Page 72 of On Dry Land

Not even the pain in my head had prevented me from crying and making it worse. I had nothing to clean it off with, but I tried anyway, telling myself all the while that I should be happy they hadn’t recognized a designer piece of clothing and kept it. I should be grateful to have recovered it all, I’d told myself, tears staining tracks down my dirty face. It was lucky I had.

But, of course, that was the extent of the belongings that were abandoned. The more useful clothing items and food had been kept, as well as the laptop, camera, and my cell phone. They either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared about the GoPro clipped to my jacket, or perhaps they’d simply expected it to be broken with the way they’d had me on the ground. And it is—the lens covered in spiderweb cracks and probably not fixable. I’ve got it in my pocket anyway, unable to just throw away such a valuable piece of equipment, and desperately trying to hold on to the hope that it’s salvageable.

Fiddling with Dryden’s scarf wrapped around my neck, still filthy but at least dry, I look around as I walk, noting a man up ahead, sitting on the sidewalk next to a shopping cart loaded with stuff. His scraggly beard is long enough to reach his belly button and surprisingly clean. I nod as I pass him, wondering how he’s able to keep that much hair from getting infested with lice.

“You new here, boy?” he asks, just aggressively enough to let me know he’s not as weak as his age might portray him to be. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s well beyond his sixties.

“Just passing through,” I reply, stopping a good distance away. He frowns at me.

“You get pinched?”

“Robbed. On my way to check for progress on the police report now.”

He laughs, the sound so much like a cackle I almost smile. “They won’t find shit. Wasting your time.”

I shrug. Right now, I have nothing at all but time to waste. He’s right—they likely won’t recover any of my stuff. Whoever stole it all probably wiped all the electronics and pawned them, kept the clothes and ate the food. But I have to at least try. I’m going to have to make a couple of big decisions if the police don’t recover anything, and I’d really prefer I didn’t have to.

“You hungry?” the old man asks. I raise my eyebrows, shocked. Our world is every man for himself—we don’t share food; we eat it.

“Yeah,” I agree. Starving, actually, and thirsty enough that my head feels stuffed with cotton fluff. I feel half as sharp as I need to be, thoughts sluggish and body in so much pain nobody would have to try very hard to find an area of weakness.

“Hang around. Black Subaru drives through here every Sunday morning, and they hand out breakfast.”

Curious and with nothing to lose but apparently a lot to gain, I move to the side of the footpath so I’m not blocking it. The old man watches me, making sure I don’t come any closer to his shopping cart. Crouching down, I lean against the chain-link fence at my back. The hand that was stomped on throbs. I’m not sure if it’s actually more painful or if that’s just my brain making me think it is since it’s the arm with the scar, but it’s killing me either way. When I move my fingers, sharp pain lances up my forearm. Not moving aches just as much, the pressure and constant throbbing nearly as uncomfortable. I’m trying to ignore it, telling myself that my mind is playing tricks on me the way it always does with that arm. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

As promised, a black Subaru, scratched and dented and missing a hubcap, drives slowly down the road a little while later. I stand, watching as the old man pushes his shopping cart toward the car. The passenger window is rolled down, showing a woman wearing a bonnet and under-eye masks. I don’t hear what she says to the old man, but she passes him something wrapped in tinfoil, her hands covered in latex food gloves.

“You hungry, baby?” she calls to me, raising her voice to be heard over the squeaking of the shopping cart as the man pushes it away down the road. I approach the open window slowly, making sure my hands are visible. When I’m a little closer, she asks again. “Breakfast?”

“Yes, please.” I breathe out hard when she holds out two wrapped sandwiches stacked on top of each other. I hadn’t expected to actually get food. I take them from her, unable to believe my luck. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Here you go, baby, take some water. You be safe now, okay?”

“Thank you,” I repeat, water and sandwiches clutched protectively to my chest. I can’t think of anything else to say. “Thank you.”

The car drives slowly down the street, homeless people approaching the windows and retreating in what is apparently a practiced dance. Sitting down and crossing my legs, I bend over my treasures and slip off my gloves. I hope that woman never knows a single day of unhappiness and lives her life in abundance. She deserves sainthood.

The tinfoil is blessedly hot on my hands as I unwrap one of the sandwiches. My mouth is sticky with saliva, throat working as I try to swallow. I wish I had time to go slow and savor, but I don’t want to run the risk of someone trying to take this from me. Chewing hurts, my jaw still smarting from where it had been jammed into the concrete, but I ignore it. Nothing, not the shooting pain in my fingers or the ache in my teeth, will stop me from enjoying this.

I shouldn’t eat both, but I do. I definitely shouldn’t drink all the water, but I do that as well. I don’t wish for ibuprofen because wishing is a waste of time. Climbing to my feet, I slip my gloves back on and consider the tinfoil. If I had my backpack, I’d keep it. You never know what might come in handy. Balling it up, I decide to think about it on my way to the police station. If anything, I’ll just throw it away in there.

The garbage can ends up being the only useful thing inside the precinct. The man working the desk wrinkles his nose when I come close enough to talk to him. I probably do smell, but I could have done without the reminder. I could also have done without the belligerent way he looks me up in the system and the sneer as he reads the report.

“A MacBook?” he asks, tone dripping in so much disbelief it’s a wonder he doesn’t choke on it.

Being told they haven’t found anything isn’t a surprise, even though it’s a letdown. Hope is a sneaky bastard. No matter how much you try to fight it, some always manages to slip in anyway. Now, on my way to the second pawn shop of the morning, I can feel that tiny bit of hope wither away and die. I need to assume I won’t get my things back, which means I need to replace as much as possible.

I have two thousand dollars in my bank account and two hundred in cash tucked into my boot. I’m not in dire straits yet, even if I can see them looming in the distance. Replacing everything I lost, even with refurbished or used pieces, will eat up every penny of my savings. That sweet little nest egg I built in Siren’s Point will be gone, and a hell of a lot quicker than I’d anticipated. I don’t want to spend that money.

And there is, of course, another option. The best option, possibly. I could call Dryden for help. I could leave town, head back in the direction of Siren’s Point, and walk my way back to safety and security. I could find out whether either of them is truly still available to me the way Dryden promised they would be.

“Check eBay if you want something cheaper,” the third pawnbroker tells me when I try to haggle him down from five hundred on a smartphone. I’m not sure whether I want to growl or cry in frustration. If I had a device capable of internet shopping—or a fucking address for things to be shipped to—then I wouldn’t be in here.

I leave disappointed and fast forgetting the temporary high of this morning when I ate breakfast. Something wet drips down my neck, tickling. I hold my glove against my chin, knowing without looking that the cut there has broken open again and started bleeding. Too much talking and not enough medical attention.

“Fuck,” I mutter, crouching down beside a low brick wall and leaning back to rest for a second.

I’m tired. So unbelievably tired. Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and I tip my head back to prevent them from falling. I don’t have water to spare. I’m sick of crying, anyway, since that seems to be one of the only things I’ve been capable of the past twenty-four hours. Things aren’t really as bad as they seem, and crying about it will only make everything feel that much worse. Feeling sorry for myself doesn’t do me any good at all. Problems don’t fix themselves, and sulking isn’t going to help.