The Last Piece of Us

Excerpt

The Last Piece of Us
Eve Morton © 2022
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” Ethan said. “I’m…walking with style.”

Francesca rolled her eyes. Ethan shut the door to the back room at the duty-free shop, located outside of the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie. His Converse shoes slipped on the tiles. He caught the edge of a storage shelf before he stumbled and righted himself. His stomach roiled.

“I’m not drunk,” he insisted again. “It’s just icy outside, you know? The weather is hardly my fault.”

“There was barely a hailstorm. You’re lying to me again.”

Francesca grasped his forearm so he’d look her in the eyes. Ethan’s thin jacket hung unbuttoned at his side, his red lanyard for the duty-free shop stuck out of one pocket. His blue and green plaid shirt was untucked from his nondescript black jeans. He normally stood about five seven, but when Francesca (at five eleven) stared at him like a long-lost mother, Ethan slouched and stared at the linoleum floor.

Francesca made him breathe out before she decided he was fine. “You may not be drunk, but I still don’t like this. You obviously had something before you came to work.”

“And where’s the harm? I need it.”

“You know the harm. I told you not to make me ID your body one day. I’ll still do it, but I’ll be very mad at you for it.”

Ethan sauntered over to his locker, ignoring Francesca’s overzealous fear. “You know that’s not how things would go. But I appreciate your effort and solidarity to the cause.”

“Of course! Us crazies gotta stick together.”

“I thought we were the queers, not crazies?”

“Why not both?” Francesca winked playfully before bursting into laughter. Their back-and-forth routine was as familiar as the duty-free shop’s cracked bathroom mirror, where Francesca now made sure her make-up was perfect. She wore her standard pink blouse which made her dark skin pop, even under the harsh florescent lights. Francesca treated every shift like an opportunity with the way she carried herself; an opportunity for what, Ethan never truly knew. Working the night shift for slightly above minimum wage was the only real thing he had going for himself right now, other than maybe another drink smuggled in a travel mug like the one he’d taken on the bus.

“You ready?” Francesca asked. Her lips were glossed, hair in perfect place.

Ethan still had bedhead when he checked in the mirror. His stomach quaked again, either from too much alcohol or not enough. “Sure. Not like we have a choice.”

*

The wind whipped against the storefront. The hail had stopped, but Ethan still needed to rub his hands together for warmth when a shipment came in at one in the morning and he was relegated to unloading duty. They were short-staffed tonight. Devon and Marta both called in sick, leaving Ethan in the back alone for the first four hours, while Francesca and another newbie cashier attempted to deal with the sudden upswing of customers heading to a casino in Niagara.

The thrum of customers made Ethan’s skin crawl. He’d been working here for almost a year and Francesca longer than that. She’d gotten him the job when they moved here for the same doctor. The night shift, where she could charm lonely customers and Ethan could drink cheaply in his downtime, was ideal for both of them as they waited to pay off their own personal debts. In a spare moment, Ethan checked the back room for discarded cigarettes or cigars, found one half-opened pack, and smoked. The sub-zero temperatures made inhaling difficult, but he liked it. There was a safety in the night shift. People were around, but no one paid attention. At times, work was even quiet.

The green and red lights of the border patrol were visible from the back shipping entrance. Several family vehicles drove through and waited their turn. Ethan imagined someone like his father who wanted to make “good time” for vacations driving through the night with kids asleep in the back. There were several white, shady-looking vans snaking back to the border, too; the exact kind of vehicle Ethan knew would be selected for searches. He’d only seen one shipment go bad while on the job, and he’d been too drunk to remember much of it. Just a lot of crashing, a lot of yelling. The police came and took statements. He hid while reading newspapers and crumbled up pamphlets that looked like tabloids in between smokes.

As Ethan swept the back room, he found several more pamphlets crumbled up in balls, smuggled in between shipments or used as packing peanuts. Fort Erie was notorious for their National Enquirer type of rags; since it was a border town, it was a mecca for creeps and weirdos. Just like us, Francesca would always say. The crazies and the queers live here—but we don’t get much press. Each one of the strange pamphlets was a half-baked pseudo-religious tract full of conspiracy theory nonsense, talking about Bat Boys and asking if people believed. It reminded Ethan more of a bad cosplay for The X-Files for which someone couldn’t get the copyright and so they made it up from scratch. He skimmed a new one about a girl born with fish gills in India before he added it to the trash and went back to scoping the border line.

