Karen G. Berry - Mayhem 01 - Love and Mayhem by Karen G. Berry Page A

there a good way? “Phineas? What about the trailer?”
    “I’m headed there next.”

    OF COURSE, AS Memphis left Minah’s, a pair of silvery eyes had been watching him. And these eyes didn’t belong to a tabby cat.
    Annie Leigh had watched out her window directly after her slapping, pinching re-entry into bed at the hands of her grandmother. She wasn’t long for the sheets. Annie Leigh thought nights spent sleeping were wasted.
    She was ready to go out.
    First, the closet, to get the big black case. That shouldn’t have been easy, as it was almost bigger than her and the process of wrestling it out of the window took every bit of strength she had. But it was like that case wanted out as bad as she did, because it sailed through and landed hard. “Sorry ’bout that.” The strings buzzed their forgiveness.
    She dragged a full pillowcase from under the bed and let it fall out the window next. The knot kept the contents in when it hit the case. Then, bare feet first, the sow’s ear of her sex visible when her nightgown rode up her skinny flanks, she shimmied out the window. The heavy case cushioned her landing. She grabbed the pillowcase in one hand, the handle in the other, and set off. “You okay?” The case thumped against her leg, strings jangling in reply. “Good.”
    She liked the dark. She heard the cries of cats as they bit and hunched. She heard the sound of flesh on flesh, those mysterious cries and scared whimpers. The dark was a song, and she was part of it.
    Standing on the case, she could see into Fossetta’s window through the gauze of the curtains. Sometimes Fossetta was up to stuff that was interesting to look at, if a little curious. Tonight she was just sleeping. Naked. A lamp lit flesh so soft it looked melted, gold hair that flowed like a spill of raw honey. As pretty as that was to see, there were other windows to look in, where more exciting events might unfold.
    The park was full of television-lit domestic tableaux, and Annie checked them all. She saw a woman made of stone watching Judge Judy on TV, quietly ripping her wedding photos into confetti. She saw a grown man sitting at a table holding his head in his hands, crying. She watched a man holding his girlfriend’s hair like he was tethering a dog, bending her over the back of the couch in front of him while he watched a dirty movie on the television. The woman stared absently into space, her eyes blank, her mouth closed. “He needs to go take him some lessons from Fossie,” she whispered to the case she stood on.
    Strings hummed in agreement.
    She gave up on that window and went back to the road, where she stooped to inspect an ugly red smear on the asphalt. It looked like something had been hit. She bent closer, sniffed. Yes, blood, for sure. She had an interest in road kill. She wanted to write a book about it. She had it all worked out in her head. It would be like a field guide her friend Melveena had for birds, but Annie’s book would be for the mashed stuff you see on highways. A picture of the mess and a picture of what it used to be, before a truck flattened it on the asphalt.
    She couldn’t figure out what had died there, though. No fur at all to help her. Of course, the Bone Pilers took the best fur Frisbees for themselves, and maybe those men over in Space 13 had scooped it up. She wasn’t quite sure what they did with the road kill. Some of the Ochre Water kids said they ate them, but her mom said they made leather from the hides and used it to re-sole their boots.
    She stopped by Space 13 for a few minutes. There was music in there, as always when the windows were lit. She leaned against the aluminum door, wishing they’d left it open, and soaked in as much of their rollicking Bone Pile melodies as she could. But other business called.
    She went to the east edge of the park, where the gravel wasn’t well-raked and a dark trailer leaned toward the fence. A few nights back, she’d seen the old woman who lived there