Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett Page B

chances with Adrian’s life. So they took cover and waited for whatever it was to pass.
    Things fell apart so fast. Who would have guessed that the city could look this way so soon after the incident? That’s what their dad called it, the Incident. He seemed pained even saying that much. Now their dad was gone. But Adrian had Antoine. He was going to look out for him. He would always look out for him.
    The sound of feet came from behind them. Antoine pulled Adrian into the entryway of an office building. They quietly went inside, climbed the stairs, and went to the second floor window to look down. Two men were strolling by. They walked with bowed legs. One of them had something in his mouth. The tail and the squeal suggested that it was a rat. The dust did this, and maybe the dust would do more.
    They looked carefully before they went back to the street. Antoine walked as though he had no fear. Adrian had enough fear for both of them.
    They came to a subway station and went down to the platform. Antoine jumped onto the track. The trains didn’t run anymore.
    “C’mon,” Antoine said.
    “I don’t wanna go down there,” Adrian said.
    “It’s the only safe place right now. No one knows about it but me.”
    Adrian still didn’t move.
    A cold wind blew from deep inside the tunnel, carrying a nasty smell. Adrian turned his face away. He didn’t like enclosed places, especially dark ones. Plus mounds of garbage mired over the tracks from way down into the darkness of the tunnel, and he thought he saw something moving in there.
    “Adrian, I said come on!” Antoine said. “We can’t stay here. The only place safe from the dust is underground.”
    “I don’t want to go in there.”
    “I’ve been here a million times. It’s fine. It’s a secret place. Don’t you wanna see?”
    Antoine was always talking about the special secret places he knew about that he would show Adrian when he got older. Finally being in on his secrets was what moved Adrian’s feet. Antoine took his hand and helped him down onto the track.
Death creeps through the streets over programmed
beats. A rabid dog in heat on a dead end street. Oil
slicks: the only rainbows canvas gray concrete.
Shadows of skyscrapers fall when Mohammed speaks.
Corpses piled in heaps. Sores and decay. Reeks.
Placin tags on feet. A Nike Air Force fleet. Custom
Made: unique. Still in box: white sheet. Ripened
Blue black sweet. White tank top, wife beat BREAK.
Hearts in two-step beat BREAK.
Dance pray work whip beat BREAK.
Neck back jump back kiss BREAK.
Now shake it off.
    Their eyes soon adjusted to the darkness. They walked over the gravel that lined the area next to the train tracks. Strips of daylight slipped in from the underside of a grate above. The light illuminated the wall they walked past covered in graffiti, the bubble words so high passengers on trains would be able to see them. Antoine pointed out a small area where the words swirled to a round red dot surrounded by glowing white highlights. In it was a scribbling of black magic marker writing. Adrian couldn’t read it.
    “That’s my tag,” he said.
    “Yeah?”
    “I wouldn’t tag something like that now. I didn’t know any better back then. I hope the guys that did this don’t catch me.”
    Adrian laughed. He could see his brother’s eyes smile behind the shadows. A beat. The guys who did this were probably dead.
    Adrian had always watched his brother work. Antoine sketched in his drawing pad, using magic markers to fill in the colors. The smell of the markers in his room was intoxicating. Cool beats and rhymes from MCs blasted as he drew curvy lines that stretched and twisted over and under and through. Spelling names, naming places, placing times, timing rhythms. Adrian begged and begged his dad for a sketchpad, too. When he got it, he did as Antoine did, only different. When he sketched, he drew faces. Faces of the guys down the way. Faces of the street lady with the shopping cart and