When a giant transport truck cut off Ethan’s view, it was nearly two in the morning. He finished stacking boxes in the back, ate a candy bar, and smoked again, trying to wear away the time on his shift. He headed to the front when the boredom became worse than customer service. He spotted Francesca and a massive line of people right away.

“Where do you need me, Frannie?”

“Oh, you angel. Finally you come to help.” She huffed and gestured to an open cashier. “Behind me. Get number four up and running. That’s Zoe’s, and she just went on lunch.”

Ethan followed orders without another word. Before he’d even signed in fully, a man approached his aisle. He was tall, easily six foot three when he didn’t slouch. His tanned skin seemed out of place in the Canadian ebbing winter, even at the border. He tapped his foot like he was impatient, but when Ethan finally met his eyes, he gave a half-cocked grin.

“Hi, sir,” Ethan said. “What are you getting, and what am I converting this to?”

“Oh. Not even a ‘how are you?’ I thought Canadians were polite.” The man didn’t seem annoyed, more playful than anything. When Ethan didn’t apologize, he went on. “I’m coming from the States, paying in cash, and would ideally like to convert what I have leftover to Canadian.”

“Sure.” Ethan fidgeted with a reader program that gave him the exchange rate. “You’ll be a rich man by the end of this, then.”

“Exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you.”

He placed two tall bottles of Grey Goose on the counter, followed by some generic candy, and a handful of bills. As Ethan processed the order, he noted one of the bills was coated in glitter. Ethan wanted to ask but worked on doing the exchange calculations instead. The man continued to tap his foot, his keys jangling each time he did. Bum-hiss, bum-hiss. Even over the loudspeaker announcing deals and weather patterns, Ethan still heard the keys. Persistent and constant. He was so overwhelmed by the sound he didn’t realize the man was talking to him.

“Hmm. Sorry. What did you say?”

“Nothing. I was just surprised is all. Yikes.” The man gestured to a bus which had just stopped in the duty-free parking lot. It was a casino express route, packed to the windows, and the entire troop seemed ten seconds away from barging inside the shop. “Even in the middle of the night?”

“Even in the middle of the night,” Ethan confirmed. “Gambling happens anywhere, anytime.”

“Well. At least it’ll be a shorter night, right?”

Ethan tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“The time jump. Spring forward, or whatever it’s called. I think it happens at….” The man glanced down at his phone, which he pulled from his pocket. “Three a.m., right?”

“I guess. I didn’t realize.”

“Well, consider the time a gift. Hopefully you won’t have to work the hour, but you’ll still be paid for it.”

“Not with my luck.” Ethan had wondered why time seemed to warp and change when he was in the backroom. The extra hour wouldn’t be much, but the money earned would give him enough for another case of beer. When the man added something else to his order, Ethan became lost in another set of calculations.

“All right. Here you go.” Ethan extended his hand to return the man’s change. When the man grabbed his cash, he snaked his fingers over Ethan’s wrist, turning his palm up. His fingers slinked down over the button-up shirt, right over where his veins were, as if he was taking his pulse. The man’s hand was so warm—and so bold—Ethan didn’t move for two seconds. By the time he snatched his hand away, the man seemed to have gotten what he wanted.

“Sorry.” The man held up his hands as if to show no challenge. Some of his change fell to the counter. “I was just checking something.”

When Ethan narrowed his eyes coldly, the man merely grinned again, completely unabashed. The silent stand-off lasted mere seconds as the man left Ethan’s station. The cash was still there. Ethan scooped it behind the counter, into a red paper cup, and took the next customer. Twenty minutes later, once the casino crowd had diminished, Ethan glanced out the glass windows toward the exit of the duty-free shop, checking to see if the man was still there. Ethan shuddered when he caught a glimpse of his shadow. Why was he still here? Ethan needed to know if this guy was a weirdo or something much worse. Ethan could handle the weirdos. He’d perfected mute listening as someone spoke about spiritual ascension and alien races before he moved on. And it wasn’t even the first time his space had been invaded at work; rudeness eroded people’s boundaries and most wanted their cheap cigarettes faster. But no one had tried to take his pulse, or hold his hand, or whatever. Which either meant that this guy was into him—or that he could see through his skin into chromosomes and wanted to solve it with a baseball bat.

“Sir,” the next person in line said. “Are you ready for me?”

“Uh—sure.”

