game, nights sleeping over the heater in Ash’s house under a thin, quilted blanket that rose, a tropic dome, to warm them every time the heat turned on. The way Ash always sucked her thumb and threw a skinny brown leg over Abby while she slept. There was the night they spent in the woods behind Abby’s house and couldn’t sleep because of the coyote’s yips, the time they cleaned Ash’s attic and found a couple plush dolls they thought resembled them…But all of these memories seemed less brilliant, less meaningful somehow. They had a shadow of longing attached to them, like they were missing their shadow.

She was shocked out of her reverie by a light but rough touch on her cheek. Ishmael stood in front of her, wiping away the tear she hadn’t felt fall. A confused, fuzzy feeling stole over Abigail as she met his concerned gaze. It made her wonder if she’d had too much to drink. The fuzziness, combined with a tired feeling in her limbs made her stumble.

Ishmael pulled his hand away from her cheek and backed away.

“What’s wrong with them?” She was speaking of her memories, but he didn’t need her to clarify.

“Every memory we have of a person builds upon other memories of him, and upon who we are in relation to him. All the memories, combined, are what make a person who they are to us.”

He wiped her tear on his coat, and sat down again. “When we give up one memory, no matter the memory, that person becomes less significant to us, overall.”

He paused to make sure his explanation registered, but when she didn’t comment right away he asked, “Are we going now or do you feel like another drink?”

Ashamed, she wiped the remainder of the tears from her face, vowing to not cry in front of him again.

“I’m ready. I just didn’t expect this memory to affect me so much. I’ll know better next time.”

Ishmael coughed and stood back up, shaking his head. “It’s bad every time, and it’s worse with greater memories. The more you lose,” he ran his hand through his hair, “the harder it is to let them go. But I think you’re right about moving on.”

He motioned for her to lead the way out of the bar. She stood unsteadily, feeling whiskey numb and bone tired. She was thankful for the whiskey, as she often was. Without it, she might not have been able to deal with the sudden loss of her memory, the separation from her home, and the worry over her family, without breaking down.