What did I expect out of those bums, anyway? What did I expect out of the cops and guards? Wasn’t I looking on when they stabbed Metro? Didn’t I know it was going to end up like it did? How the hell could I blame anyone? I had red on myself now. Red eyes. Swollen red lips. A head that wouldn’t stop pounding at the slightest footsteps. And all you could hear is feet dragging on metal. My feet dragged too. But inside the metal catwalk the floor is concrete. Walls are cinder blocks stacked high and glazed with gray paint. Each one measures twelve inches by six inches. And there are thirty blocks on the wall below the metal bars and window. One window. I’ve seen some cells that are just metal and air. Then some with walled metal slats for ventilation. Space for names and fingers, maybe. Nothing else. And one square lock to remind you how far the space goes out, how far you can walk forward without coming back, then walk back again. One five-step run from locked bars to back window. Then an iron-pole bed, an open toilet, and me. Five steps this way, five steps that way. Step-touch, step-touch, step-touch back. And the pacing, the pacing back and forth, back and forth inside my head.

PART THREE

PART THREE

Ruella

Ruella

I got to the Village on the #1 train, all out of breath and with sweat in my hair. I found Jesse in a dirty warehouse room at the top of two flights of broken stairs. The place was scary. Truth is, I never would have gone to a place like that, day or night. Not me. And not without someone like Jesse on my mind. What would I look like wandering around abandoned piers and overturned garbage cans? As it was, I still didn’t want to enter the building once I found it. And even after making up my mind to do so I stopped first in what looked like a hall and called his name. “Jesse?” Next up another flight of stairs. “Jesse?” Then I found a cracked open door and peeked inside. “Jesse!” The air went straight out of my lungs. He like to throw me for a loop.

He was lying on the floor in dance tights. His chest was bare. His street clothes were tossed in a pile. Broken floorboards and splinters were everywhere. “Jesse, are you all right?” He said nothing and looked at me like I wasn’t even there. “It’s me. Rooms. I mean, Ruella.”

Slowly his eyes began to focus. He murmured something I didn’t get. “I had to get away,” he said.

“But why this place? I’ve never seen any place like it. Not from the inside, anyway.”

“Metro brought me here once. He asked me to meet him and I was here with him the day he was killed. We danced.”