The Transit
872 Words
The ride from the border of the Glass North back to the South End was a descent through the strata of Oakhaven’s soul.
Leo rode with one hand on the handlebars and the other clutching the cream-colored envelope against his chest, tucked deep inside his waterproof jacket. The front wheel of his bike was definitely warped; every rotation sent a rhythmic, mocking shudder up through the carbon-fiber fork and into his wrists. Thump-hiss. Thump-hiss. It was the heartbeat of a dying machine.
As he crossed back over the 4th Street Bridge, the skyline behind him began to blur into a soft, expensive glow. In the North End, the rain was aesthetic—it made the glass towers shimmer and gave the socialites an excuse to wear their Burberry trenches. But as Leo crossed the invisible line where the city’s tax revenue began to evaporate, the rain stopped being a filter and started being a burden.
Here, the storm drains were clogged with the autumn’s uncollected leaves and plastic debris. The streets became shallow lakes. Leo had to pedal through "puddles" that hid jagged pieces of rebar and deep, tire-shredding potholes.
His mind was a centrifuge, spinning the lawyer’s words around the core of his mother’s long-standing silence.
Julian Vane. The name felt like a bruise. Growing up, Leo had seen that name everywhere. It was on the side of the massive cranes that hovered over the docks like prehistoric birds. It was on the scholarship plaques at the library he used to frequent to escape the summer heat. He had even joked with his friends about "Uncle Julian" being the reason their rent went up every June. To find out that the man’s blood actually ran through his veins felt like discovering he had been infected with a slow-acting poison.
Why had Elena lied?
He remembered the few times he’d asked about his father. She’d always had the same distant, practiced look. “He was a sailor, Leo. A man of the tides. He went out one morning and the horizon took him.” It was poetic. It was romantic. It was a lie designed to keep a child from looking too closely at the monsters in the shadows.
He passed the Oakhaven Yards, the massive shipping terminal that acted as the city’s lungs. Even in the downpour, the yard was alive. Floodlights cut through the mist, illuminating the stack after stack of primary-colored shipping containers. These were the "bricks" of Julian Vane’s empire. Leo slowed his pace as he passed the main gate. He saw the workers in their high-visibility vests, huddled under the eaves of the security shack, sharing a smoke. These were his people. Or they were supposed to be. If Sterling was telling the truth, Leo didn’t belong in the gutter with the couriers, nor did he belong on the docks with the longshoremen. He was a "shareholder." The word felt heavy and oily, like a mouthful of seawater.
He turned off the main artery and into the narrow, claustrophobic grid of the South End. The buildings here were old brick, leaning against each other for support, their fire escapes rusted into intricate iron webs. This was a neighborhood of "Third Places"—the barbershops that stayed open until midnight, the bodegas where the cat was the most respected employee, and the basement apartments where the rent was paid in crumpled fives and tens.
Leo reached his building: 442 West Canal. It was a tenement that had survived three fires and a century of neglect. He dismounted, his hip screaming in protest as he stood on solid ground. He chained his warped bike to a sagging railing, knowing that in this neighborhood, even a broken bike was a target.
He stood for a moment in the dark foyer, the water dripping off his chin and onto the pristine envelope. He wiped the paper dry with his sleeve, a sudden, frantic protectiveness taking hold of him. He wasn't protecting the money Julian Vane had left him; he was protecting the evidence of the crime committed against his life.
He began the walk up the stairs. Four flights. The elevator had been "out of service" since the first Bush administration. With every step, the smell of the city changed—from the wet ozone of the street to the lingering scents of cabbage, cheap detergent, and the damp, earthy smell of a building that was slowly losing its battle with the elements.
By the time he reached Apartment 4B, Leo wasn't just tired. He was hollow. He reached for his keys, but his hand stopped at the door. From inside, he could hear the rhythmic, mechanical hiss-click of his mother’s oxygen concentrator.
It was the sound of a life being sustained by a machine. A machine that cost $400 a month to lease.
Leo looked down at the envelope. He thought about the SUV, the lawyer’s silk tie, and the billion-dollar "Vault" waiting for him in the North End. He realized then that the truth didn't matter. Only the price of the truth did.
He turned the key and stepped into the light.
- Writer
