Nate walked halfway down a narrow alley and opened a dumpster next to the back door of a pizza parlor. He pushed open the lid and stroked his beard. A near-empty bottle of McCormick vodka sat at an angle on top of the heap with its label up. He pulled it out of the garbage, finished what was left, and tossed it back. Then something wrapped in an oily rag caught his attention. He grabbed the rag and felt the contours of a Colt .45 pistol. Nate pulled the pistol from the dumpster and held it in both hands like it was a Christmas present. He checked the magazine, which was loaded with four jacketed hollow point bullets. Another round was already chambered.
The Department of Veterans Affairs had taken away Nate’s benefits a while ago. He couldn’t even get a legal supply of Ambien anymore. Sometimes, his head felt like it was shaking from side to side and bouncing up and down all at once. Most of the time, he felt betrayed by some invisible force that was always close but never fair. He rubbed his aching temples, wishing he hadn’t smoked the last of his pot that morning and wondering what he would use next to deaden the pain.
He had been blown off the road in a Humvee in Iraq, losing his hearing for two weeks and suffering permanent brain damage. A few years later, half of his platoon was killed in the Hindu Kush. He returned home from that deployment and broke the jaw of a drunk civilian who had said the wrong thing to him in a nightclub. And then there was the dishonorable discharge, and the constant buzzing in his ears, and now he knew the government was tracking his every move, to the point where he couldn’t even return to his post office box because someone might be monitoring it.
He squeezed the warm pistol grip and looked back down the alley. A teenager on a skateboard stared at him from the stretch of sidewalk that was visible from between the building walls. The boy had black hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. Nate pointed the pistol at him to see what he would do. The boy just stood there. Nate said “Fuck you,” put the pistol in his coat pocket, and watched him skate away.
A glade between the river and railroad yard seemed like as good a spot as any. He wouldn’t leave too much of a mess, and the transients who slept in the area would find him in a day or two. They would also find the 500 dollars in Nate’s wallet that he had been keeping as an emergency fund. He reached the glade an hour after sundown. After unpacking a few things from his rucksack, he built a small fire and heated up some coffee. He coughed gently and watched the vapor from his breath mingle with the smoke from the fire in the chill night air.
He heard rustling in the nearby branches. Twenty feet away, a massive figure emerged from the trees at the far side of the glade and moved straight toward him. He sat down cross-legged on the other side of the fire, wearing only jeans, work boots, and a t-shirt. He had a deep scar on his left cheek that looked like it had been caused by a vicious bite.
“Cold night to be wearing nothing but a t-shirt,” Nate said.
“I’m gonna take your jacket,” the man said, “and whatever food and money you got.” He looked toward the railroad tracks. “I’ll be jumping a train right over there in a little bit.” He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and opened it. “Now gimme that jacket.”
Nate pulled the .45 from his pocket, shot the man in the forehead, and watched the mist from his brain spray out the back of his skull like pulp from an exploding watermelon. He gathered up all his supplies and threw his ruck on his back. He grabbed the man’s knife and wallet, burned all the other items that might have his fingerprints on them, and headed toward the railroad yard.
He hopped on a graffiti-splattered freight train heading east. Along the way, he disassembled the pistol and tossed the pieces into various rivers and lakes at distant intervals. He cut his hair and shaved his beard with the scissors from his sewing kit, the dead man’s knife, and a mirror. The best way to hide was to appear as who he was before everything unraveled.
After a two-day ride, he jumped off in a Chicago rail yard and blended into a decaying neighborhood. It didn’t take him long to settle into the steady rhythms of the city. He could feel himself beginning to unclench. Soon he would head east, all the way to the edge of the continent.
