Such Things We Salvage by Jess Moody

Saturday, and he sits at the lights. A night-bus chugs in the next lane, its passengers bleached in blue-white anonymity. He wonders, briefly, what it would be like to share these midnight journeys with others. But no. This has been a solo gig for too long now. The unseen team is stretched thinner each year: fewer personnel with the skills for this work, even as the demand – inexplicably – increases.

He peers up through the very top of the van’s windscreen. Searching red eyes in a face of sodium bristles. He orientates himself amidst the concrete and the sirens and the shards of drunkenness. The satnav is not permitted. Looking down: how it all started, apparently.

It’s fine. He’s on track. Close now.

A green light and he turns left. Text-book signalling; he cannot risk a ticket. The bus continues onwards in the corner of his eye. A sense memory – of something moving in the shadows. The other night, as he drove from the lock-up? He shakes it off. Just overstretched again. The days cleaning offices he could run, and then this.

Focus.

Tonight, he almost missed it. At his post atop the old Exchange, watching this city snug in its halo, he let his eyes droop. But instinct snapped him to vigilance in time and he spotted the bastard. Calculated the distance, radioed in, clanged down the old fire-escape with keys in hand.

At least one a week now. More than Rafa had hinted at, those years ago. A good gig, quiet he’d muttered, eyes milkier day by day. But you must be careful, eh? It is… He held a hand out, horizontal. A wiggle up and down.

But what else was new? The only advice from his old room-mate that rankled: don’t be lying to them. Not worth it, my friend.

Them. An odd crew. The one gathering, he’d witnessed a medley of accents, colours and clothing, without coherent connection. One woman squatted on the floor, the look and smell of vagrancy; a man in a wheelchair wore a three-piece suit. All there for him: his interview.

He’d grown up in a village, they'd heard? He spoke of the place that had existed for a thousand years until these last five. How far from the nearest city? He'd shrugged. Given them a distance in time. Two, three days. An enthusiastic whispering. What about electricity: electric light? At night? Did he have it? He overcame his irritation, refusing to be shamed. Sometimes. If there was gas for the generator. Was there? They asked. Gas? He scuffled his feet. No.

Then of all things, an eye test. Large letters, shrinking away on a concrete wall. He thought of the small-print that entered his life with each border crossed. His unwished-for skillset: an eye for the detail of chaos.

They outlined the duties. The night shifts. The equipment, the van, the network of lock-ups. The need to be watchful. Steady. Oh, so steady.

What is this job? He’d finally asked.

A question answered with a question. The three-piece man. How many languages do you speak, brother?

He shrugged. Five. Six. The usual.

The man nodded. Know that there is no language to describe what this is.

~

He reaches the place. Not record time, but good enough.

An old warehouse, walls caved in. Towering billboards hide the scene from the road.

Lucky.

He listens, but no one has raised the alarm. Good. Let them sleep on, cling on, sing down the high-street to oblivion.

He grabs his silver gloves, his mask, the tarp, and the chains. And gets to work.

~

The van crawls down the alley. It sits lower now. He grimaces at the scrape of the underside on broken bricks and tall weeds. Slows down further.

It is still night, and the thicker part of it. Any presence out now is wary of its own breath.

He parks gently outside the lock-up. Takes the keys out of the ignition. Places his forehead on the steering wheel. Listens to the engine plink.

How long can this carry on? He never thought to see himself an old man in this country. Or, at all. And some secrets seep away your youth more than the clock.

Enough nonsense. Finish this one, then hot tea. Bed.

He palms the keys and pulls the door handle.

His foot is barely on the ground when they strike. Hisses and grasping and his cheek is in the gravel, his shoulder wrenched back. One boy is holding him down, shouting obscenities while the others holler, bump fists.

What’s in the van, old man? They chant low, as the keys are snatched from him, thrown back and forth with the only joy they’ve been permitted by this city.

He knows now. Should have trusted that flash in the vision, the sense of extra eyes the last week.

The young men – boys – walk the length of the van, thumping its sides to the rhythm. What’s. In. The Van.

Gentle! He thinks, but winded, cannot speak.

They are going for the back doors.

No, you mustn’t, he manages to croak, and they laugh. Louder now. Unafraid.

Shut the fuck up, the one still on top of him spits, bored with his thrashing. We know you’re moving stuff.

Please, it isn’t safe he, tries to explain, and more – wants to tell them that he knows, better than they, how few choices life has left for them.

But the ones around the back are finished mock-wrestling over the keys. There is the sound of the lock. The doors are wrenched open too sharply.

He cannot turn his head, so buries it flat into the asphalt.

When the screaming stops and there is only the fading light and the smell of scorched flesh, the shaking boy on top of him weeps down into his face.

What is that what is that what is that what happened to them –

He rolls over, holds the boy in his arms.

I tried to tell you. He strokes the hard, trembling skull.

The stars are falling. The stars are falling.

………………..

Jess Moody is a Wulfrunian in London. She likes her worlds and words a little weird. Short fiction in Lunate, Ellipsis, Storgy, Reflex, Retreat West, and Cabinet of Heed. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net, and shortlisted with Lunate, Retreat West and Storgy.

Twitter: @jesskamoody