He heard of a place where an old woman had starved to death up in a low-rent high-rise. He walked until he got there. Over the city, through the broken streets, past parking meters fallen to the ground, past empty, looted newspaper stands, over and through the debris, down the alleys, over puddles with frozen edges. He walked through the night and through the day. He slept in alleys and building doorways. He found supplies along the way. Who would stop for a can of spray paint but him?

He went to the high-rise and he painted a skeleton hugged by a suit. The suit was a picture of precise folds and creases and seams. It draped off the bones like it would on the gym-sculpted frame of a millionaire who intended on living forever. In front of the skeleton, he painted a banquet so rich and varied that the people left had only seen the likes of it in magazines, if there. He had never seen this kind of food in real life, either, but he knew it was good, so he painted it there. He painted the skeleton’s hand digging into it and bringing it up to his bare teeth.

Part Ten Makayla—March

PART TEN

MAKAYLA—MARCH

1 The new kids, Jesse, José, and Sebastian, kind of drove me crazy. They had a lot in common with Kristen, even though they were clearly from different worlds. The way they thought about things, the suggestions they made for how we run the building—they seemed to come from the same place of having been through this shit almost professionally. I had mixed feelings about all of them. It was upswing to have people around who knew what was up, that was for sure. But when José suggested we use these hand signals so no one talked over anyone else at our meetings, I got kind of annoyed.

“These are called ‘twinkles,’” José said, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers. “They’re a better way of saying you agree with something than interrupting the person who’s talking.”

“What the hell is wrong with agreeing with someone?” I said.

José shrugged like it was no big deal, but I could tell he was annoyed right back at me. “We have a good number of people here. More are showing up every day. The bigger a group gets, the more important it is to be able to effectively communicate. Instead of pausing a meeting for fifteen people to shout, ‘Yes, that’s right!’ we wiggle our fingers and get the same effect. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

I could tell the question wasn’t a question.