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the physics of sorrow
aimed swing punched the
arrestee between the eyes.
The building they brought
him to had just been built, but
architecturally it recreated
late Happy Socialism from
the 1980s, roughly hewn
marble, wood and frosted
glass. Blood trickled down
from his split brow. The man
who came out of the building
wearing a suit immediately
ordered them to get him
medical attention, a nurse
appeared from somewhere,
put on a Band-Aid, found
some ice, and led him into an
office with a leather couch.
“Sorry, they got a bit carried
away. I had explicitly told
them not to touch a hair on
your head. They can be real
brutes sometimes, just like
back in the day. Just don’t
tell me you don’t remember
me”—the man across from
him took a bottle of brand-
name whiskey and two
glasses out of his desk drawer
with a practiced gesture.
There was something
familiar about that face, soft,
babyish, looking ready to
start bawling at any minute.
“Baby Cakes, is that you?”
“It ’s me, Swift-Footed Stag.”
My (I didn’t know it was me,
God damn it) schoolmate
Baby
Cakes, one of the gang back
then, the eternal butt of our
jokes, we didn’t even give
him an Indian name. He
carried Chingachook’s bow
and quiver of arrows.
“So you’ve bought up the
whole town of T., you’re the
one...”
“When did you get here, when
did you learn all the gossip?