Breaker Read Free

dirty cotton. I wasn’t lying about the storm, the snow.
    “I’ve got an extra gallon, Natalie, why don’t you come up and get it—and save yourself the trip. It’s getting dark out.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah.”
    I duck my head in and close the window. I light a cheap vanilla candle in the kitchen to mask any odors that linger, a pan with bacon grease congealing on the stove—and this time when she knocks, I answer.

Chapter 3
    I have a temper—it’s one of my many gifts. A lifetime of abuse has left me damaged, but that fracturing of my spirit, that need for vengeance, the desire to pass it on—it pushes up from inside and slides across my flesh, eager to find a new place to land. I know right from wrong, but sometimes I just don’t care. So I’ve found a few ways to release the pressure that builds up over the course of hours, days, weeks, and months. Today it’s the Blue Line to the end of the world; more specifically, Rosemont. Then it’s the 221, Wolf Road, to a warehouse tucked into an industrial park, surrounded by decrepit bungalows, skeletal oak trees, and miles of concrete void of emotion.
    I stand naked in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, studying my pale flesh—the bruises, welts, and scars traversing my skin. It’s going to be cold today, so I slip on a faded pair of green long underwear, a long-sleeve shirt, and thick wool socks. Over that I put on baggy gray sweatpants and a dark blue Chicago Bears sweatshirt—just one more sign of my mental instability. A black knit hat, and then it’s a beige hunting jacket, lined with red plaid, and a pair of worn-out leather gloves. I hide in this outfit, even though my head nearly touches the doorframe, dark sunglasses allowing me some privacy, my height hidden when I’m sitting down on the el train.
    It’s dark out now, and if I’m lucky, I can slip out of the building without attracting any unwanted attention. What I do at night, the way I return, covered in scrapes, bloody knuckles, and a swollen face, it’s better if I don’t have any witnesses, an audience. And that Natalie, she’s always around, doesn’t miss a thing. Makes me wonder what’s going on in her apartment that she needs to pay me so much attention. Anything to escape, I guess, I know how it is—easier to live vicariously through others than to deal with your own mess.
    I leave one light on in the kitchen and slip out the front door, keying the lock. I smell something cooking next door, classical music drifting to me from behind Natalie’s apartment door, onions and garlic simmering, and it makes my stomach growl. Can’t eat now—no vomiting on the canvas.
    Bundled up, I head north toward the Logan Square el stop, passing one brownstone after another. In one window, there is a family sitting down to eat pizza, up a little late, laughter around the dining room table, two animated teens regaling their parents with their adventures out in the world today. A man in black stumbles out of the iron-gated home and turns toward me, head down, fists deep inside his coat pockets. For once, I give way, taking a step to my right, the figure emanating a heat, a sorrow, that causes me to take a short breath, holding it in, and then a long exhale that makes my head spin.
    There are things in this world that are far worse than me—I know that. I cannot stay solidly in the shadows, nor can I take the full gaze of the sun. It is an uncomfortable existence, one that is marred by dreams that shift into nightmare—what was here, now gone; what was pure, now soiled.
    Under my gloves my hands are taped up, for warmth, sure, but to protect them as well. Tonight I will stand at the edge of the fights, tucked into a corner of the concrete bunker of a warehouse, and wait to be called. If they see me, they’ll never step into the ring. I am sometimes masked, and sometimes handicapped—one arm behind my back, blindfolded, or worse—all to make things even. I haven’t lost yet.
    The