Ethan busied himself with the woman’s order before he glanced up again. The stranger was gone now. And Francesca laughed with a customer, unharmed and carefree. Nothing bad had happened. But Ethan wished he’d gotten a name, some kind of detail he could give to police later if shit went down. Tall, dark-tanned skin, and…pretty. Ethan sighed. That was why he was mad, wasn’t it? He was worried the one guy he found to be attractive in the store could have also made him as trans and wanted to do something about it.

Ethan flashed to Francesca’s words. They’d had the “what would happen if they found my body?” discussion within minutes of meeting one another. Ethan figured it was more likely to happen for her than it was for him. Ethan was nondescript; his masculinity made him blend in and not cause a fuss. She was a tall beauty, wearing six-inch heels when they went out, and always talking to people when she should be more careful. Why bother getting a second chance, my dear boy, if I don’t use it? Even when he tried to tell her that trans women were far more likely to be killed than trans men, she still didn’t care. Meanwhile, Ethan never answered no-name calls on his cell in case the caller was someone from his past who now wanted vengeance for his sinful second skin. Only after Francesca told him some of those no-name calls could be the police or hospital calling about her, Ethan changed his stance and screened calls rather than blocking altogether.

Their thoughts were morbid. They both knew that. But morbid was necessary, even if their endings weren’t violent or tinged with hate crime. Being a trans guy may not be as risky as being a trans woman, but that still didn’t count for bus accidents, car accidents, or falling asleep and never waking up. His mother wasn’t Ethan’s next of kin anymore, but his father or sister Leslie would be next in line. He had no will. No emergency contact information. If Ethan was found without an ID, everyone would look at his bones and dental records. They’d see childbearing hips with a chipped tooth from a baseball game when he was twelve. They’d see a girl named something else.

Ethan rubbed the skin on his wrist the man had touched. Was he a harmless flirt or was flirting harmful? Ethan noticed a line with two dots on the edge of his wrist, as if he’d been scarred there in an accident he didn’t remember. He rubbed the skin and it only seemed to get worse. Was this always there? Or was it something else—like the implants listed in the weirdo pamphlets about alien microchips? When Ethan squinted, the mark almost looked like an eye staring at him. Questions swarmed around him, each one more disturbing and nonsensical than the last. Ethan wanted a drink. He turned to the back room, hoping to add something to his coffee mug, when a customer stopped him.

“Excuse me.”

A woman with a long fur-trimmed coat and red lipstick stood by a crate of scotch. All insane worries fell away as he stood taller and attempted to pitch his voice lower than six years of testosterone had already made it. “Yes?”

She asked for something else in the back he knew wasn’t there, but he took the opportunity to leave. He found the pack of cigarettes again. Added alcohol to a mug. He trembled as he smoked. It’s the cold, he told himself. Or the withdrawal. He drank more and evened out. Smoked more and felt better. He wanted to quit his job right then, but he couldn’t. He only had a grand in the bank, most of which would be gone in a day or so with rent and expenses, and he was still saving. Still trying to save. So he’d have to grin and bear this a while longer, promise himself he wouldn’t read any more creepy pamphlets, and maybe hope the man wouldn’t come back again. Most customers weren’t repeat ones; if they were, the workers were supposed to report them to border patrol.

This made Ethan feel better. As he ground down the spark of his cigarette, the low whistling sounded from the open shipment door. Not like a man’s whistle, but something mechanical. Otherworldly. It sounded like the echo inside a recording studio—a far-off train whistle from another town over. The noise burst into more sounds, louder sounds. Ethan stepped out of the storage area into the March air. Red and green flashed from the border patrol—soon followed by small, white lights.

These were nothing like fireflies; they were stronger, bigger, and more fluid. They curled around each red sign, waiting until the green allowed entrance. They clustered and exploded like fireworks as they passed the border. They faded in and out like a lighthouse, and then returned on again in the night sky.

“What the…” Ethan watched as the lights crossed the border in waves. When it was over, they started up again. He watched them for five minutes before he realized he wasn’t alone. The man from before stood in the parking lot, outside a black four-door sedan. He held a jar full of the same white-light creatures. He opened it up and added it to the waves. He was the start of it all.

This jar was the last of several. The white-light creatures joined their flock and soon flitted into the night. Without the creatures lighting the area around him, the man was shrouded in darkness. Ethan was convinced, though, that the man was there.

“Happy spring,” the man said. His softer voice sounded more like a crackle in the night. He slipped into his car and drove away, past all the guards, in the opposite direction of the lights.

Ethan didn’t move for a long time. He forgot about the customer and didn’t care if they complained. His watch soon read four in the morning, skipping through time.

“Happy spring,” he murmured, the black night as his only witness.