Take me to your other self’s house

  The wiper bdes chopped against the rain like measured gunfire, smearing the liquid world of headlights and knife-bde refles across the windshield. Heavy droplets, unseen in the blur, but pictured in Gradie’s mind as the size of gumballs, sang on the roof of the car.

  They had left the jeep under a tarp in a mud covered back yard turned used car lot tucked away on the north side, one of Philip's assets. A Honda fit with the back seats already down stood waiting one spot over and they had loaded everything into it in near-solid darkness, just before the rain really picked up. Out i distance, amber street mps and streaming headlights had glowed like holograms. Gradie had felt pletely severed from it all, immersed in a world of darkness. Once again, he felt like a ghost walking beside the living.

  But being a ghost wasn’t good enough for Philip.

  “Yo, Max. Are we heading back to the ste pce or what?” Sam asked her earbuds.

  “No. The girl driving that car has never evehere. Got it?”

  “Ok, so where does a girl like me go to get out of the rain?”

  “How should I know? I’ve never eve her.”

  “Maybe like a safehouse, or—”

  “Wherever her little heart desires. She surely isn’t worried about the cops.”

  “Ok, got it, thank you Max.” She dropped the lih a sigh that boiled into a groan.

  “Mr. Teacher man loves to teach.”

  “What’s the lesson?” Gradie asked.

  “Bee your disguise. So, I’m just a lil’ party girl in a Honda Fit. Out too te and very sleepy.” She made a big fake yawn sound. Gradie ughed, still giddy from the shooting.

  “So where would miss party girl go to sleep?” he asked. “A hotel?” Sarios of the two of them sharing a hotel room were already pying an encore in his head.

  “Nope, somewhere that would make Mr. Max very grumpy if he knew I was going there, but party girl doesn’t know that.” She leaned over tradie and grinned impishly at the windshield. “Party girl has never met Max and just wants to go home cause she’s been out drinking and needs snacks.”

  “We’re going to your house? Like your self’s—”

  “Yep, and It’s a big ol’ mess, so if you make any ents you’ll be sleeping in the car.”

  “I thought Boss said to avoid pces associated with your Self?”

  “That’s mostly because you don’t want any family members or friends dropping in aing the self all stirred up and dropping you out. I don’t have to worry about that.”

  Gradie let the noise of the rain, road, and breathing fill in the silence. He nodded when he felt her g him then looked out the window like he didn’t care. He searched the gss fments of her refle, until he felt he had to break the silence.

  “You got anything to eat there?”

  “Not really. I’m gonna order something.”

  “It’s a ese take-out kinda night.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Gradie looked her in the eye for a sed before she looked back at the road. She was eager to draw the talking away from her home, towards anything else.

  “You know, it’s raining, were out here w a case aing in shootouts. Very noir.”

  The pause that followed left him w if she would take offeo him being too o her. She seemed the kind to hate people being careful with her feelings, and he might have let too much of his own seep into the words.

  “Oh, you mean like in an old movie? So you wanna share some lo mein and talk about the case? Maybe fall in love?” She drew the st word out like a taunt.

  “Oh, I’m already in love with you,” Gradie said. Sam ughed like a scream.

  “Shut the fuck up! And keep your hands to yourself or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  “Which head?”

  “Uh, whie would you rather I shoot you in?”

  “Not the one I do my thinking with.” Gradie made sure he had a big smile on when Sam looked over.

  “You are such a doofus!” She cackled into the steering wheel.

  “Zoey likes me,” he said with mock pride.

  “No she does not!”

  “Oh yeah she does. She was whispering all kinds of dirty things in my ear when I was looking—”

  “You asked me what I was wearing, you creepy little—” EP’s voice rattled his ear buds. Sam ughed and almost swerved out of the ne.

  “You’re listening in on us? Is it jealousy?” Gradie whispered with mock .

  “MPEEEEEEEEEEEE”

  “Fuck!” Gradie threw his hands up to his ears instinctively, but the shrill siren was ing from inside his head. EP cut it off suddenly.

  “Did you buzz him!?” Sam yelled and ughed into the steering wheel.

  “Yep. Oh, and for the record, An, I’M WEARING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!”

  Gradie threw his hands up again as EP’s voice battered his ear drums. There was a chime and she dropped off.

  “Your ears ringing bud?” Sam said.

  “Now I have to find out where she is.” Gradie sighed.

  “She will fug kill you!” Sam ughed. Gradie smiled and bounced his eyebrows.

  “Don’t do that, oh my god!” Sam ughed. There was another rain spoken sileil Gradie felt a responsibility to break it.

  “Hey, remember that time you shot those cops?” He said suddenly, deadpan. Sam ughed at the overhead visor, then at him, then ran a red light.

  “Shit!” She looked around in a panic. Gradie drew his pistol. Nothing happened. No sirens or fshing lights. Only afterward did Gradie remember where he was.

  “Fuck.”

  “What?” said Sam breathlessly.

  “I should have just pushed that there were no cops around.”

  “You really think you could have dohat?” Sam ughed.

  Gradie just looked at her.

  “That’s a lot bigger than finding some clothes in a car,” she said, and shook her head at the road.

  Gradie holstered his pistol and stared out the window. Soon he was lost in thought experiments that tested the malleability of the Hardworlds and the theoretical power of his Spirit. Before he could decide to what extent Sam was right, the car slowed into a turn.

  They pulled into a small apartment plex and lightning fshed behind the wooded area at the other end of the parking lot, silhouetting the jagged arms of fotten oaks against billowing storm clouds.

  When they had parked, Sam leaned her seat bad jumped into the hatd started moving things around. Gradie just sat there trying to get a look at her ass till she s him.

  “e around and fug help me with this! And keep yun in reach.”

  He got out into the rain, and even with his jacket colr buttoight, he felt the water run down the back of his neck. Raindrops popped like the wet sounds of bullets hitting flesh and he remembered the men he had gunned dowheir ATVs. Somewhere, his Self screamed.

  At the back of the car, Sam shoved a heavy pocketed tool bag into his chest. He found the strap and got it over his shoulder while she hopped out with a vas rucksa her bad a rge satchel purse over one shoulder. Her other hand was firmly in her jacket pocket and stayed there as she shut the door and walked up the stairs to the sed-story unit.

  As he waited for Sam to unlock the dradie sed the parking lot for any sign of danger, but the street beyond was liquid bck besides a mist-rireetlight and the few fragmented slivers of gre that zipped by on a passing car. Sam got the door open and slipped inside. She shut he door so close behind Gradie when he came in that she almost caught his jacket in it.

  He stood there dripping while she set her bags down on the ground and took her jacket off.

  “Hang your tren that rack so you don’t get water all over my house please, thank you,” Sam said. She put her own jacket on the coat rack hanging off the closet door and took the Beretta out of the pocket where she had been holding it and put it under her waistband, showing the outline of her hip and the soft skin of her stomach. Gradie gawked but she didn’t notice. He had only ever seen her in baggy coveralls. Even iherworld, she had dressed like a retro-futurist bomber pilot.

  By the time he had hung up his coat and picked the bags back up, he had collected himself.

  “This way! Tour time!” Sam said in a sing-song void led him down a small hallway, with a bathroom on one side and another closet the oher. The space at the end was divided between the living room and what should have been the dining area.

  “Bathroom, bedroom, living room, kit, ok done!” she said pointing and boung as she went.

  Gradie looked around without being too obvious about it a a smile snap across his face. This pce was made of Sam.

  The mismatched coud zy boy looked like they had fallen asleep years ago and never gotten up. The coffee table was covered in bottles and s, game cases, ash trays, trollers, and ammo boxes. The walls were lined with shelves holding books, games, more bottles, and trophies (some with pistols on them). The top shelves and upper surfaces of the fixtures all held folded towels, cushions, or small beds. In one of them, on top of a half-height bookshelf in front of a window, a cat stirred and started to watch them.

  “Say hello Bojo.” Sam set the bags on one end of the couch.

  “Holy shit, is that the cat from the clubhouse?”

  “Yep. That’s my baby. Set it there.” Sam poi an old office chair leaned against the wall below the bar ter between the dining area to the kit. The round kit table was covered in undry and there was a Mossberg Shockwave hung from its sling on a and hook on the wall and he spotted at least three uns peeking out uhe clutter.

  Sam must have seen him staring.

  “Yeah, I know it’s a mess, don’t judge me, Mr. suburb Msion.”

  Gradie smirked at her.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t give a shit. I was just ting the guns.”

  Sam met his eyes for a sed, a fused look fshing across her face, then turned aicked up a phone charging on the ter. She thumbed through it for a sed while the thunder grumbled outside, and Gradie watched her, w what she had seen in his eyes.

  “All right, well, drinks in the fridge, pick what you want.” She handed him the phone. A ese pce was already pulled up on the delivery app.

  “I’ll be right back.” She turned without looking at him, ached her bounce back down the hallway.

  “Zoey. you have Max—” She opehe door at the other end of the apartment and slid in sideways and closed it fast.

  The daydreams came back with a vengeand he looked for something to distract him. He read the menu so hard he absorbed nothing, and it took him ten mio pick the kung pao chi and char siu bao. The phone was in a wallet case and he found himself staring at the distorted image of Sam’s head and whisperi name like it might tell him something about her.

  A stomp in the ba broke his focus a the phone down and walked up to Bojo. Was it really him, or Sam was just fug with him? you push animals? If she could do that then why did Gradie finding clothes in that car surprise her so much? Maybe it didn’t and she was fug with him then too. He could think it, but he couldn’t believe it. The idea of Sam being anythihan straightforward to a fault dissolved in his mind.

  Bojo trotted away from him when he held out his hand, stopping just out of read looking back, so he studied the room again.

  Iween a dusty peg and board dispy of medals, all for petitive shooting, and a floating shelf that seemed installed purely to collect cat hair, a framed photo caught his eye. He smiled at the face looking at him. Sam standing with a group of other people, her hair an un-styled e cm shell, medals on her neck refleg summer sun, open side by side shotgun in her arms, holding a pque.

  He looked around and saw other photos. Sam aiming a pistol, pletely focused, captured from a low angle. Winner’s photos for petitive driving, off-road driving, archery. The photos were framed, and stood up, but not dispyed in any kind of vanity, more like they had been put up out of respect for the people who had giveo her.

  A low bookshelf sagged uhe weight of thick textbooks. Car manuals, HVAC maintenance, Electri courses, locksmithing, gunsmithing, bristling with rainbow page tags peeking out of the dust.

  He tried to look past the objects of Sam’s career and skills, and focus on other things. Band posters, manga, dust-staiuffed animals, sketch pads and pencil cases, to find arts of her Real self she had let slip through the crafted, primed fa?ade of her Hardworlding avatar.

  The door down the hall opened suddenly and Sam marched towards him. Her eyes darted from him to her dispy wall and ba, and her mouth made a slight pout, but she didn’t say anything about it.

  “Ok, time to prepare for the worst. Follow me.”

  What would you do, if you could learn to do anything? ime, how vulnerable is the flesh? episode, Soft Targets.